Paul stood up to leave the room, frowned, and said, “I know the name. First class prick.”
Roger nodded, “Yup.”
When they got to the second Conference room, the guys from St. Joseph, Michigan, were already there and writing their names on name tags placed on the table for them. Roger introduced himself and Paul, and pointed to the coffee on the table across the room. The blonde agent named Todd Nelson said, “We have been following this in the news and agency bulletins. I’ve actually been hoping we would be called in.” The other two agents were nodding agreement with his statement. Roger thanked them for their attitude. He heard the Indy guys coming down the hall.
A rough looking, grim faced guy in a black suit, gun and badge protruding, walked into the room. With his booming voice he declared, “Let’s get this circus under control, so I can get back to my mess.”
“Dan,” Roger said and shook his hand. The other four men had followed him, and they were making their name tags and getting coffee. When everyone was seated, Roger introduced Paul and started, “I have scheduled a briefing for one hour for now with the entire task force. You will get particulars of what we have then. Right now I am going to give you the narrative on how we got to where we are today.” He proceeded to speak for half an hour with only a few interruptions from Dan.
At the end of his oration Roger looked at Dan, “Most of this task force has put in fourteen hour days, seven days a week for almost two months. Being that I believe we may be at the end soon, I would like some of them to get the day off today to refresh.” Agent Thor didn’t say anything. Roger continued, “I see two distinct sides of this case right now, the surveillance and capture of Devon and hopefully the rescue of the hostages, and the ongoing collection of evidence. We have over three dozen identified properties that need to be visited in a very short period of time.”
Agent Dan Thor spoke, “Todd here is our hostage negotiator and may give us the edge if we take Devon.” Paul looked at Roger, no way do I want to pull from this now with Devon!
Roger looked at Dan and started rubbing his neck, “Well, that would certainly give Paul and me a break. Just getting away from the press, the Chief, the DA…. Most of forensics has come back, right Paul? I mean we would have to do the foreclosure visits, but….” Roger was nodding his head as he spoke. Paul was about to come unglued. He was biting the inside of his cheek to keep from talking. He couldn’t believe Roger was throwing the cream of the case to Thor and not even putting up a fight for it!
Then Agent Thor spoke again. “On the other hand, you have a rapport with the hostage already, and it is your people at the house. I don’t know, what do you think Tom, could we knock out these foreclosures in a couple of days?”
Tom looked at Dan’s face, and answered, “The five of us could do the houses, and have the St. Joe boys here take the place of the task guys that will be gone today.”
Dan looked at Roger, “I know you are overwhelmed here, but I think that would be the best use of manpower. Can you make it a couple more days?”
Roger looked at Paul then he answered, “You know Dan, I am just happy to see you guys. I will defer to your judgment on this one.” Roger stood and announced there was breakfast being served across the hall, and he would join them as soon as he checked his computer. He was expecting Ray to send him the list of foreclosed homes Devon was the asset manager for, and he would give it to Thor the minute it came in.
Everyone except Paul and Roger left the room to enjoy the food the deli was serving. Paul said, “Remind me not to play poker with you.” They left for Roger’s office. When they arrived in Roger’s office, there was a message to call Detective Mars. Nothing on the computer. “I guess I am ready for the list of foreclosed homes.” He no sooner said it than an e-mail from Ray appeared on his computer with a message, “Let me know when you get this.” Roger opened the e-mail, hit print, and handed it to Paul. Paul looked at the list and shook his head. Roger called Ray who told him the tax property list was stuck or something. He would send it as soon as he figured out the problem.
Then Roger called Ed Mars, “What did you find Ed? Wait, can I put you on speaker? Paul is here.”
Ed answered, “Sure.”
Roger said, “Okay Ed we’re ready”
Ed came on the line, “Well, I wasn’t prepared for what we found. She’s alive all right, but not by much. It looks to me like she has been starved. She is at Memorial Hospital right now. I stayed to give patrol instructions on securing the scene. She had been duct taped and tied with rope to a pole in the basement. Nasty scene, Agent Dance.” Roger thanked him for getting there so quickly and told him to report to him before he did his paperwork. He also told him to have someone at the hospital call him the minute this woman was up to answering some questions.
Then Roger dialed Kim, “We have her! She is at the hospital now.”
Kim answered, “Great.” Roger hung up. Paul just dropped his head to one side. Roger shrugged.
In the ‘room’ the deli had arrived and everyone was filling their plates, introducing themselves, and talking about the case. Five or six agents were studying the white boards, shaking their heads. Paul noticed Jack by the door with a name tag on that said in big black letters, POI : Jack Simpson. He nudged Roger, “Check out Jack’s name tag.” Roger just rolled his eyes.
Agent Dan Thor was looking at the white boards. Roger walked over to him. Dan looked at him and asked, “How the Hell did you make the connection of this house to Devon?” He was pointing to the address where they had found Sandy.
Roger answered, “We had heard that Nettie Wilson had paid her legal fee to Devon with a deed to an old rental property. We contacted the now former secretary to Devon who had the address and told us that Sandy Devon was actually going there on Christmas Eve to decorate. Devon had told us she was in Jamaica. From there it was just connecting the dots to Ginger Hall’s accident site…. piece of cake. Here is the list you wanted on the foreclosure houses.” Roger walked away with Dan’s mouth still open.
Roger cleared the room of everyone but task force people, and the meeting was over in thirty minutes. He was back in his office when he got a text from Sal, “He’s here/ Told Sandy to get ready / Moving her to a new house.”
Roger called Paul, “He’s at the house now! I thought he would wait until a news break….. Damn. Get eyes around that exit. We can’t lose him this time! I’ll meet you there where we parked yesterday. We may need two cars.” With that he grabbed his jacket and ran to his car.
Agent Thor and the other Indy guys were looking out the window as Roger ran by. Thor said, “Poor Bastard, he sure got the short end of this stick.” He chuckled as he took another bite of his donut.
Then Paul ran past the window. Agent Thor set his donut down on a napkin. “I think we better get out of here before we get sucked into whatever is going on.”
* * *
Teresa was flying around screaming, “Situation here! I need help!” Patrolman John was in the basement, she knew, and Detective Sal was in the closet with her gun drawn. Devon was screaming at Sandy, “Get out of that shower and move it! I don’t have all day.”
She screamed back, “I have soap in my hair, just one minute!” He slammed his fist against the wall and unlocked the chain from the bed. Sal was scared he was going to see where the slat had been loosened, but he didn’t. He looked around the room and for a second she thought he was going to open the closet door, he had walked that direction and then stopped. He walked out with the chain and the bag of food. Sal heard the back door slam shut and then nothing.
Sandy had gotten out of the shower and was putting clean clothes on. Sal peeked out of the closet, and mouthed to Sandy, “We will follow you.” Sandy nodded, and she heard the door squeal open again.
He walked into the room and grabbed her arm, “Just put the rest of that shit on in the car!” She had just pulled the sweatshirt over her head covering her bra with the phone in it.
She turned arou
nd, “I’m not walking out of here with no pants on! Just give me a minute.” She actually pushed him.
He laughed, “You are such a stupid bitch.”
Teresa was outside freaking out. Devon had splashed gasoline all around the house and up the siding. He had used two gas cans and just thrown them into the tree line. Then he went back into the house. Teresa flew in behind him and saw he was trying to get Sandy out of the house. Teresa called Ellen… no answer. “Oh, no you don’t!” She kept trying, no answer. Sal watched Sandy and Devon walk out of the house, and she heard the car motor start up. She crouched against the living room wall and yelled for John that it was all clear. Just then Devon stopped his car, got out, took a lighter to a ball of old rags, and threw it at the house!
It was an explosion! Fire everywhere! The house was fully engulfed in seconds. Sal was screaming for John who had made his way up from the basement but couldn’t see for the smoke. Sal was coughing and crawling along the floor trying to find John. Teresa was in the house with them but didn’t know what to do. She started hitting every button she could find on her watch. Nothing was working. She couldn’t hear Sal or John coughing anymore. All she could see were flames from floor to ceiling. Teresa screamed, “GRANNY!”
Linda, Mary, and I were just leaving the last foreclosure house when a huge WHOOSH noise swept us away. Teresa had hit a very bad button on her watch. We were thrown into the middle of the fire ball! Teresa was screaming. There were flames everywhere.
Mary grabbed Teresa’s shoulders and screamed, “What happened? Did we go to hell?”
Linda was screaming and hugging me. Then a strange tunnel developed down the center of the house. The air was cool and clear in the tunnel, but the sides and ceiling of the tunnel were solid walls of flames. We saw Sal and John fly through the tunnel and burst through the front wall to the outside. Then we all felt something push us out of the wall too. We ended up in the grass next to the tree line. The house was totally engulfed in flames and black smoke rolled up to the clouds above.
Linda was coughing and asked, “What happened?” Ellen was sitting in the grass looking at us. Sal and John were lying across the driveway coughing.
Teresa looked at Ellen, “Are they okay?”
Ellen answered, “Yes.”
Teresa looked at Ellen again, “I didn’t know what to do! I hit every button on my watch!”
Ellen said, “Oh yes, we know that, and then you called Granny which was the right thing to do.” Teresa sighed with relief. I was thinking that I didn’t want to go through that “whoosh” thing again for a while. Really didn’t help my hair either. That ball of flames really made me appreciate that our little group had probably been graded on a curve to get into heaven. That was my only explanation for me being there.
Ellen said, “You girls just sit here a while. I will be right back.” Ellen called Kim and told her to call Roger and tell him what had happened. Kim called Roger and told him Devon had set the house on fire, Detective Sal and Patrolman John were okay, but the fire department didn’t know. Roger reported the fire, called Paul, and put his siren on. He arrived at the house about three minutes after talking to Kim.
Ellen went back with the gals, “Well, the good news is Teresa saved Sal and John’s lives. The bad news is we have lost Devon.” Ellen looked at Teresa, “Did you see what kind of car he was driving?”
Teresa said, “Yeah, a cute little Volkswagen, white.” Ellen called Kim back and told her to call Roger again.
Roger and Paul pulled in the driveway at almost the same time. A state trooper had just arrived and positioned himself at the end of the driveway to guide the fire trucks. An ambulance was pulling in, and men were jumping out before it even stopped. The fire truck actually ran over us! We weren’t paying attention. That was weird. Sal and John were insisting they were fine.
Sal was showing the EMT guys that she didn’t even have any singed clothes. Roger got to Sal and John and listened as they explained what had happened with Devon. Paul asked, “Did you see what kind of car he was driving?”
Sal answered, “It was a small car. I think a Volkswagen Beetle, white.”
Paul said he would call it in and Roger gave him a signal, “I’ll get that.” Paul knew that meant he had already done it. Okay. Sal called a fireman over to the back of the ambulance where they had just hooked John up to a respirator.
“Sir? Have you ever been in a fire where the middle just opened up like a tunnel? And the air was okay in the tunnel?”
The fireman shook his head and said to Roger, “When their oxygen levels get low, they hallucinate.” He walked back to the fire.
John pulled his oxygen mask off, “That is exactly what happened, and we were pushed out! Right through the front wall!” His eyes opened big, his face was black with soot. Sal was agreeing with him.
Roger told them they had to go to the hospital to be checked out, no discussion. As the ambulance left, Paul and Roger watched the firemen fight the blaze. The Fire Chief came over to talk to them, “We’ll have this out shortly. The old place was just a tinder box waiting to happen, but there was an accelerant used. Probably gasoline. This is arson. Your people are really lucky. I don’t know how anyone came out of that.”
Roger’s phone rang, “Yeah.” He listened a while. “Okay, keep me posted. I want eyes on his house-office, thanks.” He looked at Paul, “We lost him. They must not have taken the highway to wherever they are going.” This was not a good development.
Paul said, “If we can get an excuse to call him, maybe we can get a trace. After you set a time for the press release, what if we call Devon and say his client wants to talk to him?”
Roger answered, “Good idea. Let’s head back and get this press release time out.”
Ellen and the gals were sitting under a pine tree watching the last of the firemen spray smoking embers. Teresa frowned at Ellen, “You didn’t answer me when I called.”
Ellen said, “There wasn’t anything I could do. You did the right thing by calling Granny. You don’t need your watch for that. You just call Granny.” She added with a smile. Then Ellen continued, “We do need to take a minute and talk about our watches right now.” Teresa moaned. Uh Oh. Ellen looked at her, “Yeahhhh. Do you remember smacking the big red one here?”
We were all looking at our watches, Teresa said, “Yeah, I think so. What does that do?”
Ellen rolled her eyes, then she said, “Let’s just say about fifteen million people in the world are going to have a dejavu experience sometime today. That button repeats time, around the world, changes weather sometimes. Actually sends some angels to assignments they have already done. Betty is probably not too happy about now. I will explain someday, but let’s just call that a no-no button for now.” Oops! Sooo glad that was Teresa and not me! Then all of a sudden I was having this indescribable urge to hit that button. I couldn’t quit looking at it. It was like, “Don’t think pink elephants.” Eeee gads!
Ellen looked at me, “Please do not hit the red button. Think about food or something.” I crammed my nose into my wrist, and ate too much…. ugh. but it worked!
Linda said, “You said Teresa did the right thing to call Granny, right?”
“Yup” was Ellen’s answer as she got up. Ellen looked at Teresa, “One of the things you did with the buttons on your watch was change all of the animal genders. When this assignment is over you will have to go and fix them all.” Teresa looked mad.
Then Teresa asked, “Can we do it as a group?”
HEY! The group didn’t hit the stupid red button! Boy, you have to stay alert with this bunch! We were not at all happy with that suggestion.
Then Ellen said, “Just messin’ with ya!” That Ellen laugh. “I am trying to decide what would be the best places for all of you to go for a while. Any ideas?”
Linda said, “There was one whole stack of unrecorded papers for St. Joseph County I couldn’t get to because it was on that one lady’s desk, and she was there. I could finish th
at up.”
Mary piped up, “I could help her. Last time Betty had to break the toilet, I saw how she did it.” Ellen laughed. She looked at Teresa and me, “What should I do with you two? How about you fly around the mall and see if any of the cars belonging to our women are there. We are missing about seven cars. Might help us narrow down where he took Sandy.” Ellen watched them leave, and then Granny popped up next to her. Ellen said, “They really are making remarkable progress.” Granny left. Ellen said, “Whew!”
Roger was back at the center and assuring everyone that Sal and John were going to be okay when his phone rang. It was Detective Ed Mars. “Agent Dance? Our girl is conscious, but really weak. They are giving her IV’s, but she said she could talk to you.” Roger thanked him, and as soon as Paul got there he asked him if he wanted to come with him to do the hospital interview.
“You bet,” Paul said. “I’ll get our picture of Devon and a couple of other head shots to take with us.”
Roger said, “Get Jack’s picture in there too.” Paul nodded. Roger called Chief Doyle to see if he thought two o’clock would be too late for the press release. It was 11:00 a.m. now. He thought that sounded fine. Roger went into the ‘room’ to see how the St. Joseph agents were doing.
As soon as he walked in, they all stood up, “How are your people?”
Roger explained they were fine, got out without a scratch, but they had lost Devon and his hostage. He told them about the plan to trace their call to him. He also told them about the tip they had, and the woman they were getting ready to see at Memorial Hospital.
The young Agent Nelson said, “Is this what it has been like every day here? How in the world have you compiled your reports so well? I’ve got to tell you, I am impressed!” The other guys were nodding.
Roger said, “We have had a good team working on this all along.”
One of the other agents said, “Yeah, I saw on TV where you called in the heavens.” Then he said, “I hope you don’t mind, but I told your POI he had better remove the name sticker before anyone in the press saw him. I told him they have cameras pointed at the building at all times.”
Alcohol Was Not Involved : A Shallow End Gals Trilogy Page 19