by John A. Daly
Lumbergh carefully scrutinized the living area, looking for any shred of helpful evidence among the broken and overturned decor—something that could link the perpetrators to wherever they had taken Sean. Nothing immediately presented itself. He did find something that piqued his curiosity though.
The burn mark along the hardwood floor—the one left by the overturned stove . . . It was wet. Saturated, in fact. A blue rubber bucket, probably taken from under Sean’s kitchen sink, was lying on its side just a few feet away.
It appeared that during the fight the floor had caught on fire and someone had put out the flames with a bucket of water. Clearly, Sean wouldn’t have been in any condition to do it, so it had to have been done by one of the intruders. The big question was why? Why would someone who had burst into Sean’s house to kidnap him bother saving his home from going up in flames? If anything, letting the fire burn would have destroyed evidence of what had happened to Sean.
When Jefferson reentered the room, he opened his mouth to speak but Lumbergh cut him off.
“When they get here, make sure they check this bucket for fingerprints. If we can identify who it is that’s helping Montoya, that might help us figure out where they are.”
“Got it, and the boys at County are on their way. There’s something else though.”
Lumbergh raised an eyebrow.
Jefferson led him around to the north side of the house, away from the road and the two entrances of the building where all of the outside action had taken place. The north side faced nothing but forest.
“There. Look!” said Jefferson, pointing his meaty finger at the snowy ground.
There was another pair of footprints that led up to the building’s side window. They were definitely of a different tread than the others and were too small to belong to Sean. They came in from the forest, then led back out the way they had come.
“Who in the hell was this?” Lumbergh muttered.
He carefully made his way across the snow to the window, careful not to step on the new prints. He peered inside the window and found that it had a direct view of the small laundry room at the rear of the building—the one Lumbergh had just passed through when he stepped in from outside. He spun his head back to the tracks and began walking parallel to them as Jefferson watched on.
“Is there a third person mixed up in this?” Jefferson shouted, cupping his hand to his mouth so the chief could hear him as he distanced himself from the building.
Lumbergh nodded. “I don’t think so,” he said softly, more to himself than Jefferson.
His narrow eyes followed the tracks closely. He walked through clusters of leafless trees, where the snow grew deeper. He lost his balance a couple of times, pressing his good hand to the packed snow to keep from falling. Eventually, the footprints led him to a small clearing where he spotted another set of tire tracks that led back out to the road he and Jefferson had flown down earlier. The tracks were relatively small and close together, suggesting that they belonged to a compact car.
Lumbergh pulled a fresh stick of gum from his jacket pocket and replaced the exhausted wad in his mouth. Its wrapper, now blanketing the old piece, quickly went into his pocket.
He followed the tracks out along the road. They seemed to lead back toward town amidst numerous other tracks that were partially peeled away by the plow that came through earlier that morning. Lumbergh walked down the shoulder of the road and back to the building where a surprised-looking Jefferson spotted him.
“Where did you come from?” he asked.
Lumbergh told him where the tracks had taken him.
“I don’t get it,” the officer admitted. “Who do they belong to?”
The chief shook his head. “I don’t know, but whoever it was doesn’t appear to have been part of what happened to Sean. The tracks look just as fresh as the others though. I wonder if they saw who took him.”
“And this person didn’t call us?” Jefferson quickly responded. “I was at the office all night. Anyone seeing something like a man being kidnapped would have called that in. Don’t you think?”
“You sure would think so,” said Lumbergh. “Maybe they showed up right before or right after. Either way, they still might know something useful.”
Jefferson shook his head, his face contorted in confusion. “But who in the hell would park their car in the woods, sneak up to Sean’s house, and peep in through his window?”
Lumbergh’s face tightened. His eyes glared through his officer’s face.
“What? What did I say?”
“Jefferson, give me your keys,” said Lumbergh. “You wait here for everyone, okay?”
Jefferson was confused. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could utter a word, Lumbergh snatched the key ring from his outstretched hand.
Lumbergh walked quickly over to the cruiser, shoved the key into the ignition, and reached into the glove compartment. He pulled out a walkie-talkie and tossed it in the air over to Jefferson. “If the others get here before I’m back, you call me. All right?”
Jefferson nodded.
“I’ll be back soon.”
Lumbergh cranked the engine and drove forward slowly, peeling the cruiser’s dented door away from the back of the Nova. He watched Jefferson’s wincing face in the rearview mirror—his reaction to the sound of metal rubbing on metal. When Lumbergh was clear of all obstacles, he sped up and tore down the road, a single hand clutching the steering wheel in front of him.
Chapter 15
Lumbergh repeatedly beat the locked door with a clenched fist, cursing under his breath as he impatiently waited. He twisted a glance back over his shoulder, taking a second look at the gray Ford Contour parked out front. He eyed its tires.
The pattern of the tread outside Sean’s place wasn’t legible due to some melting that morning, so Lumbergh couldn’t say with certainty if they had come from the Contour. They sure looked the right size, though.
A sneer plagued his face. He could barely keep the anger stewing deep within him from pouring out and erupting into barbaric demands for the man inside to present himself. He finally heard movement from inside the home, and when the door slowly opened with a timid creak, Lumbergh pushed himself inside.
“What the hell?” squawked a wide-eyed Roy Hughes, his voice shooting up an extra octave. The dark, matted hair on his head and the redness in his eyes indicated that he had been asleep.
The owner and operator of the Winston Beacon was a short, trim man only an inch or two taller than Lumbergh. He normally wore circular rimless glasses that made him appear an intellectual—the academic type that might be found sitting inside of a Starbucks Coffee wearing polar fleece and sipping a latte. He sported a permanent five o’clock shadow around his chin, artificially trimmed to precision.
It was a look Hughes had most certainly worked hard to achieve as a way of compensating for his upbringing in a rural mountain town, as well as having been given the name Roy at birth.
“Why were you at Sean Coleman’s house last night?” Lumbergh asked with fire in his eyes, directing a pointed finger at Hughes’s chest.
Hughes’s face tangled in confusion. Clad in a t-
shirt from an Ivy League university he had never attended and sweatpants rolled at the cuffs, he blinked sporadically. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Chief.”
Lumbergh tightened his chin and glared through the reporter with such intensity that Hughes felt compelled to take a step back.
“Honest, Chief!” said Hughes. “I was here all last night.”
Lumbergh wasn’t buying it. “You wanted to snap some embarrassing photos of him, didn’t you? Maybe walking round in his underwear for some bullshit story to print in your shitty paper!”
He threw his hand up in the air in a broad motion, casting a curse along the interior of the small workroom they stood in. Neatly clipped-out newspaper articles and columns from what Hughes’s had deemed the Winston Beacon’s finest work over the years wallpapered the room. Some of the clippings were framed. Others were simply laminated. There were even some award plaques displayed neatly and strategically, which Lumbergh could only assume had been earned during Hughes’s father’s tenure at the paper.
“It’s an award-winning paper!” Hughes barked back, clearly offended.
“It’s trash!” Lumbergh retorted. “But lucky for you I’m not here to haul you off for peeping through someone’s window. I need to know what you saw last night. Was Sean with anyone?”
Hughes’s eyes rolled up, and he threw both hands in the air. “I wasn’t there, Chief! I don’t know what in the hell you’re talking about!”
Lumbergh continued glaring at him, his chest rising and declining as his nostrils spread open. He looked for a hint of deception in the newsman’s eyes. To his surprise, he didn’t see any.
“Why do you think I was at his house?” Hughes asked with a raised eyebrow, assuredly sensing a new story.
Lumbergh held his focus on Hughes for a while longer, his stomach tight from the sense of defeat that was brewing in his gut. If it wasn’t Hughes, who else could have been standing outside Sean’s window? “Roy, I’m going to ask you this one more time because it’s extremely important. Don’t fuck with me. A man’s life is at stake.”
Hughes’s eyes widened upon hearing this. He licked his lips and his eyes scanned the small room, looking for a pencil or pen to write with.
Lumbergh continued. “I promise you that you will not get in any trouble if the answer is yes. Were you at Sean’s house anytime within the last twenty-four hours?”
Hughes swallowed, his body almost trembling with the excitement he was failing to contain.
“No,” he finally managed to answer before he enthusiastically added, “but what’s going on? You have to tell me! A man’s life is at stake? Which man? Did Sean beat somebody up again?” He nearly wore a full-out smile, likely envisioning big headlines.
Lumbergh’s eye twitched at the reporter’s opportunistic instincts. He nearly cursed him out but knew he couldn’t afford to waste any more time. He turned and walked toward the front door with Hughes chasing after him.
“Oh come on, Chief!” Hughes pleaded. “You’ve got to tell me what’s going on!”
“No I don’t,” said Lumbergh.
Just as he was about to leave through the open doorway, where a cold, light breeze was pushing its way in, he caught something out of the corner of his eye; a pile of papers were being shuffled by the wind across Hughes’s work desk at the front of the room. The papers consisted of clipped-out newspaper articles. The top one included a large photo of a face that nearly stopped Lumbergh’s heart—a face that had no sense being the focus of any current news cycle if Hughes was telling him the truth.
Lumbergh dashed over to the desk and riffled through the clippings.
“What?” Hughes asked.
There was a large manila file folder sprawled open below the articles and when Lumbergh saw that the name “Alvar Montoya” was written across its tab, his blood boiled. “Son of a bitch!”
He reached under his jacket and pulled out his Glock. He spun toward Hughes, whose eyes displayed sheer terror at the sight of the pure hatred fuming in the chief ’s face.
“I told you not to fuck with me, Roy!” Lumbergh’s voice echoed off the walls.
He shoved his gun right between Hughes’s eyes. The frightened newsman tripped backwards in an impulsive act of self-preservation. He stumbled on shaky legs before falling straight down to the floor on his butt. “What?” he cried out, hands up in the air as if he were being robbed. His face was taut with fear. “What are you talking about?”
“Why were you looking into the Alvar Montoya case?” Lumbergh screamed, unable to contain any sliver of composure. He kept his gun trained on Hughes. “Who did you see at Sean’s house last night?”
“No one! I w-w-wasn’t!” Hughes stammered. “I just haven’t put the file away yet!”
“What does that mean?” Lumbergh demanded.
“Yesterday! He came over yesterday! He wanted to look through the Montoya archive again! He said he was doing more research! I let him! What’s the big deal?”
“Who?” Lumbergh yelled savagely. “Who are you talking about?”
Chapter 16
“You can’t go in there because it’s a dang crime scene!” explained Jefferson. “You didn’t learn that in any of your pricey college books? We can’t let just any nitwit who strolls on by walk into a crime scene.” He fought back the urge to smirk, enjoying a bit of a power trip at the moment.
“Come on, Officer Jefferson,” replied Alex Martinez, wearing a broad smile and displaying only a hint of a Spanish accent. He had just arrived at Sean’s place with the copies of Lautaro Montoya’s mug shot, per Lumbergh’s earlier request. “I’m not a nitwit. I work in the police station with you. I’m a colleague.”
“A what?”
“A colleague. A coworker.”
“You sure as hell ain’t,” Jefferson said with a chuckle. “You’re an intern. A gofer. You don’t even get paid. Hell, you smell too pretty to be a cop.”
Martinez retained his smile. “But how am I supposed to learn about law enforcement if I don’t get to do anything but odd jobs?”
“Well, I hear they need meter maids up in Lakeland. That might be a good start. They might even pay you.”
“Oh. Come on,” said Martinez, waving off the teasing with his hand. His short dark hair shone under the bright sun.
Jefferson suddenly erupted into a coughing fit that drew a wince from Martinez. When it ended, the officer leaned against the side of Martinez’s dark-green Pontiac Sunfire and folded his arms in front of him. His grin widened in satisfaction.
“So what happened to the back of Sean’s car? You know?”
The grin on Jefferson’s face dissipated. “Uh, I don’t know. He probably backed into a tree or something.”
“Jefferson!” Lumbergh’s voice blared out of the walkie-talkie clipped to Jefferson’s belt.
The officer snatched it and held it to his mouth. “I’m here, Chief.”
“Is anyone there with you?” asked Lumbergh, a hint of unease in his voice.
“No one important,” Jefferson answered, winking at Martinez who was close enough to hear both sides of the conversation.
“Jefferson, I need to talk to you in private. It’s of a personal matter.”
Jefferson trained a perplexed look on the speaker. “Personal?”
Martinez widened his eyes, flashing Jefferson a simper.
“All right. Hold on,” Jefferson spoke into the gadget, turning from Martinez. He walked out to the road, his stomach feeling anxious as he did. Once he was convinced he was out of earshot from Martinez, he acknowledged Lumbergh again.
“Who’s all with you, Jefferson?” Lumbergh asked.
“Just Martinez. He brought copies of the Montoya mug shot. The boys from County haven’t arrived yet. Why?”
“Listen carefully, Jefferson. Martinez is in on this somehow. He’s been digging into the Montoya case.”
“What?” Jefferson replied dismissively. “Are you kidding me?”
Jefferson turned toward the intern—a young man he had gotten to know well and had come to like over the past few months. Martinez was staring blankly back at him from across the street, leaning against the side of his rusted Sunfire.
“I just left Roy Hughes’s house,” Lumbergh continued. “He told me that Martinez has been asking him all about Montoya for weeks. He even came over yesterday to review the newspaper archives on the shootout.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s tied up in what’s going on,” Jefferson replied. “Maybe he’s doing a paper on the incident for one of his college classes.”
“And he hasn’t bothered to ask me about it?”
Jefferson sighed. He almost always trusted his boss’s instincts, but he felt that this time his reasoning was thin.
Lumbergh continued. “There’s more. When Oldhorse came to the office yesterday morning, he told me it didn’t make sense why there weren’t any foot imprints in the snow behind the building from the pig being hung.”