“New? I couldn’t afford that.”
“C’mon, you cops get paid more than us.”
“At the prices you charge?” she asked then chuckled. “Oh by the way, Jim. Have you had anyone come in over the last few days with the front end of their vehicle banged up?”
“Uh let me check.” He put the phone down and she could hear him tapping on keys. When he came back he didn’t have good news. “Nope. Sorry.”
“All right, thanks.” She ended the call. Skylar went back to where Davenport and Reznik were shooting the breeze. “Listen, I’m heading over to Apalachicola to Tamlin Auto Salvage. Reznik, do you think you can call around to some of the other local garages and see if any of them have had a vehicle come in with a front-end collision? I’m thinking whoever did this has to have some damage to their vehicle.”
“I’m way ahead of you. That was one of the first things I looked into this morning. There was nothing,” Reznik replied.
Chapter 18
Harvey turned around a tablet and slid it across the table in the interview room. On the screen was a zoomed-in image of the two men that had opened fire at the condo. “You recognize these two?”
Bo squinted then nodded. “Yeah, they work for Brent Rutz. They’re part of the biker club.” He sighed as he looked back up at him. “Was it quick? Wendy’s death I mean?”
Harvey nodded. “Yeah.”
He looked down and shook his head. “I never wanted this to happen. She kept harping on at me to get out of it but you know how it is when the money starts flowing, it’s hard to pull away. I’d told her that we’d give it another year and then relocate out west or somewhere in Europe.”
“A little too late.”
Bo nodded looking despondent.
“How many times did you visit Carrabelle?”
“Twice. The first time I came looking for Keith, I couldn’t find him. He’d closed his business and as far as I know he didn’t have any family around these parts. Anyway, I got in touch with Darryl Harlow and asked him to keep an eye out for Keith being as he lived there.”
“How long have you known him?”
“Darryl? He’s an old buddy of mine. We go way back.”
“So that’s how you made the connection with the Outlaws?”
He took a swig of his coffee and nodded. “Yeah. It was a long time ago when he was running with them. Darryl was actually the one that pitched the idea to me of opening a loan shop. The Outlaws wanted a way to launder money from the drug business and what better way than to give it out to people who needed money and make some back. It was an investment on their part. I made the largest portion of the interest and they took a cut from it.”
“So how did you know to return to Carrabelle?”
“Darryl was down at Ruby’s. Guy can drink like a fish. Anyway he calls me up and tells me Keith was asking around for that lawyer friend of his. So I made my way up. We watched him for a day and then made our move to grab him but he managed to escape. Then a buddy of mine said he’d shown up down at Ruby’s again.”
“So you went down to confront him.”
“Both of them. I thought I would kill two birds with one stone.”
“Kill?”
“Figuratively I mean. I didn’t kill him. In fact by the time we got there Keith was gone.”
“Do you know what vehicle he was driving?”
“Yeah, it was a blue Chevy truck.”
Harvey made a few notes. “And what else?”
“Nothing else. I got up in the face of that asshole lawyer and tried to get him to spill the beans on where Keith had gone. You know, he didn’t even recognize me. Can you believe that? He ruined my life and he didn’t even know what I looked like.”
“Theoretically, Keith did but, yeah I get the point,” Harvey said tapping his pen against the pad of paper in front of him. “So did you stick around?”
“I was kicked out. I’m sure you already know that. We caught a taxi back to Darryl’s home and I left for Miami late that evening.”
“So you didn’t stick around to follow Mr. Hammond and drive his vehicle off the road?” Harvey asked.
“I don’t own a vehicle.”
“Then how did you get around Miami?”
“I had several drivers. Strange as it might sound I never got my driver’s license.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“I never wanted to drive a car.”
“But everyone does,” Harvey said.
“Well I’m not everyone.”
“So you caught a taxi to the airport.”
“Nope.”
“So who was it in Carrabelle that drove you back to the airport? Because I’m pretty sure Darryl wouldn’t have been in a state to do it.”
“A friend of mine.”
“And his name is?” Harvey asked. He paused over the paper, ready to scribble it down.
Bo shook his head. “Not saying.”
“Bo, you do realize the situation you are in, right?”
“I’m not getting him involved in this as he had nothing to do with this.”
“Well then tell me. Is he local or from Miami?”
Bo looked around the room like he was done having the conversation. Harvey tried to reason with him and make it clear that he was facing some considerable jail time if tried to obstruct justice.
“Is it the same guy that alerted you to Keith being at the bar?”
“I’ve told you everything. I want a lawyer.”
“You’re going to need more than that,” Harvey said gathering together his papers as he got up to leave and place a call to Franklin County Sherriff’s Office.
Chapter 19
Reznik felt like a headless chicken running around doing Skylar’s bidding. Go here, go there, check this out. Would you like me to tap dance as well, he felt like saying to her. And if that wasn’t enough now Baker was adding in his two cents.
“Keith White is supposed to own a blue Chevy truck. Do you know what he was driving when he was seen pulling away from Ruby’s Bar that night?”
“Yeah, hold on one second, I have Reid on the other line asking me to do the cha-cha as well.”
“What?”
He groaned. “I’m kidding. Hold on a second.”
He went over to his computer and brought up the copy of video footage taken from the CCTV across the street. “A gold sedan. White was driving a gold Toyota.”
“Then we need to find this blue Chevy. It’s very possible he’s dumped it or has it parked somewhere.”
“Would you like me to go and ask him?”
“Yeah, go do that,” Harvey replied.
“What’s the magic word?”
“What?”
“The magic word.”
“Reznik. Do your job. That’s the magic word,” Harvey said and hung up. Reznik sat there with the phone pressed to his ear. He wasn’t impressed with his attitude and he certainly didn’t like being bossed around. It was one thing to take it from Davenport, even Hanson, but he was no puppet on a string.
“Who was on the phone?” Davenport asked, causing Reznik to spin around in his chair.
“Um. It was Harvey.”
“What’s he want?”
He updated him and Davenport drove home the need to find out where White was storing this blue truck. Reznik trudged down to his cell and flipped the flap down on the door. Inside Keith was walking back and forth.
“Am I getting out? Is my lawyer here?”
“Soon. Soon.”
“That’s what they told me four hours ago. I swear I’m going to file a civil lawsuit against this department. Shabby police officers. Crappy coffee. What is this world coming to?”
“Keith, where is the blue Chevy?”
“What?”
“The Chevy.”
He stared back, looking reluctant to tell him so Reznik said, “Okay, see you in another four hours.” He dropped the flap, smiled and waited a few seconds and then heard Keith banging on the other side
. “Officer. Hey!”
Reznik dropped the flap. “Yes?”
“Okay, okay. I can’t take being in here any longer. Look, I store it over at TTC Storage. It’s on Hatfield Street in Eastpoint.”
“Thank you kindly,” Reznik said closing the flap.
“Hey. When am I getting out of here?”
Reznik walked away to the sound of banging on the door.
Chapter 20
Tamlin Auto Salvage yard was an absolute dump. It was a skeleton graveyard full of steel bones, and stacks of used tires. Skylar pulled onto the property and parked outside the head office. There were vehicles for as far as the eye could see. Fortunately the place was shrouded in trees and set back off Industrial Road just northeast of the town.
Skylar pushed out of the cruiser and made her way into the poorly air-conditioned front office. It stank of grease and oil and looked as if it hadn’t seen a cleaning cloth in over a decade. Off to her left was a small waiting area with chairs that looked as if they’d seen better days. One was stained with something brown. She didn’t want to know what that was. There was an empty five-gallon water jug machine, and a small table covered in ripped auto magazines. Off to her right was a small cabinet with trophies for baseball. Skylar approached the cabinet and saw that Conor’s name was engraved at the bottom of a trophy. Obviously his father took great pride in his kid, enough to display him front and center in his business.
“Can I help you?”
She turned, slightly startled by the appearance of a man in dirty blue overalls wiping his greasy hands on a cloth. He was wearing a dirty baseball cap and had a cigarette sticking out the corner of his mouth.
“Would Mike be around?”
“Who’s asking?”
She pulled her badge out and he nodded. “I’m Mike.”
“Strange, I was in here a few months back, and didn’t see you around. There was a woman…”
“Judith. Yeah she usually mans the counter but she’s off today. How can I help you?”
“I’m here about the death of Nick Hammond.”
“Oh him.”
“Do you mind telling me where you were two nights ago?”
He reached for a can of soda pop on the counter and took a swig of it before hopping up onto a chair. That’s when Skylar noticed he had a limp.
“You hurt yourself?” she asked.
He looked down. “It’s a prosthetic leg,” Mike said pulling up the pant leg to show her. “I did two combat tours. The last one I wasn’t so lucky.”
“Right. Thanks for serving our country.”
“Appreciate that. There aren’t many who seem to care.” He sighed then answered her question. “Two nights ago I was out on a friend’s boat. I can give you his name if you like. There were four of us there and they can vouch for me.”
She nodded as he went about searching for his phone. He pulled it out and handed it over. Skylar took down the name and number.
“You ever had any run-ins with Nick?” she asked as she jotted it down.
“Nope. He stayed clear of here and I never went over there.”
“But Conor did.”
“Conor misses his mom. He always has. Things didn’t work out well between us but he’s a good kid and that’s about the only thing Nancy and me agree on. He’s out back getting vehicles ready for crushing if you want to speak to him”
“No, it’s okay, I spoke to him already. Seems like a bright lad. Nice bike he has.”
“Oh the Kawasaki?” He snorted. “Yeah, I gave him heck over that purchase.”
“Cost too much?”
“That and the fact that he ruined a good vehicle.”
“Oh, he banged up his last one?”
“You could say that. Yeah.”
Skylar looked around. “Would you have an engine thermostat?”
“We have a lot of them,” he said jerking his head to the yard.
“It’s for a 1984 Ford F-250.”
“Whoa, don’t see many of those around nowadays.”
“No you don’t,” she replied.
“Sentimental?” he asked.
She smiled. “Exactly. Some people don’t get it.”
“I have a ’76 Chevy Impala. It used to belong to my dad.” He turned to his computer. “Let me see what I can find.” He fired up the laptop in front of him and started tapping in the details.
“You got a washroom?”
He made a waving gesture to a rear door. “Just out back, last door on the right.”
She walked down a narrow corridor and entered the bathroom, if it could even be called that. The trash can was overflowing with paper towels, the floor was soaked in urine and someone hadn’t flushed the toilet. It also didn’t help that they were out of toilet paper rolls.
As she was contemplating using it, her phone started ringing. She grimaced looking around as she made her way back out into the corridor. She fished around for her phone and walked out the back door into the yard to take the call.
“Axl, how did you get on?”
“Well I managed to clear up the footage. It’s not great but it’s better than what was there. I lightened it and adjusted levels and I have something for you.”
“Let’s hope it’s good as right now we are spinning wheels, literally.”
She glanced out across the yard and spotted Conor in one of the large cranes. He fired it up and a huge arm turned to a massive pile of vehicles.
“Well here’s the thing. Even though it was hard to see in the original video, after I enhanced it and zoomed in, I got Ms. Hammond on video inside.”
“Nice, does she head over and speak to Nick?”
“No, that’s the strange part. The video captures her walking in, and looking around and then she makes her way over to the bar area and chats to someone. It looks like a guy. It’s hard to see who he is because his back was turned away from the bar. However, after a few minutes of talking, the guy walks out and gets into a red truck. I managed to get a partial license plate off it but I was going to check this alongside the video that Reznik got from the seafood place.”
“Good. And what about Nancy?”
“She remained at the bar for one drink and then she left.”
“Without speaking with Nick?” Skylar asked.
“Yeah. Okay hold on, I’m at Reznik’s desk and just pulling up the footage now.”
“Where is he?”
“Oh he headed off to some storage facility in Eastpoint. Apparently Keith has a blue Chevy truck. They want to see if the front end is damaged.”
As Axl mumbled away to himself while bringing up the footage, Skylar made her way through the maze of steel towards Conor.
“I must have a word with Reznik about his computer. You should see how many icons he has on the desktop. It’s a mess.”
“What was that license plate, Axl?” Skylar asked squinting into the distance as the large crane clamped on to a red truck and began raising it.
“938 X. The last two letters were out of view of the bar’s camera but hopefully… Oh, here we go. Give me a second.”
As Skylar got closer to the crane, Conor looked out and gave a short wave. She smiled and lifted a hand.
“There it is. 938 XQG. It’s a red Ford truck.”
Skylar glanced up at the crane’s huge arm as it brought over the red truck to a steel crushing machine. She squinted as it moved past her line of sight and that’s when she saw it. “938 XQG,” she blurted out.
“That’s right, that’s it,” Axl said.
“I’m looking at it.”
“What?”
“Hey! Conor!” Skylar yelled but he couldn’t hear her because he had on an ear protection headset. She pulled out her service weapon and fired two shots into the air. That got his attention. He twisted around and she made a gesture for him to cut the engine. He looked as if he was having difficulty hearing. All the while the crane’s arm kept moving until it was poised over the crushing machine. The claw released and the red truck
dropped down into the machine.
Without wasting another second, Skylar broke into a sprint heading for the machine. She could already hear it beginning to engage as large massive steel jaws started to close in on the vehicle.
Skylar darted across the muddy property and slammed her hand against a red emergency stop button causing the whole unit to switch off. Panting and doubled over trying to catch her breath she looked back at Conor who was now getting down from the crane. Skylar climbed up the side of the crushing machine and looked inside.
Sure enough, there it was.
The front end had been busted up, the right headlight was gone but the most important thing still remained —streaks of green paint that had been transferred when it had struck Nick Hammond’s vehicle.
Chapter 21
Eight hours later
For all the murder cases that Skylar had been assigned to, one thing she’d come to realize was that not all of them were complicated to solve. Some hid the evidence, others left it in plain sight, and others went to great lengths to avoid detection, however in this case it turned out the motive was simple.
“Hold on a second, you’re telling me it wasn’t Conor or his father?” Harvey said perched on the edge of Skylar’s desk.
“No. It was Nancy. Of course she wasn’t going to come out with it but once we dragged her son into the station, she admitted it.”
“What we will do for our kids. So what, she was jealous?”
“Yeah, it wasn’t money. This truly was a case of where someone was in a relationship for all the wrong reasons. Nancy might have had her suspicions that Nick was cheating on her but because she loved him or was in love with the prestige that came from being married to a lawyer and living in a well-to-do neighborhood she looked the other way. Unfortunately her son Conor couldn’t do that. He was the one that discovered footage on Nick’s phone of him with another woman. He showed it to his mother and tried to convince her to leave him and go back to Mike. Nancy refused but said she would deal with it in her own way. Well it seems that she did.”
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