“We need to get a hazmat team and forensics in there,” I said.
“I’ll get on the phone,” Bostok said. “You guys go home.”
“I’ll wait until we wrap up,” I said.
Bostok shook his head. “Did you happen to look around? It’s damn near daylight. I’m sure there will be news vans rolling up any second. Go home. We have the scene secure, and she’s in custody. Anything I need from you can be taken care of on Monday.” Bostok’s voice said it wasn’t negotiable. “Rawlings, that goes for you as well.”
“Come on, Hank,” I said.
Chapter 39
Hank rode with me back to the station. We split up in the parking lot without saying much. I wasn’t sure if the reason was due to our lack of sleep or our trying to process the scene we’d just come from. I didn’t care either way at the moment. I just wanted a shower and sleep; however, I wanted to make a quick stop at the hospital first, which I did as efficiently as I could. I wanted Maria Flores to know that we had the woman that attacked her in custody. She thanked me for the personal visit and assured me that she would be more willing to listen to the warnings of police officers in the future. I was just happy she would be okay.
I walked into my condo, where Butch greeted me with a foot-and-leg thrashing. I didn’t have the energy to shoo him away. I let him finish and trot back to the couch, seemingly satisfied that he’d shown me who was boss.
After a quick shower, which I was pretty certain I’d slept through, I tiptoed into the bedroom and snuck into bed. I put my arm over Callie and my head down on the pillow. It had never felt better. I tugged the sheet up to my chin and let out a breath.
Finally, sleep.
I closed my eyes.
They were reopened what felt like ten seconds later by Callie, rubbing the side of my face and smiling. She crawled into bed next to me and put an arm around my neck.
“Come on, lazy. Get up,” she said.
“I just went to sleep a second ago.”
“No you didn’t. You were here when I got up this morning.”
I grunted and buried my head deeper into the pillow. “Couple more minutes,” I said.
“Carl.” Callie rocked my shoulders. “Get up. We have an appointment in an hour and a half.”
“For what?”
“To look at that house. I already called Kathy and pushed the appointment back. We need to get ready to leave.”
I cracked my right eyelid open and then my left. I squinted and looked past Callie, at the alarm clock—three in the afternoon. “Is that really the time?” I asked.
“Yes. Our appointment is at four thirty.” She pulled at my arm. “Let’s go.”
I sat up and rubbed my eyes. The ten seconds I felt as though I’d slept for, had actually been seven hours.
“Come on. I have breakfast and coffee going for you in the kitchen.” Callie walked from the bedroom. I pulled myself out of bed and stumbled out behind her.
I took a seat at the breakfast bar. Callie set a cup of coffee and a plate of bacon and eggs before me. I dug in.
“Thanks for rescheduling,” I said. I shoveled another forkful of eggs into my mouth.
“I didn’t figure you’d be up for much after getting in so late, or actually early. You actually worked through the night?”
I nodded and took a sip of my coffee. “We caught the woman this morning.”
“I know. It’s been all over the news today. To think those kind of people walk the streets until they are caught.” Callie shuddered and tried to shake away the thought. “Do you have to go in to the station today?”
“Cap says no.” I finished my plate.
Callie snatched it up and put it in the dishwasher.
I sipped at my coffee. “That’s another thing that I wanted to talk to you about.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Major Danes is retiring. Bostok is more than likely getting promoted to the open spot.”
“That’s great news,” Callie said. She started another cup of coffee for me.
“The captain mentioned that he was going to recommend me for his spot.”
Callie spun around from the coffee maker and stared at me. “Really? Captain? Baby, that’s great!”
Callie rounded the breakfast bar and wrapped her arms around my neck.
“It was just mentioned. There would be interviews and tests—a bunch of formalities.”
“When is this happening?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Like I said, it was just brought up. I should know more in a few weeks.”
“Wow.” Callie paused and scrunched her eyebrows at me. “When did you hear this? Why didn’t you call me right away with that kind of news?”
“I had so much going on, Cal. The thought didn’t even cross my mind again until a few seconds ago. Like I said, right now it’s just talk. Once—and if—it moves on from talk, then there is testing and all sorts of other things involved.”
She smiled and went back into the kitchen. “You’ll get it.” She took the cup from the coffee maker and poured it into a travel mug she grabbed from the cupboard. “Go get dressed, We need to go.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I went to the bedroom.
We left the condo a bit before three thirty. We neared the address right around four. I was fine with arriving early. If we beat Kathy, our realtor, we would have a little time to snoop around by ourselves.
Callie and I turned down the street the house was on. I spotted a Dead End sign up ahead. We passed a pair of gates leading back to a house about the size of my condo complex. The car’s navigation told me to continue forward to the address. The road turned to old brick and swung to the left. It immediately ended at a large pair of ornate iron gates. The brick the road turned into continued on up the driveway. On the stone posts, holding the gates, was the address on a black plaque with gold lettering.
“It looks like this is the place, Cal,” I said.
“We’ll have to wait for Kathy, huh?” she asked.
I killed the motor and stepped out of the car. Callie got out on the passenger side. I walked to the gates. A giant padlock on a chain made sure no one went farther. I gazed past them down the tree-lined brick driveway. I couldn’t see the house.
“Yeah, I guess we’ll have to wait. Let’s take a little walk and see if we can see anything.”
“Okay. Those big gates are kind of intimidating.”
I smiled. “That’s good. Keep all the riffraff out.”
She pointed back the way we’d come. “Did you see the neighbor’s house? I’m pretty sure there is no riffraff in these parts.”
We left the car parked and walked back toward the house. I looked down at the brick as we walked. From the bit of browsing I’d done on a couple historical websites, I knew the place had a pretty significant history in the area.
“What year was this place built?” Callie asked.
“1872, and added on to in 1890.”
She was quiet for a moment. “Are we going to be running into things that need to be updated all the time?”
“I don’t think so. It seems that everything has been restored, updated, and more. Obviously, we’d have to have an inspector go through the place.”
We turned right and walked a little up the block back toward the colossal house we’d passed on the way in.
Callie stopped near the home’s front gates. A middle-aged man was feeding an envelope into the property’s mailbox. He wore a baseball cap, a black T-shirt, and shorts.
He looked over and smiled. “Hello.”
“Hi,” I said.
Callie gave the guy a smile.
“I saw you come through. Are you looking at the Thompson house?”
“We are,” Callie said.
“Gorgeous place.”
A boy around four or five ran from the tree line and grabbed on to the man’s leg. “Hi,” he said.
I showed the kid a smile.
“Hi. How are you?” Callie asked.
“My grandson, Jeffrey. He’s always popping out of some place. Do you guys have children?”
“Expecting,” Callie said.
“Well, it would be nice to see a family in that house. Pat Lewis.” He held out his hand for a handshake.
“Carl Kane.” I shook his hand. “This is Callie.”
Callie shook his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“How long has it been empty?” I asked.
“Since we built in 1984.”
The statement puzzled me. “Eighty-four?” I asked.
“Longer than that, I’d imagine.” He leaned his elbow on his mailbox. “How much do you know about the place?”
“Just what the listing said, and a little from what I’ve read regarding its historic status. What can you tell us?” I asked.
“Well, every piece of land you see here used to belong to the Thompsons from the 1880s up until the 1980s. When Maybelle Thompson passed, her children sold most of the land off to developers. That’s when we built. Before that, this all used to be orange groves.”
I nodded. “I read that.”
“Yeah, the processing barn is still there. They used to do all the boxing and packaging right there on the property. They’d put the oranges on the train after that. The barn is restored as well. It would be a hell of a nice shop space if someone was interested in that sort of thing.”
“He is,” Callie said.
“What do you know about the house itself?” I asked.
“Beautiful place now. Amazing, actually.”
“Now?” I asked.
“The place sat empty for almost twenty years. The Thompson children kept five acres and the house, but no one ever lived in it for more than a year or two at a time. The wife and I would check in on it every couple of months, to make sure all was well. It was, but it just sat there, unused. I wouldn’t say it went into ruin, but it needed work. I think it was two thousand five when Tom and Liz, the current owners, purchased the land and house.”
“They did the restoration?” Callie asked.
Pat shook his head. “They had professionals come in and do it. It took years. I’d pop in there every now and then to talk and see what they were working on. The attention to detail was ridiculous. Tom and Liz put who-knows-how-much money into the place. Probably more than the asking price, honestly.”
“With so much time and money invested, why are they selling?” I asked.
“I don’t think their plan was ever to live in it full time. They’d spend a few days out here every now and again. Most of the time, the property is rented out for weddings. They use the platform back there on the water for the bride and groom and seat the guests in the grass of the backyard. They’ll get one or two per month. Tom and Liz are getting a little older now, so I could see how it could become a lot to deal with to keep the place in flawless condition to be rented all the time, especially when you have to come in from out of town.”
“Where do they live?” I asked.
“Savannah area.”
A white sedan drove down the street toward us. It slowed as it came near.
Kathy, our realtor, lowered the driver’s side window of the sedan. “Hey, guys. Meeting the neighbors already?”
“Yup,” I said.
“Whenever you’re ready. I’ll go get the gate open.”
“Thanks,” Callie said.
Kathy smiled, raised her window, and pulled down the street. She made a left toward the property.
“I guess we should probably get over there,” I said.
Callie nodded.
“Nice meeting you guys. If you have any other questions about the area, stop by,” Pat said.
“Thanks,” I said.
He smiled and headed back through his gate toward his house.
Callie and I walked back down the street.
“He was nice,” she said.
“He’s probably just trying to talk up the place so we buy it and raise his property value.”
Callie swatted my arm. “He was nice, and you know it.”
I smirked. We rounded the corner. The gates were open in front of my car. I caught the back of Kathy’s sedan as she drove down toward the house. Callie and I hopped in my Cadillac and started down the brick driveway, lined on both sides by old oak trees. Beyond the trees, a white picket fence followed us toward the house.
The barn came up on our right with a turnoff leading to its doors. We slowed to look. The listing said the barn was eighteen hundred square feet, and it looked as much. It was light blue with a tin roof, matching the photos of the house.
“Do you want to go look at it now?” Callie asked.
“House first. If everything is good there, we’ll take a quick look.”
“What if we like this place?” Callie asked.
“Then we’ll schedule another appointment with an inspector.”
“Works for me.”
We continued on. The quarter-mile driveway opened up, and the big blue-and-white tin-roofed home came into view. The home had distinct right and left sides, appearing as though it was two houses, separate but attached. I assumed one was the original and the other the addition. The brick driveway turned into a circle at the front of the house. A large overhang at the front of the porch covered the area of the driveway at the front steps. An old fountain bubbled away at the center of the circular driveway behind some small landscaping shrubs. We parked next to Kathy’s car and stepped out.
“I want it,” Callie said.
I laughed. “Shh.”
“What?”
“We need to work on your negotiating skills.”
“Oh, whatever.”
I took the home in from right to left. It was big, probably larger than Callie and I would ever need. The listing put it at four thousand square feet, more than double the size of my condo. Kathy stood under the white overhang of the porch and waved us up. We walked over and climbed the steps.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” Callie said.
“Did you guys want to view the house or the grounds first?” Kathy asked.
“House,” I said. “I know there is a lake back there, and I don’t want it to influence my decision.”
Kathy let out a chuckle. “Fair enough.” She opened the front door.
We entered the foyer, a staircase to our left and a living room to our right. I stared down at the flawless wood floors. Kathy led us through the home. She went on at length about everything that had been upgraded, restored, and modernized. The home was gorgeous. The photos and virtual tour I’d looked at online, while impressive, didn’t touch the real thing. The craftsmanship was amazing. What the neighbor had mentioned, about them putting more into the house than the asking price, was probably more of a reality than passing comment. Callie fawned over the kitchen, the second room we entered. Every appliance was new and top of the line. The countertops were a light-green marble. The old cabinets and woodwork were refinished and flawless. If the kitchen was selling Callie on the home, the giant master suite sealed the deal—tray ceilings, more closet space than we could ever fill, a huge fireplace, and a master bathroom that you could live in. We spent an hour walking through the house. I wanted to see the grounds and needed to get Callie outside before she started talking numbers.
Kathy took us out to the back porch, which overlooked the rest of the grounds down to the lake. She showed us the gazebo at the back of the porch and walked us down toward the dock.
“Five acres,” Kathy said. “The boat dock down here has a screened-in area as well as a bunch of seating. Do you own a boat?” she asked.
“Not yet,” I said.
“Well, there are two boat lifts attached to the dock as well. Do you fish?”
I nodded. “We both do.”
“Well, the fishing is supposed to be great here.” She walked us out onto the dock overlooking the lake. The
sun reflected off the calm water. I spotted a single fishing boat in the distance.
“We’re facing east, so no sunsets, but I’m sure you get a great sunrise from out here,” Kathy said. “Come on, let me show you the deck.”
We followed her back up the dock. To the right was a fifty-foot deck built around a giant oak tree. We stepped up and looked out over the water. I turned and looked back toward the house. A breeze rustled the Spanish moss hanging from the oak trees.
“I can see why people have weddings here,” Callie said.
Kathy smiled. “The place is something else, huh?”
Callie looked up at me. “What do you think, babe?”
“Um,” I said.
“I’ll give you guys a moment. I’m going to go get the shop area opened up. You guys can meet me over there when you’re ready.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Kathy started across the property.
“Well?” Callie asked.
I let out a breath. “It’s nice. It’s also a lot of money.”
“Carl, look at this place. I know you love it. I’ve been watching you as she’s been showing us around. I don’t think your jaw has come from the floor.”
“I said it’s nice.”
Callie took my hand and pulled me to the edge of the deck overlooking the lake. “Is this us?” she asked.
I looked her in the eyes.
She smiled. “I think we should make an offer, contingent upon an inspection. What do you think?”
I didn’t respond.
“Carl?” she asked.
I dug into my pocket.
“Hey.” Callie tugged at my free hand. “Are you going to answer my question?”
“You first,” I said.
“Huh?”
I pulled the ring box from my pocket and knelt.
Chapter 40
The clock on the edge of my desk read a couple minutes after ten, Monday morning. Sunday had come and gone, and I mostly slept through it. The brief spells I was awake were filled with wedding talks and conversations about the house. I’d never seen Callie happier.
I let out a breath and began to arrange the stack of paperwork that needed to be completed on Carmen Simms and Angel White. Hank tapped at my office door and walked in. He took a seat across from me at my desk.
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