Requite

by E. H. Reinhard

  “Forensics has it that Jake laid there.” Hank jerked his head to a blood stain on the ground.

  “What about this one here?” I pointed to the twelve inch stain a few feet away from the others.

  “It has to be Jessica’s or her attacker’s. Sheet says it’s a different blood type.”

  “Doubt it belongs the attacker. Witness reported that Jessica and Jake were both lying on the ground. What else does it say?”

  “Says estimated blood loss using the MAR method, was around 60 milliliters.”

  “So what is that?” I asked.

  “Let me check my phone. I’m not so hot with the whole metric conversion thing.” Hank dug his phone from his pocket and clicked away at the screen. “Comes out to about two ounces of blood lost.”

  “So she was on the ground bleeding, but only two ounces of blood lost?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Good chance she was still alive when the guy took her.”

  “How do you think it went down?” Hank asked.

  “Well, I’m guessing our guy came up from behind the couple and struck Jake first. Eliminate the bigger threat. That happened around here.” I pointed to the start of the blood drops.

  “He had to have hit Jessica here. She went straight down at the blood pool there.” I pointed.

  “Think Jake was on his hands and knees, crawling forward?” Hank asked.

  “It would account for the drips moving in that direction.”

  “Then our guy went to finish the job on Jake?”

  “Probably after seeing Jessica was no longer a threat, yeah. Finish Jake off, and then go back for Jessica. Then he got interrupted from our witness driving up the ramp there, and tossed her in the van to finish elsewhere.” I walked over to the side of the parking structure and looked out over the corner of East Whiting and South Franklin Street. “They both attended the college right next to us here, huh?”

  “That’s what Casey said, yeah.”

  “My eyes locked on the sports bar across the street. How many bars are within walking distance?”

  “Nothing within a couple blocks, except Gamers.”

  “They could have gone to the bar after class. Let’s go see if anyone is there.”

  We left the car parked and walked down the stairs of the parking structure to the street. A half of a block later we were tugging at the front door—locked.

  “Sign says they open at four o’clock,” Hank said.

  I checked the time. They wouldn’t open for around another two hours.

  “Hank.” I pointed up above our heads to the security camera aiming down at the entrance.

  “They got video,” he said.

  “Let’s take a peek around back.”

  Hank and I rounded the side of the building toward the back. A large parking lot with a few scattered cars took up the entire side of the building. A delivery driver with a dolly was loading beer from his truck at the back.

  We walked up. “Owner inside?” I asked.

  He sat a keg of beer on the dolly. “Manager is. Do you need him for something?”

  “We do. We’re from the TPD.”

  “Sure, I’m just heading in now. I’ll get him.”

  The driver carted the dolly through the propped back door and disappeared into the building. A minute or two later a different guy walked out. He looked to be in his mid-thirties. His black polo had a name tag that said Bruce with Manager below it.

  “Bruce Leonard, I’m the manager here. Driver said you guys were from the police department?”

  “Lieutenant Kane, this is Sergeant Rawlings. You have a minute to talk?”

  “Sure, I got a couple minutes for you guys. Come on inside, we’ll grab a seat.”

  We followed the manager through the back, passing a couple offices and the kitchen before we found a booth near the bar.

  “I’m going to guess this has something to do with the attacks over in the parking structure?” he asked.

  “So you’re aware of what happened?” Hank asked.

  “Sure, something like that happening so close, word travels fast.”

  “Did you work last night Mister Leonard?” I asked.

  “I was here the earlier part of the night. We were swamped. I’m usually out of here at ten o’clock on Tuesday nights, but I stayed late last night due to the crowd from the basketball game. I still was home by a little after eleven.”

  “We have a photo that we would like you to take a look at.” I motioned to Hank to get out a flier.

  He slid one from the folder and held it up. “Did you happen to see this woman in here before you left?” Hank asked.

  The manager took the flier and studied the photo. “I don’t know. I guess I couldn’t say for sure one way or the other. Like I said, we were pretty crowded last night.”

  “Mister Leonard, we noticed that you guys have a video surveillance system in the bar here. Any chance we could take a peek at the video from last night and see if we spot her inside here?”

  “Well, I’d be fine with it, but I’ll have to call the owner and get the OK.”

  “If you wouldn’t mind,” I said.

  “Yeah, give me one minute. I’ll try to get him on the phone.”

  The manager slid out and walked behind the bar to make the call.

  Hank pulled his phone from his pocket, stared at it for a second and put it away.

  “Waiting on a call?” I asked.

  “No. One of the witnesses is going to be at the station in about a half hour.”

  “If he’s going to let us see the footage, I’ll stay, and hoof it back when I’m finished. You can take the car back and interview the witness. If he says no, we’ll split and head back to the station.”

  Hank nodded.

  The manager walked back a minute or two later.

  “Owner says OK. I figured he would, but I just had to check. He used to be a cop before he retired. Told me to do whatever I could to help. You guys want to follow me back to the office? We have everything that controls the video system back there.”

  “Here.” I tossed the car keys to Hank.

  Hank walked with the manager and me toward the offices before leaving out the back door of the bar. I grabbed a chair next to Bruce at the desk.

  “Just give me a sec and I’ll have it pulled up. What time are we looking for?”

  “One second.” I opened the case file and searched through looking for the time the 9-1-1 call was made. The report said: 3:06 a.m. “Between 2:00 a.m. and close.”

  He pulled up the footage. The monitor displayed the playback in four squares across the screen. The bar was packed with people, almost shoulder to shoulder. Two of the cameras were aimed at the bar itself, catching the backs of customer’s heads. One camera covered the main seating area, and the last covered the front doors. It was going to be difficult to spot them in the sea of people. My best chance was the camera on the front door.

  “These are the only views we have to work with?” I asked.

  “Yup. The two cameras on the bar are to catch employees dipping into the till. It was the reason we installed the system in the first place.”

  “Can you just give me the front door view between say 2:45 and 3:00 a.m.?”

  “Sure thing. One second.”

  He pulled the video and expanded the entry door’s footage to full screen. He fast forwarded through the frames, pausing it each time someone came into the picture. At 2:52 a.m., I found Jessica Casey and Jake Richwood on the screen. Four seconds of footage as they left the bar and crossed the street.

  “Bruce, can I get a copy of all the video feeds starting around midnight until close? I can have the guys in our Tech Department go over them and see if we can locate the couple inside the bar.”

  “Sure, I can copy the files. Do you have something to put them on?” he asked.

  “Can you email them over?”

  “I could try to compress them and attach them to an email but it will degrade the quali
ty of the video. Chances are the files will still be too big.”

  “Let me call over to the station. I’ll have one of our guys bring something over. What do you need?”

  “Wait, I have a memory stick sitting here. It just has a bunch of photos on it that we were going to use for our website. I’ll transfer the photos over to my computer and we can just use that one.”

  “That would be great. I appreciate it.”

  He transferred the files off of the memory stick and made the copies of the video. The process took a few minutes.

  “There you go. Should be all set.”

  He handed me the drive. I stuck it in my pocket.

  “Thanks again.”

  “Sure. Hope it helps with your case and finding the girl.”

  “I’ll have someone bring you the memory stick back when we’re finished with it.”

  “Nah, don’t worry about it. Glad to help.”

  Chapter 13

  After the four block walk back to the station, I went to go talk with someone in our Tech Department.

  I walked in and found Terry Murphy sitting at his desk.

  “What’s going on, Murphy?” I asked.

  “I’m working on getting something from this cell phone that was dropped off. Guess the guys from the drug task force think it could have valuable contacts on it,” he said.

  “Anything yet?” I asked.

  “Nah, the phone is pretty much shot. SIM card is damaged.”

  “Well, I have a couple videos I want someone to take a look at for me. You want a crack at it or should I grab someone else?”

  “I’ll check them out. Need a break from this thing anyway.”

  I handed Murphy the memory stick. He plugged it into the port on his computer and brought up the files.

  “OK. What do you need?”

  “There should be a video for the front door camera. Pull that up.”

  “Yup, got it here.” He double clicked the file.

  “Alright go to 2:52 a.m.”

  He scrolled the bar at the bottom of the screen to the correct time.

  “Let it play and pause it when you see a couple coming out of the front doors,” I said.

  He let the video play for a few seconds. Jessica Casey and Jake Richwood entered the frame.

  “Is this what you want?”

  “Yeah, hit pause.”

  The frame stopped and jittered back and forth across the screen.

  “OK, print me a couple copies of that image.”

  Murphy clicked the print button. The printer at the side of his desk clicked and beeped as it started kicking out copies.

  “Alright. Now see what you can do about finding that couple on the other video feeds that cover the inside of the bar. Let me know if you find something.”

  “No problem, Lieutenant.”

  I grabbed a few of the images he printed and proceeded to the stairwell. I ran up the stairs to the third floor and headed for Captain Bostok’s office. Hank was sitting inside talking with the captain. I gave the door a knock and walked in. “You guys in the middle of something?” I asked.

  “Not really. Come on in. Rawlings was just going over what he got from the interview with the witness.”

  “Which witness was it?”

  “It was Lucy Jennings.”

  I shrugged. “Which was that?”

  “Not the one that called 9-1-1,” he said.

  “Well, anything we didn’t already know?”

  “Nope. Her statement was about the extent of what she witnessed. She thought she saw a fight from across the structure. Then her memory gets foggy from there. Now, she’s not certain that it was a van she saw speeding off. It could have been an SUV. She also can’t be certain on the color—white, gold, or silver. Something light colored, she said.”

  “So not a fountain of knowledge is what you’re saying?”

  “Precisely,” Hank said.

  “Hank told me the bar was letting you look through their surveillance videos? Get anything?” the captain asked.

  “Yeah, spill it,” Hank said.

  “Got them leaving.” I tossed the photos that Murphy printed off the video on the captain’s desk. Hank and the captain each grabbed one.

  “So they were there?” Hank asked.

  “Yup. This was the best image we got so far. It’s them leaving the bar at 2:52 a.m. I have Murphy going through the other video feeds now trying to find them inside.”

  “The guy let you take the video?” the captain asked.

  “Made me copies and put them on a USB drive.”

  “How much footage did he give you?” the captain asked.

  “I got between midnight and 3:00 a.m. on four different cameras.”

  “It looks like the camera that caught this covers a good amount of the street. Call down to him and have him keep an eye out for a light colored van or SUV driving by,” the captain said.

  “Sounds good,” I said.

  “We better get moving, Kane. Supposed to meet that witness in like forty-five minutes,” Hank said.

  “Yeah, I’m ready. I’ll call Murphy on the way.”

  “Keep me posted,” the captain said.

  We left Captain Bostok’s office and headed out of the station. With a half hour left to get there, we had a good shot at being late—even later if we hit traffic. For the safety of us and everyone else on the road, I wouldn’t normally let Hank drive, but he insisted. He might have been the single worst driver I had ever been in a car with. Hank couldn’t regulate speed—one minute he was doing ten over, then next ten under. He stopped for every yellow and almost got in an accident some way or another every time he was behind the wheel. How he made it to forty years of age without dying in an auto accident was a miracle.

  “IHOP, huh?” I asked.

  “That’s what she said. I’m guessing she’d rather not meet with two cops at her workplace.”

  “Where does she work?”

  “Health club across the street. She said she only had an hour break. It looks like we’re a little late.”

  “If you didn’t drive the whole way like an old woman, we would have been there ten minutes ago,” I said.

  “I drive defensively, Kane. I have a perfect driving record and would like to keep it that way.”

  “Hank, your defensive driving is after you initiate the other vehicles being defensive to you.”

  “What?” He turned on his directional and started to switch lanes for the off ramp.

  “Car. Car. Car!” I yelled.

  The man driving the Corolla in Hank’s blind spot laid on the horn and swerved on to the shoulder.

  “What’s that guy’s problem? I had my blinker on.”

  I shook my head. “Yeah, just get us there alive please.”

  We exited I-75 onto Brandon Boulevard and made the couple mile trip toward the restaurant. We pulled in the drive and lucked ourselves into a parking spot up front. Hank killed the engine.

  “Is that her?” I asked.

  A woman sat alone on the bench before the entry doors.

  “Might be?”

  I heard Hank’s stomach grumble from across the car.

  “Want to grab some food while we’re inside?” I asked.

  “I’d be fine with that. We’d be killing two birds with one stone and all.”

  We got out and approached the woman on the bench. She stared down at her cell phone. She looked to be in her mid-twenties and wore athletic apparel.

  “Are you Miss Collins?” Hank asked.

  She looked up at us and brushed her long blonde hair from her face. “Yes, I’m Michelle Collins. Are you who I talked to on the phone?”

  “Hello Miss Collins. Yes, I’m Sergeant Rawlings. We spoke earlier. This is Lieutenant Kane. We are leading the investigation for the Tampa Police Department on this case. Shall we go inside?”

  “I guess. I already told the officers last night everything I saw though.”

  “That’s fine, we’d just like to
hear it from you first hand,” I said.

  We walked into the packed IHOP and were informed that we’d have a ten minute wait. We sat on the bench and exchanged uncomfortable small talk until the hostess called us for seating. She planted us in a booth looking out onto the busy street in front. Two noticeable detectives on one side, and a nervous looking young women on the other, drew stares from the restaurant’s patrons.

  “Your waitress will be right with you folks,” the hostess said.

  She turned her back on us and rushed off to the front of the restaurant.

  A waitress came past dropping drinks off at the table next to us and walked up.

  “Hi, I’m Missy, I’ll be helping you guys out today. Can I start you off with some drinks?”

  “I’ll just have a coffee,” I said.

  “Same for me,” Hank said.

  “Nothing for me?” Michelle said.

  “OK. I’ll be right back with those.” She smiled and walked off.

  “OK Miss Collins, we won’t try to take too much of your time up here. Why don’t you go over the other night for us,” I said.

  I dug in my pocket and pulled out my notepad to jot down the specifics.

  “Well, my boyfriend was there with his friends watching basketball or something. He drank too much, so I went to pick him up around bar close. I pulled past the lot for the bar and there was no place to park, so I went over to the parking structure. I drove around and couldn’t find a spot on level one so I went up to level two. When I came around the corner, I saw a couple people lying on the ground with a guy leaning over them. My headlights shined on the guy and he looked over at me. I stopped my car right there. The guy grabbed the girl up from the ground and put her into a van. A few seconds later he peeled out leaving the guy lying there. I waited a minute or two and drove over. As soon as I saw all the blood, I called 9-1-1. I waited in my car until the cops came.”

  Her statement matched the one we had from last night to the letter. We needed to get the little details.

  “Now it says here that he was wearing coveralls and a mask, can you describe those a little for us?”

  “Well, the coveralls were white—head to toe with a hood.”

  “OK, white coveralls with a hood.” I wrote it down. “And a mask? Can you describe that?”