by Wolf Riedel
“Well that sounds kind of guilty doesn’t it?”
“Sure. Guy keeps separate phones for family shit and for gang bang shit.”
“Did you try to locate it?”
Whitlock gave her a give me a break look.
“Oh yeah. We asked TracFone to turn on the GPS remotely but that was a no go. We put the EMEI out to all the carriers but it’s not currently on any towers at all. My guess is this boy pulls the SIM and the battery except when he wants to use it.”
“That’s a bit high end for your average gang banger.”
“Guess we got more than an average gang banger here.”
Sage sat back and contemplated the information on the screens.
“Who’s Sandy?”
CHAPTER 57
W Spruce St., Tampa, Fl
Thursday 22 Mar 07 0920 hrs EDT
He’d slept in. Sandy was long gone for her morning classes. A walk past the girl’s room found it quiet. Tuffy presumed Sandy had already fed her breakfast. A check of the fridge showed another sandwich on a plate and a glass of milk already poured for her lunch. When this Cabello shit is done, so is she.
Tuffy contemplated making himself some eggs but in the end was too anxious to get on the road and scout out possible ambush positions. He’d stop in at Emanuel’s and pick up eggs and chorizo and a coffee. He’d grab a quick shower, skip the shave and head out.
She’d spelled Whitlock off for two hours and let him grab a few quick winks on a couch while she stayed on to monitor the phones. Nothing. She’d given him some extra time and at seven o’clock she’d awakened him and told him to let her sleep unless something came up. If by ten they still had nothing she’d arrange for someone else from Major Crimes to take over for the day while Whitlock and she would take off to get some real rest. They wouldn’t be able to keep up their current pace.
Sleep had come to her quickly.
“Sage!” A prod on her shoulder. “Sage!”
Sage felt a layer of numbness up her spine, neck and the back of her head. Dopey was too mild a word. Her only consciousness was of the fact that she was not all that conscious but slowly, bit by bit, her neurons seemed to come on line. She recognized the voice as Whitlock’s.
“I’m awake,” she said as she ran her tongue over her fuzzy teeth. “I’m awake,” she said again as if to convince herself of that fact. “What is it?”
“We got a lead,” said Whitlock.
Sage sat up instantly.
“Sis got a call from a friend of hers early this morning. Told her Sandy’s last name was Jones but she didn’t have a number nor an address for her.”
“Shit. Why didn’t you wake me?”
Whitlock gave her a pitying look.
“Firstly because you needed the sleep and secondly because there are a few of us around here besides you—myself included I might add—who actually have some detecting abilities.”
Sage frowned but took the hint.
“Okay then smart guy. What did you detect?”
Whitlock drew himself up a little.
“I detected that there are way too many Joneses in Tampa. Then I cross-checked the school records that we got and found that there were fourteen Joneses who at one time or another were at school the same time as our friend Tuffy. One of those, only one, was a Sandra Jones.”
“Please tell me you found an address,” she said.
“Because I’m a great detective, I found an address,” he said with a grin. “Address is on West Spruce Street and is tied to a George Jones who is listed as her father according to the school records. More importantly, there are current utilities on that house in George’s name including a land line.”
Sage stood up and unfurled her jacket which had been rolled up to provide her with a pillow.
“Let’s get a warrant,” she said. She looked at her watch. “Nine twenty-five. Should be lots of judges available by now.”
Whitlock beamed and held out several sheets of paper.
“Did I tell you that I’m a fucking brilliant detective? Duty judge said it’s about as shaky as it gets but signed it anyway. There’s a patrol on standby to go with us and Platt’s meeting us in the garage.”
“Gracias,” said Tuffy as he let the waitress take away his plate. The taqueria was just a small storefront with a handful of small tables in a strip mall but had good authentic food. He enjoyed coming here. Sandy was a so-so cook and generally was still learning how to deal with anything other than what she called American food. He doubted that however much she tried—and she hadn’t tried very hard yet—she’d never be able to match his mother’s cooking. In the meantime Emanuel’s would do just fine. He wanted to have another sip of coffee but what was left in the mug had gone cold. After a few seconds of contemplating getting a refill he decided to just get on the road and called for the check.
Tuffy wheeled out of the mall’s parking lot and turned south on MacDill Avenue. His aim was to get on the Dale Mabry Highway and head south to Gandy Boulevard and from there to follow Cabello’s route in detail. It would have been easier to have taken Columbus but it was tricky to make the turn to catch its westbound lanes so instead he’d head south on MacDill until he hit Spruce and take it across to Dale Mabry. Spruce had signal lights at the major intersections so he wouldn’t have to screw around with any left turns across four lanes of heavy traffic. Tuffy had learned to curb his cowboy driving style. Driving carefully, within the speed limit and obeying the rules of the road reduced the likelihood of being stopped by the police. Chances were high that if he was picked up on a traffic stop his car would be searched from stem to stern. Most of the time that wouldn’t matter these days but there would be the odd occasion where it would mean the end of him. Better to be careful all the time. Besides that, it had occurred to him during breakfast that while he’d remembered to take along his binoculars he’d forgotten to take the fishing pole that he was going to use as a prop while surveying the west half of the Gandy Bridge where it rested on a narrow peninsula of bushes and sandy banks. A quick stop at the house would take care of that oversight.
The weather was clear and sunny. A bit windy and cool—not quite seventy yet— but the promise was there that it would reach eighty this afternoon. In the background the car’s radio thumped out Alejandro Sanz and Shakira’s Te Lo Agradezco, Pero No.
After making the turn onto Spruce, Tuffy took a moment to contemplate the green lawns and spreading trees of MacFarlane Park. The park had been a great place to come and play as a kid. He’d always thought it funny that there were baseball diamonds and tennis courts but no soccer pitches. One would have thought that at some point, as the neighborhood became more and more latino, someone would have made soccer a priority. As it was they’d had to lay out a pitch on the lawn marking corners and goal posts with their jackets. There had been no end of arguments as to whether or not a shot on goal had been too wide or too high to score.
He came out of his reverie a few seconds later as he looked down Spruce to where Sandy’s house stood. There were cars parked at what from that angle looked to be in front of their house; the closest one of them bearing the unmistakable markings and light bar of the Tampa PD.
Tuffy had no choice at this point, already committed into the intersection he drove on through passing to the left of the cars at a sedate speed and casually glancing their way. Sure enough, the cruiser was parked so that it blocked the driveway. Two additional, but unmarked cars, were parked with their right wheels on the front lawn. A uniformed cop was moving down between the houses on the right, another was crossing the lawn toward the house’s left side. Three cops in suits—one woman, two men—stood to the side of the front door. Everyone had their hands on their still holstered guns.
Wordlessly, Tuffy continued past the house. That’s that, he thought.
Out of the corner of her eye, Sage noticed a car drive by. Her attention, however, was on the door where Platt had just announced themselves as police and had demanded entry. There had b
een no response.
“Probably easier to take the kitchen door in the back,” said Platt.
“Probably,” said Sage. “Besides I don’t want the front door broken. You hold here. Ben and I’ll go around.”
The path around the right side of the house was narrow—only three-feet wide—paved and blocked by a four-foot high, but unlocked, chain link gate. There were no windows on this side of the house. At the back, the uniform was standing with his left shoulder leaning against the corner of the wall and covering the back yard. He’d progressed to unholstering his side arm and holding it down his pant leg.
“Anything?” asked Sage.
“Nada.”
“We’re going in this way. Go help Platt cover the front.”
“Okay.”
Sage waved to the other uniform at the far back corner of the house. He waved back, acknowledging her presence.
Whitlock stepped out and ducked below the kitchen window as he made his way to the back door. Sage followed. The door was a glass over panel door with a cheap-ass lock.
“This is no sweat,” said Whitlock.
“Let’s get in there quickly. I want to clear the street as fast as we can and then set up surveillance for when he comes back.”
CHAPTER 58
Hillsborough Community College, Dale Mabry Campus, Florida
Thursday 22 Mar 07 1045 hrs EDT
It had taken Tuffy only a few minutes travelling through light city traffic to drive the mile and a half to Sandy’s school. His first thoughts, his first reaction after seeing the police at the house, was to find Sandy. He’d pulled into the big parking lot in front of the campus’s Technology building to gather his thoughts. He’d seen no signs or parking meters and wasn’t sure whether he needed a parking pass to park here or not but, after a few seconds, told himself the least of his problems right now would be to get a parking ticket.
He’d found her faculty building easily enough. As he drove onto the campus a very large, three-storey building directly before him had the word TECHNOLOGY affixed in large raised block letters just below its roof line. He realized that that was about all he knew as to what or where Sandy was studying. He knew it was health care and some of her textbooks generally reflected that topic but on reflection they had never discussed what exactly she was after. He’d assumed that maybe she wanted to be a nurse but quite frankly he wasn’t sure. After all this time and all that they had shared he was left with a deep feeling of disappointment in himself that he had never shown enough interest to find out what her ambitions were.
Tuffy shook his head and swore out loud. This wasn’t the time for introspection. It was time to find Sandy, warn her about what was going on and make a plan. He had a brief hope that perhaps the police would go away without finding the girl. If that happened they could go back to the house, get rid of her and face whatever else was going on. With the girl gone there would be no evidence of what he was involved in. He’d been that careful and the raza would look after him; Sandy would be able to continue her schooling. The hope was fleeting however. What were the chances that they wouldn’t go into the house? Pretty much none. Why were they there anyway? Much as he tried, he couldn’t find any link, any slip, which would lead the police to Sandy’s house. Not that there weren’t people who knew where he lived. The question was what was it that had the police searching him out in the first place.
Time to find Sandy.
It had taken him only a few minutes of walking the halls before he understood that he’d never find her on his own. His concern was that the police would find something at the house or elsewhere that would point to Sandy being at the college. He didn’t have time to screw around and went to the administrative offices where he identified himself and told them that he needed to speak to Sandy immediately about a family emergency. In a way that was the truth; they were family and this was definitely an emergency. The receptionist wouldn’t tell him where she was at but arranged to have her called down to the main office.
It had taken Sandy only a few minutes to come rushing in. He’d taken her hand and equally quickly had led her down the hall and into the bright sunny courtyard in front of the building just across from the parking lot. He looked around to make sure no one was within hearing.
“The cops are at our house,” he said.
She stopped dead in her tracks.
“I’d gone out for a breakfast and when I came back there were three cop cars there.”
“Did they see you?”
“I don’t think so. They were busy at the front door and I just drove past.”
Sandy walked a few steps over to a long planter containing bushes and a line of palm trees with a bench in front. She sat down and placed her backpack on the pavement.
“We’re fucked,” she said. Tuffy recognized that there was no intermediate phase holding out faint hope.
“Yeah. And we should get out of here in case they know that you go to school here.”
She nodded absently, picked her bag up again and rose. He led her to the car in silence and pulled out of the lot. Once in the car they were safe. There was no link between them and the car. The police wouldn’t be able to put a BOLO out for it.
Not quite randomly, he had started making his way north and then east to head for the I-275. He had no plan but figured that they needed to leave Tampa and maybe the state and the way to do that was to head north on the I-275 and then the I-75.
“We need some money,” she said. “I’ve only got a hundred. We’ll need some more and should get it before they close down our bank accounts or can trace us doing withdrawals. We won’t be able to use dad’s credit card either.”
“I’ll need a gun,” he said. “We’re probably gonna have to Bonnie and Clyde it for a while until we can get set up again.”
She nodded and they drove on in silence for a while.
“Do you blame me for this?” she asked at last. “If it wasn’t for Amber we probably wouldn’t be in this shit.”
“Nah,” he said. “I could have stopped it, I guess. Thing is I loved you too much to do that.” He paused and gave it some thought. “It was important to you that she stay alive so it became important to me too.” He knew now that this was the truth. He’d had the choice and deep down he knew that he’d chosen Sandy despite the risk he knew they were running.
Their route had taken them past a Walmart Supercenter. Tuffy took the next left turn lane and executed a legal u-turn to go back to it.
“We need some stuff and there’s a bank there too,” he said. “I need a cell phone or two. I’ve got to call Meraz.”
“Meraz?”
“I’ve got to tell him what’s going on.”
“Why? They’ll just try to come after you.”
“They will for sure if I don’t give him a head’s up. What I’ll tell him is that we’ve got to leave the state and that I’ll get in touch from time to time. I’ll offer to keep working for him on contract. They might like that, having an outside guy to come in when they need it.”
“I wouldn’t trust him,” she said.
“Yeah. I’d agree to that but what else am I gonna do?”
“As long as you don’t go to see him or tell him where we are then I guess there’s no harm in it. But we really need to step back from this whole thing and think it through. Hell! We might even want to see if we can go into witness protection or something.”
Tuffy pulled into a parking space close to the bank. Sandy was deep in thought.
“Well maybe not that. Like I said; we need to step back and really think it through. Maybe we’re not as badly fucked as I first thought.”
“Oh no,” he said. “We’re fucked all right. We just need to figure out how to unfuck ourselves.”
— § —
EPILOGUE
— § —
Gulf Blvd., Redington Beach, Florida
Saturday 24 Mar 07 hrs 1730 hrs EDT
Phil and Marie were floating leisurely in the pool overlookin
g the surf. Foot traffic on the beach had been light; the usual cast of characters of joggers and treasure hunters with their metal detectors and the occasional wandering tourist. The temperature still hovered above eighty but as the sun was only two hours away from setting over the Gulf it had lost its intensity.
“There’s Kurt,” said Marie pointing her chin to the sliding glass doors that had been opened wide to expose the entire lower level kitchen and great room to the outside living area.
Kurt strode over to the pool wearing a short-sleeved cotton shirt, shorts and sandals.
“Grab yourself a drink,” said Phil. “There`s ice and gin and tonic on the table.”
“Gee and Tee?” asked Kurt. “When did you turn Brit? Next thing you’ll be having Pimm’s Number 1 Cup.”
“It’s a Marie thing. She said with summer coming we should try it out so she’s got us on a strict gin diet.”
“Marie?” Kurt gave a laugh. “I thought French Canadians were genetically incapable of consuming English food stuffs.”
“It’s not a genetic thing,” she replied tartly. “It’s a conscious choice to refuse inferior food. Unfortunately there is no good French substitute for gin and tonic. Raspberry Chambord with soda just doesn’t cut it for me.”
Kurt poured himself a drink, kicked off his sandals and sat on the edge of the pool paddling his feet in the warm water.
“So? How was your day?” inquired Phil.
Kurt had returned from Afghanistan late on Friday severely jet lagged but had nonetheless spent the better part of Saturday meeting with CID and the Tampa cops.