Determinant Page 10

  I cracked my neck, fluffed a couch pillow behind my head and, once again, tried to relax.

  Chapter 18

  Four thirty in the morning. Ray received the address from Scott in person just a half hour prior. They met at a park and ride north of the city on I-75. The meeting was short.

  The Bentley sat parked one block over from the address Scott provided. Ray cut through the neighboring yard and stared at the back of Callie’s house. No light came through the windows on either floor. He walked to the window that looked into the garage toward the front of the house. The BMW was parked inside—no other cars. Ray went back the way he came. She was home. He cupped his hands around his face to look into the side window. Ray saw a single light left on over the sink. The television was off. She had to be in bed.

  Ray went to the glass sliding door leading into Callie’s kitchen. From experience, Ray knew these kind of door locks were a joke. Ray took off his gloves and placed his palms against the glass. He applied pressure up and pulled to the side. The door came free of the lock. He slid it open without making a sound. He used his shirt to wipe away the finger prints and re-gloved his hands. It was almost too easy. He stepped into the kitchen.

  He remained still and listened—silence. No movement from anywhere. His entry went unnoticed. He walked the lower level. The layout consisted of a kitchen, dining room, living room and walk through den. There were no bedrooms on the first floor. He climbed the carpeted steps. A hall shot to his right at the top of the stairs. Three doors stood to his left and a single closed door sat in front of him at the end of the hall. Ray took a few steps. He spotted a desk in one of the rooms to his side. A bathroom and a guest bedroom came into view beyond that. The master was the one at the end of the hall.

  No light came from under the closed door. He took out the Desert Eagle from his holster. Ray walked to the door and twisted the handle. The door opened. A creak from the hinges broke the silence. Ray threw the door open and swatted at the wall for a light switch. The lights came on. A bed and dressers sat before him. The bed was empty. Ray stepped into the room. He held the gun ready. Around the corner was a short hall with two walk in closets to the sides—beyond that, the master bathroom. The door was closed. Light came from underneath. Ray took two large steps toward the door and kicked it in. The door frame exploded in splinters. The door itself flew open and lodged itself into a wall. A scream came from inside. Ray walked over the broken wood.

  Callie had her back to the wall—a cell phone in her hand.

  “Drop it.” Ray motioned with the gun.

  Callie obeyed. “Don’t hurt me. I’m pregnant.”

  “Where’s the case?”

  “I don’t have it.”

  “Don’t lie to me.” Ray took a step toward her. “Where is it?”

  Ray looked at the phone on the ground. The screen was lit. He snatched it from the floor. The cell phone’s call timer ran. The person she was calling read: LT. Kane.

  “Viktor Azarov! Viktor Azarov!” Callie shouted.

  Ray back handed her. The impact sent Callie to the floor. Ray hit buttons on the phone until it hung up. He flipped it around and pulled the battery.

  “Looks like you’re coming with me.”

  Ray grabbed her by the arm and pulled her from the floor.

  “You make a sound on the way to the car and you’ll regret it.”

  Blood trickled from Callie’s lip. “Where are you taking me?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  Ray pulled her through the house and out the patio doors in back. He stopped and put the gun to her head as soon as they were outside. “One noise and you’re done.”

  He holstered his pistol and pulled her through the neighbor’s yard to the Bentley on the street. He popped the trunk. Callie looked inside. A man stared back at her. He didn’t blink. He was dead. Callie tried letting out a scream but was cut short by Ray’s massive hand over her mouth. He wrapped his other around her throat and gave it a squeeze.

  He talked into the back of her head. “Inside without a sound or you’ll end up the same way.” Ray pushed her in and slammed the lid.

  He headed for the rented mansion. He dialed Viktor.

  Viktor answered. His voice was groggy from being waken. “Yes?”

  Ray switched hands with the phone. “I have her.”

  “What do you mean you have her? Why?”

  “She made a call. I had to get her out of the house.”

  “A call? To who?”

  “I’m not sure. I wasn’t going to wait around to find out.”

  “You let her call someone? Tell me Andrei, are you capable of doing anything right?”

  “She was holed up in the upstairs bathroom. She must have heard me come into the house and called someone for help. I couldn’t stop her.”

  “This is unacceptable. Do you want me to go to prison? Do you want to go to prison? Is that what you want?”

  “No Viktor.”

  “Then what the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Nothing is wrong with me. Look I have her. I’ll get the location of the case out of her one way or another.”

  “No. You’re done. I’m coming up there. Lock her up. I’ll be there tomorrow.”

  “I can handle it, Viktor.”

  “Did I not just say that you’re done? I’ll handle this myself. I should have from the start.”

  “Viktor…”

  “Enough. I don’t want to hear it. Go back to the house and stay inside. I’ll be there tomorrow. Lock her up. Don’t touch her. Don’t question her. You know what? Don’t even talk to her.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I’m serious. Leave her alone. If I get there and she’s beat up…”

  Ray cut off his brother’s threat. “I won’t touch her.”

  “I’ll call you and let you know when you can pick me up.” Viktor hung up.

  Faint screams and thumping came from the trunk of the car on the ride back. The Bentley’s build quality canceled out most of Callie’s noise. Ray kicked on the radio to overpower out the rest. He drove back through the mansion’s gates a few minutes after 5:30 a.m. Ray pulled into the garage and got out. He opened the trunk. Callie sprang from within. She kicked, yelled and clawed in an attempt to get away. Ray squeezed her small frame against his chest. She could scream all she wanted. It wouldn’t matter here. There were no neighbors within earshot. He left Scott’s body inside the car. He wouldn’t be going anywhere.

  Ray carried a flailing Callie into the house. She threw her arms. Callie kicked her legs. She bit. Ray tossed her to the floor in the wine room and closed the wrought iron door. He locked it from the outside. It would be her personal prison cell until Viktor arrived.

  Chapter 19

  I woke up on the couch. Butch licked at my eyebrow. His sandpaper tongue pulled it up and down. Light peeked through my eyelid. I panicked and sprang to my feet. The feeling of being late for work took over in an instant. I had turned my phone off, with it, my alarm.

  I caught the time and let out a breath in relief. The clock read a few minutes before seven thirty. I was only running a little behind. I walked to the kitchen. Butch leapt from the back of the couch and followed along.

  “Good cat, Butch.”

  He meowed and wove in between my feet as I opened the pantry for his bag of food.

  “Furry little alarm clock.” I patted him on the head and filled his dish. He buried his face in it.

  I sprinkled a few treats on top.

  “I knew you were good for something.”

  He meowed with a mouthful of food in response.

  It concluded our morning conversation. I showered and threw on some pants and a shirt. I draped my shoulder holster over me. From the safe I took my service weapon and badge. I pulled on a suit jacket. With my phone from the living room and my keys from the counter, I left the condo. I didn’t have time to make coffee. I’d be forced to try my luck at the station.

  A couple minutes after eig
ht, I walked in and sat at my desk. I powered on my phone. The voicemail light flashed. I clicked the button and held it to my ear. The robotic voice of my voicemail spoke to me: You have seventeen new messages.

  I contemplated hitting the button to delete all of them, but just hung up. The messages could wait. I didn’t have the energy to weed through seventeen messages from my ex-wife at the moment. I walked to my inbox at the front of the station. The file from the scene last night was left by Jones and Donner. Beneath it sat the no longer needed search warrant for the same property. I tossed the folder under my arm and made for the lunch room. A large out of order sign hung on the coffee machine. I looked to the counter next to it. Someone had a single serve machine and a basket of single serve coffees. I made myself a double and, to my surprise, found some creamer that wasn’t expired in the lunch room’s refrigerator. My morning was looking up.

  Coffee in hand, I walked back to my office. I sat and opened the file. I breezed through it. We had an official statement from Jimmy. It seemed he had a change of heart when he got back to the station. He confirmed what Marques said about Mister Hill admitting the killing of Reggie Robinson. Marques revealed where the murder weapon was before he left the scene. A knock came from the other side of my door. I flipped the file closed.

  “Come in!”

  The door opened. The captain stood in the doorway. He held a stack of photos.

  “What’s up, Cap?”

  “I caught up with Jones and Donner before they left this morning. They told me about last night.”

  “Robinson boys decided to take it upon themselves. The warrant was in my inbox this morning. We could have been linking up Tom Hill right now.”

  The captain shook his head. “What a waste. So that case is getting put to bed?”

  “Marques said Tom Hill confessed to Reggie Robinson’s murder. Jimmy, Hill’s grandson, confirmed that he said it. We have Charles and Marques in custody. Guess I’ll see them at trial.”

  Bostok walked in and took a seat. “Here’s something interesting.” He slapped the photos against his hand.

  “What’s that?”

  “Murphy cleaned up that footage you got from the restaurant. We got a few stills and close-ups.”

  He stretched out his arm with a photo. “Check out this one.”

  I took it from his hand. It was a close-up of the gun from above.

  “Desert Eagle. Barrel gives it away. It explains the carnage in the freezer. Did Rick or Pax get any ballistics reports yet?”

  “Still looking at it last I heard. Forget about the gun for a second. Look at his wrist.”

  I pulled the photo closer to my eyes. Between the sleeve of his sweatshirt and glove was red and green.

  “Now look at this one.” The captain handed me another photo.

  It was where he had Bryan Benson by the throat outside the freezer. You could see his other wrist. It also had tattoos, plus a shiny watch. I looked at the guy’s size compared to the other two men. “You think this is the same guy as the girl in the Bay?”

  “Or there’s an overabundance of giant guys with tattoo sleeves killing people. You didn’t get anything from Patrol on the sketch?” the captain asked.

  I shook my head. “Nothing.”

  “Find this guy. Number one priority.”

  “Did you get these photos and the sketch to the press?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I’ll do it. See what turns up,” I said.

  The captain nodded and left me to my work.

  I took a sip of coffee. I sat the sketch that had been sitting on my desk next to the photos the captain left. The pantyhose over his face made it impossible to see if there was a resemblance. I couldn’t tell if he had longer hair, but the description of his size and tattoos were the same on both cases. If this guy was still in the area, he had to be getting from point A to point B. If we splashed his sketch and description across every paper and television, someone should notice him.

  While the public could help, I wasn’t in the business of letting the taxpayers do my job for me. I had the beginnings of a plan. I needed to bounce it off Hank. It was just before 9:00 a.m. He should have been at his desk. I called it. He answered within a ring.

  “Rawlings.”

  “Hank, come to my office, I want to run something by you.”

  “No sweat.”

  He hung up.

  My cell phone buzzed and danced across the top of my desk. I scooped it up. It was my sister Melissa.

  “Hey Mel, what’s up?”

  “Carl, you should talk to Samantha.”

  “And you shouldn’t talk to her about me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I just wonder why you feel it necessary to talk to my ex-wife about my current girlfriend.”

  “She wanted to know about her. I didn’t say anything bad. I just said she was younger.”

  “Whatever, Mel. Is there something I can help you with? I’m at work.”

  “Just listen to me for a second, Carl.”

  I let out a deep breath. My ex-wife getting my sister to plead for her annoyed me to say the least.

  “She loves you.”

  “I loved her when she decided to cheat on me.”

  “People make mistakes.”

  “Forgetting to put on deodorant is a mistake. Committing adultery is not. I don’t want to talk about it. How is Tommy?”

  “He’s fine. He’d like it better if his aunt and uncle were back together.”

  “She’s not his aunt.” Hank walked into my office and took a seat on the couch. I gave him the signal that I’d just be a second. “Look Mel, I have to go.”

  “Call me back.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m serious, call me back.”

  “Fine, I will.”

  I hung up and shook my head.

  Hank pointed to the phone. “Let me guess. Sister?”

  “Correct.”

  He leaned back. “You had a busy night, hey? What the hell time did you go home?”

  “I left the scene around nine.”

  “Are both Robinson boys in lockup?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I tried calling you last night around ten. It went straight to voicemail.”

  “I turned my phone off. The station has my house number if they needed to reach me.”

  “Why did you turn your phone off?”

  “Samantha.”

  “What did she want?”

  I rubbed at my eyes. Unless I told Hank what she wanted he wouldn’t leave it alone. “She told me she was getting a divorce and wanted to get back together.”

  He flipped his leg onto his knee. “And you said?”

  “Not a chance. After that she wanted to try to argue with me about it. I didn’t have any interest in arguing with her so I turned off my phone. She doesn’t know my house number.”

  “Whoa. So you had your new girlfriend tell you she loved you, followed by the fact that she was pregnant. And after all that, your ex-wife tells you she’s getting a divorce and wants to get back together?”

  “That is correct. With a few homicides sprinkled in.”

  “Sounds fun. You listen to my message.”

  “No. I’m sure it’s sandwiched in between the ones from Sam.”

  “You need to listen to it. I slipped a few good zingers in there. So what did you want to run past me?”

  “Check this out.” I grabbed the photos from the restaurant.

  Hank got up, walked over and sat across from me.

  “What am I looking at? Oh, this is from the restaurant?”

  I pointed out the tattoos. “That might be the same guy we’re looking for on the other case.”

  Hank scrunched his face. “You think that’s the same guy?”

  “Well, we either need to find one or two guys that match the same description.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Well, we know where he was on two dates at two locations. If we cou
ld get video and put the same vehicle at both spots, we’d have what he was driving. If we got a plate, it would lead us to a name and address.”

  “That’s going to require some manpower. Where do you want to start?”

  “The last place where Jenny Cartwright was seen—Frank’s. We’ll start there and try to find anything we can from neighboring businesses.”

  Hank nodded. “We already looked for video around there though.”

  “We’ll go further in each direction. Cap says whatever it takes. After Frank’s, we’ll start with everything around Tamboro’s. I’ll deal with getting the guys. You want to go take these photos and drop them by Sam? Have him get something together to distribute these images to the press. I’m going to call over to Timmons and see if he can lend us some unis to give us a hand. Meet me back here and we’ll head out.”

  “Alright.” Hank picked up the photos and left.

  I dialed Timmons. He gave me four officers until their shifts ended at 3:00 p.m. It would be enough time to get the ball rolling. I sat behind my desk and waited for Hank to come back. I figured I’d weed through Samantha’s messages. My cell phone in hand, I clicked the button to go to my voicemail. The first message played. Sam yelled about me hanging up on her. I hit delete. The next message was her apologizing for yelling. I hit delete. I listened to bits and pieces of the next few. They were her begging to talk. They all got deleted. The next message started. I heard a high pitched voice asking if I could change their diaper. It was Hank. He went on for a few minutes. I shook my head, smiled and deleted it. More messages from Sam followed. They were all erased. I got to the last message and was about to hit delete. I stopped with my finger on the button. It wasn’t Sam. It was a woman whispering. I looked at my phone. The message came from Callie at 4:41 a.m. I turned the volume as high as it would go.

  Callie screamed.

  “Drop it,” A man’s voice said. He had an accent.

  “Don’t hurt me I’m pregnant.” It was Callie.

  “Where’s the case?” the man asked.

  “I don’t have it.”

  “Don’t lie to me. Where is it?”