Текст книги "Detective Jason Strong: The Early Cases"

Автор книги: John C. Dalglish

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

 

Chapter  6

 

Chelsea Morris took a quick look at the clock. 15 minutes more and her shift was over. She grabbed the coffee pot for the hundredth time today and went over to Mr. Perkins. Ever since Chelsea started at Daylight Donuts, the elderly man had sat in her station. In all that time, he’d never ordered food. Just coffee, black and hot, half a cup at a time.

“Here you go, Mr. Perkins.”

“Just half a cup.”

Chelsea smiled and obediently stopped at the half way point in is cup. They played out this dance all the time.

“You want a donut?”

“No thank you, young lady. I think I’ll just have coffee today.”

Mr. Perkins had lost his wife ten years ago. He had told Chelsea about his beloved ‘Dolly’ many times and Chelsea always listened patiently. She didn’t know how old Mr. Perkins was but she guessed him in his seventies. Talking to people of his generation was easy for Chelsea. As the last of seven kids, her parents were already in their late forties when she came along.

Sitting next to Mr. Perkins was a young man drinking a mocha latte. He hadn’t said two words except to order and now he got up with his coffee and headed for the door. Sitting under the salt shaker was a twenty dollar bill.

Chelsea picked up the tip and called after the man.

“Thank You!”

He turned and smiled at her before leaving.

She turned back to Mr. Perkins.

“Mr. Perkins, my shift is getting ready to end. I’ll see you on Wednesday.”

“Very well. I was just thinking of leaving myself.”

Chelsea smiled at him, patted his hand and went into the back room. Her friend Trudi, was just coming in.

“Hey, Trudi. How ya doin’?”

“Good. How’s my BFF?”

“I’m off for two days, which means I am awesome!”

“Don’t rub it in.”

Chelsea punched out and left before her boss could ask her to do any last minute chores. She’d just finished her sixth straight day and her feet were killing her.

She went out the back door and walked across the gravel parking lot towards her Chevy Cavalier. It was red, was being the key word. It now carried an aged rusty brown color over most of its body, but it never left her stranded, so she hung on to it.

She threw her apron across the front seat and climbed in. The familiar scent of coconut filled her senses as the tiny surfboard dangling from the mirror gave off its aroma. She had spent a few years in California after a traumatic event in her teen years when her parents had sent her to live with an aunt in Long Beach. It was there she had caught the surfing bug and got married. Neither of which lasted very long. Still, it was an exciting time, and the smell of coconut reminded her of those days.

She pulled her seat belt across her tiny shoulders and snagged some of her jet black hair. At just five foot, everything seemed just a little too big, including her seat belt, which didn’t fit comfortably. She untangled her hair and snapped the belt.

Something moved in her rear-view mirror and before she could react, a gun was pushed against the back of her head.

“Start the car.”

She started to cry but did as she was told.

“Now drive.”

“Where?”

“Turn right out of the lot and go north.”

“Why? What do you want from me?”

“No questions, just drive.”

She drove until they got to Huebner road.

“Turn right.”

Chelsea did and after less than a mile, he instructed her to turn left into a cement plant. The yard was huge and she didn’t see anyone around. After directing her to the back, the man had her pull up along an old van.

“Stop here.”

The gun had left her head while they drove but Chelsea could feel it pushing into her back through the seat. Now it returned to her head.

“Get out.”

Chelsea did as she was told; sliding out of the front seat at the same time he slid out of the back, the gun trained on her the whole time.

“Put your hands behind your back.”

“Please don’t hurt me. I don’t have much money, just today’s tips, but you can have them.”

She had stopped crying but her voice was still trembled.

“I said put your hands behind you!”

She did and felt handcuffs click onto both wrists, quickly followed by a hood pulled over her head. Panic filled her and she started to cry again. Her captor steered her forward until she heard a sliding door open. It sounded like the side door on the van.

“Lie down.”

Chelsea fell forward onto some carpet that smelled of oil and grease. She rolled on her side in an effort to be more comfortable and to try and look out under the hood. She couldn’t see a thing and when he slid the door shut, she felt cut off from civilization, alone in the world. Isolated in a world filled with fear.

She heard a door open and close.

“Don’t move, don’t say a word. I won’t hesitate to kill you if you aren’t doing exactly what I say.”

Chelsea lay on her side as the van started and they began to move. She began to quietly pray in between her sobs.

****

The ex-wife of Ed Garland lived on the opposite side of the city and it took Jason and Nina almost an hour to get there.

Rita Garland’s address was a second floor apartment on a quiet street in East San Antonio. She opened the door but didn’t invite the detectives in. She was tall and skinny with bleach blonde hair. A down-turned mouth gave her a seemingly permanent sad face. Jason tried to see into the apartment while he talked.

“Mrs. Garland?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Detective Strong and this is Detective Jefferson. We’re here about your husband.”

“My husband and I are divorced. I’m not sure how I can help.”

“You told the officer you spoke with that you weren’t surprised to learn your ex-husband is missing. Can I ask why?”

She seemed unsure how to answer and finally she pushed the door open all the way.

“You might as well come in. No sense in you standing out in the heat.”

The two detectives followed Rita Garland into the small living room and, as Nina shut the door behind them, the room went dark. After letting their eyes adjust, Jason took a seat on the couch while Nina stayed standing by the door. She had her notepad out.

Opposite the couch was a recliner which Rita Garland settled into with grunt. There was a half empty glass of a caramel colored liquid on the side table. Jason figured scotch.

“Would you like a drink?”

Both Jason and Nina shook their heads.

“No, thank you.”

Rita took a sip of her drink and looked at Jason over the top of her glass.

“Detective…Strong, did you say?”

“Yes, maam.”

“My ex-husband is a troubled man. A fact I wasn’t aware of when we got married.”

“Troubled how?”

“Emotionally, mentally. Not crazy or anything like that. It’s just that there seemed to always be something at the edges of his consciousness, tempering his enjoyment of life. Depressed, I guess.”

“Is he on any anti-depressants?”

“Not that I’m aware of. He’s troubled because of something that happened before I met him.”

“Did he say what?”

“His best friend committed suicide. Ed never told me the whole story, but he did tell me he was there when it happened and he felt responsible.”

“Why?”

“Don’t know. I guess Ed thought he should have stopped him but he never told me for sure.”

“Do you know when this happened?”

Rita shook her head.

“Just that Ed was a teenager. About ten or twelve years ago, I figure.”

Nina spoke up.

“Do you know how the friend died?”

“Shot himself.”

“And you mentioned you didn’t know before your marriage, are you suggesting that the friend’s suicide was responsible for your divorce?”

“Oh, I’m not suggesting, I’m saying. Look, there’s a lot of things that go into a failed marriage but that particular cloud never seemed to lift. It was like he felt he didn’t deserve anything good to happen to him.”

“Do you have any idea where he might have gone?”

“Not a clue. Like I said, we don’t talk much, but he was a home-body. I can’t imagine anywhere he would want to take off to.”

Her words were getting more slurred and the glass was empty. The two detectives got up to leave.

“Mrs. Garland, thank you for your time. We won’t trouble you any longer.”

Rita Garland got up as well, but not to see them to the door. She walked over to a cabinet and took out a bottle. She was pouring a refill as Nina and Jason let themselves out.

 

Chapter  7

 

Donnie stopped behind the house and turned off the van. Getting out and sliding the side door open, he forced Chelsea to sit up and get out of the van.

She had stopped sobbing on the way to the farm and Donnie was relieved, he never liked hearing girls cry. He steered her up the back steps and into the house.

“Where are we? Where are you taking me?!”

“Where we are isn’t important.”

Donnie opened the door to the basement and removed the hood. He watched as she blinked repeatedly, trying adjust to the light.

“We’re going down some steps. Just take your time and I won’t let you fall.”

Her hands still cuffed behind her, the girl didn’t speak as she focused on taking one step at a time. Donnie held the gun to her back. When they made it to the bottom, he motioned towards the open door of the second cell and watched as the girls eyes grew wide with horror.

****

Chelsea tried to keep it together. It was all so unreal, being taken, walked down into this man’s basement and now he was motioning her towards a small door. When she didn’t move, he pushed her from behind with the butt of the gun and she stumbled into a small room. There was some sort of a blanket on the floor that had some chain coiled on it. Her blood ran cold and she spun around to face him, trying to get back out of the cell.

“Please don’t do this! Please let me go.”

He blocked her way.

“Sit down on the blanket.”

“No, please no.”

“NOW!”

She collapsed on the blanket. Her captor took the chain and wrapped it twice around her leg tightly. He ran a padlock through the end link and the one of links leading to the wall. It snapped shut and after testing it, he took her cuffs off.

Chelsea rubbed her wrists and tried not to cry as the door shut. She heard another padlock snap shut and then footsteps going upstairs. Everything went quiet.

Chelsea had to let her eyes adjust again, this time to darkness and realized she could hear breathing.

“Hello? Is someone there?”

“Hi.”

The voice startled her, she hadn’t even considered that someone else might be down there, and her heart pounded. She wasn’t alone.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Ed. You?”

“Chelsea.”

There was a brief moment of silence before he spoke again.

“What’s your last name?”

“Morris.”

“Oh.”

Chelsea scooted as close to the wall where the voice came from as she could manage.

“How long have you been here?”

“Two days, I think.”

“Why are we here? Do you know?”

“I asked him. He just said I would know soon enough.”

Chelsea heard the man scoot closer to the wall, his chain dragging on the floor, before he spoke.

“Do you know who he is?”

“Not a clue. I don’t remember ever seeing him before. Do you know him?”

The man on the other side of the wall sounded tired.

“No. I don’t know him either.”

The room returned to quiet. She scooted back to her blanket and tried to look for a weakness in the walls of the room. Everything looked solid. She tested the chain. She wasn’t going anywhere.

She resumed the praying she had started in the van.

****

Trudi had an uneasy feeling. It wasn’t like Chelsea to be late and her friend hadn’t answered her calls in two days.

Sitting at the counter was Mr. Perkins. He had asked, about every ten minutes, when Chelsea would be in.

“Miss Trudi, have you heard from Miss Chelsea?”

“Not yet, Mr. Perkins. I’m sure she’ll be along any time now. Do you need a refill?”

“Please, just a half cup.”

Trudi knew the drill just as well as Chelsea but for Mr. Perkins, only his favorite really made him happy. And truth was she wasn’t sure her friend would be along any minute. Something wasn’t right. She tried calling again.

“This is Chelsea; you know what to do….”

Trudi hung up. Her shift ended in a half hour and she had decided to go over to her friend’s house if she hadn’t shown up by then.

The manager, Mr. Chambers, came out of the back and signaled Trudi over.

“Where’s Chelsea? She’s over an hour late.”

“I don’t know, boss. I’m going over to her house after work. I’ll call and let you know what I find.”

“A ‘No call, No show’ is supposed to be instant termination. I don’t want to do that to one of my best girls. She better have a good reason.”

“I’m sure she does. I’ll have her call you when I get over there. I’m going right after my shift.”

****

Trudi got to her friend’s house around noon. Chelsea’s vehicle wasn’t there and mail was sticking out of the mailbox.

Trudi parked on the driveway and entered through the side door to the garage. When she got to the utility room door, she found it locked.

Chelsea had shown her where the spare key was and she opened the door to find the house dark. Something felt very wrong.

“Chelsea?!”

There was no answer, no sound at all. Mugsy, Chelsea’s cat, came around the corner.

“Hi, Mugsy.” She reached down and scratched him on the head. “Chelsea?!”

She stuck her head in the door, looking towards the kitchen. Nothing. She went in and walked through the house. The litter box in the kitchen was full and hadn’t been cleaned in days. The cat’s water was empty.

“Chelsea?!”

Convinced her friend wasn’t there; she took out her phone and called 911.

****

Jason and Nina had started first thing in the morning on the task of finding out everything they could on Ed Garland. They went to where he worked and to the golf club where he was to meet Jerry Baker. No one had seen the missing man.

Nina had managed to get a check on his debit card and credit card activity. Neither had been used in three days.

They arrived back at the station around 3:30 in the afternoon. Jason had one stop he wanted to make before briefing Lieutenant Banks.

“I’m going to see Doc Josie.”

Nina didn’t want to face Sarah Banks alone.

“Mind if I tag along?”

“Fine with me.”

“They took the stairs down to the basement and went through the double glass doors leading into the forensic department.

Affectionately called ‘Doc Josie’, Dr. Jocelyn Carter, is the head of the Forensic Science Department. Short with curly, brown hair and black wire framed glasses around blue eyes, she looked like the classic college professor. Some might describe her as ‘frumpy’ but she was brilliant. The detectives found her sitting at her desk.

“Josie. How we doin’?”

“Jason. What a nice surprise.”

“You’ve met Nina Jefferson?”

“Yes, of course. Hi, Nina.”

Nina gave Josie a smile as Jason sat down in one of the two chairs facing Doc Josie’s desk.

“So Josie, what did your crew find at the Garland house?”

“Not much. There were prints on the ledge and a door knob, neither of which belonged to Mr. Garland. We ran them through the AFIS fingerprint system but no luck. Evidently, the person who left the prints doesn’t have a record.”

Jason figured the fingerprint data base would be useless. He knew most people who didn’t conceal their prints did so because they knew there was no record of them.

“What about the shoe print?”

“Size 9 running shoe. Nike but not rare enough to be much help except as a match to another print.”

“Okay. Well, not much to go on. Thanks.”

“No problem. Always glad to see you.”

****

Jason and Nina found Lieutenant Banks sitting in her office. Nina wrapped on the door frame before entering. The lieutenant looked up and then back at her paperwork.

“What’s up?”

Nina stayed by the door and Jason had to slip past her to speak to the lieutenant. He gave Nina a knowing smile.

Afraid to go in the lion’s den, huh?

Jason pulled up a chair.

“Just wanted to give you an update on the Garland case.”

“Okay, shoot.”

Jason gave her what they knew so far and how they had subpoenaed the phone records. When he was done, she looked up from her paperwork, and crossed her arms.

“Not much. Any ideas besides the phone records?”

Before Jason could answer, the phone rang. Sarah Banks pushed the speaker button.

“Banks.”

“Lieutenant, this is Doc Josie.”

“Yeah, Doc. What’s up?”

“The car we recovered this afternoon from the missing Morris woman, it’s got prints that don’t belong to her.”

“Got an ID?”

“Sort of.”

“Can you be more specific, Doctor?”

“Sure. By the way, do you know where Detective Strong is?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. He’s sitting here listening to our conversation.”

“Oh. Hey, Jason.”

Jason let out a small laugh.

“Hi, Doc.”

“Well, to answer the question about ID on the prints, I don’t have a name but I do have a match. It’s the same ones we pulled from Ed Garland’s duplex.”

Lieutenant Banks sat up and grabbed a file on her desk, sliding it across to Jason.

“I just passed the file to Strong. It would appear the cases are connected. Did you find anything else in the car?”

“Not so far.”

“Okay, Doc. Thanks for the update. I’m assigning the Morris girl to Strong and Jefferson, so keep them in the loop.”

The lieutenant hit the disconnect button without waiting for a reply.

“Alright, you two better review the Morris file and see if it gives you any direction on Garland. It appears the two cases are connected.”

Jason got up and headed for the door.

“Yes, Maam.”

It seemed they would be working the missing persons cases awhile longer.

 

Chapter  8

 

Big thunder clouds to the west darkened the sky and a spitting rain had started as Donnie parked and got out. He was now half way through the capturing phase of Billy’s plan and he wanted to keep his brother up to speed on how they were doing.

“Hi, Billy. Good news. We’re half way. Chelsea is in her cell.”

Donnie listened intently before starting to pace back and forth in front of the grave.

“I’m doing this as fast as I can, Billy. It’s not easy and you’re not here to help.”

Donnie quit pacing and stared down at his brother.

“I gotta go. I’ll be back when I have more news.”

Donnie turned and walked off. The rain picked up as he got in the van and he sat looking out the window as a full downpour began.

Hurry up, he says. He doesn’t seem to appreciate what I’ve accomplished. Haven’t I done everything he’s asked? I’ve had to do all the work and I’ve done a good job. He doesn’t seem to know how hard all of this is!

Donnie started the van and turned on the wipers. The weather it seemed was in the same bad mood he was.

****

Jason sat at his desk going over the file they received from Lieutenant Banks.

Chelsea Morris, previously Chelsea Burt, was a waitress at Daylight Donuts in the center of the city. She lived in a house owned by her parents and had returned to San Antonio from California several years ago. The responding officer had done a good job with his report.

Jason looked out the window at the rain. Summer rain was rare and the downpour was a welcome sight. Nina was checking the missing girls name for priors.

“No record. Driver’s license clean except for a speeding several years ago.”

“Okay. The file says Miss Morris was reported missing by a friend at work. We need to go see her.”

“Okay. I’m putting in a request for Chelsea Morris’ phone records. That will give us two sets to compare. Should have them in the morning.”

Lieutenant Patton got off the elevator and stopped at Jason’s desk on the way to his office.

“How’s it going with the missing person case?”

Jason leaned back in his chair and looked up at the lieutenant.

“It’s now a missing person’s case.”

“Really? More than one?”

“Yeah. Two cases connected by a set of prints. We may be awhile getting free from the clutches of Lieutenant Banks.”

John Patton smiled.

“Okay. You make it sound like she’s a spider whose got you in her web.”

Nina snorted.

“That’s an excellent description.”

The lieutenant looked at Nina and back at Jason.

“Don’t be mistaken. She’s very good, kind of abrupt I know, but good.”

“Yes, Sir.”

The two detectives exchanged glances as Lieutenant Patton went to his office. Jason had noticed some admiration in his boss’s voice.

“Apparently, he’s familiar with her. I think he’s impressed by her.”

Nina laughed.

“Yeah or afraid of her!”

It was Jason’s turn to laugh but he knew better. John Patton wasn’t afraid of anybody.

****

Chelsea Morris sat on the blanket in her cell listening to the rain. She still hadn’t been able to sleep but she was getting hungry. She heard footsteps coming down the stairs and her heart started to pound.

“Is that footsteps?”

It was Ed. He hadn’t said anything in hours.

“Yes.”

The steps got closer and her captor’s face peered through the bars. He unlocked her door, came in and set a tray down on the floor. Chelsea was trying to be strong, to not give this man any satisfaction from keeping her, but she couldn’t keep herself from pleading.

“Please…please let me go. I won’t say anything. I don’t even know where we are.”

“Sorry. Can’t.”

“Why? Why can’t you?”

“Look, just shut-up and eat your food!”

He left the cell and locked it. Chelsea started to cry again, and lunged towards the door but her chain stopped her. She spotted the food and hunger took over. She devoured the bar and drank the shake in one gulp while the man gave food to Ed.

Within minutes the man had returned upstairs and the eerie silence had fallen over her again. She curled up on her blanket, making herself as small as possible. She wanted to disappear.

****

Donnie closed the door at the top of the basement steps. Pulling out a kitchen chair, he sat at the table and laid his head in his hands. It had not been a good day.

He’d been rude to the girl downstairs, something his momma wouldn’t tolerate, and become angry with Billy. He knew the fight with Billy was what was making him so unhappy.

I’ll focus on getting Suzanne, that’ll patch things up with Billy. When I have her, I’ll go tell him sorry and give him the good news. He’ll be much happier once I have his girlfriend in a cell.

He fell asleep on the kitchen table.