“Thank you sir.”
“No thanks are necessary. Just keep doing your job.”
He settled back further in his seat and continued. “Look, I know you think I’m punishing you by assigning you with Wilson. I realize he is not as effective as he used to be--”
A snicker escaped her lips. “You got that right!”
Underwood ignored her. “But remember, he used to be a fine officer. Did you know he has been decorated four times for bravery and wounded three times? The last time left him with that permanent limp.” Her expression told him she hadn’t known. “I’ve tried to get him to take a desk job, but he wants to go out the way he came in. And it is for just a few more months. Please, allow him this dignity. Cut him a little slack, as long as it doesn’t interfere with your duty as a police officer. And along the way, he might even teach you a few things.”
“I’ll try, Captain.”
“Thanks, Gail. Now, back to the case at hand. As the assigned detective on a homicide, your investigation takes precedent over the inquiry into the escape. However, at the same time, remember that two of your fellow officers are fighting for their professional lives. Help Internal Affairs in any way that doesn’t interfere with getting a conviction of this guy.”
“Yes sir.”
“Oh, and Gail . . .” The captain looked stern.
“Yes sir.”
“Go easy with the yes sirs.” He softened his voice. “I’ve got enough Yes Men in the department. I don’t need any Yes Women as well.”
“Yes si. . . I’ll try to remember, Captain.”
Chapter 3
Ten p.m. on another cool, damp night. Harris Park was usually well lit, but two streetlights were out. A rock concert was ending at the Civic Center just three blocks away, and overflow parking spread five or six blocks in each direction.
Don Carter walked his girlfriend to her car. He had met Barbara last week at a little shop on the riverfront where she worked, and they had hit it off right away. They drove separate cars because this was First Saturday and she had to work late. Each month on the first Saturday of the month, Savannah holds a festival at River Street, and in recent years the event has grown tremendously. The shop had been so busy that she’d had to plead to get off early enough to make the concert.
Hand-in-hand the couple walked toward the park. Only a few cars were left on the street. The well-dressed twosome appeared to be the only ones from the concert parked on this street. But unbeknownst to the starry-eyed couple, hidden eyes deep in the shadows followed their progress. Could he handle them both without creating a disaster like last night? Better to bide his time than to make another mistake. But the need was growing so strong.
The lovers neared her car. “Gee, if I had known that it would be this dark, I never would have parked here.”
“Well, fortunately for you, beautiful Barbara, you have a rough, tough, incredibly handsome, not to mention sexy guy to protect you.”
“You forgot humble, Don.”
“Did I? Well that one is taken for granted. As my idol Jethro Bodine says, when you’re a third grade graduate, the world is your clam. Or was it mussel?”
She giggled. “The only muscles around here are in your head.”
The laughing and good-natured banter brought back memories of another age, another place for the dark figure, but the need quickly overwhelmed any other feelings.
The couple stopped at a red Ford Mustang, still fifty feet from where he crouched in the greenery. Barbara produced a key and opened the car door. Patrick wanted to leap out and take them both, but the distance was too great, the risk too high. Watching the couple embracing in the road, so close and yet so far away, made the craving even harder to bear.
Terry Beard sipped his coffee as he sat next to his partner. He moved to try to stay comfortable. “I wish the department had stayed with the bigger cars. These mid-sized jobs are murder on surveillance.” They had the eight to midnight watch tonight, staking out an empty house. After sitting for two hours, their attention span grew smaller with each passing minute.
“Quit complaining,” his partner replied. Richard Coleman was a seventeen-year veteran and had seen it all. “I hear that the Macon City Council was complaining about cost so one of the councilmen suggested that the police switch to subcompacts. Of course that wouldn’t apply to the Council’s cars and portable phones and other perks. Just the police who are expected to solve problems immediately and who need the more powerful engines.” He chuckled. “The only reason they didn’t switch was that they couldn’t find a good American subcompact. Can you imagine doing surveillance in a Geo Metro? We’d have to get out of the car to change our minds.”
“Still, some of those foreign jobs are pretty nice. My brother loves his Toyota.”
“Well, with our luck, we’d get stuck in some Yugo. We’d have to get out and push if we came to an overpass.”
One last kiss and the boy helped her into her car. As the Mustang started, the boy was already moving toward his car, toward the shadows. Suddenly out of nowhere, a figure shot out of the dark and belted him in the mouth. As he fell, the shadowy form kicked him in the head, grabbed his arms and dragged him into the bushes, vanishing as quickly and silently as he had appeared.
The car moved to the end of the block and turned around, coming back. The girl looked again for one last glimpse of her friend. No sign of him. “That jerk must have taken a shortcut across the park,” she thought. “Anyway I’ll see him again tomorrow afternoon.” She didn’t think another thing about it until he didn’t show up for their picnic date. She was more mad than concerned, until she watched the six o’clock news that evening, and realized the horror that she had narrowly missed.
“These night goggles are pretty cool. It’s amazing how well you can see out of them. Now if only the coffee didn’t fog up the lens all the time.”
Richard had been assigned to stakeouts with Beard before, so he was used to the junior officer’s constant griping. “You know, Terry. You could stop swilling that stuff long enough to let the lenses clear up. I don’t think you’ve been five minutes tonight without a cup in hand.”
“Got to, man. My wife’s mother is in the hospital and we spent most of last night and today there.”
Richard hadn’t known that. “Sorry to hear that. Anything serious?”
“Yeah. They cut her open and found her insides filled with cancer. They closed her right back up. No hope. Ginny’s real broke up over it.”
“I’ll bet.”
The figure moved quickly considering the load he carried. Gliding silently through the backyards he made his way through the maze of streets and houses and fences, toward the safe haven at the end.
Beard put on the night goggles and scanned the area once again. His body went rigid. “Hey man, get a load of this!” He pointed across the street. Coleman’s senses went on alert and he sat up straight. Donning the goggles, he explored the area that the other detective had indicated. Instead of a fleeing suspect or anything remotely suspicious, he found himself staring at a naked lady.
Not quite naked. She wore one of the skimpiest pair of drawers that Richard had ever had the good fortune to see. Trudy Hines had forgotten to close the blinds again. Five times in the last month parents had made complaints about the free shows she put on for the neighborhood. Trudy was a legend at the local middle school, and boys from all over the area made the pilgrimage to her house to review their knowledge of anatomy. But the detectives didn’t know of these complaints. All they were aware of was the young, nubile body flouncing in front of the lighted window just one house down, across the empty street from them.
His journey almost complete, he could see the house just two doors down. But now he also saw the car on the street occupied by what were obviously two plainclothes policemen. He could also see enough of the nearest figure to make out the large apparatus on his face. It had to be some sort of night vision glasses. Such a device could give the lawmen the edge. How could he get past the men to the safety of his lair?
“Check out the bazooms on that momma!” Terry was his usual crude self. However Coleman had to admit that the younger man wasn’t exaggerating this time about the lady’s attributes. Both men trained their night glasses at the bedroom window across the street. So intent was their ‘investigation’ that neither man saw the car pull onto the street until both sets of goggles picked up the glare of the headlights and amplified the bright light a thousand times.
The dark figure saw the passing car and realized that the men would lose their night vision for several minutes. As the headlights swept past his position, he picked up his victim and raced for the house. Moving quickly to the basement window, he opened it. While basements are rare in coastal Savannah, where the groundwater is so close to the surface, this one had been painstakingly carved out of the sandy soil as a smuggler’s roost back in the early 1800’s. Later it became a vital link in the Underground Railroad, where runaway slaves could be hidden while waiting for a ship to board to escape to northern cities. Still later it was a storehouse for bootleg liquor during Prohibition. Now it served a darker purpose. Painting and covering the windows gave him the privacy he needed. Soundproofing the special room kept nosy neighbors away.
Patrick lowered the body through the narrow window. A few seconds later he followed, easing himself down into the basement. As he slithered through, he failed to notice the slash where the paint had scraped off the glass. The window closed and the night went back to normal again.
“Arghhh! My eyes!” Both men ripped the night goggles off their faces and massaged their eyes to relieve the burning. Several minutes went by before either man could see anything again. As their eyes adjusted to the dark again, the first thing that came into view was Trudy in all her glory. They went back to enjoying the view, without the goggles.
As Don regained consciousness, his first vision was of the dark figure bending over him. “Hey, man. What’s happening?” A moment of panic hit him as he remembered leaving his girl friend. “Hey, where’s Barbara? Is she all right?” As the boy became more aware, he tried to sit up and realized that he couldn’t. Looking around he discovered that he had been tied to a long wooden table, spread-eagled with each arm and leg fastened to a table leg. He tested the tautness of the ropes; he had a couple of inches of play with each limb. Enough slack to keep him from being in pain, but not enough to even think of freedom. Trying to reach one wrist with the other hand proved impossible. He couldn’t get his hand within a foot of the other. “What’s this? Hey! What are you doing? Let me up!”
“Patience, my young friend. We will begin soon enough, but there are preparations to be made.”
“Preparations? What are you talking about? I want to get up now. My old man is a lawyer. Let me go or you’re in big trouble!”
The voice had come from behind, but he wasn’t able to move his head far enough to see. A rustling sound began and moved toward the table. The boy briefly wondered what the man was doing, but suddenly realized that maybe he didn’t really want to know after all. A tall man came into view holding a plastic dropcloth. He unfolded the end and started sliding it under the boy’s body.
“What’re ya doin? Look man, I just wanna get out of here. Let me up, please mister.” Powerless to prevent it, Johnny watched the middle-aged man pull the plastic sheet under him and over the entire table. The way the guy made no attempt to hide his face made Don even more aware of his helplessness. The shadowy man finished with the sheet and stepped back to make sure the drop cloth covered the entire bench. Taking a pair of scissors, he began to cut away the boy’s clothing.
“Wait a minute. What’re ya doing now? I’m gonna tell my old man, then you’ll be sorry.”
As each piece of clothing was cut off the man pulled it out from under the boy and threw it into a pile in the corner. Then he walked out of sight above the table again. Now clinks and clanks, sounding like silverware hitting together, came from the same direction.
By now the boy was near tears. “Please, mister! Just let me go! I won’t tell anyone. I promise. I need to go home.”
Suddenly a new clanking began, and a kitchen cart rolled into view. The boy was able to raise his head just enough to see that the cart contained knives of every size and description. The man rolled the cart next to the bed and picked up a small carving knife and tested the edge. His taunting voice cut through the terror. “I think we’ll start with this one.”
The impromptu show ended. Trudy finally pulled the blinds and disappeared from view. The detectives emerged from their trance and turned their attention back to the house in question. Coleman donned the goggles again and scanned the house, “Oh, crap!”
“What’s the matter?”
“Just look at that.” Beard put his glasses on and looked at the sliver of light coming from the back basement window. Even without the night goggles, the light shining through the glass was visible. “I guess somebody’s home.”
Captain Jim Underwood cringed when the phone rang. Oh well, last night he got a whole night’s peace, and two nights in a row was more than he could ask for. “Underwood here.”
“Captain, this is Lieutenant Morris. I have the duty tonight. Detectives Coleman and Beard are on stakeout near the Patrick house, the suspect who disappeared last week. They report that there are lights on in the house. They want to know if they should investigate further.”
Underwood came to attention. An arrest here would lead to some answers and hopefully restore the reputation of his officers. “Tell them to watch the house, but not to approach. Also tell them to keep in touch if the situation changes.”
By now his finger circling had accelerated. His hand had automatically found the groove he had worn in the end table over the years. “I want to go by the book on this one, so there will be no hint of a cover-up. Call Judge Adler and ask him to sign a warrant. When you get the warrant, round up the SWAT team. By the time I get there, everything should be ready. I’ll call the commissioner, too. He probably will want to be in on this. We’ll wait until everything and everyone is in place. After all, there’s no great need for speed.”