Hard Case V: Blood and Fear (A John Harding Novel Book 5) (11 page)

Doug was over six feet of pent up rage, but he’s no dummy. He didn’t race out of his house to confront the Nigerian Posse when they were here, but you can bet he seethed at the window sill with his hands clenched so tightly he drew blood. In his middle forties with two teenage daughters in high school, he had his hands full, and it showed. Doug’s ruddy complexion, coupled with a construction worker’s body build, made the guy an imposing figure. I liked him. He cared about where he lived. He always waved, even though he didn’t care much for my yard upkeep attitude. His wife Pam was his alter ego. She calmed him down. A thin brunette with soft voice, and always calm exterior, Pam could quiet Doug with only a touch, as if her hand on his arm signaled he had plunged off the cliff of insanity. She joined him now in the chilling March early evening temperature.

“Hi, John,” Doug shook hands with me. “I noticed you had some trouble. I didn’t care much for how those men were loaded into the van. Where did you take them?”

“They’re being held in custody, pending deportation,” I explained, which was close to the whole truth. “It turned out they were all here illegally, and four of them are wanted by the Nigerian government for crimes committed there. We had to detain some of their groups’ other members earlier. They came to my house unhappy their friends had been arrested.”

“Oh… sorry… I thought you owned a private security firm that does investigations on the side along with bond skips.”

I showed him and Pam my FBI and Homeland Security ID’s. “I’m also a consultant with various other groups, including our local police.”

“He does cage fightin’ too,” Della added. “Not to mention he keeps the gangbangers away from our kids, and off our block.”

“Cage fighting? You mean like UFC? We don’t watch it, but I know it’s a really brutal sport.”

Della chuckled as did Lora, and I knew what was coming. “Yeah, John got into a match at the Mandalay Bay with this guy named the Rattler. Rattler remade John’s face into hamburger, so he had a nickname for a while of Cheeseburger… Cheese for short.”

“Did you ever fight again, John?” Pam was hanging onto Doug tightly with some obvious underlying reason for this discussion.

It was Lora’s turn to speak before I could get a word out. “John broke Rattler’s jaw a split second after the first fight ended, but lost on the technicality. The rematch was last month on St. Valentine’s Day. Rattler and his handlers promoted it as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. It was… for the Rattler.”

“When they were carting Rattler to the emergency room, did you really say ‘Happy Valentine’s Day’ like your partner Tommy told me,” Della asked. “That doesn’t sound like you, John.”

“I told them I said that when they asked so they’d have to throttle back the laughs on nationwide TV. It seems Tommy didn’t care much for my small prank. I told Eugene the usual ‘nice fight’ stuff. You and Pam seem very animated tonight. Is something else wrong besides my having to coral those Nigerian bad boys?”

Doug began to say something, sputtered a bit, and then hugged Pam. “You tell him, Hon. I’ll lose it, and start ranting.”

Pam reached to frame his face for a moment with her hand before turning to me. “My oldest daughter has a stalker. We suspect it’s her ex-boyfriend, but she hasn’t been able to snap a picture of him. Whoever it is even came into our home yesterday while Doug was at work, the kids were in school, and I was grocery shopping. He left pictures of Callie on her bed, in school, at the mall, and… and an incident where she was smoking grass at a party. We don’t know what to do. Doug would end up in prison, and possibly harm the wrong man. Could we hire you to find out who is behind this?”

I’m already getting eyeballed by Lora and Della. They expect me to ride in on my white steed, and solve this neighborhood dilemma. I did have an idea though. “I have wide angle HD cameras pointing out at the neighborhood for security. I will go over my recordings. Maybe I can find the stalker without a lot of expense.”

“That’s incredible!” Doug liked my plan. Good, because shadowing teeny girls looking for lovesick puppy boyfriends sets off my barf reflex. That he came into their house put a monster spin on it I needed to check out. “Thanks, John.”

“I have to ask this for all the usual reasons. I’ll bet you didn’t know Callie was smokin’ weed, and there might be a hidden element in this stalker scenario too. The Internet is rife with goons looking for easy marks to either terrorize or fixate on. My advice is to rip all electronic devices away from her, demand pass codes, find out if there’s more to this than a ‘can’t let go’ ex-boyfriend.”

“Done deal. The moment I get in the house I will find out everything you’ve outlined. I can’t have this – strangers invading my house. Like Pam said, I’ll be dead or in prison without solving anything.”

“How old is Callie by the way?”

Doug took a deep breath. “She’s a senior, and just turned eighteen as she reminds us in every second sentence. Callie will protest everything I do, but Pam and I will make sure she understands the danger we’re in. It’s not her fault, but I can’t risk someone burning our damn house down, or kidnapping Callie when they get frustrated.”

Amen to that. “I will pursue this until I have your answers, Doug. If it’s a simple overzealous ex, we’ll let the police handle it from there. They’ll warn him off while you and I keep a lookout for him here. If it’s more complicated, I’ll bring my team in on it. I’ll call you tomorrow with how well I do.”

Doug nodded complacently. Pam waved and led her husband away toward their house without another word.

“Damn, John… apparently all those blows to your thick skull haven’t short circuited your reasoning ability,” Della prodded me.

“I have a job to do, Mrs. Sparks,” I replied, complete with dusting off my shoulders comically. “I’d suggest you stay inside, and mind your own business. I’ll be walking your twins and Al into school tomorrow as always. They will be safe or I will be dead.”

Della gripped my arm. “I know that, John. I could tell on your features that guy going into Doug and Pam’s house put you on the scent big time. Has Darin been walking with you too? I’m worried about that boy.”

“He does sometimes, but he’s in his last year at this level. Although he gets a kick out of walking with us, he doesn’t do so on a regular basis. He’s been great since Terry Nelson disappeared.”

Della reached up to pat my face. “Yeah… Terry Nelson disappeared alright. They haven’t found him in any landfills, so I expect you had to place him somewhere he wouldn’t be found.”

Damn it! See, this cloak and dagger stuff only works to a certain extent before something gets noticed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Della. Terry’s probably on a beach somewhere drinking Mai Tai’s, and getting wasted.”

Della snorted while turning to her house. “Yeah, I’ll bet that’s where Terry is. Goodnight you two. I’ll have the twins ready in the morning.”

Lora leaned into me as we negotiated the walk to our door. “I hope the stalker thing is something simple. You have allowed your downtime to die again.”

“We can’t have guys running around in our houses when we’re not there. If I get a good ID of him on our security cam recording, I’ll turn him over to the police. I want to see for myself whether this is an overzealous boyfriend, or perhaps Callie played around in the wrong sandbox on the Internet.”

“Doug is a little intense.”

“I’ll get something to eat while I go over my cam feeds, and find out if maybe Doug needs to be worried.” Al met us at the door. “Hey Al, how do you like the two high school girls across the street?”

“The younger one, Nadine, is nice. The older sister is a stoner. She usually has the redeye express going whenever I see her. Is she in trouble?” Al followed me toward the kitchen. Lora motioned me down, showing me the plate she had ready for heating.

I angled my satellite laptop where I wanted it, and tapped into my security feed. I let Al cycle through the hours I suspected on screen while I forked food into my mouth. The break in happened during the nearly two hours Pam was at the grocery store from noon to two.

“There he is.” Al pointed at the left screen. “He’s staying real close to the houses. He moves like you and your guys do… real quick like… and then stops in between, sensing movement.”

He sure does. “Good eye. Back it up a moment to where he comes into view. Then let’s get a frame by frame from there. He wore a hoodie, but his face isn’t covered. Watch for any turn toward our cams.”

Although tedious, I knew he would not be able to resist glancing at our house. It’s human nature. Sure enough, Al caught him in a full face look into our HD low light cams. We messed with it to get the best quality snap for running it with my state of the art, Company backed facial recognition software. Surprisingly, I had Lora on my lap, and Al huddled next to us as we watched the faces streak across the screen. Twenty minutes later we had our guy. I nearly pitched Lora onto the floor.

“What’s wrong, John?” Lora scrunched her eyes to read the fine print. “Uh oh. What the hell could Callie be doing to draw a guy like this into doing a stalker stunt?”

“Murder and rape?” Al read along with us. “Why is this Gavin Comstock on the street instead of prison?”

“The last sighting I read about was in Oregon. This would fit his profile. No one ever linked his four known victims to him in any way. He hits random victims. The last rape/murder tied to him happened nearly two years ago. The only reason they found a lead to follow was because of a convenience store video of Comstock stalking a teenage girl into the store. She was found dead near the convenience store. The police in Scranton, PA found DNA fibers on her too. They then knew who, but they had no idea where. Comstock leaves the area he strikes in.”

“You know a lot about this guy, Dad.”

“Tommy and I were called in by a bonding company in Reno. They had a sighting of Comstock, but wanted nothing to do with him. The family of the teenager in Scranton collected twenty-five grand reward money to catch her killer. If Tommy likes the gig, we give the referral twenty percent. We went to Reno, found Comstock, and waited for him to return to his motel room after an all-night binge. Never happened – it turned out he was stalking another victim. I watched the guy closely. By the time Tommy and I gathered him into custody, we had enough photo evidence to prove he planned to strike again in Reno. We Tased him into an electric trance. The locals loved sharing the big catch. Everyone was happy, until one of the guys working the desk released Comstock by mistake. There was nothing we could do.”

Lora shifted to face me on my lap. “This isn’t really about Callie. Is it?”

“I don’t believe in coincidences, Baby. You and Al know that. My pal Gavin knew who captured him in Reno. Things just got a lot more complicated. Let’s use my other adjoining cam feeds. Maybe he parked on the street.”

I split screened each side of Doug’s house, so we could see if he parked or left a vehicle we could get a license plate number from. My wide angle HD cams scoped both sides of the house three houses down on each side. I went backwards for a time, checking for traffic on the street driving past or parking. A black van slowed from one feed into the other, stopping within view of my left side cam. I had an unobstructed view to hone in on the van’s license plate number. Comstock waited five full minutes before exiting the van for his approach on Doug’s house. He was cat quick and smooth. It took only seconds for him to pick the lock.

“I believe Gavin is trying to hit Callie, but he’s playing to get a crack at me. He is one arrogant prick. I wonder if he knows whether Doug and Pam talked with us. I’ll bet he doesn’t. My ladies. I have to move on this tonight. Tomorrow, this asshole could be taking potshots at our softball practice. He found me, and now I have to find him.”

“We know,” Lora agreed, leaving my lap reluctantly. “Gee, we nearly had an entire month after the Rattler fight to wind down into normal land. What I’d like to know is why it all explodes at the same time.”

“It’s feast or famine. I know one thing – I’d like to cross Gavin off our list. He’s the one they let get away that bothered me and Tommy from day one. Yes!” I had the license number searched. It was a rental. Comstock had wrongly figured we would never be onto this so fast. Gavin thought he could do Callie, and somehow trap me into being killed too. I’d ask him about it once I had him in hand. I called Tommy.

Knowing I never call unless the sky is falling, Tommy hit all the high points. “No, I’m not drinking tonight. Yes, I had dinner. Where and when?”

“My place as quick as you can. I have Gavin Comstock stalking my across the street neighbor’s teenage daughter while eyeballing my house. He didn’t know I’d be read in as quickly as it happened. I have him in a hotel room over at the Hilton by the Oakland Airport not with his name of course, but with the same one he rented his murder van in.”

“Son-of-a-bitch! Get ready to cross that bastard off the list. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. You’re right about this, John. He ain’t hittin’ that girl across the street without eyes on taking you out at the same time somehow. See you in a few.”

I called Samira and Jafar next. I explained in detail how I could use Samira to get Gavin answering the door without any problems. Samira was ecstatic. Jafar… not so much. “It’s important, little brother.”

“I know that, John. Two missions bunched up in a day is screwing with my head. I’ll bring my gear. Couldn’t you bang on the door, and shout ‘open up… it’s the FBI’.”