Upholding the Paw (10 page)

The answer to that question was clear.

Or what.

His most recent post was six days old. It said simply, “Lost my girl. Lost my job. My entire life has derailed.”

“No need for him to be such a sad sack,” Jackson said. “A cute guy like him could probably find a new girl in no time.”

True. The guy might be a model train nerd, but he was undeniably attractive. Dark brown hair cut short on the sides and left longer on top in a trendy style. Vivid blue eyes. A nice smile. He didn't have Seth's sexy, muscular shoulders, but he wasn't scrawny either. Just an average-size guy.

“What now?”

“We've exhausted our leads from the bank for the time being,” Jackson said. “Let's make a run by the city Transportation Authority, check up on their drivers.”

I started the car and aimed for the headquarters for the city bus service, which sat only a few blocks away from the carpet warehouse where we'd been earlier. Not knowing how long we'd be, I brought Brigit inside with us.

Detective Jackson stepped up to the receptionist and flashed her badge. “Detective Audrey Jackson, Fort Worth PD. There someone in charge here we can talk to?”

The receptionist picked up her phone, punched three numbers, and spoke into her receiver. “There's a detective here from the police department who wants to speak with you.” She paused a moment. “Okay. I'll send her back.”

The woman hung up her phone and motioned down the hallway to her side. “Last door on the right.”

We made our way down the hall, Brigit's tags jingling as we walked. We reached the last door, which boasted a bronze nameplate etched with PATRICIA EWING. Jackson rapped once on the door and Ewing called out, “Come on in.”

Jackson opened the door to reveal a tall, broad fiftyish woman with fiery red hair cut in a short, intentionally messy do. We stepped inside, closed the door behind us, and shook hands with Ewing over her desk. She gestured for us to take seats in the two wing chairs facing her desk. Brigit sat at my side, her mouth hanging slightly open as she softly panted.

Jackson leaned forward. “We're hoping you can help us figure out who robbed the bank and stole one of your buses earlier today.”

“Incredible, wasn't it?” Ewing said. “I've worked for the authority for twenty-two years and never heard of anything like it. I'm just glad nobody got hurt.”

“Us, too,” I said. I only hoped it stayed that way. As long as the criminals were on the loose, there was always the chance they'd up the ante to physical violence. The pressure was on us to catch these guys ASAP, before they could wreak more havoc or hurt someone. It was a heavy load to bear. A low-stress job pushing paper at an insurance company wasn't sounding so bad about then.

Jackson pulled out her notepad. “The driver who'd been forced off the bus didn't see which of our three suspects took the wheel, but he noted that whoever drove the thing off seemed to know how to handle it. 'Course this leads me to believe that at least one of the bus-jackers had some experience with these types of vehicles. We're thinking he might be, or at some time have been, a bus driver. Anyone here come to mind? Someone with financial problems? A drug or gambling problem? Maybe an axe to grind?”

Ewing raised a finger. “Let me get Denise from HR in here. She interacts directly with the employees and would be more aware if one of them was having an issue.”

Ewing proceeded to pick up her phone receiver with the other hand, and used the finger she'd raised to jab a button. “Hi, Denise. Come on down to my office, please. No need to knock.”

A few seconds later, the door swung open and in stepped Denise, a bony brunette wearing a pantsuit the color of honeydew melon. Ewing gestured at a rolling, barrel-shape chair in the corner and Denise pulled it over.

Ewing introduced us to Denise and explained the reason for our visit.

“Financial problems?” Denise said. “Harry Waltham comes to mind. He had to file bankruptcy after his wife had a prolonged illness. He missed a lot of work. Some of the other drivers complained about having to cover for him. Harry seems like a decent guy, though. Despite his money issues I can't see him robbing a bank.”

The detective and I exchanged discreet glances. Desperate people sometimes took desperate measures. The police constantly arrested thieves, embezzlers, and con artists whom others had seen as upstanding citizens. Still, if one of the thieves was Harry Waltham, who were the others? Friends of his? Family members? Other bus drivers?

Despite Denise's sense that Waltham wasn't our guy, Jackson made a note of his name on her pad, adding his address and phone number after Ewing pulled it up on her computer. Ewing also showed us a photograph of Waltham. The guy was a light-skinned African American with short black hair, a longish face, and a strong chin. He appeared to be in his forties. He fit the general description of the man who'd brandished the rifle on the bus.

Turning back to the HR director, Jackson asked, “What about drug or gambling problems? Any drivers you know of with those types of problems?”

Denise's face contorted as she appeared to be thinking things over. “We had a driver named Ronnie Butler who used to go to Vegas every time he took vacation. He eventually quit working here when he got a job driving a tour bus to the casinos in Oklahoma. I remember when he turned in his resignation he joked about finally getting his dream job, that he'd be able to gamble on the clock.”

“How long ago was this?” Jackson asked.

Denise sucked her lip in thought. “Two, maybe three months ago.”

Jackson jotted down his name and contact information, too. “What about disgruntled drivers? Anybody get reprimanded or fired and not take it well?”

Denise chuckled. “Does
anyone
take getting fired well?”

Jackson merely raised an impatient brow in return.

Denise sat up straighter in her chair. “We had to let one of our more senior drivers go recently when we discovered he'd been carrying a handgun on the job. He drove a late shift in east Fort Worth and said he didn't feel safe without it. I felt bad for the guy, but carrying a weapon is against policy. We also terminated another driver last month. Three women accused him of groping them as he pretended to help them onto the bus. He claimed there was no truth behind their accusations, but when we searched his bus we also found a small video camera taped to the ceiling over the doorway. He said he didn't put it there, but who else would put a camera on a city bus? Our guess was that he was using it to get a peek down women's shirts. He's been a real pain since we fired him. He's written to the mayor, the city council, even his congressman.”

Jackson held her pen at the ready over her pad. “Their names and contact information?”

Denise provided the details. The man who'd been fired over the gun was Lewis Blakemore. The alleged groper/virtual peeping Tom was Phillip Gunderbaugh.

The detective thanked the women for the information and stood. “Soon as we figure this out, we'll be in touch.”

We exchanged parting handshakes and walked back outside to my cruiser. I loaded Brigit back into her enclosure and climbed into my seat.

Jackson slid into the passenger seat, gestured to my laptop, and held up the list of names she'd compiled inside. “Let's do a little triage. See which of these men look the most promising.”

I set about pulling up information on the men Denise had mentioned.

The web offered little on Harry Waltham, the one with the sick wife and the pending bankruptcy. He had no Facebook page. No Twitter account.

Jackson waved a hand. “Next.”

I ran a search on our next potential subject. Ronnie Butler, the gambler, had a Facebook page replete with posts about his gambling escapades. A post from last week stated:
Lost my shirt at the blackjack table!
Evidently, his luck had changed. An entry from earlier today read:
Won $300 on a Double Diamond machine at the Flamingo!

I pointed at the post, which showed it had been entered only four hours ago. “Looks like he's in Vegas.” Of course the entries could be faked, posted to throw us off his trail. For all we knew, he was right here in town.

Jackson pulled out her pen and wrote “Vegas?” next to Butler's name on her list. “That brings us to Lewis Blakemore, the guy with the gun. See if he's got a record.”

I ran his name through the criminal database. “Nope. He's c-clean.”

I googled his name next. Like Waltham, he'd kept a low profile online, only a few items popping up. I clicked on the first one, which led me to an amateur website someone had put together for the Blakemore family's 2014 reunion. Lewis Blakemore appeared in a wide-angle photo with approximately three dozen extended relatives, all of whom resembled each other to some degree. Being one of the taller people, he stood at the back, visible only from the shoulders up. He wore a wide smile and a blue-and-white striped cap. He also appeared in a second photo, a close-up shot of him holding a toddler, both of them wearing the striped hats this time, as well as sunny smiles. A third photograph featured him sitting in the shade on the bank of a river flanked by two adolescent boys. While Blakemore wore no hat in this photograph, he held a fishing rod, as did the boys on either side of him. The final photograph of Blakemore showed him shooting skeet with the same two boys he'd been fishing with.

Hmm …
If a picture is worth a thousand words, some of those words would be “family man” and “doting grandpa.” He appeared to be nothing more than a normal middle-age man with a possible gun fetish. Not unusual in Texas.

Jackson glanced at the page, her gaze roaming over the photos. “Not sure I'm feeling it.”

“Should I open the other links?” I asked.

“First let's take a look at that last guy. The groper.”

When I typed Phillip Gunderbaugh's named into my browser and hit the enter key it was a wonder my computer didn't explode. The search returned over a thousand results.

“Whoa.”

Gunderbaugh had posted what appeared to be hourly rants on his Facebook page, complaining about his termination on the
baseless accusations of a few stupid whores!
to the
sons of bitches who'd refused to give him a fair hearing!
He encouraged the citizens of Fort Worth to boycott the Transportation Authority via a three-stanza rhyme:
They all lied! Support driver pride! Don't take a ride!

A look at the man's Twitter account showed he'd sent over three hundred tweets, ranging from a relatively benign
Fort Worth bus system unfair to drivers!
to a more insidious
Fired unfairly! Ft Worth Transportation Authority fucked me over!
and
If FWTA thinks I'll go down without a fight they've got another thing coming!

Jackson pursed her lips. “He doesn't seem to have moved on.”

“That could explain the bus-jacking,” I noted. Stealing a bus, disrupting service, and making the department look incompetent would be a fitting revenge. “But what about the bank robbery? How would that play into his scheme? And who would be willing to go along with him?” After all, the guy seemed certifiable.

Before we could speculate further my shoulder-mounted radio went off. “We've got a report of a fire and robbery at a convenience store. Three male suspects. Two Caucasian, one African American.”

As the dispatcher gave the address, my eyes met the detective's.
Three men, two white, one black? Another fire and robbery?
It had to be the same suspects we'd been tracking.

Jackson strapped her seatbelt into place. “Let's go!”

Woo-woo-woo!
We took off, tires churning up dirt and gravel as I punched the gas and rocketed out of the Transportation Authority's parking lot.

Two minutes later, we careened into the lot at the convenience store. Derek was at the scene, speaking with a petite blonde woman. A witness, possibly. The fire department was already on site, too, pumping water into the store as black smoke poured out the front doors.

At the back of the fire truck, Seth held an oxygen mask to the face of an elderly Asian man sitting on the bumper. The man's shoulders racked with deep, rib-wrenching coughs. Smoke inhalation, evidently. The man must have been the clerk on duty when the fire started. Thank God he hadn't passed out in the burning building or he would have been burned to a crisp.

Jackson and I hopped out of the car and rushed over to him.

Seth shot me a pointed look. “We really shouldn't have complained about our boring mornings.”

“I never will again.” We seemed to have jinxed ourselves.

He leaned in and whispered. “Let's get margaritas when your shift is over.”

He wouldn't have to ask me twice. It had been a hell of a day.

Jackson put her hands on her knees and bent over to look at the man behind the mask. “You up to talking, sir?”

When he nodded, Seth pulled the oxygen mask from his face.

“What happened?” the detective asked.

“Three men came into the store,” the man said, emitting a couple of short coughs. “Two were white. In their twenties maybe. The other was an older black man. Forty or so.”

When the man coughed again, Seth returned the mask to his face for a few seconds to give him a hit of concentrated oxygen. He pulled it back when the man signaled with his hand.

“All of them wore sunglasses. They got beer from the cooler and the little fat one opened his and drank it in the store. I told him he wasn't supposed to do that and he left.”
Cough-cough-cough.
“The other white man paid for the beer and got a couple of hot dogs, and then he and the black man walked out.” He coughed again and took a fresh hit of oxygen from Seth before continuing. “I heard the door open again and the little fat one was back and his bottle was on fire. He threw it onto the floor and the fire spread everywhere, and while I was trying to put it out he grabbed money from the cash register.”