Blue Steele - Box Set - Captures 1-6 (3 page)

***

T
he fifteen-year-old neighbor girl that Lucinda suspected her husband of molesting was now a nineteen-year-old adult. Her name was Sarah Miller.

Sarah lived in a tiny first floor apartment on Lafayette Street in Dallas. I arrived there just after ten o’clock. It was a humid night, and as soon as I left the air-conditioned comfort of my truck, a slick of perspiration began to appear on my forehead.

At the curb, I spotted the SUV registered in Sarah Miller’s name. I peeked in a side window and saw that the back seat was loaded with cardboard boxes. It looked like Sarah was planning on moving, possibly out of state, and possibly with a fugitive boyfriend in tow.

I headed up the walkway, and that’s when I heard the shots, one shot, then a pause, and then five more, six in all.

It sounded like a thirty-eight revolver. I whipped my own gun out and ran towards the door. It was locked. Just then, a neighbor stuck his head out a second story window.

“Call the police,” I said. “Tell them that shots have been fired and that there may be a fugitive on the premises.”

The man nodded, and then I heard a woman’s voice, although I couldn’t make out the words.

The man yelled down to me.

“My wife says that someone dressed in black just ran out the back door.”

I walked around the building with my gun held level and my eyes scanning left to right. I had to fight the urge to rush to the back yard as quick as I could. Sometimes quick is no good, better to go slow and go careful. As I made the turn at the back, I spotted a shaft of light beaming into the back yard; it was an open doorway.

I approached cautiously, as I kept one eye on the doorway and one on the shadows to my right. The neighbor saw someone run out the back door, but that didn’t have to mean that they ran away.

I peeked into the apartment and saw a kitchen. There was water running in the sink and a small stack of dirty dishes beside it. I let the water run and went farther into the apartment. I didn’t have to go far; they were in the next room.

Vincent Kane and Sarah Miller were both lying dead on the living room floor. Scattered around them were more cardboard boxes, some were full and taped shut, while others were empty.

Sarah had been shot in the forehead once, while Vincent had four distinct wounds in his bare chest, and if the bloodstain spreading across his boxers was any indication, he had died a falsetto.

***

A
patrol car responded and I told them my story. As I waited for the homicide detectives to show, my phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Blue, hi, it’s Gary Dent. I hope I’m not calling at too late an hour?”

“No Gary, it’s just... listen, I’ve got some bad news. Vincent Kane is dead, murdered.”

“Oh my God, Vinnie... Blue, who killed him?”

“I don’t know. I only heard the shots.”

“You were there when it happened?”

“Yes, I tracked him down at his girlfriend’s apartment, but I got here too late.”

“Too late? Any earlier and you might have been murdered too. Tell me where you are and I’ll be right there.”

“Right, sorry, I should have told you already, after all, Kane was your client.”

“Screw Vinnie; I’m coming there to be with you.”

And with a smile on my face, I told him the address.

***

G
ary arrived just as the cops were finishing with me. He walked over and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

“Thank God you’re all right.”

“I’m fine, and I’m sorry about Kane, I know that at one time he was a good friend.”

He nodded. “Yeah, thanks, so tell me, who was the girlfriend?”

“Her name was Sarah Miller, and it looks like they were about to run off together. She lived next door to Kane when she was fifteen, apparently they, eh, kept in touch.”

“Jesus, Blue, another teenybopper? Oh Vinnie, you sick bastard.”

I took his hand and looked into his eyes.

“I have something to tell you; I think this might all be my fault.”

“What do you mean?”

“Earlier tonight, I recalled the story Bobbi Reed told me about Kane’s rumored affair with a teenage neighbor. I then wondered if maybe he had kept in touch with her, and, if he did, she might even know where he was hiding.”

Gary lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it.

“You’re very clever Blue; I may have to put you on retainer as an investigator. The guy I had looking for Vinnie would have never thought to look here.”

“It was a hunch, but I didn’t know the girl’s name or even which house the girl had lived in, and so I called—”

“Bobbi Reed, you called Bobbi Reed and then she put two and two together and came here and killed Vinnie.”

“Possibly, I don’t know, but I told the police about her and they’re going to talk to her.”

Gary cupped my face in his hands.

“Nothing here is your fault. Bobbi, or whoever killed Vinnie, is to blame; you got that?”

I smiled. “I got it.”

“Good, now let’s get out of here.”

***

W
e drove to a diner and had coffee. In between sips, we talked a little about ourselves.

I learned that Gary had married just after college, but that the marriage hadn’t even lasted a year.

“So, you’ve never been married Blue?”

“No,”

“Ever come close?”

“Once, but... it doesn’t matter.”

“Hmm, it sounds like there’s a story there, but I won’t pry. So tell me, what gets you going other than catching bad guys?”

I smiled. “Horses,”

“Horses? What kind?”

“Quarter horses,”

“Oh, you like the quarter milers, the fast ones, eh?”

“Yes, but I love any kind of horse; by the way, do you ride?”

“Not only do I ride, but I own a ranch.”

I blinked.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“I said I own a cattle ranch, the triple Q, in Bandera.”

“You own a ranch? Wait, Bandera is about three hundred miles away. You must not get there too often.”

“No, I fly there about every other weekend, in my Cessna.”

“You own a ranch
and
an airplane?”

“Yes,”

“Jesus, Gary are you rich?”

“I inherited the ranch from my grandfather, I actually own it with my brother and sister, who both live there, and the plane, well, that’s my toy.”

“You’re a rich rancher; that’s who I want to be when I grow up.”

He glanced down at my breasts.

“You look fully grown to me.”

“Only on the outside, on the inside I’m a kid who wants to spend her life around horses.”

“So, why don’t you?”

“I want them to be my horses, on my ranch.”

“Is that your dream?”

“Yeah, what’s yours?”

He stared into my eyes.

“I want to meet the right woman.”

***

W
e were outside in the diner parking lot, saying goodbye as we stood beside our vehicles.

Gary actually had an F-150 too, although his was red and much newer than mine.

“Goodnight Blue, I guess we could call this a first date maybe?”

I shook my head. “Dinner is a date, not just coffee,”

“Then dinner it is, are you busy Saturday night?”

“No, and I look forward to it.”

A moment later and we were kissing. When our lips parted, we both smiled.

As I drove home from the diner, my phone rang. It was Gary.

“Missed me already?”

“As a matter of fact, yes, but I have something to tell you. Dr. Harold Weidman, Lucinda’s lover? The police just arrested him for Vinnie’s murder.”

I swung my truck into a tight U-turn and headed downtown. It looked like it was going to be a long night.

***

T
he detectives that were handling Lucinda’s murder were also working the Vincent Kane and Sarah Miller murders, since the assumption was that they were connected.

They located Bobbi Reed at Parkland Memorial, where she said she had been since her shift started. When they told her about Kane’s death, she smiled. They left the hospital, unconvinced of her innocence, but also unable to prove her involvement until they had a chance to study the hospital’s surveillance video.

Next, they went to see Dr. Weidman, the dead man’s rival in love. When they pulled up to the curb outside Weidman’s home, the house was dark. As one of the detectives rang the doorbell to rouse the doctor, the other decided to look around the property. When he opened the lid on the garbage can at the curb, he saw a yellow plastic shopping bag lying on top. After putting on gloves, he lifted the bag and a .38 revolver fell out.

When Dr. Weidman finally made it to the door, dressed in robe and slippers and seemingly barely awake, he soon found himself handcuffed and sitting in the back of an unmarked police car.

The two detectives assigned to the case were Dave Andrews and Diego Ramirez. Andrews was about forty, with a round belly and a wide face. I knew him some from earlier cases, and he was a good cop who always showed sympathy toward the victims’ families.

I had known Diego since I was a kid. He and my older sister went to their senior prom together, and I was still friends with his brother.

I hung out with them in the squad room that night and listened in as they discussed the case. Neither man seemed convinced of the doctor’s guilt, and they both thought that finding the gun in the garbage can was a little too convenient. And as for Bobbi Reed, well, they were just waiting to see what the surveillance tapes revealed.

***

I
t was nearly noon the next day when the ballistic results came back. The gun that murdered Lucinda, was the same gun that murdered her husband, and his Lolita.

Dr. Weidman hadn’t actually been charged with murder yet, but was being held for questioning, and he vehemently denied his guilt and pointed out to the detectives that he had already been cleared of Lucinda’s murder, because at the time she was killed, he had been at a dental convention in Miami.

Then, the detectives asked the doctor for the name of his accomplice, and he asked to see his lawyer.

Meanwhile, the hospital security video seemed to back-up Bobbi Reed. Although, surveillance was incomplete, because the three cameras around the loading dock area weren’t working. In addition, there was a twenty-six minute gap where she was out of camera view; she explained this by saying that at the time, she was outside on the loading dock, smoking, a definite no-no for someone fighting liver cancer.

I was going to miss my run with Becca, and so I gave her a call and filled her in on what was happening.

“So, when do I get to meet him?”

“Whoa mom, it’s too soon for that. We haven’t even had a real date yet.”

“Okay, but I want to meet him if it goes past a third date.”

“It’s a deal,”

“Now, what about these murders, do you think the doctor did it?”

“No, and despite what Gary thinks, I can’t buy Bobbi Reed as a triple murderer.”

“Well, whoever did it would have to of known about the girl, Sarah? Who knew about her besides Bobbi Reed?”

I thought about that, and when the answer came to me, I nearly dropped my phone.

***

R
achel Reed looked every bit as innocent as I remembered her. Her big blue eyes widened as I entered the trailer with the two homicide detectives, Dave Andrews and Diego Ramirez, accompanying us, were four officers, and a police psychiatrist named Debra Walker. Two of the officers wore their standard dark blue uniforms, but the other two were dressed in gray coveralls.

Bobbi Reed spread her arms wide.

“I figured you’d be by sooner or later, so go ahead, search all you want. I didn’t kill anybody and I got nothing to hide.”

Diego handed her the warrants.

“These four officers will search, and while they do that ma’am, would you mind if we sat and talked?”

“Talked about what?”

Rachel’s eyes followed the two officers in coveralls as they went outside.

“Why are those two leaving?”

“Oh, they’re not leaving,” Diego said. “They’ll be searching outside, even crawling under the motorhome.”

Rachel sent him a shaky smile and took a seat on the couch, beside her mother.

As we all sat, Detective Andrews took out a notebook and read from it.

“Mrs. Reed, did you know that Dr. Weidman’s home is only a short drive from the hospital?”

“Well, yes, I mean, Lucinda took us there to meet him once, when things got serious between them.”

“Do you own a firearm ma’am?”

“Yes, I have a gun; it’s an old .38 my husband bought at a gun show years ago. It’s in a shoebox at the back of my closet.”

Detective Andrews called out, “Miller?” and one of the officers stuck his head out of the bedroom.

“Yes sir?”

“Have you guys come across a gun in a shoebox, probably in the closet?”

“We found a shoebox, but there were only a few shells rolling around in it, no gun.”

“Thank you,” Andrews said, and the cop went back to searching.

Bobbi Reed sat with an opened mouth. “My gun’s gone?”

One of the cops in coveralls came inside carrying a duffel bag, and spoke to Ramirez.

“We found this in the trunk of that rusted Beetle, Diego.”

Diego put on a pair of rubber gloves and then opened the bag and began to empty it of its contents.

He took out toys, hair ribbons with ponies on them, ticket stubs from concerts that happened years ago, preteen sized skirts and tops that if worn, would be very revealing. As he dug deeper into the bag, he came across a nightie that was nothing short of X-rated. It was scarlet red and was void of material in the most interesting places.

“Mrs. Reed, do you recognize any of these articles ma’am?”

Bobbi Reed shook her head as she stared over at her daughter.

“No, I’ve never seen them before.”

When Rachel spoke, it was almost a whisper.

“They’re mine, put them back,”

Diego continued to search, and from a pocket on the outside of the bag, he found the pictures.

I could tell from the look on his face that our worst fears had been confirmed. He stood and looked through them slowly, as Detective Andrews and Debra Walker, the police psychiatrist peered over his shoulder.