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

“It counts, and I’ll keep that in mind.”

***

T
he administrator of the nursing home was a middle-aged woman with her hair in a severe bun. She was a good-looking woman, but her demeanor told you that she was one tough cookie. At first, she seemed reluctant to let us talk with the staff, but after Gary poured on the charm, she was ready to give us a tour.

I left Gary alone with her to keep her busy, while I talked with the caregiver who had shown Tommy around. Her name was LaShonda Miller and she had a gold cross pinned to her sweater.

“It was Mr. Geary who had the hundredth birthday, but honestly, Mr. Hayes seemed more interested in Mr. Blaine; he talked to him for hours that day.”

“Who’s Mr. Blaine?”

“Andrew Blaine, he’s eighty-eight and suffering from Alzheimer’s, he’s in the early stages though, so he has good days now and then, it helped him find Jesus, that’s one good thing that came out of it.”

“Is today a good day or a bad day?”

LaShonda smiled. “Let’s find out.”

***

A
ndrew Blaine was lying in bed wearing a robe. In a corner of the room, a TV was playing religious programming. And thankfully, he was having a good day.

“Tommy Hayes, Lord yes I remember him, good boy, and I swear he’s the spittin’ image of my kid brother Albert, only Albert died years ago, in Korea.”

“What did you two talk about sir?”

“Not to be disrespectful ma’am, but that’s between me and Tommy, but don’t worry, once he writes his story, the whole world will know.”

I told him about Tommy then, and he seemed to shrink inside himself. A moment later, he mumbled something.

“I’m sorry sir, I couldn’t hear you; what did you say?”

He lifted his head and stared at me with young blue eyes trapped in an ancient face.

“I said the bastards killed him.”

“What bastards?”

Blaine reached over to his bedside table and grabbed a bible.

“Their day of reckoning has come, sit down missy; I’m about to tell you a story.”

And he sure did, and when he was done, I was certain I knew who killed Tommy Hayes, and why.

***

W
e arrived back in Landsville late in the evening, and then Gary and I spent the night on our laptops doing research.

Mama got up early as usual and made us breakfast. Over coffee, I filled her in.

“That son of a bitch! I should get your daddy’s old shotgun and put him in the ground.”

“Whoa mama, we’ve no proof; it’s just a theory at this point, but once I confront him, we’ll know if he’s guilty or not.”

“Your sister is being arraigned this morning at nine o’clock; we’ll talk to him then.”

I shook my head.

“
I’ll
talk to him then. This could be dangerous, and if it is, I don’t want you anywhere around.”

“I know you’re damn near as tough as your daddy, girl, but get some help, don’t face him alone.”

“I’ve already thought of that, and I’m waiting for a call back from the sheriff’s department.”

***

W
e got to the municipal building at half past eight.

Sheriff Matt met me in an unoccupied courtroom and I repeated Andrew Blaine’s story to him. When I was finished, he leaned back on the wooden railing of the witness box.

“Doc and the mayor, bank robbers?”

“Actually, it was an armored car. The heist took place just outside of El Paso, in 1953.”

“And this Blaine, he claims to be one of the gang that Doc and Emma were a part of?”

“Yes, he and another man, it was the other man that planned the heist. Andrew Blaine was Emma Cole’s boyfriend, of course, back then she was Emma Jameson. Emma, Doc, Blaine and another man robbed over two hundred thousand dollars that day; they also killed the three guards inside the truck.”

“This fourth perp, any idea who he was?”

“Yes, Blaine says he was the brains behind the heist, and also the reason it worked so well.”

“How do you mean?”

“The other man was a deputy sheriff; he flagged down the armored car by using his siren, and when the driver lowered the window to talk to him, he shot him in the face. After that, Doc and Emma blocked the front, and with the patrol car blocking the rear, the remaining guards had nowhere to go.”

Sheriff Matt got off the railing and stood up straight.

“And you say this happened in El Paso?”

“Yes, your father, Sheriff Joe, he was from El Paso, wasn’t he?”

The sheriff let loose a heavy sigh.

“Goddamn Blue, why couldn’t you just let it go? Your sister could have pleaded diminished capacity and been out in five years.”

“And what about Tommy, sheriff, will Tommy be back in five years?”

“I hated doing that, I really did, but the boy left me no choice. He had no clue who I was; he came and told me Blaine’s story in the hope that I would help him identify the deputy from El Paso, seems Blaine couldn’t remember his last name, only that his first name was Joe.”

“You knew all this before he came to you, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, my daddy confessed to me when he was dying. I told him it didn’t make a bit of difference; every man does good and evil. A few years after that heist, daddy met my mama and stopped drinking; from that day forward, he did nothing but good. I’ll be damned if I let anybody drag his name through the mud, anybody Blue.”

“So what are you going to do sheriff, kill me? It won’t do any good, other people know about Andrew Blaine.”

“Blaine’s just a silly old coot with Alzheimer’s, besides, Doc’s on his way there now to... ease him to the other side, and as for you, I guess I’ll say that you were attempting to break your sister out.”

“I’m not Tommy, sheriff, I have a gun and I know how to use it.”

“Little Blue, named after her daddy, are you as fast with a gun as he was? Well, I guess we’ll find out.”

“No we won’t sheriff.” Said a voice from behind him.

It was Deputy Billy Joe Tently, I had told him my suspicions about the sheriff and he reluctantly agreed to hide himself beneath the judge’s bench and listen in. Now, he stood behind his boss with his weapon drawn.

“Billy Joe, put down that gun.”

Billy Joe shook his head.

“Afraid not sheriff, now take out your weapon slowly and lay it on the witness seat there.”

The sheriff did as he was told and then smiled.

“This don’t matter none, once Doc takes care of Blaine, it will all just be hearsay.”

Billy Joe smiled his big toothy grin. “No sir, we got you on film.” He reached over and grabbed his phone off the bench. “And not only was it filming, but it also downloaded to my computer at home.”

The sheriff made a pained expression as he said. “You and that goddamn phone, Billy Joe.”

As Billy Joe led the sheriff away, I whipped out my own phone and called the nursing home. It took a minute, but I got them to understand the threat to them, and they assured me that Mr. Blaine was safe, and that they were alerting security and calling the Dallas P.D.

I walked out of the courtroom and found Gary and mama smiling at me.

Mama walked over and placed a hand on my cheek.

“You done good girl,”

“Thank you mama,”

“Mr. Gary?”

“Yes ma’am,”

“Let’s go get my other girl free like you promised me.”

Gary offered her his arm. “Yes ma’am.”

“Well alright then,” Mama said, and off we went to get Jenny.

I
was at the Lone Star Mall.

Earlier, I had eaten lunch in the food court with Becca and her oldest daughter, Amy, who is eight.

Becca and Amy were browsing about the mall, while I sat in a chair at the salon getting ready to have my hair dried and my feet pedicured. It was Spoil Blue Day; a day I try to celebrate at least twice a year.

I had a full day planned. After sleeping sinfully late, I drove to the mall and met Becca for lunch. After the salon, I planned to go home and veg out in front of the TV, and later, after a junk food dinner, I would of course indulge in ice cream, mint chocolate chip.

Gary was out of town on business and wouldn’t be back for two days, so it was a perfect time to just sit back and relax, but of course, life had other plans.

The stylist was just about to place the dryer over my head when I heard the gunshots. I, and the others in the shop, ran to the window and looked out. We were on the ground floor of the three-story mall, and in the middle of our section, there was a coin fountain, past the fountain, on the other side of the mall, was a bank.

As we watched, three armed men in suits ran out of the bank and headed for the exit, the one in the lead was dragging a child along; the child was Amy.

I ran back to my pocketbook and grabbed my gun, a snub-nosed .38, while I shouted to the shop owner.

“Gloria, call 911, tell them that four men just robbed the bank, shots fired, hostage taken,”

“I only saw three.”

“There’s a driver outside, trust me, they’re not walking.”

On my way out the door, I grabbed a scrunchie and tied my wet hair back in a ponytail.

As my bare feet slapped against the floor tiles, I maneuvered around groups of huddled shoppers, and thumbed back the hammer on my gun.

When I heard more shots ring out, I came to a sliding halt in front of the bank and watched as the robbers banged open the exit doors, on the floor behind them were two bodies, a man and a woman, both mall security.

I raced toward the doors and made it outside just as the last robber was twenty feet from the getaway car. He was a behemoth, three-fifty if he was a pound, and it was no wonder that he was last to reach the car.

“Stop!” I called.

The man turned toward me with an Uzi in his right hand and I shot at him four times. The first three shots missed high, but the forth one took the top of his head off in a spray of blood and brains. As he fell, he spun toward his own vehicle and the gun in his hand began to chatter.

The man sitting in the passenger seat ducked in time but the driver wasn’t as lucky. As he bent forward to avoid the errant shots, his seat belt held him in place, and multiple slugs caused him to dance in his seat. As the gun fell toward the ground along with its owner, it blew apart the right rear tire and etched a line of holes into the ground behind the car.

The man in the back seat scrambled out of the car with Amy and a black satchel, while his sole remaining companion followed behind.

“Let the girl go!” I said.

The man shoved Amy toward the other man and then leaned over the roof of the car.

As he opened up with his gun, I dived to the ground and rolled beside the dead man. He had fallen on his back when he died and his massive bulk made for a handy shield.

I lay as flat as I could as a dozen shots came my way. Many of them plunked into the corpse and at least one exited in a spray of blood. I was wearing a pair of cut-off jeans and the still warm blood splattered across my legs.

“Stop shootin’ Bobby.” The other man yelled.

I raised my head, risked a glance, and found that the men were running away, with Amy dragged along between them, her curly blond hair floating behind her in the breeze. They were running toward the east end of the parking lot, where the highway was.

I stood to go in pursuit, and that’s when I heard my name called.

“Blue?”

It was Becca. She had a lump the size of a golf ball above her left eye and appeared to be on the verge of passing out, even so, I breathed a sigh of relief; until that moment, I didn’t know if they had killed her.

“Blue they took Amy... they took Amy.”

I locked eyes with her.

“I’ll get her back; I swear it.”

Becca nodded slightly and then sank to the ground in tears.

I ignored my impulse to comfort her and ran after the robbers. As I threaded my way through the parking lot, I came upon shoppers hiding in their cars, many with phones to their ears, undoubtedly calling 911. While the police would be a blessing, I also prayed that their arrival wouldn’t escalate things into a hostage situation. I needed to get Amy away from her abductors before things got out of hand.

At the end of the parking lot was a rise of grass, twenty feet high, which took you up to the freeway. As the two men reached the top of the slope, one of them fired a shot in my direction that blew the windshield out of a car thirty feet away from me. It was a weak shot and was probably only meant to slow me down.

As I started up the hill, they vanished from sight and I slipped and grunted my way up the grass. The morning dew remained, and had made the grass slick, and my bare feet only made the going tougher.

I was ten feet from the top when I heard the sound of shots and then screeching, as a car came to a sudden stop. I made it to the top just as they peeled away, they were in a Hummer of all things, a blue one, and its previous owner lay on the side of the road, unconscious, with blood running down his face.

The Thursday afternoon traffic was light and the carjacking had barely slowed down the flow.

I needed a ride. I ran out into the middle lane, gun at the ready and searched for the right vehicle. It came a second later, in the form of a black, Ford F350.

I fired one shot in the air and then stood sideways with the gun aimed at the speeding car. The car slowed, but as it neared me, it veered to the right and skidded to a stop. A moment later, I found myself face to face with the driver, whose gun made the .38 I carried look like a popgun.

The man smiled, as he thumbed off the safety on the gun.

“Hey Chica, what’s happenin’?”

***

“T
here!” I pointed. “The black Hummer in the middle lane,”

“I see it.” Said the man in a calm voice, he was about thirty, swarthy and muscular.

“What’s your name?”

“Call me Ramón,” He said, with a Spanish accent.

“I’m Blue.”

“The bounty hunter?”

“You’ve heard of me?”

“Yes, you once got to a man before I could.”

“You’re a bounty hunter too?”

He smiled, “Not exactly,” and then he looked down at my bloody legs. “There’s some wipes in the glove box.”