COLLATERAL CASUALTIES (The Kate Huntington mystery series) (24 page)

            Skip snorted.

            Dolph pulled a small electronic device out of his pocket, switched it on and started walking around the vehicle. “My new toy. Picks up GPS devices as well as listening bugs. And guess what? You’ve got one of each.”

            He walked over to his own car. “And so do I.”

            Skip looked at the Expedition for a moment, a vague plan forming in his mind. “Manny, stay here, please. Keep an eye on the vehicles.” He started down the sidewalk. Dolph fell into step with him.

            Once they were well away from the truck, Skip said, “We need to find that kid.”

            “You sure he’s from around here?”

            “Nope. Whoever gave him the doctored wine might have picked him up anywhere. But let’s poke around here for awhile. See what we can find.”

~~~~~~~

            They didn’t find Jamal Johnson. He found them. They had been walking up and down the streets around Janice’s building, looking down the alleys behind buildings, trying to figure out where a black kid would hang out in a rather lily-white section of town.

            Dolph had decided it was a lost cause. He voiced this thought and Skip agreed.

            They were headed back toward the truck when a voice hailed them from behind. “Hey, mister, you got any errands or odd jobs I can do for you?”

            Turning around they saw their quarry coming toward them. Tall, skinny black kid with neat corn rows, baggy jeans hanging low on his hips, black T-shirt with some rapper’s picture on it.

            Dolph pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. “Actually we’re looking for some information.”

            Skip had moved behind the kid to block him should he try to take off.

            “For your own safety, son, we can’t be seen talking on the street,” Dolph said. “Let’s go down that alley a little bit.”

            The boy’s eyes went from friendly to wary. He turned to bolt but Skip grabbed his arm. “We’re not going to hurt you, but it’s really important we talk to you.” He pushed the kid into the entrance of the alley. Dolph followed.

            “Hey, man, I ain’t that kinda hustler, ya know whad I mean?” The boy was trying to sound tough but his voice wavered.

            “We do, son,” Dolph said. “You’re just trying to pick up a little spending money doing odd jobs.”

            “Yeah, but it’s for my college fund. Let me go, man. I’m not gonna do nothin’ for ya. I’m not queer.”

            “We didn’t think you were,” Skip said. “What’s your name?”

            The boy was starting to tremble, his eyes wide. “Jamal.”

            “Honest, Jamal, we’re not going to hurt you,” Dolph said. “We just need to ask about a job you did yesterday afternoon. You delivered a bottle of wine to a lady’s apartment building.”

            “Man, I can’t be tellin’ ya nothin’ ’bout dat. My rep, man, it’s built on dis-cre-tion.” The boy dragged the word out.

            “It’s important to maintain a good reputation,” Skip said. “But the problem is that bottle of wine was poisoned.”

            “Yer shittin’ me!”

            “No shit, Jamal. The lady died. We need to know who gave you that bottle.”

            “I don’t know nothin’ ’bout no poison.” The boy was pulling hard against Skip’s grip. “I’m just tryin’ to get money for college. My grandma, she’s a retired school teacher. I lives with her. She wants me to go to college so bad she said she’s gonna mortgage her house when the time comes. I can’t let her do that, man.”

            “Where do you live, son?” Dolph asked.

            “Few blocks from here. Please let me go, mister, I didn’t know nothin’ ’bout poison.”

            “Jamal,” Dolph said. “Something tells me if your grandma lives in this section of town and she’s a retired schoolteacher, she raised you to speak standard English. Not that there’s anything wrong with the street jive when you’re hangin’ with your friends.”

            “Street jive? Don’t nobody call it that no more, old man.”

            Skip shook the kid’s arm. “Show a little respect for your elders.”

            Suddenly Jamal straightened out of the rebellious adolescent slouch and hitched up his sagging jeans. “You’re right, sir. I’m sorry. The jive talk’s an act I put on. For some reason white folks are more suspicious of me when I talk like them and politely tell them I’m trying to raise money for college. If I act like a hustler, they’re more likely to hire me to do little stuff, like delivering wine bottles.”

            Skip cocked an eyebrow at him. “But you still tell them you’re raising money for college?”

            “Yeah, but they don’t believe me. They just pretend they do so they can convince themselves they’re not contributing to my drug habit.” This was said in a matter-of-fact tone.

            Skip gave the teen a small grin. “Jamal, you should major in psychology. You’ve got human beings pretty well pegged there. Now about the guy who gave you the wine bottle. Did you know him?”

            “Nope. He was white, had a tan. Dark hair. About two inches shorter than you, sir.” He pointed to Dolph, who was six foot even.

            “Anything else you can remember about him? Scars, facial hair?” Skip asked.

            Jamal shook his head. “He was kind of old, wore a suit.”

            Skip nodded. “Now what do we do with him?” he asked Dolph. “It’s not safe to leave you roaming the streets, Jamal.”

            The kid misunderstood. His eyes grew wide with fear again. He struggled to get free. Skip opened his mouth to reassure him.

            “Hey, down there. Leave that kid alone!” They all turned toward the voice coming from the street.

            Jamal pulled loose from Skip’s grip and raced down the alley. Skip took off after him. Dolph pulled out his PI license and started toward the man who had yelled at them. But the guy disappeared around the corner.

            Dolph stopped, his cop instincts kicking in. He pivoted and tore after Skip.

            He rounded the corner at the end of the alley and caught a glimpse of pants leg and sneaker as Skip disappeared down another alley, a block away. Dolph ran as fast as he could. Racing around that corner, he almost collided with Skip, who had stopped in the middle of the alley.

            “Kid ducked in here, then disappeared. He’s got to be hiding somewhere,” Skip said, gesturing toward the dumpsters, trash cans, and boxes that were scattered along the alley.

            Dolph grabbed his arm and dragged him toward the nearest back door of a shop. He tugged on the doorknob. It was locked. He ran for the next door, dragging Skip along with him.

            “What the hell are you doing, Dolph? We’ve got to find that kid.”

            “It’s a trap. I’d bet money on it.” The third doorknob Dolph grabbed turned in his hand. He threw open the door, pushed Skip inside, then dove through the doorway himself, shoving the door closed behind him.

            They were in a dimly lit back room of a shop, surrounded by boxes of gourmet delicacies. Dolph felt around on the door, found a deadbolt knob and turned it. Then he put an ear to the door.

            “Have you lost your mind?” Skip whispered from behind him.

            “Shh,” Dolph said. There it was again. The faint sound of male voices, getting louder as they came closer. They were speaking rapid-fire Spanish.

            The doorknob turned. Dolph backed up quickly and collided with Skip. The door rattled but the deadbolt held.

            They both drew their guns and eased further away from the door.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

            “Now how the hell do we get out of here without getting shot by the storekeeper?” Skip whispered after several uneventful minutes had passed.

            “We sure ain’t going back through that alley,” Dolph whispered back. He slipped his pistol into his pocket. “Wait, I’ve got an idea. Follow my lead.” He sidled up to the edge of the doorway leading into the shop. “Police safety inspectors coming through here,” he called out and moved into the store holding up his PI license as if it were a badge. Skip holstered his gun and followed suit, holding his own license up.

            “Sir, we’re going around this section of town checking on the shops. Looking for ways that thieves can get in.” Dolph was talking fast, walking toward the man behind the counter, license held high in one hand. “Did you know your back door was unlocked? You need to be careful about that, sir. Anybody could have walked in here from the alley.”

            “I... I thought it was locked,” the man stammered. Dolph kept moving toward the front of the shop, Skip in his wake.

            “Gee, thanks, officers,” the shop owner said to their backs. He came around the counter and headed for the back room to check the door himself.

            Dolph race-walked to the front door, then slowed when he reached it. He and Skip sauntered out onto the sidewalk, looking around for Hispanic men.

            “When we get to the vehicles, get rid of the bugs but leave the tracking devices for now,” Skip said quietly. “I’ll keep an eye out for the bad guys.”

            While Dolph located the button-sized listening devices stuck to the back windows on the driver’s side of each vehicle, Skip told Manny to follow them in Dolph’s car. Dolph dropped the bugs into the gutter.

            Once they were in his truck and pulling away from the curb, Skip said, “That was a rather obvious spot.”

            “Only if one’s looking for a bug,” Dolph said. “They had to put it on the glass in order to pick up what we said inside. Anywhere else outside and they’d just get road noise. So what are you thinking here?”

            “You got a throwaway cell on you?” Skip asked.

            “Yeah.”

            “Call Rose. Every vehicle that’s going to the safe house needs to be checked.”

            Dolph made the call. “Rose, we got several little presents recently from our friends,” he said into the phone. “A couple of bugs which I removed and a GPS device planted on each of our vehicles. They’re still active. I think your partner’s got a plan hatching. Let me put you on speaker.”

            “You finished your errands, Rose?” Skip asked.

            “Almost. We’re headed out to send off the letter.”

            “Good. Dolph’s got a new toy that detects GPS devices.”

            “Sweet. Hope your mama taught you to share your toys, Dolph.”

            Dolph chuckled. “I was planning on turning in the invoice for reimbursement once I was sure it worked, so technically it’s your toy.”

            “Excellent. What are you thinking, partner?”

            “Did you check for a listening device in your car?” Skip asked.

            “We’re in Lilly’s truck and yes, I checked. No bug.”

            “We had bugs and tracking devices planted on both our vehicles while we were inside Janice’s building,” Skip said. “But there wasn’t anybody watching the house yesterday and only one guy out front of our office building this morning. What’s that say to you?”

            “Limited personnel but money and access to technology,” Dolph answered.

            “Yeah,” Rose agreed. “My guess is they all were in that group brought in from Colombia for the president’s visit. So at most a dozen men.”

            “I suspect it’s more like five or six,” Skip said. “I want to spread them really thin. Minimize the risk of them tailing us to the safe house. I’m going to send Manny, in Dolph’s car, to Bel Air. I’ll head north toward Westminster. Where’s a good place for Dolph to meet you all to check your vehicles for GPS devices?”

            “Hmm, Manny’s going east. You’re going north,” Rose said. “How about southeast. Sparrows Point, the old Bethlehem Steel plant.”

            Dolph grinned. “Good choice.” Bethlehem Steel had once been the largest steel mill in the world. After changing hands multiple times, it was now in bankruptcy. It wasn’t completely shut down, but there wouldn’t be much happening there on a Saturday. “If we find any tracking devices, we throw them over the fence. They’ll spend hours chasing their tails, looking for us in all those buildings.”

            Skip glanced at his watch. “Okay, call Rob’s guard and you all meet Dolph at the main entrance of Beth Steel in an hour, at one-thirty sharp. We all dump the GPS devices at the same time. We’ll meet you in Centreville, that first town off of Route 301 headed out toward the shack.”

            “Sounds good,” Rose said and disconnected.

            “You and your wife need to join us at the safe house,” Skip said.

            “That had already occurred to me.”

            “I’m going to drop you in front of a hotel to catch a cab and go get her.”

            “I think I can sell Sue on a little weekend get-away without scaring her too much.”

            “I think you need to scare her a little, Dolph. She needs to know how serious this is. And don’t oversell the accommodations. They suck, and they’re going to be very crowded tonight.”

~~~~~~~

            Kate felt downright giddy with relief when she spotted Skip’s truck pulling into the parking lot of the only shopping center in Centreville. She jumped out of Lilly’s pick-up and ran toward the Expedition. Skip got out and caught her up in a quick hug.

            Dolph stepped out of his wife’s car. Rose came over to join them. “Any problems?” Skip asked.

            “Nope. Lilly’s truck was clean, but Rob’s bodyguard had a couple attachments on his car.” Dolph tilted his head toward the white sedan parked nearby, a burly bodyguard behind the wheel. Rob sat in the passenger’s seat. “They’re now in the tall grass next to Beth Steel’s parking lot.”

            “We need internet to send the e-mail to the Secret Service,” Rose said.

            “We also need supplies,” Kate said. She had been weighing the merits of the few decent-sized towns between Route 301 and the shack. “I think our shopping options will be better in Chestertown.”