Kidnapped, page 25
part #10 of Riveting Kidnapping Mystery Series
She got chopsticks and ate a piece of General Tso’s chicken, being careful not to drip any sauce on the case file copies.
“The guy is practically the devil, but you gotta admire him,” Rennard said as he finished off a dish of beef and broccoli and looked over the hand-drawn tunnel blueprint.
Anna turned to the FBI agent, stopping mid-chew.
“He’s not a common creep,” Rennard defended his point. “Cain spent years building his operation and a lot of bucks putting this together. He didn’t make mistakes. You just outsmarted him by searching every frame of Edger Strife’s videotapes. It’s something no one would go out of their way to do.”
Anna finished her bite and picked up a photo of Wesley Jenkins, the unassuming man with thick glasses. “What did he do for a living again?”
“He owned a computer repair shop, but no one has a clue how he made money to fund this,” Rennard tapped his finger on the tunnel.
An idea sparked, and Anna put aside her food. “That’s it.”
“What?” Rennard asked, looking at Anna and then the photocopy in front of him.
“We may not know how he made his money, but we can find out who’s in the business of making underground tunnels.”
“That’s a pretty niche market,” Rennard said, catching on.
Anna smiled. “Less work for us.”
Rennard got his laptop and searched construction companies that specialized in underground housing around the Midwest. They found a handful of leads but none willing to admit working with a child abductor/cop killer. Anna compared the companies’ names and trademarked logos to the minute amount of evidence uncovered at Smithson’s Train Yard. No hits. Rennard sifted through the documentation found at Cain’s vacation cabin, but only found the cable and Wi-fi bills. Anna rubbed her eyes and looked over the waterlogged and fire-damaged documents from the Jenkins’ house. It seemed like nothing matched until she noticed the burned piece of paper with a small earth and hammer logo. Anna cross-referenced the trademark to the various construction companies around the area and found Project Earthhome. She tapped Rennard on the shoulder. The agent looked over the address and grabbed his car keys from the countertop.
Kevin Dorsey told Anna to meet him at a job site. Bulldozers and other industrial mammoths ate away at dirt and rock on the muddy cliffside. Around them, the tree-covered Ozark mountains jutted toward the heavens in a view one could only get from a postcard. A small trailer sat apart from the rest of the chaos. A few men in hard hats and other reflective PPE bustled by, almost knocking shoulders with Rennard. Anna and the agent marched across the dry dirt and found the pudgy man in a collared shirt, holding a clipboard and barking orders from on top of a mound of packed earth.
“Over there! I said over there!” Kevin shouted and grumbled a curse.
“Mr. Dorsey?” Anna approached the short figure with blond hair and a wide lower jaw.
The man twisted around and bounced his angry gaze between Rennard and Anna. But then the realization hit him, and his attitude softened. “Dedrick and Rennard, I assume?”
Rennard waved quickly and casually while Anna nodded and said, “Yes. We’d like to talk to you for a moment if that would be all right.”
“Um, sure.” Kevin gestured for them to follow. They turned away from the busy construction site and headed toward the trailer. “You were vague over the phone. I hope there’s not a problem.”
“Not at all,” Rennard said, trading a look with Anna.
Kevin approached the single-wide trailer’s door and propped it open, allowing Anna and Rennard to pass into the air conditioning. The building contained a desk with a computer, a table, and few ice chests filled with cheap booze. Kevin pulled out two canned beers, giving one to Rennard. Anna crossed her arms and the agent set the can to the side. Kevin popped the top of his own and slurped up the fizz pouring out of the top of the can.
“Did you ever work on a project at the Smithson Train Yard in Van Buren?” Anna asked.
Kevin removed the can from his lip. “Not that I recall. You sure you don’t want anything? Buds? Coors?”
“We’re fine,” said Anna. “Would you happen to recognize this?”
Rennard pulled out the blueprint and held it in front of Kevin’s face. The blond-haired man took it in his stubby fingers. His blue eyes traced the sprawling tunnels. “Um, where did you get this?”
“Just answer the question,” Rennard said with traces of hostility.
“I get special requests sometimes. Unique bunkers or houses built into cliffsides like one out there, but this is, um, something else.”
Anna showed him the logo recovered from the Jenkins’ house. “This is Project Earthhome’s brand, right?”
Kevin slowly put the beer on the table beside him. “Yes. That’s ours,” he said with hesitance.
“You’ve done nothing wrong, Mr. Dorsey,” Anna said kindly. “We only want to know if you constructed the bunker.”
“Lying to an FBI agent is a big offense,” Rennard reminded the man not so subtly.
Kevin nodded very slowly and sat down at his computer desk. He booted up the machine and studied the design again. “There may have been something similar, let me check the records.”
Anna and Agent Rennard watched him intently as he scrolled through dozens of blueprints. “You said it was beneath a train yard?” he asked and fidgeted under the table.
“Yes. The Smithson. It’s been privately owned for over a decade and was recently involved in a federal investigation.”
“I did not know that,” the man lied horribly. By his worried face, Kevin regretted inviting them over. He nearly scrolled past the proper blueprint when Anna told him to go back and click on it.
An image overtook the screen, nearly identical to the sketch from the train yard. “Oh, this one,” the man exclaimed. “I remember now.”
Anna and Rennard traded looks.
“Funny how that works,” Rennard said.
Anna placed a picture of Wesley Jenkins beside Kevin. “Was this the man who you dealt with?”
Kevin took a deep breath and nodded. “You’ve got understand, that whole train yard shindig stank from the get-go.”
“How so?” Rennard asked.
“My clients are usually paranoid preppers hankering for a fallout shelter, or some rich guy and his wife wanting to live in a cliffside like the one outside. No one asks for corridors that don’t lead anywhere.”
“Why did you take the job?” Anna asked.
“The money was right, plain and simple. It didn’t need to look nice, the guy just wanted it done. So, we dug where he said, laid the foundation, and we were done. If I had known he was some deranged child abductor, I would’ve said no. Project Earthhome is a very reputable company,” he said, his breath smelling of beer.
“Pull up his name in the database.”
Kevin sulked and did so. “Will Foster.”
“That wasn’t so hard,” Rennard replied.
Kevin swiveled his chair around, face red. “The guy had good money, get off my back.” He suddenly recoiled and apologized to the FBI agent.
“Did he look like the picture?” Anna asked, drawing the man’s attention back to the photo of Wesley.
“He had a mustache and wore dark contacts, but that’s definitely the same guy.”
Anna thought back to the wig sample she had discovered behind King’s Opera House at the start of the case. Cain did like his disguises.
“I remembered him because half of his car sank down,” Kevin said with a reminiscing grin. “Yeah, the big fella in the front seat put a hurting on that vehicle.”
Anna and Rennard spoke at the same time. “Who was he?”
Kevin shrugged. “Just some dude or gal. I couldn’t tell. Whoever it was stayed in the car the whole time.”
24
Niente
“Call me if you think of anything else,” Rennard said, handing Kevin his business card.
The supervisor looked over the contact information, but it was painfully obvious that he hadn’t read a word. If he didn’t throw it away before the day was through, Anna would be surprised.
Rennard drove Anna away from the construction site and down a winding road. “Could the person in the car have been Edger Strife?”
Anna thought about her recently deceased abuser. The stench of his breath. The grip of his hands. Anna’s blood boiled. After all the things that man did to dozens of underage girls and herself, he deserved his fate. Still, his untimely prison shivving cost Anna precious information about Cain that, in turn, cost lives. “Strife had the body of a malnourished teenager. There’s not a chance he was the man in that car.”
“Then who is it?” Rennard posed the question Anna kept asking herself. A million more questions bubbled to the surface of her mind. Did Cain have a partner this whole time? Or was the other person in the car just along for the ride for one trip? Kevin was a liar, and a bad one at that, but why lie about the other person in Cain’s car?
“We should focus on other leads,” Anna reluctantly admitted. “If we keep digging into Cain’s past investments, we may learn more.”
“I agree,” Rennard concurred and sped to his condo.
Anna feared the place would be ablaze when they arrived, but her suspicions were thankfully wrong. Inside, all of the case file documents and crime scene photos were lying on the carpet floor beside cartons of half-eaten fried rice and depleted lo mein noodles. The sunset streamed through the glass window on the second floor and reminded Anna of her flat in Miami. Every Saturday morning, she’d bike to the boardwalk, smell the sea salt in the air, and take in the sights of countless strangers. Part of her wondered why she had ever left. Then she remembered the Dade County Human Trafficking Case and Beckham murders that made her stomach churn. For better or for worse, Van Buren was her home now. Though if she had known the trouble that her family would endure because of her involvement in this case, she would’ve run in the opposite direction and quickly.
Rennard took off his jacket and grabbed a beer from the fridge. Anna just had a glass of water. She feared the alcohol would make her tired… or more tired.
“We know Cain’s construction planner,” Rennard said. “And we know that the police have searched his properties head to toe. What other leads can we track?”
Anna sifted through the crime scene photos and lifted a picture containing a discarded shell casing. “The shoot-out,” Anna replied. “He fired upon us with a high caliber rifle. You can’t buy these at any gun store.”
“No, but an army surplus may have some.”
Reinvigorated, Anna sifted through the pictures to see if she could find one of Cain’s assault rifles while Rennard went over the geo-profile and where Cain may have bought his bullets. It took him about fifteen minutes to get a list together. “Now comes the fun part. One of them admitting they sold illegal arms to the country’s most-hated man.”
With most of the army surpluses closing soon, they tried for the one in the middle of Cain’s properties. They pulled up in front of the square, flat-roofed building with an American flag painted across its banner. It had one car parked out front, a sporty Lexus with deep red paint.
“Nice car,” Rennard pointed out as they crossed the parking lot.
“Looks expensive,” Anna replied, trading a small smile with her partner.
Ten minutes till the hour, they passed through the doors. A little bell jingled. Weapons, camo gear, and other army equipment were displayed around the room. It took the clerk a moment to step up to the desk. He was a Hispanic man in his forties wearing an olive-green shirt and cargo pants. He leaned against the glass countertop loaded with boxes of bullets and various knives.
“Looking for something in particular?” His accent was distinctly American, and the man had biceps that could crush someone’s head like a melon.
“Tell me about your fully automatic assault weapons.” Rennard flashed his FBI badge.
The clerk kept his eyes on Rennard, not even batting a glance at the badge. “We carry them. They are mostly semi-automatics with conversions. Before you ask, they aren’t available to the public.”
“Then how might one acquire such a thing?” Rennard asked.
The clerk shrugged. “I only stock and sell. You need to talk to my manager about that. He’s not here.”
“When will he be back?” Anna asked.
“I don’t know,” the clerk said, clearly not interested in elaborating further.
“We found this,” Anna showed him the picture of a filed down but faintly visible serial number on Cain’s assault rifle. “We wanted to search your catalogs for a match.”
“Sales and inventory records for the last two decades,” Rennard added.
The clerk smirked.
“You think we’re joking?” Rennard said. “This is a federal investigation.”
The clerk stood up straight. His eyes, dark like black beads, locked onto Rennard, sizing the FBI agent up. “You’ll have to wait for my manager. That isn’t my department.”
Anna put her hands on her hips. “You just said that you stock and sell, therefore you have access to the sales and shipment catalogs, correct?”
The clerk crossed his arms over his broad chest. “I’ll tell my manager you stopped by. If you’re not interested in purchasing anything, I can’t help you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to lock up.”
As the buff man turned his back, Anna noticed the metal glimmer on his wrist. “What time is it?”
With a sour expression, the man checked his chrome-plated watch. “Five till.”
“Sexy watch,” Anna complimented. “Is that your car outside, too?”
The clerk peered down at Anna, subtly flexing his muscles. “It is.”
Agent Rennard rolled his eyes. “I have to make a phone call.”
Looking at his phone, he passed by the walls displaying armaments and patriotic posters.
“I should get going, too,” Anna said and slid a business card across the countertop. “Call us when your manager returns.”
“Will do, sweetheart,” the clerk replied, and Anna followed Rennard outside.
The agent stood by his car, the glow of his phone’s screen illuminating his dimpled chin. He looked at her, waiting for a reply.
“We follow him,” she replied and climbed into the passenger seat of Rennard’s Dodge Charger.
The agent ducked inside and shut his door. They drove fifty feet down the road and parked, eyes on the store. Within two minutes, the clerk was jogging out the side door, locking it hastily and making his way to his red Lexus.
“That was quick,” Rennard said.
“We swatted the hornet’s nest.”
After looking both ways and mumbling curses to himself, the clerk got into his expensive vehicle and peeled out onto the street. His tires spun on the asphalt, and his sports car shot down the street like a crimson bullet.
Rennard followed behind, keeping a safe distance. They tailed him through town and into a web of back roads, weaving between interconnecting streets to lower the clerk’s suspicions, a risky but effective maneuver Anna had learned as a detective.
“Keep your distance,” Anna told Rennard as they found themselves five car lengths behind the Lexus on a flat country road. “We don’t want to spook him.”
Rennard cracked a smile. “It’s not my first rodeo.”
As soon as he said the words, the red Lexus jetted down the road, reaching seventy miles per hour in a thirty-five. Rennard tightened his grip, but Anna touched on his arm to stop him from stomping on the gas. “I know these roads. There are only a few houses down this way.”
“Are you sure?” Rennard said. “We could lose him.”
Anna had to trust her gut. “Yes. I’m sure.”
Within seconds, the Lexus was lost in the distance. They followed the same stretch of road that traveled northwest until they reached a T where Hurricane Creek Road branched left and right into NFR 1700 and NFR 1007 on Bidville Road. Night had fallen, and at the stop sign, Rennard turned to Anna for guidance.
Anna thought for a moment as she bounced her glance between the two sides of the road. Black tire marks curled to the right side, and Anna made her choice. Rennard followed the road while Anna kept a lookout for potential hiding spots. It seemed like every house they drove by showed no hint of the clerk’s whereabouts, but before she doubted her gut, she spotted the red Lexus parked hastily outside of a small rural home backed by two acres of flat land that ended at a wall of trees. Tucked behind the simple house with a shingled, triangular roof and gravel driveway sat an even simpler shed with its old door flung wide open. Dim light spilled across the cropped grass in a cone shape.
“There,” Rennard said.
“We flank him from the back,” Anna suggested. “Get him when he steps out.”
After taking a deep breath, Rennard nodded. The two of them escaped the black Charger and darted across the lawn, guns out. Without cover, they moved swiftly and precisely, keeping an eye on the shed every step of the way. The little wood building was much farther than it had appeared from the roadside and had a tin roof that slanted down its back. If the clerk stepped out of the shed with a fully automatic rifle… Anna tightened her grip on the pistol.
A dog barked. The hairs on Anna’s neck stood. Long strings of white slobber dragged down the hound’s jaw with each yap that it fired off like a machine gun. Its massive paw scratched against the inside of the nearby house’s window, threatening escape. The shadow of a man expanded across the cone of light falling from the shed.
Anna and Rennard raised their weapons to the shed’s door. The shadow grew, and the silhouette of a shotgun grew with it.
