Shelter for Sharla Read online

  By the time the coffee was done, Cruz was standing in the kitchen, mug in hand. “You up for O’Fallon today?” he asked as Carter reached up into the cabinet to retrieve mugs for himself and Sharla.

  “I told her that’s probably what you were going to ask about, and yeah, I’m up for it.”

  “Good. Let’s go that way. I can fill you in on the professor’s info in the car on the way. And pack a bag. If this takes longer than we think, we can get a room and start again tomorrow.”

  As soon as Sharla left for work, Carter packed his little duffel and dropped it by the front door. In fifteen minutes, they were on the road, and in thirty-five, they were crossing the state line in Wickliffe, Kentucky, into Cairo, Illinois, to catch I-57 and connect to I-55, their direct route into St. Louis. It was mostly farming country, not a lot to see, and they chatted as Carter drove. Once they were finally settled on I-55, Cruz pulled out his phone. “Let’s listen to the recording and see if you catch anything I didn’t.” Linking his phone with Carter’s Bluetooth device in the car, Cruz hit PLAY and the space was filled with the professor’s voice.

  As soon as it finished, Carter snorted. “Well, there are people on campus who know about that group.”

  “Yeah, and the school’s been accepting donations in order to let it meet on campus without appropriate sponsorship or paperwork. Wonder if they’re taking personal kickbacks?”

  “Our department doesn’t have the ability to look into financial records, but―”

  “On it.” Cruz spent the next five minutes talking to someone on his phone. Carter wasn’t sure who it was, and he didn’t really feel the need to ask. The job was getting done, and that was all he cared about. When Cruz hung up, he stared at Carter. “Do you think there’s anybody in the sheriff’s office or city police department in Murray who knows about this?”

  “I doubt it. If there were, Sam would have some inkling of it, and he’s said nothing. I really believe in an officer’s intuition, and I think he would’ve picked up on it if that were the case.”

  “Yeah, probably. So I’ve got one of the analysts in my office working on getting into the financials of the university. It’s a public institution, so that makes it easier, and with the name of the school’s contact, James Goodall, we’ve got somewhere to look for personal gain too. By the way,” Cruz asked, “did you send out that email?”

  Carter pointed to his phone. “Sure did. Wanted to copy you but I didn’t have your email addy. Grab my phone, open my email, and look in my sent file.” He’d worked on the email for a few minutes before sending it because he wanted it just right, and he was pretty sure he’d nailed it.

  TO: All involved investigative entities, Palmer slaying

  FROM: Carter Melton, Sheriff, Trigg County, KY

  RE: Welcome to Cruz Livingston

  As of today’s date, we have assistance from Agent Cruz Livingston, FBI out of Texas. Agent Livingston is a personal friend of Detective Sam Curry, Calloway County SD, and in conversation was alerted to the possibility that the FBI has detected a connection between the Palmer shooting and organized gang activity in their district. As a professional courtesy, Agent Livingston has been allowed to assist us in our investigation. I know you all will welcome him, as we can always use additional assistance, especially when it comes at no cost to our already-burdened department budgets. Agent Livingston is staying at my house as a courtesy to his department. Please feel free to contact him if you would like to speak to him about his knowledge of the case. Thank you.

  “Perfect. Just what they need to know and nothing more. I like it. And you included my number at the bottom, which I’m glad you did. If they want to know something, they can contact me directly and won’t have to bother you.”

  “Transparency. That’s what I was aiming for, transparency on a need-to-know basis.”

  “Yep. Exactly.” Cruz settled back into the passenger seat again and they rode along, occasionally commenting on something on the side of the road.

  They hit Cape Girardeau, Missouri, at lunchtime, so they stopped and ate, then got back on the road. From there, it wasn’t long before they were greeted with a sign that read, O’Fallon City Limits, and a population estimate. Not a big place, but it was a bedroom community of St. Louis, so that estimation didn’t mean much. It wasn’t hard to find their municipal building and in minutes, Carter and Cruz were checking in at the front desk and being led to the court clerk’s office.

  “Looks like you’d better be glad I told you to pack a bag,” Cruz whispered as they carried the boxes of files down the hallway. “These two guys were obviously very note-worthy.”

  “Yeah, looks that way. This is going to take forever.”

  “You’d better tell your girlfriend you’re going to be tied up for a while,” Cruz said with a wink.

  “I thought I told her you were going to be there last night, but she said I didn’t. She was really embarrassed about running into you in the hallway.”

  Cruz laughed aloud. “No biggie! She had on a tee and panties, and I was wearing my boxer briefs. It’s not like we were naked!”

  “That’s exactly what I told her!” Carter said, laughing, as Cruz backed the conference room door open and they plopped the boxes down on the desk.

  And so they started. It was ridiculous. There was motion after motion trying to get the discovery thrown out, trying to get evidence thrown out, trying to get the court dates changed here and there, and worse yet, several motions to dismiss. All were denied, obviously. They’d been at it for about ten minutes when Carter choked out, “Wait! What the hell? This is dated six months prior to the robbery.”

  Cruz looked over what was in his hand. “Yeah. This is dated four months prior. Holy shit. We’re in the wrong place. We should be at the police station.”

  “Sure looks that way. What should we do with this stuff?”

  “Leave it. Tell them we’ll be back. If we don’t need it, we’ll come back and tell them. But we need to see what the department has on these guys.” Cruz stood and headed out the conference room door, Carter right on his heels.

  The police station was down the block. They’d asked the court clerk’s office to call ahead, and there was a sergeant waiting for them when they arrived. When they told him what they wanted, he shook his head. “Bad news. I was here the first time they were arrested.”

  “First time, huh?” Carter stared at him. “What are we talking about here?”

  “Oh, just wait,” the sergeant, whose name they’d learned was Langstaff, said with a smirk. “You’re in for a real treat. Hope you’ve got some time on your hands.” Carter didn’t see that as a good sign.

  And he was right in his guess. There were two big boxes of files, not to mention a list of evidence a mile long. He wasn’t feeling too much trepidation about it until Langstaff toted in another box, and then another. “What are these?”

  “All of the robberies.”

  “Wait.” Cruz wheeled and stared at the sergeant. “There was more than one?”

  “Four. Four armed robberies. Same three guys. I told you it would be a real treat. They were busy, and you’re going to be too.” With that, he walked out and left Cruz and Carter there, their jaws on the floor.

  “Where do you suggest we start?” Carter asked.

  “First two. I’ll take one, you take the other. Here.” Cruz handed Carter a box. Both men produced yellow legal pads from their messenger bags and sat down to work.

  An hour later, Cruz finally came up for air. “Whaddya got? Anything noteworthy?”

  Carter tossed his pencil onto the table’s gleaming surface and tipped backward in his chair. “Not really. Garden variety robbery. Three men, masked, one with a shotgun and the other two with handguns. They throw a bag up in the teller’s window and order her to fill it. One’s holding the security guard while the other two terrorize the patrons. They get away in a small car parked down the block, and they’re long gone before the police arrive. Car’s found abandoned l
ater. Stolen. No usable DNA evidence and no leads.”

  “Same here two months later. Exact same pattern. Same method. Same kind of getaway setup.” Cruz sat there for a few seconds, his face smooth as he pondered everything. “I have a feeling the third one is the same. But the fourth one should be the one that will tell us the most.”

  “Yeah, Sharla called it a ‘botched robbery,’ whatever that means.”

  “Want some coffee?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. I’ll get us some. Check the last of the reports on the third one. That should be sufficient. Then we’ll dive into the fourth.” As Cruz walked out, Carter pulled the last file from the third robbery. Exactly the same. Based on the descriptions, the same man performed the same task each time too, so they had well-defined roles. That was good to know.

  “Okay, here we go,” Carter said as Cruz returned with the steaming mugs. “You take those and I’ll take these.” Cruz reached for his pile and they were on it.

  Five minutes later, Carter ran across what he was looking for. “This is what I wanted. So here are the accounts of the robbery from the witnesses, and the statements from the officers. See what you make of the officers’ accounts and I’ll look at the witnesses’,” he said, handing Cruz a stack of documents.

  Carter skimmed through the witness accounts. They were all pretty much the same, the comments made about actions from different locations’ perspectives inside the building, but each confirmed the other. He was getting ready to look through the evidence list when Cruz said, “Whoa! Hold up. I think I just found something.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Here. The officers make statements about the robbery. There are also nine-one-one logs. According to the witnesses, what time did the robbery take place?”

  “They all said two thirty-two or thirty-three in the afternoon.”

  “Well, isn’t this interesting? The call to the cops came in at two thirty.”

  Carter’s brow dropped. “Just before the witnesses say it began.”

  “Yeah. I’m betting nobody noticed that because, you know, watches being off by a few minutes and everything. But what if they’re right? What if it was two thirty-two or thirty-three, and that call really did come in a minute or two before the robbery began?”

  Carter’s brain chattered with questions. “Town this size, response time would be lower than most because of the small geographical area.”

  “Yeah. So calling it in prior would automatically get law enforcement there by the time it went down. Also says the police officers identified the getaway vehicle because it had been reported stolen twenty minutes before.” Cruz sat back in his chair. “Holy shit. These guys were ratted out by somebody. One of them? Hoping the other two would get caught?”

  “But they’d all three be caught, and nobody would get the proceeds of the other robberies. Wait―did they ever find the stolen money from the three other robberies?”

  Cruz leafed through a stack of papers, then pulled one out. “No. The money was never recovered.”

  “How much money are we talking about here?”

  “Well, the robbery file I looked over was five million.”

  “The first one was five million also,” Carter said, then searched through the stack of papers for the third robbery. “This one was four million.”

  “Son of a bitch. Fourteen million dollars that was never recovered.” Cruz stood and headed out the door, and Carter wondered where he was going. He was back in three seconds. “Langstaff says none of that money was ever recovered. The other two said they had no idea where the third had hidden it.”

  “Taliq Kent. He kept telling his wife he had an ‘insurance policy,’ but she never found it. My god. He was the only one who knew where the money was.”

  “Right. You know what I’m thinking?” Cruz asked.

  “Yeah. You’re thinking we need to visit those two convicts,” Carter said with a nod. “And I’m in agreement.”

  “You called and they said to come when we wanted, right?”

  “Yep. Just give them at least a few hours’ notice.”

  “Well, then, my friend, looks like you and I are going to Pennington Gap, Virginia,” Cruz said as he sorted the paperwork and put it back into the boxes. “This should be interesting.”

  Chapter 8

  Prisons always creeped Carter out, but this one was particularly imposing. It was gray, a whitish gray that blended into the surrounding hills. There was a prison camp on its grounds also, but these two guys weren’t in the prison camp. They were definitely in the “big house.” The two law enforcement professionals had been told both men would be awaiting their arrival.

  To their disappointment, they arrived only to discover that Sean McCutchen was in solitary for attacking a guard and wouldn’t be available. That would’ve been good information to have, Carter thought, but they’d made the trip, so they’d work with what they could get. A guard led a shackled prisoner in, a dark-haired man, and guided him to a seat, then locked his cuffs to a ring embedded in the table. As soon as the guard stepped away, Brandon Estevez glared at Carter and Cruz. “What da fuck dis about?”

  “I’m Agent Livingston from the FBI’s San Antonio office. This is Sheriff Carter Melton, Trigg County, Kentucky. We’re investigating a crime in Sheriff Melton’s area and we wanted to talk to you to see if there’s a connection between it and your case.”

  “Whaaa? How dey be a connection? I been here for a while and I don’ know nobody in Kentucky,” he said, almost spitting the state’s name as though it was a bitter pill.

  “Sir, I’m sure you don’t know anything about the particular crime, but it did involve a relative of someone you know. Knew,” Cruz corrected. Estevez just glared at him. “Tamara Kent, the daughter of your late friend Taliq.”

  “Taliq’s girl done somethin’? Well, how ‘bout dat? What she do?”

  “She killed a state trooper,” Carter said with as little spite in his voice as he could manage.

  “Woo-hooo! No wonder you here to talk to me! I don’ know nothin’ ‘bout dat either.”

  “No, but you know about the fourteen million dollars.” As soon as the words left Cruz’s lips, the man’s eyes went wide.

  “I don’ know nothin’ ‘bout fourteen million dollars, dude. Nope.”

  “I know, because you have no idea what Taliq did with it, do you?” Carter hiked an eyebrow up as he asked and gave Estevez a smirk.

  “No. I don’. And if I did, I wouldn’t be tellin’ no cop.”

  “We don’t expect you to. But there are some things you could help us with.”

  “And wha I get outta it?”

  “The knowledge that you helped in an ongoing investigation. That should make you feel like Superman,” Cruz said, his voice caustic.

  “Oh, hahaha. Very funny, lawman. I don’ give two shits ‘bout no law an’ order.”

  Cruz sat there for a few seconds and Carter wondered what he was going to say. “Well, okay then. What do you do around here?” When Estevez didn’t answer, Cruz asked, “Work in the dining hall? Laundry?”

  “Bathrooms.” Oh, that’s a lovely job, Carter thought when Estevez answered.

  “How ‘bout I get you two weeks off bathroom duty?” Cruz asked.

  “Make it a month an’ we talk.”

  “Okay. I’ll ask for a month. I can’t guarantee anything, but I’ll ask. Good enough?”

  Estevez sat there for a few seconds and Carter was sure he was going to say no when he finally piped up. “Okay. I tell you what you wanna know.”

  Cruz was primed and ready. “Good. So Kent kept telling his wife he had an insurance policy. Know anything about that? Or was he talking about the money?”

  “I guess da money. Dat guy, he don’ ever care nothin’ ‘bout his kids or ol’ lady. He was a user, man. Use you up and throw you away. Dat’s all he ever do.”

  “Uh-huh. So if he was calling that his insurance policy, how did he expect them to collect it?”


  Estevez shrugged. “He say he had numbers in a book, man. You know, satellite stuff.”

  “You mean GPS coordinates?” Carter asked, stunned.

  “Yeah, man. GPS coordinates. But dat money was for da crew.”

  “You mean the gang,” Cruz corrected.

  “I don’ like dat word. Sounds so fuckin’ negative, ya know.” Estevez was grinning as he said it, and Carter wanted to knock that grin right off his face. “But he said we gonna divide it up and be for us, ya know? He say not to tell da Italian, ya know? Because dat dude, he be like wantin’ to kill us for it.”

  “Well, fourteen million dollars is a lot of money,” Carter pointed out.

  “Yeah, but there was more. Dat money, dat not da only thing Kent buried there.” The minute the word “buried” popped from Estevez’s mouth, it was obvious he’d said something he hadn’t meant to.

  Carter watched as Cruz leveled his gaze at the prisoner. “Two months off bathroom duty. Spill.”

  “Well, see, ya know dat ring da Italian wear? He tell Los Lobos, he say he the new leader, dat Don Eduardo turn things over to him an’ go underground. But nobody believed him. He say Don Eduardo give him the ring. Dat’s not what Kent say.”

  “And what did Kent say?”

  “He say Don Eduardo is dead.”

  Carter and Cruz glanced at each other. “And who killed him?”

  “Kent. For da Italian.”

  Now we’re getting somewhere, Carter thought. “So are you saying Eduardo is buried with the money?”

  “I think so. I mean, dat make sense, ya know? An’ da Italian, he don’ want dat body showin’ up.”

  “Because they’ll know Don Eduardo is dead and not hiding out?” Carter asked.

  “No. Because dey dig up dat body, dey see dat ring finger missing where da Italian cut it off an’ take dat ring.”

  It hit Carter like a ton of bricks. The Italian had Don Eduardo killed to take over Los Lobos, but it hadn’t worked the way he’d planned. They were resistant, and they were right to be. If the members of Los Lobos ever found out Don Eduardo was dead and the Italian had taken that ring, the bloodshed would be immediate and never-ending until all the members of La Tana del Lupo were dead.