Murder At The Podium Read online

  She couldn’t figure out the answer as to why Adam regularly drove just a few trucks of his company’s fleet. So she decided to move on to the question of what was in the warehouse that he drove the truck to. She’d made the assumption that he drove the truck to the same location and vowed to verify that the next day as well as follow another driver to see where they ended up. She knew there was a massive pipeline that moved crude oil to a tiny city in Oklahoma which was where the price of oil futures was set by the New York Mercantile exchange. Jill had never studied oil futures but knew that one of the airlines had made a considerable profit based on where the price was headed. She speculated that Adam’s company extracted oil and then transported it either to a refinery in Big Spring Texas or to a storage or pipeline facility. She decided now she was just spinning her wheels with all of her speculation. She had to spend the day tomorrow following the trucks. Jill decided to sleep on it and start again the next day. She pulled out a book from one of her many favorite mystery authors and was ready to sleep after about ten pages.

  Chapter Twenty

  Jill was in position the next day to start following all trucks leaving the yard at an early hour. The first truck left about thirty minutes later and Jill followed it for forty miles. She was about to give up when it pulled off to an oil rig. The driver hooked a hose up to the rig and connected it to the tanker. It took about an hour to fill it and then the tanker drove back to Odessa, stopping at a pipeline company to unload.

  Okay then that was new information. She followed two more trucks that fortunately were not that far out of town and they went through the same routine as the first driver she followed. So why were Adam’s trucks different? It was time to sneak into the warehouse that he drove to. She thought back to the security around the area and couldn’t recall any. Perhaps if she went after dark she could take a look at what was in the warehouse. Perhaps they had a hidden pipe line that ran inside the building and he was stealing crude oil from his employer. She bet herself she would find a hidden oil pipeline in the building.

  She called Castillo to let him know about the situation and her plan to check out the warehouse.

  “Jill, are you nuts? You want to go into an alleged vacant building under cover of dark to see what is inside because you think Adam is stealing crude oil? That doesn’t make sense; you told me your friend had noted record profits from this company. How could they have record profits if someone is stealing two tankers full of crude oil three times a week?”

  “That detective, is a real good question; I had forgotten that Jo said that somehow the company was making a lot more than its competitors even though the price of crude oil has dropped so much. Okay I’ll have to re-think my thinking on this case. It can’t be crude oil in the tanker. That’s why I need to get into the warehouse to see what is in there.”

  “You have no back-up. Don’t go in alone to a vacant building, that’s law enforcement 101.”

  “When I was there earlier it seemed like an industrial area and I’ll bet at night that no one will notice my snooping.”

  “And if they do? Your bug spray must nearly be empty and it only has a range of twenty feet” Castillo added sarcastically.

  “Castillo, I am as big a chicken as the next person. If I see any signs of people being on the scene, I’ll cancel my operation and go home to the hotel.”

  “How about calling Rogers and Guerrero for back-up?”

  “Castillo, you know the cops can’t sanction my entering private property with no cause.”

  “Yeah, but at least they could call the coroner sooner to take away your dead body.”

  “Ouch. Okay, I’ll call and let them know that if I don’t call them back in a certain amount of time to send the coroner for me.”

  “Jill, I’ll call them and then call you back. Don’t move from your hotel room until you hear from me.”

  She wasn’t used to listening to orders, but she was a chicken and she likely thought that the least little noise would scare her off. She didn’t like surprises and wasn’t someone who went looking for trouble. She’d wait for Castillo to call back.

  She looked at her closet and noted an array of black clothes and she had the black wig, so her hands and face were left to be covered up. Unknown to Nathan, she kept a black ski mask and gloves in a side compartment of her luggage. Unless she had a good reason to confess, she’d not tell him about her nighttime surveillance. There were no circumstances that she could imagine that conversation going well, so best not to detail it for him. She grabbed the mask and gloves now. She couldn’t hide her white pick-up truck but she would remove the license plates so if someone did drive by, there would be no distinguishing marks about the vehicle.

  Her cell phone rang and she answered, “This is Jill.”

  “Castillo, and Guerrero is also listening in on the phone. None of us are happy with your idea, but we don’t have another way to understand what is going on in that warehouse. Whatever the activity is, it’s likely breaking some law. Guerrero is going to provide you with night vision goggles, a vest, and helmet from their special tactics supplies. Rob will be at your hotel in about thirty minutes and he’ll go with you onto the property.”

  “Awesome, thanks for your help detectives,” Jill said cheerfully. This was far better than she expected. She’d get help and protection and her uncourageous soul would have the detective there to calm it down. The call ended after she gave the detective her hotel’s address in Midland.

  After twenty minutes had passed, she gathered her hat and gloves and stuffed her cell in a pocket along with a twenty dollar bill and went down to her hotel’s lobby to await the arrival of the detective.

  A few minutes later a large, dark vehicle pulled up to the entrance and Jill saw Guerrero inside; she approached the car and got in.

  “Thanks for your help tonight and for the protective gear. I might have to think about getting my own vest for when I am on one of these cases.”

  “Just a vest? Not a gun or are you happy with a can of bug spray?”

  “Go ahead and make fun of me, but it works and I don’t like guns.”

  “Lady, you’re in the wrong state. Guns are a part of every Texan’s DNA.”

  “Yeah I know about the DNA thing; my friends in Wisconsin feel the same way about guns. I guess I loathe and detest them from seeing all the damage they inflict on the human body.”

  “I have a different perspective when I see the damage they do. Usually I am pleased that they’re dead and I’m not because I had better aim.”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier if they didn’t have guns to begin with?”

  “How do you propose to remove all guns from every American Citizen?” Guerrero asked. “We’re talking millions. Beside the gun manufacturers, the entire hunting industry would put a bulls-eye on your back. The horse is so long out of the barn on this issue that you can’t see it or hear it. When has banning something worked for America? Did prohibition work in the 1920s? Are we winning the war on drugs or marijuana? If Americans didn’t overthrow the government on that idea and let a new law pass that banned the average citizen from owning a gun, don’t you think the gangs and the cartels would soon control the gun trade and now you’ve just made them richer?”

  “Yeah, I’ve thought of all those arguments too, and I’ve not intellectually figured out a way around them, but I’m not quite ready to let go of my fantasy of getting rid of guns in America.”

  “All right, well until you figure that out, I’ll be backing you up with a gun tonight.”

  The car arrived at the warehouse location. Guerrero drove past it once, assessing the layout and lighting, looking for a good place to hide their car and enter the business premises of the BDC Company. There appeared to be no cars parked inside the yard. There were no street lights in the area as it wasn’t a main street or residential area. Jill thought that there appeared to be not another human being within ten miles of this place.

  They parked the car on the second trip ar
ound the rather large block that fronted the company. To call it a block implied that there was a neighborhood or park of some sort but in this case it meant a series of country roads that with four right turns returned them to the warehouse location. They hadn’t passed a single car during those four turns. The land was flat and hardscrabble. There was an abandoned oil rig less than a mile further down the road. They parked the vehicle behind the rig and walked back to the warehouse.

  Guerrero used the night vision goggles to make sure they were alone. He then studied the property and building for cameras. Jill asked to use them and was impressed with what they brought into focus. She’d buy a set of her own in the future. There were many cameras on the end of the buildings and it seemed impossible to sneak in without being caught on a camera. Jill slapped herself in the helmet for thinking that she could have done this on her own without Guerrero’s special equipment. Her idiocy was going to get her harmed or hurt in the future and she vowed to listen to the next law enforcement person who told her to do something in a particular way. She had a feeling this was going to be like sugar. She had signs in her office and kitchen that said ‘no sugar’, but she ignored them every single day.

  “I see fixed cameras everywhere; they may or may not be plugged in,” Guerrero reported. “Our best tactic might be to try and cut the power to this location for a few minutes while we take a look around.”

  “How do you do that?”

  “See that fuse box over there,” Guerrero said pointing to a grey box on the end of the first building. “I’ll shut down the main. We may be caught on tape, but that assumes someone is watching on the other end or reviewing tapes in the future and that may or may not be the case. There is nothing identifying about you or me other than our height and perhaps sex. Try to keep your head turned to the ground as we move forward. Whatever you do, don’t look up directly at any of the cameras.”

  “You’re really good at this. Is this standard police training or did you come from some other agency?”

  “I was a Navy seal and participated in a few covert operations around the world.”

  Jill guessed that was likely an understatement as the detective seemed to move with an ease and professionalism that spoke of extensive training. Castillo had probably known that when he lined her up with Guerrero.

  Minutes later he’d thrown the main circuit. Jill couldn’t tell the difference as it had been dark and quiet before they cut the power and it was still dark and quiet. Guerrero studied the other building looking for additional fuse boxes and saw one on each building. Hopefully they’d taken the cameras out by shutting off the power of the main building first, but they had no way of knowing how the security system was wired.

  They saw a headlight in the distance and soon it appeared that a pick-up truck was approaching. They tensed, backs to the building with some cover from the front entrance. They both sighed when the truck continued past with no break in speed. Guerrero watched it for a minute longer just to make sure their car parked behind the oil rig did not claim the attention of the driver, but they could see it speeding along in the distance, no brake lights apparent.

  They turned back to the work at hand and Guerrero asked, “Which of these buildings did your tanker truck enter?”

  “Third one on the left,” Jill said pointing to a large building.

  Guerrero waved her on and they quickly moved to the building in question, staying in the deepest shadows along the way. The building had a garage door like those found in fire stations to accommodate large trucks like an oil tanker-truck. There was also a human-sized door on the left side of the large garage door. Guerrero pulled out a set of lock picks and proceeded to have them inside in a short time.

  Jill stood there astounded. The cavernous room was completely empty. It looked like the large building had been picked up and placed on this piece of real-estate but the owner hadn’t decided what the future use of the building was. There weren’t even tire tracks to verify that the tanker-truck had been there.

  “Are you sure you got the right building?”

  “I thought so,” Jill replied. “Did you see garage doors large enough for a tanker truck on any of the other buildings? Wait a minute! This is a completely dumb moment for me. I have a picture of the tanker entering the building.” Jill said as she searched for the picture on her phone.

  Guerrero leaned over and looked at Jill’s picture. Yes, they definitely had the correct building.

  “Let search the other buildings to see what’s in them. BDC Company owns all of the buildings, correct?”

  “That’s correct,” replied Jill as they walked towards the next building. A while later they had opened all of the buildings and found them in the same condition - clean, with no indication whatsoever of what the buildings were used for. Each of the buildings were so clean that it was hard to imagine the purpose of these warehouses, no shelves, equipment, or stains.

  “I think we have seen all there is to see here,” Guerrero said. “About all we could do is get some sniffer dogs in here, but they’re limited to fruit and drugs. Perhaps my office can check with county tax folks to see if this business is paying sales taxes. Let’s get out of here.”

  They were moving towards the front gate, still staying in the shadows when they saw more headlights in the distance. This time it appeared to be two cars and this time they did slow down as though to drive into the BDC lot.

  Guerrero said in her ear, “This looks like trouble; let’s take cover around these front gate posts. It’s dark enough and they’re big enough to provide us cover until the cars leave or their attention is diverted. If we need to make a run for it, can you jog?”

  “I run three to four miles several times a week so I can jog all the way back to the car. I may be a little winded with the weight of this helmet and the vest.”

  They watched from their hiding place as the seven men spread out and entered all of the buildings with keys. Apparently they were owners or employees of BDC. They were talking in Spanish and at some distance from them.

  Jill asked, “Do you speak Spanish?”

  “Yes, but I’m only catching about a quarter of their words; they’re too far away.”

  “Are those guns in their hands?”

  “Yes.”

  Jill would’ve smacked herself a third time on the helmet but she wanted to stay quiet. How could she be so stupid to have thought she could’ve handled this on her own? Seven men with guns? What the heck was going on here? She was in way over her head.

  They stayed down, knees drawn up, backs pressed to the stone pillar providing them a place to hide and waited out the men. They didn’t have long to wait; after a full check of the property except the front gate pillars, they piled into the two cars and left and all was quiet.

  When they could no longer see their lights, Guerrero said, “Even though it appears that they’re gone, let’s jog back to the car and we’ll get the hell out of here as soon as possible.”

  With that they stood up and started jogging back to the car. Guerrero held a flashlight lighting their path, otherwise it would have been too dark to see the road. Jill was winded by the time they reached the car. Whether it was from the additional weight or the scare she didn’t know. Later she would think about the risks she was taking; maybe Guerrero might be the person to discuss this with as he seemed to have a very wise head on his shoulders.

  “Thanks for taking the lead on this nighttime surveillance effort with me. I admit, I was way over my head thinking it was safe or wise to do this on my own. I have had a sub-par performance each time I’ve tried surveillance. How did you learn to do what you did back there? Was it the Navy or your law enforcement training?”

  “It was my SEAL training and then the use of that training on operations. You drill so much in the military that it becomes second nature. Within law enforcement, we drill entering a building in which dangerous people are hiding, but it’s possible depending on your career as a cop to go through that career and ne
ver be faced with the need for some sort of covert action. If you want to learn the skills yourself there are a couple of military contractors that can train you for a price. You could hone your skills a little playing paintball.”

  “Paintball?”

  “Yeah, depends on the course, but you need to be able to sneak around on a paintball course so as not to get hit by paint. Try it sometime.”

  “I will. That sounds intriguing. My boyfriend, Nathan is a Master Black Belt at hapkido and I’m sure he would enjoy reminding me how I need to absorb more self-defense and a sense of self-protection skill. He’d probably have me covered in paint in under ten minutes, but if I could learn to last longer on the course with him, that would help me with operations like tonight. Thanks Detective, for your help and advice.”