Murder At The Podium Read online

  This discovery became another tangent to deal with for this operation. She could see everyone energized by this new facet to account for, so she delivered the second piece of information which probably most interested Castillo.

  “Secondly, my teammate noted that Adam Johnson is somewhat of a grim reaper. By analyzing his social media comments, she was able to put together a picture of him attending the funerals or otherwise mourning the deaths of a college roommate, a neighbor, Stacy Johnson’s previous boyfriend, and two co-workers. Poor guy seems to have lost a lot of people close to him. When you get a search warrant for his home, I’d like to be there. Perhaps someone here or in the Dallas PD could research the cause of death of these persons in case we find any connection to them in his house.”

  Detectives Castillo and Guerrero were both interested in that piece of information as they would be leading the search of Adam’s residence likely with a DEA agent. Castillo took the names from Jill and used his own laptop to tap the records on those deaths.

  The Odessa Police Department, with a little discussion among its officers, was able to locate the two addresses in the five pictures. They were different angles of the same street. When Jill acted as decoy, the task force would have groups in place to take the men down as they left their streets. Another team would search the houses for evidence and look for the location for the camera security room for all locations in play by this cartel. If they had the security camera locations, they might learn of additional chemical storage facilities.

  “Has your team understood the relationship of Vernon Oil’s leadership to this illicit operation and the profits it’s generating?” asked Agent Black.

  “No with so many other suspects to try and run down, we hadn’t focused on that question. Let me see what we can find.”

  Jill dropped a text to Marie,

  I hate to be rude, but I hope you’re still sleepless in Wisconsin. What can you find on the Executives of Vernon Oil? Text me back if you’re awake to do this search.

  When she got a text asking her the names and titles, Jill gave a silent thanks to having friends that would give up sleep to help her. Knowing the path that Marie took, Jill decided she would again look at the financials of the company. It was Jo’s area of expertise, but it was closing in on midnight and she wouldn’t wake her friend up. It was going to be a long night and she would have liked to get some sleep, but she didn’t want to miss out on the action even though she would only be in the background. She really thought the case would end once Adam was arrested as she believed him to be Stacy Johnson’s murderer which was the job she had been hired for.

  She searched out some coffee and then sat back down to work on her assignment. Listed on the Vernon Oil website and in the records of the State of Texas were the corporate officers’ names. Jill was convinced that if there was anyone inside the company beyond Adam who knew of the chemical transportation, it had to be the CFO, so she focused on him first looking for any comments related to his company out-performing other oil companies. She found nothing; the guy was not shouting his good fortune from the mountaintops. She really didn’t want to do the same work as Marie so she backed off completely from people and instead focused on the company. Could she find a connection between Vernon Oil and BDC and the chemical cartel?

  That new hypothesis gave her a surge of excitement. Like other cases that she’d been on, sometimes she took down an individual and other times, there was a bad company that needed dissolving along with the perpetrators. This was one of those cases.

  She’d researched Vernon Oil previously and nothing was startling as she reviewed her notes, other than the profits mentioned by Jo. Had the company tried to merge or expand in its history? The two founders had started with five wells on their own lands and merged and then over the past twenty years bought additional land or mineral rights to over one-hundred rigs. They managed to survive the fluctuations in oil prices that weaker companies closed over. As Jo noted they were surviving the current drop in oil barrel prices and actually thriving. This was something none of their competitors, large or small had managed. She began looking for their public documents; and there were not many. She copied down any name mentioned in any report or tax statement. They all, but one, checked out on the surface as being what they said they were - an owner of a drilling company, the CEO of a refinery.

  The one that didn’t pan out was the owner of their transportation system. It changed about five years ago and their costs increased. On one hand, why change contracts if the first one was cheaper and on the other hand it was expensive to drive a chemical truck across the border from Mexico northeast to Odessa. The new company was PC Transport and so she did a further search on them after looking at the clock and noting it was one in the morning or so. Yikes, it was only the thrill of taking down a potential murderer and a definite drug cartel operation that kept the adrenaline flowing through her veins.

  Jill looked up as she heard one of the DEA agents monitoring the moving trucks and the two streets in the background, say something.

  “Agent Black, I believe we have a problem.”

  There was instant silence and Jill felt her lingering tiredness evaporate with that single sentence.

  “Yes?” asked the agent, his tone suggesting he proceed in his description of the problem.

  “The trucks have exited Interstate 10 prior to the Interstates 10 and 20 connection and have reentered the freeway heading back toward El Paso and the border. We are also seeing activity at the two residences that we are monitoring. We don’t have eyes on the oil rigs or BDC warehouse locations, and there is no increased activity at Adam Johnson’s house.”

  “Well folks it looks like we need to put our plan into action now rather than waiting for just before dawn. Johnson may have escaped from his house before we began surveilling it.”

  “Why don’t I assign an officer to Detective Castillo and Dr. Quint and the three of them can monitor the Johnson house,” suggested Guerrero looking at the two of them who both nodded their assent.

  “Good idea,” replied Agent Black. “The rest of us will be split among the other residences, the oil rigs and the warehouses. We’re going to be thin on resources, but I want two agents or officers dispersed to each location.”

  Agent Black continued directing the distribution of resources as Jill and Castillo left the room. A patrol officer met them outside the conference room. Having stopped in a room for body armor, they filed outside to Castillo’s rental car which was deemed the best vehicle for surveillance.

  On the drive to Adam’s street Castillo said, “Let’s set some ground rules. We’ll all silence our cellphones and we’ll keep them with us at all times. Pete and I are armed and Jill, you’re not nor are you trained in this kind of operation.”

  Jill took the moment to pull her can of bug spray out of her purse to remind the detective that she was indeed ‘armed’.

  “Jill, he may have an automatic weapon that will spray you with bullets before you ever find the can in your purse, so consider yourself unarmed.”

  “You’re right but I have already done surveillance on Adam’s house and I think I can help with a plan on what to do. There is only one way out of his street, so I would suggest we park on the next block. There’s a hedge that separates his house from the next and I think we could take cover on the ground to observe.” She paused a minute to show them the pictures she had taken on her first day of surveillance. “The other side has a large tree between his driveway and his neighbor’s front yard. He could go over the fence in his backyard, but he needs transportation to do that. He’s a devoted father, so I can’t imagine that he’d tangle his children up in this op. So if he’s had advance notice he would move those kids to friends or grandparents hopefully. Just know there could be three kids under the age of ten inside.”

  “Thanks for the pictures,” Castillo said. “Pete can take the hedge for cover and I’ll stay behind the tree. Jill, you stay in this car and notify us if there is ac
tion on the street. Pete and I will use night visions goggles when necessary. Jill I believe the light is too bright where you’ll be so they won’t work for you. Let’s program our cells and communicate with texts and phone calls. Let’s do a roll call every fifteen minutes.”

  “What if someone does approach the street, do I stop and pick you guys up or chase after them myself?” Jill asked.

  There was silence for a moment then Castillo said, “I guess it depends on the speed of their departure and the sighting of any guns. Unless Adam looks ready to shoot, follow his mode of transportation rather than taking your eyes off of him and coming to get us.”

  Okay, Jill was happy with that response. It indicated that rather than wasting time trying to protect her, they wanted her to chase down the bad guy. She would do what she could to live up to their expectations that she carry her own weight. With phones programed for group texts and phone calls, Castillo and Pete crept down the street to get in position. Jill was hoping she wouldn’t embarrass herself and fall asleep. If she felt herself nodding off, she’d call Nathan and he’d keep her awake. Soon they split apart and manned their posts. Jill parked on a street that had the odd car traveling down it and so she was ducking down whenever she thought an auto’s lights would hit where she was sitting in the front seat. A car came about every ten minutes and the roll call every fifteen and so far, she felt alert.

  Jill wondered what was going on in the rest of the op. They had known they wouldn’t get updates as Agent Black wanted outside communication limited during the op. It had been ninety minutes since they left the station, so the tankers should have been stopped and confiscated on the Interstate by now. Then she caught a movement in her peripheral vision.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  It was one of those moments in time when half of your brain is screaming ‘oh my god, what did I just see’, and the other half of your brain is screaming ‘do something’, but your body is paralyzed because what you saw has yet to register. The panic of the moment stayed with Jill for another sixty seconds, then everything came into focus. She grabbed her binoculars and focused on the dark shape emerging from the side of a house.

  It was Adam Johnson in all black clothing and hat, but she caught his face in the shifting light of an approaching car.

  Keeping her eyes on Adam, she grabbed her cellphone and dialed her two partners. When she heard their phones answered, she said in a low voice, “Adam has just emerged from a front yard of a house on the street I’m on. There is a car approaching that may be his ride.”

  She ducked down as the car passed, and saw the red brake lights in her driver side window. She peeked up over the dashboard setting her binoculars on the surface. She again verified it was Adam. He got in and the car took off.

  With her first words Castillo and Pete had grabbed their backpacks and ran for the end of the street where Jill’s car was parked. They reached the car as Jill saw the lights of the car almost getting out of her line of vision.

  She stomped on the gas, throwing the binoculars to Pete who was in the seat beside her. She could hear both men breathing heavy from their sprint. Pete sighted the car nearly a mile up the road and Jill raced to follow.

  Castillo suggested, “Jill, why don’t you pull over and we’ll switch drivers. You probably haven’t been trained in chase procedures.”

  Jill said over the loud noise of the adrenaline rushing in her head, “And lose Adam and the car he’s in? Are you nuts? In prior cases, I’ve been chased by a Black Op helicopter and had a massive SUV try to push me off a cliff on a mountain road in Colorado. I’ll do fine on these flat roads, just buckle up and hold on” and Jill punched the gas even more. The hell with coming to a stop and switching drivers, what was the man thinking?

  Suddenly the car they were pursuing disappeared in front of them. Jill gaped and then it clicked what had happened.

  “They shut their headlights off; grab the night vision goggles and direct me. Do you think I should shut our light off?”

  “Both men yelled “no” at the same time. It was bad enough being driven by a female non-officer, but the thought of leaving her without headlights was more than the men could handle. Jill just grinned at the two men.

  “They have to know we’re tailing them, let’s not make it harder on ourselves,” Castillo said.

  “Can you watch the car for Jill?” Pete said. “I need to update my department on our whereabouts and the movement of Adam.”

  They listened to him call the command post and report their chase in-progress. Resources were spread so thin, that no one as yet could be dispatched to assist them. There were simply too many oil wells and BDC properties to cover. If they’d had more time to plan the op, then more resources would have arrived to help but this was one of those cases where the criminals set the timetable.

  Jill had gained ground on the car carrying Adam according to Castillo. She couldn’t see it ahead of her as she was focused on driving fast and staying on the road.

  Then she saw brake lights in the distance and knew the car had turned left and said to Castillo, “I can see the car turned left; can you make sure that I pick the correct street to turn left on?”

  “Yes,” Castillo said.

  “Turn at this upcoming street,” Castillo said.

  Castillo re-sighted the vehicle ahead; they were in a residential area and Jill was grateful that it was the middle of the night so she didn’t have to worry about hitting children playing in the street.

  “I wish I’d grabbed emergency lights before we went out tonight,” Pete lamented. “It would have made it safer for the community. I think they’re going to try and lose you, Jill, in this maze of streets; there are a bunch of short blocks coming up so you need to get closer or we’ll lose them.”

  Jill concentrated on being as fast a driver as she could. She blocked everything out except looking for anything that might get in her path and following the directions issued by Castillo. In the very back of her head was the worry that this was his rental car and she better not wreck it. She pulled within half a block of their suspects’ car and did a lot of screeching around corners to stay there. The occasional house light popped on as the sound was unusual for this neighborhood at this hour of the night.

  Castillo was intently watching the occupants of the car and he yelled “swerve left” and she did. Seconds later there was a massive flash of light and noise. If Castillo shouted any more instructions, she couldn’t hear. Pete and Castillo had instinctively known that a flash bang was thrown at the car and had time to cover their ears and close their eyes. Jill hadn’t had the luxury and fortunately she was on the other side of the car which helped minimize the effects for her. She felt a little nauseous, but otherwise she kept the car speeding along.

  Pete began writing notes for Jill to read in very large print and held up to view while steering the car.

  Flash bang grenade. Hearing will return in about fifteen minutes.

  She’d thank him later for legible writing.

  Good evasive action with car!

  Castillo leaned forward to say something and Pete didn’t have time to put it in writing for her. Instead he gestured wildly to swerve left again and she did. This time the flash bang couldn’t affect her hearing as she was already deaf from the last one. She managed to speed up even more and the bang went off farther behind the car.

  The two cars had been making a series of turns through the neighborhood and then they were back out on a four lane major thoroughfare. Jill began to close in on the car, when it suddenly braked hard as guns came blazing out the left side windows at them. When Jill saw the guns, she slouched low and put the pedal to the metal flooring the car to nearly ninety miles per hour. She thought she felt a bullet ping off the helmet she was wearing as a part of her body armor. Then she felt Pete’s hand on her arm and he gestured to slow. She looked at him in disbelief then glanced in her rearview mirror to see the other car had stopped by running up over the curb and crashing into an ATM machine
in the front of a bank.

  She slowed and turned around, heading back toward the crash site. Pete wrote her another note.

  Castillo threw a flashbang into their car.

  Jill quickly glanced at Castillo and mouthed, WOW! Then slowed as she approached the crash site. Her nausea had receded and she wondered if she was hearing the bank alarms going off or was it the ringing in her ears? She still couldn’t hear what her companions were saying, she just saw their lips moving.

  Pete put out his hand gesturing for her to do a hard stop and she brought the car to a screeching halt assuming he meant her to stop on the dime. She’d taken tread off the tires with her driving and it had been an adrenaline-filled lifetime passing in front of her eyes. She thought she had comported herself well as a race car driver managing not to get them killed or hurt. Her ears were still ringing although she couldn’t tell if that was from the flashbang or if there was a bank alarm now that they were nearly on top of the noise.