Have fun.

The Bad Seed   

Chapter One

Jay Kirby was startled by a far-off sound of a fire truck coming at him, or so he thought. When he had gathered his senses, he realized that it was just his phone ringing. The clock on his night- stand shouted 3:00 AM with large, bright, red numbers. His wife, Julie, turned toward him and the sound but remained in the land of warm darkness and sweet dreams. The time of the call made Jay understand the importance of it, instantly. He answered the phone as his wife slept.

“Jay, it’s Mary. I think Billy is in trouble again.”

Jay was used to these calls now, sadly. His sister had not been a good mother and seemed to follow in their mother’s footsteps when it came to parenthood. They had both been left to their own devices as youngsters and it seemed that Jay had fared better than his sister.

His sister had difficulty getting along with others most of her life and that seemed never to change. Jay had learned to go along to get along so that he might prosper and avoid issues with those around him. Their father had died at a young age and the two children were more than their mother could handle.

Jay’s sister, Mary, had married a good man but chased him off with her drinking and philandering. She made no secret of her intentions with other men and followed through often. Bob Jones, her husband, had tried to stay in the home for their son Billy, but their marriage had been broken so badly and so often that he had to finally leave. He was left with no other options.

Mary wouldn’t let Billy travel to the adjoining state to where his father lived, so that relationship suffered. Billy began his downward spiral into trouble when there is no father in the house to enforce the rules or to talk with.

Mary had received everything from their parent’s estate except for the two rifles that Jay had told his father that he wanted, years ago. She received everything and was still not happy. She made her husband feel useless as she flaunted her inherited wealth over him and made his life a misery. He told Billy that he was welcome to come and see him whenever he wished as he packed his bags and left. Bob had tried to keep in contact with his son, but Mary wouldn’t have it and worked hard at destroying their relationship.

The predictable outcome soon arrived with several interactions between the police and Billy. Billy was soon in trouble with the law for several minor incidents including drunk in public and possession of weed. He was headed down the wrong avenue and into certain trouble.

Jay, Billy’s uncle, a retired cop was troubled by this turn of events and tried to take the place of Billy’s father as best he could while raising his own children. He and his wife lived nearby in Paradise Valley, Arizona and Jay often invited Billy to play handball and golf with them when he could get Billy’s attention, which wasn’t nearly as often as he would have liked. As Jay sat up on one elbow and talked and listened to his sister while watching his wife sleep, wondered what the future held for Billy.

“What is it this time?” he asked his sister.

“I heard noises in the garage and went down to see what was happening. You know Billy’s a night owl these days and needs watching. Thank goodness he’s still got that ankle bracelet on and can’t go far from the house. I cracked the door open to the garage to see what I could. It doesn’t look good.

There are two men out there with Billy, Jay. They have him seated on his father’s weight bench and they are beating the hell out of him. I don’t know what to do. He’s covered in blood. I don’t know how badly he is injured Jay. I can’t call the police. Billy is on probation, and it will just make his next court appearance look that much worse. I’m at my wits end.”

“I’ll get dressed and come over. Do you still have your pistol?”

“Yes.”

“Make sure the door from the garage into your house is locked. Grab your pistol and find a place to hide downstairs. If they come in for you, they will most likely go upstairs first. Don’t hesitate to shoot them if they come into the house or you feel threatened. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Jay climbed out of bed and walked quickly to his large walk-in closet and found the darkest jeans and shirt he could find. He put them on and took a couple of handkerchiefs out of his bureau. He grabbed his black shoes that he wore as a cop with one large hand and waked out of the closet.

The shoes reminded him of work and the fact that he hadn’t found himself yet in this world of retirement and non-cop neighbors. He grabbed his shoulder holster and checked his blue .38 to see if it was still loaded. It was. He held the gun in his hand and felt the weight of it. He was instantly comforted by something that he knew so well. He had only fired the weapon once while working as a cop but the hearing after the incident went well for him. The board found the shooting to be a good one. Jay slipped the gun back into the snug leather holster. It was a perfect fit.

He hadn’t been in bed long before the call had come in. He had been out playing cards with a few cop buddies and had won a few bucks just to add to his satisfaction of the night’s outing. His brother had lost a few bucks there as well. That was a little added pleasure for Jay. Seth had finally got a chance to get away from his work and wife. Seth had little time lately for family visits with all the hours that he was working at the supermarket. These nights of card playing had become a routine for Jay since retiring and he looked forward to them and seeing is brother.

He walked across the bedroom, holding his shoes in his left hand and made his way to the kitchen. The house was as dark as death, but the route was one he remembered well.

He and his wife had lived in this great house for nearly ten years now. They had planned their respective retirements well and were now reaping the benefits of those plans. Julie had been a police dispatcher. They had met at work and started dating, against all the rules that were in place. Jay saw her and unlike many others working around him, took the chance and asked her out. The rest, as they say, was history.

Jay sat down in his chair at the head of the long dining room table where his wife and two sons had eaten a thousand times over the last few years and put his shoes on. The seven chairs in front of him stood like silent sentinels. He scribbled a note to his wife that his sister had called, and that he had to go. He told her not to worry. It sat on the kitchen counter by the coffee maker.

Family memories rushed into his head as his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, and he saw shapes and glimmers of photos and trophies from years gone by sitting on the breakfront. He turned and grabbed his keys that sat in the dish on the kitchen counter behind him. His son had made it out of ceramic clay in third grade.

His sons were gone and married now. They both seemed happy in their lives. “But who really knows what is going on in someone else’s marriage?” Jay thought. He had seen many seemingly good marriages fall to pieces after many years of supposed happiness. His parent’s marriage was a good example of that.

As Jay’s father once told Jay when he was a senior in high school and after he had had far too many martinis, “you go through this life alone Jay, and you only get one shot at it as far as I know. Treat your family as well as you can, but remember, you’ll leave this place with just what you came in with, nothing. It’s what you do that matters.”

That conversation with his father and a few unfortunate incidents along the way had made Jay decide on a career in law enforcement. He got through the academy with ease and never looked back.

Jay turned and walked quickly to the narrow door that led to the garage, opened it silently and took that one step down to the garage floor. He navigated the step in the darkness and then turned the lights on.

He flipped the light switch, and the room appeared in front of him as if by magic. The garage reminded Jay of the county morgue which he had visited often on his duties as a police officer. Shelves and cabinets lined the walls of the perfectly clean garage. A large cabinet ran the width if the garage. The top was a work bench. A peg board fastened to the wall held tools for any job.

Then Jay saw it as he looked back to the center of the large room. There it sat. The reward for many years of hard work and long separations from his family, sitting on the floor in front of him. It was a dark blue Corvette.

The car sat low and wide under the lights and looked as good as it had five years ago when he bought it. He could smell the acrid aroma of the wide tires on the car in front of him. The car was a masterpiece as far as Jay could tell. The motor was still cooling down after arriving home a few hours ago from his card game with the guys. The motor was still “clicking” as it cooled down. The hood still felt warm to Jay’s touch.

Jay wasn’t sure of what he might need for the evening ahead, so he unlocked and opened his one special cabinet filled with an assortment of items related to is former work. He grabbed a pair of gloves, a balaclava and some plastic zip ties, just in case.

He slid his hand over the silky, smooth paint of his car as he walked over to the passenger’s door. The finish on the car was perfect. Jay opened the door and slid into the passenger’s seat as well as a six-foot two-inch man weighing two hundred and five pounds could.

He opened the glove compartment and placed the items that he had gathered into it, just in case he might need them. The night ahead was filled with unknown and potentially dangerous possibilities.

“You know Jay, that car of yours is for a much smaller and younger man,” he had heard his wife say more than once. He realized that she was probably correct but would never admit it. He loved this car more than nearly everything. Thankfully he could still get in and out of the car with a little thought and a few groans. That was good enough for him, and besides, younger guys seldom could afford a car like this one.

“Those of us who are older and financially stable are who these cars are made for in the first place dear,” he often told his wife. His wife would just smile when he mentioned that to her.

Jay climbed out of the passenger seat of the car and walked around the beautiful machine. He opened the driver’s side door and settled in.

Jay pushed the button on the automatic garage opener hanging on the driver’s visor and the garage door opened silently. Jay turned the key in the ignition and the engine came to life with a low rumble. It made him think of his neighbors trying to sleep a few hundred feet away. He backed out looking over his shoulder. He never remembered to use the back-up camera. “Old habits die hard,” he thought as he realized that he hadn’t used that expensive device once again.

Jay backed the car slowly out of the wide garage, and it settled on the driveway rocking slightly as the powerful engine purred. Jay climbed out of the car and left it running. He noticed the black night ski filled with blinking stars sending down light millions of years old to guide him back into his large, three car garage. The dry air carried the aromas of Jasmine and cactus blooms.

Jay thought that he might need his shotgun just in case. If there were two men in the garage, might there be a third as a look out posted somewhere outside? “A shotgun would tend to even things out just a little,” Jay mused.

Jay walked to his gun cabinet, spun the dial and set to work on the combination. It went well this time. Sometimes he had to do it more than once to get into the cabinet.

He opened the thick, grey metal, door and found his two rifles. He grabbed both and sat them on his work bench. He found a blanket to wrap them in and then laid them in the car behind his seat. They were nearly as long, as the car was wide. He grabbed some shot gun shells and checked to see if the rifle was loaded. It was. He loaded the shotgun and placed it back inside of the blanket.

He climbed back into the car with a groan and remembered what his wife had said so many times before.

He put the car in reverse and backed into the wide cul-de-sac. He put the car into drive and aimed it down the black street toward his sister’s house five miles away. He let the car move slowly forward without giving it too much gas until he was away from his neighbor’s homes and out on to highway 60 which led into the desert and eventually in the direction of Phoenix.

He pushed the accelerator to the floor and the car woke up and became what it was meant to be. His head snapped back each time the car changed gears. He was soon driving down the lonely road at ninety-five miles an hour and heading toward his sister’s house with the future sunrise at his back. He had about two hours of darkness to work in.

The warm air blew through his thinning hair. He let up on the gas at the first turn and then pressed it down hard again. The engine came to life at six thousand RPMS. The car sped on faster and seemed to hug the road even better, the faster he drove. He took two turns faster than he should have and the tries reminded him with squeals as the rear end slid slightly sideways. A quick flip of the steering wheel brought the car back under control. The surface of the road had been neglected and he could feel that under his tires.

He had almost lost control on a second sharp corner and his heart raced as the back of the car began to slide off the road, again. He turned the steering wheel to the left a hair and the car straightened out quickly. “Is this why men drive race cars,” he wondered as his heart pounded in his chest and a blast of adrenaline coursed through his veins.

He came to the top of the hill and could see his sister’s development with the houses tossed out on to the rolling desert like dice thrown in a giant’s crap game. The houses seemed to have settled wherever they had landed and with little reason. The yards were of all different sizes and shapes, as were the houses.

The houses sat on large lots and far from each other. There were no fences between the houses. They came in all shapes and styles. The only thing they had in common was that they were all very large and expensive.

The people living here were safe and happy, or so they thought. Many had more money than they would ever need. Some sadly drank to excess to sooth their pain of lost loves and divorce while others drank for the fun and excitement that came with it.

Jay had been to these types of parties himself and had them in his own home a few times. He had heard some of his married male friends talk of trysts with neighbor’s wives and wondered just how “married” they really were.

Cops of course have more chances than most to get into all sorts of trouble due to scheduling and less over site by their wives or husbands. “That lifestyle is hard on marriages and children,” Jay reminded himself as he pushed the car faster.

Jay had been approached more than once by wives of friends and neighbors to have a “little affair.” He knew it was wrong and declined. He never mentioned those conversations with his wife so as not to end those friendships that she held dear. He simply kept the offers to himself.

Those suggestions had put him in awkward circumstances now and then, no doubt. But he had heard of husbands telling their wives of these advances and nothing good ever came from the truth, or so it seemed to Jay, so he kept silent about them.

Jay wondered how he would get through the gate at his sister’s development without the camera recording him. He had brought the 30-30 rifle along to disable the camera from the last small hill a hundred yards down the road from the guard house. He didn’t want his visit on tape. Shooting out the light and camera was illegal, but a necessary part of the evening’s adventure. The shot would go unnoticed if it came from far enough away, he hoped.

When he arrived at the top of the hill, he could see that the light was already out. That seemed odd to him as he drove down the hill at nearly ninety miles an hour. Maybe it had burnt out finally.

As he came close enough to where he could see the guard shack by star light, he slowed the car down to make the right turn into the entrance of the community. He saw Charlie, the gate guard, sitting in his black swivel chair with his head down on his chest.

Jay thought he was sleeping at first but then he saw the remains of the camera and light hanging down by the electrical wires. He knew then that they had been destroyed by a shot from some type of gun at a good distance, as he had planned on doing.

No one would use a gun up this close to the gate. It would alert anyone within hearing distance that you were coming for them. “Who did this? Who were they after and why?” came quickly to Jay’s mind.

Jay saw the large blood stain on Charlie’s shirt as he pulled up to the guard house and quickly climbed out of his car. He instantly saw that Charlie had been stabbed several times in the chest. They must have gained his confidence somehow and got close to him or rushed him. Jay felt for a pulse. There wasn’t any. The stop had cost Jay twenty precious seconds.

“I’ll leave you for the techs Charlie, I have more pressing business to attend to at the moment with Billy,” Jay thought as he drove toward the gate. “It looked like a two-man job,” or so Jay thought.

“Was Charlie one of the drug connections who his nephew Billy, bought his weed from? That job at the gate was a good place to meet all kinds of people and create a little side business if one wanted to. I’ll have to check on Charlie’s background with friends down at the office,” he thought.

Sometimes Jay wished he hadn’t retired, but most of the time he was glad that he had made it out without injury or worse. His wife was pleased that he was totally “her’s now” and that he was finally safe. Jay wouldn’t let his retirement cramp his style, however. He could and would do things his own way now when necessary. This situation with Billy was a case in point.

Jay pushed the button inside the gate house, noticed that it was the same brand as the button at his house and quickly climbed back into his car. Jay was good with details. That’s what made him a good detective. He had smelled weed in the shack and wondered. That practice also put him in hot water sometimes, as well. Jay had no time to search the guard house now, sadly. Jay was almost instantly back in his car and passing through the gate.

Silhouettes of tall Saguaro cacti lined the road as he drove in and across the desert landscape to his sister’s place over several small rolling hills. Jay could see down into a natural bowl where his sister’s house sat among several others.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The lawns of the homes were large and lush with flowers blooming year-round in and around the perimeters of the yards and along the lighted walkways. Only one car was parked on the street. It was an SUV of some sort. Jay hadn’t the time to check on the brand. They all looked the same to Jay now anyway. It was a well-known fact that cars were not allowed to park overnight here.

It was against the rules for cars to park overnight on the streets, so it stood out. It was a stupid rule put in place by old neat freaks and busy bodies as far as many people in the community thought. There had been many fights at the community meetings about this rule. It hadn’t been changed yet to the dismay of many. It was another warning to Jay of impending danger. That car parked illegally was an unsettling clue as to what might be going on at his sister’s house.

Who came in that car and was there a third man, unaccounted for? His sister had seen only two men in the garage. His intuition told him that there might be three men involved. Perhaps the third man was somewhere sitting out in the deep darkness as a lookout.

Jay turned his car lights off before he came over the next hill as he approached his sister’s house. He turned off the motor of his car just before he reached the top of it. He could see his sister’s house down in front of him as he crested the hill lit by the lawn lights scattered among the many houses below him.

He coasted down the hill in silence and then pulled over to the rolled curb about seventy-five yards away from her house. He could see flickering colored lights flashing on the drapes from televisions playing in several homes in front of sleeping retirees lying on their couches, too tired or drunk to toddle off to bed.

He looked for the lookout but saw no one.

He reached into the glove compartment of his car and found the items he had placed there. He put the balaclava and the gloves on. He then opened the car door. The dome light came on and he instantly hit the button in the door jamb to shut it off with his hand. He held it there as he took out his shotgun and then closed the door softly. The 30-30 wasn’t going to be needed, after all. He was pissed about the dome light. He would have taken the bulb out if had had more time to prepare for this night’s activities. He had forgotten to do that in his haste to leave the house.

He could feel the heat of the long day’s sunshine radiating up from the asphalt beneath him as he stepped quickly away from the car. He put the zip ties into his pants pocket along with two handkerchiefs that he had brought along from his closet.

He looked over the entire scene and saw that he could move in the shadows easily. The moon was just a sliver of light far off in the east. He used his car as an obstruction to anyone’s view and crouched low as he walked behind it. He then dashed off across a lawn and soon stood behind the corner of a low ranch styled mansion sitting off in the darkness.

“How many rooms does this place have,” he wondered as he walked behind it toward his sister’s place. A fairway ran behind the house. The house seemed to go on for miles. His heart was beating hard in his chest. He wasn’t in as good a shape as he had thought.

Jay moved across the entire back of the house and was now slightly closer to his sister’s place. He had a different view of her garage where his nephew was being held now. He saw a man dressed like he was, in black and browns crouched down low beneath a large tree in the darkness of the house next door to his sister’s. The man remained motionless in the shadow.

“There he is, the look out. Now what?” Jay asked himself.

Jay leaned the shot gun on the warm, used brick wall of the house. Jay watched the man as he approached him silently from behind. He had done this a few times before when a criminal was hunkered down and causing havoc in a neighborhood where a clean shot was too dangerous to take.

He would get up close and wrap his arms around the man’s neck and use the choke hold that so many were offended by to render him unconscious. No harm, no foul. It was one of the few nonfatal tools that a cop could use when needed. There were very few available and many wanted this tactic banned. Sadly, most citizens had no understanding of what a cop must deal with or how little time one must make life and death decisions in.

Jay was on top of the man in a few seconds and soon the man’s legs went limp. The deed was done. Jay checked the man’s vitals and saw that he was still alive. Lawn lights glowed in the background.

He used the zip ties on the man’s legs and then leaned the man against the tree. He tied the man’s hands behind the tree that he was now leaning against. Jay then removed the look out’s belt. He stuffed the two hankies he had brought with him into his mouth. Jay then wrapped the belt around the tree and over the man’s mouth and cinched it tight. He was a perfect thirty-two waist, or so his belt read in silver printing that glowed under the yard lights. Jay made sure the man could breathe but not escape as he pulled the belt tight against the tree.

Jay then stood up, grabbed his shot gun leaning on the wall of the nearby house and continued his way running up close to the walls of the next houses in his path like a commando in nearly complete darkness.

The desert landscape around him made that easy. There were few large bushes next to the houses that he passed. The land was flat and lit well in the distance with small yard lights all around. He was hidden in the dark corners of the night. He saw Billy’s white Toyota still sitting in the driveway. That gave him some hope that the men might still be there. They hadn’t taken him away in his own car, at least.

He ran silently around the back of his sister’s house and ended up at the side door to her garage. He hadn’t taken the time to try and look in the windows of her house. He hoped that there was nothing to see in there yet.

He could hear men talking inside the garage and blows landing. The voices were muffled and low. A small dog barked for relief in the distance. It needed to go outside.

Jay held the brass doorknob in his hands and twisted it slowly. It turned with an easy twist. “A piece of good fortune,” he thought. Perhaps he would be able to enter without too much noise and with the element of surprise.

He waited for the conversation to pick up again and opened the door slowly. He entered silently and found his sister’s white Jaguar between he and the three men. He raised the barrel of his shotgun and aimed it at the two men standing over the third seated on the bench, covered in blood as he moved closer to them. The three froze and looked up at him, startled. The man on the bench wore an ankle monitor issued by the court. It was Jay’s nephew Billy. Thankfully, he was still alive.

The men looked up with surprise and anger. One man quickly lowered his hand to his pants pocket. They were loose and might have held a gun.

“Stop moving or you’ll be sorry pal.” Jay said without emotion. The man stopped moving his hand instantly. The two men on either side of Billy stared at each other in alarm and then at Jay.

Jay saw a box of money and the large trash bag partially open and filled with marijuana buds.

“You, sitting on the bench, bring the money and the dope to me and return to your seat or you’ll be sorry. Be quick about it or I’ll shoot you.” Jay was talking to Billy gruffly.

The man on the left side of Billy looked at Jay with a sneer. Billy stood up and brought the two packages to Jay and put them at his feet.

“Get back on the bench kid.”

Jay didn’t worry about Billy’s mental anguish. He had brought these circumstances upon himself, no doubt. This was part of the price he would have to pay for his stupidity.

The man on the left of Billy started to speak.

“You’re making a big mistake mister. You don’t want to mess with us. We’re just the tip of a very large organization that you will never be able to escape from.”

“I’m not interested in escaping from it.”

The man’s hand slowly went toward his pocket. He thought Jay might not notice. Jay shot the man in the right knee. The dark room was instantly full of light and a loud report of a rifle being fired cracked the silence. It sounded like desert thunder. The gun wasn’t filled with buck shot. It was loaded with 12gauge slugs. The man’s hands flew to his leg, and he instantly forgot about the gun in his pocket. Smoke floated slowly up toward the ceiling and fanned out in a wide arch from Jay’s shotgun. Everyone’s ears were ringing.

The bullet passed through the man’s knee, hit the concrete floor and then bounced through the garage door and entered the radiator of Billy’s old Toyota with a loud clang. It then smashed into the motor of Billy’s car with a loud bang.

“Two hits with one shot, sorry Billy,” Jay thought but didn’t say.

Then the other man made a move toward Jay and Jay fired again. The slug went through the man’s foot, hit the floor and shot out through the garage door and flew over the house across the street. The slug landed in the sand trap of the fifth hole of the golf course. It looked like a melted silver dollar, half buried in the sand. The cops would find it in the morning with a metal detector.

Jay walked over and found the gun in the man’s pocket. The man grabbed at Jays ankle and Jay kicked him in the stomach with his other leg. The man let go as he fell back, gasping for air.

“You’ve made me wake the neighbors I think” Jay sad softly. Both men laid on the floor whimpering in pain. Jay picked up the man’s gun and tossed it into the box filled with money.

Jay waved for Billy to come to him once more. Billy stood up slowly with his hands in the air and approached Jay. Jay gave him four zip ties and had Billy tie up the two men. When Billy was done, Jay tied Billy up.

“Don’t worry kid, I’m not going to hurt you, I’m just going to take all your money and your dope.” “It’s not mine, its theirs,” Billy added. “You won’t mind then.” “Hell, no sir,” was his quick answer.

When Jay was sure the three men were tied to his satisfaction, he left the garage through the same door he had entered through. Jay wondered if Billy might have recognized his voice, but he didn’t think so.

“Too much fear and danger at hand for that to happen. Billy was surely in shock by the time he was beaten and tied up,” Jay thought.

Jay had seen it many times before. Descriptions of assailants by victims are seldom correct. Three victims will identify the same criminal in three different ways. That’s part of what makes a detective’s job so difficult. Jay left the garage with his prizes and closed the door behind him.

Jay walked past the man tied to the tree and waved a little wave to him. The man was conscious and alive. Jay held up the box of money and the large bag of dope.

Jay walked to his car sitting out in the darkness and tossed the dope into the back of the car behind his seat. Jay put the box of money on the floor next to him. He could see the silver, gun sitting on top of the money under the star light. He started the car and left unseen with the lights still out. He called his sister from his car to talk with her.

“Billy is fine. The gate guard has been murdered.” “Oh my god, his sister screamed in the darkness of her den closet. “You can call the cops but I’m sure someone already has. Call your attorney. Not your divorce attorney, but Billy’s criminal attorney, now. He needs to be present when Billy starts talking to the cops. Have the attorney work out a deal in exchange for info from Billy on this drug network he is involved with. He might not have to do any jail time for this event if he cooperates. He looks like a victim here to me.”

“If he talks, he’ll be in danger Jay.”

“You’re both already in danger. He can go live with his father if he is allowed to stay out of jail during the investigation.” “I don’t want him to live with his father.”

Jay hung up on Billy’s mother and pushed the gas pedal to the floor. The car moved forward, quickly toward the gate. Jay was soon leaving with the gate closing behind him. The tires chirped as Jay pushed the accelerator down and the car came back to life.

He looked to the right and saw the rising sun. He looked to the left and saw two cop cars arriving at high speed from the west with lights flashing and sirens blaring. The sky was just turning that beautiful shade of purple and gold. The cops turned into the driveway of the complex as jay drove away. He saw them in his rear-view mirror.

The driver got out quickly from his car and pushed the button to open the gate and checked on the guard. There was no pulse, there was nothing the officer could do for him. He drove quickly through the gate. The second police car drove past Charlie over the smooth tan concrete and into the development where Jay’s sister lived. Paramedics were notified to come as soon as possible.

One neighbor said that he saw a black SUV parked on the street in front of Jay’s sister’s house when two officers knocked on his door. His dog had awakened the man.

There would be plenty of talk in the morning at the clubhouse of the golf course about the night’s activities. Some supposed that that one neighbor of theirs had killed his wife or himself after a bad business deal or after a secret had finally made it into the papers. But soon enough the truth would come out as it always does. By sunrise, everyone knew what it was.

The police arrived in twenty minutes. It was some distance out her in Paradise Valley from the local police department building.

Yellow tape was strung up across the front driveway as the two detectives arrived shortly after the two patrolmen.

As the detectives arrived, the two first cops on the scene looked at each other. “Why do the detectives always work in pairs,” one police officer asked the other shorter officer. I guess the brass thinks two heads working together is better than one. There is obviously no real danger left at a scene when the detectives arrive. We’ve made sure of that.”

Detective Bob Kelso and Dave Lands arrived just ten minutes after the uniformed officers. The scene was secured and safe to enter. Lands and Kelso looked through the garage carefully. They could see the holes in the garage door and the marks on the concrete floor where the bullets hit the concrete floor.

“Where do you suppose the bullets ended up?” “Well Bill, we’ll have to look on the other side of the garage door, but from the distance from these scrapes on the floor and the garage door holes I would say one of them should be lodged in that little compact out on the driveway.” “Looks like someone got a good beating here by the bench,” Bob stated. “Yes, and here’s the blood from the two that were shot.” “Not too far apart or from the bench.” “Yes, it’s rather a confined area, that’s for sure. I don’t see much of anything else disturbed here in the garage, Bob.”

The two robbers sat in the back of two squad cars. Billy sat in the back of another. Mary, Billy’s mother stood on the sidewalk leading up to the front door of her house. Detective Bob Kelso walked up to her and spoke. “You need to come down to the office and answer some questions. I know your son a little and have several questions for him, as you might expect.”

Mary walked to the car holding Billy and spoke to him. “Don’t say a word until the lawyer and I get down to see you. Just remain silent.” “Yes mother, I know the drill.” Sadly, Billy did know the drill after a few arrests for drug and alcohol arrests.

In twenty minutes, the detectives pulled up to the police station. The uniformed officers had already arrived and unloaded the four men from their cars and walked them into the station. There of them were photographed and booked for murder, burglary and robbery. Billy was just a witness at this time. Each man was placed in a different room and waited for the questioning to begin. They started with Billy.

Detective Kelso entered first with Lands coming in right behind him. “I see we meet again Billy.” Bob Kelso had been involved with a few other arrests of Billy. They weren’t serious but he was getting tired of seeing Billy back in the police station.

“Why don’t you give me the low down on what happened Billy.”

“Well Detective, I was in the garage working out. I am a night owl as you may know. I love the quiet nights and like to be up and doing something when everyone else is asleep.”

“Yes, Billy, I think that’s one of your problems. You can’t seem to stay out of trouble when no one is watching over you. Your mother, must sleep, sometime, and you seem to take advantage of those opportunities to find your way into trouble.”

I was behaving myself when these two guys showed up and started in on me.”

“Do you know them?” “Well, I have bought a little weed from them, but never at my mother’s house. I’m not that stupid.”

How did they find you then?”

“They must have recognized my car. I have no idea why they were inside the complex. This is a hard place to find and to get into. No one comes in here by accident, that’s for sure. They came in, tossed the box of money on the floor along with the weed and started in on me. I think they said something about making a delivery in here but I’m not sure.”

“That’s interesting Billy. Is there anything else you might ad?” “No, that’s about it, I was just minding my business and all hell broke loose.”

“Alright then Billy, we’ll go talk to the bad guys and see what they tell us. It might be an interesting story. We’ll see how it fits in with yours.”

The two men left the office and stopped on the other side of the door. “What do you think Bob?” “I think he’s telling the truth for the most part. He’s a pot head, but not a criminal at the end of the day. These three guys were armed and ready for anything. There were three guns and two knives among the three of them. They had a large quantity of weed and cash with them. They must have been making a large delivery and or sale if what Billy says is true.”

The two detectives questioned each man arrested at the crime scene. They were each given a gun residue test to see if they had fired a weapon. They were fingerprinted and taken to individual cells. Each man had a long record with many crimes committed. Not all three would leave jail at the same time. One would not leave jail as the others made bail in a few hours. Time would tell who was the man that had fired a gun.

The detectives continued to run their names through their local, state and the national data banks to see who they might be.

Billy’s mother arrived at the police station with Billy’s attorney after several hours. The attorney had been out of town nearby and she had some difficulty locating him.

They arrived together and asked to see Billy. He was brought to the same small green room from his cell down a long dark hallway. Several cells were located along with his. Several inmates jerreed as they passed by or complained about being disturbed. He was brought to where he had been questioned earlier for several hours.

“What have they been doing to you, honey?” Mary asked as they all sat down at a small table.

“They have been suggesting that I was dealing drugs with these two men who beat me. It’s all nonsense.”

The attorney spoke up as he opened his briefcase. “That’s to be expected Billy. The police think everyone is guilty of something. Your past arrests don’t make you look good in their eyes. I think you have been arrested two or three times for possession of marijuana and other illegal substances.”

“Those were all targeted at me. I was completely innocent. The police put those drugs in my car. I wasn’t using them.”

“Billy, stop it,” Mary said as she opened her purse looking for a handkerchief. She had started to weep slightly. “We know you use these drugs son. It is useless to lie to us. We have seen you repeatedly under the influence. I have found drugs in your room more than once. You know that son.”

Billy looked down at his hands lying on the table and started to cry. “I’m sorry mother, I know that I am a disappointment to you.”

It doesn’t matter son. We are here to help you.”

Jack Peters looked up at Billy and asked him a few questions. Billy answered them as well as he could. The attorney thought he was telling the truth as well as he remembered it. He then suggested a course of action for Billy. “Billy, you must cooperate with the police as well as you can. They might help you stay out of jail altogether or get you a shorter sentence on your last arrest if you cooperate.”

“I hate being here mom.” “Then help the police with this investigation as well as you might, and you will be home sooner rather than later.”

“Alright mom, I will do the best I can. I really don’t know much about these men.”

Billy was taken back to his room after he finished talking with his attorney and mother. He was locked in a small cell by himself. Billy felt lost as he was recovering from the drugs he had used so recently. He was slowly coming out of a fog and becoming himself again.

It had been a long time since he had been sober and himself.

“Hello Mrs. Jones, could you join us in room three for a few moments please,” asked Detective Kelso.

Mary followed the detective down the hall to room three with her attorney at her side.

“Sirt down her please and get comfortable.” “I can’t get very comfortable now here in the police station with my son beat to a bloody pulp, detective. We are very worried about his safety.”

“Well, the men who did this to him are in custody as far as we can tell. So, I think you have little to worry about. What exactly did you see out there in the garage and why did you come down there in the first place?”

“I hear some noises from downstairs and was worried that someone had come into the house.”

“Your house seems unusually secure Mrs. Jones. Why is that?” “You know full well that my son has had some issues with drugs detective. I’m not about to risk our safety because of his drug habit. He seems to be doing better now and then this has happened. I don’t understand any of this. He doesn’t have any money to even buy drugs at this point. He is under my very strict control. And you have a monitor on him as well. Have you checked to see if he has wandered off the reservation, so to speak?”

“We’re looking into that and several other matters concerning your son. He seems to be cooperating with us now, as best he can. He is still under the influence of the drugs he uses, and it will take a few days before he comes fully back to reality. I’m sure of that.”

“Well, are you sure that we are safe? Who were those men who came to my house and why did they come and beat my son half to death? Who do they work for? Do you have any idea, about what, just really happened?”

“We’re working on that now as we speak. We have men working door to door in your neighborhood now trying to sort things out. Perhaps one of your neighbors saw something out of the ordinary. We will have a full-fledged investigation going in an hour or so. I promise you that.

“Is there anything else you might want to ask me detective? It’s been a long night and I’m sure Billy would like to get to bed, as I would. It has been rather trying, to say the least.”

“No Mrs. Jones, I think you will be free to leave in just a few moments. The paperwork is finished, and the questioning is over for the moment. If you can think of anything that might interest us, please give us a call.”

Twenty minutes would pass before Billy and Mary Jones were sent home.

Two of the men who beat up Billy were sent home after they were identified from arrest records. One was the lookout who had been tied to the tree by Jay. Their attorneys had arranged bail for them upon the request of Sam Cornell. One was still in jail and refusing to identify himself. He would remain there for some time. He was the shooter, and his name was Thomas.

In the later part of the morning Mary was back at home with Billy.

The rumors were swirling around the neighborhood as the sun came up over the rugged mountains sitting off in the distance.

“Mary’s son is in trouble again, and this time a murder had taken place,” a close neighbor was heard saying to another neighbor in the club house at lunch over cocktails.