Continuing Chapter 1
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 for the most part, 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 they thought came with it.
Jay had been to these types of parties himself and had them in his own home a few times. He3 had heard a few of his married male friends talk of trysts with neighbors 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 oversight by their wives or husbands. “The 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 the 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. He knew that telling the truth wasn’t always the best course of action.
Jay wondered how he would get through the gate at his sister’s development without the camera recording him. He couldn’t have that. Jay had brought the 30-30 rifle along to disable the camera from the last hill a hundred yards down the road from the guard house. He didn’t want his visit on tape. Shooting pout 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 burned out, finally.
As he came close enough to where he could see the guard shack by his headlights, 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 saw the remains of the camera and the light hanging down by the electrical wires of the post out in front of the guard shack. He knew then that they had been destroyed by by a shot from type of gun, as he had planned on doing.
No one would use a gun this close to the gate. It would alert anyone within hearing distance that you were coming for them. “Why do 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 the car. He instantly thought 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 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, bit 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 it was the same brand as the button t his house and quickly climbed back into his car. Jay was good with details. That was what made him a good detective. He had smelled weed in the shack as well and wondered what that meant. 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 drive through security 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 were his sister’s house sat among several others. Bright stars flickered over the hills nearby in a dark night sky.
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 weren’t allowed to park overnight on the streets in here.
It was against the rules for cars to park overnight on the streets, so the car 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 their 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 on that car and was there a third man unaccounted for? His sister had seen only two men in the garage. His intuition and years of experience 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 headlights off before he came over the next small 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 among many down in front of him lit by lawn lights scattered among them as he crested the hill.
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 at first glance.
He reached into his 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 door. the doom 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 tonight’s activities. He had forgotten to do that in his haste to leave his 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 pant’s pocket along with the two handkerchiefs.
He looked over the entire scene and saw that he could move in the shadows near the large homes, 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 walked behind it. He then dashed off a cross a narrow lawn and soon stood behind the corner of a low ranch styled mansion standing 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 iin 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 shadows.
“There he is, the lookout. Now what,” Jay asked himself.
Jay leaned the shotgun 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.
Jay would get up close and wrap is 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 a life and death decision in.
Jay was on topm pf the man in seconds and soon the man’s legs and arms went limp. The deed was done. jay checked the man’s vitals and knew that he was still alive. Lawn lights glowed in the background.
He pulled the zip ties from his pocket and placed them on the man’s ankles and then leaned him against the tree. He tied the man’s hands behind the tree that he was now leaning against. Jay then removed the lookout’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 mans 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 stood up, grabbed his shotgun leaning on the wall of the 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 close to the houses and lit well in the distance with small lard 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 of to her garage. He hadn’t taken the time to try and look in the windows of hewr house. he hoped there was nothing to see in there yet.
He could hear man 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.
More coming later. Bedtime for time for Bonzo. Be back in a few hours.
Remember, the first chapters of my many older novels are here on my website.