More of Chapter 1 of “The Bad Seed”
The police officer got out quickly from his squad 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. The second officer 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 sisters 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 one neighbor of theirs had killed his wife or himself after a bad business deal or after a secret that had finally made it into the papers. But soon, enough of the truth would come out as it always does. By sunrise everyone knew what the secret was.
The detectives arrived in twenty minutes. It was some distance out here 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 first two 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 are better than one. There’s obviously no real danger left at the 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 safe and secure 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 had stuck.
Paramedics were hauling the two injured men off to the hospital as the two detectives arrived. They stepped aside to let them out of the garage. Billy was not in need of hospitalization. He had been beat pretty good but time would heal those wounds. The two other men needed prompt medical attention. That was made obvious by the blood on the floor.
“Where do you suppose the bullets ended up?” “Well Bob, 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 backs of two ambulances and sped away. Billy sat in the back of another police car. It hadn’t been too long since he had been in one before. Mary, Billy’s mother stood on the sidewalk leading up to the front door of her house. Detective Bob Kelso walked up and spoke. “You need to come down to the office and answer some questions. I know your son a little and I have several questions for him, as you might expect.
Mary walked up 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 drugs and alcohol.
After an hour and a half, the detectives pulled up to the police station. The uniformed officers had already arrived at the hospital and watched them unload the two men there. Two cops stayed with the two men at the hospital. The two suspects were secured to their beds.They would be photographed, finger printed and booked for murder, burglary and robbery later when they arrived at the police station after the meds had worn off from their surgeries. The third man went downtown. Billy was just a witness at this time. Billy and the lookout were placed in different rooms and waited for the questioning to begin.
Detective Kelso entered the first with Landis coming in right behind him. “I see we meet again, Billy.” Bob Kelso had been involved with a few other of Billy’s arrests. They weren’t serious but he was getting tried of seeing Billy back in the police station.
“Why don’t you give me the lowdown on what happened Billy?”
“Well Detective, I was in the garage working out. I’m 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 might 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.”
They had beat me for a while and then this big guy all covered in black comes in with a shotgun and takes over. The one guy starts talking to the big guy but a drug cartel but nothing came of that.
The one guy tries to go for a gun and he gets shot in the knee with the shotgun. It scared the hell out of me. He went down like a sack of sand. Then the other guy makes a move and he gets it too, right in the foot. The guy aimed low on purpose. He could have killed them if he wanted, but he seemed not to want them dead. He told me to tie them up and I did. He then tied me up and told me I wouldn’t be hurt.”
“Could you see his face?”
“No, he had one of those ski masks on that cover your entire head. Billy paused for a moment thinking. He had gloves on too. I have no idea what he looked like. He was big guy though.
“That’s interesting Billy. Is there anything you might ad?” “No, that’s about it, I was just minding my own business when all hell broke loose.”
“Alright then Billy, we’ll go talk to the bad guy in the other room and see what he will tell us. It might be an interesting story. We’ll see how it fits in with yours.
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Don’t miss Dreams of Costa Rica” on Amazon.
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What is Mildred planing?