Chapter 22
"I didn't know you were into mentoring delinquent bond jumpers in their twenties," Kendra said to Grayson, sounding amused as they drove back over to the bonds office.
"If more 'kids' like him got a break, maybe they wouldn't be in jail as much. Though we'll see how long that lasts."
Kendra got on her phone, called Marty's Grandma, and put it on speakerphone. "Hey, this is Kendra. We dropped Marty off at the jailhouse. He'll see the judge tomorrow, and you can pick him up there afterward if the judge releases him."
"Thank you for letting me know."
"We talked to him about working around the house.
He's supposed to help with chores, assist you with cooking, and he has to get a job. He said he would, but we would like you to keep us updated weekly. He’s supposed to if he is out on bond again.
If he goes back on his word, Grayson will talk to him. "
"You mean he’ll set him straight?" Grandma asked.
"Something like that."
"Are you marrying him? Grayson, I mean. You should. He could come live with me if he doesn't live with you."
Kendra laughed. "We're enjoying being with each other, and he's moving in with me."
"Oh, wonderful. Thanks so much for doing so much more than just taking Marty back to jail time and again. You are both worth your weight in gold."
"It's our pleasure," Grayson said. "He just needed a little persuasion."
"Well, you've made my day. Thanks."
Then they finished the conversation, and Kendra sighed. "I hope he won't become a nuisance needing lots of your time to prove he has turned over a new leaf."
"We can set limits if we need to."
They stopped by the office where everyone was taking calls. Ivan was gone so Grayson figured he was on a fugitive job.
"We just got several bail bond requests, but no one has skipped bail recently, well, except for the case Ivan is on," George said.
"You sent him out alone on his first case?" Kendra asked.
“I asked him if he wanted to wait until you returned to the office, but he said he could do it on his own. It’s an easy case.”
“What’s the address?” Kendra asked, sounding as if she didn’t think Ivan could handle his first case on his own.
George gave them the address, and then they took off to meet up with Ivan, just in case he got himself into trouble.
“Okay, so the fugitive, Baldwyn, hasn’t been working when he’s supposed to be; he’s staying with his girlfriend when he has to be living at a different location.
He is supposed to be working at the job for a year.
He'd better be off drugs. He is supposed to have a daily check-in, but he hasn’t been checking in for weeks.
He has a curfew every night. But according to the paperwork, he’s not doing anything he should do,” Kendra said, reading the case as Grayson drove them to Baldwyn’s girlfriend’s house.
“Who put up the bond?” Grayson asked.
“Jacob Ryerson, Baldwyn’s friend, put up his car for the $20,000 bond.” She called Ivan and put it on speaker. “Hey, it’s Kendra. We’re on our way to your location to assist you.”
“I just got here. You didn’t tell George I need help, did you?” Ivan sounded a little bit peeved.
“He shouldn’t have sent you on your first job without backup.”
“So you’re done with your other capture?”
“Yeah.”
Ivan didn’t say anything for a moment, then said, “He’s not with you, is he?”
Even though Kendra had said we’re on our way to your location, Grayson figured Ivan was still hopeful she was on her own. No way. They were a team.
"Do you think Ivan can't handle the job on his own?" Grayson asked when Kendra ended the call.
"I don't know. But I just think he should have support when he's on his first case.
Now, someone like Marty is a pretty safe bet, though I have a good relationship with him, and you've made a friend out of him.
But I don't know about this case. Baldwyn might be a real problem, or not.
There's no telling. Even if someone is usually good about being taken in, they might react differently in another situation, or if they have had a particularly bad day. "
"Yeah, I hear you. I've had cases like that where I've had to take a fugitive numerous times, and he has been fine most of the times, but the one time I went to take him into custody, he'd been drinking, which he wasn't supposed to be doing.
And he'd taken drugs. I ended up having to put him in a chokehold until I could get him to calm down.
He was a big, muscular dude, but on drugs and alcohol, he was really mean and practically impossible to take down. "
Kendra smiled and squeezed his bicep. "That's hard to believe."
"Hell, yeah. One time, my brother and I went to get a guy like that, and the local sheriff sent two of his officers because the bail jumper was always a real problem if he’d been drinking and using.
It took all four of us to get him down. He was on something that made him like the Incredible Hulk.
Plus, he was sweaty and naked, and we had a hell of a time just keeping hold of him. "
She laughed. "I'm glad I never had any cases like that."
"Yeah, the two of us couldn't have taken him down. Though maybe if he had seen you, he would have calmed down. Sometimes a woman can calm a fugitive more than a male can."
"Sometimes a female makes the fugitive go off, especially if they hate female authority figures."
"That's true."
They finally arrived at the house and saw Ivan standing by his vehicle in the driveway, waiting for them. She was glad he hadn't tried to do this on his own and had waited for them to arrive.
They parked curbside and got out of Grayson's vehicle. She hoped Baldwyn hadn't left the house because he had seen Ivan out there, ready to take him in.
"Okay, since this is your case, we'll let you knock on the door," Kendra said.
"I'll go around back to make sure he doesn't run off," Grayson said.
"Oh, good idea," Ivan said. "I hope he didn't already leave the house while I was here."
"It's okay. We'll get him even if he has already left the house," Kendra reassured him.
In the meantime, Grayson went through the gate and into the backyard to watch the back side of the house.
Kendra thought of going to the side of the house, but she wanted to be there for Ivan.
Ivan rang the doorbell, but it didn't work. He knocked on the door. "Sorry about stealing the meals off the porches. I shouldn't have been doing it, but I was bored, and I figured they would see me on their camera and get a kick out of a grizzly eating their meals."
"It's a good way to get shot."
"Well, that's possible. Even though grizzlies aren’t supposed to be hunted."
A young woman wearing lounge pants and a sweatshirt opened the door. "Yeah?" Her hair was pulled back in a messy bun. She smelled of gin.
"Fugitive recovery agents," Ivan said.
"Baldwyn!" she called out. "Come in. He's in the toilet. It takes him forever to take a dump so it might be a while."
Which could be a ruse. They could be waiting for him to leave the bathroom, and he might have left the house in the meantime through the back door.
The woman motioned toward the living room, sat on a couch, poured gin into an ice-filled glass, and began drinking it.
Ivan glanced back down the hallway. "Do you mind if I check on him?"
The woman laughed. "Yeah, sure. I'm serious.
He always does this right before we sit down to eat.
" She pointed to the plates of spaghetti on the kitchen table.
"Just like clockwork. Sometimes I tell him it's time to eat, and don't serve anything until after he goes to the bathroom.
" She got up from the couch, went over to the table, and sat down to eat.
Ivan found the bathroom and knocked on the door. "Baldwyn?"
"Hell, shit, I'm busy. Come back later."
Kendra texted Grayson to let him know Baldwyn was in the house, in the bathroom.
Grayson texted back: I'll check the bathroom window to make sure he doesn't climb out that way.
Kendra texted back: It's on the right side of the house, about midway.
On it.
"So how long has Baldwyn been staying with you?" Kendra asked his girlfriend.
"For a couple of months."
"But it's not his residence."
"So? I'm his girlfriend. He can stay with me anytime he wants."
"He has to stay at the residence listed on the bond paperwork," Kendra said. “It’s part of the rules he has to abide by.” She noted that the girlfriend hadn’t posted bail for Baldwyn. She had her home, so she could have used it as collateral. Did she think Baldwyn was untrustworthy?
Because they had to take Baldwyn to jail, the bond money was forfeited, and his friend Jason would lose his car.
Kendra waited with his girlfriend as she ate her spaghetti. "You didn't put up the bail money for Baldwyn."
"Are you kidding? All I have is my car and house to use as collateral. He has already lost his own car since his last bailout. And now I have to drive him all over."
"What about his job?"
The girlfriend drank some of her gin. "What about it?"
"Where is he working?"
She snorted and forked up some more spaghetti. "I would have to take him to the 'job site' if he had a job, right? He uses me as his Uber transportation. And not one time has that been to go to some job. The grocery store for beer, that I pay for, sure. He doesn't have any money for anything."
"He's supposed to be checking in with us, and he's not doing that."
"He has a phone and laptop that he can use, so that shouldn't be a problem."
"He's still drinking."
She nodded. "Sure. And using drugs."
Kendra wondered whether she was tired of her boyfriend being there while he lived off her. Why else would she tell Kendra so much about what he was doing that could put him in jail?
Finally, Baldwyn came out of the bathroom, and Kendra texted Grayson to tell him Baldwyn was joining them.
Baldwyn sat down to eat his dinner. Ivan looked shocked, like they should have just put him in handcuffs right away and taken him out to the vehicle.
She let Baldwyn eat. Oftentimes, if they were respectful toward the fugitive, they could get them to go with them without any trouble. They didn't have another case to handle right now, so it wasn't a big deal, and hopefully, he wouldn't delay the situation too long.
Grayson came in through the front door.
Baldwyn pointed at Grayson with his fork. "Who the hell are you?" He glanced at Ivan. "And you? I know her."
Ivan told him who he was, and Grayson explained his role there.
"Get me a beer," Baldwyn told his girlfriend.
"Are you kidding? You aren't supposed to be drinking," his girlfriend said.
"Oh, yeah? You paid for it for me. And I've been drinking the whole time I've been here."
"For a couple of months, when you were supposed to be at the other location listed on your bond application," Kendra said.
"I was just here to see my girlfriend. I'm not staying here. She takes me to my job."
"Tell me where you work." Kendra was waiting for Ivan to ask the questions, but he wasn't asking about anything, and she figured it didn't matter. She would just train him on what to ask the people involved in the case and hope he learned what he needed to do on his next case.
"Schuster's Roofing."
She looked it up on her phone and called them to speak with their personnel department. "Hi, I'm checking to see if Baldwyn Whitehouse is dutifully employed by you."
"What is this in regard to?" the personnel manager asked.
Kendra said, "I'm a fugitive recovery agent, and I need to know if he's gainfully employed as part of his bonding out rules."
"He doesn't work for us. I looked back for a year, and he hasn't worked for us in all that time."
Kendra asked Baldwyn, "Did you use a different name for employment?"
"No."
"Okay, thanks so much for your help." Kendra ended the call, then called Jason to let him know he was about to lose his car. "So, Jason, this is Kendra, a fugitive recovery agent, and I'm calling about your friend Baldwyn. I'll put this on speaker so you can talk to him also."
"Hey, what's up, man?" Jason asked.
"Same-o, same-o," Baldwyn said, as if he didn't care one iota that his friend would lose his car over Baldwyn not following the rules.
"He has been breaking the rules. He wasn't supposed to be staying with his girlfriend," Kendra said, for starters. Jason was owed an explanation of why he would lose his car.
"He can't visit his girlfriend?" Jason sounded surprised.
"Okay, listen, when you agreed to cover his bond, you had to acknowledge the rules also, just like he did."
Jason didn't say anything. Baldwyn continued to scarf down his meal.
"His girlfriend said he has been staying with her for the last couple of months. Not just overnight, or over the weekend."
"Ah, hell, man. I told you to tell your girlfriend not to say you were staying over there."
So they caught Jason being a co-conspirator. And he knew better.
She reminded Jason that he had the same rules as Baldwyn, and he signed off on them.
"I don't have that car any longer," Jason said, as if they would get him out of having to give up his vehicle.
But the bondsman would not be out $20,000. They would get it anyway they could, or Jason would be going to jail too. It really made her mad that his friend had been telling Baldwyn to lie about his situation. He was an idiot to have put up collateral for the bond when Baldwyn was so uncooperative.
They would deal with Jason later.
Baldwyn finished his meal, and Kendra motioned for Ivan to take him into custody.
"What about dessert?"
"You've had enough," Kendra said. Actually, after hearing that Jason had been in collusion with Baldwyn, she'd had enough of being Ms. Nice Guy.
Baldwyn rose from his seat.
Then Ivan put the cuffs on him. He pulled him toward the front door.
"Is Jason going to lose his car?" Baldwyn's girlfriend asked.
"He still has it?"
"Sure he does. He might just hide it until you give up on trying to repossess it, and then he might try to sell it and get another vehicle, but he still has that car," Baldwyn's girlfriend said.
"Thanks," Kendra told her. "We'll get out of your hair then."
"Just don't bring Baldwyn back here."