Chapter 12
Gunner was dreaming of Holly when he woke, rolled over to see what time it was, and sent her a text.
Best night of my life. Love you. See you as soon as I can.
Then he rolled out of bed and went to shower and shave. A short while later, he was in the kitchen waiting for the Keurig to deliver his morning coffee when his phone dinged. It was a text from Nora.
Check your email.
Nora had returned the video. His heart skipped when he realized he could see a man’s face behind the glare on the windshield, but it didn’t help.
He didn’t know who he was. Either it was somebody cruising to find a house to rob or a straggler who didn’t get the word on the voided bounty hunting.
He needed to talk to Andy Samuels, but the man was in CCU, and Gunner didn’t know if he was even conscious, let alone able to talk.
He sent Nora a thank-you for the trouble and made a note to follow up on getting an ID from existing mug shots. He got up to get his coffee, poured a bowl of cereal, and was eating it standing up at the island when Holly sent him a text.
I couldn’t sleep. You make me crazy. I won’t be worth a nickel at work today. Love you, Gunner. So much. Stay safe for me.
He was grinning from ear to ear as he sent a heart-shaped emoji.
She loves me. Hot damn, she loves me. He wolfed down the rest of his cereal and coffee and was getting ready to get back to his laptop when he heard sirens, and then a lot of voices, and looked out the front window.
The moment he saw the patrol cars, he grabbed his badge, clipped it to his belt, and was out the door.
Patrol cars were already parked in front of the house three doors down. He knew the elderly couple—a retired postman and his wife, and he could hear an ambulance siren approaching in the distance. He jogged down to the scene and flashed his badge to the officers outside the house.
“Detective Kingston, Homicide. I live three houses down. What’s going on?” he asked.
“Robbery. Old couple tied up. Cleaning lady found them and called it in.”
Gunner immediately thought of the video Nora just sent back. “Who’s in charge?”
“Detective Harmon. He’s inside with the family.”
At that point, the ambulance arrived. The EMTs rushed in, and a few minutes thereafter, brought the elderly couple out on gurneys, loaded them up, and drove away with sirens blaring.
Gunner moved past the officers and into the house where Detective Harmon and his partner were moving through the crime scene. Harmon looked up as Gunner walked into the room.
“Hey, Kingston. Long time, no see. There’s nobody dead here.”
“I live three houses down,” Gunner said.
“I don’t know where you are in the investigation, or what intel you’ve gained from the victims, but I have some video from one of my security cameras that you might want to see.
When you finish here, I’ll show you what I have.
The house number is 440. Third house down on the west side of the street. ”
Harmon’s eyes widened. “Thanks, man. We’ll be there shortly.”
Gunner jogged back to his house, pulled up the first video he’d captured on his camera, then went back to the living room to wait. A few minutes later he saw them coming up the steps and got up to let them in.
Harmon was all eyes as he walked into the place.
Gunner Kingston was something of an enigma within the department.
Not much was known about his personal life other than he was originally from West Texas, and then the big story about his mother and the armored car robbery she had been involved in before committing suicide.
“Nice place,” Harmon said. “Oh… This is my partner, Jerry Rimmer. So what do you have?”
“I assume you’ve got people checking the area for security footage, but I have some from a few days ago that might interest you. My laptop is set up on the kitchen island. Follow me.”
As soon as they were gathered around him, he opened the laptop.
“The time stamp on this was just after 2:00 a.m. I didn’t see any of this until the next morning,” he said and clicked on the video, then stepped aside to give them the better view.
“You will see this same blue truck with the headlights off circle this block four times in less than five minutes. The license tag is covered up. That was the first flag. They didn’t want to be identified.
Nothing changes about the video on the second trip, or the third trip, but as the truck is coming past my house again, you can see headlights coming at the truck from the other direction.
Look! There! That moment when the headlights flash on the windshield just before they pass! ”
Harmon leaned down. “Back it up a sec. I want to see it again.”
“I can do better than that,” Gunner said, then clicked a few keys and pulled up the still shot Nora just sent him. “There’s the driver.”
“Damn… How did you—”
“I have a friend with a really good editing app. I asked if it could be made clearer. I got this back just this morning. Good timing, right?”
“Damn, Gunner. Your friend is good. But what made you want to dig deeper in the first place? I mean…besides the hidden tag?”
Gunner shrugged. “Everyone in my department knows this, but I guess they’ve kept it somewhat under wraps. A little less than two weeks ago, someone put a fifty-thousand-dollar bounty on my head. I didn’t know it until the first hit man took a shot at me on the Loop when I was going to work.”
Harmon’s eyes narrowed. “That was you? The dude on the Yamaha?”
“It was me. And my lieutenant immediately put me on leave until they could find out who ordered it. I had an idea. Confronted the bastard. He denied it, but we came to a mutual understanding as to why it would be in his best interests if he called the whole thing off. Then I sort of crawled into a hole and waited for the all-clear signal. That’s why I was so over-cautious about the truck. ”
“Good lord,” Harmon said. “No… We didn’t know anything about it. Glad you’re okay.”
“So far,” Gunner said.
“The truck fits the description of one a neighbor caught on their security camera,” Rimmer said.
“Good. If you’ll give me a few minutes, I’ll upload a copy of the video and the still shot to a thumb drive. You can take it with you. Help yourself to coffee if you want. Cups are in the cabinet above the Keurig. Cookies in the cookie jar. I’ll be right back.”
Gunner made a run for his office, grabbed a new stick from the blister pack, and headed back to the kitchen.
Both detectives were sipping coffee when he returned.
He popped the thumb drive in a port and began the upload, and then the still shot from Nora’s email.
As soon as the upload ended, he removed the drive and handed it to Harmon.
Harmon was all smiles. “Man, this is a big break for us. Thank you! We’ll give you cred for the find and upload that still shot into facial recognition. If the dude has a record, we should get a hit.”
“I don’t need cred. Happy hunting,” Gunner said.
“Stay safe, buddy,” Harmon said, and then they were gone.
Gunner sent a quick text to Nora.
It wasn’t who I was looking for, but we just IDed a neighborhood thief. Robbery is on his ass. Thank you for the trouble, sister.
It wasn’t any help for Gunner’s situation, other than knowing the man was not connected to Dixon’s list of hit men.
The next thing on his agenda was to check on Samuels. He called the hospital and got the news that Andy Samuels was in CCU but had been cleared for visitors.
Gunner’s badge was still clipped to his belt; he wouldn’t be carrying a weapon into the hospital, but he wasn’t traveling without it. He put it in the console as he got into the car and drove away.
* * *
It was a morning for chaos in Dallas, as was often the case.
Reggie and Linda Townsend lived in a small suite on the lower level of the Dixon mansion.
Reggie was the resident caretaker, and Linda was Burgess Dixon’s personal chef.
They had been waiting for almost an hour for the boss to come down to breakfast and were beginning to be concerned.
“He’s never late,” Linda said.
Reggie shrugged. “Maybe he just overslept.”
“He could be ill. Or had a fall. You go up and check on him right now!” Linda said.
“He’ll give me hell if we’re wrong,” he muttered, but did as she asked and went up the stairs and down the hall to Dixon’s bedroom and knocked.
When he didn’t get an answer, his first thought was that he was already up and in the office, but to be sure, he opened the door enough to peek in and then swung the door all the way inward after what he saw.
The bed had not been slept in!
Reggie pivoted and made a beeline for the office, opened the door and then gasped, then turned and ran down the stairs, stumbling and shouting.
“Linda! Linda! God Almighty, call 911.”
His wife came running. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
“The boss is dead. Looks like he killed himself! Call the cops!”
“Oh, my lord!” she cried and ran back to the kitchen to get her phone.
She made the call, her voice shaking with every breath, and was still holding the phone when the police began to arrive.
In the middle of the uproar, Whistler arrived for work to drive the boss to his office. He parked behind the cops and got out running.
“What’s happening? What’s going on?” he said.
One of the officers stopped him at the door. “You can’t go in there.”
“I work here,” he shouted.
“Who are you and what do you do?” the officer asked.
“I’m Beau Whistler, Mr. Dixon’s chauffeur and sometime bodyguard. I drive him to work every morning. Why the hell can’t I go in? What’s happened?”
Donny Sheets, the detective who’d caught the case, appeared in the doorway. “Let him pass.” Then he pointed at the room across the foyer. “You’ll wait in there with the rest of the staff. We’re going to need statements from all of you.”
“For what?” Whistler roared. “What the actual fuck is going on?”