Chapter 27 #2
Then they ended their call as Kendra and Ivan reached their destination.
The small house was buried in clutter and vegetation.
Trash was piled high in the front yard, and the grass was as tall as the rotting railings on the porch.
Weed trees and vines covered the house and chain-link fence, making it appear like a jungle.
Grass covered what appeared to be the walkway to the front door so that no one could even see the cement. The driveway was the same.
Vines covered most of the front windows of the one-story, wood-sided home. An old rusted pickup truck was half-covered in vines, trees, and shrubs.
If it weren't for a light being on in one of the rooms, it would look like no one was there. The sky grew dark as black storm clouds gathered overhead, threatening rain.
"Looks like a haunted house," Ivan said.
"My thought exactly. I imagine the inside looks as bad as the outside, unless yardwork just isn't their thing."
"I figure the inside is a disaster too," Ivan said.
"Do you want to knock on the door?"
"Watch it fall off its rusted hinges. But yeah, I'll do it," Ivan said and knocked on the door. The whole thing shook with his knock.
She figured if he pounded any harder, it would just break to pieces. If there was a doorbell, it was covered with vines, if it even worked.
She tried to peek into the windows, but they were all covered with plants, and she couldn't see anything.
Then she startled a garden snake, which startled her, but luckily, she didn't cry out. She didn't want Ivan to know that a good garden snake had scared the heck out of her.
He asked, "What do you want to do next?"
"I don't think we can even get into the backyard." She tried to move to the gate, but it was blocked with debris, rusty metal, roof shingles, and boxes dissolving from former rainstorms filled with junk.
They tried the other side of the house, but it was just as inaccessible. "Well, it's the fugitive's house, so we can enter it if we can reach it."
They returned to the porch, and both of them took turns kicking at the door until it gave way. The house smelled of cat urine and mold. She had been right. The house was a disaster inside.
Then something moved in the clutter in the hallway foyer. Rats?
An orange cat jumped out of the debris, and Ivan yelled out. The cat raced out the door.
“We would need masks and hazmat clothes to go in there. And we need to get animal control to come and get the cat—and others if there are more inside,” Kendra said.
“Do you have that equipment?” Ivan asked.
“No.” She contacted animal control and then called Rowland. “Hey, Ivan and I are at a home where the fugitive is supposed to be, but the house needs someone in hazmat clothes to retrieve him.”
“Okay, I’m sending a couple of men,” Rowland said. “Any sign of your fugitive?”
“A light is on in the house, and a cat came out. We’re getting animal control to take it in. From what I saw and smelled, the house is bad news. And more animals might be inside. Outside the house is just as bad,” Kendra said.
“The guys will be there soon,” Rowland said.
“Thanks.” Then they ended the call. “Normally, we would cover the house as much as we could to keep the fugitive from running, but we can’t even reach the backyard. Maybe he can’t either.”
Ivan shook his head. “I never expected something like this.”
“Yeah, we get all kinds of different situations. You just have to be prepared for anything. If he’s in there, he probably feels we won’t go in. That he’s safe.”
“He doesn’t know how determined we are.”
“Exactly.” Kendra got out her water container and drank from it.
The orange cat came over to her and rubbed against her legs.
She crouched and petted her. “Hey, sweetie.” The cat was scrawny and underfed, but really sweet.
She hoped it would find a new home where she would be cared for as she should be.
Animal control arrived and took the cat, cuddled her, and then put her in a crate. “Are there more animals in the house?” the one officer asked.
“Not sure. But as pungent as the cat urine smells in the house, I suspect there are more,” Kendra said, Ivan agreeing. “We’re just waiting for officers in hazmat suits to enter the house.”
They waited, and not long afterward, a couple of officers, dressed in white hazmat uniforms from head to toe, arrived, rammed the door all the way open, and then went inside the house, their guns drawn. At least they could take down the perp if the guy wasn’t cooperative.
She wished she had the gear that she needed to get into the house to arrest the fugitive. But when the police officers worked with them, they would still turn over the money to pay for the fugitive, even if she and Ivan hadn’t actually captured him. They had located him—if he was in there.
More short-haired cats ran out of the house: another orange, a tuxedo, and three tabbies, two black cats, and a tortoise shell. But she wondered if others in the house were hiding.
Then she heard furniture or something being moved by the front door.
They figured the police officers would apprehend the fugitive, but a few minutes later, to Kendra and Ivan's shock, they saw movement in the vines at the side of the property.
Kendra immediately pulled out her taser.
Ivan grabbed his pepper spray, and they headed to where the gate would be if it wasn't covered with so many weed vines, trees, and shrubs.
"He's coming that way?" Ivan asked.
"Looks like it. The police officers wouldn't be coming through that mess."
A man cried out, and she wondered if the officers had followed him outside. She hoped that neither of them had been hurt.
Then the man cursed a blue streak as metal moved, was tossed, or more of it was stepped on to the side of the property. He cried out again.
"Do you think that's the fugitive?" Ivan asked.
"Yeah. He might need a tetanus shot if he cuts himself on rusty metal."
"I bet he hasn't tried to walk through there in eons," Ivan said, ready to shoot the guy with pepper spray if he needed to.
The guy shook at the gate, but it wasn't budging with all the vegetation wedging it in. He swore some more as he moved something around next to the fence. She suspected he was going to try to climb onto something and then make his way over the fence.
Kendra and Ivan hid in the tall grass and weed trees, not wanting the fugitive to try to leave any other way.
She was thinking that if he had been a member of a Homeowners Association (HOA), he would have had tons of violations.
She couldn't understand why the city wouldn't have contractors come out and clean up the mess, and if the fugitive didn’t pay them, which she suspected would be the case, put a lien on his property for the rat and snake-infested mess.
They could even foreclose on the house and send him to jail for that.
Though the property might have to be condemned, depending on its structural condition. One of the weed trees was even growing through the roof.
She saw a few neighbors standing in their front yards, watching what was going on. The homeowners on either side of him couldn't see what was happening, but they crossed the street to watch.
She texted Rowland: Can you tell your officers here that the guy is in the side yard? He's trying to climb the fence, we think, but everything is covered in vegetation.
"Damn it to hell!" the fugitive shouted, and wood splintered.
She glanced at Ivan. He smiled. "He tried to climb on a rotting wooden structure."
"Sounds like it."
Then they heard more moving around. More dragging of stuff. Then his head popped up over the fence. Even then, he was going to have a time getting through the weed trees blocking his path. Then he cut off some of the smaller weed trees with a heavy-duty lopper.
He was finally able to clear enough to swing his leg over. He was wearing shorts and was bleeding in several places.
They needed him to get on this side of the fence before they apprehended him.
She glanced at the front door and wondered why the officers didn't come out of the house. Or why he hadn’t come that way. Then she received a text from Rowland: They're not answering their texts. Sending reinforcements.
Kendra texted back: Okay.
She said to Ivan, "The officers who are in the house aren't answering their text messages."
"Hell. As soon as we take this dirtbag into custody, we'll have to check on the officers."
"Exactly. Hazmat suits or not." They had to make sure the officers were alive.
The fugitive got his shirt stuck on one of the weed trees he'd cut down. He was half on the weed tree, his legs stuck in the vines.
Suddenly, Kendra saw metal sticking out of the fugitive’s pocket. "He has got a gun in his shorts pocket,” Kendra warned.