Judged (15 page)

The officer nearest me called for a repeat of what had just been sent over his shoulder radio.

We waited in silence until the voice of an officer called it back on the radio. Over the sounds of rustling and heavy breathing, the officer stated he was giving chase to a suspicious person who fled on foot—a block west from where we stood.

“Let’s go!” Harrington said.

Officers Nelson and Rey dropped what they were doing and ran from the room. Beth, Couch, and I also rushed after Harrington. Couch relayed orders to Rivera and Pottsulo to hold down the house as we emerged from the front door.

I have a couple of flashlights in my cruiser,” Harrington said.

“I have one in my truck. Let me get it,” Couch said.

We jogged to the trunk of Harrington’s Crown Victoria. He popped the lid and started rummaging through the trunk’s contents.

“I have a couple of handheld radios in here too.” Harrington dug out our radios and small LED flashlights and passed them to Beth and me. “We’re going to be on channel eleven.”

I turned on the radio and tuned to that channel as Beth did the same.

Couch approached at our backs. “Ready?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Agent Couch, I’ll get you a radio from one of the patrol cars. Let’s go.” Harrington slammed the trunk of his car.

The four of us jogged down the block and rounded the corner where the street bent to the left. In the middle of the street, a patrol car sat parked facing the properties on the left. Another cruiser had pulled up to the curb behind it. We ran over to where Officer Rey and another officer stood near the car, along the curb.

“What do we have?” Harrington asked.

“Nelson just went that way on foot.” Rey pointed between a pair of houses. “That was where they saw the guy enter the yards.”

The other officer standing with Rey spoke up. “Right now, there are two cars combing the neighborhood with spotlights. I called in more.”

I looked at the officer with Rey. “Did you see the guy?”

“Just for a second. My partner went after him on foot.”

“Description?” I asked.

“Average height and build. He had on a dark hooded sweatshirt and jeans.”

“We’re going to need air support. If whoever ran is in fact our guy, I don’t want to chance letting him slip away. Let me make the call,” Couch said.

Harrington looked at Officer Rey. “Nelson went this way?” He pointed into the nearest yard.

“Yeah.”

“Let’s split up and start searching,” I said. “Beth, you go a block up, I’ll go two. Let’s find this guy. We need some cars on the edges of this neighborhood. Let’s cut off any chance that this guy can get out.”

“We should probably keep most of our efforts from where we are now to the east and south,” Officer Rey said.

“What’s to the north and west?” Beth asked.

“A canal bends right around here.” Using a finger, Ray drew the path of the canal in the air. “The water closes in this subdivision on the north and west sides. That’s not saying that he couldn’t cross it, but I doubt someone is going to try to at night.”

“I’ll get some cars in place,” Harrington said.

I stuffed my radio into the back pocket of my pants, flicked on the flashlight, and started up the block. Beth followed until the first street, where she made a left and jogged up the block, shining her light into each yard she passed. I got to the next street, SW 146th Street, the road we’d come into the subdivision on, and looked up the block. A patrol car was heading my way. I stood in the street and waved the car toward me. The cruiser pulled up, and the officer lowered his window.

“Agent Hank Rawlings,” I said. “Anything up that way?”

“I just ran into Officer Nelson up the block behind us there. He was coming from a yard and headed east. We have another two cars up on 156th Street. Nothing yet.”

“I’m going to continue east on foot.” I tapped the radio in my back pocket. “We’re on channel eleven.”

“Got it,” he said. “I’ll make sure you’re radioed if we see anything.”

I left the cruiser’s window and continued east on SW 150th. The road bent left, and a dead-end street with about eight houses on it shot off to my right. I walked down the court, looking between yards as I did. I stopped at the end of the block and did my best to try to think like someone fleeing. Main roads were out of the question. Any place well lit was going to be out of the question. The last place anyone would look would be the first place I would head toward. Officer Rey’s mention of where we should focus our energy rang in my head. I turned and faced the gap between the houses at the end of the street. The beam of my flashlight only made it to the edges of the back of the homes.

I pulled my weapon. With my head on a swivel, I walked up the nearest driveway and along the side of the home toward the backyard. At the house’s edge, I swept the beam of my flashlight left and right—a screened lanai to each side. I continued through the backyard to find a six-foot-tall black wrought-iron fence, which stretched as far as I could see. I pointed the flashlight’s beam through the metal bars to see the canal down the small hill on the other side.

I holstered my weapon, held the small flashlight in my teeth, and pulled myself up and over the pointed top of the fence to the other side. My feet hit the grass with a thud. I took the light from my teeth and aimed it toward the canal and then to the east. As far as I could see, four or five feet of grass stood along the canal side of the fence before leading down to weeds and cattails. I figured I’d be able to walk the fence line and see into each backyard, as well as the canal on my right, without anyone’s landscaping, yard fences, or anything else getting in my way.

Lights from what looked like another subdivision caught my eye to the north, beyond the canal. I brought my light down to the canal itself and the weed line at its edge closest to me. Being from Florida, I imagined the canal had its fair share of ornery wildlife, be it alligators, snakes, or snapping turtles, that I wasn’t in the mood to be surprised by. Along the fence, I started east, shining the flashlight’s beam through the metal bars and into backyards as I walked. Each home, pool area, and lanai received my attention—I figured Wendell might have holed up to hide until we called off the search.

I caught a beam of light from a patrol car’s spotlight shining through a backyard a couple properties up. I crouched, pulled my radio from my pocket and called in my position, hoping that the officer would get my call and not come and try to chase me, possibly endangering himself and me in the process. I stayed in my spot and shined the light toward the street between the houses. The beam from his spotlight went black over my position and then picked up again in the yard at my back—he’d gotten my call and didn’t want to light me up, which I appreciated. I continued down the fence, checking the backyards and canal area. A bridge crossing the canal caught my eye in the distance a block up. At my right, a big splash and the sound of water being thrashed broke the silence. I ripped my gun from its holster and brought the light over to the canal.

I stood motionless and silent, watching a pair of six-foot alligators fight over something—food was my guess. They continued to thrash and roll. I took the light off them and continued on. The fence ended ten houses from where I’d seen the alligators. Each backyard I searched looked clear, and I spotted nothing else in the canal or on the canal’s far side. I stood under a streetlamp next to where the roadway rose over the canal. To my left, I saw nothing but streetlights and a crossing road, a block or two up. I walked along the sidewalk to get the street names from the crossing street and report my position.

I took the radio from my pocket. “Agent Rawlings. Backyards are clear down 150th Street until Southwest 152nd Avenue.”

I received a few
roger
s and a couple of officers stating their locations and that they’d basically found nothing. I stuffed the radio back into my pocket and looked up—in the distance to the east, I could hear the thumping of rotors in the air. A helicopter came into view with a spotlight aimed down. The spotlight wasn’t fixed on any one area—they were still searching. A patrol car approached from over the canal, lit me up with his spotlight, and then pulled up and lowered his window.

“No sighting?” the officer asked.

I shook my head. “Nothing so far. You didn’t see anything on the other side there?” I asked.

“I did a few up and downs through the neighborhood over there. Pretty quiet. A few people came from their houses. I asked if they’d seen anyone on foot, they replied no, and then I asked them to remain in their homes. About it.”

“Okay. Yeah, I haven’t seen anything either. I took the backyards at the back of the subdivision there”—I pointed—“from just about where the foot pursuit started. Nothing.”

“That was you on the radio?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Okay, I’m going to head into this next neighborhood here,” the patrol officer jerked his head to the right, “and start doing the same in there.”

“Sure,” I said.

He raised his window and continued down the road.

I watched his taillights turn right at the corner up the block, and then I walked back toward the canal and crossed the street. Twenty feet to the east of the bridge over the street, the metal fence encasing the next neighborhood started again. I moved to the fence’s canal side and once again started east. A basketball court and large building stood to my left—probably a community clubhouse. I ran the beam of light over the area and continued on. The backyards of houses came into view beyond the clubhouse. From one of the properties east of the clubhouse, a clanking sound caught my ear—I couldn’t put my finger on what was making the noise, but it sounded familiar somehow. I clicked off my flashlight and looked toward where the noise came. Then I heard another sound—different that time, like plastic slapping on something.

I shone my light quickly up and toward the area, checking to make sure nothing was blocking my path toward the sound. A lanai-wrapped pool and small garden shed blocked my view. To the garden shed’s side was a gap between the black metal fence and the shed, where I figured I could slip through into the next yard, the area I thought the noise was coming from. I pulled myself over the fence into the backyard and slipped between the side of the shed and the fence. In a quick motion, I poked my head out to get a look into the next yard. A shadow of a man vanishing down the far side of the lanai caught my eye. I reached to my back pocket and clicked my radio off so no transmissions would spook the guy before I had a chance to confront him. I pulled my service weapon, left the cover of the garden shed, and jogged around the lanai to the far side of the house. The light from the street ahead lit the man between the houses. His back was toward me. The man wore a black sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his head though he was wearing shorts as opposed to jeans. The man stopped at the area where the front of the house met the front yard and looked left and right up and down the street.

I put my shoulder against the back of the home for cover and brought my arms and weapon around the side of the house. “FBI! Freeze! Hands in the air!” I kept half of my face hidden in case the man turned with a weapon. I waited for him to run.

The man did nothing but slowly lift his hands.

“Walk three steps forward into the front yard. Drop to your knees in the grass. Keep your hands up and out to the sides. When you hit your knees, interlock your fingers behind your head. Do it slow.”

“I’m going to do what you say,” the man said. “I have a bad knee. It will take me a second to kneel. I live here and didn’t do anything. I’m not going to resist in any way.”

I brought the light from the flashlight to the guy’s knee and spotted a brace around it.

“Wait where you are. Just stay put,” I said.

The man didn’t move. I approached, weapon drawn, and rounded the man from a few feet away.

He kept his hands up. “My name is Will Stephens. I live here,” he said.

I glanced quickly at his face—not Wendell. I looked down at his knee with the brace and holstered my weapon. The guy was not our runner. The metal brace wrapped both sides of his knee from his thigh to his calf. Through the open area around his kneecap, I spotted a bright pink scar a couple inches long. I brought the light back to the man’s face. “What are you doing out here?” I asked.

“I was taking out the trash. The bins are in the backyard next to my shed. What the hell is going on here?”

I motioned for him to lower his hands, which he did.

“We have someone who fled from the police a few blocks away,” I said.

“I can barely walk, and I sure as hell can’t run from the police,” he said. “Look at my knee.”

“I see it,” I said.

The light in the entryway of the front door nearest us lit up, and the door opened. A woman stood in the doorway, staring at us. “What’s all the noise out here?”

“Ma’am, please go back in your house,” I said.

“Go back in my house? That’s my husband you have there. Tell me what the hell is going on.” She stepped from the house and approached.

“Did you guys see anyone running around the neighborhood in the last ten minutes or so? Black hooded sweatshirt, jeans.”

“I didn’t see anything,” the man said. “I guess I wasn’t really looking, but I didn’t see anyone.”

The woman shook her head. “We looked out the window at the helicopter coming over.” She pointed up into the distance at the helicopter with the spotlight aimed down.

“What is this all about?” the man asked. “You don’t have helicopters and FBI agents searching a neighborhood for nothing.”

I dismissed his question. “Okay. If neither of you saw anything, I’ll let you get back to your evening. I apologize if I startled you, sir.”

“Should we be worried?” the woman asked.

“Just try to stay inside for the rest of the night,” I said. “Lock your door, and open it for no one that’s not law enforcement.”

“Come on,” the woman said to her husband. She tugged at the man’s sleeve and headed for their front door.