Book 3 - Part 6: Facing Evil - Chapter Nine

Lazy Rest Inn – 11:01 a.m.

He could hear him clearly and really thought his idea was the other side of idiotic; but it could also prove dangerous for him as well.

Freddy wouldn’t be able to move into the house until this afternoon, and the furniture wouldn’t be delivered until Monday. He wasn’t about to sleep on the floor. Freddy suspected the police would be snooping around here before too long, and he couldn’t have that.

No, he couldn’t have that.

In his head, Freddy decided the Black man had one day to get whatever it was he wanted. After that, it would be his turn.

1:45 p.m.

Baker pulled up in front of Mayor Jean Marsh’s house. With all the running around and shopping, working and so forth; she completely forgot to give Jean her Christmas gift. A ceramic pitcher.

When she pressed the button buzzer by the front door, Frank Marsh yanked the door open.

“What the hell are you doing here!” He turned back and looked at Jean. “I told you, no cops, didn’t I?”

“Frank,” Baker commanded, “settle down. First, no one called me to come here. I stopped by with Jean’s Christmas present.

“But why no cops as you put it? What is going on, Frank?”

Frank sighed heavily and relented, asking her to step inside. He then explained everything to her.

“When he first called me, he asked for twenty thousand, or he would tell everyone about my past. I laughed at that. Anyone that’s anyone in this town already knows. Jean’s been my rock since the day I met her, and I told him as much. Then he starts getting angry with me, saying I’d be sorry.”

“Can you remember exactly what he said?”

“Close as I can remember, he said he would have something for my ass, and that I would pay big time.”

Baker wrote all the information down between the three of them, including a description Lisa gave, under Reid Thurston’s name.

“Frank, I’ll have a tracer put on your phone. The crew will be here as quickly as possible to set things up. When he calls you tonight, go along with whatever he says. We should be able to pick up his location easily enough. You just need to keep him on the line at least two minutes. Once he tells you where to drop the money, we’ll have plains clothes police in the immediate area.

“I doubt he’ll risk hurting your grandson. This whole thing seems to me to be put together quickly, so my guess is that he just wants the money and be gone as fast as possible.

“Depending on where he is, and what he’ll do after the call will tell us how soon we can end this nightmare.

“I’m going back to the Twenty-Second to pull his record, then to the courthouse to get a wiretap for your phone and a warrant for his arrest. Hopefully, he’ll give up without a fight.”

“And what if he doesn’t? asked Jean.

“Jean, we box him in. Once we do, he has no chance of escape. Thurston will have no choice but to give up.”

“Pardon me, Lieutenant, but you don’t know Reid like I do. Put him in a corner with nowhere to go and he’s like a caged animal chomping at the bit to get free and be damned what damage he does. He has no qualms about killing someone. I’ve seen him shank one man and choke another one over a ten-dollar bet. The man has no conscience.”

“Frank, we’ll get your grandson back unharmed. I promise you that.”

Leaving their house and in her red Hummer, she pulled out her cell phone and called Ed.

“Hi, Ed. Do me a favor. Pull up everything you can find on a Reid Thurston. He’s done time, last location, Atlanta FBOP. He’s involved in a child abduction. Frank and Jean Marsh’s grandson, Seth.

“I’m on my way to the courthouse to get a court order for a wiretap and a warrant to arrest Thurston. On my way, I’ll call the phone company to set up the trace relay switch. I should be back in my office within thirty.

“Yeah, I know. Try to get some plain suits on standby once we find out where the drop is supposed to be made. I’m thinking Prescott, Andrews, Roberts,’ and McNeil. If we can pinpoint his location fast enough, we give him no time to make a run for it.

“See you soon. I love you, too.”

5:00 p.m.

The phone rang once. Frank picked it up and said hello.

“Frankie, my man. Don’t say a fuckin’ word. Just listen.

“I want fifty g’s in small bills by this time tomorrow. If you don’t have it, I know people who’ll buy your kid. That means you never see him again. Can you dig it.”

“I get it. Tomorrow, same time, fifty thousand. Is he all right?”

“Good as ever, Frankie. Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of him, at least until tomorrow. No money, then all bets are off.”

“Wait! Where do I meet you to make the exchange?”

“You’ll know next time I call.”

Reid hung up his phone. Satisfied no cops were around, he drove away from the front of Frank’s house.

As he was a block away, Reid saw several police cars heading toward him. He pulled over on the street as they passed him. A sheen of sweat broke over his face. What he didn’t see was the cars surrounding the front of Frank’s house. If he had been one minute slower, he would be on his way to jail.

“That mutha-fucka had his phone tapped! Sonuvabitch!”

He redialed Frank’s phone.

“Hello.” This time it was Jean on the phone.

“Listen, bitch. You tell him I know. I saw the cops. You tell him it’s a hundred big ones, or I bust a cap in that kid’s head and leave him on your front doorstep.” He hung up.

Muttering in silence the whole way back to the motel, he knew he would have to get a different motel room, and quick.

5:20 p.m.

After getting the warrant from Judge Blaine, none too happy to be disturbed at home, but he still signed off for the paperwork. Baker and Ed poured over Thurston’s priors.

“Damn thing reads like a fiction novel,” mused Ed.

“Bad fiction at that.”

Baker had all the information printed on Thurston, but it was almost hard to believe that when he was seven years old, he set another boy in school on fire by squeezing a can of lighter fluid on his back and face. Two years’ probation, and counseling. Three arrests by the time he was thirteen for two assaults: one with his hands, the other one with a pipe. The third; theft where he got three years in juvie. Out at sixteen, and back in at seventeen for one count of car theft and assault. Plea bargained on the assault. Four years in a state reformatory. No military. They didn’t want him with his background. Then he made the big time: Federal prison. He was arrested for possession of fifty-kilos of marijuana, and four ounces of smack in the trunk of his car. He was sentenced to thirty years, but when the new crack laws went into effect, it was reduced to ten. He already put in twenty-two, so they cut him loose with five years of supervised release.

“Looks like he’s supervising himself these days.”

“I made calls to Atlanta and found out he was supposed to be going to Ohio and checking in with the Feds in Dayton. I called them, and they hadn’t heard from him, and already have him listed in violation of his probation. A U. S. Marshall, Abrams, said he would be coming to Montie to pick him up once we have him in custody,” Ed said.

Baker’s cell rang.

“Baker.”

“This is Officer Randell, Lieutenant. We just missed Thurston. Seems he made a call to the Marsh’s, right outside of their house. We missed him by a minute or two.”

She shut her cell off.

“Thurston’s a ballsy bastard, Ed. He called them in front of their house, then left.”

6:29 p.m.

Reid parked the car in front of his room, stepped out into a windy and now dark evening, unlocked the motel door, and stopped short of entering.

Instead of seeing the boy tied to the bed, there was a very ugly man sitting in a chair staring at him.

Reid suddenly didn’t feel so good.

“Who the fuck is you? How did you get in here? What did you do with the kid?”

“I don’t know who you are, and I don’t know why you would have a little white boy in your room, but I do know this much; whatever you may have had in that dimwitted head, ends right here, right now.”

“I don’t think so. That kid’s my ticket out of the country, and if you don’t give him back to me in the next minute, I’m gonna put a cap in your head so mutha-fuckin’ big, a truck can drive through it. Make you even uglier than you already are.”

The man in the chair remained calm.

“On the contrary; but this is what you will do. You will pack what belongings you have and leave, or you will die where you stand.”

“Big talk, player. But I hold the cards.”

Reid pulled out his Walther P-327 and started to aim it at the ugly man."

"Can't say I didn't give you a chance.""

It took only one second of reaction time, and two seconds total before Reid Thurston’s eyes were transfixed in shocked surprise as his hand released the gun to hit the floor, and as his body rocked backward and he too, also hit the floor.

In that brief period, Freddy had stood, and released his Bowie knife dangling by his side that Reid didn’t see until it was too late. With a single fluid and well-practiced motion, he hurled the blade where it sank almost seven of its twelve-inch blade into Reid’s brain.

“I really don’t understand people like you. But I haven’t the time to sit around and figure it out either.

“Whoever you were, forgive me,” as he stepped over Reid’s body. “I’m sure you won’t care what happens next.”

He pulled the knife free, then sliced Reid’s throat and performed his classic signature move of the X; from left shoulder to right hip, and right shoulder to left hip. With that out of the way, he left a note for Baker.

Showering and changing clothes in Reid’s room, he returned to his own and stared at the little boy.

“Would you like to go home to mommy and daddy?”

Seth’s eyes filled with tears, his body shaking terribly. He nodded his head.

“I can’t hear a nod, boy. Do you want to go home or not.”

“Ye, ye … yes, sir.”

“Much better. I promise someone will be here to pick you up soon.”

Freddy picked up the motel room phone and dialed 911.

“911. What is your emergency, please?”

“I don’t have one, but a little boy out at the Lazy Rest Inn, does. You will find him in Room 10. Oh, and in Room 12, you will find the reason the boy is in Room 10.

“Tell Baker I did her another favor.”

He put his phone away, thinking for all the messes he’s cleaned up, the state should be paying him Baker’s wages. He laughed at the thought as he drove away.

“Sir? Sir?” The 911 operator redialed the number and dispatched a car to the motel. The phone was answered at the front desk clerk.

“Lazy Rest Inn.”

“Sir, this is a 911 operator responding to an emergency call from one of your rooms, either number ten or twelve.”

“Yeah, both are occupied. What about it?”

“We have reason to believe a child may be in one of those rooms.”

“Hardly. Two single guys. One white, the other, black. Neither one checked in with a kid.”

“Connect me to each room, sir.”

“Whatever.”

He patched her into both rooms and each landline rang and rang. No one answered.

Seth heard the phone, but he was still too scared to answer.

Freddy left right after the 911 call. His car was already packed before Reid showed up and had made plans to pick up the keys tomorrow from the realtor.

For the next several days, along with his new face, that of Craig Murray, would be the one everyone would see.

As he drove to the Ramada Inn and checked in for the night. With the keys tomorrow, he would begin preparing his new home for guests who would arrive per his (demand) request.

7:27 p.m.

An ambulance, five police cars, all from the Stanhouse PD, filled the nearly empty parking lot of the Lazy Rest Inn.

Baker had been called in to the scene as well and for good reason. There was also a purple Beemer parked nearby Room 10 as well.

In less than twelve hours, Seth was returned back to his mother and grandparents; shaken, but unharmed.

Baker had asked Seth if he could describe the man who was in Room 10, and all Seth could repeat was, “Scary man! Scary man!”

With the dead body in Room 12, Baker knew who the man was, especially after reading the note he left behind.

Sweet Janis,

Here lies another terrible person put to rest. I always seem to find the bad people in life that need no judge and jury. I am just destined to be both. Just as I am destined to remove you from this world. You and that ass-wipe you married, along with your precious-legged freak for a son. Are you counting down the days? Two more left before this year becomes the past, and somewhere in the thirty-one to follow; one of them will be your … oh, silly me, MY lucky day. It will be your last day to smell the roses. HAHAHA! Will people go to Benny’s Pub and drink a toast to your death? You can bet your ass they will! And until the final moment we meet, Happy Last Year.

With my undying hate,

Freddy

Like I really needed to be reminded.

Like any of us do.

And so, the night ended.

Reports would be filled out and filed. Follow-ups on Reid Thurston for any relatives. It wouldn’t take long to fill in the gaps.

Stanhouse police found three bags of meth-tabs and five ounces of hash in Thurston’s car, and a dime bag of marijuana in his motel room. In an overnight bag, they found a small can labeled ‘Sucrets,’ filled with coke.

They found no living relatives that would take his body off their hands. Seems he burned all those bridges long ago. Come Sunday afternoon, very little fanfare after the autopsy, Reid Thurston would be buried with funds supplied by the Johnson County Municipal Trust Fund. No headstone, no marker. Just in a box and in the ground. Three witnesses. The Sheriff, a minister from Stanhouse, and U.S. Marshall, Abrams.

Off to the side, two guys with shovels, waited for them to leave so they could cover the box.

Reid Thurston’s case, like his casket, was closed and forgotten.