“I didn’t want it scaring any kids that saw it. It was right near that little day care.”
Ten minutes later, Tatum was in the back of Tasker’s car, since Sutter refused to transport him, showing them how and where Wells was driving when he saw him.
Tasker stopped the car a couple of times and looked around. This was a little business district. Narrow streets, windowless buildings.
Tasker asked, “What am I missing? Why would he come down here?” He stopped the car and stood as Sutter joined him from the passenger side of the car.
Sutter shook his head. “I don’t see it either. Ninety-five is close. So is Biscayne Boulevard, but that’s it.”
Sutter watched Tasker scan the area, and for the first time realized just how hard and personally Tasker was taking this whole thing.
seventeen
Donna Tasker looked at the computer screen in the main office. She had checked the entire district, trying to see if any of the names that Billy had given her were registered. There were a lot of Wellses, but when she looked deeper, none came close to the ones he was looking for. It was six in the evening. Between phone calls to her friend in Broward County, and then to another friend in Martin County, she had blown three hours on this.
It really didn’t bother her; in fact, quite the opposite. Billy had never asked her for help before. She had to admit she felt a little thrill helping him put together a case, even though she had no idea what the case was about. But if he thought it was important enough to ask for help, it was important enough for her to do. She hadn’t done that when they were married, and she regretted it. She’d got so wrapped up in her own problems and worried about so many little things that she’d missed his attempts to get help.
After he’d shot his friend, the corrupt West Palm Beach cop, things had just unraveled. Billy had done what he had to do, but it had still haunted her ex-husband. He’d drift off sometimes, and she just knew what he was thinking about. Maybe someday she could make it up to him. Set things right. He was such a good guy, she hated to see him unhappy.
She made one last check of the system, then grabbed her cell phone and hit the first speed dial.
“Hello.”
She recognized his voice and smiled.
“Billy, it’s me.”
“Hey, everything all right?”
“Yeah, why?”
“You don’t usually call out of the blue like this.”
She smiled to herself, feeling like a teenager with a crush. “I wanted to see if you’d recognize my voice if I just said, ‘It’s me.’ ”
“Promise I’ll never forget. How’s that?”
“Great.” She paused for a second. “I wanted to tell you that I couldn’t find Wells’ kids listed anywhere in Palm Beach County.”
“Damn.”
“And I checked Broward and Martin, too.”
“You did all that for me?”
“Of course.”
“I’m touched.”
“Don’t be a dork.” She smiled again and said, “I gotta go.”
“Thanks, Donna. You saved me a lot of time.”
After she hung up, she found herself thinking about her ex-husband for another five minutes.
Wells was exhausted. The late-night planning and work he’d done around his trailer were catching up with him. It was only noon but he needed some sleep.
He almost crawled up the low, shaky steps and then pushed his flimsy front door open. He immediately turned back to the door and looped the small wire that activated his front-door security system. He ran his fingers along the wires to the pulleys, making sure everything lined up and would work if someone tried to surprise him.
Satisfied he was secure from the front, and not real worried about the back, Wells stretched out on the soft couch left in the trailer by some previous tenant. The stained flower design and slight smell of urine didn’t really bother him as he quickly drifted off to sleep.
Tasker had swung by Sutter’s apartment on South Beach to speed up his partner. This was the break he’d been waiting for. The Homestead cop he’d spoken to, Mike Driscoll, had apparently stumbled across Wells living in the western part of the town. Now Tasker intended to use the information immediately.
Sutter came out of the historic old apartment building still buttoning his shirt, his Glock with silver-painted handles exposed on his hip, and opened the car door. “Yo, what the hell, man? What’s goin’ on? You tell me on the phone to be ready in fifteen minutes and that’s it? No explanation? Can’t I take a day off once in a while?”
“We found Wells.”
Sutter froze, then in a more subdued tone said, “Where? How?”
“Homestead. The cop that I talked to down there, the one that wrote him the ticket, was at a firehouse mooching food and saw a report about a minor fire at a trailer. The firefighter was sharp enough to write down the vehicle tags. Just for his report-he didn’t run them. Anyway, this cop, Driscoll, is pretty sharp himself, and he asks a few questions. He’d been on the lookout since our talk.”
“So your patrolman put this all together?”
“Sure did.” Tasker accelerated west over the Julia Tuttle Causeway, swerving through traffic like a grand prix racer.
Sutter calmly strapped on his seat belt. “Does Wells have any idea we know?”
“No way.”
“Then slow this vehicle down before I have to write you.”
Homestead patrolman Mike Driscoll didn’t want anyone else coming on the arrest. He made his point that three cops should be able to grab a guy from a trailer.
Tasker hesitated. “I can call for some agents from Miami.”
Driscoll leaned in from the edge of his chair. “I’m tellin’ you that the place isn’t that big. We slip in quiet and snatch his ass up before he knows we’re there.”
Sutter added, “He’s got a point. More men, more noise.”
Tasker kept thinking about it. “It’s still a probable-cause arrest. I didn’t get a warrant yet.”
Sutter said, “No problem. This guy was a pussycat last time. The three of us are plenty.”
Tasker nodded and they headed out, all crammed into Tasker’s state-issued Monte Carlo.
Daniel Wells couldn’t get used to taking naps during the day. When the kids were around, he never tried to sleep. Always afraid he might miss some segment of chaos they’d create. They loved it as much as he did. He worked a lot at night, when it was cooler, finishing his van and getting everything ready. He wasn’t going to pass the big rig test, but he knew how to get around it. He only needed to drive the thing twice, and after the second time he’d never go near a big truck again.
He picked up his Popular Mechanics and laid his head back on the soft pillow of his sofa. The old material felt like corduroy. He didn’t know if they used that on couches back in the sixties, when this thing was made. All the furniture was old but comfortable, and he couldn’t beat the price. Free with the trailer. This wasn’t too bad, as long as his money held out.
He wasn’t comfortable with the silence of this place at times. In one respect it was new and different, so he didn’t mind experiencing it, but it was not his natural element. He’d never been around peace and quiet. When he was a kid, if it was peaceful he and his brothers would change all that. No wonder his dad was deaf now. He and his brothers set off thousands of firecrackers and cherry bombs. Then, as Wells got more experience, he’d make his own kind of fireworks. Often he’d slice open firecrackers for their tiny amount of black powder. Storing up jarfuls. Then he’d make his own explosive devices. Float model ships filled with powder, then detonate them with a long waterproof fuse in the pond near his childhood home. When that got dull, he’d set things where others would see them and react. His best was a giant firecracker he’d been able to secure inside a plastic jar. He’d glued a clear plastic tube down the middle so the firecracker and fuse wouldn’t get wet, then filled the rest of the jar with a mixture of milk of magnesia, red food coloring and red raspberry syrup. He placed the jar on the newspaper box of the busiest convenience store in Ocala and waited across the street. The fuse smoked more than he thought it would, but nobody took the time to look for the source of the smoke. When that thing went off, his red sauce splattered eight people. They looked like slasher victims. They ran around in a panic, holding their nonexistent wounds to stem the bleeding. Then the fire department and cops showed up. It was on that day, when he was eleven years old, that he realized what was really important. At least to him. He also realized that the fact that it was fake didn’t matter to him. He could have put nails in that jar and really hurt people and would have felt the same way. This wasn’t a joke or a phase, this was a drive.