“So it looks to me like Martin makes a total of seven trips. Four of those times, he’s with Crystal. Twice, he brings back this guy here-,” I pulled another photo out, “-who we think is DeMichael Hollins.”
“And Crystal makes four trips by herself in the red Honda,” Doc said. “Owned by Patricia Denise Wallace, aka: Crystal.”
I nodded.
“No other girls,” Toni said. “No Isabel.”
“Nope.”
“And I noticed something else,” Doc said. “These guys don’t seem to be too worked up about anything. If Isabel’s gone, they don’t seem too concerned, at least not outwardly. They seemed in a pretty good mood both times I saw them.”
“I think you’re right,” I said.
“Where are they coming from and going to?” Toni asked. “The other houses?”
“Could be,” I said. “They’d have to visit them sometime.”
“So, like Paola said, the girls are at one of the other houses,” Kenny said. “Maybe Isabel’s with them.”
“Perhaps. It would be really nice to know how they’ve got their operation set up-where everybody stays, what everyone does.”
“I know a way we can start filling in the blanks,” Doc said. “At least find out where the other houses are located.”
“Vehicle surveillance,” I said.
“Right. It will help us find out what they’ve got. We start following this guy Martin. See where he takes us.”
I usually don’t like to do vehicle surveillance because there are only four of us, and it’s really hard to do a proper job of following someone in a vehicle with only four cars. It’s too easy for a wary subject to ID the tail. Then, once you’re made, you’re worse off than when you started. “I normally try to avoid vehicle surveillance,” I said, “for reasons known to all of you. On the other hand-though I don’t want to underestimate the NSSB guys-they sure don’t look like they’re playing defense out there. If they are, they’re really good at hiding it.”
“What do you mean?” Toni asked.
“What I mean is that these guys don’t seem to have a care in the world. They walk outside from the house to the car, and they don’t even look around, for Christ’s sake. There could be a whole SWAT battalion parked at the house next door, and I’m not sure these clowns would even notice.”
“Your point?” Toni said.
“My point is it might be okay for us to follow them with just four vehicles. They probably aren’t even looking for tails.”
“Floating box?” Doc said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Let’s assume the other houses are nearby. Did you notice the streets in that area?”
“Yeah,” Doc said. “They’re friggin’ skinny.”
“That’s right. A floating box might not work because you’d be stuck behind a slow-moving subject. Even a dimwit might get suspicious.”
“So we use cheaters,” Toni said. “Cheaters” are cars that are parked ahead of the subject’s route of travel. They relieve the previous vehicle by falling in ahead of or behind the subject as it reaches their position.
“I think that’s the best,” I said. “Kenny-pop open a map of the area.”
Kenny selected the proper file and zoomed to a map of our four-quadrant area.
“Go ahead and put a mark by the Fortieth Avenue house,” I said.
After he did, I asked, “Now-when Donnie leaves his house here,” I pointed to the red square Kenny had placed on the Fortieth Avenue address, “in which direction is he ultimately going to be headed?”
“West,” Doc said.
“West or south,” Toni said.
“I think west, too,” Kenny said. “Maybe south.”
“Why?”
“Because,” he said, “that’s what he did every single time on Saturday and Sunday. He never went north or east that we can tell. Besides, if he does go north or east, the area tends to change to bigger, more expensive houses. If he goes west or south, it gets to be more and more apartments and college-type housing. My guess is, he’d probably not have the girls-or anyone else-living in a nicer house than he does.”
I smiled. “Well said. I hadn’t looked at that angle. But it makes sense. And it reinforces my strategy. Since we’re short on manpower, we’re going to have to take a few chances and be willing to swing again if we miss. Here’s the deal.”
I detailed a plan that took advantage of the fact that there was about a 99 percent chance that Martin would leave the area either westbound or southbound, as seemed to be his pattern. We’d all be wearing our VHF radios with hands-free headsets. This way, as long as Donnie did more or less what we expected, we should be able to follow him without being detected-at least for a while. I figured we’d roll into position by 11:45 a.m. since on both days, Donnie and Crystal had left the house between noon and twelve thirty. Apparently, they went to lunch. If this was a habit of theirs, we’d be able to capitalize on it.
The office phone rang. Kenny was nearest, so he answered. He turned to me. “It’s Lieutenant Stewart,” he said.
“Good. I needed to bring her up to date. Put her on speaker, will you?
“Good morning, Nancy,” I said. “We were just about to call you and fill you in on what we found over the weekend.”
“Good morning,” she said. “Before you get started, you might be interested to hear that Annie Hooper was able to find a spot for Paola. They’ve just opened up a new house, and they were able to get her in. Annie made it a priority given the background of Paola’s case.”
“That’s great news,” I said. “That girl’s been through a lot. Maybe now she can start to get her life turned around.”
“We can only hope,” Nancy said. “At least she seems like she’s willing to take the step. I think it’s possible that she will continue to open up over time-although that might not happen fast enough to be of much value to you in your case. Anyway,” she added, “what’s going on? How’s the case progressing?”
“You remember I told you we were going to hunt for Donnie Martin’s house-the one Paola mentioned was across from the park?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Well, we found it. I don’t know if it was extraordinary detective skills, or complete dumb luck, but we matched up the name on a power bill to an address that matched the description that Reverend Jenkins provided. We checked it out and lo and behold, Donnie Martin’s BMW was parked right out front. The house is located across the street from a park up on Fortieth Avenue North.”
“Just above the U-District,” she said. “Just like Paola said it was.”
“Right. And just like Reverend Jenkins said. Anyway, we staked out the house over the weekend.”
“And?”
“We saw Martin, or at least a guy we think was Martin-he was driving Martin’s car anyway-and a girl-older girl-we presume it’s his bottom girl, Crystal. By the way, we think her real name is Patricia Denise Wallace. I’ll send you her info. Anyway, we saw them come and go together maybe half a dozen times. Also saw a guy we presume to be DeMichael Hollins. He drives a maroon Expedition. We were able to trace the registration back to Hollins. We’ll send you that, too.”
“Power bills and DMV info?” Nancy said, a touch of suspicion in her voice. “I don’t even want to know how you guys are getting this stuff.”
“Better that way,” I said. “But my real point is, we never saw any other girls at the house. And since we were stationary, we don’t know where these guys were going or where they were coming from. Based on that, we’ve decided to do a vehicle surveillance this afternoon. We want to tail him and see if he’ll lead us to the other houses-including, we hope, the one where the girls live.”
“That sounds logical,” she said. “ I know you guys know what you’re doing, but I have to say this-be careful.”
