Woo-woo-woo! We took off, tires churning up dirt and gravel as I punched the gas and rocketed out of the Transportation Authority’s parking lot.
Two minutes later, we careened into the lot at the convenience store. Derek was at the scene, speaking with a petite blonde woman. A witness, possibly. The fire department was already on site, too, pumping water into the store as black smoke poured out the front doors.
At the back of the fire truck, Seth held an oxygen mask to the face of an elderly Asian man sitting on the bumper. The man’s shoulders racked with deep, rib-wrenching coughs. Smoke inhalation, evidently. The man must have been the clerk on duty when the fire started. Thank God he hadn’t passed out in the burning building or he would have been burned to a crisp.
Jackson and I hopped out of the car and rushed over to him.
Seth shot me a pointed look. “We really shouldn’t have complained about our boring mornings.”
“I never will again.” We seemed to have jinxed ourselves.
He leaned in and whispered. “Let’s get margaritas when your shift is over.”
He wouldn’t have to ask me twice. It had been a hell of a day.
Jackson put her hands on her knees and bent over to look at the man behind the mask. “You up to talking, sir?”
When he nodded, Seth pulled the oxygen mask from his face.
“What happened?” the detective asked.
“Three men came into the store,” the man said, emitting a couple of short coughs. “Two were white. In their twenties maybe. The other was an older black man. Forty or so.”
When the man coughed again, Seth returned the mask to his face for a few seconds to give him a hit of concentrated oxygen. He pulled it back when the man signaled with his hand.
“All of them wore sunglasses. They got beer from the cooler and the little fat one opened his and drank it in the store. I told him he wasn’t supposed to do that and he left.” Cough-cough-cough. “The other white man paid for the beer and got a couple of hot dogs, and then he and the black man walked out.” He coughed again and took a fresh hit of oxygen from Seth before continuing. “I heard the door open again and the little fat one was back and his bottle was on fire. He threw it onto the floor and the fire spread everywhere, and while I was trying to put it out he grabbed money from the cash register.”
Derek stepped up beside us with the blonde in tow. “The guys who started the fire and robbed the place stole this woman’s car.”
“What kind of car is it?” I asked her.
“Fiat 500,” she said. “A 2013 model.”
“Notify dispatch,” Jackson told Derek. “Tell everyone to be on the lookout. And make sure they get the chopper back in the air. There’s no telling what these fools might do next.”
It was true. The clerk could have died in the fire. The men on this crime spree were out of control. I felt tension in the center of my forehead. We needed to find these guys and put an end to their reign of terror. Now.
While Derek obtained the license plate number for the woman’s Fiat and used his radio to report the stolen car, Jackson and I stepped up to the door of the store and took a look around. There wasn’t much to see except smoldering remains and a sooty, wet floor.
Jackson glanced up at the corner over the cash register. Fortunately, while most of the store was in smoldering ruins, the security camera appeared to be intact. “I hope that camera got some good footage. Somebody knows these guys. If we run a clip on the evening news, maybe someone will give them up.”
We stepped back outside.
Jackson angled her head at the fire truck. “I’m going to speak to the clerk, figure out who I need to contact for the camera footage.”
As she stepped away, I spotted a plastic lighter on the ground near the gas pumps. Could it be the one the arsonist had used to start his fires? Had he filled the bottle right here at the pumps?
I snatched a paper towel from the dispenser mounted on the support beam, wrapped my hand in it, and retrieved the lighter from the ground, holding it up to the sun. The backlight showed that only a small amount of fluid remained in the device. Hmm … Though the guy had worn mittens today and would not have left fresh prints, it was possible when he’d used the lighter previously his hands had been bare.
I checked the pumps to see whether the arsonist might have filled the bottle with gasoline here in the parking lot. Sure enough, the pump facing the street showed the last transaction totaled a mere twenty-three cents and a tenth of a gallon. Just enough to fill a twelve-ounce beer bottle. The paper receipt still hung untouched from the dispenser, displaying the last four digits of a credit or debit card number.
I ripped the receipt from the printer, hurried back over to the doors of the store, and held it out to Jackson. “It looks like they filled the beer bottle at pump three.”
She took the paper tape from me and glanced down at it. “They used a credit card. More likely than not it’s a stolen one, but it might give us a trail to follow.”
“Check this out, too.” I held the lighter up, careful to keep the paper towel between the plastic and my fingers. “I found it by the p-pumps. It could belong to the guy in the frog hat. The fluid is nearly used up so the lighter isn’t new. Think he might have touched it without gloves when he used it before?”
“Good eye, Luz,” Jackson said. “We’ll have the techs check it for prints.” She took the lighter from me. “You get back out on the streets, see if you can find these guys before your shift is over. I’m going to hang around here until the store owner comes ’round. One of the evening officers can give me a ride back to the station when I’m done. I’ll see that they get up to speed on the case.”
“All right,” I conceded. “Thanks for t-taking me with you today.”
She offered me a nod. “Always good to have a smart cookie like you along as a sounding board.”
I returned to my cruiser and pulled out of the lot. As much as I was looking forward to the margarita and some Seth-time, I had to admit I felt disappointed. It had been a crazy, chaotic day, but I’d hoped it would go out with a bang, not a whimper. I’d hoped to catch the bad guys, not merely trail along helplessly behind them. And I knew that once the day was over the case would belong fully to Detective Jackson. She could justify having me tag along with her today, but tomorrow I’d have to be back out on my beat, writing traffic tickets and responding to noise complaints rather than playing her protégé.
I turned onto Vickery and headed west, cruising along, keeping an eye out for a green Fiat, my thoughts on the bank robbers. Who are they? What’s their common thread? Are they friends of Grant Dawson? Three hardened criminals who’d met in prison? Three out-of-work men who’d met in line at the unemployment office? A barbershop quartet whose fourth member needs money for an organ transplant?
If only I could figure out what their connection was, maybe I could figure out who they were and solve the case.
I continued on, my nose detecting the scents of meat cooking at the Railhead Smokehouse a block over. The place capitalized on its proximity to the train lines, its name a nod to the nearby rail yard. Its logo featured a cowcatcher, like the one on the front of the steam engine of the Grapevine Vintage Railroad, a tourist attraction that made runs between the Fort Worth Stockyards and the neighboring city of Grapevine. I’d ridden the train a time or two with my family. You got three younger brothers, you end up on trains.
Brigit must have smelled the meat, too. She lifted her nose in the air and sniffed.
“Sorry, girl,” I told her. “No time for barbecue right now. But I’ll give you big spoonful of peanut butter when we get home. How’s that sound?”
She wagged her tail, letting me know a spoonful of peanut butter sounded just great.
As I approached the rail yard that ran alongside and beneath parts of Vickery, I spotted a round yellow sign, the standard warning sign with the oversize X separating two R’s.
But wait …