Back in Miami

Chapter 9

Ollie asked, “wait, what am I missing? How do you know who took her car?”

I said, “look right here, Sylvia Olson’s husband, Myron Olson, died two years ago. They had only been married four years.”

Ollie squinted his eyes, “ok, so what does that have to do with who stole her car?”

I pointed to my screen, “her first husband died six years ago, his name was Leon Barker, they had been married for 35 years and they had one son.”

Ollie’s eyes went wide, “oh fuck, Jeff Barker, Malik’s teacher.”

I nodded, “yep, that text was sent from Jacksonville, where he is now teaching.”

Ollie said, “ok, I’ll go find out everything I can about Jeff Barker.”

I called Sylvia Olson, she answered on the first ring.

I said, “Mrs. Olson, this is detective Ridgeway.”

She said, “yes detective Ridgeway, are you calling to tell me I can come get my car?”

I sighed, “no ma’am, I do have a couple of questions for you though.”

She said, “well, I have already told you everything I know about my car being stolen.”

I said, “no Mrs. Olson, I have a few questions about your son, Jeff.”

She paused, “ok, what about Jeff?”

I asked, “was he in town on Saturday when your car was stolen?”

She answered, “yes, he came home Friday night to help me with some repairs around the house. He got call from his school in Jacksonville and had to go back early, he left an hour or so before my car disappeared.”

I asked, “and you haven’t seen him since then?”

She said, “no, I haven’t, you don’t think he has anything to do with stealing my car, do you?”

I continued, “have you talked to him on the phone since then?”

She said, “yes, I called him when I noticed the car missing, he told me to call the police.”

I asked, “and he was already back in Jacksonville by then?”

She thought a moment, “well, I assumed so.”

I wrote down what she had told me so far, “have you talked to him in the last couple of days?”

She said, “yes, I called him to tell him that you found my car. He said he would take me to pick it up next weekend if you were able to release it to me. He was coming home again Friday to finish the projects that he didn’t get done last weekend.”

I asked, “does Jeff stay with you when he comes to Miami?”

She said, “no, he still has his apartment on Hanover Street, his landlord told him he would have to pay for the 9 months he had left on his lease. Jeff said if he had to pay, he wasn’t going move out until the lease was up. He didn’t want to let the landlord take his money and rent the apartment to someone else and collect double rent. He left some of furniture and just stays there when he comes to help me.”

I asked for the apartment number and thanked her for cooperation and ended the call. I immediately called the school in Jacksonville and asked for the principal.

He answered, “yes, detective Ridgeway, I remember you. What I can I do for you today?”

I asked, “is Jeff Barker working today?”

He said, “well no, as a matter of fact, he called in this morning and said he had an emergency, he needed to go back to Miami. He said his mother was sick.

I said, “thank you sir.”

Just as was about to say goodbye and end the call, he asked, “detective, is there something I should be worried about with Jeff?”

I sighed, “I’m not sure yet, I will call you back as soon as I know for sure, but if I were you, I would make sure you have a substitute teacher lined for the rest of the week.”

As soon as I ended the call, Ollie came into my office, “we really should have looked a little deeper into this Barker guy.”

I asked, “what did you find?”

Ollie looked at the papers he had in his hand, “he didn’t exactly take the job in Jacksonville to better himself. There were three complaints filed against him at his school here in Miami, it seems he was getting a little to close to some of his students.”

I asked, “so he was fired?”

Ollie shook his head, “not officially, he was asked to resign in exchange for the parents not pursuing their complaints.”

I said, “I assume the students in question were male students.”

Ollie nodded, “yep, and if Jeff Barker left town quietly, it wouldn’t be part of his record and he could get a job teaching somewhere else. I would say that five hours would be far enough away that he wouldn’t be followed any rumors.”

I nodded, “yeah, that sounds about right. I wonder how far he pushed things with Malik.”

Ollie said, “I don’t know, but even if he went too far, I would be willing to bet that Malik wouldn’t say anything.”

I said, “yeah, you’re probably right.”

Ollie grinned, “and here’s the icing on the cake, he still has an apartment here in Miami.”

I grinned back, “apartment 403 at 2651 Hanover Street.”

Ollie stared at me with his mouth open, looking disappointed that I already knew about the apartment.

I asked, “what, do you think I was just sitting here doing nothing?”

He shook his head, “no, but how did you figure that out?”

I shrugged, “I talked to his mom, she has no idea about the kidnapping, but she told me everything else.”

I filled Ollie in on everything else that Jeff Barker’s mother told me, his information meshed with mine perfectly. I also told him about my conversation with Barker’s boss at his new school.

Ollie asked, “so, do we get a team together and get a search warrant for his apartment?”

I stood and said, “let’s go talk to the captain.”

We filled the captain in all the details, he agreed that Barker was a good suspect and at the very least we needed to talk to him. He called for a search warrant for his apartment, and as he was calling for a beach team, I got a text from Judd in the cyber unit.

“The car has reached Miami, headed to residential area on the east side.”

I showed Ollie the text, he nodded, “he’s going to the apartment.”

Captain hung up his phone, “the team is loading up and heading out, they will meet you there. I’ll bring the search warrant, just don’t go into the apartment until I get there.”

I said, “we may not need to go in, he’s headed to the apartment, we need to hurry in case he grabs Malik and tries to run.”

Captain nodded, “go.”

***

Malik pulled his blanket tight around himself as he curled up against the end of the couch. Just as he was about to doze off, he heard a key in the door. Malik sat up as the door slowly opened and a man walked in.

Malik said, “you! Why are you doing this to me?”

Jeff Barker threw a bag of clothes at Malik, “here, put these on, we need to get out of here.”

Malik asked, “where are you taking me?”

Jeff pulled a gun, “don’t worry about where we are going, just get dressed and don’t try anything stupid.”

Malik looked at the panic in Jeff’s eyes, he needed to calm him down. He slowly opened the bag and dropped his blanket. He said, “Jeff, please calm down, you don’t need that gun, of course, I’ll go with you. Why did you force me to come here? If you would have just talked to me...”

Jeff stopped him with a wave of his gun, “yeah right, I knew you were with that Tyler guy, you would have never come with me.”

Malik pulled his pants on, “you don’t know that, sure I am with Tyler, but I never knew you were interested in me. I would have at least talked to you and who knows what would have happened. You were always so nice to me in high school, I may have never graduated without your help.”

Jeff began to pace, “yeah right, you started to run around with Freddie’s gang, you weren’t interested in me. God, I could have given you such a great life, I would have taken such good care of you.”

Malik pulled on his shirt, “why did you never tell me how you felt?”

Jeff shook his head, “I couldn’t, not while you were still in school. It would have meant my job. Then after you graduated, you quit answering my calls and texts, God, you don’t know how much I cared about you. You are so handsome and always seemed so grateful for all the help I gave you in school. Not like those spoiled brats in school now, shit, you give them the least bit of attention and they run to their mommy and daddy and report me to the administration.”

Malik sat down to put his shoes on, he was hoping that he was stalling long enough for help to arrive, that is if there was someone looking for him. He said, “but why did you wait until now to do this?”

Jeff was still pacing, “what was I supposed to do, you were hanging around with Freddie and then you took off for Key West. I had to wait until you were back in Miami.”

Malik asked, “how did you know I was in Miami?”

Jeff said, “I saw your Instagram post about the concert, while I was at my mom’s house for the weekend. It was just an impulse, shit, this has just gotten out of hand. Damn it, quit trying to stall, we need to get out of here, now.”

Malik asked, “ok, I’m ready, where are we going?”

Jeff shook his head, “fuck, I don’t know, but the cops have been asking a lot of questions. We just need to get out of town.”

Malik walked toward the door and Jeff stepped behind him, “remember, don’t do anything stupid, I don’t want to hurt you.”

Malik nodded, “I won’t, just stay calm, I’ll do whatever you say.”

***

We got to the parking lot of the apartment building, Ollie said, “hey Ridge, there’s his car, to your left.”

I nodded as I verified the plate number that we obtained before we left the station. The breach team leader joined us and asked, “what’s the plan Ridge?”

I said, “have your team set up a perimeter, we have to wait until the captain gets here with the warrant.”

We quickly surrounded the building so that we had all the exits covered and moved all of our police vehicles out of sight. I hoped that Barker and Malik were in the building and that the captain would show up soon.

We had waited for about 10 minutes when we saw two people walking to the front door, I alerted Ollie and the rest of the team, we all moved out of sight. They walked out the door and Ollie and I nodded to each other, it was Malik, he was walking in front of Jeff Barker. Ollie was behind some bushes on the left side of the door, I was also hiding behind a tree to the right. Ollie whispered into the radio, “Barker has a gun.”

Just as they neared where Ollie and I were hiding, I stood behind the tree with my gun drawn, I said, “stop right there Barker, we have you surrounded.”

I saw the panic on his face as he brought his gun up to Malik, I dove out from behind the tree and tackled Malik, pushing him clear of Barker. I heard the gun fire, then a second later, another shot rang out. I turned to look back in time to see Jeff Barker fall to the ground. I quickly turned back to Malik and asked, “are you ok?”

He looked up at me wide eyed, “yeah, I think so.”

I was still laying on top of him, I got up and said, “are you hit?”

He shook his head, “I don’t think so.”

I turned back to Barker, Ollie was standing over him, pointing his gun at him as some of the other officers were holding him down. I helped Malik to his feet and went to Ollie, “is he hit?”

Ollie nodded, “I got him in the leg.”

The breach team leader handed me Barker’s gun and said, “the ambulance is on the way, I’m sure it hurts, but it’s not fatal.”

I went back to Malik, he was sitting on the sidewalk watching us all scurry around. I sat beside him and asked, “are you sure you’re alright?”

He nodded, “yeah, is Jeff going to be ok?”

I smiled, “yes, he’ll be fine, the ambulance is on the way. Have you been in that apartment since Saturday night.”

Malik said, “yeah, he knocked me out when he threw me in the car, I woke up Sunday morning, blindfolded, with my hands and legs tied. He um, did some things to me and I woke up later, untied and without the blindfold. There was a note that said he’d be back later, he didn’t come back until just now.”

The captain arrived just as the ambulance did, he walked over to me, “I guess I missed all the fun. Here’s your search warrant.”

I chuckled, “we were outside waiting for you, when they just walked out the front door.” Ollie walked over to join us. I said, “old dead eye here winged him before he could shoot Malik or me.”

Captain turned to Ollie, who was a little pale, captain asked, “are you ok, Hemple?”

Ollie shrugged, “that’s the first time I’ve fired my weapon outside the firing range.”

I said, “it was a clean shoot, you did what you had to do, and you shot to incapacitate, that’s exactly what you were supposed to do.”

Captain said, “relax Hemple, you did your job, we’ll have to file a report, but it sounds like it is all within department guidelines.”

Captain turned to me, “secure the apartment, the warrant will still be good for tomorrow, you can do your search then. I’ll get a couple officers to the hospital to keep an eye on Barker. Wrap things up here and I’ll see you back at the station.”

The paramedics loaded Barker into the ambulance and headed for the hospital. We had Malik wait in my car, Ollie and I went up to the apartment to make sure it was locked up and we notified the apartment manager of the day’s events and started our drive back to the station. About a block from the apartment, my phone rang, it was Lucas.

I answered, “hey babe.”

Lucas said, “hey, Tyler and I have dinner just about ready, are you going to be home soon?”

I said, “yep, I just have to drop Ollie off at the station and I’ll be home, oh and set another place at the table.”

 

To be continued…