Deadly Stillwater

Smith smiled and thought of his brief few hours on the river. It felt great. In another week he would be on a boat somewhere, enjoying the sun, cracking open a beer, perhaps a Red Stripe, with Monica lounging on a chair next to him. The fifteen years of prison would seem so far away at that point. Money, a boat, some water, revenge against Flanagan, it couldn’t get any better. After a minute, he put those pleasant thoughts away. There was much work left to be done, and he needed to keep his head in the game.

Dean, riding in the passenger seat, switched the radio station over to the talk station. It was wall-to-wall kidnapping coverage. The mantra continued – the authorities didn’t have any leads.

“The FBI and police have to feel like the clock is ticking down on this thing now,” Dean said, taking a sip from a Coke. He pulled his baseball cap down low over his sunglasses-covered eyes and pulled his gloves on tight.

“Which is what we want,” Smith replied, doing the same. The lead kidnapper turned left onto the safe house’s street. He pulled past the driveway, stopped, and then began to back the van into the driveway while Dean hit the opener.

Pat Hall shifted in his bed, the large cast on his broken left femur making it difficult for him to get comfortable. An electrician, he had broken the leg five days ago on a job site, falling off a ladder while running wire. Now he was out on workers’ comp and forced to spend the day watching really bad TV. No wonder people worked during the day, rather than being subjected to sappy soap operas, Dr. this and Dr. that, nine versions of People’s Court with Judge Judy, Rudy, or Hootie. Even the sports on during the day were brutal things like paintball and Jet Ski racing. While both would be fun to do, they were about as much fun to watch as undergoing a root canal without Novocain.

On top of all that, the air conditioning in his house was out. He was totally immobilized, watching awful TV, in insufferable July heat. He had sweated through his white muscle T-shirt, and beads of sweat were interspersed with the thin strands of seaweed that were all that remained on his once-full head of brown hair. A hard-working fan in the corner merely circulated the heat and humidity. Thankfully, he was on the main level of his house, and his bedroom was on the north side, under a canopy of elm trees, which kept his room just a smidge cooler. A little breeze to ruffle the curtains of the window would be nice, but there hadn’t been one all day.

The one saving grace was the lovely Heather Foxx. Hall made sure the TV was never far from Channel 12. A remote was a beautiful thing. His TV was telling him now that a Channel 12 Newsbreak was on the way.

“This is Paul Phillips with a Channel 12 Newsbreak. With the latest on the St. Paul kidnappings, we go to Heather Foxx at the St. Paul Department of Public Safety. Heather, what’s the latest?”

“Paul, as we learned earlier, the FBI and police have received a ransom demand, although we don’t yet have the amount.”

“What about the laptop recovered earlier?”

“It contained a video. The police have released a portion of that video, Paul, which we’ll play now.” Foxx waited for the video to start. “What you’re seeing is a portion of the footage the kidnappers left on the laptop. As you can see, it shows a vehicle driving through an isolated rural area. The police are asking all citizens to review the footage and contact the authorities at the number on the screen if they recognize anything about the area the kidnappers are driving through.”

When the video finished, Phillips jumped back in.

“We will be playing this video every half-hour. Additionally, we will also have it available shortly on the Channel 12 web site.”

“The police are continuing to man the tip line, Paul,” Heather reported. “In addition to reviewing this video footage, the authorities are urging people to be on the lookout for at least three men, using vans, and again, not minivans but larger vans; panel or cargo-style vans.”

Hall adjusted again and as he did he looked out his window to the left as the van backed into the rental house across the street. The house had been vacant for the past six months with a For Rent sign in the front yard. The sign disappeared a few weeks ago, maybe longer, Hall thought. He just noticed it missing one day when he came home from work. He’d seen very little activity at the house, other than vans of different colors coming and going for the last couple of days. It was, the more he thought about it, kind of odd behavior.

Never one to cause trouble, Hall was not the type to call in on his neighbors. But the behavior was just off enough that it was worth a phone call. If nothing else, it would provide a potentially entertaining diversion from the heat and boredom.