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Mama had called them by their whole names, which was the signal that she meant business. And they were as hungry as Mama and the babies.
“Yes, ma’am,” Dougie said. “We won’t act like Daddy.”
Wynona rolled her eyes, glanced at the detective, and then grabbed her little ones and went back down the hall to their apartment.
Kenny Bruner, Muncy’s partner, glanced at him and then at the boys.
“I’ll go with you…to help carry sacks,” he offered.
“Thanks,” Joe said. “You guys ready to go?”
“Yes sir,” they echoed.
Vincent Romo was on the run.
His contact had been texting him for hours, but he wasn’t answering because he didn’t know what to say, and he wasn’t going to admit he’d failed his mission. His only option was to give up the last half of his pay anddisappear. The only person who knew he’d been there was the one who’d sent him, and they weren’t likely to file a complaint with the cops. Since he wasn’t making a claim on the balance of the money owed him, maybe they’d think that he was dead.
Detectives Muncy and Bruner had been at their desks most of the morning, following up on leads, slim though they were.
Bruner was on the phone with the lab, checking to see if they’d found any DNA on Townley’s clothing other than his own, and Muncy had called the number on the receipt from Bullard’s Campgrounds in Jubilee, Kentucky, and was waiting for the call to pick up.
It rang and rang to the point that he thought it was going to voicemail, when a man finally answered, and from the gasp in his voice, he was obviously out of breath.
“Bullard’s Campgrounds. This is Jordan.”
“Jordan, this is Detective Joe Muncy. I work in the Homicide Division of the Miami PD. We found a receipt on a murder victim that is from your campground. The checkout date was yesterday. I’m trying to confirm his whereabouts to set up a timeline. Do you have a minute?”
Jordan was startled. “Yes. Yes, sir.”
“Thanks,” Muncy said. “The man’s name was Ellis Townley. Can you confirm the check-in and checkout dates and times for me?”
“Sure,” Jordan said. “Give me a second to pull it up on reservations.”
Muncy could hear keys clacking as he waited, and then Jordan was back with answers.
“Okay…I have Mr. Townley checking in this past Monday around noon. He booked a cabin for five days. He checked out at 12:55 p.m. on Friday.”
“Was anyone with him during his stay?” Muncy asked.
“No, sir. He came and went alone, and stopped by the canteen at least once a day while he was here to get snacks and drinks.”
“Did you see him on his last day, prior to the time he checked out?”
Jordan thought back. “Umm…yes, actually, I did. It’s pretty cold here, and yet he was outside for hours, standing in the field between his cabin and the office. He kept scanning the sky with binoculars, which was weird because the songbirds migrated months ago. Nothing much left in the skies but the predators…hawks, eagles, that kind of thing.”
“Did he exhibit any other behavior you thought odd?” Muncy asked.
“Um…he was on the phone looking up at the sky when I heard an explosion. He arrived shortly thereafter to check out, all in a rush and sweating. I tried to hurry him along because I had just learned a chopper had crashed outside of town and just missed our elementary school. I have two children in school there, and I nearly broke my neck getting there, only to find them safe onthe bleachers across the street. One of the teachers out on playground duty saw the chopper explode in midair and gave the warning that got the building evacuated in time.”
Muncy blinked. Townley was watching the skies? He made a phone call in the middle of a field? A chopper exploded in midair? Townley hoofs it within minutes of the event and then is murdered the next day within minutes of returning to his apartment?What the hell have we stumbled into?
Muncy cleared his throat. “Thank you for the info, Jordan, and I’m glad to know your children weren’t harmed. Out of curiosity, have you cleaned the cabin he was in yet?”
“No, sir. The cleaning crew will be here today to—”
“I’d like to ask you to lock it up and don’t let anyone else inside. Someone from the Jubilee Police Department will be checking it out for us. Please notify your cleaning crew to skip it.”
“Yeah, sure,” Jordan said. “So…you’re from Homicide, so are you saying Mr. Townley is dead?”
