JETT SAT ON the edge of the hospital bed, his left leg shaking. He rubbed his forehead with his right hand while his left arm remained tethered to an IV bottle hanging from a pole at the head of the bed.
When a nurse walked into the room, he jumped up.
“I gotta go. Will you please remove this?” he said, tugging on the tube.
“I can’t do that, Mr. Jeanrette. Not until the doctor says so.”
“Then get the damn doctor in here. I…have…to…go, now.”
He was red-faced, and the combination of strong words and his bulk scared the nurse. She turned and dashed out the door.
In a few minutes, the nurse returned in the shadow of a doctor who appeared to Jett to be far too young to have completed any college, let alone medical school.
“Is there a problem, Mr. Jeanrette?”
“Yes, there is, and I need you to get me out of here ASAP so I can find the sons-a-bitches who shot me and kidnapped my officer.”
The doctor looked down at a clipboard in his hands, reading through and flipping the pages. He jotted a few lines at the bottom and handed the clipboard to the nurse.
“I’m not prepared to release—”
Jett grabbed the IV tube on his left arm and pulled it out. He calmly walked over to the pile of his clothes and began dressing.
“Sir, please, you can’t just…”
Jett jerked around, glowering at the twenty-something doctor.
“Well, I just fucking did and now I’m leaving. I don’t have time to…”
He suddenly stopped and looked down where his feet were struggling to find the legs of his pants. His needed his left arm to reach down and pull his pants up, but the arm was out of commission at the moment.
He sighed and sat back against the bed.
“Doctor, I have a police department under attack, with a missing officer. I can’t…I have to get out there to find him.”
The doctor studied him for a moment, then turned to the nurse.
“Jeanine, please get a dressing on Mr. Jeanrette’s arm and get him out as quickly as you can.”
He turned his attention back to Jett as the nurse left the room to gather bandages.
“Please understand we need you back here at your first opportunity to check the shoulder. If you don’t, you will risk having limited movement in the arm. Permanently.”
“I get it, doctor, really I do.” Jett had the right leg of his pants past his knees; the left leg was caught under his foot. “I wouldn’t act this way if it really wasn’t necessary.”
“Let me give you a hand.”
They were pulling Jett’s shirt over his injured shoulder as the nurse entered with a small bean-shaped tray filled with cotton gauze, bandages, scissors and other materials. Jett held his arm out as far as he could, a grimace flashing on his face as he moved the arm, and the nurse quickly wiped the red spot on his forearm with an alcohol wipe before applying a bandage.
Together, the nurse and doctor helped Jett finish dressing, and as soon as his shoes were on his feet and laced, Jett moved for the door.
He had the unfortunate habit of keeping in his phone in his left pants pocket, making it difficult to pull the phone out using only his right hand. Once freed, he used his thumb to call Shooter and get an update. He was moving fast, maneuvering around slower-moving patients and nurses along the way.
After meeting up with Shooter, who was still in the waiting room, they made their way to Shooter’s car and headed back to Gulf Highway.
“We’ve got three patrols working the west end: DiCicco, Hancock, and DeeDee,” Shooter said. “So far, nothing, no trace of the truck. We did find a body about a quarter mile down Gulf Highway, pretty badly mangled. We’re not sure who it is, but looks like it might be one of the shooters.”
“What about Robert? Any word? Anyone seen him?”
Shooter turned his reddened eyes towards Jett. “No. Nothing.”
They drove down to Gulf Highway, turning west to follow the route of the truck. Shooter pointed out where the dead body was found as they drove. Yellow tape marked the area, and a part-time traffic officer stood by to prevent curious onlookers from messing with the scene before it had been more closely inspected by investigating officers. Jett waved a hand as they passed.
They passed the lagoon inlet, then pulled over as one of the patrol cars approached from the other direction.
“Chief! Good to see you.” It was Hancock.
“Thanks. Did you find anything?“
“No, sir. I canvassed between this here inlet bridge to the end of the lagoon. No sign of Robert or the truck.”
“Damn it.”
He just gotten similar reports from Daggett, known in the Department as DeeDee, and DiCicco. If the truck met up with someone, whether someone with a boat or another vehicle to move Robert, they would have found the abandoned truck. The places out on this end of the town were either condos with parking areas they had checked, or large, rental houses elevated above the ground making it easy to check for old trucks.
Where could they have gone?
“Keep looking, Hancock. We have to find Robert.”
Hancock gave a wave of his hand and spun his car around to go back and cruise the area. Jett told Shooter to head back to where they found the body, and Shooter turned the cruiser around.
“Remember, you asked me to find out about that property on the waterway next to BODE, Inc.?” Shooter said as they drove back down Gulf Highway. “Turns out it’s owned by a startup called White Sands Clean Energy. They’re planning to build a solar farm on it, according to plans they filed with the state. Company’s owned by an LLC out of Delaware named Energy Investors, but I can’t find out anything about them.”
“You checked the Delaware filings?”
“I did. It’s owned by other LLCs, owned by other LLCs. I can’t figure why it’s legal to have all these dummy companies. Makes little things difficult, things like law enforcement and such.”
They were passing an old two-story building that was once the Redwood Hotel, but had been unused for the last ten years. After passing it, Jett turned his head suddenly to look back at the hulking dark brown building.
“Stop!” Shooter slammed the brakes and looked at Jett. “Go back—there’s a workshop building at the back there.”
Shooter turned to follow Jett’s eyes, seeing the building behind the last empty business location on this side of White Sands.
“Shit.” He cranked the wheel and hit the gas. The cruiser responded immediately and shot across the road. Shooter pulled into the lot and sped through it to the building at the back.
Shooter was out of the car, gun drawn, and reaching for the garage door handle by the time Jett managed to get out of the cruiser. Jett stepped to the other side of the door, signaling Shooter to stand ready as he pulled the door open. Shooter got into position, and Jett grabbed the door handle. With a firm pull, the door’s rusted hinges squealed loudly as the door opened.
Shooter stared deep into the darkness inside.
“The truck,” he said.
Jett looked in and then stepped inside the doorway. A door on the rear of the building was open, and Jett saw lagoon water rippling behind the building.
“Goddamnit. Go call it in, Shooter.” He started into the building, looking over the truck as his eyes adjusted to the dim light. After a moment, he could easily see the holes in the truck where he’d shot it, and a large bloodstain on the front seat.
But no sign of Robert again.
He walked through to the back door, and stepped down to the small dock where the boat had been tied up. He scanned the calm lagoon for signs of a boat passing recently. He saw a spot about 50 feet away where he once pulled a nice sized speckled trout out of the water, and to the west, the area where his own small dock and boat waited for him.
Shooter stepped through the doorway and looked around the lagoon.
“These guys are organized,” Shooter said. “What are we up against here, Chief?”
“Damned if I know.” He turned to the steps leading back to the garage. “But it’s not good.”
He boiled his choices down to two immediate actions: go back to the spot where the body was found, or keep looking for Robert.
Investigation of the body might quickly yield helpful information: who he was, who he had associated with, where he worked, family and friends. That might be a good shortcut to finding Robert.
On the other hand, if he could somehow track Robert, he just might save the man’s life.
Shooter waited quietly for Jett’s next words.
“Shooter, get Daggett to pick up Melcott to investigate the scene where the body was found—we’ll let the detectives do their work.”
“OK. What’re we doing?”
“We’re going to get my boat and keep looking for Robert.”
Shooter used his radio to get hold of DeeDee while Jett eased himself back into the car. He passed on the instructions, then drove Jett to his house on Little Lagoon Avenue.
They went to the boat at the back of Jett’s house and as Jett started the boat’s motor, Shooter untied the craft. They made a turn in the lagoon and Jett began thinking about possible escape routes for someone in the lagoon. He knew there weren’t roads going north to the Old Bay Road and travel back through town would be risky for the kidnappers.
Between the two options, it seemed most likely they met up somewhere close to the old hotel garage. Or somewhere along the north side of the lagoon.
Jett knew of several private docks there they could have gone, but someone would have heard or seen them docking and moving Robert. No one had reported anything unusual, so that didn’t seem likely.
He was driving the boat towards the inlet when he remembered a spot on the lagoon’s north side he had used to meet up with friends back in high school. It was a small cove, hidden by reeds and grass, with a shallow approach.
And it was just a hundred feet off of the end of West Oyster Beach Drive, making it ideal for a quick change and escape.
He quickly turned the boat around and headed towards the area where he recalled the cove was located. He slowed as they approached the tall reeds obscuring the waterline. The reeds made it hard to tell where the little cove was, with stands growing out into the lagoon.
The shoreline had changed since Jett had last been in the area. He had trouble figuring out where the cove was.
“We’re looking for a small inlet through those reeds,” he told Shooter. “You gotta watch while we pass to be able to tell if there’s a gap where an inlet is.”
They made several false turns and stops before he finally recognized the gap where the water was just enough deeper to let a boat slip through to a small landing.
Jett slowed the boat, the motor’s propeller quieted to just low gurgling sounds in the water. He made a slow turn starboard to pass between two stands of reeds, then a slight turn to port as the boat rounded another outcropping of the plants.
As the boat cleared the outcropping, they saw the small boat grounded just out of the water.
Shooter jumped out of the boat as soon as he heard sand scratching the hull, into water up to his knees. He forcefully made his way to the waterline, then stepped up to the small craft. He looked in.
“He’s not here.”
“Check for tire tracks, footprints,” Jett said. He grabbed the microphone for the radio in his boat and called for Hancock and any available officers to head immediately to West Oyster Beach Drive to continue the search for Robert as Shooter looked around the site.
“We’re going to need some help here,” Shooter said. “There’s prints here, at least three men, two from the truck. Looks like one from the boat.”
He looked up at Jett.
“Where the hell’s Robert?”
Jett pulled out his cell phone and began scrolling through his contacts. He pressed a number to dial, then put the phone to his ear.
“J.J.? It’s Jett. I need all the help you can get me right away.”
Jett filled County Prosecutor Joseph Jedediah Johnson on the status of the search, and current needs his department had to continue all the streams of investigation underway. Johnson promised to issue an emergency notice of a kidnapped officer across all of Southern Alabama. He also said he’d have sheriff’s deputies and investigators from his office on the way to help any way Jett needed, including a contact he had in the Alabama State Investigation Bureau.
“I gotta get back to the office,” Jett said after ending the call, looking at Shooter. “But I need you to stay here until the county guys arrive.”
“Sure thing. I’ll wait here and get a ride to my cruiser when I can get away.”
Jett started dialing on his phone again.
“Thanks, Shooter,” he said. His attention turned to his phone call. “Gwen—it’s Jett. I need you to make some space in the conference room. We got a mess of people coming to help find Bobby.”