I was thankful for a leisurely Sunday morning. No alarms, no sleep-interrupting phone calls, and no whining pup who needed to do his business at four o’clock in the morning. I woke on my own at nine to a dog staring me in the face.
“Okay, okay, I guess you need to go out. Right, boy?”
Bandit jumped off the bed and darted down the hallway.
“Guess that answered my question.”
I threw back the blankets, slipped on my robe, and followed my excited dog to the patio door. While Bandit was outside doing his business, I filled his food dish and started the coffee. After grabbing the remote, I turned on the kitchen’s countertop TV and watched the morning news while I popped a bagel into the toaster. I caught the middle of a segment about the upcoming transfer of John Vance to USP Terre Haute, a high-security prison.
Wow, MCC has finally had enough of you. Guess they realized they can’t shut down your drug empire, even from behind prison walls. They should have moved your ass to Terre Haute three years ago.
My mind went back to the yearlong undercover operation I was lead on when I worked in the narcotics division of our police force. John Vance was our main target, and it took an entire year to track him down and make an arrest. In the meantime, nine major players were put in prison, and I had shot and killed his older brother, Jake, who was second in command. My face warmed from a second of anxiety when I thought of the words John had whispered as I snapped the handcuffs around his wrists. “You’ll pay for killing Jake, pig, and you’ll never see it coming.”
The transport concerned me, but I knew MCC would make sure the route and time they moved him were kept well under wraps.
Okay, already. It’s Sunday, and John Vance isn’t my problem anymore.
I brought Bandit back into the house, and he gobbled his kibbles. “What do you say, buddy? How about going for a ride to the park?”
A half hour later, with a couple of bottled waters in the car and my dog on the passenger seat, we headed to Burnham Park for exercise and a visit to Promontory Point.
After a solid-mile run and another mile of walking to cool down, we arrived at The Point for an hour of fetch and then time to relax and reflect. It was closing in on noon when we got back to the car.
Bandit spun twice and dropped to the seat. He promptly curled up and dozed off. We’d both had a good workout, and I was looking forward to a hot shower and watching golf on TV. My phone rang as I drove the short ten minutes home. Mills was calling.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Are you watching the latest about John Vance on the noon news?”
“Nah, Bandit and I are heading home from Burnham Park. We both needed to get some exercise. I did see mention of it this morning, though.”
Frank huffed through the phone lines. “Yeah, they’re giving that dirtball way too much airtime. You’d think they were moving Hannibal Lecter or something.”
I laughed. “I’m sure they’ll keep everything under control. Nobody, other than MCC, knows the time he’s being moved or what route the convoy is taking.”
“True, but a lot can go wrong during that four-and-a-half-hour drive.”
Mills was right to a degree, but transporting inmates was a common occurrence. I’d assumed that because of Vance’s notoriety, he would have a multiple-vehicle escort, but I wasn’t sure. I used the word convoy loosely, but I was confident John Vance would make it to Terre Haute without incident. The prison and media shouldn’t have sensationalized his transport.
“Hey, I have another call coming in. I have to go.” I clicked over and answered. “Jesse McCord speaking.”
“Jesse, it’s Lutz. I need you on duty. We’ve got a murder on our hands.”