Page 29 of I Do, or Dye Trying
“It’s no bother, Detectives.” I bit back a laugh when she batted her eyelashes a little extra in Dorchester’s direction.
“Not a word,” he said to me once we were outside her house.
“Oh, I see how you are,” I remarked. “You can dog me all you want but turn super sensitive when the shoe is on the other foot.”
“Jackass,” Dorchester said, opening the door.
“Cry baby,” I said, rounding the front of my car. “All jokes aside, you know what we need to do now, don’t you?”
“Go back to your house and eat some of Josh’s apple pie?” he asked.
“You think I’m going to share my pie with you after the ‘jackass’ remark?” I countered.
“Okay, probably not,” Dorchester concluded. “Well, it sounds like we’re going to ask a judge for a new search warrant so we can look for the extra phone.”
“Yes,” I confirmed, “and while we’re waiting for that to come through we’re going to do an internet search to see how many stores there are in a thirty-mile radius that sells disposable cell phones and prepaid wireless minutes.” I thought that was a reasonable radius to begin our quest.
Dorchester groaned unhappily. “Do you know how many places that will be? Every grocery store, department store, pharmacy, dollar store, and convenience store. There will be dozens of them.”
I scoffed at him, but he got the final laugh when it turned out there were over a hundred places in the radius that sold disposable phones and prepaid minute cards. “Call Whitworth and have him meet us at the station. We’ll split the list in thirds to get them all done. We’ll show Broadman’s photo around to see if anyone recognizes him.”
Dorchester called Whitworth and asked him to meet us at the station. By the time we arrived, he’d already printed off the list of stores and was sorting them by area. I sent him toward Columbus, Dorchester toward Dayton, and I took off toward the Cincinnati area. On my way out, I stopped by the desk of Sergeant Sonia Dawkins, who acted as our IT department. I asked her to run the call lists for all victims, besides Robertson since he didn’t have a phone, to see if we could flag any commonly dialed numbers between them. Once we identified the numbers, we could match them up to their owners and see if we could at least pinpoint the phone number Broadman might’ve been using. We would nail his ass if he fucked up one time and paid with a credit card.
“I have the software to do it, but it might not happen as quickly as you’d like. It just depends on the volume of phone calls on their logs. It could take a few days,” Sonia said.
“I know you’ll do your best,” I told her before I headed out.
I decided to start at the furthest point and work my way back. I figured Broadman was smart enough not to buy the damn phone and prepaid minute cards close to home, but I wasn’t sure how far he’d go out of his way to cover his tracks. The other concern was hitting the right store at the right time, or I could end up at the same store he used but not know it because I talked to people working during the wrong shift.
A few hours later, I hadn’t learned anything about Broadman’s cell phone purchasing habits, but I learned some other interesting things. Carver’s gas station on Old State Route 349 served the best hot dogs, Jackson’s out on Highway 92 had chocolate chip cookies thatalmostrivaled Josh’s, the Walmart on Higgins Road sold a larger variety of lube than I expected to see and nifty little vibrating finger sex toys. Most importantly I discovered that McCaskells on Route 548 sold heartburn tablets pretty cheap for when the things I ate earlier didn’t digest so well.
I popped a few in my mouth and chased them down with a long drink from a bottle of water while I waited for Dorchester to answer his phone. “Any luck?” I asked when he answered.
“Nope. You?” he inquired. I told him all about my findings, minus the sex toys and lube. “I can do you one better,” he said smugly. “The walking tacos at D’Angelos in Burtontown are the bomb. I ate three.”
“What the hell is a walking taco?” I asked. My Hispanic mother never fed me anything of the sort, and I wanted to know if I missed out on something.
“It’s a small bag of Doritos or Fritos mixed with taco meat, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and sour cream. They’re delicious,” he said. It did sound rather interesting, but I was confident that anything my mother made was far superior. Nonetheless, I thought it might be fun to eat walking tacos on a night where Josh worked late, and neither of us wanted a big meal.
“Well, I know where you can get heartburn meds dirt cheap if you need them later,” I offered.
“Iron stomach,” Dorchester replied. “I’m about to lose cell phone range in about a quarter of a mile. I’ll check in with you in a bit.”
“Sounds good.”
I hit the button on my steering wheel to disconnect the call just as a familiar teal convertible with silver racing stripes zoomed past the parking lot.Well, what do we have here?I put my car in drive and hit the switches to turn on my lights and siren as I pulled onto the road. The convertible top was down, so I easily saw Josh’s reflection in the rearview mirror when he looked into it in surprise. His sunglasses hid his eyes from me, but I saw his smile bloom across his face.
He was laughing by the time he pulled over. I had a hard time keeping a serious expression on my face as I approached his vehicle. Hell, it had been years since I’d pulled someone over for a routine violation. I figured it was like riding a bike and was prepared to go through the normal routine until Josh lowered his sunglasses and I could see the orneriness shining in his hazel eyes.
“Did I do something bad, Detective?” he asked breathily. “Are you going to break out your cuffs and dickstick?” He batted his eyes and licked his luscious lips.
“Well, I hadn’t fucking planned on it, but I have to say I’m mightily tempted, young man,” I replied. “I think maybe you were driving a little fast on these back country roads. I’d like to see you slow it down a bit since you’re precious cargo.”
“Awww, isn’t that sweet?” he replied. “What’s the likelihood I can talk you into coming home early and playing naughty cop with me?”
“I’d say your chances look damn good,” I replied honestly. I had worked through all but my last ten stores. “I should be home in about an hour unless something breaks in this case.”
“Great, I’ll get dinner started in about forty-five minutes then,” Josh replied.