Trinity River Flats

By Stan Hanna

The Trinity River Flats area has gators, snakes and bodies. Jack Andrews knows. Returning to Fort Worth, Texas to take a security job, Jack discovers his protegee at work dead; murdered along the Trinity River. Worse, Jack discovers that he has become the prime suspect of her murder and possibly a lot of others. Within a day, Jack finds himself without a home, a job, his pension, and a step away from prison. Jack knows he’s been attacked by someone, but whom? Who would give a damn about a retired Navy Master Chief for the love of God? All of Fort Worth is the setting for TRINITY RIVER FLATS, a crime-thriller about an innocent man fighting to prove his innocence. Opposing him is the local Sheriff, a Drug Cartel and a serial killer. Jack fights for his name, his freedom, and to find himself after thirty years. The Trinity River is the setting for Jack’s run through a maze of snakes, drugs, killers and runaways.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stan Hanna
• Release date: Feb 23, 2012
• ISBN: 9780985254414

Stan Hanna

Stan Hanna writes about what he's seen and what he's heard about among the old timers aboard ship and out west. He's fortunate to have worked for and with some of the great Navy Officers of his generation as well as national leaders in the Finance and Entertainment industry. Through it all he came to understand that, in the end, people are people, the good ones and the bad. The choices made are what mark the man and separate him from his peers. Stan was lucky to experience the kind of friendship among his shipmates which help young sailors survive and grow to become old sailors. He was lucky enough to become a sub hunter after getting commissioned. He feels his technical background in the Navy prepared him for writing the science fiction and the thrillers. His work in Wyoming and Texas prepared him for the westerns. His life in the Navy taught him how to deal with danger and how to stand up for what he believes; and his life after the Navy taught him to deal with people and to recognize a good decision making process. His wife of forty years finally got the message through to him about what true love is about. His kids taught him the value of mercy and forgiveness. His fourteen grandchildren have taught him the beauty of family and forbearance. Stan Hanna tries to put all of this in his writing so that what he writes is not fanciful, but gritty and authentic, no matter what the context, genre, or subject matter. Stan is having fun writing thrillers and westerns and science fiction. If you want to jump on board the bandwagon, send your e-mail to [e-mail]. Stan truly does reads his e-mail, and promises to answer the mail that catches his eye.

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TRINITY RIVER FLATS

AN ADULT SUSPENSE THRILLER

By

STAN HANNA

PROLOGUE

North Texas was warm in May of 1970. It was a month marked by thunderstorms and sultry nights. High School kids were spending as much time getting ready for the summer as they were attending their classes. Weekends were for dates. And Susie Bennett, well into her 16th year and a sophomore at Richland High School was ready for a great Friday night date with a real hippie guitar player named Billy Randalls. She had laid a cover story with her friends and parents saying she had to spend one last weekend getting ready for her class finals. But instead she anticipated an evening of pizza, wine and maybe …some pot.

She worked hard to make herself the perfect image of a California girl. The surfer-girls with long sun-streaked blonde hair, thick and as straight as orange juice can-sized hair rollers could make it. As she finished her hair, she glanced at the small gold necklace with its cross and then looked down at her hand which bore her steady boyfriend, Johnny Andrews’ Richland High Class of ’70 Graduation Ring. He was sweet and had wanted to see her tonight but her parents had told him off for coming around earlier in the week.

Her Daddy thought Johnny was low rent and not good enough for her. That upset Susie because she loved her Daddy and didn’t want to disappoint him. But she loved Johnny, too. Johnny did come from a poor family. His father had died the year before and now his mother was working all the time to pay the bills. Johnny had a part-time job at the Conoco Station, but he never had any money and he always had to save up to take her out in his mother’s old Oldsmobile. It didn’t have air conditioning and that meant date nights this coming summer would be hot and sweaty. That thought made her uncomfortable.

If she truly loved him, that shouldn’t matter. She felt guilty because in her heart of hearts she knew that she had been misleading him. She had been so impressed that Johnny was a senior. He had even finished his GED, and when he had asked her to wear his ring she was so excited she had shown it off immediately to all her friends at school.

But the summer was three weeks away; she would deal with Johnny then. Tonight was a special night. She took his ring off her finger, put it on her necklace, and then paused, looking again at her large pert breasts and decide that tonight would be a night to go bra-less. Just like the girls in the R-rated movies she sometimes snuck out to watch. She pulled on a tie-dye shirt and kept the necklace hidden beneath it.

Susie surveyed herself in the mirror. With her bell bottom jeans, and the quick use of a scarf to tie her hair in place she felt she could match anyone Billy Randalls had ever seen.

‘Perfect for the night,’ she felt. Twirling like the graceful ballerina she was, she floated out of her room to enjoy her world.

She hesitated a second at the top of the stairs, debating whether she should go into the den and give her Mom and Daddy a kiss, but decided he might not approve of the way she looked without a bra. So instead, she called out a Good night! to her parents and hustled out the door before they could spot her. She ran around the corner and spotted her date waiting to pick her up in a brand new Chevy pickup truck. It was shiny black with white side panels and had tinted glass. The windows were up, so when she opened the passenger side door she felt a blast of cold air. She jumped onto the black vinyl bench seat and slammed the door shut. Caught up in the adventure of the date, she laughed out a Let’s go!

Billy, her date, found that funny and let out a whoop and a laugh. He reached his arm out and brought Susie over to sit right beside him, the way she had seen college students do around Texas Christian University when her Daddy and Mom had taken her around the campus on Alumni Week. Daddy had been pointing out all the school buildings, but Susie had only had eyes for the boys and the couples driving about campus in their cars. TCU had seemed a lifetime away at the time, but now she felt excited about going out with someone old enough to be a college graduate.

Her date was Billy Grey Randalls, a local high school football hero turned hippie. Blessed with a true talent for singing and playing an acoustic guitar, Billy was a hit with the local coffee house crowd. He talked about going to Los Angeles or maybe New York City, but something always seemed to come up with his mother’s health and, since he was all she had, he just never had. His friends had gotten jobs and married or were finishing college themselves. Billy didn’t have the money for that. And a knee injury in his senior year had squashed any hope he had for an athletic scholarship.

His act was getting old with his peers, but Billy found that each year pretty young girls like Susie came along who thought he was exciting. All his stories were bright and new to them. He seemed to have no trouble getting as many girls as he wanted. The passing few years had transformed Billy from an awkward boy from the poor side of town, into an experienced troubadour. A man knowledgeable in things of the world especially drugs and sex.

To an inexperienced girl like Susie he seemed everything she had ever imagined a hippie to be, cool and ‘with it’. He had spotted Susie Bennett at a local hamburger joint and she seemed to know who he was. He swallowed the insecurities that still seemed to plague him in the presence of pretty girls and began to cultivate her. She had lied, telling him she had just turned eighteen and would be going to TCU in the fall. But she was well developed for a 16 year old and talked a very good game. As he wooed her, she responded in kind, flirting away until he knew he had to have her. He had felt a real rush when she had agreed to go out and party with him this Friday night.

He had been a little puzzled when she had told him not to come to the door to pick her up; but when he saw that she lived in one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in Northeast Tarrant County, he thought he understood. Susie was doing a little slumming and didn’t want Daddy to know. ‘Well, that was okay,’ Billy Randalls thought. ‘He was going to have some fun tonight himself.’

They drove over to a Pizza Hut on the far southwest part of town on Hulen St. Nobody knew them there, so they could cuddle in a back corner booth and enjoy the pizza. No one bothered them and they gave each other their undivided attention as they got to know each other. Billy had no problem buying them a pitcher of beer. Billy was 25 years old and Susie certainly looked to be 18 so no carding blew her cover.

Susie couldn’t get enough of Billy. His tall beefy build was attractive, exuding power and animal magnetism. His long beached blonde hair was perfect for his persona as a hippie as was the coarse dark beard he was growing. He was a hunk.

He was a little apprehensive about what the beard did to his looks, but Susie said it made him seem sophisticated. Billy had laughed, delighted to hear that. The night was going so well. Here poor old Billy Randalls was, going out with a knockout blonde from a rich family who thought he was sexy and sophisticated. Life couldn’t get more fun.

She was sitting close to him so he could feel her thigh against his, and right then he wanted her, so he bent down with his chin and tickled her neck with his beard, nuzzling her and kissing her neck softly.

Susie felt the stir of arousal under his caresses, but she had been in this territory with Johnny, so she felt she could handle Billy. When she felt herself approaching her danger zone she moved to shut herself down for safety’s sake. She was relieved nonetheless when her subtle glances around the room made him back off for the moment. Susie smiled to herself. That had always worked with Johnny, too. Things were going just as well as she had imagined.

Later, the two jumped back in Billy’s pickup and cruised about the west side of Ft Worth. The two sipped cheap grape wine from paper cups. Susan listened avidly to Billy’s stories about bands he had played backup or had sung with at various places in the Dallas-Ft Worth area. She laughed at his jokes and responded to his kisses and even let him work her breasts with his knowledgeable fingers occasionally as they drove. As they drove Billy drank more wine and sang more songs, encouraging her to join in.

Billy was wild about this beautiful, sexy girl. He loved the fact that Susie was ‘into’ him. He wanted her badly and started thinking of special spots where they could park safely and not be interrupted by cops or other couples. A place came to mind and he began a steady drive heading from neighborhood to neighborhood in the south of Ft Worth and moved towards Arlington.

Finally, Billy arrived at a secluded overlooking Lake Arlington on the east side of town, where they could park in privacy for a little making-out. They were surrounded by trees and brush with a sweet view of the street lights and moon reflected in the water from the far eastern and northern sides of the lake. They seemed to have found a secret spot away from the world to cuddle and Susie snuggled next to the big man.

Susie was enjoying herself listening to the latest hard rock on FM Radio, drinking the sweet grape wine, and singing along with Billy as he harmonized with the lead. Then Billy reached under his seat and pulled out a plastic bag. He punched in the cigarette lighter and cracked open his truck’s windows.

He broke out what he called a large ‘toke’ and showed her how to smoke marijuana. Once she had stopped coughing every time she tried to inhale, she was able to hold the smoke in her lungs for a few seconds. She started to giggle at just about anything. Billy laughed with her and together they got high. She began to feel fuzzy and warm. Her thighs were tingling and she felt herself become responsive to the slightest of Billy’s caresses. Susan laughed her way into a necking session that became hot.

Billy wasn’t trying to take advantage of Susie as much as he was trying to please her. He had learned to work with a woman to bring her along with him to a shared physical experience. Billy wanted to please her as much as him. He wanted her to be excited by the act of being loved by Billy Randalls. As he touched her body here and there, gently stroking this way and that, she responded as well as any woman he had ever been with. He had no idea her responses to his gentle caresses were the truly surprised reactions of a neophyte.

Susie knew in her own mind that she had provided this man too much leeway already. She had definite ideas as to what lines to draw, but she found that the buzz from her drinking and pot smoking was helping Billy move her body in ways both confusing and exciting. Lines and boundaries blurred and began to disappear as she felt the experienced man cherish her body with his strong and knowing hands.

She responded in spite of her reluctance to allow him to go further simply because he was taking her to levels of arousal she had never dreamed possible. She had petted before with Johnny but never had she felt like this. It was confusing and distracted her from her desire to control the situation. Susie was still clothed, but she was feeling herself letting go and was at the point of opening her thighs to his body when her mother’s disapproving face came into her mind.

She became frightened then, and tried to back out, saying she wasn’t ready yet.

But Billy had felt her body responding to him. He knew she was only moments away from giving him everything. His desire for her had become a pulsing thing, which would not be denied. He had been anticipating her body throughout the night as Susie had first kept him at bay and then let him move closer to taking her. Throughout the evening of subtle caresses and flirtatious smiles, Susie had inadvertently worked him into a fever of desire. Billy was at the point of explosion. He wanted what she was trying to take away. He knew the girl was toying with him, teasing him, he could feel her shudder, her response to his caresses and he could not accept her refusal.

He continued petting her and working over her body almost mechanically now; certain he knew how to overcome her show of reluctance. When she still tried to move away he felt a rising heat building in him. Frustration gave his already strong body an extra energy which made her resistance insignificant; almost unnoticeable. She was physically too slight to resist him, though she was making an effort to move away from him.

This only increased his sense of masculine power. It confirmed his dominance over the woman beneath him. It enhanced the lust her responses had been building in him since they had first met.

Soon piece by piece, he had stripped their clothes, reveling in her sweat and his hold over their flesh, quickly joined in a rush of uncaring violence.

Afterwards, Billy let out a sigh and laughed.

I had no idea I was picking a cherry. He looked at her pretty chest and saw the thin gold necklace with its cross and school ring attached to it. He reached over and tore the chain off her neck, snapping its fragile links. He looked at it and laughed as he read the initials ‘JMA’ engraved on the inner surface of the band. Whoever JMA was, he had lost more than a ring to Billy Randalls.

The man had lost all his attractiveness to Susie. She had been horrified at her uncontrolled response to the man. She had been shattered by the experience and was humiliated and remorseful. She looked at Randalls. He had morphed somehow into a shaggy beast leering at her from his place behind the steering wheel.

‘How could she have wanted this person when she had Johnny?’ Sitting up and moving as far from Billy as she could get, Susie gathered her clothes into a bundle against her naked breasts and struggled to put on her clothes.

I’ll keep this to remember you by, he chuckled.

Susan didn’t reply. She was devastated by what had just happened. Tears of pain began to fall from her eyes as she sat there by the passenger door clinging to her clothes, wadded up in her arms. The air conditioning, so soothing before, was making her shiver. She had sought out this opportunity and failed to consider her own vulnerability. She was feeling a crushing weight of guilt and self-reproach.

Almost as though a veil had been torn from her eyes, Susie saw that few men were as gentle and understanding as her Johnny. She thought of how sweet her Johnny was and how she had always been able to steer them away from trouble. That had given her a false sense of her own power to control her life and protect herself. She was truly upset and said so. Trying to pull her pants on she said she wanted to go home, and slipped innocently that she wanted to talk to her Daddy.

Princess, you go on and talk to your daddy. Hell, honey, there’s nothing wrong with making a little love. Next year at TCU, you’ll be screwing your ass off.

I’m not going to TCU next year; I lied. I’m only a sophomore.

"What? What do you mean, you’re only a sophomore? A sophomore in high school? Sophomores aren’t eighteen. How old are you?"

Sixteen, she replied miserably.

The term ‘Jail Bait’ flashed through Billy’s mind. That alarmed the big man, so much that he reached over and grabbed her by the roots of her hair and shook her with his fist. He was furious and threatened to kill her if she ever told anybody about what had happened tonight. She had baited him into rape and he sure as hell wasn’t going to jail for some baby rich-bitch.. He emphasized each phrase with a jerk of her head. Thinking of something to say that would shut her up he called her a tramp and a whore.

This is your fault. You lied to me! If you tell anybody about this, and I mean anyone, I’m going to let everyone know what a slut you are, he threatened.

He couldn’t have chosen a worse tack. Susan Bennett had been drilled since birth by her parents that her good name was something to protect and defend. This was a threat she refused to allow to cow her. Standing on a dignity and strength of character Billy could never understand, she sneered at him in outrage and slapped him.

Billy saw red. This was no woman who understood and admired him. This was a little rich girl who was looking down on him now, as all the other rich girls had looked down on him his entire life. He became enraged and lunged at the girl. You fucking bitch! he roared as he grabbed her with his massive hands and shook her. He slammed her back into the passenger side door with as much force as his massive frame could muster.

Her head hit something, possibly the door handle, and Billy heard a crunching noise. She moaned and twisted about, getting blood all over his upholstery. Instead of calling him back to his senses, the sight of her blood smearing his clean truck, the interior he lovingly detailed every night, made him insane. He slapped her and then twisted her neck in his hands so hard he felt it crack. His hands went limp and lost their hold on Susie whose limp form flopped beck against the passenger door. H sat there watching fascinated as she choked for breath.

Susie’s face went red and then pale as she tried to breathe. She thrashed about and then went very still.

Billy Grey Randalls sat motionless at the wheel of the truck. Pulling the handle of his door he opened it slowly and deliberately came to his feet and stood there looking back at Susi’s body. His first impulse was to run. But he instead he began to pace.

Think.

Putting his hands over his face, he told himself, Think. Think. What am I gong to do? My God, I’ve killed her. Where do I go?

An image of dark muddy water came to mind; the water of the Flats , by the Trinity River. A series of shallow pools left behind by seasonal spring floods. There was enough ebb and flow through the rest of year to keep them from evaporating in the summer. He had gone fishing there in the past. The riverbed and the banks consisted of a rich soft mud. Given the right time of day, it would be easy to move a body into the Flats , bury it and move out without being seen. He could head over there tonight. He started going through the things he’d need, trying to anticipate anything that might come up.

Had they been seen? Would they be remembered at the Pizza Hut?

He pulled a blanket out from under the seat and rolled the girl’s body up in it with her clothes, then put her in the back of the truck. He walked around the small little area where they had parked and found some flakey chunks of limestone which he tucked around her limp form and weighted down the blanket so that it wouldn’t flap loose while he drove.

Then he drove his pickup truck carefully home.

There he checked on his mother and told her he was back from his date. He sat talking with her for a while and then prepared her some tea so she could watch Johnny Carson in bed. He kissed her good night and told her he had to work at the construction site for his job in the morning. He explained that it was his turn to drive the crew tomorrow, so he was going to get the pickup fueled and maybe change the oil in his pickup now. He went to the garage where he grabbed a shovel and an old flashlight and a couple of torn sheets of plastic he had in the tool shed in the back yard.

Billy then drove down Ederville Rd to the Flats . He had to spend a couple of hours working by the river bank. Then he went back home to wash out his pickup. Staying up like this would make work miserable later, but Billy knew that going to work and being seen was the most important thing he could do.

He found he was strangely stimulated. He had never killed before. He considered himself a non-violent person, as any person in the age of hippies probably would. But he found that he had awoken in him the joy of the hunter for the pursuit and running down of his prey.

Each subsequent year, a new girl or two went missing; never of real importance to anyone except the girls’ families. Tragedies lost among thousands of runaways every year. It was quite easy for Billy, the Hunter; or more accurately, the Fisher. All he had to do was go fishing. Fishing for girls, and then fishing, in the evening, to cover the dumping of a weighted body into the Trinity Flats where the current was almost nonexistent. There he would leave the bodies to get bogged down in silt.

Eventually alligators began to gather in the area, refugees from pet stores and long trips from the Gulf Coast up the river. Between alligators, alligator gar and catfish anything floating up from the bottom of the riverbed would become dinner. Detection by other fishermen became more unlikely when cottonmouth snakes made their appearance in the Flats in the 1980’s. Nobody wanted to disturb the aggressive water snakes. They seemed to have intelligence about them. There was nothing random about their attacks. When the snakes bit their prey they worked at chewing their prey well with jaws intended to assist the fangs pump their venom.

Bodies or body parts became food if the water worked them loose from their tarp shrouds. The silt kept the rest. All the bodies remained hidden from detection; even if they had been the subject of a search.

Gradually development built up in the area. At first Billy perceived this to be a threat, but the first big rain runoff from the newly developed areas actually increased the acreage of the Flats, and so, he relaxed. Lack of proper drainage ensured more silt gathered in the area, making certain the bodies stayed hidden.

Increased development may have created greater risk when making a body dump while fishing from a boat. But after an industrial park was built just to the north of the Flats, it became easier for Billy to use the dead of night and his pickup truck to bring a body in and leave undetected. The Trinity River Trail development to the south of the river added to the ease of access to the Flats area from a completely different direction than before. It was almost as though Ft Worth had made his job easy.

For Billy Randalls life on the Flats went on each year as before.

Chapter One

The convenience store marked the intersection of two major streets on the north of Downtown Fort Worth. Traffic moved in organized chaos through the gas pump access lanes and to the front parking spaces along the storefront. In the early September morning dazzle of a rising sun, three Tarrant County Sheriff’s Deputies came out, each sipping a cup of coffee, and walked to a tan colored panel van with reinforced windows in the front and back. At a glance by the casual observer, the van didn’t appear particularly different from any other workman’s vehicle, but the windows were bullet resistant, the power train was oversized and the suspension was reworked to hold a significant load.

As the Deputies approached the vehicle and got in they were careful to keep their Stetson hats in place. Their 10 mm handguns were strapped in their side holsters and they each had wrap-around mirrored sunglasses which reduced the morning glare to nothing. The driver looked over to his partner in the passenger seat across two racked shotguns and rapped his knuckle backhanded against the wall separating them from the third deputy in the back compartment of the van. Getting an immediate responding rap, the driver pulled his radio handset from its hook and called, Dispatch, this is Carrier. Starting run on time and ETA at destination should be plus 20.

Copy, Carrier.

Without another word the Deputy started the van’s engine and pulled out of the parking lot and into traffic heading into downtown. Moving smoothly through rush hour traffic, the van moved forward to a small building just south of the main downtown area and pulled to a stop before a row of security bollards rising from the concrete driveway.

A security guard with a sign-in clipboard moved quickly from the building and to the driver’s window. The glass moved smoothly down and the Driver took the clipboard. Without emotion he signed his name and handed it back to the guard, who nodded and went into the building. The garage entry door rolled smoothly up to stop at exactly the clearance required by the van. At the same time, the bollards dropped into the ground to provide access to the entrance. The van pulled forward and moved into a blind left hand turn just past the entry. The Driver maneuvered and went down along a circular access lane burrowed deep below the building. The turn lane opened into a large underground staging area with a loading dock along one side and a row of parked tactical response team SUV’s along the other side.

The Driver pulled the van into a three point maneuver backing the vehicle to a marked point at the front of the dock.

The Driver and his partners sat patiently looking out the windshield or at some paperwork. Within thirty seconds a klaxon sounded accompanied by several twirling yellow strobe lights signaling the activation of powered doors leading from the building’s interior to the dock. The Driver and passenger side Deputy both got out of the van and went to the back twin doors of the van. The Driver again rapped on the door which quickly popped open. The Driver moved up some side steps to the dock level and activated a hydraulic lift gate which rose from floor level to come even with the dock. There was perhaps six inches clearance from the forward lip of the lift and the back bumper of the van.

Three bins of heavy reinforced, formed cardboard were wheeled one at a time to the lift which the driver then lowered to the floor level of the back of the van. When the first bin came to the van, the Deputy stepping from the interior of the van stacked three furniture dollies onto one side of the lift. Looking up to the Dock Supervisor, he dropped them flat one at a time making three bangs with each dolly. Nodding the Supervisor checked off a receipt block on his clipboard and went back to help with the second bin. The two Deputies at the floor level slapped a metal plate on the floorboard of the van and dropped it to the lift. The two then wheeled the bin forward into the van and chocked it into place so that the heavy load wouldn’t shift on transport. Retrieving the plate the second Deputy nodded to the Driver who started the process again, and once more.

The two Deputies pulled a padlock out of the van and the cargo area officer climbed back into the van taking a seat by another racked shotgun. The doors were then shut tight and padlocked. The Driver and the Dock Supervisor rode the lift back to the floor and the Supervisor pulled three metal embossed strips from his pocket and crimped them with a lead seal. Each seal had been stamped with a computer selected random number. The Driver and Supervisor ensured the clipboard form reflected the correct seal numbers. They had done the same with the numbers painted on the side of each bin while they were being loaded. The two signed and counter signed the receipt, the Supervisor tore off three copies and raised the lift to dock level, leaving the two Deputies alone by the van. The two then walked back to their seats in the van and the Driver repeated his rap process with the back deputy. Behind them the three dockworkers pulled in the three dollies and disappeared into the building. In total, the operation had taken fifteen minutes time, and in all that time not a word had been spoken.

The van pulled smoothly from the dock and approached the exit climb lane. The van pulled out with its load of $100,000,000.00.

The van quickly moved out of the building and back into traffic with smoothness and ease in spite of its load, which showed the power of its engine and transmission as well as the heavily reinforced suspension. The passenger called a number on his cell and began reading out the bin serial numbers from the receipt forms.

The van had a specified route. It was monitored by TCSO units stationed at three spotting stations. Each unit was to call in with the van’s arrival time on station, observed traffic conditions, and ETA at the next check point.

The first unit called in on time, Dispatch, Check One, visual on time and traffic clear; ETA Checkpoint 2, plus thirty, over.

Checkpoint One, Dispatch, copy, out.

Check Two, copies.

Check Three, copies.

Destination, copies.

Earlier in the morning a change had been made in the unit assignments. One of the Deputies had called in sick at the last moment. Jo Ellen Matthews, the dispatcher, was in a panic to find a fill-in to act as the Spot Two observer. Since protocol required all units involved be thoroughly briefed, she knew she was screwed.

To make matters worse, the Sheriff chose that moment to walk in with his morning cup of coffee.

Blowing into his scalding cup the Sheriff looked into the radio room and asked, What’s up, Jo?

Sheriff, Bill Farmer just called in sick and I’ve got no one to fill in for him. We’ve got that Commercial Traffic Detail with Johnson County and I don’t have anyone else read into the Transfer Detail.

Hell, Jo Ellen, I’m read in. I’ll take it for you. Hand me the brief book and I’ll go out there.

Jo Ellen was flustered by the Sheriff’s unexpected cooperation and it took her a few moments to come up with it. Sheriff, thank you so much. If you only knew how scared I was you’d be mad.

Jo. Me, mad? I’m just one of the guys, remember? Just call me if you need me.

Thanks, Sheriff. And remember, you’re Checkpoint Two.

Check Two, I got it.

As the van neared the second checkpoint, the Driver turned off the route and onto a side road, taking an alleyway to pull into a garage. A couple of coverall clad workers closed the door behind the vehicle.

Marking the van’s path, the Sheriff picked up his radio handset. Dispatch, Check Two with visual. On time. He glanced casually down the empty thoroughfare assigned as the delivery route. Traffic is heavy and beginning to back up. I give an ETA as scheduled time plus twenty for Check Three, copy?

Check Two, dispatch; copy ETA is Schedule Plus Twenty.

Check Three, copy.

Destination copies.

Check Two, out.

Inside the garage, the van pulled into a parking space. The two Deputies in front quickly got out of the van to meet a forklift with a special device attached to its lift assembly in place of the normal forks. Attached to two horizontal rods were two perpendicular dual suction cup assemblies. The structure was most like the assembly used to hold and manipulate large panes of glass.

The Deputies worked with the forklift driver in a rehearsed sequence to attach the suckers to the two back doors of the van. The two mechanics in their coveralls moved up to the doors on either side, each with a small sledge and a punch. They both made instant work of removing the hinge pins from the doors.

The forklift pulled the doors with their attached seals and padlock straight back to the other side of the bay. This left access to the van by a second forklift. In a matter of minutes the three bins were transferred to another waiting utility van marked with the logo and coloring of a local construction company.

Three bins matching the originals were moved quickly back into the van, each bearing a serial number matching the originals. With that the doors were