believed that society owed them and therefore should hand them everything for free on a silver platter—the ones that felt it was okay to take from others as long as they didn’t get caught. They were usually marked from head to toe, representing all the things they had accomplished in this short life of theirs, from having children to tears on the face representing the number of kills they had committed. Sadly, they were proud of this. Jaxon would have happily taken these people outside and have a few choice words with them before beating the shit out of them. But Jaxon new he was not allowed to do that, even though society, in general, would be better off if he would. These choice few were the ones that Jaxon scrutinized the most because they were the category where Johnny would fall.
From his picture, you could see the tattoos up his arms and the one on his neck that stood out. It was a cross with barbed wire around it and the name of a woman written inside it in Gaelic letters. It looked like Maria, though it is hard to read unless he stood still for you. Hell, it could have been Mario for all Jaxon knew. But this was how Jaxon was going to find Johnny, after all this time, riding this train line.
the stakeout begins!
Chapter 3
Jaxon got to his desk earlier than most of the other officers, except Peter who always tried to beat Jaxon to work in an attempt to avoid missing something important and being left behind, and began pulling up the train schedule. He conveyed to Peter what he deduced to be the means by which the targets were picked by Johnny Markus. Peter was amazed again how Jaxon could connect the dots so quickly and easily.
“I can’t believe you noticed the ads on the train. How many people actually look at those? I guess people do, otherwise, no one would use it!” Peter exclaimed with excitement.
“I was trying to sleep, but my vision just lingered for a minute, and I noticed the ad for the bank over on Tremont. It was one that he had hit, so I started looking around, and lo and behold, all his hits were listed there.”
Peter moved his chair around to join the working of Jaxon’s mind and see what they could come up with. Jaxon pulled up the train schedule for the RTD light-rail and showed Peter which line he took. However, they didn’t believe that Johnny would have come from Jefferson or Boulder counties. Most likely, he lived somewhere in Denver county or Arapahoe county. So they figured the station he would have started at would have been Aurora Metro Center.
“I think he would most likely have switched to the A train that would take him to the 16th Street Mall where he could ride it up and down all day long. He would have used it as his escape route also because he could get on and off frequently to lose himself in the crowds,” Jaxon stated as he highlighted the route.
“I totally agree, and I think we’re going to have to take a section of the train each and monitor it, then do the Sixteenth Street together. We’ll definitely need as many eyes as possible on that section,” Peter added.
“It will be a boring monitoring job, but I think it’s what we have to do. We’ll have to pick just like three days out of the week to ride the individual trains and then maybe the other two down at the mall. We know what he looks like, which gives us an advantage. Which route would you like to ride?”
“Shit, I don’t care. I’m so excited that you figured this out. You should get first choice,” Peter stated.
“Then I’ll take the R line and get on at Lincoln where the route starts. You should get on at Sixty-first and Pena and ride the A line. We’ll stay in contact by phone or text. We’ll do this on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and then Thursday and Friday, we’ll spend on the mall.”
“Perfect. We’ll start this upcoming Monday.”
When Jaxon and Peter finally looked up from his computer, they noticed Captain Edwards standing behind them. Captain Edwards was an African American gentleman who ran his department well. However, Jaxon was his least-liked employee. He would love for him to retire but knows how valuable he was, so he remained torn on the issue of forcing Jaxon to leave or accepting his nuances and moving forward. He had been very happy with Peter being Jaxon’s partner because the two managed to offset each other well, with Peter having more control of Jaxon than any other partner in Jaxon’s long career.
“What are you two working on now?”
“I believe we’re making progress on the Markus case.”
“Would you like to share what you feel you have so far?” he said with a disdain that could not be feigned. Captain Edwards knew that Jaxon was an exceptional officer and investigator, but his attitude and lack of communication always rubbed the captain wrong. He was happy to have Jaxon, but again, couldn’t wait for him to retire. In the interim, he was not going to make life easy or comfortable for Jaxon. He had always hoped Peter would be the best offset as he was turning out to be.
Jaxon explained what their theory was and what it entailed and, though thin, was supported by Captain Edwards. He authorized Jaxon and Peter to stake out the train station as though it were his idea. Deep down, the captain knew that the two were going to do exactly that, with or without his approval.
“And don’t think that you can leave me out of this because I will not hesitate to remove the two of you from this case and give it to someone else, or let it lie in the unsolved causes for an eternity. Do you both understand? I want updates every two hours on your status. I don’t care if you text it to me, but I will be patiently waiting your updates.”
“Yes, captain,” both Jaxon and Peter said at the same time.
Jaxon always preferred to skip the chain of command if at all possible. And Peter was respectful of his partner and would always follow his lead as long as it didn’t cross that fine line of disobeying his boss.
The two picked what they considered to be the best times to monitor the train based on the times and locations of all the robberies. They would start their stakeout the following Monday morning early, pretending to be friends that had not seen each other in a very long time. They would get a coffee and then head to their respective beginning locations. They would do this as planned for the first three days, then they would skip the first Thursday so Peter could take his wife to her prenatal doctor’s appointment. They were expecting their first child, and Peter never wanted to miss anything. He worshiped the ground his wife walked on. He would then catch up on reports in the office with Jaxon, updating their notes from the previous three days. They were both to take random pictures of people that could be possibilities and would stay in contact via text messages and email.
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were very monotonous. Jaxon and Peter saw numerous people that appeared similar to Johnny but not enough to encourage the two that they were on the right track. The description of Johnny they had from the file showed a white male about six two, athletically built, in his late twenties to early thirties, with tattoos running up his left arm onto his shoulder and neck. They were able to eliminate many possibilities by the lack of ink on the neck that would show even with a button-up dress shirt.
Thursday came, and Jaxon worked on downloading all the pictures they had taken over the last three days. He placed the pictures in piles based on one, possible; two, maybe; and, three, no. By the time he got done, pile number three was the largest. He rubber banded these and placed them in the file for future reference. Number two contained about ten pictures, and Jaxon took most of the day running them through ViCAP (Violent Criminal Apprehension Program). He then rubber banded them and set them aside because he now had names and would create a separate folder for each one, again for future reference. That left three pictures, with two coming back unnamed from ViCAP. One, he noticed fit the description of Johnny except he didn’t
