Stakeout!

Stakeout Part 2

The next day, Saturday, I follow Leighton to the mall. Since I know ahead of time I'll be staking him out I dress to show a lot less skin, wearing hiking boots instead of sandals, a NASCAR hat to hide my blonde hair and a pair of aviator sunglasses. With the crowd of shoppers as cover, he hasn't a clue that I'm around. He heads straight for a sleazy lingerie shop. As I pretend to examine an outfit that I wouldn't be caught dead in through the window, I feel my face flushing as I watch him pick out a bra, panties, stockings and garters, all in obscenely bright vermillion! Well, who's the lucky girl? Not!

That evening, I decide to do something I shouldn't. Uncle Amos has given me strict orders to take no chances on these surveillance jobs, both to avoid alerting the subject that somebody's interested in him and to keep myself safe. But by now, I totally don't like Leighton and I want to catch him doing something he shouldn't be able to. So after dark, I check out the brightly lit windows of his house with my zoom lens. I figure my chances of getting caught are pretty low; my car is in relative darkness under a tree.

Leighton doesn't believe in curtains, so I have no trouble seeing into the house. Problem is, I don't see him, even after I watch for several minutes. He's got to be in in the back of the house, because I watched him go inside and he sure hasn't come out again.

As I get out of the car, a little voice in my head is telling me that I'm being way stupid. I trot down the block and around the corner to the railroad tracks, then walk along the tracks until I figure I'm just about to his back yard. I clamber up the embankment, having a little trouble with the kudzu, and I'm looking at the back of Leighton's house. The windows are unlit, but there seems to be a faint glow coming from somewhere. Then I see from where. Regularly spaced around the cinder block foundation are small basement windows, painted white against the white foundation. Funny I didn't notice them earlier when I was watching the front of the house.

The little voice in my head gets louder as I crawl across the back yard on my hands and knees, trying to keep the telephoto lens dangling between my arms from picking up a coat of mud. Now I'm next to the foundation, and I just about press my nose against a basement window, but I can't see inside - the paint is too thick. A scratch with my fingernail confirms it's on the inside. I wonder, do I really want to see what he's doing down there, with that hooker's rig he bought today, and no woman? I shudder as a whole bunch of nasty images whirls through my mind.

I freeze as a light comes on almost directly over my head then shrink as close to the house as I can. Leighton must've come back upstairs and now he's in the room directly above me!

The little voice in my head is shrieking as I inch up to peer into the bedroom. There's a shade on the window but it's not pulled all the way down. I'm looking at him across his unmade bed as he stands there wearing only a pair of tight black jeans, wiping his hands and arms on a towel. Like I said, he's a little paunchy, but I can see the muscles rippling in his arms and back. His hair is mussed and his torso gleams with a thin film of sweat, or is it something else? It doesn't look like there's a thing wrong with his back, either, but he's not doing anything that I can photograph to prove that. The hooker's rig he bought is nowhere in sight. As he turns toward me, I duck down. I hold my breath and hug the side of the house as closely as I can. Did he see me?

It seems forever before the light goes out. I wait several minutes more before I edge along the wall of the house to the corner. I'm tempted to go out the driveway to the street and my car but I don't want to be seen coming out of his yard, so I crawl back to the embankment. It's a lot harder going down than coming up - the kudzu entangles my ankles and I end up going ass over teakettle the last ten feet. I painfully struggle erect and walk down the tracks, picking embedded gravel out of my palms and hoping I didn't trash an expensive telephoto lens.

Next afternoon, I'm back on Smith Street wondering if I'll ever get the goods on this asshole. Of course, I didn't say anything to Uncle Amos when I relieved him about what I saw last night. I'm totally thinking about sending Leighton a box of rocks by UPS, just so I can snap his picture when he picks it up off his porch!

I'm not there long when he comes out and fires up the van. Gee, where are we off to today? I follow him about half a mile to a grocery store. As he gets out of the van, I pull my cell phone, with its camera, out of my pocket to have in hand while we're in the store. Maybe he'll buy a case of bottled water or something and I can catch him lifting it into his cart.

I get a cart and try to stay close to him without getting too close. I'm pretty sure he didn't notice my face at all at the Chinese restaurant - he was way more interested in the rest of me. I'm still wearing the sunnies and the hat, but I don't want to blow it now. All I need is to stay in camera range.

He's a pretty boring shopper. He heads straight for the frozen food and gets a bunch of dinners. He gets some canned stuff, a six-pack of soda, a six pack of beer, and a loaf of bread. He stops at the back of the store and leaves his cart to go to the rest room so I check it out - he's got a couple of chicken dinners, two lasagnas, two meatloafs. A couple of cans of chili, a couple more of beef stew. I move on and wait till he comes out. He heads to the checkout, plucking a bottle from a shelf as he goes. I glance at the shelf as I pass to see what he got. Violet-scented bubble bath! Now what the hell does macho-man want with that mess?

I wait till he gets into the checkout line, then I go through the self-checkout, buying a loaf of bread just so he doesn't happen to notice me leaving the store with nothing. I want to be in my car before he gets outside. Something is nagging at the back of my mind, but I'm not sure what.

As I follow him back to his house, it all starts to fall in place. The hooker's rig. Too much Chinese food. Paint on the basement windows. Two of everything in the grocery store. Bubble bath!

"What do you mean, he's got a woman locked up in his basement?" Uncle Amos bawls. "Did you see her?" I hold the cell phone away from my ear.

"No, but..." I explain about the food, the lingerie, and the bubble bath. "And he drives a van!" To me, that's the capper!

"Means nuthin'!" Uncle Amos barks. "'Sides, all you need to do is get me a picture of him takin' out the garbage!"

"There was this guy in the midwest, Ohio, I think, who had three girls locked up in his house for years! They finally got him when the girls got away!" I hesitate, then I tell him what I saw when I snuck up to Leighton's house last night.

Now he's totally p.o.'d. "Nattie, I told you the ground rules when I hired you. And now, you tell me you broke ever' one of 'em! If he'd a seen you, he could'a had you thrown in jail for peepin', and sued the pants off'a me besides! I promised your mama and daddy I'd take care of you before I hired you! You're off this case as of right now! Don't you be there when I get there!" The phone goes dead.

Great. Now I've gone and lost the best job I've ever had!

That night at home, I get on Google and find the guy I'd told Uncle Amos about. It's Ohio, all right. I become more and more horrified as I read the story. The guy kidnaps three women in all, holds them for years, and does unspeakable things to them. One of the girls finally gets loose while he's gone, and gets the neighbors to call the cops.

Worst thing of all - this isn't the only case like this. I have to make myself quit pulling up the websites. I'm sure that something similar is going on in Leighton's basement, behind those painted windows! But what can I do about it?

I can't go to the cops, that's for sure. If Uncle Amos doesn't believe me, what chance do I have with them?

I go to a local TV station's website and look for reports of a missing girl. All I can find are cases that have already been solved - a couple runaways, a couple murders. I give it up for the night and go to bed.