Chapter Seven

The Buck Might Stop Here but the Bus Doesn’t

Megan

The bus driver squinted, as if doing so would somehow help him better see the mental vision of the bus-jackers in his mind. “All three wore sunglasses and hats with ear flaps. The taller white guy wore a plaid flannel one with button-down flaps. The black man wore a tan one with fleece on the edges. The shorter white guy wore a knit one with those yarn braids hanging down the sides. His hat was green with big eyes on top.”

“Una rana,” clarified a Latina woman who stood at the front of the crowd that had gathered around me.

“A frog?” I’d learned some basic Spanish, and obtained my Spanish surname, from my father. From my red-haired Irish American mother, I’d inherited a tendency to freckle and that quick temper I mentioned.

“Sí,” the woman replied.

I jotted some notes on my pad and looked up again. “What about the rest of their clothes?”

The people exchanged uncertain glances.

“Loose windbreakers, I think,” said the bus driver.

“No,” insisted a blonde woman with a chubby-cheeked toddler on her hip. “They were wearing oversize sweatshirts.”

“No no no.” A gray-haired man raised a palm. “I’m sure they were in sports jerseys.”

“Which teams?”

The man who’d been so sure only a second ago now seemed uncertain, offering only a shrug in response.

I sighed inwardly. “Can we at least agree on a color?”

No consensus there, either. The responses ranged from dark green to navy blue to black. It wasn’t surprising that the witnesses had different takes. Eyewitness testimony tended to be unreliable. Memories malfunctioned under surprising or stressful situations. People tended to be more concerned about saving their own lives than making mental notes of the criminals’ fashion choices.

The only thing the crowd agreed on was which direction the bus had gone.

“That way,” they said in unison, pointing off to the east.

“What was the bus number?” I asked the driver.

“Five ninety-three.”

“Do the buses have LoJack?” I asked. “Or some other kind of tracking device?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” the man said. “I mean, who’d steal a city bus?”

Who, indeed? A bus wasn’t exactly the typical getaway vehicle. Robbers usually tried to make a quick and subtle exit. Riding off in a large, lumbering vehicle was a bold move. And the bolder a criminal was, the more likely it was that things would not end well.

“You said the men had a rifle,” I noted. “Which one of them was carrying it?”

“The black man in the tan hat.”

I saw no harm in giving the man some details. “The men who took your bus robbed a bank down the street first.”

His jaw fell slack. “Holy cow!”

I squeezed the button on my shoulder mic to speak with dispatch. “Be on the lookout for city bus number five nine three. It was hijacked at the corner of Rosedale and South Henderson by the men who robbed the bank. Suspects are armed. Repeat—suspects are armed.”

The dispatcher responded. “We’ll get a chopper in the air.”

I collected contact information from the people who’d been riding the bus, thanked them for their time, and turned to the bus driver. “The detective who gets assigned to the case will want to speak with you. What’s your cell number?”

“I could give it to you,” he said, “but it wouldn’t do any good. I left my phone on the bus. One of the riders had to lend me her cell to call in the hijacking.”

A squad car pulled up to the curb. Officer Hinojosa sat at the wheel. He unrolled his window and cocked his head in question. “Heard someone stole a city bus?”

“Crazy, huh?”

“Must be spring fever. You need some help here?”

“Thanks,” I told him, “but I’ve got it.”

“All righty, then. Later.” He lifted his fingers off the steering wheel in a casual good-bye gesture, cast a glance over his shoulder, and pulled back into traffic.

I gestured for the bus driver to follow me. “Come with me to the bank. A detective should be there shortly, and I’ll see that you get a ride back to the city bus depot.”

After I clipped Brigit’s leash onto her collar, she stood and followed me and the bus driver back to the bank, her nails click-click-clicking along the pavement.

When we arrived at the bank, I found several other officers, including Mackey, working crowd control, keeping customers and looky-loos at bay until the detectives and crime scene techs could arrive and do their jobs.

“Fire cool off already?” I asked as we walked past Mackey. “What did you do, ask it on a date?” Okay, so it was a dig, and a lame one at that. But the guy never missed an opportunity to point out my shortcomings or give me crap. I was only returning the favor.

“You missed out,” he snapped, treating me to another smirk. “Turns out the fire was intentionally set.”

Arson, huh? Interesting, sure, though arson crimes fell under the jurisdiction of the fire department. They had their own team of investigators who were specially trained in fire science and could identify accelerants.

Detective Audrey Jackson pulled into the lot in her unmarked white cruiser, took the first available spot outside the perimeter of yellow tape, and climbed out of her car. Jackson was an African American woman in her forties, with short perky braids adorning a sharp, perceptive mind. She was dressed in her usual khaki pants, which she’d paired today with a white blouse and a basic navy blazer. Before closing the door, she reached into her car and retrieved her zippered laptop bag that doubled as a briefcase.

I led both Brigit and the bus driver over to her. “Detective Jackson.” I gave her a polite nod and held out a hand to indicate the man next to me. “This is the driver of the city bus the bank robbers hijacked for their getaway vehicle. I thought you might want to speak with him first.” After all, if Fort Worth PD could track down the bus soon, they might find the bank robbers still on board, and the case could be closed quickly and easily. “He says the buses don’t have tracking devices, but he left his cell on board. C-Could his phone be traced?”

“Good thinking, Megan.” After setting her computer bag between her feet, Detective Jackson whipped out a notepad, jotted down the bus driver’s name and cell number, and pulled out her own cell to call Melinda, her administrative assistant who also served as the office manager and receptionist for the Fort Worth Police Department W1 Division. “Get a triangulation on the cell phone ASAP,” she told Melinda. “Call me once you know something.” Jackson ended the call, slid her phone back into her pocket, and returned her focus to the bus driver, beginning with an open-ended question. “What happened?”

“I pulled up to the stop at Rosedale and South Henderson,” he said. “There were a couple of people waiting. They climbed aboard and I was just about to shut the doors when I heard someone yelling for me to wait. I looked in the side mirror and saw three men running toward the bus. I thought they wanted to get on so I left the door open and waited for ’em. When they climbed aboard, one of them raised a rifle in the air and told everyone to get off the bus.”

Jackson held up a finger. “Did the hijackers rob the riders first? Make them hand over their wallets and purses? Jewelry?”

The bus driver shook his head. “No. They only seemed to be interested in the bus. I expected them to force me to drive them somewhere, but they ordered me off the bus, too. Next thing I knew, they’d closed the door and driven off.”

Jackson’s head bobbed slightly as she took in the information. “What did the three men look like?”

“Hard to say,” the bus driver replied. “They were all wearing sunglasses and hats that covered their ears.” He cupped his hands over his ears to demonstrate. “Roomy jackets, too.” He lifted his elbows now to simulate a loose-fitting garment. “But I could tell that two of them were white. One of the white men was average size, but the other was short and chubby. The third man, the one with the gun, was black. A little on the tall and thin side.”