Free Requite by E. H. Reinhard Page A

will be right with you folks,” the hostess said.
    She turned her back on us and rushed off to the front of the restaurant.
    A waitress came past dropping drinks off at the table next to us and walked up.
    “Hi, I’m Missy, I’ll be helping you guys out today. Can I start you off with some drinks?”
    “I’ll just have a coffee,” I said.
    “Same for me,” Hank said.
    “Nothing for me?” Michelle said.
    “OK. I’ll be right back with those.” She smiled and walked off.
    “OK Miss Collins, we won’t try to take too much of your time up here. Why don’t you go over the other night for us,” I said.
    I dug in my pocket and pulled out my notepad to jot down the specifics.
    “Well, my boyfriend was there with his friends watching basketball or something. He drank too much, so I went to pick him up around bar close. I pulled past the lot for the bar and there was no place to park, so I went over to the parking structure. I drove around and couldn’t find a spot on level one so I went up to level two. When I came around the corner, I saw a couple people lying on the ground with a guy leaning over them. My headlights shined on the guy and he looked over at me. I stopped my car right there. The guy grabbed the girl up from the ground and put her into a van. A few seconds later he peeled out leaving the guy lying there. I waited a minute or two and drove over. As soon as I saw all the blood, I called 9-1-1. I waited in my car until the cops came.”
    Her statement matched the one we had from last night to the letter. We needed to get the little details.
    “Now it says here that he was wearing coveralls and a mask, can you describe those a little for us?”
    “Well, the coveralls were white—head to toe with a hood.”
    “OK, white coveralls with a hood.” I wrote it down. “And a mask? Can you describe that?”
    “Ski mask. Black. Just cutouts for his eyes and mouth. I remember that.”
    “Shoes?” Hank asked.
    “I don’t think I looked,” she said.
    “Gloves or bare hands?” I asked.
    “White gloves.”
    I wrote it down.
    “Ethnicity?” Hank asked.
    “I couldn’t tell.”
    “Height and weight? Do you have a guess?” I asked.
    “He was thin and tall. He had to be a couple inches over six feet.”
    I jotted thin, six feet plus down on my notepad.
    Our waitress showed with our coffees. “Are you ready to order or do you need a couple minutes?”
    “We’ll need about ten minutes or so,” I said.
    “Sure, no problem.” She left us.
    I added a couple creamers and took a sip from my coffee. It was about what you’d expect, but not completely terrible. We got back into the interview.
    “Miss Collins, what can you tell us about the vehicle he was driving?” I asked.
    “White cargo van.”
    “You don’t know what kind though?” Hank asked.
    “Sorry, I’m not good with cars.”
    “A guess at how old?”
    She shrugged. “Sorry.”
    “What about identifying marks on the van? Were there any words on it or damage that stuck out at you?”
    “No. It was just a white van.”
    “Windows?” I asked.
    “Just front ones.”
    “It says here you didn’t get a plate number. Did you see any of it?” I asked.
    She shook her head. “It didn’t have one.”
    “So there were no plates on the van at all?” Hank asked.
    “No.”
    I looked at the statement she left at the scene. No Plate was written down, meaning there literally was no plate, and not that she didn’t get the plate number.
    Michelle looked at her phone. “I have to be back at work in ten minutes.”
    “That’s fine. We’re just about through. Can you just tell us about driving up to the man and what took place then?” I asked.
    “Well after the van drove off, I drove up to the man lying on the ground. He wasn’t moving. I got out and walked over to him. There was blood everywhere. I thought he might be dead, but I wasn’t going to check. I got back in my car, locked the doors and called 9-1-1.”
    “And you waited there