Where Mercy Is Shown, Mercy Is Given - Duane Dog Chapman [112]
The cop got out and started walking toward us. I guess I looked like a bounty hunter to him. “I can see what you are, but who the hell are you?” he asked.
“I’m Dog Chapman, the bounty hunter from TV.” At that point, I had only been on a show called The Secret World of Bounty Hunters. This was a couple of years before I had my own show.
“I don’t watch much television. Sorry, pal. Who you looking for?” he asked.
“A guy named Mad Max Valez. You ever heard of him?”
“Yeah. He used to be around all the time, but he ain’t been here for a while.”
“Really?” I was intrigued.
He continued. “Yeah, he and his kooky old lady are gone.”
I glanced over at Leland, hoping he was picking up on all of the clues the cop was unaware he was feeding us. “Are you sure his old lady is gone too?” I asked after a moment.
“Naw. She still may be around. Just Mad Max is gone. We searched the house three or four times and came up with nothing.” The cop instinctively knew we were legit, so he didn’t detain us much longer. After he drove away, I turned to Leland and asked him if he’d caught all the clues.
“Yeah. The guy said, ‘We searched the house and came up with nothing’ was the first one, Dad,” Leland told me.
“Good boy. Any others?”
“Yeah. His old lady is a whacko.”
“Good boy. Anything else?”
“No.”
Leland got them all.
I beamed with pride as Leland and I drove to the local library to pull Max’s library card, something I used to do before the Internet. You’d be amazed at how much information you can gather at your local library. It turned out he had a different address listed with the library than we had on the bond. We drove to the house, knocked on the door, and asked if Max was home.
An elderly couple answered. They could have been his parents. “Oh no. We haven’t seen him in weeks,” they told us.
As we made our way back toward our car, I turned to Leland and asked if the report listed what type of cigarettes Max smoked. Most fugitives are smokers, so a lot of bondsmen will ask them for those types of details when filling out the paperwork. Sure enough, Leland said, “Salems.”
We had some searching to do. Leland pulled a pair of rubber gloves from his pocket and began picking through the trash cans in the back of the house. I call this technique “garbology” because we’re like archaeologists sifting through the ruins looking for any sign of civilization. We go through the layers of trash trying to piece together any clue that will help lead us to our man. When you’ve done this as much as we have, you can pinpoint dates, times, and all sorts of other helpful information. At the very bottom of the bin we found an empty pack of Salem cigarettes. We knew the pack hadn’t been in there very long because we found a recent newspaper right on top of it. I was proud to see that Leland was growing into a seasoned bounty hunter and was learning all the tricks of the trade. I had taught him well.
After finding the cigarette pack in the trash, we walked back around the house and knocked on the door again. However, this time no one answered. Something wasn’t right. Before Leland and I knew it, two pit bulls came tearing out of the backyard and began chasing us. I quickly reached for the Mace can on my belt and blasted one of them in the face. I soaked that son of a bitch from head to tail, being extra careful not to get any in his eyes. The dumb dog actually stood there and let me spray him down. I hit him with as much Mace as I could, hoping he’d run back into the house through the dog door I spotted. If there was someone hiding in that house, they were in for a burning surprise when that dog came bolting in. I didn’t intend to hurt