“Damn, she’s not here tonight.”
“Are you following me?” cried a female voice.
Tanner stole a glance and saw that it was the blonde. She must have arrived to work later than usual and caught Hoyt in the act.
“Don’t deny it. I’ve seen you out here before, you’re following me, aren’t you?”
“No!” Hoyt said. “I was just in the area. I’m working in a building over there.”
The woman moved closer.
“I’m not mad. I’m happy to see you.”
“What?” Hoyt said, as Tanner was thinking the same word.
“You care about me. Oh, I knew you still had feelings for me.”
Hoyt shrugged.
“I just wanted to see where you worked.”
“That’s not it. You’ve changed your mind. You’re going to help me?”
“No, Stephanie, I haven’t changed my mind.”
“But you have to help me. There’s no one else.”
Tanner came out from concealment and watched the pair. He couldn’t figure out what was going on. Hoyt and the woman paid him no attention, as they were engaged with each other and he was obscured by passing pedestrians.
“I don’t have to help you. I don’t owe you anything.”
The woman moved closer to Hoyt and put her arms around him, as she gazed into his eyes.
“No, you don’t owe me anything, but I wish you felt the way I do.”
“You probably hate me for saying no.”
The woman shook her head.
“I don’t hate you. I love you, Daddy, and I’ve spent so many years missing you.”
Daddy? Tanner thought. Even as he wondered what the girl was talking about. What had Hoyt refused to do for her?
“I’ve gotta go,” Hoyt said. He broke free of his daughter’s embrace and rushed across the street, despite the red light.
A cabbie blew his horn after swerving to avoid hitting Hoyt. Hoyt made it to the other side, where he entered the coffee shop and went to the counter to order. He never once looked back at his daughter, who stood where he’d left her, with tears streaming down her cheeks.
What the hell is going on? Tanner wondered, as Hoyt’s daughter wiped away tears.
35
What’s An Ollie?
NEAR RENO, NEVADA, MARCH 1998
Spenser and the boys spent the day watching Gregor Rossi’s home and gaining insight into the guards’ habits, as well as the area’s activities. There were several families living nearby and their children seemed to delight in annoying the gate guard.
There were the young boys on the bikes who pestered the guard, and later on came the teens. They didn’t approach the guard, or even talk to him, but it was evident that he was irked by their presence, as they sped up and down the block on skateboards. Seeing that gave Spenser an idea.
“Do you two know how to use a skateboard?”
“Yeah, dude,” Romeo said.
“Not me,” said Cody. “But I know how to break in a horse.”
“Hmm, too bad,” said Spenser. “I was thinking of letting you two lend me a hand while I fulfilled the contract.”
“I can learn to skateboard,” Cody said.
“In two days?”
“I’ll teach him the basics,” Romeo said, “You know, like how to do an Ollie.”
“A what?” Cody said.
‘An Ollie, dude, and a kick flip, front side 180, back side 180, heel flip, pop shove it, front shove. I’ll teach you all of it.”
“In two days?” Spenser asked again.
“I’ll learn it,” Cody said. “I’m a fast learner and I want to help you.”
“All right,” Spenser said. “The plan will work as long as you learn enough to stay on the skateboard. You two will distract the gate guard while I perform the hit.”
“Cool,” Romeo said.
“But how are you going to get inside, by pretending to be a guard?” Cody asked.
“Yes, but not just any guard. I’ll be the guard that drives that blue Chevy Cavalier. We’ll come back here tomorrow morning, then follow the man home. The next day, I’ll show up here in his car, wearing his uniform, and gain access to the house with his swipe card. In the meantime, you’ll be learning to skate.”
“We should stop somewhere and buy some knee pads and elbow pads for Cody. He’s gonna need them,” Romeo said.
“Great,” said Cody.
They drove back to Reno and had a good meal, after stopping at a sporting goods store to buy the skateboards. Spenser headed up to his room, but Romeo and Cody went to the top floor of a parking structure to begin Cody’s lessons.
“You have good balance, dude. You’ll learn the rest easy,” Romeo said.
They kept at it for hours, and Cody surprised himself by enjoying it. In the first hour, he became proficient at staying on the board while making turns.
By the time they quit for the night, Cody had mastered the Ollie, which was jumping in the air along with the board without using your hands. To accomplish this, a skateboarder had to slide one foot back along the board to its edge while bending down. Then, the opposite foot was placed on the nose of the board, lifting up the rear. Afterward, you had to prepare for the landing by repositioning your feet over the wheels.
It was a simple maneuver, but it took time for the coordination to sync and become a habit. Cody had fallen many times, but he always got right back on the board, and Romeo proved to be a good and patient teacher.
“Thanks for the lesson, Romeo. I’ll spend more time practicing tomorrow when we get back from following that guard.”
“You don’t have to thank me, bro, we’re in this together.”
Cody went to his room and put the television on to watch a pre-season baseball game. He didn’t even make it to the second inning and fell asleep with the TV on.
They were back at the house early again, but with a different objective. They would follow the guard with the blue Chevy to his home.
“We’re not going to off the dude, are we?” Romeo asked.
“That won’t be necessary,” Spenser said. “But we will have to put him out of commission.”
“What if he’s got a wife and kids?” Cody said.
“I’m not sure we’ll need to take him at home, but we do need to know where he lives.”
“Where else would you grab him?” Cody said.
“Did you notice him carrying anything when he arrived yesterday?”
Both boys answered at once.
“He had a cup of coffee.”
“Very good, good observation and recall skills. Yes, he had a cup of coffee from a donut chain. I bet he stops there every day on his way to work. If we determine that we can’t take him at his home, then grabbing him while he stops for coffee might be our best bet. We’ll follow him into work tonight to see where he goes, then tomorrow we make our move.”
They followed the guard to a three-story apartment house where he parked the car on the street. There were single family homes across from the apartment house, and the road was a busy one.
Using the binoculars to peer through the glass outer door of the apartment house, Spenser saw the man head up a staircase, which went up to the third floor. There was only one apartment to each floor, but did he live on the second floor, or the third floor? If they needed to take him at home, they had to know where to find him.
Spenser had discussed this while following the guard and had given out an assignment. Romeo was seated next to the passenger door while Cody was in the middle, so Spenser gave Romeo the task of finding out more about the guard.
As the guard was headed up the staircase, Romeo was dashing across the street. Once he was at the apartment house, he eased opened the door to the street and listened. The guard was still climbing the stairs.
As his footfalls became faint, Romeo knew the man had gone up to the third floor. The footfalls ceased altogether, then were replaced by the jingle of keys and the sound of a door being unlock
ed.
Romeo closed the apartment house door, looked across to Spenser in the SUV, and held up three fingers, to indicate the third floor.
Spenser sent him a nod, then held up five fingers. He was reminding Romeo to wait five minutes before initiating the second part of his assignment. When the five minutes elapsed, Romeo ran up the stairs and knocked loudly on the guard’s door. There was a TV on inside the apartment tuned to a sports station that was giving a round-up of the previous night’s games.
The guard opened his door. He was barefoot, still wore the uniform pants, but had shed the gray shirt and was walking around in a black T-shirt. Romeo studied him for a moment and thought that he was about Spenser’s height and build. The man was older though, about forty, and his rugged face gave away the fact that he had worked outdoors during some period of his life.
“What do you want, kid?”
“I’m here to see Judy. Is she home?”
“I don’t know any Judy, and no one in the building has that name.”
While the guard spoke, Romeo looked past him and into the apartment. The place had bachelor written all over it. There were fast food cartons on the coffee table and clothes on the backs of chairs. It definitely did not appear that a woman was living there, unless she was as sloppy as the guard seemed to be.
“I thought Judy still lived here. Are you sure you don’t know her?”
“Listen, I’m cooking bacon and I don’t want it to burn. There’s no Judy here, okay?”
“Yeah, thanks,” Romeo said, as the door was closed in his face. He headed back to the vehicle to give a report.
“Good job, Romeo,” Spenser said. “I would guess that if he did live with someone else they would still be inside the apartment, given the early hour. Now I’m thinking our best bet will be to take him at home. That would also gain me a few more minutes. If I change here, I won’t have to switch clothes with him out on the road somewhere.”
“Are we still going to follow him to work tonight?” Cody asked.
“Yeah, we’ll follow him again, just to be thorough. In the meantime, you two practice your skateboarding.”
“Cody will be ready, dude. He’s a natural,” Romeo said.
“I’ll spend the day practicing, Spenser.”
Spenser stared at the boys.
“I don’t think you’ll be in any danger. The gate guard will assume that you’re just two more kids in the neighborhood out to have fun. The thing is, if he makes a call to the other guards and no one answers, he’ll come inside. You can’t let him come inside.”
Cody and Romeo nodded their understanding.
“Don’t hurt the guard any more than you have to, but he has to be taken out of commission if he gets curious. The odds are he won’t know a thing until one of the other guards shows up for the second-shift.”
“You’re not going to have much time inside that house,” Romeo said.
“I’ll have about fifteen minutes. That’s enough time for a Tanner, and it will be an eternity for Gregor Rossi.”
36
A Complication
NEW YORK CITY, JANUARY 2018
Hoyt’s daughter, Stephanie, poured coffee into a cup and placed it before the customer at the counter. The customer was Tanner.
He was wearing the glasses, the special ones with the lenses that tamed his gaze. He gave Stephanie a sympathetic smile.
“You look sad. Are you all right?”
“What?”
Tanner tossed his thumb over his shoulder, in the direction of the street.
“I saw you out there arguing with your boyfriend.”
“Oh, no, that was my father.”
“Yeah? He did look too old for you, but you know, I also thought I recognized him from somewhere. He looks like a guy I used to know out west.”
“We’re from out west. I grew up in Arizona.”
“Maybe it was the same guy. What’s your father’s name?”
“Cliff Dawson.”
“Cliff Dawson? No, no the guy I was thinking of was named Harry, or maybe Henry, something like that. So, what was the fight about?”
Two customers entered, a man and a woman. They slid into a booth, and Stephanie took out her order book.
“Excuse me, I have to see to these people.”
“Sure,” Tanner said. While Stephanie was busy taking the couple’s order, Tanner thought over what he had learned. Hoyt’s real name was Cliff Dawson. Cliff was the name of the young man whom Donna Hoyt said her brother was hanging around with at the time of the murders. The odds that they were the same Cliff were good.
Tanner took out his phone and sent a text to a man named Tim Jackson. Tim was a hacker. He might be able to find out Cliff Dawson’s history. Tanner described Dawson, told Tim the man was probably born in Arizona, and gave his approximate age, along with the fact he had a daughter named Stephanie.
Outside in the street, Stephanie had told Dawson that she had spent years missing him. Perhaps he was away for a while, like someone doing a stretch in prison.
There was another waitress working. Twice, Tanner heard her ask Stephanie if she was all right. He had thought Stephanie appeared fatigued the first time he’d seen her, but up close it looked like more than exhaustion. The girl was thin, her skin pale, and she rested on a folding stool behind the counter whenever she got a chance to do so.
Stephanie came back after Tanner finished texting and asked if he wanted anything to go with the coffee.
“How’s the pie here?”
“It’s really good, especially the apple.”
“I’ll have a slice of apple pie then.”
When it was presented to him, Tanner took a bite of the pie, which was in the form of a huge wedge that was more than he wanted of the sweet. He agreed with Stephanie. It was good.
He thought of asking her about her father again, and about the trouble between them. He decided not to press too hard. He was just another customer on a slow night, but if he began interrogating her, he’d become memorable.
As Stephanie moved away to see to a new customer, Tanner sent off another text to Tim, telling him to also look into a young woman named Stephanie Dawson. Perhaps Tim would ferret out the trouble between father and daughter, as well as Stephanie’s mystery illness.
Tanner had eaten as much of the pie as he desired and was downing the last of his coffee when Stephanie appeared with a carafe.
“How about a little more coffee?”
“Why not,” Tanner said.
After pouring the coffee, Stephanie leaned on the counter and spoke in a low tone.
“That argument I had with my father… it has to do with my health problems.”
“I’m sorry to hear you’re not well.”
“It’s my kidneys, they’re failing, and I need a transplant soon.”
“That sounds serious.”
Stephanie’s eyes grew moist.
“My father is a match, but he refuses to help me. I think maybe he’s scared it will shorten his life… which it might.”
“What are the odds of finding another donor?”
“Almost nonexistent due to certain genetic factors. That’s why my father has to help me. If he doesn’t…”
The couple who had taken the booth needed a refill of their coffee cups. As Stephanie saw to them, Tanner left Stephanie a large tip and exited the coffee shop.
Stephanie’s tale of woe certainly complicated things. Now that Tanner knew what was going on, he couldn’t simply kill Cliff Dawson and leave the body to be found. His daughter needed the man’s kidneys, or she would die.
Since he didn’t fear that Stephanie would become her father’s next victim, Tanner no longer had to keep watch over her. Anyway, Hoyt, or rather, Cliff Dawson, would be spending the night cleaning office buildings.
Tanner decided that he would halt his surveillance on Dawson until the weekend, then follow the man to see where he went and find out what he did with his free time. The odds were good that Dawson had
n’t changed his ways.
As Tanner was stepping off the curb to head to his car, a garbage truck swerved around the corner. The huge vehicle’s right wheels left the ground, but it failed to tip over, and was once again barreling along the street. A car followed directly behind it. The car was familiar, as was its driver. It was Sara.
37
Role Camouflage
NEAR RENO, NEVADA, MARCH 1998
As Spenser had guessed, the guard turned out to be a creature of habit. On his way to work in the late-afternoon, he stopped at a donut shop in a strip mall that was at the end of the building. The donut shop had a drive-thru service and the guard didn’t even have to leave the car.
“We’re definitely taking him at his apartment,” Spenser said. “We’ll break in tomorrow while he’s sleeping during the day.”
“Are we coming too, or waiting in the car?” Cody asked.
“You’ll both be with me, but I have a job for you, Cody. Romeo had the last assignment, so tomorrow you’ll be picking the lock on the guard’s apartment door. It will be good practice for you.”
Cody also continued to practice his skateboarding. When Spenser arrived in the parking garage the next day at noon, he was impressed by how much skill Cody displayed.
“You are a fast learner. That’s good, you’ll need that ability once we get to Mexico for training.”
After eating lunch, they drove to the guard’s apartment house. Spenser entered the building first, followed by the boys a few minutes later. It was best if they weren’t seen entering together, Spenser had told them, as the three of them together were more memorable than a lone man and two teens. He met them on the landing and had news.
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