by Alec Peche
“Talk to you later.”
Chapter Ten
Damian was kicking himself for being nervous about Trevor visiting his home. What was he so worked up about?
‘Okay’ he’d admitted to himself that Trevor’s opinion was important to him; he felt like an uncle to him as he’d known him for a long time and they had a special bond. His house and island were spartan and he had no visitors to the island after the workmen left other than Natalie. She barged onto his island with her wreaths on the first anniversary of his family’s death. She’d had a friend bring her by boat and she forced her way into his life and yes he would admit it, easily, that beginning opened a relationship both personal and professional that enriched his life. He also appreciated her idea for the wreaths ceremony as it both helped him mourn and to say goodbye. He might be able to tell her next year, if his life opened up a bit, to stop the ceremony. He hoped he might be able to say that as he somehow thought his life would be richer with more to focus on.
He did one final check of his house and land to make sure that nothing was out of place and he had food available for the game. He kept no alcohol in his house, in the beginning because he was worried about resorting to it to deal with the pain of losing his family, now sometimes he had beer and wine, sometimes he didn’t. He'd have wine or beer when he left the island but he didn’t miss it if he had no inventory.
He checked his watch and looked toward the Richmond Marina; he should see Trevor’s boat approaching soon. He would stand on top of the hill and direct him to the path that was the easiest way up. When it was time to leave he could take the zip line down. Damian would use his drone to bring the beer up, he didn’t want Trevor slipping and breaking glass on the side of his hill. It might hurt Trevor and it would be a mess to clean up.
He saw Mike’s pontoon boat approaching with Trevor. He was expecting a box of supplies in addition to Trevor and the drone was resting at his side. For once, Mike could motor back to the marina rather than staying to help Damian with putting packages inside the net that the drone picked up. The pontoon boat was great as it could come up on the sand and no one had to get their feet wet. Trevor hopped off then reached back to lift a cooler down as well as about five boxes. Mike was also Damian’s garbage man, taking recyclables and cardboard back with him, Damian composted his regular garbage, but he would have drowned in cardboard by now if Mike hadn’t helped him remove the stuff. Soon Mike was pushing off the sand and giving a wave goodbye as he headed back to the marina.
Trevor yelled up to Damian, “This entire morning’s been an adventure! How do I get this stuff up to you?”
“Welcome to Red Rock Island, just stay where you are and you can help me with my drone.” Trevor did as instructed and soon the boxes and cooler were close to his front door. He asked Trevor if he wanted to ride the zip line or hike the cliff. Trevor had somewhat non-gripping soles on his feet and so indicated the zip line. Damian disappeared from Trevor’s view, but then he saw an empty harness go over a rock and head for him.
Trevor moved over to the harness and stepped into it and gave the ready sign. He was soon moving over a rocky cliff in a circle around and up to the top of the island where Damian was waiting for him.
“I built the zip line for your mom. On her first visit, she skinned her hands and knees trying to scramble up the cliff. The ride makes her nervous but she prefers that to bleeding hands and knees.”
“It’s a rather daunting view when you’re moving over the rocky cliff knowing that if the thing drops you, it’s going to hurt a lot.”
“I built it; it won’t drop you. I over engineered it and I occasionally ride it myself.”
“I imagine the trip down is even scarier than up, but I guess the same is true about scrambling down that cliff. Do you need help with those boxes?”
“I’ll unpack them later, there’s nothing in them I need at the moment. The weather's good, so we can just leave them outside for now. You didn’t need to bring an entire cooler, I have a kitchen here you know.”
“Yes, but when I got here the beer wouldn’t have been cold,” Trevor replied. “This way we can open it immediately rather than waiting for it to cool in your refrigerator.”
Damian looked at his watch and said, “We better get inside, the game starts in seven minutes.”
Trevor picked up the cooler and followed Damian inside the house and over to a kitchen counter. It was a normal looking interior including a comfortable looking couch and big screen television.
Trevor looked around and said, “Where does your electricity come from?”
“A combination of solar and wind power. I’m working on a wave technology as well, but I haven’t figured it out completely yet.”
“Damian, this is a beautiful house you’ve created and I like that you figured out how to live off the grid but yet have all the modern conveniences. What’s next on your list to invent?”
Damian thought a moment and replied, “A greenhouse and a home brewery, after the wave power technology.”
Trevor just nodded then grabbed a beer and a sandwich from the cooler which he handed to Damian.
“I didn’t know what to expect here, so I brought sandwiches from your favorite fast food place. It’s pastrami and probably with a few seconds in the microwave it’ll be perfectly heated.”
“I had snacks and hot dogs to throw on my barbecue, but I’d much rather have that pastrami.”
They watched the first half of the game eating the huge pastrami sandwiches and washing it down with a couple beers. They discussed the performance of the Warriors team and then groaned as they saw their MVP go down with a knee sprain. At halftime Damian took Trevor down to the lower level to see his workshop and computer set up. Then they went outside so Trevor could try picking something up with the drone.
Soon they were back on the couch, worried about the outcome of the game without their star player, but they needn’t have worried, as their team blew out the opponent in the end. Mike was scheduled to come back and pick Trevor up in about thirty minutes, and so they sat there chatting about other things.
“Damian, you’ve served as a mentor for me for the past seven years and I’d love to bring my fiancée to meet you soon. I’ve talked to her about you and she’ll likely expect you to be twenty feet tall and able to foretell the future.”
Damian thought about the request and replied, “My brain might be twenty feet tall, but the rest of me is just a regular guy. You could come back next weekend as I’m sure the Warriors will have another playoff game if she’s interested in basketball.”
“Of course she’s interested in basketball, I couldn’t date a girl who didn’t have interest in sports. She played B-ball in high school and went to college on a softball scholarship so she’s a force to be reckoned with.”
“Good to know, I won’t challenge her in either of those two sports. Once we know the schedule, I’ll make arrangements with Mike and email you. I see his boat coming now; he’s always perfectly on time. Do you want to hike down or ride the zip line?”
“I’d hate to ruin a perfectly good day by falling down one of your cliffs, so I’ll ride the zip line down. Maybe when I come back next week, I’ll try the hike up and wear the appropriate shoes.”
“Sounds like a plan, safe travels home.”
Damian watched the boat depart before going back into his house. He sat down on his couch to think about how he felt about the day. When he thought about it, he guessed there was something right about Trevor being his first guest to the island. The visit had gone well and he’d be back next weekend with his fiancée. She’d be the first true stranger to visit his home. Even Mike had never come up the cliff, to see the house he made so many deliveries to. He’d had a good time this afternoon and looked forward to repeating it next weekend.
He wondered how Natalie was doing, running down the two suspects.
Chapter Eleven
Natalie was excited to follow up on Damian’s leads. She had a feeling
that if she gave him the data that he would figure out how to put it together effectively with a computer so that it was a more efficient use of time. She had tried doing what he did manually and hadn’t been getting anywhere as there were simply too many facts to comb through.
She made an appointment to meet with her SJPD detective contact, Kevin Shimoda, and discuss the two cases. She knew that Kevin, on the one hand, hated that the work had been contracted to her, but rationalized the need to solve the old cases and at least they had worked together before she retired. Once Damian had the fingerprint matches, she went back and pulled the same stuff manually in the SJPD system. She didn’t want Kevin to know that Damian had hacked into the FBI system. Kevin would be doubtful about how she’d gotten the print matches, but that didn’t matter, he would be more excited about pulling the two suspects in for questioning and trying to solve the cold cases.
Sitting in a drab conference room in her old division, she discussed the two cases with Kevin.
“They both appear worthy of questioning. I think we can bring Mr. Avery in for questioning, and we’ll ask the Phoenix PD to go out to Mr. Watson’s home and question him for us,” Kevin said.
“Are you going to get a search warrant for either suspect?” Natalie asked.
Kevin paused, thinking of the pros and cons and then nodded. “It will take longer, but I suspect our thug at the local convenience store won’t willingly come in for questioning and if he does indeed belong to the Aryan Brotherhood, he’ll have a sophisticated gang behind him.”
“I agree and with the information about Greg Watson. Phoenix PD will have a sophisticated client for a different reason. Before we interview that gentleman, I want our coroner to look at the case and tell us if the knife’s edges match the victim’s remains. It will take longer but it will be an amazing piece of physical evidence if the coroner can make the connection. Thankfully, the man who committed the other crime with that knife is still incarcerated; otherwise we might not have the knife still in evidence. Is Dr. Patterson still on the job at the coroner’s office? He was always excellent with knife wounds on the body,” Natalie mused.
“He’s still working and that was exactly who I was going to tag for this investigation. He’ll have to compare the photos taken by the CSI techs when we recovered the bones. I know they photographed what they thought were knife striations according to the case report.”
“Let’s hope for a match.”
“Yeah. I wonder about John Avery. He appears to have had three kills attributed to him about twenty years ago and would appear to meet the FBI’s definition of a serial killer. I wonder why he stopped killing women? Or did he? Maybe I can do more fingerprint searches and see if his prints were found at any other older crime scenes before we computerized prints to the degree that we have today.”
“Natalie, the problem with that is so many prints for the time period you’re talking about exist in individual jurisdictions and haven’t been computerized yet.”
“True, but it’s worth a look. How do you feel about taking on the AB gang?” Natalie asked curiously as she hadn’t had any real dealings with the group during her career.
“I’d almost rather take on any other group of people including ISIS. They are a large white extremely violent prison gang that operates drug manufacturing and distribution outside of prison. I bet that convenience store is a source of meth distribution. I think I’ll call my contacts in gang investigations and the covert response unit. I think the three of us could work together to set up surveillance on Mr. Avery. It would help to have something criminal to hold him on while we wait for other pieces to fall into place.”
“Maybe this will be a two-for and we’ll stop a slice of the drug trade. Kevin, is there any information you need for this interview of John Avery?”
“No this is good work Natalie. I hated when the brass contracted this work to you, but I’m not sure we would have found new clues on these two cases, so if it had to be someone outside the department, I’m glad it was you.”
“Thanks Kevin. You know my contract is not a reflection of poor work on your part, the SJPD is just understaffed.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said as they stood up and shook hands before Natalie left the building. She greeted acquaintances on her way out. It’d been several years since she worked here, but she knew a lot of people in this building. She considered herself a good interviewer and hated not being in on the action when they brought Avery in for questioning. Hopefully the case would be cracked wide open next week she thought as she approached her car while checking her emails. Kevin promised to keep her informed with the findings in the case and she’d have to be satisfied with that.
Out of the corner of her eye, she watched a man walking through the parking lot on a collision course with her. There was something about his behavior that made her suspicious, starting with the fact that he looked like a thug. She decided to change course and return to the building as if she’d forgotten something. At the same time, she wanted to keep a few cars between her and the thug.
She surreptitiously looked around the area thankful that the sunglasses could hide the movement of her eyes. When she’d changed course, she noticed that he had also. They were on the side of the building for public parking, unfortunately all of the patrol cars as well as officer private cars were in a separate parking lot. If she was still a member of the force, she would have had a body armor vest on and a gun in her holster. As a private citizen, she had neither, although Damian had rigged a water pistol for her with pepper spray. It was lime green and plastic, so as to be immediately recognizable by the police as not a real gun. She could, however, shoot a thirty foot stream of pepper spray at anyone bothering her. She’d once told Damian she felt insecure no longer walking around with a gun on her. He told her that she’d get into a lot of worthless trouble carrying a gun and had mailed her the water gun with instructions to practice shooting it. She did and walked around with it loaded with a home based recipe for pepper spray. Her husband had at first laughed at the solution and then called Damian to express his thanks for the gift. His eyes had pained him for hours after he accidentally touched the solution then rubbed his eyes. He liked that his wife was happier and protected.
The thug continued his beeline for Natalie, clearly intending to cut her off before she turned the corner of the building where there would be a lot more people and officers using the building entrance. She pulled out her water gun and yelled, “Freeze right now!”
The thug ignored her warning and reached for something in the back of his pants.
Chapter Twelve
Natalie took aim and fired at the thug as he did likewise. He saw that she was holding a plastic water gun and gave her an evil grin, assured of who would come out the winner in this gun battle. Fortunately, while his bullet was faster, she gotten off her stream and he was hit in the face by it causing his shot to go wide. The noise of the gun brought people around the building to where the thug was moaning in agony with his hands over his eyes, his grin gone from his face.
Police immediately swarmed the two of them and took the guns off both of them. One of the officers recognized Natalie and asked her to make a statement as to what had happened. The thug continued to moan and would do so until his eyes were washed. Natalie’s water gun was put in a police evidence bag, by a detective who was trying not to be caught laughing at a crime scene.
Natalie made a note to herself to ask Damian to send her another water gun as it would be months to years before she got her lime green gun back. She trooped back inside the station knowing there were going to be a lot of statements she would have to give and it would be hours before she was released. Since the thug had fired a gun and the police had the shell casings, and gunpowder residue on his hands and the security footage of their little gun battle, Natalie was in the clear a few hours later minus her handy little toy gun.
She had the thug’s name and put in a call to Damian hoping to get him in person.
&nb
sp; “Hey Natalie, how did your meeting with your detective go?”
“It went well. He’s getting a search warrant, and bringing in both the gang and covert operations folks to see if we can kill three birds with one stone.”
“Covert operations?”
“That’s the new age name for cops that go undercover concerning illicit drugs.”
“Oh, I guess I haven’t watched enough cop dramas recently.”
“Damian, I was shot at in the parking lot at the headquarters and,”
“What! Are you hurt? Which hospital are you at?”
“Damian I’m fine thanks to you. In fact, I haven’t told my husband about the incident, I’m so fine. I need a new water gun; yours worked perfectly, but they confiscated it as evidence. That is after they all got done laughing at a retired girl detective running around with a plastic water gun. I’d also like to see what you can find on a guy named ‘Michael O’Brien’. He was the thug arrested for shooting at me.”
