Gomez pulled on his tan sports jacket, checked his Glock. As if the bullets had fallen out between the last time he’d checked and now. ‘After you, Al.’
Together the men walked out into the parking lot.
Kathryn Dance was waiting.
‘Hey,’ Gomez said.
‘Jimmy.’ She nodded. And they walked toward Stemple’s cruiser.
Looking around, Dance asked, ‘Charles doesn’t know I’m here, does he? You’re sure?’
‘Not from us,’ Gomez confirmed. ‘We Fab Four took a vow of silence. Even Steve Foster’s agreed. He can be a … you know.’
‘I do.’
It was transparent, Stemple thought.
They climbed into the car. Stemple started the engine and sped west on 68, heading for Highway One, which would get them to Moss Landing in twenty minutes.
‘Who’s this Tia we’re going to see?’ Gomez asked. Then: ‘Whoa.’
Stemple never paid much attention to speed limits.
Dance said, ‘Tia Alonzo. Use to be an exotic dancer.’
‘Love that. “Exotic”.’
‘And model. Wannabe, of course. Serrano met her at a party and they, well, kept up partying for a month or two. It ended but they hook up occasionally. TJ found Tia’s gotten a couple of texts from Serrano lately. He’s checking her sheet now, seeing if there’s any paper we can use to leverage her into helping us. Or maybe she’ll just cooperate. Out of the goodness of her heart.’
Now, yeah, Stemple grunted.
A real houseboat.
Rundown but Al Stemple liked it.
About forty feet long, fifteen wide, a squat whitewashed structure on top of pontoons.
Wouldn’t mind something like that.
Moss Landing was a stretch of marinas, shops and restaurants scattered along a sandy road that paralleled Highway One. The houseboat was anchored in a secluded area of docks. In its heyday, the years of plentiful fish, the Steinbeck years, this spot had been home to hundreds of fiftyand sixty-foot fishing boats. No longer. Some pleasure craft, a few small fishing operations – party boats and commercial – and then, like here, a houseboat or two.
Stemple parked about a hundred feet from the place. The three CBI agents climbed from the car and slowly made their way toward the boat. A beat-up Toyota was parked in the weed-filled lot in front of the vessel. Or house. Or whatever.
‘One car only. But doesn’t mean she’s alone.’ Stemple made a fast security sweep. And returned. ‘Looks good to me.’
Dance regarded her phone. She said to Gomez, ‘TJ. He’s telling me no paper on Alonzo. Yellow sheet – lewd and lascivious, prostitution, public drunkenness. Years ago. She’s been a good girl since.’
‘Nothing violent, then.’
‘Nup. But we have to assume she’s armed.’
Gomez said, ‘And you’re not, right?’
‘Nope. Stay close, Jimmy.’
‘Oh, I will.’
‘And, Al, don’t watch the perimeter.’
‘Gotcha.’
They approached the boat, which was called the Lazy Mary. Stemple didn’t like the name. Wasn’t elegant. If he had a houseboat, he’d call it something like Diamond Stud. No, too tacky. Home of the Brave. Good. He liked it.
Near shore was a breakwater, so the occasionally ornery Monterey Bay waters didn’t intrude here. Today the Lazy Mary rose and fell, Stemple decided, lazily.
Gomez glanced at Dance, who nodded and said, ‘Let’s do it.’
They walked over a short gangplank and onto the deck, painted gray, scabby. Gomez knocked on the door.
It opened and they stepped inside.
Stemple looked out over the marina, adjusted his Beretta on his wide hip and crossed his arms.
CHAPTER 55
Fifteen minutes later Gomez, Stemple and Dance were driving back to headquarters.
She called the task force and got Carol Allerton.
‘It’s Kathryn. You’re on speaker here with Jimmy and Al.’
‘You’re speakered as well. Steve Foster’s back. And Steve Two, too.’ Uncharacteristic humor from a DEA agent.
‘Steve and Steve,’ Dance said.
‘Hi, Kathryn.’ Lu, of course, since the greeting sounded warm.
‘Yeah?’ A gruff voice. Did Foster ever utter a cheerful syllable?
‘We just left Moss Landing,’ Dance said.
‘And?’ Foster grumbled.
‘Tia Alonzo hasn’t seen Serrano for a month. I believed her.’
Silence from Foster now. He didn’t say what he wanted to.
Dance continued, ‘But she gave up another name. Pete or Pedro Escalanza. TJ’s going to track it down. Ninety percent the guy’s got Serrano’s present whereabouts.’
‘Lead to a lead to a lead,’ Foster said, with buoyant cynicism.
Allerton asked, ‘So, at the houseboat. It was productive.’
‘That’s right.’
‘And you’re okay. Jimmy’s okay?’
‘I’m good,’ Gomez said.
‘Tia was saying this Escalanza, he’s got access to some of Serrano’s accounts. If we play it right, we might be able to pick up his credit-card numbers, track him in real time.’
‘Or maybe we’ll find another lead,’ Foster chimed in. ‘Let’s be transparent here. I’m not overly reassured.’
Stemple coughed.
Dance said, ‘The best we could do, Steve.’
Allerton said, ‘I’ll tell Charles.’
‘Thanks.’
‘We’re coming back in.’ Dance disconnected.
Stemple said, ‘Life’s a fucking checkers game. No, chess. You play chess, Jimmy?’
‘No. You?’
‘Yeah, I play chess.’
‘Really?’ Gomez asked.
‘Why really? Because I bench-press three hundred and group my rounds touching at fifty feet – if I’m using the long barrel?’
‘I don’t know. You just don’t seem like a chess player.’
‘Mostly people think I tap dance for a hobby.’
In a half-hour, eleven a.m., she was back in CBI headquarters, making for Overby’s office, in the company of TJ Scanlon.
As they walked along, she checked her phone again. Texts from her mother, Boling. Maggie, silly and happy – because, of course, she’d been pardoned from the cruel and unusual punishment of singing in her class’s talent show.
Nothing from O’Neil.
Did she expect an apology? The hard words had been motivated by his concern for her but she’d found them patronizing. That was difficult for her to get past.
She supposed the frisson between them would dissipate, like smoke from a brief fire. This happened from time to time, head butting. Still, they had had such a complicated history, personal and professional, that she never knew if the flare would spread like a wind-fueled brushfire racing over the dry, bristly coat of the landscape in this state. Destructive, even fatal. She’d never prepared for a final rift with Michael O’Neil because, well, it was unimaginable.
A glance at her phone once more. Nothing.
Let it go …
They arrived at Overby’s office and the CBI head waved them inside. ‘Just found something interesting. Got a call from Oakland PD. The arson?’
Dance nodded and explained to TJ about the Operation Pipeline warehouse that some crew had burned down.
‘But – it wasn’t a gang that did it.’
Dance cocked her head.
Her boss continued, ‘Mercenaries.’
TJ said, ‘Working for a crew, then. Didn’t want to get their dainty little fingers dirty.’
‘No. Not working for a crew. They got out of the country but left some tracks behind. Guess where they were based? Baja.’
‘But not working for one of the Mexican cartels?’
‘No. Working for someone else.’
Dance understood. ‘Well, well: Santos hired them. He was behind it.’
‘Bingo,’ Overby said.
C
hihuahua Police Commissioner Ramón Santos, who’d called the other day to excoriate the US contingent of Operation Pipeline for not doing enough to stanch the flow of guns into his country.
‘He took matters into his own hands.’
‘Oakland DEA contacted some of their people in Mexico and confirmed it.’
Dance grimaced. ‘Thought he was taking down a source for the guns? Well, he shot himself in the foot. That warehouse was a great source for intel. Does he know he’s set us back a month with his little fireworks display?’
‘He will,’ Overby said, ‘after I call him this afternoon.’
Whatever else about his personal style, Overby combined righteousness and indignation very, very well.
‘So Santos,’ TJ said, ‘has got an interesting approach to enforcing the law. He breaks the law.’
Then a sound behind her, paper shuffling, footsteps. Michael O’Neil came into the office.
‘Ah, Michael.’
‘Charles.’
She looked his way. He nodded to everyone. ‘Morning.’
Overby said, ‘Okay, the Solitude Creek unsub. Where are we?’
O’Neil glanced toward Dance. She said, ‘Well, all we have are dead ends with the unsub’s Honda. But Jon Boling’s hacking into the unsub’s phone now. It might be the burner he used to call Sam Cohen or the one at the Bay View Center, where he called nine one one, the media and the restaurant on Fisherman’s Wharf after the Bay View incident. Or maybe another one. Jon’s also cracking Stan Prescott’s computer – the man killed in Orange County. We hope it gives us some clue why the unsub went to all that trouble to murder him. And TJ? Update on Anderson Construction?’
The young agent reminded Overby that he was trying to track down officials from the Nevada corporation hiring Anderson to do some construction work in the Solitude Creek area. In hopes of finding some witnesses. ‘They’re taking their sweet time getting back to me. Weekend-itis maybe. I’ll definitely squeeze them tomorrow. And I’m keeping up canvassing people who were at the roadhouse that day. But same old. No leads.’
Overby nodded and looked at O’Neil, who was opening his briefcase and extracting a folder. ‘Crime-scene report from Orange County?’ Overby asked.
‘That’s it. Not much. Some trace elements. Footprints that probably are the Louis Vuitton. They have good security video at the Global Adventure theme park but all it shows is the crash, then our man jumping over the car through the gate. The teams down there canvassed a hundred people but nobody saw anybody who could’ve been him.’
He added, ‘And some OC detectives looked over Prescott, fine-tooth comb. Talked to most of his friends, bosses, co-workers. All his redneck buddies. No connection to our unsub. He just randomly pulled the picture of Solitude Creek off the web and posted it in his rant.’
Dance said, ‘So, he just had the bad luck to pick our boy’s attack to use in his post.’
O’Neil continued, ‘There were nearly four thousand texts and voice calls out of the park, once the rumors started to spread. Some of those would be his prepaid mobiles. But Orange County can’t devote manpower to go through every one and try to narrow it down.’
Overby said, ‘He caused all that chaos by a few phone
calls?’
‘Pretty much that’s it. But he was smart. He spread the rumors verbally in the park too. And the patrons helped him out, of course, when they texted and tweeted. Online media and TV picked up the story in seconds, and then those who weren’t at the park would text their family members and friends who were inside.’
Overby nodded. ‘Chain reaction.’
‘Flash mob,’ Dance said. ‘No prints on anything, not even shell casings – at either scene, Prescott’s apartment or the theme park. And the car he stole from the airport here?’ O’Neil explained it had been a sloppy theft, suggesting he wasn’t a pro at the art.
But, she reflected, it had worked.
Overby’s cheek twitched up. ‘So, nothing other than the phone.’
O’Neil said, ‘I’ve found something else, though. Not really a lead. But it’s something to throw into the mix about our unsub.’
‘What’s that?’ TJ asked.
‘Remember that Jane Doe?’ He spread out the photos that Dance had seen. ‘The asphyx?’ O’Neil explained about the homicide he was working, the attractive young woman found in a seedy motel, the bag rubber-banded over her head.
Never rains but it pours …
‘Could have been consensual sex gone wrong, could have been intentional. We don’t know for sure. Except for this.’ He opened the folder and extracted a photograph. It was a still from a security video. The picture was black-and-white but it clearly showed a light-colored Honda Accord.
‘No tag number,’ Dance noted, shaking her head.
Sometimes it was that easy. Not often. Not now.
‘Where was it?’
‘A block from the motel where our Jane Doe died. I had some MCSO officers canvassing all the businesses around the area and one came back with this.’ Tapping the picture.
‘The connection, though?’ Overby asked.
O’Neil pulled another crime-scene picture out of the back of the folder and set it beside the Jane Doe. It was of Stan Prescott’s body.
Looking from one to the other, Dance said, ‘It’s the same pose as Prescott, same cause of death. Asphyxiation. Both lying on their backs. Both images are stark: the victims are lying in pools of bright light from nearby lamps.’
‘Why would he kill her?’ Overby wondered aloud.
Dance offered, ‘The TOD on the Jane Doe was just after Foster leaked the info about what the unsub was wearing. Maybe she’d seen his outfit – the worker’s jacket with the logo he’d worn to Solitude Creek. And he realized she could ID him.’
O’Neil: ‘Could be why she didn’t have a phone or computer or notebook. That could lead to him. The scenario: she wasn’t from here. They met in a bar, had a oneor two-night thing. They were going their separate ways but he had to take her out.’
Dance asked, ‘But why the parallel means of death?’
‘Sadism,’ Overby suggested.
Maybe. That wasn’t, however, a question that interested Dance at this point. She had only one query in mind: was their unsub back in town, with another venue in his sights?
CHAPTER 56
Antioch March was thinking of Calista Sommers.
The police still didn’t have her name. In the media, she was referred to as Jane Doe. A picture had been released. Her death was either murder or some kind of weird sado-sexual thing.
He just happened to be driving near the bar where he’d picked her up earlier in the week.
A martini for her, a pineapple juice for him.
She’d still be alive if she hadn’t been brash enough to fling open his closet in search of a robe. Modesty. That was what’d killed her. She’d have seen the outfit that he’d worn at Solitude Creek, when he’d moved the truck to block the exit doors. At that point, the announcement had not been made that a witness had seen him – so he hadn’t thought anything of it. Shortly thereafter, at the movie theater, he’d learned that the public had gotten the word. Why on earth they’d released his description he still couldn’t fathom.
The police’s disclosure not only saved him at the theater incident it had got Calista dead. As soon as he’d left the McDonald’s near the theater, after learning of Ms Agent Dance, he’d taken a drive to Calista’s motel in Carmel. Hoping she hadn’t heard the description broadcast. But no. She’d been pleasantly surprised to see him. He asked if she wanted to take a drive. And once they were under way, how ’bout an adventure? Some little no-tell motel?
‘You naughty boy …’
You’re so fucking handsome …
And then …
Sorry, Calista.
‘No, no. …’
He pictured her on the floor of the cheap place, shivering as she died. The plastic bag over her head. Five, six minutes was all it had taken.
>
He now tucked away the happy memory and continued to one of the places he’d found a few days ago, perfect for another attack: a church reception hall.
It was astonishing to him, the number of people killed in stampedes related to religion.
Mecca. Never do Mecca.
How anybody could manage to hang on to faith after hearing about those deaths was beyond him. Thousands had died.
India was pretty bad too, crowds of hundreds of thousands. Oh, what he could do with a herd like that …
Ahead he could see the venue he’d checked out earlier. There was a church supper planned there tonight. The site was particularly good. Two exit doors that could be bound shut with flower-arranging wire. Perfect.
This also happened to be an African-American church. And someone in the area, conveniently, had been targeting ethnic facilities just like this. That meant the people would be particularly paranoid, fast to escape if there was any sign of threat.
Fast to crush their fellow congregants to save themselves.
He’d start a small fire outside, just like he’d done in Solitude Creek. That would be enough, smoke wafting in. They’d be thinking the neo-Nazis had returned and, tired of simple-minded graffiti, were now intent on doing the real thing. Burn them to the ground. March thought it would be—
But, no, what was this?
As he approached he noted a sign on the billboard out front.
Dine with Jesus Supper Postponed. Join us for Services next week. Pray for the victims of Solitude Creek and the Bay View Center.
March sighed. He guessed he should have anticipated that. The bigger venues were probably robo-calling ticket holders and cancelling shows.
He wondered if Kathryn Dance was behind this.
Maybe not behind. But involved.
Well, he certainly couldn’t leave the area just yet. So, what to do? Out-think them, out-think dear Kathryn. Well, performance venues were out, reception halls too. Maybe weddings were going on but they would probably have been moved outside – the weather was temperate enough for that.
Solitude Creek: Kathryn Dance Book 4 Page 25
