Spree

by Michael Morley

  O’Brien’s tone changed. “I’m being very open with you, Angie—are you doing the same with me?”

  Lamotta’s coded message to Jake played in her mind. There was a reason for the secrecy. “No, no, I’m not. But you need to give me a little time to do some private checks. It might just be something personal to Jake and I don’t want to regret throwing it into full public scrutiny.”

  “Hey, come on!” He sounded short-tempered. “As lead officer on his homicide, shouldn’t I be the judge of that?”

  “You’re right, you should. I guess I’m asking you to trust me for a little while and then I promise to tell you.”

  There was silence.

  She knew she was asking for a lot. “Remember I stepped back for you, Cal—I gave you twenty-four hours of silence on the race angle to the rape-homicide we worked.”

  He noticed it was the first time she’d called him Cal. She clearly needed his help. “Yeah, I remember it.”

  “Well, I guess I’m now asking you for the same. You know I won’t hold back anything that can catch Jake’s killer.”

  “I know.” He thought on it. “Okay, you have the twenty-four, Angie—just don’t make me look stupid at the end of it.”

  “You’ve got my word.”

  The line went dead and the Pacific rose in her windshield. Shutters loomed up ahead. A rambling, colonial beauty of a building, with white-fenced balconies and luxury rooms and restaurants hanging right out onto the Santa Monica sands.

  Angie left her car to valet parking. She slipped off her shades and strolled through the rich dark woods of the cool reception area and the warm, cozy lounge complete with log fire and leather and fabric settees. A few more steps took her into Coast, the hotel’s stylish café, where she instantly saw a muscular black man sitting at a table overlooking the ocean. He was in a bottle-green suit that was fighting a losing battle with his biceps and his eyes were hidden by aviator shades. The table in front of him supported a glass of untouched mineral water and an empty espresso cup.

  Joe Lamotta turned and stood as soon as he heard Angie approaching. He took off his glasses and revealed soft brown eyes that contrasted with the shaved head and the rest of his tough guy appearance. “Glad you could make it.” He shook her hand gently and caught the gaze of a fluttering waitress. “Another coffee for me, and…?”

  “Just water,” answered Angie. “Still, please.”

  The waitress disappeared and they sat.

  Lamotta looked around to make sure no one was within earshot. “Jake Mottram saved my ass in Yemen. I’d been hit by a shot from an Al-Qaeda sniper and was lying in the dirt waiting to be finished off. He rattled the living shit out of the guy with an assault rifle and carried me out of harm’s way. I can’t tell you how sick I felt when I heard he’d been killed.”

  Angie could tell his sentiments were heartfelt. “You said Jake had mentioned me to you.”

  “He had. Very warmly.”

  “But he never mentioned you to me; why would that be?”

  Lamotta smiled. “I’m not the kind of guy that gets mentioned. I’m in a job that people talk too much about. I know you traced our conversation to Langley, so you get my drift.”

  “You’re CIA—I’m guessing at Military Affairs.”

  “Ex-MA. I’m now with NCS.”

  She knew the National Clandestine Service was deep cover and deadly. “And were Jake’s calls to you in relation to your former or current employment?”

  He smiled widely. “The big guy told me you were like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “Determined. Stubborn. Smart.” His eyes grazed every inch of the café before he continued. “Jake had me look into something from the past—something military and confidential. I’d advised him that it was best not to do that. From what I found out I was right.”

  “What was that?”

  “Like I said, it was military related, and with his passing there’s really very little point in pursuing the line of inquiry he’d started.”

  She knew she was being stonewalled. “Did it have anything to do with his death?”

  “No.”

  “You can say that categorically?”

  “I can. I can give you my word.”

  She searched for a connection. “Then the messages I heard and saw from you on the covert phone that Jake used must also have related to a case that he was working.”

  He tried to cut her off. “Angie—”

  She pushed on. “It must have been recent information, so that makes it either the Sun Western, the Strawberry Fields UNSUB or”—she paused because the penny dropped—“or Corrie Chandler.”

  The fact that he blanked at the mention of Chandler’s name was all the confirmation she needed. “Chandler was ex-army. Former Tenth Mountain. I’m betting Jake discovered something about Chandler and he wanted you to check it was true.” She saw she’d hit a nerve. “He wanted you to validate something Chandler had said, didn’t he?”

  Lamotta turned his eyes to the waitress arriving with their drinks. “Thank you,” he said, glad of the distraction.

  “You’re welcome, sir.” She put down the water, coffee and left a ridiculously expensive check for him to settle.

  He watched her go, then resumed his conversation with Angie. “I came to see you in order to pass on my personal condolences. And to put your mind at rest as best I could. I realize you are curious, but please believe me, you will do no one any favors by pursuing the line of inquiry that Jake had been going down.”

  Angie was not that easily dissuaded. “You said in one of your cryptic messages that you had what Jake wanted. At least tell me what that was.”

  He looked straight through her.

  “I need some peace, Mr. Lamotta. I’m going out of my mind trying to live with my fiancé’s death. You can help a little by not keeping secrets from me.”

  He picked up his espresso and bought more time for himself.

  Angie watched him take a full hit of the bitter coffee. He blotted his lips with a crisp white napkin and then peeled twenty dollars off a billfold and put them next to the check.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, getting to his feet. “I really think this matter is best laid to rest with Jake. Again, my condolences.” He extended his hand.

  Angie got up and stared scornfully at him. “I’ll find out what’s being hidden. Sooner or later, I’ll find it.” She left him hanging and walked out.

  21

  FBI Field Office, LA

  The meeting with Joe Lamotta troubled Angie throughout the drive back to the office and into the large meeting room reserved for the case conference.

  Inevitably, the excited pre-meeting babble died down as people spotted her and whispered asides.

  Ruis Costas broke from a conversation with one of his SKU team and headed over. “I just wanted to tell you before you heard it in the room—ballistics have matched gunfire in the restaurant to Jake’s homicide.”

  The news was hardly a surprise, but it still made her feel as if she’d been punched in the stomach.

  He read her distress. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I just wasn’t ready for that. My mind had been elsewhere.” She got herself together. “Witnesses said the UNSUB pulled two guns at the restaurant.”

  “He did. Both Glock 18s. Only one matched Jake’s shooting.”

  Other pieces tumbled into place. “He shot with both hands. So he is ambidextrous, which is what I thought when I first saw the mall footage. And I’m willing to bet the bullet matches were made on Evelyn Richards.” She raised her arm, leveled it and aimed. “Shots he’d fired into the top left corner of the room, most probably with his left hand.”

  Ruis admired her smartness. Even through the fog of grief she saw things sharper than most people were ever able to. “You could be right.” He raised his left hand like a gun. “Angle of bullet entry would support your supposition. We took standard 9 mm slugs from Mrs. Richards and the rifling matched those that had killed
Jake.”

  Crawford Dixon had taken the room and was politely urging people into their seats. They settled, and as he went through the introduction, Angie ticked off the faces in the room: Sandra McDonald, Connor Pryce from the LAPD with Tom Jeffreys from the Bomb Squad and Cal O’Brien from Homicide. Ruis had slid into a seat alongside a redhead she didn’t recognize. She was in a black SKU sweat so Angie guessed that because Ruis was now acting in Jake’s job, this was most likely his number two. Ryan Fox from the Media Unit settled alongside a sheepish Danielle Goodman, who now had eyes as black as a panda’s. Finally there was a young woman from SKU taking notes.

  Crawford broke the bad news first. “In an hour’s time, Aaron Bolt will be formally released without charge.”

  Groans spread across the room.

  “We all may think this young man deserves to stay behind bars, but he’s walking free. At least for now. His similarity to the Sun Western UNSUB is uncanny, right down to choice of clothes and weapons, but that’s all it is. A similarity.” He shot a disappointed look in Pryce’s direction. “Now, as law enforcement officers, we have to publicly admit we were wrong and apologize for our indecent haste.”

  “What about the firearm he posed with?” asked McDonald. “Surely we can charge him with offenses related to that?”

  “He claims it was a fake. Says the picture was taken to poke fun at the LAPD after the last murder that they ‘falsely’ linked him to. There’ll be a trade-off with his attorney—no charges will be brought and no compensation filed for.” He spoke to the wider audience. “Okay, folks, the message is simple: Forget about Aaron Bolt; he is not our man. Don’t, I repeat, do not, waste any more time on him.” He waited a beat before he continued. “There is now a consensus among investigators that the homicides known as the Sun Western slayings, the Jake Mottram killing and the Lone Ranger murders were all committed by the same UNSUB. Agent Ruis Costas will walk you through some key points related to this theory.”

  Ruis got up and picked a video presentation controller off the table. A monitor on the wall flickered into life and the room’s light dimmed. “Left of screen, you see a freeze frame of the UNSUB from the Sun Western Mall, in his all-too-familiar T-shirt, cap, loose shorts and shoulder-slung sports bag.” He clicked a button. “And on the right you see the so-called Lone Ranger, in his Stetson and cowboy outfit. Note there’s another bag at his feet. This was undoubtedly used to conceal his weaponry and a change of clothes. Pieces of that bag were found burned to ash half a block away from the crime scene and Forensics are still pulling together what they can.” He used the controller’s laser pointer to guide a red dot over the second image. “We’ve run facial recognition software and done photogrammetry on his body size, checking critical points like wrist measurements when he extends and fires the guns, plus shoulder-to-shoulder dimensions and shoulder-to-ankle bone lengths—we’re sure it’s the same offender.” Ruis gave people a few seconds to study the images onscreen before he added, “Ballistics has also positively matched the rounds at the JZ Saloon to the ones that killed Special Agent Mottram.” He kept his eyes away from Angie and ran new video on the screen. “This is nighttime footage spliced together from several street cameras outside of our building. In places the quality is truly bad, and the tech team has had to do much more than enhance, color correct and expand this video, which is why we’ve been delayed with it. The feed marked ‘Camera One’ shows Jake’s Lancer leaving its parking bay and heading onto the street. Camera Two is clear enough; it covers the front of our building and you can make out some photojournalists standing there smoking. Camera Three is not so good; it’s a very high and wide shot of Wilshire Boulevard and you can just see, at the far right of frame, two parked vehicles. One is a large white works vehicle and the other a station wagon. The picture here is too grainy to pick out plates, but we can see both these sets of wheels are behind Jake’s car soon after he exits the parking lot.” Ruis changed frames. “Some of the following shots are even worse; they are from a street camera two blocks away.” He played the red laser over the screen. “Here is Jake’s Lancer again. A car back is the station wagon, a Mercedes by the look of it, and twenty yards behind that is a big white box on wheels that Traffic identified as a Ford E Wagon.” He switched slides again. “A block later the Mercedes has gone and we’re left with only the Ford and Jake.” He turned to the room. “We’re out of footage at that point.”

  “Was there nothing on the plates?” asked Crawford.

  “Next to nothing. Techies blew up the various pieces of footage and we got a couple of digits off each vehicle. It was enough for us to make up a pool of potential vehicles. We drained it down to ten Mercs and thirty Fords. An hour ago we reduced it to one Merc and one Ford.” He nodded to the redhead from his unit. “Tess, tell us what you’ve got.”

  She cleared her throat and read from a notebook. “The old Mercedes belongs to an Anthony Joseph Cheetham. He has convictions for unlicensed taxi driving. Cheetham is twenty-three years old and lives alone in Hancock Park. Neither he nor the Merc have been seen since Special Agent Mottram’s death.” She turned a page in the book. “The other vehicle is a one-year-old Ford E Wagon and it’s registered to Cleereroads, Inc., a countywide company that removes roadkill and debris from freeways, interstates and main thoroughfares. Before someone asks, yes, they work throughout the night; in fact, that’s when they do most of their clearing.”

  Angie caught her eye. “I’m just wondering, were any vehicles similar to these seen near the mall incidents or the restaurant killings?”

  “None were flagged,” answered Ruis. “Connor, Tom, did any of your teams tag a Merc or E Wagon?”

  “We had a suspect Merc,” answered Pryce, “but it was traced and eliminated. The owner had a disabled wife and he’d taken her to a friend’s and parked illegally.”

  “Bomb Squad had a long list of suspect cars,” added Tom Jeffreys. “I’ll double-check when we’re done here, but I don’t recall a fit to either of the two vehicles you described.”

  Ruis picked up. “In the next hour we’ll approach Dominic Cleere, the CEO of Cleereroads, and make attempts to trace and interview the driver. We’ll need to move fast, because if we come face-to-face with the UNSUB, it may well be during tonight’s shift, and I’d rather catch this particular individual by surprise instead of when he’s armed and ready for us.”

  Angie’s phone was set to silent. It vibrated on the table. She grabbed it to stop the rumble and read the message. It was from Chips: NEWS FROM RECORDS OFFICE—NEED 2 CU URGENTLY.

  22

  FBI Field Office, LA

  Angie found Chips in their office, pacing anxiously in front of a whiteboard, a black marker pen stuck like a cigar between his fingers.

  “What’s so important?” She put her purse on his desk.

  “I got news from the records offices. None of the victims gave witness statements concerning the same crime or served on the same juries, but get this—some of their loved ones did.”

  “Loved ones?”

  “Yep, husbands, wives, civil partners and siblings—in short, the jurors’ closest relations.”

  Angie took it in. “So you’re saying we’ve been looking in the wrong place—it’s not the victims he’s targeting, but those closest to them?”

  “Seems that way. Make them suffer more by enduring a sense of loss.”

  “I can relate to that.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. You’re just being professional.” She looked at the start of the list he’d scrawled in big black capitals. They were arranged under two columns.

  VICTIM JUROR/RELATION

  TANYA MURISON HARLAN MURISON

  EVELYN RICHARDS MIKE RICHARDS

  “So Tanya Murison was killed because her husband, Harlan, had served on a jury?”

  “That’s right.” Chips stubbed his pen on the name under it. “And Harlan served with Mike Richards, husband of Evelyn, the mom who fixed the party at JZ’s.”
>
  Angie’s eyes slid down the board to where another two names had been added:

  SEAN THORNTON MARY THORNTON

  “Thornton?” She turned to him. “I’ve heard the name but can’t place it.”

  “He’s the moneyman, banker-type shot in the john at the Olympic. His wife was the foreman of the jury.”

  Another piece of the mystery fell in place. “I remember now.” She studied another eighteen names. “And this is the rest of the jury and their partners?”

  “You got it.”

  MARCELLO YOUNG CARRIE YOUNG

  JORDAN ARIAS KATHY ARIAS

  ALLEN SCHULMAN CHRIS SCHULMAN

  BRITNEY HOPE CLAYTON HOPE

  ROBYN PAYNE NATE PAYNE

  MAGGIE LOPEZ HERNANDES LOPEZ

  LEANNE COSTELLO CHUCK COSTELLO

  NASRA BENGHAZI CHAHAL BENGHAZI

  TRACY REDFERN MARK REDFERN

  Angie turned from the board. “So there are twenty-four names in total; please tell me they all lead to one special trial and one specific asshole’s address.”

  “I think they do.” There was nervous excitement in Chips’s voice. “The twelve names on the right were all jurors in the trial of a man called Winston Hendry. He was convicted of first-degree homicide eight years ago and executed twelve months ago. The anniversary of his death came the day before the Strawberry Fields massacre. All those people on the right served on the jury that convicted him.”

  Angie’s eyes roamed the board. She fitted names with crime scenes and morgue pictures. Began to imagine the thoughts of the man who killed them. “And the names on the left are their partners or children?”

  “Or brothers. Allen and Chris Schulman are brothers.”

  She stepped closer to the board, as though the nearness somehow helped her memory. “Am I right in saying none of the vics come from the Strawberry Fields shooting?”

  “You are.” Chips looked a little deflated. “It looks like a flaw, but maybe it’s not. For now let’s put up with the anomaly and see if later on we can make sense of the field killings.”