by Jeff Shelby
“Why?”
He unwrapped one of the tacos. “Because I'm a sadist. I don't know. I just wanted to watch it a little more. But I didn't see anything we didn't see before.”
I pulled the fish taco out of the wrapper, steam wafting off the fried fish. “Okay.”
He bit into the first taco and wiped his hands on a napkin. He slid another napkin across to me. “And I was thinking about what you told me about the motel break-in. I still didn't think it was a big deal, but I was just curious. So I had one of our tech people pull up video from Mission.” He paused. “In front of your motel.”
I picked up the napkin and wiped at my mouth. “Street camera?”
He nodded. “Yeah. City has them pretty much everywhere now. Main streets, highways, everywhere. We use them to run plates. They've got programs where we can search the video for a specific plate to see if it's crossed through the system. Does a whole lot of other shit I don't really understand, but it makes it a hell of a lot easier to find people if they're mobile.”
I nodded.
“So I was just curious to see if the video might show you anything from the break-in,” he said. “Usually we can get people crossing the street or run a plate or whatever. It's solid evidence if you can catch them in the act and end up prosecuting.” He tapped on his laptop and spun the laptop toward me. “Just tap play there.”
He had it blown up to full size, and the video was black and white. A time stamp was in the lower left corner. I tapped the track pad and the cursor blinked over the arrow. The video started running.
On the right side of the screen, I could just make out the front of the motel, where the office and check-in area was. The rest of the motel and the parking lot were cut off from view. Cars moved up and down the boulevard, even though it was the middle of the night.
Mission Boulevard never slept.
“I don't know what I'm looking at here,” I said. “The rooms that got busted into aren't in view and I can't even see the parking lot.”
“That's what I thought, too,” Wellton said, reaching into the bag for another taco. “Just watch.”
I kept my eyes on the office area.
The traffic stayed steady.
No person entered the picture.
I finished my taco and kept watching. When the taco was gone, I wiped my hands and wadded up the napkin and looked at Wellton. “I know this is just giving you fodder, but I have no idea what you want me to see.”
He grinned. “Open the other tab at the top of the screen.”
I found the tab, slid the cursor up, and clicked on it. It brought up another video screen and I recognized it as the one that showed Mitchell Henderson's crash. “So?”
“Watch it again.”
“I don't want to,” I said, shaking my head. “Bothered me the first time.”
“Watch it,” Wellton said. “And look at the cars. Not his.”
I frowned, but hit play. I looked away when his car careened toward the guardrail. Then I looked back.
“Okay,” I said. “I see them. I saw them before.”
“What are they?”
“Uh, cars?”
He rolled his eyes. “What kind of cars?”
I looked at the screen. “I see the pickup. A Honda Pilot. Some kind of Mercedes sedan. And a Porsche SUV.” I shook my head. “Same as before. I don't get it.”
“Go back to the motel screen.”
I sighed and toggled back.
“Rewind it and watch again,” he said. “Look at the cars this time. Because I'll bet you were looking at the motel the first time.”
I hated that he was right.
I rewound the video and then hit play again.
“Which direction?” I asked.
“Now you're asking the right questions,” Wellton said. “Away from the camera. Southbound.”
I nodded and watched.
“Right at about the 3:11 mark,” Wellton said. “Watch.”
I watched the timer tick upward and then when it hit 3:10, I shifted my eyes back to the screen.
Ford Explorer.
Tesla.
Shitty minivan.
Old VW bus.
And then something familiar.
“Porsche SUV,” I said.
“Bingo, Sherlock,” he said.
I paused the video and rewound it, then slowed down the speed, so that the frames stopped completely. When the Porsche came on the screen again, I froze it. I leaned closer to the screen. “Same car?”
“Looks like it,” Wellton said. “I blew up the image from the accident video because it was clearer. It doesn't have plates. If you look close enough there, you'll see that one doesn't either.”
I looked and he was right.
“No way to identify then,” I said.
“Doesn't look like it,” he said. “I asked the tech guy if there was anything he could grab, but he came up empty. He tried to find a camera on the other side of Mission that would catch the front, but looks like the car left Mission shortly after it passed the motel and that means we're out of luck. So no driver image or front plate. My guess, though, is that there isn't a front plate.” He nodded at the computer. “Assholes that buy those things don't like to dirty up the front with anything other than a vanity plate.”
I rewound it and watched it again. I used the zoom function to close in, but it got blurry fast. I zoomed back out. I rewound it and watched it twice more.
“So,” I said, leaning back in the chair.
“So. Yeah.”
“Definitely the same car?”
“Pretty certain,” he said. “The tech guy enhanced what he could. Tires seemed to match, though those could be stock. But he definitively matched model, make, and year.” He paused. “Would be quite the coincidence, no?”
Just having a Porsche SUV show up in two places in San Diego wasn't that unusual. Drivers in Southern California loved their expensive German vehicles. The no plates, same model, and the locations, however, made me think otherwise.
“Agreed,” I said. “So what do we do?”
He raised an eyebrow. “There's no we here. I'm just trading you a little video for some delicious fish tacos.” He unwrapped another one and held it up. “See?”
I frowned. “Come on.”
“I'm not sure where to go,” he said, lowering his voice. “Does it seem shitty? Yes. Is there anything we can do about it with no identifiers on the vehicle or the driver? Not really.” He paused. “But it gives you some sort of connection.”
“So you don't think I'm off here?” I asked. “You think there's something?”
“I hate to say it because that means admitting you're right about something,” he said. “But, yeah. I think there's something. It set off my internal alarm.”
I slid the computer back toward him. “Alright. And thanks for pulling that. I appreciate it.”
“And I appreciate the tacos,” he said.
I stood. “I'm aware.”
He started to say something, then stopped, pursing his lips. He glanced up at me. “Sorry about what I said about Santangelo in the elevator. I didn't mean anything by it.”
I walked to the door and stood there for a moment. “I know you didn't. It's fine. And you weren't wrong about what you said.”
John Wellton looked down at the food I'd brought him. “Neither were you.”
THIRTY THREE
Anne leaned back in her sofa. “Wow.”
I'd driven straight from the police station downtown to Anne's house. Carter was still there and I'd explained to both of them what Wellton had found.
She let out a long, slow breath, almost like she was trying to blow up a balloon. “So at least I know I'm not losing my mind. Someone is trying to scare the shit out of me.”
“I don't think we need the car in the videos to confirm that, but, yeah,” I said. “I think someone has an agenda.”
She shook her head. “A week ago, I was just sad that Mitchell was gone. Now I'm dealing with...th
is.”
“Did you go talk to the developers?” Carter asked from his perch in the beat-up recliner.
“I did.”
“You get offers?”
“I got one and one's on the way,” I said. I looked at Anne. “You wanna see the one I got?”
“I don't know,” she said, looking tired and beat down. “Do I?”
“I think it's a legit offer, if that's what you're worried about,” I told her. “And the one coming tomorrow is, too.”
She sighed again. “Sure.”
I handed her the packet of papers I'd brought in with me.
She paged through them, her expression one of boredom and disinterest at first. Then she reached the final page.
Where the purchase price was listed.
Her eyes went wide. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“No,” I said. “And as your unofficial advisor, I'd tell you to hold out for the offer that's coming in tomorrow. Because it's going to be for more than that, I'm almost certain.”
“No,” she said, disbelieving.
I nodded my head. “Yes.”
She focused on the paper, her hands shaking. “This can't be right.”
“Pretty sure it is,” I said. “Rose gave me a file with lots of paperwork in it. It included offers that had been submitted in the past.” I pointed to the papers she was holding. “They were in line with what you're seeing.”
She set the paper down on the couch next to her, her eyes still on it. “Wow. Just...wow.”
“A little overwhelming, I know,” I said.
She finally pulled her eyes away from the figures. “But the motel will be gone, right? That's what you said before, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Both developers that I talked to, their plans do not include keeping the motel around.”
“What will they build instead?”
“Condos,” I said. “Maybe a hotel.”
“Great,” Carter said, unenthusiastically. “Because we need more people from Arizona coming here to drive like morons.”
“Totally gone,” Anne said, ignoring Carter’s comment and looking at me. “Like, in a year, you wouldn't even know it had been there?”
I hesitated, then nodded. “Probably so.”
Her face paled. “That's awful.”
I shrugged.
“Could I negotiate that?” she asked. “Keeping the motel as part of the sale?”
“You'd need to talk to someone who knows more than I do about that,” I said. “My sense is that interest in the property would drop significantly, though, and people would not be so interested in buying. That's just me, though. If that's really what you want to do, you need to talk to someone who can give you better direction.”
She ran a hand through her hair. “Right.” Her eyes focused and she suddenly didn't look as tired as she had just a moment before. “Is Rose behind this?”
Before I could respond, she kept talking.
“She's always hated me,” Anne said, talking to herself more than me or Carter. “Always. And you saw how shocked she was that Mitchell left the hotel to me.” She paused. “It has to be her. Has to be.”
Carter shot me a look.
“I asked her,” I said.
“You asked her?” she said, her voice full of disbelief.
I nodded and told her about stopping by Rose Henderson's house.
“Doesn't mean she was telling you the truth,” she said when I'd finished.
“No, it doesn't. But when we were done, I felt like she was.”
“But you could be wrong.”
I nodded. “Absolutely.”
“He's not usually wrong about these things,” Carter said. “Just so you know.”
Anne flopped back on to the sofa. “I just...I can't believe someone would go through this amount of trouble to try and scare me into selling. I hate that. And I hate that I'm going to look like I'm giving into that.”
“The only person you need to answer to is yourself,” I said. “If you want to sell, then sell. But do it for your own reasons. Doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. It only matters what you think.”
“That sounds very noble,” she said, managing a weak smile. “But I'm not sure it'll play that way.”
I shrugged.
She waved a hand in the air. “I'm not trying to be difficult. I'm just processing all this.”
“I get it,” I said. “I really do. But here's a question you should probably be thinking about.”
She looked at me.
“Even if no one was trying to force you into this, would you still be selling?” I asked.
She thought about that for a long moment. “Probably. I'm not sure I'm capable of running it, like I've told you. For a lot of reasons. So, yeah, probably.”
“Then that's what matters,” I said. “Just be honest with yourself about what you want.”
“You make it sound so easy,” she said.
I stood up. “It's not. I know it's not. I've been there, so I'm not trying to simplify it or make it sound like something that's easy to do. All I want for you is for you to be clear on what you want to do. Make the decision for your own reasons and no one else's.”
She nodded slowly. “Okay. But let me ask you this.”
I waited. “What if I decide not to sell? For whatever reason. What if I keep the motel and this stuff keeps happening to me? Then what?”
I looked at Carter first, then back to Anne. “Then we'll deal with it.”
THIRTY FOUR
I left Anne's, drove back to the house, and tried to clear my head. I changed out of my adult clothes, exchanged them for a pair of board shorts, and jogged down to the beach with my board.
The water wasn't much better than it had been in the morning, blown out with a stiff breeze from the west. I persevered, though, and spent ninety minutes thrashing around in the water, trying to make something out of nothing. I'd learned that even when the water was mush, you could find a few salvageable waves and that was all I needed to make a session worth it. I found my few good waves and by the time I got out of the water and jogged back home, my head was clear and I felt pretty good.
I showered quickly, found a pair of tan shorts that didn't need ironing and a solid black T-shirt to put on, then downed a quick bottle of water before walking outside.
Shannon was already waiting at the top of the stairs and if I hadn’t been walking to meet her, I would've stopped to look at her.
She wore a yellow sundress with thin straps over her tan shoulders and her wavy red hair fell over both the straps and her shoulders. She had flat white sandals on her feet and her bronze skin glowed against the yellow and white. She had a small leather backpack slung over one shoulder, and her smile lit up the entire coast.
“Right on time,” she said, her head tilted to the side. “But you must not have had time to blow dry your hair.”
“Carter doesn't like it when I use his hair dryer,” I said.
The smile grew. “He seems like the kind of guy who doesn't like to share his toys.”
“You have no idea.”
She laughed, and I really liked her laugh.
We walked up the road and then went south on Mission. We chatted easily as we walked, about the water conditions that day, about the traffic on Mission, about the Padres still sucking. For the first time in a very long time, I didn't feel like I was working hard to be comfortable in someone else's company.
We crossed Mission to a taco shop a block up from The Blue Wave. There was no wait and the guy behind the counter recognized me, waving at me as we got to the counter.
“A regular,” Shannon whispered. “I didn't know I was getting the VIP treatment.”
“You set the bar high.”
We ordered and she tried to pay but I shoved my cash in front of her card. She frowned at me, but put the card away. She led us to a table by the window and our food was on the table five minutes later.
“Okay,” she said. “This place even smells
better.”
“This is my favorite place,” I told her.
“Your favorite?” she said, arching a thin eyebrow above her green eyes. “Wow. I'm honored.”
“I didn't want to disappoint you on the second date.”
“So far, so good,” she said.
I laughed and we ate.
“Holy monkeys,” she murmured halfway through her burrito. “This is amazing.”
“Yes. And...holy monkeys?”
“My dad caught me saying holy shit once and he suggested I find another word to replace the bad one,” she explained. “I chose monkeys and it stuck. I was eleven, by the way.”
“Swearing at eleven. Tremendous.”
“Oh, I was awful,” she said. She glanced around the shop. “So. Do you bring all of your second dates here? Woo them with amazing carne asada, guacamole, and Mexican beer?”
“You know I didn't make the food, right?”
She chuckled in response.
“I have not had many second dates lately, nor do I do much wooing,” I told her.
“No?” she asked, arching the eyebrow again. “You seem like the wooing kind.”
“I am so not the wooing kind.”
“Yet you brought me here.”
I picked up my beer. “Who says I'm wooing?”
She placed a hand over her heart. “I'm wounded.”
I laughed. “Fine. I'm doing a little wooing.”
She laughed and picked up her own beer.
We ate and watched the cars snake by on Mission.
She finished her burrito and balled up the wrapper. “So. Why not many second dates lately?”
“Because there haven't been many firsts?”
“Come on,” she said, squinting at me. “Women have to be throwing themselves at you. You're like the quintessential California surfer boy.”
“I'm not sure how to take that.”
“I meant it as a compliment.”
I took a drink from the beer. “I think I believe you.”
She kicked me lightly under the table. “Come on. Why?”
I set the beer down. “You want a vague evasive maneuver or the truth?”
“The truth,” she said, setting her elbows on the table. “Always the truth.”
