Becoming Quinn (jonathan quinn thriller)

by Brett Battles

  Jake continued forward.

  It wasn’t until the dark-haired man entered the lobby from the number two elevator that Jake stopped again. He’d missed it before but now there was no mistaking it. The light-haired man and the dark-haired man had shared a look. Brief, yes, and most people who saw it would probably have dismissed it, but Jake saw it for what he was sure it was — a signal of some kind. The moment they looked away from each other, the light-haired man put his phone in his pocket and headed for the door. The dark-haired man had then headed in the same direction, a few feet behind him.

  Okay, Jake thought. There’s a connection between the men, but absolutely no connection to the murder out on Goodman Ranch Road. They could be anybody.

  Then his fingers reached out and slammed the Pause key.

  The dark-haired man had slowed next to a table, his hand hovering over a bowl filled with matchbooks.

  A tingling feeling ran across Jake’s shoulders.

  He scrolled forward, frame by frame. The man’s hand inched downward, first touching the stack of blue booklets, then picking one up and slipping it in his pocket.

  Jake stared at the screen, no longer seeing the image it held.

  He knew this still didn’t prove a damn thing. Dozens of people must have taken matchbooks from that bowl every day. That, and the fact Jake’s interest in the man was based on no more than a feeling, made it all the more unlikely. Yet, he continued to have a sense that the men were…were…

  Different.

  That was it. There was something about them that set them off from others. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly what that difference was, but he knew it was there.

  He finished watching the men exit the hotel. There were no more causes to pause, no more what-the-hell moments.

  He checked his watch and was surprised to see he only had a half hour to get to the substation. Where had all the time gone?

  He was about to thank Parker and tell him he was done when he remembered the man who’d entered the elevator on the third floor. He knew his sense about this man was even weaker than his feelings about the other two, but it was best to play it safe.

  He found the appropriate footage of the man exiting the building a few minutes before the other two did, and paused the picture. The guy was probably in his early forties, in decent shape, and had a bit of a scowl on his face.

  He looked at Parker. “Can I get a print of this, too?”

  * * *

  As Jake walked back through the lobby, he considered stopping at reception. He knew there was a very high likelihood that the men had been guests at the hotel, and if one of the women at the desk could ID them, then Jake would have names. The thing that stopped him was the promise he’d made Conway about not asking for any guest information without the proper warrants. If he reneged on that, he’d once more open the possibility of his superiors finding out about his visit.

  There was a less official way he could at least get some basic information, though.

  As he reached the exit, a different doorman than earlier pulled it open for him.

  “Thanks,” Jake said as he passed through.

  “No problem at all. You have a good day.”

  Jake slowed. “Say, can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  Jake unrolled the picture he’d been given of the two men. “Do you recall seeing either of these men?”

  “Sure. That’s Mr. Redmond,” he said, pointing at the light-haired man. He moved his finger to the other guy. “And that’s…Mr. Walters.”

  “They’re guests here?”

  “They were. Left this morning, I believe.”

  “Did they have their own cars or…”

  “No cars. Taxis. They both seemed to enjoy walking, too. I’ve seen both head out on foot.”

  Which could have meant they had a car they weren’t parking at the hotel, Jake thought.

  He showed him the other picture.

  “Yeah,” the doorman said. “Saw him a few times, but don’t know his name.”

  “Also a guest?”

  “Not sure.”

  Jake rolled the pictures back up. He had last names now, at least for two of them. It was something, but not much. “Thanks,” he said.

  “You got it.”

  10

  Jake was up early the next morning. Patrol the night before had been uneventful, and both he and Haywood had finished on time. Jake had spent most of the shift as they drove around thinking about the men in the pictures. Could it possibly be that they were connected with the murder? Should he tell someone about them?

  He still had no answer for the first question, and his immediate response to the second was no. No one would believe such a tenuous connection. A feeling? But then he’d reconsidered. There was one person he could talk to who wouldn’t think he was crazy, not more than usual, anyway.

  Around 11 p.m., while Haywood had been doing his flirting thing with Maria the waitress, Jake had called Berit and asked if she wanted to grab breakfast the next morning.

  “Breakfast? You mean get out of bed before ten?” she said.

  “I was thinking eight-thirty? At Di’s?”

  “Eight-thirty? Ugh! Why?”

  “I’ve…I’ve got something I need to talk about.”

  She was quiet for a moment, then said, “Fine. Eight-thirty. You owe me.”

  Back at the academy, when they’d both realized they were different than most of the recruits, they’d made an agreement to always be there for each other. A sounding board, a pressure release, whatever the other one required.

  This was definitely one of those times.

  Jake arrived at Di’s fifteen minutes early, took a booth by the window, and contented himself with coffee until Berit arrived. As was her habit, she was right on time. The way she was dressed — a pale green button shirt and blue jeans — people would have been hard-pressed to guess her profession. She just didn’t give off that police vibe. But Jake knew her kind eyes and disarming smile were deceiving. It was like she had a thin layer of sweet covering a solid don’t-fuck-with-me body.

  Like Jake, she was a voracious reader, a habit that led them into conversations about such subjects as microbiology, Middle East history, computer programming, and the future of paper money. They could go on for hours about almost anything. It was like being in college without actually enrolling anywhere.

  As Berit slipped into the other side of the booth, their waitress walked over.

  “Something to drink?” the woman asked.

  “Coffee, please,” Berit said.

  “Sure thing.” The waitress retreated to the counter.

  Berit stared at Jake for a moment, then said, “Four and a half hours.”

  “I’m sorry?” he said.

  “Four and a half hours. That’s how much sleep I got. I should still be in bed, but I’m not. You owe me three and a half hours of sleep.”

  “You get eight every night?”

  The waitress returned with the coffee before Berit could respond, and set it on the table.

  “You guys ready to order?” she asked.

  “Oatmeal,” Jake said.

  “All right. And you, ma’am?”

  Berit was holding the coffee to her lips and blowing across the surface. “It’s too early to eat.”

  “So, one oatmeal? That’s it?”

  “Make it two,” Jake said. “She’ll get hungry.”

  The waitress made a quick note on her pad, then left them again.

  Berit rolled her head around in a circle a couple of times, and said, “I swear to God this better not be girl trouble. I will kill you if it is.”

  Problems with the opposite sex were another thing they would discuss now and then, though it was more about the men who kept asking Berit out than the few dates Jake went on. It was interesting. They were the best of friends, but not once had either of them even hinted at taking their relationship further. She was a beautiful woman made even more so because
of her intelligence, but he just never felt a romantic attraction. There was a very good reason for this: she reminded him of an older version of his sister, and he couldn’t deny she was filling the void Jake had created when he’d been forced to basically abandon Liz back home.

  “No girl problems,” he said.

  Her face grew a bit more serious. “Something at work? Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” he said hesitantly. “Everything’s fine. It’s just…” He paused.

  “What?” When he didn’t answer right away, she said, “What did you do?”

  He cracked a smile. “It’s not like that.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “The murder two nights ago,” he said. “I may have a lead on who did it.”

  “Are you serious?”

  He nodded, then proceeded to tell her everything. Somewhere in the middle of the story, the waitress returned with their oatmeal, but they barely noticed. When he was through, he pulled out the plastic sandwich bag he’d put the matchbook in at his apartment and showed it to her.

  “You took that from a crime scene?” she said, staring at him like he was crazy.

  “They’d already gone over everything. This could be nothing.”

  “Or it could be something. Why didn’t you just give it to someone?”

  “Look, I know I probably should have,” he said.

  “Probably?”

  “Okay, maybe I…I mean, I should have. But they would have just lumped it in with everything else. Who knows how long it would have taken for someone to follow up on it, if they even did?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Did you at least tell someone about the markings you found on the ground? The cable impression? The spot at the tank where someone was sitting?”

  “Those could have been made anytime.”

  “And they could have been made the night of the fire, Jake. What the hell are you doing?”

  Several people at nearby tables looked over.

  Jake leaned toward her, dropping his voice to just above a whisper. “Think about it, Berit. What do I really have? Nothing that can’t be explained away in half a second.”

  “That’s not a judgment for you to make,” she replied, the level of her voice now matching his. She frowned, and he could see she was trying to think it all through. Finally, the disapproval on her face softened. “Tell me about these guys at the hotel.”

  Jake put the two printouts from the Lawrence Hotel on the table.

  She examined them, then shrugged. “I don’t understand how you know these guys are connected to the murder.”

  “I don’t know, not for sure,” he corrected her. “It’s just…a feeling.” He explained how he’d been going through the footage, but had stopped when he’d seen the two men come out the front door, and known immediately there was something different about them. He told her how he’d traced their movements backwards, the subtle communication between them, the matchbook.

  “That’s it?” she asked. “Nothing connecting them to the murder, or even putting them in the vicinity other than the one guy picking up some matches?”

  He shook his head.

  “Just a feeling?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  She frowned, then pointed at the printout of the man by himself. “What about this guy?”

  Jake described the incident in the elevator.

  “That could have been anything,” she said.

  Jake nodded. “I know. He’s probably not even involved. But I got a print just in case.”

  She was silent for several moments, then she gestured at the printouts. “These, I can understand you not wanting to tell anyone about. Other than some instinct you seem to have about them, there’s no way to connect these guys to what happened. But this other stuff—”

  “There’s no way to connect them yet,” he said, cutting her off.

  She narrowed her eyes. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking I need your help.”

  “I don’t like the sound of this.”

  “What if we do a little checking? We can see if someone closer to the crime scene might have noticed one of these guys the other night.”

  She closed her eyes and shook her head.

  “I’m just saying it wouldn’t hurt anything to show the pictures around,” he went on. “If we start now, we could be done by lunch.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  He smiled. “Come on. It’ll be fun. And when we don’t find any connections, you can tell me what an idiot I’ve been.”

  “I can tell you that now.”

  “I promise that when we’re done, I’ll turn in the matchbook and the pictures I took of the marks in the ground and tell them everything.”

  “That’s…going to get you in a lot of trouble, you know,” she said, her voice suddenly uncertain.

  “You’re the one who’s been saying I should, and you’re right. Whatever happens to me, I’ll deserve it. I’m just asking for a few hours of digging first. That’s all.”

  She huffed out a laugh, then gave him a smirk. “That’s all?”

  “Yes.”

  “I swear to God, if I get fired because of this, I’m going to kill you.”

  “So you’ll do it?”

  For a moment, she simply stared at him, then she said, “Three hours. That’s it.”

  “Three hours is plenty.”

  * * *

  Jake’s hope was that if the men from the Lawrence had been involved in the Goodman Ranch Road murder, they would have made a stop somewhere on the way — maybe for gas, or a bite to eat to kill the time.

  With a few minor variations, there was really just one logical route from the Lawrence Hotel to the crime scene. Before they began their search, though, Jake grabbed his stuff out of his Civic and hopped in Berit’s vintage Charger. From Di’s Diner, they went to Berit’s townhouse, where, with considerable effort, Jake convinced her that they should don their uniforms.

  When he saw the skepticism on her face as she came back down to the living room, he said, “Trust me. It’ll make things easier.”

  Her only reply was a low grunt.

  They drove out to Goodman Ranch Road, stopping a couple of lots short of the crime scene to make sure they didn’t miss any potential places the men might have stopped, then Berit executed a quick U-turn.

  Three-quarters of a mile back down the road, they came upon the first possibility, a combination gas station/mini-mart. It only took a few moments before Jake realized a glaring flaw in his plan. If the men had made a stop somewhere, it would have been at night. Which meant anyone who had been working on Saturday night probably wouldn’t be working that Monday morning.

  The look on Berit’s face when the clerk shrugged and said, “I don’t recognize them, but I get off at four every afternoon” let Jake know she’d realized the same thing. But she didn’t say anything.

  Rookie mistake, he thought. If you’re doing a business-to-business search, you either got the names of whoever might have been on duty at the time of the incident and contacted them directly, or did the search at the same time the incident occurred. But while they could get names, contacting them seemed like taking things one step too far.

  Already feeling defeated, they continued on. Two gas stations, a coffee shop and a donut place all had the same answer: “Sorry, haven’t seen them.”

  It was as they entered another convenience store that he realized he truly was an idiot.

  When the clerk gave him the same response the others had been giving, instead of saying, “Thanks,” and leaving, Jake said, “I see you have security cameras.”

  “Uh, yeah,” the clerk said.

  Berit had been turning to leave, but Jake’s comment stopped her.

  “Do you record, or are they just live feeds?”

  “Insurance wants us to record,” the clerk said.

  Jake tried to contain his optimism. “You keep the recordings on site?”

  The clerk motio
ned toward the rear of the store. “In the office.”

  “How far back?”

  “Supposed to keep two months’ worth,” the clerk said, looking a bit uncomfortable.

  “But you don’t?” Jake asked.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Sir, how far back?”

  The clerk grimaced as if he were in pain. “Two weeks. The owner doesn’t like to waste the money on VHS tapes. Don’t tell him I told you, though, okay?”

  Jake tried to look stern, while inside he was feeling relief. “I’ll tell you what. We won’t say anything if you let us take a look at a couple of them.”

  “Sure. No problem.”

  “You have a monitor somewhere we can use?”

  “Let me show you,” the clerk said.

  Unlike at the Lawrence Hotel, Jake knew exactly the time range they needed to look at, so it was a simple matter of identifying the correct tape and fast-forwarding to the time in question. Unfortunately, the men had not stepped through the door in the hour and a half prior to the murder. But he didn’t let that get him down. He’d found a bandage for his flawed plan, so there was hope.

  He and Berit retraced their steps to the places they’d already checked, and in all but one, they were allowed a look at the security footage. Unfortunately, the men had not stopped at any of those places, either.

  Because they had to watch video everywhere they stopped, their progress was slower than Jake would have hoped, and soon it was approaching noon.

  “This is a waste of time. You know that, right?” Berit said as they pulled away from yet another gas station.

  Jake stared out the front window, saying nothing, but thinking the same thing. They probably should just give up, but that feeling that he was right was still nagging at him, telling him to keep going.

  “Just another thirty minutes?” he asked.

  She frowned, then rolled her eyes. “Thirty minutes. But that’s it.”

  “Thanks.”

  The next two businesses had no security footage at all. After that, they hit a coffee shop called Oscar’s Grind. As they walked in, Jake knew they could make only a couple more stops, at most, before the thirty minutes were up.

  Once more they went through their routine with the manager. Oscar’s had a camera system, but to save on storage space, the system was programmed to take still images every two seconds instead of shooting continuous video.