“Actually it is…”
“No it isn’t,” Juarez said. “Animal is a word. Animalistic is a word. Even animallike is a word since maybe a hundred years ago. And then there’s animism, which is also a word, but doesn’t have anything to do with animals per se.” He paused. “Animalic is what you call a blend. Or a protologism if you want to sound brainy. Something that somebody who obviously thought he was smarter than the rest of us made up, and would like to turn into a word, I guess because the million plus real words in the English language weren’t enough of an outlet for his precious self-expression.”
Deeks scratched his head, thinking he hadn’t wanted to start off on a bad note with the detective.
“And second?” he said, figuring he’d give him a chance to get the rest off his chest.
“What?”
“You said that was first,” he said, and smiled. “What’s second?”
“Thanks for reminding me. Second, what I’m smelling isn’t what I’d call unusual… or an aroma,” Juarez said, still looking around. “It’s the kind of blast I figure you get in hell after the Devil eats his three-bean chili too close to bedtime.”
Deeks and Kensi stood there as other detectives strode past on this typically busy morning at police headquarters in the heart of America’s second busiest metropolis, over three hundred-fifty thousand people riding the rails to work every day here in downtown Los Angeles.
“That’s gross,” Kensi said. “Funny, but gross.”
Juarez smiled.
“Should I tell you I’m sorry before or after you two tell me why you’re here?” he asked.
She smiled back at him.
“You don’t have to apologize,” she said.
“No?”
“Nope,” she said. Her grin broadened, all pleasantness and sparkling white teeth. “But we would appreciate you telling us about Theodore Holloway’s missing person case file.”
Juarez’s grin evaporated, surprise overspreading his expression.
“What about it?” he asked.
“The reason it automagically disappeared in your department’s computer system—or was buried, to put it another way—couple of days after he turned up alive,” Deeks said. “For openers.”
Juarez looked at the two of them for a long moment. Finally, he nodded.
“I think we better discuss this in my office,” he said, his voice a near whisper. “Off the record, understood?”
He turned to lead the way, momentarily halting at the reception desk to glance over his shoulder at Kensi.
“It’s Mr. Animalic here killing my nose with that smell, isn’t it?” he asked.
She smiled crookedly. “It isn’t me,” she said. “That’s all I can tell you.”
“Will I need to fumigate this place?”
Kensi shrugged, shot Deeks a sidewise glance.
“Speaking from experience,” she said, “it kind of grows on you after a while.”
* * *
“So,” Detective Juarez said, sliding his window open, “I’m assuming you two intend to let me know up top how Navy got hold of a sealed investigator’s report.”
Deeks and Kensi pulled a couple of chairs up to the desk and sat down to wait in silence.
Juarez took a long, deep breath. Then he turned, lifted a green potted plant off one corner of the desk, carried it over to the windows, and carefully placed it on the sill.
“I figure the fresh air might keep it from wilting away,” he said, looking over at Deeks. “No insult implied.”
Deeks offered him an innocent smile, his right ankle balanced on his left knee.
“Wouldn’t think it in a million years,” he said. “But I don’t think Captain Philodendron has a problem.”
“Oh no?”
“Plants absorb carbon monoxide during the day, and produce oxygen at night,” he said. “So he’d be cool with a smell that’s a little outside his comfort zone.”
Juarez shrugged, rolled his chair back from under the desk, and lowered himself into it.
“I hear good things about you people,” he said to Kensi. “That you can be trusted.”
“If you mean about our talk here staying confidential, then, yes,” she said. “We gave our word.”
“And I’m actually ‘you people,’” Deeks said, reaching under his shirt to pull out his LAPD badge. His face was serious. “A department liaison officer attached to NCIS.”
Juarez considered the tin for a full thirty seconds. Then he leaned forward. “This isn’t about marking turf. I’m putting my career on the line.”
“Just talking to us?” Kensi said.
He nodded. Opened his mouth as if to speak, closed it. Then nodded again.
“Yeah,” he said finally. “Just talking. I need to know what got you interested in the Holloway case?”
Deeks and Kensi made brief eye contact, silently debating whether to open up to him. After everything they’d been through together, on the job, as friends, and then as lovers, there were questions that could be asked and answered without a word being spoken between them.
After a while, Deeks nodded.
“There was a double homicide in Santa Barbara yesterday,” he said. “You probably know about it.”
“I only had to watch the news for that,” Juarez said. “The Sutton murder’s the headline everywhere. Frank Varno’s handling the case down there. He’s a solid detective—and mi cuate.”
“Homies, huh?” Kensi said.
“Si, hermana.”
Kensi smiled.
“Near the end of World War Two, Holloway and Sutton were both stationed at Port Hueneme,” she said. “Sutton was a Navy officer, Holloway OSS.”
“OSS doing what?” Juarez said. “I thought they built Quonset huts down there.”
“Holloway was in charge of something called Project Deep Dive,” she said. “Ever hear of it?”
He shook his head.
“It involved the processing of German naval POWs,” she said. “The crews from aboard captured U-boats.”
Juarez nodded. “Okay,” he said. “What else?”
“Sutton’s home appears to have been searched and burglarized,” she replied. “But not for the typical valuables.”
The detective’s pupils widened slightly. “Was his computer missing?”
“Only its hard drive,” she said. “He owned a desktop model.”
Deeks carefully watched Juarez’s face as that information sank in.
Then he lifted his foot off his knee and sat forward a little, taking the ball from Kensi.
“Santa Barbara’s sending us the preliminary forensics when they come in,” he said. “Meanwhile, we don’t have any leads to the killer—”
“But you figure, two break-ins, two computers targeted, it isn’t a fluke.”
Deeks nodded.
“Like me figuring it’s no coincidence you and that animal funk drifted into headquarters at the same time,” Juarez said, and flashed a smile.
“Ha, ha,” Deeks said dryly. “I’m overflowing with laughter inside.”
“Any time,” Juarez said, holding his grin another second or two before his expression turned serious again. “So how do you think these incidents are linked?”
Deeks glanced at Kensi, lobbing the ball back to her now.
“That’s exactly what we came to ask you,” she said. “But there’s something besides the computers.”
“Tying them together, you mean?”
“In a way,” she answered, and took a second to formulate her question. “Your report says Holloway was missing from his condo… but it doesn’t mention him turning up a couple of days later. Or say anything about his condition.”
“They locked up his medical reports right away,” Juarez said, and sighed. “You two do have your sources, huh? Makes me wonder if you really need an assist.”
“If we didn’t we wouldn’t be here,” Deeks said. “What exactly happened to him?”
Juarez meshed his fingers toge
ther on the desk and stared down at them. Then he shrugged and raised his eyes to Deeks’s face.
“It’s ugly,” he said. “There were contusions all over his body, welts on his back and legs. You could tell he’d been slapped around from the bruises on his face.”
“He’s in his nineties,” Kensi said. “That’s beyond sick.”
“There’s more,” Juarez said. “The old bird was pretty confused when he was found. Doctors at the hospital thought dehydration might have played into it… and it could have. But he also had slurred speech, memory loss, other symptoms that could have been caused by a stroke or head injury.”
“Were they?”
Juarez shook his head. “His blood tests showed somebody dosed him with Trapanal,” he said. “In the old days they called it—”
“Truth serum?” Kensi said. “This gets crazier and crazier.”
“Yeah,” Juarez said. “You ask me, Holloway was interrogated. That might sound dramatic, but I don’t know how else to put it.”
Deeks’s eyebrows arched.
“Let’s back up a sec,” he said. “You talked about when he was found. But how about telling us where? And if you have any leads on a suspect.”
Juarez took a breath.
“Holloway was in a rain ditch off route one-oh-eight out in Lancaster County,” he said. “A cattle rancher driving a pickup spotted him out near Saddleback Butte Park.”
“The middle of nowhere,” Deeks said.
“All sand, Joshua trees, and abandoned properties from the development boom,” Juarez said. “The area still hasn’t bounced back.”
Deeks nodded thoughtfully.
“It’s been in the news a whole lot recently,” he said. “I hear there’re all kinds of problems with squatters.”
“Yeah, the adverse possession laws in California are a mess,” Juarez said. “When you’ve got blocks and blocks of empty homes out in the valley, and eighty thousand homeless Los Angelinos desperate to put roofs over their heads, it’s a recipe for trouble.” He paused, shrugged. “Back to Holloway… when the rancher and his wife spot him, they figure he’s dead. Then the rancher stops his truck, gets out for a closer look, realizes he isn’t, and calls the local cops. Holloway’s conscious, and identifies himself when they arrive.”
“How soon before you found out?”
“It must’ve been within the hour,” Juarez said. “He was Medevaced to Antelope Valley Hospital, and my partner and I drove right out to see him. He was weak, banged up, and disoriented, like I told you. But he was lucid.”
“Able to answer questions?” Kensi asked.
“Absolutely,” the detective replied. “He’s one tough geezer.”
“Did he explain how he wound up in that ditch?”
Juarez shook his head.
“Tell you how he sustained his injuries?”
He shook his head again.
“How about later? When he left the hospital?”
“No,” he said, sighing. “Never.”
Kensi gave him a questioning look. “You think the drug affected Holloway’s memory of what happened to him?”
Juarez spread his hands. “In my opinion he knows,” he said. “Maybe not everything, but enough. For whatever reason, he just refuses to talk.”
“How about witnesses?” Deeks asked. “Maybe at the assisted care facility when he disappeared? Or on the road? Or to the couple that rescued him? He didn’t beam from his living room to the place where he was found. He was snatched from the condo, driven out to the desert, and left on the roadside for a goner.”
“Or held prisoner a short distance from there and escaped,” Juarez said.
“Either way,” Kensi said, “you’d think somebody would see something along the way.”
Juarez produced another sigh. “About the condo… Detective Knowles is my commander and you read his report. There was no one around to see anything. The people who run the place depend on a computerized monitoring system, and it crashed.”
“Knowles called that suspicious,” Deeks said. “You agree with him?”
“Don’t you?” Juarez looked at him. “Listen, if I had my druthers, we would’ve checked into how that system failed. Combed the valley for twenty square miles around that road where the old man turned up. Knocked on doors, hit service plazas, circulated flyers. Except our probe was shut down. They told us to stop actively investigating it. And we did.”
“Did the order come from Knowles?”
“He was the messenger,” Juarez said. “But something like that has to come from higher up. Knowles wouldn’t deep six a case unless he was getting major pressure. Even if he wanted to, he doesn’t have that kind of authority.”
“Any idea who might’ve wanted it closed?” Kensi asked.
Juarez said nothing for a long moment. Then he stood up, walked to the door, opened it partway, and peered out into the hall, glancing carefully left and right. A second later he shut the door again, went back around his desk, and returned to his chair.
“Coast clear?” Kensi said.
He shrugged, looking at both of his visitors.
“You asked me a question,” he said. “I’ll tell you two what I think. Just my gut feeling, okay?”
They nodded their heads.
“I think it was Holloway himself,” he said. “I don’t care if he’s a relic. He’s a CIA good ol’ boy who knows the right people. And he’s used to putting things away in dark places.”
“Why would he protect his abductors?” Kensi said. “I don’t get it.”
“Me neither,” Juarez said. “But you wanted to know what I think, and there it is.”
There was silence in the room. Then Deeks sat forward again.
“A minute ago you told us you dropped your active investigation,” he said at last. “What’s that mean, exactly?”
Juarez smiled a little. “You’re some kind of stinker, Deeks,” he said.
Deeks shrugged.
Juarez continued to smile, but his eyes were serious.
“Look, something like this happens, it isn’t only me and Matthews on the case,” he said. “This is the Los Angeles Police Department. There’s crime scene techs, an evidence analysis. It isn’t easy to put the brakes on their tests—” He snapped his fingers “—just like that.”
Deeks’s eyes went to his. “You got hold of the forensics on the sly.”
Juarez nodded. “Some of them,” he said. “I have my contacts.”
“What should we know about the results?” Kensi asked.
Juarez looked at her. “When Holloway went missing we dusted his apartment for fingerprints,” he said. “You know how it goes… it’s routine, and not always useful. Most times they belong to friends, family members, caregivers—and the vic, of course. But the techs took a few latents from the desk area, and came up with an IAFIS match to a known felon.”
Deeks looked at him sharply. “So right about now’s where the camera holds a closeup on our faces while we eagerly wait for you to drop a name on us.”
Juarez smiled. “Isaak Dorani,” he said. “Smalltime hustler, long rap sheet. Car theft, multiple petty larceny convictions, credit card fraud, numbers, gun-related offenses… on and on.”
“An overachiever,” Kensi said.
“And he isn’t even thirty,” Juarez said. “We lifted two clean prints from Holloway’s desk, and they were, as they like to say nowadays, consistent with Dorani’s to a high statistical probability.”
“In other words,” Deeks said, “beyond a sliver of doubt.”
“You got it.”
“Did you and your partner interview him?” Kensi asked.
“We couldn’t,” Juarez said, his fingers lacing together on the desk. “They reassigned us before we had a chance.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “Wait,” she said. “You have a suspect in a burglary-kidnapping and there’s no follow up?”
“That’s right,” Juarez said. And looked at her. “Actively.”
&nb
sp; Deeks cocked his head and pretended to listen to something. “I’m thinking I hear an echo in here.”
Juarez wound his thumbs thoughtfully.
“An old man’s abducted and brutalized… as detectives we’re trained a certain way, you know? It wasn’t anything we could let go,” he said. “So we tailed Dorani for a while. On our own time.”
“And?” Kensi said.
Juarez reached into his pants pocket for a key ring. He unlocked a drawer on the left side of his desk, took out a padded, wallet-sized black media holder, and slid it across to Kensi and Deeks.
“Here you go,” he said in a low voice. “Take it.”
Kensi lifted the case off the desk.
“You’ll find a couple of gumstick memory drives inside,” Juarez said. “They’re identical copies of my private case file. My only copies. And now they’re yours. Far as I’m concerned, they never existed.”
Kensi looked at him. “Thank you,” she said.
The detective inhaled deeply, then exhaled.
“Dorani’s in over his head,” he said. “Involved with some scary, dangerous people.”
She nodded.
“I don’t know how Holloway fits into the picture,” Juarez said. “But something about him is damned unkosher.”
Kensi slipped the holder into her purse.
“We’ll find out,” she said. “And keep you posted.”
Juarez gave both of them a long look.
“Watch your backs,” he said.
4
“G, you there?” Eric Beale said, his voice coming over the speakers of Callen’s Benz.
“Yup,” Callen said from behind the wheel.
About an hour after leaving headquarters, he and Sam were midway between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara on U.S. 101—the Pacific Ocean edging up against the beach to their left, the coastal chaparral shagging the hills to their right, the sky a clear, cloudless blue field spreading seamlessly overhead from horizon to horizon.
“Okay, Eric,” Callen said. “What’s up?”
“The timeframe,” the tech said.
“For?”
“Elias Sutton’s last hours on earth. Specifically where he was before his murder, and when he got home.”
“I didn’t think we were a hundred percent positive he went out that day,” Callen said.
NCIS Los Angeles Page 7
