by Allen Eskens
“I'm Detective Max Rupert,” Max said.
“What's going on? What happened to that lady?” Jason nodded in the direction of the surveillance monitor on the desk.
“Did you hear anything unusual in the last fifteen minutes or so?”
“Unusual? No. What was it?”
“No loud noises? No screams? Arguing?”
“I ain't heard nothing.”
Max pointed at the surveillance monitor. Were you watching that screen when it happened?”
“No. I was texting my girlfriend. I don't watch that unless I think there's a problem.”
“Can you rewind the footage?” Max asked.
“I think so. It's digital, and I never done it before, but it should be easy.” Jason sat at the desk and moved his computer mouse around to pull up a menu. On the menu, he found a rewind command and clicked it. “Fifteen minutes, you said?”
“Yeah, that should do.” Max waited as the computer loaded the footage requested. The screen split into boxes. The main box, which filled most of the monitor screen, contained footage of the first-floor vestibule and the elevator doors. Seven smaller boxes lining the bottom of the screen held shots from the other cameras in the building. At first, the screen showed an empty vestibule. Then Billie Rider walked into view, pushed the elevator button, and entered the elevator. “Do you have a camera inside the elevator?”
“No. Just by the doors on each floor and here at the exit.”
“Where does she get off ?”
Jason leaned in to see the smaller boxes. Then he clicked on one of them, and the fourth-floor elevator doors popped onto the screen. Billie exited the elevator, happy and smiling. She walked out of view. Max and Jason waited a minute, and she returned, holding her ticket. She reentered the elevator, and Jason clicked on the first floor again. On the first floor, a man stood in front of the kiosk, waiting.
“Can you back it up? I want to see him enter.”
Jason rewound the footage to the point where the man entered. He stood around six feet tall and wore all dark clothing, including dark glasses—at night. The man entered the vestibule and paid for his parking, taking pains to keep his face hidden from the camera. When he arrived at the elevator, the doors opened, Billie stepped out, and the man stepped in. Max paid close attention to Billie's movements, the way she tilted her head as though pondering a question. She turned, and her hand went to her hip.
Both Max and Jason jerked in shock as Billie's chest exploded and her blood sprayed the wall behind her.
“Fuck me,” Jason whispered.
“You said that you didn't hear anything? No gunshots?”
“Nothing. I swear.”
“Where'd the guy get off the elevator?”
Jason leaned in again to see the tiny boxes. “Third floor,” he said, pulling up that window. The man walked past the camera and disappeared from view.
“Pull up the exit camera,” Max said. He watched the screen until a car came into view. “Freeze it.” Jason paused the screen, and Max leaned in to make out the license-plate number. He took out his cell phone and called Dispatch again. He read the license plate to Dispatch, and she came back with a name. Jason then forwarded the tape to the next car, and Max again gave the number to Dispatch and got a name.
The third car to leave came back to a car-rental company. Max had Jason back the tape up and run it again. The grainy footage showed a dark figure behind the wheel. The car had its visor pulled down, and the driver put a hand over his face as he passed through a slice of light that illuminated the interior of the car. He covered his face, but there was no mistaking the baseball cap and sunglasses.
“You son of a bitch,” Max whispered.
“Detective.” One of the patrol officers called to Max from outside the office. Max stepped out of the office, and the officer pointed at a line of cars that he had been preventing from leaving. “These folks here are getting antsy. They're bitchin’ about me holding ’em here without a warrant and all that bullshit. I got their information, and they want to know if they can vamoose.”
“Yeah,” Max said. “Our guy's already gone.”
Max walked back to Billie's body and found the lab techs breaking out their cases, preparing to explore for trace evidence. Alexander squatted just inside the door, the edges of his eyes tinged red.
“We have the whole thing on tape,” Max said. “The perp is about six feet tall, athletic build, I'd guess around midthirties for an age. He was getting on the elevator when she was getting off it. She turned around, and he shot her. No struggle. Not even a conversation. And the attendant on duty—just a hundred feet away—didn't hear any gunshots.”
Alexander's eyes narrowed as he contemplated what that meant. When the deductions slid into their proper slots, he suggested, “Suppressor?”
“That's where I'd go with it,” Max said. “No struggle. No robbery. A detective murdered, using a silencer.”
Alexander looked at his brother as the final button clicked. “Patrio's in town.”
Max simply nodded.
“Jesus—” Before he could finish his thought, Alexander's cell phone rang. He looked at the screen and answered. “Ianna, where—”
Ianna's voice blasted through the phone so loudly that Max could hear her. “Alexander, someone tore my apartment apart. They destroyed everything. I'm scared.”
“Is your security guard on duty?” Alexander asked. “Okay, go down to the front desk and stay with him. I'm only a few blocks away. I'll be there in a few seconds. Go down now. I'm on my way.” Alexander looked at Max. Max nodded toward the door and Alexander charged out of the parking-ramp entrance.
Alexander pulled one of the patrol officers away from the parking ramp to join him. The officer, a young female, followed him to Ianna's apartment. There he found Ianna standing behind the security desk, next to the second-shift security guard. When Ianna saw Alexander, she ran to him and threw her arms around his shoulders.
“Someone was in my apartment. They—”
He pried her arms from around his neck. “Ianna, I want you to stay here with this officer.” Alexander nodded toward the rookie who followed him in. “Give me the keys.” Ianna handed her keys to Alexander. “You!” He pointed at the young patrol officer. “Draw your weapon. Nobody goes in or out until I say so.” Alexander pulled his gun and stepped into the elevator.
It took Alexander only fifteen minutes to walk through the apartment and make sure that the intruder had left. Whoever broke in had done a number on the place. Every item from every cupboard in the kitchen lay in a heap in the middle of the floor. The curtains had all been pulled down, every cushion had been gutted. The books, drawers, and butchered furniture of the study lay in a pile. Room after room had been dismantled in similar fashion. Alexander looked around to try and find one item, one stick of furniture or one possession, that hadn't been thoroughly rifled, and he could see none.
He called Dispatch to have them send out a night-shift detective to secure the scene. Then he returned to the lobby.
“We need to get you out of here,” he said to Ianna. “Let's go up and get your things and get you someplace safe.” Alexander walked Ianna to the elevator.
“Who did that to my apartment? What were they looking for?”
“I'll tell you in a little bit. Right now, we need to move. You're in danger.”
“Danger? What did I do?”
“I don't know how long it'll be before you can come back to the apartment. It could be days, maybe never. I don't know, so get what you need.”
Ianna held on to Alexander's arm as they entered the apartment, and Alexander led her back to the bedroom, where all of her clothes lay in a pile next to the stuffing from her mattress. He could feel the grip of her fingers grow tighter around his arm. “There's no one here,” Alexander said. “You're safe. I'll protect you.”
She seemed to relax a bit.
“I'm taking you someplace where the people who did this won't find you.”
“At least for tonight, you're coming to my house,” he said. “After that, we'll arrange a safe house.”
“Won't your wife have a problem with that?”
“No,” Alexander said. “My wife…doesn't care.”
Ianna pulled together enough clothes to last for a few days.
As they passed through the lobby, on the way to Alexander's car, he told the female patrol officer to go up to the apartment and wait for the detective, who should be on his way. He told her that he believed that the break-in was probably theft-related, and that he didn't expect the intruder to return. “They either found what they were looking for or gave up looking for it.”
Then he called Max. “I have Ianna Markova with me. Someone did a real number on her apartment.”
“This can't be a coincidence,” Max said.
“Looking for a flash drive?”
“That'd be the safe bet.”
“You need a hand, Max?”
Max paused as if considering the question and then said, “No. You secure the witness. I have all the manpower I need right now.”
Drago had put on gloves before leaving the parking ramp. He wiped his parking ticket clean of fingerprints. A proper investigation would lead to the credit card he used to pay the parking ramp. They would find that data in the memory of the parking ramp's pay station, as well as in the computer for the rental car once they traced his license plate. Drago figured that it wouldn't take them long—maybe only a matter of minutes—before they sniffed their way to the car-rental desk and pulled the contract for his car. Then the name of Walter Trigg would fly through the chilly fall night and into every mobile data computer in every patrol car in the state. He would use that small window of time to become someone else.
He drove south on Third Avenue, and at the corner of Third and Twelfth Street, he had to yield the right-of-way to a squad car, cutting the corner far too shallow, trying to be the first officer on the scene of the recent homicide at the parking garage. He waved to the officer—a wave that the officer had no chance of seeing—just to acknowledge that his presence in the world held no significance to the police. Not yet. Drago proceeded south on Interstate 35, being careful not to exceed the speed limit.
At the 494 junction, he took a left, heading toward the airport, but then exited onto a frontage road, pulled behind a strip mall—closed for the night—and parked by its dumpster. He retrieved his wallet and looked one last time at the driver's license. The face on the license wasn't his—he never used his own face—but the image Garland had created was close enough that no one would question the legitimacy of the card. He found a rag under his seat and cleaned the license and the credit cards and his gun, wiping away any hint of fingerprints or epithelial DNA. He dropped them in the dumpster and then cleaned the inside of the car, wiping down any part of the car he may have touched. He thought about simply setting the car ablaze, but that would draw attention to it. Besides, he still needed the transportation. He decided to drive the car back to the hotel—being careful to leave no trace evidence of himself in the vehicle—and leave it there. By the time law enforcement found it, the name of Walter Trigg would be nothing more than a whistle in the wind.
Max hit his lights and siren, and touched one hundred miles an hour on both Interstate 35 and 494 on his way to the airport. He called Dispatch on his cell phone, preferring to keep as much information away from police scanners as possible, and had Tracy call Decca Car Rental and ask that the manager remain at his post until Max got there. The car-rental counters monopolized a corridor between two of the parking ramps, so he didn't have to fight through any security checkpoints. By the time he found the counter for Decca, midnight had come and gone. Dispatch had given Max the name of the night manager—Bradley Peyton—and relayed that Mr. Peyton didn't appreciate being kept waiting. Max wasn't amused.
Max found Bradley—a slow-moving man with a clip-on tie and a shift ending at midnight—standing in front of the counter, his arms crossed and his name tag dangling crooked on his pocket.
“Bradley?” Max said.
“Are you Detective Rupert?”
“I am. I appreciate you waiting for me like this.”
“I already told that Dispatch lady that I can't give out customer information. I could lose my job. Besides, don't you need a warrant?”
Max could tell that Bradley had prepared himself to spout company policy. Max clapped a firm hand onto Bradley's shoulder, grabbing a fistful of material. He gritted his teeth and stared coldly into the eyes of the young night manager. “Bradley,” Max said. “This isn't the night to fuck around with me. Not tonight. You want to know why?”
Bradley shook his head no, but Max paid him no mind.
“Because tonight a good cop died—a detective named Louise Rider. I was with her about an hour ago, talking and laughing. I liked her. She went to her car, and some piece of shit driving a rental car from Decca shot her to death in cold blood. No fight. No reason. Just shot her in the chest. So, Bradley, I came here to talk to you because you have the key to finding this killer, and what do you tell me? You tell me that it's against company policy.”
“But…it is. The corporate office—”
“Bradley…” Max clapped a hand on Bradley's other shoulder and grabbed some more of the man's shirt. “Most people go through their entire lives never having the chance to do something important, never getting to prove that they can stand up for what they know is right. Whether you like it or not, that time for you is right now.”
“If you had a warrant or something—”
“I don't need a warrant if you do the right thing.”
“They'll fire me.”
“Tonight, when you go home and look yourself in the mirror, are those the words that you want echoing in your head? Is that how you want to remember this moment?” Max pointed at the blood stain on the toe of his shoe. “See that, Bradley? That's her blood. She lost her life protecting other people. And you…” Max didn't mean to squeeze Bradley's shoulder as hard as he did, but it caused the man to wince.
“I already shut down the computer,” Bradley said.
“You know how to start it back up, don't you?”
Bradley snorted as he appeared to struggle with his better judgment. Then he walked behind the counter, mumbling the word idiot over and over again. The computer took all of five minutes to fire up and log on to the system. Once he had typed in the proper passwords, he clicked to a screen and asked Max for the plate number. Five seconds later, he had the contract information for Walter Trigg on his screen.
“He rented it here,” Bradley said. “So we'll have his DL on file.” Bradley went to a file drawer and pulled out a hard copy of the contract, complete with a photocopy of the driver's license of Walter Trigg.
Max pulled out the picture that Billie gave him and held the two pictures side by side. They weren't the same guy, but the likeness was so close that anyone looking at the picture in passing would believe they were one and the same. Max called the driver's license information in to Dispatch and asked for a BOLO on Walter Trigg. Dispatch would send an immediate electronic file to every patrol car, with an instruction to be on the lookout for Trigg or his car.
“Look, Bradley, I'm sorry if I came on a little strong, but that dead detective, she was a good person. The guy who killed her is one cold son of a bitch. I need to catch him before he kills again. You have no idea how much you've helped me here.” He shook Bradley's hand. “And if you lose your job over this, give me a call. I have a lot of friends who like to hire stand-up guys like you.”
“You need to find that car pretty bad, huh,” Bradley said.
“That's our only lead. It probably won't be too long before he dumps it.” Max shrugged to Bradley. “Hopefully what you did will let us get him before he kills again.” Max turned and started walking back to his car, but he'd only taken a few steps before Bradley called out to him.
“I can find the car,” he said
.
Max walked back to the counter. “You can do what?”
“Our cars all have GPS. We say it's for anti-theft, but really we use it to track the car and make sure it's not driven out of the state. We're not supposed to do that, but sometimes we do.”
“You can find his car?”
“It'll take a minute, but…yes, I can.”
Max stared over the edge of the counter and watched Bradley type and click, narrowing the options until he pointed to a tiny dot in a mesh of streets.
“It's there.” Bradley pointed to a dot on the map about three miles away from the airport, amid a small cluster of offices and hotels that catered to airport clientele and flight-crew layovers.
“Son of a bitch,” Max said. “That's just around the corner.”
Alexander and Ianna drove to Alexander's house in his unmarked Charger, leaving her Cadillac in the garage of the condominium. Along the way, he told Ianna all about Michelle Holla and Patrio and the flash drive. He told her about how Billie Rider went to Patrio International to kick the beehive and see how they would react. Then he told her that, within the past hour, someone had shot Detective Billie Rider to death in a parking ramp in Minneapolis.
“Oh my God.”
“This thing is unraveling fast.”
“And you think that someone from Patrio came to my apartment tonight and tore it up, looking for the flash drive?”
“That's what makes sense to me.”
“Do you think they found it?”
“No. If they found the flash drive, they wouldn't stick around. They wouldn't have been here to kill Billie.”
“So what's their next move?”
Alexander pulled his car into the driveway at his house and parked in his garage. He waited to answer her until they were securely in his house because he knew that the answer would unnerve her. “If you were Patrio, and you knew that the flash drive isn't in that apartment, and the only two people who could possibly know where it is are you and Jericho Pope…”
