Agents are required to carry three 8-hour battery packs on their person at all times, each the size of a paperclip, enough for a twenty-four hour day. The battery in the receiver itself is good for twenty-four hours when it’s fully charged. When we return to home or work, we enter the flash drive into the USB port of a computer, send the info off to the mainframe, and then try to remember to recharge the batteries for future use. All very ritualistic, but it sure does save from scribbling notes on the back of your checkbook, as I have done in the past.
I turned it on and began to record all the license plates of the cars in my path. I had used the camcorder right before the monsoon hit and mentally noted several cars were there for the second day. This was something the computer program we entered the data into would automatically correlate. I also made some verbal notes into the small device as I walked along. If anyone noticed me talking, they probably thought I was either on a cell phone, nuts, or possibly both.
“It’s about one-thirty p.m. on January twenty-fourth. I am at Bay and Beach walking toward the warehouse,” I said in barely a whisper. “If I can, I’m going inside it. One thing that really puzzles me, and I keep mulling this over, is why Watch Line was hired to patrol a dilapidated warehouse. They’re more expensive than most security services. Maybe it’s the cost of their cute little blue and red uniforms. Anyway, that fact should be explored. Okay, here we are.”
I stopped across the street from the warehouse and noted a slim, beautiful Chinese woman, about ten years younger than me, coming out of the parking lot. She hurriedly crossed the street and opened the door of a new lime green Volkswagen Bug. She was wearing a plain black slim skirt and a long sleeve white sweater but managed to give this common outfit a lot of style. I watched her long stockinged legs swing elegantly around and into the car after she sat behind the wheel. I didn’t think anybody could get into one of those small cars looking like a lady, but somehow she managed to do it. For a brief moment, she looked back toward me, shielding her eyes from the sun. That was when I got a shot of her face. Then I aimed for the license plate of her car. I wondered briefly who the woman was and if she had ever been a dancer. She certainly moved like one. My eyes followed her as she drove off, tires squealing.
I turned my attention back to the small, restricted parking lot holding one non-descript, late-model, white pickup truck covered with rust and dents. It had a recently abandoned look and one of the tires was low on air. Nobody seemed to be around, so I crossed the street and went for a closer inspection. The cab of the truck had several empty cans of Mountain Dew strewn around on the passenger’s seat and floor. There was nothing else inside that I could see. I tried the doors but they were locked. A faded tarp, grimy and torn, lay crumpled in the bed up near the cab. Two cigarette butts were on the floor. Other than that, it looked recently swept clean. I continued to the back of the truck and recorded the truck’s license plate.
Finished, I turned around and went to the door of the warehouse fully expecting it to be locked. To my surprise, the door was slightly ajar.
Dropping the camcorder in my pocket, I pushed open the door and stepped inside, trying to adjust my eyes to the lack of light. I was struck by the moist and musty smell of a place rarely exposed to fresh air or sunshine. Brilliant shafts of light pierced through holes in the rusted roof and hit the uneven, cement floor like small spotlights. The warehouse was larger than it looked from the outside and obviously constructed many years ago. The outside structure was painted stucco, but inside it was lined in rusting, corrugated tin. Dry, wooden beams reached up to support the corroding metal of the roof. It was pretty yucko, and I could imagine things setting up housekeeping in here National Geographic might want to know about.
Beginning directly below the roofline and continuing to the floor were dozens of large, square shaped cages that lined the four walls of the warehouse. They were apparently used as temporary storage areas for merchandise taken from the ships. Three sides of each square were made of a crisscrossed heavy-duty iron, open enough for maybe a child’s hand to fit through but no more. The perimeter of the warehouse completed the fourth wall. Each cage was about one hundred feet wide and had a solid door locked with various types of padlocks. Nowhere did I see yellow crime scene tape. I’d assumed the murder hadn’t been committed inside the warehouse, and now I knew for sure.
All but three cages were empty. One enclosed thousands of bundles of tied steel wire, piled in neat stacks. Another cage contained hundreds of shoeboxes, strewn helter-skelter.
Next to the unloading bay, a third cage proved to be the most interesting. Inside this cage was a small room built of wood, about twenty feet square, probably used as a makeshift office. Other than that, the cage was completely empty.
What caught my eye, however, was the locked door on the cage. Intrigued, I crossed the cement floor that was covered with dirt and small pebbles, making small scratching noises with my feet. My footsteps echoed in the dark, and I shivered involuntarily. It was an eerie feeling, so I tried to pretend I was both Nick and Nora Charles in an old Thin Man movie. That didn’t really work, but I forgot all about my discomfort, anyway, once I got a closer look at the lock and the door.
In my job, I’ve learned to spot the better-made and more effective locks manufactured. This was one of them, big time. It was a Gibson, digital and state-of-the-art, with an internal, computer-generated locking code that changed within the lock several times daily. The way it’s set up is, you can only access the current code with a satellite locator, tied into yet another computer in Sacramento that is only accessible after about a dozen passwords are given. This Gibson was wired to an elaborate alarm system, so elegant it brought tears to my eyes. The whole thing was about as burglarproof as you can get. Even though I didn’t come across many of these in my travels, I knew the system had a price tag of several thousand dollars, not including the monthly maintenance charges.
Then, I focused on the door itself and became even more confused. It appeared to be made of solid steel, over four inches thick, with overlaid hinges. I’ll bet it probably weighed in at about a ton and a half. If you were to try to open either the door or the lock by force, you’d probably have to use enough explosives to destroy whatever they were protecting. I’d certainly never seen either one on anything as ordinary as a holding place for manufactured goods. I studied the crisscrossed iron bars, so thick even a heavy duty, pneumatic wire cutter would have problems cutting through, and saw another sophisticated alarm system woven in and out, similar to one installed at a bank where we recently finished a job.
“Qué pasa?” I said, trying to make sense of it all. “What do they have stored in here? Diamonds? And if so, where are they?”
You didn’t need to be an Einstein to know something major was wrong in this quiet, musty place. I spun around and surveyed the other cages again with a suspicious eye. Somewhat mollified, I turned back to the anomalous cage. I scrutinized the wooden room inside as best I could, as it was some forty feet back from the front of the cage. In order to get a clear look at it, I had to squint between the crisscrossing. The room also had an iron door, sort of a junior version of the behemoth one standing beside me. To the left of the door was a high, iron-barred window through which a light shone. Need I say that the iron door and window sported two more very expensive locks? I didn’t think so.
I felt like I was missing a chapter of a book. You know, the one that explains what’s going on. Was this or was this not an empty hold in a dilapidated, empty warehouse being protected almost as well as Fort Knox? I made up my mind I was going to find out what was in that office if I had to chew my way through the iron. I tried to shake the fencing with all my might, but it was about as responsive as the Great Wall of China. I put my toes in between the holes in the crisscrossing and climbed several feet up. This gave me a little more of a vantage point, and I could see a little bit into the window and inside the room. I strained my eyes and could see the top of a chair, a desk and the back wall
of the room, although something didn’t look quite right. I dropped down and walked slowly around to the side of the cage that was next to the loading bay so I could pace out the interior and exterior of the room with my size 9 running shoes.
“Okay, who are you and what are you doing?” said a gruff voice behind me.
Chapter Six
Everybody’s A Suspect
As I had been concentrating on counting and math not being one of my stronger suits, I was so startled I let out a yelp and fell back against the iron cage. Then I saw the uniform of a San Francisco policeman. I was annoyed, but tried not to show it. “Whoa, officer, don’t shout at someone like that. You scared me half to death,” I chided him, in what I hoped was a winsome manner.
The boxy, middle-aged man was unmoved by my charms and looked more like someone who has just come across a snake in his tool shed. “I repeat, young woman, what are you doing here? Who are you?”
I did some fast thinking. “I was just looking for a warehouse to rent for my business, and I thought there just might be someone inside to talk to about it. But, my, my, what’s a policeman doing here? Has something happened?” I asked, in a breathless, inquisitive voice that sounded a little like Marilyn Monroe on helium. I’d seen this approach work for Lila countless times, so I gave it a whirl. I could have saved myself the trouble. He wasn’t buying any of it.
“I’m going to ask you for the last time,” he rasped, staring at me in a menacing way. “What’s your name and what are you doing here? This is private property. You want to rent the place? Dial the number on the sign on the outside of the building. You’re trespassing. I might have to arrest you.”
“That’s a little over of the top, don’t you think?” I replied, dropping my voice to its normal range and matching his menacing tone. “I haven’t done anything other than look. What are you going to arrest me for? Trespassing seems a little thin, as the door was open, and there’s no sign telling me to keep out.” My change of attitude and demeanor confused him, and his body began to twitch involuntarily.
Before he could answer, another voice came from the entrance doorway. “Mitchell, go on outside. I'll take care of this.” Mitchell shrugged, shrank a little in size and turned on his heel, heading past the voice, and out through the doorway.
The voice, dressed in a dark suit, sauntered towards me and became a man of about six feet tall. He was backlit so I couldn’t tell much more, other than he was probably gorgeous; I have these instincts. He stopped in one of the shafts of light from the ceiling and stared at me. Nothing moved save the dust particles highlighted around his head by the makeshift spotlight.
After a moment, he spoke in a silky, calm manner unnerving me completely. “I’m Detective John Savarese. My friends call me John. You’re Bob Alvarez's daughter, aren’t you? What’s your name, Lillian or something?”
“It’s Liana. My friends call me Lee. How’d you know who I was?” I asked, trying to make out his features against the back lighting.
“I've been assigned to this case.”
“So you got over the flu, huh?” I quipped.
“The flu? Oh, yes. A lot of men down. I’ve got a full report of D.I.’s activities, and I know you gave a depo in Palo Alto earlier today.”
He paused. He might have been smiling at me but, if so, it got lost in the gloom. His head moved, and I saw light blond hair, or maybe white, reflected in the narrow shaft of light. He continued speaking in the same smooth, conversational style.
“That was so we could save you a trip to the City but you came, anyway. What’re you doing here, Ms. Alvarez?” he asked and was quiet again.
I could feel him waiting for an answer. It would be difficult not to tell a person like this the truth, I decided, and went for it. “Look, I don’t know how much you know about my part in this,” I began, “but I followed Mr. Wyler here on a routine...well, not so routine, because we don’t normally do this kind of thing—”
“What kind of thing is that?” he asked suddenly, his voice caressing the still air.
I felt sexual tension run through my body and tried to ignore it. “We don’t normally do surveillance. I know I probably shouldn’t be here, but the man died on my watch. So, I guess I needed to…know what happened.” I half-laughed apologetically. “You’re probably used to this. I don’t really do this kind of thing, as a rule. I do…” my voice halted as I wasn’t quite sure how to explain what I did.
“I know. Software piracy and hi-tech fraud. I knew your father. Bob was real proud of you. A shame the way he went. Aneurysm. Sometimes no warning at all with those things. That was probably real hard on you and your family,” he said softly.
Hot tears welled up in my eyes, and I hated myself for it. Damn! It had been two years now. When was I going to be able to get on with things? Richard had. He’d moved out over a year ago and got his own apartment, even a girlfriend. Mom seemed to have moved ahead, too, taking complete charge of D.I. Once more, I felt the same emotional knife that had sliced through me right after the shock of his death wore away.
“Yes,” I said. Silence fell between us with a heavy thud. I changed the subject. “So where did it happen?”
“Where you found him. On the pier.” He hesitated but then made some sort of decision, “Come on.”
The detective turned and walked to the warehouse door. I followed him, glad to be going out into fresh air and daylight.
As I trailed behind, I sized him up, or at least, the back of him. I was right about the height, but he wore it even better in the sunlight. He was slender with broad shoulders that made him look good in a suit, even one off the rack. He also looked like he worked out two or three times a week unless he lifted bales of hay for a hobby. The back of his head showed him to be a natural blond, bleached a little by the sun. He had an easy walk, and I liked it. Right away he struck me as my kind of man. I made a mental note to stay clear of him. I haven’t done so well with my kind of man.
We walked around the warehouse and onto a cement dock approximately ten feet wide. A decrepit metal railing festooned with bird droppings was all that stood between the green-gray waters of the Bay and us. Here I saw the yellow crime-scene tape draped from the end of the building to the railing.
“We’re pretty sure he was shot out here even though the rain washed most of the blood away. Some of it got absorbed into those wooden slats at the edge of the pier. See? Over there.” He pointed to a rotting wooden beam buried in the cement that had probably once supported a wooden railing before the metal one was put in place. The wooden beam had some fresh gougings in it, probably made by forensics for evidence.
I looked up and out at the Bay. The San Francisco Bay is one of the busiest waterways in the world and surely one of the most beautiful. Boats and ships glided by, some lazily, some with import and purpose. Waves lapped noisily against the pier. Seagulls called overhead. The air smelled of the sea and timelessness. Directly in front of me was Angel Island. In the distance, I could see the other islands, Alcatraz, Tiburon, and Sausalito, as well.
Detective Savarese pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his top pocket and explained apologetically before putting them on over pale blue eyes, “I’ve got sensitive eyes. I can’t take the glare of the sun. Makes my eyes water. You don’t seem to have that problem.”
“Not really.” I turned to face him. I wasn’t interested in sunglasses, glare from the sun or even eyes that looked a lot like Paul Newman’s before his salad dressing days. He was starting to get on my nerves, this John Savarese, silky voice and all.
“So Detective Savarese, do you have any idea why this happened to Portor Wyler? I mean, he seemed like such a harmless little man,” I said.
“He was a rich little man whose wife says she hired you people to see if he was cheating on her. Now he’s dead. Who did it? Might be her, might be the purported other woman, might be anyone. Might be you. After all, you found the body.” He took a step toward me, and I saw my startled face reflected in his sunglasses. �
��So, you can see that when you’re a rich businessman you’re not as harmless as all that.” He leaned on the railing and stared at me.
“His wife went to school with my mother, and I’ve seen Mrs. Portor every now and then throughout the years, but I didn’t know him from a hole in the wall. I never saw him until my assignment three days ago. He was always working or something.” We were both silent.
“Seriously, it's not me,” I offered after several seconds.
“I didn’t think so, Lee. You’re not really a strong candidate, but for the record, you’re being checked on.”
He turned his attention out to the Bay. I followed his gaze, and we were both drawn for a moment to a sleek sailboat with a black lab on the deck, barking its head off at a passing pelican.
I had never been a suspect in a murder investigation before, even a gratuitous one, and I felt oddly uncomfortable. I fought the feeling and tried to stay calm.
“There’s something wrong with that room back there,” I stated, changing the subject. “That office room. The dimensions are off somehow,” I remarked. I didn’t look at the handsome detective but down at the railing. I felt his eyes burning into me.
“So you noticed that? Well, forget it.” The quietness of his voice was gone. “Listen to me, Liana Alvarez. Your father did me a good turn once, a very good turn. I owe him a lot. You’re fooling around with something that could be very dangerous. I want you to promise me that you’ll go back to Palo Alto and forget this whole thing. The man’s dead. Your job is over.”
I was so startled by his speech and its intensity I had no ready response. However, I was not thrilled. This was the second man today who was telling me what to do, and I didn’t like it one bit. I looked him in the eye or, rather, looked his sunglasses in the eye.
“You know, I’ve got to stop wearing my hair in a ponytail. People seem to think I’m a lot younger and more inexperienced than I really am. I also smelled urine.”
Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries Boxed Set: Books 1-3 (The Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries) Page 6
