by Matt Lincoln
“For Christ’s sake, we almost lost you,” I yelled. “If you go around trying to find her behind our backs, you could get both of you killed. We are trying to get her back alive.” I tossed him his phone, and he caught it one-handed. “This isn’t like you. Hell, you haven’t been yourself since she left.”
“You mean the goofy, play-the-dumb-one-undercover version of me?” He took off his hat, and the hurt couldn’t have been more clear. “Yeah, I miss that guy, too, but I gotta be the tough guy who gets his sister back so that his parents don’t die of heartbreak.” He spun and walked toward the street.
“Robbie…”
“What?” he spat while keeping his back to me.
“Please don’t try anything. You know it rarely ends well.”
“Forty-eight hours, Ethan,” he said in a flat tone. “Missing persons have a forty-eight-hour window. After that…” His voice trails off. “I’m gonna go clear my head.”
He stalked away down the sidewalk. I resisted the impulse to drag him back into the firehouse. Holm was a grown man, but he also had as much potential to be dangerous as I did. If he went after the person or persons in charge of capturing Ronnie, there wouldn’t be enough witnesses left to say what really happened.
When I returned alone, Meisha quietly cornered me.
“Talk,” she ordered. Damn, she had that director role down.
“He’s going for a walk to clear his head.”
“Is that all?” She studied me for all I was worth. “Do we need to lock him down?”
“Lock him down?” I scoffed. “Good luck with that. Let me know how it works.”
Meisha’s glare followed me all the way to the back stairs where I stopped and glared back at her. Yeah, it was petty, as if I was a child testing his teacher’s limits. My nice switch wasn’t on at the moment.
“You’re in charge of him until Bonnie gets here,” Meisha informed me.
“I’ll do that, once he’s back.” I looked up the stairs. “I’m going to check out the second floor until then. I may go as well see what you got cooking up there.”
Meisha ignored me after that and went back to her laptop. I took the steps two at a time until I reached the second-floor landing, which led to a double door. That opened to what used to be a dormitory and living quarters for the firefighters. A sole metal bunk bed with lumpy mattresses sat in the middle of the open space. On the other side, I found a defunct kitchen. An old fridge from the fifties at the latest was the only remaining appliance.
I made my way to the sliding pole. A stanchion set with dingy red ropes blocked the hole in the floor where there had once been a safety rail. I unhooked a rope to get a closer look.
“Don’t do that.”
Little Jo’s soft voice carried across the way and caught me before I committed to a slide down the pole.
“Why not?” I reached out and poked the pole. It seemed fine.
“It’s loose.” Jo pointed at the ceiling, where the bolts showed rust and peeling paint. “It’ll give way any time.”
“Thanks for the warning.” I reattached the velvet rope as the sunlight dimmed in the room. “What do you think about this floor? Meeting rooms, holding area, a lab?”
She shrugged and stuck her hands into her back pockets. “This place is a joke. I like it, but it’s a joke. We’re going to rent that police lab space as long as we’re open in this location.”
“You don’t think the office will stay open?”
Jo shrugged. “Not the way it’s being ignored. I heard what you said. It’s weird. Someone doesn’t like MBLIS, and they’re trying to disband us.”
“Woah,” I protested. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Why not?” She looked up, but I couldn’t read those dark eyes. “Why else would they screw us before we get started?”
I couldn’t argue with that logic. An old acquaintance, retired Fleet Admiral and former Joint Chief Donald Farr had recently warned me something was up. He’d tried to get us visibility so the public would rally for our funding, but we got to keep our low profile. There were top secret agencies, and there were public entities. We were somewhere in between, and I liked it that way.
“I intend to find out what’s going on.” I wished I had an answer as much for myself as for Jo. “I’m all for cutbacks on waste, but they have to do it in the right places, not in ways that’ll hurt our country.”
“Yeah, I just want a lab and wanna get paid to help catch bad guys,” she said wistfully.
“You and me both.”
“Marston, Jo, get down here,” Meisha’s shout ran up through the hole in the floor. “There’s a car on fire right out front!”
CHAPTER 9
I ran to the windows on that side of the dormitory and looked outside. Black smoke plumes covered the view.
“Shit…” I looked at the pole. It was right there, and the stairs were at the wrong end of the building. I shook the pole, and it only wobbled a little. “Coming down!”
The nearly century-old fireman’s pole rattled as I jumped on. Jo swore as bad as a sailor, and I felt the weight strain on the pole as I hit the ground. She screamed as the bolts gave way at the top and the pole swayed, but I held it steady until she was safely down. I let go, and it leaned into the side of its hole. The bottom bolts next to my feet popped on one side as the plate bent.
“Better not slide down that pole,” I told her, and her cheeks darkened.
Jo ran toward a wide room whose door now stood open. “We have fire extinguishers in here,” she called out.
I followed her into what turned out to be an equipment room and grabbed two of the big ones. We sprinted out to the street to find a compact sedan engulfed in fifteen-foot flames. Neighbors brought out garden hoses, and passers-by aimed their camera phones as we battled the fire. By the time fire trucks screamed up the sloping street, the flames were down to a mere four feet. Despite our efforts, I suspected the fire died down because it ate up its fuel more than anything else.
“Ethan, get inside,” Meisha told me as the firefighters took over. “If they get a closeup of your face in the local media after being outside our office, you won’t be able to go undercover.”
I wanted to help more, but the truth was that if anyone were in that car, they’d be dead already. For want of anything else to do until the scene was cleared, I went upstairs and explored a little more while checking out the window every now and then. At one point, Holm showed up and kept behind the line. Eventually, he made his way around to the station’s side entrance.
While the commotion carried on outside, I checked out the antiquated showers and then the large storage area. If the Honolulu office were going to use the fire station, they’d either have to expand or rent extra spaces indefinitely. The upstairs could host a decent Cybercrimes unit, but not a lab or morgue. The storage space might’ve been enough for a corner office or temporary holding area.
Footsteps echoed in from the main dorm area, and I stepped over to the storage room’s door to find Holm pacing the length of the floor. His rounded shoulders and hung head, along with his retreat to a quiet place, suggested he needed more alone time, but my phone buzzed right then. With an exasperated sigh, I answered the call from Meisha.
“Warrant came in,” she reported. “Get Robbie and meet me out back. We’re going to go interview some people at the Honolulu Police HQ.”
“Is the fire the rest of the way out?” I asked as Holm’s footsteps approached.
“Look out the window.” Meisha drew out the syllables as she spoke them. Yeah, she was still pissed at me.
“Hang on a sec…” I trailed off because Holm stuck his head into the room. Curiosity, rather than anger, crossed his face. Guess he’d relaxed. “Talking to Meisha,” I let him know, and then I pointed. “Over to the window.”
“We just ran the VIN,” Meisha said in a weary voice. “The plates were too slagged, so we had to wait until it cooled enough for us to get close.” She coughed. “They didn’t
find anyone inside, so that’s something.”
“Who does the car belong to?” I asked.
“A rental company. Honolulu PD is helping Abbie get the info as we speak.”
I walked over to the window casement. The car’s scorched shell hissed steam under the fire crew’s observation. Meisha glanced up at the window then away as a fire commander and police officer approached her. She coughed again over the phone.
“You okay?” I asked her. “Sounds like you got a lungful.”
“I’m fine.” She cleared her throat. Away from the phone, someone asked if she needed to see a medic, and she turned them down. “What I need is for this scene to be cleared.”
Medic… Paramedic!
“I’m gonna miss that coffee with Sadie,” I blurted out. “I’ll text to see if she can see me later.”
Meisha made a sound like she was annoyed. “Whatever. Be ready to go. Robbie can come along if he’ll follow protocol,” she advised. “Also, if Little Jo doesn’t want to face the crowd, she’d better lock up and go home.”
When we went downstairs, we found that Jo had already retreated inside. I relayed the message, and Holm and I went out back to wait at the Impala. Stark walked up a minute later and got into the back seat.
“Honolulu police picked up one of the buyers for questioning,” Meisha told us as she drove us out onto the congested street. “Abbie, did you learn anything?”
Stark pushed a tress of singed red hair back from her face. She gave Holm and I long looks.
“What?” Holm demanded. “I know that look, Abbie.”
“The rental company said the car was let out to an Alexandra Moore.” Her forehead creased. “That’s Ronnie’s cover name,” she reminded us. “The good news is that nobody was in the car. Not in the cabin or the trunk.”
“‘Good news’ is relative,” Meisha stated. “All this tells us is that she wasn’t in the car.” She glanced up at the mirror. “This also means they know, or at least suspect, we’re looking for her. My money’s on Jones talking to his ‘independent contractor.’”
Less than twenty minutes later, we parked outside HPD’s headquarters next to a brand new Corvette. We were led through a back door, where Davis waited for us. He fell in with us on the hike to an interview room, where the shift commander stopped us in the hall. Meisha and Stark slipped away for a few minutes and returned with a cardboard box.
“I understand Special Agent Holm’s sister is being held by this group,” the officer said in a firm tone. “Agent Holm, you can watch from the observation room here.” She gestured to the door. “Those of you going in, if Maloney so much breathes the word ‘lawyer,’ I’m sure you know what to do.”
Meisha and Stark went into to speak with Jones’s client. Davis joined Holm and me after trying to make a case for joining the questioning.
“Guess I shouldn’t let any of these asshats see my face, either,” he conceded. “It’d suck for us to get our cover blown.”
“Thank you for your wisdom, Captain Obvious,” Holm grumbled.
Whatever equilibrium Holm had regained during his earlier walk seem to be at the tip of vanishing. Fortunately, Davis either didn’t hear him or chose to ignore the slight. I wished we could’ve known Davis under better circumstances. He didn’t seem so bad, but Holm and I weren’t at our jolly best, which didn’t help matters one bit.
There were chairs in the observation room, but none of us took a seat. We watched as Meisha and Stark entered the room with one Colin Maloney. Stark brought the box in with her.
Maloney sulked at the metal table. He kept his palms flat against the surface even though he wasn’t cuffed. When Stark set the box on the table, Maloney watched with hooded eyes. A moment later, he looked up and saw Meisha, who leaned against the wall next to the exit, and his eyes widened before going back to sulk.
“What are you, the Wonder Twins?” Maloney grumped.
“See?” I laughed. “I’m not the only one.”
Holm rolled his eyes. “You do know the Wonder Twins were a guy and a girl, right?” He pursed his lips, which I hadn’t seen in weeks. “So which one can change into water and which into an animal?”
Davis suppressed a chuckle. Well, well. Progress on two fronts. I could live with that. All I needed was for Holm to take back the joke reins. My jokes sucked. His did, too, but they worked better for him. Sarcasm was my native tongue.
“That’s it,” Meisha said in the room. “I’m dying my hair black. You can keep the red, Stark.”
It was hard to tell from where we stood, but I thought Stark’s lips twitched just a little. Maloney relaxed a tad. That could go either way. Some persons of interest opened to women better than men. Others wasted time playing games.
“Tell us about the bowl, Colin,” Stark began. “The one you bought from Julie and Brian Christophel.”
Maloney smirked. “That sale was legal, and you are holding my property.” He nodded toward the box. “I want it back.”
“The Christophels flew in from California.” Stark glanced at the file on the table and then looked up. “How do you know them?”
Maloney shrugged. “I don’t. They happened to have an item of interest, and I purchased it from them.”
“This item…” Stark referred to the file and held up a printed photo. “This is an eighteenth-century ormolu-mounted Ming Dynasty porcelain bowl. You paid four hundred-and-seventy-five thousand for it.”
“What can I say?” Maloney leaned back and draped his left arm over the back of the chair. “I love the Mings.”
Davis cringed. “Dude, you don’t call them ‘the Mings.’ It hurts. He’s lucky I’m not in there.”
I blinked and looked at him even as Meisha winced in the room.
“You’re into antiques?” I asked with a tone that was maybe a little too incredulous.
“What? I like history.” Davis made a point to not look at me. “Creeps like this shouldn’t be allowed near the cool things.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Holm said with a smile. “Ethan likes his pirate ship and treasure.”
“Okay, okay,” I pretended to grumble.
Back in the room, Meisha joined Stark at the table. She thumbed through the file like I’d seen her do a hundred times before when she was a special agent out of the Miami office.
“Are you sure you don’t know Brian or Julie Christophel?” Meisha prodded. She held the folder up, looked close, and then met Maloney’s gaze. “Not even a little?”
Maloney straightened in his chair. “I may have run into them a time or two at society functions in L.A. when I lived there. Why does it matter?”
“It matters that you owed them money.” Meisha closed the folder so he couldn’t see the report she didn’t have. I loved that the guilty ones never asked to see the evidence that we kept in the folders… usually. “Want to start over and tell me about it? I might be able to cut you some slack down the road if you talk.”
Maloney put his elbows on the table and folded his forearms at the edge of the rounded edge.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” he insisted. The lines at the corners of his eyes and the vertical line between his eyebrows deepened. “It’s a cool bowl, and it’s the one I wanted for the buy.”
Stark had hit a chord, and she played Maloney like a guitar.
“She’s good,” Davis murmured. “Right to the point, no messing around.”
I nodded. This wasn’t the first time I’d observed Stark interview a suspect, but this was the biggest case I’d seen with her in this role. Meisha must have been evaluating her new special agent during this questioning.
“What do you mean ‘for the buy,’ Colin?” Stark asked casually.
“You know, to buy from the Christophels.” Maloney shifted in his seat. “I could’ve chosen other things to buy from them.”
Meisha leaned forward. “Do they have a catalog? I’d love to have a look.”
Maloney sneered. “You couldn’t afford any of it.”
>
“Really?” Meisha pulled out a sheet of paper from the folder. “According to this listing sheet, an almost identical piece sold for, oh, five thousand dollars.” She raised an eyebrow and looked up. “A bit pricey, but I could swing it.”
Wow, someone had worked fast to get all that information. I glanced at Holm. His attention was on that box.
“That… that can’t be right,” Maloney protested. “They clearly don’t know what they have.”
“Then you won’t mind having our consultant authenticate it and suggest a price range,” Stark ventured. “We have an expert who would be happy to see this piece.”
Maloney’s face darkened as he waved an arm across the table. “I would not be happy to have some pansy to look at it. He’ll say what you want him to say, and then I lose.”
“Our person will give a fair assessment.” Stark stood. “You’re free to have someone of your choosing give a second opinion.”
“Wait, you’re taking it to this so-called expert right now?” Maloney exclaimed.
“No time like the present,” Meisha answered.
In our little observation area, Davis nodded. “Liz Bell at the museum. She jumped at the chance.”
On the other side of the window, Stark went to pick up the box. Her hand brushed the top, and the whole damn thing slid off of the table. I winced when I heard the porcelain shatter.
“You stupid cow!” Maloney lurched to his feet. “That thing was worth a lot of money.” He dropped back into his seat, but the smirk reappeared for a moment so brief I almost missed it. “I guess it’s a good thing I got it insured. Damn, woman.” He worked his face into an approximation of regret. “It was a nice bowl, too.”
Stark sat and met Meisha’s eye.
“Do you have a card for your insurance agent?” Meisha asked. “It’s best to handle things quickly.”
“Yeah, yeah. It’s in my wallet.” Maloney started for his pants pocket and then slowed. “You’re not gonna shoot me for getting my wallet, are you?”
Meisha snorted. “Did they check you for weapons when you got in?” That was a rhetorical question. Of course, they had. “Just in case they missed something, I think it’s fair to let you know we’re both armed and not afraid to use our sidearms.”
