by Elle Gray
“You are out of your mind, Arrington. You know I can’t give you that.”
“You can do whatever you want. Kind of comes with the office.”
Lee frowns as he stares at me closely, obviously trying to decide what my game is. There is no game, though. I just need a copy of the murder book.
“Why do you need it?” he asks.
I knew this question would be coming and I prepared for it as best as I could. I don’t want to reveal too much—or anything, really, if I can get away with it. But judging by the way he’s looking at me, I don’t think I’ll be getting away with it. I need to tell him something, but I can’t tell him everything.
“The Takahashi murder might dovetail with an investigation I’m running,” I tell him, skirting the truth of it. “I need to know all I can about his death.”
“What case are you working on?” he asks. “And how does it dovetail with the Takahashi murder?”
“I’m not entirely at liberty to say,” I tell him.
He scoffs. “And you expect me to trust you with police information?”
“No, I don’t expect anything. I’m merely asking for a little trust,” I say. “Or if not trust, a little professional courtesy.”
“You’re not a cop. Therefore, professional courtesy is not extended to you.”
I feel my blood starting to boil and have to force myself to cool down. The last thing I want to do is get in a fight and develop even more bad blood with him than I already have. It’s hard, though. He’s really pushing my buttons.
“What’s your deal, Lee? We never really liked each other but that never stopped us from helping each other out for the greater good,” I say. “We always shared information if it meant catching criminals and saving lives.”
“Things change, Arrington. We had far too many cowboys around here taking advantage of things. Guys who were peddling favors and influence,” he says. “We had far too many cases leaked to the press, which led to guilty men going free. I know you can’t be on board with that.”
“You know I’m not. But you also know that I’m not a leak. I’m not a security risk.”
Lee shakes his head. “Unfortunately, it’s an all or nothing deal,” he explains. “I can’t start carving out exemptions, otherwise the rule will be pointless. I have to hold myself just as accountable as I hold everybody else.”
“Do you really think anything is going to change just because you say that’s a no-no now? I mean honestly, those guys out there don’t respect you, Lee. You’ll be lucky to get any of these reforms you want passed. And even if you do manage to get them passed, you’ll be hard-pressed to get everyone to follow the new rules.”
“Regardless, I need to be an example for these men. I can’t lay down a set of rules then exempt myself from them. I won’t be a ‘rules for thee but not for me’ guy like Torres,” he says with a sigh. It’s clear how serious he’s taking this. “The rules apply to me just the same as everybody else.”
“That’s admirable, Lee. It really is. But—”
“You have my answer, so there’s nothing left to talk about,” he says. “You can see yourself out now. Thanks for stopping by.”
I stand pat for a moment, looking at him in disbelief. Who knew this guy would suddenly get so self-righteous? He was always a little rigid and pompous, but I’m surprised at the turn he’s taken. I shake my head and walk to the door. If he’s not going to help me, I’m going to have to go it alone and get what I need in other ways—ways that are sure to piss him off.
But this is what he’s forced me into. I’ve got the scent of my wife’s murderers and I’m not going to stop until I’ve caught them. Nothing is going to stop me. Not even an interim deputy chief. Nobody.
Twenty-Three
Cascadia Crest Condominium Community; Belltown District, Seattle
After ducking past the yellow notice that the apartment is a crime scene, I glance around to make sure nobody’s observing me. Confident I’m alone, I slide the needle of my lock picking gun into the lock of Brian Takahashi’s door and squeeze the trigger. There’s a mechanical whirr, and a moment later, the lock clicks open. I step inside and quietly close the door behind me and throw all the locks.
Not being able to get the reports from Lee is a bummer. Brody is trying to hack into the system again, but Lee upgraded their computer systems to protect against outside hacking. It’s going to take a little time we don’t have. If he can even get through their new firewalls at all. But if anybody can, it’ll be Brody.
In the meantime, I wanted to sweep Takahashi’s place one more time just in case I missed something. Since the last time I was there, I felt like I did, and it’s been bothering me ever since. There was something niggling in the back of my mind that I haven’t been able to dismiss, so another sweep seems warranted.
As I walk through his condo, I can tell the police have been through. They were none too careful with their search. It’s a mess. I guess they figured since he wasn’t going to be around, it didn’t matter. Drawers have been emptied onto the floor and overturned, his bookshelves are in total disarray, and his piles of newspapers have been toppled over. I feel bad for the cleaning company that’s going to come in here and have to clean up this mess once it’s no longer considered a crime scene and released.
I walk through the wreckage of his apartment, picking through everything, trying to see it with fresh eyes. Trying to spot anything I might have missed before. There’s nothing in the bedroom or bathroom that piques my interest. As I walk back out into the living room and look at his workstation and look at all the unattached cords, I grin to myself. I’m sure they’re wondering what happened to his laptop. It ended up being a bust, more or less, but Brody was eventually able to confirm whoever broke into our system also hacked it and had been snooping through his files.
The fact that there was nothing useful on his computer was troubling to me. He did all that work for Veronica, so where did it go? Did he have a separate computer for it? I didn’t see one the first time I was through here. He might have had it on his person when he was murdered, and it was taken by his killers. Or maybe it’s even sitting in the evidence room at the twenty-one. I just don’t think it is, though. I think this was his only setup. So, where did all the information he pulled up go exactly?
Brody brought up a theory that he might have used an external hard drive to store sensitive information. That makes all the sense in the world to me, except for the fact that there wasn’t an external hard drive anywhere to be found the last time I swept the place. I’m sure it would have stood out if he’d had one. I may not be the most computer-savvy guy around but I’m not an idiot either. I know what a hard drive looks like. I would have noticed it.
I stand in the middle of his living room and turn in a circle, looking for what I might have missed. But nothing stands out. It’s then that my eyes fall on the collection of action figures and those weird owls that line his bookcase shelves. They’d all been swept to the side and lay in a haphazard heap. Something about the owls rings a bell in my mind, so I walk over and pick up the largest of the owls that had been on the shelf. I look at it closely and am hit with the realization of what I’m looking at.
“It’s a camera,” I whisper.
I turn it over in my hands, searching it, but don’t see where a disc or tape might be stored. But the left eye is most definitely a camera and when I think back to the first night I saw it, I realize it has a bird’s eye view of the entire apartment. It would have picked up anybody and everybody who came through Takashi’s apartment. I pull my cellphone out and call Brody and he answers on the second ring.
“Find anything?” he asks by way of a greeting.
“Yeah, maybe. The SPD trashed this place, but I think they missed a big clue.”
“You mean to say the SPD is incompetent? Hold on, let me put on my surprised face,” he replies dryly. “What did you find?”
“I found a surveillance camera,” I explain. “Brian made record
ings of everything inside his apartment.”
“God bless his paranoid mind.”
“Tell me about it,” I remark. “The problem is that I don’t know where the footage is being stored. Knowing how paranoid he was, I can’t imagine it’s too far from him.”
“An external hard drive—”
“There isn’t one here.”
“Has to be. If that camera isn’t hooked into a recording unit, it means the hard drive is likely wireless compatible. That could be why his computer is clean too. He’s sending it all to the hard drive.”
“I didn’t find it my first time through. I don’t think the SPD found it—”
“Which means it’s probably still there somewhere,” Brody insists. “Look in unusual spots. Places that are in plain sight, but nobody would ever bother actually checking.”
I turn in a circle again, hunting high and low for a spot that fits that description. In plain sight but no one would actually check. My eyes fall on the tall bookshelf, and I frown, curiosity taking hold of me. I grab a chair and pull it over to the bookcase. I climb up on it and freeze, my stomach churning wildly with excitement. The top of the bookcase is indented—something you’d never see at ground level. And inside that indent is a sleek, black external hard drive. It’s about the size of a composition book, and when I pick it up, it’s a little heavier than expected.
“Brody, you are a genius,” I say.
“Yeah, I know. ‘Bout time I got some recognition around here.”
“I’ve got the hard drive,” I tell him. “Can you meet me down at Archton?”
“What makes you think I left?” he asks with a chuckle. “I’m still here, right where you left me.”
“Great. Because we need to start analyzing everything on this hard drive.”
“Bring it on in,” he says. “And would you mind stopping to grab me a large caramel macchiato with extra caramel and two espresso shooters on your way back in?”
“You know, when you fall into a sugar coma, it’ll be your own fault.”
“I’ll take my chances. Oh, I’ll take a banana nut muffin too.”
“You got it. Anything else?”
“Nah. That should do it,” he says. “I just need to rev myself up a bit before we tackle this hard drive.”
“No sweat,” I reply. “I’m on my way back in.”
“Watch your back, Pax. Who knows when the goons will show up again?”
“Roger that.” I disconnect the call.
That feeling of excitement in my gut is growing larger and brighter. I don’t know what we’re going to find on this hard drive, but I’m crossing my fingers and hoping it’s something good. The sooner we can find Veronica’s killers and close this case, the better.
Twenty-Four
Archton Media Corporate Tower, Subfloor 1, Room 3; Downtown Seattle
“I’ve got bad news and worse news,” Brody announces.
“You seem to be saying that a lot lately.”
“Yeah well, we’re kind of in a situation that sucks,” he points out. “That’s bound to happen.”
I take a sip of my coffee. “Okay, lay it on me.”
“I’ve been able to track down three of the four women Veronica mentioned,” he says.
On the wall-mounted screen across from us, he pulls up the DMV photos of the three women. Two are white, one in her forties, the other in her thirties, and the third is black and in her twenties. The difference in age and ethnicity is a stark reminder that cancer is an indiscriminate killer. All three went to Lomtin looking for a miracle, and all they got for their trouble was torment and pain. What was done to them infuriates me.
“That sounds like good news to me.”
“Yeah, you’d think so, right? Except for the fact that the three women I’ve tracked down—Judy Upton, Casey O’Toole, and Monica Black—are all dead.”
I suddenly feel like I swallowed a thousand-pound rock and it’s sitting in the pit of my stomach. That wasn’t the news I was expecting. But like Brody said, when we’re in a situation that sucks as bad as this one, I should have expected it.
“Judy Upton died in a car crash—seems that she hit a patch of black ice when traveling too fast one night,” Brody starts.
“Original.”
“Right?” he asks. “Casey O’Toole died in a home invasion robbery gone wrong, and Monica Black suffered a massive heart attack despite having no history of heart troubles.”
“They’re tying up loose ends.”
Brody nods. “And because all three were living in different states at the time of their deaths, nobody ever connected the dots.”
“Until now,” I note. “What about the last one? Emma Welsh. What’s her story?”
“She’s harder to get a bead on. After her son died, she bounced around all over the country. She has no fixed address, no credit cards, no bank account, no car registration—nothing,” he explains. “She’s living off the grid, and at the moment, I have no idea where she is. She could be dead already for all I know.”
I nod. “Or it could be a countermeasure to protect herself,” I offer. “She might know Lomtin is tying up loose ends and went underground to keep herself from being killed along with the rest of them.”
“That’s another strong possibility.”
“Keep on her. Check for name changes, family, friends, known associates—somebody has to know where she is or what happened to her.”
“Copy that.”
“Okay, let’s take a look at this hard drive,” I say. “Let’s see what our man caught on camera and take a look at the files he was hiding.”
Brody takes the hard drive from me, hooks it up to his laptop, and casts everything onto the video screen across from us. The screen turns blue and a moment later, we’re looking at a desktop that contains a series of files.
“Click on that one marked Post-Intelligencer,” I say.
Founded in 1863, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer used to be one of the country’s oldest newspapers. But in 2009, with most people getting their news online, the Intelligencer made the decision to end their physical paper and transition fully to online news. It’s sad that you can’t go out and get a physical newspaper anymore—dinosaurs like me still prefer print editions—but at least the powers that be found a way to carry on, because the PI is just part of the fabric that makes up the city. They adapted to the changes on the ground and survived. I remember that Torres said much the same thing. I suppose it’s true.
Brody clicks on the folder, and we find half a dozen letters to the editors at the Intelligencer. In the letters, Takahashi outlines everything Lomtin is doing, begging them to investigate and publish an expose on their activities. He writes about the fraudulent trials, the deformities the children suffered, and of course, their deaths. He mentions Veronica’s death, telling them it was committed by a private security company hired by Lomtin to silence the whistleblower and the woman working to expose them. As I read it, I realize how outlandish and farfetched it sounds. It really does sound like something out of John Grisham novel and not based in reality.
“Six letters over the last four months with no replies. I think it’s safe to assume they thought Takahashi was off his rocker,” Brody comments, echoing my thoughts.
“Either that or they were paid off,” I suggest. “Lomtin didn’t get to where they are without knowing how to dodge some bullets. Could be they have all the right people paid off to alert them to stuff like this.”
Brody nods, following my train of thought. “And if that’s the case, I think now we know why Takahashi was killed. He became a liability.”
“Just another loose end they had to tie up,” I say. “But we still have no idea who’s calling the shots inside that company. Is it Sjoberg? Is it Rogers? Is it somebody else entirely? If we figure that out, we’ll know who greenlit Veronica.”
“And her whistleblower. And the three women from the clinical trials.”
“Right,” I nod. “Jesus, the bodies are real
ly starting to stack up.”
“That they are, my friend. That they are.”
Clicking out of that file, Brody navigates through some of the others. A lot of it is the information we have already and the division of labor in his working arrangement with Veronica becomes clear. He was doing all the background—he’s the one who churned out all that paperwork. Veronica was the one in the field running surveillance, taking photos, and tracking the movements of the principals in her scenario.
The two were both very detail-oriented and—well—obsessive, so it’s no wonder they made a good team. But as I look at everything they turned up, I can’t help but feel a stab of jealousy over the whole thing. I know she was trying to protect me. Trying to keep me out of Lomtin’s crosshairs. While I appreciate that, I wish she would have worked with me on this instead. I wish she would have let me help her. Let me protect her. Maybe if she had, she’d be alive today.
I shake my head and push the thought away. The only thing that would be different is that we’d both be dead. She wasn’t lying when she said she and Takahashi kicked a hornet’s nest and once they did, Lomtin wasn’t going to stop until everybody involved was dead. They would have gotten her whether I was with her or not. Though, there is a small part of me that would rather be dead with her than alive without her. Learning to live without her has been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life and there are days I feel like giving up. But I never do. I always soldier on, simply because I know how disappointed she would be in me if I did.
Brody finally gets to the surveillance files and pulls them up. There are dozens of clips in the folder, and I groan. Going through them all is going to be tedious and time-consuming.
“The camera was motion-activated,” Brody tells me. “It only recorded when something crossed into its field of vision and stopped recording when the movement stopped. You can tell by the length of most of these clips—most all of them are thirty seconds or less. My guess is it started when Takahashi got up or sat down at his workstation and when he stopped moving, the camera shut down.”
