Night Watch--A Novel

by Iris Johansen

  Kendra heard her voice crack slightly as she spoke. It didn’t surprise her. She felt as if a boa constrictor were crushing her throat.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll get everything they have,” Lynch said quietly.

  She turned to Griffin. “Tell them to pull every frame of video they have during the time that Waldridge was there. Even if he wasn’t in the shot.”

  “I know how this works,” Griffin said testily. “It’s what we do, Kendra.”

  He was annoyed. Too bad. She ignored it. “I’m going up there right now. I want to talk to that clerk and anyone else Waldridge might have spoken to that night. Can you have them meet me at the store?”

  Griffin thought for a moment. “Metcalf, go up there with her. I’ll have to let Santa Monica PD in on this, so don’t step on any local toes. Got it?”

  Metcalf was trying to look cool, but Kendra could see his eyes brighten. “Sure.” He nodded toward her. “I’ll call them on the way up there, so they can pull everything—and everybody—we need.”

  “Thanks, Metcalf.”

  “We’ll take my car. I’ll dash off a couple quick e-mails, then we’ll get on the road and—”

  “Kendra and I will go in my car,” Lynch interrupted.

  Metcalf shrugged. “I just thought—”

  “In case she and I need to stay and follow up on anything,” Lynch said. “Call us when you get on the road. We’ll meet in the store parking lot.”

  “Sure, no problem.” Metcalf looked disappointed. “I’ll meet you there.”

  * * *

  “I HATED TO CRUSH THAT poor guy’s spirit,” Lynch said as he drove north on the I-5 freeway. “But this makes more sense.”

  Kendra leaned back in her seat. “You enjoyed the hell out of it. By the way, I seriously doubt his spirit was crushed.”

  “Well, I also thought you might like some time to process what you just saw back there.” He glanced at her. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m relieved he’s still alive, but I’m no less worried about him. Charles Waldridge is the last man on Earth I’d expect to be scrambling to hide blood evidence on the carpet of his hotel room.”

  “It does seem out of character for a world-renowned research scientist.”

  “It’s crazy,” she said flatly. “He needs help, and I think he was on the verge of asking me for it. He backed off at something I said.” She shook her head. “Or maybe everything I said. Anyway, he changed his mind. But I have to find him.”

  “It’s looking very much like he doesn’t want to be found.”

  “Tough. I’m still going to do it.”

  * * *

  THEY ARRIVED AT THE BALDWIN HILLS Walmart store just a few minutes ahead of Metcalf. The three of them walked in together and were taken through a maze of corridors to the spartan office of the store manager, a trim African-American man dressed in a crisp white shirt and a striped tie.

  “Derek Collins,” he said as he stood and shook hands with each of them. He gestured for them to walk with him down the concrete-floored corridor. “We’ve been pulling all the video we have from that night. Our security manager has compiled and ordered video from the different camera feeds and burned them to a DVD for you guys.”

  “Thank you,” Kendra said. “I didn’t realize you were set up for that kind of thing.”

  “We’re not, really. You’ll also get the raw video. Our guy just happened to be handy with laptop and editing software.” He smiled. “Like a lot of people under thirty.”

  He turned into the security office, where a bank of monitors lined the far wall. A stocky young man looked up from his laptop. “Hi, I’m almost done.”

  “This is Larry Delmos,” Collins said. “Larry’s the assistant security manager and he pretty much runs the surveillance camera system for us.”

  “It doesn’t have to be a polished Hollywood production,” Kendra said as she walked over to his laptop.

  Delmos flashed a toothy grin. “Too late. I stitched the feeds together into chronological order. I thought it would be more helpful to you that way.”

  He spun the laptop around for them to see. The first image showed a man walking through the parking lot. “Here he is approaching the entrance.”

  “Did you get the car?” Lynch asked.

  “Afraid not. He either came to the center on foot or parked next door to stay out of range of our parking-lot cameras. But here, look. He walked in through the front doors and goes immediately back toward the hardware section.”

  Kendra watched as the various angles showed Waldridge’s journey past a soda display, stacks of Rubbermaid storage containers, and finally to the hardware aisles, where he spent a few moments looking over the shelves. He fumbled as he picked up a red-and-white bottle.”

  “Is that Iron-Out?” Kendra asked.

  The manager squinted at the screen. “Yes.”

  They watched as he made his way through the store, picking up the cleaning supplies, and finally to the pharmaceuticals, where he picked up a large brown bottle that had to be the hydrogen peroxide. He then took his purchases to the checkout stand, where they saw the same footage they had watched at the FBI field office. After that he exited the store and a parking-lot camera captured him walking out of camera range with his purchases.

  “Scan back,” Kendra said. “Take us back to where he first entered the store.”

  The video clips sped back to Waldridge’s entrance. Just as he was about to leave the frame, Kendra pointed, and called out, “Stop!”

  The image froze and she pointed to the doors, where a man in a long jacket and a baseball cap had entered. “See?”

  Lynch nodded. “Yes, but he doesn’t seem to be with Waldridge.”

  “Just wait,” she murmured.

  As they watched the other shots of Waldridge in the store, the other man followed from a distance, stopping and appearing to look at items every time Waldridge paused.

  “Waldridge was being followed,” Metcalf said.

  “It’s more than that,” Kendra said. “They make brief eye contact several times. Watch.”

  Waldridge appeared to glance at the man as he picked up the hydrogen peroxide bottle.

  “You’re right,” Lynch said. “They were together. And notice how this guy uses his hat to keep his face from the camera.

  “He doesn’t want to be seen, yet he needs to be there,” Kendra said.

  “He could be keeping a leash on Waldridge,” Metcalf said. “Maybe making sure he doesn’t talk to anyone.”

  Kendra watched for another moment. “Scan back to the hardware aisle. I want to see something.”

  Delmos scanned back to the hardware section, where Waldridge fumbled as he picked up the Iron-Out.

  “That moment there,” she said. “See how his hand hesitated and makes a couple grabs at that bottle? He’s usually very precise with his movements. He’s a surgeon. This is unusual for him.”

  “He could have just been nervous,” Metcalf said.

  “Maybe.” Kendra stepped closer to the monitor before turning to face the manager. “Take me there.”

  “Sure. This way.”

  They followed the manager out of the office and back onto the sales floor, where they made their way to the aisle they had just viewed on the video. The manager stopped and pointed to the bottles of Iron-Out. “Here’s where he was standing. The camera was inside that dome on the ceiling, and the other guy you were looking at was standing about three aisles to the right.”

  Kendra glanced around to get her bearings. “Thank you. Waldridge was here, and he reached toward this shelf…”

  The red-and-white bottles were displayed two across and a half a dozen deep. Kendra moved aside the first two bottles and peered into the back of the shelf. She squinted, trying to see deeper. There was a small glittering object back there … She reached in and pulled out a small silver charm.

  “What is it?” Lynch asked.

  She stared at it a long moment before showing the others. “
A dolphin.”

  “Is that supposed to have some special significance?” Metcalf asked.

  “It belongs to Waldridge. He’s been carrying it ever since I’ve known him.”

  She turned it gently over in her fingers. Message received, Charles.

  “So … He put it here for you to find? Kind of a leap, isn’t it?” Metcalf asked.

  She shook her head. “No. He’s always had faith in me, even when it seemed no one else did.” She spoke softly as she continued to stare at the charm, “Never surrender … Never give up…”

  “What?” Lynch asked.

  “He knew I’d see this. He knew I’d track him here, even if no one else did. This charm is a symbol of perseverance … of never giving up. It’s what he had to remind himself for his entire career. And now…”

  “… now it’s his message to you,” Lynch finished for her.

  She closed her hand around the charm. “Yes. He knew I’d be on his trail. He’s telling me not to give up.”

  * * *

  KENDRA WAS STILL HOLDING the charm as she, Lynch, and Metcalf walked out into the parking lot. She looked down at it in her hand. Its once-shiny surface was now dull, and the sharp features had been worn down by the years. But its meaning had never been more vivid, more startlingly clear.

  Metcalf awkwardly produced a Ziploc evidence bag from his inside jacket pocket. “Uh, I should probably take that as evidence.”

  Kendra nodded. “Sure.”

  Metcalf opened the bag. She looked at the charm for a moment longer before dropping it inside.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I’ll take good care of it.”

  “You’d better. Waldridge will want that back.”

  “Do you have a copy of all the security video?” Lynch asked.

  Metcalf patted his pocket. “Right here. The whole thing is on one USB drive.”

  “I’d like a copy of that,” Lynch said.

  “Sure. After I get back to the office, I’ll—”

  “I mean right now.” Lynch pulled out his phone and plugged a small adapter into the jack on its underside. “If you don’t mind.”

  Metcalf shrugged and fished the thumb drive from his pocket. Lynch inserted it into his adapter and opened an app to upload the drive’s contents to his phone.

  “This will be just a couple of minutes.”

  Kendra looked around. “Maybe we can get some traffic-cam footage from that night. If we can track a vehicle going from the hotel to here at this exact time—”

  “Griffin is on it,” Metcalf said. “They probably hit a dozen cameras between there and here. There’s a good chance that—”

  Metcalf’s phone rang. He glanced at the screen. “Speak of the devil.”

  Metcalf answered, and after a terse few words, he cut the connection.

  “Quick call,” Kendra said.

  He nodded. “Griffin wants us all to get back to the office.”

  “Why?” Lynch asked. “What has he heard?”

  Metcalf snapped his fingers impatiently. “Can I have the flash drive back?”

  “Another fourteen seconds. What has Griffin heard?”

  Metcalf looked between Lynch and Kendra, then shrugged. “We have an ID on the Big Bear murder victim you found last night.”

  “Who was he?” Kendra asked.

  “His name was Porter Shaw. From London.” Metcalf glanced at Lynch. “Facial-recognition software matched your photo reconstruction with his passport picture.”

  “Score one for Ashley,” Kendra said.

  “Who was he?” Lynch asked.

  “They’re building a file on him right now. We should know more by the time we get back.” He looked at Kendra. “Does his name mean anything at all to you?”

  “Porter Shaw?” She shook her head. “No. Should it?”

  “I thought it might.” He turned away and headed for his car. “Shaw was part of the Night Watch Project.”

  * * *

  KENDRA’S FINGERS FLEW OVER Lynch’s tablet for most of their ride back, but she was able to glean only small nuggets of information about Dr. Porter Shaw, former professor of human physiology at Cambridge University. It was only after their arrival at Griffin’s office that she discovered any further evidence of his association with Waldridge.

  Griffin handed her a file of documents and photos still warm from the printer. “We’ll probably have more before you leave here, but this is what we have so far. I thought the Night Watch angle would intrigue you.”

  “I don’t remember him,” Kendra said. “I thought I’d met everyone connected with the project.”

  “You probably did. He only joined Night Watch in the past six years.”

  She wrinkled her brow. “That doesn’t seem right.”

  “Why not?”

  “Waldridge stepped away from it long before then. He told me he had moved on to other projects.”

  “Projects he wouldn’t tell you about?” Griffin asked.

  “Yes. Honestly, I thought Night Watch ended years ago, when Waldridge departed.”

  “Apparently it didn’t. There have been a couple mentions of it in recent medical journals.”

  Kendra stopped at a photo of Shaw and Waldridge, standing together at a Cambridge alumni event. Her gaze narrowed on the date. “This was just last April.”

  “What was his specialty?” Lynch asked.

  Kendra raised a copy of an eleven-year-old journal article. “Internal medicine. According to his bio, he won several awards.”

  Griffin leaned back in his chair. “He entered the country just eleven days ago. London to Vancouver, then into LAX.”

  “Then to Big Bear,” Kendra said. “But why there?”

  “Maybe he thought it would be a place he wouldn’t be found,” Lynch said.

  Griffin clicked his tongue. “Well, that didn’t work out well for him.”

  Kendra gazed at the pudgy face in another photo. It was a kind face, an intelligent face. And amazingly similar to the photographic reconstruction whipped up by Lynch’s ex.

  She looked up. “Did he have a family?”

  “Yes, a wife, married for over thirty years. No children. He also had a sister. London police will be notifying the wife anytime now.”

  “I’d like that contact info,” Lynch said.

  “Why?” Griffin said. “Thinking of paying her visit?”

  “Not personally, no. But we have a man helping out there.”

  “What man?”

  Lynch started to reply, but Griffin raised his hand to silence him.

  “On second thought, never mind. I don’t want to know. Your circle of acquaintances has the potential to cause me a good deal of trouble with the director. I’ll make sure you get an address and phone number.”

  Lynch grinned cheerfully. “Thanks, Griffin. You’re always so understanding.”

  * * *

  A JET PLANE.

  No traffic.

  Coyotes.

  Dr. Charles Waldridge lifted his head in the dark room that had become his home for the past few days. He’d been sleeping, and his dreams had once again echoed the only sounds he could hear, that of the jets and coyotes outside.

  Coyotes? There were plenty of coyotes in L.A., but this sounded like a pack. Probably a sign he was no longer in Los Angeles. And the sounds of jets were too infrequent to indicate he was anywhere in the vicinity of the airport. Maybe a military base. Not much information, he thought wryly. If Kendra were here, she’d probably have been able to figure out a lot more. There were no windows here, just four walls and a bathroom no larger than one might find in a recreational vehicle.

  “Ready to work, Dr. Waldridge?”

  That mocking voice again. It was probably what had wakened him, he realized.

  “Why don’t you come and face me?” he called out into the darkness. “It’s not as if I don’t know exactly who you are. Come here, and I’ll tell you in person that I’m not going to do it.”

  “I hope that’s not really the
case. I’ve been trying to be patient with you.”

  Waldridge sat up on his cot as fluorescent lights flickered on high above. He was situated at the end of a long room, forty by fifteen feet. Long workbenches lined each side of the room to form a makeshift laboratory, packed with glassware, test tubes, heating elements, and half a dozen centrifuges.

  The voice blared again from a small webcam over his cot. “Look around you. See how generous we’re being? Everything you could possibly need. How could you ask for anything else?”

  “Very easily. You know what I need,” Waldridge said. “Agree to it, and we might start over. Without that, we’re just wasting our time.”

  “And I don’t intend to waste any more time. I will come there to see you, and you won’t find it pleasant.” The voice lowered to menace. “I suggest you start working before I get there.”

  CHAPTER

  9

  London

  Nine Years Earlier

  KENDRA POSITIONED THE OVERSIZED sport sunglasses over her face as she rounded the corner. It was past 9 P.M., but the sidewalks were still crowded with holiday shoppers. There was a distinct energy at this time of year; the groups were bigger and much more varied in ages. She could hear the voices of children, thirtysomethings, and the elderly walking together in numbers she seldom heard at any other time of year. It was nice …

  She tightened the sweep of her cane as the crowd thickened. She was trembling, she realized. Not from the cold, though there was a stiff breeze in the air, but from the realization that her life might be about to change.

  Might. Remember that word. In spite of what anyone had told her, she must not let herself fly too high.

  Because, in just a few minutes, for the first time in her life, she might be going to see.

  She hoped.

  Hoping was okay, it was in the same category as that “might” word. It wasn’t taking miracles for granted.

  She knew it wasn’t supposed to happen this way. She had an appointment the next morning at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, where Dr. Waldridge, her mother, and dozens of researchers would witness the removal of the bandages she’d worn since her procedure five weeks before.