Andre drove onto the Microsoft Campus in Redmond. The blue Honda pulled through the stoplight and made an illegal U-turn. He was coming back out as Bowden pulled in, allowing him to look at the driver. The man looked at him and gunned the Honda. The traffic backed up at the light and he couldn’t make a U-turn so he had to let him go. But one question was answered. It wasn’t a cop car.
He had passed a Car Toys store just a few blocks back, so he pulled into a parking lot and turned around. Inside he bought a cell phone using his credit card, and instantly dialed 411. He asked for the number to The King County Court House, and was patched through.
“I’m trying to reach Detective Cooper in Homicide,” he said to the person who answered.
“One moment please.”
He was transferred and the phone rang again.
“Detective’s desk. Robbery.”
“I’m looking for Detective Cooper in Homicide.”
“This is Robbery.”
“I know that. Look, could you transfer me through?”
There was a pause. “Hang on, I’m trying to find his line.” A longer pause followed. “I can’t find it. Would you like his direct number?”
He flipped open the notebook. “Go ahead.”
“Oh, wait.” The speaker put the phone down. “Jim, you got a call on this line.”
He heard Cooper pick up the phone.
“Detective Cooper.”
“Chase Bowden.”
“What do you want?”
“I like that, straight to the point and helpful.”
“Are you calling to confess?”
“No. I thought you might run a couple of plates for me.”
“Right.”
He expected that. “All right. You run my two plates and I’ll give you your anonymous caller.”
There was a moment of silence. “Was it you?”
“No. I didn’t make the call.”
“I’m transferring you to my desk.”
The phone rang twice before Cooper picked it up.
“Give me those two plates.”
Bowden opened his notebook and read the plates. He could hear the keys of a computer being struck and then there was an electronic beep.
“Okay. Your first plate returns to a 1999, Jeep Grand Cherokee registered to Ian and Becky Fonck out of Spokane. The other plate is a rental.”
“What company?”
“Enterprise. It’s on a Honda Civic.”
He smacked his hand against the steering wheel. The blue Civic was the one he wanted. He had hoped for a name.
“You okay?” Cooper asked.
“Yeah. Can you get me a number for Ian Fonck?”
“From reverse directory? I don’t think that was part of the agreement.”
“Look, it’s beneficial to both of us.”
“Just a second.”
He could hear the paper being shuffled.
Cooper came back onto the line. “I thought that Spokane address looked familiar. It’s the same address that was listed on the vic’s license.”
“Can I have the number?”
“Who reported the body?”
“Andre Fonck. One of your Deputies ran the plate when they picked me up. He works at Microsoft. How about the number?”
“No. I sent someone from Spokane County out to that address. I’m still waiting to hear back from them.”
He waited, knowing that Cooper wasn’t finished.
“Do you, uh, have a visual on that vehicle?”
Bowden smiled. “How about the phone number?”
Cooper read it, and Bowden wrote it down.
“Sorry. The Jeep is missing along with Adam’s sister, Michelle. The two of them came from Spokane together. They were supposed to go back the morning that Adam died.”
“We just got ourselves another suspect.”
“Or another victim.”
8
Bowden sat in his car and loaded ammunition into the two extra clips he had purchased at the gun range. He had called Ian Fonck after talking to Cooper and found out that Michelle hadn’t returned home as planned, and that a missing person report had been filed with Spokane County. Things were being taken care of on that end.
He tucked the Glock into the holster under his left arm and drove to the Enterprise office. A bell on the front door beeped as he opened it. The man behind the counter looked up as he walked in.
He grinned at his new customer. “Hello. How can I help you?”
Just like a car salesman, Bowden thought. He reached into his wallet and pulled out a card.
“Tom Jones,” he said. “National Insurance. It seems that one of your rentals hit one of my clients.” He handed the business card over the counter, and the man took it.
He looked at the card momentarily and reached his hand out. “Kevin Goode. This shouldn’t be a problem.”
“No. Except that it was hit and run. Maybe the person who rented the car was unaware that any damage occurred. I thought I’d get in touch with them before going to the police. It’s easier on all parties that way.”
“Yeah. You got the plate?”
Bowden gave it to him and a moment later he held a printout in his hands. “Has the car been returned?”
Kevin looked at the paper. “No. And it was checked out at the airport.”
Bowden walked back to his car, keeping the paper dry by holding it under his jacket. He slid into the driver’s seat and held the printout on the steering wheel as he read it. The car had been rented to Bill Kent out of New York. He looked at the address but didn’t recognize it even though it had a good zip code.
Other than the zip code, he suspected that the rest of the information was false. He confirmed it with a brief phone call to a friend working at NYPD.
The phone rang in his hand. It surprised him. He hadn’t given the number out to anyone.
“Hello?”
“Chase Bowden? Detective Cooper.”
“Yeah?”
“We found the Jeep. Do you want to come out?”
He thought about that for a second. Cooper was inviting him to a crime scene. It wasn’t done often.
“Sure. Where’s it at?”
“The south end of Lake Sammamish.”
“Where’s that?”
“Issaquah. North of I-90.”
“I’m in Bellevue. It shouldn’t take too long to get there.”
“Don’t hurry. We’re waiting on the dive team.”
“Is Michelle in the car? Do you know?”
“I don’t know yet. The car’s too deep to see into it.”
“Thanks.”
He pushed the off button and set the phone down. Why the call? It wasn’t professional courtesy. Cooper wanted something.
He found the scene easily but was turned away by a uniform directing traffic. He found the nearest place to park, and pulled his heavy coat out of the back seat. He put it on and zipped it closed, shoving his hands deep into the pockets.
The wind was picking up again, flapping the yellow police tape that cordoned off the scene. He stopped by the tape with a small group of reporters and cameramen. An officer stood with his back to the group and watched the scene below. He didn’t envy him. It was too cold and wet to be standing around babysitting the press.
“Hello, Officer. I’m Chase Bowden. Detective Cooper asked me to come down.”
The officer turned around and searched him with his eyes. “You a reporter?”
“No. Like I said, Jim asked me down.”
“How about some ID?”
He pulled out his New York driver’s license and handed it across the tape. The officer looked at it and handed it back.
The officer blew on his hands. “If Cooper isn’t expecting you, I’ll arrest you for obstructing an investigation.” He paused a second to let that sink in. “Do you still want me to ask?”
Chase wondered if it was a set-up, but figured that Cooper wouldn’t be able to get everyone to go along with it. “Yeah. Gi
ve him a call.”
The officer keyed the mike on his shoulder and spoke into it. “David One, were you expecting a visitor?”
“Affirmative. Where’s he at?”
“With the media.”
“Received. I’ll come get him.”
The officer looked back at Bowden and sighed. “He’s on his way.”
He knew the officer was disappointed. An arrest would get him out of the wind and cold. He recognized Cooper once he broke free of the crowd at the water’s edge. When he had covered about half the distance, Bowden raised his hand and waved. Cooper signaled him to come down and the two met on the closed-off street next to a Medic Unit.
Cooper greeted him without any formalities. “The Dive Team is getting ready to go in. Let’s go out on the dock.”
Three members from the Dive Team sat on the edge of the dock in black scuba gear. They were testing the airflow from their tanks and adjusting their facemasks. They slid into the water as Bowden and Cooper stepped onto the dock. Ten feet of water covered the roof of the Jeep. It wasn’t a deep dive but the water was murky and obscured the divers from view.
The two men stood in silence waiting for news from below. About ten minutes after the dive was started, one of the men surfaced.
He pulled out his mouthpiece and looked up at Cooper. “It’s empty. Do you want us to hook it?”
Cooper nodded and yelled to the crowd on shore. “Bring the tow truck down.”
Chase decided that it was time to find out what was going on. “So, why am I here?”
“Why’d you leave the CIA?”
“I went out on disability.”
“I know that. But you could have worked in the office.”
“I’m not that way. I’ve got to be doing stuff. I can’t sit on my tail all the time.”
Cooper smiled. “Maybe Vincent is right about you.”
Bowden remained silent.
Cooper looked over at him, then back out at the water. “I’ve decided that you’re not a suspect.”
“That’s not why you asked me to come out here.”
“No. No it wasn’t. I need to know what you’ve got… where you get your information.”
“It’s all foot work.”
“How did you know about Andre? That he called 911?”
He looked over at Cooper. “Screw you.”
“I told you, you’re not a suspect.”
He hunched his shoulders to get the coat closer to his ears, and walked away from Cooper.
“Hold it! Tell me about the other car.” Cooper took two quick steps and grabbed Bowden’s shoulder.
He spun around, shaking the hand from him. He glared at Cooper. “Don’t touch me.”
“Tell me about the rental car. Why is it important?”
“Do your own work.”
“I am. The car was rented by Bill Kent out of New York. I’ve got a friend back there checking it out.”
“That’s a dead end. Fake name and address.”
Cooper looked awed. “You already got that?”
He finally realized that part of the reason Cooper had asked him to come to the scene was to make another trade. They found one car he wanted and called him in. If they found the other car, it would happen again.
“Andre picked up a tail this morning. The rental. It followed him to work.”
Cooper bit his lower lip as he thought about the information.
“The driver made me when we reached the Campus. He was a white male in his late twenties with wavy, brown hair, medium length. He’s of medium build, running towards athletic and has a square jaw and prominent cheekbones. No facial hair. He was wearing a bulky, tan coat that looked like it was fabric, not leather.”
Cooper smiled. “I wish all our witnesses were that observant.”
Bowden scratched his chin and looked over at the Jeep. A young black woman from SID had finished checking the outside of the vehicle and opened the driver’s door. An inch of water covered the floor of the vehicle. She looked at it for a moment, then returned to her van. She hauled a wet-vac out of the van and over to the Jeep. It took a moment for someone to run an electrical cord to her, then she began sucking the water out of the jeep. She poured the water from the vacuum through a very fine sieve and put the sieve and the filter into an evidence box.
He indicated the tech by nodding in her direction. “Can we talk to her?”
“Sure.” Cooper walked over to the Jeep. “How’s it look, Julie?”
She glanced up. “Hi, Jim. Who ya got with you?”
“Chase Bowden. Works out of New York.”
Julie smiled at him from where she sat in the Jeep. “What brings you to the left coast?”
Cooper answered. “He’s working on a case that’s entwined with the Fonck murder. He actually gave us the Jeep and the tie-in.”
Julie held up a clear plastic baggy with a crumpled cigarette box in it. “Does your girl smoke?”
Chase shrugged his shoulders. “It’s not likely that she would smoke Marlboros.”
Julie smiled, showing perfect white teeth. “No. And there are no ashes. I’m thinking that the idiot who dumped the Jeep, smoked his last cigarette on the way here, flicked the butt out the window and tossed the empty box behind him. I’ll bet we get prints off it, too.”
Cooper nodded. “They are stupid, aren’t they?”
Bowden almost nodded in agreement. It was a common statement in police work that was made whenever a criminal left a piece of evidence behind, or somehow implicated himself.
He stated the other possibility. “They might belong to the victim. We know he rode in the car with his sister.”
Julie nodded and spoke with an edge to her voice. “I’ll compare them.”
Bowden could tell she was a little irritated at him. The comparison of latent prints to the victim was a routine procedure.
Cooper rubbed his hands together and smiled. “Anything else we should know about?”
Julie climbed out, and said, “They used a car to push the Jeep into the lake.”
A gust of wind blew her black hair over her face. She turned her face to the wind so that it would blow her hair back, then clamped it in place with a hand. She walked to the back of the Jeep and pointed at the bumper.
“The other car was lower than the Jeep. See how the rubber cover is pushed up?”
Bowden looked at the cover on the bumper. He couldn’t see any difference. “Couldn’t that have happened in a previous accident?”
“It’s possible. But the way I’m reading the scene is like this. One person drives the Jeep down here and is followed by someone in a second car. The guy driving the Jeep doesn’t want to jump out of the car while it is rolling because it’s muddy and raining, and he doesn’t want to slip and fall. So he stops the car here and leaves it in neutral.” Julie pointed to a piece of level ground. “He gets in the other car and they use it to push the Jeep to the decline.”
Julie pointed at two tire marks in the mud where a vehicle had fought for traction. “These are two thin to be the Jeep’s tracks. Also, the Jeep was in four-wheel drive. We’d have four of these marks out here instead of two. Someone used their ride home to push the Jeep into the lake. I’ve made a cast, but with this rain, the edges aren’t very good.”
Bowden nodded. It made sense. That left a couple questions unanswered though. Did Michelle drive the Jeep or was she kidnapped? He slid his hand under the hood of his jacket and passed his fingers through his hair, as if it might help him think. Then he pulled the hood lower.
“Any sign of a struggle inside the Jeep?”
Julie looked at him and her eyebrows came together. “Nothing obvious. I haven’t had much time here.”
“We’ll leave you alone so you can work on it,” Cooper said, grabbing Bowden’s shoulder and turning him away from the Jeep.
They took several steps before Cooper spoke. “You think Michelle dumped it?”
“I don’t know. It’s fifty-fifty now. I really expecte
d her body to be in the Jeep.”
Cooper laughed. “I know. You end up being disappointed that you were wrong; but relieved.”
They walked back to the police tape near Bowden’s car.
Cooper sighed. “So what happened with you and the CIA?”
Chris clinched his teeth. He still couldn’t talk about it without getting mad.
Cooper saw the reaction. “I’ve got sources too. I wouldn’t let any schmuck walk through a crime scene like that. So, why’d you leave?”
Bowden shook his head and stuffed his hands into his pockets. He stared at Cooper wondering what his source might have said. “I got injured in the line of duty. Took a bullet in the shoulder. They jerked me out of the field and stuffed me in a chair.”
“Because of your disability.”
He recognized the fact that Cooper said that as a statement. His source had told him.
“That’s BS! It’s a twenty-percent disability. I’ve still got all my strength and only a minor loss in range of motion.”
“Yeah?”
“They were embarrassed because they screwed up. They didn’t insert the proper number of agents needed for the operation. They reduced the size of the force against my recommendations, and I got shot.” The force of his voice kept increasing. “Then they buried me in paper, and I quit.”
“No love lost.”
“I loved that job. It was the politics I couldn’t stand.”
Cooper lifted the yellow tape for him and he ducked underneath it. It was raining again as he walked towards his car.
“Keep me posted!” Cooper yelled after him.
He didn’t answer, but shut himself in the car and turned the engine over. He sat, leaning his head against the headrest. He closed his eyes and let the vision fill his mind. Men running. Shots ringing out. Blinding flames. Billowing smoke. Stabbing pain.
Bowden pounded his fist against the steering wheel. “Bastards,” he snarled as he smacked his fist against the hard rubber again.
Raindrops obscured his vision, so he turned on the wipers. The blades cleaned away the water, which was instantly replaced by other drops. Something is definitely wrong with the climate here. He put the car in drive and pulled out into traffic. He wasn’t far from the Miller’s house and that was where he headed.
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