Buchman did not look or sound nervous greeting a detective, though she noted that his hand had a tremor. Buchman offered her coffee, which she declined, and led her down a long, narrow hallway cluttered with file cabinets and stacks of papers and files. Buchman’s office was at the rear of the building, and it too had the same dark wood paneling and dated furnishings. On one wall hung a black-and-white portrait of a man with a crew cut, black-framed glasses, and a passing resemblance to Buchman. A window with blinds afforded a slatted view of a gas station and car wash across the street.
“Thanks for seeing me on short notice.” Tracy sat in an avocado-colored cloth chair across from Buchman’s large desk, which was adorned with three computer screens.
“Not a problem.” Buchman lowered himself into a leather chair.
“Is that your father?” Tracy asked, pointing to the portrait.
“It is,” Buchman said.
“You’ve been in business a long time,” she said.
“Since 1956,” he said. “My grandfather started the company and my dad expanded it with the Navy contract.” Buchman switched gears. “I called the janitor who worked that shift you were inquiring about. He should be in any minute.”
“I appreciate it,” Tracy said. “I hope I didn’t get him out of bed.”
“I’m sure it’s fine.”
“How long have you had the naval contract?”
“Almost forty-five years. It’s a big contract for us, as I’m sure you can imagine. We’ve never had a problem before.”
“You’re a civilian contractor?”
Buchman nodded. “The naval base is the largest employer in the state. I’m not sure if you knew that.”
“I didn’t,” she said.
Buchman seemed to perk up. “The base employs more than 10,000 contractors and about the same number of Department of Defense civilian employees.”
“Impressive.”
“Like I said, we’ve never had a problem. We’re the longest tenured employer.”
“And I’m not trying to create any problems for you,” Tracy assured him. “As I said on the phone, I was meeting with detectives from Bremerton and thought I’d stop by before taking the ferry back to Seattle. I’m just running things down.”
“Is this about the missing videotape?”
“It is,” she said, though she hadn’t mentioned the tape specifically in their brief conversation on the phone to set up the meeting. “This isn’t the first you’ve heard of it?”
“No,” Buchman said. “I got a call from NCIS when this whole thing happened. They sent out an investigator to take my statement and my janitors’ statements.”
Tracy made a mental note to get copies of those statements. “Who would that be?”
“The janitor that night was Al Tulowitsky. Al’s been with me almost fifteen years,” he said, as if jumping to the man’s defense. “The last ten he’s worked on the base. We’ve never had a complaint. In fact that’s one of the reasons I put him there. All of our employees have to be vetted by the Navy. Al’s salt of the earth.”
A knock on the door drew their attention to a tall, thin man who stood, looking tentative.
“And right on time,” Buchman said, standing from behind his desk.
Perhaps midforties, Tulowitsky had a shock of prematurely white hair. He motioned vaguely behind him. “Debra said to just come in?”
Buchman moved to the door. “Al, this is Detective Crosswhite with the Seattle Police Department.” Tracy shook his hand. Tulowitsky wore several sterling silver bracelets and had the dark-red complexion of someone who lived in Arizona or maybe frequented tanning salons.
“Detective Crosswhite has some questions about the missing videocassette from the DSO.”
“NCIS took my statement.” Tulowitsky had a tattoo on his right forearm, a red heart with a scroll and the words “You Are Loved.”
“I haven’t seen those statements yet,” Tracy said. “I appreciate you coming in.” She motioned to the red heart tattoo and took a guess. “Did you serve?”
“I did,” Tulowitsky said.
“Navy?”
Tulowitsky gave a thin smile. “They were my ride,” he said. “I’m a Marine.”
“But no longer active, I presume.”
“You never retire from being a Marine,” he said.
“I’ve heard that before. So you said NCIS took your statement?”
“They called the next day, said that a tape was missing and wanted to interview the janitor who’d worked the DSO building that night,” Buchman said.
“I never saw a cassette tape,” Tulowitsky said. “And I don’t touch anything on the desks, ever.”
“I understand,” Tracy said. “I’m just trying to get a better understanding of your process cleaning that building.”
Buchman suggested they all sit. Tulowitsky took the chair next to Tracy, pulling it away and angling it before sitting. He smelled of fresh cigarette smoke and had the telltale signs of a chain-smoker—lips deeply wrinkled, his teeth yellowed, along with the fingernails of his right hand. He’d likely puffed down a cigarette in the car or parking lot just before coming in.
“You want me to tell it to you?”
“Please,” Tracy said.
“Okay. First I empty the trash cans. Then I clean the bathrooms, vacuum, and straighten up. But I don’t touch anything on the desks,” Tulowitsky again offered.
Tracy needed to slow him down and press him for details. She took out a notepad. “So you go into the offices? You clean inside the offices?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Tulowitsky said, though they were likely about the same age. He had a habit of shutting his eyes and tilting back his head, as if defiant, but it was likely a tic of some sort. “But we don’t touch anything on the desks. A scrap of paper to you could be an important name or phone number to the person working there.”
Buchman gave him an approving nod, and she got the sense that Tulowitsky had properly recited a company mantra.
“Do you remember cleaning Lieutenant Battles’s office that evening?”
“I do, but only because I was asked about it. I clean all the offices on the first floor.”
“You don’t remember seeing a box on her desk?”
“No. No box.”
“And there was nothing on the floor?”
“Not that I saw. Like I said, NCIS called the day after. What I told them is likely most accurate. I would have remembered a videotape. The most I would have done—if one had been on the floor—would have been to maybe pick it up and put it on her chair so I could vacuum, but that didn’t happen. I never saw one.”
“Can you run me through your routine in that building?”
Tulowitsky shrugged. “The DSO? Okay.”
He glanced again at Buchman and it made Tracy wish Buchman wasn’t present, but she knew if she asked Buchman to leave it would make everyone even more uncomfortable.
“That’s building 433,” Tulowitsky said. “It’s the first building we clean. It’s the first building inside the Charleston Gate.”
“Is it just you or do other janitors also clean that building?”
“That building there’s two of us, me and Darren, but I clean the first floor.”
“Does Darren clean the upper floors?”
“That’s right. Fewer offices up there.”
“NCIS took his statement also,” Buchman said. “I tried to reach him this morning but wasn’t able to get him.”
“I understand you enter the last four digits of your Social Security number to gain entry into the building,” Tracy said.
“The door is locked; you can’t access the building without your Social Security number,” Tulowitsky confirmed. “And your number, the last four digits anyway, have to be approved.”
Buchman sat up. “It’s computerized,” he said. “There’s a security office where the numbers are stored. As I said, we’ve never had a problem.”
“Nobody’s ever stolen someone’s numb
er?” Tracy asked.
“Not one of our employees,” Buchman said, but then added, “Not that I know of anyway.”
Tracy asked Tulowitsky the last four digits of his Social Security number, then said, “Okay, you were going to run me through your routine inside the building.”
Tulowitsky wrinkled his brow as if to indicate that he already had. “Like I said, first thing I do is empty all the trash cans in the offices.”
“Everything has to be shredded,” Buchman interjected. “Some of the Navy personnel do it themselves. And the garbage is taken to a designated facility on base and destroyed.”
Tracy looked again to Tulowitsky. “So you empty the trash. What’s next?”
“I take the trash out to the truck and get the cleaning supplies and the vacuum. I clean the restrooms on the first floor, and just sort of tidy the offices. I vacuum and work my way out of the building.” He shrugged.
“How long does that take?”
“Everything altogether?” He glanced up at the ceiling. “The whole thing is about forty-five minutes to an hour—sometimes a little longer if we have to spot clean the carpets, but the offices are never really bad so it’s fairly straightforward.”
“So when did you arrive?”
“I usually arrive right around eleven o’clock, and I’m usually done in that building by about midnight.”
“And do you recall seeing anyone else in the building that night?” Tracy looked at her notes. “March 18.”
Tulowitsky shook his head. “I told NCIS the same thing. If someone had been in there, I would have remembered seeing them.”
“And when you leave the building to take out the garbage, do you lock the doors?”
“The doors lock automatically. All I have to do is exit. Doors close behind you. Simple as that,” Tulowitsky said.
Maybe, Tracy thought, except nothing in this case, it seemed, was simple.
CHAPTER 39
Del and Faz had inadvertently opened a can of worms, and a good many of those worms were sitting around the conference room table just outside Chief of Police Sandy Clarridge’s office midmorning. The two detectives sat with their sergeant, Billy Williams, and their captain, Johnny Nolasco. Kevin Dunleavy, the King County prosecuting attorney, sat with Rick Cerrabone. Also present were Anthony Rizzo, sergeant of the SPD Major Crimes Task Force, and Scott Disney, detective with the Narcotics Proactive Squad. Disney had long hair and a wispy beard, which meant he’d been working undercover for some time.
At the moment, Del had the floor, explaining their arrest of Nick Evans, and Evans’s subsequent statement that his supplier had fingered Laszlo Trejo. “Was this firsthand knowledge?” Rizzo asked. Clean-cut, Rizzo looked like an accountant and sounded skeptical.
“No,” Del said. “He was relating what he was told by his supplier, Eric Tseng.” Evans had provided Tseng’s name in exchange for a plea of guilty with a reduced sentence in the county jail. Further research revealed that Tseng was twenty-nine years old, had no criminal record, and had not served in the military. He was flying well under the radar. Narcotics had no knowledge of him. “Could it have been bullshit?” Rizzo asked.
“Anything’s possible,” Del said, “but I don’t think so.”
“Why not?” Rizzo challenged.
Williams leaned forward, taking up Del’s defense. “For one, they found Trejo’s body in a deserted park in Bremerton last night.” That tidbit got everyone’s attention. “Bremerton Police are currently calling it a suicide, but we had a homicide detective out there and she said it looks to her like somebody executed Trejo with a bullet in the head.”
“And I doubt Nick Evans was regularly reading the morning newspaper over a cup of coffee,” Del said. “So unless someone told him about Trejo being arrested, it’s doubtful he would have known either that name or anything about Trejo’s arrest unless someone filled him in. Second, one of the things we’ve been trying to determine since this whole thing started was why Trejo simply didn’t stop his car when he hit D’Andre Miller—why he fled the scene. This explains it. Third, somebody helped Trejo find a vacant lot in which to ditch his car and further helped him get back to Bremerton. Fourth, somebody stole the security tape, which showed Trejo at the convenience store the night the kid got hit. It couldn’t be used against him at the Article 32 hearing.”
Williams jumped in. “And we don’t think it was a coincidence—that someone simply misplaced it, not with everything else that has happened.”
Rizzo frowned. It looked like a pout. “Trejo could have been dealing drugs for years and might very well have known about the vacant lot on his own. Second, he might not have stopped because he knew he was looking at a hit and run while under the influence. We have any indications he uses?”
“I can check his autopsy,” Faz said, making a note on a legal pad.
Rizzo continued, “Third, his wife could have helped him get home and is covering for him or possibly for a friend. Maybe this guy Tseng.” Rizzo looked to Williams and Nolasco. “I thought I heard that the Navy defense counsel was under investigation for taking the video?”
Del didn’t back down. “If Trejo was supplying heroin on a regular basis, it raises the logical question. Why didn’t you guys know about him . . . or Tseng.” Rizzo visibly stiffened. “Not that I’m casting any stones.”
“They talked to Trejo’s wife last night after finding his body,” Williams said, relaying what Tracy had told him. “She admitted Trejo had been out the night of the hit and run, but swears she didn’t know where he went or what he was doing. She says he told her he had errands to run for work and would be home late. When he came home, he told her the car was in the shop for an oil change and he’d get it back later the next day. Nothing to indicate she’s lying, and frankly, she wouldn’t have any reason to, given that her husband is dead.”
Clarridge spoke to Rizzo. “So you have nothing going with respect to a heroin ring in Rainier?”
“We have a lot going, just not with Tseng,” Rizzo said. “We were made aware of a problem by the medical examiner’s office after those two overdose deaths in the north end. We had bike officers reach out to known users and asked them to spread the word. What we believe, given the timing of the deaths and the geographic proximity of the two overdoses to a dozen others, is that the victims bought from either the same person or from persons supplying from the same source. But there are a number of gangs and drug cartels in the Pacific Northwest running meth and heroin.”
“China white?” Del said.
“We don’t know it was China white,” Rizzo interjected.
“It wasn’t black tar,” Del said.
Clarridge jumped in. “But is it accurate that Tseng was not on your radar?”
“If Trejo was providing Tseng heroin, he and whoever he was working for were keeping it quiet, and with good reason,” Rizzo said. “If the Mexican drug cartels find out someone is dealing in their territory, there will be hell to pay.”
“So let’s take Tseng and see what he knows about Trejo,” Del said.
“We take him, we’re going to need to find the product,” Rizzo said. “Without any product, and without Trejo, why would Tseng talk, especially if he was working behind the Mexican drug cartels’ backs?”
“Maybe that’s the pull to get him to talk.”
“You take Tseng, and he’s part of a much larger operation, you risk losing the bigger fish.”
“There’s a bad product out there,” Del said. “People are dying.”
“That product has likely been distributed by now,” Rizzo said. “Best thing we can do is get the word out far and wide.”
“So we do nothing?” Del said, looking to Clarridge.
“That’s not going to be acceptable,” Clarridge said, rubbing his chin. “Not to the mayor and not to African American community leaders. There’s a perception the Navy had a hand in Trejo walking, and now there are all kinds of theories circulating that the Navy also had him killed.”
“So it sounds like our best bet is this guy Tseng in Rainier Beach,” Dunleavy said, who, up until this point, had remained quiet. Tall, with a ruddy Irish complexion and deep voice, Dunleavy asked, “How long are we looking at, realistically, if we were to try to get something in place?”
“You mean people on the inside?” Rizzo looked and sounded dumbfounded. “First, we don’t know how long this has been going on, but they certainly weren’t making much, if any, noise. That’s a problem. If they know we picked up Evans and that Trejo is dead, you can forget about it; they will have likely shut everything down and are on the move.”
“So then there’s no harm taking Tseng now,” Del said.
“How long?” Dunleavy asked again.
Rizzo blew out a breath. “Months. I’d say three to six, minimum.”
Del shook his head.
“That’s too long,” Clarridge said. He took a moment, considering their options. “All right, let’s pick up Tseng, start applying pressure, and see if he’ll give us Trejo as his contact, maybe more. If he IDs Trejo, at least maybe we solve the public perception problem.”
“And possibly save a few more lives,” Del said.
“Then let’s make it happen,” Clarridge said.
Late in the afternoon, an MA escorted Tracy into the office of Rebecca Stanley, Leah Battles’s officer in charge. Stanley’s office was located on the first floor of the DSO building, just down the hall from Battles’s office. It seemed too small and too austere for an officer in charge, almost as if Stanley were using a spare office for their meeting. But on the wall behind her hung a series of diplomas with Stanley’s name embossed in black script—degrees from college, law school, and the JAG Corps. They hung next to a square window not much bigger than the picture frames.
Close to Home (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 5) Page 26
