Velocity

by Alan Jacobson

  “I just need it for a case.” Okay, that’s only partially true—but it’ll have to do for now. “Email it to me as soon as you can, okay sweetie?”

  Jonathan seemed to accept the explanation—and the diversion—but he was no dummy. He would know something was wrong, but he probably also knew his mother wouldn’t tell him much about a sensitive issue.

  Vail hung up, reholstered her phone, and joined Dixon at the elevator.

  It slid open and a uniformed officer stepped out.

  “You assigned to John Mayfield?” Vail asked.

  “Who—”

  “Your prisoner.” Vail held up her creds.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Because you weren’t at your station.”

  “I had to use the head. I was only gone a few minutes. Guy’s in a coma.”

  Dixon shook her head. “No good. Coma or not, he’s extremely dangerous. Don’t underestimate him. And don’t leave your post again unless you’ve got coverage.”

  The cop gave them both an exaggerated frown, then pushed past them.

  Dixon turned and watched him amble away. “Let’s do something productive. Yes?”

  Vail rubbed her face with two hands, then nodded.

  9

  They took the stairs, avoiding the elevator. Vail pushed through the metal fire door and moved onto the textured gray steel steps. “Merilynn said that Mayfield warned Ray that if he told another detective, Mayfield would know.”

  Dixon’s shoes clanked beside Vail. “That would seem to fit with the fact that Mayfield had an inside source.”

  “Or,” Vail said, “it merely means he had a way of getting into the Sheriff’s Department and finding out that information. Since he had the cover of a pest control technician, he could move about with impunity.”

  Dixon pushed through the door that led into the first floor lobby. “I think we should tell Brix, have him sniff around to make sure there wasn’t someone communicating with Mayfield behind our backs.”

  “Couldn’t hurt.”

  Dixon pulled her phone and typed out a text with her request. The Crush Killer case was in an unusual gray area—it had been solved but remained active because, like a CSI puzzling over a broken pane of glass, pieces were scattered about but had yet to be gathered up and reassembled into a whole. As a result, Dixon was still the lead investigator.

  “We should also dig into who John Mayfield is,” Vail said. “Maybe something from his house will lead us to his lair. We might find a trove of information and forensics there.”

  Dixon closed her phone, then stopped short.

  “What is it?” Vail asked.

  Dixon turned to Vail, her mouth partially open. “Cannon.”

  Dixon was referring to James Cannon, a bodybuilder friend of Mayfield’s whom Dixon and Vail had met at the gym. He had hit on Vail, then took offense to something Dixon had said. Shortly before they had identified John Mayfield as the Crush Killer, Vail thought Cannon might be the offender.

  Vail shook her head. “Ray tried to locate him. He searched for that start-up winery where Cannon was supposedly the winemaker. Herndon Vineyards. Nothing came up.”

  Dixon narrowed her eyes in thought. “I’m not sure we can trust anything Ray told us. We don’t know how he’s wrapped up in all this. We need to look into Cannon and Herndon Vineyards ourselves.”

  “Best we start with someone who knows the operations of a winery up close and personal. Brix.”

  “Silent partner. But I’m sure he can hook us up with his brother or sister, since they’re the ones who run the place. And I’ll see if he can have NSIB get us Cannon’s home address from DMV.”

  While Dixon made the call and told Brix what they needed, Vail wandered over to their car and rested her forearm on the passenger window, then dropped her head against her arm. Thoughts of Robby flittered through her mind . . . and came to rest on yesterday morning when she was leaving for the Sheriff’s Department. She had kissed him good-bye and he stirred.

  “See you tonight,” he had told her.

  She replied, “Yes, you will.”

  Except that she didn’t. He was gone.

  “Okay,” Dixon said, pulling Vail from her reverie. “Brix is gonna touch base with NSIB, then have his brother call us.”

  Vail pushed away from the car door and nodded.

  “Look, I know you wanted to put Mayfield six feet under back there—believe me, I would like to have helped you do it—but that’s not what this is about.”

  Vail looked away. “Yeah.”

  “We’ll find him, Karen. Eddie’s gone. But Robby . . . We’ll find him. You have to believe that.”

  Vail felt a tear roll down her cheek. She flicked it away. “Let’s get going.” As she climbed into the car, she realized she wished she knew where to go. She wished she knew where to go to find Robby.

  10

  The clock was ticking; Vail kept track of the seconds as they melted into oblivion.

  She knew better than most that the initial twenty-four to forty-eight hours in a missing person’s life were crucial. Even Robby, a homicide detective, was subject to the same rule. Because cop or not, at the end of the day, stripped of gun and badge, he was just a human being, a vulnerable civilian. When bound and gagged, or being held captive—if that’s what was going on here—the victim was usually powerless to help himself.

  The image of Robby being powerless was incongruous with his imposing physical presence: a thick but trim six foot seven. She had seen him vulnerable only once before—the result of a stun gun attack. And that had nearly been disastrous.

  But if Robby was not injured or under someone else’s control, a remaining option was one Vail could not bring herself to consider. Whenever her thoughts meandered in the direction of Robby’s death, her subconscious yanked away her mind, much like old Vaudeville acts were pulled from the stage if they bombed.

  As they entered the task force conference room, Vail took a deep breath and realized that her anxiety was causing her to grind her molars. Her dentist would peer inside her mouth at her next cleaning and, once again, admonish her for wearing down her teeth. She would, once again, give him a sharp retort—something like, “If you think stress has worn down my teeth, you should see my arteries.”

  But of course none of that mattered at the moment.

  “You hear from my brother?” Brix asked.

  Brix sat huddled over a stack of documents, a legal pad off to his right filled with scribbled notes. Stan Owens was on the phone, his own comments scratched out on a page at his elbow. Gordon and Mann were not in the room.

  “Not yet,” Vail said.

  Brix twisted his wrist and consulted his watch. “He was in a meeting. He should be out soon. Just so you know, I did a search for the place online. Nothing. Searched for Cannon. Nothing again.”

  “So Ray was telling the truth,” Dixon said.

  “About that, yeah.”

  Brix’s dig was not lost on Vail. She opened her mouth to comment, but both her BlackBerry and Brix’s phone vibrated. She pulled hers and read the display.

  “My son just emailed me a photo of Robby.”

  Dixon pointed to the BlackBerry. “Send it to all of us. I’ll print copies for everyone.”

  Owens looked up. “Include me in that. Time being, I’m gonna sit in on the task force, help you people out.” His eyes found Dixon. “If that’s okay with you, Ms. Dixon.”

  Dixon’s expression was neutral. “Thanks, sheriff. We can use any help we can get.”

  The door swung open and Mann and Gordon walked in.

  “That’s my point,” Mann said to Gordon. “Who woulda thought.” They both took a seat at the conference table.

  “Who woulda thought, what?” Vail asked.

  Using his prosthetic hand, Mann deftly pulled a notepad from his pocket. “I didn’t think it’d be the case, but there’s a fair number of Sebastians in the area. Between first names and surnames, we’ve got over forty in the greater regi
on. I mean, Sebastian? I wouldn’t have expected it to be that popular. We got a list of names and numbers and started dialing, the ones closest to Napa city limits first. So far, no one knows a Robby or Roberto Hernandez. We asked a couple guys from NSIB to work the rest of the list.”

  “I just emailed all of you the photo of Robby,” Vail said. “Can you forward it to the NSIB investigators?”

  Gordon pulled out his phone. “Done.”

  Brix disconnected his call, then sat down in front of the laptop perched in the middle of the conference table. “NSIB got Cannon’s home address from DMV, an apartment on Soscol. But it’s old. They’re there now. Landlord said he hasn’t lived there for two or three years.” He struck some keys and brought up Robby’s picture, then sent it to the color LaserJet in the corner. “They’re gonna see about getting a forwarding address.”

  “Who’s Cannon?” Mann asked.

  As Dixon made her way to the printer, she said, “We’re looking into the possibility that a guy who was friends with Mayfield may be involved in this. James Cannon. Karen and I met him a couple days ago. Said he was a winemaker with a start-up called Herndon Vineyards. Anyone hear of it?”

  Owens, Mann, and Gordon shook their heads.

  Brix pushed his chair back from the table. “Herndon’s supposedly not releasing their first cases for another couple years, so they’re not putting out any promo materials. No product, no press. I’m hoping that my brother, with his wine industry contacts, can get us a twenty on Herndon.”

  Dixon scooped up the photos from the printer tray. “That’s assuming that Herndon is real. Could’ve been a bunch of crap.”

  “We’ll find out,” Brix said, again stealing a look at his watch. “If it’s legit, we may end up locating the winery before we get Cannon’s current home address.”

  “I can give Ian Wirth a call,” Vail said, referring to a vintner in the Georges Valley region, where the Crush Killer had a propensity for choosing his victims. “Ian would probably know just as much as your brother about how new winery applications are handled.”

  Brix shrugged. “Go for it.”

  Dixon handed a copy of Robby’s photo to each of the task force members.

  After leaving a message for Wirth, Vail said, “What happened with the media? Last night we had TV and print reporters here. When that Microsoft techie gave you Mayfield’s name and you took off for my twenty, what’d the reporters do?”

  “No idea,” Brix said. “We left through the back. We didn’t want to get stuck answering questions, and we certainly didn’t want them following us down the road and getting in the way of a high-speed chase.”

  Stan Owens leaned forward. “I told them it didn’t pan out, that I’d call them if anything broke.”

  “Did you?” Dixon asked. “Call them?”

  “I’ve been a little busy.”

  Dixon held up a hand. “I didn’t mean that as a criticism, sheriff.”

  Dixon glanced at Vail, who inched her chair closer to the table. Tread lightly here . . . “No one knows that John Mayfield, the man lying in a coma at Napa Valley Med Center, is a serial killer, and that he’s killed a bunch of people here.”

  “Not this again,” Owens said.

  When the Crush Killer had started taking lives, Vail had lobbied hard to publicize his existence, which would’ve played into his narcissistic needs and enabled them to open a dialogue with him. Though she was vetoed for political reasons, their silence on the issue now might work to their advantage.

  “No, no,” Vail said, holding up a hand. “This is a good thing, sheriff. This guy, James Cannon, if he’s an accomplice of John Mayfield’s, then he doesn’t know Mayfield’s been caught. If he is involved, he’s got no reason to be concerned.”

  Brix splayed both hands palm up. “Until he tries to reach Mayfield and his buddy doesn’t answer.”

  “Right,” Vail said. “So we’ve got a limited window to act. We’ve gotta move fast.”

  Dixon rose from her seat. “Okay.” She looked down, brought a hand up to her chin, seemed to be lost in thought. “Burt. You and Austin see if you can locate Herndon Vineyards. Sheriff, coordinate with NSIB and let us know if anything comes up with either Robby’s photo or his friend Sebastian. Karen and I are going to pay a visit to Superior Mobile Bottling. Redd, can you get a copy of Mayfield’s phone records, home and cell, and see if there are any unusual connections we can make? We know there’ll be calls to Cannon—they were buddies—so even if we have to call every number in his logs, we might find Cannon that way.”

  Vail snapped her fingers. “Wait a minute—Cannon was a member at Fit1. Maybe we can grab their records without a warrant.”

  “That’d be good, because we don’t have near enough yet to get a warrant,” Dixon said.

  Vail rose from her chair, then reached over and unbuttoned the top two buttons of Dixon’s shirt. She leaned back and appraised her partner. “Yeah, but I think we’ve got enough to get what we want.”

  11

  The twenty-something tight-shirted front desk attendant smiled when Dixon and Vail stepped up to the counter. Vail looked pretty damn good for thirty-eight—especially considering all she had been through of late. But Dixon, several years younger, not only possessed a natural beauty but worked hard to keep herself in shape. Eddie Agbayani, her former boyfriend, had called her “Buff Barbie,” a description Vail would’ve been hard-pressed to dispute.

  And the dude behind the desk took notice, too.

  “I haven’t seen you around here,” Dixon said, a coy smile spreading her lips and a straightening of her shoulders spreading her blouse.

  “Rolando,” the guy said, his eyes drifting down to the last fastened button as he extended his hand.

  Dixon took it and squeezed, which got Rolando’s attention. “There’s a guy who works out here,” she said. “He asked my friend here out on a date and she lost his number. Can you look it up for us?”

  Rolando’s eyes finally focused on Dixon’s face. “His phone number?”

  “I’ll take his address, too,” Vail said, “if you’ve got it.”

  Rolando squinted, hesitated, then moved to the computer at his right. In a low voice, with a glance over his shoulder, he said, “No go on his address. But I can give you his phone. Just don’t tell anyone.” He hit some keys and looked up. “Guy’s name?”

  “James Cannon.”

  “Cannon . . . ” Rolando said as he scrolled down the list.

  “Know him?”

  Rolando typed, frowned, then typed some more. “Big dude?”

  “That probably describes half the guys in this gym,” Dixon said with a grin. “But, yeah.”

  “All we’ve got is a cell. That work?”

  Dixon pulled out a pad and pen, then craned her neck to look at the screen. “You’re a lifesaver, Rolando.”

  Rolando leaned back, but his eyes remained riveted on Dixon’s well-defined cleavage.

  Vail cleared her throat. She could’ve sworn Rolando gave her a dirty look—but it worked, because he momentarily diverted his eyes.

  “How long has he been a member?” Vail asked.

  He consulted his screen. “Looks like it’s been a while. Couple years.” Dixon clicked her pen shut. “Thanks, Rolando. Maybe you wanna spot me some day.”

  “I’d—yeah, I’m sure I’ll spot you.” He chuckled. “The minute you walk in the door.”

  Dixon returned a wink. “Catch you later.” She held up the pad. “Thanks again.”

  As they headed toward the parking lot, Vail said, “You realize he’s gonna be all over you next time you come in to work out.”

  “I’ll worry about that later. At least we got a number for Cannon.”

  “Address, too?”

  Dixon smiled devilishly. “Of course. But it’s the apartment on Soscol. Same one DMV had.”

  Vail blew some air out the side of her mouth. “Okay. So how do you want to play this?”

  Dixon glanced around at the cars
in the vicinity. “I’ll text the cell to Brix, let him have NSIB follow up and try to grab an address from the wireless company. You call Cannon, remind him who you are, and tell him you’ve got some extra time. See if he wants to do lunch. He hit on you once, he’ll probably say yes.”

  “He knows we’re cops. If he was working with Mayfield, why would he want to meet with me?”

  “You tell me,” Dixon said as she reached into her pocket for her keys.

  Vail looked off at the mountains. “If he’s like Mayfield, he’s a narcissist. In which case, this would be like a conquest for him. I initially rejected him, reconsidered, now I’m calling him. Crawling back is the way he’d see it. But,” Vail said, “that’s if he’s a narcissist. We can’t assume he is just because Mayfield was—but it would make sense. There’s a reason why they found each other. Kindred spirits. They understand each other’s needs, they think alike.”

  Dixon started tapping out her text to Brix. “Given the conversation we had with them, it’s possible he is a narcissist.”

  Vail considered that and replayed the meeting they had with the two men. “You were there for more of it than I was, but yeah, it’s possible. It could also be we’re reading into it, seeing what we want to see.”

  “Guess we’ll find out.” Dixon popped open the doors and they got in.

  Vail pulled her BlackBerry and dialed. Voice mail. Waited for the beep. “Jimmy, this is Karen Vail—we met a couple days ago in the gym and . . . well, I kind of blew you off. Sorry about that. I was there with my friend, and I couldn’t accept your offer with her there. I’m seeing her brother back in Virginia. Anyway, if you’re interested in catching lunch or dinner, or something else . . . ” she said, suggestively, “I’ll be here another few days. Give me a buzz back.”

  She disconnected the call. “Hopefully he’ll respond. And if we’re lucky, his wireless carrier will come through. If he really is a wine maker, this can’t be a throwaway phone. And unless he thought to update the Fit1 records, which is unlikely, he’s had this number at least a couple years.”