by Elle Gray
She’s dressed in blue coveralls like the guys in the garage and has her hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, with a red handkerchief tied around her forehead. The patch over her breast pocket says, “Letty,” and she has a smudge of grease on her cheek. She’s clearly not just the receptionist, but works in the garage as well.
The walls are all cinder block painted the same shade of blue, and are just as in need of some touch-ups. Half a dozen plastic chairs are lined up against the wall in the small waiting area, where a battered old coffee pot sits on top of a nicked and scarred credenza alongside a newer-looking flatscreen TV, which is currently tuned to a soccer match. There are posters for tires and different engine parts on the walls and a calendar depicting a bikini-clad brunette model standing next to a Lamborghini—from 2018.
She finishes up with her call, then hangs up the phone and jots something down on the clipboard in front of her. When she’s done with that, she looks up at us with a smile.
“What can I do for you, officers?” she asks.
I give her a rueful laugh. “That obvious, huh?”
“You just have that cop look,” she shrugs.
Astra and I badge her. “SSA Wilder and Special Agent Russo.”
Her eyes widen slightly, and she licks her lips nervously. “Cool,” she says, trying to sound casual. “And what could a couple of Feds want with us?”
“Well, we’re looking for Tony,” Astra says.
Her eyes narrow and she suddenly looks defensive. “What do you want with him?”
“We need to ask him some questions about a car he might have—worked on—recently,” I tell her.
She purses her lips and cuts her eyes through the small window that looks out into the garage to her right. I can see that she’s grappling with a decision in her mind. Letty finally sighs and runs a hand over her face, and I get the feeling she’s chosen the wrong path. She’s going to lie to us.
“Tony ain’t here,” she says. “I don’t know where he is or when he’s comin’ back.”
Astra steps forward, her eyes locked onto Letty’s. They stand with their faces a foot apart, the waist-high counter the only thing between them. I can see Letty starting to get nervous. She swallows hard and shifts on her feet.
“You don’t want to go this way, Letty,” Astra starts. “You don’t want to start off by telling us lies. Trust me on that.”
“I ain’t lyin’,” she protests. “Now, you two need to go. I got work to do.”
“Letty,” I say and step up next to Astra. “You really don’t want to lie to us. Look, we’re not interested in your chop shop. We’re only interested in one single vehicle in there.”
“I got no idea what you’re talkin’ about,” she snaps.
“You do,” Astra presses. “And you really don’t want to lie to us again.”
“If this is the path you want to take, I can have a warrant drawn up that will shut this place down while we search it,” I say. “And when we find all the stolen cars in that big building over there, we’ll seize this place and prosecute everybody—including you. Do you understand?”
Letty shifts on her feet and looks away. She gnaws on her bottom lip, and I can see the torment on her face. She’s torn and feels cornered. I need to give her a way out of this.
“Listen to me,” I start. “As far as I’m concerned, your shop is a matter for the local PD. I couldn’t care less about it. What we’re doing is looking for a missing girl, and we know for a fact that her car is in that warehouse. Or at least, it was.”
“We only need to see that car,” Astra says. “We’ll probably be so focused on that, we won’t even see anything else.”
“We’re not looking to jam you up, Letty,” I tell her. “All we need is to get a look at that car and then we’ll be on our way.”
She looks at me with her wide, dark eyes. “You promise? All you need to see is one car?”
“I give you my word,” I nod. “Once we get a look at it, we’re gone, and you’ll never have to see us again.”
She hesitates another moment but finally nods. She reaches below the counter and pulls out a leather Mariners fob that’s got a pair of keys on its ring. Letty nods and silently gestures for us to follow her. I can feel the eyes on us as we cross the parking lot and head for the warehouse. When we get to the door, I see the mechanics have all come out of the garage and are lined up, staring at us. A couple of them are holding large wrenches, another one is holding a baseball bat, and all of them are glaring hard at us.
Astra and I both push our coats back and put our hands on the butts of our weapons at the same time. Letty, who had apparently been oblivious to it all, looks at us then at the line of men and scoffs.
“What are you idiots doing?” she snaps. “You really gonna try to kill a couple of Feds with a crescent wrench? Seriously?”
A man steps forward, his eyes shifting from us to Letty. He’s tall, thick, and looks like a man familiar and comfortable with violence. He’s completely bald but sports a thick, dark beard that’s shot through with gray. He’s got a pair of teardrop tattoos under his left eye and more showing from beneath the rolled-up sleeves of his coveralls.
“What are you doin’, Letitia?” he snaps. “Why in the hell would you be openin’ that door for a couple of Feds?”
“It’s not your business, Emilio,” she barks at them. “You all go back to work. Now.”
“Letty—”
“I said ‘now’,” she snaps, her voice loud and hard. “Get back to work or I’ll fire you right here, right now.”
I look at her, surprised not just by the steel in her voice, but by the fact that she’s the one in charge. More than that, I’m surprised that the men, all of them hard and vicious-looking, listen to her. Casting baleful glares at us, they turn away and drift back into the garage. Except for Emilio. He still stands there, crescent wrench in hand, a look of pure hatred on his face. Letty stiffens and steps closer to him, her eyes fixed on his.
“Don’t think I won’t fire you, too,” she hisses. “And when I tell Tony why I fired you, he’ll agree with me. He might even beat your ass for being so stupid. That what you want?”
“This ain’t right,” he grumbles. “You shouldn’t be the one makin’ calls—”
“But I am. Tony put me in charge because he knows I’m smarter than any of you fools,” she cuts him off. “Now get the hell out of my face and get back to work. Or you can leave now and not come back. It’s your choice.”
Slowly and grudgingly, Emilio turns away, grumbling under his breath. He walks back to the garage, but not before angrily kicking an empty box across the parking lot. Letty turns back to us, a sheepish smile on her face.
“I’m sorry about him. He’s an idiot,” she says. “Tony only puts up with him because he’s the best mechanic around.”
I nod. “We all have to work with some idiots now and then. I get it.”
“Don’t worry, no offense taken,” Astra says with a mischievous grin.
Letty unlocks the door and pushes it inward. The overhead fluorescents come on automatically, with a loud snap, and we find ourselves standing in a warehouse that holds a dozen cars, all of them in varied states of deconstruction.
“So, Tony put you in charge?” Astra asks.
Letty smiles softly. “He’s my uncle. He taught me everything I know. Been workin’ on cars since I was ten. I can tear down and rebuild any car you can think of,” she says with a note of pride in her voice. “Emilio is better than me with some things, but I’m smarter than he is, so it all evens out. That’s why my uncle put me in charge.”
“And where is Tony?” I ask.
A frown crosses her face, and she looks down. “He’s got cancer. He probably ain’t got much longer left,” she says, her voice thick with emotion. “But that’s part of the reason we’re runnin’ this shop—money for his treatments. His insurance denied his care. We fought but they won’t do nothin’, even though he’s paid his premiums. Never missed
a single one in years. And this is how they do him?”
She bites off whatever she was about to say and looks down. But not before I see her eyes shimmering with tears. My heart goes out to her. She sniffs them back and angrily wipes at her eyes before finally looking back up to us.
“I know it’s not legal, but it ain’t like we’re getting’ rich off it. We’re just tryin’ to hold onto him because the insurance company did him so dirty,” she says quietly. “I mean, if we can extend his life even a couple of months and have that time with him—we have to try, right?”
While I obviously can’t condone what she’s doing, I’m not going to crucify her for it, either. Her story is one I’ve heard way too many times. It breaks my heart for people when they’re forced to make some very hard decisions because of the endless greed of corporations who care more about their profits than the actual lives of human beings. I hate that somebody like Letty has to gamble with her life and her freedom just to keep her family alive a little while longer.
“There it is,” Astra points. “Tesla Model 3.”
“Check it out,” I tell her. “See if you can find her phone or anything useful.”
“On it.”
As we watch Astra head over to the car, Letty clucks and shakes her head, a pained grimace on her face.
“Yeah, we haven’t been able to figure out what to do with that. None of my guys knows how to take it apart,” she says wryly. “We’ve been trying to part it out, but these parts aren’t exactly a hot commodity right now. I wanted to slap Emilio stupid for takin’ this one.”
“Do you know where he got it?”
“Said some guy called the shop out of the blue,” Letty replies. “Served it right up. Didn’t want money for it. Said he just wanted it off his hands.”
“Did you see the guy?”
She shook her head. “Emilio said the guy gave him an address to pick it up and left the key on the wheel,” she tells me. “He never saw the guy.”
“But he called the shop?”
She nods. “Yeah.”
“Found her phone. It’s turned off and smashed to pieces, though,” Astra announces, handing me a plastic bag with an obliterated iPhone in it.
“Not that it matters, considering all this,” Letty says, “but we didn’t do that. It was in the car just like that.”
“It’s all right,” I tell her.
“Forensics would be a nightmare. I’m sure there are prints all over the car,” Astra says.
I nod. “Yeah, I don’t want to call a team out, anyway. We’ll just let it be.”
A look of relief floods Letty’s face and she gives me a grateful smile.
“If I were you, though,” I start, “I’d get rid of that thing ASAP. If we found it here, others can, too. Cut your losses and dump it somewhere. Also, clean it. Wipe off all the prints so it can’t be traced back to you or your guys. Trust me when I say it needs to be absolutely immaculate, Letty.”
She nods. “I understand. And—thank you.”
I give her a small smile and a nod. “Good luck to you. And to your uncle.”
Eight
Criminal Data Analysis Unit; Seattle Field Office
“How’d things go with the car?” Mo asks as we walk back into the shop.
“No joy,” Astra says, prompting a frown from Mo.
I walk to Rick’s workstation and hand him the bag with the iPhone. He looks at it, then up at me, with a crooked grin on his face.
“Gee, thanks?” he raises an eyebrow. “I’ve always wanted a destroyed iPhone.”
I flash him a grin. “I’m not sure if there’s any magic you can work on that, but if you can get into it and see if there are any pictures or messages—anything you can do.”
“You realize everything on this piece of garbage is probably stored in the cloud, right?” he asks.
“It dawned on me, yes. And I want you to access her cloud,” I say.
“You don’t even know what the cloud is, do you?” he responds with an amused smirk on his face.
“Don’t make me shoot you. I don’t want to have to fill out all the paperwork,” I tell him. “I do happen to know what the cloud is. But I also happen to know there may be things on the phone that might not be there as well. Hence, my request for you to wave your little wand and make some magic happen with this.”
“I, for one, have no desire to see him waving his little wand,” Astra says with a laugh, earning Mo’s agreement.
“All jokes aside, I don’t know that there’s much I can do with this,” Rick says. “It looks as if they beat it with a sledgehammer.”
“I know it’s a long shot, but give it a whirl, please.”
“I’m on it,” he nods. “Don’t expect any miracles, though.”
I walk back to the front of the room and fold my arms over my chest as I pace, trying to come up with my next move. I turn to Mo.
“I need you to dump the LUDs for Tony’s shop. Give me the past twelve days of their phone records,” I say.
Mo nods. “On it.”
“What are you looking for?” Astra asks.
“Letty said that Emilio took a call from somebody who offered him Selene’s Tesla—”
“She drives a Tesla?” Rick asks.
“She did,” Astra replies. “Pretty sure it’s a pile of burning scrap right about now.”
“Why couldn’t I have been born rich?” he groans.
“Anyway, Letty said the call came out of the blue,” I go on. “I want to see if we can narrow it down and figure out who our mystery caller was.”
“Smart,” Astra says. “That must be why they pay you the big bucks.”
I look up and see Rosie standing at the doors of the shop and she waves at me to come out into the hall with her. Astra grins.
“Looks like Hedlund wants one of her progress reports,” she says.
I groan. “I hate politicians.”
I head out into the hall, making sure the door is closed behind me before turning to Rosie.
“What’s up, boss?” I ask.
“Where are we with the Hedlund case?”
“Wow, I’m great, thanks. How are you today?” I respond, the sarcasm dripping off my tongue.
“Blake, I’m not in the mood,” she says. “I don’t mean to be so brusque, but I’m getting squeezed here.”
“Hedlund?”
She nods. “You can’t be surprised.”
“I’m not,” I say. “But it’s only been a couple of days. Did she really expect me to pull her daughter out of my magic hat like a rabbit?”
“So, I guess Selene’s not on a beach in Mexico drinking mojitos, then?”
I grimace, feeling the sharp sting of my words being thrown back in my face. I can’t say I like it very much.
“Yeah, it’s gotten more complicated,” I say. “I wouldn’t lay money on it just yet, but it’s starting to look as if she’s been taken. Or maybe she went off with somebody of her own accord. We’re still trying to put all the pieces together. The only thing we can say with a fair amount of confidence is that she’s not off on a bender.”
Rosie frowns and nods her head. “I was afraid of that.”
“Yeah, and now I stand before you with egg on my face.”
“Not the first time and it won’t be the last time,” she says, approaching the first bit of good humor I’ve seen from her in a couple of days.
“What is it with you and Astra and your constant need to drill me about my failures?” I ask with a laugh.
Rosie shrugs. “Somebody has to keep you humble.”
“Clearly,” I say.
I fill her in on everything we’ve uncovered so far—doing my best to dance around Tony’s chop shop. I doubt Rosie would care, thinking it’s small fish and not worth our time or notice, but if she let it slip to Hedlund, I could see her going full Godzilla on the shop, stomping the life out of Tony and Letty in the process. And that’s not something I want to see happen. Especially after I gave her my word tha
t I wouldn’t jam her up.
“So, in essence, we’ve got nothing,” she says.
I shrug. “It’s early days. You know how these things go,” I tell her. “But once we start building some momentum, we can close this pretty quickly.”
“I understand it,” she replies. “I’m afraid Kathryn won’t. She wants immediate results.”
“Unfortunately for her, that’s not the way the world works,” I say. “I’m still waiting for that pony I never got as a child.”
A rueful smile crosses her lips. “Kathryn has always been difficult. Always been a little bit unreasonable,” she says. “I remember a time back in college when she broke up with her boyfriend because he didn’t say he loved her soon enough. Broke up with the next one because he said it too fast. Kathryn’s always wanted things done her way, on her schedule.”
“How can you be friends with her?” I ask. “She seems to stand opposed to everything you’re for.”
“We’re not exceptionally close. But we’ve been friendly for a long time now. Bonded by our sorority,” she says. “And believe it or not, she does have some redeeming qualities. When she’s not wearing her Congresswoman’s suit, she’s quite charming. Funny.”
“Honestly, I have a hard time imagining that woman as ever being funny,” I tell her.
“All I’m saying is that there are more facets to her than you realize.”
“And she still opposes most of the things I’m for. I somehow doubt we’ll be on each other’s Christmas card lists anytime soon.”
A small, sad smile crosses Rosie’s lips. “She wasn’t always this way, you know. The things she believes have—changed—over time. Back in the day, she was as wild and free as the rest of us. These traditional values she goes on and on about—she never had them back in school,” she tells me. “Watching this transformation has been—well, disturbing, if I’m being honest. Part of me thinks it’s all just schtick to get people in her district to vote for her. They eat up what she spouts with a spoon.”
