She grasped his solid, broad shoulders and held on for several seconds. He looked like he’d just come from work. He wore a knit shirt with the name of his health club embroidered on the pocket and carried a soft-sided suitcase.
“Lyle filled me in on the blackmail,” Bruce said. “This could be dangerous. Have you talked to your boss? Are you okay with this?”
“No I’m not ‘okay’ with this. I’d rather be in the booth pitching vacations. But I’m being blackmailed, the police think I killed Busick, and this seems like the best we can do.” Kate knew she had to relax and breathe.
“Anything to drink?” Lyle asked.
“Honor bar’s a little skimpy. You can take a look.”
Lyle set down a large shopping bag then scanned the contents of the small fridge without finding anything. He shut the door and the three sat down. Lyle took the chair, Kate and Bruce the couch.
“What did you buy?” Kate asked.
“Tell us what you found out first,” Lyle said. “Did your booth neighbors see anything the other day?”
“No help. It was so crowded that morning everyone was busy with customers. Even the woman next door with the green and brown dip didn’t see anything. She said she does remember someone shouting ‘fuck’ or ‘fucking,’ but that’s all.
“The thing is,” Kate said, “sure, some of the people remember seeing cameras or cell phone cameras, but in a place like this, tourists are always taking pictures.”
“Or selfies,” Lyle added.
“Right. You just don’t notice it anymore. Worth a try,” Kate said. “What have you dreamed up?”
“Pretty soon, she’s going to call to tell you where to put the cash,” Lyle began, “so we’re prepared to deliver something.” He reached in the shopping bag and pulled out a bright green gym bag.
“In the bottom of this is a sheet of rigid plastic, just glued in.” He tugged on the plastic liner and pulled it out of the gym bag. “Now, I have a little sheet of Styrofoam that I’m going to put inside, under the plastic, then glue it all together.” He pulled out a smaller bag and produced an object about the size of a matchbox. “Before I glue the bottom back in, I’ll cut out a space for this gadget.”
“It’s a GPS tracking device,” Bruce said. “We can track them with a laptop.”
“Yeah, I found a store--not far from here,” Lyle said. “It carries all this kind of stuff. PI equipment.”
“How much?” Kate asked.
“Did it cost? Don’t worry, we won’t break Max’s bank. You could get something cheaper online, but obviously time is of the essence. We also rented another car. I think we’ll need two cars to have a chance at following the blackmailer.”
Kate picked up a palm-sized camera. “And you bought another toy?”
“It’s got a thirty-X zoom lens,” Lyle said.
“We’re going to take pictures of the blackmailer?” Kate looked at Lyle and hoped he was as optimistic as he sounded.
“Here’s what I suggest,” he said. “We put the tracker in the gym bag, fill it with newspaper and then add our warning note. I bought this little lock for the bag so they can’t tell immediately that there’s no money in it.”
“What’s the warning note?” Bruce asked.
“Kate and I talked about this. We’ve got several things on this person. First,” he said, holding up a finger, “we tell her we have her blackmail note and DVD and we can throw in the word fingerprints, too. Who knows if she handled everything carefully. Second, we say we’ve got all the phone calls recorded.”
“And third,” Kate said, “we say ‘by the time you read this, we will have taken your picture, too.’”
“Exactly,” Lyle said. “We can add that we’ll have a license plate by then as well. She won’t know. And then we tell her, all that goes to the police if she sends the DVD to the cops.”
“Isn’t she going to be pissed that you didn’t pay?” Bruce said.
“Maybe, but she can’t get any money by giving the video to the police and she risks going to jail.”
“Let’s say that at the end of the letter,” Kate added.
“Good. Why don’t you write the note, Kate?”
Chapter 26
Would his plan work? Lyle fingered the plastic tranquilizer bottle in his pocket. Not a good idea. Yeah, he was nervous, maybe more than nervous, but he needed to be sharp and ready to go when the blackmailer showed up. Should he have bought a gun? Too late.
He sat in one of the rental cars a few blocks from the Gold Mountain Hotel, his laptop on the passenger seat. After he, Kate, and Bruce finished an early dinner, Lyle had suggested that he use one of the cars to be ready to drive to whatever drop-off spot the blackmailer told Kate. They assumed the blackmailer would call Kate and tell her to drop the money at a certain location. If Lyle was in the car and ready to go, he could reach the destination before Kate and try to be in a position to see whoever picked up the bag. Of course, Lyle thought, the woman could ask Kate to send it by messenger, to leave it in the hotel lobby, or mail it somewhere care of general delivery. All those seemed unlikely, but Lyle’s head always spun possibilities. Good for a detective, he supposed, but not for someone trying to live in present moments.
“Lyle,” Kate said, when he answered his cell phone on speaker mode. “She just called. I’m supposed to drop the money behind a wall at the southwest corner of a small park on Helms Avenue, next to an alley.
It took Lyle just seconds to find the location on the map screen. “I see it. It’s just a few miles from here. I can be there soon. What did she tell you?”
“To go now and drop the money. I told her it would take some time to get there, and she just said, ‘Do it.’”
“It’s not even dark yet,” Lyle said. “This is not the way I’d plan it. But here we go. I’ll call you when I’m there.”
Lyle had already started the car. He pulled out and headed in the direction of the park. The map told him Helms Avenue was a four-lane road, so that might give him more opportunities to park without being seen. They had debated whether Bruce should accompany Kate to the drop. Bruce insisted he go, and Lyle didn’t think his presence would alarm the blackmailer if she was watching.
Lyle approached the intersection from the north in moderately heavy traffic. He drove past the corner and saw the neighborhood park. A stone wall bordered the park along Helms Avenue. The level of the park behind the wall sat below grade, and trees provided cover. This made it easy for someone to hide behind the wall. Lyle wondered if the woman might be waiting already.
He drove around the block and found a parking space near a corner, about seventy-five yards away. He picked up the digital camera, made sure it was on full automatic, then called Kate.
“We just left the hotel,” she said. “Bruce is driving so I can get out and leave the bag. Can you see the park and the wall?”
“I’m pretty close. I don’t think I’ll miss anything.”
Lyle looked around. He didn’t see anyone in any of the parked cars within sight. A woman walking a Labrador retriever passed along the sidewalk in front of the park but kept moving. Older commercial buildings and an apartment house faced the park. Would the blackmailer simply stroll out from an apartment or store to grab the $50,000?
Soon, Kate and Bruce appeared, coming toward him on the other side of the street. When Bruce pulled up, Kate got out the passenger side holding the green bag. She looked up and down the street then walked to the park wall. She hesitated for a moment, looking into the trees, then dropped the bag over the wall. She got in the car, and Bruce pulled out.
Lyle didn’t have to wait long.
He watched as a dark-haired woman in a cream-colored Toyota approached from the opposite direction, made a U-turn, and pulled up to the park wall. Lyle raised the camera and started clicking off frames. The young woman in jeans and a tank top jumped out, ran around the front of her car, and made a beeline for the park wall like she was a contestant on Beat the Clock. With few was
ted movements, she had the gym bag and was back in her car headed south.
Lyle waited for a moment before he pulled out--and was glad he did as the Toyota made a quick U-turn heading back north. He watched the car pass him, then followed. The laptop screen showed the GPS tracker working. Too bad he didn’t have a kill switch, he thought.
“A woman in jeans and a pink top just picked up the bag,” Lyle said after he called Kate’s cell phone. “She’s got brown hair and is driving a cream colored Toyota. She’s going north now on Helms. Where are you?”
“We’re in a parking lot north of you.”
“I’m close, keeping her in sight. Looks like she’s slowing.”
A short block ahead Lyle watched the Toyota pull into the left lane and crowd the center line. Then he saw the green bag fly out the driver’s side window and land in the bed of a black pickup truck going the other direction.
“Crap. She just tossed the bag into a pickup truck. It’s coming at me now. I have to turn around. Can you find the Toyota?”
“We’ll look,” Kate said.
“Was that her?” Lyle heard Bruce say over the phone.
Lyle moved to the left lane. He watched the black truck approach, then pass him. An unshaven man in his mid-thirties, alone in the cab, sat at the wheel. He wore a light gray shirt that might have had a name patch attached above the breast pocket. The black F-150 sat on wide off-road tires. Lyle noticed the empty gun rack in the rear window.
“I’ve got him,” Lyle said. “He’s going south.”
As he swung the car around, his cell phone flew off the console, hit the laptop keyboard and the GPS screen disappeared. The phone bounced down on the floor somewhere.
“Shit.” Lyle reached for the computer and tried to keep it from sliding off the seat. Ultimately, he had to stop at the curb to recover the map.
“I had to pull over,” he said, “but I got the GPS signal from the truck. How are you doing?”
When there was no response, Lyle realized he’d lost his connection to Kate. But he had to focus on his target. The truck made a quick left turn and then took an onramp north on I-580. Lyle entered the freeway and closed up on the truck. He didn’t want any more surprises. The blackmailers--now there were at least two--had momentarily caught him off guard. But Lyle took satisfaction knowing the gym bag now rested in the bed of the pickup. Its driver would have no opportunity to discover it contained only two editions of the Reno newspaper and a threatening letter. Surprise for them.
After about ten miles, they left the city and traffic grew lighter. Lyle fell back, relying on the GPS as much as visual contact. A few more miles passed, and the marker on Lyle’s tracking map showed the black pickup turn off the highway. Thankfully, Lyle thought, it was now starting to get dark and the driver of the truck would not see much more than Lyle’s headlights in his rearview.
The deserted road continued for miles. Barbed wire fences punctuated the arid ranch land. Dirt roads headed off at angles. The occasional clapboard house or barn stood silent.
Lyle wondered why Kate had not called back, but he didn’t want to take his eyes off the road or the computer screen to grab his phone and redial her. He’d seen only one other car since they turned off the highway. He let the truck get farther ahead and followed the GPS indications. When Lyle saw the truck’s signature on the map pull off on a side road, he looked ahead and through the gloom saw a cloud of dust. A dirt road.
Lyle pulled over. According to the map, the truck had turned onto a dead end, but Lyle could see lights on structures scattered to the base of distant mountains. Obviously, not all the dirt trails appeared on the GPS map. If he turned off to follow the truck, his lights could easily be seen. He’d already made note of the truck’s make, model, and license number and even squeezed off a few shaky exposures of the truck on the freeway. This should be enough to identify the blackmailers--if they needed to. The stern warning in Kate’s note was their real ammunition to dissuade the extortionists from sending the video to the police.
But what could it hurt to be seen? If the driver thought he was being followed, that would simply reinforce Kate’s note saying they had enough information to identify their tormentors.
Lyle turned on the dirt road and rumbled ahead. The roadway narrowed. Before he’d gone far, the computer screen told him the pickup had stopped and turned around.
When Lyle heard the first shot, he jammed on the brakes. It’s impossible to see a bullet fly past your windshield, but Lyle knew the second shot barely missed him.
Chapter 27
“There she goes,” Kate said pointing to the Toyota Camry crossing in front of them.
Bruce swerved on to the street and saw the driver of the Toyota look up at them in her mirror. Immediately, he slowed down. “You think she knows what you look like?”
“If she took the video, I’m sure she does.”
“I’ll try not to stay too close.”
Kate dialed Lyle’s number and the call went to voicemail. “Lyle. Call me. We’re following the Toyota. Are you okay?”
Turning left toward downtown, the extortionist increased her speed and moved away. The Toyota led them into traffic in the brightly lit high-rise casino/hotel district. When a traffic signal changed to red, the Toyota had to stop at a crosswalk in the left lane. Kate and Bruce stopped two cars behind her.
“We don’t need to catch her, Bruce, just see where she goes.”
When the light turned green, the Toyota rocketed ahead with a screech as the driver cut off two cars to her right, dodged a truck merging from the side, and dove into a multi-level parking structure. With two lanes of cars between him and where he wanted to go, Bruce was cut off. He tried stopping in his lane but he was blocked by two lanes of solid traffic on his right.
“I’ll go around the block,” he said, making a right turn at the next corner.
As they sped down the street next to the parking structure, Kate spotted an exit. Spikes in the pavement kept cars from entering. “Stop here. I’ll get out. You go around and come in from the entrance. I’ll call you.”
A horn blared from behind as Bruce stopped. Kate jumped out of the car clutching her cell phone, not looking at the impatient driver. She had her long hair tied up, but it broke loose, following behind her like a blonde mane. In tennis shoes, she easily dashed over the tire spikes, ran down a row of cars, and found the concrete ramp to the upper floors. Off to the right she saw the enclosed stairs, but they wouldn’t give her a view of the parking, so she ran up the first ramp. Squealing tires, squeaking brakes, and rumbling engines echoed off the walls of the busy building. Exhaust fumes killed the fresh air.
Auto ramps are not designed for pedestrians. Kate ran up the first ramp then instantly flattened herself against a wall as a careening Hummer rushed past her. Just ahead she saw the Toyota racing up to the next floor. Taking a sharp turn, the car disappeared up a ramp and around a corner. Kate tried to follow its progress by sound alone, but the symphony of automobile noises bouncing off concrete walls made it impossible.
Kate made it to the third floor and headed higher. Cresting the ramp at the fourth floor she looked down the aisle of cars and saw the exit ramps going down. How could she keep an eye on both ramps? Would the blackmailer in the Camry simply park somewhere in the lot and wait her out?
She dialed Bruce’s number. “Where are you? I’m on the fourth floor. I saw her a minute ago.”
“I’m here, I just got in...” Bruce’s voice faded away. Layers of concrete blacked out the signal.
She realized that the best place for Bruce would be stationed by the exit. But when she couldn’t reach him, she decided to head there herself. When she turned down the aisle toward the exit ramps, she saw the cream-colored Toyota squeal around a corner, heading down. Kate ran for the ramp and looked down. Her view was like looking down the center of a tall stairwell, on a wider scale. She could see the car whip around corners heading for the ground floor.
When Bruce pulled up
next to her, Kate knew the blackmailer had escaped.
***
“Sorry I lost contact for a while. My phone went flying,” Lyle said an hour later when they were settled in Kate’s hotel suite. “But we put a scare into them.”
“Scared them enough that he shot at you.” The thought gave Kate a feeling of dread. She occupied herself trying to tame her hair into some semblance of order.
“But our presence will back up our threat to expose them,” Lyle said. “We hope we don’t have to use the evidence we’ve collected.”
Kate held up her hand with fingers crossed.
“I’d still like to find the bastard in the truck who shot at me.”
“I’ve been telling Kate she needs to lay low,” Bruce said. “Let the police solve this.”
Kate flashed a look at Lyle and shook her head slowly. Fending off the blackmailers really didn’t solve anything. As she and Lyle had debated before, the extortion scheme might be directly related to Busick’s murder--or it might be collateral damage. Either way, they were no closer to getting her out from under.
“Didn’t I read somewhere,” Kate said, “that the longer a homicide case goes unsolved, the less chance of finding the killer?”
Lyle nodded. “Forty eight hours is the optimal time.”
“That’s what I thought” Kate said.
“But this is a complicated case, not your usual bar-fight murder or domestic violence. Those cases often solve themselves at the scene.”
“All the more reason why we can’t sit still. Why I can’t sit still.”
“But, Kate,” Bruce said.
“The best way to get myself out of this is to find out who really killed Busick. Ricky Stark is now in Vegas and Louise said the dealership is suspect central for people who would have liked to murder him. And that includes the Las Vegas residents who are suing him over the kill switches.”
“How’re you going to find all these people?” Bruce asked.
Desert Kill Switch Page 11
