Fair Warning - Jack McEvoy Series 03 (2020)

by Connelly, Michael

  He carefully moved down the street, staying tucked into the shadows and out of the circles of illumination created by the streetlights. He had a small black duffel bag he kept tight against his body and under his arm. He finally reached the side yard of the target house and slipped into its backyard through an unlocked gate.

  The house was dark but the oval-shaped pool was lighted—most likely on a timer—and cast a shimmering glow into the house through a row of sliding glass doors. There were no curtains. He checked each of the sliders and found them locked. He then used a small pry bar from the duffel on the bottom of the center door to raise it up and out of its track. He carefully lifted it out and onto the concrete patio surface. This created a slight popping sound. He remained still, squatting next to the door and waiting to see if the disturbance had triggered an alarm or alerted anyone.

  No lights came on. No one checked the living room. He got up and slid the door open along the rough concrete surface, then entered the house.

  No one was home. A room-by-room search of the house determined that there were three bedrooms where no one was sleeping. Thinking it possible that he had indeed awakened someone by popping the slider and that they were hiding somewhere sent him through the house in a more thorough search that again produced no occupants, hiding or otherwise.

  But the second search led him to the garage, which he found had been converted into a laboratory. He realized that what he had found here was the lab support for Dirty4. He set to work examining the equipment and the notebooks left on a worktable, as well as data marked on hanging whiteboards and a calendar.

  There was also a desktop computer. When he pressed the space bar, he learned that it was thumbprint protected.

  He reached into his duffel for the roll of clear duct tape he kept among his tools and bindings. Leaving the garage, he walked through a TV room and found a powder room—the closest bathroom to the lab. He flicked on the light and peeled two three-inch segments of tape off the roll. He put one down on the sink counter with the sticky side up, then carefully and lightly applied the second to the top of the toilet’s plastic flush handle. Raising the tape, he looked at it from an oblique angle. He had lifted a print. He could tell it was big enough to be a thumb.

  He put the tape down on top of the other segment, locking the print between the plastic. He then returned to the lab and sat at the computer. He took off a rubber glove and wrapped the plastic containing the captured print against his own thumb. He pressed it down on the desktop’s reader square and the computer’s screen activated. He was in.

  He put his glove back on and began moving through the files on the desktop. He had no idea where the homeowner was but there was plenty on the computer for him to look through and attempt to understand. His study went on for hours and only ended after dawn, when he heard a car pull into the driveway on the other side of the garage door.

  He was alerted but did not bother to hide. He quickly prepared for the homeowner, then turned off the lights in the lab and waited.

  Soon he heard footsteps in the house and then the rattle of a set of keys being dropped on a table or counter. He noted this sound, thinking that he might need those keys and the car that was parked outside. He hated to part with the Tesla but he might not be able to risk returning to it through the neighborhood in daylight. He had not planned to be in the house past dawn and now the quick escape might be the best escape.

  The overhead lights in the lab came on and a man took five steps into the room before stopping short when he noticed the intruder sitting at the lab table.

  “Who the fuck are you?” he said. “What do you want?”

  The seated man pointed at him.

  “You’re the one who calls himself the Hammer, aren’t you?” he asked.

  “Listen to me,” Hammond said. “I work for the LAPD and I don’t know how you got in here but you need to get the fuck out right now.”

  Hammond pulled a cell phone from his pocket.

  “I’m calling the police,” he said.

  “You do and they will know all about your little side business of selling female data on the dark web,” the intruder said. “Particular female data. You don’t want that, do you?”

  Hammond put his phone back into his pocket.

  “Who are you?” he asked again.

  “You sent me an email,” the intruder said. “An archaic method of communication. It was fair warning about a reporter from FairWarning. Jack McEvoy?”

  Hammond’s face had started to turn pale as he understood his situation.

  “You’re the Shrike,” he said.

  “Yes, and we need to talk,” the intruder said. “I want you to sit in that chair there.”

  He pointed to a chair he had prepared for Hammond. It was a wooden chair he had taken from one end of a table in the kitchen. He chose it because it had armrests to which he had attached zip ties, each with a very wide loop.

  Hammond didn’t move.

  “Please,” the intruder said. “I won’t ask you again.”

  Hammond tentatively went to the chair and sat down.

  “Put your hands through the plastic loops and then pull the tabs tight around your wrists,” the intruder said.

  “I’m not going to do that,” Hammond said. “You want to talk, we can talk—I’m on your side here. We sent you that email to alert you. As a warning. But I’m not going to tie myself up in my own house.”

  The Shrike smiled at Hammond’s resistance and spoke in a tone that suggested that Hammond was being a bit of a nuisance.

  “You’re going to do it or I’m going to go over there and snap your neck like a twig,” he said.

  Hammond looked at him, blinked once, and then started putting his left hand through the loop on the armchair.

  “Now pull the tab tight.”

  Hammond pulled the loop closed around his wrist, not even having to be told to make it tighter.

  “Now the other.”

  Hammond put his right hand through the loop.

  “How do I tighten this one? I can’t reach it.”

  “Bend down and use your teeth.”

  Hammond did as he was told and then looked up at his captor. He waved his hands to show he was securely locked to the arms of the chair.

  “Okay, now what?”

  “Do you think I would bind you if I meant to harm you?”

  “I don’t know what you would do.”

  “Think about it. If I wanted to hurt you it would have already been done. But now we can comfortably talk.”

  “I’m not comfortable at all.”

  “Well, I am. And so now we can talk.”

  “Talk about what?”

  “The email you sent about this reporter—how did you know to send it to me?”

  “See, that’s the thing. This is why you don’t have to worry about me. I don’t know who you are. We just have the email you used when you joined the site. That’s it. No way of knowing who you are, so this—”

  He shook his arms against the plastic bindings.

  “—is completely unnecessary. Really. I mean it.”

  The Shrike stared at him for a long moment, then got up and went to a printer that was on a table in the corner. He pulled a stack of documents out of the printer tray. He had been printing things through the night that had caught his interest on the lab’s computer.

  He returned to his seat and held the stack on his lap.

  “You miss the point,” he said without looking up from the documents. “How did you arrive at the decision to send me an email?”

  “Well,” Hammond said. “You were the only one who downloaded the ones who died.”

  “At Dirty4.”

  “Yes, at the site.”

  “That is a problem. Your site promises full anonymity, but now you are saying you identified me through my interactions on the site. That is disappointing.”

  “No, wait, we did not identify you. That’s what I’m saying. Right now I could not tell you your nam
e to save my life. We looked for anybody who had downloaded details about those whores who got killed. There was only one client. You. We sent the email in good faith. To warn you because you have a reporter on your trail. That’s it.”

  The Shrike nodded as if accepting the explanation. He had noticed that Hammond was becoming more animated as his fear grew, and that was a problem because his wrists would chafe against the plastic bindings and that would leave marks.

  “I’m curious about something,” he said conversationally.

  “What?” Hammond asked.

  “Your operation is magnificent. How are you able to take the DRD4 samples and link them back to each woman’s ID? I understand just about everything else but that—and that’s the beauty of this whole thing.”

  Hammond nodded in agreement.

  “Well, that’s proprietary but I’ll tell you. We totally own GT23’s database, only they don’t know it. We got inside. Complete access.”

  “How?”

  “We actually encrypted a DNA sample with a Trojan-horse virus and sent it in like everybody else does. Once in, the sample was reduced to code and it activated and we were in their mainframe. Complete backdoor access to their data. I’m a second-tier buyer of their DNA. I buy it, isolate the DRD4 carriers we want, and match the serial number that comes on every sample to the flesh-and-blood bitch we then list on the site.”

  “That’s genius.”

  “We think so.”

  “Who is ‘we,’ by the way?”

  Hammond hesitated, but for only a second.

  “Uh, I have a partner. I’m DNA and he’s digital. He runs the site. I give him what he needs. We split the cash that comes in.”

  “Sounds like a perfect partnership. What’s his name?”

  “Uh, he doesn’t want to—”

  “Roger Vogel, correct?”

  “How do you know that name?”

  “I know a lot because I’ve been here all night. Your records are not encrypted. Your computer security is a joke.”

  Hammond did not answer.

  “So where can I find Roger Vogel to ask him for more details of your operation?”

  “I don’t know. He sort of comes and goes. He’s a private guy and we sort of lead separate lives. We were roommates once. In college. But since then we don’t see each other in person too much. In fact, I don’t even know where the guy lives.”

  The Shrike nodded. Hammond’s refusal to give up his partner was admirable but hardly a problem. During the night he had read numerous deleted emails still in the desktop’s memory. Posing as Hammond, he had then sent a message to Vogel setting up a meeting for later in the day. Vogel had responded and agreed.

  It was now time to end this. He got up and started to walk toward Hammond. He saw his captive’s arms tense and push against the bindings on his wrists.

  The Shrike held up a hand to calm him as he approached.

  “Just relax,” he said. “Nothing to worry about. Not anymore.”

  He walked behind Hammond, wondering how different this would be. He had never actually done this to a man. He quickly leaned down and wrapped his powerful arms around Hammond’s head and neck, his left hand coming around and over his mouth so there would be no noise.

  Hammond’s muffled cries of “No!” died in his hand and soon there was the deeply fulfilling snap of bone, cartilage, and muscle twisting to the extreme limit. Hammond’s last breath flowed hotly through his fingers.

  JACK

  25

  I got up early but stayed in bed watching Rachel sleep, not wanting to disturb her. I pulled my laptop off the bedside table and checked emails, finding the only one of note from Emily Atwater. It had been sent late the night before, asking me where the Deep Throat documents were that I had promised to send after our call. She then suggested that I had intentionally held them back.

  I quickly wrote a return email apologizing for the delay and pulled up the documents to attach. I first gave each one a quick read so their contents would be fresh in my mind when Emily called later to discuss them. As I scanned the DNA report from the Orange County Sheriff’s Lab I saw a name I recognized.

  “Holy shit!”

  Rachel stirred and opened her eyes. I had jumped out of bed and gone to my backpack to retrieve the notebook I had used the night before while on the call with Emily. I came back to the bed with it and quickly opened it to the page where I had written down a name. It was a match.

  Marshall Hammond

  “What is it, Jack?” Rachel asked.

  “It’s Elvis in the box,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Old newspaper phrase. It means the thing, the nuts, the photo everybody wants. Only this is not a photo. It’s a name.”

  “You’re not making sense.”

  “Look at this.”

  I turned the laptop’s screen so she could see it.

  “This is the DNA report from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office that cleared Orton in the rape case down there. Remember, Deep Throat sent it to me? Now look down here where it says the name of the DNA tech who compared Orton’s DNA to the sample taken off the victim.”

  “Okay. M. Hammond. What does it mean?”

  “Marshall Hammond now works up here for LAPD’s crime lab and lives in Glendale. My partner on the story ran down the second-tier labs that have bought DNA from Orton’s lab. And this guy, Hammond, is one of them. And get this, he buys only female DNA.”

  “I’m not sure I’m following you. I need my coffee.”

  “No, listen, this is big. This guy Hammond cleared Orton, said the DNA was not a match. Now four years later he’s in business with him. On the FTC paperwork he says he’s researching forensic applications of DNA, but he only buys female DNA from Orton. Why only female if he’s looking at forensic applications? You see? Emily and I were already zeroed in on this guy and now I found out he was Orton’s ticket to freedom. That is no coincidence.”

  I got up from the bed again and started getting dressed.

  “What are you going to do?” Rachel asked.

  “I’m going to go to his house and his so-called lab and check it out,” I said.

  “You shouldn’t do that alone, Jack.”

  “I won’t. I’ll call Emily.”

  “No, take me. I want to go.”

  I looked at her.

  “Uh …”

  “I can help you get a read on this guy if he’s there.”

  I knew that she could. But bringing her directly into the story would not go over well with Emily Atwater. Or Myron Levin.

  “Come on, Jack,” Rachel said. “We’ve done this before.”

  I nodded.

  “Then get dressed,” I said. “Let’s catch this guy before he goes to work. We can grab coffee after.”

  26

  Forty minutes later we were on the street Hammond had listed with the FTC as the location of his lab. It was a residential street, as Emily Atwater had determined on Google Maps.

  “Let’s do a drive-by first,” I said. “Get the lay of the land a little bit.”

  We cruised by a nondescript, two-story house with a two-car garage and a BMW SUV parked in the driveway.

  “A little odd that the BMW is not in the garage,” Rachel said.

  “At least it means somebody’s probably home,” I said.

  “Wait, Jack, I think the front door was open.”

  “Maybe he’s about to leave. Turning around.”

  I used a neighbor’s driveway to make the maneuver and then drove back to Hammond’s house. I pulled into the driveway behind the BMW. It was a reporter’s trick. It would make it hard for Hammond to jump into his car and get away when I hit him with the hard questions.

  We got out and I saw Rachel put her hand on the BMW’s front hood as she passed by it.

  “Still warm,” she said.

  We approached the front door, which had been partially hidden from the street by a small front porch with leafy potted plants standing sentinel on
either side of the entry portal.

  Rachel’s observation was quickly confirmed. The door stood a foot open. The entry room beyond it was dark.

  On the frame of the door was a lighted button for a doorbell. I stepped up and pushed it and a loud solitary gong echoed through the house. We waited but no one came. Rachel pulled a sleeve down over her hand and gently pushed the door open further. She then crossed behind me as she changed her angle of view into the house. There was a small entry area with a wall directly in front of us and arched entries to hallways to the left and right.

  “Hello?” I called loudly. “Mr. Hammond? Anybody home?”

  “There’s something wrong,” Rachel whispered.

  “How do you know?”

  “I feel it.”

  I rang the doorbell again, this time pushing it repeatedly, but only the solitary gong sounded. I looked back at Rachel.

  “What do we do?” I asked.

  “We go in,” Rachel said. “Something’s wrong. The car engine’s warm, the door’s open, nobody’s answering.”

  “Yeah, but we’re not cops. We should call the cops.”

  “I’m fine with that, if that’s how you want to play it. But say goodbye to your story if the cops lock this place down.”

  I nodded. Good point. I stalled by yelling loudly into the house once more.

  No one answered, no one came.

  “Something’s wrong,” Rachel repeated. “We need to check it out. Maybe somebody needs help.”

  This last part was said for my benefit, giving me the excuse I could use later if things went sideways once we entered.

  “Okay,” I said. “Lead the way.”

  She moved past me before I was finished speaking.

  “Put your hands in your pockets,” she said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “No prints.”

  “Got it.”

  I followed her into the hallway to the right. It led to a living room that was furnished in contemporary styles, with a Warhol print of a Volkswagen Beetle over a fireplace protected by a freestanding glass panel. There was a thick book called The Broad Collection on the table between the maroon couch and two matching chairs. There was no sign of disturbance or anything wrong. It looked like a room that never got used.