Bloody Genius

by John Sandford

  “This paint is designed to get driverless vehicles down the road,” Hamm said.

  Virgil said, “Ah.”

  “Yeah. It has some built-in components that’ll work with car sensors and even allow, you know, road painters—the state, I guess—to paint instructions on roads that people can’t see but the cars can pick up to warn about hazards and so on. If this all works, Surface Research will go to a thousand bucks a share, and we’ll all be billionaires. I’ve got a thousand shares myself, and I’m seriously thinking about mortgaging this place and buying another ten thousand.”

  “What’s Nash doing?”

  “Boyd’s been scouting them for a while—even back when I was working with him. Lately, I’ve heard, he’s gotten inside. He’s got some kind of low-level connection inside the company, and he’s been in there at night taking pictures.”

  “Pictures?”

  “Yeah. You know, photographs. Get a computer up, start pulling files, taking photos of the screen. If they’re getting close to a viable product, and he moves that stuff over to another paint company, could be a major score.”

  “He’s still doing this?”

  “That’s what I’ve heard,” Hamm said. “Friday, Saturday, Sunday nights, when the place is empty. I thought about calling the cops, but that could lead to some awkward questions.”

  “Like, how you know all this?”

  “Exactly. Cops never leave well enough alone.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “That’s hard to explain . . . to most cops,” Hamm said. “I’m talking to you because you took a beer on duty. I knew about Surface Research from back when I was working with Boyd. Then he screwed me on the real estate deal and I told him to go fuck himself. Still, I’m out there, looking for deals, and I hear shit from all kinds of people. That’s what I do: I hear shit. People know I used to work with Boyd, so his name comes up. He’s got another guy working with him now, and I think that guy might have talked to some people I know and the word starts leaking out.”

  “Okay. You think he might be working right now?”

  Hamm shook his head. “Too early. This kind of thing, Boyd would be going in after midnight or later. Two in the morning, four—those are the dead times when nobody’s around, except a few cop cars. He can get some serious quiet to work in.”

  Hamm finished his beer, and Virgil did, too. Hamm asked, “You want another?”

  “No, I’m good,” Virgil said.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m investigating a murder, not a paint theft,” Virgil said. “Still, this is interesting. Nash sounds like a possibility. You’re the second person who’s told me that he could kill.”

  “Wouldn’t bother him a bit,” Hamm said.

  “I’m gonna look at him,” Virgil said, standing up. He put his beer bottle on the kitchen counter, and said, “And you keep your mouth shut.”

  “Don’t worry. I want you to do good. Get me some payback,” Hamm said. “When it’s done right, payback’s a bitch, huh?”

  * * *

  —

  Thursday night. If Hamm was right—and he did sound like he knew what he was talking about—Nash wouldn’t be making another run at Surface Research for at least twenty-four hours.

  He could wait. If Nash was actually doing industrial espionage, catching him in the act would generate a lot of leverage.

  * * *

  —

  Virgil headed back to the hotel, had dinner, stuck his head in the bar. Harry wasn’t there, but Alice was, and she asked about the case.

  “I dunno. It seems to be drifting toward some kind of conclusion,” Virgil said. “Keep your eye on the newspapers.”

  “I’m like everybody else,” she said. “I don’t read the papers.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY

  Virgil stayed up late to finish the James Lee Burke novel, slept late on Friday morning, then called Trane, who was immersed in a study of Robin Jones, the attorney representing Ruth McDonald in the malpractice case. “I’ve talked to a few people and I’m having some doubts,” she said. “Turns out Jones is basically known as a chickenshit, both physically and otherwise. He would be unlikely to go after anyone physically, and I’m told he sure as hell wouldn’t be breaking into a library. He wants to be a congressman, and breaking into anything would be the end of that.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Keep looking. I’m not quite done with him yet,” she said. “What about you?”

  He told her all about Nash. “He’s at least a solid suspect. I’ve been told that he’s basically a careful criminal and knows about setting up alibis for himself. The medical convention down in Rochester sounds like an alibi to me. Goes around slapping backs, buying drinks—he’s the life of the party. Disappears at ten o’clock, but at eight the next morning there he is again. What happened between ten and eight? Nobody knows.”

  “All right,” Trane said. “I’m pulling for you.”

  * * *

  —

  Virgil went for a run around campus, browsed the bookstore in the basement of the student union, went back to the hotel, got on his computer and dug for everything he could find on Nash. Reviewed all the notes he’d taken in the past week and concluded that Nash was the best lead they’d come up with, assuming that Cohen hadn’t killed Quill and was in the process of getting away with it. He went on Google Maps satellite, spotted Nash’s house and the Surface Research factory, and the routes between them.

  He talked to Frankie for an hour, about the condition of both the farm and her womb, was told that both seemed to be doing fine. Late in the afternoon, he took a nap because he suspected he’d be up all night. At six o’clock, he called Shrake, who claimed to have an absolutely critical, and possibly life-changing, date. “Jenkins wanted to go shoot some pool. That was an hour ago, so I know he’s not doing anything. I think he’s driving around town.”

  “I was hoping for a less visible car,” Virgil said. Jenkins drove an aging Crown Vic. Even though cops no longer drove them because they were no longer made, the used versions still screamed “cop.”

  “We’ve got a late-model silver Camry at the office that’s not doing anything but sitting in the parking lot. He could get in that and be practically invisible,” Shrake said.

  “Will Jenkins fit?”

  “Maybe.”

  Virgil made the call, and Jenkins said, “You’re saving my life. I’m so goddamn bored I was thinking about masturbating.”

  “How would that end your life?”

  Puzzled silence, then, “Ah . . . No, see, the two things aren’t connected: saving my life and masturbating. I was trying to make a point about . . . Oh, fuckin’ forget it. I’ll get the Camry and meet you. Hey, how about if I stop by Jimmy John’s and get us some hoagies?”

  “Sounds good. I’ll be starving by the time it gets dark,” Virgil said. “Maybe a couple of Diet Cokes.”

  * * *

  —

  As the sun reluctantly lowered itself below the horizon—it had been a boring day—Virgil drove south to Edina, spotted Nash’s house from the street. The house showed lights all across what must have been a half dozen rooms. As he watched, one of the lights went out, so somebody was inside. He drove around the block, found a spot where he could sit and look through a couple of yards and see Nash’s garage door.

  Jenkins arrived twenty minutes later, parked behind Virgil’s Tahoe. Like his partner, Shrake, he was a large man, dressed in jeans, a black golf shirt, a light cotton sport coat, and black Nike running shoes. He got out of his borrowed car, got into Virgil’s passenger seat, and passed over a bag of hoagies and two Diet Cokes.

  “Heard you’d been working with Shrake and Capslock.”

  “Yeah . . .”

  Virgil explained the situation, as he chewed through h
is sandwich. Jenkins, looking out at the quiet suburban street, said, “You know, somebody’s going to call the cops on us. We’re gonna have a squad car with a bunch of flashing lights. We’ll probably get shot.”

  “You think?”

  “Yeah, I think.” Jenkins got out his phone and called the duty officer at the BCA and asked him to call the Edina cops and tell them about the surveillance. The duty officer called back a moment later and said Edina had already had a call and a patrol car had been dispatched, but now had been recalled. “Told you,” Jenkins said.

  “You’re way smarter than you look,” Virgil said.

  “Thank you . . . A hoagie? Don’t mind if I do.”

  * * *

  —

  They ate for a while, then Virgil said, “I just had a thought.”

  “Don’t be afraid,” Jenkins said. “New experiences can be valuable teaching moments.”

  “Right. My thought is, if he actually does this and we think we know where he’s going,” Virgil said, “why should both of us follow him? I could run over to this paint place and already be there. That way, you could stay way back of him and wouldn’t have to worry about losing him as long as it looked like he was coming to me.”

  “That is a valuable thought,” Jenkins said. “Let me get my shit”—he meant the bag of food—“and get out of here. Stay in touch. If he moves, I’ll call. And you say this guy could be a killer? So don’t . . . Uh, don’t get hurt. Or at least wait until I get there before you get hurt. That way, I can call the meat wagon for you.”

  Jenkins gathered up his food, and, as he backed out of the car, said, “Call the duty officer. Tell him you’re moving and where you’ll be at, that you’ll call when you get there. You won’t want those cops coming around, either.”

  * * *

  —

  The Surface Research headquarters and manufacturing facility was in a flat, rectangular steel-and-concrete-block building in an industrial zone south of Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport, not far beneath the wheels of the jets landing there. Virgil crossed the Minnesota River on I-494, took a right on Pilot Knob Road, another left, and was there, in a zone of sodium-vapor lights, other flat buildings, and empty parking lots.

  He spotted the Surface Research building, circled it slowly. The biggest parking lot was at the front of the building, outside three separate sets of doors: one, in the middle of the building, behind three silvery flagpoles, looked like it was the formal public entrance; the other two, on opposite sides of the public entrance and about a third of the length of the building away from it, appeared to be for employees. The parking lot was empty, with not a single vehicle in sight.

  There was another entrance, up some steps on the back side of the building, along with four loading docks with overhead doors. An eighteen-wheeler was backed up to one of the docks; a dark-colored compact SUV sat one space over from it. If Nash were going into the building, Virgil thought, it’d be through the back. A lone car parked in front would advertise the presence of someone in the building. A car parked between the tractor-trailer and the SUV would be virtually unnoticed.

  He called Jenkins. “Anything?”

  “No, but his lights are still on. He’s awake.”

  “All right. I’m there, looking for a spot.”

  He found his spot a block away, at a warehouse where a line of tractor-trailers was backed up to loading docks but there was no activity. He backed between two of the trucks, with nothing more than the nose of the Tahoe poking out. He got his iPad and binoculars from the back, and, after a moment’s thought, his Glock, which he checked and then put on the passenger seat.

  He called the duty officer, told him where he was at, asked him to check what city he was in and to call the police there to tell them what he was doing. The duty officer called back two minutes later, and said, “You’re in Eagan. I don’t know what you and Jenkins are up to, but you must look suspicious as hell. The cops there got called by a security guard at the Aerotop warehouse, asking them to check you out.”

  “I think I’m in their parking lot,” Virgil said. “But I don’t see a sign.”

  “Hiding behind some semis?”

  “That’s me.”

  “Well, smile, because you’re on camera. I got the cop car turned around.”

  “Good. Now, I got one more thing for you,” Virgil said. “I need a current phone number for a Stuart L. Booker, Jr. He’s the president of a company called Surface Research. He lives here in the cities, but I don’t know where.”

  “Gimme ten minutes.”

  * * *

  —

  He came back in ten with two cell phone numbers for Booker and one for Booker’s wife, Andi. With that, Virgil settled down to watch the back of Surface Research while he used the iPad to check wildlife magazine websites for article ideas. Two kids coming, eighteen years to save for their college educations. With his luck, they were already thinking Yale in utero.

  He was focused enough on the task that he nearly had a heart attack when a man rapped on the driver’s-side window a few inches from his head. He jumped, looked, saw an elderly man in a gray security guard’s uniform peering in at him.

  He dropped the window, and said, “Jesus, you scared me.”

  “Sorry. I got a call from the Eagan police saying you were doing surveillance. If there’s any way I could help . . .”

  “Not really. I’ve got a partner already in place.”

  “Okay. I needed to tell you that there’ll be a lot of trucks showing up here starting about five o’clock.”

  “I won’t be here that long,” Virgil said.

  “Can I ask you what you’re looking for?”

  “Can’t talk about that,” Virgil said.

  “But there won’t be any . . . shooting . . . or anything like that.”

  “No, no. And it’s not right here anyway. I’m looking up the block.”

  The guard looked up the block, where a half dozen buildings were partially visible in the orange lights, and said, “I’ve got a station, up those steps, right inside the double doors.” He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. “There’s a candy machine and a pop machine and a restroom right inside. If you need something, need to pee, just knock on the door, I’ll come let you in.”

  “You sound like an ex-cop,” Virgil said.

  “I was that, up north,” the man said. “Turns out the retirement benefits weren’t good enough to keep my head above water, so now I sit and watch TV pictures of empty parking lots. Shit job. Save your money, buddy.”

  He tapped the Tahoe’s door panel a couple of times, then faded back toward the building, trailing fumes of disappointment and depression. Virgil went back to the iPad with renewed intensity, made notes for an article on possible ways to control the Canada geese population. He was thinking: weed whips.

  * * *

  —

  Jenkins called a few minutes before two o’clock. “We’ve got movement. Looks like one guy, in a big, black Audi. He backed out of the garage, so I couldn’t see if he was carrying anything.”

  “Where are you?”

  “On the back side of the block, watching his taillights. Haven’t even started the engine yet.”

  “Be cool.”

  “I’m cool. His taillights are really distinctive. I’ll sit way back. I’ll call you when I get an idea of where he’s going. Right now, he looks like he’s headed toward Highway 100.”

  “Call me.”

  * * *

  —

  Jenkins called again. “He’s headed south on Highway 100. Not much traffic, but I’m way behind him. I gotta tell you, this Audi’s made to be followed: there’s a taillight on each side of the rear, with a bright red line across the whole back of the car that connects the two. You can see it for half a mile.”

  “Then you’ve got no excuse for l
osing him,” Virgil said.

  * * *

  —

  Jenkins called a third time. “East on 494. He’s coming your way, big guy. Hot damn, this is better than sex. Your kind of missionary, son-of-a-preacher sex anyway.”

  * * *

  —

  And again. “South on Pilot Knob.”

  “Okay, he’s coming here,” Virgil said. “Don’t turn down Pilot Knob. I want his rearview mirror to be empty. There’s hardly any traffic right now.”

  “I’ll go on through and circle back. I’ll come up behind your location and walk over to your truck.”

  * * *

  —

  Virgil called Jenkins ten minutes later. “He’s not here yet. I wonder what the hell happened?”

  “Maybe he is checking his rearview mirror before he comes in. Doing a random check. I better stay away for a few more minutes.”

  “Do that.” As the words came out of Virgil’s mouth, a pair of car lights turned onto the street that led down to the Surface Research building. “Wait a minute, I got lights. Hang on.”

  The car was moving slow, slowed even further, then made a decisive turn into the Surface Research parking lot and pulled in between the tractor-trailer and the SUV. The taillights were as distinctive as Jenkins had described them. Virgil said, “All right, that’s him. He’s here.”

  “I’ll come in behind you. Give me five minutes.”

  * * *

  —

  As Virgil watched, a man got out of the car. He was dressed all in black and was carrying a black bag. He walked around the back of the SUV, climbed the steps to the entrance doors, one of which was pushed open as he approached. He went inside.