He stepped out from behind a row of food-hauling trailers, standing lonely on their slim landing-gear posts. All the tractors were across the lot in front of the repair building, noses in, like hogs at a trough. The Lexus parked ten yards away, incongruously sleek and gleaming.
Rangi got out first. He wore his usual black suit and tie for shore work. Shaw held up a hand in greeting. Rangi just shook his head, like he couldn’t believe he’d been dragged on such a fool’s errand.
Sofia Rohner stepped out from the backseat and closed the door. To ward off the morning chill, she wore a dove-gray topcoat over her midnight business suit. Her blond hair was wound in a complex twist that lay almost flat against the back of her head. She held the tablet computer with the gloss ivory cover that Shaw had seen on the island.
“Thank you for meeting me,” she said. Her accent was more pronounced than at the island. Tension, Shaw supposed. “I have some questions. And in return I hope I can help you.”
Shaw had anticipated there might be more to Sofia’s fervent need to see him than philanthropy.
“What is it you want to know?” he said.
“My father offered you a position with Droma, before you were arrested. Head of security in place of Warren Kilbane.”
“I didn’t take the job.”
“I know that, too. My question is why. I found a draft of his offer to you in the Droma employment system. He had deleted the final copy but failed to remember that our system automatically saves a backup of every document in progress. Why would my father offer you a job and try to keep it off the official record? Why didn’t you accept?”
Shaw looked at her, then at Rangi.
“Here’s my dilemma, Ms. Rohner,” he said. “You love your father. You probably love Droma, too—you’ve invested a lot of your life into it. If I tell you what I know or what I suspect, then I’ve shown my cards to somebody whose loyalties lie elsewhere.”
“You think you can’t trust me.”
“I think your father can. It amounts to the same thing.”
“I’m not your enemy. Why do you believe my father is?”
“He’s sure as shit not an ally. You said something about information for me. Let’s start with that, and then maybe I’ll trade a little in return.”
Sofia hesitated.
Rangi nodded toward the way they had come in. “I can take a walk if you want, Ms. Rohner.”
“No. It’s better that you stay,” she told him. “I may want a witness to what’s said. Thank you.”
She turned to Shaw. Her shoulders drew back, as if she were bracing herself against a strong wind.
“I only know bits and pieces,” she said. “Linda Edgemont sent me a message after she returned from the island. Wanting to speak to me urgently. I didn’t receive it until after . . . until it was too late.”
“What did she want?”
“She didn’t elaborate. But she was very distraught about Mr. Bao’s death. I know Linda was the one who recruited you. I asked my lawyer—who has some friends in law enforcement—about your background.”
“My rap sheet.”
“Yes. And your grandfather’s. You were a burglar once.”
“And you want to know if Rohner and Anders hired me to steal for them, is that it?”
“No. I don’t believe that’s the case. My father and Olen had no need for your help.”
“Because they wouldn’t need a thief to get into the gallery themselves,” said Shaw. “That’s why they put the laboratory there.”
Sofia blinked. “You know about the tests.”
“I’ve had a busy week, kicking over rocks and seeing what squirms.”
“My father is counting on this deal. Depending on it.”
“So he aimed to steal Chen’s invention, to make sure he didn’t get cut out. I’m ahead of you on that one.” Shaw nodded. “Your father and Anders hired me because I was conspicuous. To be a smoke screen. It didn’t work out.”
“He’s only trying to survive.”
“Me, too. But corporate secrets aren’t what you’re really worried about, right? You asked about Linda.”
A diesel at the repair bay came to life with a loud stuttering thrum. If Sofia heard it, she gave no sign.
“Linda was my friend,” she said. “She was a good person. I want . . . I need to know what happened.”
Shaw waited.
“Was my father involved in her death?”
It might have been the first time Sofia had given voice to a fear she’d been holding for days. Her eyes were bright with tears that refused, perhaps by some force of her considerable will, to fall. Rangi stared at her, too, his routinely doleful face slack with surprise.
“If Linda knew he was planning to steal from Chen, if she knew why they were hiring you, perhaps my father thought she was . . .” Sofia reached for the words.
“A liability.”
“Hey, I’ve got a piece of this,” said Rangi. “I’m the guy who dropped Ms. Edgemont off that day. I was the last one to see her before it happened, the cops said.”
Shaw’s fists balled in his pockets. Anything he told Sofia and Rangi might ultimately get back to Rohner. It could upset the delicate scheme he’d just begun to set into motion. Exhaust from the running tractor wafted across them, sugary sweet in the chill morning air.
He sympathized with Sofia’s grief, too. Her drive. That hunger for answers to fill the painful void inside.
“I don’t think your father’s that far gone,” he said. “He’s not clean, and maybe a lot more trouble is coming to him, but if I’m right, he didn’t have Linda killed. It’s not his way.”
Sofia nodded, and after another moment she gave out a brittle sound that might have been a laugh. “How can words like that be comforting? Yet they are.”
“D’you know who did kill her?” Rangi asked.
“Yeah,” said Shaw. “But that’s my problem to worry about.”
Sofia looked like she was about to protest. Perhaps the expression on Shaw’s face stopped her.
She held out the ivory tablet. Shaw stepped forward to take it.
“I don’t know if the software will open the gallery,” she said. “I tried again without success before leaving the island.”
“It’ll do.”
“What happens now?” she said.
“You run your company. I handle my own business. If we’re lucky, neither runs into the other.”
She got back into the car. Rangi raised a heavy palm off the Lexus’s roof in farewell, or maybe resignation, and lowered himself into the driver’s seat. They were gone in seconds.
Sofia had to suspect, Shaw mused. Had to have at least guessed that Chen’s scientific miracle wasn’t his own invention. That her father was colluding with a foreign power. It was all there for her to see and make her suppositions, even if she couldn’t prove it. Or didn’t want to.
But murder was beyond the pale. More than Sofia could rationalize or sidestep on behalf of her family.
Dono had felt that way, too. Being a thief was the way of the world. Stealing a life, however, was left for some higher power.
The tough old bastard had raised Shaw to believe that. And for a long time, he had. Before war and other ordeals had begun to steadily chip away at Shaw’s conviction. Ethics were situational, he knew now. Killing, too.
Soon he’d know what the situation with James Hargreaves demanded.
SIXTY-ONE
Detective Neal Kanellis lived in a condominium a few blocks off Green Lake. Close enough to walk to the lake but far enough from the water that the real-estate agent had stretched the truth if they’d claimed that the listing was part of the neighborhood. The building was three stories tall in a courtyard style, with its interior balconies facing the amenities, including a fitness center and a rec area with a barbecue. Appearance-wise Shaw thought the place was the architectural equivalent of a saltine cracker.
The detective’s one-bedroom unit took up a corner on the second floor.
Easy to scale from the ground. Easier to open the sliding glass door. The interior was less cluttered than Shaw had expected, though it was impossible to tell without the lights on whether the place was really clean.
Shaw stepped past a framed Claude Lemieux San Jose Sharks jersey to tap Kanellis’s shin with his boot. “Wake up.”
Kanellis bolted upright, his right hand flying toward the nightstand as if it had its own mind. When the hand didn’t find what it sought, Kanellis’s head turned in that direction to see for itself.
“Take it easy,” said Shaw. “I come in peace.”
“The fuh you doin’ ’ere?” Kanellis sputtered through a mouth that sounded as dry as rice paper.
“Let’s talk.”
“Crazy fug.” Kanellis wiped his mouth. “You’re dead. Breaking into a cop’s home. I’ll throw your ass off the friggin’ balcony.”
“Be reasonable, Neal. I’ve got forty pounds and a whole lifetime of knocking guys slantwise on you. Plus, I’m wearing pants. Pull the sheet up, wouldja?”
Kanellis did. “You’re under arrest.”
“Sure. But hear me out. Major busts could be yours.”
“What kind of busts?”
“Economic and industrial espionage. Multiple counts. Assault with intent. Attempted kidnapping. Plus, if I’m right, a better lead on the killer of Linda Edgemont. Promotion material.”
“So spill it.”
“Pay attention. This is too long to go through twice.”
Shaw talked for fifteen minutes, recapping some of what Kanellis already knew from Shaw’s time in the interview room at SPD headquarters. He described each of the major players he’d met at Briar Bay Island, finding Nelson Bao’s body, and his assumptions about the connections between Rohner and Hargreaves and Chen Li. He had to muddle a few details. He said he’d gone to look at Bao’s apartment and found the remnants of the chemical sample in a Hefty bag in the Dumpster outside. When he came to the part about Chiarra, and the Paragon team busting him out of jail, Shaw hedged.
“Their team set off the flashbangs and smoke by Westlake Center. They yanked me out of the cop car when you went to check on the bystanders,” Shaw said.
“You shit.”
“They insisted. Herded me to the rail station underground and shoved me into a car. I got away when they came up for air by the stadiums.”
“I know. We found the Chrysler crashed there. Smoke-grenade residue all over it, along with your prints. One of their crew practically gave the transit joe a cerebral hemorrhage, knocking him out.”
“To lower the barrier on the tracks?” Shaw felt a relief so palpable the hairs on his arms rose. They hadn’t killed the guard. “Was it a woman who attacked him?”
“Now, how did you know that? He only got a glimpse before she walloped him with a sap, but yeah. Younger woman, sunglasses and a hat, dark hair mighta been a wig.”
“Glad he’s okay.”
“You should have turned yourself in, asshole,” said Kanellis.
“Would you? I hadn’t been charged with Edgemont’s murder, but I knew that was right around the corner. You weren’t looking hard to find other suspects. Besides”—Shaw lifted his shirt to show Kanellis the laceration on his ribs—“I didn’t think jail was a safe place to be. These guys have reach.”
“You’re in deep shit, Shaw.”
“I know it. But I’ve got a shovel now.”
Shaw held up a thick manila envelope. “This is evidence from Paragon’s home office. It links Chiarra and the private intelligence firm he works for to Linda Edgemont, and to a hacker named Kelvin Welch. Welch was shot to death in New Orleans a month ago. The news didn’t say, but I bet if you ask NOLA, you’ll find out the weapon was a suppressed .22, same as the kind that killed Edgemont. They all stole trade secrets from a company called Avizda Industries in Dallas, on Rohner’s dime, with the intent of selling those secrets to a foreign power.”
Despite the detective’s scowl, Shaw was fairly sure he saw Kanellis’s eyes glitter greedily in the half-light.
Shaw tossed the envelope onto the bed. “There’s everything I got from Paragon. You’ll also find four pages written and signed by me. My confession to B&E in New York City and my statement of everything that’s happened, along with my best guesses as to how it all fits together.”
“It’s not enough. The word of a fucking fugitive.”
“No,” Shaw admitted, “but there are plenty of threads to pull. I’d start with Ed Chiarra. He’s a weak link.”
Kanellis grimaced. “Like I need your help to do my job.”
“You’ll get it anyway.” Shaw took Kanellis’s Glock and phone from his pocket and placed them on the detective’s dresser next to a football autographed by Russell Wilson, standing upright on its tee. The loaded clip from the gun he tossed underhand out of the bedroom and behind Kanellis’s sectional sofa. “I got your number. I’ll contact you.”
“The hell. You’re gonna wait in a cell while we sort this out. If what you say is true, you’ll get a fair shake.”
“Three months from now, maybe. After Rohner’s fled the country and Hargreaves has covered every track. No. You need to catch them in the act of selling secrets.” He moved to the bedroom door.
“Don’t be an idiot. Giving yourself up would show you want to make this right. A judge will go easy on you.”
“Get some rest. Big day tomorrow.”
“Shaw,” Kanellis called after him. The detective’s quieter tone made Shaw pause. “Why bring this to me? Why not Guerin? You two got more history.”
“You’re hungrier. You can talk Guerin into waiting for the right moment and make sure you’ve got more than just my typing to go on. Besides”—Shaw smiled—“Guerin has his own copy of my statement waiting for him when he wakes up. The man’s got family. I didn’t want to scare his wife and kids.”
“What if I’d had a girl here? You think about that?”
Shaw looked at the hockey jersey on the wall. “Not once I saw your place.”
SIXTY-TWO
Midday on a sunny Thursday in July, an early start to a holiday weekend, meant the main drag of the Market was as packed as it was possible to get. The most crowded place in the city at that moment. Possibly on the entire West Coast.
Shaw shuffled along with the mob. He had a feeling of unreality, being in proximity to so many people after over a year of social distancing. His face was obscured by a Seahawks cap pulled low and a bandanna across his face, still a common sight even after the pandemic. The scarf did little to dilute the competing scents of freshly caught fish from the vendors on the right-hand side of the row and from ten thousand flowers to his left. Carnations and sunflowers and chrysanthemums and lilies.
Shaw would have been happy to skip the lilies. This meeting would be hazardous enough without a reminder of funerals.
He cut right, weaving his way out of the crush and across Pike Place to continue walking along the row of shops on the opposite side. Most had open fronts to sell directly to passersby on the sidewalk. Baklava, fish and chips, wheatgrass juice. Shaw circled the knots of customers waiting to be next. Cars driving down the street had to inch through the throng. Regret showed on every driver’s face for having made the wrong turn downtown and getting mired in the morass of people.
Next to a cinnamon-roll bakery was a stunted hallway leading to back doors and an elevator for the vendors’ use. The official name of the century-old structure across from the Market’s main drag was the Silver Okum Building, but every vendor Shaw had ever met called it the Triangle, because that was its shape. The sharpest end pointed south, while the base ran parallel to Pine Street at the north. Its two elongated sides faced Pike Place in front and Post Alley behind.
Shaw ducked into the Triangle’s blunt hallway, returning to the sidewalk two minutes later. It was time.
He stayed close to the hall, among shoppers browsing a display of olive oil and salad dressing in the shop next door. Syrupy wafts of cinnamon and baked coo
kies suffused the walkway.
The Market’s outskirts had expanded while he’d been off at war. All part of the massive reconfiguration of the waterfront that had peaked with the demolition of the old viaduct. But Pike Place’s center still looked as it had when he was a kid, from the stalls selling watercolor paintings of Rainier to the bronze pig the size of a recliner. Shaw couldn’t see the pig now through the multitude, but he liked knowing it was there.
He spotted Zhang first. Under the green metal roof of the Market, walking with the idling tourists but looking outward. Surveying the street. The Chinese agent wore black running pants and shoes and a jacket the color of modeling clay. The jacket was unzipped most of the way. Shoulder holster, Shaw assumed.
Zhang scanned the street for another ten seconds before his eyes found Shaw in the background, on the sidewalk. Shaw nodded to him. Zhang looked to his right and scratched his head. A signal. Shaw looked in that same direction to find Chen on the street, moving along with the heavy traffic in their direction, like a round rock tumbling in a river.
Zhang crossed to join Shaw. He stared silently, his mistrust evident. Shaw smiled back.
“Okay?” he said when the shuffling flow brought Chen to them, motioning to the surroundings.
Chen nodded agreement. “You said you had information.”
“To trade.”
“Within reason I can answer questions. Please show your pockets. And under your shirt.”
Shaw held up his phone so they could see it wasn’t recording. He flipped up his shirt to prove the absence of a wire.
“You are injured,” said Zhang.
“Tough week,” said Shaw. “I’ve got three bits of knowledge for you. The first is for free. I know about Avizda, and your chemist Nelson Bao working there, and why Paragon was hired to get what Nelson couldn’t. So we can skip the pretending and protestations of innocence.”
“Sebastien Rohner told you this story.”
Island of Thieves Page 35
