Fatal Error (38 page)

While ER personnel attended to Brenda, Hollingshead commandeered a conference room and herded Ali and Gil inside.

“I don’t know if I should thank you or throw the book at you,” he said. “You caught Ermina, and from what she did to that poor woman in there, she surely needed catching, but you may have blown the cover off an operation we’ve been working on for months. The problem is, this is a white-collar crime case with overriding national security issues. Without a proper security clearance, I can’t even discuss it with you.”

“We know about the UAVs, if that’s what you mean,” Ali said.

Hollingshead looked at her sharply. “How would you know anything about that?”

Gil reached into his jeans and pulled out the two thumb drives. “From these,” he said, placing the drives on the table in front of Hollingshead. “My homicide victim in Grass Valley, Richard Lowensdale, had these hidden in his garage. Ali was able to run the files past one of her computer people. They’re the ones who came up with the drone angle.”

Ali appreciated that creative bit of understatement. There was no mention of High Noon Enterprises in anything that had been said, and she doubted Sam Hollingshead would be terribly interested or motivated to track down the details. He seemed to be preoccupied with his own concerns.

“All right, then,” Hollingshead said, “so you know about that too. We figured Richard was involved in the Blaylocks’ drone project. We had court-ordered access to his computers, and we used his own CCTV to maintain surveillance on his house.”

“So you know about the cyberstalking?” Ali asked.

“Yes,” Hollingshead said, with a dismissive shrug. “As far as I could tell, it was just a harmless hobby. He didn’t appear to be doing anything wrong.”

Ali did a slow burn at that statement, which said more about SAC Hollingshead than it did about Richard Lowensdale.

“What he did to those poor women may have been legal, but it was most definitely wrong,” Ali said.

“Yes,” Hollingshead agreed, “I suppose it was, but that didn’t concern us. It wasn’t part of our investigation. We were convinced that Richard was working for Ermina, but since we haven’t been able to find any record of payments, I surmised that perhaps they had some other involvement that overrode any monetary considerations.”

“You mean you thought Richard and Mina were involved sexually?” Gil asked.

Hollingshead didn’t bother denying it. “Look,” he said, “she drove up there last weekend like she usually did every month or
so. She went into Lowensdale’s house in Grass Valley. She went inside for a while and then she came back out again. Maybe she stayed inside a little longer than she usually did, but we had no idea that she had killed the guy while she was there.”

“So you had surveillance in place, but you didn’t actually follow her?”

“The CCTV at Lowensdale’s house went on the fritz while she was there.”

“The video feed ended,” Gil offered.

“Correct.”

“What about her car? Did you attempt to follow it?” Ali asked.

“We didn’t need to,” Hollingshead said. “We had a GPS bug on her car. We know where she went and when right up until tonight when she ditched the car and gave us the slip.”

“So you didn’t know she had picked up Brenda Riley?” Ali asked.

“From what we can tell, Ermina drove to Brenda’s mother’s place on P Street in Sacramento. We’re assuming that’s when she met up with Brenda, but we don’t know positively.”

“But you knew she drove to the Scotts Flat Reservoir?” Gil asked.

“Yes, and we wondered about it after the fact, but she was only there for a few minutes, then she headed home. Since the spot didn’t appear to have any bearing on our case, we just let it go.”

“What about Ermina’s background?” Ali asked. “Did you have any idea about what she’s suspected of doing to her adoptive father in Missouri?”

Hollingshead paused for a moment, then he nodded. “Yes,” he said. “One of our agents spoke to Detective Laughlin months ago. He sounded like an old guy all hung up on a long closed case. We learned about Lowensdale’s death sometime yesterday, but you need to understand, there was nothing we could do about it. Our
hands were tied. If we had acted on any of that information prematurely, we might have risked jeopardizing the mission.”

“Yes,” Ali said, “but if you had, maybe Mark Blaylock wouldn’t be dead right now.”

“He was part of this too, you know,” Hollingshead said. “Ermina didn’t do all of it on her own.”

“You
think
he was part of it,” Ali pointed out. “It’s also possible that he was innocent—innocent and dead, an outcome you might have prevented.”

“I agree,” Hollingshead said. “It’s an unfortunate outcome.”

“Especially unfortunate for Mr. Blaylock,” Ali insisted.

Hollingshead seemed to be running out of patience. “Look, Ms. Reynolds,” he said placatingly, “I understand that you’re angry. You have every right to be. At least two people are dead who probably shouldn’t be, and your friend Brenda has suffered grievous harm, but we need to keep a lid on this. We
must
keep a lid on it.

“Our intelligence tells us that the drone shipment is due to be picked up sometime tomorrow. We’re attaching bugs to each of those individual boxes. We’re going to let them be picked up and delivered and delivered without incident. We already know that the middleman is a guy named Enrique Gallegos who has been on the FBI’s watch list and also the DEA’s for a very long time. Our intention is to take down the end users—whoever they are and wherever they might be.

“So don’t expect to read about this in the paper tomorrow morning, because it turns out nothing at all happened at the business park tonight, understand? Your damaged car has been hauled away, and so has hers. The Rutherford garage bay has been cleaned up and buttoned up. Hertz is in the process of delivering a replacement vehicle to you here, no questions asked.”

“Wait a minute,” Gil said. “You’re whitewashing this?”

“For the time being.”

“You can’t do that. I’m investigating a homicide that happened on my watch in Grass Valley. Detective Moreno down in Imperial County has one too. In both of those cases, the presumed doer is Ermina Blaylock, and I can assure you that we aren’t going to shut up and go away just because you said so.”

“And what about Brenda?” Ali demanded. “She came within inches of dying at Ermina Blaylock’s hands. And then there’s your own officer. She assaulted him with a moving vehicle, which counts as a deadly weapon in my book. You expect us to keep a lid on all that? Are you nuts?”

“Not nuts,” Hollingshead countered, “but I am in charge. For right now, we’ve taken Ermina into custody. We intend to hold her at least until the drone delivery takes place. Longer if possible.”

“Charged with what?” Gil asked.

“Falsifying a federal document. She may lawyer up, but there’s also a chance she’ll talk to us.”

“This isn’t my first day of being a cop,” Gil said. “What talking to you really means is that you’re going to try to make a deal with her, and your best bargaining chips will be reducing the charges against her—our charges, my charges.”

“I’m not saying yes, and I’m not saying no,” Hollingshead said.

“Which turn out to be standard weasel words for yes,” Ali said.

Hollingshead said nothing in reply.

“And what will happen to the UAVs?”

“We’ll be following the shipment. We’ll also be following the money.”

“With the same kind of GPS efficiency you demonstrated in following Ermina’s car?” Ali asked without trying to disguise her sarcasm.

“Look, if we had known how dangerous she was—”

“I’m not buying that,” Ali said. “You did know. Someone from your agency had already spoken to Detective Laughlin. You endangered any number of lives in order to protect your ‘mission,’ and now you’re going to try to cover it up. Good luck with that. You underestimated Ermina Blaylock, and I suspect you’re underestimating Gil and me too. When this is all over, I suggest you send yourself back to the academy for some remedial classes in fatal errors—you know, those ten mistakes cops make that end up getting them killed? Failure to call for backup is one of the biggies, but what if the agent in charge fails to call for backup? What then?

“You’re all focused on your fancy electronic gizmos. Great, but what about your people? What about leaving Agent Sinclair on the street without any kind of backup? The only backup he had was Gil Morris and Ali Reynolds. If it hadn’t been for us, Ermina might have gotten away and claimed another victim in the process.”

With that, Ali pushed back her chair and stood up. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a phone call to make. There’s a woman in Sacramento who needs to know that her supposedly dead daughter isn’t dead!”

Ali stalked out of the conference room with Gil on her heels. “Remind me not to make you mad,” he said.

“He deserved it,” Ali replied.

Out in the lobby, a guy wearing a yellow Hertz shirt flagged Ali down and handed her a new rental agreement and a new set of keys.

“It’s just like the one you had before,” he said. “Another Marquis. It’s parked in a loading zone just outside the hospital entrance. There’s an FBI agent waiting beside the door. He told me to tell you your property has already been loaded.”

“In other words, here’s our hat, what’s our hurry,” Ali said.
Taking the keys, she walked back to the ER admitting desk. “Can you tell me anything about Ms. Riley?” Ali asked. “I’m about to call her mother.”

“You’re not a relative?”

“No. I’m a friend.”

“Then I’m not authorized . . .”

Ali walked away without waiting for the usual speech about patient confidentiality. The whole thing seemed wrong somehow. It was due to Ali and Gil’s efforts that Brenda Riley was even alive, not to mention in a hospital with a possibility of surviving. Still, by federal mandate, her rescuers weren’t allowed to know anything about her condition.

“Let’s go,” she said.

“Where?” Gil asked. “It’s almost midnight.”

“I don’t care how late it is,” Ali said. “I’ve got a two-bedroom apartment waiting for me in Laguna Beach and I’m going there. I’ll make my phone calls along the way. Now, are you coming along or are you staying here?”

“Oh, I’m coming along all right,” Gil said, dropping into step beside her. “I just used up all my available credit buying household goods at Target. You dragged me down here where I have no car, no place to stay, no money, and no way to get back home. In other words, if I don’t go with you, I’m pretty much screwed.”

“Not so much,” Ali said. “You remember all that money Sam Hollingshead was just saying he couldn’t find? Ermina couldn’t find it either. You gave Hollingshead those two thumb drives, and he was ecstatic. He’s not going to give a damn about that missing money. There’s no one left to look for it.”

“But—”

Ali stopped him with an upraised hand. “We’ve both just had a lesson in the FBI’s high cost of doing business,” she observed. “If somebody happens to die here and there along the way, so what?
Let’s not ‘endanger’ the precious mission. And if Hollingshead has to make a plea deal in a homicide or two in order to nail their man or woman, that’s no big deal either, right? What if Richard Lowensdale’s missing money is part of the same thing—the high cost of their doing business? It’s a lot like my wrecked car. Never happened. No questions asked. It would serve them right.”

Gil didn’t know her well enough to be able to tell if she was joking or not, but he assumed she was.

When they got outside, the agent they’d been told about was indeed keeping a discreet eye on Ali’s newly rented Marquis. He moved away when they approached the vehicle and Ali used a button on the key fob to unlock the door.

They stopped on opposite sides of the car, looking at each other over the top of it. “Did anyone ever tell you you’re a pushy broad?” Gil asked. “Smart but very pushy.”

She grinned back at him. “Believe me, Detective Morris, you’re not the first to tell me that, and you won’t be the last.”

“By the way,” he added, “just for the record. That was one sweet hip toss.”

“It’s my specialty,” she said. “Best thing I ever learned at the Arizona Police Academy.”

W
hen they arrived at Velma’s condominium building at two o’clock in the morning, it seemed to Ali that the doorman leered at them a little as he let them into the building. She didn’t bother explaining to him that their being together didn’t mean they
were
together. If the doorman had a dirty mind, it was none of Ali’s business.

Once in the unit, they took one cursory look at the nighttime ocean view from the balcony, then they disappeared into their separate bedrooms. Ali fell asleep immediately. The next morning she was up bright and early. She went for a morning stroll on the beach with Maddy Watkins and the three dogs. Two hours later, she was drinking coffee and typing an e-mail to B. when Gil finally made his tardy appearance.

He wandered over to the kitchen counter and poured himself a cup of coffee.

“There are bagels on the counter and cream cheese in the fridge,” she said. “Help yourself.”

Gil found what looked like a bread knife in a utility drawer.
When he sliced a sesame bagel in half, he was amazed at how much sharper the knife was than the sole remaining one in his knife block at home. Something else to put on the list for his next household goods extravaganza.

He put the sliced bagel in the toaster and pushed down the button. “How’s your friend this morning?” he asked.

It had taken them close to an hour and a half to drive to Laguna Beach from the hospital in San Diego. They’d done a lot of talking on the way. In the process Ali had told Gil about her dying friend, Velma Trimble.

Ali shook her head. “Not well. I went for a walk on the beach this morning with Maddy and the dogs. She said Velma’s not doing well at all, and she seems anxious about my getting the check she gave me deposited. She’s evidently concerned that there might be some kind of blowback from her son about her making that donation. She wants to be certain all the t’s are crossed and i’s dotted.”