Karen Vail 01 - Velocity (14 page)

“Total y sucks,” Dixon said.

“Saw it coming. Nothing I could do.”

Brix stepped forward and peered out over the vines, into the forested land half a mile away. “I cal ed it in. There weren’t any choppers on alert. I think we just gotta face the fact he’s gone.”

“For now,” Vail said. “Let’s poke around his house, see what we can turn up.”

Dixon sighed. “Somehow that doesn’t seem . . . adequate.”

Vail turned and headed back toward their car. “It’s not.” She spit a mouthful of grainy soil from her mouth. “Not even close.”

CAP KRANDLE HAD CONTACTED Herndon’s chief executive and asked him to pul James Cannon’s employment application and hiring paperwork, which contained a home address that matched the one Gordon and Mann had obtained.

If it had been as she suspected, that Cannon had not been looking to be a kil er when he’d taken the job with Herndon, but had merely been someone capable of violence and had it unlocked through an association with Mayfield, then it made sense that he had not had the forethought to use subterfuge by listing false addresses and using disposable phones.

And if he was truly a narcissist like Vail believed, then Cannon probably felt he was smarter than everyone else and would be capable of eluding the grasp of law enforcement if the need ever arose.

Thus far, Vail had to admit, Cannon’s plan—whatever it was, and though far from ideal—had kept him a free man. Just how long that lasted, however, was not something the guy should take to the track. If Vail had something to say about it, he’d end up being disappointed with the results.

Vail finished cleaning her face with the wet cloth Krandle had given her.

“Something to keep in mind, Mr. Krandle. We’ve got reason to believe James Cannon is a violent individual. You’d be smart to avoid contacting him. And if he comes back here—which I sincerely doubt—play it cool. We didn’t tel you anything and you don’t know anything. But as soon as it’s safe, cal us. Better yet, text us so there’s no chance of him overhearing you.”

Brix handed him his card. “He cal s, comes by, anything—let us know.”

WHILE BRIX TENDED TO AN ERRAND, Vail and Dixon made their way to Cannon’s house. Upon arriving, they saw three county vehicles parked out front at various angles, a haphazard job that suggested they arrived on scene in a hurry.

Through the front window, its blinds parted by the tip of a SIG Sauer handgun, Burt Gordon was motioning them in. He stepped back and the aluminum slats fel closed.

Vail led the way across the lawn, green and thick and robust—which did not surprise her. The medium gray house, set back and sandwiched between two equal size single-story homes, was located in what appeared to be a respectable middle class neighborhood.

Vail pushed the door open and entered ahead of Dixon. As expected, the interior was wel -maintained and obsessively clean.

A series of reference texts on the art and science of enology lined the bookshelves of his family room. Dixon pul ed one and thumbed through it. “He was clearly serious about being a wine maker.”

“Lots of people have dreams,” Vail said. “Just because he had books about the subject doesn’t mean he would’ve been any good at it. But the point is, he didn’t think there was much value in being an inventory control manager. It was a job he took because he couldn’t secure the position he real y wanted. To him, being a wine maker held the prestige he sought.”

Dixon shoved the book back onto the shelf. “So he saw his job as a failure?”

Vail pressed on through the house. “That could’ve been a trigger. Frustrated in his ability to capture the position he real y wanted, he saw the power and ‘respect’

Mayfield commanded by kil ing. He began to thirst for that power. Kil ing was a way for him to achieve that. Posing the body on the steps of the Hal of Justice put him front and center. Bang—he’s got the power.”

“PC?” Dixon asked.

They swiveled, did not see one, then split up and searched the two bedrooms.

“Got a laptop,” Vail said. “It’s unplugged.” As Dixon joined her, she lifted the lid.

The screen remained black. “Looks like it’s off. Let’s have Gordon and Mann bring it to the lab for the techies to comb through.”

They moved into the living room. Bodybuilding magazines were stacked on the coffee table—and in the master bathroom, too. Empty MET-Rx canisters sat stacked atop the recycling bin in the garage, near an extra set of dumbbel s and a weight bench perched in front of a mirror in the second, empty port. A half-fil ed Platypus water bottle stood on a chair by the far wal .

Mann appeared in the doorway to the garage. “Anything?”

“Got a laptop for you to take back to the lab.” Vail then told him her developing theory on the trigger behind Cannon’s suspected act of murder.

“We’l get a deputy posted here in case he returns,” Mann said, “but I doubt he’l come anywhere near here.”

“Where’s that shed?” Dixon asked.

Mann led them out the backdoor into a medium-size yard. Through a stand of tal bushes and trees was an evergreen-painted structure that blended into the existing flora.

They stood inside, a ceiling mounted fluorescent fixture providing adequate light.

Vail knelt and examined the dried, matted blood.

“The CSI took samples,” Mann said, “so don’t worry about messing it up.”

“Did he agree—was it a deer?”

“He said that was a good guess, but you know those guys. They’d rather have facts than spend time debating possibilities.”

They left the shed and stood in the yard.

“He knows we know,” Dixon said. “We’ve set up roadblocks on al roads leading out of the val ey, but he’s on an ATV. He could be anywhere. Question is, how far can he get on that thing before he runs out of gas? And how far can he go before he hits a natural barrier he can’t cross?”

“From what you described,” Mann said, “sounds like he could get lost in those woods. Unless he’s a survivalist, sooner or later he’s gonna need food and water.”

“There are plenty of houses to breach,” Dixon said. “I say we go public, put the word out. Make everyone aware he’s out there. We can circulate a photo. Go ful blast.”

Vail had to hold her tongue. If they had gone public a couple days ago with the Crush Kil er’s murders, John Mayfield might’ve been caught sooner.
And Robby
might still be—

She stopped herself. No sense in looking backward. It was time to move ahead, keep tending the path they had started clearing.

Dixon’s phone buzzed. She lifted it, listened, and said, “Be right over. Have her wait—” Dixon’s eyes rose from their focus on the ground and met Vail’s. “Real y.

Okay, thanks.”

“What?” Vail asked.

Dixon turned to Burt Gordon, who had just entered the yard. “Finish up here, then meet us back at the department.”

“What’s the deal?” Vail asked.

“Merilynn Lugo. That’s where Brix went. She gave him a DVD for us.”

24

D
ixon and Vail burst through the second-floor doors of the Napa County Sheriff’s Department and strode purposeful y to the glass window. Dixon swiped her proximity card and the electronic locks clicked open.

They walked briskly down the hal to the task force conference room. Sitting on the table was a black DVD case with a Post-it note stuck on the front: “From Ray.”

“I didn’t say anything because it was a long shot and I didn’t want to get your hopes up, but I made one last attempt with Merilynn. I took her on a little field trip to visit Mayfield in the hospital. He didn’t look so threatening with al the tubes and beeping machines. I told her we’d submitted her WITSEC request and that we needed her to do something for us. Seemed like I was getting through, but I didn’t want to push her. So I gave her a little time to think about it. Her place was on the way back from Herndon, so I stopped by.”

“And she gave you a DVD?”

Brix scooped it up and handed it to Vail.

Vail pried open the lid and stared at the disc, which bore Ray Lugo’s slanted handwriting. Did it hold some secret information that would give her clues as to what happened to Robby? Would it answer the question of what John Mayfield had meant when he taunted them with, “There’s more to this than you know?”

“Karen,” Dixon said softly, “We need to watch this.”

Vail woke from her stupor. “Right.” She plucked the disc from the plastic spindle, then placed the DVD in the laptop tray and watched as Windows Media Player loaded.

Brix, Dixon, Mann, and Vail stood around the computer. Vail felt Dixon shudder when the image of Lugo’s living room fil ed the screen. Lugo then appeared and sat down on the couch. The angle of the camera and Lugo’s proximity to the lens gave the impression it was filmed on a webcam.

He leaned in close, looked up at something off to his right, then turned back to the camera. “If you’re watching this, something must’ve happened to me.” He lowered his voice and his eyes danced from left to right, suddenly avoiding the lens.

“I . . . this is Sergeant Raymond Lugo of the St. Helena Police Department.

Everything I’m about to tel you is the truth. If you’re watching this . . . I have to assume you’re law enforcement. I need you to . . . I need you to look after my wife and son. Please promise me that.” He glanced up at the camera and then canted his eyes downward again.

He took a deep breath, covered his face with both hands, then dropped them to his lap and extended his neck. Staring at the ceiling.

“C’mon, Ray,” Dixon said under her breath. “Get to it.”

“In October, my wife, Merilynn, and my son, Mario, were kidnapped. I got a cal .

This guy said he had them, and he’d kil them unless I did what he wanted. He proved he had them. I—I had no choice.”

Lugo looked away, licked his lips, kept his head down as he talked.

“He told me. If I tel anyone at work, he’d kil them. If I cal in the FBI, he’d kil them.

If I told the media . . . he’d kil them. And he said he had a way of finding out if I told anyone at work. He knew I was a cop. I couldn’t . . . ” He looked up at the camera.

“I couldn’t take a chance he was tel ing the truth.”

His bottom lip quivered, and he bit down to arrest its twitch.

“He had them,” Lugo final y said. “For two days. He cal ed back and I, I made a deal with him. And he let them go. Left them by the side of the road in front of the fire station, near the Sheriff’s Department.

“I looked at video, tried to figure out who this guy was. I spoke with Merilynn. And my son. Tried to get any information I could to find this fucker.” He wiped at his face with both hands, sighed deeply, and sat back into the couch. He was far from the camera now, but his voice was stil audible. “He told me not to look for him, that I’d never find him. And . . . and that no place was safe. If I did anything wrong—tried finding him, reporting it, he’d find Merilynn and Mario again. Only this time they wouldn’t be coming home. He’d kil them. And it wouldn’t be pleasant.” His eyes narrowed in anger, then he sat forward, leaning closer to the lens in a way that distorted his facial features.

“I couldn’t find anything, I got nowhere. But the deal I cut with him. I thought it might give me some clues as to who he was. I thought maybe there was some way I could track him based on the info he wanted me to get for him. Final y I found something. But he knew and he cal ed me, warned me. The only warning I’d get, he said. Stop immediately or he’d kil them. And me.”

Vail put her hands on her hips. “What the fuck were you doing for him, Ray?” she shouted, as if it would do some good. No one seemed to mind. They al wanted the same question answered.

“I thought that if I got that kind of a rise out of him, I must’ve been on to something. It had to do with a guy I knew, César Guevara.”

Vail and Dixon eyed each other.

“The guy wanted info on César,” Lugo continued, “from the police database. Not just ours, but the Sheriff’s Department’s, too. So I ran the stuff he wanted. Then I started looking into César’s business. He runs a mobile bottling company out of American Canyon. I know César from when we were kids, working the vineyards.

But the kidnapper is somehow tied in with him because he cal ed me right after I went to see César and started asking questions. He said he didn’t know what the hel I was talking about, that he didn’t know a big white guy who drives a van. But that’s al I had on the kidnapper. That’s al Merilynn and my son could tel me. He spoke English like a native, no accent. And that was it.

“An hour after visiting César, the kidnapper cal ed me. I knew I was on to something. What it was—I didn’t know. But . . . ” He turned away and said, “I was too afraid to look into it. He said he’d find us. Another state, another country, didn’t matter. He’d track us down.”

A noise behind him. Lugo twisted his torso. What looked like Merilynn in the background, entering the room. Lugo reached out his hand, splayed fingers covering the webcam, the screen darkening. Fumbling. Raised voices. Lugo’s body leaned left, then the video cut off.

They waited a few seconds before Dixon blurted, “That’s it? Please, tel me there’s more.”

They continued to stare at the screen, but the progress bar at the bottom struck the endpoint and then the video started from the beginning. Brix stuck out his index finger and clicked the mouse. Windows Media Player closed.

Vail looked up. Her eyes searched the conference room and came to rest on the clock. It was now almost 5:00 PM.
Damn it
. She grabbed her temples, took a deep breath, and coughed. Then she sat down heavily on a nearby chair.