Karen Vail 01 - Velocity (15 page)

Burt Gordon walked into the conference room. His eyes scanned the others in attendance and seemed to have no difficulty reading their body language. “Bad?”

“I’m not sure how to characterize it,” Brix said.

“Bad sounds about right to me,” Austin Mann said. He fil ed Gordon in on what he’d missed. “There’s no good way to look at it. Question is, what did Ray know, and when?”

Dixon swung a chair from beneath the table and sat down. “You mean, did he know Mayfield was the guy who took his wife and son?”

“I think the question is
when
he knew it,” Vail said. She slid forward in the chair and leaned back, letting her arms fal free over the chair’s sides. “At some point he figured out that Mayfield was the kidnapper. And if I had to guess, I’d say it was before Roxx, Lugo, and I went to see Guevara.”

Brix walked over to the white board and examined the timeline he had drawn for the prior week, which documented the major breaks in the Crush Kil er case.

“Maybe, maybe not. I mean, I wasn’t there so I didn’t see the looks Ray and Guevara were giving each other, but Guevara simply might’ve been pissed at Ray for bringing five-o onto his premises. May have nothing to do with Mayfield and the murders. Maybe he’s cheating on his taxes. Whatever it is, good bet it’s il egal—but it’s not the answer to our problems.”

“No,” Vail said. “Hold up a minute. Ray thinks Guevara’s involved in some way with the kidnapper—who turns out to be Mayfield—because right after Ray goes to Guevara and starts asking questions, the kidnapper flips out and goes off on Ray for not leaving ‘it’ alone. That’s a pretty irrefutable connection.”

“But we don’t know what Ray asked Guevara. I guess we might assume it’s got to do with him, with Mayfield.” Dixon nodded at the laptop. “But Ray didn’t say. Seems to me we’ve got lots of holes and only a few facts, and we’re trying to fil in the holes with assumptions. That’s a recipe for a failed investigation. At best.”

“I agree,” Mann said.

Vail held up her hands in surrender. “Fine. I’l give you that. But we can’t ignore the connection. There’s no obvious reason for Guevara to even know the kidnapper unless they were affiliated somehow. Guevara’s involved in this. On some level.”

“I got Guevara’s LUDs and cel logs earlier this afternoon,” Gordon said, moving to a stack of papers at the far end of the conference table. “Haven’t had a chance to go through them yet.” He licked his index finger and thumbed through the pile. He stopped, glanced around the room, then snuck a pair of reading glasses from his shirt pocket. “Here.” He yanked a sheaf of pages free and tossed the first aside.

“Just so you al know,” Vail said. “I’m on a flight out of here in a few hours. I leave for SFO at 4:00 AM.”

Brix ground his molars. As he looked at Vail, his stress and frustration were evident for al to see.

“My boss is gonna have agents from the San Francisco field office pick up the investigation.”

Dixon shook her head in disapproval.

“Any chance I can get him to reconsider?” Brix asked.

“Beyond our control,” Vail said. “I tried. But the unit’s shorthanded and they caught a big case.”

“Got something,” Gordon said, his stubby finger poking at a spot on the phone logs. “Cal s from Guevara to Ray. Ray’s cel . Starting two days ago with a text message, fol owed by a three-minute cal .”

Vail gathered herself and rose slowly from her seat. She moved beside Gordon and looked over his shoulder. “That was after we’d met with Guevara, which makes sense. Guevara was pissed.”

“At some point,” Mann said, “Ray knew Mayfield was the kidnapper.”

“He could’ve suspected it al along,” Vail said, “but didn’t get positive confirmation until yesterday. Maybe it was something in the interview. ’Cause that’s when he pul ed his gun and shot Mayfield.”

Dixon shook her head. “He purposely left his backup piece in its holster when we al stowed our side arms in the lockers. So he either knew or strongly suspected.”

“Or he needed us to find Mayfield so he could kil him. Payback,” Vail said.

Dixon stood and began to pace. “Not payback. Security. He said he tried finding the kidnapper, but he couldn’t. And when he did try, Mayfield was al over him, with more threats. He’d already proved he could operate at wil , so Ray couldn’t chance it. What if he had an accomplice? Friends on the outside who’d take care of business for him? When Ray put two and two together, and realized that his kidnapper was our serial kil er, he knew the opportunity would come for him to get the guy out of his life—and keep his family safe—when we caught him.”

“If we caught him,” Gordon said.

“Wel , we did catch him. And soon as we did, Ray shot him.”

“We’re missing an important point,” Vail said. “We got a vital piece of information from Ray’s video.”

Brix kicked at the chair in front of him. “Real y? Might as wel share it with us, because I didn’t fucking see anything that’l help us.”

“Mayfield’s in a coma and who knows when he’l come to or what he’l tel us.

Ray’s dead. Cannon’s in the wind. But we’ve got someone who’s tied into this somehow right in our backyard.”

“Guevara,” Dixon said.

Mann nodded slowly. “Guevara.”

Vail glanced at the clock again.
Running out of time.
“Seems to me, makes more sense to lean on Guevara and see what he knows.”

“So . . . what?” Brix asked. “Bring him in, sweat him?”

Dixon began pacing in front of the windowed wal . “A guy like that, we bring him in, I think he clams up at best and lawyers up at worst.”

“Agreed.” Vail thought a moment. “We get a warrant, we go to his place and start going through his rigs.”

“His rigs,” Gordon said. “Those mobile bottling trailers? What do you expect to find in there?”

“Nothing,” Vail said. “But once we start putting our hands on his precision machinery, talk about tearing it apart to look for evidence, he’l flip out. It’s his profit center. He may start talking just to make us stop.”

Dixon flipped open her phone. “I’l start the wheels moving for getting a warrant.”

“How long do you think?” Vail asked.

“I’l need someone to draw up the probable cause statement.”

“Got it,” Mann said. “Plenty of experience with that.” He pul ed a chair in front of the laptop.

“Redd,” she said to Brix. “Get NSIB over to Ray’s house. If Merilynn won’t cooperate, get a warrant. Impound his computers, every goddamn thing you can find. Ray made a video; maybe he kept an insurance policy.”

“Insurance policy. Like copies of records, phone cal s, video, stuff like that?

Wouldn’t he have mentioned it in the DVD if he had?”

“Not necessarily. Looked to me like Merilynn interrupted him and he didn’t finish it.” She pointed at the laptop. “Wait a sec. Look at the DVD Ray made. The file, when was it created?”

Mann opened Windows Explorer, clicked, and scrol ed. “The DVD was burned two months ago. As to when it was filmed . . . I don’t know.”

“Close enough,” Dixon said. “My guess is he filmed it, then burned it to disc. No reason I can see to film it and leave it in the drawer. A lot of shit could’ve gone down in the past two months. But maybe things didn’t heat up til we found Victoria Cameron in that cave. Mayfield’s first vic.” She turned to Vail. “Is it possible Ray knew Mayfield was the kil er from day one?”

Vail played back the events of the past week in her mind. “I doubt it. But now that we know there was something going on between Ray and Guevara beginning at least two months ago, I don’t think we can rule it out, Roxx.”

“Goddamn him.” Dixon looked at the screen, where the image of Ray Lugo had stared back at them moments ago. “Karen, with me. Let’s go pay a visit to Guevara. You tried rattling his cage before. Maybe we need to try a different approach.”

25

T
he sun’s March burn melted behind the mountains like wax over a bottle of Madeira: beginning with a smoldering deformation, then accelerating as the heat built, spreading, losing definition, and enveloping al .

They arrived at Superior Mobile Bottling without a warrant in hand, and little time to kil . But kil it they must . . . because going in strong against a César Guevara without the ammunition to back it up had already failed. And at present, their best ammunition was not fil ed with gunpowder but with written words.

Dixon pul ed the Ford Crown Victoria against the curb, down the street from Superior’s facility in American Canyon, and shoved the gearshift into park.

“How long?”

Dixon glanced at the dashboard clock. “No way of knowing.”

“Your judges?”

“Not always sympathetic.”

“At least you got a look around last time we were here.”

“I didn’t have much time,” Dixon said. “It was a quick once-over. We real y need to tear the place apart.”

Vail turned and looked at the fading light in the distance. The sky behind her was a purplish black, like a fading bruise on an otherwise pleasing landscape. Ahead, there was stil a yel ow hue, dissolving to dusky charcoal as the minutes ticked by.

“You okay?”

Dixon’s question pul ed Vail from her reverie. “I’m not going to see the sun in Napa again for . . . who knows how long.”

“Did you ever see the sun in Napa?”

Vail chuckled.

Dixon’s phone vibrated. She tapped the Bluetooth receiver. “Dixon.”

“Roxx.” It was Brix’s voice. “You want the good news or the bad news first?”

“I’l take the good.”

“Just spoke with Timmons from NSIB. He’s taken over as point for us so we have a consistent contact, since it seems we’re going to need them long-term. Or longer-term than we original y thought.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

“So Timmons says he’s got a list compiled of al the potential locations where must is produced within earshot of the Napa Val ey Wine Train whistle. There’s a margin of error because it’s not scientific or anything like that. But this is like a freaking needle in a haystack, anyway.”

“How many potential sites are there?” Dixon asked.

“Sixty-plus. NSIB’s got some guys looking into the whole list, just to see if there are any that can be eliminated based on some set of criteria Timmons and his team are developing. You want to be plugged into what they’re thinking?”

“No, we’ve got enough to do. Let them do their jobs. Touch base with him from time to time, and if they sound like they’ve landed on the wrong planet, let me know and we’l meet with them, set them straight. Otherwise, let’s see what they turn up.”

Dixon threw Vail a sideways glance. “Redd—I said I wanted the good news first.”

“By comparison, that is the good news.”

“I’m not sure we want to know,” Vail said, “but what’s the bad?”

“Search warrant was denied. Mirabel i rejected our argument. Said there was no direct connection between . . . wel , between anything. Get him something that’s more than just a series of coincidences and he’l reconsider. What we’ve got doesn’t even rise to reasonable suspicion.”

Dixon shook her head. “Wel , that’s just great.”

“And for what it’s worth,” Brix said, “DOJ wasn’t too excited about our WITSEC

request for Merilynn.”

Vail said, “We didn’t give them anything particularly compel ing, and that video Ray made didn’t help her case any.”

“One other thing. The Hal of Justice fountain vic has an ID. Kaitlin Zago. They’re putting together a backgrounder on her but there doesn’t appear to be any obvious connection to Mayfield’s vics. And—the manual search through the handcuff database is taking longer than I’d hoped. I put a cal into Peerless in case they can tel us who they sold that serial number to. But they’re back east, so we probably won’t hear from them til tomorrow. Where are you two?”

“Sitting a block away from Guevara’s place. Waiting on the warrant that’s not gonna come. We’l check in with you in a bit.” Dixon reached up and disconnected the cal , then leaned back hard in her seat. “Now what?”

Vail pointed ahead. “Let’s go take a look around. See what we find.”

Dixon did not hesitate. She kicked over the engine and proceeded down the street into Superior Mobile Bottling’s parking lot. Standard sodium vapor lamps il uminated the area in front of the building where about a dozen spots sat empty.

Except for a fluorescent fixture in the office, everything appeared dark.

Dixon stopped the car and craned her neck to look through the front glass door.

“What do you think?”

“Go around back. Let’s see if there are any cars in the lot or lights on in the warehouse.”

Dixon pul ed up to an iron gate that blocked their path approximately halfway along the right side of the structure. “Was this here last time?”

Vail sat back. “It was rol ed al the way open.” She popped her door, got out, and stepped up to the fence. Grabbed the upright wrought iron struts, peered into the back region of the property, didn’t see anything.

She turned and headed back to the car. “Nothing. We got a location on his house?”

“I can get it.” Dixon pul ed her phone, made a cal , and was soon jotting down the address. Twenty-five minutes later, they were pul ing into the Sonoma neighborhood where César Guevara lived.

From what Vail could see in the complete darkness, it appeared to be an immaculately cared for community, with houses that almost looked out of place, possessing an eastern Victorian grandeur.

“Nice neighborhood,” Vail said, straining to get a look at the passing homes.

“Oh, yeah,” Dixon said. She held up her pad and caught the headlight of a trailing car. “Mil ions. Each one of these homes. Five mil, maybe more.” Dixon glanced one more time at the address, then looked left at the house. “This is it.”