Shadows of Deceit (A Series of Shadows) (36 page)

“What’s up?” She finally asked him.

Vinny grimaced as he looked at his phone again, then blew out a breath. “Vera’s mother came in this morning. She is freaking out that I’m not home yet to be all warm and fuzzy with family time.”

“You didn’t tell me her mom was coming into town.” Lou wondered what else she had been missing. “Isn’t she the super hippie?”

“Yeah.” He grumbled “She’s vegan too so my life is a living hell until Sunday.”

“Vegan? That’s the no animal products of any kind, right?” Lou always got confused between vegan and vegetarian.

“Right, not just in diet but in every day life. Clothing, household items and so fourth.” Dillon explained. “Vegans don’t like the exploitation of animals on any level. They don’t wear leather, wool, down or silk.”

“Exactly!” Vinny shouted. “Vera cleaned the kitchen out yesterday of anything that might offend her mom. Nothing but fruit, vegetables, soybean this, bean curd that. Her mother picks apart everything! She makes me feel guilty over my damn belt and shoes!” Vinny stuffed his hands in his pockets and literally began to pout. “Last time she was here she cut my favorite tie right off my neck because it was silk! Doesn’t silk come from worms? Those are bugs for Pete’s sake! And don’t even get me started on the whole politics deal either! Freaking nightmare!” Vinny’s phone beeped again but he didn’t bother looking at it. “I’m sorry guys but I’m going to have to take off. She thinks I’m hiding behind this case as is.”

Lou laughed. “Go, we got this covered. I’ll need to take a couple hours personal tomorrow anyway with the park dedication.”

“That’s fun stuff, not crap like dealing with your mother-in-law from Granolaville Oregon and her hand woven hemp shoes! If you get something you let me know, OK?” Vinny started gathering his things as his phone started stuttering with beeps. He rolled his eyes making Lou laugh. “If you come up with something, make it good so I can get out of the damned house!”

“You got it.” Lou continued giggling as the image of Vinny’s mother-in-law in macrame shoes popped into her head.

“Night boss.” Dillon smiled at him. “Good luck!”

“Yeah yeah.” Vinny scoffed. “Good luck all around tonight I guess.” He waved and headed home.

“I’m a total animal lover but I will not give up ice cream and cheeseburgers.” Lou said as she watched Vinny disappear out the door. “It may seem stupid but I make myself feel better by only buying free-range chicken, eggs, organic milk from local farms and stuff where I know the animals are happy and roaming free. I may be deluding myself but it’s working!”

Dillon smiled at her. “I do the same thing. I like farmer’s markets. That’s something I do miss about Washington. Where I lived, it was a pretty tight agricultural community. The farmer’s market was awesome.”

“So we do our part then.” Lou smirked. “Balance out the universe a little.”

“I agree.” Dillon grinned. “Hey! Maybe I can get some chickens and a couple goats! The new house has plenty of room.”

Lou looked at him like he just grew a horn out the center of his forehead. “If you think I am coming over to help you milk goats, you are out of your freaking mind.”

Dillon laughed. “I can do that. I can even hire someone to do it. How cool would that be to have fresh goat cheese and fresh eggs?”

“You’re making me hungry.” Lou frowned. “If you hire someone to do it, it’s a great idea. Whatever.” Just then Lou’s phone chirped. It was a message from her step-father listing the delivery address for where the trucking company dropped off the cargo containers. “Shit, he got something!” Lou shouted and typed the address into the mapping program on her laptop as Dillon slid his chair over to look.

“That’s less than five miles from the port.” He noted, clearly surprised.

“I think it’s been abandoned since the Navy Shipyard closed. Grab your crap.” Lou hit print then scrambled to grab her gear. “We’re checking it out.”

“No warrant?” Dillon did as she instructed but he was a little concerned about the legalities.

“No time.” She shut down her laptop and stuffed it into her bag before sprinting for the door. “Callahan’s office is only a few minutes away from this address. I’ll text him what we are up to as soon as we get close. That should be enough to cover our asses.”

“What about Vinny?” Dillon asked her as they hit the parking lot and he fished his keys out of his pocket.

“He’s buried in traffic and headed home. I’m not going to piss Vera off by calling him back here.” Lou looked him dead in the eye. “You want to piss her off by calling him back?”

“Hell no!” He admitted as he got in the SUV and started the engine.

“You’re a quick learner.” Lou grinned as she closed the car door and buckled herself in.

It took them
forty minutes to make the bulk of the trip given traffic at that hour. Lou threatened Dillon with blunt force trauma if he took the Vincent Thomas Bridge so he ignored the pleasant British voice of his car’s GPS system and turned off the 710 freeway and headed up Navy Way instead. Lou was not fond of bridges and even though they didn’t have to actually cross it, she didn’t want to get any closer to the thing than necessary. The sun was hanging low in the west, reflecting off the ocean so intensely that it hurt Lou’s eyes to the point of watering. To her right, she began noticing just how many cargo containers occupied this area of the city. It was daunting. The roads were monopolized by big-rig trucks all towing cargo containers. The train that threaded through the ugly gray terrain was nothing but cargo containers hitched end to end as far as she could see. As they made the turn on to Terminal Way she noticed the city had tried to spruce things up by lining the road with evenly spaced trees and small pockets of grass. Still, it was a bleak and grimy area that screamed industry wherever you looked.

It was interesting to Lou how even though her own step-father had made a fortune in shipping, she rarely thought about how stuff was brought in to Los Angeles. As they rounded the bend and peeled away from the water side of Terminal Way, Lou was seeing huge lots all packed with cargo containers. They were all surrounded with tall chain-link and barbed wire fences. Hundreds and hundreds of containers blurred by as they moved along. When they hit the intersection of Terminal Way and Earle Street, Dillon suggested it was time to call Agent Callahan and let him know where they were. Just then Lou was noticing the lot on the north-west corner had cargo containers packed so tight, there was no way anyone could squeeze between them. She figured they could definitely use the help navigating the mess they were likely heading into. Callahan was just at the FBI building in Long Beach, not more than six miles away, so waiting this long to call him wasn’t that bad. After making the call and giving Callahan the address, the transportation depot on Lou’s right caught her eye. In the distance she could see a freight train being loaded with containers. Another way for those containers to taken out of this ant hill. Dillon made a left turn, away from the depot and Lou noted it was the street they were looking for. It was impossibly close to the depot. Barely a quarter mile from the entry gates, access to the main artery that would put those cargo containers on their way to pretty much anywhere on the continent.

The warehouse was on Barracuda Street but if they hadn’t had an exact address, finding the right one would have been easier said then done. On their left a huge cinderblock warehouse butted smack up against a corrugated steel one. An old wood shack served as an odd spacer between the next cinderblock building and on and on it went. Non-descript industrial warehouses, unmarked and all almost identical to the other save for a few structural differences. To the right there was another expansive lot with a towering chainlink and barbed wire fence but this lot was less than a quarter full of containers. Down the street a bit further there was an old abandoned warehouse placed awkwardly within the nearly empty lot. The placement was neither centered nor adjacent to the street but askew and back a bit making it look out of place. When Dillon slowed to almost a stop, Lou realized that was their target location. Obscuring the view of the odd warehouse was a neatly arranged clump of containers. Four rows of fifteen, stacked three containers high. There was little to no space between them and Lou had no idea how they were going to figure out which containers were the ones they were looking for. Dillon sped up a little as they got closer to the abandoned warehouse. The windows of the structure were blacked out but that didn’t necessarily mean because they couldn’t see in, someone inside couldn’t see out.

Dillon kept his gaze straight ahead as he drove, as if he were lost. “Grab the map out of my glove box, pretend you are looking at me and yelling, but see if you can get a good look at the building.”

Lou fished the map out as instructed. “Can you explain why you have a map when you have GPS in this car and your phone?!” She was yelling and flailing her arms to make it look as he suggested. Unfortunately she couldn’t see anything of value from her vantage point.

“Why?” He looked at her to sell the argument ploy. “Why? What if the car dies? Hmm? The battery goes out on the phone? GPS doesn’t exactly come in handy then does it?”

“Wow.” Lou looked stricken.

Dillon looked at her, worried. “What? Do you see something?”

“Oh, no.” She chuckled. “I just never thought about that. I mean if the car dies, the battery goes on the phone. It never occurred to me.”

Dillon bit his tongue until they passed the warehouse, then he laughed. “Seriously? I guess it’s the military training in me. Hard work and tenacity gets you out of a ditch, not hardware and technology.”

“OK, Captain Yoda. Take a look at that.” Lou discretely pointed to the yard, just past the warehouse. “You think that’s a coincidence?”

“I do not.” Dillon said as he noticed the eight containers sitting completely separate and isolated from all the others. They had been concealed from view until they passed the first warehouse. “Let me find a place to ditch the car. Keep yelling at me. I think the first one is our target though. That one is on the corner, too many entry points to the road.”

“Agreed.” Lou said as she flapped the map around like she was trying to fold it. “Wait a minute.”

“What?” Dillon asked.

“I see a camera on the corner warehouse. South end, under the rain gutter.” Lou scanned the roofline of the building but she didn’t see any other cameras.

“Looks like it’s fixed on the containers.” Dillon said as he made a right turn onto Sardine Street rather than continuing down Barracuda. “I’m going to swing wide then come in from the cross street down there. If someone is watching it will look like we are lost and going around in circles.”

When they turned right onto Sardine, Lou noticed a different building that stood on that corner immediately and something slithered up her spine, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. It was a substantial two-story industrial building with several large garage doors that ran it’s length. By the even spacing, they must have once served as cargo bays. The building looked abandoned but not at the same time.

“Look at this place on your left.” Lou instructed her partner. “Something is seriously off about it.”

He tried to look without turning his head. “You see something?”

“My gut does.” Lou told him. “The windows on the top floor, they look obscured but not blacked out. The place looks too clean to be abandoned. Make your loop and lets get another look at it. Maybe we should swap places so you can take a look while I drive.”

Dillon’s head whipped around so fast that Lou thought she felt a breeze. He stared at her wide eyed. “You want to drive my car?” Apparently he was not comfortable with the idea.

“You don’t want me driving your car?” Lou looked wounded.

“No! It’s not that! It’s just...” He took a moment to think carefully before continuing. “I’ve never let anyone drive it before. And Vinny was super specific about me picking you up, you having issues with driving in the morning and all.” He realized how he reacted and instantly felt bad.

“I’ve been awake for over twelve hours ya jerk! I’m not going to crash your car!” Lou barked.

Dillon was at a loss for how to save himself so he just shut up and proceeded to the end of the street and stopped at the stop sign. They needed to make a turn unless they wanted to go straight and into the water. He put the car in park, got out, walked around and opened the door for her.

“If you think you can do better, then you drive!” He shouted at her, loud enough that anyone within a few dozen yards would hear. She knew he was playing up the fighting lost couple bit for cover so she ran with it.

“A blind man could do better than you!” Lou shouted back at him and tossed the unfurled map in his face as she got out. Without saying anything else, she walked around and got in the driver’s side. Lou stared down and noted there was well over a foot of distance between her feet and the pedals. Dillon had seriously long legs compared to her. She looked up and saw that he was watching her intently so she proceeded to adjust her seat and everything else she could touch just to annoy him. She had to make a serious effort not to giggle out loud when she noted the horror on his face.

Dillon got in the passenger’s side and slammed the door hard which Lou thought was out of irritation rather than for dramatic effect. “Go left and I’ll scope out the building.” He told her as he smoothed out the map and pretended to be comparing it to their location, looking around then at the map over and over again while Lou headed west on Ways Street. “See this embankment on my right?” He asked her quietly.

“Looking.” She said as she casually glanced over. The rickety fence that served as a poor-man’s guard rail was gone and there was nothing but a slope of earth leading down to the water. “Easy boat access. This street is so narrow no one would see someone being carried and loaded in the dark of night.” Lou saw a dock about fifty yards up ahead. “Easy peasy to use one of those small fishing boats up there.”

Dillon nodded in agreement as they passed the dock. “These are all commercial fishing vessels. No one would bother questioning one coming in and out at night.”