Come and Get Me

by August Norman

  Daylight spilled down from the kitchen through the dumbwaiter’s shaft.

  She’d climbed out.

  Too big to risk getting stuck in the shaft, he limped to the basement entrance and worked the manual crank. The door inched open.

  He ran around the water heater, up the stairs, and into the kitchen.

  A mess of wet footprints led outside where Paige Lauffer ran through the field in the pouring rain.

  CHAPTER

  47

  CAITLIN HADN’T HEARD from Greenwood in forty-five minutes, and not from lack of effort. “Mary, get the camera.”

  Lakshmi handed Mary the gear. “Me too?”

  “Sorry, the restraining order might—”

  “Sod it,” the girl said, the implications understood.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll need you here, ready to break this story. Stay by the phone.”

  They got to the Bro-duce farm twenty minutes later. A police cruiser and blue-paneled truck blocked the view. Across the street, another car blocked the road to Amireau’s trailer.

  Caitlin and Mary walked toward the cruiser, the rain now only a slight drizzle. A male officer in a rain slicker stopped them.

  “Excuse me ladies, no press.”

  “That’s funny,” Caitlin said. “I don’t recall identifying myself as press. Do you, Lubbers?”

  Mary had the camera out and at eye level. “Weird that you’d just assume something like that, Officer.”

  “Bizarre.” Caitlin saw two additional BPD cars near the farmhouse, a sheriff’s van, and a dark SUV. “Since you brought it up, please tell Detective Greenwood that Caitlin Bergman is here.”

  The officer keyed his radio, relayed the message, got a response. “Wait here.”

  An unmarked sedan came down the drive and parked behind the cruiser. Mary raised her lens.

  Detective Jane Maverick passed between the vehicles, lit cigarette in mouth. “Are you kidding me with that camera shit?”

  Caitlin moved closer. “Not feeling a lot of gratitude here, Jane.”

  “This is bigger than your feelings, Bergman.”

  “Like we don’t know?” Mary said. “You guys wouldn’t even be here if Caitie hadn’t figured this out.”

  Maverick gave Mary her eat-shit stare. “Who’s this?”

  “Mary, relax. What’s the deal, Jane?”

  “You may have started this, but the feds are here. They’re going to grab Michelson in LA. Right now, this is contained.”

  “You think I’m gonna talk? I just want to know what’s happening.”

  “Sure, and you happened to bring the head of the journalism department with you.”

  Mary snapped another photo. “So you know who this is.”

  Maverick flipped her off. “Here’s what’s gonna happen. You’ve got the exclusive—”

  “Which I’m going to use through the Daily Student,” Caitlin said.

  “Fair enough. But not until we have all the players. Off the record, you’re my hero, Bergman.”

  Caitlin looked to Mary, got the nod. “Fine. We agree to keep this quiet for now.”

  “Including your protégé?”

  Mary got out her phone. “Yeah, we can control Lakshmi.”

  She made the call on speaker. Lakshmi promised no word without clearance under penalty of obstruction of justice.

  Caitlin looked back to Maverick. “Off the record, is it the jackpot or not?”

  Jane’s stern lips broke around the edges. “Most of the top floor is a growhouse, just rows and rows of plants, then a drying room. Even better, they’ve got a little coke factory in the works, special for Little Five.”

  “What about arrests?”

  Maverick went back into protection mode. “Lots of pieces in motion. Do us a favor—get lost before the feds figure out you’re here.” She walked back to her car.

  Mary lowered the camera. “Lots of pieces. What’s that mean?”

  They’d picked Frodo up on the traffic stop, and Gooch was small-time. That only left one piece in motion. “They don’t have Amireau.”

  In the car, Caitlin called Mike. “Roman, where are you?”

  “In a cab, fifteen minutes from home. What’s up?”

  She filled him in.

  He laughed. “As much as I’d love to take more of your money, I’m not sure I can do much in Friday rush-hour traffic back to Hollywood. Plus I’m not getting in the way of the feds.”

  “I don’t need you to get in the way, just get eyes on Kieran.”

  “I’ll let you know,” he said and hung up.

  Caitlin stared out at the wet soccer fields while Mary talked Lakshmi through a rough draft. She finished and ended the call. “Now what, Caitie? We wait?”

  “Where is everybody? No soccer in the rain?”

  “Field’s too wet.”

  Caitlin grabbed the steering wheel, leaned forward. “I hate waiting.”

  Her phone rang. She didn’t recognize the local number, but the female voice sounded familiar.

  “Is that you?”

  “Is what me?” Caitlin said, close to attaching a name to the woman.

  “Someone’s in my back field. I thought maybe you and your friend were painting again.”

  Carol McGovern, the woman with the farm across the creek.

  Caitlin started the truck. “Carol, I’ll be there in two minutes. Can you see who it is?”

  “Let my check my birding binoculars,” the woman said.

  Caitlin switched the phone to speaker and spun the truck toward the road.

  Carol returned. “Looks like a young man traipsing around in the mud near the trees.”

  Caitlin thought back to their stakeout, shot Mary a look. “Does he have a shotgun?”

  “A shotgun?” Carol answered, amused. “Oh no, looks like he has a ten-speed, but he’s not going anywhere fast.”

  Caitlin pulled out and sped toward the woman’s house. “What about you, Carol? Do you have a shotgun?”

  * * *

  They ran from Carol McGovern’s door, got back in the truck, Mary at the wheel, Caitlin riding shotgun.

  Mary pulled out, the spinning tires flinging mud into the air. “You sure we shouldn’t call the police?”

  “Both Carol and I called Jerry directly,” Caitlin said, loading a second shell into Carol’s Remington. “He didn’t bother to answer.”

  Mary turned the rental truck down the muddy field road leading toward the Bro-duce farm. “And you know how to shoot one of those things?”

  Caitlin laughed. “You forget who my dad was?”

  Mary pointed to the tree line. “Jackpot.”

  A mud-covered man facing the trees struggled to get a red bicycle through the bushes.

  “Get us there, Mary.”

  Lubbers swung to a stop thirty feet away. Caitlin hopped out, shotgun up and ready.

  David Amireau, dressed in a once-white T-shirt, a mess of brown where pants should be, and bare feet, turned her way.

  His eyes narrowed. “You?”

  “Stop there, Pig-pen. Hands up and all that shit.”

  He dropped the bike, started running for the trees. Caitlin shot once into the weeds, ten feet to his left. He stopped, raised his hands.

  Mary yelled from the truck. “Now do you want me to call the police?”

  Caitlin smiled. “I just did.”

  CHAPTER

  48

  TWO HOURS AND a whole lot of questions later, Chief Renton offered Caitlin the chair in front of her desk once again. “I understand you’ve played a significant part in today’s events.”

  Caitlin sat. “My work took me in a direction your department hadn’t been able to go. Of course, once I found evidence of a criminal enterprise, I called your detectives. Thanks again for that level of access, Chief.”

  “I thought I asked you to call me Abigail.” Renton’s words carried the same underlying stink as her strained smile. “Now you’d like to watch the interrogations?”

  “Observ
e only, from a camera feed or two-way glass.”

  Renton nodded. “With the understanding that nothing heard can be used, either on or off the record, in print, web, broadcast, or any other conceivable form of media on this planet until the completion of the trials of all parties involved.”

  “I don’t need to tell this story, Chief. Your detectives did promise me the scoop on the bust, and I choose to give that access to the Daily Student when appropriate.”

  “You’ll sign something to that effect?”

  “On two conditions.” Caitlin shifted forward. “The first—obviously, if I see evidence of abuse or violation of due process I will not hesitate to go public.”

  Renton looked offended. “That won’t happen.”

  “I’m just reminding you I consider my work as a journalist to be a calling rather than something I do for money. I’ll make this compromise in exchange for my second condition.”

  “Which is?”

  “I get a copy of the Chapman files. Again, with the caveat that I will not publish any abstract from the contents.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “To find that girl, Abigail. To see if anything, no matter how small a detail, has been missed. I might see things in a different way from your detectives. I promised Doris Chapman I’d try.”

  She didn’t remember seeing gum in the woman’s mouth, but Renton’s jaw moved with a sideways grind.

  Caitlin threw one last jab. “Small price to pay for the largest drug bust in your department’s history, all under your command.”

  The woman’s stress lost to her pride. “Now that’s a story you can cover.”

  * * *

  Caitlin found Greenwood and Maverick in the lunchroom huddled over salads. “Congratulations, Detectives.”

  Jane smirked. “Who let you in here?”

  Greenwood started to get up.

  Caitlin pulled out a chair, sat at the table. “Don’t even. I’m not trying to mess up dinner.”

  Greenwood’s shirt collar was unbuttoned, his sleeves rolled up to the elbows. “A dinner that happened to be delivered from Lennie’s before we even realized we were hungry.”

  Caitlin snuck a piece of chicken out of Greenwood’s salad container, popped it in her mouth. “I figured you’d be too busy to eat. Why the break?”

  Maverick got up, refilled a coffee cup. “Amireau refuses to say anything until his lawyer gets here. Should be tomorrow morning.”

  “What about Frodo?”

  Greenwood found a gap between bites. “Complicated. He said he wanted Amireau’s lawyer.”

  “How’s that complicated?”

  Maverick sat back at the table. “He doesn’t know the guy’s name. We told him we couldn’t be sure who he meant. So he asked for the public defender. It’s Friday night, so a public defender won’t be in until tomorrow morning, which means we leave him alone until then.”

  So much for watching an interrogation. “What about the scene?”

  Greenwood smiled. “Hundred plants, various stages of harvest. Over two hundred pounds of packaged weed.”

  “Half a million bucks,” Maverick said.

  “And the coke?”

  Maverick pulled out a tablet, showed Caitlin an image. The windowless room could have been a chemistry lab on campus except for the ingredients stacked in neat piles. She swiped through the images. Bags of Portland cement, a gas can, a jug of sulfuric acid, potassium.

  Caitlin pointed to a beaker full of white powder. “Is that coke?”

  “Sodium bicarbonate,” Greenwood said. “Technically, we didn’t find any cocaine. But there was a row of coca plants in the grow room, mostly dead or dying.”

  Caitlin got the picture. “So the shipment was fresh seeds for later and enough leaves to crank out a batch for Little Five?”

  “Looks like,” Maverick said. “How did you know they were playing Pablo Escobar?”

  “Lakshmi told me Amireau had offered her green cocaine once. Only time I’d heard of something like that was back in LA. LAPD found three club kids, all dead. They settled on bad chemistry.”

  Greenwood nodded. “The kind that comes from a self-taught cook. What else?”

  “Adam Fodor’s reluctance to stay involved in a pot business he probably started. The Bahamas aren’t Colombia. Weed’s one thing, but they don’t mess around when it comes to cocaine trafficking.”

  Greenwood looked smitten or at least horny. “Damned impressive, Caitlin.”

  She tried not to blush. “What about Gooch?”

  Maverick nearly spit her coffee. “Who now?”

  “Big guy, beard, overalls?”

  Greenwood laughed. “Randall Gutcherson. Got him too. Same thing, waiting on a lawyer.”

  Caitlin reached for another piece of chicken. “So no one’s talking tonight?”

  “Unless you’ve got an idea.”

  She reached for her laptop. “Maybe Frodo doesn’t know how much he has to lose.”

  * * *

  Munching the remains of Greenwood’s salad, Caitlin watched the detectives play with Nate Fodor via the observation room’s video feed. Chief Renton and two detectives stood behind her.

  Frodo tapped a photo printout on the interview room’s table. “So I met my brother at my parent’s house.”

  “My bad,” Greenwood said, pulling out three more of Mike Roman’s shots from Florida. “I was supposed to show you all of these.”

  The first, Nate and Adam loading a crate into the back of the delivery truck. The second, a wider shot of the boys at work and an older man, their father, twenty feet away. The third, the coca leaves found in the back of the Bro-duce truck.

  “So what?”

  Maverick touched Greenwood’s arm. “We shouldn’t be talking to him without his lawyer.”

  Greenwood pushed her hand away. “This kid should know how much jail time his dad faces for his bullshit.”

  Frodo took the bait. “My dad? What are you talking about?”

  “Nothing,” Maverick said. “Greenwood, outside, now.”

  Greenwood left the folder and images. “We’ll be right back.”

  Seconds later, they joined Caitlin and the others at the monitors.

  Greenwood smiled. “Anything?”

  “Not yet,” the chief said.

  Maverick took a seat. “Shouldn’t take long.”

  Frodo shifted in his chair, rolled his neck. Caitlin watched the timecode on the monitor. The wait felt like minutes, but only thirty-two seconds passed before he leaned forward. He pushed the images aside to look at the documents below. Caitlin had chosen the order:

  1.  The title to the farm and the Bro-duce corporation’s financial structure docs

  2.  A listing of payments made by both Nate and Adam Fodor to their parents

  3.  A summary of Florida’s drug-related property seizure statutes

  4.  A spreadsheet that correlated the earlier payments to the Fodor parents’ accounts and the mortgage payments received on the Fort Lauderdale retirement property

  Caitlin could see Frodo’s hands start to tremble.

  “Oh no,” he said, the words barely audible through the monitor.

  The entire room broke into applause.

  Maverick got up. “Let’s go get him.”

  Greenwood gave Caitlin the quickest of smiles on his way out. Seconds later, he reappeared in the interrogation room and reached for the folder. “My partner was right. We can pick this up tomorrow when your public defender shows up.”

  “Wait, let’s make a deal.”

  Maverick stood in the open doorway. “Why? Your name’s on the farm and the bank accounts. You were found with enough coca leaves to manufacture a kilo of coke. You transported those ingredients across state lines. Your brother, across international waters. In addition, people have been making cash deposits into the grill in your backyard right after huge deliveries of pot to local frats, often in trucks driven by you. Exactly what kind of deal do you think we need t
o make?”

  Greenwood closed the folder. “Back to your cage.”

  “But I know things you don’t.”

  Maverick laughed. “We know everything about your bullshit drug empire, Frodo.”

  “I know about Angela Chapman.”

  Chills ran up Caitlin’s spine.

  Greenwood shook his head. “You’d say anything now.”

  “Seriously,” Frodo said, “but I need to know you’ll leave my parents out of this.”

  Maverick laughed again. “Kid, this thing crossed state lines. You’re organized crime. Your parents too.”

  Frodo’s voice kicked up a register. “I’m serious. They had me bury something.”

  “Bury what?”

  “The morning after everyone went out, you know, the night Angela disappeared—they called me on one of the burners, said to get to their apartment, get rid of some garbage.”

  Maverick clucked her tongue. “We went through all the garbage within two miles of the Villas—city dump too. Nice try.”

  “At the farm,” Frodo continued, “I buried four bags. Weird, lumpy shapes. I don’t know what was in them, but they stunk.”

  Greenwood kept his tone even. “You’re telling us you didn’t look in the bags?”

  “I didn’t know Chapman was missing. I just did what they said. But I can take you to the bags, at least tell you where to dig.”

  CHAPTER

  49

  Los Angeles

  MIKE PARKED AT a trailhead between Kieran’s house and the Hollywood sign and flashed his lights once. Michelson emerged from the darkness and got in the passenger side with a duffel bag. “You got here fast.”

  Mike drove west. “I was in Hollywood. Where are we going, Kieran?”

  “TJ, bro.”

  “Why Mexico?”

  “I just need to get there. Maybe cut over to Durand Drive up here, stay away from my place.”

  Mike understood Kieran’s concern. He’d been outside the mansion for the last hour, watching twenty of the FBI’s finest pick the place apart. Not only were the agents unimpressed when he pointed out the absence of Kieran’s off-road scooter, they told him flat-out to leave the premises.