Malice

by C. M. Sutter

  There he is. I recognize that face even if he is wearing a baseball cap. I know I’ve seen him somewhere before.

  I rubbed my forehead and closed my eyes. I was overtired, and thinking logically came hard. I looked again at the paused footage and stared at the screen.

  That’s it. You’re Ed Tanner, the guy who dropped his license at the gas station. Why are you there, or are you just paying your respects like everyone else?

  The hair rose on my arms, and a strange chill tingled my spine.

  I need to run this by J.T.

  I powered down my laptop, slid it into my briefcase, and zipped it closed. Chances were, J.T. and Hardy were still talking to Mr. Stewart. I headed in the direction of the city jail, which was downstairs and on the far side of the building. I checked in at the counter and asked where to find J.T. and Hardy. They hadn’t signed out yet, so they were still in one of the interview rooms.

  “They’re with Mr. Stewart in box three, Agent Monroe.”

  “Thanks.” I took the left hallway to the end of the corridor and entered the observation room. Through the glass, I saw Hardy and J.T. talking to Stewart and his attorney.

  Crap. I need to talk to J.T.

  I checked the time. The meeting couldn’t go on much longer since everyone was expected in the conference room in fifteen minutes. I turned on the intercom and leaned back in the chair. I’d wait it out.

  The slamming door in the adjoining room startled me out of my sleep. I had dozed off, and luckily the sound woke me. I did my best to seem alert as I opened the observation room door and stepped out.

  “Jade, what were you doing in there?” J.T. eyed me suspiciously.

  “Fine, you busted me. I was waiting to talk to you and fell asleep.”

  He patted my shoulder. “Who could blame you? I’d love to sleep for a couple of days. Did you catch any of the interview?”

  “Um—”

  “Yeah, the short version is Stewart refused to break the contracts. He’s already complaining that no new sellers are calling his office to book with Scenic View.”

  “How would he know that? He’s locked up.”

  “From his attorney. He’s the mouthpiece for the company, and all conversations back and forth go through him. Stewart says if he gets a deal, he might work with us. His attorney wanted to talk to him privately.”

  “What a jerk. Anyway, I have something that may or may not be something.”

  Hardy raised his brows. “Are you still asleep?”

  “Sorry, guys, my mind is fuzzy. Give me a second to get my words to match my thoughts. Okay, I watched that Channel 9 news footage from yesterday at Sarah’s house.”

  “Yeah, we did too. What about it?” J.T. asked.

  “The cameraman panned the crowd at the memorial, and I saw Ed Tanner.”

  “Who the hell is Ed Tanner?” Hardy asked.

  “A guy Jade is crushing on.”

  “Knock it off, I’m serious. Why didn’t you tell me he was in that video?”

  “Jade, I never saw the guy. I only saw you approach someone who was pumping gas into a rust bucket truck. He was completely hidden from my view.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t realize, but what do you make of that?”

  J.T. shrugged as we boarded the elevator. “I don’t know if I make anything of it. There were a lot of people in that footage paying their respects. He could have just been another person in the crowd.”

  “Or the killer coming back to bask in all of the attention he’s getting.”

  “That means everyone there could be doing the same. Ed was filling his truck with gas at a downtown gas station. Chances are he lives somewhere in the area. If he hadn’t dropped his license or if you hadn’t been the person to pick it up, he would have just been another face on TV.”

  “I don’t know. He seemed edgy when he was paying for his gas. That’s probably why he dropped his license.”

  “Which makes that your lucky day. Have Leon pull his name later and see where he lives. It’ll probably explain everything.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  Hardy tipped his wrist and checked the time. “Right now we need to check out those satellite images.”

  We returned to the conference room, where Leon had an overhead projector set up on the table.

  “Wow, I wasn’t expecting this,” Hardy said.

  “It’s better than printer-sized sheets of paper. I’ve outlined onto these transparencies the satellite images that go out several miles in each direction around all three houses. I’ve noted each business that has CCTV cameras or a different type of private security camera. The red circle on the transparency indicates the location of the victim’s house.”

  “This is perfect, Leon. Thanks.” J.T. approached the wall screen that had been pulled down. “This first transparency is from Sarah Cummings’s neighborhood. It appears that once you get into her master-planned community, all the streets are residential and exit to that main intersection with the traffic lights. That location should be easy enough. We’ll need to use the closest business that has video storage capabilities and reliable equipment.” He pointed at several rooftops on the screen. “We’ll have to contact these three businesses and see how long the footage is stored.”

  Hardy jerked his head at Lyles. “That’s Creek Crossing and Trenton Street. Contact those three businesses nearest that intersection and start asking questions.”

  “You got it.”

  I nodded at Leon. “Okay, let’s see the next transparency.”

  We continued with the neighborhoods around the King home and Jackie’s too. After we’d chosen the best locations that the killer would have to pass by, it was time to give each business a visit.

  Hardy’s phone buzzed as we were about to leave. He raised his hand for us to wait. The call was short, but the look on his face when he clicked off told us he had something important to say. “Everyone, hold up.”

  Andrews, Tyler, Lyles, and Franklin stopped in the hallway and turned back.

  “That was Gebhardt. He said his guys found fresh footprints that led right to Marilyn LaSota’s house from one of the vacant lots. His officers originally missed them because they were at the edge near the tree line. Luckily, they were noticed on a second round.”

  “Anything they can cast?”

  “He didn’t think so since the lots are made up mostly of large dirt clods. What is helpful is where the trail led.”

  “And where was that?” I asked.

  “At the next street parallel to Marilyn’s house.”

  J.T. nodded. “We’ve run into that before. It’s the best way to stay out of sight if going in from yard to yard or, in this case, through vacant lots.”

  “We need to find out what kind of cameras are in that area.”

  “It’s Bellevue’s jurisdiction, Jade,” Hardy said.

  “Sorry, Cap, but as FBI agents, we have the entire Midwest as our jurisdiction. J.T. and I will head over there, meet up with Chief Gebhardt, and go over our plan. We don’t intend to step on anybody’s toes. Everyone else can go ahead with the local locations.”

  J.T. reached in his pocket for the Explorer keys. “Let’s head out.”

  Chapter 37

  Our drive to Bellevue wouldn’t take long. The city to our south was only ten miles away. I pulled out the card Gebhardt had given me and entered the address for the Bellevue, Nebraska Police Department into the search bar on my phone. We needed directions.

  “I remember the way to Bellevue, but we’ve never been to the police department,” J.T. said.

  “I’m pulling it up as we speak. Okay, stay on I-75 south until we see Cornhusker Road.” I smiled at the name. “We’ll exit the freeway there and go east. Cornhusker turns into Harvell Drive. Stay on that until we reach Galvin Road South. That will take us right to Wall Street, where the police department is located. That sounds easy enough.”

  We reached the police department without getting lost. I was becoming an expert copilot. J.T. pa
rked, and we walked to the building’s main entrance. We showed our credentials to the desk sergeant and asked for Chief Mike Gebhardt.

  We waited as the sergeant made a call. Several minutes later we were escorted to the chief’s office.

  He stood and shook our hands when we entered. “Agents, I didn’t think I’d see you again so soon.” He gestured at the guest chairs. “Have a seat.”

  “We heard about your latest findings.”

  “The footpath in the vacant lot?”

  “That’s right,” J.T. said. “We were actually on that same wavelength with checking camera footage on neighboring streets in the Omaha cases. That will take some time and manpower since we’d have to compare vehicles in three locations. Hardy’s men are starting that process now.”

  “How can we help?”

  I spoke up. “We appreciate your offer, and if you can spare a minute, we’d like to see a satellite view of the area around Marilyn’s house and what the neighboring businesses are, especially the ones near that parallel street. We can take it from there unless you, or someone from your team, would like to assist.”

  “Sure, follow me.”

  We walked down several hallways with Gebhardt and ended at their tech department. Inside the large room filled with computers and oversized wall-mounted monitors, the chief introduced us to the person in charge.

  “Agents Monroe and Harper, this is Camille Sills, our lead in this department.”

  I was pleasantly surprised when she welcomed us with firm handshakes.

  “What can I do for you, agents?”

  J.T. took over. “We need a satellite view, spread out a mile around the neighborhood of Fremont Court.”

  “Aah, of course, this morning’s murder victim. Sorry to hear about that.”

  We leaned in behind her and watched as she tapped the computer keys to pull up the image.

  “Please, scoot some stools around.” She tipped her head toward the wall. “It’s a strain on your back leaning in that way.”

  Gebhardt and J.T. rolled the stools forward and placed them alongside her chair in the cubicle.

  “Okay, here’s the satellite imagery. Unfortunately it was shot during the summer months, and the streets and buildings are hidden under tree cover. How about going with street mode instead? Once we pinpoint the best locations, I’ll pull up Street View so we can actually see the storefronts.”

  “That should work.” With my elbow resting on the tabletop of her cubicle, I propped my head in my palm and stared at the monitor. J.T. wrote down the names of the businesses nearest Vine Street as Camille moved the street view from store to store.

  “That should do it,” I said. The entire process took less than a half hour. J.T. and I thanked her and left the tech department. We had four businesses to visit. “You’re welcome to pound the pavement with us, Chief,” I said.

  “Nah, but I would appreciate being kept abreast of your findings. I have plenty on my plate with contacting Ms. LaSota’s next of kin. We still have to interview her ex-husband and go through her contact list. Each one of those people will have to be interviewed too.”

  I stopped in the hallway before we had gotten too far.

  “Forget something, Jade?”

  “Chief, as long as we’re still here, would it be all right if Camille does one more quick favor for me?”

  “Of course.”

  We turned back and entered the tech department again.

  “Camille, Agent Monroe has a request.”

  “Sure, what do you need?”

  “Thanks, and I promise it will only take a minute. Can you pull up the name Edward or Ed Tanner and see what pops?”

  “No problem. Is he a Nebraska resident?”

  “Yes, as far as I know.”

  With a few taps on the keyboard, Camille entered Ed’s name and waited. The next screen opened. It showed zero results.

  Camille shrugged. “If he’s a recent transplant and hasn’t changed his driver’s license yet to Nebraska, it isn’t going to come up.”

  “Shoot.”

  “If he’s a known felon, then—”

  J.T. gave me the eyeballs.

  “No, I’m not going to invade anyone’s privacy. I don’t have anything on the guy to warrant that, just curiosity, that’s all. Okay, thanks.”

  We walked out to the lobby with Chief Gebhardt and said our goodbyes. J.T. and I had businesses to reach out to at the intersections of Grange and Vine.

  Marilyn LaSota’s house was on the west side of Bellevue, a ten-minute drive from the police station.

  “Can I have your notepad? I want to call those businesses and find out what their security systems are like. They need ones that don’t tape over themselves every day.”

  J.T. stopped at the red light and pulled out the notepad from his inner jacket pocket. “Sounds like a good idea. Maybe they can even get things set up for us. But before you do that, call the ME’s office and see if they can give you a tighter time line of Marilyn’s death. We don’t want to watch hours and hours of video footage if we don’t have to.”

  I placed the call, pressed the numbers called out by the automated attendant, and waited on hold for several minutes. Finally a real human picked up.

  “Medical Examiner’s Office. How can I help you?”

  “Hello, this is FBI Agent Jade Monroe calling for ME Torres. Is he available?”

  “One moment, please.”

  I groaned my impatience.

  “On hold again?”

  I nodded and studied my cuticles.

  “Agent Monroe?”

  I sat up and paid attention. “Yes, this is she.”

  “This is Dr. Torres’s assistant, Myron Goran. How may I help you?”

  “Hello, Myron. I’m wondering if the doctor has a tighter time line on Marilyn LaSota’s TOD.”

  “I’ll see what he says. Give me just a moment, please.”

  “Damn it, I’m on hold again. No music, only dead silence.” I rolled my eyes.

  J.T. grinned. “Fitting, isn’t it?”

  Myron returned to the phone several minutes later. “Okay, the best he can commit to is that Ms. LaSota expired between eleven p.m. and three a.m.”

  “Okay, that helps. Thank you, Myron.” I clicked off and sighed. “No help there.”

  “Didn’t you just say—”

  “I was being nice. The TOD is no different than what he said this morning. Guess we’re going to be sitting in front of video cameras for a while.”

  J.T. agreed. “We’ll split up. It’s the only way to expedite things.”

  I called several of the stores at the mall and got their voicemails. Maybe we’d have better luck in person. J.T. pulled into the strip mall that had two of the businesses we hoped would have camera surveillance, along with modern technology. We exited the Explorer and looked to our left and right. Vine Street was two blocks to our west.

  “Damn it. We aren’t going to see anything this far away. Where are those other businesses that came up on street view?”

  “That’s probably them.” J.T. pointed at the intersection kitty-corner to Vine. Heavy equipment was hard at work leveling buildings at that corner.

  “This strip mall isn’t close enough, J.T.”

  He tipped his head. “It’s all we have to work with. Come on. Let’s walk down to the stores at the end and see what they have. Hopefully, if they do have cameras, they’re equipped with wide-angle lenses.

  J.T. and I had hoped that the check-cashing business would be perfect, but seeing the location in person gave us a different viewpoint. That store, along with Pelmar Financial Services next door, was too far from Vine to make out any vehicle turning down that street, especially at night.

  The strip mall held nine storefronts, and the few at the end could work if they had cameras. They were only a block from Vine Street.

  “We’ve run out of pavement,” J.T. said as he kicked a final rock. “Let’s see what we have.”

  We turned to the s
tore in front of us—a dry cleaner. My hopes deflated quickly.

  “This is our last chance,” I said as I walked ten feet ahead of J.T. I looked at the sign in front of the last store. “Hey, it’s a liquor store, and there’s a roof-mounted camera.”

  We entered the building and approached a young man who was busy stocking the coolers with cases of beer.

  “Excuse us,” J.T. said. “Do you work here, or are you the vendor?”

  “Nah, it’s my dad’s store. What do you need?”

  I pulled out my badge to cut to the chase. “We’re FBI agents. Is your father here?”

  “Whoa, for real?”

  I smiled. “Yes, for real.”

  A man appeared from the back room. “Did I hear someone say FBI agents?”

  “Dad, she showed me her badge. It’s the real deal.”

  The father shushed his son and told him to get back to work. “Kids these days. Anyway, what can I help you with, agents?”

  I noticed several customers in the store and realized the son probably wasn’t old enough to ring up a liquor purchase. We needed to make it quick. “Do you have camera equipment with good clarity and modern technology?”

  J.T. grinned at me.

  “Um, sure I do. This store, being on the end of the strip mall like this, has been robbed several times. I’m tired of fuzzy images that nobody can identify on the tapes.”

  “Dad, somebody needs to check out.”

  “Excuse me for just a minute, agents.”

  “Not a problem.” I peered into the chilled refrigerator as we waited. “Awesome.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They have Scottish Ale. I’m leaving here with a six-pack to take back to my hotel room.”

  “So you’re assuming you’ll have time to drink it?”

  “I’ll make time, and I’ll even share.”

  The storeowner returned. “Okay, sorry about the interruption. I think I have enough time to show you what we have in the back. Billy, holler if you need me.”

  “Okay, Dad.”

  “I’m sorry. We didn’t get your name, sir,” J.T. said.

  “Alan Caldwell.” He turned and shook our hands. “Pleasure to meet you.”

  “And you as well. I’m Agent Jade Monroe, and my partner is Agent J.T. Harper.”