Sky's Shadow

by Ted Galdi

  Jordana, pistol in hand, advances down an alley in an industrial section of El Cajon with a policeman, the setting sun stretching their shadows against buildings. The cop says into his radio, “Approaching the two seen from the helicopter. Over.”

  They skulk about a hundred more feet to the end of the alley. Jordana hears two voices around the corner. Her heart slamming, she turns it. And screams, “Freeze.”

  In front of her are two males. They’re big, but no older than seventeen, holding bottles of malt liquor. One drops his. It shatters.

  “We swear we’ll never drink again,” the other says.

  She sighs. Then holsters her gun. “Go home to your parents. It’s not safe out here tonight.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  The boys run away. While the cop radios in the false visual on Brent and Archer, Jordana’s phone vibrates against her leg, an Orange County area code. She says into it, “Quick.”

  “Darrington Farm in Imperial County. Three AM. They’re going to ambush the workers in their barrack while they’re asleep.”

  She paces up the alley, out of earshot from the cop. “Tommy?”

  “Did you listen to my voicemail before? I found Cora.”

  “It…it doesn’t matter.”

  “Did you listen to it?”

  “I…whatever she said is irrelevant.”

  “You crazy?”

  “Where are you?”

  “I need you to do me a favor.”

  “I don’t have time to do you a favor. I’m running an investigation.”

  “And I just gave you a breakthrough piece of intel for that investigation. Brent and Archer are going—”

  “Brent and Archer are in El Cajon. So am I. We have them circled.”

  “What’s El Cajon?”

  “A city. About twenty miles from San Diego.”

  “You’re arresting them right now?”

  “Not exactly. Someone saw their box truck tonight. Called in a tip over nine-one-one. We found it here.”

  Silence from the other line for a few seconds. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “A local detective took down the VIN number, referenced DMV records, and called its last documented owner. The guy said he sold it in an all-cash transaction six months ago to a man matching Glen Brent’s description. This is their truck. I saw it with my own eyes.”

  “Based on what we know of Brent, how precise and careful he is, do you really think he’d cruise around in a vehicle associated with his killings? That thing would be a bull’s-eye on wheels.”

  She stares at the pavement for a couple seconds. “Maybe that’s why they abandoned it in a vacant parking lot. They were aware of what you just said and wanted to get off the road.”

  “We both saw them leave the warehouse in San Diego in an Aston Martin. If you’re going to switch vehicles, why get into a second one the police know about? And why drive twenty miles to this El Cajon just to get rid of it?”

  A pause. “I…really don’t know yet. But we’re on top of—”

  “Who made the nine-one-one call?”

  “Gas-station attendant in a town called Pine Valley.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “What?”

  “A county park in Pine Valley. The murder I’m being framed for. That’s where the body was spotted by a hiker—”

  “The what you’re being framed for?”

  “I’m calling you from jail. Brent is trying to frame me for murder.”

  “God.”

  “Jordana, hear me out. I need you to—”

  “Why would he frame you for murder?”

  “I assume to keep me away until he carries out his final attack. Once the physical evidence comes back, I’m optimistic I can prove I’m innocent. But if I’m locked up until then, I’m off his tail. I need you to come here and get me out.”

  “Me?”

  “You’re an FBI agent. They’ll listen to you. Just tell—”

  “Yes, I’m the lead of an FBI investigation. Victims’ lives depend on me. I can’t abandon it and drive to…where are you, Orange County? That’s like a hundred miles from here.”

  “Victims’ lives depend on the FBI acting on my information. Get a squad to Darrington Farm.”

  “Completely divert the investigation from El Cajon just because you say so?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re something, Tommy.”

  “If Brent wanted me off his tail tonight, I’m sure he wanted the FBI off it too. He framed me for murder in Pine Valley. Seems likely he was behind this gas-station nine-one-one call from there too. He’s playing you.”

  “No one is…playing me.”

  “Think about it.”

  “I did.”

  “It’s early enough to recover. You need—”

  “Is there any evidence supporting this theory of yours?”

  “Cora had him on tape talking about the farm.”

  “Send me the tape.”

  “I…she let me hear it on her phone. It—”

  “So you have no evidence then?”

  “I get you’re mad at me for lying before. I get you don’t like me. That’s fine. This isn’t about me. It’s about the farmhands in that barrack. If I’m right and you let them get slaughtered tonight, you could live with that?”

  She closes her eyes. Rubs her forehead. “If I told Wichita this intel came from you, not only won’t she believe it, she’ll skewer me for even speaking to you. It’s just not…feasible.”

  “Then let’s make it feasible. Come here. Get me out. We’ll think up a plan. They’re going to make me hang up soon. Newport Beach jail. Start driving—”

  “An entire task force is operating under me. I can’t just…leave.”

  “It’s possible Brent got rid of the box truck last week after he heard it mentioned on the news. It was probably sitting in the vacant parking lot this whole time. And he knew the FBI would go into a tizzy once he sent them to it. If he’s heading to Imperial County later, wouldn’t it be advantageous for him to deflect law enforcement to El Cajon?”

  “I…it’s…I guess.”

  “A dozen dead farmworkers. See the bodies in your head, Jordana. Don’t take a chance on making that a reality.”

  Sixty-Four

  From his cell, Tommy watches Jordana walk through the holding unit of the Newport Beach police station, a folder in her hand. He smiles at her. She glares at him.

  “Thank you, Jordana,” he says. “This is so clutch I—”

  “You just better be right about the farm.”

  Stince emerges from a doorway. “Agent Quick. I didn’t think you actually existed. I’m the detective on the case.”

  They shake hands. She flaps the folder a couple times. “I may have missed something in the chronology laid out in here. Hopefully you can answer a question for me.”

  “Certainly.”

  “At what time did you hear the sonic boom?”

  “The what?”

  “You know, the noise that booms through the atmosphere when an object breaks the speed of sound.”

  “I…ugh…I’m not following you there, Agent Quick.”

  She points at a document in the folder. “Says here a man reported the sighting of a body on a park emergency phone at five thirty-nine PM.” She slides out a photo of the dead woman. “Notice the victim’s hair. She’s lying in the middle of the wilderness, yet barely has a speck of dust in it. Clearly the body wasn’t out there long. Meaning if Mister Dapino strangled her he must’ve done so shortly before the call came in. Reasonable?”

  “I suppose.”

  “But he was apprehended at the Grand Bay Resort at six twenty-seven PM. Just forty-eight minutes after the body was spotted in Pine Valley. Which is about a hundred twenty-five miles from Newport Beach. Over a two-hour drive at normal speed. So if Mister Dapino traveled from one city to the next in the time you allege, he was likely moving faster than the speed of sound.”

  Stince’s cheeks redden. �
��Well…maybe he left for Newport earlier. The body could’ve been in the park longer than it seems in the picture. Up-close in person her hair could appear a lot dustier.”

  “If this woman and Mister Dapino got into a physical altercation, as your write-up is contesting, and he threw her to the ground, overpowered her, and choked her to death, a lot more than her hair would be a mess. No matter what time the strangling occurred. The outfit she’s wearing would be covered in dirt and grass stains. She may even have bruises on her arms from banging into the little rocks on the hiking trail. But no. None of that. It’s as if she were killed somewhere else and just…placed here.”

  Stince’s eyes snap to the picture, then cut away from it. “If he wasn’t there, why’s his driver’s license there?”

  “I was with him earlier at Dunbar Warehouses in Mira Mesa. Glen Brent emptied his pockets there. He was in possession of Mister Dapino’s ID.”

  “Wait up,” Stince says, his brow furrowing. “He wasn’t making that up? He’s actually involved in the Brent case?”

  “Yes. And that’s coming from the lead investigator on the Brent case. I wouldn’t have driven all the way up here wasting critical time during a manhunt if it weren’t relevant.” She pulls her phone from her pocket. “The hiker who reported the body in the park, did you listen to a recording of his call?”

  Stince nods. Jordana taps a few buttons on her screen. Out the speaker plays Brent’s voicemail from Carlos Ayala’s burner.

  “Did his voice sound anything like this?” Jordana asks.

  “Exactly like it.”

  “That’s Glen Brent.”

  A moment. “Huh. I’ll be damned.”

  “He killed that woman in the park. He killed my partner. And he will kill more people unless you let Mister Dapino out of here so we can get back to work.”

  Sixty-Five

  Jordana’s Blazer drives east, Tommy in the passenger seat. He gazes at the silhouettes of passing palm trees lurching against the night.

  “Your face,” she says.

  “What?”

  “Dry blood. Your forehead. Your arm too. I have wipes in the glove box.”

  He opens it. Cleans his face in the rearview mirror.

  “You okay?” she asks.

  “Fine.”

  “You seem…shook up.”

  “Maybe I am a little. Been a hell of a day.”

  “If you’re right about the farm, at least it will end on a good note.”

  “You got the story down?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Call your boss.”

  She takes a deep breath. Taps a few buttons on her console screen. A few rings through the speaker system. Wichita says, “Where the hell are you?”

  “On my way to Imperial County. I—”

  “Imperial…I just got to El Cajon. To the best of my knowledge, you were still leading an investigation here.”

  “I am ma’am. Yes. But that investigation needs to move to Imperial County. Which is a three-hour drive from me. I need some reinforcements ahead—”

  “Three-hour drive from where?”

  “Newport Beach.”

  “What’re you doing in Newport Beach?”

  “Cora Brent. Her Porsche. A local cop spotted it in a mall parking lot. I just spoke to her. She—”

  “Who cares? Her husband’s car is here. He—”

  “She’s been secretly recording him. Has a tape of him talking about his next attack. It’s not over there. It’s—”

  “If she was so eager to bring down her husband that she decided to play spy and get him on tape, why was she avoiding us all day?”

  “I…you’d have to ask her yourself. All I know—”

  “Sure. Put her on.”

  “I’m not with her anymore. Who’s the Resident Agent in Charge of our satellite branch in Imperial County?”

  “Brock Lopez. He rolls up to my command in the main office in San Diego. Tell Cora—”

  “Lopez needs to send a team to a place called Darrington Farm. ASAP. And clear out the worker barrack. The dozen men sleeping inside are tonight’s targets.”

  “Showing up on private property, waking up a barrack of men, and coordinating an evacuation is a hell of a request. Especially with ASAP tacked onto it. You’re basing all of this off a tape recording Brent’s wife gave you?”

  “Correct.”

  “What’s her number?”

  “She’s…her phone’s off. Been off. Which is why I drove all the way up here to see her in person.”

  “And you’re still up there. So why don’t you drive back to her, see her again in person, and put her on with me?”

  “I’m not keeping tabs on her. She…went her own way after we spoke. I wouldn’t know—”

  “And I wouldn’t know what on Goddamn Earth to say to Lopez.”

  “Darrington Farm. He just—”

  “Nobody here knows where you went. You just vanished according to them. And now you’re telling me to evacuate some farm, based on intel from a source that also apparently vanished. Something is…off.”

  “I’m just trying to cover all our bases.”

  “I don’t know what you’re trying to do. But unless you show me something solid to support your claim, you’re not going through me to do it.”

  “We have to—”

  “I don’t have to do anything. But you have to get back to the task force you’re in charge of in El Cajon. You should be able to make it here in an hour and fifteen minutes. If I don’t see you by then, it’ll be a problem.” Wichita hangs up.

  Jordana slaps the steering wheel.

  “Don’t go,” Tommy says.

  “I have to. I’ll drop you off at your car first.”

  “Call this Lopez guy yourself.”

  “Go around Wichita?”

  “A dozen dead workers.”

  “What about my dead career?”

  “I’m assuming stopping a massacre would help your career.”

  “This isn’t…it’s different for me. I can’t just run around how I please like you. I work in an organization. There’s a hierarchy. There are rules. I’ll talk to Wichita in person and convince her to get onboard with the farm.”

  “She doesn’t strike me as someone who changes her mind often.”

  Jordana pulls into the parking lot of the Grand Bay Resort, the commotion from the fire scare gone. “Are you finally done lying to me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I walked into a mess coming up here and helping you out.”

  “I know. And I appreciate it. Really.”

  “The least you can do is be honest with me.”

  “Already said I would.”

  She hands him a twenty-dollar bill. “Get a slice of pizza or something. A cup of coffee. Don’t touch anything that has to do with this investigation once I’m gone. Anything. There’re already too many variables. We can’t add any more. Just…take yourself out of the equation while I talk to Wichita. Can I trust you’ll do that?”

  “You can trust me.” He steps out of the car.

  She holds a skeptical gaze on him for a couple seconds, then drives off.

  Sixty-Six

  Wichita’s wide, powerful frame stands in the headlights of Jordana’s Blazer. It pulls into the parking lot of the condemned pillow factory in El Cajon.

  Jordana gets out. A wind blows, a soda can and other litter tumbling across the pavement. “I might be wrong about Darrington Farm. But if there’s even a chance I’m right, we have to get agents at that barrack to clear it out.” She glimpses the time on her phone. “It’s almost eleven thirty. Our window to safely evacuate is closing.”

  Wichita doesn’t reply, just stares.

  Jordana takes a step closer to her, says, “Have Lopez—”

  “I believed you, Quick.”

  “Eh…thank you.”

  “Your story about Cora Brent and the recording. Sure, it sounded a bit implausible, but you never struck me as a liar.”

  �
��Because I’m not.”

  “Well, then I tried verifying what you told me.”

  “You got in touch with Cora?”

  “Nope. But I knew Keppler got in touch with her father this afternoon. Figured we could again. If his daughter was back home in Newport, like you said, there’d be a shot he’d now know her whereabouts. Could connect her with me. So I called him.”

  “He didn’t answer the phone?”

  “He did answer the phone. Told me if we called him again, he was going to sue us for harassment.”

  “The man has been getting pestered by us, local PD, and the media all day. Of course he’s going to be a little crabby at this—”

  “The man was more than crabby. And he had a right to be. And not because of any inconvenient phone calls.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Told me he just survived a break-in. A guy smashed into his house and locked him in a closet.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s not sure. But was sure about his description. About thirty. Fit. A little over six feet tall. Olive complexion. East Coast vibe to the way he spoke. Does that sound like anyone we know?”

  Jordana looks at the dark factory facade, whispers, “That prick.”

  “Are you working with him?”

  “I know nothing about him visiting the Halls’ house. Let alone breaking in.”

  “You didn’t answer my question. Are you working with him?”

  A pause. “No.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “If a man snuck into the Halls’…no matter who he was…it doesn’t change the fact that Cora has her husband on tape saying—”

  “Ah yes, the tape that doesn’t exist.”

  “I’m just asking you to send a team to the farm.”

  “No. You’re asking me to buy into whatever bullshit Thomas Dapino has you on.”

  “I’m not—”

  “You leave El Cajon without notifying anyone. Drive to Newport. Where someone with Dapino’s exact description confronted Cora’s father. And now you’re telling me a story about Cora that isn’t supported by a trace of presentable evidence.”

  “I’ll talk to you about Tommy all you want tomorrow. Tonight, can we please just focus on this investigation? We are close, so close.”