“Who made the first call?”
“Damn, you’re a bulldog. I can see why you’re a high-paid attorney.”
“Right now, I’m a no-paid attorney.”
She showed her teeth, then answered my question. “First call was made by the owner of the burner phone almost three months ago.”
I didn’t understand how this could be the same dad I’d known almost my entire life. He was a bit of a showboat, bombastic at times, and he’d taken on some questionable clients and pushed a few judges. But I’d never seen him act with absolute disregard for the integrity of the firm or, as might be proven, his own safety.
Why get involved in something that required communicating via a burner phone? The more I learned, the more it was obvious that Dad was involved in something shady. For what, though? He must have at some point sensed he was in danger. He admitted that we’d find no trail of this client at the firm, so he knew it was illegal. But what could have been his motivation to do business with this person or group of people? I couldn’t begin to wrap my head around it. Right now, nothing in my life made sense.
“Anything else to share?”
“Not yet. I’ll let you know if we find anything usable on the surveillance tape at the hospital. Unless we find you walking into your dad’s room in the middle of the night.” She raised an eyebrow.
“Believe me, when the Feds raided our office and I knew he was the reason, I was ready to do some bodily damage.”
“The Feds,” she said with an eye roll. “I tried to get more info out of them.”
“Dead end for you too? They won’t share the details of Dad’s case with me. It’s frickin’ crazy.”
She gulped another mouthful of her mojito. “They’re a pain in my ass on two investigations.”
I turned my head.
“First, your dad’s case. They want me to share any evidence I find, but they won’t tell me squat…who he was involved with, what exactly he’d done.”
“Supposedly, they don’t know who he was working for.”
“Right. Well, I bet they have a strong idea or two. They start throwing around this love-of-country crap just to guilt me into being their personal cop. But I can’t do my job if they withhold information. Or, it will just take me a hell of a lot longer.”
The more I hung around Brook, the more I appreciated her candor and feistiness. “So if you suddenly disappear, I need to question the FBI?”
She playfully rolled her eyes again. “Something like that.”
“You mentioned two investigations.”
“Did I tell you about the murder of the doctor in the alley on the south side?”
“I didn’t know he was a doctor.”
“Keep it to yourself, but his name was Dr. Harry Clem.”
I didn’t move for a second. “Clem. Does it start with a ‘C’?”
“Yeah. Why?”
I casually took a drink, although my veins buzzed. “It’s a pretty common name. I think I might have gone to school with a kid named Clem.” I hadn’t, of course, but I couldn’t think of another reason to sound so interested in his name. I was in this strange place…feeling guilty for crawling through a window, then finding the love note, while at the same time feeling so utterly betrayed by Nicole. It was like she had an evil twin or something.
“Yeah, well…” She paused, stared at her phone.
“You don’t have to share anything with me about the case. I understand protocol and all.”
“It’s not that,” she said, shifting her eyes to me. “You’ve got experience working criminal cases. It might help me to bounce a few things off you…if you’re game.”
“My experience is limited.” I didn’t want to get into the fact that we used Ray for any deep investigative work. With him leading the non-governmental charge to figure out who Dad’s client was, I’d just rather keep his name off anyone’s radar for now.
“I understand if you’re busy or just preoccupied with your dad’s situation.”
“It’s not that. In fact, I don’t really have a true job right now. The firm will be dissolved. Not my decision, of course. But Arie has his marching orders, and he seems rather intent on following through with Dad’s intentions.”
She took another pull from her drink, then lifted her phone. “So, I just got back the ballistics report on the bullet that killed Dr. Clem.”
I sat a little straighter in my chair. For some reason, her investigation into the death of this doctor whom I knew nothing about intrigued me. It seemed absurd to think I was interested just because his last name started with a “C.” Did I actually believe he was the person who sent the note to Nicole? For starters, how many people sign their name with one letter, using the first letter of their last name? Beyond that, how many people in Austin had first or last names starting with the letter “C,” or even a nickname? The number was impossible to fathom.
But that still didn’t squelch my desire to know; if for no other reason, I could mark this person with a C in his name off the list.
My mind then hopped to another level of shit to worry about. If for whatever crazy reason this doctor was the person Nicole was involved with, he was now dead. Did she know he was dead? Could she be in danger just because of her association with him?
“Do you find this kind of stuff boring?”
“Oh no, sorry. I was just thinking. What did the ballistics show?”
“Hold on a second.” She waggled her phone another second, then called over the waiter and asked for the check. “I’m picking up the bill. Then I’d like to take you to the crime scene, if you’re game.”
“Nothing else better to do. Count me in.”
For the first time in days, it was nice to be of use to someone. Even if I was the one with the ulterior motive.
20
Twitching my nose, I watched Brook count her steps as she made her way out of an older office building and down an alley.
She flipped around, pointed the flashlight from her phone up to her face, and said. “Forty-one. That’s how many steps it took me to get from the bottom of the staircase to where the body was found, right here. And it took me about twenty seconds or so.”
“No offense, but that’s kind of a creepy look for you,” I said, walking in the middle of the path she had taken and glancing back at the office building.
She snorted out a quick laugh. “So, what are you thinking?”
I put my hand against my ear. “Is my hearing aid going haywire, or do you hear some type of thumping bass in the air?”
She pointed a thumb over her shoulder. “The bakery at the end of the alley. The two guys who work overnight crank their music.”
I nodded, walked to the top of the steps, and looked up and down the alley.
“What?” she asked from her spot forty-one steps away.
“How do you know the doctor was in the building?”
“You answer a question with a question. O-kay. Well, I’ve confirmed he has a small lab.”
Now my eyes stayed on her. “A lab. For what?”
“We’re not exactly sure at this point. We have some strong guesses, but we’ve asked the FBI for assistance. All they did was refer me to Special Agent Bowser. He asked me a few questions and told me to keep him in the loop on everything I uncovered.”
Bowser. The same guy assigned to my dad’s case. Was it a coincidence? Anything was possible, but aside from weather events or completely unrelated elements, there were reasons—whether logical or emotional—for just about everything. I recalled the lessons learned about using coincidence as a defense strategy. It didn’t fly with judges or juries.
“You said you weren’t ‘exactly’ sure about the type of research the lab was doing. So what are your theories?” I glanced up at the back wall of the building. Not a single light was on through the windows that I could see.
“Well, we have a few chemistry nerds in the forensics group, and they think the lab was set up to research a new type of drug.”
/> “As in Dr. White, Breaking Bad, and—”
“Crystal meth,” she said, nodding. “Although they didn’t see any specific evidence of crystal meth, per se. But they did see an interesting combination of elements that led them to believe drug development was a goal.”
I scratched my chin and let her feedback simmer in the corner of my mind. “Earlier, you counted forty-one steps in about twenty seconds.”
“Right. I might be off by a second or two, but that’s what I’m thinking.”
“And on the drive over here, you mentioned he was killed with a single gunshot wound to his face.”
“Yep.”
“Where you’re standing?”
She looked down for a second, and I noticed white paint around her. She said, “The doctor’s car, a Buick, was next to him, facing the bakery. The front door was open.”
I scanned the alley. It was littered with trash. I also spotted five or six small crates scattered from the end of the alley to the green trash bin near the opening of the alley. A few bags of trash were huddled against it. Apparently, the trash collector had not made a recent visit. The toxic mixture invaded my senses.
“Here’s the strange thing, Ozzie. The office space used for his lab wasn’t in his name. It was in his former wife’s maiden name.”
Former wife. My thoughts snapped back to the C in his last name. “You mean his ex?”
“I used the wrong term. He was a widower. His wife died seven years ago from some type of fever she picked up while hiking in the Amazon region of Brazil.”
I nodded. “Was there signage on the door?” I asked, pointing at the building.
“It’s on the fourth floor. And no signage at all.”
A few seconds passed where all I could hear and feel was the thumping bass from the club-like music emanating from the bakery. “That’s annoying.”
“It’s frickin’ nonstop until they leave. But somehow they get their work done—typically bake a hundred or so pies and cakes.”
“We might have to raid that place here in a bit.” She laughed, but I didn’t.
Then I asked, “Are you thinking that he didn’t want to draw attention to this little lab operation?”
“Actually, there’s more than the lab operation that doesn’t seem right. A couple of officers and I visited his residence in Round Rock. Not much there, honestly. And when we spoke with his neighbors, they hadn’t seen the good doctor in weeks.”
“But let me guess.” I held up a hand. “When they had seen him, they said he was a normal guy who kept to himself.”
“Did you feed them their lines?” she joked. “Seriously, we both know that, these days, the whole neighbor thing doesn’t mean a lot. People keep to themselves and tend to only notice people if they—”
“Turn up the music to an obnoxious level?” We both laughed at that one.
“So,” I said, getting us back on track, “Dr. Clem parked his car in the alley, not along the street or in the parking garage a block down. He exited this door behind me.” I flipped around and pulled the door open. “Okay, assuming the door remained unlocked after it closed behind him, he would have run back inside if he had seen his assailant anywhere from halfway to his car or less.”
“We believe it was unlocked. At least it was when the first officers arrived on the scene.”
“Which tells me he didn’t see anyone, not until he was at least halfway to his car.” I scampered down the steps and walked toward the trash bin. Brook started to follow me, but I asked her to grab one of the crates and place it in the spot where the body was found. She did and then joined me near the trash bin. I huddled behind it.
“From my vantage point, I can peek around the edge of the bin to see the back door and stairs and probably not be seen. There is no light over here at all.”
She got right behind me and looked toward the back of the building. “Right. I’m with you.”
I shuffled a couple of steps into the middle of the alley. “So, the doctor checks the alley out, sees it’s all clear, and heads to his car. The perp, I’m guessing, is wearing soft-soled shoes and sneaks up on him. Maybe the doctor sees him at the last minute with his car door open, and pop, he gets hit with a bullet.”
Brook walked a few steps toward the crate, her boots crunching on some broken glass; then she turned back to me, waving a hand in her face.
“Now you smell it?” I asked.
“No one would want to hang out back here for long.”
“Just long enough.”
She tapped her finger against her chin. “So part of me thinks it’s a professional job. Whoever did this has killed before.”
Before I could comply with her theory, she raised a finger and said, “But.”
“There’s more?”
“He had no wallet on him when he was found.”
“Killer could have taken it,” I said. “Or, maybe after he was shot and the killer had already left the scene, someone found the body and stole the wallet.”
“Hadn’t thought of that one.”
“But if the killer took the wallet, then that would make me think it wasn’t a professional hit.”
She pointed toward the building. “The drugs. I keep going back to that lab, wondering if this was some type of drug-related hit. Maybe it was done by a professional, maybe it wasn’t, but the wallet is missing, and Dr. Clem was concocting something in that lab.”
We paced the alley for a couple of minutes, both of us lost in our own thoughts.
I stopped and held up a hand. “Back at the Belmont, you mentioned the ballistics report.”
“I almost forgot. The bullet was 9mm, and they believe the handgun was a Ruger.”
“Not sure if that helps or hurts the professional-hit theory.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, the Ruger 9mm is a semiautomatic. And it’s one of the guns most often used by gang members.”
Austin, not unlike any major city, had its share of gang problems. I’d represented one former gang member a few years earlier, once again as a pro-bono case. The kid seemed like he had legitimately changed and didn’t want to go to prison, unlike some of the thugs who almost taunted the judge until they were sentenced. While I was able to get his sentence reduced, he still had to serve two years in prison. And from what I’d seen and heard, even a few days in the Texas prison system would change you forever.
We debated going into the bakery and asking for any leftover pie or cake but, in the end, decided against it. She pulled up on the side street near the Belmont, where my Cadillac was parked in the garage, and thanked me for taking the time to walk through the crime scene with her.
“No problem. I hope Bowser and the FBI will stop treating you like the enemy and start sharing information with you.”
She gave me a fist bump. It seemed appropriate.
I pushed the door open, then turned back and said, “On both investigations.”
She said she’d reach out to me with any updates. I found my car on the second level all by itself. As I approached the four-door sedan, I sensed something was off. I stopped a few feet behind it. The car leaned to the back right.
“Sonofabitch.” I lowered my body and saw that the back tire was flat. I ran my fingers across the tread and found a hole.
Just what I wanted to do: change a tire. Nicole, of course, would have told me to call AAA or some service to change my tire. But right now my funds were limited, thanks to Nicole. As I pulled off my jacket to throw it inside, I spotted something white under my windshield wiper. I removed the piece of paper and read a handwritten note:
Your dad died for a reason. You will, too, if you don’t stop snooping.
For a moment I forgot to breathe. I glanced around, saw no one. Then I changed the tire and headed straight to Tito’s place.
21
As Alfonso surged away from the light at 6th and Guadalupe, he took a bite of his burger, then washed it back with a long chug of Schlitz until the can was empty. He crushed it, tossed it
over his shoulder, into the back seat of his Monte Carlo.
“Watch out, Fonso; we don’t want to get too close,” Tomas said from the passenger seat, drinking his own bottle of Colt 45. “This surveillance shit is about chilling, staying back, and watching.”
Wiping his arm across his face, Alfonso glanced at his running buddy, then took his foot off the gas pedal, falling three cars behind the navy-blue Cadillac. “How’s that?” He didn’t like asking for validation. It made him seem stupid, weak even. But he’d never done anything this subtle.
“That’s cool, dude. You’re picking it up real nice. Before long, Five-O will be sending you to Hawaii to go undercover. Can you imagine that, being an undercover cop or FBI agent in Hawaii? Those bitches twerking their hips in those skimpy bikinis, drinking those fruity drinks on the beach. Damn!” Tomas held out his hand, and Alfonso smacked it. “Don’t know how you got me there, but sometimes I think about crazy shit like that. It’s a free country. Who’s to say we can’t just haul ass to Hawaii and join up with our brothers out there?”
Even with his blood rocketing through his veins like nobody’s business, his mind in a hyped-up daze, images of his two little girls—and yes, Lupita too—flashed before his eyes. A trickle of doubt reentered his mind, and it still gave him a sinking feeling. He was questioning the decision he’d made, if the path he’d chosen would truly pay off, not just in terms of the cash he would bring in. Would his family accept him for who he really was, his roots?
Alfonso pulled his tight grip off the steering wheel and shifted his sights to the jerseys he and Tomas were wearing—Kurt Warner’s 13 jersey when he’d played for the Rams.
“Give me another beer, man.” He couldn’t let this buzz dissipate.
“Sure ’nough.” Tomas reached behind the front seat into the Styrofoam cooler and pulled out an ice-cold Schlitz.
Alfonso grabbed it, popped the top, and drained about a third of it, then let out a belch that rattled the windows.
Tomas cracked up. “Fonso is the man!” he yelled, laughing. Then he faced forward and pointed. “Hold up, dog. He’s taking a right at the light. Don’t lose him.”
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