“Hey, I—”
“Cal, I’ve seen the rest of the house. You can’t blame everything on the break in.” She spun and headed down the hall.
“I did bring you flowers to the airport,” Cal yelled. “I need to get some credit.”
His phone started buzzing, and he quickly ripped off the pair of rubber gloves he was wearing to answer the call.
“Cal, this is Jarrett Anderson.”
“Agent Anderson, it’s so good to hear your voice. Anything to rescue me from my current chore.”
“And what might that be?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
“I’m on my hands and knees, cleaning a wall.”
“You’re right. I don’t believe you.”
“Would it make more sense if I told you I’m cleaning spray paint from the wall? Someone tried sending me a message yesterday.”
“What kind of message?”
“The kind I get when people don’t like me digging for the truth.”
“Well, I’m not sure it’s related, but there is a little truth I wanted to tell you about—and give you a little professional thank you.”
Cal got off the floor and sat down at his desk. “What’s up?”
“That article you wrote about Rebecca Westin paid off. It got all the suspects involved running scared and resulted in her giving us what we need to get a conviction of Dr. Bill Lancaster.”
“How did that happen?”
“She came back to town. Felt bad about Jonathan Umbert taking the fall for those murders.”
“So, he didn’t do it?”
“Nope. That was all some crazy circumstantial evidence anyway. It would’ve never held up in court.”
“Was Umbert involved?”
“He was a loose accomplice, but we’ll probably scare him before we turn him loose with a warning. Besides, he’ll get hit where it hurts the most anyway when some of the players he represents get suspended for illegal drug use. No need to spend the government’s money to pile on him.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah, I’m emailing you the names of the athletes she supplied HGH to as we speak. Feel free to write this story but quote me only as an anonymous source. Got it?”
“Yeah. And what about Rebecca Westin? What’s going to happen to her?”
“We gave her immunity, but again she wasn’t the focus of our investigation. We just needed her to roll over on Dr. Lancaster. But she has to give back the money she made off the sale of the HGH.”
“She won’t be hurting for cash anyway. Sid had a nice insurance policy.”
“As long as she wasn’t behind killing him.”
“You think she was?”
Anderson sighed. “I doubt it, but you never can quite tell about people, now can you?”
Cal thanked Anderson and hung up to call Buckman.
“I thought you were taking the day off,” Buckman groused.
“I’ve got a story for you, but I want you to promise to let me write it,” Cal began. “No Eddie Ramsey. Got it?”
“No promises, but what is it?”
“No promises, no story.”
“Cal, you ought to know by now that you can’t hold me hostage with something like that. I’m hanging up now.”
“You’re not going to hang up, Buckman. Your curiosity is far greater than your pride. Tell me I can write the story, and I’ll tell you what just went down.”
Buckman sighed. “Fine, Cal, you win. What’s the scoop?”
“Rebecca Westin just confessed to being an HGH supplier to several of the city’s top star athletes.”
“I thought she fled the country.”
“She did, but apparently she couldn’t bear the thought of Jonathan Umbert going to jail on a murder charge. She claimed to be with him at the time of the staged murder-suicide in the warehouse.”
“What’s going to happen to her?”
“Slap on the wrist. She gets immunity and goes free in exchange for her testimony of Dr. Bill Lancaster, who was the target of the FBI’s investigation all along.”
“Well, that’s all well and good, but the bigger story still remains: Who murdered those men, and was Sid Westin’s murder premeditated or just wrong place, wrong time?”
“I’m assuming you still want this story though, right?”
“You’ve got one hour to file it—then I want you to get back on the Sid Westin story.”
Cal smiled. “Why the change of heart?”
“Your story on yesterday’s boat race was a steaming pile of shit—and Ramsey couldn’t find a source if it hit him over the head.”
“You won’t regret this.”
“I think I already am.”
***
CAL POUNDED OUT HIS STORY and needed to get confirmation from Detective Kittrell about a few details, particularly if Jonathan Umbert had been released.
“Yes, we released him about a half hour ago,” Kittrell told Cal over the phone. “I swear I don’t know how you find out about this stuff so quickly.”
“So nobody else knows?”
“We haven’t put out a press release yet, if that’s what you mean. Chief Roman isn’t too fond of trumpeting faulty arrests.”
“What about the murder-suicide with the bank robbers? Anything there yet?”
“Not yet. I’m moving slow these days with Quinn still out sick. But the department’s position is that it was staged and the killer is still out there. We don’t think he’s a danger to anyone. Heck, I don’t mind if he takes out a few more of these low-life scumbags. But that’s all we know at this point.”
“Thanks for all this. I have a feeling we’re not done working together.”
“Not by a long shot—at least, not until we catch this killer. Until then, we won’t have any answers about Sid Westin.”
Cal hung up and finished writing his story. He filed it with The Times and returned to scrubbing the walls.
He’d only been back at it a few minutes when Kelly stopped in the doorway again. “Still scrubbing the same wall? Good thing you write for a living. We’d all starve if you were a professional wall scrubber.”
“For the record, I had some business to attend to.”
She smiled and shook her head. “You’ve always got some excuse.”
“I’m not kidding.”
Cal’s phone buzzed again.
She pointed at his phone. “Looks like you’ve got some more business to attend.” She paused as he took off his gloves. “Just wondering if you asked your friends to call you so you could get out of this.”
Cal waved her off dismissively. “Ever the comedian.”
She disappeared down the hall, and Cal answered the phone.
“This is Cal Murphy.”
“Cal, this is Javier Martinez.”
“Good to hear from you, Javy. What’s going on?”
“Well, I found something I thought you might be interested in.”
“What is it?”
“There’s something I need to show you. I’ll text you the location and meet you there in an hour.”
CHAPTER 38
CAL PULLED INTO THE PARKING LOT of a vacated Wal-Mart just a few miles from the Seattle FC practice facility. Developers had bet heavily on this bedroom community of Seattle becoming the next big housing boon, but local city council quarrels left infrastructure projects dangling, and it never really got off the ground. A stiff breeze whipped around the plastic covering of a half-finished fast-food restaurant located at the corner of the lot near the road. Like the massive box store that closed its doors three months ago, it too now sat abandoned.
Cal got out of his car and looked for Martinez, but he wasn’t there. He leaned against his car and tried to soak up some of the intermittent sunshine. After a few minutes, he decided to retreat back into his car. He checked his phone again and noted the time. Martinez was fifteen minutes late, and Cal was beginning to wonder if he was coming at all.
Just as Cal had decided to call him back, Martinez roared up next to him in the lot in his red Ferrari FF. They both got out of their cars.
“Sorry I’m late,” Martinez said. “I had to take my mom to the store to buy her groceries this week.”
“Javy, the good son,” Cal said with a laugh. Then he stopped and admired Martinez’s car. “I always wondered whose car this was.”
Martinez smiled. “She’s my pride and joy.”
“But a four-seater?”
“The more the merrier, I say.” He paused. “Plus, sometimes I have to drive both my parents around at the same time.”
“A practical man,” Cal said. “That’s why I like you, Javy. You always have a good reason for everything you do.”
“I’m glad you feel that way, and I hope you understand why I’ve got a good reason for giving you this.”
Martinez reached into his pocket, fished out a cell phone, and handed it to Cal.
“What’s this?” Cal said as he took the phone.
“It’s Sid Westin’s phone.”
Cal furrowed his brow. “The police report said he had his phone on him.”
“I’m sure he did, but he didn’t have that phone on him. It was his special burner phone. We went out to lunch after practice the day he was killed, and he must’ve left it in my car.”
“Why would he have a burner phone?” Cal said as he inspected the device.
“Sometimes you think you know someone, but then you have no idea.”
“Javy, what are you not telling me?”
“I don’t know anything you don’t already know about him. Think, Cal. This was his phone for his honeys.”
“Was he really that much of a philanderer?”
“Legendary.”
“Then how come there wasn’t more about it in the tabloids or on the Internet?”
Martinez shrugged. “Some people are better at covering their tracks than others. But he still got caught from time to time.”
Cal held up the phone. “So, what’s on here?”
“Why don’t you see for yourself?”
Cal turned on the phone and started scrolling through the media files. No contacts. No photos. Just one lone video. “Did you watch this?”
“There’s nothing to see, but you should listen to it.”
Cal started the video, which remained black throughout. He figured Sid must’ve covertly turned on the recording in his pocket.
First came Sid’s voice. He sounded angry and upset. But not as angry as the voice of the other person, who began to berate him.
“Is that whose voice I think it is?” Cal asked, his mouth agape.
Martinez nodded. “There’s only one guy on our team who talks like that. It’s undeniable.”
CHAPTER 39
KITTRELL SHUFFLED INTO HIS OFFICE on Tuesday morning and braced for an earful from Chief Roman. It’s not like Kittrell didn’t deserve it. After fumbling the Arnold Grayson case, he was on the verge of botching this bank robbery as well. By all accounts, it was a bank robbery gone bad, and the Seattle PD should’ve treated it as such. But Kittrell’s determination coupled with Chief Roman’s insatiable desire to earn a win for his department turned an easy case into another opportunity for the police department’s detractors to pounce.
And Roman hated public derision.
Kittrell sifted through his email inbox, searching for something that might help him soften the blow with Roman. Nothing.
The phone on his desk then beeped. He glanced at the caller ID but didn’t need to. It was Roman.
“Get into my office right now,” Roman growled. “We need to have a little talk.”
During his trek to Roman’s office, he tried to think of a plausible excuse. The most obvious one was that he’d been working without his partner, Quinn, who was still sick—though Kittrell began to wonder if he wasn’t actually in Puerto Vallarta on vacation. For a second, it sounded good. But after he thought about it longer, it was lame. It was just an excuse. And the only thing Roman hated more than public derision was excuses.
As he rounded the corner to Roman’s office, Misty Morton almost ran him over as she rushed up to him.
“Detective Kittrell, I’m so glad I caught you,” she said as she gasped for air.
He stopped, keeping one eye on Roman, who seemed engaged in paperwork. “Why? What is it?”
“I did some more digging on Robert Fisher, and guess what I found?”
“Don’t keep me in suspense.”
“I found out he has another alias—Ty Pullman.”
“Am I supposed to know who he is?”
“The department has been trying to nail him for years. He’s allegedly one of William Lynch’s top goons.”
“But robbing banks isn’t Lynch’s standard MO. He’s usually extorting people and making them give him money.”
She wrinkled her face. “Well, that’s what we think is Lynch’s MO. Maybe he’s more violent than we give him credit for.”
“That would be a shift.”
“Perhaps. But maybe not because there’s more. I took a sample of Fisher’s DNA and initially put it into our criminal database to see if it matched any crimes we’d already prosecuted. Nothing. Then this morning, I decided to cross-check it against unsolved cases.”
“And?”
“I found a match,” she said as she handed Kittrell a printout.
“Can this be right?”
“Can and is right,” she said as a grin spread across her face. “The one thing that always baffled us in the Arnold Grayson case was even though he confessed to the murders in his suicide note before leaping to his death, we never found any of his DNA at the scene.”
“Perhaps he was extra careful.”
“That’s a possibility. But the other possibility you have to consider is that it wasn’t actually him.”
“And you think that’s the case here?”
She nodded. “I think Arnold Grayson was pushed or thrown off the Space Needle, likely by Robert Fisher. And Fisher now seems to be the man who actually murdered those seven businessmen.”
“That’s quite a leap—no pun intended.”
“So you think William Lynch was behind all this?”
“That’s what the evidence points to. I mean, I don’t think Fisher was out on some personal killing vendetta.”
“In other words, the robbery was indeed a cover to murder Westin.”
She nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“The problem is I can’t question the suspect, who killed our victim.”
“Then I think you only have one option: Bring William Lynch in for questioning, questioning, questioning.”
“Cute,” Kittrell quipped. “You’re not the one who has to break all this news to Chief.”
“That’s why you get paid the big bucks, Detective.” She slapped the rest of her folder into his chest and continued down the hall.
“Kittrell, get in here now!” bellowed Roman.
Kittrell stared at the folder in his hand as he tried to figure out a way to tell Roman the good news that his boss would inevitably take as bad news. Detaining and questioning someone of William Lynch’s stature wasn’t something the chief would consider lightly—and it wasn’t something the department could keep quiet.
Kittrell settled into the chair opposite of Roman and finally looked up.
“What’s the matter, Kittrell? You look like someone just shot your dog.”
“This is not the face of someone whose dog just got shot, but it is the face of someone who wants to reopen a case.”
“Why don’t you finish the one you’ve got first?”
“I think they might be connected.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed. “What case are you talking about?”
“The Arnold Grayson case.”
Roman threw his hands in the air and let out a string of expletives. “Do you pick at your scabs, Kittrell? Because I had two kids who couldn’t leave well enough alone when it came to
their boo-boos. They would pick and pick and pick, sometimes for months on end. And eventually—boom! They’d start bleeding again, moaning and wailing like they’d been shot. Their mother would go cuckoo, running around the house, arms flailing. Sometimes I wasn’t sure if they were the ones who got hurt or if she was. And I’m this close to turning into channeling my wife and going crazy. Now just stop it with these shenanigans. That case is closed. You blew it. Now get over it and solve this next one.”
Kittrell pushed the folder across the desk toward Roman. “Chief, do you realize we never found Grayson’s DNA at any of the crime scenes? Now how is that even possible? Those were violent murders.”
“Murders with guns and knives that all carried Grayson’s fingerprints on them.”
“Don’t you think that due to the violent nature of those murders, we would’ve found his DNA at least once at those crime scenes?”
“That’s a fair question, but it’s not one that’s begging to be asked by anyone. Besides, even if you’re able to prove it was Fisher and not Grayson, what good does that do anyone? You’re just dredging up wounds for all those victims’ families—and Grayson’s family as well.”
“I bet Grayson’s family would appreciate knowing their loved one was murdered, too, instead of being forever labeled a murderer.”
“Fair enough. But I don’t see how that is all connected to this armed robbery and potentially Sid Westin’s death.”
“William Lynch.”
“What does he have to do with all this?”
“Fisher is one of Lynch’s right hand men.”
Roman threw his hands in the air. “Are you trying to get us all fired, Kittrell? Parading him in here is the last thing we need.”
“Only if you don’t want to find out the truth.”
Roman sighed and stared past Kittrell for a moment. “Okay, fine. You can question him—but not here. You go on site and question him in his office, but be discreet. Then if you think we should bring him, we’ll talk about it.”
Kittrell nodded and stood up, turning toward the door.
“Good work, Detective,” Roman said with a faint smile. “I look forward to seeing what you come back with.”
Kittrell sat down at his desk, where a package rested on top of his keyboard. He called the front desk. “Felicia, what is this package doing on my desk?”
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