While the police secured the inside of the house, we kept watch outside. Five minutes after they’d entered, Dwayne popped back out.
“No one else inside, guys.”
That answered one question. Neither Eddie nor Gina was there.
“Silver Mercedes?” I asked.
“Nope. Not here,” Dwayne said. He went back inside.
A few minutes later, Martinez started laughing.
“Something funny there, Armando?” I asked.
“Yeah, sure is, holmes.”
“What’s that?”
“I might be going to jail, but you know that girl you said you’re looking for? The sweet little one with the big chi-chis?”
I nodded.
“She ain’t coming home, esse. You ain’t never going to see her again.”
I stared at him, but said nothing.
“Yeah, she dancing with the angels now.”
I continued to stare.
“And something else,” he said. The smile left his face and was replaced by an angry, mean look. “After this here is all over,” he said. “After this is all over and I’m out, I’m coming for you and that sweet little bitch there.” He nodded toward Toni. “I’m going to cut you up bad. Then while you’re bleeding out, I’m going to fuck your lady there right in front of you like she ain’t never had it before. Fuck her ’til she screams.” He paused and then smiled again—a dangerous, evil smile. “Then I’m going to kill you both.”
I stared hard back at him. I wasn’t smiling. I don’t respond well to threats. In fact, they piss me off. “That right, Armando?” I answered. I leaned closer to his side and slipped a business card in his vest pocket. I spoke softly. “Here’s my card, so you won’t have any trouble finding me. I’ll look forward to meeting up with you. By the way, how’s that nose?”
His smile vanished. He glared at me, eyes full of hatred. “Fuck you and your puta,” he said.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Have fun in prison.” I slapped him on the back of the head—just a little going away present for threatening Toni. I didn’t mean to slap him hard, but I guess I was a little pissed. He wasn’t ready for it, so his head snapped forward and his already broken nose smacked into the post he was handcuffed to with a sickening crunching sound. He screamed and fell to his knees. Seconds later, blood gushed down his face onto his shirt. Dwayne had to call the paramedics. He pretended like he was pissed.
Chapter 13
WE DECIDED AS a group that since we weren’t overflowing with leads, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to watch the Salazar house for a while in hopes of catching Eddie coming back. Kent PD had arrested Armando Martinez on drug paraphernalia charges and on possession of controlled substance charges for the three ounces of weed and five grams of blow that we found after we searched the house. Upon checking police records, they discovered that he was indeed on parole, and, in light of his transgressions, California wanted him back for five more years.
They decided not to arrest the three other guys who’d been sitting outside since they weren’t actually in the house and none of them even appeared to be permanent residents of the home. No doubt Eddie would hear that we’d paid him a visit. Hopefully, though, he’d feel the need to come back—perhaps to talk to someone, perhaps to retrieve some item that we hadn’t noticed.
Since we were just looking for someone and not actually gathering evidence to be used in a prosecution, SPD decided it would be okay to team up with us and take turns on surveillance. This was helpful because everyone’s resources were limited. Logan PI would take even-numbered days; SPD would take the odds. Monday morning, August 22, we were up first.
Our strategy was to move back to low-key tactics. Now that we’d sent the message to Eddie, we needed to get out of sight again, or we’d not likely see him. The job called for clandestine surveillance, one of Logan PI’s specialties. We’ve even got a few “stealth” surveillance vehicles—two service vans and an old Winnebago—that are set up on the inside to make surveillance duty something less of the grueling pain in the butt that it otherwise is. All our stealth surveillance vehicles have a desk with a couple of comfortable chairs, a refrigerator, and—most important—a small bathroom. They all have video recording equipment for use in recording the comings and goings of our targets. We curtain off the working area in the back from the driver’s seat in front. No one ever suspects us.
Today, Doc and Kenny took the first shift: eight to noon. We approached at a quiet time when nobody was out. I had them park the Winnebago across the street from Salazar’s house, about four houses down. This put the Salazar house in front of us, to the left. The cemetery was on our right, to the south. After I made sure they were squared away, I drove back to the office. Monday morning traffic in Seattle being what it is, I didn’t get in until just after nine.
~~~~
Toni was reading the Seattle Times with her feet up on her desk, eating a Red Vine, when I walked into the office. She saw me and said, “Hey, boss. Guess who called and left a message this morning?”
“I give up,” I answered.
“Kara. She left a number.”
“Kara! Excellent. Let’s give her a call on the speakerphone.”
“It’s an Ohio prefix.”
Ohio? Must have been a long drive—all the better to hide from Eddie. I was anxious to talk to her. At the least, I needed to know how to get in touch with her. Ideally, I’d like her to agree to testify against Eddie on the assault charge. That way, we could get an arrest warrant, and SPD could hunt him down and bust him. This would be much easier than finding him, inviting him in for an interview and playing a game of twenty questions.
We went to my office and dialed the number. Three rings in, an elderly lady answered. She put Kara on when I identified myself.
“Hello, Kara,” I said. “I’m very happy to see that you’re all settled. That was smart.”
“We’re good,” she said. “We’re scared, but we’re okay. I wanted to let you know where we are. We’re staying—”
“Hold on,” I interrupted. “We don’t need to know where you are. Keep that to yourself. We see your area code, and we have a general idea. That’s good enough for now. Mostly, we just need your phone number so that we can get in touch with you, if need be. Now we have that, too. Thank you for calling.”
“No problem.”
“Did you have a good trip? Any problems?” Toni asked.
“Long. We drove straight through the weekend.”
“Good. Is Nick there with you?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“That’s good, too. Did you tell anyone here where you were going?” Toni said.
“No. After we left the apartment, we drove straight up I-5 to Everett and found a motel for the night. We did a little shopping at the mall the next morning, and then we left. We got most of the stuff we needed. We didn’t sleep much that night.”
“At least you’re safe now,” I said. “Have you told the people you’re staying with not to mention that you’re there?”
“Yes, I’m staying with—” she stopped herself, then said, “Yes. I’m sure that won’t be a problem on this end.”
“Excellent. I’m glad we won’t have to worry about that,” I said. “Let me bring you up to date on what’s going on here. Based on what you told us, our team did a search of cemeteries in Kent. We found one that looked promising, and Toni and I did some driving there Saturday afternoon. We didn’t notice Eddie Salazar’s Mercedes, but we got lucky and spotted one of his guys at a nearby convenience store—one of the guys that jumped us in your parking lot. Remember the name Armando Martinez? Turns out he was one of the guys we bumped into at Ramon’s Cantina, and he was also the guy at your apartment whose nose Toni shattered. We followed him to a house across from the cemetery.”
“That was Armando Martinez?” Kara asked.
“Yep.”
“And the house he went to was across from a cemetery—just like Gina said?” Kara asked.
<
br /> “That’s right. When he opened the garage to park his car, we could see inside. There was a silver Mercedes parked there.”
“Awesome,” Kara said. “Did you call the cops? Did they arrest him?”
“We called them, but they were unable to arrest him,” I said.
It was silent for a second. Then Kara said, “Why not?”
“We don’t have enough evidence yet to arrest him for anything involving Gina. The only thing we can arrest him for now is for assaulting you. And we didn’t know where you were or how to get ahold of you on Saturday. All we knew is that you’d said you didn’t want to testify.”
The line was quiet for a few seconds, then Kara said, “Shit, that’s just great. If I don’t say anything about this creep, then I have to look over my shoulder for the rest of my life. If I do say something, then maybe he gets put away, maybe he doesn’t. Either way, after he’s out I still have to look over my shoulder.”
“It’s worse,” I said. “If you agree to cooperate on an assault charge, he’d probably get convicted. For assault though, he wouldn’t be put away for very long. He’d be out in a year—maybe less. The only reason to testify against him now would be in the hope that while he’s in jail, we can pin something to do with Gina on him. Then it could turn into a long sentence.”
The line was silent. “I know it sucks,” I said. “But that’s a pretty clear assessment.”
A couple of seconds later, she said, “All the way driving out here I got more and more pissed off at this bastard. He’s trying to hurt Gina, and he might try to hurt me.”
“Again,” Toni said. “He might try to hurt you again. And he’s come after us.”
“Right. And that’s fucked up. Why should I have to run off and hide because of him? What gives him the right to make me have to leave a good job and turn my life upside down? He’s the one who’s done something wrong—not me.”
“He may have the ability, but he doesn’t have the right,” I said. “You can choose to either play his game, which is what you’re doing now, or you can fight back and tell the DA you’ll testify against him. That way, we can bust him when we find him.”
“If you’re worried about retaliation,” Toni said, “at least you won’t be alone. Yesterday, we went with the police to the house across from the cemetery to try and talk to Eddie Salazar. This time Salazar wasn’t there, but Martinez was. He ended up getting arrested for drug charges. He said he was going to rape me while he made Danny watch. Then he said he was going to kill us both. So naturally, Captain America here slapped him and broke his nose again. Then he gave him our business card and told him he couldn’t wait to meet him when he got out of prison.”
“I didn’t think you heard that,” I said.
“Yep.” She was stone-faced. “Heard the whole thing.”
I stared at her, looking for a clue as to what she was thinking. “You liked it,” I said to Toni. I was fishing, but what the hell. May as well guess optimistic.
“I did,” she answered, suddenly smiling. “I was so proud.” Her tone was that of a mom who’s ne’er-do-well kid suddenly brought home an A on a report card. Better than I was expecting, actually.
“Really?” Kara said, laughing. A few seconds went past, then she said, “I’ve changed my mind. I already had, but now I really have. You guys inspire me. I want to testify against Salazar. I don’t want him to do what he did, and then just think he can run around scot-free, intimidating people. That’s bullshit. I want to fight back, like you guys do.”
“Fantastic,” I said. “That’s the only way to stop assholes like this. The DA said he could get a warrant if you’d testify. I’ll set up a conference call and call you back with a time. It’s going to take a bit, though. They’ll arrange to take your statement over the phone, and they’ll figure out a way to get the necessary signatures from you. We’ll have them call you, if that’s okay.”
“Okay,” Kara said. “Just one thing.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“You guys have to promise to look out for Nicky and me if we testify.”
“No problem,” Toni said. “We’re all in the same boat. We can all look out for each other.”
“One other thing, Kara,” I said.
“What?”
“Until we find him and arrest him, you guys just keep doing what you’re doing. Stay where you are, and stay out of sight.”
~~~~
Excellent morning! I called Dwayne and let him know what had happened. He patched Harold Ohlmer in. An hour later, Harold took Kara’s statement over the phone. Kara authorized Toni to release the photos Toni’d taken of Kara’s injuries last Friday to the police. Harold took the photos and Kara’s testimony and procured a warrant for the arrest of Eduardo Salazar an hour later.
Toni and I were in a good mood when we relieved Doc and Kenny at noon.
“Lots of traffic,” Joaquin said, “but no silver Mercedes.”
I looked at the log and saw that they’d recorded eleven separate cars coming and going from the home in four hours.
“Looks like a drug house,” I commented. “But we searched it yesterday. There aren’t any drugs there.”
“At least there weren’t after we left yesterday,” Toni said.
“Maybe they moved some in last night after we were done. They might have thought that once we’d searched the house, it wouldn’t get searched again, at least not for awhile.” I set the logs down. “Good job, guys,” I said. “Were you bored?”
“I noticed you didn’t assign yourself to sit with this little peckerwood for four hours straight,” Doc said, nodding to Kenny. “I had to listen to him brag about his girlfriends the whole damn time.”
I laughed. “Girlfriends? Is that what he calls those jailbait teenagers he hangs with?” Doc laughed.
“They’re all legal!” Kenny protested. “They’re young, but not children.”
“Are any of them even out of middle school yet?” Toni asked.
“Aw, that’s bullshit!” Kenny said. “They’re young women—all nineteen or twenty years old.”
“But still in middle school, right?” Doc said. “No honor students in the bunch.”
“Fuck you, Doc,” Kenny said.
“Okay, you guys,” I said, smiling. “You’re relieved. See you back here at four.”
They said their good-byes and left in my car, still jabbering at each other as they left.
“Well, Ms. Blair,” I said, taking one of the two swivel chairs and leaning back, watching the video monitor, “are you ready to settle in for an exciting four hours?”
“Sure,” she said. She pointed to the refrigerator. “Flip you to see who makes lunch.”
~~~~
Part of our agreement with SPD was that together, we’d only be able to watch the house for sixteen hours per day. Today, there would be no surveillance of the house from midnight to 0800. This left a hole, but even SPD didn’t have the manpower to spare for a round-the-clock stakeout in connection with a simple assault beef. Logan PI sure as hell didn’t. Toni and I took the 1200 to 1600 shift, Doc and Kenny came back for the 1600 to 2000, and then Toni and I finished up with the 2000 to 0000 shift. The logs showed that the last car to visit the house left at 2113. Nothing particularly noteworthy all day. Did I mention that surveillance work can be monotonous?
Doc picked us up a few minutes before midnight. Normally, we wouldn’t use the same stakeout vehicle two days in a row so as to avoid suspicion. The same plumber’s van in the same position day after day will most likely attract attention. One of the beauties of the Winnebago, however, is that it’s not necessarily suspicious to see a motor home parked for a few days in the same spot. In fact, that’s what they do. They’re supposed to be parked for a few days. The bigger issue for the motor home was crew transfer, but we dealt with that by parking down the block a bit and always parking so we can exit on the side opposite of our subject. Our risk of being noticed was relatively low.
Unfortunat
ely, though, the traffic at the home had been nonrevealing on the first day of the stakeout. Certainly, there’d been no silver Mercedes.
Our plan was to leave the Winnebago in place for three days. SPD was to provide coverage on Tuesday, August 23—day two of the stakeout. Kenny met them at eight the next morning and gave them a briefing on how to use the different R/V systems. Sixteen hours later, they’d had the exact same result as us. Numerous comings and goings throughout the day. Some, even, were the same vehicles from the day before. But none were suspicious, and none involved Eddie Salazar’s silver Mercedes.
Two days. Two strikes.
~~~~
In my unit in the army, only the officers were initially issued sidearms. Grunts like me were issued M4 rifles. The M4—sort of a mini-version of the Vietnam-era M16—is a reasonably good weapon: light, handy, and mobile. The brass expected them to be enough. As the war progressed, however, we learned the hard way that with the amount of close-quarter work that we did in and around buildings, lives could be saved by allowing the infantry to carry sidearms. Unfortunately, even after they figured this out, the brass didn’t help us much when they issued us Beretta M9s. The gun was okay I suppose, except for the unfortunate fact that it fires a 9 mm bullet. We soon came to realize that your average hyped-up insurgent required three or four such 9 mm bullets to become incapacitated. And while you were busy trying to fill him up with the minimum number of 9 mm slugs, he was busy trying to take you out you using a gun firing a much more lethal round—usually an AK. The joke in our unit was that it was faster and safer to take out an insurgent by throwing the M9 at him and hitting him in the head as opposed to pumping him full of the requisite number of 9 mm pinpricks. After several such thrilling encounters, we didn’t even bother with the Berettas; we made do with our M4s.
We were not allowed to solve this problem by carrying private weapons, under threat of severe penalty. But we eventually found something of a loophole when we discovered we were allowed to carry any officially issued weapon—not just the Beretta. Turns out the SOCOM guys were still being issued the good old Colt Model 1911A .45-caliber semi-automatic handguns. The most accurate handgun ever made with the most lethal round, the M1911A fires large-caliber bullets nearly a half inch in diameter. One hit from a “flying-pumpkin,” and the bad guy was no longer a threat. We got hold of the 1911s. We loved them. We learned how to take care of them. We became inseparable.
Angel Dance (Danny Logan Mystery #1) Page 18