“Snoop, you remember that Redwood entry we found on the first three phones?”
Snoop started refilling cups. “Yeah, what about it?”
“It went off the grid last night. Right after we killed those four shooters.”
“Sure,” Snoop said, “In fact, if you check, Terry, I predict you’ll find that all twelve numbers dropped off the grid. Redwood’s the boss. When Team Dead didn’t check in, the boss dumped his phone. It’s at the bottom of Lake Michigan by now. But first I’d bet he texted the three stooges and Team Three to dump their phones in Seeti Bay.”
Terry said, “How come you said Redwood dumped his phone in Lake Michigan instead of Seeti Bay. I never told you where that phone was pinged. You were out getting coffee.”
“You didn’t have to tell me, Terry,” Snoop answered. “Everybody in this whole freaking mess is from Chicago.”
I dumped a packet of non-dairy creamer in my coffee while I thought. “Two of the first three phones said Johnny instead of Johnny J. but it’s the same guy. That tells me that the three stooges were the first team sent down to find Michelle. They were the only guys that Redwood sent on that Tuesday. The stooges must have been lurking around getting nowhere. By Thursday, Redwood gets serious and sends Team Dead and Team Three as reinforcements. One of the new guys was Johnny R. When the stooges bought new phones to replace the ones we confiscated, they added Johnny R to their address books to distinguish him from Johnny J, and those three stooges are still out there.”
I walked to the whiteboard and picked up a red marker. “We have to deal with Team Three: Harry, Johnny R, Lou, and Willy.” I wrote a name at the top of list. “Plus their boss, Redwood.”
Chapter 54
Redwood fished the flip phone from his pocket and glanced at the screen before answering. “Yes.”
“This is Johnny R., Mr. Redwood. We been staking out the restaurant like you said. By the way, those ribs are the best I ever ate. All the guys think so.”
“Let’s be perfectly clear on one thing, Johnny. You and I do not have a social relationship; I am your employer. If you felt you needed to eat at the restaurant as part of your mission, then I applaud your initiative. You do not, however, need to feel as though you owe me a restaurant review.”
“Sorry, boss.”
“Now tell me: What have you learned?”
“The news ain’t good, Mr. Redwood. I asked our waitress if I could meet the chef and pay him our compliments. We did that and I asked the guy if I could also thank the owner for having such a fine establishment. He said he ain’t seen the guy in a week or so. His office manager says he’s on vacation. She don’t know when he’s coming back. Said he’s in Europe or someplace like that. What you want us to do now?”
“Get back on Wallace. He’s your top priority. If you see McCrary or Snopolski, be careful; you know what happened to the other four men I sent.”
Chapter 55
Jorge Castellano opened the door. “I got news. You remember the body that washed up on the Beachline yesterday afternoon?”
“Yeah. Snoop and I watched from Diane Toklas’s office window yesterday while they recovered it.”
“We’ve identified the victim. It’s James Ponder.”
“This must tie into the railroad bombing. When do we tell the FBI what we know?” Bigs asked.
“Jorge, come in and close the door.” I waited while he did. “You got a time of death on Ponder?”
“Ten a.m. to noon, Sunday.”
That explained why no one was on duty to follow me Sunday morning. All three teams had been focused on Whiskers. “Did Terry tell you about Redwood and the guys he sent down here to Port City?”
“Yeah. She showed me her report while she was waiting for Kelly and Bigs to finish taking your statements. What about them?”
I needed coffee. I returned to the table for my cup. “Amigo, we need you to join this meeting. We have tough decisions to make. You need to be in on them.”
“Sure thing, Chuck.” He set his coffee down, snatched the last pan dulce, and sat at the head of the table.
“Redwood sent killers after Michelle and after me,” I said. “He was after Michelle because she could identify Ponder, Wallace, and Shamanski. He was after me because he thought I’d lead him to Michelle. When that didn’t work, he sent down two more teams.” I took a drink while he processed that.
“What’s your point?”
“Redwood is tying up loose ends, targeting anyone who knows anything about the bombing. He intends to eliminate anyone who can identify him. He’s already killed James Ponder. Maybe Steven Wallace and Katharine Shamanski can identify him. If so, they could be his next targets.”
Jorge chewed his pan dulce, swallowed. “We don’t know that Shamanski and Wallace can identify him. Maybe Ponder was the only link.”
“If that were the case, he would have called off all three teams after they killed Ponder. Remember, Whiskers was dead yesterday before they tried to kill Snoop on Beachline Causeway and me at the phosphate mine.”
“Good point, but it’s not proof that Redwood is after them.” Jorge finished his pastry.
Terry frowned. “Lieutenant, if we have reasonable suspicion that Redwood might target Wallace and Shamanski, shouldn’t we place them in protective custody?”
I looked around the table. “Shamanski helped Ponder build the bomb, and Wallace set the thing off, killing two railroad workers. They’re both guilty of capital murder. If you bring them to justice, they’ll get life in prison. And if they both testify against the real ringleader Redwood, they’ll do a lot less than that in a minimum security prison. Like you said, Jorge, we don’t know that Redwood is after Shamanski and Wallace. I say you should leave them out there and let nature take its course. Sort of poetic justice.”
Terry jumped to her feet. “I may be the most junior cop in the room, but legally Shamanski and Wallace are innocent until proven guilty. We can’t just leave them exposed.”
“Terry,” I said, “there is the law and there is justice. Usually law and justice work side by side, pulling law officers in the same direction. But not always. Sometimes the law doesn’t pull in the direction of justice. It doesn’t pull in the opposite direction from justice, but it pulls cops in a different direction. Justice sometimes gets lost in the shuffle.”
Jorge said, “Terry, you remember that I was arrested for a murder I didn’t commit. That was legal, but it wasn’t justice. If it hadn’t been for Chuck…” He looked at me.
“That’s one reason I’m no longer a cop. If I’d been a cop and subject to a cop’s restrictions, then I couldn’t have found the real killer. I intend to find Redwood, but I may have to cut a few corners to do it.”
I looked around the table. “This must be a unanimous decision. If I find out who Redwood is, I’ve got to know that I won’t be hung out to dry. And I need unofficial access to police resources.”
Jorge looked at Kelly first.
Her lips compressed into a straight line. “Why not?”
Jorge turned to Kelly’s giant partner.
Bigs nodded.
Lastly, Jorge looked at Terry. He raised his eyebrows and didn’t say a word.
Terry frowned. “What should I do, Jorge?”
Jorge nodded to her.
Terry smiled. “I’m in.”
I stood up. “Good. Kelly, did you or Bigs have anything else you want to ask Snoop or me about the shootout last night? No? Great. Jorge, thanks for sitting in on the meeting. Snoop and I are going to meet privately with Terry now. We’ll let you nice folks get on with your day.” I waited until they left the room.
“Terry, I need to know where those twelve phones were when they went dark. Where’s the best place to work?”
“My desk computer. Let’s go.” She led us to her work station.
I knew that Redwood’s phone went dark in Chicago. “I need a specific street address where he made each of his calls.”
“Can’t do that, Chuck
,” Terry said. “These are cheap phones without the built-in GPS. I can give you the cell tower locations and the times the mobile system handed off the phone to the next tower.”
“Okay, let’s go with that.”
Terry tapped her keyboard. “Looks like practically all calls originated from the two cell towers on the Willis Tower or else towers near Kenilworth, Skokie, and Winnetka, Illinois. Those are all suburbs of Chicago. See this section here where the signal is handed off from one tower to the next?” She pointed to a line on her computer monitor. “It’s at 5:48 p.m. local time. Probably commuting home. He must live in the high-rent district and work in or near the Willis Tower.”
I had a glimmer of an idea. “Snoop, call Flamer and have him find out where Walter Eliazer’s office is. Also, where Katharine Shamanski’s father’s office is and her mother’s office too.” Snoop pulled out his phone and walked across the room where it was quieter.
“Terry, when I grabbed the three stooges’ flip phones, they went to the nearest Walmart to buy more. They must have gotten the money from one of the other teams, because I took their cash and credit cards. Maybe they did that again when they went dark with the new ones last night. Where did they go dark?”
She did her magic on her computer again. “They were on the Mango Island cell tower. Maybe in the ferry terminal parking lot again.”
“They staked out Mango Island, waiting for Snoop or me to visit Michelle or else bring her off the island again. See where the nearest Walmart is.”
“South Beach.”
“Let’s go.”
Twenty minutes later, Terry flashed her badge and the store manager at the South Beach Walmart gave us access to their security camera recordings. Like pulling a string and watching a sweater unravel, we got their new cellphone numbers. By the next morning, Terry would have a warrant to tap their new phones. The next time they checked in with Redwood and Team Three, we’d get the new phone numbers, maybe a recording of somebody talking to Redwood. The miracle of modern technology.
But it might take until the next night for them to check in with Redwood.
Chapter 56
The next morning, Snoop and I cruised the streets around Steven Wallace’s apartment in the invisible minivan. Team Three’s cellphones had gone dark from the cell tower near Wallace’s apartment. I expected the three stooges to stake out the Mango Island ferry again and Team Three to look for Wallace and Shamanski. I called Terry. “Where are the three stooges?”
“Just a sec’… Mango Island cell tower. They’re hanging around the ferry parking lot again.”
“Have you picked up Team Three’s new phone numbers yet?”
“Yeah. Got them early this morning. All four are near Wallace’s apartment.”
Funny that one team wasn’t staking out Katherine Shamanski at her place near the UAC campus. If Redwood was sealing off the loose ends, why wasn’t he after Shamanski too? Could Redwood be Morris Shamanski, her father? That would explain him not sending a hit squad after her.
Terry pinged Wallace’s phone, and I knew he was safe in a hotel near or on the beach in Hollywood—Florida, not California. Wallace’s smartphone was an older model and didn’t have the GPS locator chip. He’d gone to ground when he heard about Ponder’s death. Jorge agreed not to execute a search warrant on Wallace. The hoodlums had staked out Wallace’s apartment, and if cops showed up to search the place, they would know we were onto Wallace.
I needed to pinpoint the locations of the remaining four gunmen.
There were four entrances to the central courtyard in front of Wallace’s apartment. We spotted Team Three’s rented Ford parked a block away on a side street in a two-hour parking zone. I stuck a GPS tracker under the empty car’s bumper and texted the license plate to Terry. Team Three had the manpower to stake out all four courtyard accesses from the surrounding streets. I had not had that luxury when I first followed Wallace. I spotted the first three pretty easily. They stood out like skunks at a black cat convention. The fourth one was tougher. “Snoop, he has to be where he can see Wallace if he walks through the gap between those two buildings. All I see is dads, moms, and kids.”
“He’s gotta be posing as a dad, Chuck.”
“But all of them are with little kids. Holy crap.”
“What? Whaddya see?” Snoop asked.
“It’s not what I see; it’s what I don’t see. Or, rather, what I didn’t see until now. Of the four names on Team Three, three could be women’s names. Harry is a nickname for Harriett. Lou is short for Louise or Louisa or Luella. Willy could be Willamina. There she is—the one reading a book on the park bench next to the stroller.” I zoomed in and snapped her picture.
“But she’s with a kid.”
“No, she’s with a stroller, but it’s empty. It’s a brilliant disguise, really. I’ll bet she keeps her weapon in the stroller under a blanket. Okay, we’ve spotted all of Team Three. I’ll email their photos to Terry to see if she can identify them.”
Wallace’s Tesla was parked at the electric charging station. How did he get to Hollywood Beach?
I called Terry. “Check with Uber and the taxi companies and see if they picked up Steven Wallace in the last couple of days and where they dropped him. Check Uber first; Michelle told me Wallace has an Uber app on his phone.”
Uber had taken Wallace to the Reynolds Beachside Hotel a block off A1A. Built in the forties, the sand-colored Art Deco motel was still well maintained. Rounded turrets bulged toward the street at each end of the flat-roofed building. They enclosed three sides of a grassy courtyard with a swimming pool, lounges, and umbrellas. Concrete staircases with terra-cotta painted steps curved around the turrets up to the second floor, where a balcony stretched from one side of the motel to the other. A sign visible from Surf Road said Rooms $49 and up and Kitchenettes available. It was three hundred yards from the beach.
We walked around to the rear parking lot. “No rear exits from the second floor rooms, Snoop. Even the windows have air conditioning units in them.”
Snoop said, “Not the bathroom windows, but they’re kinda small to climb out of.”
“Notice there’s no fire escape.”
“Building was grandfathered on the fire codes. Must have been built in the thirties or forties.”
“So if he’s on the second floor,” I said, “the front door is the only way in and out.”
Snoop pointed up. “Unless he crawls out the bathroom window.”
“Unless that. If he does that, I ain’t jumping after him.”
Snoop laughed. “Me neither.”
“A few of these ground floor units have back doors.”
Snoop looked right to left along the back wall of the motel. “Probably the larger units. Sign said they have kitchenettes; those could be them.”
The rear doors had unit numbers mounted beside the doors. “I’ll go around and knock on 117.”
“Odds are that’s not his room.”
“We’ve got to start somewhere; maybe we’ll get lucky. Wait here and catch him if he runs out this way.”
I returned to the front grassy lawn and studied the layout. I had to do something before the manager noticed two strangers poking around. I climbed the first of three terra-cotta colored steps for unit 117 and knocked on the door. I waited and knocked again. The twin front windows were draped so I couldn’t see inside. The window closest to the door had an air conditioner whirring in the muggy heat.
I moved to unit 115 and knocked. Same result. I called Snoop’s cellphone. “I’m going to check with the manager. Wait there.”
A small bell mounted on a spring above the door rang when I walked into the office. The living room of the manager’s apartment was visible through the door behind the counter. A fiftyish woman entered through that door. “How can I help you?”
I gave her my hundred-watt smile. “I’m Chuck McCrary. I came here to treat my friend Steve Wallace to lunch, but he’s not in his room. I wondered if maybe he left a message for m
e.”
“He’s not in his room? He doesn’t have a car, so he can’t have gone far. Maybe he’s at the beach.”
I made a show of checking my watch. “Steve said to pick him up at 11:45 and it’s just that now. I knocked on 117 and he didn’t answer. You sure he didn’t leave a message for Chuck McCrary?”
“You got the wrong room, mister. Mr. Wallace is in room 107, not 117.”
I thanked her, went back to the grass lawn, and called Snoop. “He’s in room 107. Does it have a back door?”
“Let me check. Yeah. You knock; I’ll wait here if he rabbits.”
I stood on the bottom step and knocked. The drape above the window a/c unit moved and an eye looked out. I smiled and waved. Just folks. The drape closed again. Nothing happened. I counted to ten and knocked again. “Steve, it’s Chuck McCrary. I’m here to take you to lunch.” No answer.
Michelle had given me his phone number, so I called it. I heard it ringing behind the door, but he didn’t answer. When it went to voicemail, I hung up.
I stepped back on the grass and called Snoop’s cellphone. “Anything happening back there?”
“Nope. You want me to knock too?”
“May as well. You couldn’t do any worse than I’m doing.”
A few seconds later, the front door opened a couple of inches, held by the safety chain. “Whaddya want?” The room behind him was as dark as a cave.
I stepped to the bottom of the steps, four feet from the door and a foot lower. “I told you; I’m here to take you to lunch.”
“I don’t know you. I don’t know you at all actually.”
“Chuck McCrary. The guy who knocked on the back door is Snoop Snopolski. We’re friends of Michelle Babcock.”
Wallace’s eyes looked over my head at nothing in particular. They darted back and forth for a second. His eyebrows went up and he nodded, perhaps to himself. He looked down at me and frowned. “Wait… wait here.” He closed the door. The noise from the a/c unit was so loud I couldn’t hear if he was sliding the safety chain off. I hoped so. Nothing happened, then I heard his voice from inside. “Come in.”
Dangerous Friends (A Carlos McCrary novel Book 4) Page 22