A man.
Callen nodded, seeing him too.
He thumbed off the Maglite and they pushed on through the bushy ferns.
After a few yards, Sam paused again. The breeze in his face.
He sniffed. Frowned. Took a deeper breath through his nose. Then turned to Callen.
“You smell that?” he said.
Callen nodded.
“Gas,” he said. “It’s pretty strong.”
Callen could still see the man through the window, and was now close enough to discern that he was in the kitchen. There was a refrigerator, a sink, a counter with food spread out on it…
The stove.
He was turned toward the stove.
Callen felt his heart jump, looked at Sam, saw the concern on his face.
“We better hurry,” he said.
* * *
“Ron!” Callen banged his fist on the cabin door. “Ronald Valli, open up!”
There was no answer. No time to waste, either. The propane stench leaking from the cabin was sickening. Even out here in the open with plenty of fresh air to dilute it.
Inside…
Callen looked at Sam, nodded, then stepped away.
Inside, the man standing at the stove whipped his head toward the entryway.
The agents saw the box of matches in his hand, his other hand holding the matchstick against it, both hands frozen now as he stood there gaping at them in stunned surprise…
“Ron, don’t do it.”
This was Sam now. Instantly grasping the situation. The kitchen flooded with gas, Valli holding a book of matches, it didn’t take a genius to figure out what was happening.
Valli looked at him, a woozy, confounded look on his face.
The match against the striker.
“Who are you?” he said. “What do you want?”
Sam just looked at him, his large frame filling the doorway.
“Put away the matches,” he said. Holding out his hands. “C’mon, Ron. Listen to me.”
Valli shook his head.
“Are you with the police?” he asked.
“No, no. We aren’t cops…”
“Then tell me who you are.”
Sam took a breath. His stomach was turning from the fumes.
“We’re from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service,” he said. “We spoke to your wife—”
“Karyn?” Valli’s hands started shaking. “Where?”
“At your home,” Sam said. “She’s worried sick.”
Valli stared at him with his clouded eyes.
“Ron,” Sam said. His tone leveled. “Drop the matches.”
Valli shook his head again.
“I want to know what you’re doing here,” he said. “Make it quick.”
Sam knew he had to tell the complete truth. Valli was desperate, scared, and disjointed from the gas. One false note in his voice, and it might be over.
“We need your help finding whoever killed Admiral Sutton,” he said. “Bottom line, man. We need your help.”
Valli’s eyes went to Callen, who’d moved up close behind Sam now.
“You,” he said. “Who gave you the idea I’d be here? Was it Karyn?”
“It’s like my partner told you,” Callen replied. “She’s worried.”
Valli’s hands were shaking uncontrollably.
The match still held to the flint strip.
“Get out of here,” he said. “Both of you. Go away.”
Sam shook his head.
“No.”
Valli raised the match and matchbox to his chest.
“Go away,” he said. “I mean it.”
Sam shook his head again.
“Ron, listen,” he said. “You do this, it’s blowing the roof clear off the place. You’ll be taking us with you.”
Valli was silent again. His gaze roaming from Sam to Callen.
And then the dam burst. Tears brewed from his eyes, huge droplets, gushing down his face.
“I’m no good,” he said. His voice breaking. The words harsh, guttural, like a groan of pain wrenched from his throat. “No good to anyone.”
Sam knew better than to press for an explanation. The man was already overwhelmed, and if he tried that, he would lose him. But it occurred to him that whatever feelings of guilt had driven Valli to the brink were not those of someone who would have deliberately harmed Elias Sutton.
He didn’t think about what he said next, trusting himself, going with his instincts.
“That isn’t true,” he said. “I know for a fact. Saw with my own eyes.”
Valli spoke through his tears. “What are you talking about?”
“Not what,” he said. “Who.” He paused. “I meant your daughter. Lila. When I saw her, she was wearing her ‘I Love Dad’ pajama top. Big pink heart in the middle…”
“Shut up.” Breathing hard. “You don’t know anything.”
Sam shook his head.
Don’t lose him, he thought. Just don’t lose him.
“I know a happy kid when I see one, Ron,” he said. “I have a couple of my own. Boy and a girl. I know.” He paused. “They don’t get happy on their own.”
Valli looked at him, tears pulsing down his face. His cheeks and lips wet with them.
His hands shaking hard, match still to the flint.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his eyes steady on Sam’s. “I… am… really sorry.”
Sam’s heart stroked against his ribcage. He sensed Callen bracing behind him.
Valli hitched in a breath, suddenly turning away from the agents.
Then his fingers opened wide and he dropped the matches to the floor, sinking to his knees, wrapping his arms around his middle, dissolving into anguished, fitful sobs.
Sam and Callen came racing into the cabin a heartbeat afterward.
12
Lauren Scardella, the lawyer from the Public Defender’s Office, finally arrived at the Boatshed around a quarter to ten, frazzled and drained after enduring almost two hours of being trapped in the bottlenecked, closure-ridden hell on earth that was the metropolitan Los Angeles freeway system.
“Sorry for falling victim to Carmageddon,” she said to Kensi and Deeks in the observation room. “I’d sign away ten years of my life for a teleporter. Right now, on the dotted line. Ten years for a refurbished model.”
“Animalics might be a more realistic option,” Deeks said.
“Ani… huh?”
“That’s pretty much the standard response,” Kensi said. “It’s a form of aromatherapy. Except using ground Himalayan yak gonads instead of lavender.”
Scardella sniffed the air. “You know,” she said. “I did notice a yakky, gonady thing going on here.”
“Actually, it’s a civet’s anal glands,” Deeks said.
She clapped her hands to her temples.
“Of course!” she said. “How could I not tell the difference?”
“So what do you think?” he asked.
Scardella sniffed again.
“Well,” she said. “It’s… it’s sort of intriguing, now that you mention it.”
He nodded.
“It won’t get you through traffic any faster,” he said. “But you’ll be calmer while you’re stranded.”
“Your client’s waiting in the interrogation room,” Kensi said, and nodded toward the door. “We assume you’ll want to confer with him.”
“And may I ask why he’s in custody?”
“He’s here because we plan to book him for complicity in the murder of Elias Sutton, the kidnapping of Theodore Holloway, and about a dozen other related felonies,” Kensi said. “For starters.”
Scardella gave her a wry glance. A smartly dressed brunette in her mid thirties, she appeared fully alert despite her long drive.
“That’s all?” she said. “No JFK or Hoffa assassination theories in the mix?”
Kensi met her gaze.
“I’m going to tell you something as a courtesy,” she said. “We plan to sha
re some developing information with your client. In an effort to persuade him to cooperate.”
“‘Developing’ as in…?”
“Two of Mr. Dorani’s crooked playmates were murdered tonight,” she said. “We’re thinking he’d have been number three if we hadn’t brought him here.”
Scardella gave her a sharp look.
“Can you give me the names of the victims?”
“I’ll fill you in before we get started,” Kensi said. “In the meantime, would you care to see our lab reports?”
Scardella produced a weary, fatalistic sigh.
“Yes, Agent,” she said. “I think I’d better.”
* * *
Tomas turned his head on the pillow, glancing over at Alysha. She lay with her back to him, sleeping.
He looked at her now in the darkness. There had been an urgency to their passion tonight, almost a mutual greed. Was it because they both knew this time likely would be their last?
He supposed that very well could be.
In England, he had believed he was recruiting her. That was his mission, and she seemed a perfect candidate. Restless, questing, a bit naïve, seeking more than her modest suburban existence could give her.
Later, he came to feel she had always looked to free herself from that sheltered life. That she’d simply awaited the right chance. That in a sense, she recruited him.
Propping himself on an elbow now, Tomas reached over to touch her naked shoulder. But his hand froze above it in the darkness, then withdrew, falling to his side on the bed.
He remembered, from the first, thinking his purpose to her would expire. She could be arrogant, but not selfish, and he’d never felt she consciously used him. His pride would never have let him accept that. But he always knew she was in the process of moving on.
Knew… and accepted, even in their moments of greatest intimacy. If she could be his at those times, if he could share those passing moments with her, then he would live with the terrible certainty that she would someday leave him behind. For whatever, whomever, did not matter.
When she took up with the mujahid Umar, went to train with him at the Al Karar camp, it was no surprise. Tomas had often forced himself to imagine the day, as if to build up scar tissue, and dull the eventual sting.
But he had learned a steady, lasting pain was worse than the sharpest cut.
By far.
He slid closer to her under the sheets, keeping his hand down at his side. Her advances at the practice range were unexpected. Even after they fled the carnage of Syria, returning to Europe amid the hordes of immigrants fleeing ISIS, he’d never believed they would be lovers again. Their revived connection was built on necessity. Azarian had begun to make his plans, and Alysha’s unsurpassed skills as a fighter and infiltrator fit right into them.
She thought him a fervent devotee, his heart burning for the cause, and she was not mistaken in her belief. But in the secret depths of his heart, nothing about the mission meant more than its reward of final oblivion.
When it was done there would be no more goodbyes. No more moving on in separate directions. No more pain for him.
“Are you awake?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, without facing him.
His breath short, he raised his hand from the mattress, then lowered it slowly, almost hesitantly to the side of her head, as if against some invisible pocket of resistance.
“I love you,” he said, and stroked her hair. “I have always loved you.”
Silence. He waited.
“I know,” she said, without turning her head.
Distanced from him.
Looking somewhere beyond.
Tomas wished he could have died then and there.
But he was thinking tomorrow would be soon enough.
* * *
“Wait,” Isaak said. “What about Daggut?”
“He was shot to death tonight,” Kensi said. “In his pawnshop.”
Isaak stared at her, a disbelieving expression on his face.
She was back in the interrogation room, a tablet in front of her. Opposite Kensi, Scardella sat with her briefcase slung over the back of her seat. A pad, pencil, and requisite tablet in front of her, she was paying close attention to Kensi’s every word.
“She’s yankin’ me here,” Isaak said, turning to the attorney before Kensi could answer. “This is some kinda trick, right?”
Scardella shook her head.
“I’m afraid it’s true,” she said. And then glanced pointedly at Kensi. “But I’m also not sure it has any bearing on why Mr. Dorani is in custody.”
Kensi smiled thinly.
“Well, then, maybe I can explain,” she said. “The late Zory Daggut, who I might stress was shot multiple times in the face, was a known fence. And it so happens that just this afternoon he accepted hot items from your client. Antique Edison cylinder records burglarized from the home of Elias Sutton—”
“Or so you allege,” Scardella said.
“Or so the lab reports reveal,” Kensi said, firing a look right back at her. “But, fine, if you want to change the subject, we can move on to the murder of Erasmo Greer.”
Isaak straightened up in his chair, blinking rapidly, the color draining from his face. “Who?”
“Mr. Greer was a friend of yours, correct?” Kensi said.
He stared at her, his eyes blinking away in their enormous sockets.
“Isaak, are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah,” he said, not looking okay at all. “Fine.”
“Because if you need a glass of water…”
“I don’t need nothin’,” he said. “And I ain’t never heard of him.”
“Oh?” Kensi furrowed her brow. “That’s kind of odd. Because LAPD investigators looking into the abduction of Theodore Holloway observed the two of you together on several occasions.”
He swallowed hard.
“Listen, I’m saying I don’t think I ever met that Erasmo in particular,” he said. “I probably know ten, fifteen different guys with the same name.”
“Fifteen Erasmos.”
“Around that many, yeah,” he said. “Maybe more.”
Scardella winced. “Mr. Dorani—”
“I’m just sayin’ this Greer could’ve been any of ’em—”
The attorney snapped a hand in the air to cut him off.
“Special Agent Blye,” she said, “we’re heading off into dangerous irrelevancy again. I’m sorry about these terrible crimes. But there’s no sound reason my client has to answer questions about them.”
Kensi sat quietly a moment.
“You’re right about one thing, counselor,” she said. “The killings were heinous. In fact, I’d call them coldblooded executions.” She reached for her tablet and thumbed on the power. “I’d like to show you both some crime-scene photos of Mr. Greer’s body.”
Scardella frowned. “That’s very thoughtful,” she said caustically. “But it won’t be necessary…”
Kensi ignored her, holding up the tablet so they could see the damaged, bloody face.
Dorani’s went a shade paler.
“Oh crap,” he muttered in a choked voice. “I can’t believe it.”
Kensi looked at him. “It appears he was beaten with a club or similar object,” she explained. “Then shot point blank through the forehead.”
Dorani dropped his eyes to the table, suddenly sobbing aloud.
Scardella gave Kensi an angry look.
“We really could have done without that stunt, Agent,” she said. “I don’t see what you’ve achieved besides upsetting my client with a gruesome photograph.”
Kensi continued to ignore her. She looked straight at Dorani.
“Isaak, I’m guessing from your reaction that you do, in fact, recognize this particular Erasmo. Or would you like to see more pictures to be sure?”
“Okay. Enough,” Scardella interrupted. “Unless you have something else to tell us about the incidents Mr. Dorani was supposedly involved i
n, I think we can cut this meeting short—”
“That’s exactly what we’re doing.”
A new and unexpected voice from the doorway now. Scardella glanced in its direction, Kensi swiveling her head around to look as well. Only Dorani seemed oblivious as he kept bawling away with his eyes downturned.
The short, sixtyish woman in the entry stood looking at the attorney. Her square-cut hair falling neatly over her collar, she looked bright-eyed and businesslike now at an hour when most people were blearily climbing into bed for the night.
“I don’t believe we’ve met, counselor,” she said with a polite nod. “I’m Hetty Lange, Operations Manager.”
Scardella nodded. “A pleasure to meet you,” she said, introducing herself. “But did I just hear you say—?”
“We’re letting your client go home until we can better review and prepare our evidence,” Hetty said.
Scardella glowered at her. “Wait,” she said. “You keep Mr. Dorani waiting here for hours, make me suffer through the mother of all traffic jams, and then tell us you still need to review evidence?”
“And prepare,” Hetty said. “Yes.”
“Did you consider reviewing and preparing it before you placed him under arrest—?”
Hetty shrugged her shoulders. “Things happen,” she said. “It’s an imperfect world.”
Scardella’s frown deepened. “Ms. Lange, if I may speak my mind, your tactics are reprehensible.”
Hetty looked over at Dorani.
“You’re free to go until we’re ready,” she said. “Hopefully nothing unfortunate will happen to you in the meantime.”
He glanced up at her.
“Hold it,” he said. “What do you mean by ‘happen’?”
She turned toward Kensi. “Did you show him any of the crime scene photographs?”
“Yes,” Kensi said, raising the tablet in her hands. “Right here.”
“Well, then,” Hetty said. “What I meant should be abundantly clear.”
Isaak looked at her with his huge, teary eyes.
“Lady,” he said, “did you see what they did to Erasmo’s face?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s quite an awful sight.”
A moment passed. Isaak sat there staring at her. Stared at her some more. At last he slouched forward, folded his arms on the table, buried his face in them, and began weeping uncontrollably.
NCIS Los Angeles Page 18