Hard Fall

by Ridley Pearson

  “So this could be Der Grund.”

  “I thought you’d like it.”

  Daggett mulled over the possibilities. Would a financial connection between the two be enough to convince Pullman or his superior, Richard Mumford, of Der Grund’s suspected involvement? He doubted it. It wasn’t hard enough evidence. And even if they had received a threat, ChemTronics was unlikely to share it with the FBI. Ignoring terrorist threats angered stockholders and drew unfavorable publicity; both affected share price. Major corporations received threats all the time, and for the most part, they used their own security departments to handle them. But even without a “hard” connection, it boosted Daggett’s confidence that he was still on the trail of Bernard’s detonators. And where the hell did it lead from here? What was next?

  Phil Huff said, “Thermos at your feet is black with sugar. You look like you could use a cup.”

  They drove for nearly twenty minutes, at which point he had lost track of where they were. The curbs, sidewalks, planting, even the houses, all looked the same. “I’m a real estate bigot,” he said. “To me this all looks the same. Where the hell are we?”

  “Dougherty’s place is right up here,” Huff said, obviously amused.

  Daggett spotted the detective’s unmarked car. Four-door, black-walls. “Stop!” he demanded, and the driver responded immediately by hitting the brakes. They both rocked forward toward the dash and settled back.

  “What?” Huff asked angrily, eyes searching. “Christ, the way you said that, I thought I was about to hit something.”

  “You were,” Daggett said, indicating the street in front of them. “Take a look.” Pointing.

  “Yeah?” Huff asked, not seeing.

  “The tire tracks,” Daggett explained. “The mud … the tire tracks there by the curb, see? But none behind the wheels of the unmarked.” He glanced over his shoulder and sipped the coffee. “Fresh ditches. Sewer work, right? But what about the mud?”

  Huff looked too. “Kids musta had the hydrant on yesterday.”

  “Yeah. Exactly. A lot of tracks down the middle of the street, but only this pair over here by the curb.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Huff said excitedly. He backed up the car to stay out of the tracks. He parked it. “I’ll get the dick’s keys. I got a Polaroid under the seat.” He reached down and located it, and handed it to Daggett. “You leave it in the trunk and the film bakes.”

  “Measuring tape?” Daggett asked.

  “Should be in the kit in the trunk.” He handed Daggett the keys. He said, “This dick wasn’t thinking about the crime scene.”

  “No, he wasn’t. So why don’t you ask him politely to cool his heels a minute.” He made it a statement. “Talk to him. See if we can have this guy to ourselves for a while. There’s nothing in this for LAPD. Nothing but paperwork for this badge. Tell him we’ll take it off his hands.”

  “He won’t like it,” Huff cautioned. “Just us being here means there’s something to it.”

  “That’s why we do this alone. Right, Phil?” Daggett said. “We don’t need any tongues wagging.”

  “No shit.”

  “And while you’re in there call your lab boys. Tell them to bring stuff to cast these ditches … vacuums for inside the house … the whole nine yards.” He added, “We treat it like a major crime scene.”

  “The lab? I can’t do that. We don’t even know for sure your guy was here,” Huff protested. “Right? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

  “A mechanic’s ID stolen the afternoon of a crash?” Daggett asked, incredulous. “Make the call, Phil. I’ll take my chances on this one.”

  By the time Daggett and Huff returned from the nearly three-hour interrogation of Kevin Dougherty, the crash site at Hollywood Park looked completely different than the night before. The strewn packages and overnight mail envelopes of various colors, shapes, and sizes were gone, carted off to a nearby high school gym for inspection by FBI and FAA explosives experts. With the fires now extinguished, the ominous, other-planet quality of the previous night gave way to the feeling of a battlefield on the morning after: every object spread over five acres was either carbon black or mud brown. The disemboweled tail section of the fallen aircraft stuck out of the ground like a piece of modern sculpture. It was near this tail section that Daggett spotted a small group of investigators that included Lynn Greene. There were forty to fifty investigators roaming the debris, stooped like shell seekers on a Florida beach, many carrying clipboards, cameras, or clear plastic bags containing grotesquely unrecognizable items. One crew, near the detached nose, was running debris and mud over a sifter; others searched the screen like archaeologists after pieces of history.

  The entire effort seemed somehow removed, as if acted out on a stage so large he couldn’t see the edges. Again, he thought of the doomed flight 1023 and found himself thankful he had been several days late to that site. To add hundreds of dead bodies to this horror was unthinkable. He marveled at how efficiently, how effortlessly, the several dozen investigators managed to work side by side, each performing a specific function, many of which no doubt overlapped. If only law enforcement ran so smoothly.

  Huff emerged from the command center trailer a few minutes later. “For what it’s worth,” he said, “this investigation may soon be ours.”

  “How soon?” Daggett questioned.

  “It can’t be turned over to us without suspicious causes.”

  “What about Dougherty? What about his ID tag being ripped off? Doesn’t that give us suspicious causes?”

  “Us maybe, but not the NTSB. They need some hard evidence. Crash site evidence.” Huff added optimistically, “At the noon meeting the team leader will announce that all the search teams should give evidence of criminal intent top priority. We’ve canceled the noon press conference. We can get a better handle on all of this by the evening meeting. We’re moving some of the teams so that all of us will be staying over at the Marriott. NTSB cut a deal for the main conference room, and two of the smaller ones. All in all, it’s going well.”

  “Going well? What kind of hard evidence do they need, Phil?”

  “More than tire tracks and the testimony of a mechanic. I don’t like it either, but we’re not going to change it. They work inclusive to the crash site. They can’t allow off-site threats or security violations, or even supporting theories, to influence or bias their objectivity at the site itself.”

  “Objectivity?”

  “Listen, they understand our position, okay? The way they laid it out is that they’ll jump on the slightest bit of evidence, and that they’re more than willing to give any and all of our requests top priority. We’re not butting heads here.” He glanced out toward the team at the tail of the aircraft. “Cross your fingers those guys can put Humpty Dumpty back together again.”

  “Meaning?”

  “The voice-recorder tape is a mess. I’m told they’re dealing with half a mile of spaghetti.”

  “But we need that.”

  “We need a lot of things.”

  “What about the data recorder? The DFDR,” Daggett asked.

  “They say it looks fine. It’s being flown back to Washington on their private plane later this afternoon. Once they untangle the tape from the CVR, it’ll be flown back so they can be synced up.”

  “I’d like to listen in on that.”

  “It may be a week or two, from what I hear.”

  “Even so.”

  “I’ll mention it. Listen,” he added somewhat tentatively, “my SAC has directed my squad chief to make this crash investigation my ticket. They don’t understand your being here. Told them I invited you to help out. So, technically, we’re both following up the Bernard ticket. That didn’t exactly cut it for them, but there’s not much they can do about it. You’re my guest. That means we’ve got to give you access to the investigation.”

  Was this the same Phil Huff? “I appreciate it.”

  “It didn’t help much. They won’t let me g
ive you any people.”

  “I’m on my own?”

  “LAFO has three counterterrorism squads all told. As of ten minutes ago, all three are assigned to this case. That gives me about thirty guys. You run any requests through me, I’ll make sure they’re handled. Plenty of guys to go around. Maybe I can swing something.”

  “What am I hearing?” Daggett asked.

  “Listen. WFO is the Office of Origin on Bernard. We’re the O.O. on this crash.”

  “And Dougherty?” Daggett asked. “Where the hell does Dougherty fit into this?”

  “Bring me something. Okay? You like the Dougherty connection, so do I. Bring me something my squad supervisor can get hard over and we’ll take over this crash investigation in one phone call.”

  “You’re helping me?”

  “I’ll help where I can.”

  “Why the sudden change of heart?”

  Huff took a moment before replying. “I didn’t sleep last night. Not because of this crash, but because of Backman. I fucked up the Bernard surveillance, Daggett. I admit that. I see that now, okay? I let it get away from me. I let that briefcase get away from me. Where did he make the drop? In the men’s room? The coat check? Shit, I don’t know what went wrong, but it went about as wrong as it can go. First Backman; now this. What the fuck? You reach a certain point, you realize it’s time to change your act.” He studied his unlit cigarette and then threw it into the mud. “Where are you going, in case I need to reach you?”

  Daggett could hardly find the words. Huff apologizing. You reach a certain point, you realize it’s time to change your act. The words echoed inside him like the last penny in a piggy bank. They could have come out of his mouth just as easily.

  Huff repeated, “Where you going?”

  Daggett answered, “To find us some evidence.”

  The tire tracks outside the home of Kevin Dougherty produced quick results. Measurement of the wheelbase, as defined by the two opposing tire tracks, identified the vehicle as a Chrysler—either a Dodge Caravan or a Plymouth Voyager. Betting on a rental, Daggett turned his attention to the local agencies. The killer’s rental car in Seattle had given him a credit card to flag and trace; maybe this rental car would be worth something as well.

  A phone call placed early Wednesday morning revealed that Chrysler had an exclusive rental agreement for Caravans in the L.A. area with Overland Car Rentals. Overland kept only eight Caravans at its airport agency. Of the eight, two had been returned the day of the crash—one a few hours before the crash, and one only minutes after. In a city where forty-five-minute drives were common, Daggett was grateful to be working out of the airport Marriott, which was all of five minutes from LAX and the Overland agency there.

  Daggett bumped over the security spikes at the entrance, passing the gatehouse on his left. Ahead of him a sea of returned cars awaited cleaning. A Vietnamese boy of about eighteen, leaning awkwardly over two pieces of electronic gear that hung from his belt, approached a returning car and began punching numbers into one of the heavy boxes.

  Daggett found the supervisor, Milton Butts, in a small office through a door behind the main counter. The room reeked of aftershave, reminding Daggett of Backman. Butts was a black man with graying temples, a dead front tooth, and the stump neck of a former wrestler or lineman. He had wide-set brown eyes that flashed between vacancy and annoyance as Daggett made his requests. He wore a company blazer and a shirt that couldn’t button around that thick neck, the knot of the company tie attempting to hide its shortcoming. The left lens of his reading glasses was thumbprinted. He had missed a spot below his nose in this morning’s shave, leaving a triangle of black stubble on his upper lip.

  He typed slowly, but with accuracy. As he read from the screen he said in a deceptively tranquil voice, “Both of them vehicles rented to women, if that matters any.”

  “But one of them paid cash,” Daggett said, feigning confidence. Worry written on his face. “Will the computer show that?”

  Milton Butts reexamined the screen and asked, “Now just how did you know that?”

  “A lucky guess.” He closed his eyes and thanked whoever was watching over him.

  Butts puckered his lips, not liking the answer. “Her name is Lyttle, with a y. Maryanne Lyttle. A one-day rental. Reserved it with a card but paid cash. She kept the car for about six hours—that’s fairly common with our business customers,” he added editorially. After studying the screen a moment longer he added, “Nothing out of the ordinary here.”

  Daggett requested a copy of the agreement, and Butts printed one out for both of them.

  Daggett read the agreement over.

  “Has the van been cleaned?”

  “Sure it’s clean,” Butts said angrily. Then adding, “You don’t look too pleased about that.”

  “How clean? Inside, I mean.”

  “Truthfully? This time of year, as busy as it is, probably not perfect. You seen that parking lot out there. Packed with returns. Every day it’s like that,” he complained. “And between you and me, our employees are not exactly highly motivated. Know what I mean?”

  Daggett placed a phone call and ordered the van be towed to a garage where field office personnel could go over it immediately.

  “This got something to do with the crash, don’t it?” Butts asked when Daggett hung up. “Shitty thing, that crash. Hurts all of us. You should have seen our cancellations this morning. I wanna tell you, even a goddamned accident hurts business. People is very superstitious when it comes to flying.” Then his eyes rolled and he exclaimed, “You telling me it wasn’t no accident? That what you doing here?”

  Daggett sized him up and answered, “Officially, I can’t comment. Unofficially I can use all the help I can get.”

  “I be goddamned,” Butts said brightly. “Goddamn Arabs or what?”

  Daggett asked, “What do these letters in the return box refer to, Mr. Butts? Can you tell me that?”

  Butts looked his own copy over and nodded. “We rent and return right from Baggage Claim. The majority of our return business is done out here, off-airport, where we clean and service the fleet. But our Express customers are handled on-airport. Both pickup and return. That’s all that’s saying. This van was rented and returned on-airport.” In boyish enthusiasm he added, “Say! You know what I bet would interest you?” He checked his watch. “But shit, we had better move quick.”

  Daggett didn’t like the sound of we. “What’s that?” he asked. “What might interest me, Mr. Butts?”

  “We had a whole series of holdup problems down there on-airport. Put in a hidden video system not six months ago.”

  “Video?” Daggett asked, his mind racing ahead to the possibilities.

  “Thing of it is,” Butts said, obviously worried, checking his watch again. “It’s a twenty-four-hour loop system. Endless tape, or something. You know. Same as they do in the terminals.”

  “The terminals?” And now Daggett exploded out of his chair, frantically waving for Butts to hurry, for it suddenly occurred to him how to catch this Maryanne Lyttle.

  On Thursday morning, August 30, Daggett entered the Los Angeles County Federal Building—an innocuous white structure surrounded by suspiciously green grass. The Feds apparently weren’t paying much attention to the drought.

  The audio-visual technical services lab of the Los Angeles Field Office of the FBI used a small windowless office on the sixth floor. Daggett knew the video techs here in L.A. were among the best in the country. Not only was L.A. at the heart of such technology, but LAFO saw more than its fair share of practice: the drug squad used video surveillance extensively. Drugs in L.A. were big business and a central focus for the LAFO. The room was crowded with every kind of video and television equipment, some recognizable to Daggett, some not. Daggett buttoned his sport coat to hold off the added chill, reminded of the computer room at Duhning. He’d left the letter jacket in the hotel room.

  Cynthia Ramirez steered her wheelchair over to Daggett and
shook his hand strongly. She had fire in her glassy eyes and a sly little smile. Daggett saw the chair and thought of Duncan. Ramirez was rail thin, wearing a cable-knit sweater with a plaid blanket covering her legs. Her dark hair was held off her bony face by a red plastic clip in the shape of a bow. Her fingers were ice cold and as long and slim as chopsticks. “They call me Fragile,” she said, still maintaining the smile.

  “Michigan,” he said, careful not to crush that hand.

  “It suits you. Don’t ask me why.”

  He withheld any similar comment.

  “What’s this?” she asked, eyeing the cardboard box of videotapes he had brought with him.

  “I’m told you’re the best we have in video enhancement.”

  “Compliments will get you everywhere.”

  “Black and white, endless loops. One tape shot in an airport garage. The other fifteen are on loan from a private firm that runs the video work out at LAX.”

  She grinned. “That’s Bernie Shanks’s company. He came out of this office, you know?”

  He nodded. “Yes. That is, I found out. It’s how I was able to walk right out of there with these things. Without Mr. Shanks I have a feeling it would have taken a few weeks in court.”

  She reached for the box and pulled it down into her lap, where it landed hard. Enough to break bones that small, if indeed there were any bones under the blanket. It was hard to tell. “Endless loops don’t offer very good quality. Oxide wears right off ’em.”

  “That’s why I asked for you. For the enhancement.”

  Propelling herself over to one of the machines, she glanced back at him. “I’m no miracle worker,” she said.

  “That’s not what I hear.”

  She caught his eye then and held it. “We could use more around here like you.” She smiled. He returned it.

  “That top tape … it’s cued up for you. There’s a woman standing at the rental counter. Scarf. Sunglasses. Can barely make her out. If we could enlarge her face, build it back to something we can use … I’m hoping she went inside the terminal right after returning the car. I’m hoping we can follow her movements from one video to the next. Each of the other fifteen tapes is from a particular set of camera stations inside the terminal. Each overlaps a piece of the other’s territory—for the sake of coverage. But picking her out of the crowd … I don’t know. It looked pretty hopeless to me. People’s faces aren’t very big on those tapes. But if you’ve ever seen a crash site … This woman may be responsible. I figured it was worth a try.”