“Pretty much what Kendra’s nose told us,” Lynch said dryly. “Did your people follow up with the building maintenance staff?”
Freen nodded. “They didn’t replace this. They have some scraps in a utility room that they use for repairs, but we cut some samples and it’s all fairly close to the carpet in the rest of his apartment.” He picked up a sheet of paper. “This carpet is made by a company in Dalton, Georgia. It has a gold tint that’s not all that fashionable these days, but someone did purchase forty square yards of it just last week.”
“That’s not much,” Kendra said.
Lynch nodded. “Just about enough to cover a good-sized walk-in closet.” He pointed to the sample in front of them. “Or this piece.”
Freen smiled. “You’re going to like this. The buyer insisted that it be sent out via overnight air freight to San Diego.”
Kendra, Lynch, and Griffin exchanged glances. “Tell me we have a name and delivery address,” Lynch said.
“Just a name, Bill Carthers. It was picked up here at the airport offices of the shipping company, Profit By Air. Whoever he is, he paid much more to ship it out here than he did for the carpet itself.”
“Method of payment?” Griffin asked.
“Cash on delivery. We haven’t gotten anywhere following up on the name. You might follow up at the shipping office for some more details.”
“We’ll do that,” Lynch said as he turned toward the door. “Good work, Freen.”
He shrugged. “Just doing my job.”
“Thanks for the heads-up, Griffin,” Lynch said as they left the lab and walked toward the elevator bank.
Griffin shrugged. “Least I could do. It was Kendra’s catch. Besides, aren’t we still sharing info with each other?”
“We are.”
Griffin gave him a distinctly cool glance. “Then why have you tasked two of my agents to log traffic cams from Rancho Bernardo?”
“We have reason to believe that Jeff Stedler was there shortly before he disappeared, so I have them looking for his car. I figure with the pattern-recognition software, it won’t take too long to find if it pops up.”
“Two days, minimum. It’s a lot of video and a lot of manpower that’s desperately needed elsewhere. I know you have powerful friends, but you still don’t get to make assignments in my office.”
Lynch said quietly, “I could have danced around, playing nice, filling out forms, but in the end those agents would have ended up doing exactly what I told them to do. If you’d told me no, I would have made one phone call, and you would have been overridden. I thought I’d save me the time and you the embarrassment.”
“Let me worry about that. I don’t embarrass easily.” His jaw set belligerently. “I don’t know why the hell you’ve been given carte blanche to do whatever the hell you want, and it pisses me off. But the fact that you’re here this morning is proof that I’m trying to give you all the support I can. But it’s going to be my way and under my orders. I’m still running this investigation, and I need to coordinate the efforts of my team. So don’t pull that crap again. Understand?”
Kendra could sense the tension and leashed anger in Lynch though his face was without expression. She was half expecting an explosion, but instead he leaned back, thought for a moment, then slowly nodded. “I can, actually. You’re right. From now on, I’ll run this stuff through you.”
Griffin seemed almost as surprised as Kendra. Braced for a fight, his shoulders suddenly relaxed. “Well … Good.”
Lynch nodded back toward the lab. “That was helpful. Thanks. Kendra and I will follow up, and we’ll let you know what we find out.”
Kendra didn’t say anything as she followed Lynch back through the hallway and down the elevator. As they crossed the foyer to the elevator to the parking garage, she suddenly laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“That was unexpectedly ‘gracious’ of you. Even Griffin didn’t quite know how to respond.”
“That’s why I did it.”
“I had a feeling that was the reason. You completely disarmed him.”
“Also, I was wrong.” Lynch shrugged. “I know what it’s like to lead a team, and it totally undermines your authority to have someone else come in and start giving orders to your subordinates. I was trying to be expedient, but what I did is known in the trade as a ‘dick move.’”
“Not just in the trade.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Did you just call me a dick?”
“If the shoe fits…”
“This is why I usually work without a partner.”
She gazed at him blandly. “’Cause you know you’re gonna be called a dick?”
His lips turned up on one corner. “I’ve been called a lot worse.”
“That makes two of us.”
“Really? Now who—” He stopped. “I won’t even go there.”
“Good. Let’s go to the freight office instead.”
* * *
THE PROFIT BY AIR BRANCH manager’s name was Diddy Riese, and he was a burly, bearded man with huge, out-of-proportion arms that Kendra could only regard as Popeye-esque. His voice’s volume rose and fell in direct relation to the sounds of the jets taking off and landing from the nearby San Diego International Airport.
“After the FBI called, I pulled up everything I could find,” he said, thumbing through a stack of papers on the front counter of the cramped office. “I even called the Atlanta office to see what they had.”
“We appreciate that,” Kendra said. “I’m sure you don’t get many big rolls of carpet moving through here.”
“It’s expensive, but it’s not unheard of. A designer suddenly realizes that he’s shorted a job, or maybe someone needs to get their remodel finished in time for a party. When it happens, it almost always comes from our Atlanta office. From what I gather, Dalton, Georgia, is the carpet capital of the U.S.”
“Now there’s a claim to fame,” Lynch said. “Were you here when it was picked up?”
“Yeah, I helped the guy load it into his van. He didn’t say too much, but he tipped me twenty bucks.”
“You wouldn’t still happen to have that twenty, would you?” Lynch asked.
Riese chuckled. Then he looked at Kendra and realized that Lynch wasn’t kidding. “Uh, no. Sorry. Guess you could’ve gotten fingerprints off it, huh?”
“Worth a shot. What kind of van was he driving?”
“It was a white-panel cargo van. A Ford Ecoline, I’m pretty sure.” Riese looked back down at his papers. “Anyway, the Atlanta office said that the carpet roll was delivered by the carpet company at 11:43 A.M. on Friday the twenty-third.”
“Twenty-third?” Lynch shot Kendra a meaningful glance. She had caught the significance of that date but she wished she hadn’t. It scared her. The delivery was on the day after Jeff’s disappearance.
Riese was looking at another paper. “And it was picked up here at 6:09 P.M. that evening.”
“Good,” Lynch said. “And can you describe the driver?”
“Don’t need to.” Riese pulled a color printout from the folder. “We have a security camera out on the loading dock.”
“Oh, how I was hoping you would say that.”
Lynch took the printout and held it so that Kendra could see. It showed a short, middle-aged man standing next to the van. “Does that tell you anything?”
She examined the photo for a long moment. “Well, only that they need to invest in a better security camera. I’ve seen forty-dollar baby monitors with sharper pictures than this.”
Lynch nodded. “Believe me, this is sharper than most. Ask anyone in law enforcement, and these things have to be pretty far up the list of pet peeves. But does this tell you anything else at all?”
“Other than that man is left-handed and obviously wears a hairpiece? No.”
Lynch’s eyes narrowed on the photo. “Nice.”
Riese nodded. “I think he was working just as hard holding down the rug on his head as he was
lifting the other one into the van.” He handed Lynch a DVD. “This is the video for the entire time he was here. I looked at it, and l don’t think you can make out the license plate. You guys probably have some special machines to make it sharper, though.”
“Not that special. But thanks, this could be helpful.”
“This shot looks like it was taken while he was talking,” Kendra said. “Did he say anything about where he was headed or where he came from?”
“Nope. He actually didn’t talk a whole lot. I didn’t know if the carpet was for him or if he was just making a delivery. He was kind of in a hurry, but so are a lot of our customers. Otherwise, they would just ship it ground.”
Lynch pointed to the short stack of papers. “Are those for us?”
Riese handed him the stack. “All the info I have on the shipment, including the receiving documents that I had faxed from Atlanta. I just wish I knew why the FBI is interested in a guy for shipping carpet.”
“Sorry,” Lynch said as he held open the door for Kendra. “It’s an ongoing investigation.”
“Ah, I figured,” Riese said, disappointed. “Maybe I’ll read about it in the newspaper.”
“You never can tell,” Lynch said. “Thanks, Riese.”
* * *
KENDRA WAS STUDYING THE printout as she and Lynch sped away from the cargo office. “You don’t think the FBI forensics team can really get any more out of the security video, do you?”
“No. In my experience, if you start with mush, no amount of zooming and sharpening is going to give you anything else.”
“Still, it’s not a bad shot of this guy. Don’t they have some kind of facial-recognition software?”
“Sure. Only it’s nowhere near as sophisticated as the stuff Facebook and Google are developing. Even if we send this to Washington, we’ll have a better chance of getting results from my contacts in northern California.”
“So is that our next step?”
“Actually, I want to try something else first.” He cast a sideways glance at her. “You’re not the only one who knows people on the fringes of society.”
Her brows rose. “I have the feeling I’m about to meet one of them.”
“If he’s still alive.”
“Is he old?”
“No, but he does have some rather self-destructive appetites. His name is Derek Carner, and he was one of the best cleaners in the business.”
“And what exactly does he clean?”
“Crime scenes.”
“Ah. And I’m guessing he doesn’t wait until after the police are done with it.”
“No. It’s his job to make sure that no one knows there ever was a crime there. He worked for the MacDougal crime family until they went out of business a few years ago.”
“Out of business? Victims of the recession?”
“Victims of me, if you’ll excuse my immodesty. After the organization imploded, Carner went freelance. I was rather hoping that it would be him in that picture, but Carner is taller and thinner than this guy, and his face isn’t nearly as round.”
“Too bad.”
“But Carner still might be able to identify him and tell us who he might work for.”
“Or course,” she said dryly. “They must know each other from the union meetings.”
“They’re rivals in a highly specialized field, and they’re known to work in the same geographic area. I don’t really think they hang out together swapping war stories, but they might know each other on sight.” Lynch checked his watch. “Lunchtime. I have a pretty good idea where I’ll find him. Do you want me to take you home?”
“Home? Why?”
“Carner is a seedy man, and I may have to go to some seedy places to find him.”
She laughed with real amusement. “Get real. Believe me, I’ve done seedy. You think I’m afraid of a little grunge, Lynch?”
“Afraid, no. Revolted, maybe.”
“Now that’s a possibility. But I won’t let it get in the way. Give me a little credit.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Lynch cut over to Pacific Highway, where he quickly drove to the Under Pressure topless bar, which featured a large sign that Kendra guessed lit up in brilliant neon after dark.
Lynch pointed to the sign. “It’s animated. You don’t even want to know what it looks like at night.”
“You sure found your way here awfully easily.”
Lynch parked on the street. “Part of the job. The clubs along here attract a rough clientele. Maybe you’d better stay in the car.”
She unbuckled her seat belt and opened the door. “Don’t be absurd. That’s not going to happen.”
He shrugged. “How did I know you were going to say that?”
They climbed out of his car and walked toward the club. She looked at the shabby, weather-beaten building. “I deejayed in a place like this for a few weeks once. It was fascinating how certain types of songs, certain rhythms, certain beats would affect the tips that the women would get. It would make an interesting psychological study.”
“Uh-huh. Believe me, you didn’t deejay in a club like this. Clubs like this don’t have DJs. More like a beer-stained old cassette deck behind the bar.”
They walked around back and crossed a small parking lot to the entrance, where a beefy bald man in a tight T-shirt was seated on a stool outside. Heavy bass throbbed from within the club.
“I need to talk to Derek Carner,” Lynch said.
The bouncer stared at him as he pulled out a can of Skoal tobacco, took a pinch, and placed it between his lower lip and gum. “Don’t know ’im.”
“Sure you do. He’s a regular. Has been for years.” Lynch gestured over his shoulder. “And that’s his piece-of-shit truck just fifteen feet away from you. You didn’t see him drive up?”
The bouncer shrugged. “Maybe I was on a coffee break.”
“Maybe you’re full of shit.” Lynch flashed his badge.
The bouncer looked at it, then spit brown juice onto the parking lot. “Department of Justice Liaison? Are you kidding me? Look, unless your lady friend wants a job dancing, I suggest you run along. I have no idea who you’re looking for.”
“We’ll go inside and see for ourselves.” Lynch pulled a twenty from his wallet. “This should take care of the cover charge.”
The bouncer stood, showing himself to be a good head taller than Lynch. “Sorry. We’re all full up today.”
Lynch turned and looked at the almost empty parking lot. “I can see that. Word must be getting around about your delicious lunch buffet.”
“Do I need to escort you from the property?”
“After we’re done here, sure. Appreciate it. I understand this neighborhood can get a bit rough.”
Lynch stepped past the bouncer, but the man clamped a gigantic hand over his shoulder and pushed him back. Lynch’s hands blurred as they flew toward the bouncer’s chest and neck. Before Kendra could even register what had happened, the bouncer was wheezing and staggering back and forth in front of them. He dropped to his knees and clutched his neck before finally rolling over onto his back.
Lynch picked up the twenty-dollar bill, tucked it into the bouncer’s shirt collar, then stepped over the choking, wheezing man. He stopped in the doorway and turned back toward Kendra. “Are you coming?”
She also stepped over the bouncer, who was now turning purple. “Now that was caveman,” she said.
“Sometimes it’s the only option. Remind me to tell you about the time that—”
Click-clock-click.
Lynch froze.
It was the sound of a pump-action shotgun being cocked. Kendra looked into the club to see a tall, tanned woman, about forty, aiming the gun at Lynch’s chest. “Not another move,” she said. “One of my girls is calling the cops.”
“Your decision,” Lynch said. “But if they come here, I’m going to help them find enough violations to shut you down for good.”
“I run a good club. My
licenses are in order.”
Lynch nodded. “I didn’t know the city was handing out gambling licenses to topless bars these days. Because I know that’s what’s going on next to the dressing area. And I don’t think there’s anyplace outside Nevada that licenses what goes on in your two VIP rooms. Do you really want to do this?”
The gun wavered slightly in her hands.
Lynch smiled at her. “You used to be a dancer here, weren’t you, Sheila? Do you remember me?”
She looked at him for a long moment before lowering the gun. “Shit, you’re a fed.”
Lynch gestured to the bouncer, who was only now starting to catch his breath. “I tried to tell that to your friend, but he wasn’t listening.”
She glanced over her shoulder, where a pair of bare-breasted dancers were climbing off the stage. “What do you want?”
“I’m just here to talk to one of the guys playing cards in the back. This doesn’t have to be a big deal.”
She thought about it for a moment. “Okay. I’m not giving you permission, but I’m not stopping you, either. If you don’t have a warrant, nothing you see will stick.” She turned and stepped behind the bar with her shotgun.
“Fair enough.” Lynch jerked his head toward the back, indicating that Kendra was to follow him. The bar was small and windowless, illuminated entirely by the half dozen beer signs representing brands that Kendra wasn’t even sure existed anymore.
Lynch led her to a door that was almost invisible in the dark club. He tried the knob, and upon finding it locked, threw his weight against it. It splintered open, and bright fluorescent light poured into the bar.
Lynch and Kendra strode through the door to see five elderly men surrounding a poker table. They were in midgame, and one of the men leaped to his feet. “Aw, shit. A holdup!”
Lynch walked to the table, grabbed one of the other men by the collar, and pulled him to his feet. “No holdup. I just need to talk to Carner here. He’ll be sitting out this round.”
Close Your Eyes Page 17