Close Your Eyes

by Iris Johansen

  “Then we’re on our way.”

  Within minutes, they were on Interstate 5, and five minutes after that, Lynch paid the toll and drove onto the massive Coronado Bridge, a two-mile-long structure that swooped across San Diego Bay, in a graceful curve, to the island.

  “You’re very quiet.” Lynch glanced sideways at her. “What are you thinking?”

  “I was thinking about what Jamerson told you about Jeff’s contacting them. Why would he do that? Can you trust this Jamerson to tell you the truth?”

  “On occasion. Do I trust him?” He shook his head. “But, then, I’m sadly lacking in trust. It must have been left out of my DNA.”

  “I’ve noticed. You’ve said very little about Jamerson to me since this all began.”

  He shrugged. “It wasn’t necessary. I told you I was doing a job for the Justice Department.”

  “And you didn’t want to elaborate in case I might learn something about you that you didn’t want me to know.” She tilted her head and studied him. “I don’t know much about you at all, Lynch. I think I’m beginning to resent that. There’s a lack of balance. You know too damn much about me.”

  He looked away from her. “What do you want to know?”

  “I’ve never seen where you live. Do you have an apartment? A house?”

  “A house.”

  “You’ve gone through my condo. May I come over to your place?”

  “Sometime maybe.”

  “You don’t want me to come.”

  “Not until I decide how much I want to reveal to you.”

  “You never let acquaintances or coworkers see your home?”

  “Sure I do. I’m really not all that secretive.”

  Kendra gave him a skeptical look.

  “Well, at least as far as my own personal space goes,” he clarified. “When I invite most people into my house, they may get a sense of my hobbies, maybe a few of my interests, and that’s it. With you, I suspect it would be like throwing the doors open wide to my soul.” He grimaced. “God, that sounded melodramatic. It just came out that way.”

  “Sickeningly melodramatic. Not like you at all. Why?”

  “Because it’s not entirely inaccurate. It took hours to figure out how I felt when you sized me up on our first meeting. It was a definite mixture. First and foremost, I was impressed. And, I don’t know why exactly, but part of me was even flattered.”

  “Flattered?”

  “I guess we all like it when someone pays attention to us. And no one pays attention like you do, Kendra. We’ve gotten used to people becoming less and less connected with each other, so it’s nice to run across someone who is the exact opposite of that.” He drove in silence for a moment longer. “Anyway, as I was grappling with those emotions, part of me also felt … violated.”

  “I didn’t say anything that a lot of other people didn’t already know about you.”

  “I know that. The difference was that I hadn’t made the choice to share those things with you.”

  She lifted her chin with a hint of defiance. “It sounds like someone has control issues.”

  “You’re correct as usual.” He looked into her eyes. “But I have an idea you’ve run into this before, haven’t you? How many people have closed you out because they can’t stand the thought of invasion?”

  She didn’t speak for a moment. “Enough. But I thought you’d have the confidence to make the adjustment.”

  “Give me a little time. I’ll get there. But you can see why I’m not so anxious for you to come over and laser-scan my home.”

  She could understand it, but it was still causing a slight feeling of the usual alienation. “It’s not as if it’s important to me. Besides, you’re being silly. I’ve ridden in your car. Do you want to hear what your car has told me about you? First of all, that you’re—”

  “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “I just want to show you that discovery isn’t necessarily connected with—” She stopped as she saw his expression. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. Why don’t we concentrate on the case right now? I believe we’ve both revealed a little more than we’re comfortable with.”

  “I’m perfectly comfortable with—” But she wasn’t going to lie. She thought she had become accustomed to all the emotional side effects of being the oddity everyone considered her to be. But for some reason, Lynch had managed to jump over the barriers she had erected. “That’s a good idea.” Kendra watched an oil tanker leaving port. “But it’s a little difficult concentrating on anything with all this bumping on this bridge. It’s a real—”

  Suddenly she tensed and leaned forward in her seat.

  “Are you okay?” Lynch asked.

  She nodded. “That sound…”

  “The ship?”

  “No.” Kendra leaned forward even more.

  Close your eyes.

  Listen to what the car is telling you.

  Clack-clack … Brrrump.

  Clack-clack … Brrrump.

  Her eyes opened. “Hear that? The sound that the tires are making on the roadway.”

  Clack-clack … Brrrump.

  Lynch nodded. “What about it?”

  She pointed ahead. “What are those metal plates stretching across the road? They almost look like teeth.”

  Clack-clack … Clack clack …

  “Expansion joints. They allow the bridge to give a little in high winds, earthquakes, whatever.”

  “And there are places between those where the road looks rough, like the pavement is uneven.”

  Brrrump … Brrrump …

  “Some kind of construction project. Maybe a resurfacing.” He watched as she focused on the road ahead. “Does this mean something to you?”

  “Yes. Pull over as soon as you can.”

  At the end of the bridge, Lynch drove to a U-shaped lot at the edge of Tidelands Park, which offered a spectacular view of the bay they had just crossed.

  Kendra had already begun searching her phone’s directory of audio files, furiously swiping her finger across the touch screen. She selected one and used the scrubber to skip through one of Jeff’s dictations. She held up the phone between her and Lynch. There, faint in the background, was that familiar sound:

  Clack-clack … Brrrump.

  Clack-clack … Brrrump.

  Lynch looked up. “He came here.”

  “And not just once. I’m pretty sure I heard this in several of the recordings.” Kendra lowered the phone. “Did he have any official reason to come here?”

  “No reason that I know about. We can check the case files, but I don’t think any of the victims or their friends or families lived over here. And I know he didn’t mention Coronado in any of his daily logs.”

  “And he didn’t mention it in his recordings even while he was driving across that bridge. Jeff was coming here in those last few days, and for some reason, he wanted to keep it quiet.”

  She raised the phone and listened for another moment. “Okay, here’s where he left the bridge. You can hear where the sound of the pavement changes.” She touched the ten-second-replay button and played it for him again, this time turning up the volume so that he could clearly hear the sounds above Jeff’s dictation.

  Lynch glanced up as the slight, airy whistle of tires on the bridge suddenly gave way to a lower-pitched droning. “I hear it. That’s what it sounded like back there?”

  “Exactly. Let’s get back on that main road and see where this takes us.”

  As Lynch drove back to Pomona Avenue and transitioned to Third, Kendra tried to focus on the audio recording’s background sounds. After less than two minutes, her hand tightened on the recorder. “He stopped! And he turned somewhere near here. I can hear his blinker.”

  “Turned which way?”

  “There’s no way I can tell that. Dammit.”

  Close your eyes.

  Put yourself in Jeff’s car.

  “I hear a trolley. I think it just crossed in front of him.”
/>
  “There’s no rail service here.”

  “Not that kind. One of those orange-and-green Old Town tour trolleys you see driving around.”

  Lynch hit his left turn signal. “Orange Avenue is just ahead. It’s the largest cross street near here. If you’re really hearing a tour bus go by, it probably happened there.”

  Kendra continued to listen as Lynch completed the left turn. “Why this direction?”

  “Just a guess. A right turn would take us to the water. This leads us to the heart of the island.”

  She listened for another moment. “I think you guessed right. It now sounds like he’s behind the trolley, with more and more traffic around.”

  Lynch nodded. “Just like it is here.”

  “There’s another sound…” She placed the device closer against her ear. “I could hear the tour guide on the trolley’s PA system, but only for a second. It might have stopped somewhere along here, and Jeff passed it.”

  Lynch pointed to a group of tourists adorned with cameras, baseball caps, and fanny packs, all seated on sidewalk benches in front of a pub. “I’d say that’s the trolley-tour stop.”

  “Good.” She didn’t speak for an instant. “Now it sounds like he went through a busy intersection…”

  “We’re crossing it now,” Lynch said. “Loma Street.”

  Her eyes widened. “He just put on his turn signal.”

  Lynch swerved to the right without putting on his own blinker. “It has to be here. Churchill Place.” He looked ahead. “I hope you hear ocean soon, because that’s where we’re headed.”

  After less than a block, they passed a gateway of palm trees and continued on to Ocean Boulevard, which ran alongside the island’s west side. Kendra struggled to separate the pounding surf on her left from the sounds emanating from her phone.

  She finally nodded. “Yes!”

  “Yes, what?”

  She said impatiently, “Yes, he was here.”

  Two minutes later, they found themselves on a large cul-de-sac that ended at a guard gate for the sprawling North Island Naval Complex.

  Lynch spun around the cul-de-sac and stopped. “Did he go in there?”

  Kendra shook her head. “No.”

  “Then what did he do?”

  She listened for a moment longer. “He turned around just like you did. And he parked here on the street and continued his dictation.” She stared thoughtfully at the guard gate. “He just sat here.”

  “As if he was staking it out, maybe waiting for somebody to come or go?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. All I can tell you is what he did. Anything else is pure guesswork.”

  “Well, this location matches up with the cell-tower hit from Bergen’s call. Whoever hired him to clean Jeff’s apartment was probably behind those gates when he took Bergen’s call.”

  Kendra looked at the entrance for a moment longer. “And exactly how many people are behind those gates?”

  “Thousands. It’s a veritable city.”

  “All naval personnel?”

  “No. A fair number of civilian employees, too.”

  She picked up his binoculars and scanned the tightly clustered buildings visible on the other side. “I’d love to find out what in the hell Jeff thought he could find out by sitting here.”

  Lynch motioned toward the beach. “I could think of worse places for a stakeout. Put down the car top, slather on the suntan oil…”

  Kendra adjusted the binoculars’ focus wheel and studied a two-story building with bold lettering on its side. She suddenly stiffened. “That’s … interesting. The Thatcher Center for Naval Medical Research.” She handed him the binoculars. “The white building with gray trim.”

  Lynch took the binoculars and examined it. “So what?”

  “Stephanie Marsh. One of the victims, the one who was killed in a parking garage. She worked for a surgeon who was a Navy physician. She was his administrative assistant.”

  “I remember.” He frowned thoughtfully. “But I can’t recall the place she worked.”

  “But Jeff was staking out an area that had a medical research center. Do you think it means anything?”

  Lynch shrugged. “Remember where we are. San Diego is a big Navy town. There may be hundreds of medical doctors out there with Navy contracts. But it’s worth verifying her place of employment.” He pulled out his phone, punched a number, and put it on speaker so that Kendra could hear.

  Griffin answered on the first ring. “Griffin.”

  “Lynch here. Kendra is with me. She’s managed to put us outside Gate 5 of the North Island Naval Complex.”

  “And why would she do a thing like that?”

  “Because Agent Stedler was staking out this spot not long before he disappeared,” Lynch said. “Any idea why he would be doing that?”

  He was silent. “Can’t say that I do. You’re sure about this?”

  “Positive,” Kendra said. “Well, as positive as I can be considering the—”

  Lynch cut in. “We need some information on the employer of one of the victims. The name of the doctor who Stephanie Marsh worked for and her address of employment.”

  “I see where you’re headed. Let me check records.” Griffin paused. “Here it is. He’s a well-known naval surgeon. Dr. Myles Denton.”

  “And why did he need an administrative assistant?”

  “It’s not that unusual. He’s an important man. He’s retired from active service, but they still call him in for difficult surgical cases since he’s in the Reserves. He’s evidently a superb surgeon.”

  “And what does he do when he’s not being a superb surgeon?” Kendra asked.

  Another silence while Griffin checked. “Research. Underwater pulmonary research. Several years ago, he came up with two medicines that expand lung capacity. It says that the SEALs use them on occasion.”

  “And he did this while he was in the Navy?”

  “The first medicine he developed while he was still active, the second he created as a researcher for Thatcher Pharmaceuticals, which has a naval research center in San Diego.”

  “Bingo,” Lynch murmured. “And that research center is within a stone’s throw of Gate 5 at the base where we’re sitting right now. And I’ll bet Stephanie Marsh’s employment address is Thatcher Medical Research Center.”

  “Right,” Griffin said. “Holy shit. Do we have something?”

  “See if you can find any connection with any of the other victims to either Thatcher Pharmaceuticals or that surgeon. Can you shoot me a photo of Denton right away?”

  “What about Charles Schuyler, the Thatcher CEO? There are several shots of the two of them all buddy-buddy at various conferences.”

  “Really? Interesting. Yeah, give us a photo of Schuyler, too.”

  “And check and see if they’ve been involved in anything together other than pulmonary research,” Kendra was frowning thoughtfully. “Research. Pharmaceuticals. Deadly unknown substance. A link appears to be emerging.”

  “Are you going to go on the base and check them out?” Griffin asked.

  “Not until we get a little more info from you,” Lynch said. “I want to know what questions to ask. Just send us those photos, then—”

  “Wait a minute. Santini is here trying to tell me something.” There was the sound of voices in the background, then Griffin came back on the line, his voice triumphant. “I told you I had enough agents checking out that dermatologist, Kendra. We’ve got him.”

  “When? Who is it?” Kendra sat up straight in her seat. “What did he tell you?”

  “Two hours ago Santini located Dr. Joseph Powell, who has a dermatologist practice on the south side of town. He recognized the victim as his patient, Leon Sanders, and gave us an address where he lived with his sister.” He paused. “Are you ready for this? Santini got an ID from Leon Sanders’s sister on the guy who shot at you at Ocotillo Wells and beat up your friend, Olivia. His name is Thomas Briggs.”

  “Tommy Bri
ggs,” Kendra said. “What did the sister say about Briggs?”

  “Just that he was some kind of paid muscle who was supposed to protect her brother. She was pretty bitter when we told her Briggs had shot Leon.”

  “Paid by whom?” Lynch asked.

  “She wasn’t sure. She said Leon never talked about his work at Ocotillo Wells to her. She just got the impression it was drugs or something else pretty nasty. She said when he got back from London six months ago, he was boasting that this one risky job might set him up for life. He said it was so important, they’d assigned him Briggs to guard him while he was working.”

  She asked the million-dollar question. “Does she know where Briggs lives?”

  “Yes.”

  She inhaled sharply. “Where?”

  “He has a Residence Inn suite where he stays when they’re not in the desert. It’s about ten miles from where Leon and his sister live. We have it under surveillance now.”

  “Is he there?”

  “We think so. Santini left two agents to stake out the motel. There’s a rental car in front of the unit. He’s not going to leave without our knowing it.”

  “Unless he slips away.”

  “He’s not going to do that, Kendra. We know what we’re doing.”

  She was silent a moment. “I know you do.”

  “Good God, what an admission.”

  “It’s just that this is so important. Briggs almost killed Olivia. He mustn’t get away, Griffin.”

  “This case is more to me than revenge for your friend,” he said quietly. “He may be the key, and I won’t let him get away until I find what doors he can open.”

  “A favor,” Lynch said. “Let us open those doors first.”

  “What?”

  “Let me and Kendra be the first to talk to him. Alone.”

  Total silence. If Kendra hadn’t heard Griffin’s slow, measured breathing, she might have thought that he had hung up.

  Griffin finally spoke. “You have a gargantuan pair of cojones, Lynch.”

  “They’re absolutely magnificent.”

  He was silent again. “I’ll let you in the room with him during questioning, but that’s the best I can do.”

  “Come on, you wouldn’t even be close to having him if it wasn’t for Kendra.”

  “He’s not ours yet.”