by Kylie Brant
“We’re about to expand your education.” He held open the door for her and allowed her to precede him out the doorway. “The first thing you need to know is that pawnshops sell things a lot more interesting than jewelry.”
* * * *
Phil’s was a popular place for a weekday during work hours. Cam stepped into the store after Sophia and scanned the area. Three customers and a burly clerk were crowded into the store. Every inch of the cramped space was used to showcase Phil’s wares. A jewelry counter for rings, necklaces and watches. Used power tools and small electronics. A couple large smart TVs. Vacuum cleaners. Sports memorabilia.
And guns. A whole case of them. He made a point of lingering over the showcase. Phil, if that’s who the bearded man behind the counter was, had made him for law enforcement the instant he’d walked through the door. The man was less certain what to think of Sophie. It was obvious from the way his gaze kept following them while he having a discussion with the customer at the counter over the worth of a digital camera he was trying to pawn.
“Just a minute,” he told the man he was waiting on. Disappearing into the back, he returned a moment later with a woman who took his place at the counter. The clerk bypassed the next two customers and stopped next to Cam.
“Help you?”
Cam flashed his DCI credentials. “DCI Special Agent Cam Prescott. “I’d like to talk to you about a purchase made here two and a half weeks ago.”
“We’re a busy place.” The man’s lips were almost completely hidden by the reddish beard that hung to the base of his neck. “Not going to be able to remember any one purchase.” His voice was pitched deliberately low. But the shop was too small to ensure privacy and he seemed to know it. One of the customers started edging nonchalantly toward the door. Opening it, he sidled out. The action didn’t escape Phil’s attention.
Cam took a tri-folded sheet from the breast pocket of his suit coat and shook it out to show the man. But Phil gave the photo a cursory glance and shook his head. “Don’t know her. And I’m not going to recognize everyone who may have come in here.”
“Maybe this will jog your memory.” He handed the man the credit card page listing the sale from his store.
He handed the sheet back. The man’s denim-clad beefy shoulders jerked up and down once. “Can’t tell anything from that.”
“That’s why you need to go through your records,” Cam explained patiently. “I want a match for what was purchased with this credit card.”
Phil smiled for the first time since they entered his store. “We both know that’s gonna take a warrant. Since you don’t have one, get the hell out and don’t come back until you do.” The words were spoken loudly, for the benefit of his remaining customers.
“Somehow I thought you’d say that.” Cam looked around for Sophie. Found her gazing in awe at the array of mounted moose, deer and bear heads on the wall. “Agent Channing.” She turned, cocked her head quizzically. “This shop is closed for business until further notice. Clear it.”
“You can’t do that!” This from the woman behind the counter.
“I’m afraid we can, ma’am.” Sophie addressed the customers. “You gentlemen will have to leave. It’s possible the store will re-open. At some point.” Both of them shot a look at Cam and scurried out the door.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Phil folded his arms across his chest. “I know my rights. You can’t just come in here and…”
“I can and did. You want me to get a warrant. Until that warrant arrives I have the authority to prevent you from any activity that I believe might sabotage our investigation. That includes possibly destroying files or tampering with evidence.”
“This is bullshit.” Phil turned his head and addressed the woman. “Get Radner on the phone. My attorney,” he explained for Cam’s benefit. “By the end of the day, he’ll have your ass and your badge.”
“Be sure and tell him that the warrant will include all your bills of sale for the past year, and the federal documentation of all gun sales for the same period. Any violations we find will, of course, be turned over to ATF.”
The woman behind the counter paused in the middle of keying in the number. Looked from her cell phone to Phil.
The man hesitated a moment. Then shrugged. “Let me see that credit card statement again.”
He looked it over much more carefully this time, and then went to the back again. Cam’s hand crept inside his suit jacket. Hovered over the butt of his weapon. But when Phil reappeared he was carrying a laptop. He set it on the counter. Painstakingly typed in the number correlating with the bill of sale number on the credit card statement.
“Okay,” he said after a moment. “Says here she bought two paintings. A flat screen TV and a used laptop.” He turned the computer around for Cam to see the screen. When Cam only looked at him, he said, “Go ahead and look. It’s all documented right there.”
“I can’t figure out if you’re incredibly stupid or just stubborn. I’m guessing the former.” Taking his cell phone from his pocket, Cam pressed the key to speed dial Jenna. “Fill out a warrant for Phil’s Pawn and Jewelry,” he said evenly, and recited the address. “Take some time with it. We want a thorough search of the premises, including computerized record keeping, bills of sale, firearm documentation…”
“All right. I can help.”
“Shut the hell up, Mandi.”
“You shut up, Phil. Idiot.” The woman behind the counter looked to Sophie for support. “Maybe some mistakes were made.” She reached up a hand to shove a strand of dirty blond hair behind her ear. “If we give you the answers you want about that lady that came in here, you’ll leave us alone?”
“That depends on the sort of information you have to share, ma’am.”
Sophie’s noncommittal answer nearly had Cam grinning. She could deny it all she wanted, but her time spent with law enforcement was definitely rubbing off on her.
“Okay.” Mandi rubbed her palms down her jeans-clad thighs. “So we had this guy working for us. Roger Dutton. Just part time, you understand. He waited on this woman, like you said. And without us knowing about it, he sold her some firearms and ammunition.”
“Jesus, you and Dutton are going to land me in federal prison,” Phil moaned, rubbing the back of his neck. “Listen, the guy falsified the bill of sale and I could tell right away it was bullshit when I went over it the next day. I canned him on the spot.”
“And didn’t report it,” Cam said evenly.
“Think I don’t know I could lose my license for this? He had strict orders not to sell any weapons at all when I wasn’t here. Moron thought I wouldn’t notice three of my best guns gone from the case? I should have beaten the shit out of him while I was at it. You know what he risked my license over? Bitch gave him some cash under the table and a blowjob.” His hands slapped the counter in disgust. “For that alone he should have his ass kicked.”
“Tell him the rest,” Mandi whispered in a loud undertone. Phil gave her a warning look, but the woman was adamant. “We recognized the name on the photo because she was in here before. When both Phil and I were working. It was about a month ago, maybe. And that time she was asking Phil what he knew about explosives.”
* * * *
“You can’t ignore this.” Jenna was pacing Cam’s office in an unusual show of agitation. “Two witnesses who can tie her to an interest in bombs or potentially explosive material.” She took a second to glance at the surveillance feeds on the computer screens as she paced by. Continued her rant without missing a beat. “Beckett was right earlier today. You have to look at the timeline. What does it tell us about what Baxter and Vance were thinking? What they were planning and when?”
Cam raised his brows. “You and Maxwell must have had quite the conversation today.”
“We did.” She stopped. “That’s not the point.” The agent turned to Sophia for help. “Don’t let him change the subject.”
Her throat tight, Sophia
said, “I mentioned the possibility that Baxter might target members of the task force. We know now what she had planned for me. But you…you were—are—the face of the investigation. A month ago places us at the start of this whole thing. The bodies had been discovered in the cemeteries. We’ve spent a lot of time talking about the killings, the motivations…but we haven’t spent enough time thinking about what must have gone on between the three killers when you tied the victims together. Were they panicked? Did the discovery cause a rift between them, or did it draw them even more tightly together?”
“Our focus was exactly where it needed to be to solve the case.” Cam’s voice was maddeningly even as he propped his feet up on his desk while he went through the texts from his agents. “We can’t waste our time on what-ifs. We have to go where the evidence leads us.”
“You’re not obtuse.” His narrowed gaze caught hers when she uttered the words. She read the irritation there. The warning. She ignored both. “If you’re downplaying this because you think it worries me, too late. I’m worried. She started looking for explosives after your name was released as lead investigator on the case. They may have planned it to take you out.”
“I’m not downplaying it.” His gaze encompassed both of them. “Baxter’s queries about explosives tell us more about what she and Vance are capable of than anything else. “Did they ever acquire them? There’s no way for us to be sure. So we’ll be careful, all of us. But I doubt very much Baxter would be dumb enough to try to wire my car while it sits in the DCI lot. Or at a scene. And my home is secure.”
Of course it was. Sophia recalled their conversation from this morning. Federal agents were watching it. Her chest eased a bit, even though she was well aware that explosives could be deadly in many forms, not just as car bombs. But this inter-agency task force from two years ago that had arisen again meant constant surveillance on his whereabouts. Digital and physical surveillance on his home. One probably couldn’t hope for better protection than that.
“There’s nothing in either Baxter or Vance’s backgrounds to indicate they have a familiarity with explosives.” She would cling to that fact when worry threatened to consume her. “But the developmental arc of serial criminals include new behaviors as they evolve and change. They’ll adapt to their new reality or a new environment.” She paused a beat. “Or to a new threat. It would be a mistake not to take that into consideration.”
“I am.” His look encompassed both of them. Finally, Jenna blew out of breath.
“Yeah, okay. No use hammering on it.” She went back to the computers and dropped into a chair in front of them. “Cam’s too much of a professional to—ha ha—blow this off.”
“The charms of cop humor,” Sophia said darkly, as she plopped with much less grace than usual into one of the chairs in front of the desk, “have always been lost on me.” His cell rang then, and when he answered it, the alertness in his face had Sophia getting to her feet. She was already turned toward the door when he made the announcement.
“We’ve got a positive ID on a third motel Baxter registered at.”
* * * *
The one story white-washed cement building had seen better days. Vickie sat in a shaded corner in the rutted lot behind the structure and waited. At half past five, a woman she’d noticed before came out of the back of the structure, standing in the doorway for a moment, still talking to someone inside. Then she pulled the door closed, shut the screen carefully and made her way to an older blue Honda parked next to the structure. She didn’t spare a glance in the direction of Vickie’s vehicle. Gravel spit from beneath her tires as she drove away, obviously in a hurry.
Putting her car into drive, Vickie did a slow loop around the building to assure herself that no one but the owner was inside. Then she went around to the back again, this time pulling up right next to the lone vehicle left there, a dinged and dented mid-sized sedan.
She got out, threw a quick look around and then, hefting her purse over her shoulder walked quickly to the door. Let herself in.
The man she was looking for was hunched over a desktop computer. He was thinner than she remembered, with a bald patch on the back of his head and stooped shoulders. He jolted in the chair as he heard a sound behind him, blacking out the screen with a quick practiced move of the mouse. But not before she’d glimpsed the images that had so enthralled him.
“Greg.” Her lips curled as he whirled in the chair to face her. “I see your interests haven’t changed.”
Greg Davis went still, like a rabbit faced with a lion that was crouched and ready to pounce. “Vickie.” The word ended on a squeak. He cleared his throat. Moistened his lips nervously. “It’s been a while.”
“That it has.” She moved around the room, taking inventory. The room looked to serve a dual role as storeroom and office, with metal shelves hemming in the desk he sat at, each overflowing with books, equipment, and dog and cat food. “But you saw Sonny more recently, didn’t you? And you were always far more interested in him than you were in me. At least when he was a kid.”
He had the brains to look nervous. He was practically peeing himself.
“That was all so long ago. I’ve changed.” He tried for a smile. Couldn’t pull it off. “We’ve all changed.”
“Let’s see how much you’ve changed, Greg.” She unzipped her oversized purse with one hand, gestured to the computer with the other. “Show me what you were looking at when I came in.”
A small sound escaped him, and somehow without moving he seemed to shrink in the chair. “Nothing. Veterinary training videos. That’s all.”
“Uh-huh.” She took a gun from her bag and aimed it at him. “Show me.”
His shoulders slumping, his hand moved to the mouse. Clicked. The screen was filled with images of men engaged in sex acts with young boys. “All I do is look, anymore, I promise. I told Sonny that the last time he was here. I helped him! Every time he came to me, I helped. I gave him the drugs he wanted. And when he got hurt a few weeks ago, I patched him up.” Tears were leaking from his eyes. “I repaid my debt.”
A slow burn ignited in her chest. She didn’t know when he might have patched up Sonny, but the paralytic…yeah, it had been her idea to send Sonny to collect something they could use to subdue the women they kidnapped. And Davis had owed them. Had owed Sonny most of all for the way that he’d used him as a boy.
But that didn’t repay his debt to her son. Not even close.
“Then you won’t mind helping again. I need another drug. Something strong enough to use on a large animal.” She smiled thinly as his head whipped around to meet her gaze. He knew, of course he did, what type of large ‘animal’ she was referring to. “I want something that will kill it. But not quickly. I don’t mind if it suffers. In fact, I prefer it.”
“I don’t have anything like that,” he said quickly. “You should go. Your face is all over the news. There have to be cops looking for you everywhere, and I don’t want them coming…” His voice broke off abruptly when she brought her hand out of her purse holding a gun.
“Don’t try to bullshit me, Greg. I know you work with both farm animals and pets, so I figure you’ve got some Micotil. I want it in a thirty cc disposable syringe, fourteen gauge needle.” She pressed the gun against the side of his throat, traced it down the cord there to where the pulse was beating madly. “Get me that, and I’m on my way.”
He tried to stare her down, ended up looking away. “I forgot you used to be a nurse’s assistant. That would be more than you’d use on a thousand pound cow. Overdose like that is going to cause nausea, dizziness, chest pain, limb numbness…left untreated the…animal…would certainly die.”
Pathetic little puke of a man. He’d once had a sense of imagination and taste for kink that had interested her for a while though. In the end, however, he had disappointed. Most men did.
“That fits with my research.” She moved away, noting the quick flash of relief in his expression when the gun was moved away. Leaning a hip
against the desk, she gestured with the weapon, aiming it meaningful for his crotch. “I’m guessing you have it around here somewhere. And that you would be delighted to get it for me.”