by Glenn Rogers
“Not yet,” I said.
“That's too bad. I’m sorry.” He smiled, rather perfunctorily. “So, what are these additional questions you have?”
“What's your relationship with Rachel Pipestone?” I asked.
I expected him to deny knowing Rachel Pipestone. Instead, he said, “That's confidential. Attorney-client privilege.”
I said, “We know that a couple of years ago you set up an off-shore corporation for the Pipestones in the Caymans, an import-export business.”
“Do you?” Esposito said. “You've been busy.”
“Probably a convenient way to launder money from your drug business,” I said.
Esposito tried to look offended. “Drug business?” He shook his head. “I'm an attorney. I run a legitimate legal practice. One of my specialties is setting up off-shore corporations, like I did for the Pipestones. Because I set up a corporation for them does not mean I participate with them in their business.”
“What about your father's business?” I asked. “You participate in that?”
“Do you participate in your father's business, Mr. Badger? As I understand it, you do not share your father's enthusiasm for the law. Thus, you are not an attorney in his firm. When your father passes and is no longer running his law firm, will you then step in and run it in his place? You will not, will you?”
He waited for me to answer. I didn't.
He smiled and shook his head. “My father was in the drug business. I am not.”
“I think you are,” I said, “with Rachel. I also think you, or she, or both of you sent two sets of shooters after me.”
“Now that is an ugly accusation, Mr. Badger. I know nothing of any shooters, as you call them, being dispatched to dispatch you.”
His eyes held mine for a moment. He took a sip of his drink. One of the girls sunbathing next to him got up and slid into the pool.
He said, “Tell me about these teams of shooters you say I sent.”
“Why? Do you want to know how and why your people failed?”
“I'm merely curious,” he said, with a shrug.
“The first team was made up of three Latino men. Pulled up alongside us in a black Escalade. Opened up with an Uzi. They weren't good enough. They died. The driver was named Jorge Betancourt. Used to work for Pipestone.”
“Really?” Esposito said, trying to look surprised. “And you deduce from this that Mrs. Pipestone sent these men to kill you because you killed her husband?”
“The thought had occurred to me,” I said.
“And because you imagine some kind of a relationship between Mrs. Pipestone and me, you also imagine that I had something to do with the sending of these men.”
“That thought also occurred to me.”
“Well, you are wrong. I had nothing to do with sending those men after you.”
“What about the Asian guys?” I asked.
His eyebrows went up. “Asian guys?” He frowned. “Mr. Badger, Agent Watson, though I have no personal experience whatsoever in the operation of an illegal enterprise where the services of assassins is sometimes required, I am given to understand that such organizations usually maintain what we might refer to as ethnic homogeneity.”
“That's what we hear,” Alex said.
I said, “Doesn't mean you couldn't have outsourced the hit to a more competent team than your Hispanic peons.” I was trying to piss him off.
His faced hardened.
“Like your father and his team,” I said. “The whole bunch of them were killed by one woman.”
“Get out of my house,” he growled.
“No,” I said, defiantly. It startled him. He was used to being obeyed. “I think you, or Rachel, or both of you sent the shooters and I think you have Monica. The thing I can't figure is why you're farting around sending notes to me.”
“I don't know anything about any notes,” Benito insisted. “And I don't have Ms. Nolan. And there's no way I'd spend the kind of money it would take to send two teams of shooters after you. Now, you've insulted me enough and taken enough of my time. I want you to leave my house. If you don't leave voluntarily, I will have my men remove you.”
“It'll take more than those two ninnies standing over there,” I said.
“Mr. Badger, you are intentionally trying to provoke me using insults.” Benito looked at Alex. “Is this the way the FBI conducts its investigations now?”
“In this case,” Alex said, “the FBI is here merely in a support capacity.”
“Then you need to support your asses out of here,” he said, his eyes coming back to mine. “Because I'm not going to give you what you want. There's not going to be any violence. Regardless of how much you insult me, my father, or the Mexican people.”
He was angry, but I could see that he wasn't going for it. I was wasting my time. I turned and walked away.
As he pulled out onto Highway 1, heading back toward Santa Monica, Alex said, “You really think that's the best way to get Monica back?”
“I'm sorry,” I said. “That was unprofessional and self-indulgent.”
“It was,” Alex said. “But it was also fun. I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't have to go change his shorts.”
That made me laugh. “It was fun,” I said. “But it was also stupid.” I took a deep breath and let it out, shaking my head as I did. “I gotta have better control than that.”
“You will have. Where to next?”
“Evelyn Darwin.”
Chapter 25
Friday Afternoon
Evelyn Darwin lived in Norwalk, a suburb about seventeen miles south and a little east of Los Angeles. It was fifty miles from Malibu and would take us an hour and a half to get there. Before getting on the freeway in Santa Monica, Alex stopped at a 7-Eleven. He got a coffee; I got a Coke Zero.
The house Evelyn lived in was older, probably built in the nineteen sixties. The little stucco house was painted a light yellow; the trim was light blue. An older Toyota sat in the driveway. We parked on the street and went to the door. Alex knocked.
In a moment, Evelyn came to the door. She opened the door and spoke to us through an aluminum-framed screen door. She was in her early fifties and was still a good looking woman. She was wearing jeans and a yellow tee shirt that said, Tomorrow, I'll be sober but you'll still be ugly. She didn't seem to recognize me.
“Can I ... help you?” she managed with some effort. The smell of booze was strong.
“Evelyn Darwin?” Alex asked.
“Yes.”
Alex held up his ID. “We'd like to ask you some questions, Mrs. Darwin. May we come in?”
She squinted at the ID and then said, “Sure.”
She turned away and went back into the house, leaving us to open the screen door and follow her in.
Evelyn went into the dining room and sat at the table. She didn't invite us to sit but we did anyway. Alex looked at me and I nodded that he should go ahead with the questions.
“Mrs. Darwin,” he said, “where were you this past Monday morning between five and eight a.m.?”
She thought for a moment. It was not easy for her. Finally, she said, “I was here. In bed.”
“Can anyone corroborate that?”
She looked at Alex and then looked around the house, turned her hands palms up and shrugged her shoulders. “I live alone.”
“Do you remember a man named Jake Badger?” Alex asked.
The mention of the name seemed to jolt her. Her eyes wandered to me and recognition began to dawn on her. Hate sobered her.
With her eyes locked onto mine, she said, “Diane is dead.”
“I'm sorry to hear that,” I said.
Tears welled up in her eyes. “Please excuse me for a moment,” she said. She got up and walked into the living room and down a hallway, toward the bathroom or a bedroom, we assumed.
In a moment, Evelyn returned. Her right hand came up quickly and she fired a .38 at me. As her hand was coming up, I saw the weapon and dove to my
left. Her shot missed. She fired a second round, which also missed because I kept moving, rolling back to my right toward the table. By then, Alex had his weapon drawn and shouted for her to freeze. She ignored him and fired a third shot, which came very close to me. Alex fired twice and she went down.
Everything stopped for a brief moment. Alex and I were both looking at Evelyn lying on her floor, bleeding on her carpet.
We looked at each other. I nodded. “She missed.”
Alex kept his weapon aimed at her. We approached cautiously. She wasn’t moving. I used the toe of my shoe to nudge the small revolver out of her hand. It was a Ruger LCR .38 caliber. Hammerless. Good weapon. I have one just like it, except mine's a .357 Magnum. If she'd been a better shot, her .38 would have done the job.
Alex holstered his weapon. Evelyn had taken two .40 calibers to the chest but was still breathing. I got a towel from the kitchen and applied pressure to the wound. Alex called 911, making sure they understood the FBI was on the scene.
Evelyn stopped breathing, so while I kept pressure on the wound, Alex began CPR. The wound was to the right of the heart by a couple of inches. Trying to control the bleeding and administer CPR at the same time was difficult, but we managed. The local cops arrived and hurried around doing a lot of nothing until the paramedics arrived. The paramedics took over the CPR for a few minutes, working feverishly to stabilize Evelyn. We watched. After a moment, they stopped. The lead responder shook his head. “She's gone.”
“Shit,” Alex said, rubbing his forehead with his fingers and thumb, as if to massage away the regret of having to kill again.
A local detective arrived and took our statements while the uniforms secured the scene. The M.E. arrived and removed the body. It was three thirty when we left the Darwin house.
“Under other circumstances,” I said, as Alex started the car, “I'd say let's call it a day ...”
“But we can't,” Alex said, finishing my sentence. “Monica is wondering what's taking so long and we can't afford the luxury of down time.”
I nodded. “Thank you,” I said. “And thank you for saving my life back there. If she'd had another shot, she'd have gotten me.”
“I doubt that. After her second shot, you were in a position to pull your own weapon. If I hadn't shot, you'd have shot a second later. Either way,” Alex said, “when she raised that gun, her chances of survival went way down.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Just the same, thanks.”
“Sure.”
After a moment, Alex asked, “What if it was Evelyn who took Monica?”
“That's a good question. But I don't think it was her.”
“Why not?”
“It's the middle of the afternoon and she was wasted. Initially, she didn't even know who I was. And when she finally did recognize me, she didn't respond in a calculated manner. She went over the edge. Her behavior wasn't consistent with everything else that's happened up to this point. The notes suggest that whoever took Monica is smart and calculating, to the point of knowing where we’re looking, who we’re looking at. Evelyn wasn’t capable of that sort of thing.”
Alex nodded. “Good assessment,” he said. “You'd make a good agent.”
“That your professional assessment of my assessment?”
“Something like that,” he said, stopping at a red light. “So, on to Lindsey Connors?”
“Daughter of the psychopath,” I said.
“You know,” Alex said, “technically, they aren't referred to as psychopaths or sociopaths any longer. They suffer from antisocial personality disorder.”
“I've heard that. I think those of us who've had to deal with them in dangerous situations find the term psychopath more descriptive.”
“Certainly sounds more ominous, doesn't it?” Alex said.
Given the events of the previous hour, our conversation would have seemed odd or even cold and uncaring to anyone else. But sometimes, in order to keep going, you have to deflect reality, push it away so it doesn't overwhelm you. That's what we were doing. We had to put Evelyn aside so we could concentrate on Lindsey Connors, because, ultimately, concentrating on Lindsey Connors was concentrating on Monica. And that's really all that mattered—because like Alex had said, Monica was wondering what was taking so long.
Chapter 26
Friday Afternoon
Lindsey Connors lived in Hermosa Beach, about forty minutes from where we were in Norwalk. Traffic on the freeway moved along nicely. Alex had the radio set to a classical music station. I talked about movies and books to keep from thinking too much. Alex knew I was just distracting myself, so he listened as I rambled on.
We parked in front of Lindsey's apartment at four twenty. Alex knocked. No answer. He knocked again, harder. Still no answer. The door to the apartment next to Lindsey's opened and an older man stepped out.
“You fellas looking for Lindsey?”
“Yes, Sir,” Alex said. “You know where she is?”
“Why you looking for her?”
Alex took out his ID. “FBI,” he said. “Need to ask Ms. Connors some questions.”
“FBI, huh. She in trouble?”
“No, Sir. We just need to ask her some questions.”
He nodded absently. “Well, Lindsey ain't home during the day. She works.”
“Do you know where?” Alex asked.
“Sure. She owns Scrumptious. A sandwich shop down by the beach.”
“Scrumptious.”
“Hermosa and Tenth.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
He nodded and went back into his apartment.
Scrumptious was a nice little eatery on a corner lot with tables inside or on an outside patio. We parked on the side street and went in. The lunch crowd was long gone and the dinner crowd had not yet arrived. Lindsey was behind the counter. One other woman was working in the kitchen.
Lindsey looked up with a smile when we walked in. She recognized me immediately and the smile faded. She ignored Alex and fixed her eyes on mine.
“Jake Badger,” she said. “You're the last person I ever expected to see in my restaurant.” Her manner was straightforward but not hateful.
I didn't say anything.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“We need to ask you some questions,” I said. “Can we sit down for a bit?”
“Who's your friend?” she asked, looking at Alex.
He showed her his ID and said, “Agent Watson. FBI.”
She looked at the badge and then at Alex and me. “Sure,” she said, finally. “We can sit. Want some coffee? A Coke? Anything?”
“I could use a cup of coffee,” Alex said. “Thank you.”
“How?”
“Black.”
She looked at me.
I shrugged. “Diet Coke.”
She poured two cups of coffee and filled a glass with ice and Diet Coke and put them on a small round tray.
“It's nice out,” she said. “Why don't we sit on the patio?” She led us out to a table that was shaded by a large umbrella.
This wasn't the kind of reception I had expected—especially after what had happened at Evelyn’s house.
After we sat and she had distributed the drinks, she said, “So, how can I help the FBI?
Alex seemed to be hanging back on this one so I said, “Do you know a woman named Monica Nolan?”
She thought for a moment and then shook her head. “Not that I know of.”
She sipped her coffee.
“This past Monday morning, between five and eight a.m., where were you?”
Her eyes shifted to Alex and then back to me. “I was home.”
“Is there anyone who can confirm that?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because this past Monday morning Ms. Nolan, a very close friend of mine, was abducted.”
“And you think I had something to do with it?”
I drank some of my Coke.
“You made threats against me,” I said.
She took a deep breath and looked away for a moment. When she looked back, she said, “I did, didn't I?”
It was a rhetorical question. I didn't reply.
After a moment, she said, “I'm not the same person I was then. I'm very different. My life is very different now.”
“How so?” I asked.
She had some more of her coffee.
“I hit rock bottom. I was self-destructing. Sex. Drugs. I hated everything and everyone. I tried to kill myself. I went into rehab. While I was there, I heard the message of Jesus and became a Christian. Turned me around.”
She paused to calculate my reaction to her story. Then she said, “I no longer hate you, Jake Badger. I no longer hate my father or myself. I've been forgiven and I have forgiven ... myself and the people who hurt me.”
I was watching her eyes and her body language. There was no sign that she was lying.
“I had nothing to do with the abduction of your friend.”
I continued to search her eyes. I took another drink of my Coke.
After another moment, she said, “To answer your previous question, no, I have no one to corroborate my statement that I was home Monday morning. I live alone. But I did come to work at nine. Carla can confirm that. We come in at nine to get ready to serve lunch at eleven. I was here at nine on Monday morning.”
Alex got up to go speak with Carla.
“I'm sorry for the accusations I made,” Lindsey said. “I understand now that my father was a sick and dangerous man and that you were just doing your job. He had to be stopped. I'm sorry if I caused you any distress.”
I'd never had anyone in her position apologize to me before. It felt odd ... good, but odd.
“Thank you,” I said.
She studied me for a moment.
“You love her, don't you, your friend who was kidnapped?”
She had been honest with me. I saw no reason not to be honest with her.
“Yes,” I said.
“I hope you find her. I'll pray that you do, and that the Lord will keep her safe until you do.”
“Thank you,” I said.
I took a five out my wallet to pay her for the coffee and Coke.