by Dan Ames
“Probably,” Deb said. “But I sure didn’t kill her if that’s what you’re asking. Christ. The booze sometimes makes me shoot my mouth off, that’s all.”
“Any idea who might have wanted to hurt her?” Pauling asked.
“Hurt her? I thought the dumb bitch drowned,” Donnie said.
“What a touching eulogy,” Pauling said. “Answer the question. Was anyone after her?”
“Hell, all those guys were after her,” Deb said, sorrow and disappointment audible in her voice. “Maybe she screwed one of them over. They all got fragile egos.”
“Big egos and little dicks,” Donnie said, puffing himself up and looking at Pauling.
“How would you know?” Deb asked.
She and Pauling looked at Donnie.
“Piss off, both of you,” he said and walked back out the door. Deb laid back on the couch and put a towel over her face.
“Fly away, birdie,” she said.
Chapter Forty
Pauling got back into the pickup truck, pulled out into the driveway and made it to the intersection with Perimeter Road, next to the maintenance sign.
Another car drove by and behind the wheel she saw Michael Tallon. His face registered no surprise but he hit the brakes hard and nearly skidded to a stop. He put his car in reverse and backed up in front of her. Pauling pulled out onto the road so they were side by side. She rolled down her window and he did the same.
"What are you doing out here?" he asked.
"Oh, I was just looking to see if they needed a full-time mechanic. You know I'm a real grease monkey."
"Hmm, I didn't realize that. Wait here," he said. He pulled his car off onto the shoulder, put the hazard lights on and ran around to the side of her pickup. He opened the door and hopped into her passenger seat.
Pauling put the truck in gear and pulled off onto the shoulder.
"I've been meaning to ask,” Tallon said. “What is it you do with the bird people again?”
She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. "Why?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "I seem to recall you telling me you had something to do with computers.”
“Yeah, I believe I said something like that,” she said. Pauling wondered where this was coming from. He hadn’t asked her any of these kinds of questions when they’d gone diving. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to spoil the outing.
He furrowed his brow as if he was trying to reconcile that idea.
"It just seems like you remind me of a certain kind of person," he said.
"Oh yeah, what kind of person is that?"
"Well, you know I did a lot of work in Special Ops,” he grinned at her. “Still do, occasionally, maybe.”
Pauling knew that was the case, she’d guessed that the minute she’d met him.
“We did a lot of missions all over the world and I worked with a lot of different people,” he continued. “You don't seem like a boots-on-the-ground kind of person, too much. But you do remind me of some people I worked with. There were a few folks who helped plan strategy, you know, more of an analysis kind of thing. You remind me of them. I don’t know, it’s just a feeling.
Pauling wondered if he knew who she really was, because he had described what she’d done at the FBI. And was he asking her this because he already knew it to be true? Had they dug into classified files and found out who she really was?
For a brief moment Pauling thought about telling him the truth. But then she changed her mind.
"Don't you have somewhere you need to be?" she asked, a bit abruptly.
Tallon laughed, opened the door and got out of the truck. He leaned on the doorframe and looked at Pauling. "Maybe one day you'll tell me who you really are.” He tapped the roof twice and walked back to his car.
Pauling drove away.
He's right, she thought. One day I probably will.
Chapter Forty-One
Pauling drove back to the Nest and saw Ted unloading a bunch of gear from the back of his truck. She parked, went over and lent him a hand. There were cardboard boxes of various shapes and sizes, some heavy, some light.
"What's in this?"
"Mostly supplies," he said. Pauling grabbed a box and followed Ted around to the back of the building and started stacking the boxes near a table.
They went back and forth making trips from the truck to the stack and it took them nearly half an hour to completely unload the vehicle’s cargo.
"Did these just come in on the plane today?"
"Yep," Ted said.
They finished and sat down at the table. "That was a good workout," Pauling said. Ted grabbed them each a bottled water from somewhere.
"So Ted, how well did you know Paige?"
"Give me a break," Ted said, his even demeanor dropping and going right into Angry Ted.
"You know, I know you're asking everybody about this and I know you’re going around trying to find a bunch of stuff out. Why don’t you just leave the dead alone? If you aren’t going to, at least just leave me alone about it, okay?”
Ted’s face had gotten red and Pauling knew it wasn’t from the exertion of unloading the gear. “I had nothing to do with anything related to Paige. Okay? I hardly knew her, I barely even talked to her. She went out every night. She had a lot of boyfriends and I'm not judging. But you don't have to investigate me if that's what you're doing.”
“I’m not investigating you,” Pauling answered evenly. “I’m just wondering if you knew anything about her.”
Ted snorted. “Oh bullshit, Pauling. We've all talked about you and we all know you're not remotely involved with computers or anything else. So just give me a break, okay?"
It had all come out like a torrent and Pauling watched as Ted caught his breath and took a drink of his bottled water.
"You seem very emotional about this, Ted,” she said, her voice calm and controlled. “I'm actually not an investigator, but I do believe when you find somebody who adamantly doesn't want to talk about something usually there is more to the story.”
He slammed his bottled water down and it spilled onto the table.
"Enough with the psychobabble! Jesus Christ!” he thundered at her. “Thanks for helping me with the boxes. Now just leave me alone, okay?"
He stormed off out of the building.
Pauling grabbed her water and tried to figure out why Ted was suddenly so emotional about her questions.
Something he had said struck her.
Leave the dead alone.
It suddenly gave her an idea and she realized she should have done it already.
Chapter Forty-Two
Back in her room Pauling fired up her laptop. She sent a message to Blake asking him if he could hack into the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department website and track down the autopsy records for Paige Jones.
There had been a note in the paperwork Nathan had given Pauling regarding how an autopsy had been performed but that it had been inadequate to the state of the remains. But now Pauling wondered if an autopsy had at least been attempted, maybe they’d recorded something. Anything would be helpful at this point.
It might have seemed a strange request to ask Blake to hack the LASD, but Pauling knew Blake had once hacked into another law enforcement website and that one was linked to the federal government.
So she figured getting into a much smaller organization should be easier.
Pauling also remembered that Dr. Sirrine had set up the afternoon for her to go into the field with Ted.
Oh, that should be fun, she thought. Pauling figured Ted would take one look at her and cancel the outing.
It didn’t matter because Pauling didn’t want to spend the afternoon with Ted. She realized instead that she really needed to go and speak to the investigator who had overseen the examination of Paige upon the discovery of her body. According to Commander Wilkins, the investigating authority was on Catalina Island.
Pauling thought about how she could get there.
She knew there weren't f
lights to the island. She knew she just couldn't catch a ferry there, either. All transportation to and from San Clemente Island had to be sanctioned by the military.
What you really needed was a friend with a boat.
A small smile crept onto her face. Michael had given her his cell phone number and told her that the military had a small tower on the island which let people call each other on San Clemente, but that it wasn’t strong enough to reach people on the mainland.
Pauling sent a text message to Michael asking him if he'd ever been to Catalina Island.
He texted back right away. Sure. Have you?
A long time ago.
He wrote back: Weather is supposed to be great tomorrow. Low winds. We could grab a boat and go.
She accepted the invitation she had forced, and then put her phone down. Back on the laptop, she went onto the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department website. Under the administrative section of the website Pauling found the detective in charge. She emailed him asking him if she could talk to him tomorrow and she included her cell phone.
The next morning, Tallon came and picked her up in the truck and they went down to the marina. He had authorized a boat that had been civilianized, meaning all of the weapons had been taken off and it was mostly used as a transport vessel.
They set out from San Clemente Island and it took them an hour to get to Catalina. They pulled into the harbor and found a spot to tie off the boat.
“What do you want to do first?" Tallon asked her.
"I'm starving. How about we get some food?"
They found a restaurant that was perched over the water with fantastic views of the hundreds of sailboats anchored. It really was a beautiful harbor with the hills surrounding the water, and the community itself cascading down the hills settling on the water’s edge.
Picture-postcard.
During lunch, Tallon talked about the rich history of Los Angeles celebrities coming out to Catalina Island for weekends of debauchery. Pauling was pretty sure she knew what he was getting at.
She feigned deep interest in her grilled shrimp salad.
After lunch Pauling said to Tallon, "Why don't you go off and explore on your own, while I do some shopping? We can rendezvous for drinks at happy hour."
He smiled at her. “If you want to get rid of me for a couple hours all you have to do is say so," he answered.
She gave him a kiss on the lips for an answer and it tasted good.
Chapter Forty-Three
Pauling turned and walked up the hill leading to Main Street.
She found a little office for the sheriff’s department and went inside.
"Is Officer Johnston here?" she asked. The guy looked up at her.
“He's at lunch." The man's eyes slid over to the clock and Pauling saw that he noticed it was 2:30 in the afternoon.
"He should be back anytime now," he added.
There was a seat across from the reception desk and Pauling sat. The guy at the desk looked at her and then turned in his chair. Pauling knew he was texting Johnston to let him know that he had a visitor.
Pauling looked around the space. It was a cross between a tourism office and a cop shop. There was a dolphin on the wall with the letters LASD across its side. Another wall showed photos of the harbor and next to them were a pair of shotguns locked into a rack.
The windows were open and Pauling saw no sign of air conditioning. She could smell the ocean.
Ten minutes later Officer Johnston walked in. He was a slim black man and he glanced down at Pauling.
"Are you Lauren Pauling?” he asked.
“I am.”
“Paul Johnston,” he said. “I got your email, come on back."
Pauling followed him to his office and they both sat down.
"So you wanted to ask me about Paige Jones?" he said.
"Yep, I sure did."
"Why would I want to help you?" Johnston asked, his tone easy and relaxed, in contrast to the nature of his question.
"Why wouldn't you?” she responded. “Don't you want to find out what happened to her? Are you totally convinced it was a drowning?"
Johnston's face remained blank. Pauling figured he was probably a pretty good poker player. He dug out a folder from a file cabinet, flipped it open, read for a bit, then snapped it shut.
"Look, we’re what you would call a kind of satellite office,” he said. “We got the call to liaison with the military guys. The remains were sent to the lab. And the results came back indicating death by drowning, followed by a shark attack. So the case was closed.”
Pauling started to ask a question but he held up his hand.
“I spend most of my day dealing with drunks, shoplifters and two-bit drug dealers, mostly weed. And people just ripping off the tourists here. My bosses are back in Los Angeles. If you’ve got a problem with the way it was handled or just don’t like the results, I suggest you take it up with them.”
He swiveled in his chair and put the folder back in his file cabinet.
“That’s it?” Pauling asked.
“Yes. Now kindly leave my office and let me take care of Catalina Island. If you've got some kind of crazy ass conspiracy theory, take it up with my supervisors back on the mainland."
He stood and Pauling walked out of his office.
She emerged on the street and was dazzled by the bright sun and the reflections off the water.
Pauling knew she was making progress.
Johnston’s overheated performance was just that, an act.
He knew more than he wanted to admit.
Chapter Forty-Four
She and Michael decided to spend the night on Catalina Island. Pauling knew it was probably a ploy just to get her into bed, but she also realized that she didn’t really have a problem with that plan.
They ate at a restaurant on the square. She chose a big salad with grilled vegetables. She figured it was a chance to add some greens to her diet that had largely been missing since her time on San Clemente.
Tallon got a grilled swordfish steak.
“How did your afternoon go?” he asked, a smile on his face, and a little gleam in his blue eyes. Pauling suspected he knew pretty much what she was doing.
“Oh, you know, a lot of stuff is so overpriced out here, but I found a few things.”
“Meet anyone interesting?” he persisted. “Have any good conversations?”
She nearly smiled, but also knew that Tallon was still very much a suspect, even though her intuition was telling her he wasn’t.
“You know how it goes, I’m sure,” she answered.
“What do you mean?”
“There are people who love to talk and there are people who love to have their little secrets,” she said and met him with a direct stare until he looked away.
She left it at that and he didn’t pressure her for more information.
They went to a bar and had a few drinks and soon she felt a little drunk. At one point, he got her onto a dance floor and they did some kind of butchered cha cha.
They left and went to the hotel.
“Do you want to come up to my room for a little bit?” Tallon asked her.
“A little bit?” she asked.
“It’s just an expression,” he said.
“I appreciate the offer but I’m tired and a little too loopy to make that decision right now.” The truth was, she was thinking of Paige and wondering if she’d been in this same position.
She gave him a kiss on the cheek and went to her room.
Alone.
Chapter Forty-Five
They left early in the morning while the sea was calm and made it back to San Clemente quickly. Pauling didn’t say much on the short trip back and neither did Tallon.
They docked the boat and Tallon dropped her back at the Nest where Pauling found an envelope that had been slid under her door.
It simply said: Rag City. Ten o’clock tonight. I know what happened to Paige.
There was no signa
ture.
She spent the day reading through the files Blake had sent her. She’d already read them through several times, but she went through all of them, looking for things that she might have missed and adding thoughts and observations to her dossier.
But nothing jumped out at her.
The Dr. Sirrine/Janey angle was interesting but she couldn’t help but feel it had nothing to do with Paige. Still, she couldn’t rule it out.
By the time she was done updating her documents, it was late afternoon and she realized she was exhausted. She laid on her bed, closed her eyes and napped.
When she awoke, it was night and she had an hour before her rendezvous with her mysterious source at Rag City.
She thought about precautions. She had no gun. No weapon of any kind. She considered calling Tallon and having him serve as backup, but she didn’t want to do that.
Finally, she decided to send Blake an email so that at least one person on Earth knew where she was.
When the time came, she commandeered one of the trucks and made her way to Rag City. It took her longer than she’d expected, until she realized that the only time she’d been there before was when she was both high and a little bit drunk. After a half-dozen wrong turns, she finally found the place.
She parked and waited.
The note hadn’t said where to meet. For some reason, she felt safer in the truck.
She waited, and ten o’clock came and went, and then ten-thirty. Pauling debated about driving back to the Nest.
But then a text message appeared on her phone from a blocked caller.
Come to the Town Square, in the apartment building. Don’t worry, you are safe.
Yeah, right, Pauling thought. She also wondered, how did the person know that she was aware of Rag City? Gabe was the only person who knew she’d been there.
Unless someone had been watching her.
Well, she wasn’t going to back out now.