by Jenna Baker
*****
An hour later, we pulled up in front of Jaeger’s apartment complex. It was a medium-sized complex, similar to mine. It had about thirty units, and the parking lot was underground.
Mac filmed and Manny rolled sound as the detectives walked through the lot, looking for Jaeger’s car. Finally, they spotted it. It had a yellow body with a black stripe stretching the length of the car from the hood to the back fender. I stood next to Mac and directed a question at the detectives.
“Do you think this could be the car that hit Chaser?” I asked.
“It could be,” Foxy said. “We’ll have to take a paint sample to see if it’s a match.”
Foxy bent down and scraped a tiny piece of yellow paint into a clear plastic bag. He did the same thing with the black paint. He held it up to the camera. “We’ll have to get this down to forensics to examine.”
Reid looked inside the car with a flashlight. He couldn’t legally search the car without a warrant, but he wanted to see if there was anything in plain sight that would give him a clue. There were silver stars hanging from the rearview mirror. The interior looked a little beaten up, and the gear shifter had a pool ball on the top of it. We could see some mechanic’s tools in the back seat but nothing particularly interesting.
“Let’s go inside,” Reid said.
The crew and I followed behind Foxy and Reid as they walked up the stairs from the underground garage to Jaeger’s apartment. They knocked and waited.
We could hear some shuffling around inside, and a few minutes later, Jaeger came to the door. He was thin and shirtless, with one of those chests that had no hair except a black patch around the belly button. He wore black jeans and black leather bracelets on his wrists.
“Yeah, what?” Jaeger said. He was a car racer, but it seemed like he dabbled in other sports. He had the surfer-dude look down cold.
Reid and Foxy held up their badges. “Can we come in?”
“Who are they?” Jaeger asked, motioning towards my crew.
“We’re making a documentary,” I said. “Would you be willing to give your consent to appear on camera?”
“I’m gonna be on TV?” Jaeger said, brightening.
“Sure will,” I said. I handed over a piece of paper. “Just sign here.”
After Jaeger signed, the cops stepped inside. “You dudes want a drink or something?” Jaeger asked, rubbing his eyes. “I guess I fell asleep – waves were rough this morning.” His words confirmed my surfer-dude suspicion – I definitely had a knack for this detective work.
The apartment consisted of a living room with wood floors that connected to a small kitchen. Mac set up a tripod in the corner of the living room so he could get the best angle. Manny decided to use the boom for sound. Unless he planned to clip the microphone to Jaeger’s nipple, he would have trouble attaching the lavaliere to a shirtless man.
Jaeger grabbed a beer out of the fridge and took a sip. “So what’s up?”
“What’s up is that your friend Chaser is dead,” Foxy said.
“That was like days ago, man. I already knew that,” Jaeger said.
“We’d like to talk to you about his untimely death. Would you be willing to come with us to the station?”
Jaeger thought about that one. “Um, no, I’m good.”
“Would you be willing to talk to us here, then?” Foxy asked.
Jaeger thought again. “Not much to say, really.”
I saw Reid’s eyes narrow. By now, I had gotten pretty good at anticipating when the bad cop persona would come out. “We have reason to believe you were connected with his murder. We can place you at the scene of the crime, and we have witnesses who will testify to that. Now would you like to start talking, or should I just put you in handcuffs?” Reid said with force.
Jaeger turned white. “Dudes, you got the wrong guy! Seriously!”
“Where were you on the night of Tuesday, July 7th?” Reid asked.
Jaeger’s eyes went wide – he was thinking hard. I looked away, trying not to make eye contact. I didn’t want him to suddenly remember we were filming and ask us to leave.
“I was working, I think. Wait, Tuesday? Yeah, I was working.”
“Where do you work?” Foxy asked, holding his notepad.
“Down at Baja Taco,” Jaeger said. “The one on Wilshire and Lincoln.”
“Were there other people working there that night? People who can corroborate your story?” Foxy asked.
“Yeah, dude. I swear it. Ask for Terry – he worked that night too.”
“What type of car do you drive, Jaeger?” Foxy asked.
“It’s a Z.”
“Did you have it with you on Tuesday night?” Reid asked.
“Yeah, dude, of course. Look, this is all a misunderstanding here.”
Reid and Foxy threw a bunch of questions out at Jaeger, but they didn’t come up with much. He knew Rose and Chaser from the track, but they weren’t close friends. He had slept with Rose a few times, but “so had half this town.” With the number of people saying Rose had slept with half this town, I was starting to believe it was true. Jaeger said he had come to the track the other night to watch a race, and Rose had asked to tag along. Rose had gone home with Kitt that night, and Jaeger hadn’t spoken with her since.
As the questioning went on, Reid seemed to be getting increasingly annoyed. Finally, after twenty minutes, he stood up and glared at Jaeger. “Don’t leave town, we’ll be back.”
With that, Reid and Foxy walked out. Mac quickly gathered up his camera and tripod, and he and Manny shuffled after them.
Outside I turned to Reid. “Why didn’t you bust that guy?”
“On what – some paint samples that may not match?”
“You don’t have to book him, just drag him in until he talks.”
“Sharpe, we don’t have any evidence here. Even if the paint chips match, that isn’t enough. There are no witnesses and the guy has an alibi.”
“So he says.”
“Exactly. That’s why we have to check it out. Come on, let’s go,” Reid said. We all piled into his car and headed off to Baja Taco. It was too bad we had just had lunch – a burrito was sounding pretty good right about now.
Chapter 8.