“Hold up,” Blake Cartwright called from the desk across the aisle. “Here comes the best part.”
Against her will, Jo’s eyes skipped to the screen. Plastered across the TV, she beheld the smiling faces of Gabriel Kingston and his son Julian. They grinned through dozens of microphones stabbing into their faces to catch their illustrious comments.
Gabriel clasped his son’s hand and pumped it in the air in a gesture of triumph. Jo was getting really sick and tired of seeing that smug smile on Kingston’s face.
“Today is a great day for law and order,” he was telling the reporters. “Today is the day ordinary citizens struck a blow against Police tyranny. We’re going to appeal this bail. It’s high time someone put the Police in their place and showed them they can’t just destroy people’s lives without consequences.”
“You mean like you destroy people’s lives without consequences, Gabriel?” Kat Ingram asked under her breath.
“Looks to me like the Dark Avenger is putting him in his place, all right,” Nate chimed in.
Blake turned away. “Okay. That’s enough. We can turn it off now. I’ve seen enough.”
Nate picked up the remote and punched the Power button. He tossed the remote onto the Station couch and all four friends returned to their desks. Jo bent over her paperwork in relief.
“So did you guys get any more clues on the Dark Avenger’s identity?” Kat asked.
“No,” Jo snapped. “He made another one of his impossible jumps and got away before we could take his statement.”
“Maybe he hunted down that guy who took your memory stick,” Nate suggested. “Maybe he’ll mail it to us and we’ll have proof after all that the van came from Kingston.”
Jo didn’t look up. “You’re dreaming again, dude. The Dark Avenger isn’t out to help us.”
“How do you explain him leaping out to save your asses the same way he did last time?” Blake asked. “Looks like he’s assigned himself the role of your personal guardian angel.”
Jo snorted and threw her paperwork away in annoyance. She wasn’t getting anything done here. “He wasn’t hiding in that barn to save our asses. He was there long before we showed up. He either got there before any of the idiots came to unload the truck or he knew some other way inside. He couldn’t possibly have known, first of all that we would stake out the truck and, number two, that we would get caught and taken there at the point of a gun.”
“You gotta admit that he’s one of the good guys, though,” Kat pointed out. “This is the third time he’s attacked Kingston’s men for us—for you.”
“That doesn’t make him one of the good guys,” Jo returned. “He could be one of Kingston’s rivals. He could be doing all this to undermine Kingston to take his territory or whatever the fuck these cocksuckers do to each other. Nothing he’s done so far suggests he’s doing this to enforce the law. If he did, he would be working with us instead of against us.”
“He’s definitely not working against us,” Kat replied. “You must see that.”
Jo made a face. “What I see is a man who is taking the law into his own hands—if he cares about the law at all. He might just be another crook who likes to use the element of surprise to make a splash.”
Nate snorted. “Jo has made up her mind to bust the Dark Avenger and put him in jail along with Kingston.”
“He’s not a Dark Avenger, either,” Jo snarled. “He’s a man. I only wish I could figure out who the hell he is. Some cheap ski mask doesn’t fool me and it certainly doesn’t make him a damn hero.”
“He saved your life at the docks,” Blake pointed out. “Kingston would have shot you if the Dark...I mean, if the vigilante didn’t intervene.”
“And look where it got us.” Jo waved toward the now-dead TV. “Nowhere. Kingston is free and so is Julian. We’re back to square one.”
“Baby,” Nate murmured. “You really need to take a mental health day.”
“We could go shopping,” Kat suggested. “We can come back to this tomorrow. The case isn’t going anywhere.”
“Forget it.” Jo pulled her paperwork toward her and cracked open her laptop. “I have too much to do and I want to run some algorithms on GPS data from the barn. The satellite could have recorded every cell phone entering and exiting the property that night.”
Kat shook her head. “Damn, girl! You really got it bad.”
“I’m gonna track down this.... this vigilante if it’s the last thing I do,” Jo muttered. “I’m gonna find out who he is.”
At that moment, Police Chief Ian Bates strode up to their desks. “Morning, team. Did you catch the news?”
“We caught it,” Jo countered. “We’re just working on the case now. I’m searching GPS data to see if I can locate a cell phone trace for this vigilante.”
“Drop it,” Chief Bates told her. “I’m pulling you off that. I’m putting you on weapons detail.”
Jo’s head shot up. “What?”
He held out a folder full of papers. “I just got a list of serial numbers from the Israeli Defense Force. They claim the weapons and ammunition in these numbered crates were stolen from a military warehouse in Eilat seven months ago. The numbers match the containers we seized from the barn the other night.”
Jo blinked at him, astounded. “How did you lay your grubby little mitts on that?”
“Never you mind, young lady. Just follow them up. I want you to cross-check them with shipping manifests from the Port of Soledad dispatch office. Every container that lands at the Port is supposed to get logged through the dispatch office, but we know that doesn’t happen as often as it should. If it did, our pal Gabriel wouldn’t be able to buy so much as a chicken sandwich. If these crates weren’t registered with the dispatch office, then we have proof that they were brought in illegally.”
“Dang!” Nate exclaimed. “Thanks, Chief. This is a windfall if I ever saw one.”
Chief Bates pointed the folder around the group. “While you’re at it, I want you to do a swat of research on one Mordechai Moishe Berg.”
“Who is he?” Kat asked.
“If I knew that, I wouldn’t need you to research him up, would I?” Chief Bates returned. “The Israeli Consulate claims he’s a bigshot wheeler and dealer they suspect had something to do with the theft. I’m passing this over to you to find out.” He made another pass across their desks. “As you were.”
He dropped the folder in front of Jo and walked away, but she didn’t look at the documents. She stared at his back moving toward the Station’s front office. Two square shoulders filled out his uniform shirt. His lats tapered to a narrow waist without appearing too muscle-bound.
She found herself sizing up his body through his clothes. Was she destined to measure every man she ever met from now until her dying day? The Chief’s face hovered before her vision. His ice-blue eyes sparkled with iron resolve. She’d never seen him naked, but she had seen him sparring against two opponents in the State Law Enforcement Pageant.
“Sweetheart?” Nate broke in on her thoughts. “Aren’t you gonna look at the docs?”
She started out of her reverie and shoved the folder out of the way. She pulled her laptop in front of her and tapped the name into the search engine: Mordechai Moishe Berg. Her jaw dropped when the results came up on the screen. “Holy smokes!”
“What’s up?” Blake asked. “Don’t tell me Kingston is suing us for Police brutality. That’s the last thing I need to hear today.”
“That’s him!” Jo gaped at the screen. “I can’t believe it!”
“Who’s him?” Nate walked around her desk and looked over her shoulder at the computer. “Well, yeah. That’s Mordechai Moishe Berg. It says so right there.”
“That’s him!” Jo pointed at the image. Her eyes burned looking at the picture. “That’s the old man I saw Kingston talking to about the lost files from the Trenton Warehouse fire.”
“Are you sure it’s the same guy?” Kat asked.
“Oh, please,�
� Jo fired back. “Do you think I could forget him when I almost got my brains blown out not five minutes after I saw him and Kingston talking? This is him. Don’t you guys get it? If Arthur Christensen found proof that Kingston used the Trenton Warehouse to import illegal arms stolen from the freakin’ Israeli military, it explains everything. It explains why Berg is so hot under the collar to recover the evidence before he gets busted downtown. It explains why a law-abiding man like Christensen felt he had to take his life in his hands by recording the evidence of what they were doing. It also explains why Kingston was willing to go to such extraordinary lengths to cover it up—like torching an entire warehouse with ten innocent people inside.”
“Okay, well, we got that part of the job done.” Nate went back around to his own desk. “We found out who he is and what he’s doing skulking around the Port of Soledad breathing down Kingston’s neck. Can we get to the serial numbers now?”
“No.” Jo shot out of her seat and snatched her jacket off the chair. “I’m leaving.”
“Hey!” Nate called after her. “Where are you going?”
Jo didn’t listen. She stormed out of the Station and headed for the parking lot. She got into the passenger seat of the Mustang and slammed the door extra hard. She seethed in a ferment waiting for Nate to show up. She knew he would.
He took a lot longer than usual to make it out of the Station. No doubt he was explaining to Kat and Blake why his wife just suddenly lost her mind.
Chapter 8
Nate slid behind the wheel, but he didn’t start the engine. He heaved a sigh and propped his elbow on the windowsill. “Well? Do you want to tell me what’s eating you all of a sudden?”
“Not really,” she muttered back.
“Well, you’re going to. Something set you off and it wasn’t watching Kingston and his son shoot us the bird after he nearly killed you.”
“He never would have gotten the chance if you didn’t barge into the docks like Wyatt freakin’ Earp,” she growled back. “I told you to slow down and take it easy, but did you listen to me? Of course not. You never listen to me.”
“Don’t give me that shit about not listening to you because I’m sitting right here waiting for you to explain to me what’s going on with you. This has nothing to do with Kingston. This is about the Dark Avenger, isn’t it?”
She whipped around fast. “Will you stop calling him that? I can’t fucking stand everyone calling him the Dark Avenger all the time.”
“Fine. It isn’t about the Dark Avenger. It’s about the Caped Crusader or whatever the hell you want to call him instead. Now cough it up. What’s the matter?”
She glared at him, but before she could stop herself, she burst out laughing. She tried to bite it back, but it bubbled out of her of its own accord. “He doesn’t wear a cape.”
Nate cracked a grin. “Well, Cat-suited Crusader doesn’t roll off the tongue near so well, does it?”
Jo faced front, but she couldn’t stop laughing. “Quit joking around. This is serious.”
He stretched his arm across the seat and hooked it around her neck. He hauled her into a rough embrace and kissed her on top of the head. “I love you. You know that.”
She rested at an odd angle against his shoulder. “Yeah. I know.”
“All right, girly.” He pushed her back so she could sit up straight. “What’s going on? Did seeing Berg on the computer trigger something?”
She scanned the parking lot. Should she say anything? She trusted Nate more than anyone in the world, but maybe she only imagined this vague idea in the back of her mind.
“Babe?” he prompted.
“Where did Chief Bates get those serial numbers?”
He opened his mouth and shut it again. “What? What do you mean?”
“Where did Chief Bates get the serial numbers from the weapons? How did he get them from the IDF to match with the containers taken into evidence the other night?”
He blinked at her before he managed to speak. “Well.... isn’t it obvious? The Forensics team would have inventoried the crates when they took them into evidence. Then the Chief would have passed the list to the IDF for confirmation.”
Jo shook her head. “He couldn’t have. The Forensics Team has protocols for handling not only weapons and ammunition but goods confiscated in trade disputes across international lines. In the first place, it’s been less than thirty-six hours since we took custody of the barn. The Forensics Team cordoned off the building and they worked almost around the clock for the first twenty-four hours fingerprinting the whole building, the gates, the fences, the handles of the cases, the truck....”
Nate shut his eyes and held up his hand. “Okay. I get it. What’s your point?”
“My point is that they would have had to print and log the serial numbers of every last weapon in the barn before the Chief could send the full list to the IDF. He would need a complete list—signed, sealed, and delivered by the Chief Examiner of the Forensics Department—before he could confirm to the IDF exactly which weapons we had in custody. He would have to determine whether half the crates got diverted to another destination or whether we had the whole consignment here. He wouldn’t be able to enter the guns into evidence, or the fact that they had been stolen from the IDF in the first place, without all those protocols followed and confirmed in triplicate and signed by every man and his dog along the whole chain of command. Not enough time has passed for that. The Wheels of Justice don’t turn that fast.”
Nate slumped in his seat. He blinked at her. Then he faced front and murmured low. “So what are you saying? How are you saying he got the numbers?”
“Think about it,” she replied. “There already was a complete list—the manifest from the barn, the list the perps were checking when they unloaded the goods.”
“So what? So he used the manifest to check with the IDF. What’s the big deal?”
“Sweetheart,” she whispered, “the manifest would have been entered into evidence, too. It would have been bagged that night. He wouldn’t have seen it, and even if he had, he couldn’t use it to check with the IDF—not in an official capacity, anyway. He got the list from somewhere else.”
He hardly breathed. “Where?”
“From the barn itself, of course,” she replied. “He pinched it that night before the Forensics Team showed up. He doubled back after the shooting stopped and he took the list from the clipboard while you and I were hiding in the woods.”
He whipped around and his ferocious glare made her quake to her roots. “You think Chief Bates is the Dark Avenger? You’re off your nut!”
“Didn’t you see him competing at the State Law Enforcement Pageant? That guy is built like a brick shithouse and he can move like nobody’s business. He’s solid muscle and he’s highly trained in about five different martial arts.”
He burst out laughing. He shook his head scanning the parking lot and his shoulders jerked with laughter. “You really have been working too hard, darling. You’re grasping at straws.”
Jo knew this would be hard. She turned in her seat and stared straight in front of her. “One thing I know for sure. This Dark Avenger is a man. He’s a human man with flesh and blood. He drives a car and combs his hair and checks his email just like the rest of us. He has a Social Security Number and a driver’s license and a name. He’s a person and I’ll tell you something else I know for an absolute fact. Either he’s working for the enemy, which means he’s a crook who belongs behind bars, or he’s on our side, which means he cares as much about law enforcement as much we do. If you and Kat and Blake want to believe he’s helping us, then why couldn’t he be Chief Bates? How many other guys in Soledad can you think of with the strength and the agility to make that jump? What is so goddamned funny about that?”
Nate turned around. His cheeks glowed with mirth and his eyes twinkled. “Nothing—nothing at all. I love you. I really do. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather partner with on this or any other case. So what do you want to do
? Do you want to go hunt up this Berg character and break his kneecaps?”
“Of course not,” she snapped. “We’re going to talk to Wesley Falkner.”
Nate’s mouth caved open one more time. “Falkner! What for? I thought you had him pegged as the Dark Avenger.”
“He’s one suspect, but he isn’t the only one—not anymore.”
“So what are we going to talk to him about—whether he was at the barn the other night?”
“No,” Jo corrected. “We’re going to find out if he has an alibi for the shootout at the docks.”
Nate turned the ignition. The pair said nothing on the long drive to Wesley Falkner’s mansion estate. Jo’s heart pounded on the way. She didn’t blame Nate for questioning her sanity. What was she doing—suspecting a decorated Police Chief, her Chief, of being a vigilante in his free time? She questioned her own sanity, too.
Nate pressed the button on the control panel by the locked front gate. A familiar voice asked, “Can I help you?”
Nate pressed his badge to the camera. “Detectives Nathaniel Fricks and Joann McGee of the Soledad Police Department to see Mr. Falkner.”
The gate unlocked and the Mustang purred up the endless driveway. She would give anything to block the idea of Chief Bates out of her mind. When the towering gables of Falkner’s massive house loomed over the Mustang, she found it so easy to believe that Falkner himself was some kind of Bruce Wayne character with nothing better to do in his leisure time than to roam the countryside busting bad guys the Police couldn’t touch.
Nate parked in front of the ponderous front door and they both got out. Jo gazed up the granite steps at the windows and dormers high above and she knew. She experienced a wrenching certainty in her gut. She already knew what she would learn inside. Everything that came after this moment was inevitable.
Decrepit old Giovanni opened the door and escorted them into the same Crimson Parlor. They found Wesley Falkner standing by the window. He rotated around, smiled, and advanced to shake their hands. “I’m gonna have to get in the habit of meeting you in another room where I can’t cream over your car while we talk. How are you both, Detectives?”
Mystery Ghost Page 5