by A. J. Thomas
“Assuming yours hasn’t been towed yet?”
“I left the flashing light on top,” said Elliot. “Mine will still be there.”
“Yeah. Am I returning to house arrest at your place?”
“Yes. Unless you’d rather stay in a cheap hotel. There isn’t enough money in the task force budget for the Four Seasons.”
“Chez Belkamp it is. Give me your key?”
Elliot handed him the spare key he’d dug out that morning.
“Good. I’m going to stop on the way home and get more groceries. It’ll stop me from feeling so damn useless.”
“Just so long as you don’t take anything else apart, we’re good.”
“No promises,” Ray shook his head seriously. “Your alarm system has two points of entry where there’s a fault in the circuit. I checked the magnets on everything I could find, so the fault is somewhere in the wiring.”
“Oh God, why did I say anything?” Elliot felt like smacking himself in the head. He thought about how Ray had so carefully positioned himself to keep an eye on him and Dr. Holland without being intrusive. A week ago, if Ray Delgado had asked to take apart one of his computers and play with a soldering iron, he’d have had the same reaction. Every time he would have expected Ray to screw something up, Ray had managed perfectly. “You know what? It’s fine.”
“Hmm?”
“I trust you,” said Elliot. “From everything the other detectives on your team said, I’m a fucking idiot to trust you, but I do. I already trust you not to fuck up this investigation, to back me up like you did with Holland, and to back me up with a gun if one of your relatives stops by to visit. If I can trust you with my life and my career, why not my sheet rock?”
Ray’s grin flickered for a moment. His expression was thoughtful, concerned.
“What?” Elliot glanced around him, wondering what Ray looked so worried about.
“You shouldn’t ignore the warnings of seasoned homicide detectives, you know. They know me.”
Elliot shook his head with certainty. “No they don’t. They know the practical jokes and easy smiles you want them to see. I don’t think anyone on your team, outside of Superman and maybe your captain, knows you. But I think I’m starting to, and behind the practical jokes and laughs, you’re the most detail-oriented, focused, analytical man I’ve ever met. I trust you aren’t going to tackle a project you can’t handle.”
Ray’s smirk returned quickly. “Well, now I’ve got to do my very best to make it look like a team of contractors tore your house apart, you know.”
Elliot shrugged. “If that’s what you need to keep yourself busy.”
The smirk died again.
“Come on, let’s go get your car.”
Elliot stopped in front of the impound lot and waited until Ray, in a sleek black Nissan sports car, drove out through the twelve-foot chain-link fence and waved.
Elliot watched him drive away, wishing he had an excuse to keep Ray with him. He wasn’t sure how he’d gone from resentfully attracted to Ray to having a full-blown crush on him, but Elliot had. The more he stuck to his resolution to keep an eye on Ray, the worse it was going to get.
When he got back to the office, he began the warrant application and went to brief his boss. She promised to rush the paperwork through so they could search Garcia’s apartment that afternoon, but she called him back into her office ten minutes later, looking grim. “The warrant application’s pointless.”
“What’s happened?” Elliot’s stomach sank as he imagined Sophie’s body being found by one of the search teams combing the canyons.
“Your suspect is dead. According to SDPD Homicide, a body with Luca Garcia’s ID in his pocket was found downtown early this morning. Officers responding to a report of shots being fired found him dead on the scene. The serial number of a gun found on the body matches a handgun registered to your friend Detective Delgado.”
“Delgado’s gun?” Elliot tried to recall the details of Ray’s police report from Saturday night. “Saturday night his place was ransacked. He said a gun was stolen, along with some computer equipment.”
When St. Claire pointed to one of the chairs in front of her desk, he sat down obediently.
“Belkamp, building security says you brought Detective Delgado with you when you brought in the laptop surrendered by Luca Garcia Saturday afternoon. You brought him to class Saturday night. How do you know his place was broken into?”
“I gave him a ride home. I was just going to give him a ride back to his car, but it had been impounded Friday morning.”
The twisted smile on her face was not a look of amusement. “Spill it. Every detail.”
Elliot took a deep breath to buy himself a moment to think about just which details he could safely omit. “Sophie Munoz is his cousin, he was worried about her, and he was looking for information regarding her whereabouts on the UCSD campus Friday morning. We’ve run into each other before. We’re friends. When I found out that he was also the informant Hathaway was worried about, I thought I’d keep an eye on him and try to reassure him that we’re doing our best to find his cousin. Since the information he provided was the basis of this entire investigation, and he is a police officer, I didn’t think there’d be much risk in letting him tag along while I filed a report. He didn’t come past the lobby.”
“So you ran into him Friday morning?”
“Yes.”
“And you brought him into the building Saturday afternoon and to class Saturday night. And you brought him back to his place Saturday night.”
The accusation in that statement was obvious, but Elliot very carefully pretended not to notice. “Technically, I brought him back to my place Friday night. His car was impounded from the UCSD parking lot. Like I said, we’re friends. We spent the evening catching up.”
“You filed a preliminary report saying you interviewed Luca Garcia Saturday morning.”
Elliot nodded. “I did.”
“He was there when Luca Garcia surrendered Miss Munoz’s laptop?”
“Yes.”
“You brought one of the victim’s relatives along to interview your suspect?”
“It looks that way, doesn’t it,” said Elliot.
“And now the suspect is dead.”
“Delgado couldn’t have done it.” The words came out too fast, with too much emotion. “Someone broke into his place Saturday night. He still didn’t have his car, and his phone was dead, so I reported the break-in and gave him a ride to the police department to file a report. Since his apartment is still a closed crime scene, he spent the entire weekend on my couch. I took him to get his car this morning.”
“Belkamp….” St. Claire shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut hard.
“He would have gone to talk to Garcia on his own anyway. He’s a criminal investigator, he knew she had a boyfriend, and he would have tracked him down. I was with him the entire time, I made him leave his sidearm in the car, and I can personally account for his movements from that point until about two hours ago.”
“Do you realize anything we find on that laptop is going to be thrown out of court? Elliot, I would expect this kind of fuck-up from a rookie, but you’re a better agent than this!”
“I know I screwed up, but you were all for assigning an agent to watch him before. I thought the break-in just proved that Hathaway was right, that he really is in danger, so I didn’t want to let him out of my sight.”
“In a hotel! Not on an active investigation! Oh God, Elliot….” St. Claire groaned, a bit of the woman he counted among his best friends seeping through the sheer iron wall that was his boss. “Tell me that doesn’t mean what I think it means?”
“What do you think it means?” He kept his face blank, oblivious.
“Tell me you’re not involved with him!”
“I am not involved with him. That first night, he didn’t have his car to get home.” Elliot didn’t want to tell her about the migraine. St. Claire knew that he’d suffered from
migraines since he left the Army, but she had no idea how debilitating they could be. So long as he could push through them with medication, he could usually keep them from interfering with his job. If she knew how close they came to knocking him out of commission, she would have to take him off investigating work altogether. “The impound lot was closed until Monday, but I tried to drop him at his place after class Saturday night. When I realized Hathaway wasn’t just being a moron, I was worried about leaving him alone. I am not presently involved with him.”
“Presently?”
“Come on, St. Claire, I’ve only been on your team four weeks, and even I’ve heard what kind of reputation he’s got,” Elliot said. “He’s a ‘new girl every week’ kind of guy. He’s obnoxiously straight. I’ll be the first to admit he’s hot, and if he swung my way, I’d jump at the chance.” Elliot shrugged and smiled. “But I’m not masochistic enough to go after straight guys, especially my friends. Straight guys don’t magically turn gay. Not even if they want to.”
St. Claire fell back into her seat, sighing with relief. “Thank God. Although, I’m not so sure his reputation is valid.” There was a hint of amusement in her voice. “There was nothing about the way he was staring at you that said just friends to me.”
He felt the heat flush his cheeks before he could hide it. “I wish. I think he stares at everybody like that,” said Elliot.
“Not that I saw.” She grabbed a legal pad and a pen. “Give me a time line from your weekend, starting Friday morning. I want every single hour accounted for.”
Elliot squeezed his eyes shut. “Yes, ma’am.” Elliot edited out everything that involved physical contact, but otherwise told her exactly what had happened over the course of his weekend. She began taking more detailed notes when he began to describe the break-in at Delgado’s apartment.
“What else was taken?”
“He said two laptop computers and a nine millimeter. A lot of easily pawned stuff was left behind or smashed. Also, he had a hell of an alarm system and lives in a secured building, so I doubt it was just a casual break-in. I believe whoever broke in was looking for the laptop I got from Garcia’s place.”
“The laptop Luca Garcia surrendered to Delgado?” St. Claire asked.
“Yeah, that’s my guess. Delgado didn’t introduce himself except to say he was related to Sophie Munoz. Without knowing his name or address, I’ve got no clue how Garcia could even have found out where he lived.”
“No one would be stupid enough to assume that a laptop surrendered to a federal agent would end up anywhere but in an evidence locker.”
“I’ve thought of that.” Elliot leaned forward over her desk. “See, he didn’t think he was surrendering it to a federal agent. He thought he was handing it over to an enforcer for the Tijuana drug cartel, or at least to someone who works for Alejandro Munoz. If the key to stopping that money from jumping between accounts is on that laptop, he probably figured only an idiot would hand it over to us.”
“You said Delgado became paranoid after the meeting with Garcia.”
“He did. He got his sidearm out of my trunk while I was sealing the laptop in an evidence bag. Ten seconds later, he ran across the street reaching for it. He said he saw what he thought was a gray suit he’s known Alejandro Munoz to wear. I….” Elliot shook his head helplessly. “I thought he was just being paranoid. But now I’m not so sure.”
“I suppose he’s had to become paranoid.” She tossed the notepad down and leaned back, grinning. “It’s a damn good thing you brought Delgado along to class Saturday, you know.”
“It is?”
“Yeah. If you were his only alibi, I’d have to arrest him. But since I was talking to him personally at the estimated time of death, and there were two other federal agents, and one member of the border patrol present, I’d say we don’t have to consider him a suspect.”
“Saturday night?”
“Just past ten. That’s based on body temperature, and since they found the body within twenty-four hours, it’s accurate to a fifteen-minute window. Things found in his possession include a nine millimeter Glock registered to Detective Delgado. Speaking of, do you know how many registered fire arms Detective Delgado owns?”
The last time Elliot had undressed Ray Delgado he’d found three firearms and two knives. That had been while Ray was technically on vacation. He wasn’t sure he could venture a guess about how many he owned in all.
Elliot stopped watching the boxes of equipment go by and stared at her. “You said it yourself, he’s become paranoid.”
“Eleven.”
“Not that surprising, all things considered. So Garcia broke into his place?”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“Was he mugged afterward?” Even as he suggested it, Elliot knew that wasn’t a possibility. If he had been shot during a robbery, he would have actually been robbed. He had his own wallet and ID and Ray’s stolen handgun, on him. The handgun could have been sold in a matter of minutes on the streets of downtown San Diego; no mugger would leave it behind. It also hadn’t done him any good in terms of personal defense, so whoever had attacked him either didn’t give him enough time to draw his weapon or was someone he didn’t consider a threat. “No, of course not.” Elliot answered his own question. “He was executed.”
St. Claire nodded slowly.
Elliot was glad they had found the body within the first twenty-four hours after death. The medical examiner could give an amazingly accurate estimate of a victim’s time of death based on how far the body’s temperature had fallen since death. After that twelve-hour mark, the estimate became a larger and larger window, making it far more difficult to isolate who might have had an opportunity to commit the crime. After forty-eight hours, body temperature was useless and a much less reliable guess based on the body’s rate of decay was the only thing they had to go off of.
“As far as Detective Delgado,” St. Claire said carefully. “Maybe it would be better to house him in a hotel. Keeping a family member informed in the search for a potential murder victim is one thing, but this is getting dangerous. Hathaway was absolutely right. He’s being targeted. Whether because of the information he provided to the task force or because of Sophie Munoz’s laptop, he’s in danger.”
“Absolutely,” Elliot agreed. “I’ll have him relocated by tomorrow at the latest.”
“You’re going with him.”
“I am?”
“You know how badly this could have blown up in your face. You’ve admitted you’re too close to a subject in this investigation. You can’t be actively involved in this anymore. I can’t let your indiscretions go, but I’m not going to reprimand you for it. I’m going to do something so much worse than a reprimand.”
Elliot squirmed under the weight of her mischievous smile.
“You’re the only agent in the history of this task force Raymond Delgado hasn’t hit on, assaulted, or tie-dyed.” She grinned wickedly. “He’s in danger, and you’re going to keep him alive. I’ll arrange for a hotel room tonight and send you a text with the hotel address and room number. Since there is a very real possibility that someone’s been following him or you, you should check out a vehicle from the motor pool, too.”
Elliot knew he shouldn’t argue. This was his first case in San Diego, and being pulled off it because of poor judgment wasn’t going to go over well. Aside from making his coworkers think he was incompetent, it would be reflected in his performance evaluations, too. His six-year assignment could turn into twelve months, with him being shuffled to LA or the East Coast afterward.
“Look, you’re not off the case,” said St. Claire. “You’re just stuck working the part of it no one else wants.”
Elliot wandered through the office, grateful that St. Claire hadn’t written him up. He tried to check out a car from the motor pool, but the administrative office was closed and locked for the night by the time he wandered down.
He didn’t think it was necessary anyway, so he
took his own car home, trying not to let Ray and St. Claire’s paranoia get to him.
A newer model gray Lexus SUV pulled out behind him after a block. He thought it was a little strange that the Lexus stayed with him through rush-hour traffic, crossing the interstate instead of pulling onto the ramp. He was a bit surprised when he saw the same Lexus two cars behind him at a stoplight near the neighborhood community center. He took his time driving through Tierrasanta, doubling back and going through a busy shopping center parking lot, and all the time he thought he saw the same silver Lexus behind him.
Fed up, he pulled to a stop beside a public trailhead where a bench and sign marked one of the many trails down into the maze of the Rueda Canyons. He checked the safety on his sidearm, made sure his jacket was loose, shifted to remind himself that his vest was there, and stepped out of his car. He leaned against his car, watching traffic glide by. Each time a newer SUV drove past, his hand twitched toward his gun.
When ten minutes had passed without any sign of the gray Lexus, Elliot got back in his car, locked the doors, and dropped his head against the steering wheel. “Get a grip, Elliot,” he said out loud.
Ray’s paranoia, and the news of Garcia’s death, was starting to rub off. Now that his brain was beginning to beat through the impulsive nervous energy, he wanted to smack himself. If someone like Alejandro Munoz had been following him, driving to a secluded corner of his neighborhood and confronting the man on his own was just stupid. It was likely to get him killed.
He watched for the SUV as he made his way back up the hill to his house, made sure the street was empty, then pulled in to the garage rather than just park in the driveway.
Ray had stripped down to a pair of pants and a white undershirt because he didn’t want to get plaster dust and paint all over the only respectable thing he had to wear. He was twisting two wires together with a yellow plastic cap when Elliot came through the door, his sparkling eyes marred by a grim expression.
Despite his threats, Ray hadn’t made a mess of Elliot’s house. He’d removed a section of drywall almost four inches square where he was working, but he had a matching square set aside for a patch, and a tiny bucket of spackling paste sat beside it. He’d even put down a dust cloth.