Текст книги "Cry Wolf"

Автор книги: J. Carson Black

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4: Sean Perrin 101

Laura liked jigsaw puzzles. They framed her thinking in an entirely different way. If she was trying to work out a seemingly unsolvable problem on a case, she would pick out a jigsaw puzzle and set up the card table on their screened-in porch.

The jigsaw puzzle took her mind off the subject at hand. Just thinking about something else allowed her mind to range free. Her long-deceased mentor, Frank Entwistle, had told her that sometimes you had to step away from a case and let it work on the subconscious.

When she worked a jigsaw puzzle, her brain was busy concentrating on the mechanics of fitting one piece to another. She’d work on one section, putting together several of the more obvious pieces, until that section played out. Then she’d look around for other pieces that might connect, and start a whole new section. Eventually they would inch toward each other until she zeroed in on the last piece.

By not thinking about her job, she let her mind rest. And often, her mind broke through barriers and she would end up with a revelation.

Cody and Laura took a trail to Madera Creek down below the cabins. Once he started talking, he couldn’t stop.

Sean Perrin had spent a lot of time hanging out with Cody.

He was former military—Special Forces. He showed Cody some interesting fight moves—what Sean called “basic stuff”—and told him stories about firefights in the Korengal Valley, and the time most of his platoon was wiped out.

He had a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart.

After the military Sean worked for a defense contractor, but quit when he realized how dirty that business was.

Sean told Cody his own son’s name was Cody, but he was a lot younger.

“What about his daughter? What was her name?”

“Tabitha—Tabby for short. His wife’s name’s Gina. Are they coming out here?”

“I don’t know. We haven’t yet contacted the next of kin. Did Sean mention anyone he had a problem with? From around here?”

“He said he was estranged from his sister in Tucson. That means they didn’t talk, right?”

“Do you know her name?”

He shrugged. “He just called her ‘Miss Priss.’”

They’d find her.

“What else can you tell me about him?”

Cody was picking his way from boulder to boulder, every once in a while tossing sticks into the creek.

“He lived in Las Vegas. He worked for a . . . I dunno, I forget. A bank? He said he was a . . . ” He screwed up his forehead. “financial consultant.”

“Anything you can remember about that?”

“He said . . . he said he got fired because he flagged an account, something about a well-connected mob guy. He said he was on the run.”

“On the run?”

“He said he had to leave his family behind because he might put them in danger. From the mob guy.”

Laura said, “Did he have a phone?”

“Oh, yeah. A Galaxy S III. Don’t you guys have it?”

Laura knocked on the other doors, but judging from the number of cars in the lot—hers, the Forest Service ranger’s truck, and Barbara Sheehey’s station wagon—most of the guests were out.

The place was quiet. Just the occasional blurt of the radio in the ranger truck. She talked to the ranger, David Bolings, in the mellow sunlight, as he ate a sandwich he’d gotten from the Subway in Continental.

Small talk, mostly, but she did learn this. Bolings wasn’t first at the scene, but he’d arrived shortly thereafter.

“So I high-tailed down here as soon as we found out it was a secondary crime scene,” he said.

“Anyone coming and going?”

“Not since I been here. Quiet as a tomb, except for the boy.”

“You know the Sheeheys well?”

“Pretty much. The kid’s pretty cool. Mrs. Sheehey has a temper, but she’s got it rough taking care of this place by herself, so who can blame her?”

“Have you met any of the other guests?”

“The birders. Just to say hi to. Oh, and I’ve noticed the girl.”

“The girl?”

“Maybe not a girl. She looks like she’s in her early twenties. I guess that would be out of girl territory?”

Laura ignored that. “Ever talk to her?”

“No. She’s been here for a week or so. A looker. Don’t tell my wife I said that.” Wink.

Okay, he didn’t wink, but he might as well have.

“Did they all leave?”

Bolings shrugged. “No idea. You want me to go in with you?” He nodded toward Perrin’s cabin.

“No, thanks.”

The fewer people in a crime scene, the better.

He looked a little put out. “Okay, then. Just give me a holler if you need me.” And he went back to his sandwich.

For the second time today, Laura donned gloves and booties. She stepped onto the porch and into the deep shade. Cool, almost chilly. Even though it was very warm in the sun.

It was like moving into another sphere.

She thought of it as the victim’s place to go to ground, to be himself. His home, or the place where he stayed if he was on the road. Where he kicked off his shoes, where he slept, where he showered, where he watched TV.

This was a venue that always changed from circumstance to circumstance, but in one respect it remained the same. It now belonged to her. She owned it. She owned whatever she could learn from this secondary crime scene, and she would try like hell to make no mistakes. A bell, once rung, reverberates.

This was where the majority of her successful homicide investigations really started.

With the victim’s den.

5: Frank Entwistle’s Ghost

The room was paneled with an oak or pine veneer, and dark. The cream-colored curtains—cheap and nubbly—turned the outside sunlight into a garish orange glow that seeped around the edges and gleamed off the walls.

The bed was unmade and a suitcase sat on a folding luggage rack near the bathroom. A robe hung on the bathroom door.

Laura was looking at the suitcase when she felt the room temperature change. One moment it was warm, and the next, cold enough to raise goosebumps.

Her eye went to the mirror on the bathroom door. More specifically, to the reflection in the mirror on the bathroom door.

A man sat on the edge of the bed.

The last time Laura saw Frank Entwistle she’d suggested he read up on ghosts to get an idea of how they conducted themselves, since he seemed to do such a slovenly job of it.

He looked old and tired. Like a deflated balloon in his Sansabelt slacks circa 1989. Cheap button-down shirt, blazer, Hush Puppies loafers, a Daffy Duck tie.

Lately Frank had taken to wearing cartoon character ties. The first time she’d seen him in one, she thought it had been due to indigestion brought on by some pork ribs.

But it turned out to be a trend.

“Scare you?” he said.

“That ship sailed a long time ago.”

“Thought you could benefit from my encyclopedic knowledge and razor-sharp instincts, kiddo. That’s why I’m here.”

“You know what I think?” Laura said. “You miss it.”

“I’m dead. I don’t miss anything.”

Laura said, “I missed you—can you believe that?”

“Sure I believe it. Just didn’t think you’d want me showing up, since you finally got a man. Thought it might embarrass you if I showed up at the wrong time.”

A considerate ghost. Go figure. An old-fashioned, considerate ghost. Laura felt as if she’d stepped into a Mad Men episode, if the characters in Mad Men wore cheap clothes.

Frank said, “Does he know about me?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“He doesn’t think you’re crazy?”

Laura thought about it. “No. I think we’re beyond that. He knows I’m crazy.”

Frank smiled at that, then rubbed his tired-looking face. “Probably should keep it that way. I just wondered what you thought about this guy. Perrin.”

“I’m not sure. The boy who lives here said he was in Special Forces.”

“You really think that?”

“I don’t know. Why? You don’t?”

“Don’t just go with what’s in here,” Frank said, touching a ghostly finger to his forehead. He pressed his finger to his bellied-out Sansabelts. “You gotta go with what’s in here.”

“In your pants?”

“Jesus, you’re getting a mouth on you. Your gut. Do you give your new partner that kind of crap?”

“I’ve changed.”

“Changed?”

“I’m more confident now. I know what I’m doing.”

“Then why do you need me?”

“Hey, I’m not the one who—”

“I wouldn’t be here if you didn’t want to bounce things off me. But hey, if I’m not appreciated, I can go.”

And he faded away.

Laura stared at the spot where her former partner and mentor sat last. The bed was messy, but no messier for having Frank sit there. He was gone, except for a trace of his godawful cologne.

What had he asked her?

What do you think of Perrin?

Simple question. Who else would she be thinking about?

Laura started at the outside of the room and worked her way toward the center, taking photos of everything. She looked but didn’t touch; the unmade bed, the toothbrush on the clamshell sink in the bathroom, a squib of toothpaste in the sink. Toilet seat up. She took note: how long had he been married? Not long enough to adopt the habit a lot of married men did. Or was he just a rebel?

She smiled at that.

Was that how you proved you were a rebel in modern society?

She looked at the clothes jumbled in the suitcase.

Hiking clothes on a chair. Medium-expensive, she thought.

No Samsung Galaxy S III phone.

They would subpoena Sean Perrin’s phone records, which would give them access to every call he made or received. Even if the killer removed the SIM card or turned the GPS off and the phone was lying in a landfill somewhere, the calls would still be listed up to that point. They might not find everything, but it was a good place to start.

Anthony had already put a call in to the Las Vegas Metro PD to get the ball rolling. It would take a few days, but they would get the information in the long run.

Three framed photographs sat on a side table; a beautiful woman and two beautiful children.

Absolutely beautiful children. A stunning woman. Model-stunning. They could have been in Lands' End ads.

The photos were sunny. The faces were happy. Healthy. Scrubbed faces, American as Madison Avenue could make them. But they still looked like real people.

He’d caught them unawares, almost. Like he’d said, “Hey! Look here!” and his wife had turned to look at him. A quick smile.

The kids on the grass, watching ducks in a lake. Beautiful, beautiful kids. A boy and a girl.

Sean Perrin had quite a family, and quite a resume. Special Forces. Financial consultant. Whistleblower.

Maybe that was the key. He’d crossed the wrong person and now he was on the run.

He’d told Barbara Sheehey that he was married to a Ford model from LA. He’d told Cody Sheehey he had an estranged sister in Tucson.

His car was a rental.

Lots of undercurrents there. Lots of things that stood out, and piqued her interest.

Laura thought he’d been sitting in his car in the hours between eight and eleven, although she’d need confirmation on that from the M.E. She thought he was there after dark, because it would be more likely no one else would be there.

He’d sat there in the car and for some reason, closed his eyes. And then someone came along and shot him execution-style.

Laura said to the empty room, “Whoever you were running from, looks like they caught you.”

6: The Canvass

Fresh from his helicopter adventure, Anthony joined Laura at the cabin. Laura stood back and watched him look at the contents of the room. She wanted to see what caught his eye.

He went for the luggage.

“Nice clothes. Not too expensive, but nice.” He looked at Tess. “His watch was a knockoff made to look expensive. You know where he worked?”

“Mrs. Sheehey’s son, Cody, said he was a financial advisor.”

“In Vegas?” He answered for himself. “Probably. You want me to do that part? See where he worked and what was going on with him?”

Laura knew he liked that aspect of police work best. Back at the squad bay, kicked back in his swiveling chair, on the phone. Romancing people into telling him their darkest secrets.

“He has a sister in Tucson,” Laura said. “Apparently they’re estranged. We’re gonna have to run her down, too.”

Anthony had his phone out, checked it. “Shoot, no cell phone service.” He pocketed his phone. “I’ll go back to the farm and see what I can find. Insurance card, stuff he had to enter for Enterprise.”

“Why’d he rent a car?” Laura asked. “Why not drive his own?”

“Got me. You want me to help you here?”

“I’ve got it covered.” She believed in people doing what they did best. Anthony was good at everything, but he excelled at data collecting and doing his legwork back at the squad bay. She suspected that in down times, he was coming up with movie pitches and treatment ideas, but he was the best talker she’d ever seen on the phone. He could tease answers out of anybody. In person, though, he came off as overbearing. He towered over people, and some folks—most of them older—were intimidated by his bald head. This, she knew, was the reason he often adopted a porkpie hat. It made him look slightly goofy, but it took away the edge.

Just then tires crunched on gravel.

They went to the open doorway. A young woman dressed in skimpy running shorts and a clingy top emerged from a metallic yellow Ford Focus hatchback. She bent gracefully into the back for a bag of groceries, and stepped up onto the low porch to her cabin.

Anthony said, “On second thought, maybe I should stick around and give you a hand.”

Her name was Madison Neville.

Laura couldn’t ever remember looking that good. She felt a moment of regret, and then layered it over with her sterling career as a homicide detective, her superior sharpshooting skills, her interrogation chops, and her fiancé of three-and-a-half years.

Anthony stood back from the girl, porkpie hat cocked over one eye, looking casual, but Laura could tell he was in love.

“Sean? He’s dead? Really?” Madison asked after setting her groceries down on the small table in the pocket kitchenette. She stared at them both, her eyes like amethyst jewels.

“Did you know him to talk to?” Laura asked her.

“Yeah. I thought he was pretty nice.” From the look on her face, she might as well have said, “for an old guy.”

Embarrassed that they might think there was anything romantic between this twenty-something girl and a forty-three-year-old man?

At the age of thirty-seven, forty-three didn’t seem as old to Laura as it used to.

Normal.

Laura would never know for sure. She was going on instinct and the experience of seeing countless death scenes. But she was pretty sure Sean Perrin hadn’t seen it coming.

Literally.

Back at the squad bay, Laura got on the phone and spent a couple of hours calling motels in Winslow. She’d winnowed down the motels to within walking distance of the McDonald's at 1616 North Park Drive.

From Google Maps, she was able to see the area from above and also from Street View. The land looked as if it had been cleared for building, and new stores were going up near an old neighborhood. There were several motels in the neighborhood—an Econo Lodge, a Quality Inn, and a Motel 6.

Laura called the Winslow PD, identified herself, and talked to the desk sergeant there. She asked if there had been any shootings at the motels on Park near the interchange approximately two weeks ago.

“No shootings near the main drag.”

“None near the McDonald's on Park?”

“Not in the last two weeks.”

“How about before that?”

She could tell he was looking. “I’ll have to get back to you. Can you describe what you’re looking for?”

From the mouth of a congenital liar, Laura thought. “We have a homicide victim here in southern Arizona, a white male forty-three years old, name: Sean Perrin.” She described him and the story he’d told Terry Delmonte—the woman who was with him, his trip to the McDonald's for breakfast, his discovery of the woman dead in the room. “We believe he was driving a 2006 Dodge Viper Red Clearcoat.” She read off the VIN number.

“You say he’s a homicide victim? Anything else we should know about him?”

“He’s a mystery to us,” Laura said. “But he was shot once in the head at close range with a .22. No evidence at the scene. Shot in his car.”

“Sounds like a hit.”

“Which is why I’m following this lead.”

“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire? Can you describe this woman?”

“This is a guess, but she’s probably between the ages of twenty and forty. She would be a resident of Las Vegas. The name I was given was ‘Aurora’. She might have gone by another name. The last name, but not sure: Tattaglia.”

Laura knew the name was a shot in the dark. She was on shifting sands here. She thought about elaborating, but realized she’d only dig herself in deeper.

“So you’re sure he said McDonald's?”

“Yes.”

“There’s only one of ’em here. I’ll check and see if there’s a homicide in a motel, but I don’t recall anything like this.”

Laura thought: all you can do is try.

She got a call back the next morning.

“No record of anyone shot to death in any of the motels near the McDonald's,” the desk sergeant, Manny Contreras, told her. “But there was a death that fits your time frame. A woman died of an overdose at the Meteorite Inn.”

“The Meteorite Inn?”

“Yeah, it’s an old motel, kind of off the beaten track, but if they were hiding out as you say . . . ”

“A drug overdose? You sure?”

“To tell the truth, at first it did look like a homicide. She must have flailed around some, hit her head against the bed board and also on the chest of drawers. Turned out it was a drug overdose. Ketamine and PCP in her system, which fits with what we found.”

“How old was she?”

“Mid-to-late twenties, but she looked older than that. Her name was Aurora Johnson. She had a Las Vegas DL and one hell of a rap sheet,” he added. “She was a prostitute.”

11: Running Down the Road

Laura and Anthony hit the road early the next morning. Early for Anthony was eight a.m.

Laura picked him up at his home, which was kind of on the way, and they hit Phoenix on Interstate 10 just in time for rush hour.

It was mid-afternoon by the time they pulled in to Winslow. The police department was situated along old Interstate 40, a white cube of a building on a one-way street.

It wasn’t far from the Meteorite Inn on State Route 99. They drove by there first.

The land around here looked like tanned deer hide. There were railroad tracks nearby, and a road that zigged, then zagged, and stuck like a postage stamp in the right angle was the motel. The side to the street was a jigsaw of colored rocks, most of them dark brown, some muddy yellow, pink, blue, red—all natural rock colors from the area. Wafers of flagstone were stacked at the base. Someone had put real care into this, but the result was ugly. And old.

“It’s a long way from McDonald's,” Laura said.

Anthony nodded. “You just maybe think we’re on a wild goose chase?”

“Probably. But a woman did die here.”

“The Meteorite Inn. Looks like it was hit by a meteorite. If a guy stood on this corner, the girl in the flatbed Ford would’ve driven right by. I’ll bet people rent by the month.”

Laura looked at the old motel. There was a cluttered look to some of the rooms—doors open, old cars outside. It did look like people were camped out there. “You think they were hiding out?”

“Could be. You can’t get more out of the way than this.”

“But the woman died from a drug overdose. Maybe he wasn’t running from anything at all in Vegas. Maybe he just met the woman here and paid her for sex.”

“It’s a theory,” Anthony said. Hands on hips, he stared out at the bleak side of Winslow.

“But that would be a coincidence,” Laura said.

“Yeah—and I know how much you don’t like coincidences.”

“Coincidences are rare. Besides,” she said. “Sean Perrin was killed by a pro.”

They met with Greg Wyland, the detective who investigated Aurora Johnson's death at the Meteorite Inn. Wyland was tall like Anthony, so the two of them towered over Laura, even though she was pretty tall, herself. Wyland looked boyish, with a pale blonde buzz cut and startling blue eyes.

He showed them the file.

Aurora Johnson did have a sheet—prostitution busts and drugs.

The crime scene photos were shocking. There was blood everywhere, mostly from Johnson running into things, like the dresser where she ended up, head smashed into the bottom drawer.

 “Ketamine and PCP,” Laura muttered, looking at the sheet. Anthony leaned over her.

Even dead, Aurora Johnson was a beautiful young woman. She was twenty-four years old. She looked like she might be a mixture of Hispanic, African American, and perhaps Asian. In one of the close-up shots, Laura noticed a tattoo on her forearm: a bullet. Just the black silhouette, but it was unmistakable. “Did LVMPD send a photo of her?” Laura asked.

“Yeah.” He pulled it up on his desktop.

It was the first time Laura had seen a mug shot that was actually flattering.

“Jesus,” Anthony said. “She’s a knockout.”

Even the cloth they used to drape under her chin looked elegant.

Aurora Johnson had been arrested for possession of drugs twice and prostitution three times.

Laura said, “All these arrests were from two years ago or earlier. Since then, nothing.”

“Somebody looking out for her?” Anthony asked.

 “Cedric Williams,” Wyland said. “A.K.A. WMD.”

“His name is ‘WMD?”

“No, A.K.A. WMD. Supposedly he’s a rapper.”

Laura knew that rappers in Vegas were pimps in actuality. Like the guy in Vegas who was shot and killed on the Strip awhile back, blowing up a taxi in the process.

Anthony said, “Stands for ‘also known as’?”

Wyland shrugged. “That would be my guess. She definitely had protection—my contact at LVMPD said she was A.K.A.’s bottom girl.”

Laura knew that a “bottom girl” was the Most Valuable Player in the pimp-hooker world. She was trained to run the business, make sure the girls did what they were told, groomed to perfection and schooled to be a high-level prostitute worthy of the high rollers who wanted the best. “So what’s she doing dying of a drug overdose in a dump like the Meteorite Inn?”

They went back to the motel with Wyland. Perrin and Johnson had stayed in room 10, right near the backside of a bar and facing a Dumpster.

“This was over two weeks ago,” Wyland said, after coming out with the key to the room. “The place has been cleaned up.”

“Probably not all that much,” Anthony said. He covered his eyes against the lowering sun and stared at the room down at the end. “I can picture this. Fade In: a fleabag motel on the edge of town.”

Wyland glanced at Laura.

“Anthony writes screenplays in his spare time.”

“This would be a good setting for a zombie movie,” Wyland said helpfully.

The room had not been repainted, but the walls had been scrubbed. There were some dark reddish stains in the carpet, but the carpet was multicolored and they were hard to see.

“It doesn’t look bad now it’s dried,” Wyland said.

“But you don’t suspect homicide?” Laura asked.

Det. Wyland shrugged. “The coroner said she had enough drugs in her system to kill her. All the flailing was consistent with that. Hard to believe, I know, but he’d seen it before.”

Laura wondered who’d come up with the cocktail like that. Was it Aurora Johnson herself, or someone else?

Sean Perrin?

It was possible.

Sean Perrin was a liar, after all. But the story he told, coming back with breakfast for himself and the woman he was on the run with, made sense. If he’d come back and seen her dead, looking bloody and beaten, he might have run. He said he was on the run with Aurora Johnson. He might have thought the people chasing them had caught up with them.

If there were people chasing them.

Aurora Johnson was Cedric Williams’ bottom girl. She would have been valuable in many ways. And she would have known a lot about his business.

Maybe for once in his life, Sean Perrin had told the truth—at least about running away with Johnson.

As they parted ways with Wyland, Laura glanced around and saw a Mexican place that advertised breakfast down the block.

If Perrin was a congenital liar, he could have easily substituted the McDonald's for another restaurant. Why he’d lie about that, she couldn’t fathom. Maybe just out of habit.

Who knew what labyrinth his thinking process ran through?

They tried that place, but no one remembered Sean Perrin from two weeks ago. Why would they? Unless he engaged one of the servers in conversation and started lying.

“There’s another one,” Anthony said. “Way down there, see?”

This place, Arturo’s, boasted breakfasts Mexican and American style. A sign board out front proclaimed, Yes We Have Menudo!

Laura glanced up and down the street at all the bars. “Good place for it,” she said.

They had the photo blown up from his drivers license, and had shown it many times.

But this time, they hit paydirt.

The server, a skinny young girl with startling turquoise eyes, said the man had tipped her big, which was why she remembered him. He flirted with her, too.

“Not in a bad way,” she said. “He was friendly.”

“Did he eat here?”

“Yes, he did. But he also bought some food for his girlfriend.”

“His girlfriend? Can you remember exactly what he said?”

She thought for a moment. “He said she liked to sleep in, but they had to get on the road and he wanted to wake her up. He ordered coffee and a breakfast burrito to go.”

“Did he now?” Anthony smiled his most charming smile. “Did he say anything else?”

“He said he had insomnia. He’d been up most of the night walking around.” She thought some more. “Oh, and he was on his way to a car race in Phoenix.”

“What kind of race?”

“NASCAR.”

“In Phoenix?”

“Yes. He said he was a driver. He even gave me his autograph on a menu.”

“Do you have it here?”

“It’s at home.”

“You said he was up all night?”

“That’s what he said.”

Laura stared out the plate glass windows stretching across the front. Aurora might have been off drugs when she worked for Cedric Williams, but she’d obviously wasted no time getting back in the groove. At least that’s how it looked right now.

As they walked outside, Anthony said, “My sister’s boyfriend watches NASCAR. He goes to Phoenix every year. In March.”

“Might as well put a sign on the door to that motel room.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“‘Sean Perrin Was Here.’”

They’d asked for Detective Wyland to copy them on the police report, as well as the coroner’s findings. He told them he’d send all the information by email. They were on the road to Flagstaff by four in the afternoon, and it was almost dark by the time they reached Enterprise Rent-A-Car.

There was no red Dodge Viper in the parking lot, as expected.

The person at the desk was not the person who rented the car to Sean Perrin. The transaction itself was dry and offered no new information, except to corroborate that Perrin had indeed rented the car.

“Who managed the transaction?” Laura asked.

The young man looked down at the signature. “That was Colin. Colin Ferry.”

“We’d like his phone number.”

“I dunno . . . ”

“Hey, we’re cops. You want to call the manager and ask?”

“Nuh-uh. Colin’s the manager. I guess it’s all right.” He wrote down the number.

“Thanks,” Laura and Anthony said at the same time.

Looked at each other. Only three months on the job together and they were beginning to click.

They walked outside under the sodium arc lights and checked the parking lot. No red Viper.

“You think he ditched it around here?” Anthony said.

“Probably.”

“Impound.”

“They’re closed. We’ll have to call tomorrow.”

Laura punched in the number for Colin Ferry—no rest for the weary.

He lived not ten minutes from where they were. They drove to his apartment—a place that tried to look tropical and upscale but came across as a little desperate, and knocked on his door.

Colin was tall and heavy, kind of like a redwood tree. Or a hippo. Or a redwood tree that had mated with a hippo. His jaw was broad, almost like mandibles. He had just come back from a swim, judging from his wet swim shorts and the towel around his neck. He stood out on the landing, shivering a little in the towel over his shoulders.

But he didn’t complain about it.

They stood in a little knot, because his wife had just managed to get their newborn to sleep and he wanted to keep things quiet. Standing under the light above the door, moths flying patterns around them, crowded into the broad leaves of a banana tree from one story down, Colin described the man and woman who had signed for the car.

“He looked like your average middle class guy on vacation. Shorts, T-shirt. I see them all the time. Tired and kind of crabby. I would have forgot him if it wasn’t for the woman. Jesus, she was a knockout.”

“Can you describe her?”

He did, in great detail, down to the top that showed off her midriff and the skinny jeans.

“Anything about them that bothered you?”

“Not really . . . ”

“Don’t be afraid to think outside the box. Anything that struck you? Good or bad?”

“Other than how hot she was? I wasn’t looking at the man.”

“Anything? Did they mention where they were going?”

“No. I will say he was in the pain in the ass category.”

“How so?”

“We went out to look at the car, you know, for him to look it over and check for scratches, paint, that kind of thing. He was the type who spent, like, an hour going over the car. Must’ve took a hundred photos with his phone. I’m talking like even a speck on the paint. The undercarriage, too. His girlfriend or wife or whatever, she looked annoyed.”

“Looked annoyed?”

“Stood there with her arms folded. Sighed a lot. Rolled her eyes.” He had a slight smile on his face, reminiscing. “I think she was flirting with me.”

Lucky new mother inside to have such a supportive husband, Laura thought.

“Anything else?”

“Just that he was full of shit.”

“Oh?”

“He went on and on about the Mercedes, like he was some expert. A know-it-all.”

“Like?”

“He said he owned a Mercedes just like it, said it was what the big guys in Vegas drove, ‘you know what I mean?’ Wink-wink. Like he was some kind of player. Hinted he was some big Vegas honcho or something.”

“Big Vegas honcho?”

“Like, you know, the mafia. That’s what he was hinting at.”

Laura said to Anthony, “If he felt bad about Aurora Johnson, he didn’t let it stop him from showing off.”

“You know what?” Anthony said. “He’d make a good character in a movie.”

They found a motel that DPS could afford (just this side of crappy) and caught a quick dinner in the coffee shop before going their separate ways, and met up the next morning. By then Laura had called around and found the red Dodge Viper in an impound lot.

They went by and were allowed in to the yard to take a look.