Freezing jas-1 Read online

  He smiled at her. ‘I can see why you keep going.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘You’ve broken the big problem down into smaller pieces, haven’t you? I bet you do a lot of compartmentalizing.’

  ‘I don’t know about that. But I do like it if I can tell when something’s over, when a job’s done.’

  ‘What about in the rest of your life?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Do you compartmentalize there, too?’

  ‘I don’t know! Come on, let’s go.’

  Fifteen minutes later, she and Gene were walking through the front door of her apartment. While he used the bathroom, she put on the kettle and wiped down the table on the deck. When Gene emerged, she indicated the coffee fixings.

  ‘How do you take it?’

  He called back to her as he walked over to the bookshelves. ‘Black, thanks.’

  As she put the grounds into the press, she watched him, noticing how his height was even more obvious now that he was in her house. He was reaching for a book on a high shelf that she needed a footstool to reach. He flicked through the book and then returned it to the shelf.

  ‘No books on forensics?’

  ‘They’re all at the Agency. I rarely want to look at them when I get home.’

  He turned and looked at her with a surprised smile. ‘You have limits when it comes to forensics? I’m shocked.’

  Jayne poured hot water over the coffee. ‘All I’m saying is, Spitz and Fisher isn’t my first choice for bedtime reading.’

  ‘So you do compartmentalize.’

  ‘What is it with your fascination as to whether or not I compartmentalize, as you put it?’ She carried the tray of coffee and cups out to the deck.

  Gene followed her out. ‘I’m just curious about how you keep on with the forensics and still seem to have a normal life. I wasn’t very successful at it.’

  They settled down at the table and Jayne sugared her coffee. ‘Well, I never worked for the Bureau for one thing, and I never said I have a normal life.’

  ‘But you’re expecting a hot date soon, right?’

  ‘Gene!’ Jayne spat coffee in her surprise.

  He grinned at her. ‘Hey, people who’ve done the type of work we’ve done sometimes have trouble finding someone who “gets” them. And I take it from your reaction that you don’t get a lot of hot dates.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ Jayne wiped her mouth.

  ‘You missed a spot.’ Gene leaned over and presumptuously wiped his thumb beneath her lower lip. ‘I was really just trying to find out if you had a boyfriend right now. The way you checked your phone earlier . . .?’

  ‘No. I mean . . . no.’

  ‘Ri-ight.’ He sounded unconvinced.

  ‘OK,’ Jayne countered. ‘Since you’re so smug, why haven’t you mentioned your fabulous wife and kids back at your massive condo with attached two-car garage?’

  Gene inclined his head. ‘Because it’s a house – my mom’s house, incidentally – not a condo, with a one-car garage that’s filled with other stuff so there’s no room for the car. No wife, but there’ve been some . . . dalliances.’

  ‘Well, I bet your garage has everything labeled and organized because you like to compartmentalize, just as you allege I do. Am I right?’

  He looked thoughtful, then admitted, ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘Yeah, I bet your mom loves having you around.’

  ‘Actually, she passed away.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

  Gene shook his head. ‘No, it was for the best. Alzheimer’s.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Trust me, you don’t want to live with someone who has that kind of dementia. She didn’t know who she was most of the time and she sure as hell didn’t know who I was by the end. It’s pretty weird, I gotta tell ya, to have your own mother not recognize you. Makes you wonder who you are.’

  ‘Shit, Gene,’ Jayne breathed.

  He shook his head and smiled lightly. ‘She’s been gone a few years now. And I worked out who I am.’

  A car passed below them on the street, its occupants singing loudly along with their stereo. Their voices died away with the air and were replaced with the sound of cricket calls.

  Gene drained his cup and stood. ‘I should probably get going.’

  ‘I’ll drive you back.’

  ‘No need. You look tired.’

  ‘It’s no trouble . . .’

  ‘Seriously, no need. But you said you had a copy of that photo we took at Kigali Airport?’

  ‘Right, I do. Give me a second to find it.’

  They went indoors and she left Gene there while she went outside and down the stairs to her storage room off the driveway. It took a few minutes to find the right box and she carried the whole thing back upstairs.

  He met her at the door and they went through the box together on the dining table, looking at photos from Bosnia. Streets of shelled houses in Brčko, carts of ripe peppers for sale on the shoulder of the road to Tuzla, a bright new gas station on the highway to the Croatian coast. When they came to the photos from Rwanda, the Kigali Airport shot was near the top. Jayne put the duplicate in an envelope and gave it to him. They walked to the front door.

  ‘I’ll keep in touch,’ he said.

  ‘It was good to see you.’

  ‘Tell Steelie I said hi.’

  Jayne smiled a bit sheepishly. ‘Will do.’

  She thought he was bending down to kiss her cheek, so she leaned toward him but he reached her first and pressed his lips to hers. It wasn’t a bull’s eye, landing partly on her mouth and partly on her cheek, fast but not fleeting. Then he left quickly, raising a hand in farewell as he disappeared around the corner at the top of the stairs.

  She closed the door behind him and stood for a moment, shaking her head at the contradictions he seemed to show and feeling surprised at the slight moistness where his rather papery lips had touched hers. It was only then that she wondered how he was getting back to his hotel. She hadn’t even called a taxi for him. She yanked open the door and clattered down the stairs, intending to catch him on the street but there was no sign of him. She realized she didn’t even have his cell phone number. Then she heard the phone ringing in her apartment and she bounded back up, thinking it might be him.

  She picked up the phone and answered breathlessly. But it was only Steelie, sounding shocked.

  ‘Are you just getting in now?’

  ‘No, we were here and then I just came back in again.’

  ‘Wait. You had Gene come over to your place?’

  ‘Yeah, why?’

  ‘My God, Jayne. Do I need to remind you? The guy’s an ignorant pig who—’

  ‘He’s mellowed since then.’

  ‘People like him don’t mellow.’

  Jayne smiled, thinking about the number of times Gene had made her laugh that night. ‘Well, he has.’ Even she heard the smile in her tone.

  ‘Have you forgotten that night at the Cadillac?’

  ‘Yeah, he wondered if you were still holding that dance against him.’

  ‘That would be a yes. But what’s the deal? Are you seeing him again? And what was he doing in LA?’

  ‘He was out here on business and all we did was a have a nice reminiscence session. Talked about life – post-mission life. It was good. I mean, he’s still supercilious at times but he’s fine. He did kiss me.’

  ‘Ugh!’

  Jayne laughed, knowing how abhorrent Steelie would find the idea. ‘Yeah, it wasn’t the best kiss ever. Kind of fourth-grade school yard, actually.’

  ‘What, like, when no one knows what they’re doing and a tongue goes up someone’s left nostril?’

  ‘God, no. There was no tongue, but there was something behind it . . . I don’t know. Something.’

  Steelie was unmoved. ‘Who cares what was behind it, so long as it wasn’t a tongue?’

  DAY THREE

  Thursday

  NINE

  Scott pulled
into the curb in front of the next body shop on his list. Eric double-checked the sheet he was holding and suppressed a yawn. ‘Sepulveda Body Shop.’

  Scott caught his yawn. ‘I shouldn’t have skipped lunch.’

  They got out of the car and walked into the gated concrete yard, which was packed with cars reflecting the light and heat of the summer afternoon, while all four bays in the building were occupied with vehicles up on raised pallets, mechanics working beneath them. Scott and Eric threaded their way past the parked cars and walked into the small office. An unattended desk whose trays were filled with files was shoe-horned into what appeared to be a closet but the room was dominated by a larger desk closer to the window-mounted air conditioner, which was spewing frigid air.

  The young man behind this desk was wearing a blue shirt smeared with grease where he’d wiped his hands on it. The nametag read Javier and he was on the phone.

  ‘If you bring it here before eight in the morning, I can get someone to have a look at it same day. But if it’s rotors, it’s gonna take a day to get ’em in.’

  When he hung up the phone, the agents opened their badges, announced themselves and asked for Javier’s surname.

  ‘Ruiz.’

  ‘What’s your position here?’ Eric asked.

  ‘I’m the manager.’

  ‘OK. Were you working Monday?’

  Ruiz took on a wary look. ‘Yes?’

  ‘You get a van in here that needed body work to the rear doors?’

  Ruiz glanced away briefly. ‘Yeah.’

  Eric restrained himself from looking at his partner. ‘You note the license plate?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know if—’ Something out the window caught his attention and he hurriedly got up from the desk, moving to the side just as an overweight man charged through the front door. He hardly glanced at Scott and Eric as he made his way around the desk. He only looked up after he’d sat down in the chair and put his head in line with the air conditioner.

  ‘What do you need? Ruiz taking care of you?’ He was rolling his neck around to expose all the folds to the air.

  Before they could speak or take out their badges, Ruiz was saying, ‘Mr Malbandian, these gentlemen have a government vehicle that needs looking at.’ He shot a nervous glance at Eric.

  ‘Well, help them, Ruiz. Help them. Out there.’ He shooed them out with his hands.

  Scott caught Eric’s eye and they didn’t pull out their badges. They followed Ruiz out into the hot forecourt. Ruiz went to a narrow area between two black SUVs liberally adorned with chrome accents and halted. It was like standing in a toaster oven.

  ‘Look,’ he said desperately. ‘That guy’s my boss. He doesn’t know about this and he’d fire me in a second.’

  ‘Because of something you did with this van?’ Scott wasn’t following.

  ‘No, because I took some money that maybe should’ve gone to the shop.’ Ruiz looked over Scott’s shoulder.

  ‘Take it from the top, Javier.’ Eric encouraged.

  ‘OK. This guy came in with a van. Looked like he’d been rear-ended. There was a lot of damage to the lower part of the back doors and it was stopping the handles from latching right. Nothing weird about it until he said he just wanted me to spray the van and do all the work from the outside. Under no circumstances could I touch the handles. I said, don’t you want me to fix the lock, but he said that the padlock he’d put on was just fine. He had a chain through it too. He paid me six hundred dollars extra to do everything the way he said. And it wasn’t easy, let me tell you. He was real particular.’

  ‘Describe the van.’ Scott had pulled out his pad.

  Ruiz closed his eyes before recounting. ‘Light blue Chevy, old. Maybe a pretty old Astro but it didn’t have its model on the outside. Um . . . good tires, I noticed that.’

  ‘And what color did you spray it?’

  ‘Gold.’

  ‘License plate?’

  Ruiz looked embarrassed. ‘That was part of what he paid me to not notice. But I know it was Georgia.’

  The agents exchanged a look. ‘Georgia?’ Scott asked. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes. But I didn’t look closely at it.’

  ‘You can’t remember anything else about it?’

  ‘No, honestly. I see a lot of plates and they don’t mean that much to me anymore. Especially from out of state because they’re a different layout to California plates.’

  Eric cut across Scott’s emerging exasperation. ‘What about the man, Javier? What did he look like?’

  ‘He was Anglo. Kinda tall. A light-colored beard. But he was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses, so I didn’t see much more.’

  ‘What was his voice like?’

  ‘I guess you could say it was soft. I mean, it was American and all. Just . . . he didn’t speak loud. You’d do better asking Margarita about him.’

  ‘Margarita?’

  ‘Yeah, she does the filing. She’s not in today but I know she had some kind of problem with him.’

  ‘They spoke to each other?’

  ‘I don’t know. She just came walking back into the yard here and said something, like, about the guy being weird.’

  Scott was at the ready. ‘Where can we find Margarita?’

  ‘Um, I know where she lives. Over by Birmingham High School.’ He gave Scott the address.

  ‘Let’s go back to the man,’ said Eric. ‘What time did he get here?’

  ‘He was here when I arrived to open up at six thirty.’

  ‘Just parked outside?’

  ‘Yeah, like he was waiting.’

  ‘Was anyone else with him?’

  ‘Not that I saw.’

  ‘And what’d he say to you?’

  ‘Just said hi and that he needed some work done on his van, right away, and he was going to pay cash.’ He shrugged. ‘My boss wasn’t coming in for two days, so I just decided to take on the job myself.’

  ‘He say anything about where he’d come from or where he was going?’

  Ruiz shook his head.

  ‘Did he wait here while you finished the work?’

  ‘No, the paint had to dry. He came back the next day, late in the afternoon.’

  ‘But he just walked away when he dropped if off? Did he ask you for directions or anything?’

  ‘No, he just walked. I figured he was going to the bus stop or something.’

  ‘Is there anything else you can tell us about him?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘OK.’ Eric pulled a business card from his shirt pocket. ‘Here’s my card. If you remember anything more, call me right away, any time, day or night. Got it?’

  ‘So I’m not in trouble?’

  ‘No but we may need to take a formal statement later.’

  Ruiz put the card in the back pocket of his pants. ‘And you’re not going to tell my boss?’

  ‘Nope.’ Scott shook his head.

  It wasn’t until the agents were back in their vehicle, air-conditioner blowing, that Eric spoke. ‘We’re on to him, Houston. I can feel it.’

  They drove directly to the address Ruiz had given them for Margarita, which was in a neighborhood of single-story ranch houses built in the 1940s and 1950s in the heart of the San Fernando Valley. The street they parked on was neat; dry lawns were cut short where only geranium and jade bushes held up against the heat. Margarita’s house didn’t have a car parked in the driveway but the swamp cooler on the roof suggested someone was home; its hum was audible to the agents as they walked up the front path.

  The teenager who opened the door had a sullen expression. TV advertisements blared behind her.

  ‘Yes?’

  They identified themselves and explained why they needed to speak to her. She didn’t invite them inside the house but was willing to describe the man who had brought the van to the garage.

  ‘Javier dealt with him outside. It was just that I wanted to make a personal call and the owner is real strict about that, makes me use the
pay phone on the sidewalk just outside the gate. So I go to use it but the guy with the van was already there and he gave me a look that really scared me. I went away but I was pissed because it was an important call I wanted to make.’

  Scott asked, ‘Did you hear him say anything?’

  ‘Well, when I came over, he was speaking up so I heard him. It was like he was talking to one of those computer voices, y’know? Like an operator? He said, “Arizona” real loud.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  Margarita shook her head. ‘No. Soon as he said that was when he realized I was there.’

  ‘Can you describe him?’ Eric asked.

  ‘Just a skanky guy. White.’

  ‘Hair color? Eye color?’

  ‘He had a patchy beard that was kinda blond. I think his hair was blond but his hat hid most of it. I don’t remember what color his eyes were. Maybe brown?’

  ‘What was his voice like? Any accent?’

  ‘No. I just heard him say that one word.’

  Eric pulled out his card and repeated what he’d said to Ruiz earlier about calling if she remembered anything further. When they were back in the Suburban, Scott said, ‘You might just get that gold star, Ramos.’

  Eric started to reply but then Scott’s cell phone rang. He picked up, listened, and said, ‘We’re on our way back now.’

  He looked at Eric. ‘Tony’s got a name to go with the surgical plate Thirty-two One found.’

  Eric slapped the dashboard in excitement. ‘Hot damn!’

  ‘She’s an Eleanor Patterson. Lance is checking her out right now to see if she was reported missing.’

  ‘I told you. We’re on to this guy.’

  ‘We’ve got to track him down yet,’ Scott cautioned as he started the car.

  ‘Yeah, but if we’re interpreting Margarita right, we know he’s headed to Arizona. We know the color, the make, and the potential model of the van.’

  ‘But no license plate and no name of the perp.’

  ‘I’m not letting that stop me,’ Eric asserted. ‘We need to issue a BOLO to Arizona.’

  Scott glanced at him as he drove to the canyon road that would take them back to their office. ‘Let’s do Be On the Lookouts for Arizona and California. He may not have made it to AZ yet.’