Page 27

27

It was almost twenty after nine the next morning, and Hagen’s eyes were crossing. Nine different channels divided the screen on his desk. Each frame of the footage showed a section of the streets around Kerrick’s Alley at dusk the previous evening.

The corner of River Street and Fourth Avenue. A slice of Fifth Avenue North. A chunk of Commerce Street. One security camera showed vehicles turning in and out of the south side of the alley. This was the feed that had given them Otto Walker’s green Nissan.

But the shooter had fled out of the north side of the alley, where there was no surveillance.

All the screens looked essentially the same. In the lenses of the security cameras, the early streetlights glowed a garish white. Backs of vehicles heading south on Fourth Street built patterns of red dots. Bright beams of headlights glowed on Third.

There were more than a few white vehicles in the area right after the shooting. When one of them had a license plate that was visible, he took a note of it, even if it wasn’t a truck or SUV. But some of them he couldn’t see. His list of white vehicles was growing.

Stella sat next to Hagen in the office. She’d arrived home before him last night and had greeted him with the kind of flying hug usually reserved for soldiers returning from a long foreign posting.

Hagen hadn’t been too surprised. He’d been in an alley where someone had taken a potshot, missed, and run away. It wasn’t the first time he’d been shot at, and he doubted it would be the last.

But this was the first time he’d been shot at and then come home to someone who cared. The embrace she’d greeted him with, the relief he’d seen in her eyes, made him feel loved. But he worried now how Stella would react the next time someone aimed a gun in his direction.

Hagen was starting to understand that to put himself at risk was to hurt and worry Stella. That weight on his back was new.

As for the risks she took…he tried not to think about them and was mostly successful.

Stella tapped a box in the bottom left corner of the screen, where a white van lumbered past. “Roll that one back. How come Ander isn’t in yet?”

Hagen selected the box, and it filled the screen. He slid the counter to the right. The van rolled backward as though yanked by a tow chain. The plate wasn’t visible. Hagen minimized the screen and let the other windows run before checking his watch.

“Don’t know. Not like Ander to be late. Trouble getting the kid off to daycare, maybe.”

The office door opened, and Ander bustled in. His cheeks were red, his hair still damp. Instead of falling in tight ringlets to his collar, his curls stuck to the side of his neck. He looked like a collie who’d been out in the rain too long.

“Sorry. Slade isn’t in yet, is he?”

“Yeah. He’s asked about you twice.”

Ander blanched.

Stella let him off the hook. “He didn’t say anything. I don’t think he noticed.”

“Oh, I’m sure he noticed. He’ll say something. And just when I think I’ve gotten away with it.”

“What kept you? You’re not usually late.”

Ander dropped his coat over the back of his chair. He dragged the chair next to Hagen, pulled a health bar out of his coat pocket, and tore off the wrapper with his teeth. “Overslept. Didn’t even have time for breakfast.”

“Seriously? What are you, a teenager?”

Ander pulled his damp hair away from his neck. “I wish. Up late last night talking with Alessandra. She’s not used to me getting shot at.”

“You should’ve told her they were shooting at me.”

“I tried. Figured she wouldn’t care as much if you got shot. Didn’t work. We were both there. She didn’t take it well.”

Stella nodded. “Give her time.”

“Yeah.” Ander didn’t look optimistic. He nodded toward the screen. “Found anything?”

Hagen watched a dolphin-gray Porsche edge out of the frame. “No, nothing. The end of the north side of the alley is basically a security blind spot. And we don’t even know what kind of vehicle he was driving.”

Stella sat up. “Stacy and I spoke to Fett yesterday at the soup kitchen. He said he saw a white Toyota truck.”

Hagen waved at the screen. “If it’s a white, silver, or tan vehicle, I’m marking it down. But, all told, there’s no sign of him.”

“Smart guy. So this wasn’t random. It wasn’t some drugged-up kid taking a potshot at law enforcement. He’s figured this out.”

“Maybe. Probably waiting for us.”

Stella’s face was stone. Hagen knew she understood. The cuneiform on the wall had pulled them in. The killer would’ve known the FBI would turn up. Not the cops. The FBI. Them.

The room fell silent. Stacy was sitting in the empty break room rereading the report on the case in Pennsylvania. Caleb was out interviewing a suspect in a fraud case. The office had never felt so empty.

Hagen wasn’t sure he liked it. He adjusted his tie. The butterflies hung straighter. That was another change. He wouldn’t have worn this tie if Stella hadn’t chosen it for him. He didn’t even know why he still owned it.

He’d neglected to tell Stella that it’d been a gag gift from Anja, back during their little fling. She’d never expected him to wear it. He couldn’t imagine what would go through her head if and when Anja remembered she’d done that.

The videos played on.

“Stop.” Stella pointed at the frame in the top corner of the screen. “What’s that?”

Hagen stopped the playback and blew up the frame. A battered white Toyota truck passed under the lens on Commerce Street. Hagen froze the image.

Stella pulled her chair closer.

Hagen let the video run. The vehicle turned onto a side street. There were no cameras on that street or at the exit. He searched surrounding cameras, but the driver had picked his route. He was gone.

The plates were blurry and impossible to make out. Stella swore quietly. “Anyone get the model?” Her eyes were wide, and there was an intensity in her face that worried Hagen. Anger and fear.

Everyone shook their heads. They’d have to enhance the picture somehow.

“Someone’s watching us.” She paused, then spat out the next word. “Again.”

An ache opened in Hagen’s stomach. They’d been watched before. Bugged. Monitored. Spied on in their own homes. But the people who’d broken into their lives were dead.

Still, they were being hunted as though they’d done something wrong, as though their lives were fair game to a player who didn’t give a shit about the rules. An old anger returned. A burning desire to find the person responsible and…and put them away. That was what they needed to do. They had to stop him.

But first, they had to get those dirty eyes off them.

Stella rose from her seat and called down the hallway. “Mac!”

Mac appeared in the door. “You could’ve walked a few steps, at least.”

“Shouting was easier. Can you arrange to have Hagen’s house swept for bugs?”

Mac’s eyes widened. She stepped into the bullpen. “Seriously? You think?—”

“No. I don’t think. It’s just…I want to be sure.”

“Right. Of course. I’ll make a call. Give me your keys. They’ll do it today.”

Stella threw her keys across the office. Mac caught them with both hands. Those were Hagen’s keys being tossed around like a ball of wastepaper. And yet they were Stella’s keys now too. The place needed to be swept. If only for her peace of mind.

Hagen glared at the screen. Part of him wished he could focus the pixelated blur that was the driver’s face with just the fury of his own eyes. “Hey, Mac, if I send you a picture, think you can enhance it?”

Pocketing the keys to Hagen’s house, Mac came around the desk to stand behind Ander, who was finishing his health bar and starting on a second.

“Enhance that? No. There’s nothing there to enhance. Sorry. You’re going to have to take better pictures next time.”

Stella pushed her chair back to her own desk. She scowled at the screen. “All we’ve got so far is a white Toyota related to the investigation. It’s not much.” She spoke as she typed. “How’s it going with Marrion’s phone?”

“Not great. He couldn’t have bought a cheap Nokia, could he? I’d have been through that like…like Ander at an all-you-can-eat buffet.”

“Hey!” Ander stopped mid-bite. “I skipped breakfast.”

“Sure you did, big guy.” Mac patted his muscular shoulder. “The phone’s going to take a few more days, but I dived back into his computer in the meantime. There was something off there, something I missed on my initial inspection.”

Stella looked up from the screen. “What’s that?”

“He used Tor.”

That was interesting. Tor was a secure, anonymous browser. Left no trace. Criminals used it to browse the dark web, trade drugs, and share the kind of pictures that led to very long prison sentences.

Ander took another bite of his health bar. “Any idea what he was doing with it?” Crumbles of granola landed on his collar.

“Say it, don’t spray it.” Mac gave Ander a disappointed look as he brushed the crumbs away. “If I knew what he was doing, this case would be solved. Y’all found nothing incriminating in his dorm room, right?”

Stella frowned. “His home looked clean too.”

“Yeah, my guess is he was just reading stuff he didn’t want anyone to know about. Hide his search history. I’ll probably know more once I’ve cracked his phone.”

Anja came into the room. She took her seat opposite Ander and eyed Mac. “I wondered where’d you went.”

“Sorry. When Stella shouts, I come running.”

Stella nodded approvingly. “As you should. So we’ve got a white Toyota Tacoma. I’ll put out a BOLO. And some more cuneiform. The same message.” She frowned and twisted her earring before glancing Hagen’s way. “What kind of vehicle did David Broad drive?”

Shit. “A Toyota Tacoma. Not sure of color or year, though. I’ll call the sheriff to check.”

She kept twisting, looking even more worried. “Yeah, thanks.”

“But we do have suspects.” Stacy stood in the doorway. The report from the Pennsylvania case was rolled in her hand. She tapped the tube against her thigh.

“True. There’s Patrick Marrion’s mystery friend. Trevor.” Stella waved a finger toward Stacy. “We still haven’t been able to identify him.”

Ander tossed his empty snack wrapper into the trash can. He looked happier now that he’d eaten. “There’s the mortician too. Walker’s employer. That’s another.”

“But what’s the motivation?” Stella didn’t look convinced. “Why would the mortician kill Patrick Marrion? And then kill Otto Walker, his employee?”

“What’s the mortician’s name?” Anja pulled her keyboard closer.

“Chris Murray.”

Anja typed and squinted at the screen and typed some more. Finally, she tapped the screen. “Here’s a thing. He was accused of fraud a few years back. Wasn’t charged, though. Said it was all a misunderstanding. I think we’ve all come across those kinds of misunderstandings.”

Hagen was surprised. He hadn’t thought of Chris Murray as a potential fraudster. “Like you said, he wasn’t charged. Anything else about him?”

“Not on his police record.” Anja typed again. “Let’s see if there’s anything in the press. Oh, here’s a picture of him. Well, not a picture. A painting.”

Hagen raised his head.

Anja faced him. “Yes, Butterfly Tie? You have a question?”

Of course she remembered. Women had minds like steel traps, every one of them. He ignored her comment. “A painting? What do you mean?”

“By an artist called Darwin Rhodell. The article said they were friends.”

Stella was halfway across the office and heading for a vehicle before Hagen had a chance to grab his coat.