High Risk Read online

  Eighteen

  Could it be about the uniforms? I drummed my fingers against the conference table. My desk had gotten too cluttered for me to work, so I went into the room where the techs continued to search the footage and internet for clues. Fennel followed, dragging a rolling whiteboard behind him. Then we set up our murder board.

  “The 9-1-1 caller and the witness from the train station said the two men in LockBox uniforms had dark hair. But Officer Cruz said one of them was blond.” Fennel chewed on his bottom lip. “The guy who shot at you looked like he had dark hair, but I wasn’t that close. Most of what I could see was his cap.”

  “He had dark hair. Cruz was attacked by the other one. That’s the only thing that would explain the timing, but the witness said both guards had similar features. I don’t get it.”

  “Me neither. But since the restroom was out of order, it only had emergency lighting. Maybe Cruz got it wrong,” Fennel suggested.

  “Cops don’t usually get it wrong.”

  “It could have been a wig. These guys like to play dress-up. Do you think they stole anything else from Star Cleaners? They could be construction workers or pirates by now.”

  I snorted. “Mr. Lee didn’t keep any other records, just the physical carbon copies. He doesn’t know what clothes were in back before the break-in, let alone after. Unless a customer tries to pick up his dry cleaning order and Lee can’t find it, we won’t know anything for sure.”

  “That could take a week or more. People don’t always get around to running errands. We don’t have time to wait.”

  “No, we don’t.” I rocked back in the chair. “We’ve compiled a list of Star Cleaners’ regular customers, but none of that looks promising.”

  “And the employees, past and present, are in the clear. We checked alibis for today’s shooting.” Fennel reached for the notepad and a sharpie, marking Lee’s name off the list. “Even the owner alibied out.”

  “The same with Moonlight Security’s personnel. I want to get something on the books with the CEO, Mr. Denisten, but he’s out of the office this week. McFarland said he had business meetings scheduled for every day. I left a message on his voicemail. Hopefully, he’ll get back to us by tomorrow. If anyone would know anything about weaknesses in their security systems or what other lucrative targets Moonlight Security protects, it would be him.”

  “All right.” Fennel made a note at the top and more black lines across the paper. “I got in touch with the guys who played video games with Jonathan Gardner. I just have one more to verify, but that’ll probably pan out, and then we can cross off their names.”

  “Dammit.”

  “I know.”

  I stared up at the photo array. At this point, we didn’t have any suspects left. “Six people were killed in the last thirty-six hours. And these chuckleheads still haven’t gotten their big score.”

  “No, but they might be getting cocky. After all, one of them ended up in a shootout with us before vanishing, and the other beat the shit out of a uniformed cop in the middle of a public restroom. They aren’t afraid to go toe-to-toe with the police or armed guards. At this point, it looks like they’d rather kill than run. Nothing’s going to stop them from continuing to escalate.”

  “You’re wrong. They won’t take unnecessary risks. Not yet. They still have a plan.”

  “What makes you say that?” Fennel asked.

  “According to Cruz, the maintenance sign had been on the bathroom door for a couple of days and no one else was inside. I think the bastard lured Cruz into isolation to take care of him and fled before help arrived. That’s not the behavior of someone who thinks of himself as invincible.”

  “That’s not the point, Liv. The point is these bastards don’t care about killing people in uniform. Honestly, I think they revel in it. The dispensary owner is the only person they attacked who wasn’t wearing some sort of uniform.” Fennel swiveled around to study the board.

  “That doesn’t help us any.”

  “Maybe not,” he agreed, “but it might lend itself to some kind of psychological profile. The killer hates authority, represented by people in uniform.”

  “Even if it’s a station agent?”

  “It’s still authority. Perhaps, that’s why they left the woman behind them in line alive. They only knocked her down. They just as easily could have shot her.”

  “Wow, you’re so insightful.”

  Fennel chuckled. “I did ace psychology class.”

  “Apparently so did Jonathan Gardner, but that didn’t help him any.”

  Fennel let out an unhappy grunt and reached for a map. Every point of interest had been marked and color coded. “Where do you think they went after they robbed the dispensary but before they dumped Lindsey Rook’s body in the alleyway and headed for the subway station? That’s two and a half hours unaccounted for.”

  I narrowed my eyes, seeing the crime scene unfold inside my mind. “Rook drove the LockBox truck. When he exited the vehicle to help his colleagues, the assailants knocked him out and abducted him. And they made sure to keep his uniform pristine and free of blood. That’s why they shot him after they stripped him.” I didn’t like what I was thinking. “The killers wanted the pallet of money in the back of the truck, but the truck was empty. They must have needed the driver for something.”

  “Intel.” Fennel let out a low whistle. “He’d know the routes, protocols, pickup times, and other stops.” He dug through the stack of files and pulled out the background info we’d obtained on Lindsey Rook. Nothing indicated Rook was working with them, but Detectives Voletek and Lisco were following up to make sure. “They’re going to hit another truck.”

  “Shit.”

  “Maybe that’s why they wanted to take Rook’s uniform. Perhaps it fits better than the two ill-fitting ones they snagged from Star Cleaners, or…”

  “They got blood on theirs and needed another costume change.” I stared at the mess of data covering the table and the techs who remained hard at work tracking the intel we had. For the most part, they ignored us. “What do we know for sure? At this point, the killers might be wearing wigs beneath their caps. Blond, brown, redhead? And why did they rob the dispensary if the truck was their goal?”

  “They didn’t think it was coming,” Fennel said. “Or they got greedy.”

  “Twenty grand is just a drop in the bucket when we’re talking about a hundred mill.”

  “Unless they knew the truck was empty,” Fennel said.

  “How?” Again, we were back to thinking this was an inside job, except we didn’t have any proof.

  My partner rubbed his cheek, indicating he was deep in thought. “I bet they had a radio scanner to go along with their signal jammer.” He found a copy of LockBox’s radio transcripts. “According to LockBox protocols, the trucks radio in when they arrive at their location and again when they depart. LockBox received the first call when Rook pulled up to the location. See this.” Fennel pointed, and I read the message. Truck 304 is preparing for its first pickup of the day.

  “That’s how they knew. So instead of walking away, they came up with a plan B on the fly. But instead of getting away scot-free, the dispensary owner stopped them. And things got ugly.” I reached for my phone. “We have to warn LockBox that another of their trucks may be hit later today.”

  “Or sometime this week. It’d have to be whatever routes and locations Lindsey Rook knew about.”

  “That’s assuming he talked. Do you think they tortured him?”

  “I’ll get in touch with the ME’s office and find out while you phone LockBox.”

  While I was relaying the information and getting updates on their routes and possible targets, one of the techs waved me over and pointed to the screen. Patrol had found the silver sedan from the first scene. It had been abandoned in an alleyway and torched.

  I marked the location on the map. Every location appeared random. We might not know who these assholes were, so we had to focus on the where. Aft
er setting up police escorts for all LockBox pickups, I turned to Fennel. “We should check out the car, but if another attack is imminent, it’d be a better use of our time to determine their next target. You said you were working on that earlier. Any ideas?”

  “No, but this could be something. If we figure out why they dumped the car there or where they went afterward, we might find them.”

  “You’re right.” But this felt like a waste of valuable time. The clock was running out on innocent lives while these killers roamed free. I doubted this would lead to anything. They were too careful. Too meticulous. They left the car there for a reason, but my gut said it was to distract us.

  Nineteen

  The once silver paint was now a peeling, scorched charcoal. The heat inside the vehicle had made the windows explode, and little bits of glass had been blown throughout the alleyway. One of the techs held up a shard with a pair of tweezers before tucking it into an evidence bag.

  “We ran the VIN. The car was stolen five days ago.” The patrol officer shrugged. “We never would have noticed it if we hadn’t tracked it on the city’s traffic cam grid. The tech guys got us close, but good old-fashioned legwork is how we found it.”

  “What about nearby security feeds?” I asked.

  “What security feeds?” the officer asked. “There’s nothing around here. It’s mostly residential, and the few places,” he pointed across the street, “have their cameras facing the other way.”

  “And as usual, no one saw anything.” Fennel opened the door and peered inside the car. “What did they use? Gasoline?”

  “It looks that way,” the officer said.

  Fennel used his pen to sift through the ashes. A moment later, he removed a latex glove from his jacket pocket and picked something up. “I found a lighter. Look’s expensive. Metal. Possibly some sort of engraving.”

  I grabbed an evidence bag and held it open for him. “Maybe the lab can clean it up.”

  He reached in, searching for the trunk release, but of course whatever was left crumbled in his hand. After we pried open the trunk, we searched the inside, finding nothing but more charred ashes. At least we didn’t find any skeletal remains.

  “Get the rest of this bagged and tagged, and put a rush on it.” I followed my partner, who wandered out of the alley and down the street. “Brad, wait up.”

  He halted, lost in his thoughts while his eyes took in every inch of our surroundings. “It was still dark out when they abandoned the car. No one was around. No one saw anything. The alley’s narrow. They barely had enough clearance to open their doors and get out. The buildings would have blocked the blaze from view, unless you looked straight at it. They didn’t just find this location. They planned it.”

  “What else is new?”

  He quirked an eyebrow. “Okay, so where did they go from here?”

  “Liquor store?” I suggested.

  “Could be, except that’s thirty-five blocks in that direction. How’d they get there? They sure as hell didn’t walk.”

  I looked around. “They boosted another vehicle.”

  “No reports from this neighborhood.”

  “Okay, so they could have stolen a car from somewhere else and had it waiting for them.” But that didn’t feel right. I spun around to get my bearings. “They could have taken the train.”

  “At that time of night, the express trains run local. There’s a lot more pickup and drop-off points.”

  “So they killed Gardner, stopped at the liquor store, and then dumped the car here.”

  “Or they killed Gardner, dumped the car, took the train, rode it three stops to 24/7 Spirits, and walked home.”

  I turned to look at the burned car. “We need to pin down the timeline. It might give us their location.”

  Fennel agreed, and we headed into the subway station to check the schedule before going back to the precinct. Since the traffic cam footage led us to the car, we already knew roughly what time the killers abandoned it in the alley. Now we needed to figure out how long it’d take to get from that stop to the one closest to the liquor store. Since Gardner’s credit card had been used at 5:17 a.m. and the disarm code had been entered at 4:12 a.m. at Star Cleaners, that only gave us a fifty-five minute window. Could the duo have driven from the dry cleaner’s to the alley, hopped a train, walked to the liquor store, and made a purchase in such a short amount of time?

  After updating Lt. Winston and having our team of techs shift their focus to studying the camera feeds inside the subway stations from yesterday morning and compare them to the images we pulled of the men from this morning, Fennel and I performed some basic calculations.

  “They dumped the car first,” I declared. “It’s the only way. Traffic cam footage puts the silver sedan in the vicinity of that alleyway at 4:42. That’s the last hit we have before they entered one of the blind spots in our grid. According to the subway schedule, the train arrived at 4:50. That gave them eight minutes to torch the car and get to the train.”

  “It only took us three minutes to get to the train from that alley. Five minutes is plenty of time to douse it with gasoline and light it up.” He checked the schedule. “They could have gotten off at either the third or fourth stop since the liquor store is practically in the middle.”

  “Do you think they stuck together?”

  “Probably not. It’d increase their chances of getting caught. But then again, we don’t know the dynamics of their partnership. They might not trust one another. Not everyone’s as lucky as we are.”

  “Why are you buttering me up?” I asked.

  “I’m not. It’s just an observation.”

  “Uh-huh.” But I wasn’t convinced. “Regardless, how long do you think it takes to walk four blocks from the train to the liquor store?”

  “At that time of night, probably not long. That’s a fifth of a mile, and it’s not like the sidewalks are congested. Five minutes, maybe.”

  “Okay, so two minutes per stop, that’s four minutes of waiting, plus travel time. Plus the five minutes walking.”

  Fennel smiled. “That’s nine minutes. And figure another fifteen on the train.”

  “That gave the killer three minutes to buy his bottle of Jack.”

  “Does 24/7 Spirits have a display near the register?”

  “No, the clerk said it was all along the back wall, middle shelf, near the coolers.”

  Fennel thought. “It doesn’t take me three minutes to buy booze, unless there’s a line or I have to hunt for what I want. If I go to my usual place by my apartment, it’s not an issue.”

  “Are you sure you don’t have a problem?”

  “Loads.” He grinned. “But you see my point.”

  “The killer’s been there before.”

  “Yep.”

  “You think he lives around there?” I let out a sigh. “That’s a ballsy move, using his victim’s credit card at his favorite liquor store.”

  Fennel uncapped the marker, jotted down our timeline on the whiteboard, and leaned back against the table. “Yeah, you’re right. They must know using Gardner’s credit card at any location would attract our attention, which would explain why they haven’t used it again. Maybe he thought he was in the clear.”

  “They had the cash from Star Cleaners. They didn’t need to use plastic to pay. They wanted to lure us there for a specific reason.”

  “Another misdirect?” Fennel asked. “Or are we just overthinking things? Maybe we’re giving these shitheads too much credit.”

  “I don’t think they’re stupid. But they are lucky.”

  “Speaking of lucky,” Voletek said, entering the conference room, “here I am.” He grinned. “We just got back from speaking to Rook’s next of kin.”

  “We also followed up with Jeffers’ and Croft’s widows too,” Lisco added, entering behind him. She studied the board. “We’ll show you ours and then you can show us yours.”

  “Deal,” Fennel said.

  As predicted, nothing Lisco a
nd Voletek learned contradicted what we’d already determined about the LockBox employees – they were clean. However, we didn’t know they’d been forced to sign NDAs concerning their clients and job details. Given the circumstances, the company had shared details on their routes and clients with us, but we hadn’t exactly asked for dollars and cents, just a list of lucrative targets and of which of those Lindsey Rook possessed intimate knowledge.

  “The company even provides life insurance policies and death benefits,” Voletek concluded. “I’m thinking a change of career is in order.”

  Lisco rolled her eyes. “Unfortunately, Rook’s near and dear didn’t even know the details of his job. None of these guys talk. I’m guessing they talk to each other, and that’s about it. The LockBox crew is tight.”

  “But it wouldn’t be hard for the killers to get wind of this. All armored trucks haul roughly the same amount. The killer could have followed one of the trucks on its route, estimated the score, and made plans to rob it,” I said.

  “Did you check into previous employees?” Fennel asked.

  “No viable leads,” Lisco said.

  While Fennel shared our insights with the other two homicide detectives, I hoped the pieces would connect. But no matter how hard I stared at the data, I couldn’t figure out who would do this. The why was easy – one hundred million dollars. But we didn’t know where the killers would strike next, but I was certain they would.

  I rubbed my palms together. “So if you just missed out on making bank, what would you do now?”

  “Get angry and probably drunk,” Voletek said. “Then I lick my wounds and figure out how to proceed.”

  “But you don’t give up?” I asked.

  “If I had a winning lottery ticket, tore it up, and threw it in the trash, I wouldn’t just say, ‘tough tits’. I’d go through the trash, even if it meant scouring the entire landfill for each tiny piece that I had to tape back together.”

  “Are we sure Jake isn’t helping these guys out?” Fennel teased. “It sounds like he’s pretty damn desperate for cash.”