“Thank you. It’s greatly appreciated. Just until Tuesday, I expect.”
“You’re a great nurse, Dawn. We all appreciate you.”
“Good night, Del.”
“You let us know if you need anything else.”
“Uh huh… and thank you again.”
She ended the call and scrolled to a travel website.
On the roof of the Greektown apartment block, Geert Van Kamp removed the earpiece and stashed it in his side pocket.
Renton had been right about tapping the woman’s apartment with video. He’d gone in through the kitchen skylight while she was at work. The tiny cameras were attached to the door jambs in three rooms, feeding video back to his phone.
The call to her boss had come moments after trying a number several times without success. Her expression had been pure dismay, as if she fully expected an answer that hadn’t come.
He tapped the Bluetooth set in his other ear. A moment later, Renton’s voice rang through. “Go ahead, sir.”
“Renton, get me on the next available flight from Chicago to Bakersfield, California,” he said.
“Sir? She gave something up?”
“She’s taking a trip. Something spooked her, or disappointed her, and it was impromptu. It may be coincidence, but I’m not a great believer in them.”
“She could just be visiting family.”
“Did I request supposition, Renton? No? Then keep any opinions to yourself, mate. The video caught her retrieving a burner phone from a drawer. It definitely was not the phone she used to call her boss moments later. Unless she’s the most undercover drug dealer in history, Ms. Dawn Ellis is hiding something. And Bob’s friend had her number on his list.”
“There’s a red-eye at four forty-seven in the morning. Or, I can—”
“Put me on it,” Van Kamp said.
It was time. He could feel it in his bones, the calm before the storm, the sense of a battle in the offing.
51
They sat in the parked BMW, across from an undersized bungalow on Pine Street, in Riviera/Westchester.
It was an older neighborhood by Bakersfield standards, the lots non-uniform in size and shape, the homes as well. The street had been repaired hundreds of times, a spider web of asphalt patches covering much of its surface, stretching out like shadow tendrils under the tall streetlights.
Traffic had slowed as the evening progressed, so that by eleven o’clock, barely a car was passing. The other two- and three-bedroom homes were quiet, lights out at many, no one venturing out.
“I don’t like that you’re here,” Bob said. He yawned deeply.
“And I don’t like that you’re clearly exhausted,” Sharmila said. “Are you sure you can do this?”
“I’ll be fine,” he said as nonchalantly as possible. The truth was he was so tired he was nearly seeing double. They’d given him something after knocking him cold at the sports park to keep him unconscious, his head still slightly woozy.
“Just stay in the car,” he ordered. “As long as we’re clear on that. This guy is dangerous, and he didn’t give a rat’s patootie about firing off a loaded pistol in a busy restaurant. He’s not going to worry about what his neighbors think.”
“If this man killed my father, I have a right to be here,” Sharmila said.
“Yes… in the car,” Bob stressed. “When we stopped at your house…” He paused, unsure how to be diplomatic.
“What?”
“I didn’t ask why. I was worried you were maybe going to get a piece.”
She glared at him again. “A ‘piece’? I don’t own a gun, Bob. I’m not going to shoot him. I’m a grown woman, for crying out loud, a physician! And… you’re not going to shoot him either, right? He has to be punished. We deserve justice. My father deserves justice.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Bob said. Then he noticed her growing consternation. “Seriously, I’m not planning to kill the guy. We need his statement, for one. Without him, everything relies on Merry’s confession. And the recording sounds like he’s gone three rounds with Tyson in his prime. I’m not even sure they’ll accept it as evidence.”
“But Marg will believe it. She knows who he is,” Sharmila said hopefully. “That’s almost as good, you figure?”
“Yeah, I think so. Combined with whatever David picked up from Jeb Fowler, it should be enough for her to recommend clearing Marcus and myself with respect to Fowler. But it won’t be enough to put a guy like Baird away, a guy with money and friends. Thomas, on the other hand…”
“He spends all of his time with Baird. He probably knows everything,” Sharmila said.
“Which…” Bob said, undoing his seatbelt, “…is why you’re staying put.” He opened the passenger door a crack.
“If you’re gone more than a half-hour…”
“Stay in the car,” Bob said. “If it’s taking longer than expected, I’ll let you know. Deal?”
She didn’t sound convinced, but nodded nonetheless. “Fine. Deal.”
The pale blue pickup was in front of the home’s one-car garage. It was a modest single level, the kind of kit they built in the fifties, when estate subdivisions offered even a modest employee a route to ownership, with gyprock facia in a fading shade of coral.
