Back Track (20 page)

Levine said, ‘See, we know you went to visit Hewitt yesterday at the garage, Bishop. We’ve got witnesses who saw you. They said you were very threatening. We’ve got one man who says you assaulted him when he tried to stop you from entering the premises. Claims you almost broke his hand. And we’ve got another who says you pressured Hewitt into going outside with you so you could talk in private.’

‘Except it wasn’t so private,’ Shaw said, still smiling. ‘The same witness stood nearby and heard part of the conversation. He says you accused Hewitt of killing some girl. Who was she, Bishop? An ex of yours?’

Bishop breathed a little easier. So whoever had overheard the conversation hadn’t gotten Selina’s name. That was something, at least. Maybe the radio had drowned out that part. He made a mental note never to diss death metal again.

Levine continued, ‘After that it gets pretty confusing. There’s some missing hours before you turn up at the hospital in Garrick, somehow wearing a doctor’s uniform and ID. Two orderlies discover you in a patient’s room and chase you out. Then three hours later, we get an arson attack at Bannings Automotive with your car outside and a man inside with his neck broken. A man who you had a major argument with earlier that day.’

‘Let him hear your take on it, Val,’ Shaw said. He crossed his arms and leaned in closer to Bishop. ‘This is always my favourite part. Feel free to butt in if you got something to add. My partner won’t mind.’

Levine gave Shaw a look and said, ‘You’re searching for some woman. We don’t know who yet. Whatever leads you’re following bring you to Hewitt, who you believe either killed her or had some involvement in her disappearance. He denies killing her and possibly suggests you check out the local hospitals. You end up at the one in Garrick and, instead of waiting for visiting hours, decide to gain access by impersonating a doctor. You start checking rooms, and soon after, two orderlies confront you and force you to run. You drive back to Saracen with murder on your mind. You feel Hewitt’s led you on a chase and you’re seeing red.’

Bishop could sense Shaw watching him through all of this, but kept his face a mask. To be honest, he was impressed they’d found out so much in such a short amount of time.

‘So you kidnap him and take him back to the garage,’ Levine said. ‘It’s nice and remote there with nobody to interfere. God only knows what you did then. Possibly tortured the poor man until he gave you what you wanted. Then you broke his neck, probably without thinking, and set the whole place alight to cover up the crime.

‘Except it didn’t all go to plan.’ Levine frowned. ‘Maybe the fire spread too fast and you had trouble getting out. Whatever happened, you had to leave your car behind and hot-tail it out of there on foot.’

Shaw leaned in again and said, ‘We already know you got a history of violence, Bishop. With your background, you could probably break the guy’s neck in your sleep. So that’s
means
taken care of. You believe Hewitt was behind this girl’s death or disappearance and you wanted to make him pay. So that’s
motive
. And let’s face it, with that car of yours on the scene and no alibi, you sure got the
opportunity
. So that’s three for three in anyone’s book. Care to comment?’

Bishop looked at the one-way mirror. Then at the camera. Then at the two detectives. Nothing had changed. He still had nothing to say. Not yet, anyway.

Levine pushed off from the wall. ‘This is your chance to set the record straight, Bishop. We know you did it, we just don’t know all the reasons behind it. If you told us what those reasons are, it might make a difference when it comes to trial. So we’ll leave you alone so you can think on it for a while.’ He caught Shaw’s eye and motioned for the door.

Shaw got off the desk. ‘That’s right. Give it some serious thought. We’ll be back real soon, okay?’

Levine opened the door and both men left the room.

Bishop sat back and stared at a spot on the wall, grateful for the silence again. Those two had given him an earache. But at least now he knew how much
they
knew.

He turned his thoughts back to the hard drive he’d hidden, and how he didn’t want to use it unless it was absolutely necessary. At the moment, it was his only connection to the people who’d taken Selina. If he turned it over to the police, he’d have nothing. But it was also the only way he could put himself in the clear. Assuming it held footage of the people who’d grabbed him, that is.

But one thing was for sure, he couldn’t stay locked up in here. Selina’s trail was cold enough as it was. The only evidence they had on him at the moment was circumstantial, but it would be enough to hold him for forty-eight hours, at least. And that was forty-seven hours too long. He needed to get out on the streets again. He considered getting himself a lawyer, then have him get word to Vallejo to pick up the hard drive, copy everything onto a duplicate and hand the original to the cops. Not an ideal solution, as it would refocus the police’s attention onto the real killers and he didn’t want that. No telling how they might react if they thought they’d been exposed. But right now, it was the best he could come up with.

He also thought about how fast they’d placed him at the break-in at the Garrick hospital. And the way they were waiting for him this morning. Who’d made that connection? It wasn’t exactly obvious. Unless somebody in the police department was involved. That was always a possibility. One of those orderlies from last night could have called their police contact and filled him in when it became obvious Bishop hadn’t been killed in the fire. But in that case, why involve the uniforms, when it would be a lot easier to finish the job and kill Bishop outright?

He kept himself occupied by running through a variety of different scenarios, none of them particularly satisfying, until Shaw opened the door seventy-seven minutes later. He was alone this time and the smirk was absent from his face.

‘On your feet, Bishop,’ he said. ‘Your alibi showed up.’

Shaw nudged Bishop back down the hallway towards the front desk without another word. Probably didn’t trust himself. He waited until Bishop had reached the lobby before unlocking the cuffs, his upper lip curled into a sneer.

‘I’ll be seeing you again, Bishop,’ he said, then moved off down the hallway without looking back.

Maybe you will
, Bishop thought. He turned and saw Vallejo sitting in one of the visitors’ chairs. She stood up and gave him a big smile when she saw him. He noticed the desk sergeant watching them both and immediately got it. She was here as the concerned ‘girlfriend’, looking out for her man. Bishop wondered how much that must have stung. He smiled back and she came over and wrapped him in a lover’s embrace. Feigned though it was, Bishop found himself enjoying it. Being held by attractive women never got old.

‘You can hug back,’ she whispered, ‘but if you go anywhere
near
my ass, you die.’

‘That’s a shame,’ he whispered back, holding her round the waist. ‘And you got such a nice one, too.’

For appearances’ sake, they squeezed each other for a few more seconds until Bishop pushed himself away from her. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said.

‘You read my mind. I’ll meet you outside.’

Bishop went to the desk and handed the sergeant the receipt for his few possessions. After pocketing his cell phone, keys and wallet, he joined Vallejo on the steps outside. Then they walked into the visitors’ car park, passing a number of vehicles until they reached the familiar Ford Fusion. Vallejo unlocked it and they both got in.

She turned to him and sighed. ‘I just falsified a police statement for you, Bishop. That’s the first time I’ve ever committed a felony. Didn’t I say you were going to get me into trouble?’

‘Better watch out,’ he said, removing the back of his cell phone. ‘I’ll have you robbing banks next.’

She grimaced. ‘Don’t joke. You know, I was getting concerned. They kept me waiting for over an hour before bringing you out.’

He paused and looked at her. ‘That’s interesting. I wonder what they were doing.’ After a moment, he went back to dismantling his phone. ‘So what did you tell them?’

‘Well, I said I followed you back from the hospital and wanted to know why you’d been arrested. When the desk sergeant said it was about that fire last night, I told him you couldn’t have had anything to do with it since you were in bed with me all night.’

‘Oh, yeah, I forgot all about that,’ Bishop said as he closely inspected the phone’s inner workings. ‘How was I, by the way?’

‘Unbelievable, as usual. Just a pity you’re not my type. What the hell are you doing?’

‘Seeing if they put a GPS tracker in here.’

‘That’s illegal without a warrant, and they wouldn’t have had time.’

‘You’re forgetting not everyone’s as upstanding as you,’ he said. But there was nothing in there. He was sure of it. Bishop began reassembling the phone again. ‘So how did you explain my Chevy being at the scene?’

‘I said you’d taken it in when the front brakes started giving you problems. I brought you back to the motel in mine and then we retired for the night. I kept it simple.’

‘That’s usually the best way,’ he said. Except it now meant he couldn’t give the hard drive to the police even if he wanted to. Once they saw Vallejo had given a false statement, she’d be in even worse trouble. And Bishop wasn’t about to allow that to happen. Not after what she’d done for him.

‘Thanks for the alibi, Vallejo. I mean that.’

She shrugged and said, ‘You’d do the same for me, wouldn’t you?’

‘Well, I would now.’

Her eyes turned to slits. ‘
Hijo de puta
.’

‘That’s not nice, Vallejo.’

‘It wasn’t meant to be. So where to next?’

Bishop put on his seat belt. ‘Back to the same spot where you picked me up last night. I left something there I need to pick up.’

Just over an hour later, after having retrieved the hard drive from its hiding place and gotten some late breakfast at a Denny’s, they both returned to Vallejo’s motel room. Bishop made a brief trip to the bathroom to splash some water on his face and came out to see Vallejo placing her laptop upon the table.

Bishop moved the other chair next to hers and sat down as Vallejo opened up the computer. The wallpaper that greeted them showed a version of the famous
Jaws
movie poster, but with Alfred E. Neuman in place of the female swimmer.

Bishop turned to look at Vallejo. ‘I didn’t expect that.’

She shrugged. ‘My dad kept a big collection of old
Mad
magazines in the attic when I was a kid, okay? Let’s not make a big deal out of it. So why didn’t you tell me about this hard drive before?’

Bishop placed the device on the table. ‘I didn’t know if I could trust you, did I?’

‘And now you do?’

He smiled at her. ‘For a cop, you’re okay, Vallejo.’

‘Is that supposed to be a compliment?’

‘If you knew me better, you wouldn’t need to ask.’ Bishop took the USB lead she’d brought over and connected one end to the laptop and the other to the black box. A second later, a hard drive icon showed up and he used the touchpad to open it up. The folder listed hundreds of .mpeg files going back a week. The newest was from this morning. From the looks of things, Bishop guessed the camera software automatically saved the footage in one hour increments. That made things a little easier. He counted down the files with yesterday’s date and double-clicked on the seventeenth one.

The QuickTime player opened up and then the screen was filled with a wide-angle aerial view of the garage forecourt at 16.00 yesterday. There was no sound and the colours looked muted. Bishop could see the line of parked vehicles out front, as well as a segment of East Richards Avenue. In the lower right corner was yesterday’s date and a running time counter, which was about the only way to tell this was actual footage rather than a still shot.

‘Exciting stuff,’ Vallejo said.

‘Isn’t it.’ Bishop moved the cursor to the timeline at the bottom, clicked on the playhead and began slowly dragging it to the right. Still nothing happened, just at a faster speed. Then at 16.08.42, Bishop came into view from the right. He went back a few seconds and then let it play in real time.

‘The image quality could be better,’ Vallejo said. ‘If I didn’t already know that was you, I might not have guessed.’

‘Probably Bannings counting his pennies,’ he said. ‘High-definition video on these things isn’t cheap.’ Soon Bishop’s digital alter ego disappeared offscreen. He thought for a moment, then leaned forward and dragged the playhead to 16.18.00.

Vallejo looked at him. ‘What are you doing?’

‘It was around this point that somebody turned the radio back on inside.’

‘You’re speaking in riddles again, Bishop. What are you talking about?’

‘Let’s just watch and see.’

They viewed the footage in silence. A minute passed. Then two. At 16.20.53, a figure emerged from the lower-left of the screen. From the direction of the car lifts. Bishop recognized him as the skinny mechanic who’d been working on the same car as Waxworks. He held a cell phone to his ear and was walking around in circles, listening and talking. Then at 16.21.42, he put the phone in his pocket and went back inside.

‘I don’t get it,’ Vallejo said. ‘What just happened? And what’s it got to do with the radio?’

Bishop ran his palm across his scalp and told her about turning off the radio when he’d first talked to Hewitt. ‘But somebody switched it back on shortly after we went outside. Really loud heavy metal, or whatever they call it nowadays. Thing is, one of my interrogators at the station said a witness heard part of my conversation with Hewitt. That could only have been the lookout you and I hypothesized about last night. Nobody else would have cared. He probably crept up to the side shutter and listened in as best he could. But when the radio came back on the racket must have drowned out the rest of our conversation. At which point, I figure he would have given up and called his contact. Telling him about my showing up on the scene, asking Hewitt questions about some woman.’