Linger: Dying is a Wild Night (A Linger Thriller Book 1) (13 page)

“To help you find and execute a man? That’s not what I do.”

“Exactly. So why not just let us go? We’ve been doing fine without you. And even if you
are
some kind of industrial powered receiver, I’ve got no problem with—”

Her phone rang again, cutting him off. Kate glanced at the screen and saw that it was Curt Clark, the same caller as before. She knew this had to be about Chucho Soriano, and couldn’t put it off again.

As she reached for the phone, she looked up at Weston and nodded toward the diners at a nearby table. All wearing uniforms. “You try to go anywhere, I’ll have one of these unis slap cuffs on you.”

Weston stared at her, then sat back down as she put the phone to her ear and answered it.

“Messenger.”

“Hey, Kate, it’s Curt. Which do you want first, the good news or the bad?”

“I want you to tell me you found Soriano.”

“Oh, we found him all right. His brother moved into a condo on the west side and it took us forever to locate it, but we’re here now, and so are Emilio and Chucho.”

“Excellent,” she said. “So what’s the problem?”

“That’s the bad news part. They’re both dead.”

E
MILIO SORIANO’S CONDO WAS ONE
of a cluster of five Cape Cod style townhouses surrounding a small, gated courtyard. The place didn’t scream millions, but it was considerably more upscale than any of the buildings you’d find near the Greyhound station—Emilio’s former stomping grounds.

Somebody had moved up in the world.

One of the dozen or so flies that had gathered at the scene waved Kate into the parking lot and pointed her toward a spot near the medical examiner’s van. She had wasted some time trying to figure out what to do with Weston and Christopher, and had finally decided to bring them along. She’d thought about throwing Weston back in a cell, but hadn’t felt right about leaving the boy at the station house or sending him to CPS.

The back seat of her SUV probably wasn’t much better, but it would have to do for now, assuming she could trust Weston not to get itchy feet.

After she pulled to a stop and killed the engine, she turned and looked at them—Weston quietly stewing while Christopher continued to block out the world. He held his photo album in his lap, and she wondered with a shiver if he had any more pictures for her to see.

“You think you can stay put?” she asked Weston. “Or do I have to cuff you?”

Weston wasn’t close to being a happy camper, but seemed resigned to his fate. “I don’t usually make the same mistake twice.”

“I thought you might see it that way. We’ll be resuming our conversation once I’m done here.”

“This is turning into a pretty long lunch.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep my word. But it’ll take awhile. We still have a lot to talk about.” She gestured. “And maybe Chris will have rejoined us by the time I’m back.”

“So we’re just supposed to sit here?”

“Beats the alternative, doesn’t it?”

Kate normally left her keys in the vehicle at a crime scene, but decided to take them with her, just in case. After a glance at the boy (back and forth, back and forth), she got out and approached the officer who had waved her into the parking lot.

“You see those two in the back seat of my car?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“They don’t go anywhere.”

“You got it, lieutenant.”

∙ ∙ ∙

When she stepped through the gate into the courtyard, several members of the forensics team were moving in and out of the townhouse, doing what they did so well. Curt Clark was waiting for her on the front porch with a pair of paper booties and plastic gloves. He was a serious young man who always handled his job with a grim efficiency—which was why she’d wanted him on her team.

Kate took the booties, bent forward and started pulling them over her shoes. “Details?”

“IDs confirm it’s Chucho and Emilio. Gunshot wounds to the head and chest. Nine mil. Looks like Emilio got it when he was answering the door. Chucho was in the bedroom closet.”

She looked up at him. “Hiding?”

He nodded. “That’s what we’re thinking. While Emilio went to the door. The M.E. says the wounds are fresh, so it didn’t happen too long before we got here.” He paused. “There’s something I didn’t mention on the phone.”

She finished with the booties and stood upright. “Which is?”

“We heard about what happened during the eleven o’clock, and you’ve got my support, no question, but I don’t think you’ll be happy to hear this considering how you and—”

“Get to the point, Curt. I’ve got an investigation to run.”

“Right,” he said. “Maybe it’s better if you see for yourself.”

He stepped aside and gestured. She looked past him through the doorway and saw Bob MacLean standing near a row of barstools, talking to one of the forensics techs.

Her chest tightened. “What the hell is
he
doing here?”

“Believe it or not, he’s the one who found the bodies.”

“
What
?”

“That was my reaction. He was coming out of the apartment just as we pulled into the parking lot. He flagged us down and told us to start prepping a crime scene. Said he came here to talk to Chucho and found them both dead.”

“How the hell does he know Chucho?”

“He didn’t explain. Just told me and Donahue to lay some tape and canvass the neighbors, see what they saw and heard.”

“And what did they see and hear?”

“Not a damn thing. Two of the units are vacant and the rest of the residents are at work. Nobody home.”

Kate thought about what Dan had said this morning, that she was a reactor. And the reaction she was having right now was far from good. She struggled to contain the rage that was building inside her as she pushed past Clark without another word.

Heads swiveled in her direction as she snapped on the gloves and stepped through the doorway. Emilio Soriano lay face up on the gray carpet, a tiny round bullet hole in the middle of his forehead, blood pooling beneath him. Kate knew by the expressions on the techs’ faces that they were expecting her to explode. Word had already gotten around about the incident in the break room.

She forced herself to remain calm and made eye contact with MacLean. “Everyone out. Now. Except you, Bob.”

The room cleared quickly as she stepped around Emilio’s body and approached MacLean.

He held his hands up. “Now, look, Kate, before you go off half-cocked, just let me explain.”

“How do you know Chucho Soriano?”

“I was gonna tell you this morning after you sprang that phone on me, but you got under my skin and I overreacted and—”

“You had ample opportunity to tell me.
How you do know Chucho Soriano?
”

MacLean took a breath. “He’s my CI. Or at least he used to be.”

“Since when have you been running a CI, and why don’t I know about it?”

“There’s nothing to know. If you’d done your due diligence and checked his records you would’ve seen I was the arresting officer on his first bust, back when I was a uni. We developed an understanding and I started using him for intel on the Varrio Disciples during the Descanso Avenue turf war.”

“That was years ago.”

MacLean nodded. “Exactly. But he’d been useful, so I kept up the relationship, strictly off the books—although our contact the last couple years has been minimal.”

“Not according to his rap sheet. He was busted for coke less than six months ago and walked away without a scratch.”

“That wasn’t me,” MacLean said. “Maybe someone else is running him.”

“Yet you knew how to find him and didn’t say anything. Why is that, Bob?”

“Look, I know I screwed up with that phone in Bree’s bedroom, and I gotta tell you, I was pretty surprised when you said you found Chucho’s name and number on it. So after our blow-up, I tried calling him, figuring if
I
was the one to pull him in, it might work in my favor, keep me at East Division. But he didn’t answer, so I went looking for him.” He gestured to Emilio’s body. “Looks like somebody else found him first.”

“Did they?”

MacLean frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Kate held out a hand. “Give me your weapon, Bob.”

“You think
I
did this?”

“I try not to jump to conclusions. But if you don’t want me to work my way toward what I’m hoping is the wrong one, you’ll give me your weapon.”

“You just crossed the line, lady. Hell, you’re
way
over it now.”

“Ask me if I care.”

MacLean eyed her, then reached to his hip and pulled his Glock free, handing it to her, grip first. Kate lifted it to her nose, didn’t notice any telltale smells of gunpowder, then released the magazine and racked and locked the slide.

There was a round in the chamber and the mag was full. If MacLean had anything to do with these shootings, he hadn’t used this gun. She replaced the magazine, racked the slide forward, but held onto the weapon.

MacLean’s frown deepened. “You’re not gonna give that back?”

She ignored the question. “Is Jake around? Has he shown up yet?”

“I’m right here, Kate.”

She turned with a start and saw Jake Linkenfeld lurking in the hallway, a pair of gloves on his hands.

“Way to scare the crap out of me. Have you been there all this time?”

He shrugged. “I could hear you from the bedroom, but I didn’t want to interrupt your conversation.”

“I assume you heard the pertinent part?”

He walked over to them. “Come on, Kate, Bob may be a pain in the ass sometimes, but he isn’t good for this.”

MacLean glanced at him sideways. “Thanks, buddy.”

“Believe it or not,” Kate said, “I’m inclined to agree. But right now I want you to go outside and organize a search of the surrounding area.”

“What are we looking for?”

“What else? The weapon. In case it was ditched.”

“By Bob?”

“By anyone.”

“Well then you might want to add something to the list.”

“Meaning what?”

Linkenfeld gestured. “Check this out.”

They followed him down the hall to a bedroom where Chucho Soriano’s body lay halfway out of the closet in a pool of blood. There was a small desk nearby with a keyboard, mouse and monitor, but no computer.

“The tower’s missing,” Linkenfeld said. “Bob would have to be a helluva Houdini to make both it and the weapon disappear.”

Kate turned to MacLean. “Give him your car keys.”

MacLean hardened. “You gotta be fucking kidding me.”

“You want this over with? Give him your keys so he can check your car and eliminate you as a suspect.”

“This is a goddamn vendetta,” he said. “Why would I kill these guys?”

“Why would anyone kill them?”

“I’m thinking drugs,” Linkenfeld said. “If Chucho was connected to the Varrio Disciples, could be he and Emilio were in deep with one of the cartels.”

MacLean shook his head. “He cut his ties with the gang. That’s why he wasn’t as useful as he used to be. Last I heard from him, he and his brother had gone into the Internet porn business. Running a site called the Latin Prowlers.”

Kate’s brows went up. “What’s that about?”

“He and Emilio would dress up like gangbangers and cruise the streets of West Santa Flora in a lowrider, looking for girls to fuck. Only these girls were porn models and it was all prearranged to look spontaneous. Chucho would bang ‘em in the back seat while Emilio ran the camera.”

Lovely, Kate thought. “What do you bet that missing computer is their server? The one that hosts the website.”

“Could be,” Linkenfeld said. “But why take it? It’s no threat to anyone. The porn business is legal.”

“Unless they were using underage girls, like Bree Branford. That might explain the phone calls.”

They all thought about this and MacLean shook his head. “The Branford girl was squeaky clean.”

“Come on, Bob, you know as well as I do that what her friends and family saw could’ve been completely different from what she showed the Soriano brothers. And that cell phone is proof.” She looked around. “How many bedrooms does this place have?”

“Three.”

“A three-bedroom townhouse in this part of the city doesn’t come cheap. Even the monthly HOA would bankrupt most people. And it’s my understanding it’s pretty tough to make any decent money in porn these days unless you’re a very big player. I can’t imagine these two could make the mortgage on this place without some serious income.”

“So what are you thinking?” Linkenfeld asked.

“That whatever was on that computer was enough to kill for, and maybe they were using the information to target someone. Collect a little extra cash. Maybe the killer’s name or IP address or even photograph is on there. Somebody who stood to lose quite a bit if it ever became public.”

“So they were blackmailing him?”

“With Chucho as point man, or maybe even the sole player. Emilio could’ve been in the dark. But then the victim turned on Chucho and that’s why he was hiding in the closet when the doorbell rang.”

If she was right, Kate wondered how deep Bree’s involvement was. Could she have been part of the blackmail scheme?

Was that the reason for the massacre?

“That’s a helluva theory,” Linkenfeld said.

“And a plausible one, don’t you think?”

MacLean snorted. “What I think is that you need to stop making assumptions and start looking at the evidence. Then we can come up with a theory.”

Kate smiled. “That’s a good idea, Bob. Now give Jake your keys.”

M
ACLEAN’S CAR WAS CLEAN AND
a search of the area yielded nothing.

Kate had expected as much, but had to be sure, and despite her dislike of the man, she was relieved. The last thing she needed was to find a killer under her command.

Not that this cleared MacLean completely, but it was a good indication that he was a wrong turn. Still, she didn’t want him anywhere near this investigation.

They were standing in the courtyard now, looking out toward the parking lot, when she gave him his weapon back and told him to go home. His presence was no longer needed.

“I found the goddamn bodies,” he said.