Secure Location (8 page)

“Aggravated arson. He set his girlfriend’s apartment on fire after he found her in bed with another woman.”

Another woman. It had been a punch when Meg had left him to follow another man across the country. Would it be better or worse if the woman you loved suddenly switched teams? Maybe he was pissed off at all women now, hated the whole breed. “Have you seen him since he ended his assignment at Meg’s hotel?”

“Of course. We arranged for his second rotation. He’s at a food pantry, on Fourth and Taylor.”

“I appreciate you showing me these,” Cruz said.

“I was sorry to hear about Meg’s trouble. But I know that none of these men were involved. Clients of our program are vetted very carefully and none of them want to do something foolish and end up back in prison.”

He looked around the room. “Looks as if it’s going to be a nice event. Did people have to buy tickets in advance?”

“Yes. We sold tickets at multiple locations around town as well as online. I was thrilled when we sold out days ago.”

Tickets in advance. That was good. It meant that bad guys, on a whim, a dare, or a meth high couldn’t decide to walk in and start causing trouble. But given that there were multiple access points, Meg’s tormentor simply would have needed to plan ahead a bit to have a good seat, one with a clear view of the stage.

“When will Meg give her speech?”

“We’ll have dinner first, then the awards presentation to both participants in the program and to business leaders who have helped keep the program alive. Then Meg’s speech will close out the event.” She studied him. “I was sure that I’d told Meg she could bring a guest.”

“You did,” he said. “But I thought I was going to have to work. I just found out this morning that I’m free.”

Beatrice’s eyes sparkled. “You know, Mr. Montoya, we still have one available seat at the head table. It would be a wonderful surprise for Meg.”

He wasn’t so sure about that but after last night, there was no way he intended to let Meg go to an evening event without protection. Slater could no doubt be convinced to keep a security officer with her. Jerk might even volunteer for duty himself.

Not a chance that Cruz was going to let that happen.

“That would be great,” he said. “I appreciate it.”

* * *

C
RUZ DROVE TO
the food pantry. He found Oscar unpacking cans of peaches. The man was the right height and weight and he was throwing around the heavy cases of canned fruit with ease.

Good arm strength, Meg had said.

“Mr. Warren,” Cruz said. “I’m Detective Cruz Montoya and I’m investigating a series of incidents that have occurred at or near the BJM Hotel.” He didn’t want to show too much of his hand too soon.

The man shifted his weight from foot to foot. He seemed nervous. Given that he’d recently done time, Cruz realized that just having a cop want to chat might be enough to raise the blood pressure.

“I haven’t worked at the hotel for months,” he said.

“I know that. Where were you last night around nine?”

“Home.”

“Anybody there with you?”

The man shook his head. “I live alone,” he said.

“What about yesterday morning?”

“I was here, working.”

“Anybody verify that?” Cruz asked.

The man pointed to a woman wearing blue jeans and a gray T-shirt. “Tracy runs the place. She was here, too.”

He was working for a woman. Maybe he wasn’t too bent out of shape.

It took Tracy less than five minutes to verify that Oscar had indeed been working the previous day. She showed Cruz a handwritten time sheet. “I got in early yesterday, about six. Oscar came in at his regular time.”

Cruz glanced at the sheet and saw that Oscar started work shortly after eight. Cruz would have much preferred that the time records were from a time clock with an automatic time stamp, rather than handwritten. He could have trusted them more. Still, it was a small place. Tracy probably had a handle on when her employees arrived.

Meg had said that she’d left her condo around seven. That wouldn’t have given him much time to trash the place. Plus somehow between her arrival at work and noon, he’d have had to get over to the hotel, bang up her car and plant the bad fish.

“He was here the whole day?” Cruz asked.

Tracy nodded. “All day. He did have to run out midmorning. We got an unexpected contribution from one of the big grocery stores in town. They had a bunch of canned goods that were coming up on their expiration date. The need in this community is pretty great so we wanted to get it picked up and sorted, then distributed as quickly as possible.”

“Where is the grocery store?”

The woman walked over to a large map that was tacked to a cork bulletin board. “Here,” she said.

Cruz looked at the map, figured out where the hotel was in relation to the grocery store and realized that the two were less than fifteen blocks apart. “How long was he gone?”

Now Tracy was looking at him oddly. “Less than an hour. Is something wrong, Detective?” she asked. “This is a small place, with very few employees. We don’t want any trouble.”

If the guy was telling the truth, Cruz was close to screwing up any hopes of him keeping this particular job. “No. Nothing’s wrong,” he said. “Thank you for your help.”

Cruz nodded at Oscar as he left the building. The man didn’t respond.

Cruz got in his car and started driving toward the grocery store. Once inside, Cruz gave a woman at the service counter his business card and she went off to look for the manager. Cruz waited impatiently.

The manager was a young black man dressed in a white shirt, dark pants and a tie. His head was totally shaved and it reminded Cruz that he should get a haircut. The man shook Cruz’s hand. “Detective Montoya,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m attempting to verify the time that a pickup was made at your store yesterday. A man came from the food pantry and got some canned goods.”

“We can check. We log that kind of activity.” The young man led him through the store, back to the dock area. There were big trucks and it smelled like diesel fuel. It was hot in comparison to the air-conditioned store.

The manager pulled a clipboard off a hook and ran his finger across a line. “He arrived at nine-thirty and left here at ten-ten.”

With travel time, that would have given him very little time to get to Meg’s car. Impossible? No. But not likely if Tracy’s memory was correct.

“Thank you,” he said. He returned to his car and immediately opened the file for the employees who had been terminated by the hotel within the past year. He plugged the first address into his GPS.

He found Mason Hawkins at home. The neighborhood was middle-class, with small ranch-style homes. None of them had garages and most had cars parked in the driveway or in front, along the street.

There were no vehicles in Hawkins’s driveway. An old white van, with its front tires beached on the curb, sat in front, halfway between Hawkins’s house and the neighbor’s.

Cruz knocked on the wooden door and waited a full minute before it slowly swung open. Hawkins wore boxer shorts, black socks and a cardigan sweater that zipped up the front. His hair was dirty and he was holding an open bag of potato chips.

Cruz noted it all but he wasn’t overly interested in the trappings. A man could change his wardrobe, alter his appearance and even take on a different persona. He couldn’t change his physical size as easily. And Hawkins was close enough to five-ten, one-sixty, that Cruz stayed interested. He took stock of Hawkins’s thigh muscles and saw that they didn’t scream
slacker
in the same way his outfit did.

“Yes?” Hawkins said.

“I’m Cruz Montoya.” The man showed no reaction to Cruz’s name. That didn’t sway Cruz one way or the other. If Hawkins was behind last night’s push, he probably knew that Meg’s ex-husband was in town and he’d had plenty of time to prepare for a visit from him or the cops.

“Whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying,” Hawkins said and tried to swing the door shut.

Cruz put his foot out, stopping the momentum. “You used to work at the BJM Hotel.”

The man glared at him. “I can’t imagine what business that is of yours,” he said. Hawkins was trying for tough but it wasn’t working. He’d flinched when Cruz had said the hotel’s name.

Cruz leaned forward, getting in Hawkins’s face. He wasn’t conducting an investigation. He didn’t need to hold his cards close. Myers would kick his ass if he found out about the visit. The detective’s primary motivation would be to gather enough evidence to prosecute someone for the crimes that had been committed; Cruz’s interest was more personal—he simply wanted it to stop before it got more violent and Meg got hurt.

“Oh, it’s definitely my business,” he said, his voice low. “I care about Meg Montoya. And if I was to find out that you had any intent of causing her even a minute of distress, I would be pissed off. Got that? Really pissed off. Then I become your worst nightmare.”

Hawkins’s hand, the one holding the potato chip bag, was shaking. The plastic crinkled. “I gave BJM eight years of my life. They paid me lousy and wasted my talent. I’ve got a master’s degree in accounting and I was paying monthly invoices and processing payroll. A high school graduate could have done it. They owed me.”

“Not my issue,” Cruz said. “Meg Montoya is my concern.”

“I’ve got nothing against her. Her boss, that’s another story. He’s a jerk. Said he was doing me a favor by not pressing charges. I’m about to lose my house and I can’t find another job, not without a reference from the place I worked for eight years. I might be better off in jail.”

“Guys like you don’t do well in jail. You’re dessert after a big meal.” Cruz could tell that Hawkins got the drift by the look in the man’s eyes. He figured it wasn’t the first time he’d reflected upon what his life might be like in prison. That was undoubtedly why he was writing monthly checks to BJM.

Cruz leaned forward. “If I find out that you’re lying to me, I’m going to come back here and strangle you with one of your black socks. Do we have an understanding?”

“I just want to get on with my life,” Hawkins said. He moved to close the door and this time, Cruz let him.

He walked down the sidewalk back to his rental car. Hawkins was bitter and thoroughly convinced that he’d been screwed. That was enough to keep him on the short list of suspects. But even if he wouldn’t admit it, he had to know that he was lucky that BJM hadn’t pressed charges. Would he be stupid enough to do something else that could land him in jail?

Cruz didn’t know. But he thought he’d gotten his point across. Now he needed to keep working his list of suspects.

He used the GPS in his car and realized that Troy Blakely’s apartment was within fifteen minutes of Hawkins’s house. When he got there, he quickly realized that finding this guy might not be quite so easy.

None of the inhabitants at the rat hole of a building in downtown San Antonio had ever heard of Troy Blakely. It took Cruz another two hours to track down the landlord who confirmed that he’d never rented to anyone by that name.

Which meant that he’d falsified his address on his employment paperwork. There was no good reason to do that.

Chapter Six

He called Meg. The phone was picked up on the second ring. “Meg Montoya’s office. Charlotte speaking.”

“This is Cruz Montoya. May I speak to Meg?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Montoya. Meg is in a meeting. Can I help you with something?”

He debated asking Charlotte for the information but didn’t want to tip his hand to anybody. Who knew if there was any connection between Charlotte and Blakely? Even though Blakely hadn’t worked there long, security personnel did interact with administrative staff on a pretty routine basis. It was likely their paths had crossed. Plus there was something about Charlotte, something that hadn’t seemed quite right this morning. She was nice enough but when he’d mentioned that Slater had assigned a security officer, there had been a strange look in her eyes. It was logical that she was freaked out about the possibility of danger in her work space but he wasn’t sure that was it.

“Can you just ask Meg to call me when she gets the chance?” Cruz requested.

Cruz disconnected and used the GPS in his rental car to find his next stop. Ten minutes later, he pulled into a strip mall and located the store. He hadn’t expected to go shopping in San Antonio but in less than twenty-four hours, this would be his second time.

It took him an hour to get what he needed. Ten minutes of that was spent picking out stuff, the other fifty minutes, along with a hundred-dollar bill, was enough for the owner to hem the pants on the spot.

After that, he went looking for Tom Looney. He drove to the address that the hotel had on file but didn’t have high hopes. Meg had said that the word on the street was that Looney had lost his house.

It could not have been much to lose, he decided, once he made his last turn. The narrow street was three blocks off a service road and the houses were double-wides on cement blocks.

He found the mailbox, parked and got out of the car. A skinny black dog, lying near the front steps, looked up but didn’t bother to
get
up, evidently deciding he wasn’t worth the effort. He knocked on the door and waited several minutes in the blistering heat. Sweat ran down the back of his neck.

Finally, the door opened. An elderly woman, probably mid-seventies, wearing a housedress and no shoes stared at him. “Hello,” she said. Her body might have been frail but her voice was strong, confident.

“Afternoon, ma’am. I’m looking for Tom Looney.”

“You must be a bill collector. I’ll tell you what I told everybody else. I ain’t seen Bertie’s boy since the day I moved in.”

“Bertie?”

“Tommy’s momma. My second cousin. I bought this trailer from them when he started having money trouble. And before you go and ask, I don’t know where Bertie and Tommy went. They didn’t say and I didn’t ask. Good day.” She closed the door.

Cruz could have stuck his foot out, like he’d done with Mason Hawkins. But he knew it wouldn’t do any good. First, he didn’t want to bully an old woman and second, she was either telling the truth and she didn’t know or she was lying and she knew but wouldn’t tell. Either way, she wasn’t going to be helpful.