The Competition (10 page)

Bonnie swayed,
and
I reached out and grabbed her arm to keep her from falling. She put a hand to her chest and struggled to catch her breath as I settled her on the sofa. After a few moments, she recovered enough to argue that a friend had to have left the ammunition. It couldn’t be Logan’s.

There was no honest answer I could give that she’d want to hear. I asked the uni to get her a glass of water, then excused myself and went out to the front porch, where Bailey was waiting.

Bailey held up her cell. “I’m waiting for a callback from the duty judge.”

A judge who could approve a telephonic search warrant. Even if Bonnie gave us consent to search the rest of the house, there was no way Brad would and there was no point in taking even a minimal legal risk. We had plenty of probable cause for a search warrant, and getting a telephonic warrant would save time.

“Just loose ammo?” I asked. “Or did you find a magazine?”

“Just the ammo. But it’s the same make and caliber as the ammo for the AK that jammed.”

The gun wielded by the taller shooter, who was looking more and more like Logan Jarvis. “Anything else in the bedroom?”

“A notebook. I left it in the room for now.”

I nodded. We’d gotten consent to do the search, and the ammunition was a no-brainer. But the notebook or the laptop, which might have the most incriminating information, could get thrown out by a softheaded judge.

Bailey’s cell rang. She gestured to me that it was the duty judge and told him she was going to conference me in. I joined the call and we made our spiel. Five minutes later, we had our search warrant. Before we ended the call, the judge asked, “When are you going to go public about the gunmen being at large? Because I can promise you, the press is not going to miss all those cops piling up at the Jarvis residence.”

“Yeah,” I said. “We’ve got no choice. We’ll have to do the release now.”

We ended the call, and Bailey punched another number on her cell. “I’ll tell Graden so he can get the chief ready to call a press conference. You’d better call your people.”

I hoped I could avoid Vanderhorn and get away with just talking to Eric. If I had to go in and brief Mr. Potato Head, I probably wouldn’t get back to the Jarvis house before midnight. I punched in the number and crossed my fingers. “Hey, Melia, it’s Rachel. Is Eric in? It’s urgent.”

“Sure, Rache! What’s going on?”

So I’m “Rache” now. Me and Melia, we’re totes BFFs. “Uh, I can’t really talk—”

“Oh, sure, right. Hang on. He’s on a call, but I’ll see if I can get him.”

A few seconds later, Eric came on the line. I brought him up to speed. “I’m guessing the chief will say the killers are still out there, but he’ll play it safe with Logan for now and just say he’s a ‘person of interest.’”

“Holy shit, Rachel. This is huge. But no release on your possible second shooter, Barney…something—”

“Otis Barney. No. We don’t have enough yet. But we’re closing in on it.” An unmarked car pulled up, and three detectives I recognized from Robbery-Homicide got out and headed for the house. We exchanged nods as I pushed open the door for them.

“Vanderhorn’s going to want to put out his own statement, so he’ll want to see you.”

“I can’t, Eric. We’re serving the warrant right now and I’ve got to be around in case they find something that needs follow-up. We’ve got two killers out there; I don’t have time to spoon-feed the—”

“Stop. From now on watch what you say on your cell. You know these things aren’t secure. I’ll try to take care of him myself, but stand by.”

I thanked him profusely. “I owe you big-time.”

“Yeah, you really do.”

Another unmarked car and a couple of patrol cars had arrived by the time I ended the call.

I found Bailey in Logan’s bedroom, where she was talking to the search team. The room hadn’t felt small when it’d just been Bailey, Bonnie Jarvis, and me. But with two detectives and three unis, it felt like a closet. Bailey gave them the list of what they could seize. It allowed just about everything—including the kitchen sink if it showed signs of recent use by Logan. “And remember to take a couple of his coats. Check the hall closet as well as this one.”

We could use Logan’s coats to see if the size matched the larger of the two camouflage jackets found in the Dumpster outside the school cafeteria. The officers got to work.

“We’ve got three more detectives on the way to handle the upstairs,” Bailey said.

“We’re not waiting for Dorian?” I asked.

“We really can’t—”

“I get it. I just want it on record that I was the one who said we should wait.”

Dorian would hit the roof when she saw the cops pawing through the house before she could process it. It wouldn’t matter to her that they were all gloved and bootied up. She trusted no one but herself. Bailey made a face. “Heartwarming the way you always have my back, Knight.”

“And how many times have you thrown me under the Dorian bus to save yourself?” I asked. Bailey answered by turning a stony face toward the sliding glass door. “Exactly.”

I noticed that the buff detective in the tweed jacket had a spiral notebook opened on the desk. “Is that the one you saw?” I asked Bailey. She nodded. I clasped my hands behind my back to make sure I didn’t touch anything and moved in next to him to see what was written in it. Drawings of sunsets and hearts with a name interwoven through them—I looked more closely and made out the name. “Amanda?” The detective nodded. “See anything related to the shooting yet?”

“Nope,” he said. “I was hoping we’d at least see some names we could track down. But so far, nada.”

The detective had opened the notebook to the last page in order to start with the most recent writings. I read as he moved backward through the journal.
“I’m the lowest most useless worm on the planet. I’m a blight on humanity. Why am I even here?”
Page after page of self-hatred. Then, suddenly, the sun would break through the clouds:
“Everywhere I look I see the miracle that is life, and I want to tell everyone that they’re beautiful.”
A few pages later, Logan’s sky would darken again and he’d reflect on his
“worthlessness and the pain of drawing breath and having to exist on this miserable sphere.”
But there was nothing about any real plans to even commit suicide, let alone a mass murder. Finally, I gave up and joined Bailey in the hallway.

“Ready to go?” she asked. “We’ve got another warrant to get to.”

Otis Barney’s house. I didn’t think we had enough yet, but I didn’t want to get into it with Bailey here, in front of everyone. I followed her down the hall and into the living room. The Jarvises sat side by side on the sofa, looking shell-shocked. The uni we’d left there had relaxed enough to move his hand away from the butt of his gun.

“I probably don’t need to tell you that if you hear from Logan, you should tell him to turn himself in,” Bailey said. “And call us immediately.”

Bonnie Jarvis nodded vacantly. Brad stared at the floor.

“Did either of you know a girl named Amanda?” I asked.

It took a few moments for my words to break through. Bonnie Jarvis shook her head. Brad said nothing.

“Brad?” I said. I repeated the question.

He didn’t look up, but he finally answered. “No. I-I don’t recall hearing Logan mention that name.”

We told them we’d be in touch and said good-bye. We’d have to talk to them again, probably many more times. But there was nothing to be gained by it now. They clearly knew nothing about his involvement in the shooting. The only information they might have for us would be coincidental, and only useful at trial: a stray remark, an unusual behavior—something fairly subtle that wouldn’t have meant much to them at the time. But their minds were too frozen to be able to access those memories.

Bailey and I headed for her car. Just as we reached the sidewalk, a young woman in heels came clattering toward us. “Detective Keller! Ms. Knight! What can you tell me about this latest development? Did Logan Jarvis have something to do with the shootings?” A cameraman behind her pointed his black lens at us as the woman pushed a microphone into our faces.

“No comment,” I said. Bailey and I kept walking. I barely restrained the impulse to swat the microphone out of the woman’s hand.

Another news van roared up the street and disgorged yet another reporter, who tried to head us off before we reached the car, but we jumped in before he could get to us. He was still running behind our car as we pulled away.

“And that’ll be our lives until we put this one to bed,” I said. I pulled down the visor so I could use the mirror to check out the street behind us. We hadn’t even reached the corner before another news van arrived.

Bailey looked grim. “I’m going to ask for a detail on Logan’s house. Once the chief pegs him as a person of interest, those parents won’t be able to burp without someone getting it on tape.”

“Someone better warn them. This might be a good time for them to get out of Dodge.”

“I’ll call the search team,” Bailey said. She turned right on Ventura, heading toward the Barney house. “So, you ready to work up a warrant for Otis’s place?”

“It’s still a pretty close call.” We had a connection between Otis and Logan now, thanks to Carson James’s statement, and we had more confirmation that the shorter suspect’s weird laugh sounded like his. But the fact that he was of the same general height and weight as the smaller shooter was a wash. There were probably a thousand boys in the school who fit that description. The neo-Nazi-looking posters on his bedroom wall were ugly, but there was no indication the shootings were racially motivated. Bottom line: getting a judge to approve a warrant was far from a slam dunk. “Did any of the unis get statements about him being into guns? Or making threats of any kind in the past couple of years?”

Bailey shook her head.

“Can we get someone to dig into Logan’s computer right now? If Otis is our guy, he should be in there somewhere.”

Bailey nodded but didn’t look happy about the prospect. “I wanted Dorian to get a shot at lifting prints before we did anything.”

“Why not ask her to take a look and see if there’s even anything liftable?” If not, then there was no reason we couldn’t get into the laptop right away.

“Yeah, good idea.” Bailey gave me a small grin. “And since it was your idea…”

Dorian hated to be rushed. But I couldn’t back down now. “Fine.” I pulled out my phone and made the call.

“Struck here,” she answered. From the sounds in the background, Dorian was out in the field. Probably still at the school.

I told her what we wanted her to do.

“So you want me to rush my work.”

“I…ah, well.” There was no getting around it. “Just a little.”

“Is Herrera at the Jarvis house?”

“Let me find out.” I asked Bailey whether criminalist Marco Herrera was there. She nodded. I got back on the phone. “Yeah, he’s there.”

“Then he can do it. But have him call me first.”

“Thanks, Dor—” But I was talking to air. She’d already hung up.

We headed back to the Jarvis residence.

The uniformed officers
had already set up a barricade to keep the press away from the property. Bailey parked in the driveway this time, so we wouldn’t have to outrun the media when we left.

We found Herrera setting up at a folding table in the garage, where he’d examine the laptop for prints, hair, and DNA. Bailey called the Computer Crimes Unit and asked them to send someone out to look at Logan’s laptop when Herrera had finished with it. We’d worked with Herrera on our last case, so I knew the CCU guy would have plenty of time to get here. Herrera was, impossibly, even more painstaking than Dorian. I watched him work for fifteen minutes, then had to walk away to keep from pulling my own hair out. Bailey couldn’t stand it either. She went back into the house to check on the search team.

I went out to the backyard and scrolled through my email. Nothing of any urgency there, which was a relief. Bailey brought our computer expert out to meet me. I’d never have guessed he worked the Computer Crimes Unit. In a beige cowboy hat, jeans, and Western boots, Nick Parsons looked more like an undercover cop—if LAPD was surveilling rodeos. He said howdy—yes, he really did—and when I told him we had to wait for Herrera to finish with the laptop, he said he’d take a stroll around the neighborhood. I was about to warn him that he’d get hounded by the press, but there was something in his eyes that said it was the press that needed the warning.

Twenty minutes later, Herrera sent a uni to tell me he’d finished and I called out to Nick, who was leaning against Bailey’s car and talking on the phone. Bailey was already in the garage when we got there. Herrera was stripping off his gloves.

“Find anything?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Herrera said. “In fact, it looks to me as though it’s been wiped clean very recently. And thoroughly.”

Bailey and I exchanged a look. Nick’s expression said he was thinking the same thing. If Logan cleaned the keyboard, he probably…

Nick sat down and began to punch keys. It didn’t take him long. “He wiped it,” Nick said. “There’s nothing here. If you want, I can get into the hard drive, but I’ll need to take it downtown for that. And it’ll take some time.”

“What are your chances of finding anything?” I asked.

“To be perfectly honest, ma’am, I wouldn’t bet on it,” Nick said.

Ordinarily, “ma’am” sets my teeth on edge, but it was stylistically consistent for Nick, so I let it go. I wondered if Graden could bring back our master hacker M. Parkova. She’d come to the rescue when I’d had a computer issue on my last case. But how many times could I get away with hiring a convicted felon? I might already have exceeded my quota.

The problem was, I’d hoped to find something on Logan’s computer to pump up our probable cause for the search warrant for Otis’s house. “We can still try to get a warrant, but…”

“But you don’t think we’ve got enough,” Bailey said.

“It’s pretty dicey.” Some think the more heinous the case, the more likely judges are to hand out search warrants. In fact, it can be just the opposite. A heinous case usually means a high-profile case, and a high-profile case means lots of scrutiny. No one wants to screw up with the whole world watching.

“Then I guess we’re stuck with guilt.”

As in, we try to guilt Otis’s parents into letting us search his room. Banking on getting consent for a search is always my least favorite option, but it was our best—well, really, our only—shot this time.

“Hey, do we have an ID on either of those boys found in the library?” I asked.

“One. Lionel Franks. We got him through the DMV database. We’re confirming with DNA.”

“Any known connection between him and our shooters?”

Bailey shook her head. “Right now it just looks like a poor kid in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

The thought twisted my gut. I had to take a minute to refocus. “I was thinking, since we’ve got Herrera here, we probably ought to get the Jarvises’ DNA,” I said. “I know Logan’s ruled out as one of the bodies in the library, but you never know when we might need it.”

“Good idea.” Bailey headed back to the garage to tell Herrera to swab the parents.

By the time we left the house, the entire block was packed with news vans, making the street barely wide enough for one-way traffic. Bailey navigated carefully as I sank down in my seat to stay out of camera range. It was eight o’clock, and the night air was cold and damp. I looked up at the sky and saw clouds scudding across the moon. I’d worried that the parents might still be at the rec center, but when we got to the house I saw a car in the driveway and a light on in the living room window. There was a heavy knot in my stomach. I didn’t want to face another set of devastated parents. “You lead off on this one.”

Bailey parked at the curb in a legal spot—and there was a spot next to a fire hydrant just one house up. That’s how upset she was. “Why me?”

“Because you’re the investigating officer.”

“Since when has that mattered?”

“It has always mattered, Detective Keller.”

“Then you’ll have to live with the way I handle it. No interference.”

“Fine.”

Bailey raised an eyebrow. The truth? I have been known to jump in on interviews on occasion. Okay, on most occasions.

As we headed toward the front door, I admired the red and white begonias that were planted in a circle in the middle of the lawn. It was a nice, unexpected touch of color. I wanted to study them for a while. Then maybe check out the backyard, see what fun surprises they’d planted there. Basically, I would have washed their windows to avoid the meeting we were about to have.