The Competition (15 page)

Luke was still
shaken when we finished the interview, but he refused our offer of a ride home. While Bailey called the station to check in, I watched him walk to his car. He was a little wobbly on his feet, and when he reached the driver’s door, he stood there with the key in his hand, staring out into the night.

Luke had driven away by the time Bailey finished her call. I pulled out my phone as we headed for her car. “I’m going to look up our soon-to-be new best friend Shane on Facebook.”

“I’m putting out the alert to pick him up.” Bailey called one of the detectives who was riding herd on the unis. “I need all you’ve got on a Shane Dolan.” She relayed what Luke had told us about his workplaces, and the description he’d given us: medium height, slight to medium in weight, dark brown hair usually worn almost shoulder length, and hazel eyes. “Pick him up if you see him, but he’s not a suspect. At least not yet. And he may have good intel for us, so be nice.”

I showed Bailey his Facebook photo. The wavy hair that fell over one eye, the sexy smile. He was a good-looking bad boy. No mystery why he’d been a babe magnet.

Bailey smirked. “I knew a guy like that in high school.”

“Didn’t we all?” She was still staring at the photo. “You have a crush on him?”

“He had a crush on me. I wasn’t interested.”

“Oh, excuse me, Ms. Searing Hot.
You
were the one who got away?”

“Yes.”

Actually, I believed her.

“They’re working on the addresses of the shooting ranges and tree services in Camarillo,” Bailey said. “We should have them pretty quick.”

I held up my phone. “I already got the shooting range. There’s only one. Want to—”

Bailey gunned the engine. “On our way.”

Camarillo was just south of Oxnard. It was almost seven o’clock, late enough to miss the evening rush hour. Bailey flew down the 101, and fifteen minutes later we rolled into Camarillo.

The shooting range was located in what had been a fairly big strip mall—before the stores had gone under. Now it looked like a ghost town. All the dark, empty windows gave it a creepy feel. At the very end of the row was a faded red wooden sign that read
THE TEN RING.
A reference to the bull’s-eye of a target. A ramp led up to the front door, which was painted a flat black. Thoughtful of them to put in a ramp for the handicapped at a shooting range. I pulled on the door, half expecting it to be locked. It wasn’t.

But it was so heavy, it only budged an inch.

Bailey raised an eyebrow. “Need some help, Knight?”

I glared back at her. “Shut up.” I had to regrip and put some muscle into it, but I managed to pull it far enough to slip through sideways. I wedged my foot in the door and held it open for Bailey. “What is up with this friggin’ door?”

“Cheap way to soundproof.”

Which would have mattered back when the place first opened and the other businesses on the row were still in operation. Not so much now. We headed down the poorly lit hallway; its walls were decorated with cheaply framed photographs of men holding and shooting firearms of all kinds. One older man with a handlebar mustache seemed to be in all of the pictures. I deduced that he was the owner. When we emerged from the hallway and entered the main room, I confirmed it. It was a fairly large room, dominated by a three-sided glass case that housed handguns and a variety of accoutrements such as speed loaders, magazines, ammunition, goggles, and gloves. The back wall was lined with the bigger firepower: long rifles and shotguns. A window occupied the opposite wall and gave a full view of the shooting range. A father was showing his son—who looked to be about nine years old—how to load a semi-automatic clip. It brought back memories of my father teaching me the same thing. And the bruised thumbs I’d had for months after.

Standing behind the glass case was the older man in the photographs. He was wiry to the point of skinny, and his upper shoulders curved inward, giving his chest a concave look. The rimless glasses that perched on the end of his nose and his white flyaway hair reminded me of a character in an old TV show,
The Wild Wild West.
Bailey introduced us, showed her badge, and asked if he was the owner.

He held out his hand. “George Lockmire. Call me Lock.”

I shook his hand. “As in locked and loaded?”

He smiled. “Always glad to do business with law enforcement. You brought your own? Or do you want to rent and try something new? I’ve got a great compact HK forty-five you should try.”

Bailey shook her head. “Thank you, Mr., er, Lock, but we’re not here to shoot. We need to ask you about someone who works here. Shane Dolan.”

He jerked back his head as though we’d slapped him, then peered at us over the top of his glasses. “He’s not in trouble, is he?”

“No,” I said. “We just need to talk to him. He may have information on a case we’re investigating—”

“He’s a decent sort. Not the most punctual guy. But once he gets here he’s good to have around. Not many folks can do the repairs. Most can barely clean ’em right. Shane can do it all.”

“Glad to hear it,” I said. “When does Shane work?”

“Well, it’s kind of on an ‘as needed’ basis right now. Business hasn’t been so good around here, in case you didn’t notice.” He made a face and looked out in the direction of the vacant stores we’d passed on our way in.

“When was the last time he came to work?” I asked.

Lockmire squinted. “About a week ago. Yeah. Last Thursday.”

That was four days before the shooting. “Have you seen him since then?”

“No. But there’s no reason I would have. This is the only place I see him. And if you want to know when I expect to have him back, I couldn’t tell you. I might need him this weekend or I might not.”

“He live near here?” Bailey asked.

“Not too far, from what I remember.” Lock flipped through a dog-eared leather day planner. “Here you go.” He pointed to an entry, and Bailey copied down Shane’s address on a business card.

“Did Shane ever bring friends around?” I asked.

Lock wrinkled his nose and squinted, then shook his head. “He was friendly with customers. But I don’t remember him ever bringing anyone in here.”

I pulled out the yearbook photograph of Logan. “Did this person ever come in?”

Lock took the photo and studied it, then handed it back. “He does look familiar. Kinda young, though. We don’t let ’em shoot alone ’less they’re eighteen or older.”

“But if Shane took him into the range…?” I asked.

“Well, yeah. That might’ve happened.” Lock took off his glasses and wiped them on the sleeve of his shirt. “But if it did, it wasn’t recent. If he’d had that kind of free time, I’d have sent him home. Can’t afford to have him on the clock if there’s no business.”

“So this kid might’ve come in here, and Shane might have taken him into the range,” I said. “You just can’t say exactly when?”

Lock gave me a suspicious look. “You a lawyer? You sound like a lawyer.”

I sighed. “Yes, I’m a lawyer. Is that right? What I just said?” Lock squinted at me as though he were trying to figure out what my angle was.

I folded my arms. “Lock, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Answer the question.”

He finally caved. “Yeah, I guess that’s right.”

We thanked Lock for his time and left him our cards. When we got back to the car, Bailey’s cell rang. She looked at the number and raised an eyebrow. “It’s the station.” She listened for a few seconds, then quickly wrote on her notepad and ended the call. “They found the tree service. According to the boss man, Shane was scheduled to work on Monday.” Monday, the day of the shooting. “He was a no-show. And they haven’t heard from him since the Friday before.”

I pulled out my cell phone. “What’s Shane’s address? I’ll call local police for backup.”

Bailey peeled out of the parking lot.

Shane lived in a dive in Ventura, a few blocks west of Main Street. His complex, called the Hacienda, was one in a connected row of apartments that faced the street. Time and neglect and the salty sea air had left the wood on the front step cracked and rotted, which made it a perfect match for the frames of the windows.

The Ventura Police Department doesn’t play around. It only took us fifteen minutes to get there, but when we arrived, the backup I had called for was already waiting and ready to go. Their SWAT team was on the way. We jointly decided to check the place out and see if we could spot Shane. If we did, we’d let SWAT take him down.

We’d learned the only phone registered to Shane was a cell phone, so calling him wouldn’t tell us if he was inside the apartment. And given his affinity for guns, he was likely to be heavily armed, so we strategized our approach carefully. As we worked out the choreography with the local officers, I could feel my heart pound heavily in my chest. If he was the second Fairmont shooter and he spotted us, it was more than likely he’d come out with guns a-blazing.

Everyone took their positions and began to move, slowly and quietly. In spite of the chilly sea air, a trickle of sweat rolled down my back. Bailey and I hunkered down and duckwalked to stay below the windows of the apartment, our guns down at our sides. The local police, led by a hefty but solid-looking detective with red hair named (what else?) Rusty, were right alongside us. Some officers had fanned out to guard the perimeter in case Shane decided to rabbit on us.

Shane Dolan’s window was second from the last. We knelt down and listened at the door. The television was on, and a commercial for some seafood restaurant offering a good deal on lobster was playing. I tried to look around the edge of the yellowed window shade, but all I could see was the corner of a sofa that was a sickly shade of green. It looked like something he’d picked up off the sidewalk. I was about to move forward to the other window when I heard a soft thump.

I turned back to Bailey and kept my voice low. “Did you hear that?”

“I think so, but the television’s so loud.” She looked at me. “I don’t want to wait for SWAT. Think we can call this an exigent circumstance?”

Exigent circumstances, such as hot pursuit of a suspect or the possible imminent destruction of evidence, can let police get into a house without a warrant. “Well, he does fit the description of the second shooter.”

Bailey looked skeptical. “Medium build. Not exactly a DNA match.”

“But we’ve accounted for all the other students—”

Bailey nodded. “And he didn’t show up for work—”

“And no one’s seen him since the Friday before the shooting. Screw it. I say we go for it. I’d rather ask forgiveness than permission.”

Bailey gestured for the local officers to join us. They moved quickly to surround the small complex. Rusty and another of the sturdier-looking cops took the lead at the front door. We whispered, to make sure we couldn’t be heard over the television. “Police, open up.” Then they mouthed a count to three and kicked in the door.

The flimsy door
splintered and flew open on the first kick. I was behind all the other officers so I stood on tiptoe to try to see inside. No one was there from what I could tell, but I waited for the officers to give us the “all clear.” They gave it in less than two minutes.

I saw that it was just a small single room. The “kitchen” was a hot plate. But as I walked in, I heard movement coming from somewhere overhead. In one swift motion, I turned and drew my gun.

And found a cat crouched on top of the refrigerator, staring down at us. I pointed to the cat. “The thump we heard.”

Bailey glanced at my gun. “You planning to take it down, Knight? I think it’ll probably come peaceably with a piece of chicken. But, your call.”

I glared at her and put my gun away, then scanned the apartment. It was a mess. The kind of mess that said someone had left in a hurry and didn’t plan on coming back. A half-eaten meatball sub—with some cat-sized bites taken out of it—was lying on its wrapper on the coffee table next to a nearly full bottle of beer. The sub was cold and the beer was room temperature. But the sandwich didn’t look stale. A few cockroaches were making a dinner of it, but given the look of the place, they were probably permanent residents. I guessed we’d missed Shane by mere hours. The dresser drawers were pulled out and empty, the only remaining clothing a few stray boxer shorts and socks that had dribbled onto the floor. In the bathroom, the mirrored door of the medicine cabinet hung open, the inside shelves nearly empty except for a couple of rusty-looking razors and an old can of shaving cream. The officers found some stray ammo inside the fold-out couch, but no spent casings or bullets. Nothing we could match to the spent rounds in the school. Still, we asked the officers to bag them up so we could see if they were the same caliber and make as the evidence ammo.

I motioned for Bailey to join me outside. “Let’s get these guys out of here and get the crime scene techs in,” I said. “The one good thing about this ungodly mess is it doesn’t look like he took the time to wipe anything down. We should come up with some usable prints and DNA in here. If Dorian gets anything out of those jackets she found in the Dumpster, we can see if there’s a match.”

Bailey nodded and turned to head back inside, when we heard a shout from the apartment. We ran in and found the lead cop, Rusty, pointing to the refrigerator wedged in the corner. It had been pivoted out a few inches to reveal a yellowed piece of paper taped to the side that faced the wall. “I didn’t want to pull the thing all the way out till the crime scene guys got here,” he said. “But I’d guess those are his email addresses—and passwords.”

Damn if he wasn’t right. They all looked like remarkably unoriginal variations on the name Shane Dolan, like SDol10586 and SHLAN1086. I glanced at the officers. “Ten bucks says his birth date is October fifth, nineteen eighty-six. Anyone?” No takers.

The crime scene techs showed up, so while I copied it all down on Bailey’s notepad, she told them what we were looking for—what Dorian lovingly referred to as our “wish list.” Okay, maybe not so lovingly. Rusty put out an alert with Shane Dolan’s DMV photo, the license plate for his black Ford F250 pickup truck, and his personal description. He assured us that would do the trick in Ventura. “If your guy’s still up here, we’ll find him pretty quick.”

Bailey and I headed back to her car. While she drove, I pulled out the list of email addresses I’d copied down and started to tap them into my phone. Bailey turned on the radio. It’d been a long day, and the freeway was practically empty at this time of night. Easy to fall asleep at the wheel. She tuned in to a classic rock station.

“I kind of prefer jazz,” I said.

“Yeah? You also prefer a head-on collision with that pylon?”

“I’ll get back to you on that.”

The first three email addresses were defunct, but I got lucky on the fourth: SHDOG68501. “Bailey, turn that thing down.”

“What?” She did—fractionally.

I turned it down the rest of the way and ignored her glare. “Shane Dolan got an email from Logan the day before the shooting.”

“No shit?”

“None at all. Listen to this: ‘Hey, dog, you da man. Thanks for all of it. See ya on the other side! Ha ha.’” I looked at Bailey.

She shrugged. “Well, could be he’s thanking Shane for helping with the guns. But it’s pretty vague.”

“Come on, Bailey. The day before the shooting? Shane’s into guns, Logan thanks him ‘for all of it.’ At the very least, Shane had to be the gun supplier. And he might very well be more.”

Bailey was silent for a moment, then nodded. “Possibly. He sure beat feet out of here, no question about that.”

It was one of the few things we didn’t have questions about. By the time Bailey dropped me off at the Biltmore, we were both visibly sagging.

“Get some rest, Knight. It’s only going to get crazier.”

“We don’t have any interviews scheduled for tomorrow, do we?” Bailey shook her head. “Then I’ll have to check in at the office.” I got out of the car and patted the roof. “But call me if anything’s shaking.”

Bailey nodded and drove off. Angel pulled open the door for me. “Long day, Ms. Knight? You look tired.”

“Very, very long day, Angel.”

He wished me good night. I wished I could’ve had one. I fell asleep like someone knocked me on the head with a club, but nightmares with children crying and a stalker with a high-pitched laugh kept me thrashing most of the night.

When my hotel phone rang, I groped for the clock, sure it was three a.m. It was seven thirty. And only two people ever called me on that phone. I knew who it wasn’t: Graden wouldn’t dare call me at that indecent hour.

I picked up the phone. “What is it, Keller?”

“Morning, Ms. Daisy.”

“I know you think that’s funny—”

“Want to talk to a witness?”

I sat up. “Who?”

“Just get down here.”

The Police Administration Building is walking distance from the Biltmore, and the streets between them are filled with churro stands. I love churros so much it’s embarrassing. Just the smell of the hot cinnamon makes my mouth water. I picked up four and ate one on the way, congratulating myself on my restraint.

Bailey was on the phone. I put two down in front of her, and she smiled her thanks. I got my coffee and sat down at an empty desk to savor my remaining churro, careful not to get the sugar and cinnamon all over me. But when Bailey ended her call, she reached out and dusted off my chin. Oh, well.

“We’ve got a kid coming in who says—” Bailey stopped as a woman in a long gray wool coat led a tall, rumpled-looking young guy toward us. Bailey stood up. “Mrs. Ester?”

“Hello, Detective,” she said. “I thought it’d be easier for you if I brought Jeremy in instead of having you out to the house.”

“That was very kind of you,” Bailey said. She introduced me and we all shook hands.

“Please call me Amy.”

“Amy, why don’t you and Jeremy follow me,” Bailey said. Every pair of eyes in the bull pen watched as we headed to the interview room.

We might not ordinarily do a witness interview in private, but we were keeping everything about this case as much under lock and key as possible. The chief had tried to appease the press by giving updates, but he couldn’t say much without compromising the investigation, so the updates basically consisted of “We’re following up on leads.” The press wasn’t fooled. They hounded him and complained—in person and in print—about the lack of progress. So the mood at the station was tense.

Jeremy was an earnest-looking kid. Tall, with tight blonde curls—like his mom—and well-spoken. My guess that he was a basketball player panned out: he was a power forward on the Fairmont varsity team. In his spare time he worked as a bagger at the local grocery store. He hadn’t been in the gym at the time of the shooting. But he had seen something he thought might be important. He started by apologizing.

“I know I should’ve told you guys about this right away, but I was freaked-out.”

His mother pursed her lips. “He didn’t even tell me until this morning, or I would’ve dragged him in right when it happened. Gave me some cockamamie story at first about a drunk driver.”

Jeremy hung his head like a puppy who’d peed on the carpet.

“So this happened when?” I asked.

“Monday,” he said.

It was Thursday. Had it only been three days since the shooting? It was hard to believe. “But you’re here now. That’s what matters. Tell us what happened.”

He spoke in a rapid, shaky voice. “I was late to school. My car battery died, and Mom had already left for work, so I had to wait for Triple-A to come and give me a jump.”

“About what time did you get on the road?” Bailey asked.

“Triple-A didn’t get to me until after eleven. So, maybe eleven thirty? And I was just a couple of blocks away from school when this car comes around the corner. Heads straight for me, just like, flying. I thought I was dead. I yanked the wheel to the right just in time. He sideswiped me pretty bad. But he just kept on going, seemed like ninety miles an hour.” Jeremy rubbed his palms on his thighs as he relived the moment.

“Can you describe the car?” Bailey asked.

“A white Corolla. Looked kind of new. Or…maybe just in good shape.”

Not so much anymore.

“Where’s your car now?” Bailey asked.

“Here. I thought you’d want to see it.”

Smart boy.

“By any chance were you able to see who was driving the car?” I asked.

Jeremy pressed his lips together and shook his head. “No. I think they were wearing black ski masks, the kind that go over your whole head.”

“They?” I asked. “There was someone in the passenger seat?”

“Yeah. That I’m sure about. There was definitely someone in the passenger seat.”

“Did you happen to see the license plate?” Bailey asked.

“I only remember the first part. I wrote it down. It was 4JHQ.” He shook his head. “Sorry, that’s all I could get.”

“Don’t be,” I said. “You did great.”

Jeremy had gotten only half the numbers, but it was enough. That was Logan’s car.