The Night Watchman (21 page)

45

M
Y TALK WITH
K
ATIE
certainly brought up more questions than answers. I had always assumed Jamie's connections to the police department had to be through a man. Unfortunately in the world we live in, that doesn't necessarily have to be true. Were Jamie and Katie closer than she indicated, or was there an entire set of circumstances I was missing altogether?

Pam and I dropped Crevis off at my place, so he could get ready for our shift. He'd meet me at the Coral Bay later.

Then we drove to Outreach Orlando Ministries. I had some questions for Mario the Weeping Felon with regard to the Lion's Den's plans for new adult entertainment sites. I hoped he could pay attention to me long enough before he started bawling again.

We parked on the street outside the ministry, which looked about as desolate as a derelict ship left wrecked on the shore for everyone to see.

Mario greeted us, or I should say Pam, at the front door. He hugged her and then merely tipped his head in my direction. It almost hurt my feelings… almost.

I toted my case file with me and sat in Mario's office. “I've got a few more questions.”

“I figured.” Mario took a seat, then reclined in his chair.

“The ministry owns this building, correct?”

“Yeah, we purchased it about three years ago.”

“Anyone offer to buy it recently?” I tapped my pen on the pad.

Mario eased forward and rested his elbows on the table. “Yes. But that's not unusual.”

“Do you remember who was interested?”

“A representative for an investment group contacted David and me to set up a meeting.”

“How long was this before David's murder?”

“Couple of months maybe.”

“What was the outcome of the meeting?”

“They made a more-than-generous offer for the building.” Mario wiped the sweat from his shiny brow. “Much more than I thought it was worth.”

“But David didn't take it?”

“He wasn't interested,” Mario said. “He said the location here in this district was more important than money. He believed the money to support the ministry would come, but there were needs to be met right here.”

“I take it you didn't agree?”

“It was a lot of money. We could have taken that and purchased a whole new building and equipment and still had some left over. David should have considered it, but he wasn't going to budge.”

“Have you heard from these people since David's murder?”

Mario worked his gaze toward Pam, then shifted back and crossed his arms. “They called last week to set up another meeting.”

“You can't be seriously considering this,” Pam said. “David's dreams were all here. This is where he wanted to serve. You just can't give up on that.”

“I'm not giving up, Pam. But sometimes changes have to be made. The ministry is dying here. If we sell the building, we can move into a smaller facility and have more than enough left over to cover expenses for a couple of years. That will keep us afloat for some time until more donations come in. A change of location might… shake the reputation we have right now too. It could be the best decision for the ministry.”

“You can't do this to his life's work,” she said.

“Unless some miracle happens, Pam, we won't have any choice.”

Pam lowered her head and turned away. I don't think she wanted me to see her crying.

I turned back to Mario. “Does the name J & M Corporation sound familiar?”

Mario shook his head.

I perused the printouts. “Does the Relk Corporation sound familiar?”

“Yeah, I think that's it.”

I shouldn't have been surprised. If J & M Corporation had holdings in all the areas listed in the ordinance, it could have piqued someone's interest. They appeared to be spreading the properties out to different subsidiaries. Very shrewd. Someone put a lot of time and thought into this.

I showed Mario the
Orlando Sentinel
photo of the Lion's Den Four, as I chose to call them. “Are any of these guys the person you dealt with?”

“No. No one in this picture.”

I showed him a photo of Gordon Kurfis.

“Yeah. That's him.” Mario tapped the picture with his fingertip. “He met with David and me before. And he's the one who contacted me again. Do these people have anything to do with David's death?”

“I don't know,” I said, not wanting to be definitive with him. Pam gave me the look, knowing that I wasn't telling Mario what I really felt. I couldn't help that I didn't trust him, and now he was ready to make a profit on ministry property. His true motivations were as much a mystery as anything else in this case.

“These people who want to buy the building intend to turn it into a strip club,” Pam said. “Cancel the meeting with them and pray that God keeps this place going.”

Mario hissed and caught his head in his hands. “I'm doing everything I know how, Pam. But it seems at every turn I'm messing everything up. I don't think I'm the one God wants to lead this ministry.”

For once, Mario and I agreed on something. While I'd never met David, and still didn't have much use for his religion, at least I could see by his conversations and actions with Jamie that he had really believed what he was preaching. He extended himself to a woman needing help—a woman most people would have judged as unworthy of help, including me. With Mario's record, I didn't think he was cut from the same cloth as David.

“Mario,” Pam said, “I don't care if we have to get a loan or something. We can't just quit David's dream.”

“Nobody's quitting,” he said. “We're just running out of options.”

“When is your meeting with Kurfis?” I said.

“Next week. He's supposed to call me Monday and let me know the time.”

“When he calls, I want you to let me know.”

“I will.” He wiped his eyes, the waterworks flowing again.

46

I
MANNED MY POST
at Coral Bay Condos and sent Crevis on an errand (a legitimate one this time). I had him go to the store on his lunch break and get us more supplies. I needed printer paper, an ink cartridge, a memory card, and a sub sandwich in a bad kind of way.

I downloaded the photos of the scene at Ashley's apartment from my phone to my laptop. I was glad Oscar didn't pick up that my cell phone had a camera in it. I had to snap those photos. It's not like I didn't care; I just needed to catch the person responsible for her death. While it seemed callous, it had to be done. She was no longer Ashley Vargas; she was a valuable piece of evidence. At least that's what the cop in me was supposed to think. I still felt dirty for doing it, though.

On every crime scene I'd ever worked, I could distance myself from the victim and keep my emotions out of it. Ashley was different. Whoever killed her did it because of me. I sat at her kitchen table and talked with her. She said I was “nice.” But in truth, I wasn't being nice to her, any more than I was being mean with Chance in his interview. I evaluated them quickly and formulated an approach that would give me the most success. It was good police strategy, but I've been doing it so long that sometimes I forget which person I'm supposed to be.

Ashley's pictures booted up, and one of her fully clothed body on the bed came into frame. The pink belt was wrapped around her neck, from behind, apparently. The murder definitely wasn't a sex crime, and nothing obvious had been stolen from the scene. The belt appeared to have been from her closet, because there were several others similar to it still hanging there. I figured the killer used a different method to throw off the investigators. Since he had my notes, this guy had to know that I was a pariah among my peers. Nothing I said could be trusted in law enforcement circles.

My e-mail alarm chimed. Katie had sent a copy of the report. Her response was terse and to the point: “Here it is, jerk.” Finer words hadn't been spoken to me in a while. I guess we were now finished too. I was running out of police contacts.

I checked the report, which compared the shell casings and ballistics of the weapon to other crimes around Florida. The FDLE expert determined that the Ruger 9mm had been used in only one other crime. The case number was an OPD case—it leapt out at me as I read it.

The pistol that killed David and Jamie was the same weapon that murdered Trisha and crippled me. The shell casings were an exact match to those left at the scene of our shooting.

My mind went numb. Somehow I doubted that Pastor Hendricks waited near a shrub line at Dante Hill's house to ambush Trisha and me a year ago, especially since he hadn't even met Jamie at that point. I was hitting overload.

I massaged my hip, as I had a new ache there, one of solidarity with David Hendricks and Jamie DeAngelo. Had Katie even read the report before she forwarded it to me? This was going to rip the case from my hands. Once everyone discovered the gun link, FDLE would step in. I had to work quickly if I was going to find the killer. This investigation was getting way out of control.

The rest of the report was about the gun's serial number. While it had been ground down, the expert was still able to lift off the number. I jotted it down. I wished I still had my computer set up to check NCIC/FCIC to see if the gun was listed as stolen. Oscar had taken care of that, though. I was locked out of any database that could help me find where that gun came from and who it was last registered to.

How could this have slipped through? An alleged murder-suicide is swept under the rug, and the murder weapon from Trisha's death and my shooting is nearly destroyed? The connections to me and the police department were now undeniable, even for Oscar. But I didn't know if I could or would approach him yet. My mind was in full-blown chaos. I needed to relax.

I logged off the computer and closed my eyes for a moment. I pulled out my Sudoku book and attempted to work it, to rejuvenate my scattered thoughts.

It didn't help.

Crevis returned with our stuff, and we caught up on the latest doings over sub sandwiches. I shared with him the knowledge about the gun, the implications still battering my brain. He was going to stop by his house to pick up more clothes. He'd been staying at my apartment since the attack. I figured I'd be hard pressed to get rid of him now.

The sun crawled over the horizon. The day-shift guy relieved me, and I hobbled my way to the parking garage to head home. Crevis had left early to get to his house before morning rush-hour traffic got thick. As the tip of my cane striking the concrete called out my cadence throughout the garage, I didn't feel right. Since my attack there, I'd been a bit leery of the place. Now without Crevis, I felt odd. I figured it was just another casualty of my crippled psyche. Maybe Kurfis was right—I did need some meds.

I inserted the key in the truck door when shoes shuffled near the car next to me. I let go of the keys and whipped out my 9mm, coming on target to Rick Pampas's reptilian face.

“Settle down,” Pampas said, his hands up. “You're awfully jumpy these days, aren't you?”

“You shouldn't be sneaking up on people. What are you doing here, anyway?”

“We need to get some things straight, Quinn, before I head into work.”

“Well, I'm not feeling so chummy right now.” I holstered my weapon. “So you're gonna have to make it another time.”

“Why are you stirring all this up on the murder-suicide?” He braced his hand on the bed of my pickup.

“Murder-suicide? I'm not sure what you're talking about.” I tapped my finger on my chin. “Oh yeah, you must mean the double murder here where you blew the investigation.”

“You're really not that funny, Ray. You never have been. You just can't get over the fact that you're not a cop anymore and you never will be one again.”

“At least I was a cop. I'm not so sure you ever were.”

“Well, the way everyone else sees it, including Yancey I'm the top guy in Homicide now,” he said. “That must drive you nuts, but it's the way it is, and it's not going to change—no matter how much you try to gum up the works. Keep your fingers out of my cases. You've got no business messing with what I've already closed.”

“Why did you remove Jamie's phone records from the report?” I was tired, but I doubted I'd ever get the chance to ask Pampas these questions again. “Why didn't you send off the gun to be tested? And why didn't you spend more than ten minutes assessing the crime scene? You dropped the ball on this or intentionally fouled it up. Either way you're gonna eat it now. You're going down.”

“In your dreams. I didn't take anything from the report. It's a murder-suicide and it'll stay that way. You're still a basket case about losing your girlfriend, Trisha.”

I straightened and struggled not to give away too much body language that he'd struck a nerve. I didn't know how to answer him.

“You didn't think I knew about that, did you?” Pampas laughed and closed the distance between us. “See, that's your problem. You think you're so much smarter than everyone else. You worked in a room full of detectives, for Pete's sake. Didn't you think we'd notice you two taking long lunches together? How you looked at each other? Always disappearing together? C'mon. I knew you two were dating months before the shooting.”

“What's your point?”

“Stay out of my way, rent-a-cop. I've put a lot of time into Homicide and have worked hard to be in this position. I don't need you going behind my back to tear me down.”

“Just what do you plan on doing if I don't?” I said.

“Your tough talk might have worked at one time,” he said. “I can't remember why I was ever intimidated by you. You don't seem so tough now.” He reached up and grabbed the plastic badge off my chest, snapping it between his fingers.

My Glock appeared in my hand in a second, acquiring my target on his forehead—again. He stepped back and feigned a smile, but he couldn't hide the fear in his eyes. He was wondering if I'd really shoot him or not. I wondered the same thing.

“Don't push me too far, Pampas. I have nothing left to lose.”

“It's against the law to point guns at
real cops.”
He shuffled back.

“I know. But I'm not worried. No jury in the world would consider you a real cop.”

“Stay out of my business.” Pampas turned and walked away. “Or you'll get broken again.”