Karen Vail 01 - Velocity (30 page)

“But Ian Wirth wasn’t kil ed,” Dixon said.

“Wasn’t kil ed yet,” Vail corrected. “Remember, we found Ian Wirth’s home address in Guevara’s house. Wirth was going to be Mayfield’s next victim.”

“Hang on a minute,” Mann said. “You’re saying John Mayfield was a contract kil er.”

Vail pushed through the doors that led into the parking lot. She squinted against the bright sun, which was analogous to what she was feeling: that she was suddenly enlightened as to what this case was al about. “A contract serial kil er. First of its kind, far as I know.”

“That explains Ray’s state of mind,” Dixon said. “He seemed so tightly wound at times. We took it as the same stress we were al feeling. But he’d internalized it. He took each of those murders hard because he felt partial y responsible.”

“Regardless of the circumstances surrounding his wife and son, if Ray was aiding and abetting John Mayfield in any manner, that wouldn’t be far from the truth.”

“That also explains why Ray felt so strongly that Miguel Ortiz was not our guy,”

Brix said, referring to an il egal vineyard worker who was, for a brief time, suspected of being the Crush Kil er. “Because of Merilynn’s description, he knew it was a physical y large Caucasian male, not a Hispanic.”

“But what about the other vics?” Mann said. “Ursula Robbins, Dawn Zackery, Betsy Ivers. And Scott Ful er.”

“Ivers was one of Mayfield’s first kil s in the region.” Ivers’s body was found in 1998 at Battery Spencer, near Golden Gate Bridge. “No relation to Superior or the bottling contract. Just the victim of a serial kil er. Zackery was probably kil ed because of me, so to speak. We thought at the time that Mayfield was in Virginia.

Kil ing Zackery was his way of sticking his finger in our eye. Saying, basical y, ‘You dumb shits, I’m right here. And I’ve been here al along.’ For a narcissistic kil er, which Mayfield was, that’s how he’d do it. Tel ing us wouldn’t have been as dramatic as leaving us a body. It was the ultimate insult, his way of showing his superiority.”

“And Ursula Robbins?” Gordon asked. “Cameron, Bernal, and Walker weren’t included in that PowerPoint file he sent us. But neither was Robbins, which suggests a connection to the other three.”

“Robbins was a Georges Val ey winery exec,” Dixon said. “I think that if we were to dig some more, we may find that she was against the board approving Superior’s
first
contract.”

“Very possible,” Vail said. “Or she was merely another woman who matched certain characteristics that a serial kil er needed to fulfil his fantasies and psychopathic desires.” She ticked each name off her mental list. “And then there’s Ful er. I’m not sure we’l ever know for sure what happened with him. But I think he was col ateral damage. He was fol owing me, with the intent to scare me. Or worse.”

Vail didn’t want to be too harsh on their col eague. Even though she felt he truly meant to kil her, she kept the thought to herself. “But things got out of hand, and we had that car accident. John Mayfield was also fol owing me that night. Why? Who knows. Maybe he fol owed me more often than we knew. Regardless, that night, he was there. He came up behind me, injected me with a sedative, and shot Ful er with my gun. Maybe he intended to make trouble for me, to throw me off my game. I don’t know.”

“Almost worked,” Brix said.

“People were real y pissed at you over Scott’s murder.”

People. As in Sheriff Owens. The boss.

Brix said, “Let’s be glad cooler heads prevailed.”

“Cooler heads and forensics,” Dixon added.

Vail closed her eyes and aimed her face at the sun. “What’s Mayfield’s status?”

“No change. The doc said he’s not ready to be brought out of it.”

“There’s something else we can cross off our list,” Brix said. “How Mayfield got the BetaSomnol that he injected you with. We got the pest control company’s records, the one Mayfield worked for. He paid visits to the Napa Val ey Medical Center five times in a four-month span. For ants.”

“Sounds like he got more than ants,” Vail said. “Any thoughts on how the arson figures into al this?”

Burt Gordon, the arson investigator for the Sheriff’s Department sitting on the task force, explained: “I think that’s exactly as we had it figured—that Tim Nance, Congressman Church’s district director, and Walton Silva conspired with Ful er to get you, Karen, off their backs. Permanently.”

“I don’t know if your Bureau buddies told you,” Brix said, “but the Feds found a bungled wire transfer this morning. They traced it to an account that appears to be control ed by Nance. They’re stil wading through everything, trying to find other transactions, other accomplices. But he’s toast. So to speak.”

Vail opened her eyes and watched a black sedan pul into the parking lot. “So Nance was taking payments to influence the outcome of an issue due to be ruled on by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Trade Bureau. They were using Nance to buy government legislation regarding the minimum grape requirement for the Georges Val ey AVA.”

“If Church became governor,” Dixon said, “Nance, Ful er, and Silva al stood to take major posts in the administration. And you, Karen, threatened the power and prestige that went along with that because you wanted to bring the Crush Kil er case public. That would’ve dirtied Church’s congressional district and potential y damaged his chance at being elected governor.”

Brix asked, “What about Robby? How does he factor into al this?”

“He doesn’t,” Vail said. “Not directly. Remember Sebastian? Real name’s Antonio Sebastiani de Medina and he’s a DEA agent. Robby was running an undercover op with him and their target was the Cortez Mexican drug cartel. César Guevara runs their front, Superior Mobile Bottling. So when Robby went dark, and we started looking for him and showing his photo around, I fucked things up big time. One of the people I showed Robby’s photo to was Guevara. Not only was there a connection between me and him—I think I told Guevara he was my friend and col eague—but the photo was one we’d taken in front of the FBI Academy sign.”

“So you blew his cover,” Mann said.

“I blew his cover. Yeah.” Merely saying it caused a stab of pain to Vail’s stomach. “Sebastian escaped. I’ve gotta go back and ask him how it went down, but I suddenly put everything together and wanted to let you know how it al fit.”

“Does he know Robby’s disposition?”

Vail watched an FBI police SUV circle the parking lot. “No.”

“Wel , this al makes sense with what Matt Aaron just told us,” Dixon said.

“Remember that cork I found at Superior? They final y got around to running it. On the surface, he said that it appeared to be a thermoplastic elastomer. But after swabbing it and putting it through the mass spectrometer, he picked up a trace of cocaine.”

“How much is a trace?” Vail asked.

Rustling of papers. “Here’s what Aaron wrote: ‘Looks like enough for identification. I got reproducible fragments at 303, 182, and 82, but below our quantitation limit.’”

“Did he happen to translate that into English?”

“Not enough to get a warrant, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Vail chuckled. “I don’t think a warrant’s going to be a problem, Roxx. I was wondering about the cork. Obviously it’s not one of the fake ones packed with Fentanyl.”

“I’l make sure he slices it open and checks,” Dixon said. “But he said this kind of minute dusting could be from someone touching it who’d handled powdered cocaine. That said, the elastomer material can retain natural oils, and there weren’t any prints on the cork.”

“Al right,” Brix said. “Get back to your interview with Sebastian. We’l keep working things on our end. Whether Guevara knows we’re looking for him or he’s on a regularly scheduled drug run, we don’t know.”

“Either way,” Mann said, “with Sebastian’s statement, we’l have enough for warrants. As soon as they’re executed, we’l turn his place inside out.”

“Too bad you can’t join us,” Dixon said. “Tossing his place would probably be therapeutic.”

52

V
ail disconnected the cal and took a deep breath of March air . . . far damper than it had been in Napa. Had it been late summer or early fal , the chorus of cicadas and crickets in the nearby thicket of trees would be like a welcome home song. But it was silent now. She turned and headed back to Sebastian, toward—hopeful y—

more answers.

DeSantos was standing outside the room, touching the screen on his phone. He looked up when Vail approached.

“What’s going on?”

“The nurse needed to adjust something. He wasn’t feeling so good.”

The door opened and Yardley motioned them in.

Vail and DeSantos sat at the table opposite Sebastian, whose face was ashen and his hair slick and stringy from perspiration. He was taking another swig of his Powerade.

“You okay?” Vail asked.

“Better.”

“We won’t keep you much longer.” She leaned both forearms on the table and scooted her butt forward in the seat. “I’d like to go through what happened, what you saw. When you realized there was a problem.”

Sebastian tilted the plastic Powerade bottle and picked at the label with a fingernail. “You sure you want to hear this?”

“I have to wear two hats here. I’ve got my business as a federal agent in pursuit of a missing col eague. And I have to acknowledge that I care deeply for what happens to that missing col eague. I’m doing my best to keep those two hats from interfering with each other.”

“What she means,” DeSantos said with a shake of his head, “is just answer the question.”

Vail gave him a stern look. She didn’t need him acting like her interpreter.

“Robby was already there. They sent me on an errand. At the time, I didn’t think there was anything up. But then when I got back, Robby was surrounded by five guys. Guevara, a top Cortez lieutenant named Ernesto Escobar, and three others I didn’t know. But they weren’t friendlies.”

“Why do you say that?” DeSantos asked.

“Because they weren’t treating Robby very good.”

“Don’t mince words. What did you see?”

“I wasn’t there when it started. But I heard the noise. I hid behind a car. What I saw . . . it was hard to watch, but I knew if I tried helping Robby, I’d either blow my cover or if I played along, they’d expect me to . . . I—I just couldn’t do that.” He closed his eyes. “I wouldn’t have been able to hurt my buddy.” He shook his head, then faced Vail. “I took off, kept a low profile, caught a ride with a trucker out of town. Figured, worse came to worst, I might be able to go back, make up some bul shit excuse for being gone.”

“And,” DeSantos said, “you figured, if Robby’s cover’s blown, yours was probably worth shit too, since you’re the one who vouched for him. They might kil you before they kil ed him.”

Sebastian didn’t respond. He continued to pick at the Powerade label.

Vail was sure DeSantos’s analysis was accurate, but she didn’t want to move off topic. She swal owed hard. “What were they doing to Robby?”

Sebastian clenched his jaw, looked down at his Powerade. “Yel ing at him in Spanish. Working him over. Kicking him. Worse.”

Vail closed her mouth. She couldn’t let anyone in the room see how much it hurt to hear that.

DeSantos placed a hand on her forearm. With a quick flick, she shook it off. She knew he meant wel and she appreciated the gesture, but that wasn’t what she wanted to project to the men in the room.

“A guy like you,” DeSantos said, “you’ve got CIs with their ears to the ground. If there’s something to be known about Robby’s . . . disposition . . . they’d hear about it.”

“I’m not going anywhere, not for a couple days. Believe me, I tried talking to the doc. He didn’t want to have any of it.”

“Then us,” Vail said. “Set it up. We’l do the meet.”

Sebastian leaned back in his seat. “That could work, I guess.”

“No,” Yardley said, stepping forward.

Sebastian looked up at the ASAC. “Al I gotta do is cal my guy, let him know—”

“Absolutely not.”

Vail rose from her seat and faced Yardley, toe to toe. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

Yardley, a few inches tal er than Vail, stood his ground. “Soon as the doc clears him,” he said calmly, “Sebastian wil go. He’s worked too hard, too long, to cultivate his CIs. Especial y this one, who’s got reliable roots right into the goddamn cartel.

We screw it up, guy so much as smel s something bad, we may never find a replacement.”

“I realize Robby’s ‘only’ a task force officer, but he deserves 100 percent effort on our part—al our parts—to get him out of danger.”

“Agent Vail, we don’t even know if he’s stil alive.”

Body blow to the gut.
Don’t take that shit.
“Listen to me,” she said, bringing an index finger up toward his face. “With your help or not, I’m going to find Robby.

Dead or alive. We owe that to him. I owe it to him. If my fuckup is responsible for blowing his cover, it’s on me.”

“I understand you don’t like it,” Yardley said, “but this is the way we handle these matters. Soon as we can, Sebastian wil meet with the CI with regard to the issues at hand and then we’l get back to you.”

Yardley started to turn away, but Vail grabbed his forearm. “When?”

He spoke while looking down at her hand. “We’l do what we can,
when
we can.

But how we do it, and when, and what resources we use to do it, is our business, not yours.” He brought his gaze up to hers. “I know you’re concerned about Hernandez, but there are multiple lives at stake. You think he’s the only asset we have in that organization?”