Red Rock Island (Damian Green Book 1) (6 page)

Chapter Eleven

Natalie was excited to follow up on Damian’s leads. She had a feeling that if she gave him the data that he would figure out how to put it together effectively with a computer so that it was a more efficient use of time. She had tried doing what he did manually and hadn’t been getting anywhere as there were simply too many facts to comb through.

She made an appointment to meet with her SJPD detective contact, Kevin Shimoda, and discuss the two cases. She knew that Kevin, on the one hand, hated that the work had been contracted to her, but rationalized the need to solve the old cases and at least they had worked together before she retired. Once Damian had the fingerprint matches, she went back and pulled the same stuff manually in the SJPD system. She didn’t want Kevin to know that Damian had hacked into the FBI system. Kevin would be doubtful about how she’d gotten the print matches, but that didn’t matter, he would be more excited about pulling the two suspects in for questioning and trying to solve the cold cases.

Sitting in a drab conference room in her old division, she discussed the two cases with Kevin.

“They both appear worthy of questioning. I think we can bring Mr. Avery in for questioning, and we’ll ask the Phoenix PD to go out to Mr. Watson’s home and question him for us,” Kevin said.

“Are you going to get a search warrant for either suspect?” Natalie asked.

Kevin paused, thinking of the pros and cons and then nodded. “It will take longer, but I suspect our thug at the local convenience store won’t willingly come in for questioning and if he does indeed belong to the Aryan Brotherhood, he’ll have a sophisticated gang behind him.”

“I agree and with the information about Greg Watson. Phoenix PD will have a sophisticated client for a different reason. Before we interview that gentleman, I want our coroner to look at the case and tell us if the knife’s edges match the victim’s remains. It will take longer but it will be an amazing piece of physical evidence if the coroner can make the connection. Thankfully, the man who committed the other crime with that knife is still incarcerated; otherwise we might not have the knife still in evidence. Is Dr. Patterson still on the job at the coroner’s office? He was always excellent with knife wounds on the body,” Natalie mused.

“He’s still working and that was exactly who I was going to tag for this investigation. He’ll have to compare the photos taken by the CSI techs when we recovered the bones. I know they photographed what they thought were knife striations according to the case report.”

“Let’s hope for a match.”

“Yeah. I wonder about John Avery. He appears to have had three kills attributed to him about twenty years ago and would appear to meet the FBI’s definition of a serial killer. I wonder why he stopped killing women? Or did he? Maybe I can do more fingerprint searches and see if his prints were found at any other older crime scenes before we computerized prints to the degree that we have today.”

“Natalie, the problem with that is so many prints for the time period you’re talking about exist in individual jurisdictions and haven’t been computerized yet.”

“True, but it’s worth a look. How do you feel about taking on the AB gang?” Natalie asked curiously as she hadn’t had any real dealings with the group during her career.

“I’d almost rather take on any other group of people including ISIS. They are a large white extremely violent prison gang that operates drug manufacturing and distribution outside of prison. I bet that convenience store is a source of meth distribution. I think I’ll call my contacts in gang investigations and the covert response unit. I think the three of us could work together to set up surveillance on Mr. Avery. It would help to have something criminal to hold him on while we wait for other pieces to fall into place.”

“Maybe this will be a two-for and we’ll stop a slice of the drug trade. Kevin, is there any information you need for this interview of John Avery?”

“No this is good work Natalie. I hated when the brass contracted this work to you, but I’m not sure we would have found new clues on these two cases, so if it had to be someone outside the department, I’m glad it was you.”

“Thanks Kevin. You know my contract is not a reflection of poor work on your part, the SJPD is just understaffed.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said as they stood up and shook hands before Natalie left the building. She greeted acquaintances on her way out. It’d been several years since she worked here, but she knew a lot of people in this building. She considered herself a good interviewer and hated not being in on the action when they brought Avery in for questioning. Hopefully the case would be cracked wide open next week she thought as she approached her car while checking her emails. Kevin promised to keep her informed with the findings in the case and she’d have to be satisfied with that.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched a man walking through the parking lot on a collision course with her. There was something about his behavior that made her suspicious, starting with the fact that he looked like a thug. She decided to change course and return to the building as if she’d forgotten something. At the same time, she wanted to keep a few cars between her and the thug.

She surreptitiously looked around the area thankful that the sunglasses could hide the movement of her eyes. When she’d changed course, she noticed that he had also. They were on the side of the building for public parking, unfortunately all of the patrol cars as well as officer private cars were in a separate parking lot. If she was still a member of the force, she would have had a body armor vest on and a gun in her holster. As a private citizen, she had neither, although Damian had rigged a water pistol for her with pepper spray. It was lime green and plastic, so as to be immediately recognizable by the police as not a real gun. She could, however, shoot a thirty foot stream of pepper spray at anyone bothering her. She’d once told Damian she felt insecure no longer walking around with a gun on her. He told her that she’d get into a lot of worthless trouble carrying a gun and had mailed her the water gun with instructions to practice shooting it. She did and walked around with it loaded with a home based recipe for pepper spray. Her husband had at first laughed at the solution and then called Damian to express his thanks for the gift. His eyes had pained him for hours after he accidentally touched the solution then rubbed his eyes. He liked that his wife was happier and protected.

The thug continued his beeline for Natalie, clearly intending to cut her off before she turned the corner of the building where there would be a lot more people and officers using the building entrance. She pulled out her water gun and yelled, “Freeze right now!”

The thug ignored her warning and reached for something in the back of his pants.

Chapter Twelve

Natalie took aim and fired at the thug as he did likewise. He saw that she was holding a plastic water gun and gave her an evil grin, assured of who would come out the winner in this gun battle. Fortunately, while his bullet was faster, she gotten off her stream and he was hit in the face by it causing his shot to go wide. The noise of the gun brought people around the building to where the thug was moaning in agony with his hands over his eyes, his grin gone from his face.

Police immediately swarmed the two of them and took the guns off both of them. One of the officers recognized Natalie and asked her to make a statement as to what had happened. The thug continued to moan and would do so until his eyes were washed. Natalie’s water gun was put in a police evidence bag, by a detective who was trying not to be caught laughing at a crime scene.

Natalie made a note to herself to ask Damian to send her another water gun as it would be months to years before she got her lime green gun back. She trooped back inside the station knowing there were going to be a lot of statements she would have to give and it would be hours before she was released. Since the thug had fired a gun and the police had the shell casings, and gunpowder residue on his hands and the security footage of their little gun battle, Natalie was in the clear a few hours later minus her handy little toy gun.

She had the thug’s name and put in a call to Damian hoping to get him in person.

“Hey Natalie, how did your meeting with your detective go?”

“It went well. He’s getting a search warrant, and bringing in both the gang and covert operations folks to see if we can kill three birds with one stone.”

“Covert operations?”

“That’s the new age name for cops that go undercover concerning illicit drugs.”

“Oh, I guess I haven’t watched enough cop dramas recently.”

“Damian, I was shot at in the parking lot at the headquarters and,”

“What! Are you hurt? Which hospital are you at?”

“Damian I’m fine thanks to you. In fact, I haven’t told my husband about the incident, I’m so fine. I need a new water gun; yours worked perfectly, but they confiscated it as evidence. That is after they all got done laughing at a retired girl detective running around with a plastic water gun. I’d also like to see what you can find on a guy named ‘Michael O’Brien’. He was the thug arrested for shooting at me.”

“No problem, I have a spare or two here. I can’t get off the island today, but I can use my drone to drop it at the marina and then have Uber pick it up and deliver it to you. Do you want it delivered to your home or office?”

“Home, and thanks.”

“As for your thug, give me half an hour and I’ll see what I can find. Is that O’Brian with an ‘A’ or O’Brien with an ‘E’.”

“It’s an ‘E’, he was Caucasian, about 5’9” tall, tattoos all over his face and body and somewhere between twenty and thirty years of age, and quite creepy looking.”

“Got it! Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes, we fired at each other, and his shot went wide. He laughed when he saw the lime green plastic gun, but he isn’t laughing now. Last I saw him, he was moaning and crying over that pepper juice recipe that you advised me to use. You know I’ve carried that gun around since you gave it to me over two years ago and never had occasion to use it. My former co-workers were having a hard time not laughing at the water gun, but I wonder how many of them will go home and arm their spouses with your ingenious weapon.”

“So they can’t accuse you of aggravated assault, right?”

“Nope, the thug’s actions were caught on the security video and it’s clear he stalked me, ignored my order ‘to freeze’, and then fired first. Until they saw the security footage my fellow officers had laughed about my silly bright green water gun, now I’m free and clear of any part of this drama. I just don’t recognize this guy or the name, but he must be connected to me somehow.”

The moment they hung up, Damian called Mike and fortunately he was at the marina and could collect the package. Then he went down to his workshop to collect a water pistol. This one would be princess pink, which should make Natalie laugh. He purchased a variety of kid’s water guns and then ran them through a series of tests to determine which was the strongest gun. Once he settled on a brand, he modified the gun in a variety of ways. He’d covered it with a light, but strong polymer that made the gun stronger; allowing it not to be damaged by the pepper spray juice, and allowed him to form a better nozzle for more precise aim and power in the spray. The water gun was like putting a Ferrari engine in a Ford Pinto; it looked ugly and frail on the outside but it could do just fine in the heat of battle as Natalie just proved. He went outside with his package and the drone. Perhaps once a year he tried to fly something over to Mike. It was always something small and the camera on the bottom of the drone did a fairly good job of directing the drone so it didn’t run into a boat if it was too low or a small plane/helicopter if it was too high. Twenty minutes later he managed to drop it on the deck of Mike’s boat. The driver would pick it up within the hour.

Natalie next made the call to her husband to tell him about the day. He was grateful to Damian for creating Natalie’s weapon and even more glad to know that she was getting a new weapon the same day. He would have laughed at the thought of her pointing a bright green water gun at someone except it was his wife who’d been shot at. He laughed at it the first time he saw it and laughed again when he watched her put it into a holster. He’d laugh no more and would instead check that she always had it with her. Natalie got a text from Damian telling her the new weapon was on its way. She’d have to make a new recipe of pepper juice for it and find some time to practice aiming and shooting, but otherwise she was good to go.

Damian went to work on finding out who Michael O’Brien was. The last name was Irish and it was spelled with an ‘e’ usually. He’d already served time in prison and had been released about a month ago after time served. He was twenty-four and served time for burglary and narcotics. His arrest was made after Natalie left the force. What was the kid’s connection to Natalie? It was time to look at his family; maybe there was a brother or sister that Natalie arrested.

Then Damian leaned back and put his hands over his eyes.