The Night Watchman (12 page)

22

I
FUMBLED WITH MY CANE
and stood, wobbling. A secretary with her arms loaded with notepads passed by and gazed at me next to Oscar's desk. As soon as she left, I sat back down. I typed a quick e-mail to the IT supervisor, Doug Farnham.

Doug,

Could you reinstate Ray Quinn's username and password to the department uplink as well as his e-mail account? He'll be doing follow-up work for some of his old cases coming up for trial in the next few months. Could you also send your response to this request on my personal e-mail at
[email protected]
? I'll be working from home a lot this week.

Thanks,
Sergeant Yancey

No going back now. I deleted the e-mail from his Sent folder as well as the record of the file I sent myself. That would provide me at least some cover, but it was still a big risk. If Doug courtesy copied Oscars work e-mail as well as the one I had set up, I was toast. I'd think of an excuse later, maybe a medication switch that made me a little loopy.

The hallway door opened again. I made my way back to my seat and parked my rear in the chair just as Oscar entered the room.

“Here you go, Ray.” He handed me the folder. “They had the paperwork waiting right there.”

His sympathetic smile elicited a flicker of guilt that faded quickly. I could have approached Oscar with everything going on and asked him to help. But knowing the bad blood between Pampas and me and that the case had been closed, it would be next to impossible to get the access I needed. And I still had no idea about the cop connection to this case. If I divulged any of that to Oscar, he'd be obligated to tell Internal Affairs and everyone in the chain of command. He might as well broadcast it in the department newsletter. I'd make it up to him, though, maybe with dinner or something.

“Well, I need to get going. I really appreciate your help, and it was good seeing you again.”

“Whatever you need, Ray. When you have more time, let's do lunch. I've still got more things we need to kick around.”

“Yeah, we'll do that.”

Oscar escorted me to the back door. Steve, Greg, and Pampas huddled in the hallway as we walked out.

Everyone said their good-byes, but just before I turned and walked away, I asked Pampas, “Rick, whatever happened with that case at the Coral Bay?”

“I would've thought with all the free time you have now you would read the papers more. Murder-suicide.”

“So they were having an affair, the pastor and his girlfriend?”

“She was a dancer at a strip club and had a history of prostitution,” Rick said. “What do you care?”

“Just curious, I suppose. I find it interesting that I'd never seen her at the condo before, and neither had anyone else in Security. If she was his girlfriend and he was so crazy over her that he'd kill her, it's just a little odd that he didn't have her over to his place often enough to be noticed.”

Pampas's eyes narrowed at me, knowing full well I had some knowledge of the case and was probing for more. “They could have met anywhere. He was a pastor. Not real likely he'd take her home to mother, if you know what I mean.”

“So you say.”

Pampas eyed me hard as Oscar walked me out the door. I'd hit a nerve, but I didn't feel bad about it.

“Why are you always messing with Rick?” Oscar said as we made it to my truck. “You need to let bygones be bygones. It's not good to let these things fester. It'll only tear you apart.”

“Has he solved Trisha's murder yet?” I didn't care about the attempted murder on me, but Trish deserved better.

Oscar hissed, removed his glasses, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You know the leads have run out and the case has gone cold. That's not Rick's fault. Whatever you might think of Pampas, he busted his tail like everybody else when that went down. We probably put a hundred people in jail for any charge we could find, including that scumbag Dante Hill. Rick and I worked him over good, but he wouldn't confess to nothing. Nobody's talking about this. You can't make evidence appear from the air. You need to let that go.”

“I'll let it go when Pampas finds her killer.” I eased into the truck but kept the door open. I didn't need to hear his excuses for Pampas.

He did arrest Dante Hill, the guy whose house Trisha and I were shot at, but Dante was only arrested for possessing two firearms as a convicted felon and a load of cocaine. He denied any involvement in the shooting, and no evidence linked him to it, other than that it happened in his front yard.

“If all the other leads have dried up, maybe Rick could start by finding that witness,” I said. I really didn't want to get into the shooting with Oscar or anyone else, but when I'd decided to come to the station, I knew it would inevitably come up.

Oscar rested his hand on the roof and leaned in. “We all scoured that neighborhood. Some people heard the shots, but no one saw what you said you saw.”

“Didn't you read my statement? Someone knelt between us and stayed there until the first officers arrived. That person had to have been there the whole time. As soon as I hit the ground, he was right there. He put a hand on my shoulder. I know what I saw, what I felt.”

“I've been over your statement a hundred times,” Oscar said. “And we've done everything we can to find that person, but you know how that neighborhood is. People don't often come forward to help us out. And—Never mind.”

“What?” I said, not liking his tone.

“You'd lost a lot of blood. You should have died too.”

“What are you saying, Oscar? That I don't know what I saw? I can't be relied on as a witness because of that?”

“Are you still seeing the psychologist?”

“Does it matter?”

“Look, Ray, posttraumatic stress disorder is nothing to play with. It kills more cops than any bad guys out there. The department pays for the visits, so use them.”

“What does that have to do with Pampas not following up on the witness?”

“You went through hell that day. Trisha was murdered right in front of you, and you were nearly killed yourself. I'm just saying that maybe as you were going unconscious, you thought you saw someone who wasn't really there. With everything else going on, that's not impossible.”

“I know what happened that day. I know it so well I can't get it out of my head. Someone else was there. There's a witness who saw the whole thing and can solve this. Pampas just needs to get off his keister and find him.”

“Okay I'll make sure Rick and our guys go door to door and canvass the neighborhood again. I promise.”

I didn't like it when Oscar patronized me, but I suppose after I just used him to get into the system, I couldn't be too put out. “That's all I ask.”

“So is that why you took Pampas to task on the condo murder?”

“It happened in my building. I'm just curious about it. Pampas might have overlooked things there too. You never know.”

Oscar cocked his head toward me and slapped the top of my truck twice. “Nice seeing you, Ray. Let's get together next week and I'll let you know about the progress with the witness.”

“Sounds good,” I said as I backed out of my spot. Oscar stayed put and didn't take his eyes off me as I pulled away.

It really didn't sound good. A witness to Trisha's murder was out there. Now Pampas had fumbled the Hendricks case as well. I'd avoided the station for a reason. I knew I couldn't show up without someone dragging me back to that day.

Sometimes I do hate it when I'm right.

23

M
Y CHARADE WITH
O
SCAR
proved fruitful as I checked my e-mail when I got back to my apartment. I received the confirmation from Doug Farnham on the Yahoo! account I set up for that purpose, and it hadn't been cc'd to Oscar's work e-mail. So far, so good.

I tried my remote password entry on the system, and it worked perfectly. I had full access to all the police databases and information galore. I ran a check for the name and alias of Tay which would search through all the reports and records for a match. I spelled it several different ways and came up with about a hundred possibilities. I saved them on my external hard drive and would get to them later.

I searched the Internet for several items I would need soon. As I made several pricey purchases, I came to the painful conclusion that at some point, financial debt was a little like treading water in the middle of the ocean—it doesn't matter if you're in a hundred feet of water or a thousand, you're still going to drown. So I clicked the Finish icon for my last round of online buys and sent them through, as the tide of my latest excesses surged well above my head.

I still had some of my cop gear with me from when I retired, or was retired. My digital recorders, a camera, binoculars, and bunches of little things. But the investigation would need more in-depth equipment if we were going to be successful. My new toys—a digital scanner for cell phones, several minicameras, audio surveillance equipment, a cell phone cloning unit, and some software to enhance my laptop—would be shipped to me within three days with a money-back guarantee.

My credit card should be just about ready to melt in my wallet.

I had a little time before my shift, so I rifled through the file and removed the subpoena for Jamie's phone records. I really needed to review them, but with only the subpoena for the records available, I would have to get a little… creative. I called Jamie's service provider's subpoena compliance center, a division that helps with law enforcement issues twenty-four hours a day. After an infuriating series of computer-generated options, I finally found a human to speak with.

“Subpoena compliance center, this is Derek. How can I help you?”

“Yes, this is Detective Ray Quinn with the Orlando Police Department. I was hoping you could help me with a problem.”

“I'll try.”

“I'm putting the finishing touches on a homicide case, and I see that we subpoenaed some phone records. I have the subpoena but not the records. Well, I'm looking to close this case out, and I really need the records as part of the packet. Is there any way you can resend them without a new subpoena? I can't afford to wait a couple more months to get this done.”

“Hmm,” Derek said. “I'm not sure. Can you give me your case number and the subpoena number?”

I gave them to him, even adding Jamie's name and date of birth for more credibility. I'd made calls like this a hundred times as a cop and never paid much attention. Now, I parsed every word and voice inflection from Derek to see if he suspected anything.

“I'll have to run this by my supervisor to see.”

“I understand. I can wait.”

Derek put me on hold, and I was treated to a Barry Manilow medley for several minutes. As Barry crooned about writing the songs the whole world sings, my spirit wasn't much in the mood for song and merriment. I wouldn't characterize myself as a liar, though my skills seemed to be improving daily.

As a police officer, I always used the term
bluff
, which was a euphemism for a lie. I made excuses for it, though it was for a legitimate investigation to do the greater good by catching bad guys. But as I held on the line, preparing my next round of stories for Derek, I wondered if at some point I would venture so far away from the truth that it would become unrecognizable. How many “bluffs” would I have to pull off to make this case? My flash of self-reflection was interrupted by Derek.

“Detective Quinn, I show that this information was sent out a month ago.”

“Yeah, I know. I had a junior detective taking care of that, and he lost the information. You know how it goes. It's government work—you can't fire anyone these days.”

“Believe me, I understand,” he said. “My supervisor advised that I can release the information again, but only the subscriber information and phone tolls that were covered in the original subpoena.”

“That would work great. You're a lifesaver.”

“I can mail them out today.”

“Derek, I hate to ask this, but is there any way I could get that in an electronic format, maybe by e-mail? I think that would be easier for both of us.”

“Not a problem. I'll send it out shortly.”

I gave him my newly reinstated OPD e-mail address. “Derek, you have a great day.”

“You too.”

Glad I could brighten Derek's day a little.

I wanted Jim to join me at my laptop in the living room, but I had to pull a shift at the condo in a couple of hours. Raising my arm over my head, I stretched out my ribs. My body still bore the aches and bruises from the beating. I didn't know if I would tell Helga about the fight. She might get jealous that someone else got to knock me around instead of her. Speaking of my fragile flower, since I missed my session with her yesterday, I hoped she didn't take it personally, or I'd feel her wrath at my next visit.

Settling back in my chair, I caught the ever-watchful eye of the Duke mounted on his steed. His stare confused me today. He didn't seem to know what to think of me now. We have that kind of relationship, going back to when I was very young.

The Duke and I first bonded when I lived with the Pearlmans. I stayed with them for about five months, and Mr. Pearlman remained in his chair in front of the television for most of the time I was there, John Wayne movies rolling along the screen. I don't remember Mr. Pearlman ever uttering a polysyllabic word. He communicated with Mrs. Pearlman through a series of grunts and hand gestures she understood without question, most of which revolved around bringing him another beer. He did, though, tolerate me in the room with him while he immersed himself into every single John Wayne movie ever made.

Before too long, I was captivated by the Duke. It didn't matter what character he played—from Davy Crockett to Sergeant Stryker to Rooster Cogburn—the Duke was always heroic and funny and he had a sense of right and wrong, black and white, that was unequaled. After my seventeen foster and group homes in fifteen years, the Duke was the one person in my life who remained consistent. He and I were traveling partners after that.

The bell chimed on my laptop. I clicked into my department e-mail. Jamie DeAngelo's phone records had arrived.

I had a lot to do before I headed into work. I needed to get through more of David and Jamie's e-mails, work through the list of Tays I downloaded, and review Jamie's cell phone calls. I hoped it would be a slow night at the condos.

I got dressed and prepared to load up the laptop to take with me. I couldn't wait any longer, so I opened the e-mail from Derek and saved Jamie's file to my hard drive: two months of her cell phone records, calls to and from, times and dates. The subscriber information—the person whom the phone was registered to—was at the top of the page. I blinked. Was I seeing things? Jamie's cell phone number was listed to a J & M Corporation.

I went to my room and checked the receipt I'd found in Chance's trash—J & M Corporation, one in the same. What was this J & M Corporation, and why was it paying for Jamie's phone?