She looked at Peralta. “You always said I was the best.”
“Then do it.”
26
Peralta took Lindsey and Sharon outside while I called Artie Dominguez at the Sheriff’s Office.
“How’s the best detective in the department?”
His usual ebullient laugh was subdued. “David. Long time, long time. What’s it like working one-on-one with the Big Man every day?”
“You can imagine.” I asked him how he was. He snorted.
“He’s missed,” he said. “I might come be a private dick myself soon. You won’t believe how fucked up things are. Let’s say command these days isn’t very friendly if you have a last name like Dominguez. I used to get the best homicides. Lately, I’ve been on auto theft.”
“No shit.”
“Real shit, man. Twenty-five years and this is what I get. They’re out there playing Border Patrol and everything else has gone to hell. Response times are way down. Serious cases are going untouched. The jail’s a mess. Wait until you read about the El Mirage sex cases we’re not investigating. But rounding up the campesinos standing outside Home Depot makes the old farts in Sun City and the East Valley feel safer. Sucks.”
“Can you run a couple of names through NCIC and ViCAP for me?”
“Sure. It’ll take a couple of days so I can do it without my new boss asking questions.”
I gave him Larry Zisman and Bob Hunter. He was aggravated with me that I didn’t have Social Security numbers and dates of birth. That would mean more work.
“If it makes you feel any better, I have a list of about sixty names with SS nu
mbers that I’d like to email you at home and have you check, too. I know it’ll take time.”
“Damn, Mapstone. We ought to set you up down here with a desk.”
“You know how that would go over with the new guy.”
He sighed like a martyr.
“I’ll owe you,” I added.
“I’ll add it to your tab. That it?”
Not quite. I wanted him to check ViCAP—the massive FBI database—for suspicious deaths involving young women falling bound from high places. Extra points if they were high-priced prostitutes. And Claymore mine explosions.
After a pause. “Was that you in San Diego?”
“Yep.”
“Fuck me,” he said. “I thought you guys were going to be peeping on unfaithful husbands.”
“You know Peralta would get bored with that in an hour or less.”
“True,” he said. “Watch your ass, David.”
Then I went into the Danger Room to review the footage of the outside security cameras. I backed it up until it showed a new sedan pull in the dirt beside the south fence. It was a white Chevy Impala. A man got out and looked around. He was young and Anglo with a high-and-tight haircut, shaved on the sides with a weed-like tuft on top. Put him in a military uniform and give him a stolen Claymore and things started to come together. He was no vagrant.
I watched as he climbed on the Impala’s roof and expertly vaulted the fence, then walked to the carport. Switching to that camera, I saw him open the Prelude driver’s door and lean inside. He popped the seatback forward and climbed into the back. Next, he popped the trunk button and went back there. He was searching for the flash drive. He repeated the move on the passenger side, and then returned to the Impala, looked around again, and got inside.
Switching to the first camera, I saw him back out to leave and expose the license plate. Nevada. I zoomed in, made a screen shot, and printed it out. It was probably a rental car.
Sharon was standing behind me.