Love me to death

FOURTEEN

Noah had spent more time than he’d planned at Quantico talking to Kate and the cybercrimes task force about the files they’d recovered from Morton’s computer. That had been followed by a conference-call briefing with Hans Vigo and Rick Stockton. When he finally broke away well after the lunch hour, Abigail had a sandwich waiting for him, which he ate during their drive to the Triple Tree Motel near Dulles Airport.

The manager, Paul Grunelli, was a scrawny guy in his fifties with stringy, thinning gray hair and the aroma of a heavy smoker. He looked up from his television when Noah and Abigail entered the motel’s small, dingy office.

“Room?” he asked.

Noah flashed his badge. “Questions.”

Grunelli turned back to the television with a shrug. “Ask.”

“Turn the TV off, please, Mr. Grunelli,” Abigail said.

“I don’t want to miss-”

“We can ask the questions in the quiet interview room of FBI headquarters, if you’d prefer,” Noah said.

“Fuck,” Grunelli mumbled, but he turned off the television. “What?”

Abigail slid a picture of Morton across the counter. “This man registered early in the morning on January sixth, according to your logs. He paid for three days in cash up front, used the name Cliff Skinner. Do you remember him?”

Grunelli shrugged.

“He never checked out,” Noah added.

“Oh, him.” He narrowed his eyes at them. “Weren’t one of your people here yesterday picking up his crap from the room?”

“That would be me,” Abigail said. “But your relief manager hadn’t actually seen Mr. Morton, said you’d checked him in and had been working that weekend. He was in room 103-you can see it from your chair there.”

“If the blinds are open,” Grunelli added.

Noah didn’t have patience for the back-and-forth with a jerk like Grunelli. “Morton was killed in Alexandria less than two days after he checked in. We’re retracing his steps. When did you see him?”

“Dead, eh? Well-he checked in at eight-something on Thursday, which I noted in the log. And he was gone most of the day after that. Came back that night, then left again Friday morning. Didn’t see him after that.”

“How did he get here? Taxi?”

Grunelli shook his head. “Car.”

“Rental?” They hadn’t heard back from the rental companies yet.

“Probably, I didn’t check.”

“Did you write down the plates?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Oh, I don’t know, many motels do it for security, so only guests park in their lot.”

Grunelli barked out a laugh. “Like I have that problem. Don’t know the plates, can’t tell you the make. It was white, that’s all I remember. Foreign sedan-type. Like a Toyota Corolla or Honda or something.”

Noah made a note to stop at Dulles, the most likely place that Morton had rented a car. The analysts had looked for a rental, but if Morton used a name other than his own or Cliff Skinner, they might not have tracked it down yet. Sometimes face-to-face interviews could yield better information, faster.

“And the last time you saw Morton was when he drove away on Friday morning. What time?”

“Before lunch. I don’t know when. He’d paid up; I didn’t think much about him until he didn’t check out on Sunday. By three, I had to haul my ass to his room. He wasn’t there. I boxed his stuff and that was it.”

“Did Morton have any visitors while he was here?”

“No.” Grunelli frowned and looked down.

“Do you remember something?” Abigail asked.

“The car. I thought I saw his car in the lot early Saturday morning. I mean, real early, like two or three. I was outside having a smoke, upstairs on my deck-the owner gets all anal about me smoking inside. It was fucking cold, but I couldn’t sleep. And I saw the car. I hadn’t heard it come in, so I was like just watching and smoking and this guy left room 103.”

“Morton?”

“No. Another guy. Not as big as Morton. Different shape, but I couldn’t tell you if he was taller or shorter or whatever. It was dark. I just knew it wasn’t the guy who rented the room, and he got into the white car and drove off. That was the last time I saw the car.”

“And you weren’t suspicious?”

“Hell no. The guests here have people come and go all the time. As long as they’re not loud or fighting, they mind their business and I mind my business.”

“And you’re certain it was the same car?”

He shrugged. “No, but I don’t get many people driving brand-new cars into this place, unless it’s a rental, and most of the guests here don’t drive rentals, either.”

When they stepped out of Grunelli’s squalid office, Noah said to Abigail, “Contact Vigo and get an administrative warrant in the works for the rental agencies. Once we ID the company, we’ll want all the logs and GPS tracking, if they have it.”

“Most do these days.”

“It should be pretty straightforward.” Noah pulled out his phone. It had vibrated several times during his conversation with Grunelli.

“Donovan has been ringing me.” He called Kate right back. “It’s Noah.”

“Robbie Ralston, one of Morton’s closest associates from the old days, is dead.”

“Ralston?” Noah didn’t remember the name.

“He was a low-level pimp, but provided a steady stream of girls for Trask and Morton back when Trask Enterprises was mostly legal. I ran him while waiting for you to call me back. He served a few years in prison, was on disability, and get this-he had a ticket bought and paid for to Miami last Sunday.”

Noah was confused. “He was killed in Miami?”

“No, he was killed in his apartment. He never made the flight.”

“Send me the information-I’ll head over there immediately. Who’s on scene?”

“No one yet. I have an ERT unit standing by.”

“Why didn’t you call the local police?”

“Sean Rogan found the body.”

Rogan? “What?”

He must have sounded as pissed off as he felt, because Kate quickly said, “Talk to him. He called me because he didn’t have your number.” She paused, then said, “Sean’s looking into Morton’s past because my family asked him to.”

“And you knew?”

“I just found out. After all, Patrick is his partner, and Patrick is out of town and worried about the situation. Sean called me as soon as he found the body. He’s not screwing around.”

A Rogan in the middle of his investigation was not what Noah wanted.

“Noah?”

“Where’s Rogan now?”

“At the scene.”

“I’m on my way.”

Sean stood outside Ralston’s building while the FBI’s Evidence Response Team did their forensic work upstairs. He supposed he had Kate to thank that he wasn’t officially detained, but while he waited for Agent Noah Armstrong to arrive he called Jayne instructing her to dig deeper into Ralston and Morton’s history, focusing on shared connections. Clearly, Ralston’s murder was no coincidence.

Why had Sergey Yuran sent him here? Did the Russian trafficker know that Ralston was dead? Had he killed him when the deal into the online sex trade went south? It didn’t seem to be up Yuran’s alley-he was ruthless, but this wasn’t his M.O.-and the smashed computer was a sign that Ralston had information that the killer didn’t want getting out.

Or was there something more here? Who else had Ralston talked to about Morton’s deal? And who ultimately bought into the scheme? Had Morton and Ralston cut out an unknown partner? Taken the money and run? Ralston had the suitcase, Morton had violated his probation-there was something just out of reach. He needed more information. But there was no doubt in his mind that Morton and Ralston’s murders were connected. He’d inspected the body and the guy had been dead for several days. The cold apartment slowed decomp, but Sean knew enough about forensics that the coroner could account for ambient temperature and give a good range for time of death.

An elderly black woman with a small Pomeranian in her purse and a canvas grocery bag over her shoulder turned the corner and walked slowly down the damp sidewalk toward Sean. He covered the distance quickly and said, “Let me help.”

She smiled, revealing perfect teeth that didn’t quite look real. “Thank you, young man.” She handed him her grocery bag.

Sean put his hand on her elbow. “Where are you going?”

She gestured toward Ralston’s building. “The first-floor apartment on the right.”

The entrance was only about 150 feet away, but it took several minutes to reach the front stoop. The little dog stared at Sean but didn’t bark. “Cute dog.” Not his type of pet, but he figured the woman was a possible witness.

“She’s a little bitch, but I like her.”

Sean suppressed a grin.

The woman glanced at him as she climbed the front step. “You’re not from here.”

“No. There was a homicide upstairs.”

She shook her head and sighed. “I’m not surprised. Two B or Three D?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Three D.”

“Robbie. I hadn’t seen him this week.”

“Did you know he was planning a trip?”

“He don’t like me.”

“Why not? He must not have been friendly.”

“He don’t like blacks. He tolerated me. I own this building.” She winked, then took another step and leaned against Sean. Her hand was tight with arthritis.

“Doesn’t the grocery deliver?”

She laughed. “Here? Naw. I go out once a week, and my granddaughter comes by every Wednesday to take me to bingo and brings my medicine and groceries. But sometimes I need a few other things. Look in the bag.”

Sean did. There was a fifth of Scotch-good stuff, too, not the cheap rotgut-and a pack of Marlboro Lights, along with a small steak.

“Missy won’t buy me liquor.” She shook her head in disgust. “It’s not like I’m an alcoholic-one shot a night. And she won’t buy me steak, neither. Says it’s not good for my arteries. And don’t get me started on the cigarettes. I’m eighty-nine years old, dammit, and I don’t much care if I see ninety. I don’t think one damn cigarette a day is going to kill me.”

“I’m Sean Rogan,” he said as he helped her onto the final step. “I’m a private investigator, and very pleased to meet you, Mrs.-”

“Tessie. Call me Tessie, everyone does. You have questions about Robbie?”

“I do, in fact.”

He held open the door that led to the small lobby of the row house. She walked to the door with 1A painted in white.

“Who’s upstairs? I didn’t see any police cars.”

“The FBI.”

She turned and craned her neck up to look at him, eyes wide. “The FBI? Well, Robbie did get himself into a little situation, didn’t he? Was he playing both sides?”

“Both sides?”

Tessie laughed. “He was an informant, you know. Used to be, anyhow. Come on in, I’ll tell you all about him. Did you know he used to be a pimp? Yep, I’ve lived here forty-six years, Robbie moved in-oh, nineteen ninety-three. Four? Was in prison once, but paid his rent so I aired out his place once a week.”

“He paid his rent from prison?”

She shrugged. “His cop did.”

His cop. Sean was very interested in who this cop was, and what kind of information Ralston gave him that paid the rent on a place for however many months Ralston was in prison.

Tessie continued as she pushed open the door. “He’d get drunk and blah blah blah. Didn’t know what to believe, but after a while I learned to tell his bullshit from the truth.”

Sean stepped into her immaculate but overheated apartment. He’d hit the jackpot with information and hoped Agent Armstrong didn’t get his panties in a wad about him talking to a potential witness. But one thing Sean knew about Feds is that they didn’t share information, and if he was going to help Lucy he needed to know everything they knew.

Noah walked upstairs to Ralston’s third-floor apartment and met Agent Dale Jarvis, the head of the ERT unit. “What have you learned?” Noah asked as he assessed the apartment.

Jarvis walked Noah through the scene. “No sign of forced entry. As you can see, the computer is destroyed. The UNSUB removed the hard drive from the box and smashed it. We’ve collected all the pieces, but most of the circuits and chips are completely destroyed. There’s no salvaging it, but we’ll run it by our tech people. They’ve been known to perform miracles, on occasion.”

“I’ll get a warrant for his ISP to check browsing history and any external storage sites he might have.”

Jarvis looked around the room. “And the place was searched, but not extensively. Possibly the killer was looking for something and found it.” He walked down the short, narrow hall to the small bedroom. Ralston’s body was prone at the foot of the sagging double bed. A suitcase was open on it.

“He had a plane ticket for Miami he never used,” Noah said.

“No sign of defensive wounds, but my guess is he was pushed down.” Jarvis gestured toward the victim’s hands with a laser pen. “He fell or was pushed while holding something-and if you follow the likely trajectory …”

Noah followed the thin red beam to the base of the open closet, where several bottles of pills had rolled to a stop. One had opened, spilling small, oval-shaped pills every which way. Jarvis pointed behind him. “The bathroom is there. The vic grabs his meds, comes back to the bedroom, walking toward the closet, is pushed down from behind. Drops the pills, is shot without hesitation.”

“Why do you say that?”

“The vic didn’t move his hands; they are laying as someone would fall.”

“Silencer? Wouldn’t someone in the building hear a gunshot?”

“Yeah, that’s my guess. We’ll know more when we get the bullet out. It’s in there. Two entry wounds, but they’re close. Based on the location, either bullet would have done the job.”

“Pro?”

“Silent entry, no disturbance, bullet to the back of the head and destroyed computer?”

Noah nodded and left the bedroom. “Find anything else? Motive?”

“You know what I do about his background. He has no arrests since his last stint eight years ago. On disability. Kept under the radar.”

“Abigail is running a full background on him, pulling financials, travel-he was an associate of the dead guy at the Washington Marina.”

“I heard.” Jarvis looked at him pointedly. “Hard not to hear when the assistant director himself takes an interest in the case.”

So much for discretion. “What did Rogan say about finding the body?”

“Said the door was unlocked.”

“Right.”

Jarvis shrugged. “Could have been, or he’s good at picking locks.”

“I’d go with the latter.”

“He noted that the apartment was unusually cold, saw the computer destroyed, and checked on the well-being of any occupants.”

Why had Sean Rogan been here in the first place? “Where is he now?”

“Downstairs.”

“I didn’t see him.”

“He said he’d wait for you.” Jarvis looked out the window. “His car is still here.”

“I’ll find him.”

Sean thanked Tessie for the coffee and cookies-he had a weak spot for homemade sweets, and the oatmeal cookies were amazing-and stepped into the small lobby. He saw one of the ERT guys coming down the stairs.

“Hey Rogan, Agent Armstrong has been looking for you.”

“I’ve been right here.” He attempted to sound innocent.

Sean followed the ERT dude out to the street. The coroner’s van pulled up and double-parked. Sean tried to pick out Noah Armstrong among the assembled agents. It wasn’t hard when one suit strode over with a tight jaw. “Where have you been?”

“It was cold outside,” he said, not liking the instant hostility of the Fed. “The landlady invited me in for coffee.” And an earful. “Agent Armstrong, I presume.”

The Fed nodded curtly. “Why were you here in the first place?”

“As I told Kate, I’m just making sure that Lucy Kincaid is safe. Do you know why Morton was in town? Whether he had a partner? Whether he was working with Ralston?”

“We’re pursuing all leads, but I will remind you that this is a federal investigation.”

“I might have some information that can help in your federal investigation.”

“I’d suggest you share any and all information pertaining to this matter. I don’t have to tell you that withholding information from law enforcement is an obstruction of justice, and your P.I. license isn’t going to protect you. You’re on thin ice here, Rogan.”

Sean frowned. This guy was a lot more hostile than he should be. He seemed to not like Sean at all, which was unusual because Sean usually made a good impression-unless he didn’t want to.

“Look, Armstrong, we’re on the same team, for the most part. We both want to make sure that Lucy isn’t in any danger from whatever shit Morton was doing in D.C. before he got himself killed.”

“What is your interest in this other than your association with the Kincaids?”

“My interest? It’s my business. But you know that already.”

“What were you doing in Ralston’s apartment?”

Sean forced himself to relax. “I knew that Ralston was one of Morton’s associates and wanted to talk to him, that’s all. Like I said, my job is to make sure Lucy isn’t in danger. I needed to assess whether any of Morton’s associates were a threat to her.”

“You’re her bodyguard.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“What would you say?”

“Exactly what I did say. Roger Morton died in the same area where one of his victims lived,” Sean said firmly. “That’s not a coincidence. If he had plans to harm Lucy, or had a partner-I need to find out.”

“That’s my job.”

“No, your job is to find out who killed the bastard. My job is to make sure Lucy is safe. It’s what I do, hence the ‘protective services’ after ‘Rogan-Caruso-Kincaid.’ ”

“You all think you’re above the law,” Armstrong said.

“What?” Sean had sensed that Armstrong didn’t like him, but this sounded as though he knew him.

Armstrong didn’t respond, but said, “Did you touch or take anything from the apartment?”

“No-just the doorknob.” He grinned. “Scout’s honor.”

Armstrong wasn’t amused. “I’d appreciate it if you’d leave the investigation to me, and guard Ms. Kincaid’s person, instead of attempting to interview my witnesses.”

Sean wanted to leave and let the Fed try to get the information about Ralston out of Tessie. That was his job, right? But that kind of knee-jerk reaction was what had gotten Sean in trouble in the past, and he was trying to curb the tendency.

So he bit back his initial reaction, and said as casually and conciliatorily as he could, “I had an interesting conversation with the landlady. She’s known Ralston for nearly twenty years.”

“You talked to a witness?”

“I helped her with her groceries. We chatted.”

Armstrong stared at him in disbelief. “Chatted.”

“She invited me in for cookies.”

“And milk?”

“Coffee.” Sean grinned. Playing with Mister Special Agent Armstrong was getting fun. “I can introduce you if you’d like.”

“Cut the crap, Rogan.”

Sean straightened, mimicking a soldier at attention. Just the facts. “The last time Tessie remembers seeing Ralston was Wednesday night, when her granddaughter walked in after their weekly bingo date. However, she heard him in the lobby Friday morning arguing with another man. She didn’t go out-she was still in her pajamas-but she was getting ready to call the cops when the visitor left and Ralston stomped up the stairs.”

“Friday,” Armstrong said flatly.

“She also knows a lot about Ralston’s rap sheet, which I’m sure you’ve already pulled. But the one thing you might not know yet is that Ralston was an informant.”

Sean hid his enjoyment as he watched Armstrong react to the information.

“Informant.”

“Do you ever speak in complete sentences?” Sean jibed.

Armstrong stepped forward, a vein pulsing in his jaw, and Sean didn’t budge, but he realized there was something more going on between him and Armstrong than he knew.

“What branch were you in?” Sean asked, changing the subject.

Armstrong didn’t blink. “Air Force. Ravens.”

Security force. They worked heavily in South and Central America, where Sean’s brother Kane had the strongest influence. Had his oldest brother messed with this former Raven?

“You were never in the armed forces,” Armstrong said with disdain.

Sean needed to call Duke to find out … but he didn’t want to pull in his brother. It had been hard enough to get Duke to let him and Patrick open up RCK East and slide out from under the auspices of their controlling brothers. He’d find out more about Noah Armstrong through his own sources. And whatever the problem was, it had nothing to do with Lucy or this case.

“No, I never served. But I do fly.”

“Do you?”

“You probably already know that.”

Armstrong didn’t comment.

“Ralston was an informant for the D.C. police for years, as long as Tess has known him. The cop’s name was Jerry Biggler. Know him?”

“No. But I will.”