Nano

CHAPTER 54

Paul Caldwell used a friendly 411 dispatcher to find Mariel Spallek’s address on the city system when it turned out she wasn’t listed in any of the public records. She lived in an affluent town adjacent to Boulder, in a single-story rental building that was one of four attached units. The dispatcher had told Paul there were no other occupants listed at that specific address, a revelation that didn’t surprise Paul in the slightest.

“So now we’re here, what are we going to do?” said Paul, who parked fifty yards down the road, just in case. “Are you going to walk up to the front door and ring the bell?”

“Why not?”

“Didn’t you say you’ve met her? What are you going to do, say you just moved in next door and want a cup of sugar? Say you’ve joined the police department?”

“I don’t think I’m dressed for that.” George had gone to the store, but only added a pair of cheap sneakers to his frat-boy outfit of sweatpants and a T-shirt.

“I don’t know, I’ll think of something,” said George.

“According to Pia, she’s a pistol, George. You’re going to have to think of something good.”

“Let’s face it, Paul, at this time of day, she’s going to be at work. I’m counting on that.”

Before Paul could respond, George hopped out of Paul’s car and walked down the street and up to the door of Mariel’s apartment. The entrance was shielded from the neighbors by wooden fencing. He rang the bell three times and waited. There was no reply, and no barking dog to worry about. George then went next door to the apartment on the end of the row and rang that bell also, and again got no reply. If he had to bet, these apartments were all rented by single people. They had one-car garages, and the gardens were neat enough but untidy. There were no kids’ toys lying around and only one small garbage can in each entryway.

With calm that surprised him, George walked around the back of the building and saw that the yards were separated by fences that extended only as far as a wooded area in back, and were not closed off. No one has a dog, thought George. Good! He approached and clambered around the fence and into Mariel’s yard, then went to her back door, tried the handle, and when that didn’t open, he took a rock from the garden, smashed the glass above the handle and carefully let himself in. That was easy, he thought.

George looked for the alarm box a resident would use to switch the system off or on, but there wasn’t any. He then walked to the front door, opened it, and peered down the street, gesturing to Paul to come in. When Paul didn’t move, George jogged down the road to the driver’s side of Paul’s car.

“Are you crazy?” said Paul.

“Probably. Do you have any surgical gloves in the car? I’m going to wipe down what I touched already.”

“George, what about the neighbors? And an alarm?”

“There’s no alarm and I’d bet my last dollar there are no neighbors at this time of day. Come on, get the gloves, you’re wasting time. And come in and help.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Paul. “I’ll do anything to help, but it’s got to be within the law, George. You’re on your own on this one.” He got a pair of sterile surgical gloves and handed the package to George. He kept them in his car along with other medical equipment for roadside emergencies.

“Okay,” said George. “Keep a lookout. If she comes back, call me, or honk the horn, or something.”

Eric McKenzie and Chad Wells were three hours into their shift, tasked with following the Subaru with the distinctive roof racks and the two guys who’d shown up at Nano the previous day. At the briefing at Nano, the head of security said the men weren’t dangerous, and they weren’t to be approached. Just follow them and don’t get noticed.

The admonition to remain incognito was what struck Chad when they saw the Subaru turn into the entrance gate of a well-to-do subdivision after having been parked for more than an hour at their old stomping ground at police HQ.

“Why did you stop?” said Eric after Chad pulled over. The Subaru had gone ahead out of sight.

“Look at this place. Rows and rows of houses, no traffic. They’re going to spot us right away.”

“So what?”

“So the boss told us not to get spotted, dumbass. We’re not paid to think, which is a damn good thing in your case. It would be hard to live on six dollars a week.”

“Very funny.”

“So you better start walking,” said Chad.

“What?”

“Get in there and see if you can see them. I’ve been here before. This is the only entrance. I’ll radio base and tell them where they went, see if they can figure out who they might be visiting.”

“The radio still works if the car’s moving, you know,” said Eric.

“Out!”

“Goddamn this job,” said Eric out loud ten minutes later. “Who’d live out here anyways? Streets all the same, no one around. Half these places look empty.” Of the Subaru, there was no sign, which was little surprise, given the size of the development. But McKenzie walked on, overheating in the afternoon sun. He cursed having to wear his sport coat in the heat of the day, too, so that the pistol he wore wouldn’t be visible.

His radio connected to an earpiece crackled to life.

“Eric, where are you?”

“Dunno, I’m on a street that looks the same as the last one.”

“Well, find a cross street and tell me what it’s called. The geniuses back at HQ have figured out who these knuckleheads are here to see.”

“Okay, I’m at Franklin and Jackson.”

“Okay, don’t move. See you in five.”

Wearing the latex gloves, George went through Mariel’s apartment methodically. He found some files in an unlocked drawer, but they were all personal, one for the car, one for the washer-dryer, and so on. George’s phone rang and he dropped the file.

“Find anything?” said Paul.

“Is she coming?” said George.

“No, no one’s coming, I’m just checking in.”

“Well, don’t. I nearly jumped out of my skin. I’m still looking.” George ended the call.

Eric stopped the car down the street as far from Mariel’s house as the doctor’s car, which was parked on the other side. Through his binoculars, he could see someone sitting in the Subaru.

“There’s one in the car, so I guess the other one’s in the house. Must have got in. They said these guys were doctors or something. I didn’t think doctors did break-ins.”

“So why did you stop down here?” said Chad. “Let’s just grab the guy.” He was always ready for a fight.

“Hold your horses,” said Eric. “I’m going to call it in to Nano.”

“How boring is that?” said Chad, who fidgeted in his seat while Eric had a quick conversation with the head of security.

“We’re going to call the police,” he told Chad after finishing the call. “Those are our instructions. The boss said there’s nothing incriminating at this house — the woman is too careful to bring anything important home with her. So the guy can stay in there and search as long as he wants, he won’t find anything. If the police catch them, they’ll be arrested, and that should stop them playing amateur detective. If we go in there and sort them out, it’ll just make them look harder. If they have the balls. These guys really have no idea what they’re doing.”

“Well, that’s disappointing.”

“Sure, I know. If they don’t give up, then it’s our turn to have a word next, so don’t sulk about it. Now, call your pal in the department and give them the details. This is the address.”

Chad handed Eric a piece of paper.

Paul looked at his watch and shifted in his seat, George had been inside about twenty-five minutes. Paul checked his mirror — there was a car parked down the street that hadn’t been there a minute earlier, which stood out since there had not been any traffic whatsoever. How long had it been there? Paul strained to see if anyone was sitting in the car. He thought he could see at least one figure in the car. He called George again.

“George, a car pulled up down the street behind me and parked. Actually I didn’t see it come. Just noticed it now.”

“In front of here?”

“No, but I think there are two men in the car. I think. Actually I can only see one for sure. But it seems a little worrisome.”

“But they’re not moving?”

“No.”

“There has to be something in here,” said George. “This woman is involved in it up to her armpits.”

“George, get out of there. You’ve been in there too long.”

“One more minute,” George said, and clicked off.

Paul was beside himself. The one minute stretched to two, then three, then five. Paul was perspiring heavily. He turned on the engine to get the air conditioner going. He thought he could hear the car down the street follow suit. Paul was fixated on watching the other car in his rearview mirror. Then, in the distance, he could see another vehicle approaching. Paul had a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. He knew it — it was a police car. He quickly speed dialed George again.

George was stretched out on the floor, his arm extended way out, reaching under the couch. His phone rang again and he was exasperated — Paul was being a real pain. He stood up and glanced out of the window and saw movement. As he walked toward the front of the room, he saw the police cruiser pull up right in front of Mariel’s walkway out to the street.

“Oh, shit,” he said, and raced back toward the kitchen door, moving as if his life depended on it, running down the yard and out into the wooded area behind Spallek’s house. Despite the undergrowth and young trees, he tore along, making good progress. After a couple of minutes, he stopped and looked back the way he had come. He called Paul.

When George didn’t answer his last call and two uniformed police officers got out of the car and walked up toward Mariel’s front door, Paul pulled away from the curb very slowly. He looked back, and the Malibu that had been parked behind him followed at a distance. Paul expected sirens to blare and to be pulled over, but it didn’t happen. He now thought the Malibu was an unmarked police car. He was holding the phone in his hand when it went off.

“George!”

“I’m out back in the woods. What’s going on?” George was out of breath.

“The cops went in the house and I’m being followed by that car that showed up. But they can’t be cops, because they’d have stopped me.”

“Just drive toward home. They must be Nano security.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Who else could it be? Look, I need to keep walking.” George terminated the call. He pushed through the undergrowth for another ten minutes before reaching a minor road. He followed the sun and after twenty minutes of walking in the shadows came to a junction. He called Paul again, who answered, using his hands-free device.

“I’m at a road,” said George. “No one’s coming for me, it doesn’t look like.”

“Thank God!”

“Are you still being followed?”

“I don’t know, George. I don’t see that car. This is making me feel totally sick. And I’m supposed to be at work in an hour.”

“You go,” said George. “I can get my coordinates from the phone. I’ll call a cab and see you later.”

“You’re very calm about all this,” said Paul.

“I think we learned a lot just now. Someone is following us, right? It has to be Nano. If Pia wasn’t right about there being a conspiracy going on there, why would they bother?”

“So you have a plan for what we should do next?”

“No. But we need help.”

“Obviously. But who’s going to help us?”

“I don’t know, Paul, I really don’t.”