Run Away

Chapter Sixteen

The entrance to Tattoos While U Wait was blocked off with old-school A-frame traffic barricades, the kind with slanted reflective orange-and-white stripes running across the horizontal beam.

Elena Ramirez spotted two fully emblazoned police cars plus two other vehicles that looked to be unmarked. She pulled her rental Ford Fusion with the overbearing cherry scent into the tattoo parlor’s entry between the highway and the barricades.

A cop frowned and started toward her.

“You’ll need to leave.”

“What’s going on here?”

“Please remove your car from the premises.”

Elena could wave her credentials, but they probably wouldn’t get her anyplace. She also had no idea what the situation was or why the police were here, and it was never a good idea to go in blind.

Time to do a little recon.

Elena thanked the officer, put the car in reverse, and got back onto the highway. She pulled off a hundred yards down the road at a Sonic Drive-In. She took out her phone and made some calls. It took maybe half an hour to get the details on the double murder from the day before.

The two victims were Damien Gorse, age twenty-nine, co-owner of the parlor, and eighteen-year-old Ryan Bailey, a high school senior who worked there part time. The initial report indicated that the two victims had been shot in a robbery gone wrong.

Wrong, Elena thought to herself, being the operative word.

She made a few more calls, waited, got the confirmation. Then she headed back down the highway and pulled up to those barricades. The same police officer moved one of them aside, so that she could pass. He pointed for her to park on the left. She nodded a thanks and did as requested.

Elena looked in her rearview mirror and tried on a sympathetic, we’re-all-in-this-together smile. Meh. This part would be a pain in the ass. Cops and egos. Tough recipe. Add in a dollop of territorial bullshit and customary dick swinging plus the rarity of landing a single murder case let alone a double murder, and Elena expected a shitshow of epic proportions.

A man Elena figured was midthirties, maybe forty, came out of the tattoo parlor’s front entrance, pulled off his crime scene gloves, and headed toward her. His stride was confident but not cocky. The guy was good-looking as hell. More lumberjack than pretty boy, what they used to call “rugged.” If she still had a type — and Elena had felt dead in that area since Joel’s death — this guy would be it.

The cop gave her a nod and a tight smile, an appropriate greeting under the circumstances.

“You must be Special Agent Ramirez,” the man said.

“Retired.”

She shook his hand. His hand was big. Like Joel’s. She felt another pang.

“I’m Detective Dumas. Everyone calls me Nap.”

“Nap,” she repeated, “like...?”

“A short sleep, yes.”

“I’m Elena. I work private now.”

“Yeah, my boss filled me in.”

“Would that be County Prosecutor Loren Muse?”

“It would.”

“I hear she’s good.”

“Yeah,” Nap said, “she is.”

No resentment in his tone at having a young woman over him. No faux virtual signaling over it either. Good signs.

Here was how it worked: Elena’s firm, VMB Investigations, was one of the most prestigious in the country, with offices in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and Houston. Investigators like those at VMB need access, so they donate generously to political campaigns and police benevolent groups of various stripes. One of her senior partners, Manny Andrews, was a big backer of the current governor. That governor is the one who named Loren Muse county prosecutor. So Manny Andrews calls the governor, the governor calls Muse, Muse in turn calls the lead detective on the case, Nap Dumas.

The message: Cooperate.

Nothing illegal. If you gasp at this sort of favor exchanging, you are hopelessly naïve. The world had always been a place of “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” When that breaks down, for better or worse, so does your society.

Cops often bristled at this particular back-scratch, however, which leads to the territorial dick swinging Elena had braced for. Nap Dumas seemed okay with it. For now.

“Follow me,” he said.

He began walking to the left side of the building. Elena, who still had the limp from a long-ago bullet, caught up with him.

“I just took over the case an hour ago,” Nap said, “so I’m still catching up myself.”

“I appreciate you letting me on the scene.”

A small, knowing smile came to Dumas’s lips. “No problem.”

Elena didn’t bother with a follow-up.

“Any chance you can tell me your interest in this?”

“I have a case,” Elena said. “There may be an overlap.”

“Whoa,” Dumas said, “let’s go easy on the specifics.”

She smiled at that. Up ahead Elena spotted a wood-paneled Ford Flex. Two crime scene technicians dressed all in white worked the scene.

“Can you tell me what kind of case?” he asked.

She pondered playing hardball, reminding him that his boss had already told him to cooperate and that she couldn’t talk about her case because it was attorney-client product, but that felt wrong here. This Nap guy seemed alright. More than that, actually. Good aura, Elena’s mother would tell her. Elena had always been skeptical of that stuff — first impressions, gut instincts — because, let’s face it, people can be complete psychos and fool you. But in truth, they rarely fooled Elena. As the years had gone on, she realized that her gut worked better than she imagined. The guys who gave her the creeps off the bat? They always ended up being creeps. The guys, the very few guys, who gave off this kind of positive aura? They ended up being trustworthy.

And Nap reminded her of Joel. Her Joel. God help her.

The pang moved to her heart and stayed there.

“Nap?”

He waited.

“I think it’s better if we wait,” Elena said.

“Oh?”

“I’m not going to keep anything from you,” Elena said, “but right now I’d like to hear what you think without any preconceptions.”

“Preconceptions,” Dumas repeated.

“Yes.”

“You mean like context and facts?”

“You seem like a straight shooter.”

“As do you.”

“Can we just play it my way for now?”

Nap hesitated but not for very long. He nodded his okay as they reached the Ford Flex and started right in: “The way we see it, the first shooting took place here, as Damien Gorse was getting in his car.”

“So Gorse was shot first?”

“We’re pretty sure, yeah.” Nap tilted his head. “Is that important?”

She didn’t reply.

He sighed. “Right. Preconceptions.”

“How many shooters?” Elena asked.

“We don’t know. But initial ballistics indicate the same gun killed both victims.”

“So maybe there was only one.”

“Hard to say, but it feels that way.”

Elena took in the scene. She looked at the back of the building and then up toward the sky. “No security cameras in the parking lot?”

“None.”

“How about inside?”

“Also none. Just a routine ADT alarm with a panic button and motion detector.”

“I assume the business takes cash.”

“Yes.”

“What do they do with it?”

“One of the two owners — and Gorse was one of them — takes the cash home every night and stores it in their safe.”

“Their safe?”

“Pardon?”

“You said their safe. The two owners share a safe?”

“They live together, yeah. And to answer your next question, Gorse was robbed. The cash, his wallet, some of his jewelry were gone.”

“So you’re thinking robbery?”

Nap gave her a crooked smile. Again like Joel’s. Damn. “Well, I was,” he said.

The implication was clear: I was — until you showed up.

“So where’s the co-owner?” she asked.

“On his way from the airport. He should be here any minute.”

“Airport?”

“His name is Neil Raff. He was on vacation in Miami.”

“Is he a suspect?”

“A business partner taking a trip during the time of a murder?”

“Right,” she said. “So of course he is.”

“Like I said, it’s early.”

“Any idea how much cash Gorse had on him?”

“Not yet, no. Some days, we’ve been told, it could be as high as a few thousand dollars — some days it could be next to nothing. Depends obviously on how business was that day and how many people used plastic.”

There was no chalk drawing of a body or any of that stuff, but Nap had crime scene photographs. Elena studied them for a moment.

“Do you think the perp robbed Gorse first and then shot him,” Elena began, “or shot him first and then robbed him?”

“Shot him first,” Nap said.

“You seem pretty certain.”

“Look at Gorse’s pocket in the photograph.”

She did, nodding. “Turned inside out.”

“Also the shirt untucked, one ring left on like it’s been too difficult to get off — or someone interrupted him.”

Elena saw it now. “Where was the shooter standing?”

Nap showed her. “The first cops on the scene figured that the shooter had just driven in and fired from his car or that maybe he’d parked and waited.”

“You’re not buying that?”

“It could be,” Nap said. “But my bet is the shooter came out from the woods. Look at this angle.”

Elena nodded.

“It’s possible,” Nap continued, “that the killer could have driven in earlier, parked, and then hidden in the woods. But I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Because there was only one other person here at the time of the shooting — the second victim, Ryan Bailey. Bailey doesn’t own a car. He takes the bus from the mall and walks.”

She glanced around, subtracted out the cop cars both marked and unmarked. “So when the first responders got here, were any cars in the lot other than Gorse’s?”

“None,” Nap said. “The lot was empty.”

Elena stood back up. “So if someone — say, the killer — drove in and parked in the lot, Gorse would have noticed it when he left.”

“Agree,” Nap said. “Damien Gorse is the owner. It’s closing time. If a strange car is in his lot, I think he’d walk over and check it out. Unless there was a getaway driver.”

Elena frowned. “Getaway driver?”

“I use all the cool cop lingo. Either way, we will go through all relevant nearby CCTV footage.”

“I understand one of the two victims called nine-one-one.”

“Ryan Bailey. The second victim.”

“What did he say on the call?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

Nap explained his working theory. The shooter kills Damien Gorse by the Ford Fusion. The shooter starts going through the dead man’s pockets; takes the money, the watch, the wallet; and he is pulling off Gorse’s jewelry when the door opens and Ryan Bailey comes out. Bailey sees what’s happening, runs back inside, hits the alarm, and hides in the closet.

Elena frowned.

“What?” Nap asked.

“Bailey sets off an alarm inside the tattoo parlor?”

Nap nodded. “The panic button is right near the back door.”

“Is it a silent alarm?” she asked.

“No.”

“Loud?”

“The alarm? Yeah. Really loud.”

Elena frowned again.

“What?”

“Show me,” she said.

“Show you what?”

“Inside. The closet where Ryan Bailey hid.”

Nap studied her for a moment. Then he handed her a pair of crime-scene gloves. She snapped them on. He did the same. They walked toward the back entrance.

“Full garbage bag,” Nap said, pointing to one lying split on the ground. “We figured Bailey came out to throw it in the dumpster.”

“And that was when he interrupted the robbery?”

“That’s our theory.”

Except it didn’t make sense.

Another cop handed them each a white crime-scene suit with footies. Elena slipped hers on over her suit. All white — they both looked like giant sperms. There were more white-covered lab guys inside. The closet was adjacent to the back door.

Elena frowned again.

“What?”

“It doesn’t add up.”

“Why not?”

“You figure Ryan Bailey came outside to throw away the garbage.”

“Right.”

“He spots our killer looting Gorse’s body.”

“Right.”

“So our perp didn’t know the kid was inside. That’s most likely.”

“I don’t know, probably. So what?”

“So Ryan Bailey goes outside. He spots the killer. He runs back in and hits the alarm. Then he hides in the closet.”

“Right.”

“And our killer is in hot pursuit, right?”

“Right.”

“So our killer follows him inside. The killer searches for him. All the while, this alarm is blaring.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Why?” she asked.

“What do you mean, why? Ryan Bailey had spotted the killer. He could identify him.”

“So our killer wanted to silence him?”

“Yes.”

“So that sort of rules out a professional hit job,” Elena said.

“How so?”

“Do you know any pro that wouldn’t have been wearing a ski mask or some kind of disguise? A pro would have run when the alarm went off. Because what could the kid tell us? A man wearing a ski mask killed his boss? That’s it. The only reason the killer would follow him in and kill him is that Ryan Bailey could identify him.”

Nap nodded. “Or maybe it was someone they both knew.”

“Either way,” Elena said, “I don’t think it fits in with my case. My guy would be a pro. He’d use a mask.”

“So what is your case?”

And then she spotted the computer on top of the counter. She didn’t know who Henry Thorpe had been in touch with — just that the communications came from an IP address and Wi-Fi located in this building.

Elena turned to Nap. “Can I take a look at that computer?”