The 5th Horseman

Chapter 82

JACOBI OPENED THE DOUBLE DOOR to the morgue and announced, “I know how they got the vic into the convention center.”

“You’ve got our full attention,” I said.

He walked straight through the vault to Claire’s office, returned a minute later with a bottle of water.

“I’ve been eating hot dogs all day,” he explained.

“Help yourself,” said Claire. “Hell, Warren, take two.”

Jacobi eased his butt onto a stool. His face was sagging from exhaustion, but sparks were going off behind his heavily lidded eyes.

“Get this, Boxer. A truck was coming from the marshaling yard to the convention center with a load of carpeting. The driver apparently stopped to take a leak against a building on Folsom. Trucks aren’t supposed to stop there, but they always do.”

“So it was a hijack?”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t a heist. More like a hitchhike. The bad guy comes up behind the driver, sticks a gunlike object into his back.”

Jacobi started to laugh.

“Oh. Tell me the joke.”

“Sorry. Imagining the guy holding his joint when he feels the gun sticking in his back. It’s a guy thing, Boxer.

“Anyway. The holdup guy uses the driver to get the other guy out of the truck. Knocks them both out with a stun gun. Then he and his buddy load them into the back of the truck, tape and gag them.”

“So now they’ve got a truck with approved plates and the driver’s ID,” I said. “You’re thinking they transferred our victim into that truck? Maybe she was inside some kind of container?”

“No flies on you, Lieutenant.”

“I try to keep up with you, Jacobi. I’m listening. Keep talking.”

Jacobi nodded. “So they drive to the convention center loading docks, unload this young lady’s container onto a hand truck, wait for the right moment. Then they decant her inside and pose her in the Ferrari.”

“Maybe the container was a suitcase,” I said. “A big one. Leather. With wheels.”

“Could very well have been something like that.”

“Unbelievable,” Claire said. “That they have the nerve to move a body in full sight, let alone pose her inside a car at the auto show!”

“She would’ve looked like a dummy if anyone had noticed her — and no one did,” Jacobi said. “I scanned all the videos. It was pure chaos last night. Forklifts doing wheelies. Cars being unloaded. Hundreds of look-alike guys in work clothes setting up the booths.”

“Can the drivers ID their attackers?” I asked.

“It was dark. They were completely surprised. The perps wore stocking masks.”

Jacobi came closer to the victim’s body. “Smell that? There it is again. That’s swamp magnolia.”

“Black Pearl.”

A thought broke through to my conscious mind like a bubble rising up from the bottom of a lake. It was so simple and obvious. Why had it taken me so long to make the connection?

“It’s one-stop shopping,” I said out loud.

“What do you mean, Boxer?”

“The designer clothes and the shoes. The killers grabbed what they could off the rack, clothes for a girl they hadn’t met yet. So sometimes they got the wrong size. The real jewelry, the good stuff, was under lock and key, but beads and rhinestones? No problem.”

“The perfume that they sprayed on those girls,” said Jacobi, picking up the thread. “It’s exclusive. Only sold at one place.”

“Our killers had easy access,” I said. “They snatched it all at the same store.”