The Competition

34

We hit the Army-Navy surplus store first. The cashier-Eddie Hemmings-was a short, skinny guy with sharp features. We’d hoped to dredge up at least a little more information than we already had, but no dice. Before we left, I warned him about the media. “I can’t stop you from talking to the press, but I can say that if you do, you’ll damage your credibility as a witness. And believe me, whatever they promise to do for you, they’ll forget it about ten seconds after they get your statement.”

I could see him weighing his options even as I spoke. But when I finished, he nodded amiably. “Got ya. No problem. I’ll keep it on the down-low.”

We hurried out to the car, and Bailey headed for the 101 north. “A fin says he talks to the press by noon tomorrow,” Bailey said.

“So little faith in your fellow man.” I shook my head. “A twenty says he’s on camera before we make it to Camarillo.”

Bailey groaned. “Never mind. I fold.”

We rolled onto the lot of Camarillo Tree Cutters just before noon. I’d heard the loud metallic growl of a chain saw as soon as we pulled onto the street, and the smell of cut lumber filled the air. It was a huge lot that had piles of cut wood at the front and hundreds of felled trees waiting to be cut behind them. The workers I could see all seemed to be Hispanic. I pointed to a small hut on the right that had a sign over the door, OFFICE. Bailey parked in front of it.

We knocked but got no answer. Bailey tried the door and found it was open, so we walked in. Calling it an office was a stretch. It was a small room with a window that afforded a view of the lot. A couple of folding chairs were in front of a table piled high with invoices. An old Mac desktop computer sat on a short metal filing cabinet to the left of the table, a green cursor blinking on a black screen. Everything was covered in a thick layer of sawdust. The air was so filled with the stuff, I coughed when we stepped inside. A toilet flushed, and a door on the right side of the room opened. And out stepped Paul Bunyan.

Well, not exactly, but close. He was well over six feet, and though he had a bit of a paunch, his arms and chest were solid muscle. And huge. When he saw us, he tugged down his T-shirt with one hand and pushed his wavy-though thinning-brown hair back with the other. “Uh, what can I help you ladies with?”

Ladies. Again. But this time I didn’t mind. I was distracted by the feeling that we’d stepped into an American fairy tale. I pulled out my badge and did the introductions. “And you’re the owner here?”

“Yeah. Isaiah Hamilton.”

“You have an employee named Shane Dolan?” I asked.

He half snorted. “I did. But he hasn’t shown up for the past four days.” Isaiah sat down and motioned for us to do the same. I took a swipe at the sawdust on one of the two metal folding chairs in front of his desk and tried not to think about what was going to be stuck to my pants.

“When was the last time he came to work?” I asked.

“Friday.”

“And was he supposed to be here on Monday?” I asked.

“Yeah. Didn’t even bother to call.” Isaiah shook his head. “Hate to lose him though. He in some kind of trouble?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. Was he a good worker?” It’d be a surprise if he was, given what we’d heard about him.

Isaiah shrugged. “Not the most energetic guy. But he spoke English, so I could use him to fill in for me on the phone. Take orders and such. The rest of my crew”-he jerked a thumb toward the workers outside-“are good guys, but they’re strictly Spanish-speaking.”

“Did Shane ever have any visitors here?” I asked.

Isaiah rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I guess you could call her that. A girl used to come around a lot, but I haven’t seen her lately.”

“Was that girl the only one?” Isaiah nodded. “Did you get her name?” I asked.

Isaiah looked down at the cluttered desk and drummed his fingers on it. I couldn’t imagine how staring at that mess could help him remember anything except that a cleaning was overdue. Finally, he squinted at me. “Nancy. Nancy Findley. She called here about a hundred times.”

Isaiah’s disapproving expression made me smile. “So she was a fan of Shane’s,” I said.

“More like a stalker. Though why she was so hooked on him I have no idea. You ask me, the guy was a real case of arrested development.”

“In what way?” I asked.

“Had a hard time doing what he was told. Didn’t matter what I asked him to do-even just to get here on time-he’d give me major-league attitude.”

“Then you’d say he had issues with authority?”

“Big-time. But I kept him around because, well, you know…” He gestured to the office.

But Shane hadn’t had those issues with Lock, the gun range owner. I suspected tree cutting didn’t have the same allure as the gun range. Go figure.

“Did he ever talk to you about guns?” Bailey asked.

Isaiah gave a short bark of a laugh. “Ho, yeah. Nonstop. Kept wanting to take me out to the range where he worked. And he was always trying to sell me one.”

Sell? I leaned forward. “What kind of guns was he trying to sell?”

“Handguns mostly. Thirty-eights, forty-fours. He did mention a rifle once, I think.”

“What kind of rifle?” Bailey asked.

Isaiah began drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair. “Remington? Yeah, I believe that’s right.”

“So not an assault rifle?” I asked.

“No. They’re illegal, aren’t they?” I nodded. “Well, even if they weren’t, I wouldn’t let him sell those things to anyone around here. You ask me, they don’t belong in civilian hands.”

“What about you?” I asked. “Are you into guns?”

“Not at all.”

Why would he be? He didn’t need a gun. He could just pick you up and throw you out the window. “So you don’t know whether the deals he offered were any good,” I said.

“No. But Pedro might.” Isaiah stood up and walked over to the window. He cranked it open and yelled, “Hey, Pedro.”

Pedro, a middle-aged Hispanic man in a denim jacket and cowboy boots, came in. Isaiah asked in fairly decent Spanish what Shane had offered him. He translated for us, though I pretty much got the gist of what Pedro had said. “Shane offered him a Smith and Wesson thirty-eight special. Pedro says it was like new-for two hundred and fifty dollars.”

“He showed Pedro the gun?” I asked.

Pedro nodded and said, “Sí.”

“And it was in good shape?” I asked.

Pedro said in Spanish that it looked brand-new.

Isaiah nodded. “He said it looked-”

I held up my hand. “Got it. Did Pedro buy it?”

Isaiah translated, and Pedro shook his head.

“Did Shane offer to sell guns to anyone else?” I asked.

Isaiah translated, and Pedro replied in Spanish. Isaiah turned to me. “Pedro says he tried to sell to all the other guys, but he doesn’t think anyone bought a gun from him. Too much money, and they weren’t sure how legal it was.”

But just to make sure, we had Isaiah bring in all the other workers, one by one. Pedro was right. No one had bought a gun, though others had seen the one Pedro described and all agreed it looked new. When we finished with them, we thanked Isaiah for his help, said we’d be in touch, and warned him that at some point the media might come after him for a statement. He chuckled. “Don’t worry, they won’t get anything out of me, ladies.” Ladies. Again. Oh, well.

But I wasn’t worried about him.

The reporters who messed with him-them, I worried about.