The Competition

61

While Todd put in a call to the local police, I walked Luis and company to their car.

“You guys were perfect, Luis,” I said. “Thanks.”

He blew out a disgusted breath. “For what? We din’t do nuthin’.” He muttered to himself. “Shit-anything.”

I shoved a couple of twenties through the driver’s window. He looked at the bills with disdain. “What’s that for?”

“Gas money. It’s only fair.”

Luis started to push it away, but a voice from the back protested. “Luis, I’m kinda low…”

Luis rolled his eyes, took the cash, and passed it to the backseat. He tilted his head and squinted at me. “Try an’ stay out of trouble,” he said. “I can’t always be here to watch your back, you know.” He peeled out, leaving me in a cloud of dust.

I was still coughing when Bailey walked over to me. “All set.” Jax was bent over the hood of Todd’s car, hands cuffed behind his back. Shane was in the backseat, facing out with the door open. He was cuffed too. Todd was holding a cigarette to his lips, giving him one last smoke.

“We can go over everything with Jax again when we get to the station,” Bailey said. “But I have a feeling our buddy Shane got all he has to give.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Shane did a nice job. Sounds like Jax met with our second shooter, but good luck figuring out who that is. That description could fit about five million guys.”

Bailey sighed and nodded. “Virtually useless. And the car-not much better.”

I nodded, glum. “Interesting that he bought another forty-four, though.”

“Yeah, even considering the cut-rate deal he got from Guns R Us over there.” Bailey nodded toward Jax. “That’s a lot of money.”

Four squad cars showed up, lights blazing and sirens wailing. When the sergeant in charge saw that both suspects were cuffed and peaceful, he cracked a wry smile. “Always appreciate it when visitors pick up their own litter.”

I introduced myself and shook his hand. “It’s important to preserve the natural beauty of our parks and recreational grounds, don’t you think?”

He chuckled. “Want to tell me what we have here?”

While the unis loaded Shane and Jax into their cars, I brought him up to speed-sort of. I didn’t tell him how we’d pressured Shane into setting up the meeting with Jax, and I soft-pedaled the real reason for the meeting: to get a lead on the school shooters. Everything having to do with our case had to stay quiet until it was cleared with Graden.

“We’ll keep them here for tonight, but we’re short of bed space, so-”

Bailey held up a hand. “No problem. We appreciate the help. I’ll have them off your hands tomorrow morning.”

We followed them back to the station. The paperwork took a while, and by the time we headed back to L.A., it was almost four in the morning.

“Hey, you guys know of a place I can crash for the night?” Todd said between yawns.

“I can get you a room at the Biltmore,” I said. It wasn’t crowded this time of year, and when I explained why I needed the room, I had a feeling they’d let him have it for free.

“And if you don’t mind, I’ll have a uni ride up with you in the morning to pick up my car,” Bailey said. “Rache, okay if I crash with you?”

“Only if you promise not to wake me up at the crack of dawn.” Bailey was a morning person times ten. For me, mornings work best when they’re the end of my night.

She gave me a tired smile. I don’t know how she managed to keep her eyes open. Bailey had done most of the driving since yesterday morning. And now that I thought of it, she really had no choice. She had to spend the night with me. We needed to get our stories straight.

Monday, October 14

The next morning over breakfast we agreed on our official story about last night: Harrellson had forwarded us the tip from off-duty officer Todd Santos about seeing Shane in La Conchita. We followed up, and Shane agreed to help us out by setting up the meeting with Jax. All true, except for the bit of arm-twisting we’d needed to persuade Shane to join up with the good guys. But that bit of fudging only helped make him look better, which would come in handy when his lawyer tried to negotiate a deal for him. When we told him how we were going to play it, he was happy to go along.

We watched Shane give his statement on a monitor outside the interview room. It was a little scary how well he sold it.

We still hadn’t gotten any updates from Harrellson about the body they’d found in Box Canyon. A part of me didn’t want to hear from him. I didn’t want confirmation that it was Evan. But we needed to find out whether they’d recovered anything from the body or the scene that might help us find Logan and company. “You want to give Harrellson a call?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’ve been wondering what the holdup is.” Bailey picked up her office phone and punched in the number. Then she frowned and hung up. “I got his voice mail.” Her tone was aggravated.

“So? I’m told it happens in the best of families. Why not leave a message?”

“Because I called his private cell, and he always answers it.” She used her cell and tried again. This time, he answered. “Hey, what gives?” Bailey asked. She listened, then finally said, “Okay, got it,” and ended the call. She didn’t look happy. “Said he got my first call but didn’t want to answer because it was the station number and he wasn’t sure it was me. He wouldn’t talk on the phone. He’s at the morgue. Said he’ll get in touch when he’s done. I know we need to be careful and all, but seriously? It’s going be on the news in about ten seconds anyway.”

“Yeah, this radio silence shit is getting pretty old,” I said. And to be honest, we weren’t in the best of moods. The Shane-Jax connection had only confirmed our working theory: there was a second suspect-still unknown-who’d scored more guns after the school shooting. Since there was no indication when or even if the shooters ever intended to go back to Jax, we were basically back to square one. “We need another move.”

“I know,” Bailey said. “I’ve been thinking about those letters. We figured someone must be helping them because it’s not likely our shooters mailed them from Boulder, right?” I nodded. “I was thinking that person might be a weak link.”

And therefore our best lead. “And what’s cool is they’ll be so easy to find. After all, there’s only about twenty-seven million people living in Boulder, Colorado. We can just start knocking on doors. Hell, by twenty twenty-five we might get through a good ten percent of them.” We’d already checked all of Logan’s phone records-both the family phone and his cell-for calls to or from someone with a Boulder area code. Zilch.

Bailey sighed and leaned back in her chair. “We need to smoke that person out. Make him come to us.”

“Maybe our headshrinkers can help.”

“Can’t hurt.”

Michael picked up on the first ring. I told him we needed a strategy meeting. One hour later we were in Jenny’s office.

Bailey laid out our idea to smoke out the letter mailer. Jennifer liked it.

“And bear in mind, this helper may not even know what he’s helping with,” Jenny said. “As I recall, you said you received an envelope within an envelope?” I nodded. “If the shooter sent these letters out to the helper in a sealed envelope with instructions not to open them and to mail them to you at a given address, the helper might never have seen what was being mailed.”

It was a good point, and one I hadn’t thought of. “So how do we lure that person out?”

“By getting on camera and telling the truth,” Michael said. He saw the look on my face and shook his head. “Not the whole truth. You don’t have to say what was in the letters, you only have to say that the content of the letters made it abundantly clear-”

“Okay, I’m not going to say ‘abundantly’-”

Michael smiled. “Yes, of course-sound-bite English. But in essence, say that you have proof the letters were written by the shooters, but you also have proof they were mailed by someone else. Someone who may not know they’ve been helping the killers.”

I wasn’t sure about that strategy. “That might motivate a decent person to wake up and realize what they were doing, but…”

Bailey finished my thought. “But since Logan’s name is already out there, don’t you think that person already knows he’s been helping the shooters?”

Jennifer nodded. “If Logan is the one they’re helping, then yes. You’re right. But if it is the second shooter-the one whose identity hasn’t been publicized-then maybe not.”

Bailey nodded. “I guess I just assumed that since the shooters were buddies, the person doing the mailing would know them both and make the connection.”

Michael reached for the pot of coffee and poured himself another cup. “And you may be right. But Logan did have more than one friend. Even if your helper knows the letter writer is a friend of Logan’s, that wouldn’t necessarily mean he’s the one who was involved in the shooting.”

Jenny nodded. “And if the helper isn’t following the case daily, the name Rachel Knight may not mean anything to him. In any case, we have to proceed with the possibility that our helper is an innocent third party.”

Because if it wasn’t an innocent third party, it wouldn’t matter if we put on tiaras and waved a magic wand-he wasn’t coming forward.

Bailey nodded. “I think Graden will be able to persuade the chief to go along. The only real downside is that the press will go nuts trying to find out what’s in those letters.”

Bailey’s cell phone rang. She looked at the number and took the call. After saying little more than “yeah” and “got it,” she ended the call. “That was Harrellson. He’s on his way back to the station.”

Time to find out what he was keeping so close to the vest. We thanked the doctors and hurried out.

Harrellson was waiting for us in the bull pen when we arrived. He waved us into a witness interview room and closed the door. “You better sit down.” We all took seats around the small table. “The body they found in Box Canyon isn’t Evan’s.”

That should have been great news, but Harrellson’s face said otherwise. “So who is it?” Bailey asked.

“Logan Jarvis.”