Then She Vanished

Thirty-One

The next morning, Lieutenant Hazzard and Detective Proetto sat in their Valley Center station interview room, Natalie Strait’s blue satin blouse in its blood-touched plastic wrapper on the table before them. Beside it lay the torn envelope and the sheet of paper.

“Why didn’t Mr. Strait bring this to us himself?” asked Hazzard.

“Off to Sacramento early this morning,” I said.

“Convenient, like the video of his shackled wife that only he has actually seen. Because it self-destructed on his phone.”

I shrugged but said nothing.

Proetto used a pen to bring the torn mailer closer.

“Dalton’s prints and blood are on it,” I said. “He lost his patience, ripped it open. Handled the blouse through the plastic. At least he didn’t touch the garment. The evidence techs might have a shot at some hair and fiber.”

Proetto held up the envelope by one corner, worked in his pen into the torn opening, gave the mailer a good shake.

“The lab found another horsetail hair in Mrs. Strait’s BMW,” he said. “Which now makes three. Thick, black, cropped at both ends.”

Hazzard eyed me unhappily. Proetto poked at the plastic-covered blouse with his pen.

“Dalton gave us run of the house last week and we found nothing there that correlates to horsehair,” Hazzard said. “No belts, jewelry or accessories, purses, crafts or works of art. No clothing or furniture containing horsehair. Natalie doesn’t ride horses recreationally. Which leads us to the abductors. And makes me wonder if there might have been some activity in that vehicle. A struggle, maybe Natalie trying to get out, she got a handful of — whatever was made of horsehair. A necklace or bracelet. Even a rope, maybe.”

I tried to think of another, unrelated, source for decorative horsetail hairs in Natalie’s SUV. Drew blanks on top of blanks.

But if the horsehairs didn’t come from Natalie herself, then her abductors were a very possible source. So, what did we know about these abductors? Little. According to witnesses, two men and a woman. No good physical descriptions. There was no suspect or even persons of interest. Except in the mind of Hazzard, focused on Dalton himself. My own short list was long indeed: a world full of people looking to take down Dalton for a multitude of transgressions. Brock Weld? What evidence did I have on him except an admitted attraction to an attractive woman, a disdain for that woman’s husband, and a creaky alibi for the morning Natalie was abducted? But what use would either of them have for horsetail hair?

I considered Hazzard’s ham face and small, aggressive eyes. I understood why he disliked me, and why he was in a hurry to convict Dalton Strait. I wondered what else was stoking his anger. The abduction of an innocent woman? The Chaos Committee itself?

“Thanks for bringing this in,” said Proetto. “I’ll walk you out.”

“Just a minute, hoss,” said Hazzard. “Were you up in the Palomar Mountains yesterday with Dalton’s sister?”

“I was.”

“What was your takeaway?”

“A warning to Tola from the New Generation.”

“With Kirby in the dirt, that’s one less Strait we have to worry about,” said Hazzard. “They’re vermin, you know.”

“Vermin come in all shapes and sizes,” I said.

A shrug and a stare.

Proetto walked me into the bright morning.

“I don’t know what’s between you and Haz, but you seem to bring out the asshole in him.”

“It’s the shot I didn’t take that day in Imperial Beach.”

Proetto went quiet for a moment. Then, “Hazzard wants it to be Dalton — the abusive, cheating, self-centered male. An elected official, no less. It’s the narrative of the day.”

He had a point. I still wasn’t buying in on Dalton, but said nothing. Proetto had steered me away from Hazzard for a reason.

“Dalton never got on that Sacramento flight, the morning Natalie was abducted,” he said. “He flew to Orange County instead. Then headed up to Sacramento that night. When the dealership and campaign people and her own sons started wondering where she was, Dalton didn’t answer or return their calls.”

My first thought was: Orange County, home of Asclepia Pharmaceutical and McKenzie Doyle.

“You’re not throwing in with Hazzard on Dalton, are you?”

“Not all the way. But why did he lie about where he was that morning?”

“Something about a blonde.”

“The rumors are true?”

“At least one of them is,” I said. “Dalton is reckless and contradictory, but I don’t think he mailed that blouse and letter to himself. He didn’t have her abducted. But I’m losing traction here, Tony. Can you get me some? I’m doing my best to help you out.”

Proetto gave me a long look. “Brock Weld’s alibi just got worse. The neighbors say his dog barked all day, which it only does when he’s gone. He says he was home the morning Natalie disappeared, laid low by the flu and with headphones on. Didn’t hear the dog. And get this: Brock Weld is a Tourmaline Casino security employee. Also known as Brock Weld by the Strait Reelection Committee. But his real name is Brock Holland. He did a year for hacking into a credit rating database and assaulting the cops who arrested him. Maybe there’s a harmless reason for an aka and a bad alibi. Maybe there isn’t. He’s currently on a two-week paid vacation. We don’t know where he’s gone. Let me know if he comes up in your net.”

Holland had a nice portfolio, I thought. Tech and violence. He’d been bold enough to proposition his boss as he volunteered on her husband’s assembly campaign. While consorting with a casino coworker. A sexual opportunist? Maybe. Natalie had refused him. Maybe he just wasn’t smart enough to fool her into bed. Time to deploy his violent side?

Back in my truck, I consulted the Vigilant 4000 for the real-time location of Brock Holland’s white Suburban. It was currently still in the same Casa del Zorro parking spot, where I had last “seen” it on Friday night. Which made sense if Holland had chosen Casa del Zorro for his two-week vacation. Fun in the sun with your beloved. Play tennis, read by the pool, a good restaurant. Bike around the desert in the cool early mornings on complimentary Casa del Zorro bicycles.

However, during those four days, the SUV had made three round trips to the same address in San Ysidro, California, a district of San Diego that lies on the border with Mexico. Rough and hectic San Ysidro — not a place associated with romantic getaways, poolside hours, fine dining. Yet Brock Holland — or at least his vehicle — had spent almost eighteen hours there.

A few minutes on Google Maps and a brief talk with a Realtor friend and I learned that the address in question was the National Allied Building, a fourteen-thousand-square-foot, two-story building in the warehouse district. Legal ownership in dispute; number of tenants and lease arrangements, if any, unknown. Not currently listed on CoStar, LoopNet, or CityFeet.

“Not unusual for that part of the border,” said my friend. “Watch your step.”

In my downtown Fallbrook office I dug out Brock Holland on IvarDuggans.com.

Like his alias, Holland was thirty-one and a native of Miami. And he had done security work in local San Diego hotels, two cruise lines, and casinos in Las Vegas, as claimed by Weld. Holland had no degrees but he was crafty enough to fool IvarDuggans.com and his Tourmaline employers into believing he was someone else.

Instead of college, he graduated through a series of lesser crimes — mail fraud, impersonating a city official, malfeasance. Minor jail time, community service, and fines. But finally upped his game by hacking into a credit rating company with criminal intent, and assault-upon-an-officer charges. Followed by the year in Chino Men’s. He’d been clean since his release in 2015 and had been off the radar ever since, hiding behind Weld’s cover.

I thought about telling Proetto where to find his man, but decided not to. I wanted to keep Brock Holland’s secrets to myself for now.

And get a look at another one of Holland’s secrets — the National Allied Building — where he’d been spending so much of his hard-earned vacation time.