The Devil's Elixir ts-3 Page 18

  Lina slid the sheet across the table.

  “Phone number?” asked Perrini after draining half his malt in one long slug.

  “Home number is right there. She doesn’t have a cell phone. I also checked the cell reception in that area like you asked. It’s spotty at best. Locals and the press out there have been making noise about that, but the mobile carriers don’t give a crap.” She took a sip of her Diet Sprite as Perrini scanned the sheet. “Anything else?”

  Perrini folded the sheet and pocketed it. “Not that I can think of right now, but that could change. I’ll be in touch. As always.”

  “Thought you should know. They’re purging all the unused NCIC accounts. I’ll have to create a spoof login if they delete them all.”

  “As long as you keep me out of it I don’t care what you do.” Perrini flashed Lina an arctic glare. A split second later, the smile with which he’d welcomed her was back.

  “I’d better get back to my desk. Got a mountain of cases to key in.” She lifted her purse off the stool and turned to leave.

  “Enjoy your little present,” said Perrini, gesturing to her purse. “You know there’s plenty more where that came from.”

  He shot her a wink, then dropped his eyes to his malt and drained it down to the foam.

  When he looked up, she was already out the door.

  Twenty minutes later, Perrini was back in his car, across from Tompkins Square. He had toyed with a few different approaches, but decided to go with an angle that usually worked wonders: appealing to a person’s natural vanity, even if it was at one step removed.

  He pulled out his throwaway and dialed Hazel Lustig. She answered after five rings.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi. Is that Hazel Lustig?”

  “Yes. Who’s this?”

  “My name is Daniel Shelton. I’m calling from the Historical Novel Society. I understand from Friedstein and Bellingham Literary Management that Miss Chaykin is staying with you at the moment?”

  It was a gamble that Chaykin had left her aunt’s number with her agent, but if she was there for a month and the cell reception was bad, then the odds were surely stacked in his favor.

  “I’m afraid she’s not here. Can I pass on a message?”

  Her tone was defensive. Protective. Too late to change tack now though.

  “Oh, that’s a shame. We’re running a review of her latest book—and, well, it’s a rave. I just got it, and the reviewer really, really loved it. And I thought it would be great to get an interview to go alongside it, do a little feature on her, but I’m playing catch-up here with a lot of people off on vacation and I’ve got a deadline coming up fast. Do you know when she’ll be back? We could do it over the phone, or even by email.”

  The woman went quiet for a moment, then said, “The thing is, I’m really not sure she’s got much time to spare right now, she’s—she’s tied up on a family matter.” Her tone had softened at the mention of a rave review. Seemingly an appeal to vanity by proxy was almost as effective as direct praise.

  “I’m real sorry to hear that. We’re all huge fans of her books here. I hope it’s nothing serious.”

  Perrini waited for the reply, but Hazel wasn’t biting.

  “No,” she said, “nothing major, thank you. If you give me your number, I’ll be sure to pass on your message.”

  He gave her the number of his fresh throwaway plus an email address he’d created while sitting in the car digesting the double-patty delights of his recent fix. Then he thanked her politely and ended the call.

  Miss Chaykin was playing hard to get. And although Perrini enjoyed twisting sixty-year-old women around his little finger—a feat he still couldn’t achieve when it came to his mother, who always seemed to know exactly what he was thinking—it was clearly time to apply a more straightforward approach.

  He wondered about what the woman had told him. Tess Chaykin was “tied up with a family matter.” Her aunt would “pass on” his message. Perrini wondered about that, and it sounded to him like Chaykin was out of town. He thought about Guerra’s request and about Chaykin’s boyfriend being out in San Diego and what Perrini had found out about him, and he wondered if that was the family matter she was dealing with.

  Problem was, Guerra had no interest in probabilities. He demanded facts. Which left Perrini with little choice but to spend a bigger chunk of his fee than he would have liked on a third party, an option he avoided as much as he could—not just due to the expense involved, but also because it involved using people he didn’t know and required them to do something that could land them with federal-level problems if they were found out.

  He took out his phone and called Lina. She answered immediately.

  “I need a fix on a cell phone. The full workout.”

  “Ouch.”

  Lina knew the ramifications, too.

  “I need it. I’ll text you the number.”

  “Okay,” she relented. “Ship it over.”

  Perrini knew the drill. It would take anything between thirty minutes and five hours for Lina to come back with a location. There were several variables involved: the make and model of Chaykin’s handset, what carrier she was with, the cell coverage at her location, the number of masts there, and whether her phone was GPS enabled or not. On the plus side, Lina had a few tricks of her own. A combination of geek-level expertise in using the data at her disposal, plus contacts she’d nurtured at three of the big cell phone carriers, meant that Lina had not once failed to provide an accurate lock on any number he’d given her.

  Perrini decided to have a quick nap before he returned to the station house. By the end of the day, there was a good chance he’d know exactly where Tess Chaykin was, and so would Guerra.

  What the Mexican chose to do then was no concern of his, though Perrini was pretty sure that, given the kind of clients Guerra usually worked for, her best days were now probably behind her.

  36

  We left the La Mesa station house in Munro’s Yukon, taking Spring Street to the South Bay Freeway, then heading south.

  Villaverde had opted to go back to Aero Drive and brief his team on everything we’d learned to date. He said he’d include Jules on the briefing, via speakerphone. Also, one of his guys had volunteered to drive my LaCrosse back to HQ so that I wouldn’t be without a vehicle later in the day, which was something I don’t think anyone in the New York office would’ve thought of offering.

  The run down to Chula Vista was a breeze, with the early evening traffic still several hours away and Munro driving with the urgency that we both felt. La Mesa PD had done a great job locating Dani Namour, and they’d sent us the name of the store where she worked. I’d asked them not to tip her off that we were headed down there, since although it was clear that she’d severed her ties with the Eagles, we didn’t know what else was going on in her life and I couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t bolt at the first sign of law enforcement. So they’d had one of their female officers call the boutique from her cell phone and ask what days Dani worked because she’d been “so helpful” on the last visit. Not only was Dani working today, but she was mid-shift.

  Maybe we had finally caught a break. I was feeling optimistic, thinking it would be pretty unlikely that whoever had all but wiped out the Babylon Eagles knew about her.

  A few blocks out from our destination, Dani’s rap sheet came through on Munro’s handset. From the looks of it, and against all odds, she’d managed to keep her nose clean. Apart from a couple of minor traffic violations, she seemed like a model citizen. Which boded well for her daughter.

  We parked in the lot outside Macy’s and walked over to the main entrance, which was marked by an octagonal tower sporting a faux cupola, a far cry from the domes of Vatican City that had probably inspired it. A quick glance at the store locator had Vanessa—the boutique where Dani worked—on the south side of the mall facing a CVS, and we headed there after Munro had stopped to grab a couple of sodas, reminding me that I’d been running on
empty since that morning.

  The store was one of those up-market fashion outlets that sold a small selection of items, all from big-name designers. There was an elegantly dressed and heavily made-up woman somewhere in her forties serving a customer, and a younger blonde in her mid-twenties standing farther back, at the cashier’s desk, leafing through a glossy magazine—Dani. Unsurprisingly, she didn’t look anything like what I imagined, given the image I had of her as a biker chick. Her clothes, hair, and makeup were all immaculate. She’d clearly left the biker life well behind, although I was hoping just a little link to that world remained, a link that was as thick as blood in this case.

  Munro waited by the entrance while I went inside.

  “Miss Namour?”

  She had already looked up when I walked in and was now gazing straight at me. She knew there was no way I was there to buy a dress.

  “Yes?”

  She was scrutinizing me and starting to show the unmistakable signs of someone who knows that their day is about to take a turn for the worse. I flashed my creds discreetly at her, making sure the older woman wasn’t looking over.

  “Could we step outside for a minute?”

  Dani smoothed down her jacket and glanced over to her boss. “Suzie, I need to go out for a sec and help this gentleman out with something.”

  Suzie nodded uncertainly, then got back to her customer. Dani gestured me through the door and followed me out of the shop.

  “There’s a food court on the next level up. We can talk there.”

  I tilted my head for Munro to follow and the three of us headed for the escalator, Dani leading the way.

  She obviously had a steady job and had successfully moved on after her time around the Eagles went sour, and I felt bad about having to stir up all that pain again, but we were way behind the curve and needed something to get us back on track. We sat outside one of those Mexican restaurants that are a step up from Taco Bell but still the wrong side of the real thing, and got down to business.

  “I’m Agent Reilly, FBI. And this is Agent Munro.”

  “DEA,” he added.

  She cut us off before I got any further with my introductions.

  “This is about the clubhouse, right?”

  I nodded.

  “I saw the news, and you’re wasting your time. I don’t know anything about that,” she said, her tone firm and defensive. “I’ve had nothing to do with those guys for years.”

  The anger and bitterness erupted so quickly it was almost a shock, though I’d learned over years of interrogation that the bad stuff always lurks right up against the surface, whether you can see it there or not.

  “Your daughter, Naomi,” I told her. “She’s Marty’s kid, right?”

  At her daughter’s name, Dani’s face hardened with a mother’s protective instinct, but then when I mentioned Marty, her face softened and her eyes flicked away for a moment as memory took over.

  “Why are you here? Look, Naomi has no clue who her father was, and I want to keep it that way.”

  Munro stepped in with perfect tag-team timing. He laid both hands palm-up on the table in front of him and gave Dani a wide smile. “We can see you’ve got a life here. We’re not interested in doing anything to hurt that. When people leave a bad life behind, get a job, raise a kid, pay taxes . . . it makes our job a whole lot easier. One less wasted life is one less violent death to write up. If all the girlfriends, wives, and mothers just got up and walked away from the gangs, how long do you think the guys would last before reassessing their life choice?” He gave her his patented gotta-love-me grin.

  Dani relaxed visibly at that. Munro had hit just the right chord. The bastard was good at his job.

  It was my turn. “We’re here ’cause we’re looking for Gary.” I watched for her reaction to the name, and I got the surprise I was expecting. “We think he can help us nail the guys who wiped out the club. I don’t blame you for not wanting to get involved, but these guys, they’re seriously bad. They also killed a deputy up in San Marcos. Guy had a kid. Same age as Naomi.” I let that percolate for a moment. “We think Gary knew one of them back in the day, and given what they did to the guys, I think he’d want to help us track them down. Thing is, we don’t know where he is and we need your help to find him.”

  She took a deep breath, then sighed, suddenly resigned to the incontrovertible fact that one never truly leaves the past behind.

  “He doesn’t want to be found and that’s okay by me. I’m doing just fine without any of them.” She looked at Munro as she added, “Just like you said.”

  He nodded at that, clearly appreciating that she’d been listening.

  “My parents near disowned me when I started hanging out at the club, but they helped out when Marty got himself killed. I think they were grateful I was still alive. They still look after Naomi so I can work. I paid for my father’s laser eye surgery last year. He says he can see better now than when he was twenty.”

  She was proud of how far she’d come. And rightly so. But it was becoming clear that we’d made the trip down to Chula Vista for nothing. Dani’s eyes wandered off. Munro and I had been in the job long enough to let her go wherever she was going. After a long moment she landed back with us. I leaned forward, sensing that she might have brought something back with her.

  “I don’t know where he is. He told me how much he’d miss hanging out with me and Naomi and said maybe things would change one day, but that day hasn’t come yet.”

  I had to keep pushing, to keep prompting her in the hope that something would rise to the surface. “People rarely manage to disappear completely,” I told her. “They often miss something. Some detail, some contact, something they might have mentioned. Think about it, Dani. If this were a life-and-death situation and you needed to reach him, how would you do it?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, visibly trying to come up with something. “He just wanted a new life.” Then something sparked on her face. “Maybe . . . You could try one thing. After I got pregnant, Marty and I once talked about what we’d do, if things ever got too hot. If we ever had to get out. I was thinking about the baby and worrying about the kind of life Marty was into. And he told me about this guy that Gary knew in the Marines. A real wizard for fake IDs. Marty said we’d use him before heading for the border. Maybe that’s what Gary did. Maybe he used the guy to get himself a new life.”

  I shared a quick glance with Munro. This could be something. When people dropped off the grid they often used fake or stolen IDs, and knowing the source of the ID would be a huge boon.

  “Did he tell you the guy’s name?”

  She shook her head. “No. Maybe he did, but I don’t remember. Sorry.”

  Another wall. Easy come, easy go, right?

  “If you find him,” she added, “say hi from me. Tell him I think it’d be good for Naomi to get to know her uncle.”

  She stood, smoothed down her jacket, and turned to go. After a second she looked back.

  “Bear in mind, he probably wants to be found even less than I did.”

  Then she headed for the escalator and was gone.

  I called Villaverde and gave him the update. He needed to look for Marines from Walker and Pennebaker’s days who had done time for fraud, or had criminal records before they joined up. I also had another idea. Something more specific. Something that would fit with the two bikers’ feelings about the military. It was a long shot, but at this point we had to try anything that might move us forward.

  “Look for soldiers over the past ten years that were listed as MIA, but then came back onto the grid. Start at Camp Pendleton and work out from there.”

  Villaverde immediately grasped what I was suggesting. “So Pennebaker walks out of prison and somehow assumes the ID of a missing soldier?”

  “Yeah. And most likely one with no living relatives. I get the impression that the new Pennebaker wouldn’t have wanted to hurt a soldier’s family, but would have no qualms about deceiving the gove
rnment.”

  “I’ll get my guys straight onto it. You coming back here?”

  I said we’d head straight up to Aero Drive.

  By the time we got back to his office, Villaverde was sitting at the main meeting room table with two other agents, going through army service records. I joined the party while Munro found an empty desk and put in a call to Corliss.

  He told me he’d made contact with the USACIDC—the United States Army Criminal Investigation Command—at MCB Quantico and requested the service histories that we needed. With both the FBI and the DEA pressing for access—and adding into the mix that both San Diego PD and the SDSO wouldn’t back off until they found whoever killed Deputy Fugate—he hadn’t had to face any jurisdictional stare-downs.

  There were seventeen soldiers who fit our profile. All of them had been listed MIA at some point over the past ten years, but only five of them had returned to the fold in one way or another in the last two, which was our window for Pennebaker. Of the other twelve, nine had been confirmed dead and three were still listed as missing.

  We were trying to find someone born between 1970 and 1985 who looked enough like Pennebaker for him to assume his identity. There was one name that stood out. Marine Sergeant Matthew Frye. Born 1982. Listed as missing in 2003. Came back on the grid in 2009. Missed three psych evaluation appointments but had finally been discharged at the beginning of 2010. He still had his tags and had been identified by a sister, who was his only living relative. Placed side by side, Frye and Pennebaker could have been brothers, notwithstanding their choice of optional mustache.

  “Where’s Frye now?”