By Any Means (4 page)

“I thought the front door was locked,” said the kid, turning his head to the archway as someone in back giggled. “What can I do for you, Officer?”

The stoner emphasized the word
Officer
, which shut up the giggler quickly. Ash hadn't driven all the way out there for a drug bust, but the smell gave him cause to secure a search warrant if he wanted. Even if the stoners turned out to be uncooperative, they had given him leverage. He liked when people did that.

“I'm looking for a company called Commonwealth Financial Services. They list this as their address.”

The stoner's shoulders dropped, and he took a step back, nodding, probably relieved that Ash hadn't searched him for drugs yet.

“They rent a mailbox from us. It's one of the services we provide.”

“Great. Where's their actual office located?”

The stoner shrugged and looked around. “Not here. That's all I know.”

“Where's their mailbox? I want to see if they have anything.”

“We don't have boxes like other stores. People have their mail sent here, and we sort it into baskets in the back. That way we catch junk mail before our clients see it.”

“And your clients get a street address that looks like a physical address rather than a mailbox at a strip mall.”

The stoner nodded, a smile building on his face. “That's right,” he said, making circular motions with his hands. “It's all part of our full-service package.” The stoner in the back giggled again, presumably at the word
package
. Ash leaned his elbows against the counter and glowered. The stoner dropped his hands and took another step back, moving just enough air that Ash caught a fresh whiff of marijuana.

“How much does a mailbox cost?”

“Five hundred a month, but we take care of everything. We sign for packages, call you when they come in, sort your junk mail. It's a good deal when you consider everything.”

Full service or not, it was well over three times what the post office charged for even their largest box.

“What else do your clients get for that kind of money?”

The stoner smiled broadly. “Our award-winning customer service.” Ash raised his eyebrows, incredulous, causing the stoner's smile to shift into a frown. “Listen, man, I wish you had come by earlier, but I'm about to close for the night and get some food. Maybe you can come back tomorrow and talk about a box when my boss is here. If you say you're a cop, he'll even give you the policeman's discount.”

“You're not closing. You're going to talk to me about Commonwealth Financial Services and the business you conduct with them.”

The stoner sneered. “You can't tell us what to do just because you're a cop. I've got rights. I've read the First Amendment.”

Ash didn't know how to respond to the stoner's unorthodox legal analysis of the First Amendment, so he didn't say anything for a good fifteen or twenty seconds. The stoner crossed his arms in a self-satisfied manner.

“Keep your hands where I can see them, but come around the corner. I'm going to pat you down for drugs or weapons, so if you've got anything in your pockets that can hurt me, tell me now. If you've got a knife in your pocket and don't tell me, I might get pissed off and accidentally stab you with it.”

“That doesn't sound like it'd be an accident.”

“You figured that out all on your own. Good for you.”

The stoner took a step back and raised his hands as if trying to show that he had nothing to hide.

“You can't touch me.”

Ash motioned him forward. “Yes, I can. It's called a
Terry
frisk. I have reasonable suspicion that you're in the process of or about to commit a crime and a reasonable belief that you're armed. I'm worried about my safety.”

The stoner held his hands even higher. “We're just a shipping center, man. If there are drugs here, they're not mine.”

“I'm sure you wouldn't mind turning out your pockets for me, then. I've got this sneaking suspicion that you're carrying something you shouldn't be.”

The stoner seemed to think for a moment before putting his hands down and looking left and right. He leaned forward. “I've got some ganja in my pocket, but it's not mine. It's my friend's. He asked me to carry it for him.”

The stoner tilted his head toward the archway. Ash thought about calling IMPD's dispatcher and requesting backup, but he was more interested in information than a bust. If he started making arrests now, he'd waste time he didn't have.

“Here's the deal,” said Ash, taking a notepad from a pouch on his utility belt and dropping it on the counter. “Tell your friend that I'll help him out if he helps me out. I need to see the records you have on Commonwealth Financial Services. You show them to me, and I'll forget about the drugs.”

The stoner narrowed his eyes and furrowed his brow, apparently thinking. After a moment of silence, he nodded.

“You're all right, dude,” he said, walking toward a computer on the other end of the counter. “I'll print out their file. But after that, you've got to go. I've got work to do.”

Ash agreed, and his new stoner friend turned to the computer. Within two minutes, he handed Ash a printout with fields for a mailbox user's name, home address, phone number, and e-mail address. It would have been helpful had it been filled out. The only field with information on it noted that a representative from Commonwealth had paid in cash for a six-month lease and that he didn't want to receive cobranded offers from QwikMail's partners. Ash dropped the paper on the counter.

“You're messing with me, right? This better be a joke.”

“No man,” said the stoner, shaking his head. “This is all we have in the system. If a customer pays cash, that's all we ask for. That's the whole point of this place. If you don't have a regular address, you can get your mail here.”

Despite the stoner's profession of innocence, Ash had a pretty good idea of what the “whole point” of QwikMail was. A couple of months back, David Lee, a detective in the narcotics squad, joked that with some recent crackdowns in the local drug supply chain, the postal service had become the biggest drug dealer in town. Shipping drugs had one big problem, though: You need a safe place to ship them to. If a user ships them to his own house, he'll eventually be caught and the police will know who to arrest. If he ships them to a friend's house, chances are that his friend will smoke his weed. If he ships them to a place like QwikMail, though, he's got anonymity and security, at least for a time.

“Who picked up the mail?”

The stoner shrugged. “Some woman. I think her name was Kate. Or maybe it was Kim. I don't know. It was one of those K names.”

“Was she blond, about thirty years old?”

“That's right,” he said, grinning and nodding. “She had a nice pair of snuggle puppies.” Ash scrunched his eyebrows, not understanding. The stoner cupped his hands above his chest. “Her boobs. They were nice. I don't think they were real, though.”

Ash wrote down the name but omitted any facts about her anatomy.

“Did Kate have a last name?”

“Probably,” said the stoner. “Most people do, unless they're like Bono or Madonna.”

Ash forced himself to smile. “To clarify, you're telling me that you don't know her last name?”

“I asked, but she wouldn't tell me.”

Had Ash known Kate before she passed, he would have congratulated her for her common sense, something found in an increasingly small portion of the population.

“Do you know anything else about her?”

“Other than the fake boob thing? Because I don't really know that. I'm just speculating.”

“Yes, other than the fake boob speculation.”

The stoner seemed to think for a moment. “Nope. That's it, man.”

“Are you keeping any mail for the company right now? If so, I'd like to see it.”

“I'd have to see a warrant before I show you anything.”

Ash lowered his gaze, growing tired of the conversation. Time for a new tact. He pointed to the front entrance.

“I can get a warrant, but I'll do you one better. Do you see that door?” The stoner nodded. “Do you see those cars in the parking lot?” He nodded again. “One of those cars is mine. If you don't get me Commonwealth Financial Services' mail, I'm going to arrest you for possession of marijuana and throw you in the back of my car. I'm then going to take a drug dog through here and have it find whatever it can. If we find any other drugs, I'll charge you with trafficking. Do you know what the penalty is for that?”

“Dude, man, I can't show you her mail. It's against company policy—”

“Twenty years.” The stoner stuttered something, but he didn't relent. “Kate is dead, and so is her husband. The man who killed them abducted another woman. Do you want her death on your hands?”

The stoner didn't say anything, so Ash started walking around the counter.

“All right, all right. I'll check to see if they have anything.”

“Good,” said Ash. The stoner walked through the archway in back. Ash heard him whisper to the giggler, but he couldn't understand what either of the men said. A moment later he came back empty-handed, but apparently sensing Ash's annoyance, he stopped walking while he was still well out of arm's reach.

“According to my coworker, Kate came by yesterday and picked everything up. Her basket is empty.”

“Are you sure?” The stoner shuffled back a step and nodded. Ash didn't trust him, but the kid didn't seem to be lying. He grabbed a business card from his wallet. “You'll call me if you find anything?”

The stoner nodded again, so Ash put the card on the counter and slid it toward him before walking out. He hadn't spent much time inside, but with the drive over, he had wasted half an hour to find out that Jane Doe was in fact named Kate Doe. Or Katie Doe. Or something like that. Hopefully Eddie Alvarez and the rest of the team had made better progress.

K
onstantin Bukoholov felt his eyes droop as the young man in front of the conference room droned on about the company he and his siblings were trying to sell. Ostensibly, Kostya had yet to make a decision about the purchase, but in reality, his accountants had already made it for him. According to them, he had far more cash than the receipts of his various companies allowed. Thirty years ago, it wouldn't have been a concern. He knew the presidents of at least three regional banks who would allow him to drop off bundles of cash for deposit without asking a single question. Now, with everyone looking for terrorists, every dollar he deposited to every bank with which he did business had to be explained. Even basic bookkeeping had become a nightmare.

Kostya glanced at the city's skyline through the window to keep himself awake. Business deals used to be easy. He'd shake a partner's hand, exchange some money, and it'd be done. Now he had to spend several hundred dollars an hour to hire lawyers who only told him whatever he wanted to hear anyway. It seemed like such a waste.

“Are you all right, Mr. Bukoholov?”

He snapped his head forward and glared at the speaker. James Cooper. He buried his father two weeks ago and already had the family business on the market. In another decade, Kostya knew it might be his kids up there selling off assets he'd spent his entire life developing.

“My welfare is not your concern, Mr. Cooper,” he said. “Your total receipts for the past three years have averaged fourteen million dollars per year. How much of that is cash?”

“The exact figure depends on the location, but company wide, forty percent of our sales are cash. Before he died, Dad considered lowering the price of gasoline by a couple of cents per gallon for cash sales, but we haven't implemented it yet. Our accountants forecast—”

Cooper kept talking, but Kostya ignored him as he felt his cell phone vibrate against his chest. Very few people, most of whom waited for him in the building, knew his personal cell phone number. He fished the phone out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. He didn't recognize the number, but he knew its owner. For a moment, his breath caught in his throat.

“That's fine,” said Kostya, interrupting Cooper's sales pitch. “I'll pay your asking price.” He looked at the lawyer to his left. “Mr. Evans and his firm will complete the sale on my behalf. Thank you for your time. I'm sure we'll be in touch.”

Cooper startled and stared at him, but the lawyers quickly stood.

“You don't want to hear—” began Cooper.

“No,” said Kostya. “Good day.”

Cooper didn't move at first, but then he gathered his briefcase and pranced out of the room along with the attorneys. Kostya hated paying off a rich man's children for assets they didn't earn or deserve, but he took solace in knowing they'd probably lose everything he gave them within a few years and die penniless. The sale would cost six million dollars, but the stations would allow him to move three or four million of otherwise-unaccounted-for cash a year into legitimate, interest-earning bank accounts. He'd earn his investment back in two years; hopefully he'd live long enough to see it.

Kostya answered his phone. “Kara?”

“Afraid not.” The voice belonged to a man, one Kostya didn't recognize. That didn't surprise him, though; he rarely knew the men in Kara's life. “Who am I speaking to?”

“That's none of your concern,” said Kostya. “How did you get Kara's phone?”

“I took it from her after I blew her head off and killed her husband.”

It took a moment for that to register, but once it did, Kostya's heart seized in his chest like an old piece of machinery, and he coughed hard. When he spoke again, his voice possessed little strength.

“You killed her?”

“That's how I got her phone. It was an awful waste of a fine piece of ass if you ask me. I'm calling you because I wanted to find out what kind of a man she'd take orders from.”

Kostya's hand shook. He tried to force strength back into his voice but found he had little.

“I don't give orders to anyone, least of all to her.”

“Sure you don't. Kara was a real piece of work. She and her husband didn't make too many friends in my line of business, and I'm willing to bet you don't want too many people knowing she worked for you. Give me some money, and no one will.”

Kostya swallowed and then took one breath followed by another. That helped some.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked.

“I don't need to. I've got Kara's phone, and you're the fourth number listed in her address book. She labeled you ‘boss.' That's all my people are going to need.”

Boss. Kara had never worked for him, but it didn't surprise him that she would call him that. They had never gotten along well.

“How much money do you want?”

“A hundred thousand dollars. Cash. We'll call that a start.”

Given the nature of the request, Kostya thought it reasonable. A smart man wouldn't pay blackmail, though; if he did it once, he'd do it for the rest of his life.

“Let's meet in person to discuss this.”

“I don't think so. You've got twenty-four hours, and you've got my number.”

“I'll think about it.”

Kostya hung up the phone before the caller did. He didn't know what to feel. He hadn't seen Kara in almost a decade, but he kept a picture of her in his desk at home and thought about her almost every day. She called him once a few years ago but hung up within a minute of placing the call. He missed her. Kostya kept his eyes on the table, processing the conversation. Eventually, his brother-in-law, Lev, stepped into the room and shut the door behind him. A detective Bukoholov knew referred to Lev as “the Hulk”; the appellation fit.

“Cooper said you agreed to his asking price. What's wrong?”

Kostya took a deep breath, drawing on a well of internal strength before looking at his brother-in-law. The ice around his heart began to melt as rage built inside him.

“Someone claims to have murdered my daughter. We have work to do.”