Terminated (18 page)

While he loaded another six into the .38, he watched Gwen. She was shooting a 9mm, from the looks of it. She was hitting the target, but there was far too much emotion going on, which under the circumstances, made a lot of
sense. She aimed, fired, and fired again. She didn’t steady her body, control her breathing, or wait for the recoil to pass out of her body before refiring. But despite Gwen’s hurried style, emptying a ten-shot magazine faster than he shot six, she hit the target. When she brought her target back, he glanced at it. She’d hit it, but her grouping was scattered. If the target represented Tarbell, she’d hit him where it counted, but she’d more than likely hit something or someone else along the way.

He continued shooting, refining his skill with a weapon he’d never handle again, while he watched Gwen shred three more paper targets. When he noticed her packing up, he hurriedly emptied the .38 and retrieved his target, tossing it in the trash on the way out. He settled up and returned the unused rounds and equipment. He was out the door before Gwen left the range, and waited for her outside.

She emerged from the building with her head down and her mind preoccupied. He moved in and called her name. The sound of her name spooked her. She spun around, panic consuming her expression. He’d expected this reaction. There was no easy way of introducing himself. She didn’t know him. He wasn’t Tarbell, but he wasn’t a familiar face either. He put up his hands in surrender.

“Gwen, we need to talk.”

She bolted for her Subaru.

He withheld the desire to chase her. Instead, he called out, “I’m a friend of Robert Ingram’s.”

Ingram’s name stopped her, but it didn’t dislodge the hostility in her eyes. “Under the circumstances, I wouldn’t call Robert Ingram a friend.”

“Neither would I.” He lowered his hands and slowly approached. “That’s why I don’t work for him anymore.”

The remark helped unwind the tightly coiled spring inside Gwen.

“Gwen, can we talk? I want to help you.”

Gwen unlocked her car and opened
the door. “A lot of people offer their help but don’t do anything for me. I’m better off without the help I’ve been getting recently.”

“Would a picture of Stephen Tarbell busting your window last night help?”

She stopped. “You have it?”

“I’ve got it in my pocket. Can we go somewhere where I can show it to you?”

Gwen locked up her car, and they went to a Peet’s Coffee that was housed in the mini mall. He handed her a picture he’d taken last night with his digital camera, then got the coffees. When he returned with the drinks, she wasn’t quite smiling, but the weight of the world on her shoulders seemed to be gone.

“We can take this to Pace.”

“You can, but it won’t do you much good. It shows Tarbell breaking a window. Big deal. It’s a misdemeanor.” Judging from her expression, he’d punctured her good mood, but that was OK. She needed to be aware of the realities. He tapped the picture. “This represents a start. We build a case from here.”

Gwen didn’t look convinced.

“Who are you?”

“I’m a retired San Francisco police inspector. I used to worked for Private Security International on a contract basis. I don’t anymore.”

“Why?”

“I was part of the Tarbell investigation team, and I didn’t like how it turned from Tarbell to you.”

He’d planned on telling her how Tarbell had used him to compromise the investigation, threatened him, and gone after Lynette, but these were hardly the credentials to inspire confidence in him. He needed her to believe in him. Full disclosure could wait until this debacle was over.

“Thank you. It’s nice to hear someone actually cares.” Gwen looked relieved. “What are we going to do?”

“First, we’re going to forget all about
guns. They aren’t the answer.”

“Who’s going to protect me—you?”

“Yes.”

“Great, I had a whole security team watching over me and my family. Now I’ve got just you. Can you really make a difference?”

Her petulance failed to make an impact on Petersen. “Yes, I can. Do you have a gun?”

“I bought one, but I’m still waiting for clearance on the background check.”

“When did you apply?”

“A week ago.”

That meant she’d be a gun owner in a few days. “I’ll have dealt with Tarbell before you get your gun.”

“How?”

“That depends. Tell me the circumstances behind your firing and everything since he held a knife to your throat. I need to know everything.”

She outlined it all in great detail. He wrote it all down in his notebook.

“Tarbell might think he’s smart, but he can’t avoid leaving a trail. He might not think he’s left a trace, but there are footprints leading to his door. If he planted the files on your computer, he needed to have access to plant them. He’s probably still got them. When he broke into your home, he probably took something. He’d want to have a trophy to remind him of his success. I just have to find it.”

“So how do we find it?”

“We don’t. I will.”

She shot him a dubious look. “I can’t pay you.”

He couldn’t take Gwen’s money even if she offered it. He’d earned money he didn’t deserve while living in the shadow of Tarbell’s threats. “I’m not interested in that. It’s for your own protection. I’m going to break into his home. I don’t want you to be a party to that. You need an airtight alibi should there be any finger-pointing.”

Gwen frowned. “If you break in and find something,
is that going to be enough?”

“It’ll give us a footing, but that’s all.”

Gwen sat back. He watched her consider everything he’d said.

“Finding evidence is one thing. But we need to catch him in the act. What are our other options?”

“Bait and trap.”

A sour little smile appeared on Gwen’s face. She’d connected the dots. “I guess I’m the bait.”

“Yes, you are.”

The call came just after lunch. “Hi Steve, it’s Deborah. Could you come to Conference Room Two? I wanted to talk about the incident with Gwen this morning.”

Tarbell had been expecting this call. It came a little later than he’d expected, but that was fine. “Sure, Deborah. When?”

“Now.”

“Be right there.”

He walked over to the conference room and let himself in without knocking. Deborah wasn’t alone. That, he wasn’t expecting, but he kept his surprise to himself.

“I’m sorry, Deborah. I didn’t realize you were with someone.”

Deborah smiled. “No, my mistake. I should have told you someone was joining us. This is Robert Ingram. He’s a security consultant.”

Tarbell pretended he didn’t know who Ingram was. He shook hands with the man who’d unsuccessfully tried to ruin his life.

He sat down, and Deborah stood up. “Actually, I’m only here for introductions. This is a private meeting between the two of you.”

Tarbell found this meeting a little disconcerting, but he showed the right level of concern to Ingram, while feeling quite confident.

“Nothing to worry about,” Ingram said after Deborah
left. “This is routine procedure. I get involved whenever a current or ex-employee threatens another employee.”

Tarbell wondered if Gwen had received this same speech. “If you’re talking about this morning, I don’t think what Gwen did in the parking lot was a direct threat against me.”

“Deborah told me you had to hold her off.”

“Yes, but I wasn’t fighting for my life or anything.”

“Doesn’t matter. You had to defend yourself. That’s serious enough.”

“Wow.”

Tarbell thought he was doing a great job at playing the understanding nice guy. He hoped Ingram felt destabilized and uncertain about his motives now that he was acting like he wanted to protect a backstabbing bitch like Gwen.

Ingram broke out a notebook and poised a pen over a fresh page. “Can you tell me what happened this morning?”

“Not a lot to tell. Gwen came rushing up to me and started ranting and raving about getting fired.”

“Why’d she pick on you?”

“She thinks I had something to do with it.”

Ingram looked up from his note taking and smiled. “Which you didn’t?”

Tarbell smiled back. He had to play it careful. “No. She’s just looking for someone to blame, I guess.”

“I can tell you the one person who was responsible for Gwen’s termination, and that’s Gwen.”

It was music to Tarbell’s ears. He almost asked Ingram to repeat himself just so he could enjoy the moment again.

“That’s sad.”

“It is. I hear there’s been some animosity between you and Gwen. Can you tell me about that?”

Hmm, I wonder where you heard that little tidbit from
, he thought. “Well, I can’t say we were the best of buds, but I wouldn’t call it animosity. I didn’t always agree with her, but we did our
jobs.”

Ingram nodded and noted the response in his notebook. “So you didn’t throw a rock through the window of Mrs. Farris’s home last night?”

“Wow. Um, no. I didn’t break her window. Why would I?”

Breaking Gwen’s window was a petty thing to do, but it had been necessary to test PSI’s interest level. After Gwen’s termination, Petersen said the surveillance on him had been dropped. Before he tried anything serious, he had to know for sure. If he broke Gwen’s window, who would come running? He’d even made sure Gwen saw him leaving. If PSI was still after him, all they had on him was destruction of private property—a misdemeanor. At worst, they’d force him to pay for the window. It was a small price to pay to know where he stood.

He felt Ingram appraising him.

“Mrs. Farris claims she saw you drive away from her home last night.”

“Well, it wasn’t me. I can’t believe she said that.”

“Can anyone verify your whereabouts last night?”

“Not really. I was at home, but I live alone.”

“That’s OK. A case of sour grapes.” Ingram closed his notebook. “Because of today, I’m recommending that Pace obtain a restraining order against Gwen covering this building, its employees, and specifically you. She won’t be able to come within a hundred feet of you.”

While the idea of a restraining order against Gwen was an exquisite twist, Tarbell worried it might work against his plans. He shook his head. “Is that necessary?”

“I think so. That would also mean that you or anyone else listed in the restraining order cannot encounter or contact Mrs. Farris. The judge wouldn’t like it.”

Tarbell held back a smile. It
was a shrewd move on Ingram’s part, but it wouldn’t stop him. “Why would I want to contact Gwen?”

“Why would you?” Ingram rose to his feet. “That concludes our business, Mr. Tarbell.”

Tarbell shook Ingram’s hand. The investigator gripped his hand harder than necessary. “This has been an unfortunate turn of events. By all accounts, Gwen Farris was a good and hardworking employee.”

“Yes, it’s very sad.”

Tarbell went to release Ingram’s hand, but the investigator tightened his grip.

“I consider this case closed, Mr. Tarbell. I don’t want to receive any further reports of damage to Mrs. Farris’s property. Do I make myself clear?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Let’s keep it that way, Mr. Tarbell.”

It was pretty easy to read between the lines. Stay away from Gwen and nothing would happen. Ingram’s veiled threat told him he was now free to do as he wished. He smiled.

“That won’t be a problem.”

“N
o,” Lynette said vehemently. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Petersen’s attempt to sit Lynette down
over breakfast and calmly tell her she needed to leave town for a few days had crashed and burned. Now that he was going after Tarbell, he was leaving himself open to retaliation, and Tarbell might do more than shove Lynette down an escalator.

“All the years you were on the job, you never asked me to leave town, so don’t tell me it doesn’t mean anything now. I knew something was wrong. Tell me what this is about.”

He’d tried not to wear his heart on his sleeve, but Lynette’s fall down the escalator had scared him, and it showed. No one had ever come after him before. It frightened him how easily it had been done.

There was no way he was going to get Lynette out of the kitchen, let alone out of town, without cluing her in on what happened.

“Is it this job you’ve been working?”

“Yes, it is.”

His admission took the hard edge off of Lynette’s expression. “But I thought it was over.”

“Officially, it is.”

She reached across the table and laid a hand on his. It was warm from holding her coffee cup. “What’s gone wrong?”

“The subject I was following learned
who I was.”

“What do you mean ‘learned’? Who is this man?”

“It doesn’t matter how he did it or who he is. All that matters is that he knows who I am and where I live.”

“And me?”

“Yes.”

Her hand lost its heat against his. He’d scared her. That was good. Feeling scared would keep her vigilant.

“That’s why I need you to go away.”

“Will he come after me?”

“He’s after me, but if he can’t get to me, he might go after you to get to me. You know how these things work.”

She nodded.

He’d yet to tell her the truth about her fall down the escalator. He would, but only after Tarbell was in jail. He needed her scared enough to be cautious, not panicked.

“What are you going to do?”

He grinned. “I’ll do what I always do, catch the son of a bitch.”

She forced a smile. “How long will all this take?”

“Not long. Today, we’re putting an operation together to hook this fish. It won’t take long after that. No more than a week.”

She frowned. “If he’s the fish, does that make you the bait?”

“No, it makes me the fisherman.”

Her smile was warmer this time around.

“What do you need me to do?”

“Go to Tahoe. Take your sister. She doesn’t need much of an excuse to go gamble.” Lynette frowned at him, but he steamrolled over her disapproval. “Check in under her name. Don’t call me. I’ll call you. OK?”

She nodded.

“Good girl.” He leaned in and kissed her.

He helped her pack while she called her sister and loaded her bags into the car with J. Edgar. The dog made for a good early-warning system should Tarbell come for him,
but he wasn’t about to put his dog at risk.

He watched Lynette drive off, and as soon as she disappeared from sight, he checked his watch. He was behind schedule, but he could make up the time.

He drove over to Eric Biden’s place. Biden was the whiz Ingram used when it came to electronic surveillance. They’d worked a few jobs together and got along well. The day before, Biden had agreed to lend Petersen everything needed to wire up Gwen’s house. Biden offered to do the install, but Petersen turned his offer down.

Loading the equipment into Petersen’s car, Biden asked, “Is this a PSI job?”

“No, private. I don’t want word getting back, so keep it to yourself.”

“Sure. No problem.”

“Thanks. I’ll get all this stuff back to you in a week.”

“Just remember, you break it, you buy it.”

Petersen thanked Biden and headed over to Gwen’s home. Paul had been resistant to his involvement when they’d met yesterday, but he was far more accommodating when Petersen arrived with Biden’s equipment. He and Paul worked together installing the cameras in the main rooms, the yard and over the entrance to the house. Gwen and Kirsten acted as models to help set up the cameras. Should Tarbell approach or enter the house, he’d be caught on tape. Petersen set up the recording equipment in the garage and hid it under the usual garage bric-a-brac. It was a good setup. Tarbell wouldn’t know what hit him until he was in jail.

There was a buoyant mood in the house. Petersen understood it. It was a long time since any of them had something to smile about. Tarbell would walk into this trap, and it was going to be sweet when it happened.

He was in the kitchen packing his tools into a sports bag when Gwen came in with Kirsten in her arms and Paul behind her.

“Now what?” Gwen asked

“I want the cameras running 24-7. Don’t turn them off when you’re in the house. If Tarbell strikes, we want him on
tape. Swap the tapes out. Watch them if you like. If you don’t see Tarbell, then record over them. OK?”

Gwen looked over at Paul. He nodded. “Sure,” she said.

“Good. I’m going to Tarbell’s to see what I can find. Hopefully, I’ll find something that connects him either to the break-in or the computer files.”

“Do you have someone watching your back?” Paul asked.

Petersen thought of Reggie Glover. He’d almost called him last night for backup, but he couldn’t do that to Reggie. The guy still worked for PSI. He needed the paychecks to put his youngest through UC Berkeley. If they caught him breaking into Tarbell’s, his kid could kiss a college education good-bye.

“Not on this one, but I’m fine.” “Fine” came in the guise of a .45 from his days on the SFPD. Whenever he was primary through a door, he wanted the stopping power at his trigger finger.

“Let me come with you,” Paul said.

“No. I need you guys to have an alibi. The moment I leave here, you should go somewhere public. Take in a movie, eat out somewhere, go to the zoo.”

“Can we really go to the zoo?” Kirsten asked. “The one with the choo-choo?”

“Sure, sweetie, we can go there.”

“Keep any receipts. They’ll be time coded. Make sure you’re remembered. I don’t want anything coming back on you. Got it?”

“It makes sense, but I don’t like it,” Paul said.

“None of us do, I’m afraid,” Petersen conceded. He saw himself out. Gwen followed him out to his car, alone. He put his sports bag in the back of his brother-in-law’s Mazda.

“You be careful.”

He smiled. “I will. Now get out of here, and keep your cell on. If I find something, I’ll want to ask you about it.”

She smiled back. “OK.”

Petersen headed over to Tarbell’s house in El Cerrito and parked a block away. He didn’t want any neighbors seeing
him walk up to the house. He grabbed the dog leash off the passenger seat for cover. If anyone asked what he was doing in their neighborhood, he was looking for his dog. It was a cheap trick, but it had worked for him before. He walked past Tarbell’s home, scanning his surroundings for ways to gain safe entry to his property. An alley would have made access easy, but no such luck. He needed to find a way into the backyard.

Petersen liked the look of the house next door. There was a fence separating the two homes but no side gate, so there was a clear path to the backyard. And judging from the empty driveway and lights off in the house, Tarbell’s neighbors weren’t home.

He went up to the front door and rang the doorbell. While he waited for someone to answer, he studied the houses across the street. A car was parked in the driveway of one, but the other driveways were empty. He watched for curtain movement, but didn’t see any. Things were looking good.

No one answered the door, and he wandered into the backyard. A tree in the corner of the yard made it easy for Petersen to clamber over the fence. He landed on all fours in Tarbell’s yard, feeling the impact through his joints. He paused for a moment before getting to his feet.

He used a lock pick gun to open the patio door and let himself in. He checked his watch. It was a little after three. Tarbell liked working late. Even if he left at five on the dot, he wouldn’t be home until six, but Tarbell wasn’t who he had to worry about. He had to be away before the neighbors came home. He decided to leave by four thirty, whether he’d completed his search or not. He could always come back tomorrow.

He pulled on a pair of latex gloves before he touched anything in the house. Tarbell kept a neat home. He even made the bed before he left for work in the morning. The living room was a little stark—just a sofa, a lounger, a couple of bookshelves, a rolltop desk, and a TV. He seemed to eat well, judging
from the ingredients in the fridge. There were no TV dinners in the freezer. Despite having three bedrooms and living alone, there was no guest room. One room had been converted into an office, and a home gym occupied the other.

He went to the office first. He switched on a laptop sitting on a desk. While he waited for the machine to boot up, he picked through the contents of the drawer and found a CD holder. From the cover artwork, it was easy to see it was spy software.

He called Gwen’s cell. “Hey, where are you?”

“San Francisco Zoo.”

He heard Kirsten’s excited voice in the background.

“I’m at Tarbell’s. I’ve found spy software. I don’t know much about this stuff, but I do know it could be used to intercept e-mail and even send e-mails from your machine remotely.”

“God, there’s no stopping him.”

“Yes, there is. These files Pace claimed you’d sent from your machine. What are some of the file names?”

He noted the file names down in his notebook. “Great. I’ll get back to you.”

He trawled the contents of Tarbell’s laptop and for whatever files the spy software had retrieved from Gwen’s computer. He wasn’t bad when it came to technology, but he was slow. He knew there was gold on the hard drive, but like gold, it was hard to extract. Finally, he found a directory entitled “GFarris.” It looked as if the software had recorded every keystroke of Gwen’s computer. It had captured a mind-boggling amount of data, especially considering the short period time it had been in operation. The date stamps tracked back to days after Gwen’s assault. Tarbell possessed a complete record of e-mail, visited Web sites, and every opened and saved file.

“Gotcha,” Petersen growled. Listed among the files in the directory were the research files Gwen had supposedly stolen.

He called Gwen to tell her the
news. “I found the files. They’re on his laptop. We’ve got him, Gwen. We’ve got him.”

“Are you taking the computer?”

“No. These need to be found legally. I’ll talk to Ingram and get him over here.”

“Thanks, Tom. I don’t know how to thank you.”

“We’re a long way from the champagne stage, but we’re getting there. I’m going to finish my search. I’ll come by later tonight, hopefully by nine.”

“OK.”

He hung up, then printed off screen dumps of the file directories and snapped pictures of the spy software in the desk drawer. After he’d taken his pictures and pocketed his printouts, he replaced everything exactly where he’d found it and shut down the computer.

He checked his watch. His deadline to leave was closing in.

He searched for keepsakes. This guy was bound to have a trophy or two as a reminder of his triumph. He went from room to room but found nothing.

“Don’t be the exception,” he murmured. He checked his watch. He was running out of time. “Composure, Tom,” he told himself. “Think like him.”

There’d be a shrine for his mementos. It might be a safe-deposit box, but Petersen didn’t think so. Tarbell would want to keep his prizes close so he had access to them at any time.

He’d come across a couple of shrines kept by criminals in his time. He’d uncovered one in a basement and another in a storage unit. These displays were often hidden away. He grabbed the stepladder from the garage and peered inside the attic space. The roof’s shallow pitch made access impossible for anyone over two feet tall. His flashlight picked up nothing but fiberglass insulation.

It occurred to him that Tarbell didn’t need a private place for his shrine. He wasn’t a married guy hiding his dark secret from his family and friends. Tarbell
didn’t have any. This house was his fortress. Nobody was welcome. Because of that, he didn’t have to hide his goodies away. He could keep them handy.

He’d searched every room except the living room. He went to the rolltop desk. It was a beautiful piece of antique furniture, but an odd thing to have in the room. He tugged on the brass handhold. The rolltop wasn’t locked, and he slid the top back.

He didn’t find a shrine, but he did find something. He put it down to Tarbell being new at this. Given time and confidence, a sick, twisted guy like Tarbell would surely create a display bigger than the rolltop could contain. For now, he possessed just one item—a large photo of the Farris family. Their faces had been crossed out with a thick Sharpie. Gwen’s face had been crossed out time and time again. Petersen felt cold in the warm room.

He didn’t touch the picture. Fingerprints marred the photo’s glossy finish and he didn’t want to contaminate this perfect piece of evidence. Tarbell was toast.

He brought out his digital camera. He snapped three shots of the photo in situ, then called Gwen again. She answered on the first ring.

“Have you got something?” Gwen asked, the screeching of birds loud in the background.

“You said nothing was taken from the break-in. Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“I found a photograph of you, Paul, and Kirsten. It’s the three of you on the beach. It looks recent judging from Kirsten’s age.” He left out the part out about their faces being crossed out. “Where did you keep the picture—at work or at home?”

He prayed she’d say at home. If Tarbell had stolen the photo from Gwen’s home, it put him in the house during the break-in.

“Oh my God,” Gwen said. “It hung in our home office. It was taken this summer.”

Petersen grinned. He had
the prick. “Great. We’ve got him. I’ll meet you back at your house at nine to go over what I’ve got.”

He hung up. “Gotcha, dickhead.”

His delight lasted only a second. He sensed movement behind him and spun around in time to be smacked across the temple with a wine bottle. The bottle remained intact, but the searing impact put him on his back.