Unforgivable (37 page)

Ric tried to imagine how someone could shatter twelve wine bottles, all in a box, on a carpeted surface. If you dropped them from the ceiling, maybe.

Kid cleared his throat. “We wouldn’t have salvaged it anyways. We had specific instructions not to take it for recycling.”

“Whose instructions?”

“The maid’s.” The kid’s gaze met Ric’s, and there was something there. Ric’s skin prickled. Goddamn it, he knew he’d been right about this case.

“And you’re sure this was wine?” he asked the kid. “Not something else, like maybe blood?”

“I know my carpet stains. That was wine.” He looked down at his hands, rearranging the packets in rows now.

“Did you see anything else while you were in the house that looked to you like blood?”

“Nope.” No eye contact. “Not at the house.”

Ric waited. Finally, the kid looked up, and he saw the conflict in his eyes. Whose identity was he protecting here?

He glanced down and started over on the lean-to. “Guest house was a mess, though.”

Ric leaned forward. “What guest house? You’re talking about the same property?”

“One driveway over.” He looked up through his shaggy bangs. “Just next door, right down by the lake.”

“And this job was when?”

“December thirty-first. Day before New Year’s.”

December, not January. No wonder he hadn’t seen it on the calendar back at the carpet store.

The kid’s hands were outright shaking now with
whatever information he was holding in. But Ric waited him out. He wanted to talk, he just needed time.

“Anyways, this guest house was pretty small. Maybe five hundred fifty square feet? Not nearly as nice as the main house next door.” The sugar packets were in motion again. “There was all this brown paint everywhere, too.”

“Brown paint.” Ric leaned back in his chair. “You’re sure about that?”

“Yep. It was paint, all right, same color as the deck outside. All over the place, like somebody spilled a whole gallon. No way we could recycle that carpet. It went straight to the dump, too. Maid’s orders.”

Had someone dumped paint on that carpet to disguise the bloodstains?

“This maid,” Ric said. “She happen to give you a tip or anything? For following these orders?”

A minuscule nod.

“Okay, what else, Clayton? Besides the brown paint.”

The lean-to collapsed. He laced his fingers together and looked down at them, then up. “Got rid of the carpet pad, too. Whole thing was soaked with blood.”

CHAPTER 25

Kurt Lane,” Ric said the instant Jonah picked up. “What? Where are you?”

“I’m driving like a bat outta hell back to Lane’s lake house. His son’s our man.”

“You’re talking about the grad student? Out in California?”

“He’s not in California.” Ric took a curve in the highway going double the speed limit. “He’s been living in his parents’ guest cottage right here on the goddamn lake. I can’t fucking believe it. We even checked him out, remember? Got a cell-phone dump two weeks ago. Everything was up in Oakland.”

“But he wasn’t there? Shit, how did—”

“Maybe someone has his phone. How the hell do I know? Anyway, I need you out here ASAP,” Ric said. “I spent the last two hours getting a search warrant for this guest cottage. Had to go to the freaking judge’s
house
and drag him away from the ball game, and now I’m on my way to meet a CSI team—”

“Hold up. I’ve got news.”

Ric tensed at the words. He’d been so caught up with
the warrant he’d hardly thought about the firing range.

“Just left the range. My buddy showed me the sign-in logs dating two months back. About half a dozen cops that he knows of, could be more. I took down all the names.”

“And?” Ric gripped the steering wheel.

“One stands out. Burleson was out here last weekend doing some long-range shooting.”

“Todd Burleson?”

“One and the same. He’s ex-Army, turns out, so he and my buddy know each other some from talking shop whenever he comes by. I didn’t know this before, but Burleson was in Desert Storm a good ways back, before he was on the job. And get this—he got his start as a uniform up in Fort Worth, where he first made detective.”

Ric’s skin went cold. He knew what was coming.

“I called up there,” Jonah said. “Got hold of his former partner. You’re not going to believe this.”

“Guy named Baker?”

Pause. “How did you know?”

“God
damn
it. I met him.” Ric remembered his words about the Laura Thorne murder. “He said his partner was obsessed with the Thorne case.”

“Exactly. Which makes me think Burleson maybe got assigned to it on purpose, so he could derail the investigation and protect Lane.”

“That’d be pretty hard to pull off,” Ric said. “More likely, he caught the case legitimately, then Lane got to him and paid him off to protect his son and keep his name off the suspect list.” The bitterness was like a rock in Ric’s throat as he said the words.

“However it went down, Burleson was out here last Sunday, worked on five- and six-hundred-yard shots all afternoon.”

Sunday afternoon, the day after he tried to kill Mia.

Ric slammed on the brakes and pulled a U-turn. He narrowly missed an SUV that was barreling down the highway and a horn blared behind him as he stomped on the gas.

“Listen, Ric, I know what you’re thinking, and before you do anything—”

“I’m going to fucking bash his skull in.”

“Calm down.”

“Calm
down
? Are you out of your mind? He tried to kill Mia
twice
! He murdered a cop!” Ric glanced at the clock on his dashboard. “Meet me halfway. I’ll hand off this warrant, and you can meet everyone over there.”

“Ric, listen to me before you do anything. I checked the schedule. He’s not on today. I went by his house, too, and he’s not there, either. So before you go off half-cocked, we need to think about this. If we tip him off, no telling what he’ll do.”

Ric’s gut burned with rage. The highway stretched before him in a haze of red.

“Man, think about what you’re doing.”

Ric thought for about half a second. That’s how long it took him to realize that going after Burleson with a tire iron wasn’t what he needed to do right now, no matter how much he wanted to.

“Meet me at the Highway 71 and Bass Road juncture,” Ric said. “This warrant’s all yours.”

“And what about you?”

“I’m going to get Mia.”

•   •   •

Mia checked her phone as she stepped off the elevator. Ric.

“I’m glad you called! I’m running late, but I might have a breakthrough, so—”

“Where are you?”

Something in his voice made her feet stop. “Just leaving the lab. Why?”

“Stay there.”

“What?”

“I’m coming to get you.”

“But—”

“We know who the shooter is, Mia, and you were right. He’s a cop. Goddamn SMPD. You know Todd Burleson?”

She stood there, shocked, in the middle of the dimly lit lobby.
SMPD?

“Has he ever talked to you? Approached you?”

“No. I don’t know.” She shook her head. “Wait,
who
did you say again?”

“Todd Burleson. He’s a homicide dick. Caught the Meyer case before the chief tossed it over to me.”

“I don’t know any Burleson.” Mia tried to conjure a face.

“I’m sending you a picture. Check your phone, okay?”

Mia looked anxiously around the lobby. Sophie’s desk was empty. The coffee shop was empty. All of the corridors she could see were empty. She looked out the windows, where daylight was disappearing behind the tree line.

“Because he’s a cop,” Ric went on, “he could probably badge his way past the gate.”

She felt the first stirrings of fear. “You think he’s coming
here
?”

“I don’t know what he’s doing. He’s not answering the phone or his door. He’s freakin’ AWOL, Mia. Are you inside?”

“I’m in the lobby. I just—”

“Get away from the glass. Go into an office. Not your office. Call the security guard, and tell him to come wait with you, and I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Twenty-five at the most, okay?”

Her chest constricted as she stepped toward the elevator bank.

“Okay, Mia?”

“Ric, do you really think—”

“I don’t know. It’s probably nothing, but until we pick him up, I’m not taking any chances. Call me if anything weird happens, anything at all, okay?”

“All right,” she said, trying to sound brave. She ducked behind one of the tall Doric columns and leaned her back against the cool marble. She took a deep breath.

“I’m coming fast, Mia. I’ll be there soon.”

“Be careful. The roads are icy.”

“I will.”

They disconnected, and Mia stood motionless as the silence enveloped her. A trickle of fear slipped down her spine, and she realized that something very weird was already happening.

She was in the lobby, and she didn’t see Ralph.

CHAPTER 26

From the minute he set foot in the room, Jonah knew they’d found their crime scene. Even without the tip from the carpet installer, the place had a particular smell about it—new carpet, yeah, but something else, too.

“Look, but don’t touch,” one of the crime-scene techs warned, walking around Jonah to kneel in the corner of the room. He took out a utility knife and started peeling back a corner of carpet.

Like the CSI, Jonah wore a Tyvek suit and shoe coverings to keep from tracking debris either in or out. He wore latex gloves, too, but didn’t plan to touch anything until the place had been thoroughly photographed and dusted for prints. Jonah was there as a pair of eyes only, at least for now.

The photographer continued snapping away with her camera as Jonah tried to get a feel for the place. It had all the features of what might have been a college apartment: efficiency kitchen, combination living and sleeping area, faded futon slouched in front of a TV hooked up to a gaming system.

“Hey, you smell that?” Jonah asked, turning to look at the CSI.

“What, the carpet?”

“Yeah, but I’m getting some other funk, too.”

The guy sniffed the air. “Think you’re right. Good nose.”

Jonah scanned the room for investigative possibilities. Should he start with the unmade bed? The papers littering the breakfast table? The closet overflowing with dirty laundry? He walked over to the TV and surveyed the tall stack of video games. He eyed the joystick with disgust. This jerk off had an extreme case of Failure to Launch.

“Damn, what a hovel.”

He turned and saw a Tyvek-clad woman standing in the doorway—the FBI’s computer expert, Beth Something-or-other. She wrinkled her nose at the mess and went straight for the laptop on the coffee table. Kurt Lane was considered a flight risk, so the task force was after any information that might indicate his whereabouts. E-mail was a good place to start.

“Let me know what you get on that system,” Jonah said, stepping into the bathroom for a look. Nothing on the sink. A can of beer sat on the back of the john. Jonah poked his head behind the moldy shower curtain and scanned the tile grout for anything suspicious. Nope.

His phone buzzed, and he pulled it from his pocket.

“What was Burleson practicing with Sunday?” Ric demanded without preamble.

“Remington 7600.”

“Does it have a night scope?”

“Don’t know. Why?” Jonah glanced through the
frosted-glass window and saw that daylight was fading fast.

“Mia’s at the lab. I’m on my way, but she just called, and she can’t find the security guard.”

“You think he’s out there?” “He” meaning Burleson.

“I’ve got no idea,” Ric said, but the edge in his voice told Jonah that was exactly what he thought.

“Guard’s probably taking a piss break or maybe making his rounds or something,” Jonah said.

“Mia’s been there for hours. If he set up waiting for her out by the parking lot, he’s bound to figure he’s missed his shot by now. It’s almost dark.”

“And you think … ?” Jonah didn’t even want to finish the sentence.

“I think the guard’s missing and so is Burleson. I think he’s about to make this up close and personal.”