Vail 02 - Crush (34 page)

Dixon cocked her head. “And that is . . .”

“There’s a guy,” Brix said. “Someone we questioned early on. Scott actually wanted to bring him back in and talk to him. I resisted.”

Vail brushed a lock of red hair behind her ear. “Why?”

“Well. . . .” He hesitated, then said, “Because he’s an employee of Silver Ridge.” He held up a hand. “I know what you’re gonna say, and before you say it, you’re right. I’ve got a conflict, and I think it colored my judgment on this. I’m sorry.”

Vail waved it off. It wasn’t something to be glossed over, but Brix came clean and there was nothing to be gained making him feel guilty about his error. “So this employee. Who is he?”

“The guy who found the body. Miguel Ortiz.”

Vail leaned back. “I remember him. He gave me his flashlight. He seemed genuinely freaked by what he found. Then again, I didn’t exactly have my guard up. I was on vacation. Could’ve just been an act, to deflect attention off himself.”

Brix held out a hand. “There you go. Does he fit the profile?”

Vail bobbed her head about. “He’s about the right age. Although the vast majority of serial killers are Caucasian, there have been a fair number of Hispanics. I can think of five just off the top of my head. That said, Ortiz is a low-level employee without the kind of access to information and people that our UNSUB’s exhibited. From what I’ve seen, our offender is a much more complex killer.”

“You thought of him, why?” Dixon asked.

Brix’s eyes narrowed. “Not sure. Just a feeling. When I questioned him at the scene, he wouldn’t look at me. He seemed very nervous.”

“Maybe he knew you were one of the owners,” Dixon said, “and he felt intimidated.”

Brix twisted his lips. “Maybe. But he was the one who found Victoria’s body. And Scott did a little checking before he—well, he did a little checking and he found that Ortiz didn’t have an alibi for the other murders up to that point. But Ray thought we were wasting our breath. He just didn’t think this was our guy.”

“Because?”

“He said if there was a murderous Mexican looney on the loose, he would’ve heard about it in his community. He seemed pretty adamant that going after Ortiz was a waste of time.”

“Serial killers are not ‘looney,’” Vail said. “They’re not insane or ‘off their rockers.’ They know what they’re doing. Their actions are very purposeful. And they know murder is against the law. They just don’t care.”

“I checked with the HR person at Silver Ridge. She sees him from time to time when he’s in the cave, rinsing the floors and washing out pails. According to her, he’s always on time, works very hard and sends money back home to his sick mother. And if he needs something, like medical care, he pays for it. He doesn’t live off the state. For what it’s worth, in her words, he’s harmless. A man with a good heart.”

Vail smirked. “No offense to your HR administrator, but let’s leave the threat assessment to us.”

Brix shifted his weight on the bench. “There’s something else about Ortiz.” He paused a moment. “About an hour ago, when Agbayani arrived, I handed him the Ortiz lead and asked him to look into
it. As soon as he heard the name, he thought it sounded familiar. Turns out Ortiz was a suspect in the Vallejo murder, Maryanne Bernal.”

Dixon leaned forward. “No shit?”

Brix held up a finger. “Hang on a second. Before you get all excited, it was just an eyewitness account of a big guy with a white pickup. They picked him up and questioned him. He’s got ties to Vallejo, a brother who lives there.”

“An offender may dump a body in an area he’s familiar with,” Vail said.

Brix waved a hand. “Doesn’t matter. It went nowhere. They had nothing on him. And he had no record, not so much as a misde-meanor. And he was one of about forty-five guys they ended up questioning who matched the description.”

“So what did Agbayani think about Ortiz popping up again in connection with a murder investigation?” Vail asked.

“It wouldn’t have been that big a deal. Except that someone fitting Ortiz’s description was seen in the area at the time Isaac Jenkins was killed.”

Vail lifted a brow. “You knew this? Why didn’t you move on him?”

Brix let his gaze linger on Vail’s. “I found out right around the time Scott was killed. We’ve been a little busy.”

Vail held his gaze and didn’t blink.

“Still,” Dixon said, breaking the silent confrontation, “like what happened in Vallejo, a lot of guys fit his general description, so one witness account doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Unless she picks him out of a lineup.”

“She didn’t see his face, only his body.”

“His body?” Dixon sighed. “Make that a
poor
witness account. Well, it can’t hurt to chat him up. Ask him about the two murders since then.”

Brix shrugged. “It’s probably not worth pursuing.”

Vail slid her legs from beneath the cement table. “You’ve got a feeling about this. And we’ve got questions. I think we should go check it out. I’ll call the AVA board president and tell her we need some more time.”

Dixon rose as well. “Is Ortiz at Silver Ridge?”

Brix pushed himself off the cement bench as if he was lifting a heavy weight. “He’s not working today. But he rents a room from a family off West Spain in downtown Sonoma.”

“The male vic, Jenkins, he was from Sonoma.”

“I’m aware of that,” Brix said.

“How can we be sure Ortiz is going to be there?”

“I called the homeowner and she said Ortiz is home. She thinks he’s sleeping.”

“Does he know we’re coming?” Dixon asked.

Brix shook his head. “If he is our guy—and I’m not ready to say that—then telling him we’re coming by to question him may set him off. No, we’ll go in quietly.”

Vail led the way to the staircase, then glanced up one more time to grab a view of the vineyards. It was so peaceful up here. She hadn’t felt an inner sense of tranquility since the day she and Robby arrived here. Her first visit to the Napa Valley, and it was marred by the rampage of a serial killer. Could she ever visit this place again and not be poisoned by memories of this case? It was a rhetorical thought. She already knew the answer.

“How do you know his landlord didn’t tip him off?” Dixon asked.

Dixon’s voice, echoing in the stairwell, pulled Vail out of her reverie. She realized she had spaced out, staring at the vineyards and mountains, smelling the soil-wet air. As she started down the steps, she heard Brix’s voice somewhere below.

“I explained that we didn’t want to make any trouble for her. But short answer is, we don’t.”

Vail’s “short answer”—to her own rhetorical question—was more visceral. The magical Napa Valley would never be the same for her. The Crush Killer had ruined it.
Another reason to catch this bastard.
As she thought of all that had gone wrong these past few days, of all the victims this killer had now amassed, Vail realized she didn’t need another reason to want to ratchet down a set of cuffs on his wrists.

THEY TOOK BRIX’S CAR and arrived in Sonoma thirty minutes later. The drive was as picturesque as any of the views they had seen along
Highway 29. Vineyards, rolling hills, mountains. And today, the hint of sun burning through the cloud cover.

“Welcome to Sonoma,” Dixon said.

Vail craned her neck around, taking in the small and medium-sized residential homes. “Are there wineries in Sonoma, too?”

Despite the seriousness of their task ahead, Brix and Dixon, sitting beside one another in the front seat, looked at each other and laughed.

“I take it that was a stupid question,” Vail said.

“That’d be a ‘yes’ twice over,” Brix said. “First, it was a stupid question. This entire valley is wine country. Second, Sonoma is considered the birthplace of the California wine industry.”

Vail turned away and looked out at the Readers Bookstore they were passing on the right. “Oh.”

“Up ahead is the downtown plaza,” Dixon said, as Brix turned right onto First Street East. “Besides historic wineries, Sonoma also has some interesting shops and galleries. And lots of good restaurants.”

Vail pointed at a ground-hugging white adobe building with a large cross protruding from its roof. “What did that sign say? Mission San Francisco?”

“Mission San Francisco Solano,” Brix said. “An old church.”

Dixon threw Brix a look. “Give me a break. Calling that a church would be like calling Silver Ridge winery a ‘grape juice manufacturing plant.’” She flicked the side of his head with a finger.

“Hey,” Brix said.

Dixon turned to Vail. “California History 101. There are twenty-one missions. That one’s the last one built—and the first one built under Mexico’s rule, in the 1820s. It’s also where the very first vineyards in the valley were planted. By monks who lived in the mission.”

“Not to interrupt the history lesson,” Brix said, “but we’ve got a
mission
of our own.” He nodded ahead. “We’re coming up on Ortiz’s house.” He slowed the car.

“Which one?” Dixon asked.

“Wait,” Brix said, braking to a crawl. He leaned forward, peering in the right side view mirror. “He’s right there. Behind us, I passed him.”

Miguel Ortiz was walking the sidewalk, about thirty feet away. Brix pulled over to the curb.

Dixon popped her door. “You sure that’s him?”

Brix shoved the shift into park and got out. He turned toward Ortiz, then caught Dixon’s gaze. “Definitely.”

Ortiz must have recognized Brix’s voice, because he spun around. His eyes found the car . . . the look on Brix’s face, the look on Dixon’s.

And then he ran.

“Shit,” Brix said. “Where the fuck does he think he’s gonna go?” Brix jumped back into the Ford, jammed the gearshift into drive, and accelerated. He swung the car around. Dixon pursued on foot. And Vail unstrapped her seatbelt.

Ortiz crossed the street into the park that sat in the center of the square.

As Brix approached, Vail opened her door. “Let me off!”

Brix swung the car toward the curb and screeched to a stop. “Go.”

Vail spilled out and fell into stride behind Dixon, who was about twenty-five feet off the pace. Ortiz was pretty quick for his size and was headed down the cement tile walk that cut diagonally through the park.

Off to their right lay a playground filled with young children climbing on the structures, mothers out for an early afternoon with their kids. If there was one thing the parents were not counting on when they arrived at the park with their children, it was finding themselves in the middle of a police pursuit.

“Miguel,” Dixon yelled. “Wait up.”

Vail quickly surveyed the kids. She yanked her badge from her belt and held it up, hoping the mothers would see and understand what was going down. Clearly, it had an effect, as a couple of them scooped up their children and swung them away from the approaching—and fleeing—suspect.

Vail to Ortiz: “We just want to talk!”

But he didn’t stop.

A child ran out in front of him. Ortiz skirted the boy, who covered his face and ran back toward his mother, but Dixon was not so lucky—she shifted right, into the child’s path—and went tumbling. She landed on her side amidst scattered sand and hard-packed dirt—narrowly avoiding a collision with a brick water fountain.

“Got him,” Vail shouted, as she passed Dixon.

Dixon got back on her feet and slanted across the grass, taking an angle on Ortiz as he cut right onto the asphalt road that encircled the historic, stone-walled City Hall building. He ran past the structure into the front parking lot, then angled left, back into the park and across the grass.

He’s not going anywhere,
Vail realized.
He’s just trying to get away. He’s either our UNSUB . . . or he’s done something wrong and does not want to face charges.

Ortiz crossed East Napa Street—eliciting a blown car horn as he skirted by an Infiniti FX’s hood—and ran straight into a narrow alley. No, not an alley—a covered sidewalk. A covered sidewalk that fed storefront shops.

“Miguel,” Vail yelled, “we just have some questions! You’re not in any trouble—”

Ortiz ran underneath the ivy-covered archways. Vail followed—but there were no longer footsteps behind her.
Where’s Roxxann?

Vail passed beneath a sign that read, 42 Unique Shops & Services, slipped on the slick terracotta tile, then scampered past Chico’s, an assortment of other stores, spas, and boutiques—thinking,
That blouse in the window would look good on me. I should come back here someday and browse, get a massage . . .

Actually, Vail was thinking about her knee, which was beginning to balk. She heard her surgeon reminding her she wasn’t supposed to be behaving like Lara Croft for at least another few weeks.