Vail 02 - Crush (52 page)

And then scuffling, struggling, muted yells—off to her right.
Karen!

Dixon ran in the direction of the noise. Around the bend, she saw, in the relative darkness, John Mayfield, legs spread, straddling something. She couldn’t see Vail, but Mayfield was easily twice her width.

Given Mayfield’s well-documented MO—which she’d experienced firsthand—she didn’t have to see Vail to know where she was, or what Mayfield was doing to her.

There wasn’t a good angle to take him out with a clean shot—especially in the poor lighting, she couldn’t be sure what she would hit. And a man like this wouldn’t respond to her plea for him to put his hands above his head. Based on what Vail had told her about narcissists, “surrender” is not in their ego-driven vocabulary.

So with Agbayani’s demise in the forefront of her thoughts, Dixon went for the more personal approach. She came up beside him, lifted her right leg, and brought her foot down, with all the force she could muster, against the side of Mayfield’s locked left knee, driving it to the right.

He recoiled in pain, the bone-crushing blow tearing ligament, cartilage—and probably fracturing his tibia and fibula.

As Mayfield’s knee buckled, he yelled out in pain, crumpled backwards. Dixon grabbed his thick wrist and brought her right forearm across her body and forward, through Mayfield’s elbow joint. It hyper-extended and snapped. She yanked down on his fractured arm, then backhanded him across the face with her SIG-fisted hand.

Mayfield, dazed by the blow, stumbled awkwardly on his broken leg, then collapsed and hit the ground hard.

Dixon stepped forward and brought her leg back like a place kicker and planted it in his jaw. It was a cheap shot, she knew, because the man was already unconscious.

Then she brought up her SIG and aimed.

A
fter hearing the first crunch, Vail felt Mayfield release his grip on her mouth. She saw and heard movement—and Mayfield was suddenly yanked to the side, followed by another bone-snapping sound. A blow to the face. And then he was stumbling backward.

Standing there was Dixon. She stepped forward and kicked him. Just to make sure the Crush Killer would not be doing any more damage.

Vail rushed over to the fallen flashlight and picked it up. And that’s when she saw Dixon aiming her pistol at Mayfield’s head.

“Roxxann!”

Dixon, her blonde hair matted and mussed and half-covering her face, brushed it aside. Her chest was heaving, her left hand still balled into a fist.

Vail stepped forward. “It’s okay, Roxx. It’s okay.” She brought Dixon against her body, gave her a hug and a reassuring squeeze, and felt her tense body relax.

But Dixon suddenly pushed back. “Brix—” She scrambled to her left. “Light!”

Vail swung the Maglite around and, twenty-five feet away, found Brix on the floor, facedown and alongside a stack of barrels. Vail knelt down and pressed her fingers against his neck. “Strong pulse. Call it in.”

As Dixon opened her phone, Vail reached for her handcuffs. But they weren’t there. Of all the things she’d replaced, she had forgotten to get a new set. She went back to Brix, felt around his belt and found his cuffs, then brought them over to the unconscious Mayfield and
clamped them down, extra tight. When he awoke, there was no way he was getting out of those. Especially with a fractured arm.

Vail pulled her BlackBerry and checked for messages from Robby. Nothing. “Call Ray and the others,” she said to Dixon. “Let ’em know we have the suspect in custody and he needs transport to county.” She looked over at Mayfield, who was stirring, regaining consciousness. “He’ll need medical attention on arrival.”

AS DIXON POCKETED HER CELL, Brix slowly sat up. Dixon extended her arm, locked hands with Brix, and pulled him up. He swayed a bit, then steadied himself against the barrels and looked over at Mayfield. “Bastard clocked me from behind.”

“You okay?” Dixon asked.

He stretched his neck and rolled his shoulders back. “I’m fine.”

“You missed all the fun,” Vail said. She brought a hand to her throat and rubbed it.

“Where’s Eddie?” Dixon asked.

Vail locked eyes with Brix. He frowned, then said, “Take her. I’ll stay and keep watch over the douche bag.”

Vail led Dixon to the next room, created by walls of barrels, and stood there while Dixon approached the body. She knelt down, her back to Vail, started to place a hand on his chest—and stopped. No doubt, her “cop instincts” trumped her emotions and she knew not to contaminate the crime scene. But did it really matter?

“It’s okay, Roxx,” Vail said. “You can touch him. Pay your respects.”

She reached out again, placed the back of her hand against his cheek, then his forehead. Gently closed his eyes. Said something to him, and her back heaved in sorrow.

Vail remained where she was, giving her friend some space.

A moment later, Dixon stood up and, wiping away tears, squared her shoulders, brought up a hand and moved her hair off her face.

“Let’s go,” she said, walking past Vail.

B
rix called one of the officers who was watching the castle’s periphery and had him secure Eddie Agbayani’s crime scene. The paramedics, clad in light gray tops, darker pants and ball caps, transported Mayfield, under heavy guard, to the Napa Valley Medical Center ER, not far from the Napa Police Department. Brix refused treatment, saying he was “Just fine now, thank you very much.”

Vail chucked it off to male ego, embarrassment to having been taken out, but then she realized she’d probably behave the same way. She chided herself for looking for male-female gender issues in every situation. It was something she would have to work on, because she knew, invariably, it would sneak into her thoughts, despite her best efforts to keep those attitudes in check.

On the way to the hospital, Dixon and Vail stopped at the Heartland bed-and-breakfast in Yountville. Robby was not there. Nor was his car. In fact, he had not been there the entire day—other than the maid service straightening the bed and cleaning the bathroom, the room was as she had left it when she locked up this morning.

“I take it it’s not like Robby to ignore your calls,” Dixon said.

Vail stood at the foot of the bed, hands on her hips. “No, it’s not.” She turned and faced the new suitcases Robby had purchased at the outlets a couple of days ago. Flipped his open, moved aside his dirty underwear and socks. Hit something hard and flat. Dug it out and held it up.

Dixon joined Vail at her side. “His cell phone?”

Vail did not reply. She flicked it open. It was powered off. She turned it on, waiting for it to boot and then find service. When it had
finished, she scrolled to the incoming log. All the messages she had left him stared back at her.

She turned to Dixon. “The only messages in his log are from me. No one else called him?”

“Did he get other calls while you were with him—at any time during your trip?”

Vail thought. “No.” She thumbed the mouse button. “But at some point he would’ve received a call, and there’s nothing. Nothing here before today.”

“Maybe he deletes his logs regularly. I have a friend who does that. What about outgoing calls?”

Vail played her thumb across the buttons again. “Nothing there either. That’s not right.” She held up the phone. “There’s
nothing
.”

“Either he regularly deletes his logs, or—”

“Or someone deleted them for him.” Vail stood there staring at the phone, as if doing so would magically restore the log entries. “I can send the phone to the Bureau lab, see if they can grab data off the chip. There’s gotta be a computer chip inside, right?”

Dixon shrugged. “I would think so. But would the Bureau lab do that? It’s not a federal case. I mean, it’s not a case at all, not yet.”

“His friend,” Vail said. “Robby’s friend. Maybe he knows where he is.” Vail scrolled to the phone book. “What the hell was the guy’s name?” She watched the list roll by. “Sebastian, I think.”

“Is he there?”

“No.” Without another word, Vail carefully closed the phone and slipped it into her pocket.

“We can’t explain the log,” Dixon said. “So let’s approach this another way. If Robby left the phone here, he wasn’t planning on being gone long. Does he run?”

“Yeah.” She looked around, found a pair of new dress shoes. No sneakers. “Okay, maybe he drove somewhere and went for a run and left his cell. Or he just forgot it.”

“Sure. He’s on vacation, you’re swamped with a case. He’s on his own. Makes sense.”

“So why didn’t he come back?”

Dixon surveyed the room. “Too bad the maid cleaned the room.”

Vail nodded. She knew what Dixon was getting at: If there had been a struggle, a cop would immediately recognize the telltale signs, but to a cleaner it might look like a messy room . . . or the aftermath of a rough morning of sex. Regardless, what it looked like then—along with whatever clues there might have been—was now lost as far as the information it might have yielded.

“I’ll try to locate the owners, see if we can question the maid. For what it’s worth. Who knows, if it was obvious, things knocked over, she may remember.”

“Fine, do it.” Vail got down on all fours and examined the carpet, looking for trace blood. After making a circuit of the room and finding nothing suspicious, she moved into the bathroom to examine the sink and shower drains.

Dixon hung up and joined Vail in the bathroom. “She’s going to have the maid call me.” She crouched beside Vail. “I’m gonna call Matt Aaron, get a CSI in here to find what he can. If there’s latent blood or prints, he’ll find it. Other than maybe vacuuming, making the bed and running a sponge over the countertops, I don’t think the cleaners do a whole lot till you check out.” She tapped Vail on her knee. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here before we contaminate the scene more than we already have.”

Vail followed Dixon out of the room—took one last look back—then pulled the door closed.

O
utside, Dixon called Brix and asked him to have someone at the Sheriff’s Department issue a BOLO for Robby’s car. They weren’t sure of the license plate, so Vail gave him the name of the rental company and their arrival date. A deputy would chase down the registration. Brix, being briefed on what was going down, also issued a countywide alert to law enforcement officers, across all local jurisdictions, that Detective Robby Hernandez was to be considered missing. It was far short of the time frame whereby they would normally issue such an order, but Brix said he had no problem bending the rules for another cop, especially one he’d come to like.

Before leaving the bed-and-breakfast, Vail and Dixon knocked on the doors of the other rooms, mindful that some of the guests might still be out on the town, at a late supper. Napa largely shut down in the evening, apart from the restaurant scene, and people often ate leisurely dinners that lasted longer than usual.

Vail and Dixon spoke with couples in four of the eight other rooms. No one was around during the time frame Vail estimated Robby might have left the room. No one saw or heard anything unusual. In short, no one had anything of value to offer.

They left Dixon’s card stuck in the doors of the rooms that did not answer their knock, with a note to call as soon as they returned. With that, they got back in the car and headed for the emergency room.

THEY ARRIVED at the Napa Valley Medical Center and entered the emergency room through the ambulance bay. As they passed the
nurses’ station, where a woman was talking quickly into a corded red phone, Vail heard the beeps of heart monitors, medical orders and countertalk between doctors and nurses, and the firing of a portable x-ray unit. The composite sounds reminded her of Jonathan’s recent stay at Fairfax Hospital. They weren’t fond memories.