If the ME was right, Morris had been waylaid somewhere between the hotel lobby and the lot where his Cadillac was parked. And the next time he was seen, it was in pieces in front of the capitol building.
“I voted for him,” the ME said contemplatively as he draped the sheet over Morris’s body.
Kelly closed the file. “I hear he was a real pillar of the community. When will you have the full report?”
He shrugged. “A few hours. Initial tox screen shows he’d had a few drinks, but no illegal substances or anything that points to him being drugged.”
“Make sure to scan for everything and fax the results to this number.” Kelly handed him a card and left the room, tossing her mask and gloves in a bin.
“I’m kind of surprised you let the hooker go,” Rodriguez grumbled as they strolled back out to the lot.
“Why?” Kelly asked.
“She might have been in on it.”
Kelly tilted her head to the side. “But then why not drug him in the room and take him out the back stairs? No cameras there, and it would have been easier than trying to grab him on the street.”
Rodriguez shrugged noncommittally. “I’m just saying,” he said. “She smelled funny to me.”
“She’s a prostitute, they don’t usually smell very good,” Kelly replied wryly. She slid into the driver’s seat and glanced at him across the interior. Rodriguez’s face was still too round for his body, definitely a former fat kid who’d worked off the residual pudge in the gym. A few more years would probably take care of that. He wasn’t much taller than her, maybe five-nine, and his high cheekbones and light eyes pegged him as closer to a Spanish-Mexican lineage than a Mayan one. Based on his file she knew he was twenty-seven years old, had entered the Academy straight out of Princeton, and spent his childhood in Los Angeles. Aside from that, not much there. Which lent further credence to the OPR rumors. His constant second-guessing of her decisions was irritating. Plus, every time he called her chief it was getting harder not to smack him.
“So what next, chief?” he asked casually.
Kelly gritted her teeth. “Don’t call me chief.”
“You prefer boss?”
Kelly decided not to get drawn into a pissing match, dinner was coming up and she didn’t want to lose her appetite. “You make any progress on those gang files?”
Rodriguez shrugged. “The machete thing has been popular in L.A. for a few years, originally started by the Salvadoran gangs like MS-13. But then it caught on with everyone else-there have been incidents with immigrants from Sierra Leone, Somalia, Mexico. It’s a cheap weapon, and chopping someone into bits sends a pretty strong message. There weren’t any tags near the bodies, and according to the local Gang Task Force no specific group or gang is claiming responsibility. Which is kind of weird. Something high profile like this, you’d figure folks would be coming out of the woodwork to build their street cred.”
Kelly shook her head. “Probably not with something this big. A mayor, maybe, but a senator? They’d have to know the government would throw their whole weight behind this one. Death penalty for sure.” Which made her wonder again why she’d been assigned such an important case. Either the brass had more faith in her skills than they’d let on, or they knew this was a stinker. Still, it gave her a team of fifty agents doing everything from running down Morris’s staff history to canvassing door-to-door. With that kind of man power, she wasn’t complaining.
“Maybe ballistics will turn something up.”
“Doubtful. Shot with a.45, no casings, and you heard the ME-the bullets ricocheted around his skull, they’re a mess. If we find the gun we might get a match, but I’d be surprised if it turned up.” Surprisingly clean for a gang hit, Kelly mused, unless they were well organized or got extremely lucky. Now that they had a rough idea where Morris had been snatched, Kelly had a team of agents combing through video surveillance footage from 10:00 p.m. to midnight. That was their best shot, to get a grainy image of a license plate, anything that would provide a lead. Barring that, without a specific group claiming responsibility, her list of suspects ranged from environmentalists to illegals to single parents, all of whom Morris had recently managed to piss off.
Rodriguez’s cell buzzed an electronic version of some pop song. He flipped it open and barked, “Rodriguez!”
Kelly shifted irritably, waiting for him to finish. Until they got reports from the ME and the tape squad, there wasn’t much more they could do. Time to call it a night. She repressed a yawn and idly wondered whether room service would be available at the hotel. She’d love some Mexican food-she could almost taste a burrito dripping with cheese and guacamole.
Rodriguez snapped his phone shut, a triumphant expression on his face. “We got the gun.”
“What?” Kelly snapped awake.
“Phoenix P.D. got an anonymous tip today about a local MS-13 stash house. They raided it, turned up a stack of weapons. And one of them is a.45.”
“There are a lot of.45s out there. How do they know it was used in our killing?”
“Because it had Duke Morris’s name right on it.”
“What, literally? We inventoried his guns, everything was accounted for.” And what an armory it had been: the entire wall of Morris’s study was a display case with everything from handguns to paramilitary weapons. All registered legally, his wife hastened to point out, and licenses backed that up. Had the fighting ever gone house to house, Duke Morris would have been ready.
Rodriguez shook his head. “Not this one. Gift from a grateful lobbyist. It’s a beautiful 1911, bone handle with his name carved in it. Phoenix P.D. already checked with the wife, she said he probably hadn’t gotten around to registering it yet.”
“Yeah, I’m sure it just slipped his mind. And he was in the habit of taking it to fancy dinners?”
“This is Arizona, Agent Jones.” Rodriguez looked bemused. “Carrying concealed is considered a God-given right in these parts.”
“Remind me never to move here. Jesus.” Kelly furrowed her brow. And they wondered why the gun fatality rate was through the roof. “So whoever snatched him shot him with his own gun?”
“And then that gun turned up in an MS-13 stash house,” Rodriguez concluded. “MS-13 loves machetes. They’re questioning the gang members downtown, said we could observe if we like. Looks like this case might be open-and-shut after all.”
“Looks like it,” Kelly said. She punched the Phoenix Police Department’s address into their GPS and silently kissed her burrito goodbye. While she waited for the machine to calibrate their course, she nudged away the feeling that something was off. Hell, she was due for an easy one, Kelly reminded herself. And the less time wasted on a scumbag like Morris the better, as far as she was concerned. It made sense: a gang composed primarily of illegal immigrants targeted a loudmouth who was making their lives difficult. Still, she’d feel a lot better with a confession, or footage of them hauling an overweight senator into a van.
Randall Grant was clearly having a bad day, Jake thought as he took the man in. Honestly, he was having a hard time understanding what Syd saw in the guy. Tall and thin, slightly gawky-looking. Maybe under normal circumstances he had a sparkling personality.
But these were obviously not normal circumstances. He looked hollowed out, shoulders slumped, bags under his eyes, the portrait of the tormented father. They sat across from each other in a nondescript café on the outskirts of Livermore. Initially Jake was glad they weren’t meeting in one of the coffee franchises that dominated the Bay Area, but after a sip of espresso he’d changed his mind. Say what you will about Starbucks, he thought. At least they were consistent.
“So why don’t you want to get the FBI involved?” Jake asked. Randall had spent the first ten minutes rambling on about his daughter, including too much information about his divorce and the dance classes she used to take. None of it had direct bearing on the case, but he seemed unable to help himself. Jake wondered whose brilliant idea it was to trust Randall with government secrets, if he spilled this much personal information over a cappuccino.