The Fourth Motive Page 13

  “So, tell me about this morning,” Farrell said, lighting a cigarette.

  “Not much to tell,” Kearns answered. “I followed her out of the condominium complex and west across the island. She was driving a metallic-blue Saab convertible with the top up.” He took a sip of beer. “I’d forgotten how easy on the eyes she was.”

  “She’s a looker, all right,” Farrell said. “I just came from a meeting with her at her father’s house. Little banged up, but she could easily stroll the catwalk.”

  “Still got the attitude?”

  “Does she ever,” Farrell acknowledged. “She was extremely pissed off her father hired us. Furious might be a better word for it.”

  “She shouldn’t be,” Kearns grunted. “Wasn’t for you and me, she’d be in a dungeon somewhere. This guy means business, Bob.”

  “Tell me about him,” Farrell said, exhaling smoke.

  “He’s got balls, that’s for sure. Rammed her off the road in broad daylight. Got out of his car and went after her like the fucking Terminator. Not a big guy; he was wearing coveralls and a ski mask. Gloves, too. He was dragging her to his car when I entered the picture.”

  “How’d it go down?”

  “He had a stun gun, or Taser, whatever they call it. Didn’t see it until he nailed me. Felt like I’d pissed on an electric fence. Almost took me out.” Kearns drained some more beer. “I gave him a nut-shot on the way down. It rocked him enough that he must have figured it was time to go lethal. He went for a pistol.” He looked over his glass at Farrell. “I was faster.” Kearns drained his beer in a long gulp and held up his glass. “You’re still buying, right?”

  “Sure,” Farrell said quietly. A waitress came and took Kearns’ glass. When she had left, Farrell said, “I’m glad he didn’t get you, Kevin.”

  “You’re glad? It wasn’t for his lack of trying,” Kearns said. “He let loose an entire magazine at me from a high-capacity semiautomatic pistol. Maybe a Beretta or a Glock; must have been fifteen or twenty rounds.” Kearns grinned tightly. “Some of the citizens witnessing it must have thought they were in Beirut.”

  “But you got some shots of your own off, right?”

  Kearns leaned across the table. “Damn straight. Hit him right in the ten-ring with that horse-pistol you gave me. It knocked him back a step, but that’s all.” He tapped the tabletop for emphasis. “This guy was wearing body armor. He had on a ballistic vest under his coveralls.”

  The waitress returned with a fresh beer. Neither man spoke until she’d left. Kearns took another big gulp of beer before continuing.

  “Who is this guy, Bob? A stun gun? Body armor? A military-grade pistol? You told me this deputy DA gal had a stalker, but I didn’t expect him to be another Vernon Slocum. She’s a good-looking woman, so I figured it was probably a lovesick ex-flame or a co-worker with an obsession; maybe even a gang-banger she sent away who got released from prison. But this guy? He’s something altogether different. He’s put some righteous effort into his program. This is personal for him.”

  “You’re right, Kevin; this guy has put a lot of work into his stalking. Which means he isn’t going to give up.”

  “Whoever he is,” Kearns said, “he’s got a serious hard-on for that deputy DA”

  “Or her father,” Farrell said, taking a drink.

  “Her father? You think this lunatic is going after the girl to get to her father?”

  “Don’t know,” Farrell said truthfully. He tamped out his cigarette in a green-and-yellow Oakland Athletics ashtray. “The cops think I’m off target, but I’ve got a hunch there may be something to it. The Honorable Judge ‘Iron Gene’ Callen made a lot of heavy-duty enemies during his time on the bench. He sent up Hell’s Angels, Black Panthers, and everything in between. And when you got sentenced by Iron Gene, you got the whole tamale. He put more people on death row than any other superior court judge in Northern California. The word ‘leniency’ wasn’t in his vocabulary.”

  “Kind of a stretch, ain’t it?”

  “That’s what the cops think,” Farrell said.

  “How would we even begin to know where to look for the guy if he’s from the Judge’s past?” Kearns offered.

  “Damned good question, Kevin.”

  “So, what’s the plan?” Kearns asked. “I assume you have one?”

  “I do,” Farrell said. “But I’m not sure you’re going to like it.”

  “When have I ever liked one of your plans, Bob?”

  “Good point.”

  “What about Deputy District Attorney Callen? Is she going to like the plan?”

  “She doesn’t know about it yet. Neither does the Judge.”

  “And when she finds out?” Kearns asked.

  “She’s going to hate it,” Farrell said.

  CHAPTER 20

  Ray slept most of the afternoon. When he awoke, his head was throbbing, his testicles were still sore, and his ribs were so painful, he had difficulty sitting up. When he got to the bathroom, he found the vomitus he had so generously deposited across the floor earlier now in full aromatic bloom. The odor nearly caused him to vomit again.

  Ray cleaned up the mess and took a hot shower. When he finished, he felt much better. He washed down some crackers with aspirin and Pepto-Bismol and got to work; he was anxious to get on with his plan. He was also fueled with rage over his failure this morning and wasn’t about to waste it.

  Ray slicked back his hair, glued on his false mustache with spirit gum, and donned his only suit. He made sure to put on his dented body armor underneath the clean white shirt. He reloaded his 9mm Glock, careful to put on surgical gloves before handling the weapon or cartridges, and added a small flashlight to his side pocket. In the opposite pocket he put his set of guitar strings, several more pairs of surgical gloves, and a thick pair of leather work gloves. When he left the house, he could hear his mother watching Roseanne upstairs, undoubtedly with a full glass of vodka in her hand.

  Ray drove to the Bay Area Rapid Transit station on Fruitvale Avenue and stole a Ford. It was easy to gain entry into the parked car with the slim-Jim he had fashioned from a flat hacksaw blade. He learned how to make it from a mail-order pamphlet on improvised tools and weapons that could be fashioned from common household objects.

  The car Ray chose was a dull-gray 1985 Fairmont. He’d taken it from the BART parking lot because the car’s owner would likely not report it stolen for hours. He drove the car for several blocks, then stopped and removed the license plates. He also affixed a magnetic citizens-band radio antenna to the roof of the car. The vehicle now looked like what Ray hoped was a typical unmarked police sedan.

  Swigging Pepto-Bismol in his stolen Ford on the drive to High Street, Ray went over his plan again in his mind. He knew his key advantages were initiative and relentlessness, and he was glad he’d forced himself out of bed and into action. He suspected the authorities would be expecting him to lay low after the botched kidnapping attempt in Alameda earlier in the day. That’s what most stalkers would do, but not Ray.

  Ray located the house he was seeking and parked directly in front. He learned of the home and formulated his plan, after meticulously reading the address book taken from Paige Callen’s condominium. The book was proving to be a gold mine.

  The house was a small-framed, single-story dwelling situated on High Street in Oakland. Like most homes on the block, the house sported burglar bars on the windows and a reinforced steel gate in place of a screen door. The East Oakland neighborhood surrounding the house was not an environment where Caucasian men in suits were commonplace, unless you counted the police detectives who regularly frequented the area, visiting crime scenes.

  Ray exhaled a final stream of smoke and tossed his cigarette out through the open car window. He glanced at the digital readout on his watch; it read 9.27pm. He removed the surgical rubber gloves from his hands and placed them into his pocket. Straightening his tie and covering the door handle with his handkerchief, he got out of the car and stro
lled confidently across the sidewalk to the house. He made certain to grind out the discarded cigarette butt with the heel of his highly polished shoe.

  Ray knew that as a white guy in a suit in this neighborhood, at this time of the evening, he would attract attention unless he was a cop. The residents here would most likely hide from or ignore a police officer. This was exactly what Ray was counting on. Ignoring the furtive glances from sidewalk loiterers, he strode purposefully up the walk and rang the doorbell.

  After a moment, the door opened but the security gate remained shut. A short, plump, middle-aged Mexican woman stood in the doorway, a cautious look on her face. She was wiping her hands on her apron.

  “Missus Reyes?” Ray asked. The woman nodded.

  “I’m Detective Evans from the Alameda Police Department,” Ray announced, lowering his voice. He briefly flashed a wallet containing a silver, seven-pointed Alameda Police star and laminated identification card. Ray had constructed the star out of a soup can lid, carefully cut, stamped, and polished using his modeler’s skills. He’d learned how to make the ID card, which contained a Polaroid photo of him in his false mustache, from a mail-order book on fraudulent documents. “I understand you are employed by Judge Callen at his home in Alameda?” He stashed the wallet a moment after flashing it.

  She nodded again. “Who is it?” a man’s voice, thick with a Hispanic accent, called out from the interior.

  “I’m very sorry to bother you at this late hour,” Ray said sincerely, “but this is about the recent attacks on the Judge’s daughter. It’s rather important I speak with you. May I come in?”

  A heavyset, dark-skinned man almost as short as Mrs Reyes came into view. He was wearing jeans and a plaid work shirt. His thick hands held a beer and a newspaper.

  “It’s the police,” she told her husband. “He wants to talk to me about what happened to Paige.”

  “What do you want to know?” Mr Reyes said.

  “Well, sir, I have a few questions I’d like to ask your wife. I’d rather the neighbors didn’t hear what I have to say; it’s confidential. Do you mind if I come in?”

  “OK, come on in. But make it fast; the A’s game is on. They’re playing the Red Sox in Boston.”

  “I’m an Athletics fan myself,” Ray said pleasantly. “Looks like they got the American League West already locked up.”

  “Let’s hope it stays that way,” Reyes said.

  “I’ll be brief.” Ray smiled. “The last thing I want to do is keep you from the game.” Mrs Reyes nodded at her husband and he opened the reinforced door. “Thank you,” Ray said.

  “Ask your questions,” Mr Reyes ordered once Ray was inside and the door was closed. Ray made a flourish of taking out a notebook and pen before starting. He wasn’t invited into the house any farther than the hallway inside the door.

  “You’re the housekeeper at the Callen home, is that correct?” Ray began.

  “Yes. Both of them.”

  “Both of them?”

  “That’s right. I help out at the Judge’s house three times a week and I clean his daughter’s once a week. But her place burned today.”

  “She’s worked for Judge Callen over twenty years,” Mr Reyes chimed in proudly. Ray nodded studiously and made an exaggerated gesture of writing in his notebook.

  “You have keys to the house?”

  “Yes,” she answered. “Both of them. Why do you ask?”

  “Yeah,” Mr Reyes asked. “Why do you want to know that?”

  “Folks,” Ray said, “it’s just a routine precaution. We need to interview anyone who has access to the Judge’s home: gardener, plumber, exterminator, anyone who has a key. You wouldn’t want the Judge’s house to burn down like his daughter’s, would you?”

  Mrs Reyes shook her head. Ray went on.

  “And you know the access code to the alarm on the Judge’s house?”

  “Of course. I have to go in and out, and the Judge can no longer walk very well. His leg does not permit him to move around easily. To answer the door is very difficult for him.”

  “Of course,” Ray said. “I understand. What is the access code?” He was careful to keep his gaze focused on his notebook.

  “Why do you need to know?” Mrs Reyes eyed Ray suspiciously. “Why don’t you get the alarm code from Judge Callen?”

  “It’s like this,” Ray lied. “We need to change the alarm access code to be on the safe side. But to do this, we need everyone who has the old code to verify it so we know exactly who has permission to enter the Judge’s house. Also, the alarm company won’t change the old code without knowing how many people currently have it.”

  “I don’t know,” Mrs Reyes bit her lip. “It seems if the Judge wanted the police to have the code to his house, he would have given it himself.”

  “This has to be done quickly and quietly,” Ray said sternly, “and as soon as possible. The Judge is already asleep. If you’d like to disturb him at this hour with a phone call and ask him if it’s all right for you to give the police who are trying to protect him and his property the alarm code, be my guest.”

  Mrs Reyes’ hesitation was obvious. Ray merely smiled, but he nervously wondered if she was going to call his bluff and refuse his request. Then her husband spoke up.

  “Give the detective what he asks. He is a police officer, for heaven’s sake. Do you want the Judge to be angry with you?”

  She looked at her husband, shrugged, and then back at Ray. “The code is four, zero, three, one. When you go inside the front or back door, there is a box on the wall. You must push in the number within ten seconds or–”

  “I know how an alarm system works,” Ray said. He wrote the code in his notebook. “May I see your key to the Judge’s house?”

  “My key? What for?”

  “Will you just give the man what he asks?” Mr Reyes said. He made no effort to contain his exasperation. He wanted the intrusion over, the policeman gone, and to return to the baseball game. Mrs Reyes turned and went into the house, muttering under her breath in Spanish. She returned a moment later, rummaging through her purse. She held up a set of keys for Ray’s inspection.

  “This one is for the front door and this one for the back,” she said, singling out two keys for his inspection.

  “Excellent,” Ray exclaimed. “You’ve been very helpful.” He noted the location of the keys on Mrs Reyes’ ring. “I only have one more question.”

  Mr Reyes couldn’t hide his relief any more than his irritation.

  “We’re concerned that the man who is stalking the Judge and his daughter–”

  “He’s after the Judge, too?” Mrs Reyes cried out, fear overtaking her features.

  “We don’t believe the Judge is any danger,” Ray calmed her, mentally kicking himself for his slip of the tongue. “We just want to cover all the bases.”

  Mrs Reyes crossed herself. “You had me scared for a second, Officer.”

  “You said you only had one more question?” Mr Reyes tapped his newspaper against his leg.

  “Yes.” Ray turned to Mrs Reyes. “If the Judge’s daughter were to go and hide somewhere, where would she go?”

  “Why not ask her?” Mrs Reyes said. “I don’t know where Paige would go.”

  “How about her boyfriend’s place?”

  “What boyfriend? Paige has no boyfriend that I know of. I can tell you, though, it would please her father greatly if she was to meet a young man and settle down. But I know of no boyfriend, and this is a thing I would know.”

  “She has no place she would go to be safe? No relatives or friends she could hide out with for a while?”

  “You said one more question,” Mr Reyes reminded Ray.

  Ray was thinking of the address book in his pocket and how many entries it had written inside. It would take forever to eliminate them.

  Mrs Reyes rubbed her chin. “There is one place. It’s in Napa, in the wine country. She has an aunt who lives there. Paige used to spend her summers there as a c
hild. I believe she would go to her aunt if she had to hide.” She nodded to herself. “Yes, I’m positive. It’s a big house among the vineyards. Very isolated. And very beautiful.”

  “Oh, I forgot,” Ray said. “I have one more question.” He looked apologetically at Mr Reyes. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Of course you do,” Mr Reyes said through gritted teeth. “Go ahead.”

  “Is there anyone else in the house?”

  “No,” Mrs Reyes replied, puzzled at the question. “Our children are grown up and have moved away. There is only us.”

  Ray folded his notebook and returned it to his pocket. “Thank you both very much,” he said. “You’ll never know how helpful you’ve been.”

  “May I have one of your business cards, Detective Evans?” Mrs Reyes asked. “I will see the Judge tomorrow. If he is uncomfortable with anything I have told you, I would like him to be able to call you.”

  “Certainly,” Ray said. But when he reached into his pocket he came out with his thick leather work gloves instead of a business card. He donned them while the Reyes looked on.

  “It’s cold out tonight,” Ray commented when he saw the quizzical expressions on their faces.

  “It’s actually pretty warm,” Mr Reyes contradicted.

  “So it is,” Ray said.

  He brought his knee up into Mr Reyes’ groin. The older man doubled over and fell to his knees, dropping his beer and newspaper. In almost the same motion, Ray whirled and struck the horrified Mrs Reyes savagely under the nose, upward, with the heel of his hand. It was exactly the technique illustrated in FM 21-150, the World War II–era US Army field manual entitled Unarmed Defense for the American Soldier. It had been a Military Book Club Book of the Month selection. Mrs Reyes dropped to the floor, instantly unconscious. Blood streamed from her shattered nose.

  While Mrs Reyes lay inert, Ray kicked her husband in the face several times, also rendering him unconscious. The effort caused Ray’s still-tender genitals and bruised ribs considerable pain, but in his excitement he barely felt it. Mr Reyes lay motionless, face-down on the floor next to his wife.