“We stay with the car; we follow the caviar.”
33
Now they were parked down the street from a condominium project in Seattle. The new driver had glanced continually at his rearview mirror after he left the airport, boxing several streets when he left the freeway. Then he’d pulled into the garage beneath the condos, parked close to the elevator, and got on his phone. Two men came down the elevator. They unloaded the boxes, and the hybrid driver backed up, tires squealing on the smooth concrete of the garage as he started forward again and bounced onto the street.
“Let him go,” Marquez said. “The Feds have him covered.”
They watched the hybrid round the corner and disappear. The boxes went up the elevator. Both the garage and elevator had security cameras, so there were multiple shots of the two men and the boxes. But the information came secondhand to the SOU. The FBI asked that they not go into the building, said they were in contact with the building owners, who, after the first conversation, turned the situation over to their lawyer, waking him at home. They watched the lawyer drive up half an hour later.
“He doesn’t look too happy to be here,” Shauf said, and Marquez got out and walked up to within earshot. He heard the lawyer’s peevishly aggressive tone as he informed the FBI agents what liability the government would take on if they interrupted any of the security cameras in operation. But the problem was the cameras were on a loop and eventually the tape would play over itself and the images of the men could get lost or become difficult to recover. The lawyer wanted everything to wait until morning. He wanted to go home, didn’t want to deal with this tonight. No one had told him exactly what was in the boxes, yet they were clear they didn’t believe it was stolen property or drugs, so why couldn’t it wait until morning? And the building owners were opposed on principle to providing any information regarding the individual condo owners.
A manager showed up. He stood next to the lawyer and faced the two FBI agents. Marquez was called over to answer the lawyer’s questions.
“How do you know they brought illegal substances here?”
“We watched it loaded and followed them from California.”
“Did you see what was in the boxes?”
“No.”
As he said that, Marquez caught a look from the apartment manager that worried him. The manager watched him intently as the lawyer launched into a quasi sales pitch.
“These are expensive units, and the owners are professionals who value privacy and security. Access to the building is restricted-”
“The security cameras show what floor they got off,” Marquez said. “Why don’t we knock on some doors? We know what they look like.”
The lawyer looked like he’d swallowed battery acid. “That’s exactly what doesn’t happen here.” He addressed Marquez now as though explaining manners to trailer trash. “Nobody knocks on doors here. People make appointments, and we can’t begin to ask owners at this hour of the night, without any warrant or proof of anything illegal having been brought into the building, to open their doors.” He really got warmed up now. “I believe this is still America and the Constitution is still in place.”
The apartment manager drifted away, and Marquez watched him go in the keyed entrance and disappear into the building. He had a bad feeling about the guy, and the sense the opportunity was slipping away. The FBI agents continued to politely engage with the lawyer, but Marquez walked away. He pulled his cell phone and broke down the team, sent all but Shauf to go find food and a motel.
Shauf moved her van, reclined her seat, and closed her eyes while they waited. The lawyer had left. No one’s privacy would get disturbed tonight. The street cleared off, and it started drizzling. He kept watching the concrete mouth of the garage on the possibility the men who’d taken the boxes up the elevator would come back down, ready to move them to their next stop. His bad feeling about the manager intensified, but maybe the guy was actually inside trying to figure out which unit the boxes had gone into. It became harder to look through the blur of the drizzle, and still, he continued to watch, turning over the things Ehrmann had told him as a way to stay awake.
Anna had done things here for her ex, though not necessarily willingly. Coercion and extortion were sacred values etched deep in the granite pillars of organized crime, so maybe it all strung together, Anna delivering stolen cars or running caviar a thousand miles because she felt she didn’t have a choice. He debated what the implications were to their investigation. If there’d been any lingering question about Anna’s compromising them, there was no question anymore, and he was mulling that over when Katherine called. She was so upset her voice quavered.
“Maria didn’t come home after school and now she’s called and says she’s moving out.”
“Moving where?”
“In with two of her friends who have an apartment in San Francisco. Wendy and Stacey. You’ve met them.” He’d met them but wasn’t sure which was Wendy and which was Stacey. “John, where are you?”
“In Seattle. We followed a suspect moving caviar from the delta.” He sketched for her quickly how they’d gotten here, then said, “I’ll call Maria, right now.”
Maria answered on the third ring.
“I can’t deal with it anymore.”
“What can’t you deal with?”
“Fighting with Mom, and I’m eighteen. I’m a legal adult. I can work and pay rent and still go to school. I can’t handle it anymore, besides it’s totally dysfunctional around there. You’re never home, and Mom is always working too much because you’re not home. It’s time for me to make my own life.”
“You need to finish high school first.”
“I will. And I’ll go to college when I’m ready.”
He heard resolution in her voice that gave him hope, a fierceness that caused him to smile. Nothing was said for a moment, and he looked into the blank fluorescence of the garage, stripes painted on the floor.
“I’m at Wendy and Stacey’s apartment.” Then she added for no obvious reason. “And Shane is going to quit if Mom doesn’t stop dissing him.”
He knew Shane worked at the Presto on Union because Maria had talked about him. But don’t question her about Shane. This thing has got to be unraveled a different way.
“Are you with Mom?” she asked.
“No, I’m in Seattle. We chased a suspect up here. Your mom called me a few minutes ago.”
“Did you drive to Seattle?”
“Yes.”
“That’s crazy. Is this on the sturgeon thing? Is it really worth it?”
Marquez heard a young man’s voice say, “Hey, babe, we got to go,” and he realized whoever had said that was so nearby that he must have been listening in and there was enough push to the voice to show he wanted to control the situation.
“I have to go,” Maria said.
“Don’t hang up yet.”
“Shane has to be at work early tomorrow morning. We went to dinner, and he just dropped me off. I’m at Wendy and Stacey’s, and I’m fine here, dad. I just can’t do it anymore.”
“Where is their apartment?”
“In the Mission.”
“What address?”
“You’re just going to say it’s a bad area.”
“Have you ever heard me say stuff like that?”
She didn’t answer. Behind her, “Come on, babe.”
“I’m going to hang up, Dad.”
He wasn’t sure what to say to her. He was very surprised she’d packed and left, but he couldn’t argue her home. He could order her home and she might obey, probably would, but it was already midnight and Katherine knew the two young women she was camping out with. This Shane figured in, but now wasn’t the time to try to figure that out.
“I’ll see you at home tomorrow night,” he said.
“What do you mean if you’re in Seattle?”
“We’ll talk tomorrow night.”
Not long after hanging up, Marquez had another conversation with the FBI special agents who’d given up on the lawyer and conferred with their supervisor, who’d then bumped the situation up to the S.A.C. running the Seattle Field Office. The Special-Agent-in- Charge was in contact with Ehrmann. The agent on the street with Marquez said, “You guys ought to pack it in. Looks like we’re going to deal with all of it from here.”