“So what’s his side business?”
“The mission statement with the FTC says...”
More paper rustling. I waited.
“Here it is,” Emily said. “‘Testing applications of DNA in criminal forensics.’ That’s it.”
“Okay, that’s not that suspicious,” I said. “It’s his lifework. He’s probably trying to invent an instrument or something that will make his job easier and make him a million dollars.”
“Maybe. Until you get to my third point of curiosity.”
“Which is?”
“He only bought female DNA from Orange Nano.”
“Okay, yeah. What’s this guy’s name?”
“Marshall Hammond.”
“Let me write that down.”
I spelled the name out loud as I wrote it down, the phone held in the crook of my neck. Emily confirmed.
“We need to background him,” I said.
“I tried but nothing came up,” Emily said. “I was thinking you might try some of your old LAPD sources, see if you can get a take on him.”
“Yeah, not a problem. I’ll make some calls. Are you still at the office?”
“No, I went home. I didn’t want Myron to see this stuff on my desk.”
“Right.”
“You get anything from Deep Throat?”
“Yes. He texted me the transcript of the interview with Orton and the DNA report that cleared him. I think Deep Throat is Detective Ruiz.”
“I’d like to read that interview.”
“I’ll send it when we get off.”
“Where are you?”
“Meeting a friend for a drink.”
“Okay, see you tomorrow.”
“Let’s take one more run at Myron with all of this stuff. See if we can get a couple more days.”
“I’m there.”
“Okay, see you then.”
I went back into the bar and saw that Rachel had finished her drink. I slipped back onto the stool.
“Ready for another?” I asked.
“No, I want to keep my wits about me tonight. Finish yours and let’s go to your place.”
“Yeah? What about dinner?”
“We can order in.”
The Shrike
24
He waited until it was dark.
He loved the silence of the Tesla. The car was like him. It moved swiftly and stealthily. Nobody heard him coming. He pulled to the curb a block from the house on Capistrano and got out, silently closing the door behind him. He pulled the hood of the black nylon runner’s shell up over his head. He already wore a clear plastic mask that distorted his facial features to better guard against identification should there be a camera in the neighborhood that picked him up. Everybody had motion-activated cameras around their homes these days. It made his work difficult.
He carefully moved down the street, staying tucked into the shadows and out of the circles of illumination created by the streetlights. He had a small black duffel bag he kept tight against his body and under his arm. He finally reached the side yard of the target house and slipped into its backyard through an unlocked gate.
The house was dark but the oval-shaped pool was lighted — most likely on a timer — and cast a shimmering glow into the house through a row of sliding glass doors. There were no curtains. He checked each of the sliders and found them locked. He then used a small pry bar from the duffel on the bottom of the center door to raise it up and out of its track. He carefully lifted it out and onto the concrete patio surface. This created a slight popping sound. He remained still, squatting next to the door and waiting to see if the disturbance had triggered an alarm or alerted anyone.
No lights came on. No one checked the living room. He got up and slid the door open along the rough concrete surface, then entered the house.
No one was home. A room-by-room search of the house determined that there were three bedrooms where no one was sleeping. Thinking it possible that he had indeed awakened someone by popping the slider and that they were hiding somewhere sent him through the house in a more thorough search that again produced no occupants, hiding or otherwise.
But the second search led him to the garage, which he found had been converted into a laboratory. He realized that what he had found here was the lab support for Dirty4. He set to work examining the equipment and the notebooks left on a worktable, as well as data marked on hanging whiteboards and a calendar.
There was also a desktop computer. When he pressed the space bar, he learned that it was thumbprint protected.
He reached into his duffel for the roll of clear duct tape he kept among his tools and bindings. Leaving the garage, he walked through a TV room and found a powder room — the closest bathroom to the lab. He flicked on the light and peeled two three-inch segments of tape off the roll. He put one down on the sink counter with the sticky side up, then carefully and lightly applied the second to the top of the toilet’s plastic flush handle. Raising the tape, he looked at it from an oblique angle. He had lifted a print. He could tell it was big enough to be a thumb.
He put the tape down on top of the other segment, locking the print between the plastic. He then returned to the lab and sat at the computer. He took off a rubber glove and wrapped the plastic containing the captured print against his own thumb. He pressed it down on the desktop’s reader square and the computer’s screen activated. He was in.
He put his glove back on and began moving through the files on the desktop. He had no idea where the homeowner was but there was plenty on the computer for him to look through and attempt to understand. His study went on for hours and only ended after dawn, when he heard a car pull into the driveway on the other side of the garage door.
He was alerted but did not bother to hide. He quickly prepared for the homeowner, then turned off the lights in the lab and waited.
Soon he heard footsteps in the house and then the rattle of a set of keys being dropped on a table or counter. He noted this sound, thinking that he might need those keys and the car that was parked outside. He hated to part with the Tesla but he might not be able to risk returning to it through the neighborhood in daylight. He had not planned to be in the house past dawn and now the quick escape might be the best escape.
The overhead lights in the lab came on and a man took five steps into the room before stopping short when he noticed the intruder sitting at the lab table.
“Who the fuck are you?” he said. “What do you want?”
The seated man pointed at him.
“You’re the one who calls himself the Hammer, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Listen to me,” Hammond said. “I work for the LAPD and I don’t know how you got in here but you need to get the fuck out right now.”
Hammond pulled a cell phone from his pocket.
“I’m calling the police,” he said.
“You do and they will know all about your little side business of selling female data on the dark web,” the intruder said. “Particular female data. You don’t want that, do you?”
Hammond put his phone back into his pocket.
“Who are you?” he asked again.
“You sent me an email,” the intruder said. “An archaic method of communication. It was fair warning about a reporter from FairWarning. Jack McEvoy?”
Hammond’s face had started to turn pale as he understood his situation.
“You’re the Shrike,” he said.
“Yes, and we need to talk,” the intruder said. “I want you to sit in that chair there.”
He pointed to a chair he had prepared for Hammond. It was a wooden chair he had taken from one end of a table in the kitchen. He chose it because it had armrests to which he had attached zip ties, each with a very wide loop.