The killers had to have stalked Johnson before killing him. And Dennis Perry. How had they traveled? Plane? Car? She could pull flight records for specific flights, but to pull multiple flight records without knowing the specific airline, both the destination and the origin, or the date of travel … it would be virtually impossible to find out if an UNSUB had been on flights to Austin, Las Vegas, and Sacramento. If Megan had only a name, they could get the information, but it would still take time.
It bothered her more than she’d let on to Hans and her boss, Bob Richardson, about receiving Price’s dog tag at her apartment. The killers had to have been watching the crime scene, otherwise how could they have identified her? She wasn’t a spokesperson for the department, though she’d had her moments in the limelight. Last year the Sacramento Bee had done a huge article on the serial killer she’d killed who buried his victims alive. Richardson had thought it had been a great idea for her to do an interview with the press; she had hated every minute of it. Her brother Matt, the district attorney, handled the press much better than she did. But it had been good P.R. and Richardson was all about the image of the bureau. And that led to the television interview and that would have led to a national spot, except Megan told her boss no more. She couldn’t do her job if she was too high profile, and she didn’t want to be the public information officer.
Vasquez joined her in the garage and said, “Find anything?” in a tone that said he thought being at the crime scene two months after the murder was a waste of time.
Megan walked over to where the garage floor looked bleached. “Is this where the paint can spilled during the scuffle? Where Johnson was hamstrung?”
“Yes, and I know what you’re thinking.”
“You do?”
“That the killer stepped in the paint and left nice footprints to identify. The killer may have done just that, but they scrubbed the floor before leaving.”
“Scrubbed?”
“There may have been footprints, but someone came in and used Johnson’s shirt to rub the paint over any possible prints.”
Megan frowned. “I didn’t see that in the report.”
“If it wasn’t there, I forgot. But it didn’t give us anything, except that the killers tried to clean up.”
She stared at the door. “The house was cleaned.”
“Of course.”
“There still might be-” She opened the garage door and called out for Hans.
He came from the back of the house. “Find something?”
“I don’t know. But the killer stepped in the paint. It could have been tracked all over the house, maybe invisible to the naked eye.”
“The house has since been cleaned by a biological clean-up company,” Vasquez said.
Megan sighed. Good biohazard companies wouldn’t have let anything slip by. “It was worth a try.”
“I’ll call the crime scene supervisor. Tell him what you’re thinking and see if he has any ideas.”
“We appreciate it,” Megan said. She was grasping at straws. She wanted a break, something that pointed to a suspect. She’d worked hundreds of murder investigations over her fifteen-year FBI career, so many that her boss in D.C. had suggested she get a job with local law enforcement. “Violent crime isn’t our priority,” he’d said in 2002. “You may be happier in a different agency.”
But she loved working in the FBI, and she thrived in the Violent Crimes Squad. She didn’t want to do anything else. It had taken her three more years before she was transferred into a supervisory role and moved to Sacramento.
“Agent Davis said something about friends of Johnson who were in the military with him. Veterans?” Hans asked.
Vasquez nodded. “They had a weekly poker game over at the VFW Hall. I’ll take you there. They didn’t have anything to add to the investigation.” He glanced at his watch. “Happy hour is just ending. I don’t know if you’ll get anything useful from them, but honestly, I don’t think they know anything.”
* * *
It took Jack until the dinner hour to find Enrique Roscoe. Seemed he’d “just missed him” at his four regular hangouts. Padre had to go to church for Mass. Jack knew his friend was worried, but he couldn’t think about that right now. Jack wasn’t going to do anything stupid, and he was relieved when Padre was no longer riding shotgun.
Jack returned to El Gato at seven that night, circling back to the first place he looked for Enrique. There he sat, a beer belly at twenty-five. Jack slid onto the bar stool next to him.
“Tell me about the pretty gringo you talked to yesterday,” Jack said, voice low. He ignored Pablo whose gesture asked if Jack wanted his usual.
“Fuck off.”
Jack grabbed Enrique by the collar. The kid smelled of beer and marijuana. His red eyes blinked rapidly, and he worked his mouth without speaking.
“Carlos told me you had a nice chat with her. I want to know what you said, what she said.”
“Let him go,” Pablo said. “I don’t want trouble. Please, Senor Jack, just talk.”
Jack let go of Enrique’s shirt. “Spill it.”
Enrique shrugged, rolled his shoulders, picked up his beer. “She bummed a cigarette off me.”
“I want the pack.”
Enrique barked out a laugh. “That was two packs ago. Check the landfill.”
“Did she use your lighter?”
“She had her own. She lit mine.” Enrique reached under his waistband and did an elaborate show of adjusting his dick.
“Name?”
“Didn’t say.”
“Carlos says you chatted her up.”
Enrique shrugged. “Whatever.”
“Did Scout talk to her?”
“Dunno.”
Jack’s fists clenched. He resisted the urge to deck the bastard. “Did she talk about Scout? Friends or family in town?”
“Why? You think she killed him?”
Jack didn’t answer. He stared at Enrique.
Enrique shrugged again, drained the rest of his beer, and motioned for another.
“She didn’t ask anything. Just talked about how much she liked traveling and sitting in local bars. I asked her to dance, she said no, that was it.”
Jack didn’t know what to make of the information, and he knew there was more to it than small talk. “Carlos said you talked to her for quite some time.”
“Fuck Carlos, he’s a liar. He came up when I was just about to get a peek down at her tits. She had these nice”-he cupped his hands-”C cups. Smaller than I like, but her shirt was cut to here”-he touched his chest-”and there was this nice tan line.”
“What color shirt?”
“White. She was too skinny for me; I like some meat on my women.” He made a motion like he was grabbing ass. Jack bit back a comment, and asked, “Hair? Eyes?”
“Dunno. Two?” He laughed at his own pathetic joke.
This was going nowhere. “Carlos talked to her?”
“He came over and hit on her. Told me to scram. I told him to fuck off, then went to take a piss. Came back and Carlos was gone. She was there, paying. I went over, she said she had to go. Early appointment or some such garbage. I thought she might be meeting up to screw Carlos, but ten minutes after she left, Carlos comes back in with his boys.” Enrique leaned over and said in a stage whisper, “I think he was just feeling her out to see if she was a cop.”
“Cop?” Jack raised his eyebrow. “You thought she was a cop?”
“Hell no, but you know how paranoid Carlos is.”
“Shut the fuck up, you drunk fool.”
Jack pivoted on his barstool. Carlos stood behind them with two of his punks-both bigger than the youngest Hernandez.
“You told me you didn’t talk to the woman.” Jack slowly rose from the seat.
“I don’t have to tell you anything, you fucking half-breed.”
Jack stood his ground. “How long was this woman around here?”
“She left. Early. Long before your drunk gringo comrade.”