I smiled again. “I know you do.” His sweetness was heartbreaking.
Jay stepped in. “Forest, I don’t know about you, but I’m really hungry. Want to grab a bite with me, my man?”
Forest looked from Jay to me and then to Bailey. “You don’t still need me here? I’m done?”
“You’re done for now,” Jay said. “So what do you say we grab a couple burgers?”
“Well, uh…sure!”
“Just give me a minute and we’ll head on out.” Jay motioned for us to join him a short distance away. “There’s a burger joint just a couple of blocks away. I’ll take him there. But I’m going to be around for the duration. I’ll call you the minute I hear anything.”
“Dynamite witness,” I said, nodding toward Forest.
Jay smiled. “He really is. But I don’t know if we’ll ever find him again.”
We probably wouldn’t. If I needed him for trial, I’d be shit out of luck. But I’d drive off that bridge when I came to it. “Right now, I’ll settle for just finding this asshole.”
“I heard that.” Jay gave us a mock salute and headed off with Forest.
Bailey scanned the parking lot. “I guess we could go back in there and find out what the rest of the witnesses said.”
“But I doubt it’ll get much better than that.”
“Probably not.”
I was freezing. The clear night meant no cloud cover, and in the dry semi-desert of the Valley, that meant pretty damn cold. “You mind if I go sit in the car for a few?”
Bailey took in my shivering. “Swear to God you’re like a lizard. You have zero body heat.”
We went back to the car. “Mind turning on the engine? It’s an icebox in here.”
Bailey made a face. “Come on, Knight. We’re inside, what more do you want?”
“Heat. Feel this.” I put my frozen hand on her cheek.
She pulled back. “Are you kidding me?” She turned on the engine. “Keep those things to yourself.”
“Told you.” I cranked up the heater and put my hands next to the vents. “We didn’t get a letter this time.”
“Yeah, I thought about that. But I figure he either got nervous and decided to stop writing, or the person who was mailing the letters decided it was over between them.”
“Right. Did you happen to hear what kind of guns he used this time?”
“No, that’s one of the things I want to go back and ask Gina,” Bailey said. “You can wait here.”
“No, I’m okay.” I wasn’t. My hands still felt like blocks of ice, but I wanted to hear what Gina had to say.
We found Gina inside the store, talking to some unis. She peeled off when she saw Bailey and me. “I heard about that witness,” Gina said.
“If the shooter doesn’t ditch the car, we’ll have him by morning,” Bailey said. “What kind of guns did this guy use?”
“We’ve got casings that look like he used a twenty-two and a thirty-eight.”
“No assault rifle?” I said. Gina shook her head.
“He must be out,” Bailey said. “Did he drop the guns?”
“Not this time.”
I scanned the store. “I thought the manager said he heard officers talking about finding guns.”
“He probably heard them talking about the last two shootings. But no, we didn’t find any guns this time.”
Bailey sighed. “Thanks, Gina. Guess we’ll go see what they got from the other witnesses.”
We checked with the officers who’d taken statements. After an hour of hearing nothing new, we decided to call it a night.
It was past ten o’clock by the time we headed for home, and we were both thrashed. “So he’s hanging on to his guns now.”
“Seems that way,” Bailey said. “Guess it was to be expected. He’s got to be running out of money.”
“Which makes it less likely he’ll try to find Jax.” Bailey nodded, glum. “But where did he get the twenty-two? Shane never said anything about selling any small calibers like that.”
“He must’ve scored it from someone else.”
“Another connection?” I said. “Whatever happened to consumer loyalty?”
I turned up the heat and held my hands in front of the vent, but the only thing that would warm me up now was a hot bath.
Or a call saying they’d found the shooter.
66
Tuesday, October 15
My landline rang at six twenty-three a.m. These way-too-early mornings were really starting to get to me. I opened one eye and glared at the phone. Knowing it had to be Bailey, I snatched it up. “This better be good.”
“Ah, I believe it is, but I suppose you’ll be the judge. This is Rachel Knight, isn’t it?”
It was Jay, the detective who’d found our best witness. I sat up and rubbed my eyes.
“Yes, it is. Sorry, I thought it was Detective Keller.”
“She’s the one who told me to call you. I thought it was a little too early, but she said you were an early riser.” Jay chuckled. “I’d say you’re entitled to payback for this one.”
“Oh, count on it. What’s up?”
“The unis talked to the owner of the getaway car about an hour ago. She knew her car was gone, but she didn’t report it because her son has a habit of taking it without telling her.”
Her son. I sat up farther. “What do you have on him? Does she know where he is?”
“His name is Francis Spader. Spader’s the dad’s last name, but Dad’s been in the wind since birth. Francis’s stats fit the description: he’s twenty-four, five feet ten, one eighty-though he might be thinner than that now. He’s a meth head. Lots of busts for possession and theft. Fell off his last diversion program, violated probation for testing dirty. Mom hasn’t seen him since yesterday morning, but she claims he always winds up back at home.”
And smelling great, I’d bet. “You’ve got units sitting on Mom’s house?”
“Yep. Five bucks says we pick him up within the next twenty-four hours.”
“A ten-spot says you get him by the end of the day.”
“Huh, done. And I won’t mind losing.”
“Does Mom know Francis is wanted for the shooting at Target?”
“No. I just told her we were looking for him on the probation violation. I didn’t want to take the chance she’d help him run.”
Smart. “So she’s cooperative?”
“For now. But I told Bailey you guys should probably stay away from her for the moment. If you show up on her doorstep, she might recognize you from the news-”
“No problem.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
I hung up and headed for the shower. We might have our psycho in custody very soon. I prayed it would be soon enough. I splurged and celebrated with pancakes for breakfast. After I finished sopping up the last bit of syrup, I poured myself a fourth cup of coffee and thought about Francis Spader. I wondered what connection he had to Fairmont High. Did he go there? Did a kid from that school diss him? And he was a meth head. Crystal meth turned brains into Swiss cheese. And it wasn’t at all uncommon for some addicts to get crazy violent. But it was usually spur-of-the-moment, an explosion. Not planned violence. I called Bailey.
“Keller.”
“So Jay called…”
“Just now?”
“A few minutes ago.” It was eighty thirty. Let her think her little plot to mess me up with that six-thirty call hadn’t worked. “I was thinking about the possible connection between Francis Spader and Logan.”
“As in, where is it?” Bailey said. “I know. We’ve already been through Logan’s history, and I don’t remember seeing any mention of this Spader guy.”
“Did he go to Fairmont?”
“No, but he might’ve been buddies with Logan and just used a different name. I saw a few aliases on Spader’s rap sheet.”
“Logan’s got family in Utah. Where’s Spader been?”
“Hang on.” I heard the tap of computer keys. “He’s got busts in Arizona…Nevada…and-”