Fragmented (19 page)
Authors: George Fong
31
Wednesday –
The 7-11
was at the corner of Auburn-Folsom and
Racetrack Street
, not too far from the
County
Fairgrounds
. The interior glowed with florescent lights, standing out in the rural area like a UFO in the middle of a forest. Jack nosed his vehicle into the parking lot. Marquez sat in the passenger seat, scrolling through her notes. Sizemore had taken his rental back to the office to catch up on what Hoskin had learned
.
A single Chevy coupe was parked directly in front of the doorway, a haggard female passenger leaning her head out the side window, blowing slow smoke rings into the night sky.
Inside, the clerk was ringing up a large fountain drink, Twinkies and smokes stacked on the counter. The customer never took his eyes off the clerk, even when Jack and Marquez pushed through the front glass doors
.
Marquez maneuvered around the news rack where the ATM stood, gazing back at Jack, who pointed above the beer cooler, at a surveillance camera aimed directly at her.
“Good coverage,” Marquez said.
They walked to the counter. Jack threw down a pack of gum along with a five-dollar bill, and Marquez flashed her credentials at the clerk, who peered up at Jack.
Jack nodded. “Yeah, me too.”
After explaining the reason for the visit, the clerk took them to a back room the size of a closet, where a beat-up VCR sat perched on top of a metal and wood shelving unit.
“It records for twenty-four hours,” the clerk said as he thumbed through a catalogue of tapes.
Jack reached up and hit the stop button. The screen went black. “You change the tape in the past couple of hours?”
The clerk shook his head. “Shift’s not over.”
“Were you working yesterday?”
“Every day, all day.”
“You remember seeing this guy come in here?” Jack flipped out a photo of Cooper.
The clerk squinted at the photo and his bushy brows furrowed.
“Can’t say for sure.”
Jack looked around the store, seeing no one. The Chevy out front had departed and the street looked empty.
“Doesn’t look all that busy. You sure you don’t remember anything?”
“You can go through the video. Maybe that will help.” His tone was less than concerned.
Marquez pulled up a dirty chair from the back office, and Jack settled onto a couple of plastic crates. They rewound the video, starting around
the previous day, when
Monroe
’s ATM card was used. The grainy video showed a handful of customers scanning magazines, purchasing smokes, blurry and unfocused. Jack could barely determine if a customer was male or female, let alone their suspect. Marquez leaned in toward the screen every time a figure entered the frame only to be disappointed. The clerk grew bored and excused himself to the front counter.
“Are we close?” Marquez tapped the screen next to the time clock.
“Inside a minute.”
On screen, a figure entered. Presumably a man, he was slight, wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt, hands shoved into his pockets. The clerk at the counter straightened the beef sticks. He glanced at the customer, nodded and went back to his duties. The figure moved closer to the ATM, but because of the angle and quality, it was near impossible to see his face.
Marquez muttered, “Come on, look up.”
Next to the ATM, the suspect dragged a card from his back pocket, shoving it into the machine. A few seconds passed before he glanced nervously around the store, then briefly toward the camera. Jack punched the pause button, catching most of the suspect’s face. The two stood in silence as they studied the blurry image.
“What do you think, Jack?”
32
Wednesday –
Marquez studied
the grainy blend of black, white, and gray. “What makes you say that?”
“Similarities.” Jack touched the screen next to the suspect’s arm. “Look at his wrist.”
The snapshot showed an exposed right wrist with a steel banded watch. Jack pointed at it. “Left handed. Cooper’s right.”
“How do you know that?”
“We usually wear watches on the opposite wrist.” Jack lifted his right, which sported a black-faced Tag Hauer Chorograph Carrera
Marquez grabbed his wrist and studied the watch. “Nice. Buy that on a Bureau salary?”
Jack shook his hand free. “It was a gift.”
“Uh-huh.” Marquez replied through pursed lips. “Okay, so if this is Youngblood, we’ve got two suspects involved in the kidnapping of the Baker girl.”
“Looks that way,” Jack said. “But why isn’t he hiding his identity like Cooper? Maybe there’s another reason why Youngblood is here in the mix. Let see what else our boy does.”
Jack pressed the play button and the video advanced. The man pushed numbers, withdrawing cash from the machine. He counted the bills, holding them in his right while sifting with his left, another sign of a left-hander. He shoved the money in his pants and started toward the door.
“Look,” Marquez said.
As he exited the store, Youngblood turned right and walked along the open glass, still in view of the camera. Youngblood stopped, half his body now out of sight.
“What the hell is he doing?” Marquez said.
Jack stepped out of the room and stared into the open area. He turned around, smiling. “He’s using the pay phone.”
Both hurried out the back door toward the telephone. A man sifting change walked toward them. Jack put up a hand, gently touching the man on his chest as they met in front of the payphone. The man peered up, startled at first, then looking insulted.
“Sorry,” Jack said, pointing to the phone. “Police business.”
Jack returned his attention to the payphone, inspecting the black plastic and weathered chrome phone box and receiver. He pulled a pair of latex gloves from his jacket pocket and slid them on. He lifted the handset and eyeballed it at an angle.
“You see any latents?” Marquez asked.
“Looks like there’s a couple of smudge marks, maybe a print or two.” He paused for a second, then added, “I think we can do better than a couple of prints.”
He rushed to the trunk of his car where he retrieved a pair of wire cutters and a plastic bag. Back at the payphone, he snipped the stainless steel cord.
Marquez asked, “What do you think you’re doing? That’s private property.”
“Arrest me, Agent Marquez.”
“I know you’ve got a print kit in the trunk of your car.”
“This is more fun.”
“It’s not necessary.”
“It’s the phone company. Of course it’s necessary.”
Marquez shook her head.
“Everyone spits into a phone.” Jack lifted the receiver and cord, which swayed in the breeze like a dead snake, and dropped it into the plastic bag. Jack looked up at Marquez. “
“What now?”
“We’ll send it to the lab to see if we can confirm Youngblood was here.”
“That could take some time. Will it help us find the Baker girl?”
“At least it will let us know if Youngblood’s involved. If so, it tells me he’s in the area so we can hunt him down and find out what he knows. And fast.”
They knew the players; they just needed to confirm who did what.
“Let’s get out an A.P.B. with Youngblood’s picture transmitted to every agency in the western states.” Jack sealed the plastic bag with evidence tape. “Make sure Washington Mutual doesn’t put a freeze on
Monroe
’s ATM card. Maybe we’ll get lucky and Youngblood will get greedy and take another shot at using it.”
Marquez nodded. “I’ll get Hoskin to subpoena the telephone company to find out who Youngblood called. Might get lucky and get a hit on where the Baker girl is being held.” She looked at Jack’s face. “You look tired.”
Jack exhaled, turned and stared at the empty parking lot. “She’s around here, Lucy. I can feel it.”
They took the road back down Auburn-Folsom, a windy, tree-shrouded route with million dollar homes sprinkled along the trail, looming steel and brick walls secluding them from the regular folk. Jack listened to Marquez talking to dispatch at the FBI field office, giving out the description of Youngblood for the A.P.B. Marquez wasn’t one to waste time on nonsensical jargon. She rattled off straight-up, need-to-know information for the bulletin. After her request to transmit to all western state law enforcement agencies, she had dispatch transfer her to Chris Hoskin’s phone. She waited for the call to connect, all the while biting down on the glossy red fingernail of her right pinky.
“You keep chewing like that and you’ll end up taking off a finger.”
She pulled her hand away. “Nervous habit.”
“It’ll be all right, Lucy. We’ll find her.”
She nodded grudgingly, then popped up in her seat, rubbed her right eye with the palm of her hand and spoke into the phone. “Chris. We got something for you to dust for latents and possible
Jack snapped his fingers. “Should have thought of that. Prints on the coins.”
Marquez smiled. “I’ll call the telephone company to see if they will pull the coin box for us. No one’s going to be using that phone tonight anyway.”
As they headed back to the office, Jack thought about the notes he read in Cooper’s journals, still troubled by the words “starting over.” Starting over from what? This was before he’d killed his family.
“What are you thinking about?” Marquez stared at Jack.
“Cooper’s journals and letters home. Strange things I just can’t put a finger on.”
“Maybe they need another set of eyes”
“I think you’re right. I’ll ask Sizemore or Colfax to give them a look over.”
Marquez punched Jack, hard enough to cause him to jerk. “I meant me.”
Jack smiled. “I know.”
Marquez picked up her cell phone and placed a call. A few seconds later she blew an exasperated breath and shut the phone.
“He’s not home,” she said.
“Who’s not home?”
“Homer.”
“You need to let him know his time belongs to you.”
“He’s pretty good about that. Probably on the computer with the ringer off.”
“Now that’s dedication.”
It took thirty minutes to get back to the office and hook up with Sizemore and Hoskin. Marquez carried the box of journals and Jack handed the plastic bag with the payphone receiver to Hoskin, who disappeared to the ERT room to begin processing for DNA, which would involve gassing the entire receiver with a boiling container of cyanoacrylate and ninhydrate inside a closed box for about two hours. The process was simple. The hard part would be finding a useable print to confirm Jack’s suspicion.
Marquez pored through Cooper’s notebooks and letters at the undercover off-site, taking notes as she read. Jack pulled a stack of papers off his desk. The Meridian PCS records had come in over the fax machine on the phone number from Officer Cambridge, which showed the phone hadn’t been used shortly after
Monroe
was cited. The cell phone was subscribed to Klaud Morrow. With Meridian PCS, anyone can subscribe to a phone in any name without verification. In the past, Jack had pulled phone records under the name of Mickey Mouse and Adolph Hitler. Tracking and identifying criminals using Meridan’s system was nearly impossible. A crook’s go-to service. It was obvious that Klaud was actually Klaus Monroe. The billing address was also bogus. Jack noted the numbers called most frequently, then fired out another salvo of subpoenas to the phone companies, and either begged, threatened or guilted the late night representative into getting hi
m the information immediately.
“Jack,” Marquez called out from across the bullpen, still staring at the journal, right arm held high above her head. “Phone’s fo
r you.”
He walked back and picked up the line. “Yeah,
Paris
speaking.”
“Agent
Paris
, this is Cingular Wireless. I have the information you requested from your emergency subpoena request.”
Jack grabbed his notepad. “Go ahead,” he said.
The woman from Cingular rattled off names, addresses, and any other information provided by the subscriber. When she got to the third one, Jack recognized the name. Andre Burke. She didn’t have to read the address: Jack already knew it. He cupped the receiver and shouted to Colfax. “Mark, where’s our porn boy, Andre Burke?
”
“Still at
County
Jail
.”
Jack wrapped up his call with Cingular, and grabbed his jacket and briefcase.
Marquez looked up from her notepad. “Where you going?”
“County lock-up. Mr. Burke may have the answer to where Klaus Monroe lives . . . or lived.”
Colfax, notebook in hand, joined Jack and Marquez. “I spoke with the owner of the apartment where
Monroe
told Officer Cambridge he lived. Terrance O’Brien says the prior occupant was a husband/wife couple by the name of McGarrett. His records showed they moved to
Huntsville
,
Alabama
, an address to mail their security deposit.”
Marquez chimed in. “I’ll get a hold of the Birmingham Division and have them run out and interview the McGarretts.”
“In the meantime,” Jack said. “I’ll take Mark with me to talk to Burke.”
Marquez nodded as she copied information from Colfax’s notes. “Let me know what our boy has to say.”
Jack waved an acknowledgement as he and Colfax headed out the back door.
It was late, but the air still felt like heat radiating from a toaster.
“Cross your fingers, Mark. Let’s hope Burke can give us an address where we can find Mr. Cooper.”
Colfax opened the driver’s side door. “Right now, I’ll settle for Jessica Baker.”