The Samaritan (24 page)
“Just so you know, Lieutenant,” Mazzucco said, “Quan didn’t give you up. You did that yourself, you stupid bastard. She came out with all the details about the wounds and the nickname from the same source. I knew she got the idea about calling him
the Samaritan
from you, but I needed you to confirm the rest of it. I guess you’d call it
detective
work, huh?”
Mazzucco didn’t wait for a response. He turned and walked out, banging the door open on his way. As he approached his car, his phone buzzed with a text message. It was from Allen.
Meet us at Washington and Crenshaw 30 mins
Meet
us
. Great.
Damn it, Allen.
I didn’t have to wait long for Allen to come up with an address. Rachel Morrow had used the same garage for her Honda Civic on three occasions in the past fourteen months. They offered a tow service; it was within range of Morrow’s likely route home on the night she disappeared, and they were open until midnight on weeknights. All three boxes checked.
We thought about calling ahead and decided against it. Allen said she liked to drop in on people unannounced. It caught people off guard, an advantage any way you looked at it: whether someone was guilty or innocent, it was best not to give them too much time to think, to develop elaborate answers to your questions. I agreed with the approach.
It took forty minutes to make the trip, with me following Allen’s Ford all the way. The infuriating stop-start rhythm of the traffic burned time, but made it very easy not to lose her. I thought more about Allen as I watched the back of her head and her eyes occasionally glancing back at me in her mirror. Before we’d left, she had asked a couple more questions about me and my background, which I deflected without too much trouble. I was pleasantly surprised by her lack of curiosity. I decided that once she’d confirmed my credentials, she wasn’t too interested in anything else for the moment. From our brief meeting the previous day on the roof of the parking lot, I wasn’t so sure her partner would be as flexible.
Detective Mazzucco was waiting for us when we reached the garage, his gray Ford parked curbside with the window rolled down. He spotted us immediately, and I saw him nod to himself in grim confirmation as he saw my car. He got out as Allen parked nose to tail with him. I parked behind Allen’s car and decided not to offer my hand as we approached Mazzucco. He stood with his arms folded, glancing at me and then shooting Allen a look that I knew meant,
We’ll talk later
.
“How did your errand go?” Allen asked, making no reference to the fact I was there.
“Pretty much as expected. I’ll tell you about it later. You want to tell me why we’re here?”
Allen glanced at the front of the garage a little way down the street. A red, white, and blue sign emblazoned with Patriot Auto Repairs. “Rachel Morrow used this garage. We think she might have called them on the night she disappeared.”
The garage sprawled over a wide area. There were several bays, most of them with the doors rolled down at this time in the evening. There were signs everywhere advertising servicing and bodywork and the fact that they offered a tow service. There was a small office appended to the far end of the line of auto-repair berths. They approached it, and Mazzucco pushed the glass door inward, holding it open for me and Allen. The desk was unmanned as I entered. An electronic chime had activated as the door was pushed open, and a minute later a large bald guy with glasses and wearing blue bib-and-brace overalls appeared from the doorway behind the desk. He made us immediately: three people wearing suits and purposeful expressions.
“What can I do for you, officers?” he asked. He was wary, but making an effort to sound relaxed.
Mazzucco produced his badge and introduced himself and Allen. He didn’t refer to me at all, and the guy didn’t ask.
“Are you the manager?” he asked, once the man had waved their ID away.
“That’s right. Anthony Letta.”
“Mr. Letta, were you working here on the night of April tenth? It was a Friday.”
He thought for a second and nodded. “My day off is Friday. Well, that’s when it’s supposed to be. I can’t tell you how often—”
Mazzucco cut him off. “We’re interested in any records for that night. Say between ten and midnight. Specifically, did anybody call for a tow? Maybe they broke down and were stranded.”
Letta shrugged. “It’s a few days back. I’d need to check the computer.”
Allen smiled. “If you wouldn’t mind.”
Letta tapped his mouse to cancel the screensaver, scratched his chin while he thought for a moment, and then started hitting the keys. He went slowly—hunting and pecking for letters, his brow occasionally creasing as his chubby fingers hit the wrong key and he had to go looking for backspace. I watched Allen and Mazzucco as he worked. Allen kept glancing at her partner, trying to catch his eye, but he kept his own gaze studiously on Letta’s trials with the computer. I thought about making some sort of comment to break the uneasy silence but quickly decided against it.
What seemed like a couple of hours later, Letta had a result. “Okay. April tenth?”
Allen nodded. “Between ten and midnight.” She wasn’t giving too much detail because she didn’t have to. She didn’t want to lead him to any conclusions or speculations. Just the facts.
“Lemme see . . . Yeah, we had a tow on the tenth. That was what you were interested in, right? Oh, wait a second . . .” He paused and squinted at the screen over his glasses. “No, we didn’t. We got a call for a tow around ten forty-five. My guy went out and there was no sign of the customer.”
“What was the street?” Allen asked, her voice sounding neutral.
He squinted at the screen again. “Mulholland Drive.”
Allen and Mazzucco exchanged a glance, and then she looked back at me, excitement in her eyes.
Letta didn’t notice. As far as he was concerned, he’d drawn a blank for us. “It happens. Customer calls up for a tow; then they realize they’ve just run out of gas, or the car starts up again and they skedaddle, don’t even bother calling us.” He shook his head.
Allen put a hand on top of the computer screen. “Mr. Letta, did the call come in from one of your regular customers?”
He looked confused. “I’d have to check the—”
“What was the name of the customer?”
He glanced at the screen. “Morrow.”
Allen nodded. “Thank you. Now, would you be able to point us in the direction of the employee who drove the truck?”
The three of us braced ourselves for Letta to declare that he needed to engage with the computer once again, but he smiled and shook his head. “That’s easy. The bum called in sick today, though, so you’ll have to visit him at home.”
I know from experience that some managers and business owners are resistant to giving out the home addresses of employees, even to legitimate law enforcement officers. Letta gave us no such problems. On the contrary, he was happy to turn over everything he had on the driver of the tow truck on the night Morrow had vanished. Tomasz Gryski was an employee he was planning to get rid of anyway. He was constantly late, took too long on callouts, and had an attitude in the bargain. Letta had no idea why we were interested in Gryski and couldn’t care less. As far as he was concerned, it was a bonus if it was something that would hasten his departure from the company.
“Gryski,” Allen repeated, checking the spelling twice as she noted the details. “Sounds Polish.”
“I guess,” Letta said, as though it had just occurred to him. “He doesn’t have an accent or anything.”
“What does he look like?” I asked. Mazzucco shot me a hard look but didn’t say anything.
“Tall, about your height, I guess. Dark hair, tanned. In decent shape.”
“Has he been working for you long?” Allen asked.
He hadn’t been. About a month, and no, Letta hadn’t bothered following up on the references. There were a couple of dozen drivers working at any given time, and beyond a small core of longtime employees, the lineup fluctuated constantly. Gryski’s work ethic and general attitude meant he would probably be leaving sooner rather than later. Letta provided us with a printout of Gryski’s scanned application form, which showed his current address in Arlington Heights, date of birth, previous employment, and social security number. His most recent employer had apparently been a gas station not far from Patriot Auto Repairs.
Mazzucco had one last question—did Patriot receive referrals for jobs from AAA? If so, it meant the same person might have access to the details of both the Morrow and Burnett breakdowns and might even have been able to beat the AAA man to the scene on the Burnett callout. Letta looked puzzled again. “That’s right. Sometimes they throw business our way.”
We thanked him and headed straight for the address in Arlington Heights. Before we left, Mazzucco called in the social security number—it drew a blank, meaning it was fake. It didn’t necessarily mean that Tommy Gryski was the Samaritan, of course, but it meant he had something to hide.
We headed west in a three-car convoy: Mazzucco, then Allen, then me, taking the 10. The sun was setting into the Pacific ahead of us, the rays bouncing off smog particles to create Los Angeles’s own version of the aurora borealis.
I had the printed scan of the job application on the passenger seat and took advantage of the pauses in motion to scan it. There was no photo, of course, but the date of birth meant Gryski was an age that Crozier could certainly pass for. Same with Letta’s description. Didn’t mean it was him; didn’t mean it wasn’t. I took my phone out and Googled the zip code of the address in Arlington Heights. It was an apartment complex, lots of rooms for rent, probably a high-turnover place. I wondered if we’d find anything at the address. If the social security number was an invention, there was a good chance the address was, too. I switched to maps and brought up a satellite image of the location. I zoomed in and swiped the image around on the screen to get a feel for the territory.
The apartment building was located on West Adams Boulevard. The sun was all the way down as we arrived, the streetlights bathing everything in a yellow sodium wash. The building looked played-out, with a patch of dead grass out front and railings covered with damp clothes left out to dry. Mazzucco had beaten us to the address, getting lucky with the lights on the way. He was waiting for us in the car again. Allen and I parked nose to tail and got out. From close by, I heard an outburst of barking in response to the noise of our car doors.
“Blake,” Mazzucco said, reluctantly looking at me for the first time since outside Patriot Auto Repairs. “We’d like you to wait here. We’ve bent regs enough, allowing you to come in when we were speaking to the manager, but it’s not appropriate for you to be knocking on a suspect’s door with us. I’m sure you understand.”
Allen didn’t say anything, just gave me an apologetic glance. She understood that now would not be the time to be crossing any more lines with her partner. I understood, too. It was exactly what I’d expected Mazzucco to do.
“Not a problem,” I said. “I’ll wait in the car.”
“I’m not expecting trouble,” Allen said. “If this guy actually does have something to do with the abductions—which is a long shot—there’s no way he gave his real address. We’re probably about to wake up some old lady.”
I nodded, thinking her logic on that was sound. “But at least it means we have a place to start looking for him. And if he doesn’t have anything to do with this, he might have seen something we can use on the night he went out to Morrow’s car.”
Allen’s eyes stayed on me a fraction of a second longer than Mazzucco’s as they turned to walk into the building. I got back in the car and watched as the two detectives entered the foyer and hit the button for the elevator. Gryski’s apartment—if it was really his apartment—was on the third floor. I waited until the doors of the elevator closed; then I got out and walked down the narrow passageway at the side of the apartment building that led around to the back.
Allen patted the left side of her jacket as the elevator doors bumped shut, just to reassure herself that her Beretta was still strapped there, ready if she needed it. The apartment building was old, and it had an old, slow elevator to match. She glanced at Mazzucco, who was watching the floors gradually light up on the display.
“I’m sorry, okay?”
“No, you’re not.”
“He can help us. He’s the real deal—look at the North Carolina thing. The feds hadn’t even found that one yet.”
“I told you, that’s what worries me.”
“And this is a good lead. We wouldn’t be here without—”
“It might not be anything. Even if this Gryski guy knew about Morrow’s breakdown, there’s no way to tie him to the Boden abduction, for a start, because she had no way of making a call. There are a hundred reasons why people lie to their employers. And, anyway, we’d have found him ourselves soon enough.”
Allen said nothing, let him vent without chipping in her two cents for a change.
It seemed to work. After a moment, Mazzucco sighed. “I found the leak. Ed Federmeyer over in West division.”
“The guy who knew you from before?”
Mazzucco nodded. “The same. And it’s my fault, really. I should have known not to say anything important within his earshot.”
Allen was happy. Mazzucco’s change of subject meant he was probably ready to draw a line under the issue of her freezing him out of the decision to bring in Blake, for now. She knew him well enough to know he didn’t let things go that easily if he was genuinely pissed.
“That fucking asshole,” she said quickly. “Did you talk to him?”
“Yeah, told him I’m reporting him to his watch commander.”
Allen raised an eyebrow.
“You got a problem with that, Allen?”
“No problem.”
Mazzucco sighed. “He’ll probably get off with some bullshit conditional reprimand, anyway.”