Chasing The Dead (An Alex Stone Thriller) (24 page)

“All we have to do is prove it was Norris’s Camry and that he was behind the wheel. How and why they ended up out there doesn’t change the fact that they did. I’m going to call Richie.”

Wheeler’s cell phone pinged with a text message before Rossi punched in Richie’s number. Wheeler opened the message and looked at Rossi.

“Don’t bother. They found the car at the airport. Take a look at this.”

He passed the phone to Rossi. Photographs of the car from all four sides were attached to the text message. The license tag matched the registration records Rossi had in his file. The front end was creased and dented, though the extent of the damage wasn’t clear from the photograph.

“I’ve got to get out there,” Wheeler said. “I don’t want anybody touching that car until I’ve gone over every inch. Then I’ll have it towed to our garage so I can see if the damage pattern fits with the damage to Robin’s car.”

“Will you be able to separate the damage from the parking lot accident from the Barry Road collision?”

“Won’t know until I get a look at it.” Wheeler’s phone pinged with another text. “Airport security says we can have a look at their video whenever we’re ready.”

“I’m like lunch meat,” Rossi said. “I’m always ready. You take the car and I’ll check out the video.”

“What about Norris?”

“Have somebody bring him a newspaper.”

Chapter Forty-One

KANSAS CITY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT was twenty minutes north of downtown, enough time for Rossi to think about what Wheeler had said. Figuring out how Robin and her ex ended up where they did was an important part of the case, but only if Rossi could prove that Norris had run her off the road. He’d get to the how and why later.

The airport was laid out in three terminals, A, B, and C. Airport police headquarters was in Terminal A. Rossi’s cell phone rang as he pulled into a parking place across from the terminal. When he saw Bonnie Long’s name displayed, he broke into a grin.

“Dr. Long, what can I do for you?”

“We need to talk.”

“About what?”

“I think you know. Tell me where and when and I’ll be there.”

“I’m a little busy at the moment.”

“It’s important. Please.”

“Okay, there’s a bar not far from—”

“No. Not at a bar or at the hospital or at police headquarters. Someplace private, just you and me.”

“Okay. You got any suggestions?”

Bonnie was silent for a moment. “Be at my house at five o’clock.”

“I’ll do that.”

Rossi clicked off the call. He’d driven a wedge between Alex and Bonnie, not knowing whether it would pay off, congratulating himself now that it had. He hadn’t been able to get the truth from Alex, but hearing it from Bonnie would be the next best thing. From the start, he’d focused on proving Alex had murdered Dwayne Reed, uncertain what he’d do next. Now he knew. He’d find out whether Alex and Judge West had made some kind of deal to ensure her acquittal. If they had, he’d put her away for as long as he could for obstruction of justice.

He was still grinning when an airport police officer escorted him into the video monitoring room and introduced him to Sergeant Libby Hellmann.

“You’re looking pretty happy,” Hellmann said.

“Just got some good news on another case.”

“Well, let’s see if we can make it two in a row. Your suspect’s vehicle was found in the Economy B parking lot. Our cameras cover the entry to the lot and each aisle, looking north, south, east, and west.”

“Can you track the car from when it entered the lot until it was parked?”

“We pieced it together from different cameras. I did a quick-and-dirty edit, so its kind of herky-jerky. I can put together a more seamless video once I know exactly what you need.”

“Great. Let’s have a look.”

They sat in front of a monitor as Hellmann cued the video. The images were dark and grainy, but the lights in the parking lot provided enough illumination to make them out.

“See there,” Hellmann said, freezing the screen. “That’s your guy getting his ticket at the entrance to the lot. The time stamp shows it was ten thirty-five and eighteen seconds when he rolled in.”

Robin Norris had called Alex Stone at ten fifteen, the instant before her car was struck. Ted Norris could have easily made it to the airport from the scene of the wreck in twenty minutes.

“That’s a view of the driver’s side of the car. How do you know it’s the right one?”

“Once we confirmed the license tag, I worked backward from where he parked the car. I can show you the whole thing in reverse if you want.”

“After I see it this way first. Can you zoom in on the driver? I can’t make out much of his face.”

“Sure.”

Hellmann tapped on the zoom feature, but the larger the image got, the more indistinct it became, until it was just a jumble of pixels. She played with it until she found the right balance. The driver was wearing a ball cap pulled down low on his face. He was looking straight ahead, not at the camera.

“That your guy?”

Rossi took his time. “Can’t tell. Run the rest of it.”

The video tracked the car from the gate to a spot near one of the stops where shuttle buses picked up passengers and took them to the terminal. The driver parked the car between a tall SUV and a minivan but didn’t get out of the car.

“What’s he waiting for?” Rossi asked.

“You’ll see.”

Two minutes passed. Then a shuttle bus appeared. The driver got out of the Camry, head down and carrying a small duffel bag. He dropped something, bending down and out of the camera’s range to pick it up, before walking to the bus and climbing on, never looking up so that a camera could capture his face. Hellmann froze the screen again.

“Son of a bitch,” Rossi said. “It’s like he had the whole thing planned. He picked the perfect parking place. The SUV and the minivan blocked the cameras. He waited for the shuttle to keep his time outside the car to a few seconds, and he never looked up. How did he know he’d find such a perfect parking place?”

“It’s a big lot. With all those cars and all those bus stops, his chances of finding a parking place like that were pretty good.”

“But he wouldn’t have known that.”

“Unless he was used to parking there. That lot is for Southwest, and they’ve got more flights out of here than any other carrier.”

“Okay, run it in reverse.”

Hellmann played it backward several times.

“That help any?”

“No. What about the bus? Can you track it?”

“Not all the way. We have cameras at the lot and at the terminal, but not in between. But we know how long it takes the driver to reach the terminal after leaving the lot, so I was able to pick the bus up again when it got there.”

Hellmann resumed the video, following the bus as it stopped at the terminal.

“Usually there’s not that much shuttle traffic at that time of night,” she said, “but a couple of incoming flights had been delayed by bad weather, so there was a crowd waiting for the bus to pick them up and take them back to the economy lot.”

Rossi watched as the bus stopped and people swarmed on and off, heads bobbing and weaving. Several people were wearing ball caps, and it was impossible to identify one from another. They played the sequence over and over so that Rossi could follow each person wearing a ball cap as he or she moved through the crowd. None of them matched the person who’d gotten out of the Camry, and none of them were carrying the same duffel.

“How could he just disappear like that?” Rossi asked.

“Beats me.”

“Go back to the parking lot and zoom in on the duffel bag. Maybe we can pick something up that would identify it.”

Hellman found the frames with the duffel bag, enlarging each one as much as possible without losing the image.

“It looks like there’s some lettering and some kind of logo on the bag,” Rossi said. “Can you make that any bigger?”

“Sure.”

Hellman bracketed the side of the bag until they could make out the logo.

“I recognize that,” she said. “I’ve got a bag just like it from Lands’ End. The word on the bag is
solutioneering
. I use the bag for my workout gear when I go to the gym.”

“What’s it made out of?”

She shrugged. “Some kind of polyester.”

“I want to talk to the driver. Maybe he remembers something.”

“I’ll have to find out who the driver was and when he has his next shift. We’ll have him come in early so you can have some time with him. I’ll call you when I know something.”

“What about the shuttles that take people into town, to the hotels? Where do they pick up passengers?”

“Two lanes of traffic run past the terminal. The lane closest to the terminal is for people dropping off or picking up passengers and for the parking lot shuttles. There’s a median that separates that lane from the outer lane. Hotel and rental car shuttles pick people up on that curb.”

“Do your cameras cover that area too?”

“Right down to your shoelaces.”

“Great. Show me the video from the outer curb at all three terminals for two hours beginning when the parking shuttle stopped at Terminal B. I want to see if whoever got out of the Camry took a shuttle home. And if you don’t see anyone carrying that duffel, check every trash can and bathroom in the terminal.”

“That will take a while even if I fast-forward. How much time do you have?”

Rossi looked at his watch. Ted Norris was waiting for him in the interrogation room and he had to be at Bonnie Long’s house by five.

“Not enough to spend it here with you. Can you put together a tape that just includes anyone getting on a shuttle in that time frame?”

“Sure. I can e-mail it to you along with the video we just looked at, and I’ll let you know if we find the duffel bag.”

Rossi handed her a business card and stood, shaking his head as he stared at the screen. He’d expected to hit the jackpot and had shot craps instead.

“Thanks. My e-mail address is on the card.”

“You lost your grin.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll get it back.”

Chapter Forty-Two

GRACE CANFIELD WAS WAITING in Alex’s office when she arrived Tuesday morning.

“I’d say that you looked like something the cat dragged in, but you’d probably think it was a compliment,” Grace said. “When are you going to get some sleep and comb your hair?”

Alex ran her fingers along her scalp. “Best I can do.”

“You could put something on nicer than that army surplus you’re wearing.”

“These are cargo pants, not army surplus.”

“Why can’t you be one of those lipstick lesbians that dress nice, like Bonnie does?”

“Bonnie wears pants.”

“Men’s pants?”

“If you think all lesbians should look alike, why don’t you look like Oprah Winfrey?”

“’Cause I don’t have a hundred million dollars to help me get dressed every day, that’s why.”

Alex laughed.

“You are something else, Grace, you know that?”

“I’m just glad to see you smiling.” She paused. “Did Bonnie get ahold of you?”

Alex sat at her desk. “We ran into each other yesterday.”

“And?”

“What are you? My investigator or my mother?”

“What difference does it make? You need both.”

Alex sighed. “I suppose you’re right. We talked. Actually, Bonnie talked and I listened, and then she . . . she left.”

“So are you two going to get back together?”

Alex pointed to the file Grace had in her hand. “I’d rather talk about whatever is in that file.”

“Soon as you answer my question.”

Alex scowled at her. “Grace . . .”

“Don’t
Grace
me. Are you two getting back together?”

Alex sighed again. “We’ll see.”

Grace lit up. “Well, that’s better than yesterday’s ‘never.’ I served a subpoena on Fresh Start like you asked me. They told me that it takes a month to get copies of medical records and that they need a release signed by the patient. I told them they’d have to settle for a subpoena since the patient is dead and that I was going to haunt them every minute of every day it took to get those records, and they said we’d have them by tomorrow.”

“I’m glad you’re on my side. What about the rest?”

“I had one of my church ladies who’s doing the street outreach go with me last night to talk to some of those girls since none of them know me. One girl, name of Chantelle, told us that Joanie did have a special friend, the way she put it.”

“Did she have the special friend’s name?”

“No. Only thing she knew was that this guy has been helping Joanie a long time.”

“Helping her? Like something besides paying her for sex?”

“That’s right. She said it wasn’t a sex thing at all. More like a father thing.”

“Did she know anything about Joanie meeting this guy the night she was killed?”

“Maybe. She said Joanie had trouble with a john earlier that day. Said the guy hurt her the way he . . .”

“Fucked her?”

“I wasn’t going to use that language, but yes. Anyway, Joanie came crying to Chantelle and Chantelle told her it goes with the territory and Joanie said not for much longer ’cause she was getting off the street. Chantelle didn’t think much of that because all the girls talk that way.”

“Go back to Chantelle and see if we can get a line on this john. If he hurt her, that could explain the vaginal bruising the coroner found.”

“I’ll go back down there tonight. And I checked Joanie’s arrest record. Most of the time, the judge let her go on her own recognizance. When she did have to post bond, she had enough cash that she didn’t need help.”

“How many prostitutes can post their own bond?”

“Just the ones that are making enough money and keeping it from their pimps.”

“Do we know if Joanie had a pimp?”

“Chantelle said Joanie didn’t have one as far as she knew.”

“So Joanie’s arrest records are a dead end.”

“Maybe, maybe not. The first time she was arrested was eleven years ago. It was for possession with intent to sell.”

“Which court was she in?”

“Clay County, up in Liberty. That’s where she grew up. The prosecutors up there like to ask for shock jail time for first offenders and the judges are known for going along with that. Only Joanie got put in a diversion program over the prosecutor’s objection.”