She shook her head. “No, you’re the one who figured it out so I thought you should be the one to let them know.”

  My phone was shoved way down into my pocket. I had to unbuckle the seatbelt I’d just fastened, straighten my leg until it was shoved up against the floorboard and root around in the front pocket of my Dockers.

  In the meantime, Casey had pulled out into traffic and had to swerve suddenly to avoid an old man who had pulled into our lane with about two inches to spare between his rear bumper and the hood of our car.

  I quickly retrieved the phone and refastened my seatbelt. “Jeez, be careful, would ya?”

  Ruthanne answered her phone on the first ring. “What’s up, Alex? You have some good news for me? Please tell me you solved the case.”

  “Well not exactly. In fact, I think I just made it more complicated for you. We tracked down a hooker we know named Angel. She said that Sally Jessup’s street name was Tanya.”

  “No shit? As in the Tanya who ended up getting her face bashed in?”

  “Yeah, and I had another thought, too. You might want to check her DNA against the blood you collected from Justíno’s apartment. We were assuming it was his, but what if it was Tanya slash Sally’s blood instead?”

  “I’ll call the lab and have them check it out. I tried to talk to Marcos again but he’s still refusing to cooperate. He says we’re just trying to railroad Jason and doesn’t want anything to do with us.”

  Marcos and I had grown close over the last year or so. I’d met his somewhat quirky group of friends, and to my amazement, I actually liked them. “Do you remember when we met Roddy, Marcos’ blue friend at that nightclub he took us to?”

  “How do you forget meeting a man who had his entire face and neck tattooed blue with small lizard scales etched into his skin with yellow ink?”

  I laughed. “Did you know, when I was shot, Roddy came to the hospital to see me? Several times as a matter of fact. Honestly, he was the person who broke through. I could talk to him, to this blue guy who, if it weren’t for Marcos, I would have just walked by him on the street thinking he was nothing more than another weirdo.”

  “I know. Marcos has sure opened my eyes about what really constitutes strange. But what does that have to do with seeing if he’ll talk to you?”

  “It doesn’t really. I was just thinking that Marcos accepts everyone just how they are. Not only accepts, but genuinely likes them. I think that’s a great gift, that’s all. And I think it’ll hurt a lot if he refuses to talk to me, if I lose his friendship simply because I wear a uniform. That now, to him, all the people in blue,” I laughed at the vision of Roddy with his blue face, “well, everyone except Roddy, are his enemies.” I took a deep breath, embarrassed that I’d just said all that when we were in the middle of working a case. “So, anyway, Casey and I will go see if he’ll talk to us.”

  “You can try, but he’s pretty adamant he never wants to see any of us ever again. Hey, it’ll be all right, Alex. Try to convince him we’re not here to railroad, Jason. We’re just trying to uncover the truth. Sorry, but I’ve gotta run, the L.T.’s waiting to talk to Gail and me. Talk later and let us know how it goes with Marcos.” She disconnected before I even had a chance to say goodbye. I checked the phone to make sure she’d actually hung up, then let Casey know what she’d said.

  Traffic on this particular road had slowed to a crawl. There didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary. I didn’t see any accidents, there shouldn’t have been any construction going on and when we came to a complete stop, I wondered aloud what was going on. “Can you see what’s happening up there?”

  “No.” She opened her door and stood on the running board to get a better look. “The traffic light’s malfunctioning. It looks like it’s stuck on red for us and yellow for the other direction.”

  We inched forward as drivers figured out how to move through the intersection safely. As we sat there, I was vaguely aware of the line of cars coming toward us who’d had to fight the light in the opposite direction. Casey, who had phoned in the malfunction to commo, was impatiently tapping the steering wheel. I glanced down at her fingers, then quickly looked up again. “Isn’t that Kate’s car coming this way? I thought she said she was heading back to the office.”

  The department frowned on decorating our vehicles with anything that might convey a political statement or personal beliefs. The brass made the occasional exception, and two weeks ago we’d been allowed to tie a black ribbon with a blue stripe through it to our antennae to honor an Arizona officer who’d been killed in the line of duty. Kate hadn’t taken hers off yet and as the car approached, I studied the antennae to make sure it was her. Casey must have seen it at the same time I did. “That’s her all right. I’ll bet somebody called her for a cup of coffee or something.”

  I didn’t think too much about it until several cars later I saw Craig Stafford drive by in a gray four door Ford sedan with a cracked windshield; the same description the homeless guy had given me of the car that he’d seen following me. So, it had been Craig tailing me. What was up with that? I turned in my seat and watched him follow Kate’s car around a corner. “That was Craig in that Ford. What the hell…” It wasn’t until I recognized the blue Dodge Durango that drove by minutes later that little alarm bells really began to go off. “Case—”

  “I saw.” We were blocked in by cars to both the front and rear, with a raised median to our left and a sidewalk to our right. Casey swiveled her head in every direction trying to figure out a way to get clear. By the time she maneuvered the car around to follow the three of them, they were nowhere in sight. Casey hit the steering wheel hard. “Shit.”

  “It’s probably nothing. I think we’re starting to get a little paranoid.” Trying to convince her was one thing but trying to convince my little gnome was a whole other proposition. I pulled out my phone. “Do you think we should call her?”

  Casey glanced at the phone and then shook her head. “No. Like you said, she’s a big girl with a lot of experience under her belt. If she needs us, she’ll call.”

  Even though I agreed with her, I stared at the phone trying to quell the growing apprehension I felt building inside me. “Kate was rattled.”

  “What?” She looked at me as though I’d just spouted Shakespeare.

  “Something has Kate off balance. Something’s…oh I don’t know.” I put my phone away and motioned for her to turn around. “Let’s just get back to the station. It’s been a long day, I’m tired and I just want to go home, heat up some mac and cheese and curl up with a good book.”

  Chapter 17

  The cheese on the macaroni had melted to a perfect, stringy mess. Normally, I’d just boil the macaroni from the box, drain it, stir in the butter and the powdered cheese and hotdogs and, voilà, a gourmet feast. Tonight, I was feeling a little antsy. Instead of pacing around my kitchen waiting for the noodles to cook, I had taken out the block of Asiago cheese I had left over from the last time Terri had come with Casey to cook her special mushroom Asiago chicken recipe and had begun to shred. When I finished that, I’d pulled out the Colby Jack and shredded that as well. I’d fried up two Hebrew National hotdogs, chopped them up into little bite-sized pieces and thrown them in as well. I was just sitting down on my sofa with my Kindle when my cell phone rang in my bedroom.

  I didn’t recognize the ring so I reluctantly set my bowl up high enough so Tessa couldn’t reach it, padded in and grabbed the phone off my dresser. The call was from a blocked number. I almost didn’t answer it, but then I thought about that afternoon on the road with Casey and pushed send. “Hello?”

  “Is this Detective Wolfe?”

  “Who’s this?”

  “First, I need to know who I’m speaking to.”

  The voice seemed somewhat familiar, and I was silent while I tried to put the inflection with a face. “Okay…I’ll play. This is Alex Wolfe. Now who’s this?”

  “Jerry Dhotis. Look Detective, I know this is gonna sound…well, just hear me out. There’s something you need to know, but I’ve got to fill in some background for you first.”

  I waited for him to say more, then decided he needed a prompt. “Okay…”

  I guess that was all he needed because he started right in. “I’ve worked for Stafford Limited for about four years now. About six months ago, I began noticing some,” He searched around for the right word. “Irregularities.”

  “What kind of irregularities?”

  “That’s not important. Look, Craig hired me because I’m retired Special Forces. You catching me on that roof was just plain dumb luck on your part. I’m good, Detective. And, as my commanding officer once told me, I’m honest to a fault. Honor and integrity mean everything to me.”

  “Hold on, Jerry. Why are you telling me all this?” I walked back into the living room, grabbed my mac and cheese and began eating while he talked.

  “Because I want you to understand why I opened my own investigation on Craig. He’s always hated organized crime. That was one of the reasons I joined his group, because I hate them just as much as he does. Until about six months ago, that is.”

  When he stopped talking, I heard an airplane in the background. It was loud enough that I guessed he was somewhere down south near the airport. I forked some noodles into my mouth. “Go on.”

  “I was always privy to everything Craig was into, until one day, he received a phone call he said he had to take in private. That had never happened before, and I thought it was strange, but nothing worth losing any sleep over, until it began happening most every time he talked on the phone. We’d always worked as a team. If we had to meet up with a source, we went together. I’m a curious person, Detective, and when he began going to meet people on his own, I wanted to know why. I followed him and photographed the man he was meeting with. I ran the pictures through our facial recognition software. The man was Donatas Puniskis, a midlevel lieutenant in the Andrulis Mafija.”

  “Jerry, let’s get back to my original question. Why are you telling me all this now?” The cheese fairly dripped off the noodles. I was in heaven.

  “You’ll understand why in a minute. Andrulis Mafija translates into the Andrulis Mafia, one of the most brutal crime syndicates ever to come out of Lithuania.” I choked on a noodle and began coughing into the phone. “Detective? Are you okay? What’s happening?” Jerry sounded genuinely concerned and I would have been touched if I’d been able to breathe.

  I took in a long breath through my nose and continued to breathe slowly until I thought it was safe to speak again. I finally choked out in a hoarse voice, “I’m okay. Really.”

  “Yeah, okay, anyway, I know for a fact that the Andrulis Mafia is moving a branch of its syndicate to the United States. They’ve partnered with a Korean mafia group called Jug-eom. Their goal is to take over all the organized crime here in the states.”

  Some of the puzzle pieces were falling into place. “So, now they’re targeting the Angelinos, and she’s in an all-out war, then. How does Craig fit into all of this?”

  “I don’t know.” He was beginning to sound agitated. “Listen to me, please. I’ve been following Craig, keeping an eye on him. About three hours ago, he was in a parking lot. It looked like he was waiting for someone. After about a half an hour he became super nervous, pacing back and forth. He got a phone call which ramped him up even more. After the call, he started punching and kicking whatever was around him—trashcans, tires. Then he called someone. When he finished, he took off in his SUV. I tailed him and eventually realized he’d targeted your sergeant’s car and he was following her. Someone deliberately cut me off in traffic and by the time I got around the car, I’d lost the two of them.”

  I excitedly waved my fork in the air. “We saw you! Casey and I saw the three cars earlier. You passed us on Campbell. We were stuck in traffic.” I was already shoving my holster into the waistband of my pants. “Where did you lose them?”

  “I’m at Country Club and Valencia right now. I’m going to keep looking but I’m worried about what he’s up to and I could use some help.”

  I was already out the door. “I’m on my way.” I hung up and hit auto dial for Kate’s cell phone. It rang once and her voicemail kicked in. I punched the end button. “Shit.” There was no quick way to get to Craig’s location from where I lived. I drove like a bat out of hell, making it to Valencia in about twenty minutes. I didn’t see Jerry’s Durango so I began cruising the neighborhoods, watching for anything out of the ordinary, hoping that something unusual would catch my eye and give me a clue about where Kate might be. “She’s probably home right now having dinner with her husband.” I realized I was talking to myself, but I listened anyway. I grabbed my phone again, found Kate’s home phone number and hit send.”

  Thom picked it up on the third ring. “Hello?”

  “Hi Thom, Alex Wolfe here. Is Kate around?”

  “No, she probably had to work late. Have you tried the office?”

  That was another place I hadn’t checked before I came tearing out here on a wild goose chase. “No, I’ll do that now. Thanks.” I hung up and dialed her work extension. It rang until the answering machine picked up.

  I continued driving the back streets and alleys. The area I was in was more industrial than residential. Huge warehouses dotted large tracts of land, some with manicured lawns and flowered walkways, some more utilitarian, mostly made out of cement with incline ramps going up to large rollup doors.

  Still other buildings sat in open fields strewn with weeds, obviously abandoned. Many of them had large For Lease signs posted on the doors or on chain link fences that surrounded the entire factory or storage complexes. Luckily, I wasn’t running into any traffic because it was after seven and the streets were deserted. I hoped to hell Kate hadn’t come out here to meet someone by herself. That wasn’t like her.

  It felt like I was driving in circles because all of the buildings were pretty much alike, except for their upkeep, until I came to a block where there were two or three factory buildings that sat right in the middle of several acres of open land. The only way to get to them was to drive up a long, completely exposed one lane dirt road. I parked and stared at the buildings for a few minutes, waiting to see if there was any type of movement around the grounds.

  Everything was completely still. There weren’t even any rabbits moving through the desert scrub brush. I drove forward slowly, watching the buildings the entire time. When I came to an intersection, I turned right, wanting to completely circle the tract of land hoping to be able to see all four sides of the complex. I was currently looking at a six-foot block wall that enclosed the back yard of the storage facility.

  I still didn’t see any movement or anything out of the ordinary. At the next intersection I turned right again. I drove to the middle of the block and stopped. I always trust my subconscious, and as I stared at the wall, I knew that something odd had caught my attention. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a clue what it was. I reached into the back seat and pulled out a pair of opera binoculars from my briefcase. They’d been a gift from my mother back when she’d tried to set me up with a visiting tenor from London or some such place. Needless to say, the tenor went home to England and I got to keep the binoculars.

  I got out of the car and propped my arms on the roof to steady myself. I focused on the back right corner of the wall, then slowly tracked left. When I reached the left corner, I switched directions and moved the viewfinder to the right, slower this time. Just before I reached the end, I saw what I was looking for.

  There, sticking up about a foot over the wall, was the tiny bit of motion that had tickled my subconscious. At this distance, it could have been anything; a bird hopping along the cement blocks or a branch from a tree behind the wall. Luckily for me, my mother had been trying to impress the opera singer and had spared no expense when she’d purchased the binoculars. I adjusted the zoom function to increase the magnification. The powerful little buggars zoomed in so close I found myself staring at the pock marked surface of a single cement block. I moved the lenses in large sweeping motions to try to orient myself along the wall.

  It took a while, but I finally located the charcoal capstones along the top and tracked along them until I came to what I was looking for. Barely visible, a black ribbon with a blue stripe was fluttering in the light breeze blowing across the desert floor. I happened to know the ribbon was attached to the antennae of a metallic blue Ford Taurus that had either been driven inside the compound by Kate or had been hidden there by somebody else. I fervently hoped it was the former.

  I took out my cellphone and texted Jerry. Gry & wht bldg on 2 acres at Brosius and Bonny Ave. Blck wall in bck. I hoped that was enough because I wasn’t inclined to wait for him. I put the binoculars back in my car and locked it before taking off at a jog across the desert toward the back wall. When I reached it, I piled up several blocks that were lying scattered on the ground, climbed up on them and slowly stuck my head over the capstones.

  I watched for at least a minute trying to see if anyone was waiting in the loading area behind the factory. Nothing moved so I slipped over the wall and into the yard. I checked the hood of Kate’s car. It felt cool and I guessed it had been here a couple of hours. Now I really wished Casey and I had tried to find the three cars after they’d disappeared.

  I quickly ran to the back of the factory building, hugging the wall as I went. There was a large capacity dumpster in my way, and as I skirted it, I came face to face with Craig’s Dodge Durango and two brand new shiny black Escalades. I’d been unable to see them from the point where I’d come over the wall. I crept in front of the cars intending to peek in the windows when I almost tripped over a body lying on the ground next to the Durango’s front tire.

  I didn’t recognize the man, but judging by the awkward angle of his head, I knew I wouldn’t be having coffee with him any time soon. Directly in front of the vehicles was a gray metal door propped open by a man’s loafer. I looked back at the body and sure enough, the guy had one loafer and one blue and gray argyle sock on his other foot. The second I slipped in the door I heard arguing from somewhere in the interior of the building. The door had opened onto a dark hallway. I turned right and quietly walked forward with my left hand skimming along the drywall hoping to feel an opening in the inner wall where I could see deeper into the interior of the warehouse. Several old, discarded boxes littered the floor. I stepped around one and found another body lying partially covered with cardboard. I quickly checked for a pulse. The guy was deader than a doorknob.