Shouts of “Clear!” echoed through Farber’s house and after a couple of minutes Bernard waved Kane and Rosewood inside.
“He’s not here,” Bernard told them.
“Then we’d better get the hell out of here before he comes back and spots us.”
“I don’t think he’s coming back.” Bernard gestured for Kane to follow him. “It’s still warm,” Bernard said, pointing at the frying pan.” Kane broke one of the meat patties apart with his fingers.
“It’s still pink inside. He couldn’t have left more than ten minutes ago.” Kane helplessly looked around the room. An empty plate and a still cold bottle of beer were on the table and a block of yellow cheese and a knife lay on the counter next to the sink. Farber had been in the middle of cooking dinner when something spooked him. “Is there any way he could have spotted us?” Kane asked.
“I don’t see how. We were parked around the corner and Stottlemeyer didn’t even look at the place when he drove by. Who knew about the raid? Could someone in your office have tipped him off?”
“Nobody knew,” Kane said, “just the judge who issued the warrant and your Captain.”
“And your boss.”
“No,” Kane said and then looked at Danny.
“I didn’t tell anyone,” Rosewood volunteered.
Bernard thought about that for a moment. “Maybe he planted a camera at the end of the block and spotted the van.”
Kane shook his head. “He’d have to have had four of them, two at each intersection, each one pointing in a different direction. They’d have to be wireless which means he would have had to climb the power pole or streetlight every couple of days to change the batteries. No way that’s not going to be noticed. . . . We can check for cameras but we’re not going to find any.”
“Then either he’s psychic or something spooked him,” Bernard replied. “What do you want to do now?”
Kane thought for a moment then shrugged. “OK, let’s have a look around, see if we can find anything that’ll help us run him down. If his car has a GPS maybe that’ll tell us something useful. Danny, check that out. I’m going to grab up any paperwork I can find.” Kane turned back to Bernard. “Can you ask your guys to see if they can locate a cell phone or a laptop?”
“Sure.”
An hour later they assembled back in the living room to compare notes. Kane had found a package of garbage can bags, two of which they had stuffed with old water bills, cable TV invoices, and other worthless documents together with the contents of Farber’s wastebaskets. They had found no bankbooks, receipts for storage lockers, pieces of mail addressed to some other location, address books, or anything else of any obvious value. Kane had found three keys. One was a car key that started the Camry. One was to the padlock securing the rear access door to the basement and one a spare key to the house.
“Our shift is just about over,” Bernard told Kane. “Unless Homeland wants to cover the overtime we need to call it a night.”
Kane frowned and glanced around the living room as if he might find some inspiration in the worn couch or sagging club chair then, reluctantly, nodded.
“Yeah, OK, let’s seal it up. I’ll get a team in here tomorrow to tear the place apart in case we missed something. Thanks.”
“OK, guys, let’s wrap this up!” Bernard told his team.
Half an hour later Greg and Danny were in the parking lot behind their office. Greg had been quiet the whole ride back. Danny couldn’t tell if he was angry or thinking or maybe both.
“What do we do now?” Danny asked.
“He can’t have gone far,” Kane said. “We’ve got his car. We’ve put his Conklin ID on the no-fly list and we’ve flagged his VISA card. He’s only got the money he had in his pocket when he bugged out. He’s not going anywhere until he can get a new ID and a new credit card.”
“Wouldn’t he have them already, as a backup?”
“I would if I were him. The question is if he had them on him or if he stashed them someplace. If he kept them in his house and anyone raided the place when he wasn’t home he’d be screwed so he’s probably stashed them somewhere. The question is where? I’d leave my back-up ID with a friend or put it in a storage locker or someplace like that where I could get at it if I was on the run. What about that mailbox store you tracked him to?”
“You think he might have left another ID in his mailbox?”
“Or in another mailbox he rented under another name.” Kane glanced at his watch. “They’re closed now. We’ll check them out first thing in the morning. How long will it take you to get the GPS log from his Camry?”
“I’ve already downloaded it.” Danny held up a flash drive.
“Can you print that out while I put together a press release?”
“Sure. What are you going to say, in the press release?”
“The headline at the top will be that the Office of Homeland Security is looking for Mearle Farber, AKA Paul Conklin on a matter of national security. Underneath that will be Farber’s Baltimore Sheriff’s file picture and Conklin’s DMV photo and below that will be our phone number. I’m going to plaster this guy’s face on every TV screen, newspaper and on-line media outlet on the east coast.”
“Do you think it’ll work?”
“I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out.” Kane pulled out his building access card. “Let’s get to work. If we’re lucky we might just make the eleven o’clock news.”