May 3
33rd Street At Scottsdale Drive
East Orange, New Jersey
4:57 P.M. EDT
Morgan Jameson watched the van squeal off, the Explosive Ordinance Disposal lettered across its rear doors a sneering taunt, the gravel-spitting departure feeling somewhat of a rebuke to him for an impulsive outbreak of anti-elitist, vengeful humor a half hour before.
Certainly, the disgusted glare from the bomb technician had been one, stingingly delivered, after she had examined the Mercedes from all angles, used sophisticated sniffers and sensors, extended a mirror on a stick and scanned the undercarriage of the frame, lock-picked the driver-side door with a slim-jim, popped the trunk and engine hood for a visual inspection.
She had checked under the seats, found only an empty bag festooned with Arabic script, smelling of licorice. The glove compartment revealed even less, only registration and insurance cards—both bearing the name of a “G. L. Dawnswood,” each bearing the same Short Hills address.
The tech had handed all three items to Jameson, her lips tight.
“All clear, Jameson,” she had half-snarled. “I defused the shit out of your ‘suspected-bomb’ car.”
“Sorry, Elisabeth. But with the mosque here, and all the other—”
Elisabeth Zaguta would have none of it; this was her fourth fruitless call for support today.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she spat. “You call it in. Thanks a helluva lot for wasting my time.”
The tow-truck driver, waiting a suitably safe distance away, did not fail to notice the less-than-cordial attitude of the now-departed technician. He backed the truck up close to the “defused” Mercedes.
“Pissed her off, huh?” the driver grinned. “Don’t feel bad; them bomb techs take it like a personal insult if somebody’s not trying to blow ’em up.”
Jameson caught a faint scent. “Good God. Have you been drinking?”
“Coupla beers. Had me a late lunch. Nothing to bust my balls over, okay? Beer or two ain’t nothing.”
Jameson shrugged, a baleful gesture; then, feeling the overly warm May sun join with the lingering flush of embarrassment, also shrugged off his sports jacket. He pulled his radio from his belt and keyed the microphone to report the “all clear” status.
Nothing. Only static.
Damned piece of shit, Jameson growled to himself.
He snapped the useless radio back on the belt, readjusted the adjoining badge holder forward to a position where it no longer pinched his flesh, stood silent while the tow artist fished out hook and cable.
The Mercedes was on the hook, slowly being winched onto the flatbed platform, when Jameson noticed a Chevy turn the corner. It approached at a walking pace, the two silhouettes inside craning their heads to look carefully into each parked car they passed.
The vehicle edged out, pulled to a stop alongside the tow truck and Jameson.
“Pardon me, Officer,” Beck Casey called out. “We’re looking for a friend.”
“Aren’t we all,” Jameson said.
“This one is driving a rental car, we think a Lexus. We think he may have driven it here.”
“Why are you looking for him, sir?”
Beck tried to appear apologetic.
“He’s just a friend I’m trying to help with something he’s doing. I have some information he needs right away.” Beck twisted his face, now trying to approximate a rueful attitude. “Guy’s a TV newsman. Deadline situation. You know how it goes.”
“Yeah, he was here. Had his ‘research assistant’ with him. A woman.”
Another head, younger and attractive, popped from the passenger-side window. “Was it an old woman? Very skinny, with her hair dyed too dark? Sharp nose, like a ferret?”
Jameson noted the accent. Heard that before, or something close to it. In this very neighborhood, usually from someone wearing that head-scarf thing…
“Do you know where he is, Officer?” Beck said. “It’s very important that we find him.”
“They were parked down this alley. Were parked there a while, then they were gone. Hour ago, maybe more. What’s this about, sir? Your friend in some sort of trouble?”
Beck hesitated, decided.
“He might be. He’s trying to do a story on a guy; a guy who might be pretty dangerous.”
“Dangerous how, sir?”
“Whoa! What the fuck we got here?”
This, from the tow-truck driver. He was straightening, examining something metallic and dark blue that he held in his hand.
“Found this on the pavement, underneath,” he said to Jameson, and chuckled. “Passenger side. Guess that-there bomb-lady’s mirror only looked up, huh? Joke’s on her, right? Clean and newly oiled, this’un looks to me. Might’a been down there already, but from the look of it I’d say it probably fell out of somebody’s pocket, maybe gettin’ out of this-here Mercedes.”
Jameson frowned, his eyes focused on the object the driver held in his outstretched palm.
It was an ammunition magazine for a pistol, presumably a spare, fully loaded with thirteen 9-millimeter hollow-point rounds.
The policeman studied it, shifted his glance down the length of the alleyway, squinted up at the dangling Mercedes…
… and then turned hard eyes to Beck Casey.
“I better see your identification—both of you,” Jameson said. “And I need to hear what this is all about, right now.”