Renz turned right and pulled into a drive-through restaurant, ordered two grilled chicken sandwich meals with iced tea, and moved ahead.
“Must have been reading my mind,” I joked.
“Nope, I heard your stomach growl.”
“Guess it is way past lunchtime.”
“Yep, and I’m starving too. We might be out until after dark, so we may as well eat something while we’re stuck in the car anyway.”
“Damn, Renz. Who knew you had such a brilliant multitasking mind?”
He shot me the middle finger, lifted his hip, and pulled out his wallet. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Monroe.”
“Pray tell.”
He wagged his finger. “I’m saving that for the time we’re enjoying a beer or a glass of wine at a bar that isn’t connected to a hotel, remember?”
“Ah, that’s right.”
Renz paid for our meals, passed the bag and drinks to me, then pulled out of the lot. I unwrapped our sandwiches, handed one to him, then opened the console and placed his bag of fries and the iced tea inside.
“That’s what consoles are for?”
“Not exactly, but it works, doesn’t it?”
He bit into his sandwich, nodded, and continued on.
We arrived at the overpass a half hour later with a different task to work on. We were looking for buildings in the area that might have a camera facing the overpass. I assumed they would have to be commercial buildings or possibly parking structures.
“What’s your take on PODs? Does this area warrant them?” I asked.
“I’d say so, but that’s probably something the police department would check into.”
“Do we have a point person at the PD that we’re supposed to work with? The chief, a handful of detectives, or who?”
“That’s a tough one since the crime scenes are all in different police jurisdictions.”
“Then we need a liaison for each location. We should talk to Taft about that,” I said.
We parked in the same area we had been at earlier and climbed out of the car. Renz opened the back door and looked around. “Do we have binos in here?”
“They’re in the trunk along with the vests.”
Luckily, we found three sets of binoculars. We pulled out two, slung them around our necks, and walked to the area between the alley where our Jane Doe was killed and the spot where her tent had sat that morning. With the binos against our eyes, we looked in every direction for wall-mounted cameras on buildings. Renz walked closer to the freeway entrance, and I stayed put. We were both doing slow spins when I heard somebody call my name. I turned and saw Ray walking toward me.
“You came back, Agent Jade. Why?”
I chuckled at the name. “We’re looking for cameras that might have caught the person who took the woman into the alley.”
“But it was really dark last night, and like I said before, I only saw shadows.”
“I know, but it’s something we need to do.”
“The cops are all gone, and so is the body. Otherwise, I would have told them.”
I frowned. “Told them what?”
“About the man who was milling around here an hour ago. He doesn’t live in the camp, and there’s nothing to do in this area, so why be here at all?”
“Hmm… was he passing through like this area was a shortcut to go somewhere else?”
“No. He stood pretty close to where you are now, looked back at the camp, and then turned down the alley.”
“The alley where the dead woman was? That alley?”
“Yes, Agent Jade. That alley.”
I squeezed his arm. “Did he see you watching him?”
“No, ma’am. I was standing behind an overpass pillar.”
“Come with me.” We walked to where Renz was standing. He had moved closer to the freeway and still had the binos up to his eyes. I cupped my hand to my mouth and yelled out due to the traffic noise. “Renz!”
He turned, pulled back at the sight of Ray, then walked toward us. “Ray, what’s going on?”
“Tell Agent Lorenzo what you told me.”
Ray repeated the information.
“Did you get a good look at the guy?”
Ray closed his eyes and nodded. “Good enough to recognize him if I saw him again.”
Renz gave us a thumbs-up then pointed at a building north of us. “It’s broad daylight now, and I just spotted a camera on top of that bank building.” He jerked his head. “Up for a coffee, Ray?”
“Coffee? I haven’t had coffee since—well, I don’t know how long it’s been.”
“Come on. It’s too noisy here, and it’s cold outside. I think that coffee shop I saw three blocks away will do just fine.”
“Are we going in a cop car?”
“It’s a dark sedan,” I said, “but it has a scanner and a police radio inside.”
Ray rubbed his hands together. “I’ve never been in a cop car before.”
Renz patted him on the back. “And that’s a good thing, Ray, but this is a special occasion.”
After Renz parked in front of the coffee shop, I lifted my briefcase out of the back seat. Inside, I always kept notebooks with lined and unlined pages, pens, pencils, erasers, and a recorder. That was a habit I’d picked up after meeting Kate years back. She always had the items necessary to draw, take notes, and record other people’s accounts at length. Sometimes, she would pass the notebook to them and let them jot down their own memories. Later, when she was alone, she would decipher what it all meant.
At the coffee shop, we were shown to a booth and sat down. Renz ordered a carafe of coffee, three cups, and a double cheeseburger with fries for Ray. I smiled at his generosity, opened my briefcase, and pulled out a lined notebook and a pen. After our coffee arrived and the waitress walked away, I asked Ray for a description of the curious man.
I watched as Ray poured three packets of sugar into his coffee along with enough cream to turn the brew nearly white. “You set?”
He nodded. “I’m ready when you are, Agent Jade.”
I smiled. “Good deal. So how far away from the man were you?”
He rubbed his chin. “He moved around a lot.”
“Okay, then the closest you were at any point to him?”
He stared at the fluorescent ceiling lights. “Forty feet. Yeah, that sounds right, forty feet.”
“That isn’t bad, and from that distance, you probably got a decent look at him, right?”
Ray tapped his fingers on the table. “Yeah, yeah, but let me tell you quick before it fades away.”
“Go for it,” Renz said.
“He wasn’t old. Under twenty-five, I’d say.”
I gave Renz a glance. I wouldn’t have pictured somebody that young as a ruthless cold-blooded killer, but I’d been wrong before. I jotted that down as Ray continued.
“He had dirty-blond hair that was about an inch long all over his head.”
“Like a buzz cut?” Renz asked.
“Yeah, like that, but not as short, and he was taller than you.” Ray stared at Renz. “And he looked strong.
“He looked strong how? Wasn’t he wearing a coat?” I asked.
“Yep, but everything fit him just right. I could tell he worked out.”
“So not overweight, just physically fit?”
“Uh-huh, physically fit. That’s one reason I made sure he didn’t see me.”
“Did he look threatening, like somebody who was capable of intimidating or even punching you if you asked him why he was there?”
“Yep, so I kept my distance. He strutted in, walked to the place where you were standing just before, Agent Jade, looked at the camp, and then headed to the alley like he had a reason to go in there.”
“Maybe he was just cutting through,” Renz said.
“Nope, because he came back out the same way he went in.”
The waitress brought over Ray’s plate and set it in front of him. His eyes widened, and that missing-tooth grin lit up his face again. He pulled at my heartstrings, and I remembered my dad telling me years back that I was too much of a softie and people would take advantage of me. Since that day, I’d been cautious and only showed my soft side to people I trusted and the ones who deserved to see it.
“Let’s take a break and let Ray enjoy his meal.” I topped off all our cups with piping-hot coffee and asked for more sugar packs for Ray.