CHAPTER 56

Within minutes, the manhunt for Carol was underway.

Cates called her friend Captain De León at DCPI, told him about the Lords of Agony trial in Vancouver, and the murder of the key witness, and asked for a list of every American journalist who applied for a Canadian press pass to cover it. As soon as she said it was connected to the Hellman murders, the request, which would normally have taken days, skyrocketed to the top.

“Give me an hour,” De León said. “I’m going to loop in the deputy commissioner.”

Ten minutes later, Cates’s phone rang. It was Vera Parnell, the deputy commissioner herself.

The top brass almost never get involved in the day-to-day, but Parnell’s office was spitting distance from the PC’s, so she’d be as invested in finding Warren Hellman’s killer as he was. With her permission, Cates put the call on speaker.

“I reached out personally to my counterpart at Vancouver PD,” Parnell said. “It happened six years ago. The hotel was the Tourmaline, and VPD lost two cops in that explosion, so this is personal for them. They’ll email you a list of every American reporter who covered the trial. And of course, I promised them a quid pro quo.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Cates said. “I’ll keep them up to speed going forward.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Parnell said, and hung up.

“Bosses talking to bosses,” Kylie said. “It sure gets shit done fast.”

My phone rang. It was Rich Koprowski, who was heading up the team searching Barbara’s apartment.

“What have you got so far?” I asked.

“Bubkes,” he said. “No electronics, no computer, no TV—he probably got his news off his phone. He’s got one drawer full of medical scrubs, all dark purple, and another with T-shirts and jeans, all black. The bathroom has one toothbrush, one razor, one towel; the kitchen has one place mat, some coffee, sugar, and a collection of take-out menus, plastic utensils, and packets of salt, pepper, ketchup, and soy sauce. The guy was a total loner.

“He has a collection of books, mostly history. We’re cataloging them and going through each one, page by page. The place is sparse, but we’re still looking, still canvassing the neighbors. Was there anything of value on that flash drive Sheffield left for the kid?”

We gave him the details of the videos.

“That JAG lawyer is a solid lead, but he or she won’t be easy to track down,” Koprowski said.

“I know it’s the military,” I said, “but we’ve done it before. Everything is in a database somewhere. The trick is finding the right person to give us access.”

“That’s regular military, Zach. These guys were black-op marines, and high level at that. Their records won’t be in any electronic database.”

“You mean they just disappear?” Kylie said.

“No. This is America. We never completely expunge someone’s military history. The hard copies are buried somewhere deep in the bowels of a vast seven-acre complex in St. Louis. I spent an eternity out there one week.”

“We don’t have that kind of time.”

“There may be another way,” he said. “It’s a stretch, but since you’re both busy chasing Carol, I could give it a shot.”

“Yes. And we’re hanging up before you change your mind,” Kylie said.

“I’ll be back this afternoon,” Koprowski said. “First thing I want to do is take a look at the videos on that flash drive.”

As soon as I hung up, Cates motioned me over.

“Yes, boss,” I said.

“Theo,” she said. “He’s a good kid, but he can’t sit around in the middle of a police investigation. Take him down to the front desk and ask Sergeant McGrath to have a couple of uniforms drive him back to your apartment. And make sure they stay with him till you get home. He’s still a potential target.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

By the time I got back from putting Theo in a squad car, Kylie was all smiles. “Good news,” she said. “Shane is being released from the hospital. He has Dr. Lu’s blessing to cook for us tonight as long as he lets someone else do the shopping.”

“And he’s okay with that?”

“More than okay. He reminded her that the last time he went to the market, he got shot. He says he may never go shopping again.”

Fifteen minutes later, Cates got the email we’d been waiting for. The Canadians had compiled a list of twenty-nine different US entities that applied for press passes to the trial—mostly the West Coast papers, the wire services, and cable news. A total of eighty-seven passes were issued, most of them to reporters and TV crews. Only six to photographers, four of them men.

We searched the web. Three of the men had published photos of the aftermath of the explosion. Two covered the chaos from the ground. One had a spectacular shot taken while the flames were still erupting, the debris swirling, the black smoke pouring out of the victim’s bedroom.

“It looks like it was taken from a high floor or the roof of the building across the street,” Cates said. “Same angle as the grenade launcher.”

The photographer’s name was Wayman Tate.

“Sheffield said Carol was a world-class photographer,” Kylie said. “But I never heard of him.”

“Have you heard of any world-class photographers?” I said.

“Point well taken,” Kylie said. “Google the fucker.”

Google had heard of him. We checked his website, his Wikipedia page, and his social media. In addition to his award-winning body of work, he taught photography at major universities in the United States and Europe. He was sixty-eight years old, and before becoming a photojournalist, he had served honorably in the marines. Wayman Tate fit the profile perfectly. With one exception.

Our eyewitness said the shooter was about Kylie’s height—five-seven. Crime Scene scanned a surveillance video of him standing next to the UPS truck and determined that he was a half inch on either side of five-seven.

Wayman Tate was six feet four.

“He’s not our shooter,” Cates said.

“Yes ma’am,” Kylie said. “But according to Sheffield—”

“Martin Sheffield had Alzheimer’s,” Cates said. “He’s a totally unreliable witness. I can’t go to the DA with anything that includes the phrase ‘according to Sheffield.’”

“Why not?”

“Why not? Kylie, didn’t you just watch a video of the man totally losing his shit when his mind failed him?”

“No. I watched a video of a man who had a lifetime full of secrets in his head. He was desperately trying to get them out, and granted, some of them came out wrong. By the same token, he led us to Drucker and Winstanley, and that’s not exactly unreliable. It’s almost like Martin Sheffield was ladling soup from a tureen and poured some of it onto a flat dinner plate instead of into a bowl.”

Cates responded with a puzzled look. “Your point?”

“Even though his brain was misfiring, the stuff he spilled was still soup.”

Cates nodded almost imperceptibly, letting the words resonate.

“Look, boss,” Kylie said, “I know our top priority is to find the man who shot Warren Hellman. And I agree it’s not Wayman Tate. But everything else about him jives with Sheffield’s description of the man we know as Carol, and I’m convinced he’s part of the Sorority. I’d like your permission to put him under surveillance and see where he leads us.”

“No,” Cates said. “You’re right that Tate is a person of interest. But if he’s the professional hit man you say he is and we put a tail on him, he’ll make us in two minutes, and we’ll never get a second chance. At this stage, I think our best bet is to go up on his phone.”

“You think a judge will sign a warrant for a tap?” Kylie said.

“Tate is a viable suspect in an international terror attack in which two police officers and a state’s witness were killed. Add to that the fact that he’s been linked to the incident at LaGuardia. I’ll call Selma Kaplan at the DA’s office. I think between the two of us we can convince a judge that phone surveillance is in order.”

Kylie shot her thumb up. “Thanks, Cap.”

“I’d just like one thing from you in return,” Cates said.

“Name it.”

“Don’t ever use that dumbass soup metaphor on me again.”