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Minerd’s Scrap N’ Haul was on Broadway, a large lot with tier-upon-tier of rusted out car parts without a gap of light between them. A few old sedans graced that dismal graveyard and the only thing that brightened the parking lot was a pimped out Chevrolet Caprice with forty inch chrome rims parked outside the office door.
Malin studied the manager, unable to determine the gender even as he came closer.
“Like your sunglasses,” he said. “Aviators, right?”
“Yeah.”
“You look like a pilot.”
“That’s the idea.”
“Name’s Charlie Miller,” he said, holding out a hand. “I was Charlotte in the old days. Course, the state assumed I was sex starved and picking up women in bars.”
“Were you?” Malin showed her badge, feeling the phone vibrate in her pocket. She chose to ignore it.
“Yeah, I was actually. But what I do in my spare time’s got nothing to do with applying for a business license, has it?”
“No it hasn’t, sir.”
There wasn’t a vestige of femininity in that body now, arms etched with tattoos and chest flattened by a snug button-down shirt.
Charlie began pacing in a wide circle, probably felt a tad uncomfortable after dishing out a whole pile of redundant info Malin couldn’t care less about. Unless he was running a closet drug business, which would explain the pursed lips and a foot that quickly pressed a half-smoked joint into the sand, he expressed the typical behavior of a person confronted by uniform.
“So, how can I help?” he asked.
Malin frowned a little behind her dark glasses. “Sold any used cars recently?”
“How recent?”
“Last two months?”
Charlie rubbed his chin with oil stained fingers and nodded. “Three sedans and two vans.”
“Thriving business.”
“You could say, only the vans don’t sell too well.”
“Remember who you sold them to?”
“The vans? I’ll have to check inside. Some old guy bought the white 1972 Chevrolet C10. A young guy bought the gray Chevy van, same year, I think.”
It was the latter that sparked Malin’s interest and the mention that the man was young. “What did the young guy look like?”
“Pale skin, black hair, brown eyes.”
“Pitch black?”
“Huh?”
“His hair?”
“Oh, yeah. Darker than yours, so black it was blue.” He seemed to laugh at that.
Malin appreciated Charlie’s feminine side. It sure helped to give her a vivid picture and the young man clearly wasn’t wearing sunglasses if Charlie could tell the color of his eyes. “Anything unusual. Accent... walking stick?”
“Accent? Came from round here, I think. Black clothes, if that helps.”
It didn’t really, but Malin forced her worries to one side and refrained from pushing it.
“He was carrying scissors,” Charlie said, as an aside.
“Scissors?”
“I don’t think he was clipping his nails over there by the sedans. You can start a Camry with a pair if you can unlock the door first. Wrote a check for the deposit, then paid the rest in cash, wads of it. I’m not complaining. Always nice to have cash.”
“Always nice to keep the books in order.”
Charlie’s eyes seemed to wander a bit, sometimes up, sometimes down. “I bet when you were at the police academy you were one of those muscular gels, you know, pumping iron to outshine the men.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Malin looked around the yard, taking in a stack of brand new tires by a blue porta potty and a mangy dog that hobbled on three legs between the cars. “Got an address for that young man?”
A nod and Charlie mopped his face on the back of his sleeve. He swaggered toward the RV, a Great Dane of a rig, fully loaded and painted silver.
Malin followed him in, saw a bunch of papers on a table, noticed how easily Charlie dug beneath the pile and found exactly what he was looking for. He turned, eyes wide as cups when he saw her standing on the top step.
“Here,” he said, pressing a few sheets of paper against his belly and smoothing them down with a hand. He held them out, wrist twitching slightly.
“Not fiddling your taxes, are you?” It was a stupid question, but one Malin couldn’t resist.
“Naw, I don’t do taxes.”
Malin grinned. There was something about Charlie she rather liked. A raw strength, a couldn’t-care-less attitude and heck, look at the monster RV. He must have been doing well for himself.
Malin skimmed the paperwork silently for a moment, blinked, read it again, noted the address and the date of sale. Sure enough, the van was bought a month ago by a Mr. Gabriel Mann, address off Bridge Boulevard near Central Avenue.
“How much did you sell it for?”
“Three grand. It was worth more than that, but the kid had a frowny look like he could really use it.”
“Kid? I thought you said he was a young man.”
“He was. Green, you know how they are when they’re first starting out. Felt sorry for him.”
Malin checked her watch and gave Charlie the paperwork. “I appreciate you showing me this,” she said.
She sauntered back toward her car, moving one foot in front of the other, feeling the thudding of her heart. She had no reason to suspect Charlie of anything and it was hardly his fault if he took cash from a young man who made every effort to remain anonymous.
The number was no longer in service when she tried it and she suspected the address was false too. The truth was, she had nothing to go on.
She wanted to find answers before Temeke did, a man so skillful in tracking a felon, he put all his peers to shame. A man who was everything she would never be. She shrugged off the thought the same way she shrugged off bad dreams because she had a choice. It was a matter of making the right decision and forgetting Wingman ever existed. He was a distraction, just when things between her and Temeke were going so well.
Tapping into the computer, she checked the wanted status of Gabriel Mann. No felony warrants, no misdemeanor warrants, nothing state wide or county wide. Two things struck her as possibilities. If Temeke was being followed as Wingman had suggested, the in-car video camera system would prove invaluable. Since a prisoner sitting in the back seat could be monitored by live feed sent back to the 911 call center, so too could a car following a few feet behind. Provided the windshield of the following car wasn’t tinted, the driver could be made out by video enhancement and latterly matched with a criminal suspect.
Unless Temeke had been driving his jeep. No video camera in a 1962 Hotchkiss.
Malin turned on the ignition and planted her foot firmly on the gas. The back wheels stirred up a shower of gravel and dust as she accelerated back onto Broadway. Stretching her back, she forced herself to breathe slowly while she drove to Northwest Area Command with one question churning around in her head. How was she going to find Gabriel Mann?
Fear seemed to gust toward her, rolling off the road like curls of smoke and poison gas. Fear was the one thing she hated and the one trick she refused to fall for.
Opening the window a slit, the wind blew into her eyes, making them water. She breathed in a cloud of diesel as she pulled onto I-40, heading west into a long line of traffic and slowing down behind a black BMW.
The metallic paint seemed to give off a flash of blue and she peered over her tinted lenses to confirm what she saw. A dance of color in the sunlight reminded her what Charlie had said about the young man’s hair.
So black it was blue.
