I had to slow down to let the agent guide us to the right car. He beelined to one of the many navy-blue Chevy Suburbans parked on the street just outside the wrought-iron gate. I went to the front with him and said, “Give me the keys, I’m driving.”
“You’re not an agent. You can’t drive.”
Barbara, with her hand already on the back door handle, said, “Didn’t you hear what your ASAC just told you?”
The agent looked at me, his eyes falling to the BMF tattoo on my arm as he weighed the options. I couldn’t wait. I grabbed the keys from his hand and hit the fob to open the doors. I said to the agent, “You get in back. Barbara up front with me.”
This time he did as instructed. Barbara ran around and got in. I started up, put it in drive, and hit the gas. “Gimme me directions to Kadota off of Mission.”
She didn’t answer.
I had to concentrate on negotiating the huge vehicle in and out of traffic at high speed, and couldn’t look at her to see her expression as to why she’d didn’t answer.
“Bruno, that’s in Montclair,” she said.
“That’s right.” Then I caught on. If I was correct, the location would be in her city. “Snap out of it. We’re talking about Marie and the kids here. We can worry about public relations later.”
“Of course, you’re right. Go down to the San Bernardino Freeway and take it west, get off at Central and go south.”
“Why do you think it’s back in Montclair?”
“Everything links back to Montclair, specifically, Mission and Kadota.”
I checked the rearview and caught the FBI agent dialing his phone. He was going to alert his fellow agents to this hot new lead.
“Barbara, take his phone.” She didn’t hesitate, whipped around, leaned in between the seats, and snatched his phone.
I checked my driving path and then looked back in the mirror. “What’s your name?”
“Price.”
“Your first name?”
“Zack.”
“Give him his phone back,” I said to Barbara. “Zack, I’m sorry, there’s a lot at stake right now, and I need you on my side. We can’t have a lot of cops swarming the area until I know for sure which house we’re going to. There are lives at stake. You understand?”
“Yes. If you want, I can call and have them stage out of the area.”
“Not yet.”
He nodded. Barbara handed back his phone.
“I had a detective and forensics check out the place on Kadota,” Barbara said. “It was vacant.”
“Forensics?”
“Yes. There were signs someone had been there, but the place had been wiped clean. I told you that house is a dead end.”
“What about the house the car came back registered to?”
“What car?”
“The Rent-a-Wreck with Micah’s body?”
“That house was neg—”
“What street was the car registered to?”
“Roswell.”
I looked at her as she deciphered the new information. “How close together are Roswell and Kadota?” I asked.
“Kadota’s the next block over. Oh my God, why didn’t I see that?”
“There isn’t any reason why you should have. It could just be a coincidence, but the coincidence is all we have right now.”
I hit the freeway and opened up the Suburban to 120. The sun was completely down and dusk settled in.
“So what are you thinking?” she asked.
“He’s used this same area twice. There has to be a reason why.”
“Maybe it’s because he’s familiar with it?” Zack said.
“Good. Can you have your people do a record check on Jonas? See if he has any friends who live in the area? Maybe Jonas listed someone on his booking form the times he was arrested, the ‘in case of emergency’ contacts.” I checked the mirror. Zack had already dialed, and the phone was up to his ear.
I came up on Central Avenue too fast and had to push the brakes so hard the seatbelt bit into my shoulder. I hit the off ramp, checked the intersection, and ran the red signal to southbound Central.
Zack closed his phone. “No luck.”
I said, “Call back and have them check…” I looked at Barbara and said, “Have them check what?” I was running out of ideas. If we didn’t come up with something, we were going have to go door to door, three blocks’ worth of houses. It was seven fifteen.
“It’s a long shot he’s even in the area,” she said.
I hit Mission and took a long sweeping right. “Point out Kadota.”
“Right there.”
I took a hard left, pulled over, and parked. “Let’s go on foot from here.”
We got out and met on the sidewalk. “Bruno, we checked this out. I’m telling you, there’s nothing here.”
“Jonas has been bold,” I said. “He let the FBI tail him. He hid in plain sight because he knew we couldn’t do anything to him. He knew our only way to get the kids was to follow him. He has to be right around here, and I’m betting it’s going to be right here in plain sight.”
“He didn’t know we were tailing him,” Zack said.
“Yes, he did. He wanted me to find him, to personally rub my face in it. He’s been three steps ahead of us the whole time.”
We came to the house with the Mercury Marquis parked in the front yard behind a chain-link fence. I went through the gate without hesitating. We were running into a dead end. What next? What else could we do?
I took several quick breaths to force down the panic and continued up the walkway in the dimming light.
“What’s that?” asked Barbara.
“Residue, blood from Jonas’ gunshot foot. When I dropped him off.” The foot I’d shot and later regretted. I didn’t regret shooting him now.
The door was open. Inside, the house was unearthly quiet and smelled of musty carpet and dust, with a faint hint of antiseptic. The blood trail did not transect the threshold. So we didn’t have solid evidence he entered this house.
I checked the entire house, two bedrooms and one bath. Nothing. None of the small stuffy rooms had furniture or anything sitting on the threadbare carpeted floor. Wallpaper with an old floral design peeled away in long tongues, exposing the lath and plaster. Dust-laden weeping curtains let in the fading sunlight.
“You’re right,” I said, “If they did actually use this place, they did a good job of taking everything with them.”
Zack got down on his hands and knees and put his face close, parallel to the carpet, looking for micro evidence or unique disturbances. I respected the man for trying.
In the kitchen, I tugged on the back door. It wouldn’t budge an inch. I examined it closely. The door had been nailed to the frame, the window in the door covered over with plywood. “Hey?”
Barbara and Zack came in. “What?”
“Did your detective say anything about checking the backyard?”
She shook her head. “No, they didn’t find anything inside so…son of a bitch.” She turned and went out the front at a fast walk. I took one side of the house, and Zack followed Barbara around on the other. Darkness took the opportunity to hinder us further. I dodged overturned trash cans, pieces of wood, a stained sink, and a pile of used red brick. A detached garage sat back away from the house in the long lot. All the furniture from in the house had been tossed into a tall pile in the dirt and weed backyard.
Barbara pulled up on the one-car garage door. It came up a few inches.
“Hold it,” said Zack. He pulled his service weapon, backed up the drive, and got down on one knee, aiming his gun and his little flashlight under the door. “Go ahead.”
I didn’t think anything would be in the garage, but it did make me realize I didn’t have a gun. I took one side and helped Barbara lift the door open. Discarded trash bags went almost to the rafters. The sour reek backed us off. Nothing. I pulled the garage door back down.
“I guess we have to go check the Roswell street address.” The back gate caught my eye, and I looked down at the concrete walk leading to it. Nothing remarkable. “Come on, let’s check the alley.”
They didn’t argue or complain and followed along. Through the unlocked gate the alley contained degraded asphalt with weeds pushing up in untended cracks. Both sides of the alley had abandoned cars and trash cans but still left room, if need be, for one car to drive through. In the eerie darkness the cars looked like dead animals.
“You guys go that way,” I said. “I’ll check this way.”
Zack headed off.
Barbara stayed with me. Good thing, since I didn’t have a flashlight. “This is a dead end,” she said. “I know you don’t want to believe it, but it is. Let’s move on to something else.”
I stopped. “What? What else is there?”
She shrugged. “We could check—”
“Over here,” called Zack.
We turned and ran to him.