think stress has worn down my teeth, you should see my arteries.”
But of course none of that mattered at the moment.
“You hear from my brother?” Brix asked.
Brix sat huddled over a stack of documents, a legal pad off to his right filled with scribbled notes. Stan Owens was on the phone, his own comments scratched out on a page at his elbow. Gordon and Mann were not in the room.
“Not yet,” Vail said.
Brix twisted his wrist and consulted his watch. “He was in a meeting. He should be out soon. Just so you know, I did a search for the place online. Nothing. Searched for Cannon. Nothing again.”
“So Ray was telling the truth,” Dixon said.
“About that, yeah.”
Brix’s dig was not lost on Vail. She opened her mouth to comment, but both her BlackBerry and Brix’s phone vibrated. She pulled hers and read the display.
“My son just emailed me a photo of Robby.”
Dixon pointed to the BlackBerry. “Send it to all of us. I’ll print copies for everyone.”
Owens looked up. “Include me in that. Time being, I’m gonna sit in on the task force, help you people out.” His eyes found Dixon. “If that’s okay with you, Ms. Dixon.”
Dixon’s expression was neutral. “Thanks, sheriff. We can use any help we can get.”
The door swung open and Mann and Gordon walked in.
“That’s my point,” Mann said to Gordon. “Who woulda thought.” They both took a seat at the conference table.
“Who woulda thought, what?” Vail asked.
Using his prosthetic hand, Mann deftly pulled a notepad from his pocket. “I didn’t think it’d be the case, but there’s a fair number of Sebastians in the area. Between first names and surnames, we’ve got over forty in the greater region. I mean,
“I just emailed all of you the photo of Robby,” Vail said. “Can you forward it to the NSIB investigators?”
Gordon pulled out his phone. “Done.”
Brix disconnected his call, then sat down in front of the laptop perched in the middle of the conference table. “NSIB got Cannon’s home address from DMV, an apartment on Soscol. But it’s old. They’re there now. Landlord said he hasn’t lived there for two or three years.” He struck some keys and brought up Robby’s picture, then sent it to the color LaserJet in the corner. “They’re gonna see about getting a forwarding address.”
“Who’s Cannon?” Mann asked.
As Dixon made her way to the printer, she said, “We’re looking into the possibility that a guy who was friends with Mayfield may be involved in this. James Cannon. Karen and I met him a couple days ago. Said he was a winemaker with a start-up called Herndon Vineyards. Anyone hear of it?”
Owens, Mann, and Gordon shook their heads.
Brix pushed his chair back from the table. “Herndon’s supposedly not releasing their first cases for another couple years, so they’re not putting out any promo materials. No product, no press. I’m hoping that my brother, with his wine industry contacts, can get us a twenty on Herndon.”
Dixon scooped up the photos from the printer tray. “That’s assuming that Herndon is real. Could’ve been a bunch of crap.”
“We’ll find out,” Brix said, again stealing a look at his watch. “If it’s legit, we may end up locating the winery before we get Cannon’s current home address.”
“I can give Ian Wirth a call,” Vail said, referring to a vintner in the Georges Valley region, where the Crush Killer had a propensity for choosing his victims. “Ian would probably know just as much as your brother about how new winery applications are handled.”
Brix shrugged. “Go for it.”
Dixon handed a copy of Robby’s photo to each of the task force members.
After leaving a message for Wirth, Vail said, “What happened with the media? Last night we had TV and print reporters here. When that Microsoft techie gave you Mayfield’s name and you took off for my twenty, what’d the reporters do?”
“No idea,” Brix said. “We left through the back. We didn’t want to get stuck answering questions, and we certainly didn’t want them following us down the road and getting in the way of a high-speed chase.”
Stan Owens leaned forward. “I told them it didn’t pan out, that I’d call them if anything broke.”
“Did you?” Dixon asked. “Call them?”
“I’ve been a little busy.”
Dixon held up a hand. “I didn’t mean that as a criticism, sheriff.”
Dixon glanced at Vail, who inched her chair closer to the table.
“Not this again,” Owens said.
When the Crush Killer had started taking lives, Vail had lobbied hard to publicize his existence, which would’ve played into his narcissistic needs and enabled them to open a dialogue with him. Though she was vetoed for political reasons, their silence on the issue now might work to their advantage.
“No, no,” Vail said, holding up a hand. “This is a good thing, sheriff. This guy, James Cannon, if he’s an accomplice of John Mayfield’s, then he doesn’t know Mayfield’s been caught. If he
Brix splayed both hands palm up. “Until he tries to reach Mayfield and his buddy doesn’t answer.”
“Right,” Vail said. “So we’ve got a limited window to act. We’ve gotta move fast.”
Dixon rose from her seat. “Okay.” She looked down, brought a hand up to her chin, seemed to be lost in thought. “Burt. You and Austin see if you can locate Herndon Vineyards. Sheriff, coordinate with NSIB and let us know if anything comes up with either Robby’s photo or his friend Sebastian. Karen and I are going to pay a visit to Superior Mobile Bottling. Redd, can you get a copy of Mayfield’s phone records, home and cell, and see if there are any unusual connections we can make? We know there’ll be calls to Cannon—they were buddies—so even if we have to call every number in his logs, we might find Cannon that way.”
Vail snapped her fingers. “Wait a minute—Cannon was a member at Fit1. Maybe we can grab their records without a warrant.”
“That’d be good, because we don’t have near enough yet to get a warrant,” Dixon said.
Vail rose from her chair, then reached over and unbuttoned the top two buttons of Dixon’s shirt. She leaned back and appraised her partner. “Yeah, but I think we’ve got enough to get what we want.”
11
The twenty-something tight-shirted front desk attendant smiled when Dixon and Vail stepped up to the counter. Vail looked pretty damn good for thirty-eight—especially considering all she had been through of late. But Dixon, several years younger, not only possessed a natural beauty but worked hard to keep herself in shape. Eddie Agbayani, her former boyfriend, had called her “Buff Barbie,” a description Vail would’ve been hard-pressed to dispute.
And the dude behind the desk took notice, too.
“I haven’t seen you around here,” Dixon said, a coy smile spreading her lips and a straightening of her shoulders spreading her blouse.
“Rolando,” the guy said, his eyes drifting down to the last fastened button as he extended his hand.
Dixon took it and squeezed, which got Rolando’s attention. “There’s a guy who works out here,” she said. “He asked my friend here out on a date and she lost his number. Can you look it up for us?”
Rolando’s eyes finally focused on Dixon’s face. “His phone number?”
“I’ll take his address, too,” Vail said, “if you’ve got it.”
Rolando squinted, hesitated, then moved to the computer at his right. In a low voice, with a glance over his
