“Nope,” Laura said. “No break.”
She stopped by the auto body shop to see how the lab techs were doing with the motor home. They were in the process of carrying out bags of evidence. There would be a lot to comb through.
Victor had gone to track down two private parties who sold white GEOs in the last week, and Buddy was about to leave. He pulled out behind her, but she lost sight of him when she headed in the direction of mid-town. She decided to stop by Mickey Harmon’s house and see if she could catch him off-guard.
Harmon lived on a quiet street in the Sam Hughes neighborhood. His house was a Spanish eclectic mansion— arched colonnades, red-tiled roof, stately palms and a lush desert garden which she could see through the gates set into the high stucco wall.
The security business must be booming. She rang the buzzer at the gate, but nothing happened.
She debated whether to go back to DPS or straight to Jay Ramsey’s house. She had a little over an hour before they were due to meet—too short a window to get anything done at DPS and get back out to mid-town. So she drove the few miles to Alamo Farm.
Unlike Harmon’s place, Ramsey’s gate was open. Maybe Jay had made it home early.
As she drove onto the property, the slanting sun poked holes through the windbreak of walnut and mesquite trees, throwing shadows on the lane like a bar code. She turned left on the lane leading to the house, driving into the sun. Dust from her car tires seemed to buzz in the air as sun and shade flickered across her eyeballs. The windshield gleamed gold and brown, like tortoiseshell.
A black SUV turned onto the lane from between the two eucalyptus trees marking the entrance to the Ramsey house. Funny. It looked like Mike Galaz’s take-home vehicle.
He stopped and she stopped, window to window. “If you’re looking for Jay,” Galaz said, “He’s not home.”
“I’m meeting him here at six thirty.”
“Have you talked to Mickey yet?”
“No.”
“Two minds with a single thought,” Galaz said. “Jay knows Mickey a lot better than I do—it occurred to me he could give us some insight.”
“Same here.” Laura stifled her resentment. She hated the idea of him micromanaging her case.
“You want me to come back with you and wait?”
“That’s not—“
“Let me turn around, okay?”
She put the 4Runner in gear and drove on without waiting for him to catch up. Why was Galaz so interested? Was it because he was so close to Jay Ramsey and Mickey Harmon? She knew Ramsey was influential in raising money for Galaz’s campaign for mayor. Maybe he was here for damage control.
She turned off at Ramsey’s house, Galaz on her tail. Trees cast long shadows across the dirt clearing, the hard-packed ground reddish gold in the dying light. No cars. Laura knocked on the door anyway, wasn’t surprised when she got no answer. Cold air leaked through the screen door as she peered in. Nobody home?
Galaz wasn’t good at waiting. He paced back and forth on the flagstone paving in front of the house, finally went around to the back. Returned and checked his watch over and over, whistling. Annoying the hell out of her.
A sprinkler stuttered noisily across the lawn, raining on a pair of shrieking grackles. Laura, grateful for the cooling mist as the water spattered near her feet.
“I don’t think he’s coming,” Galaz said after his second circuit around the house.
Laura was inclined to agree with him.
“That’s it for me.” Galaz got into his Suburban. “See you back at the ranch.”
He started his engine to cool off the Suburban, but didn’t pull out right away. She could see him talking on the phone as she walked back to her own vehicle.
Something about this scene bothered her. Where was Freddy? She got out her phone and checked her messages. There was a message from Charlie Specter regarding the owner of the GEO . The man was being interviewed by Victor Celaya now. But neither Freddy nor Jay had called to cancel the meeting.
The door to the house was open; only the screen door stood between her and the inside of the house. A guy who ran an Internet security company wouldn’t leave his house wide open like that.
Why? Why bother leaving the gate open when it was just as easy to do what he always did?
Abruptly, she had a bad feeling. It took her a moment to pinpoint it, although it had been in the back of her mind all afternoon.
She had interviewed and interrogated perhaps a hundred suspects and witnesses in her three years as a investigator, and in the cases where she got a confession, there was always that moment when the decision was made to capitulate. With some of them, it showed in their eyes; others, in their voices.
She had heard that kind of resignation in Jay’s voice, realized that the sound of his voice was the main reason she had come out here. The link between Dark Moondancer and Musicman was tenuous and might come to nothing. Mickey Harmon may or may have not killed Julie Marr all those years ago. What compelled her to come here was Jay Ramsey’s state of mind.
She walked back to the house, glancing at Galaz in his vehicle, still engrossed in his phone call. She thought about asking him to go with her, but discarded that notion. She didn’t know if he would be a help or a hindrance. Better to do this on her own.
