Durrie picked up his bag and followed.
“Here,” Larson finally said.
The car Davies had been hiding under when Larson pulled the trigger was one row back and several cars down from where the BMW had been parked.
Durrie set his bag on the ground, pulled out a flashlight and a quart of oil, then held them out to Larson. “Dump the oil on any bloodstains. If you need more, I have more.”
“Come on,” Larson said without taking either item. “That’s your job.”
Durrie didn’t move, his face impassive.
After several seconds, Larson rolled his eyes, then grabbed the flashlight and oil. “Fine.”
He ended up needing two quarts. When he was done, Durrie kneeled down and inspected his work. It would do.
He zipped up his kit bag and rose to his feet. Pointing at the two empty oil containers on the ground, he said, “Those go in the back of the BMW.”
Larson picked them up.
“Is there anything else we need to deal with?” Durrie asked. “Did she tear her clothes on anything? Did you?”
Larson thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Nah. Nothing else.”
Durrie stared silently at him.
“That’s it,” Larson said. “There’s nothing else.”
Once back at the other cars, Durrie told Larson to get the BMW started, then he walked over to the Mazda. The smell of lighter fluid was intense. Any barely competent investigator would immediately know what had caused the blaze. But that didn’t matter. Cleaning wasn’t always about making things disappear. More times than not it was about distraction and misdirection. In this case, a burned-out car, its blaze started with the same accelerant used in a rash of recent local auto fires.
He lit a match from a booklet he’d picked up at a convenience store miles and miles away, and flicked it into the back. There was a
“Let’s go,” he said.
Their work that evening was far from done.
After Jake knocked on Berit’s door and received no answer, he checked the carport and saw that her car wasn’t there.
He quickly dismissed the idea of going back to his apartment. He’d go crazy sitting there alone with only his thoughts. Better to be out doing anything else.
To kill time, he drove around for a while. When he got tired of that, he returned to her place, parked, then went for a walk.
19
The staging area for the second part of the evening was a parking lot behind a sporting goods store that had closed an hour earlier. It took them forty-five minutes to get the BMW, Officer Davies’ Charger, and the sedan Durrie had been driving all together there. The car Larson had obtained before meeting up with Durrie at the observation point, they abandoned. It, like the vehicle Larson had left in the impound yard’s visitor lot earlier in the day, would only lead to an owner who would be happy to get it back.
Durrie and Larson parked the BMW and the Charger in the darkest part of the lot, then took Durrie’s sedan to Davies’s townhome complex. To complete the scenario Durrie had mapped out, they would need to pack several of the woman’s things into her own luggage and take them away.
It was the classic leaving town in a hurry ruse. Some ops agents went overboard, creating complicated backstories to explain a person’s disappearance, but in Durrie’s experience, the less the better. If you seeded some basic information and took the right things from the person’s home, then people would jump to their own conclusions.
As for the seeded information, that had been dealt with by another call to Peter, who, though not without displeasure, said he would handle it. It was now up to Durrie to make the woman’s departure look legitimate.
They parked on the street a half-block away, then walked into the complex. The buildings were structurally identical, but the numbers for each unit were clearly displayed, and it was only a matter of minutes before they found the one that matched the address on the woman’s driver’s license.
Durrie’s biggest concern was that it would turn out she had a roommate. That would present a whole new set of problems, ones he had solutions for, but would rather not employ. He took it as a good sign that there were no lights on in any of the windows. He then stepped to the door, and turned so that his ear was hovering right beside it. No sound of a TV, no one talking on a phone, nothing. Still, that wasn’t conclusive proof no one was inside. A roommate could be reading a book or even asleep.
He shot Larson a look, telling him to be ready, then he rang the doorbell. Somewhere inside he could hear a faint double ding, but thirty seconds later, the house remained quiet, and the porch light off.
Durrie pushed the button again. He could feel Larson getting impatient behind him, but it was best to be sure. When there was still no response, he donned a pair of gloves, then pulled out his lock-pick set and made quick work of the deadbolt and knob lock.
They paused just inside, allowing their eyes to adjust to the diminished light. It appeared that they had entered directly into the living room. Immediately to their left was an open doorway that led into a kitchen, and against the right wall was a set of stairs leading up to the second floor.
Durrie motioned for Larson to remain by the door, then indicated he was going to go upstairs and do a quick sweep. As soon as Larson nodded, Durrie eased into the living room, stepping carefully over to the stairs. Since the construction was still relatively new, the stairs barely even acknowledged his presence as he went up.
When he reached the second floor, he found himself in a short hallway with three open doors leading off it. The first door was for the bathroom, the second the master bedroom, and the third a second bedroom. But this room was being used as an office, not someplace to sleep.
By the time Larson joined him in the master bedroom, Durrie had already located a worn-looking suitcase in the walk-in closet and set it on the bed. He wasn’t worried about disturbing the bedspread. That would actually make things seem more believable, underlining the sense that she’d left in a hurry.
The important thing now was to not randomly throw clothes into the bag. They had to be the
Turning their flashlights on, but keeping them on the floor so their beams wouldn’t be seen through the windows, Durrie directed Larson on what items to take from the dresser: bras, underwear, tank tops, sweats, T- shirts, and two of the most well-worn-looking pairs of jeans. Durrie then made a survey of the closet, choosing several tops, a single business suit, but leaving all except one of the dresses behind. The dress he did take was a simple black one that could be used for a variety of reasons.
Shoes were next. He went for practical over fashion, assuming a woman cop would know to leave the stilettos in preference of the flats, but made sure to include one pair of dressier shoes with a slightly raised heel. He also grabbed a pair of everyday tennis shoes, and what appeared to be the woman’s workout shoes. He put all these in a canvas bag that had also been in the closet, then carried the bag into the master bathroom. There he gathered up make-up, toothbrush, toothpaste, hairbrush, clippers, and a few other items he was sure would look odd if left behind. When he was done, he returned to the bedroom.
Now the hard part.
“Take these downstairs,” he told Larson, indicating the canvas bag and the suitcase. “Wait for me by the door.”
