Hal Lightman studied the numerous storefronts as he walked toward his end of the strip mall. A dentist. A doughnut shop. A sandwich place. Some offices. It was quite a hodgepodge, he thought. Of course there were also the all-too-common FOR LEASE signs, the product of so many strikes that the Golden State had against it.
Defense cutbacks. Earthquakes. It had all hit California. Except for locusts, Lightman thought, hoping he hadn’t somehow suggested the plague to some higher power with his errant musing. Enough of the negative, he told himself as he entered a pool supply company at the end of the row.
Strike one, he knew, leaving the business after just a few minutes. No one had recognized the picture of Kostin. The same result from the next two businesses, a dentist’s office and a doughnut shop. The next in line was a small office, obviously closed for the day. Lightman moved on, the smell of something wonderful hitting his nose before entering the restaurant.
“Good morning,” a pleasant-looking older man said, greeting the agent. “We are serving lunch. Just one?”
“No, thank you.” Lightman showed the somewhat startled restaurateur his shield. “We’re checking with merchants in the area. Have you ever seen this man?”
The restaurateur bent forward, bringing his eyes close to the picture. His head came back up, nodding, a concerned look on his face. “Yes. Nick.”
Yes! “He’s been in here before?”
“Many times,” the man answered, seeming surprised at the question. “His office is next door.”
“His office?”
“Yes.” The man gestured in the direction from which Lightman had come. “Is he in trouble?”
“Right next door?” Lightman asked, trying not to seem excited.
“Yes. But he has not been there in a while. Is he all right?”
“I’ll be back, sir. We’re going to need to get a statement from you.” Lightman walked back the way he had come, stopping at the darkened office of Birch and Associates, or so the gold stencil on the glass front door said. He cupped both hands around his eyes and pressed close to the glass, examining the interior of the small office. There wasn’t much to see. A desk, with no phone on it or anywhere in sight. A chair. One chair, actually. Some in/out boxes, all empty. Pictures on the wall, though they looked like they could have come with the place.
A front. It wasn’t hard to come to that conclusion, and Lightman had already solidified the conjecture as he raced back to the Chevy, motioning to Espinosa. He had the cell in hand, the desired speed-dial button already pressed, as his fellow agent came up. But the first words about the discovery were spoken to a very pleased senior agent quite a distance to the south.
“Seymour,” John Barrish said, his time on hold longer than anytime he could recall. The relationship had changed, apparently. Was the Jew still his defender? It didn’t really matter. He needed only one final thing from the legal zealot.
“John.”
“I need to see you. It’s important.”
There was a pause, paper shuffling, the springs of an old chair creaking. “About what?”
There was no need altering the John Barrish Seymour Mankowitz had come to know. No need for sweet-talking. “Dammit, Seymour! You know I can’t talk over the phone.”
More hesitation. “All right. Let me check my—”
“No. I pick the time. This could be a problem, Seymour. A big one. And I’m not going to talk to any of your cohorts about this. You hear it first.”
“All right. All right. When?”
“Wednesday morning. Eight o’clock, at your office.”
A pencil scratched out the notation in an appointment book before the leather cover closed with a slap. “I’ll be here.” Mankowitz wanted to hang up, wanted to be done with John Barrish once and for all. He had already requested that he be removed from the case. Let some other eager young attorney have his turn with the man. But, this unexpected call did make him wonder… “John, are you in trouble?”
Perfect. Give the crusader a crusade and he’d be on board. It was going to be a short ride, though. “I can’t tell you until Wednesday. Eight, okay?”
“I’ll be here.”
John Barrish hung up and smiled. “I won’t,” he said to the empty living room. “But someone will.”
The door to Birch and Associates was already open when Art and Frankie arrived.
“Who issued the warrant?” Art asked.
“Guess who?” Lightman answered with his own knowing inquiry. “Judge Horner. He works at home Mondays, just up the road toward the mountains in Pearblossom. One of the marshals clued us in.”
“Good work.” Art walked into the remarkably small office. Frankie was already further in, probing the back of the small space.
“We’ve got two more confirmations on Kostin,” Lightman reported. “Omar is getting their statements right now. A lady across the street at a tailor, and a mechanic from the Mobil station on the corner.”
Art walked around the desk, which faced the glass walls at the building’s front. “Did you check this out yet?”
“Bottom file drawer on the right,” Lightman answered.
The drawer slid out with a screech. “Well, well, well.”
“I did a quick count, with gloves on,” Lightman said. “Twelve thousand dollars in fifties. Another five thousand in hundreds. They’re bundled in groups.”
“Make sure they stay that way,” Art directed. Separate, distinct bundles could be tied to withdrawals or known amounts of cash. But then they had to know who and where it came from first. This might make that easier, especially if Royce or his company made any withdrawals or transfers that corresponded to the cash bundles.
“Nothing in back,” Frankie said. “I wonder what ‘Birch and Associates’ means.”
“It was the name of the business in here before Kostin moved in, according to the neighbors,” Lightman explained. “Birch was an accountant.”
Frankie noticed the drawer full of green. “I doubt he left that when he vacated.”
“Hal, get the keys Kostin had at his place,” Art said. “I think Jacobs has them. Do a match on this door. I want more than eyeball witnesses to place him here.”
“Okay.”
“You know,” Frankie began, “Freddy had some keys on him when he bit it.”
“That’s right,” Art said.
“A transfer point,” Lightman suggested. “Someone brings the money here, then Kostin and Freddy could pick up whatever was needed.”
Frankie looked around the unimpressive room. “This isn’t a real secure place to use as a storage site for money.”
“An acceptable risk,” Art responded, pointing to the drawer. “There’s obviously more where that came from.” But one risk might not have been acceptable to one man. “You know, if this was a transfer point for our two dead guys to pick up cash, that would mean Royce would have had to do the delivering.”
“No way,” Frankie said, her head shaking. “If he was giving over the money there’s no way he would put himself close to anything linked to Kostin. Remember, he was the conscientious employer who fired the guy…supposedly.”
“Allen, then?” Art wondered. “The money went from Royce to him, then here for pickup. Possible?”
Frankie sneered mildly at the suggestion. “That would still put Royce with a known felon…unless there was a no-contact pass in between. A locker somewhere. Someplace else, maybe. I just don’t think Royce would have allowed himself to be put in the same place with someone who might later turn up dirty. Not Mr. Clean.”
“It got here,” Art said. “Just like it got to Kostin’s house.” He looked directly to Lightman. “Fit this into things, Hal. Run down the place. Show Allen’s and Royce’s pictures to the neighbors.”