“Sorry my partner can’t be here,” he said, shutting the door. “Her daughter’s down with a stomach bug. Hey, I didn’t offer you anything. Coffee, tea, and water, or there’s a vending machine.”
“I’m good, thanks,” Regina said.
“Clay?”
“Good for now.”
Kinney swept an arm toward the table. “This is it, in terms of paperwork. Couple boxes still in the cage. Why don’t we go over it, figure out how we can help each other.”
“Sounds great.”
He took us through the initial reports.
I said, “Kat said you looked at the guy who called 911.”
“For about ten seconds,” Kinney said. “He was more scared we’d bust him for being in the park after dark.”
Following identification of the body, the detectives had worked on reconstructing Adam Valois’s movements in the days leading up to his disappearance.
It helped that he was a creature of habit. CCTV footage, cellphone tower data, eyewitnesses, text messages, emails, and credit card activity corroborated Olivia Parisi’s story: Adam had spent much of that week holed up in his downtown condo, leaving only to walk the block and a half to Fin City Fitness or grab food.
The workout buddy Olivia had mentioned was a man named Wes Lau, who’d noticed nothing out of the ordinary in Adam’s demeanor.
At 12:44 p.m. on Saturday, June 20, lobby cameras showed Adam coming home, dressed in workout clothes and carrying a Chipotle bag. He exited the elevator on the ninth floor and walked to his unit. From then on, his phone stopped moving.
“Saturday?” I said. “He didn’t take it with him to Olivia’s?”
“Seems that way.”
“She said he never went anywhere without his phone,” Regina said.
“Yeah, well, he could’ve forgot. He had his hands full.” Kinney brought up a new CCTV clip on the whiteboard. “Check it out.”
Same day, 4:42 p.m., subterranean parking garage. Adam entered the frame. He’d changed into jeans and a fitted T-shirt, had a bounce in his step.
A guy whose evening plans included sushi, a movie, and, hopefully, sex.
The main difference being that he was wheeling a large, rectangular hardshell case.
Kinney hit Pause, freezing Adam in mid-stride. The case was deep, rugged, and blocky — the kind used to protect and transport delicate cargo. Cameras, electronics, firearms. It trailed behind him like a misshapen shadow.
“Olivia didn’t mention that to us,” I said.
“She says he didn’t have it on him when he got to her place,” Kinney said.
“Do we know what’s inside?” Regina asked.
“Well, he’s a video guy. So my money says video stuff. But I’m open to suggestions.”
Regina said, “Was anything missing from his apartment?”
Kinney smiled faintly. He clicked a photo subfolder: Vic Resid. “You tell me.”
Adam Valois’s condo hewed to the Silicon Valley aesthetic — clean lines, sheet glass — but had been modified to suit its occupant’s quirks. Blackout curtains nullified the views, for work reasons or for migraines or both. He’d added acoustic baffling to the walls and ceiling. Everywhere was AV gear: cameras, stands, booms, studio lights, backdrops, power packs, parabolic umbrellas. More hardshell cases, along with a softbox. The editing station featured a jumbo display and a mesh chair to alleviate back strain.
Expensive chaos.
Regina said, “I found Waldo.”
Kinney gave a good-natured chuckle and closed out the folder. “You get the gist.”
I said, “Video in the case is logical. But what’s he doing with it on a Saturday night, when he’s supposed to be hanging out with his girlfriend?”
“We wondered about that, too,” Kinney said. “Our first thought was he had a job the next morning, so he loaded up the night before. But the next gig on his calendar’s a week out. So then we started wondering if he dropped it off along the way.”
“Where?”
Kinney turned up his palms. “Loaning it to a friend? Or selling off stuff he didn’t need. You saw his place. He had all kinds of junk in there, analog, camcorders, VHS.”
“A collector.”
“One man’s collector is another man’s pack rat. We went through his messages, looking for him setting up a meet with a buyer. Nada. Everyone we talked to denies borrowing anything from him.”
“Olivia told us they had sex Saturday night,” Regina said. “Maybe they made a movie together.”
“Keeping it spicy, huh,” Kinney said. “Yeah, could be. Either way, the box wasn’t in the vehicle when Oakland recovered it.”
He clicked another subfolder. Vic Vehic.
Dark-blue Mazda hatchback, worked over: windows smashed, hubcaps missing.
“Does he have a connection to that neighborhood?” I asked.
“None,” Kinney said. “Fact of the matter is, we don’t have a single piece of evidence he was physically there. He didn’t stop for gas, didn’t ping a toll plaza or hit a red-light camera. There’s Caltrans cameras on 880, but we’re talking about a huge window, time-wise.”
“And it’s a common car.”
Kinney nodded. “We suspect it was stolen and dumped.”
I said, “What if the stuff in the case isn’t video equipment.”
“What, then?”
“Drugs. Guns.”
“Nothing about him suggests he’s mixed up in that kinda shit.”
“I’m just trying to think of where the case might’ve gotten to,” I said. “If he’s carrying something illegal, that’s a good reason to leave his phone behind, so he can’t be tracked.”
“Fine, but it’s on top of the toilet. To me it makes more sense he was in a rush. Anyway, you forget things when you’re high.”
“You think he used before he got to her place,” I said.
“Who knows? She swears up and down they didn’t touch anything harder than alcohol and weed. So either he pre-gamed, she’s lying, or he left her place and got high on his own. But him being some sorta dope kingpin? Feels a bridge too far, y’know? I should mention, too: We looked into whether he had a second phone. Nada.”
“Burner?” I asked.
“Not on the credit cards. ’Course he coulda paid cash.”
Kinney shut the laptop, blanking the whiteboard. “I get where you’re coming from. ’Cause yeah, it’s frickin weird. He’s dragging around this big honking thing, and it just vanishes. Then he vanishes.”
“What’s the last confirmed sighting?”
“Six fifteen p.m. Saturday. They ordered food. Delivery guy remembers handing him a bag. After that, it’s her word.”
“Any reason to doubt her?” Regina asked.
“She’s been cooperative. Friends describe them as in love. The neighbors don’t report hearing noise or shouting or anything that suggests a fight. Her apartment looked orderly. No judge in the world’s gonna grant me a warrant to go luminol her bathroom. I got no probable cause, and there’s simpler explanations.”
He ticked his fingers. “He goes off to score and gets jacked. Or he’s wasted and falls in by accident. Or he’s wasted and thinks he’s Aquaman and jumps in.”
“Which is your favorite?”
“I don’t have one. They’re like my kids, I love them equally.”
“Thoughts on where Adam got the drugs?” I asked.
“Weed belonged to the girlfriend. She showed my partner a digital receipt from an online dispensary. Muscle relaxant’s legit. Dentist confirmed giving him a sedative. So really we’re just talking about the K. Who the heck knows? And it’s sad: On its own, that’s probably not gonna kill him. Mix it with all this other stuff? No bueno.”
“He didn’t overdose, though,” Regina said.