‘You can have them,’ answered Jayne.
As soon as the two men had left the building, Steelie said, ‘We’re going to have to tell Scott and Eric.’
‘That we inadvertently gave their case some exposure? Absolutely,’ agreed Jayne.
‘You couldn’t have known,’ said Carol.
Steelie was matter of fact. ‘That doesn’t matter. Those two agents are in the middle of a homicide investigation and they passed an ID over what turns out was an open line.’
Jayne pulled out her cell. When she got Scott’s voicemail, she left a message simply asking him to call, without referring to the bugging, intending to explain more fully when they spoke.
At eight minutes past seven on Monday night, Eric had again taken his position in front of the surveillance screen in the camper. Scott was in the bathroom when Eric said, ‘Someone’s coming to the party.’
Scott emerged from the bathroom quickly, tucking in his shirt. He saw Eric turn up the volume on the audio feed and press Record on both the video and audio screens. On the video screen, a tall man dressed in sweat pants was doing something at the back of the van. The audio relayed the sound of a key being inserted into a lock.
‘Which house did he come from?’ Scott asked quietly.
‘Garage of fifteen-oh-one.’
On the screen, the man pulled a thick metal chain from between the rear door handles, opened the doors, and jumped in. The doors closed before they could see the interior of the van and then they heard the sound of a padlock being closed.
Eric put on a headset to focus on the audio while Scott tried to monitor both stations. The video screen remained static. The sound of someone moving around. Another lock being turned, then a hydraulic sound. A voice came through, somewhat muffled. Scott glanced sharply at his partner, brow furrowed. Eric shook his head. He hadn’t understood the words either.
The audio feed hummed, then the sound of locks again. The man emerged from the rear of the van and suddenly bent down by the corner of the rear bumper. Scott couldn’t see what the man was doing until he twisted to look under the van. Something narrow and dark was dangling down from the van to the ground. It hadn’t been visible on the surveillance screen before because the bumper camouflaged it.
‘What the hell is that?’ asked Scott, pointing at the screen.
‘He’s not saying anything,’ Eric said, his voice slightly raised.
Scott leaned in closer to the screen but that didn’t help. The man replaced the chain through the van’s door handles, locked the padlock, and walked back to the garage. His gait was unhurried and he didn’t look around. As soon as he was out of the frame, Scott said, ‘What did he say when he was inside?’
‘It sounded like “Good for my pincers”.’ Eric looked at him.
‘Go over that again until you can confirm it.’ Scott sounded edgy. He noticed Eric’s expression and lightened his tone. ‘And make it make sense.’
Eric smiled grimly and rewound the audio.
Scott sat at the monitoring station and used another screen to run the video back. He enhanced the image until it was just pixels and then zoomed it back out again, considering and rejecting conclusions as he did so. Suddenly, he pushed away from the counter, swiveled in his seat to a cabinet behind him and pulled out a file. Inside were eight sheets of smooth fax paper stapled together. He flipped the pages over one by one, quickly scanning the top of each sheet. When he got to the final sheet, he swore.
Eric had turned around to look at him and now pulled off the headset. ‘What?’
‘This fax from Phoenix PD?’ Scott waved the sheets in the air. ‘It’s got pages one through eight of a nine page document.’
Eric groaned. ‘That fucking fax machine.’
Scott was up and trying to pace in the tiny camper.
Eric asked, ‘What do you think was on page nine?’
‘How about, “Yeah, we’ve got your gold van out here and guess what? It’s got an electrical extension cord running out its back end and into fifteen-oh-one”?’ He threw the papers on to the monitoring station, pulled his chair up next to Eric, and sat down again. Eric stared at the screen. ‘You’re probably right about that being an extension cord. Who lives in fifteen-oh-one again?’ He picked up the papers. ‘The Spicers. Sally and Frank.’ He put them back on the counter. ‘About the fax. I should have checked it when I grabbed it on Friday.’
Scott slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Doesn’t matter. Page nine might have just said, “Drive safe, boys”. Whatever it said, we’ll confirm the extension cord tonight.’
Eric nodded. He rewound the tape and pushed Pause. ‘I’m going with “Gold for my princess” on the audio.’
He pushed Play. The man’s voice came through more clearly this time. Now it sounded loving and triumphant: ‘Gold for my princess.’
SIXTEEN
A bathrobe-clad Frank Spicer first turned on his porch light and then opened his front door at 1501 Prickly Pear Close to find four people on his doorstep. They had been pounding on it for the entire minute it had taken him to get to the front of the house. Two were men holding Federal Bureau of Investigation badges open towards him. The other two were wearing Phoenix Police Department uniforms. One of the FBI people handed him some papers. The front page had WARRANT typed across it in letters big enough for Frank to read without his glasses. He did need glasses for the rest of it, so he invited the authorities into the house. After all, he had nothing to hide.
As it turned out, the law enforcement officers did not want to search his house. It had all been a mistake, as Frank was sure it would be. They wanted to search that old van parked in front of their house, a vehicle they had nothing to do with. Frank told them that and his wife, Sally, seconded him, now that she had joined them in the front room, wearing a pink terrycloth muumuu.
‘That’s right, the van isn’t ours. We have a Saturn. It’s in the driveway.’
‘Ma’am,’ the blond FBI agent said. ‘The van has an extension cord running into your garage.’
She reared back. ‘I beg your pardon?’ She crossed to the window, pulling her husband with her. ‘Frank, had you noticed that?’ She looked at him in wonder.
Frank felt tired. ‘No, I sure didn’t.’
She appealed to the four people standing like statues in her living room. ‘We’ve been out of town for a few weeks. Maybe someone was trying to steal our electricity while we were gone?’ She broke off and looked at Frank again, who shrugged. ‘We thought the van belonged to someone visiting a neighbor. I never noticed the extension cord.’
Scott regarded Frank and Sally Spicer. Neither fit the image of the person he’d seen going into the van the previous evening. ‘Mr and Mrs Spicer, does anyone else live here with you?’
‘Our son, Wayne, lives with us.’ Sally sounded puzzled.
‘We’ll need to speak with him to determine if he’s the owner of the van. Where can we find him?’
‘It’s not his—’ Sally began.
‘Let me get him,’ said Frank. ‘It’ll be easier that way. He doesn’t like to be disturbed,’ he said over his shoulder as he began to leave the room. One of the police officers followed him.
Scott stood across the room from Sally Spicer. She didn’t look concerned about the unfolding events, only as befuddled as would someone who had been woken up abruptly after having gone to bed for the night. She tried to fluff her short grey hair, then smiled self-consciously at him. He maintained a polite expression.
The person who followed Frank into the room was a very good match for the tall man seen by Scott and Eric on the surveillance video. He was still wearing dark sweatpants but now had on a white vest. His body hair was long and pale and stuck to his skin in rivulets of sweat, as though he had come from a room without air conditioning.