As Franklin looked at Bailey I could see his wheels turning, considering whether to go along with it. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Used to be on the force myself.”
Like I said, the eyes give them away every time. That and the framed eight-by-ten photograph on Franklin’s desk showing him in full LAPD uniform. He told Bailey how to get to the security office and pushed the button that lifted the security bar. “Park in any spot marked ‘visitor.’”
We had to drive a while before we found one that wasn’t occupied, and the lot was teeming with activity-people running, riding bicycles, driving golf carts. I really love those little carts. Bailey saw me look longingly as one passed us by and shook her head.
The security office was at the farthest edge of the lot. I made the mistake of yawning as I got out of the car, and hot air burned through my mouth and down my throat. Thankfully, the security office was cool. A secretary’s desk faced the door, but it was vacant. Bailey called down the hall to the left of the desk and identified herself. A hefty man in baggy shorts and a grungy Raiders tank appeared at the door, his outsized belly leading the way. He was dripping with sweat; even his neat little mustache looked soaked. He wiped his face and neck with a hand towel that had been draped over his shoulder as he said, “Sorry, I was just working out. Promised the wife and doctor I’d drop fifty pounds before the holidays.”
Bailey introduced us, and we showed him our badges.
“Pete Toker,” he said, extending a still sweaty hand. I let Bailey shake it first, then took my turn. “What can I do for you?”
“We’d like to see your personnel records if we could,” Bailey said. “You keep employee photos?”
“Sure. Everyone has to wear security badges with photos. We keep copies in their files.”
“We’re looking for people with criminal records. No offense, I know you wouldn’t hire them knowingly-” she said.
“None taken. You never can tell what might slip through the cracks. ’Sides, if we have someone on the lot with a rap sheet, I’d like to know about it. Follow me.”
The truth was, it was photos we were after. Abe Furtoni, our contact in the NYPD, had been able to isolate the video footage of our man Stuart Connor at the check-in counter of the hotel, and per our request, he’d pulled off a still shot and scanned it to us. We weren’t looking for a rap sheet per se. All we really wanted to do was see if we had a match to our surveillance photo. We just didn’t want Pete to start wondering who we had in our sights until we absolutely had to. By saying we were looking for criminal types, it’d look like a general, wide-angle search.
Pete led us down the hall to a room that had a small table and chair in the far-right corner, shelves that covered one wall, and filing cabinets that filled the other two walls. “We were supposed to go digital with everything a while ago, but you know, on a studio lot we’re the poor stepchildren. You’ll find all the current employees on the shelves and all the ex-employees in those two cabinets on the right.”
“And the rest of the cabinets?” I asked.
“Just scripts and stuff from what I’ve seen. They were here when I got hired and I never had cause to get into ’em. You can if you want.” Pete turned to go, then stopped. “By the way, thanks for not making the obvious joke about my name.”
I didn’t tell him it was too easy, though it was. Pete left us to our own devices and we got down to business.
32
Bailey pulled the still photo of Stuart Connor out of her jacket and put it on the table. I studied it again. It was lousy quality, a grainy black and white, typical of the cheaper variety of surveillance cameras. The guy seemed to be slender, medium tall like Brian, and had a similarly shaped head. But his hair was covered with a baseball cap that also obscured his features, so I couldn’t really see much. We’d tried to match the photo to the DMV and criminal databases, but it just didn’t have enough detail. I didn’t expect to find a great match in these records either, but I hoped we might spot someone who was worth at least a second look.
“I’ll start on the bottom shelf,” I said. “You can take the next one up.”
We worked methodically, looking at the photos in each file for someone who might match the guy in the video. Three hours later we had a stack of twelve “possibles.” Bailey asked Pete to come in. This time he was freshly showered and dressed in the beige studio uniform.
“Can you tell us whether any of these guys called in sick or took days off in the past week?” Bailey asked.
“Let’s take those to my office and I’ll check. I keep the daily logs on my computer.”
Pete was able to eliminate nine of them right off the bat. “Those guys have all checked in every day for the past five days. The other three…not sure. If they have off-site work to do, they might not come in, but that doesn’t mean they left town or anything.”
“No, but you’ve narrowed it down pretty well. Thanks, Pete. I’ll run the other three,” Bailey said.
Pete said he had rounds to make and left us, saying we could stay in his office as long as we liked. Bailey called in the information on the three remaining “persons of interest” and I thought about what we had so far.
When she got done, I shared my thoughts. “We’ve been thinking this was too much for one person to manage, right?”
“Right.”
“But we don’t know how someone got wind of the kidnapping. And we don’t know why the kids wound up on Boney Mountain.”
“Still with ya.”
“How’d the killer get them up there?”
Bailey shook her head. “Unless that’s where they’d planned to do the money drop all along.”
“In which case, the ransom drop in Fryman Canyon was what, a decoy?”
“Well…at least a way to separate the kids from the money,” I said.
“But how would the bad guy keep Russell from getting the real ransom note? The one that theoretically said, ‘Drop the money at God’s Seat’?”
The ring of Bailey’s cell phone saved me from having to answer. She made notes on the little pad she keeps in her jacket pocket as she listened.
“We’ve got two hits,” she said when she hung up. “One is for Nima Faluja.” She tapped his file. “He’s got a prior for shoplifting. Record was expunged a few years ago. The other is for Jack Averly. He’s a dope dealer. Got two convictions. Completed probation on his second case last year.”
I looked at both files again. “Really, it could be either of them.”
“I might’ve agreed, except Nima has a pretty good alibi.”
I looked at Bailey. “In jail?”
Bailey smiled.
I picked up Jack’s file. He was a production assistant. Those are usually aspiring writers, directors, actors, you name it, who get their asses thrashed for more hours and less money than they could make as waiters or waitresses. But I supposed it could also be someone who just wanted to work around the “industry”-or who wanted to deal to the “industry.” That’d be a fairly lucrative gig with all the highly paid, neurotic types floating around. And being a PA would be great cover for a dope dealer. “We’ve got an address for him, but-”
“If he’s our guy, I can’t see him coming back here. At least not yet.”
“But he doesn’t know we’ve got his real name, and unless he’s got a passel of fake IDs, he might have to use it now-”
“I’m calling NYPD,” Bailey said.
She gave all the information to Abe Furtoni and then called LAPD and did the same. “On the off chance he comes back here.”
Bailey made a copy of everything in his file, and just as she was finishing up, Pete came back. His formerly crisp uniform had wilted from the strain of Pete’s once again overheated body. He wiped his forehead when he came in. “Whew. Still hot as blazes out there. So what do you think? Anyone look good to you?” he asked.