“Shane didn’t work?” I asked.
“He’d work. And then he’d get fired. And then I’d get on his case about kicking in his share of the rent and he’d get hired again. No job ever lasted more than a couple of months.”
“How did Shane get along with Logan?” I asked.
Luke grimaced. “Total bromance. At least on Logan’s part. He started coming over just to see Shane. Shane was the cool guy Logan always wanted to be. Shane had tatts, he drove hot cars, and he was a babe magnet. Going to a party with Shane was like being the Invisible Man. Women you wouldn’t think would even spit on him would slide off their chairs.” His face reddened. “Sorry!”
I shook my head. “I get it. Was Shane into guns?”
“Oh, yeah.” Luke stopped and stared at me as the implications sank in. “And I’d bet he still is. I know he worked at a gun range for a while. I think he still helps out there now and then. But they didn’t give him enough hours to pay the rent, so he had to get a real job.”
“How good is he with guns?” Bailey asked. “Does he reload his own ammo? Can he repair them, alter them?”
“Yes. To all of the above. But I found out the hard way you have to watch out for his reloads. We used to go shooting together, and one time I guess he accidentally packed a double shot in one of my rounds. Thing had so much firepower it almost blew my hand off.”
“I take it you guys don’t see much of each other anymore?” Bailey asked.
Luke shook his head. “I had to get away from him. Too much temptation. That’s why I moved up here. I told him I had a job offer I couldn’t afford to turn down.”
“Did you?” I asked.
“No. I wound up sleeping in my car for a couple of months. But then I got a break. I came here looking for a job on the same day one of the guys gave notice.”
“Did you lose contact with Shane after you moved up here?” I asked.
“Pretty much. I let him keep the apartment in Tarzana for the rest of the month just to make sure he wouldn’t try and follow me here. But we stayed in touch for a little while. I didn’t want him as a full-time friend, but I didn’t want to dump him. We went through a lot together, being in the service and all.” Luke stopped and sighed. “At least, that’s what I wanted. But Shane couldn’t leave it like that. About a week after I landed this job, he said he was thinking about coming up here. Started talking about getting a place together again. That’s when I realized there was no halfway with Shane, so I stopped taking his calls. He still leaves me voice mails now and then, but I know better than to reopen that door.”
“Is it possible that Logan kept seeing Shane after you left?” I asked.
“I guess. He never mentioned it, but like I said, Logan had a real boy-crush on him.” Luke briefly closed his eyes. When he opened them, they looked pained and bewildered. The revelation about his brother was only just starting to sink in. It would probably take a while before he could really wrap his brain around the fact that his little brother was a mass murderer. If, in fact, he ever could.
“Would Shane have come by your parents’ place to see Logan?” I asked.
Luke shook his head slowly. “Doubtful. They only saw Shane a couple of times, but it was enough for them to get his drift. They didn’t care for him. I have to believe that if Mom knew Logan was hanging around with Shane, she would’ve done her best to shut it down.”
But as we’d already learned, there was a lot Mom didn’t know.
“Do you know where Shane is now?” I asked.
“Last I heard from him, he was working for a tree service up in Camarillo. I think the gun range is around there too.”
“Do you happen to know the names of those places?” Bailey asked.
Luke turned to stare out the window again, then looked at us apologetically. “Sorry, no. I’m sure he told me, but I don’t remember. I didn’t really want to know.”
But he did know Shane’s last name.
31
Luke was still shaken when we finished the interview, but he refused our offer of a ride home. While Bailey called the station to check in, I watched him walk to his car. He was a little wobbly on his feet, and when he reached the driver’s door, he stood there with the key in his hand, staring out into the night.
Luke had driven away by the time Bailey finished her call. I pulled out my phone as we headed for her car. “I’m going to look up our soon-to-be new best friend Shane on Facebook.”
“I’m putting out the alert to pick him up.” Bailey called one of the detectives who was riding herd on the unis. “I need all you’ve got on a Shane Dolan.” She relayed what Luke had told us about his workplaces, and the description he’d given us: medium height, slight to medium in weight, dark brown hair usually worn almost shoulder length, and hazel eyes. “Pick him up if you see him, but he’s not a suspect. At least not yet. And he may have good intel for us, so be nice.”
I showed Bailey his Facebook photo. The wavy hair that fell over one eye, the sexy smile. He was a good-looking bad boy. No mystery why he’d been a babe magnet.
Bailey smirked. “I knew a guy like that in high school.”
“Didn’t we all?” She was still staring at the photo. “You have a crush on him?”
“He had a crush on me. I wasn’t interested.”
“Oh, excuse me, Ms. Searing Hot. You were the one who got away?”
“Yes.”
Actually, I believed her.
“They’re working on the addresses of the shooting ranges and tree services in Camarillo,” Bailey said. “We should have them pretty quick.”
I held up my phone. “I already got the shooting range. There’s only one. Want to-”
Bailey gunned the engine. “On our way.”
Camarillo was just south of Oxnard. It was almost seven o’clock, late enough to miss the evening rush hour. Bailey flew down the 101, and fifteen minutes later we rolled into Camarillo.
The shooting range was located in what had been a fairly big strip mall-before the stores had gone under. Now it looked like a ghost town. All the dark, empty windows gave it a creepy feel. At the very end of the row was a faded red wooden sign that read THE TEN RING. A reference to the bull’s-eye of a target. A ramp led up to the front door, which was painted a flat black. Thoughtful of them to put in a ramp for the handicapped at a shooting range. I pulled on the door, half expecting it to be locked. It wasn’t.
But it was so heavy, it only budged an inch.
Bailey raised an eyebrow. “Need some help, Knight?”
I glared back at her. “Shut up.” I had to regrip and put some muscle into it, but I managed to pull it far enough to slip through sideways. I wedged my foot in the door and held it open for Bailey. “What is up with this friggin’ door?”
“Cheap way to soundproof.”
Which would have mattered back when the place first opened and the other businesses on the row were still in operation. Not so much now. We headed down the poorly lit hallway; its walls were decorated with cheaply framed photographs of men holding and shooting firearms of all kinds. One older man with a handlebar mustache seemed to be in all of the pictures. I deduced that he was the owner. When we emerged from the hallway and entered the main room, I confirmed it. It was a fairly large room, dominated by a three-sided glass case that housed handguns and a variety of accoutrements such as speed loaders, magazines, ammunition, goggles, and gloves. The back wall was lined with the bigger firepower: long rifles and shotguns. A window occupied the opposite wall and gave a full view of the shooting range. A father was showing his son-who looked to be about nine years old-how to load a semi-automatic clip. It brought back memories of my father teaching me the same thing. And the bruised thumbs I’d had for months after.