“Yes, ma’am.”
“Do you wish to waive your right to an attorney and to remain silent?”
“Yup.”
“You understand you can break off our interview at any time.”
“I do now. Thanks very much. Informative.”
“Will you tell us where you’re planning this attack? Do that and we’ll work out a deal.”
“Will you let our founder, Osmond Carter, go free? He’s been illegally arrested, in contravention of his basic human rights.”
“We can’t do that.”
“Then I think I’m not inclined to tell you what we’ve got in mind.” A grin. “But I’m happy to talk. Always enjoy a good chin-wag with an attractive woman.”
Dance nodded to Stemple, who guided Keplar through the maze of hallways to an interrogation room. She followed. She checked her weapon and took the file that a fellow agent had put together on the suspect. Three pages were in the manila sleeve. That’s all? she wondered, flipping open the file and reading the sparse history of Wayne Keplar and the pathetic organization he was sacrificing his life for.
She paused only once. To glance at her watch and learn that she had only two hours and one minute to stop the attack.
Michael O’Neil was pursuing the case at the crime scene, as he always did: meticulously, patiently.
If an idea occurred to him, if a clue presented itself, he followed the lead until it paid off or it turned to dust.
He finished jotting down largely useless observations and impressions of witnesses in front of where the trooper rammed the suspects’ car. (“Man, it was totally, like, loud.”) The detective felt a coalescing of moisture on his face; that damn Monterey fog — as much a local institution as John Steinbeck, Cannery Row and Langston Hughes. He wiped his face with broad palms. On the water, fishing from his boat, he didn’t think anything of the damp air. Now, it was irritating.
He approached the head of his Forensic Services Unit, a dark-complexioned man, who was of Latino and Scandinavian heritage, Abbott Calderman. The CBI didn’t have a crime scene operation and the FBI’s closest one was in the San Jose — San Francisco area. The MCSO provided most of the forensics for crimes in this area. Calderman’s team was clustered around the still-vaporing Taurus, practically dismantling it, to find clues that could tell them about the impending attack. Officers were also examining, then bagging and tagging, the pocket litter from the two suspects — the police term for wallets, money, receipts, twenty-dollar bills (serial numbers, thanks to ATMs, revealed more than you’d think), sunglasses, keys and the like. These items would be logged and would ultimately end up at the jail where the men would be booked — Salinas — but for now the team would examine the items for information about the “event” Wayne Keplar had so proudly referred to.
Calderman was speaking to one of his officers, who was swathed in bright blue crime scene overalls, booties and a surgeon’s shower cap.
“Michael,” the CS head said, joining the detective. “My folks’re going through the car.” A glance at the totaled vehicle, air bags deployed. “It’s real clean — no motel keys, letters or schematics.”
Rarely were perps discovered with maps in their possession with a red grease pencil X, the legend reading: “Attack here!”
“We’ll know more when we analyze the trace from the tires and the floor of the passenger compartment and the trunk. But they did find something you ought to know about. A thermos of coffee.”
“And it was still hot?”
“Right.” Calderman nodded that O’Neil caught the significance of the discovery. “And no receipts from Starbucks or a place that sells brewed coffee.”
“So they might’ve stayed the night here somewhere and brewed it this morning.”
“Possibly.” Oakland was a long drive. It could take three hours or more. Finding the thermos suggested, though hardly proved, that they’d come down a day or two early to prepare for the attack. This meant there’d probably be a motel nearby, with additional evidence. Though they’d been too smart to keep receipts or reservation records.
The Crime Scene head added, “But most important: We found three cups inside. Two in the cup holders in the front seat, one on the floor in the back, and the rear floor was wet with spilled coffee.”
“So, there’s a third perp?” O’Neil asked.
“Looks that way — though the trooper who nailed them didn’t see anybody else. Could’ve been hiding in the back.”
O’Neil considered this and called Oakland PD. He learned that the CI had only heard about Paulson and Keplar, but it was certainly possible he decided to ask someone else along. The snitch had severed all contact with the BOL, worried that by diming out the operation he’d be discovered and killed.
O’Neil texted Dance and let her know about the third perp, in case this would help in the interrogation. He informed the FBI’s Steve Nichols, too.
He then disconnected and looked over the hundred or so people standing at the yellow police tape gawking at the activity.
The third perp…Maybe he’d gotten out of the car earlier, after setting up the attack but before the CHP trooper found the suspects.
Or maybe he’d bailed out here, when the Taurus was momentarily out of sight behind the outlet store.
O’Neil summoned several other Monterey County officers and a few CHP troopers. They headed behind the long building searching the loading docks — and even in the Dumpsters — for any trace of the third suspect.
O’Neil hoped they’d be successful. Maybe the perp had bailed because he had particularly sensitive or incriminating information on him. Or he was a local contact who did use credit cards and ATM machines — whose paper trail could steer the police toward the target.
Or maybe he was the sort who couldn’t resist interrogation, perhaps the teenage child of one of the perps. Fanatics like those in the Brothers of Liberty had no compunction about enlisting — and endangering — their children.
But the search team found no hint that someone had gotten out of the car and fled. The rear of the mall faced a hill of sand, dotted with succulent plants. The area was crowned with a tall chain-link fence, topped with barbed wire. It would have been possible, though challenging, to escape that way, but no footprints in the sand led to the fence. All the loading dock doors were locked and alarmed; he couldn’t have gotten into the stores that way.
O’Neil continued to the far side of the building. He walked there now and noted a Burger King about fifty or sixty feet away. He entered the restaurant, carefully scanning to see if anyone avoided eye contact or, more helpfully, took off quickly.
No one did. But that didn’t mean the third perp wasn’t here. This happened relatively often. Not because of the adage (which was wrong) about returning to or remaining at the scene of the crime out of a subconscious desire to get caught. No, perps were often arrogant enough to stay around and scope out the nature of the investigation, as well as get the identities of the investigators who were pursuing them — even, in some cases, taking digital pictures to let their friends and fellow gangbangers know who was searching for them.
In English and Spanish he interviewed the diners, asking if they’d seen anyone get out of the perps’ car behind the outlet store. Typical of witnesses, people had seen two cars, three cars, no cars, red Tauruses, blue Camrys, green Chryslers, gray Buicks. No one had seen any passengers exit any vehicles. Finally, though, he had some luck. One woman nodded in answer to his questions. She pulled gaudy eyeglasses out of her blond hair, where they rested like a tiara, and put them on, squinting as she looked over the scene thoughtfully. Pointing with her gigantic soda cup, she indicated a spot behind the stores where she’d noticed a man standing next to a car that could’ve been blue. She didn’t know if he’d gotten out or not. She explained that somebody in the car handed him a blue backpack and he’d left. Her description of the men — one in combat fatigues and one in black cargo pants and a black leather jacket — left no doubt that the men in the car were Keplar and Paulson.