“He’s on the Georges Valley board, right?” Mann asked.
“Yes. And if Robby had any contact with Wirth, I want to know why.”
Brix leaned to the left and pulled a sheaf of papers from his right rear pocket. “You gonna call him now? Kind of late—almost 11:00.”
“It’s about his dead colleagues. I don’t think he’ll care.”
Brix read her the number. Dixon dialed, then rose and stepped outside the room.
“I wish Mayfield was conscious,” Vail said. “I’d like another crack at him. I didn’t do such a good job the first time around.”
“Bullshit,” Brix said. “You did great. That shit with making him talk to his mother, that was fucking brilliant. If your phone hadn’t rung—”
“If Ray hadn’t unloaded on him,” Gordon added, “things would be different.”
Vail lifted a shoulder, played with her food. “But my phone did ring. Ray shot Mayfield. And Robby went missing.” Saying the words, at the late hour with her flight looming, finally hit. She dropped her head to keep from bursting into tears—but it didn’t work.
“Ah, shit,” Brix said. He got up and moved to the other side of the table, beside Vail. Took her in his arms and let her bury her face in his chest. Her shoulders lifted and shuddered, and she grabbed his arms, wanting to escape the embarrassment, the pain, the stress, the strain of the past week.
Dixon walked back in and said, “What happened?”
Vail lifted her head, pushed away from Brix and grabbed her napkin. She stuck her elbows on the table and wiped the thick, rough cotton against her eyes. “I’m sorry. That shouldn’t have happened.”
“Nonsense,” Mann said. “Probably best that it did. You needed that release. We’re not robots, Karen. We go about our jobs seeing all sorts of shit—violence, greed, death, you name it—and we try to bury it. Well, sometimes, especially when it’s personal, it just fucking gets to you.”
She nodded, then reached for her glass and swallowed a mouthful of water.
Brix straightened out his shirt, then left the room.
“Thanks,” Vail said. “I—You’re right.”
Dixon held up her phone. “Wirth didn’t know a Robby or Roberto Hernandez, and said he didn’t remember having any contact with him.”
Gordon frowned. “Worth a shot.”
“But . . . he did receive a call a few days ago, a voice mail from some unidentified caller. Warning him that his life was in danger.”
“Why didn’t he call us?”
“He did,” Dixon said. “But Wirth didn’t get the message right away because they called a line for a small subsidiary of his. He doesn’t check it daily. Once he retrieved his messages, which was yesterday, he called the number on the card I gave him.”
“Which is your office line,” Mann said.
“Right. And I haven’t been to the office, and I haven’t checked my voice mail. I’ve been a little busy. He’s beefed up his security, just in case it wasn’t a prank.”
“He didn’t recognize the voice?” Vail asked.
“Nope.”
“So he’s got a guardian angel.”
“That guardian angel could be the key to all this. Someone who knows what’s going on—which is more than we can say for ourselves.”
“A guardian angel?” Brix was standing in the doorway holding an open bottle of red wine.
Dixon briefed him on the Ian Wirth phone call.
“Let’s get the audio over to the lab,” Brix said. “Have it analyzed.”
“Already asked him to save it.”
“Whaddya got there?” Gordon asked, wagging a stubby finger at the wine.
“Kelleher Cabernet,” Brix said, spinning the bottle to display the label. “From the owner’s own vineyard. Out there,” he said, gesturing out the windows. “Good stuff.” He reached across the table and poured a glass for Vail. “You need it.”
Vail took it and swallowed a mouthful. It was “good stuff,” as Brix said. By the second gulp it was hitting her bloodstream and she could feel the relaxation flowing through her arms, her legs, and her face.
She put down the glass and leaned back in her chair.
“Now get some more food into you,” Dixon said.
Rather than filling her plate, Vail said, “Aside from this mysterious guardian angel, there’s only one source of information right now.”
Brix held up a hand. “Stay away from César Guevara. We’ll need to take it slow with him. Put some guys on him, build a case. Get a warrant. Do it right.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Dixon glanced over at Vail, who was staring at her plate. Nudged her elbow.
“Yeah,” she said, at the prompt, “no problem.”
“Let’s look at what we’ve got so far,” Mann said. He lifted his prosthetic left hand and tapped the fingers on his right. “Blood evidence on the carpet of your B&B. A fair amount, but not really enough if he’d bled out. But enough if he’d been shot or stabbed, then moved. No results yet on matching the DNA to Hernandez. Then we’ve got the leather jacket found in Mayfield’s house. Hernandez’s?”
“I’m not sure,” Vail said.
Brix pulled his phone. “Aaron should’ve had something on that by now. Prints, DNA. Something.” He began thumb typing.
“We got Mayfield’s boast,” Mann continued. “‘There’s more to this than you know.”
“And,” Dixon said, “Robby’s phone logs were deleted. That might or might not mean anything. If he was the kind of person who regularly emptied out his phone, means nothing. But if someone did it for him, it could tell us a story: who called him or who he called before he disappeared.”
“Any way we can recover that data?” Gordon asked.
Vail swallowed another sip of wine. “I sent it back to the FBI. Theoretically, the lab should be able to read the memory. They were also supposed to get his logs from the wireless carrier. Haven’t heard anything yet.”
“That’s a big one,” Dixon said.
“I know, Roxx.” Vail’s tone was short. “I should’ve thought of it earlier, when I could’ve called the lab. I fucked up.”
Dixon placed a hand on Vail’s forearm to calm her. It worked.
Mann glanced over at Vail and said, “Where are we in finding Hernandez’s friend? The Sebastian dude.”
Brix shook his head. “Last I heard from NSIB, none of the names checked out. And we hit a zero with V. Sattui, the winery that sells the Madeira that Sebastian supposedly drinks. Customer listing, charge receipts, nothing. No one’s recognized Robby’s photo, either.”
“And,” Gordon said, “there’s the fact that Robby’s gone off the grid. No credit or debit card use. No hotels. Nothing at area hospitals or—excuse me, Karen—or at morgues. No plane, train, car rentals.”
“He had a car rental,” Brix said. “He would’ve just taken it if he left of his own choosing.” The sudden vibration of the phone in his hand nearly sent it careening to the floor. Brix angled his gaze down to read the text message. “Aaron—analysis of the leather jacket. He’s able to account for 14 out of 16 latents as—” He scrolled down and continued: “as belonging to Mayfield. The others were unidentifiable partials. Nothing on DNA. Too soon.”
“Doesn’t look like it’s Robby’s coat,” Vail said. She let her head fall forward into her hands and rubbed her temples. “I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.”
“It’s good,” Dixon said. “Anything that removes, or weakens, a connection between Robby and Mayfield is good in my book.”
Brix set down his phone and piled a few squares of cheese on his plate, followed by a couple of clams and a lamb chop. “But it does bring up the issue of James Cannon. He’s still in the wind. We’ve got about two dozen deputies and investigators looking for him. His photo has been sent around to LEOs in a hundred mile radius. I’ve even snagged a chopper to scour the woods with infrared. So far, nothing.”