On the outside of the master bedroom window, tucked down in the corner, we find a small wireless camera. It’s well hidden by the bushes outside the window, as are the two wires going down the side of the house to a D-cell battery pack on the ground.
“He’s got them strung together for longevity,” Jimmy says, referring to the batteries. “He can probably run the camera for two or three weeks like that. Then all he has to do is park nearby and intercept the signal: instant Dearborn TV.”
“Do we tell them,” I ask, leaning my head toward the house, “or just remove the camera and not say anything? They’re already freaked out.”
“They should be.”
“So you’re going to tell them?”
“I think we have to.” He studies my face. “You disagree?”
I shrug. “I think they already get it. There’s such a thing as too much information and, frankly, a camera peeping into your bedroom is about as intrusive and unsettling as it gets. The thought of Sad Face parking nearby or crouching in the woods and watching them in the privacy of their own bedroom, well, I think that’ll push Nikki into a bad place. They still have to live in this house and sleep in the bedroom and work in the shop.”
“They’ll have twenty-four-hour security,” Jimmy argues. “From what we’ve seen, Nikki’s high on the target list, so in addition to one of Walt’s plainclothes detectives, we’ll request an FBI surveillance team. We’ll have our own cameras watching the house, the shop, even the woods and the road. There’ll be three or four people here day and night.”
“All the more reason not to mention the camera,” I say. “We can loosen one of the wires on the battery pack so it looks like the batteries went dead. That way if Sad Face comes back he won’t be able to get the signal. Maybe he’ll think it too risky to replace the batteries. But even if he does, that gives us one more chance to catch him.” I shrug. “Maybe we can chain up a noisy dog outside the bedroom window. That would keep him away.”
We go back and forth a few more minutes before settling on a compromise: we’ll tell the Dearborns that Sad Face has been to their property, that he’s been around the house and barn, but we won’t mention the camera.
Even at that, the news doesn’t go over well and Nikki goes into full-blown meltdown. Who can blame her? Between comforting her and talking to us, Tyson makes a couple phone calls from the kitchen. By the time we leave, two of Nikki’s brothers have arrived, each carrying a hastily-thrown-together backpack over his right shoulder—just the necessities: underwear, socks, a toothbrush, toothpaste, clothes, and five hundred rounds of .223 ammunition. The ammo is for the matching pair of AR-15s they carry slung over the other shoulder.
They’re here for the duration.
It’s good to have brothers.
*
Becky Contreras isn’t home when we reach her place in Corning at 6:27 P.M. Her apartment is on the third floor, which narrows Sad Face’s abduction options considerably. Since there’s no sign of him on the stairway, we focus on the parking lot and the laundry room and come up empty. No footsteps around the edge of the complex, no handprints on the back gate, no cameras in the bushes.
Looks like Becky hasn’t made it to the A-list yet.
Either that or we have the wrong B. Contreras.
Since we’re now outside Walt’s jurisdiction, having left Shasta County and crossed into Tehama County on the drive south, Walt places a call to Tehama County Sheriff Paul Meeker, who he’s on a first-name basis with, and fills him in.
Soon a Tehema County deputy arrives in the parking lot and backs into a free space that gives him an unobstructed view of Becky’s apartment.
“Paul says he’ll talk to Becky personally when she gets home, so he can explain the situation without terrifying the girl,” Walt says. “She’ll have whatever protection she needs and an escort everywhere she goes.”
It’s the best we can hope for in this, the worst of situations.
Still, Jimmy doesn’t like the idea of parking a cop in plain view, arguing that we’re tipping our hand, letting Sad Face know that we’re on to him. But in the end, it comes down to the first rule of law enforcement: protect the public. In this case, that means Becky Contreras, regardless of the consequences to the case.
My eyelids are heavy as we head north on I-5. It’s been a long day. Maybe I’ll sleep well tonight. Maybe I won’t dream … maybe.…
CHAPTER TWENTY
June 30, 7:42 A.M.
The hotel’s complimentary breakfast is better than most and Jimmy’s already halfway through a second helping of French toast when I make it downstairs. I grab a poppy-seed muffin and an orange juice and settle into the chair next to him.
Jimmy’s intent on a crossword puzzle, so we eat in silence while the room around us murmurs with sleepy morning sounds: subdued voices, shuffling feet, coffee percolating, newspapers rustling, spoons rattling.
Most of the breakfast club consists of businessmen and businesswomen already dressed in their best attire, with briefcases and laptops at the ready. Even now you can see they’re pumping themselves up for the day ahead. If they’re staying in a hotel, it means they have an important meeting or sales pitch ahead of them.
Then there are the tourists. You can spot them a mile away because they’re wearing shorts, flip-flops, suntan lotion, and hallelujah smiles—that’s the smile that plants itself on your lips when you realize you don’t have to go back to work for two more weeks.
The businesspeople smile, too, but it’s that polite smile we all wear when we’re not really happy but have to pretend we’re glad to see you or excited about the day ahead. It’s a hi-how-are-you? smile, not a hallelujah smile.
“A tower,” I say, tapping Jimmy’s crossword puzzle.
“What?”
“Seventeen down, a group of giraffes.”
“A group of giraffes is called a tower?”
“It is.”
“That sounds like something you just made up.”
“Google it.”
He does—which is a bit insulting.
“How’d you know that?”
“I’m a genius.”