The Bricklayer

SIXTEEN

WHEN VAIL CAME THROUGH THE DOOR OF KATE’S OFFICE, SHE SAID, “Where have you been?”
“Out looking for the guy on the grassy knoll.”
“You think someone else is involved?”
He told her about his time analysis at the tunnel.
She took a moment to consider what he had found. “What about—no, that wouldn’t work.” She took a few more seconds to consider other possibilities. “It sounds like he couldn’t have done it without help.”
“Bertok worked with a guy named Vince Pendaran. He’s got some speed bumps in his personnel file. One of them was Connie Lysander. I just caught him coming out of a full-service massage parlor. I put some angst on him but not enough to get a good read.”
“And?”
“He’s not the right size for the guy that we saw going in the house yesterday, and his walk was different. Just the same, keep his name in the back of your Rolodex.”
“What do you mean, ‘not the right size’? I thought Stan Bertok was the perfect size to play the role of Stan Bertok.”
“Really, I thought he was a little too tall.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Patience, Bannon, all questions will be answered during this afternoon’s field trip. Hopefully.”
“Oh, yeah, this has promotion written all over it,” she said. “This Pendaran, where did you come up with him?”
“Tye Delson.”
“That’s getting to be a regular stop on your little errands list.”
“I’m becoming addicted to secondhand smoke.”
“So, this ride we’re taking, I assume it has something to do with your undetected co-conspirator?”
“Are you ready?”
She pulled on her jacket and tapped her hip, verifying she was armed. “Gun, check.” Tapped the breast pocket of her blazer. “Credentials, check.” She opened her mouth and ran a finger behind her back molar. “Cyanide capsule, check.” She picked up her briefcase. “To the Batcave.”
As they got in the elevator, Vail asked, “What’s going on with Money Search L.A.?”
“For a reality show, it’s pretty surreal. It’s an all-hands production. Kaulcrick and Hildebrand are running it from the major-case room. If they’ve got anything going, I haven’t heard about it.” When he didn’t say anything she glanced over at him. His eyes had become unfocused, and she knew that he hadn’t heard her. She leaned back against the wall and waited. When the doors opened in the basement, he finally looked at her. “Why did the killer pick up his casings after the first three murders but not after the fourth?”
“Oh, I know this one,” she said facetiously. “Because it doesn’t matter. Everything has been matched to Bertok’s gun.”
“I know you can’t answer every little question about a crime, but this one doesn’t seem to be that small to me.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “The more crimes a person commits, the more mistakes he makes. Maybe he got scared off the fourth time. Maybe he couldn’t find it. Maybe he had a plane to catch. Is it really that big a deal?”
“By itself, it’s not. But why pick them up at all? He was leaving the slugs behind, which are much more incriminating and easier to identify.”
“After the first two, we announced that the slugs matched, so the killer knew we could identify the gun. He probably figured if we matched the slugs, why bother picking up the brass?”
“If they didn’t want them matched, then why use the same gun?” Vail said.
“I suppose they wanted everyone to know that they were responsible for all of the killings.”
“Exactly. If they wanted the world to know, why pick up the casings in the first place?”
Kate finally took a moment to consider the inconsistency. “That’s a good question.”
They got to the car, and Vail put his briefcase in the trunk. Kate could see a shotgun case and a long silver-colored pry bar in the trunk. “What’s that?”
“A Halligan. It’s a fire department tool. I like to think of it as an all-purpose key.”
“Just so I’m clear, you intend to use it on a door, not on a person.”
“Where’s your spirit of adventure?”
“And where did the shotgun come from? And more important, why do you think we’ll need it?”
“It’s a new option from the car rental company. They call it their hunter-gatherer option.”
Then she noticed a large square black case that she hadn’t seen since the advent of the Bureau’s Evidence Response Teams. “And an evidence kit?”
“Chance favors the prepared mind.”
“In other words, if you find evidence, you can keep all your hole cards hidden.”
“And to think I was reluctant to bring you along,” Vail said. “Keep it up and I’m not going to let you be my girlfriend anymore.”
“When we get on the freeway, let me know when you get up to eighty so I can dive into oncoming traffic.”
Once they cleared the garage, Vail drove for a while without speaking. Then he said, “Okay, let’s look at this. Why did Bertok go to that house on Spring Street? The money wasn’t there. Nothing was there. It seems like a major mistake, since he used that address to rent a car. Especially after such an extraordinarily well-planned series of crimes.”
“Also a good question.”
“That’s two good questions too many.”
“Can I assume we’re going back to Spring Street?”
“Yes, you may,” he said. “I’m curious about one other thing. How come you’re not helping Kaulcrick find the money.”
“Have you noticed any changes in the assistant director in the last twenty-four hours?”
“I haven’t noticed any changes other than he’s let it become a little more obvious that he has an ego.”
“Well, you’re right, he does have an ego, and usually he’s pretty good at keeping it in check until after he delivers the coup de grace. But I think he’s getting tired of trying to navigate through your vapor trail. He knows that you and I are working together, so I’m sure I’ll be the last to know anything that might give you an advantage.”
He smiled at her. “Then I guess we’d better find the money ourselves.”
“Why am I suddenly getting the feeling that you don’t think that money is in locker number fourteen?”
“Human nature is to be lazy,” Vail said. “I’m always suspicious of things that seem too easy.”
“And, of course, you’d never bother Kaulcrick with your suspicions.”
“I have already told him, and everyone else, that the biggest obstacle in this case is distraction. They listen, nod their heads in agreement, and then go running after the first shiny object.”
“Funny how, once again, that leaves you all alone to do what you want.”
“There is one basic tenet of metaphysics that guided my career as an agent: If they’re there, they ain’t here.”
“Ever think that may be why your FBI career was only three years long?”
“I only think how great those three years were.”
After another fifteen minutes, Vail pulled up to the house that the day before had been overrun with law enforcement personnel and now stood deserted. The only reminder was the yellow and black tape that crisscrossed the front door. Kate said, “I know this is a stupid question, but did you notify anyone in officialdom that we were coming out here?”
“You’re right, that was a stupid question.” He got out and went to the trunk, lifting out the pry bar. “But I got Mr. Halligan’s permission, if that helps. Come on, let’s take a walk around first.”
They started on the east side of the structure. “The front-room window has no bars on it,” Vail said. He inspected the construction on either side, running his hand along the siding. “There were bars, but they were removed. You can see where the holes have been repaired. Looks fairly recent, too.”
Kate stepped closer. “Why would anyone do that?”
“Yet another good question. Here’s another one: why have bars on all the other doors and windows but take them off of this one?” Vail walked to the back of the house and after checking the wrought-iron gate protecting the back door asked, “Where did you take cover back here, behind the Dumpster?”
“Yes.” She pointed at the bin twenty yards off the northeast corner of the house. Vail went over and stood behind it. “It provides perfect cover. It’s also the ideal position for watching the rear door and the east side of the house at the same time. Exactly what we needed at the time.” Vail walked around the Dumpster, inspecting it. “I was at the front of the house, so that leaves just the window on the west wall of the house. Let’s take a look at that.”
“What exactly are we looking for?” Kate said.
“I don’t exactly know.”
When they got to the other side, Vail seemed more interested in the ancient wooden fence that surrounded the industrial property than in the house or the bars on the bedroom window. Kate tugged on them. “These seem to be in good shape.”
Vail was still inspecting the wooden fence that surrounded the auto scrap yard. “It’s not more than ten feet from the house to this fence,” he said to no one in particular. Finally he walked over to the window. He took the bars in both hands and jerked on them with his entire weight. They moved about a half inch. He pushed and pulled, moving them back and forth several times. “They shouldn’t do that.” He took a couple of steps back. “These are newer than the others.” Again he grabbed them, and now using all his strength he tried to pull them out of the wall, but they would move only the same fraction of an inch. Vail leaned in and inspected the bars where they were anchored into the siding.
“Meaning what?” Kate asked.
“I’m not sure yet. Let’s go inside.”
“Yet” was one of those little signs Kate had learned to pick up on with Vail. It meant that he probably knew what was going on, but, as with everything else, he saw no advantage in letting the rest of the world in on it.
He took a quick look around the neighborhood before inserting the claw end of the Halligan bar into the frame of the gate and in a quick, smooth pull, popped it open. He didn’t bother using the tool on the front door. After testing the knob, he swung his hip into it, snapping it open. Kate followed him back to the bedroom where Bertok had died the day before. He pulled up the window sash and yanked on the bars again, watching the points where the metal ends were anchored into the outside wall. Stepping to the right side, he inspected the casing that trimmed the inside of the window. “Did you bring any evidence gloves?”
“Very subtle, Vail. Give me the keys, and I’ll get the evidence kit.”
When she came back in, she set the case down and opened it. She handed him a pair of gloves. “You do remember that this place has been processed?”
“Only in the places that fit the story.”
“Story? That’s what happened.”
“Take a magician—are his illusions the truth or are they fiction? What you believe you see is fiction. Only when you know how the trick is done does it become truth.”
As much as Kate had come to expect miracles from Vail, this seemed too far-fetched even for him. “This was all some kind of trick?”
“Let’s start with the way we traced Bertok to this place. Anything bother you about that?”
“What do you mean? I thought it was a nice investigative string that led us to him.”
“That’s just it, a nice string. I’ve never seen one fall into place so neatly. The call to Bertok’s apartment leads to the Laundromat, then to the motel and the DMV and finally here. All in less than two hours. And of the more than eight thousand hours in a year, all three of us show up here at the same moment. It was almost like one of those training exercises that Quantico dreams up for new agents out at the combat village.”
Kate considered Vail’s refusal to accept the obvious. She wondered if it was a discipline, or a reaction to a demanding father whom he had once referred to as the sire of his “world-class scorn.” Either way, the result was Vail’s ability to find his way through a maze that everyone else failed to realize existed. And while it was an extraordinary thing to witness, Kate wondered if it wasn’t a coping mechanism. “I see your point about it all falling into place nicely, but doesn’t that occasionally happen? Ballistics has confirmed that Stanley Bertok shot at you, barricaded himself, and then committed suicide with his issued handgun, which was also used in four murders.”
“It wasn’t Bertok,” Vail said without the least bit of uncertainty.
“What?” Kate said, her volume unintentionally incredulous. “I’m pretty sure the guy in the morgue is Bertok.”
“It is, but that’s not who shot at me and is probably not who committed the murders.”
“Based on what?”
Vail ignored the question. “Don’t you think it was very convenient that he came into the Laundromat just after the woman we talked to arrived, almost like he was waiting for a witness. He made sure she noticed him with all that hassle about the hundred-dollar bill. And the bill happens to be one of the punctured ones from the drop, so there’s no doubt about its origin. But he’s all covered up to the extent that she can’t identify Bertok’s photo. Then he conveniently pulls across the street to the motel in plain sight of her.”
“But he had the identical clothing on when SWAT broke in here and found him.”
“Did you take a look at the body?”
“Not really. I mean I saw it, but I haven’t been around enough of that sort of thing to know what to look for.”
“First of all, he didn’t have cigarettes on his breath. I checked the evidence sheets last night. He didn’t have any cigarettes or a lighter on his person. Remember his apartment, what a heavy smoker he was?”
“Maybe he quit.”
“Maybe, but it would have been a pretty stressful time to start worrying about lung cancer. But more definitively, the blood coming from his temple had completely dried and crystallized.”
“Meaning?”
“It takes a while for that to happen. Longer than the time between the shot and SWAT breaking in.”
“Are you saying he was already dead?”
“Yes.”
“Then who shot at you?”
“Whoever was at the Laundromat, and we saw coming in here.”
“So when we were driving by here, Bertok was already in here, dead.”
“Right.”
“Okay, this look-alike shoots at you, locks himself in this room, fires a shot to simulate the suicide shot.”
“Probably while holding the gun in Bertok’s hand in case of a residue test. Yes, that’s right.”
“That’s right?” Kate asked. “Then when SWAT broke in here, where was he? With the bars on the window, the only way out is the door where you and I and the L.A. cop were waiting to light him up.”
Without answering, Vail pulled on the evidence gloves. First he felt along the left edge casing, and after apparently not finding what he was looking for, he tried the right side. As he slid his hand along it, he found a gripping point and pulled the casing off. Inside was a metal plate into which were anchored the ends of the bars. He pushed the plate up and, reaching through the window, pushed the cage open. It swung out on the hinged edge of the other side. Vail put the casing back into place and pushed on it until it snapped into place. He climbed out through the window. Once on the ground, he swung the bars back into place, and a soft metal snap sounded when the bars reseated themselves in the hidden metal plate. He pulled on them to make sure they had locked into place.
“Those bars on the living room window were removed so anyone covering the back would have to also watch that side because escape was possible through that window. The Dumpster was probably put back there for cover so whoever went to the rear would be screened from this side of the house. This side would be ignored because the window was barred, which is exactly what we did.”
“But where did he go once he was outside?” Kate asked. “We were in the front and the cop with the shotgun was in the back.”
Vail walked over to the fence and tested several of the wooden boards until he found two next to each other that were not nailed at the bottom. He angled the lower ends away from each other and, half squatting, squeezed himself through the narrow opening. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He let go of the boards and they swung back into place.
Ten minutes later, he came back through the fence. “It’s just a short walk to the other side of the property. There’s a side street where he could have had another car parked.”
“How’d you know about the bars?”
“I didn’t, but when I felt the bars move back and forth and saw that pin-and-loop construction that could act as a hinge, it seemed like the only possibility. See, all those years in the construction trade weren’t wasted after all.”
Kate let all the implications run through her mind, trying to synthesize them into a logical explanation. “But Bertok’s gun was used in the homicides, three of them before he even disappeared. So how can it not be him?”
“The answer to that will require a call to the firearms unit at the lab.”
She had no idea what Vail meant but opened her cell phone and dialed FBI headquarters. Once she was put through to the lab, she asked for the examiner on the case and hit the speakerphone button. “Hi, this is Deputy Assistant Director Kate Bannon.”
“Mike Terry,” the examiner said.
“I’m calling on the Pentad case. I’m going to put on an agent named Steve Vail. Please answer any questions he might have.”
Vail took the phone. “Hi, Mike. You got a match on all the slugs with Bertok’s issue weapon, is that right?”
“And the casings. The one from the fourth murder and all those recovered at the house where he died.”
“Where is the gun now?”
“I’ve got it right here. I was just finishing my report.”
“Other than ballistics, did you do any examinations on it?”
“Not really. Assistant Director Kaulcrick called and said the comparisons were to be done immediately. At the time I was right in the middle of an examination for a customs agent who had been shot, so I went back to that once I had completed the Bertok tests.”
“I’d like you to take a look at the barrel of that Glock. It should have a serial number.” The examiner didn’t answer right away. “Mike?”
“Sorry. I was looking at the gun. It definitely has some wear. But the barrel, it looks much newer.”
“I thought it might.”
“But the casings matched. And they have nothing to do with the barrel. This has to be the gun used in the homicides.”
“Good enough. I’m just tying up some loose ends. Let me have the serial number on the barrel. For the office records.” After writing it down, Vail hung up and handed Kate the phone. “Call the armorer at Quantico and see if this is the barrel that was in Bertok’s gun when it was issued to him.” He handed her the slip of paper with the serial number on it.
Kate called Quantico and was put through to the armorer. She read him the serial number and, after five minutes, said thank you and hung up. “You were right. That is not the barrel that was originally in Bertok’s weapon. It all makes sense. Whoever did this committed the first three murders with a Glock 22 of their own, kidnapped Bertok, took his issue gun, and switched the barrel from the first three murders into his Glock. Then they committed the fourth murder with Bertok’s gun and left the casing because it would now match. Shot at you with the gun before escaping out the rigged window, and they had already placed Bertok’s body in here. Then they just had to leave the gun behind, which tied up all loose ends.” A look of revelation creased her features. “Which means that if all this was staged, the key in the moneybag can’t be anything more than another wild-goose chase.”
She looked at him to confirm her theory, but he was taking out fingerprint powder and a brush from the evidence kit. He dusted the white window frame with black powder. “Nothing there,” he said.
Then he took off the casing and dusted the metal release mechanism. “And nothing there. So much for a quick solution.”
Vail packed up the kit and took it out to the car. They got in and Kate asked, “What do we do now?”
“Do you have any contacts at ATF?”
“I could make a call to headquarters and find one.”
“We need a factory trace on the barrel.”
“Then what?”
“We’ll have to see where that leads us.”
“Is it me, or are we losing ground?”
“Well, let’s see. We now have five murders, we’re short four million nine hundred thousand plus, and we’re still being played like a whorehouse piano.” He smiled. “I’d say we’ve got them right where we want them.”