“Not to worry. Bomb squad sniffed it and passed it a half hour ago while you were in with Zarek Braun.” Randall Feller cleared something from his throat. “By the way, if he’s still hanging around, I’d like to soften him up for you.”
Everyone on that call felt the same. Heat steered them away from that black hole. “Are you sure Braun lived there, too?”
“Affirm. Got some picture ID here with numerous assumed names. Driver’s licenses, fake passports, even a private gym card.” They could hear door hinges squeak and the acoustics change as Feller stepped outside. “I’m walking to the detached garage, which ESU is still clearing so we can’t go in yet. But, standing here looking in, I can see all sorts of ordnance, ammunition, tear gas, flash bangs.”
“Zip cuffs?” asked Ochoa.
“Don’t see any right off, but I would bet on it. The infamous Impala is also parked in here under a tarp. And there’s a big space here with some wide-track tire marks that I’m sure belong to a BearCat.”
Heat said, “Just before you called we got a trace back on that ’Cat. It was reported stolen by Mexican police last year.”
Rook said, “That explains how Braun got it. You can’t just buy those things on eBay. I’ve tried.”
“Hang on, hang on.” The phone rustled on Feller’s end and they heard muffled chatter. Then he came back on. “The bomb sarge found a wallet on the workbench. No picture ID in it, but there’s a paycheck stub from the chicken slaughterhouse. It’s made out to Fabian Beauvais.”
Feller and Rhymer hung up to resume their search of Braun’s hideout up in the Bronx. Before Heat got involved in other things, Roach led her to the Murder Board. Like the other detectives, they had taken to heart Nikki’s directive to drill down on every aspect of the case. Since both of them felt a proprietary interest in Jeanne Capois and her unresolved connection to Opal Onishi, that’s where they had put their initial efforts.
Ochoa began, “I read over the notes from your interview with Onishi.” He took his pen out of his teeth and tapped the woman’s name in his quadrant on the whiteboard. “Squirrelly, that one.”
“You think?” said Nikki. “If we ran a polygraph on her, we’d probably have to order in more ink.”
“Yeah, my antenna was up all over. So I thought, what’s in that interview that I could at least run some kind of check on? So I left word with the Happy Hazels. Remember, Opal told you that she hired Jeanne Capois through that agency?”
“I sort of prompted her with that, but, yeah.”
“But no. It took awhile because of all the craziness with the storm, but the happiest Hazel called me back about a ten ago. She never referred Jeanne Capois to anyone other than her boss, the old man from the home invasion.”
“Shelton David,” said his partner.
“And she has never heard of Opal Onishi. I’ll admit,” he said, “that it’s not so much a lead, as a confirmation of a lie.”
“At this point, everything helps, Miguel.” And then she said, “You actually read my notes?”
“Hey, just doin’ the fact-donkey dance.”
Rook scooted his chair over and said, “The next question is, why? Why lie?”
Heat agreed. “And why move in the middle of the night like some traveling circus?”
“Was she in debt?”
Raley hopped on that one. “No. I ran a credit check on her ’cause I wondered the same thing. It’s maybe the most logical reason to make a midnight run like that. Opal’s not rich, but she’s making all her payments on time. And she’s got a steady job.”
“We’re back to where we started,” said Heat. “Wondering what the connection is between Opal Onishi and Jeanne Capois.”
“Which is where some of my donkeywork might help,” said Raley. Nikki could tell by looking, Sean was holding. “Although I did mine wearing the crown.”
“As my King of All Surveillance Media?”
“A little more like a commoner. I didn’t scrub surveillance vids; I only used the Internet. To Google Opal Onishi. You can find out a lot about people online.”