Shaw looked at Eve. “That was your idea?”
Duncan raised his hand. “It was mine. My grandfather always said, ‘You can’t catch fish with your line in the boat.’ So we put out a line.”
“He was a wise man.” Shaw got up and paced in front of the whiteboard, looking at the photos of the three men. “Where are you with warrants to track their phones?”
“The judge granted them,” Duncan said. “I emailed the warrants to the cellular providers, and now I’m just waiting for them to comply. I know the people over there and they know me. They’re usually pretty fast. We’ll get the information today.”
There was a long moment of silence as everyone digested the information and their pizza. Eve assumed they were all coming to the same conclusion—that they’d eaten too much and knew no more today about the home invasions than they did yesterday. Sherry Simms was the one person who might be able to tell them more, but she was in the wind. They hadn’t heard from her neighbor or the LAPD, which was sending patrol cars past her home on a regular basis to check for activity. Eve thought finding her should be their next move.
But before Eve could voice that opinion, Duncan’s phone rang. He answered it, listened for a moment, made some notes on a pad, and tore the sheet off as he hung up.
“That was the watch commander,” Duncan said. “The fire department and a deputy responded to an emergency call in Oakdale, one of the gated communities on Parkway Calabasas, from a woman giving birth in her home. The baby was dead when they got there, apparently a stillbirth.”
Shaw nodded. It was standard procedure for homicide detectives to initially investigate those deaths, which 99.9 percent of the time were quickly determined to be by natural causes. Even so, Duncan and Eve would have to go.
“While you’re out handling that, I’ll keep the train moving down the tracks,” the captain said. “The deputies will continue trying to match the goods recovered with the home invasion victims. And I’ll cross-reference the Vista Grande visitor list with the ones at the other communities on the days they had robberies.”
Eve gave him the Vista Grande list as she left the squad room with Duncan. They went outside to one of the plain-wrap Explorers in the parking lot.
“I’ll drive,” Duncan said.
That was fine with her.
They got onto the Ventura Freeway at Las Virgenes and headed east, around the northern edge of the ridge that Vista Grande and Oakdale were atop and that divided the east and west side of Calabasas geographically and socioeconomically. The east side had the Commons, city hall, the Hilton Garden Inn, Mercedes and BMW dealerships, and most of the homes and high-end gated communities. The west side had low-rise office parks, gas stations, fast-food restaurants, a cheap hotel, the Lost Hills station, and lots of condos. The freeway was the easiest and fastest way to cross from one side of the small city to the other.
“The new captain is very hands-on,” Eve said.
“Feet-on, too. Hopefully, it will only be with this case, the one that got his predecessor booted, or your life is going to be a living hell when I’m gone.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” she said. “I don’t want him looking over my shoulder all the time.”
“You don’t even like me doing it,” Duncan said. “And I’m adorable.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The fountains in the center of the road leading to Oakdale reminded Eve of champagne being poured over stacked glasses. Past the fountain was a guardhouse so tiny that it appeared that the heavy uniformed Hispanic woman inside was wearing the guardhouse like a large stucco overcoat.
Duncan and Eve waited in the guest lane behind two other cars that were lined up to get their passes from the guard and be allowed through the gate.
“The afternoon guard is Ruthie Ortega,” Duncan said. “She’s been here for twenty-five years.”
“I can’t imagine spending two decades in that little shack,” Eve said as one car went up the hill and the car in front of them moved forward to the guardhouse. “Aren’t there rules against that kind of confinement in the Geneva Conventions?”
“She loves it. She treats this place like she’s the guard to the Emerald City. I call her the Oracle. Nothing goes on behind those gates that she doesn’t know about. Bring her donuts once in a while when I’m gone and chat her up. It’ll pay off for you.”
The car in front of them departed. Duncan pulled up to the guardhouse and rolled down his window. “Afternoon, Ruthie.”
She sat at her desk and smiled at him through her half-open window. “Hello, Duncan. I heard about your adventure yesterday. I see it was a close shave.”
“When did you become a comedienne?”
“I’ve always been renowned for my wit. Ellen DeGeneres is lucky I chose the security profession or I’d have her show.” Ruthie looked past Duncan to Eve. “And you owe me your life, Deathfist.”