“Definitely energy drinks.”
Kins pulled open the glass door. They each turned at the sound of a buzzer, and Tracy noted a chipped and scarred ruler impressed on the inside of the door frame to measure customers’ heights. She looked at the corners of the building and saw a lone camera mounted to the ceiling and directed at the cashier’s counter and front door.
The inside of the store smelled like a vanilla air freshener that people hung in their cars. Products cluttered the shelves, with unopened boxes at the ends of the aisles. Frozen food, soft drinks, and alcohol filled stand-up freezers along the back wall. Tracy and Kins stepped around the boxes to the counter, and Kins flashed his ID and shield to a dark-skinned young man in a light-blue smock and turban. A variety of cigarette packs and magazines surrounded him in the booth.
“Are you Archie?” Kins asked.
They didn’t need a warrant to get video from the security camera unless the store owner refused, which had never happened in Tracy’s years working Violent Crimes. A bigger concern was the store inadvertently taping over the video, which was usually on a twenty-four-hour loop. Tracy had called the convenience store after leaving Jensen to ask about a videotape. The owner said he had a system, though it was dated. He would search the tape to determine if it had been copied over. Tracy had given him the time on the store receipt to expedite the process.
“He’s in the back.” The young man pointed to a swinging door at the rear of the store. A posted sign read “Employees Only.” “He said you were coming. He’s in his office. Go through that door. It’s the room on your left. You can’t miss it.”
Tracy followed Kins into a storeroom more cluttered than the store. It held the faint odor of rotting food. In the room to their left, a man in a matching light-blue smock, also wearing a turban, sat facing a small television. Kins knocked on the door and the man turned and looked at them over half-lens cheaters. He had a cell phone pressed to his ear, but waved them in. “They’re here,” he said. “Yeah. Okay, I’ll call.” He disconnected and shook their hands.
“Are you Archie?” Kins asked.
Archie swiped at a thick beard streaked with gray. “I was just talking with my attorney.”
“Is there a problem?” Tracy asked.
“No. No. I wanted to be sure you didn’t need a search warrant. I don’t want any trouble.” He spoke with a thick accent. “He said no warrant is needed.”
“You have the video?” Kins asked.
Archie nodded to a television. “I was just searching the tape. Having the time imprinted on the receipt saved me a lot of work.”
“Do you have it on a computer?” Tracy asked.
“No,” he said moving toward the portable television on the table with the VCR player, an all-in-one machine. “Nothing that fancy.”
“It’s not digitized?” Kins asked.
“Digit what?”
“Is that the tape?” Tracy said, pointing to a VCR cartridge partially sticking out of the television on the desk.
“Yes.”
“Can you play it for us?”
“Sure.”
Archie sat and swiveled his chair to face his TV. He pushed the tape into the VCR player, then lifted his chin and looked down his glasses to press a couple of buttons on a remote control. Satisfied, he slid back his chair, stood, and stepped to the side to allow Tracy and Kins to view the television. The feed was black-and-white and definitely not the best quality. Without sound, they heard just the whir and hum of the tape, as if the outdated machine was struggling and the tape could break at any moment. On the TV screen, a man in a white shirt with a baseball cap entered the store and quickly proceeded to the glass case at the back. Tracy didn’t bother to freeze the frame to measure his height using the ruler on the inside of the door. They could obtain that later. She couldn’t tell if the man was Trejo.
The man opened a freezer door, paused, closed the door, and opened the door beside it. He extracted two cans and started up the aisle. As he neared the counter, getting closer to the camera, his image improved—not perfect, but certainly good enough for Tracy and Kins to know.
CHAPTER 12
Tracy called Laszlo Trejo with word that the lab had finished processing his car, and told Trejo he could pick it up at Police Headquarters. Trejo didn’t hesitate at the invitation. Anxious to get his car back, he said he would make the ferry crossing after work that evening. Tracy provided him directions walking from the ferry terminal to Police Headquarters, which was just up the hill on Fifth Avenue.
The officer at the duty desk in the building lobby called Tracy at just after 7:00 p.m. to advise that Trejo had arrived. Tracy instructed him to escort Trejo to the seventh floor. She met them both in the lobby as the elevator doors opened. Trejo wore civilian clothes—jeans and tennis shoes—and kept his hands stuffed in the pockets of what looked like a letterman’s jacket without all the patches. Out of uniform, he looked even younger, just a kid, really, and smaller, perhaps five foot six, four inches shorter than Tracy.
She extended her hand, and Trejo gave it a halfhearted handshake, his hand small and warm.
“Come on back.” Tracy led Trejo down the hall. “Can I get you a cup of bad coffee?”
“No, thanks,” Trejo said. “I just came for my car.”
Tracy stepped into the conference room and pulled out a chair, motioning that Trejo do the same. A portable television with a VCR sat on the table, facing her. She and Kins had scrambled that afternoon to find one. “Take a seat,” she said.
Trejo continued to look wary. He kept his hands inside the pockets of his jacket, like a sullen teenager sent to the principal’s office for a scolding. His eyes flicked about the room, and he avoided any prolonged eye contact.
Kins walked into the room carrying papers, a ruse to look busy. “You made it.”
“Are they done with my car?” Trejo asked, standing and sounding eager to get going.
“They’re just bringing it up from the police impound,” Kins said.
Trejo pulled out his cell phone from his jacket pocket and considered the time.
“You in a rush?” Kins asked.
“I’m trying to catch the 7:55 ferry back home,” Trejo said.
Kins pulled out a chair and sat. “What happens if you miss the ferry?”
“They have others,” Trejo said, still standing.
“Or I guess you could also just drive around,” Tracy said. The Department of Transportation video from the Bremerton and Seattle ferry terminals did not reveal the black Subaru. She looked to Kins. “What bridge do you cross down there, just past Tacoma?”
Kins paused as if uncertain.
“The Tacoma Narrows,” Trejo said, filling the silence and lowering himself into his chair.
Tracy looked to Trejo. “That’s it. You ever go that way?”
Trejo shook his head. “I told you I don’t get over here very much.”
They sat in an awkward silence. Kins said, “Do the Bremerton police have any more information on what might have happened to your car, who could have stolen it?”