Tracy made a mental note to determine whether NCIS had typed up their interviews.
Battles said, “So it seems someone removed the tape before I checked out the box, or got in early the following morning, saw it on the court reporter’s chair, and removed it.”
“Cho?”
“I don’t know, but if I had nothing to gain by taking the tape, he really had nothing to gain. Not having the tape hurt him.”
“And it would be risky to remove the tape before you had checked out the box?”
“You mean because I could have noticed it was missing? My OIC said the same thing. Seems to make the most sense, but like I said, no one came in or out of the building after me except the janitors.”
“Who has access to your offices?” Tracy asked.
“Other than the janitors?” Battles shrugged. “Everyone with an approved Social Security number.”
“How many would that be?”
Battles scoffed. “A lot.” She became more pensive. “Not a bad thought to get that list, but aren’t you ignoring the same question you asked me?”
“Why would someone do it?”
Battles nodded.
Tracy didn’t know, but she’d get the printout of the codes entered for that evening anyway.
Jeanine Welch walked Del and Faz down the porch to the broken front gate, her arms folded tight across her body to ward off the chill. Dusk had given way to night. The sporadic streetlamps spotted the sidewalk in pale yellow light, and an array of cables and wires stretched between telephone poles and the houses on the block. Somewhere down the street two boys shouted, likely rushing to finish a game on their small patch of lawn before darkness enveloped them.
Welch paused at the gate, or where the gate should have been. “He kicked it off its hinges when he left a few nights ago.” She sounded weary. “He wanted money. He said it was to buy a new amplifier, but I’ve come to know better than to give Jack any money.” She turned back to her home. “I used to have more things, but anything I have of value he steals and sells. He sold the jewelry I’d inherited from my mother, our toaster, televisions, his sister’s bike. He denies it, but I know he did.”
Del reached inside his pocket and pulled out a packet of business cards. He handed one to Jeanine Welch. “Allie was my niece,” he said. “That’s why I was at the service.”
Her hand stopped, as if the card might bite. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
“If there’s ever anything I can do.”
She nodded and tentatively took the card.
Del heard the heavy bass beat of muffled music. A late-model Honda Accord sped around the street corner, nearly hitting one of the parked cars, and jerked to a stop at the end of the driveway.
“That’s Jack,” Welch said, sounding somewhat hesitant.
Jack took one look at Faz and Del talking to his mother and quickly threw the car into reverse, grinding gears as he did.
“He’s running,” Del said, moving to the passenger door of the Prius. Faz hurried around the hood to the driver’s side.
The Honda stuttered and stalled in the street. Jack restarted the engine, struggled to find the right gear, and lurched forward.
Faz started the Prius and dropped it into gear. They wouldn’t break any land speed records, but that was a good thing. They wouldn’t engage Welch in a high-speed chase, if that was his intent. Regulations forbade it, and they didn’t want to see anyone injured unnecessarily.
The Accord turned right at the stop sign without so much as a pause.
Faz pumped the brakes, slowed at the corner to ensure no cars were coming, and turned to follow.
“Left at the next corner,” Del said. “He ran another stop sign.”
“See if we can get some help before he kills someone. Right taillight is out,” Faz said.
Del picked up the microphone and called in the make and model of the Honda, its license plate, and their current location and direction. If Welch took an on-ramp onto the freeway, they’d alert the highway patrol and turn the chase over to them.
Parked cars whizzed past their windows. Faz glanced down at the dash—fifty miles per hour on a residential road. His eyes searched for cars pulling from the curb or backing down driveways, and for kids on the sidewalk.
“Any help?” he asked Del.
Del continued to provide their location on the radio. “There’s a patrol unit close by,” he said to Faz.
“I’m going to slow down and back off. Maybe he will too. He’s making another turn,” Faz said.
Del called it in.
Up ahead, what Faz had feared came to sudden fruition. As the Honda accelerated, a red truck backed quickly down a driveway.
“Hang on,” Faz said.
The Honda’s single taillight illuminated and its brakes screeched. The hood dipped low and struck the rear panel of the truck with a loud bang of crumpled metal and shattered glass.
“Call for an ambulance,” Faz said, but the Honda’s driver’s-side door pushed open and Welch scurried out. “This guy is like a freaking cat.”
“I’m on it.” Del pushed open his car door, giving chase.
Welch sprinted across several front lawns, then turned down a driveway. Del wouldn’t catch him; his prime was well in the past, but having lost fifteen pounds, he felt good just keeping up. Welch scaled a fence along the side of a house and scurried over it. As Del looked for a gate latch, a floodlight illuminated on the corner of the house and a big dog barked and growled. Hands reappeared atop the fence, followed quickly by Jack Welch’s head and shoulders. The boy looked panicked. He lifted a leg over the fence and flopped hard on the grass-and-concrete drive. His lower pant leg had been ripped. Del put a knee in his back and snapped cuffs on each wrist. A man came through the gate carrying a baseball bat. “SPD,” Del said, fishing out his badge from his pocket and holding it up for the man to see.
Then he turned back to Welch. “You have the right to remain silent.”
CHAPTER 28
Del and Faz opted not to take Jack Welch to jail and instead stuck him in one of the interrogation rooms. At his desk, Del called Celia McDaniel for advice.
“The statute clearly provides that to convict a driver you needed to be in uniform and the car equipped with lights and sirens,” McDaniel said over the speakerphone.
Faz shook his head. “If Welch gets a criminal defense lawyer worth his weight in salt, he’ll know we didn’t meet any of those criteria, or he’d find out quickly enough. You have any advice?”
“You could book him for reckless driving or reckless endangerment, but those are misdemeanors with unlikely jail time and a minimal financial penalty. Even if Welch couldn’t pay, all it would mean is he’d be cleaning up garbage along the freeways.”
“But Welch doesn’t know the law,” Faz said. “And his mom isn’t likely to bail him out.”