During her three years at Bremerton, Leah Battles had ridden her bike to and from the ferry in some pretty nasty storms, and this storm certainly rivaled, if not surpassed, the worst of them. The wind gusted in sustained bursts, enough to cause Rebecca Stanley’s Chevy TrailBlazer to shudder. Battles hated to consider what that wind would do to a rider on a bike.
Her bike was currently in the back of Stanley’s car.
“Thanks again for the ride,” she said. “This storm is nasty.”
“Not a problem,” Stanley said. The wheels of the car plowed through another puddle, sending up a wall of water outside Battles’s window.
The darkened sky had brought an early dusk that was quickly fading to night. Rain had overwhelmed the gutters, and ponds of water extended well out onto the surface streets. The car’s tires sprayed rooster tails each time it ripped through the puddles.
Battles looked down at the driver’s-side floorboard. “How’s the ankle?”
Stanley had stepped in a calf-deep puddle just outside her door in the parking lot. “Wet and cold,” she said. “Do you mind if we stop at my apartment so it doesn’t feel like I’m sitting the rest of the night with my foot in a bucket of ice?”
Battles smiled. “Sure.”
She touched her side and felt the comforting presence of her Glock just beneath her blueberries.
“How do you feel about The Bulkhead?” Stanley asked.
Bremerton being a Navy town, there was no shortage of bars using Navy terminology. The Bulkhead was in favor because it offered frequent discounts for military personnel, like two-buck beers on Thursday nights and eight-dollar “Bell” hamburgers, which came with french fries and the drink of your choice.
“Sounds good,” Battles said.
“It’s close to my apartment,” Stanley said. “I can quickly change and we can grab that drink and maybe a bite to eat and still get you back to the ferry at a reasonable hour. You think they’ll continue running in this weather?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time they cancelled them,” Battles said. “I have the app and the number for the ferry system on speed dial. I can call for an update if the weather doesn’t clear. I heard on the radio this was supposed to blow through later this evening.”
“Hopefully we don’t lose power.”
“Hopefully,” Battles said.
Stanley lived east of the base, across the Manette Bridge, which spanned the Port Washington Narrows. They drove the road that hugged the coastline to an apartment complex designated The Crow’s Nest, likely because there wasn’t anything else around the two multistory apartment buildings situated directly across the Narrows from Naval Base Kitsap.
“Do you sometimes go home and feel as though you never left?” Battles asked, admiring the view.
“I’ve always been partial to water,” Stanley said. “I have a killer view off my deck. Come up and see.”
Battles pushed out of the car. She felt the wind gusting at her back and gripped the bill of her hat to avoid having to chase it across the lawn. She followed Stanley through a glass door into a small entry with mailboxes and an elevator. Stanley retrieved her mail and they took the elevator to the top floor. Stanley’s apartment was three doors to the right of the elevator. She unlocked the dead bolt and doorknob and stepped inside, turning on lights. Battles followed her inside and shut the door.
Battles considered an apartment to be an extension of the person. Hers was somewhat cluttered, with an ever-present easel holding her latest painting, and a chessboard on the kitchen table with a game in progress. She played against herself, making a move in the morning before she left for work and a countermove for the opponent when she returned home. Her longest game to date was three weeks.
Stanley tossed her keys on the Formica counter separating the kitchen from the living room. “Make yourself at home. I’ll just be a minute.” She disappeared down a hallway.
Battles walked farther into the front room, which was neat, but sparsely furnished. A sliding glass door led to a narrow balcony that barely fit a small metal table and two matching chairs, but which did have a killer view looking across the water to the lights of the shipyard.
She stepped to the mantel. Framed photographs displayed Stanley with a dark-haired man and a small girl, perhaps two or three. Stanley kept no such photographs in her office, and she’d never mentioned being married, or being a mother, or from the looks of the apartment, being divorced. Things were starting to add up.
Battles heard Stanley returning and reached for the Glock, pulling it from her holster and holding it at her side.
“Told you it was a hell of a view,” Stanley said.
Battles turned and raised the Glock. “Actually, you said it was a killer view.”
Tracy now knew how someone had entered the DSO building without having to punch in a Social Security code and without having been seen. Whoever that person was, they’d simply waited for Al Tulowitsky to take his regular, prolonged cigarette break, and prop the door open with the wooden wedge. It confirmed that the convenience store videotape had not been misplaced. It had been an intentional act, stolen by someone who knew Tulowitsky’s routine. That meant, in all probability, that the person was someone who worked within the building. Battles and Cho were Tracy’s first choices. Stanley also could not be dismissed.
All three knew where the evidence room was located, as well as the significance of the videotape. It provided a direct link to what Laszlo Trejo had been doing in Seattle the night he’d run down D’Andre Miller, which meant he’d likely been delivering heroin smuggled on and off his last naval ship.
“You think Tulowitsky could have been in on it?” Owens asked. They were back in his car on their way to meet his contact at the naval base.
Tracy had considered that same question, whether Tulowitsky could have left the door open on purpose.
“No,” she said. “Whoever snuck in went to great lengths to remain hidden from Tulowitsky. They wouldn’t have bothered if he’d somehow been involved. I’m betting that same person also killed Trejo to prevent him from testifying, if it came to that, which makes involving Tulowitsky too big a risk.”
Owens and Tracy presented credentials to the MAs manning the Charleston Gate, then waited until the friend Owens had called to gain admission met them and escorted them to the security office on the first floor of the DSO building.
David Bakhtiari’s office was loaded with computers, video screens, and blinking lights. Bakhtiari wore the same blue-and-gray uniform as everyone else on base, but that was where the similarities ended. He was as big as Del, and bordering on 300 pounds. He wasn’t fat, far from it. He looked like an NFL offensive lineman. After introductions, Owens’s friend remained outside the office.