He looked up. “Both. Why?”
“Would you consent to having the FBI do a search of them?”
“What for?”
“We just need to confirm what you told us. Bottom line, if we don’t find any child porn, we’ll leave you alone.”
“How long will that take? I’ve got a bid that needs to be completed by this afternoon. Do you have to take it with you?”
“I don’t think that’ll be necessary. An hour should be sufficient. Give or take. But if I need to follow up with something regarding your house, can I call you?”
He looked at Vail with weary eyes. “Of course.”
“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I wish you and your wife luck with her treatment.” Vail finished up the call, then disconnected Skype and turned to Curtis. “I think he was being honest with us.”
“Yeah, he looked very surprised. And genuinely pissed off.”
“So Booker Gaines will now have a warrant out for his arrest for possession of child pornography.”
“I’ll see if CSU can get us a list of items found in the house sometime today or tomorrow.”
Vail pulled out her phone and looked at the display. Shit. Still nothing from Jasmine.
“Problem?”
“Jasmine’s not answering her phone and didn’t return my call. Left a voice mail, still haven’t heard back.”
“Try her again. Maybe she didn’t hear it ring and doesn’t realize she has a message.”
When she called last time, it was a number I didn’t recognize. Vail dialed it and waited, got a generic computerized greeting, then hung up.
“You want to go looking for her?” Curtis asked.
“Not really. Already got two people we’re looking for. I’ll put out a BOLO.”
Curtis rose from his chair. “I’ll let you handle that. You coming back to the command center?”
“If you can hang out a few minutes, we can take my car over, pick up yours later.”
38
As Vail pulled out of the parking lot, she chuckled. “Did you see that old Buick?”
Curtis swiveled his head back to the right. “Missed it. Why?”
“Mid-sixties. I think it was a ’64 LeSabre. My friend’s mom had one of those. She drove carpool to ballet lessons every Wednesday night.”
“You?” Curtis laughed. “Ballet lessons?”
“What’s so funny?”
“Can’t see you wearing a tutu, that’s all.”
“Anyway,” she said, “those cars, they didn’t have seatbelts in the back. Guess it was before it was the law. But when my mom found out, she wouldn’t let me go with them unless I rode in the front, where there were seatbelts. Which was a problem because my mother had a class on Monday and Wednesday nights, and if I sat in the front, her friend’s daughter had to sit in the back without a seatbelt.”
“Lemme guess. That next week they had rear belts installed.”
“Yeah—and a couple weeks later, boom. Real bad rear end accident. Crushed the trunk, pushed us into the car in front of us and shot it across the intersection into a telephone pole. That seatbelt saved my life. I would’ve flown right through the windshield.”
“Fate, you know?”
“Don’t tell me you believe in that.”
“Hey, when it’s your time, it’s your time. Seatbelts, no seatbelts, vest, no vest … your number’s up, you’re done in this life.”
“So why do you have a seatbelt on right now?”
“Really, Karen? Because it’s the law. And I’m the law.”
THEY ARRIVED AT THE COMMAND POST, where all team members were present. They spent the next hour reviewing their status on the case: Marcks, Kubiak, Gaines, Stuckey, and their efforts to find Marcks’s last known associate: Scott MacFarlane.
“While I was in town,” Ramos said, “I sat down with the inmate Marcks got into the fight with at Potter. Patrick O’Shea. Wanted to be sure he wasn’t in on the escape. You know, like the fight was a ruse designed to get Marcks into the medical transport.”
“It was a ruse,” Hurdle said. “Only question was whether O’Shea was complicit or just used. Even though he got the better of the fight. By design.”
“And let me guess,” Vail said. “O’Shea wasn’t talking.”
“Actually, he did. He basically said he had nothing to do with it. Marcks insulted him and he beat him to a pulp.”
Vail nodded. “Guess male bravado trumps looking like a stoolie.”
“This guy’s huge,” Ramos said. “It’s like they put Marcks on a copier and hit ‘enlarge 10 percent.’”
They all laughed.
“Point is, no one’s gonna get in his face, stoolie or not. And that’s what made me think he was telling the truth. No way Marcks would pick a fight with this guy unless he had other motives.”
“I think I should mention that I haven’t heard from Jasmine.”
“Should we be concerned?” Morrison asked.
Vail shrugged. “I am. She’s never ignored my calls before.”
“Try her again,” Hurdle said. “Over what period of time?”
“A day, give or take.”
“We should put out a BOLO, see if we can get our army of eyes around town looking for her.”