Dance flashed on her children’s faces, then her husband’s and then Michael O’Neil’s.
Please, she thought, praying for speed… .
“Rey, behind us! Cover!”
And when Brubaker looked up he was staring into the muzzle of her Glock pistol, while Carraneo was facing the opposite way, aiming at the door to the office.
Both agents were crouching.
“Jesus, take it easy!” he cried.
“Clear so far,” Carraneo said.
“Check it out,” she ordered.
The young man eased to the door and, standing to the side, pushed it open with his foot. “Clear.”
He spun around to cover Brubaker.
“Lift your hands slowly,” Dance said, her Glock steady enough. “If you have a weapon in your hand, drop it immediately. Don’t lift it or lower it. Just drop it. If you don’t — now — we will shoot. Understand?”
Arnold Brubaker gasped. “I don’t have a gun.”
She didn’t hear a weapon hit the expensive floor, but he was lifting his hands very slowly.
Unlike Dance’s, they weren’t shaking at all.
In the developer’s ruddy fingers was a business card, which he flicked toward her contemptuously. The agents holstered their weapons. They sat.
Dance looked at the card, reflecting that a situation that couldn’t get any more awkward just had. On the card was the gold-embossed seal of the Department of Justice — the eagle and the fine print. She knew FBI agents’ cards very well. She still had a large box of them at home: her husband’s.
“At the time you mentioned, yesterday, I was meeting with Amy Grabe.” Special agent in charge of the San Francisco office of the Bureau. “We were meeting here and at the site. From about eleven a.m. to three p.m.”
Oh.
Brubaker said, “Desalination and water-based infrastructure projects are terrorist targets. I’ve been working with Homeland Security and the FBI to make sure that if the project gets under way, there’ll be adequate security.” He looked at her calmly and with contempt. The tip of his tongue touched a lip. “I’m hoping it will be federal officers involved. I’m losing confidence in the local constabulary.”
Kathryn Dance wasn’t about to apologize. She’d check with SAC Amy Grabe, whom she knew and, despite differences of opinion, respected. And even though an alibi wouldn’t absolve him from hiring a thug to commit the actual crimes, it was hard for Dance to believe that a man working closely with the FBI and DHS would risk murder. Besides, everything about Brubaker’s demeanor suggested he was telling the truth.
“All right, Mr. Brubaker. We’ll check out what you’re telling us.”
“I hope you do.”
“I appreciate your time.”
“You can find your own way out,” he snapped.
Carraneo cast a sheepish glance her way. Dance rolled her eyes.
When they were at the door, Brubaker said, “Wait. Hold on.” The agents turned. “Well, was I right?”
“Right?”
“That you think somebody killed the boy and set him up to be the fall guy in some plot to kill Chilton?”
A pause. Then she thought: Why not? She answered, “We think it’s possible, yes.”
“Here.” Brubaker jotted something on a slip of paper and offered it. “He’s somebody you ought to be looking at. He’d love for the blog — and the blogger — to disappear.”
Dance glanced at the note.
Wondering why she hadn’t thought of the suspect herself.
Chapter 34
PARKED ON A dusty street near the small town of Marina, five miles north of Monterey, Dance was alone in her Crown Vic, on the phone with TJ.
“Brubaker?” she asked.
“No criminal record,” he told her. And his work — and the alibi — with the FBI was confirmed.
He still might’ve hired somebody for the job, but this information did ease him out of the hot seat.
Attention was now on the man whose name Brubaker had given her. The name on the slip of paper was Clint Avery and she was presently gazing at him from about one hundred yards away, through a chain-link fence — topped with razor wire — that surrounded his massive construction company.
The name Avery had never come up as someone involved in the case. For very good reason: The builder had never posted on the blog and Chilton had never written about him in The Report.
Not by name, that is. The “Yellow Brick Road” thread didn’t mention Avery specifically. But questioned the government’s decision to build the highway and the bidding process, by implication also criticizing the contractor — which Dance should have known was Avery Construction, since she’d been flagged down by a company team at the site of the highway work when she’d been on her way to Caitlin Gardner’s summer school two days ago. She hadn’t put the two pieces together.
TJ Scanlon now told her, “Seems that Clint Avery was connected with a company investigated for using substandard materials about five years ago. Investigation got dropped real fast. Maybe Chilton’s reporting might get the case reopened.”
A good motive to kill the blogger, Dance agreed. “Thanks, TJ. That’s good… . And Chilton’s got you the list of other suspects?”
“Yep.”
“Any others stand out?”
“Not yet, boss. But I’m glad I don’t have as many enemies as he does.”
She gave a brief laugh and they disconnected.