Chapter 86
In Detroit, the DEA, aided by the Detroit PD, began the process of tracing the Toyota Camry in the pictures.
That it had been used, as Raines claimed, to seize Gai Cotter was not in doubt, because the angle of the second photograph showed a woman slumped on the floor of the vehicle, a man’s feet on her body, and the image, when magnified and cleared, confirmed her identity.
The evidence of foul play meant that the investigation into Cotter’s disappearance was transferred from the DEA’s Office of Professional Responsibility to the FBI, since the agency had jurisdiction over crimes committed against federal officers, and now its agents were trawling footage from security and traffic cameras as they attempted to piece together the likely route taken by the car, their resources greater than those of Vincent Bergsma, though even the FBI had to concede that Bergsma’s people had done well.
The investigators were helped by the City of Detroit’s expansion of its police camera network, all fitted with license plate readers, and web resources such as the Detroit Traffic Cam Archive and Michigan’s Department of Transportation’s Mi Drive initiative.
Within hours, the FBI had obtained a semi-obscured image of the driver and a profile shot of the man in the back seat, neither of prosecutorial quality, and the license number of the vehicle, which information eventually led them to the apartment building containing the Airbnb rented by Edward Kenney.
But the Camry was not registered to any of the residents, and instead belonged to one Meherwan Khanna, who lived in Novi.
Khanna’s wife had reported the license plate missing three days after the DEA lost contact with Gai Cotter, but the photograph on Khanna’s license bore no resemblance to the driver, even if it was harder to be certain about the passenger in the back, the one with his feet on Gai Cotter.
A meeting was convened, attended by Solomon, the DEA agent in charge of the Bergsma investigation, as well as two members of his team and Solomon’s supervisor.
Also present were two FBI agents, a representative of the Detroit PD, and an assistant US attorney.
It was decided that, regardless of the police report filed about the missing plate, a search warrant should be obtained for the home of Meherwan Khanna and any vehicle present on the property.
At the same time, the FBI had approached the super of the building in an effort to establish which space the Camry might have occupied, and which apartment, if any, was linked to it.
But the super told the investigators that the vehicle wasn’t known to him, and as many as a third of the units were used as Airbnb rentals, so the car might have belonged to someone who stayed only a night or two.
That meant another warrant would be required, this one to be submitted to Airbnb’s law enforcement portal, so that booking information for the units rented in the building on the night of Cotter’s disappearance could be released.
With the assistant U.S. attorney on hand to advise on the optimum wording, Solomon and an FBI agent worked to compose the affidavits, handing them to the AUSA for a final check before presenting both the warrants and the affidavits—for the Khanna and Airbnb searches—to a waiting magistrate, who had been briefed on the urgency of the situation.
The FBI agent was sworn by the magistrate and signed the affidavits in her presence, and the magistrate, content that the affidavits supported the warrants, signed off on them in turn.
All of this consumed valuable time, but the magistrate agreed to keep herself available in expectation of a further warrant to be signed, once the apartment rented by the driver was identified.
Unfortunately for the investigators, the Pistons–Celtics game was taking place on the night Cotter disappeared, and so Airbnb submitted booking information for no less than twelve apartments in the complex that were being rented through its portal during the event.
Nine of those renters had stipulated the availability of a parking space, although this didn’t mean the others didn’t have a car, only that they might be prepared to take their chances on the street.
Three of the twelve rentals were for parties of four, seven were for parties of two, and two were occupied by solitary male renters, all of whom stayed at least two nights.
None of these guests was Meherwan Khanna.
In addition, all twelve apartments had been rented twice or more since the game, which meant they had presumably been cleaned and the sheets changed.
But right now, according to Airbnb, five of those apartments were being rented.
As long as the warrants were in order, the rest could be searched without delay.
Regarding the occupied units, Airbnb did not have the authority to remove guests for law enforcement purposes so any search would have to wait until the following day, when the guests were scheduled to depart.
While all this was ongoing, agents were checking the information on the booking forms against vehicle registrations, but none of the guests at the complex was the registered owner of a Camry.
Now the federal investigators ran into yet another difficulty, as if they weren’t already running a healthy surplus: Meherwan Khanna had a cast-iron alibi for the night Gai Cotter was taken.
Mr Khanna, who was fifty-two and overweight, had suffered a heart attack at the Twelve Oaks Mall on the night of the basketball game and died in an ambulance on the way to DMC Harper University Hospital.
So whoever it was with his foot on Gai Cotter’s prone body, it wasn’t Khanna.
Furthermore, Khanna’s Camry was cream, not dark, and was still in the mall’s parking lot when Cotter vanished.
The DEA members of the team briefly reconvened in the supervisor’s office.
The absent FBI agents were contacting field offices in Texas, Idaho, Utah, Massachusetts, Florida, Minnesota, New York, and Maine in preparation for interviews with the Airbnb renters, while the Detroit office would deal with the tenants in the building.
They would all have to be interviewed, in case the building supervisor was mistaken about the car.
In the meantime, other agents were seeking to track the movements of the Camry in the hours and days after Cotter’s abduction.
“They just switched the license plate,” said Solomon, as he grabbed a cup of water. “A different car but the same model, in case police ran the plate.”
“But why target Cotter?” asked the supervisor.
“Bergsma’s man says it wasn’t their work.”
“And you believe him?”
“I do. He gave us the car.”
“What about the Mexicans?”
“If they’d found out Cotter was an agent, they’d have let Bergsma take care of her, though we’re not ruling them out. But what if she wasn’t targeted? What if it was just bad luck?”
“But the switched plate indicates planning,” said the supervisor. “They set out to take her.”
“Or they set out to take someone,” said Solomon, “and settled on Cotter.”
“So where is she?”
“Obviously, we’re staying on the car,” said Solomon. “There’s no camera on the garage door of the apartment building because the super says the one they did put up kept getting vandalized. We’re back to scouring traffic cameras and archives, but it may be that Cotter never left the complex.”
The supervisor stood, bringing the meeting to an end. Everyone in the room could be more usefully employed elsewhere.
“Tell the magistrate to get her signing hand ready,” he said, “and let the FBI know that DEA agents will be present when they enter that building. We’re going to tear that fucking place apart.”