20. “Girl on Fire” #2
“Alternatively, he could just be so stupid he doesn’t know he shouldn’t extort money and then deposit it in his bank,” Willow put in.
For sure a possibility when it came to Trev.
The screen changed to a slide that Raye or Luna crafted, which was a breakdown of what we had so far.
It had a different picture of Trev and said:
Trevor Lawrence Clampitt – 29
Employment: Unknown/Possibly Unemployed
Status: Very Dead, Murdered, Severed Carotid
Favorite Pastime: Being a Skeeve
Three Months, Sun Dial LLC Payment, $10,000 (??)
Cellphone: Missing (taken by killer?)
Laptop: Missing (taken by killer?)
If above taken by killer, what are they looking for now?
Friends and Family: Cleared of Involvement
Possible Witness/Partner: Kevin Johanssen
KJ Status: Held by NI&S?
The “favorite pastime” was a little on the nose, but not wrong.
“This is gonna get gross, so if gross stuff will ruin your chicken tenders, look away,” Luna warned.
I was not into gross stuff.
What I was into was getting this situation sorted so I could focus on telling Javi’s dad to back off, and spending time with Javi without this hanging over our heads, so I forced myself to keep my eyes on the screen.
Luna didn’t belabor it. The pictures were up for a very short time before she clicked through to the next one.
Trev, on his stomach, lying in a pool of blood, photographed at different angles.
Then more of Trev on his back on an autopsy table, again, from different angles.
Then the screen went black.
“He’d been worked over,” Jessie whispered.
Uh, yeah, he had.
“Big time,” Raye agreed.
“Torture?” I asked.
“ME report says cause of death was definitely the severed carotid,” Luna reported. “She also reported he’d been beaten pretty badly. However, her estimation was, the blows were sustained in the midst of a fight.”
The screen filled with the picture of a man’s hand, definitely Trev’s as it was lying in a puddle of blood. There was minor bruising and new splits on the knuckles.
“He fought back,” Willow said.
She sounded relieved, but that was Willow. Obviously, Trev was a douche, but at least he didn’t go down without a fight, and that made Willow feel a little better.
“Yeah. But there were no ligature marks on his wrists or ankles,” Luna said. “Police report states that they believe Trevor’s apartment was searched, but some of the mess in the living room and kitchen hinted at a struggle.”
“Ready for the doozie?” Raye asked when Luna finished reporting her bit.
We all nodded.
“In the awesomeness of what went down on Saturday, I managed to catch a partial on the plate of the BMW,” Luna told us. “I reported it to Arthur, along with asking for this.”
The screen filled with some semi-grainy footage that was obviously outside Oceans 44. Precisely, the camera was aimed at the valet station.
And the footage showed Trev coming out and giving his ticket to the valet. A few minutes later, the valet drove up in a rather nice Mazda SUV. Trev got in and drove off.
But moments later, a flash BMW exactly like the one that had chased Cap and Gabe followed it.
“Holy shit,” Jessie breathed.
“Arthur tracked that partial with make and model and found a BMW registered to…anyone wanna guess?” Luna asked.
“Sun Dial LLC,” Shanti said.
“Bingo,” Luna confirmed.
“We can assume the Nightingale boys have all of this,” Jessie noted.
“We can for sure,” Raye told her. “And probably more, since the cops think their shit doesn’t stink and practically roll out the red carpet any time they show at a station. So, if they have any leads or theories, they’d definitely feed them to the Hottie Squad.”
I munched a fry, considering all of this.
“We asked Arthur if he could get anything from Trev’s or Kev’s phones without us having Trev’s or Kev’s phones,” Raye said. “Same with anything from their laptops or any clouds they have. He’s working on it. The phone thing might not happen. The cloud thing is a better bet.”
“So, boiling this down,” Willow started.
“The boys have Kevin and the bad guys, so we can’t get anything out of them.
And we have no way of knowing who has Trev’s or Kev’s phone or laptops.
Either the bad guys have them, or the Nightingale boys have them, at least Kev’s.
So, unless we can cultivate some cop informant in about twenty-four hours to get some info not in the report that will give us some kind of lead, which would be impossible, we’re dead in the water. ”
“That’s pretty much the gist of it, unless Arthur can get us anything from the phones or a cloud,” Raye affirmed.
“Okay, I have an idea,” I said.
Everyone looked to me.
I laid it out. “Odds are, Jinx or one of the other girls has a cop client, or two.”
Everyone’s eyes lit.
“Now, they might not be comfortable pumping them for information, but they might be into it. We should ask,” I concluded.
“On that,” Raye said, pulling out her phone and setting aside her Cane’s to get up and move away from the couch.
“Right, so, at this point, even though we don’t have a lot, aren’t we supposed to throw around theories?” Shanti asked.
“If you got something, go for it, sister,” Jessie invited.
Shanti nodded.
“Sexual harassment at work. Dating app scam. Making a play for his friend’s fiancée, like she’d be into that shit,” Shanti outlined it. “His exes hate him. This guy is an all-around asshole, but it seems a lot of his assholery has a target. And that’s women.”
“Mm-hmm,” Luna hummed, coming to rest one butt cheek on the back of the couch by Willow.
“And someone is pretty damned determined to find something, what with the state of Trev’s place, Harlow’s place getting hit, and whoever this is thinking they can butt up against the Nightingale men and force a play,” Shanti went on.
“So that either means they got someone big backing them, or whatever they’re looking for, they’re desperate to find. ”
“Oh my God,” I whispered as what she was leading to dawned on me.
“He’s getting regular payments of a lot of money,” Shanti didn’t quit. “Which could be blackmail, because this guy isn’t on anyone’s books as having a job.”
“He’s got something incriminating on someone who got tired of making payments,” Jessie guessed.
“No, with Trev, it’s something embarrassing,” I put in.
“Yup,” Shanti agreed. “Do you have any crime scene photos of his bedroom?”
Luna moved back to the computer.
The photos came up and she cycled through them.
It just looked like a mess, though, it was obvious even to my inexperienced eye, the mess was a mess made on top of the mess that Trev lived in.
This meant someone searched that room…thoroughly.
“How about the evidence logs?” Shanti inquired. “Did they log any cameras or recording equipment in his bedroom?”
“No,” Luna told her. “Though, they might not have found it.”
“We need to go back to Trev’s place,” Shanti said.
“We need to go back to Trev’s place,” Jessie and I parroted.
Luna came back and rested a butt cheek on the side of the desk.
“Right, I’m gonna call Tex and see if he’s up for another search.
Willow needs to stay safe, so not out on this operation.
Raye, Jessie and Lolo have dudes, so they need to go home and get themselves some.
That means you and me, Shanti, will go tonight and hit Trev’s again. ”
“What about our bodyguards?” Shanti asked.
“They can come with,” Luna said breezily. “They don’t like it, they can lump it.”
“The guys may have found this already,” Willow pointed out.
“Maybe, maybe not. I have nothing on tonight,” Luna replied. “So why not check it out?”
Shanti bit into a fry, chewed, swallowed, smiled and said, “Why not?”
Raye returned. “Jinx says she doesn’t do cops. Occupational hazard. But some of the other girls do. She’s going to ask.”
“Right, so we have a theory. I’ll fill you in, Raye,” Luna said. “And we have a plan.” She looked to me. “When do you want to hit Austin?”
“We’ll talk about it at work tomorrow, after you see what you get from Trev’s,’ I said.
“Okay then, anyone have anything else?” Raye asked.
We all shook our heads.
“Righty ho, then let’s finish dinner so I can get laid,” Jessie said.
I loved that plan a whole lot.
So I munched into my Texas toast.