Chapter 26
Workers’ comp cases often involve a level of IQ that leaves me wondering about the quality of public schools today, and Aaron Lasserio is another shining—check that, depressing—case in point.
I’ve surveilled him enough for the past week and a half since I got the go-ahead from Graham Insurance several days after returning from Choteau to know that he stayed home with his girlfriend last Tuesday evening but went to a poker game on Wednesday at a bar down the road from his house.
I’m assuming he might keep the same schedule this week, and since it’s late Tuesday afternoon, I figure Lasserio is in for the evening.
After I left the shooting range, I went to Target, bought a multicamera system, and went home and installed the cameras around my place: at my front and back doors; one on my garage; one on a post at the main entrance, where Deputy Zane is stationed; and on both sides of my house, where I have my bedroom and office windows.
I hated running my plastic up even more, especially so soon after the Dallas charges, but since hiding out in a safe house isn’t an option if I want to continue working and have a shot at catching this guy, this is a wise choice.
Parked under a large maple tree down a little from Lasserio’s house, I’m relieved to finally be at work. I refuse to get distracted. I am not dropping my Lasserio stuff or the Ridgeway investigation. I am not, if I can help it, going to let another man get away with harming another woman.
But it’s hard to sit still. In my rearview mirror, I catch my own big eyes. They’re lit up by the unnatural buzz of adrenaline trying—but failing—to mask my exhaustion from the past two sleepless nights. Three, if you count the red-eye out of the valley.
I check my new home-surveillance app and see that everything around my place is quiet—the front stoop is empty, the driveway clear, the back porch and yard peaceful.
I roll my window down for some fresh air.
The early-September sun throws long, moody shadows.
Some kids are playing in the yard of the next house over, but the other homes are quiet.
It occurs to me now that I’ve forgotten to eat all day, and my stomach is gnawing away at itself.
I fish a granola bar out of my console and munch on it while I open my laptop and connect to my phone’s mobile hot spot.
I wish Greene and Alderson would have given me the name of the man who is still alive, the drug rep from Spokane.
I study the third sketch again. Except for the one slightly wonky eye, there’s nothing that distinctive about it. That is, no specific detail like my earrings. His shirt collar is nondescript and he has no necklace, hat, or other identifying detail like a mole.
I search the Carssen Pharmaceuticals website, but there’s no information on the individuals or their territory sales forces.
That leaves me with LinkedIn and a search of all the Carssen reps I can find.
Most of them have profile pictures, so I can discard the ones who look nothing like the sketch.
Carssen is a big outfit, so scrolling down is a slow process—a fresh source of irritation—when my eye is drawn to movement at the Lasserio house.
The front door has popped open and Aaron Lasserio steps through it carrying what looks to be an old microwave. He lugs it down his front steps and across his yard, sets it in the back of his pickup, then goes back in, leaving the front door open.
After a few minutes, Aaron emerges again.
This time, he and his girlfriend are carrying a midsize dresser that could be oak and looks burdensome.
I snatch my phone and video their journey to the truck.
His light-haired, tiny girlfriend rests her end of the dresser on the driveway while Aaron, with his curly mop of dark hair and ripped jeans, leans his end against the tailgate.
Aaron hops up into the bed like a twenty-five-year-old Olympic hurdler, grabs his end again, and sets about gallantly hefting the dresser up without her assistance.
It’s a pretty manly display, especially considering the limitations he listed on his insurance claim.
He jumps down from the bed, slams the tailgate shut.
His woman goes back into the house, and he climbs in behind the wheel of the truck and backs out.
I follow him out of the neighborhood to a run-down storage business south of town.
I followed him twice before Jess and I flew to Dallas, both boring and fruitless trips, and never to a unit.
The place seems right out of the seventies or eighties.
There’s no coded entry gate, no security cameras that I can spot, and no front office.
Just a sign out front with a number you can call to rent a unit.
I pause on the shoulder of the main road to give him a minute, and go in.
It feels so freaking good to be doing something, but I’m constantly checking my rearview mirror, too.
In the third corridor from the entry, I spot his truck parked halfway down.
I continue to the next aisle as if I’m looking for my own unit and creep down to the end, place my car in park, get out, and sneak around the edge of the last shed to peer around the corner and up the row where Lasserio stopped.
Lasserio is unlocking a unit on the opposite side.
After he jerks the padlock free and lifts the mini garage door, apparently oblivious to the harsh squeal, he disappears inside.
I’m already shooting video when he reappears.
He’s toting a beige backpack in his grip.
He looks up the corridor and turns back toward me.
I yank myself back, unsure if he’s spotted me.
Lasserio goes back inside his unit with his arm extending out like he’s about to drop the pack back inside it. A second later, he comes out all nonchalant and whistling, no longer carrying it, his hands in his pockets.
He’s looking away from me to the car that has stopped about ten sheds up from him, where a tall woman steps out and starts fiddling with her padlock. He’s changed his mind, I think. He came to take the pack out, but the car has interrupted him. He doesn’t want to be seen with it.
Lasserio watches her for a moment, shakes his head in irritation, locks up his unit, and hops back in his car.
I dash back to mine, throw it into drive, pull across his row, and go to the next two over in case Lasserio takes a U-turn to the left instead of to the right to go back toward the exit.
I don’t want him to end up behind me. I drive to the end and wait for him to pull out.
When he exits two rows over, I follow him out again and onto the highway.
This time, he drives farther south to a green-box dump site, one of the county’s designated solid waste disposal areas. I’m still wondering what was so special about that pack that he needed to ditch it before the stranger saw him with it.
The dump is enclosed by a tall chain-link fence with the dumpsters arranged in a U shape. He unloads the dresser with minimal effort, all recorded for posterity on my camera.
Next, he grabs the microwave, also with ease.
Once I check the weight of his jetsam, I’ll know by precisely how many pounds he’s exceeded the max he claims he’s able to hoist. This “case” is a breeze, but it will pay the bills.
I find myself more concerned about what he left at his storage shed and why he abandoned his mission when another person arrived.
I wait near one of the first dumpsters in the U shape on the opposite side and act like I’m trying to organize some recycling in my back seat as he backs out, swings around, and drives out of the site. He doesn’t look my way.
Nobody is looking my way because the place is empty.
Good.
After his taillights are out of sight, I pull over to the spot he vacated, get out, go to the side of the dumpster, and nudge the dresser to get a feel for its weight. It’s even heavier than it looks. I prod it again, estimating an easy sixty pounds.
I take a photo of it, using my flash, since it’s getting into the thick of dusk.
I try to lift the microwave that he’s placed next to the dresser, even though the sign instructs that appliances need to go to the main dump north of Kalispell.
It’s an old model, so roughly as heavy as a VW Bug.
I find the product information plate on the back and snap a final shot.
It’ll be easy to find the actual weight online.
I’ve pocketed my phone and turned to head to my car when lights from another vehicle swing across the dumpsters and halt on me.
The driver stops in the entrance.
Kills the lights.
The hairs on the back of my neck prickle. What the hell? Why turn the lights off?
The night isn’t completely black—the sky above the horizon has turned a pale lavender—but the glare has momentarily blinded me. I readjust to the fading twilight and keeping an eye on the mystery car, begin to cross the thirty yards to mine.
But I freeze because the lightless mystery car begins to head slowly toward my SUV. Its tires grind on the gravel. It pulls to a stop on the other side of my car so it’s hidden and I can’t see the driver’s seat.
I stand still, waiting for them to get out and deposit a bag of trash.
Nothing. No movement.
My hand goes to my gun, even though it isn’t there. I left it in the SUV, under the driver’s seat. So much for getting myself all tuned up at the range.
Crickets chirp in the dry surrounding fields and the breeze brushes the tops of the cottonwoods in the distance.
The rancid scent of garbage fills my nose.
Cars from the highway swish by, and I think I pick up the soft click of a door opening, but I’m not positive.
Did someone slip out? I didn’t lock my door since I was only going to be gone for a second to take the photos.
What a fool. With everything going on, and after stubbornly telling Greene and Alderson that I was more than capable of defending myself, how could I be so careless? To top it off, I didn’t even mention to anyone that I was coming here.
I pull my phone out and debate making a call. To? Greene and Alderson? Zane? What would I say? There might be a bad guy at the recycling center? By the time anyone got here, whatever’s going to happen will have happened.
Again, a dark figure shifts around beside my car, but I can’t tell if it’s walking over to the bin to unload something or staying beside my vehicle.
The evening has faded to a steely, dark gray.
I continue to strain through the dark to see.
I’m not fool enough to stroll back to my car without knowing what they’re up to.
But now I’m starting to get angry. Screw this.
Fully shielded beside the dumpster, I yell, “Hey!”
No one answers.
“Hey!” I repeat. “I’m with KPD,” I lie. “Step away from my vehicle and state your name.”
Still, no answer, but I hear a shuffle, and this time, for sure, a car door shuts. My muscles lock, my breathing stops.
“Stop!” I yell out again, and as I do, another truck pulls in, lights sweeping across the lot and across both our vehicles before landing on one of the dumpsters on the other side of the U.
I can’t see the mystery vehicle even when the truck’s lights dust across it because it’s still hidden behind mine.
Its headlights flash as it starts. Suddenly, it peels out and speeds away, lights off and no illumination on the back bumper.
No plate is visible, but I can tell by the shape that it’s a medium-size, dark-colored SUV, like mine.
I have a quick decision to make: stay and watch which way it turns at the end of the drive or run to my car to follow it. I need to know if it will head east or west, so I watch.
As it turns west onto the main road, its headlamps flick on. I can make out its side. It looks like a Ford Explorer but I’m not positive. It could be a Toyota 4Runner like mine.
When I get to my car, I check the back seat with my phone light. It’s vacant. Front seat, ditto. My gun is under the front seat where I left it. I grab it and circle the vehicle, checking to see if my tires are slashed.
I steady the light on each tire and then lift it to the side doors. My blood turns to ice, and suddenly I’m acutely aware of every sound in the oncoming night—the cars in the distance, an owl hoo-hoo-ing from afar, scurrying sounds from a small animal in the dry field behind the nearest dumpster.
My body spools into a tightly knit knot.
In white marker on the side of my passenger door, two words are scrawled:
It’s You.