Chapter 14 #2
“Write down anything you remember,” he said. “And when someone else asks, tell them the facts. You don’t know what Gardner did or didn’t know. Got it?”
“But…”
“Start with the perp’s name,” Cloister told her.
Over at the counter, one of the kitchen staff brought a plastic bag of subs to the front and called her name as they set it down.
He gestured for Bon to stay right where she was, supportively leaning against Boyd’s legs. “I’ll get that. You get writing.”
He got up and headed up to the counter. At least with Boyd’s information, he’d have something to give to Javi when he headed to the hospital to check on him and Joel.
Maybe it would distract Javi from the whole ‘being a bit shot’ thing.
It had not.
Javi pushed Cloister’s head forward so he could check out the damage.
Cloister sat obediently in the cheap plastic chair in the waiting room and studied his knees—back in official sheriff’s department issue buff slacks.
Despite the situation, the feel of Javi’s fingers combing through his hair was actually kind of nice.
Even with the muffled voices and low, steady wheeze of ventilators in the background.
“Does it hurt?” Javi asked. He ran his thumb down the back of Cloister’s neck. It was hard to tell if it was a caress or if he was still mapping the injuries from the buckshot. Cloister would appreciate either.
“I’ll live,” Cloister said.
Javi snorted. “Not what I asked.”
It was stupid, Cloister knew that, but the habit of “not being a problem” was so ingrained that it took a second before he could reluctantly admit, “It aches a bit,” he said. “More than you’d think.”
Javi wrapped his arms around Cloister’s neck from behind and pressed a kiss against his scruffy, still needing a cut, hair.
Cloister reached up to curl his hand around Javi’s wrist, the faint flutter of a pulse against his fingers.
They stood there for a beat, until Javi asked in a slightly muffled voice, “I’m glad you’re OK, Cloister.
Just for my own information, why do you smell like oatmeal cookies? ”
“It’s dog shampoo. The oatmeal’s good for her skin,” Cloister said. “She was kind of…mucky.”
That was one way, Cloister supposed, to describe the gunk of gummy blood and desert dirt he’d washed down the gutters in the kennels. The oatmeal and cookie smell of the shampoo was definitely an upgrade over that.
“Is she outside, or did you leave her at the station?” Javi asked as he straightened up. He gave Cloister’s shoulder a quick, bracing squeeze as he stepped away.
“She’s in the car,” Cloister said.
He felt a twinge of guilt at that. Even though she seemed fine, she’d probably have been better off in the kennels where the assistants could keep an eye on her, but the threat to give her to another handler was still a bit fresh to feel comfortable with that.
“How’s Joel?” Cloister asked. A glance over his shoulder at Javi made him wince sympathetically at the bruising. “How’re you?”
“Alive,” Javi said. Apparently, that answer covered both questions.
He came around the side of the bank of chairs and then sat down opposite Cloister.
He crossed his legs, his ankle braced on the opposite knee, and the cuff of his trousers slid up to show probably expensive socks and the straps of his holdout.
Javi absently drummed his fingers against the leather of his shoe as he frowned.
“Still unresponsive. The doctors aren’t sure if it’s the TBI or the cocktail of antipsychotics and muscle relaxers in her system.
Either way, she’s not going to be answering any questions for a few hours. Maybe days.”
“And our prowler is locked down under federal custody,” Cloister said. “No one is getting to talk to him without going through Kincaid.”
Javi’s mouth tightened in annoyance. “Maybe,” he said.
He gave a twitch of his shoulder in answer when Cloister looked askance at him.
“Maybe not. I won’t know until I try. How did we not know that this…
what was it, Miles?…went missing on the same day, at nearly the same time as Joel?
Why wasn’t that flagged when his husband came in to complain? ”
“Because he wasn’t the only one?” Cloister said.
“There were probably between ten and twenty missing person reports yesterday. Half of them are going to be false alarms or someone sleeping it off in their car, some of them are already dead, and none of them are going to be touched until they’ve been gone longer than a couple of hours.
A missing bookkeeper doesn’t get the same level of response that a federal agent does. ”
It was the truth. That didn’t make it satisfying. Javi grunted his opinion of it as he picked up the sub Cloister had brought him and unwrapped the waxed, red-checked paper. It crinkled under his fingers, the edges damp and wrinkled where they’d steamed in the heat.
“But they both have our prowler in common,” Javi said. “Somehow. Did you get his arrest report?”
“There wasn’t one logged,” Cloister said. He met Javi’s suspicious look with a shrug of acknowledgement as he fished out the sparse page of details that Boyd had scrawled down for him. “Apparently, once Gardner ran his prints, he thought the guy deserved a break. Boyd didn’t ask why.”
Javi frowned at the bite taken out of his sandwich. “Tell me this was you and not Bon?” he said.
“That’s too salty for her,” Cloister told him. “Your diet is your own problem.”
“You eat like a trash can.”
“Yeah, well, Wittes run lean,” Cloister said.
He thought briefly of the photo Kincaid had of his stepdad, a bit greyer and a bit meaner but still wiry and straight.
“Mean burns calories like you wouldn’t believe.
Anyhow, our prowler is called Brian Fowler.
He’s thirty-four with no priors, a San Diego license, and an enhanced background check from his employer.
Who, Boyd thinks, was State of Mind Security Options. ”
Javi was halfway through the first bite of his sandwich. He waved his hand for Cloister to “go on,” and when Cloister didn’t, raised an eyebrow.
“So…” He lifted his hand to cover his mouth as he asked, “Based on that, Gardner cut loose a home invader and a peeping tom? If we’re right, that’s IA, and we know Kincaid is the one who riled them up. Do you think Kincaid already had eyes on Brian?”
The temptation was to agree. It was easy not to put anything past Kincaid. He kind of invited it. This time, though…