Chapter 36
Peter dropped June and Lewis at the other car, a used white Lexus SUV that looked like a tank, then headed south in the Tahoe toward Tacoma to find the address where Enderby’s Toyota was registered. They’d lingered over breakfast, and the mid-afternoon traffic was unusually heavy.
Although he’d just seen Ellie at dinner the night before, he’d promised to call her every day, so while traffic crept along, he pulled out his burner and called the phone he’d given Manny.
If Peter ended up getting charged with kidnapping a minor or whatever else Durant could come up with, there was no reason to implicate his friend by calling his personal cell.
Manny answered on the second ring and quickly put Ellie on the line. “Why does he call you Ashes?”
“Long story,” he said. “How’d you sleep?”
“Okay, I guess? I dreamed about my mom.”
“A good dream or a bad one?”
“It wasn’t about, you know, the motel, if that’s what you mean. We were sitting at our kitchen table, eating pizza. A normal night.” She sniffled. “Just thinking about her makes me want to cry.”
“It’s okay to cry,” Peter said gently. “Part of the process.”
“I still can’t quite believe she’s really gone. It’s like the world changed completely in two minutes. And then I’ll start playing with the twins and forget for like an hour. How can I forget my mom is dead? What’s wrong with me?”
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Peter said. “Losing someone you care about, it’s messy. It hurts, then it doesn’t. Then it hurts again.”
“When will it stop hurting,” she asked. “I want it to stop.”
He wasn’t going to tell her that it never stopped hurting. Now wasn’t the time for that. Instead he thought about his post-traumatic stress, and the people he’d lost, and what he’d learned that helped.
“Don’t resist the pain,” he said. “Feel your feelings. Lean into it. Cry when you need to cry. That’s how you honor her memory. That’s how you begin to move forward. To heal.”
She sniffled again. “Well, that sucks.”
“Yes,” he said. “It does. But if you fight it, things get worse.”
They were quiet a moment. Traffic crept past downtown. “I guess Carlotta’s taking me to see a therapist today?”
“That’s great,” Peter said, thinking about the Oregon shrink who had set him on the path of working through his PTSD. Had saved his life, really. With how he was feeling about KT’s death, Peter knew he should call the man.
“I’m nervous,” Ellie said. “What’s it like? Have you ever been?”
“Many times,” he said. “It’s just a conversation. With a very kind person who understands what you’re going through. You’ll be great. And if you don’t like the therapist, Carlotta will find you a different one.”
“Can’t I just talk to you?” Her voice was small.
“You can always talk to me, kiddo. But you should also talk to someone who’s trained to help people with stuff like this. Someone who actually understands teenage girls.”
“I mean, you’re not so bad.” She sniffled again. “Can you come to dinner tonight?”
“I’ll do my very best. Call you later, okay?”
Then he hung up and called Captain Durant.
Because there was nothing more fun than getting yelled at by an angry policeman.
—
Peter’s call went straight to Durant’s voicemail. He left a message, saying he had updates.
As with calling Detective Kitzinger, it was a risk using his burner to call the captain. Although the police would need a court order to track his location, and Peter was betting that Durant had more pressing things to do.
Next he tried Kitzinger again, reasoning that she already knew his number, but this time she must have rejected the call because her phone didn’t even go to voicemail.
He was taking the exit toward the Tacoma Dome when Durant called back. “This better be good, Mr. Ash. The Conference for the Future starts in under twenty-four hours and my plate is very full.”
“I’m just checking to see if you’ve heard anything about Ellie’s father.”
“Nothing yet. Although something tells me that’s not your only question.”
“It’s not.” Peter told him about the man watching Stella’s house. “I lost him, but I managed to get the plate. June looked it up. The car belongs to Scott Enderby, the motel killer.”
“Mr. Ash, we’ve had this conversation. You need to stand down.”
“The guy left a phone behind,” Peter said, not specifying which guy.
He didn’t want to give Durant any added motivation to chase him down.
“It had an app on it with encrypted messages. The messages make it clear that there’s at least one more person involved in KT’s killing.
And that Toyota pickup you thought belonged to Enderby?
The messages make clear that it belongs to this new guy. He calls himself Circuit Rider.”
Durant gave an audible sigh. “Mr. Ash, why are you telling me this? Perhaps you don’t remember, but this investigation is officially closed.”
“That’s not all of it,” Peter said. “I went into the foothills east of Maple Valley and talked to a pair of gun guys who are supposed to be plugged into the wingnut community. They wouldn’t admit to any connection to the Messenger, but they had a serious arsenal of illegal Kalashnikovs.”
“Well, that’s concerning,” Durant said. “It’s also out of my jurisdiction. Give me the names and address and I’ll call the local sheriff personally, get somebody up there ASAP.”
“There’s more. These backwoods armorers had the equipment to make black-tip rounds. Armor-piercing. Restricted to law enforcement and military only.”
“I know what black-tip rounds are, Mr. Ash. Did you just see the equipment, or did you actually see the ammunition?”
“Oh, I saw it,” Peter said. “A thousand rounds. It’s in the back of my rig right now. But I think they made a lot more than that.”
Durant swore loudly. “And these gun dealers just let you take it? Or did you have to shoot somebody?”
Peter didn’t answer. If he’d judged Nickels and his mom right, he was pretty sure they didn’t want the police sniffing around. They’d probably already buried the body where it would never be found.
Durant heard what Peter hadn’t said. “And you didn’t call the police? No, you fled the scene.” The captain swore again, even more loudly. “Mr. Ash, you have broken so many laws, I wouldn’t even know where to start charging you.”
“You need to reopen the case,” Peter said. “I think KT’s murder is connected to the tech conference. Whoever these people are, I think they’re going to hit it. I think KT was looking into it, and that’s why they killed her.”
Durant was obviously struggling to get himself back under control.
“Nobody is hitting the tech conference, Mr. Ash. The Seattle PD and the FBI are all over it. The vice president is coming, so the Secret Service is involved, and NSA is monitoring electronic chatter. We’re talking to every informant we have.
There is no threat. You are imagining a conspiracy where none exists. ”
The captain sighed, his tone softening. “You should really be worrying about yourself, Mr. Ash. You were already in serious trouble because of the Eleanor Thorsen situation. Now you’re doing God knows what else.
So I’m going to say this one time and one time only.
Even if you don’t care what happens to you, Eleanor Thorsen should be in a safe place.
Because if something happens to that girl, it’ll be on your head.
And I’m the one who’ll bring the axe down, trust me on that. ”
“Durant—”
“No, no. You listen to me. Do yourself a favor and turn yourself in, along with poor Eleanor. You pick the place. I’ll meet you wherever you like. I really do think you’re trying to help. If we can meet soon, in the next few hours, I might even be able to get the charges dropped.”
“I’ll think about it,” Peter said.
“You’re in a deep hole, Mr. Ash. You know what they say about finding yourself in a hole, don’t you? Stop digging.”
“I hope you’re right about the conference,” Peter said. “Because if you’re wrong, those armor-piercing rounds are going to kill a lot of good police.”
Then he hung up.