Presumption of Guilt (32 page)

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Joe and Lester waited patiently for the clerk at the car rental agency to read the court's paperwork—word by word—before he looked up at them and blinked.

“So, you'd like to know who rented this car?”

Joe considered his choice of responses, tempted to give Kunkle some competition in his absence, before settling on, “That's the gist of it.”

“I'm sorry?”

“Yes,” Lester answered shortly, less generous of spirit.

The clerk nodded before turning to his computer, where he engaged in a sequence of eloquent facial expressions, as if responding to an interesting bit of dialogue only he could overhear.

“Okay,” he finally said. “Looks like we have a Charles Kuralt, from Bayonne, New Jersey.”

Lester laughed quietly as Joe commented, “Clever—using a man with a double life. Our boy has a sense of humor.”

The clerk again paused wonderingly.

“Never mind,” Joe soothed him. “Did you take care of Mr. Kuralt?”

“I did,” he said brightly.

“Tell me about that.”

The man stared at him. “He was nice.”

Both cops waited for more. In vain.

“Nifty,” Joe finally said. “Good to know. Did he say how long he wanted the car for? Take out insurance? Mention anything about why he was here or where he was from? Look funny? Smell funny? Stand out in any detail?”

The clerk's mouth half opened, and Joe knew he'd overstepped again.

“Smell funny?”

Lester leaned on the counter, bringing his face close enough to their quarry's to make the latter step back. “What's your name?”

“Dick.”

“Of course it is. So—Dick—if somebody walked in right after we left and asked you what it was like dealing with us, you might have something to say, no? I was the tall one, he was the older one. He was polite, I got visibly more irritated as the conversation went on. Stuff like that. Get the idea?”

Dick nodded.

“That's what we want concerning Mr. Kuralt. Give us your impressions of the man.”

Gathering his thoughts, Dick nodded, swallowed, and said, “I get it. Well, he was about average height, pretty skinny but with a gut, and a white comb-over across a mostly bald head. He wore reading glasses when he filled out the form, and they were on a cord around his neck. He had a fancy gold watch and what looked like an organization ring on his left hand. On his right, he had one of those bad-looking blue thumbnails, like when you hit yourself with a hammer, and he had an old scar across his knuckles. He was wearing a white shirt and black tie, partly loosened, and an older dark blue suit that didn't fit him too well, and could've done with a cleaning. He had two pens in the outer handkerchief pocket—cheap clicker models. His shoes were brown and scuffed.”

Joe and Lester exchanged startled glances.

Dick took no notice, lost in some mental middle space. “He wasn't happy or sad,” he continued, “but something in between, like somebody you interrupt when they're watching TV. He had to think about how to sign his name, 'cause he paused for a second at the bottom of the form, and he was super vague when I asked him why he was in the area.”

Lester was laughing enough by now that Joe had to ask, “Very nice. Excellent job. These folks required to give you a driver's license? Which you're supposed to keep on file?”

“Yup,” Dick replied. “That's it.”

Joe looked at him without comment, hoping the man's earlier burst of insight would continue. But apparently it had gone missing again, forcing Joe to add, “You think we could see it?”

“Oh, sure.”

He moved to a filing cabinet adjacent to the counter and smoothly removed a file from one of the drawers. He flipped it open and handed them a single, full-color, Xerox copy of a New York State license, which showed neither the real Charles Kuralt or the thin-haired man they were after.

Lester eyed Dick suspiciously and asked, “Did you look at this when you copied it?”

“Sure.”

“And you didn't notice that the address was different than what he wrote on the rental form—New York versus New Jersey?”

Dick didn't appear troubled. “Lots of people have that. They moved or something. Doesn't mean anything.”

Lester then indicated the photograph. “How 'bout this? This look even vaguely like the man you just described to us?”

Dick leaned forward and studied the image. He shook his head. “Sure—a few years ago, maybe.”

He appeared completely unrepentant.

Joe displayed his frustration by placing his business card on the counter and stating shortly, “If you could copy the whole file for us, we'd appreciate it. Someone'll be by later to pick it up. If this guy ever comes back with the car, don't tell him about our dropping by, but give us a call, okay? We'd like to talk to him.”

“He like a crook?” Dick asked, his eyes bright.

“He's a source of information,” Lester said. “Like you.”

Both cops were at the open door when Dick followed up with, “'Cause, if he is, his car has a GPS.”

Joe straightened without turning, rolled his eyes, and sighed at having overlooked something so obvious.

Lester merely asked, “Is it on?”

“Sure—company policy. The guy signed the agreement, so it's legal. He could've checked the box saying he wanted it turned off.”

Joe said in an undertone, “Except it probably never crossed his mind. Like somebody else I know.”

They returned to the counter. Lester asked the agent, “Do you have the data we'd need to track this customer's movements? I just want to make sure.”

“Yeah,” Dick said happily. “It's a map, with time stamps and everything. I have to download it, but I'll add it to the other stuff you want. There's also a printout that goes with it. It's pretty cool.”

Joe started walking back toward the door. “Can't wait to find out,” he said.

*   *   *

Lester's cell phone began ringing as they reached their car.

“It's Willy,” he told Joe, answering, “Go ahead—you're on speaker,” and placing the phone on the console between the two seats.

“Chased down Darren Leroy,” Willy reported. “He had diddly on Mr. Hit Man—who called himself Walter—but he told me he did a roundabout tail on Dan and Sally, all the way to Grissom's Greenhouse.”

“I thought they went out of business,” Lester said.

“What better place to hide out?”

Joe couldn't argue. “Where're you now?”

“Downtown.”

“Get Klesczewski to order up the PD's rapid response team. Tell him we think the same guy who killed Lucas is after both Kravitzes at the greenhouse. But,” he added, “also tell him to wait for us before he goes in, so we all stay on the same page.”

“Boss,” Willy said despairingly, “you know that ain't gonna happen. They gotta put on their fancy black outfits first. We'll be there long before they are.”

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

It was raining hard by the time everyone convened a short distance away from what had been Grissom's Greenhouse ten years earlier. And while Willy was right about VBI's people getting there first, it wasn't fifteen minutes before Ron Klesczewski showed up with his entire SRT unit, including a much appreciated mobile command center—actually, a secondhand converted ambulance.

It was a tight fit in the back of the truck, where they gathered to discuss how best to proceed. Counting Ron, Joe, Sammie, the head of the SRT—a sharp-eyed young woman named Barb Zonay—and the communications guy who would be their air traffic controller once they got under way, there was barely room enough to display the oversized aerial photograph of the site that Ron had brought along.

“To be clear,” Joe began once they'd settled down, bulky in their ballistic gear, “we're not sure what we got here. We know Walter hired someone who followed the two Kravitzes to Grissom's, presumably so Walter could do unto them what he did to Johnny Lucas, and we know from preliminary surveillance that a car matching Walter's rental is sitting right now in the greenhouse parking lot.”

He stopped abruptly and looked at Zonay. “Barb, I'm sorry. Have you been filled in on who all these people are and what they've been up to?”

She smiled broadly. “You kidding? It's been better than watching a soap opera. I was hoping we'd be asked to join in.”

He liked her attitude—so much for the external grimness of so many other special weapons people.

“Outstanding,” he said.

He consulted Ron's photo and began tapping on aspects of the greenhouse as he continued. “That being said, we don't know for a fact anyone's in here. If they are, for sure Walter's a bad guy, and while we have it on good authority that the Kravitzes are targets only, that doesn't mean they don't have weapons for self-defense.”

“It is Vermont, after all,” Barb threw in.

“Precisely. Anybody else ever been inside Grissom's?” Joe asked.

No one responded. “Years ago,” he explained, “it was the Crystal Palace of greenhouses—high ceilinged, all glass, a bit of a maze, and it went on for acres. With the passage of time and the economy going sour, they shut down parts of it, put up cheaper, plastic greenhouse extensions, tried to make it a community farmers' market kind of thing, and then finally just gave up. It's been abandoned ever since.”

“Except for the occasional squatter or drug party,” Ron added.

“I drove by there, not long ago,” Joe said. “It's a mess—lots of wildlife, totally overgrown, broken glass everywhere. The beds have mostly rotted out and collapsed, the concrete is heaved up. In short, it's a confined combat zone.” He looked up above them at a burst of extra-loud rain on the truck's roof. “And that's not counting the weather.”

“No option to wait out the rain?” Barb asked.

“Not if we're sworn to protect and serve like we say we are,” Joe replied. “Plus, the Kravitzes are our only bait for catching this guy. For all I know, we'll get in there and find he's already come and gone, leaving their bodies and his car behind. Speaking of which, your team's already disabled the car, correct?”

Serious and focused, she merely nodded in acknowledgment.

“Okay,” he said. “This picture tells you what we got. Buildings radiating out in all directions, all of them big, dark, and cluttered. Field-of-fire concerns are paramount. We don't want anyone getting shot who's not looking for it. By the same token, we don't want to leave any back doors unguarded.” He eyed Zonay directly. “Barb, tell us where you want us and how to proceed. We'll all be on the same radio channel and monitored through this command center.” He looked at the communications man. “You good with that?”

“Ten-Four.”

*   *   *

Minutes later, the rain unrelenting, they had all spread out to their assigned entry points. Barb Zonay and her SRT had taken the lead positions, choosing the old greenhouse complex's several primary entrances, but Joe and others had been distributed as well, the layout being too spread out to be properly contained otherwise.

The decision had been made to announce their approach. As a result, Joe heard Zonay's voice being broadcast over a megaphone, telling anyone within earshot to drop their weapons and come out with their hands in plain sight.

Over his earpiece, however, he also heard that they'd received no takers to that invitation.

Despite his knowledge of the building's interior, Joe was taken aback by the reality. As he cautiously entered toward the rear, he was struck by both the overall jumble and the unanticipated roar of rainfall on thousands of glass panels overhead.

Those that were still intact, of course. Predictably, people had made it their business to apply rocks, bullets, and odd pieces of rubble to everything breakable within reach. Over time, they'd apparently become bored or exhausted, however, leaving half their targets standing, with the effect that, as Joe picked his way ever farther into the gloomy interior, he was beset simultaneously by pouring water and the clamor of its hitting the brittle panes above.

Also, looking around amid the human destruction and nature's ongoing and ironic efforts to reclaim the place, he was hard-put to use any of his old memories of the layout. He and—as he could hear over the radio—everyone else were pretty much reduced to forging ahead as they might have through a long-forgotten, bombed-out warehouse.

The combined muck and tangle eventually begged the question: Why had Dan Kravitz—a meticulous, neat, and careful man—come here to hide out?

“Joe to Barb,” he said, avoiding the usual radio handles, as they'd agreed.

“Go ahead,” she replied quickly.

“Sudden thought,” he said. “Look out for any underground entrances. I'm thinking there might be a basement somewhere.”

“Got it. Thanks. Everybody copy?”

There was a chorus of affirmative responses.

Joe was in a narrow, high gallery, dating back to the greenhouse's origins, which meant that it had a brick foundation, a rusting steel skeleton supporting all the glass, and was among the first of the enterprise's extensions to have been closed up and abandoned to hard times. It also had an uneven floor of indeterminate soundness, so covered with debris, dirt, and invading vegetation that he might as well have been back outdoors. One of the reasons he'd been assigned here by Zonay—who got to call the shots as the entry team chief—was the low likelihood that anyone would use it as a hiding place.

When he came upon a four-by-four-foot square hole in the floor, therefore, not five minutes later, he didn't know if he'd discovered a cellar, or merely an earthen excavation. In the dim light, it appeared weighted toward the latter.

He got down on his hands and knees, readied his flashlight, and gingerly approached the hole's edge. Just as he was concluding that the void below reached beyond a shovel's capabilities, he felt the ground beneath him begin to sag.