The Victim (54 page)

Anton tapped the email icon, opening Outlook. Mandy must have used his work email address as his personal email as well. He must have had a few thousand messages in there; some read, some not. Everything from correspondence related to active investigations to solicitations from attorneys representing African dignitaries, seeking help collecting eight-figure judgments.

A few dozen emails had been sent to Mandy during the day, obviously unopened. Anton scrolled down with his thumb, locating the last email that had been read. It was sent at 1:36 a.m that morning. The sender had a government address. CBP.gov. An icon indicated that the email carried an attachment.

Customs and Border Protection.

Anton opened the email.

Mandy,

Here’s the info you asked for. Always glad to help. Let’s round up Mitch and Jose and the rest of the crew and get a charter going! Tarpon season, baby!

Much love,

Mikey

Miguel Sotolongo

US Customs and Border Protection

Field Operations

909 S.E. 1st Avenue, Suite 980

Miami, Florida 33131

Phone: (305) 810-5120

Fax: (305) 810-5143

Email:
[email protected]

He tapped the attachment, waiting for the PDF to upload. He enlarged the screen with his thumb and forefinger, reading the passenger data information sheet for Frank Wheaton’s March 16, 2003, flight information. Where he had come from, where he was going.

But strangest of all, who he was with.

***

Jack was getting up to leave when Anton burst through the door. Jack jumped back, nearly falling back into his seat.

“
For God’s sake, I’m seventy years old,” he said, bracing his hand on the edge of his desk. “Knock please.”

Anton was out of breath. He held a manila file in one hand, Mandy’s iPad in the other.

“
We gotta go back to Arizona. Right now.”

“
Oh?”

Anton held the iPad in his palm, toggling the touchscreen with his free hand.

“
The email. Last night just after one-thirty. Mandy got an email from his contact at CBP. The email included a passenger data information sheet for Frank Wheaton. Mandy was right. You’ve ever been on a plane, the federal government knows about it. I can only imagine that since CBP falls under the umbrella of Homeland Security, everything is accounted for. So get this, the morning of March 16, 2003, Frank Wheaton, the same one with the criminal record, presumably Lola Munson’s uncle, caught a nine-thirty a.m. flight out of Flagstaff to Phoenix. Southwest Airlines, two one-way tickets, bought them online on the 12th. Except Phoenix wasn’t his final destination. He was supposed to hook up with an Aeromexico flight to Mazatlan. Again, two tickets, bought them online on the 12th as well. This time bought roundtrip tickets. You know, probably so he wouldn’t send up any red flags?”

Anton waved the manila file marked
fw
. It was Mandy’s research on Frank Wheaton.

“
Wheaton’s been in and out of prison since then. We know about his last stretch from 2007 to 2012. He’s still on probation for that charge. Trafficking in meth. As is the case with probationers, his address has to be current and on file with the state probation department. All that info’s public record.” Anton opened the file and retrieved an emailed copy of the probation order obtained from the La Paz County Superior Court. “Last known address of Frank Wheaton is in Quartzsite, Arizona. I’ve driven through that town a thousand times back when I was going back and forth from L.A. to Tempe. It’s right off I-10, about twenty miles east of the California border.”

“
So now you want to fly back to Arizona on my nickel to confront a violent felon who’s going to do what? Confess to killing his niece?”

“
C’mon, Jack. You know the confession was bullshit! The feds tricked Ozzie with that copy machine charade, they stopped the tape when they did it, and edited it so that it appeared seamless. You know they forced that confession out of him. They made him think that everything he said was a lie! They preyed on his weak mind and convinced him that he had killed her! It’s worth a shot, isn’t it? Let’s at least find out what he knows.”

Jack exhaled hard, folded his arms across his chest. “And what is it that you want to know, Anton?”

Anton held up two fingers. “Two tickets, Jack. Two passengers. One for Frank Wheaton. One for Kelsie McEvoy. I’d like to know what a dead girl was doing on an international flight.”

CHAPTER 57

The Cessna touched down in Blythe, California, at a quarter to ten on Saturday morning. Anton had advised Gina that he would be trial prepping with Jack all day and would be incommunicado. He didn’t even rehearse it; he just improvised it over dinner.

They took an airport shuttle to the Hertz depot and signed a one-day rental agreement for a Hyundai. Anton entered in the address on his iPhone. The stiff diction of the GPS led them eastbound on I-10 through the barren landscape of the Sonoran Desert, wrought with low-lying hills and yellow thickets of brittlebush. In the distance, the razor-wired fence surrounding the perimeter of Chuckawalla Valley State Prison glittered like specks of silver. Thick heat rose off the sand, blurring the horizon.

They crossed the Colorado River, its drying bed seeming more like a creek against the strain of heavy drought. A sign welcomed them to Arizona. Just eighteen miles to Quartzsite.

Tractor-trailers and RVs and minivans with luggage strapped to the roof racks stalemated traffic on the two-lane highway. Crawling over a gentle grade, the Pilot station sign came into view, standing high above the highway like a sentry keeping an eye on things.

Long-haul truckers parked their rigs side by side like flattened dominos, filling up on diesel fuel, stretching their legs, grabbing a bite at the Subway inside the Pilot minimart.

Anton heeded the advice of his GPS, exiting the Interstate, taking the frontage road up to Kofa Avenue. Quartzsite clung low to the desert floor, a town of about 3,500 with no structure much larger than a single story. The architecture was drab and dusty, almost blending into the earth, offset by a sprinkling of creosote sprigs, adding some color to mix. Along the side of the road, a Hopi family sold handmade turquoise jewelry out of the back of a beat-to-shit Datsun. A run-over rattlesnake was baked to the asphalt.

They followed the sun-cracked road until the GPS announced that they had arrived at their destination. The gravel driveway crunched beneath the tires. Loose pebbles pinged in the undercarriage.

It was a long, off-white structure, most of the color lost to the rusted hue of mildew stain. It had a flat rock roof and windows framed by wooden shutters. A film covered the panes, blocking the view of the interior.

They got out, surveying the property. Anton casually ran his thumb along the slight protrusion along the right side of his sport coat. His .38 was nestled in its holster, clipped to his belt. Arizona had reciprocity with Florida’s concealed carry laws. He was well within his right to have it. Probably not for the purpose he intended, however.

Jack stayed back a few feet, taking each step with great caution. “You wanna knock on the door?”

Anton gazed around the unfenced property. The yard was soil and rock with a few tufts of crabgrass sprouting up from the dry ground. An uncoiled hose lay across the front walk, the gravel littered with cigarette butts. Motorcycle tracks zigzagged the lot, embedding their tread marks into the ground. Anton figured the Warmasters used this place as a clubhouse, maybe a crash pad for brothers too drunk to drive or dodging service on a warrant.

A white iron security gate covered the front door. Anton banged on the gate, which rattled on its hinges. They waited a minute but heard no signs of life from within. No footsteps, no barking of a dog. Nothing. Anton turned the knob. It was locked.

“
Come on this way.”

Anton crouched along the east wall of the house, ducking beneath the window, although he realized that the side-facing windows were blacked out as well. Some shiny film stuck to the glass, making the pane completely opaque.

Jack hung back, taking high steps over puddles of mud where the hose had leaked.

“
Anton, let’s wait until someone gets home.”

The backyard boasted a small chipped concrete patio and a brick fire pit full of charred logs and sun-faded beer cans. A sliding glass door led out onto the patio, covered, from the inside, with the same film as the front and side windows.

Anton slid his hand into the grooved handle and tugged, feeling a little give. He propped both hands in the slot and heaved his shoulder into it, lifting the slider off the track, grinding metal on metal. The rollers were shot.

The slider opened, creating a one-foot opening.

“
Hell no,” Jack said. “This is trespassing, Anton. Let’s just wait in the front yard.”

Anton smirked, lifted up his sport coat, exposing the black rubber grip of his revolver.

“
Don’t worry, I’m protected.”

“
Fuck, Anton! You brought a gun?”

“
This guy’s a prison-hardened badass, Jack, you expect me to come here unprepared?”

Jack roughly palmed his hair, leaving it standing on end. “Armed trespassing. We’re here to talk to a witness, not shake someone down.”

Anton squeezed through the opening. “C’mon in, Jack.”

The room had the musty scent of water damage. A leaky pipe underneath the kitchen sink must have rotted out the cabinet. The floor was covered in white tile. A swamp cooler was propped in an open window, rattling the sill. A clunky nineteen-inch Toshiba rested on a card table. A tattered sofa was the only piece of furniture.

Anton detected a strong, piney stench.

The house was dark but cool. The swamp cooler and an A/C unit were churning. Anton quickly realized what the film was covering the slider and the front and side windows. Each pane was papered with sheets of aluminum foil. Slim cracks of light seeped through the edges of the foil, catching a mist of floating dust.

More beer cans covered the tile floor. As did little glass tubes, blackened by heat. Meth pipes.

That smell.

They stepped into the next room and the source of the smell was obvious. At first glance there were over fifty plants, the stalks rising about six feet above the soil. Each plant was packed into a five-gallon Home Depot bucket along with a few inches of gravel to help with the drainage. Each bucket was placed inside a large foil pan to keep the water from leaking onto the floor.

Light panels were bolted to the ceiling with the extension cords running to an LCD panel on the wall. The kitchen sink must have provided the water source. A hose was hooked onto the faucet with a pinch clamp, which fed the smaller black tubing snaking off from the main hose.

Each length of tubing fed one drip emitter, a circle of tubing surrounding each stalk. Anton noticed thick carbon filters placed behind the grates of the A/C vents.

It was an impressive setup.

“
You can buy everything you need for a grow house at Home Depot,” Anton said, drawing on his knowledge from prosecuting and defending marijuana grow house cases. “The air’s running to keep the plants cool and the carbon filters placed behind the vents can suck the smell right out. A decent narcotics detective can smell a grow house from about thirty yards away. The probable cause for most search warrants is based primarily on what an officer’s nose can detect.”

The buds were dense and flecked with bright orange hairs. Cut, dried, and packaged, Anton estimated that this grow would yield about twenty pounds of smokable material at a price of $4,500 a pound. Ninety grand, tax free, for four months of work.

The grow room appeared to be a converted living room, with the adjoining kitchen partitioned off by the granite counter, strewn with a dozen empty Bud Light cans and a silver Zippo lighter.