CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 9 page

Back at her desk, Mac’s fingers flew over her keyboard. The Neptune Grand’s internal database appeared on the screen, and she entered a query for every car parked at the hotel on March sixth, the night of the attack.

“Okay, we’re in,” Mac said, rattling the pretzel bag to dump the last few fragments into her palm. “I’m sure there’ll be dozens of white compacts, but if we can figure out the exact make and model of the one in the front parking lot…”

It was at that moment they heard footsteps on the stairs. A minute later, Wallace came through the frosted-glass door. He wheeled a black duffel behind him, his expression coolly sardonic.

“Gym bag delivery for Ms. V. Mars,” he said, plunking the bag at Veronica’s feet.

“Wallace, you’re the best.” Veronica knelt next to the bag and unzipped it. It was empty, but a ripe, sour smell wafted out. She pinched her nose, and gave Wallace an appalled look.

“What do you keep in this thing?” she asked.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “What do you think I keep in there? It’s a gym bag! I sweat, woman! You were expecting what? Lily of the Valley?”

Veronica stepped into the duffel, lowered her body, and curled tightly into a ball in the bottom. Wallace stared down at her.

“Am I allowed to ask what this is all about?” he asked.

“Trust me. The less you know, the happier you’ll be.” She tried a few positions, hunching her shoulders, tucking her head. After a moment, she looked up. “Okay, zip me!”

Mac leaned over and fiddled with the pull. A moment later, there was a loud zipping sound, and Veronica’s world disappeared into darkness.

“Unbelievable!” she heard Mac say.

Veronica’s breath started coming in gasps, and this time it wasn’t just the smell of Gold Bond Powder and male body funk. Now it was all too easy to imagine Grace in a bag just like this one. Confused, gagged, dimly aware of voices outside. Or had she been too traumatized to feel anything but pain?

“Let me out,” Veronica said. Then, because it seemed to be taking forever: “Let me out of here, Wallace!”

“Okay, okay, hang on.” Wallace yanked the zipper open and helped Veronica up. She wobbled on her feet, hungrily drawing in the cool, clean air. When she felt her heart stop racing a bit, she turned to Mac, who was shaking her head in disbelief.

“So—I guess these things just look tiny when they’re next to a guy you could hitch a U-Haul to, huh?”

“Trust me, they’re not exactly roomy,” Veronica said, staring down at the cramped space she’d just occupied.

“Well,” Wallace said, grabbing the bag, “I’d love to stay, but I must be on my way. If I hurry, I still might be able to get in a little bodysurfing.”

Veronica nodded at him. “Thanks, Wallace. Fresh-baked cookies are coming your way this weekend.”

On his way to the door, he bent over to give Mac a hug, but pulled up short when he saw what was on her screen: Pacific Southwest players scuffling across the hotel lobby, duffels in tow. “Huh. The PSU Kestrels,” he said. “And those same lady-sized bags. Part of me wants to know what’s up here, but another part is terrified to ask.”

Despite her long, no-secrets relationship with Wallace, Veronica played this one close to the vest. “It’s no big deal,” she said. “They just happened to be at the Grand the night of a case we’ve been working. And like you said, those bags are everywhere now.”

“This was back in March, right? Yeah, that’s it. I saw ’em play Hearst. We got smoked.” He shook his head disgustedly at the memory and again turned toward the door.

“Hey, quick question before you go,” Mac said. She went behind her desk and leaned over the keyboard. “Can we avail ourselves of your manly automotive knowledge? We’re trying to visually ID the model of a car from a low-res TV image.”

Wallace shrugged. “I can try. But you’d do better just sticking your head out the window and hollering at the first fat white dude you see with a shaved head and foot-long beard. I’m not really into cars unless they’re cheap, basic, and the kind of thing they can fix at Sears.” He and Veronica followed Mac behind the desk to look over her shoulder. Mac still had dozens of windows open, showing different angles of the security footage.

“Well, then, I expect this will be right in your wheelhouse.” Mac said, advancing the video to the parking lot scene at the moment the white hatchback backed out of its parking space and showed itself in profile. “Look familiar?”

Wallace chuckled. “Believe it or not, it does. That’s a 2013 Mazda 3.”

Veronica and Mac exchanged triumphant glances. “You sure?”

“One hundred percent,” he replied. “It’s pretty much the official car of the Neptune High School faculty these days. We’re into those budget-friendly rides, you know. I even test drove one myself before I decided to give our local repairmen some love and buy American.”

Veronica looked at Mac. “Anything matching that description on the parking roster from that night?”

Mac opened another window and started scrolling through a list. After a moment, she let out a soft, sharp laugh. “Got him.” She highlighted a line item on the screen. Veronica leaned in to read over her shoulder. “There were three white 2013 Mazdas at the Neptune Grand that night, but just one hatchback. A rental from Lariat driven by a hotel guest named Mitchell Walter Bellamy.”

Wallace’s eyes narrowed. “Mitchell Bellamy?”

Veronica’s head snapped up. “Uh-huh. Why? You know him or something?”

“Oh yeah, from way back,” Wallace said, walking up to the screen and peering for a moment before pointing to a tall, blonde, middle-aged man in a Kestrels polo shirt. “That’s him right there. Mitch Bellamy. He’s one of the PSU assistants. He was a badass college baller in his day. Sweetest three-point stroke I ever saw. We used to call him ‘Drain Man.’ Not that long ago he came out to Neptune and looked at a couple of our players.”

Veronica grabbed Wallace’s arm hard enough to draw an indignant yelp. “Do you remember the date he came to the school?” she asked fiercely.

“Yeah, the day after they played Hearst, right before spring break in March.”

“The Kestrels had another game that weekend,” Veronica said, recalling their itinerary. “They drove straight to Stanford and arrived at three that afternoon. Mac, I need to know when Bellamy checked his car back in with Lariat.” She then turned back to Wallace. “Do coaches have to ride the bus with the players?”

Wallace rubbed his arm where she’d grabbed him. “Mostly. But assistants do have their own cars sometimes. Especially if they’ve got recruiting stops along the way.”

Mac, who’d long had access codes for every car rental company in Neptune, was already logging in to Lariat Rent-a-Car.

“Here you go, Chief,” she said two minutes later. “Bellamy returned that car on March tenth. Three days after the team bus left Neptune. So on the morning the team checks out of the Neptune Grand, Mitch rolls his bag with his victim inside right through the lobby and disappears behind the bus. We assume he gets in with the team. Instead, he gets into his rental car, unseen by the surveillance cameras, and nineteen minutes later leaves to find an empty field where he can dump her body.”

Wallace stared at her in disbelief. “Say what?”

Veronica didn’t answer him. She stared down at the information on Mac’s screen, her eyes hard. All the math worked—the timeline, the dimensions of the bag, the shape of a girl’s broken body curved to its boundaries. Yes, they’d put together a picture of Bellamy the rapist. But it wouldn’t do them any good. Not yet.

“We’ve got to figure out a way to get to Mitch Bellamy,” Veronica said to Wallace. “I need you to help me right now.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

It took Veronica less than an hour to come up with a plan, but there was a lot she had to do before putting it into action. Two days later, on Friday morning, she dialed the number for the Pacific Southwest Athletics Office. She sat with her feet on the coffee table in the Mars Investigations waiting room, Wallace on the sofa across from her, Mac at her desk, and waited while the switchboard patched her through to a recruiter in the basketball program.

“This is Dwayne Williams. How can I help you?”

“Hi, Dwayne!” She pitched her voice to sound earnest and sweet natured. Wallace, who’d heard Veronica work endless variations of this con over the years, just shook his head. “My name’s Heidi Jensen, and I’m calling on behalf of my little brother Otis. He plays ball for Neptune High?”

The quick intake of breath on the other end of the line told her he recognized the name. She gave her friends a thumbs-up and plowed ahead.

“Anyway, Otis is going to be a senior this year, and we want him to have a chance to look at all his options before the pressure to sign really starts. I think he met one of your coaches in the spring—Coach Bellamy? Otis really seemed to like him. We were hoping we could come down and talk with him a little more.”

“We’d love to show your brother around, Ms. Jensen,” Dwayne said eagerly. “I’ve had the privilege of seeing him play a few times. But I’d heard Texas was ready to sign him.”

“Well, Otis thinks he might be happier sticking closer to home. He’s definitely interested in seeing what Pacific Southwest might have to offer.”

Across the table from her, Wallace had looked up from where he was looking at the university’s website, and mouthed Nothing very clearly. She shrugged. On the phone, Dwayne’s voice had picked up speed. “That’s fantastic! Let’s get something on the books in maybe late September. He can sit in on a practice, stay the weekend…”

“I was really hoping we could come down next week, actually. We’d really like to get a head start on things. You know how crazy the recruitment season is—we really think it’d be best if Otis had a chance to see the real PSU, without all the up-selling.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. Evidently that was not how Williams had imagined the meeting. Veronica held her breath, aware that both Mac and Wallace were watching her closely for a sign of what was happening.

“Well, the thing is, the summers aren’t exactly the best time for a visit. It’s pretty bare bones—the guys are mostly just in the weight room or doing laps. The NCAA restricts our practice time quite a bit.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” Veronica said. “I’m sure we’ll find out what we need to.”

After a little more wrangling back and forth they settled it. Otis would come down on Saturday and stay the night. He was eager to see the whole campus…but he was particularly eager to meet Assistant Coach Bellamy.

When she hung up the phone, Wallace flopped backward, hiding his face in his hands. “You know, one of these days, you’re gonna get me fired,” he said, his voice muffled.

She’d had to tell Wallace who she was investigating—and why—to get him to go along with her plan. It hadn’t been hard. Wallace had been friendly with Meg Manning and, as it turned out, Neptune’s best basketball player in two decades owed Wallace. Wallace had caught Otis buying beer at the local Sac N Pac earlier that summer and hadn’t turned him in to the varsity coach. Instead, Wallace had met him early in the gym for two weeks of extra sets of suicides, a punishment Otis welcomed over expulsion from the team. Wallace had forged a relationship with Otis from his days coaching him on the freshman squad. And since Otis was already eighteen, he didn’t need a parent to accompany him on a recruiting trip.

Now Veronica gave Wallace a mock-incredulous look. “Fired? For giving Dwayne Williams the best news he’s gotten all week? For telling him a six-nine kid who’s being wooed by Stanford and Texas wants to give little old Pac-SW a look-see?”

“So it’s all set up?” Mac asked. “You think you’ll be able to get a DNA sample?”

Veronica held up one of the DNA swabs she’d taken to keeping in her purse. “Don’t you know they call me Veronica, Reaper of Cells? Or they might, by the end of this case. Anyhow, we’ve got an in. I’ll have a better chance of getting a sample from there than I will sitting here and waiting for DNA evidence to rain from the sky.”

Mac wrinkled her nose. “There is no good way to visualize that one.”

—

Pacific Southwest University, home of the Kestrels, was a private research university occupying just over two hundred acres of green lawns and orderly avenues in northern San Diego. At the center of the campus was the Eddie Castillo Stadium and Sports Complex, the home to Pac-SW’s Division I basketball team—and home to Mitch Bellamy’s offices.

That was where Veronica, Wallace, and Neptune High’s star varsity forward, Otis Jensen, headed on Friday afternoon, led by Dwayne Williams. Dwayne turned out to be a young African American man with a dimple in one cheek and an easy, energetic manner. He was almost as tall as Otis, whose head had skimmed the roof of Veronica’s RAV4 on the drive down.

“Big O! It’s great to meet you,” Dwayne had said when he’d met them in front of the main building, clipboard in hand. He shook Otis’s hand vigorously. “We’re really excited you’re checking us out.”

“Hi,” said Otis. Otis looked like a combination of farm boy and draft horse, with shaggy blonde hair, pale freckled skin, and legs like a Clydesdale’s. In spite of his size, he had stereotype-busting speed.

Dwayne turned to Wallace and Veronica next. “Now I know Coach Fennel by reputation—I started as a freshman the year after you graduated. Saw you take Hearst all the way to the conference finals that year, man—that was something else.”

Wallace grinned. Any lingering complaints he had about the plan were obliterated by the ego stroke.

Dwayne turned to Veronica and looked her up and down—more as if trying to figure out just who she was than to check her out. “And you must be…”

“Oh, that’s my mom,” Otis blurted.

Dwayne blinked a few times, clearly doing some quick math. Veronica laughed lightly.

“Stepmom. Dee-Anne,” she drawled in an accent cloned from half-remembered CMA Awards acceptance speeches on Entertainment Tonight. “I mean, it was borderline criminal when I married his dad—I was practically a child bride!”

She’d dressed for the part of wholesome older sister—pink cardigan, white button-down blouse, a mid-length skirt. It didn’t work nearly as well for the former jailbait “spring” in a May-December marriage, but it would have to do.

She shook hands with Dwayne, hoping he didn’t remember her voice well enough from the phone to realize that Dwayne’s sister sounded exactly like his stepmother. “But I don’t want to get in the way. I’m just along for the ride, here to make sure Otis gets the most out of the visit.”

“Well, nice to meet you, Mrs. Jensen. Let’s head up to Castillo, shall we?”

“We shall!” she cooed. Wallace’s eyebrows shot up, a look that clearly said overselling just a bit. She ignored him and fell into step behind Dwayne as they headed up a narrow campus road.

As they walked, Dwayne kept up a running patter of information about the program. “We’ve got a brand-new practice space with top-of-the-line equipment, steam room, sauna, Jacuzzi—anything you need. Every player on the team gets one-on-one attention from the coaches. And besides that we’ve got massage therapists, personal trainers, and a team nutritionist who fixes lunch for us every day. Between you and me…” He leaned conspiratorially toward Otis. “Oksana’s meals are a definite step up from the dining hall.”

The campus was as abandoned as Hearst had been a few weeks earlier. The few people around appeared to be administrators on coffee break or summer students on their way to class. The group approached an enormous modern sports complex surrounded by a graceful Xeriscape of flowering desert trees, river stones, and yucca.

Well, I’ve got my ticket in, she thought. Now all I have to do is find what I came for. Preferably without being arrested or getting Wallace fired.

Instead of going in the main entrance, they followed Dwayne around to the side. He pulled a magnetic card from the key pocket of his casual slacks and swiped it through a reader by the glass door.

“Will Otis need one of those to look around?” she asked, touching Dwayne’s arm and noting that the top of the card protruded slightly from the pocket where it had been re-tucked. Dwayne smiled at her. He had the perfect face for a recruiting agent. His playful, innocently flirty grin was probably great at deflecting fussy moms. And he was unflappable enough to pretend not to notice when Otis had to sound out the sign over the door reading AQUATHERAPY.

“He’ll be with me or with one of the guys, so he shouldn’t need one for now. Don’t worry, we’re not going to lock him out!” With that, he turned and opened the door.

The halls had a sheen and smell unique to brand-new institutional buildings. Enlarged action shots of past and present Kestrels stars lined the walls. Trophy cases were packed with awards and plaques under dramatically angled spotlights. They passed the weight room and the locker rooms on the way to the gym. From the far end of the hall, Veronica could hear the echoes of bouncing basketballs and squeaking sneakers.

“We’ll come back, don’t worry,” said Dwayne. “I’ll show you all around. But first, I want to introduce you to the guys.”

In the gym, nine players were practicing free throws. For every miss they ran a lap. Their deep voices echoed off the walls as they talked smack aimed at rattling shooters.

Two steps through the door, Veronica came up short. Otis knocked into her from behind.

“Sorry, Mom,” he mumbled. But she didn’t answer.

Sitting in the bleachers with a clipboard on his knee, watching every movement on the court, was none other than Mitch Bellamy.

She’d seen his picture online, of course. For the past week she’d been finding out everything she could about Mitchell Walter Bellamy, the Drain Man. He was forty-one, divorced and single, with two teenaged kids who lived with their mother. His college career had been, as Wallace said, legendary. It had looked like a sure bet he’d move on to the NBA. Clippers coach Larry Brown openly gushed over the idea of Bellamy as part of a three-guard rotation with Ron Harper and Mark Jackson.

Then, late in Bellamy’s junior year, he shredded his MCL and ACL. Multiple surgeries restored guy-on-the-street mobility but not the joint strength to handle an eighty-two-game pro season. His playing career at anything above a YMCA level was over. Coaching offers flooded in, though. And for two decades that had been his career—including the past twelve seasons with PSU.

Bellamy had thinning, sandy-brown hair and the look of a muscular man gone slightly to fat. In pictures she’d seen of him on the court, he usually wore a suit and tie, but for today’s practice he had on a pair of cargo shorts and a T-shirt. He watched his players intently, making marks on his clipboard every now and then, his watery blue eyes focused on the court.

Dwayne walked over and leaned in to say something in Bellamy’s ear. The assistant coach glanced over at Otis, Wallace, and Veronica in the doorway, and nodded. A moment later, he blew his whistle.

“Hey, guys, looking way better today. Spencer, you’re leaning in too far. Do that in the opener and Braxton’s gonna cross you over all night. Abioto—like your off-the-ball D. You’ve got your head in it today. Okay, fellas, let’s take a break. I want you to meet someone.”

The players all turned to look at the newcomers. Veronica recognized a few from the surveillance video—kids who’d been there the night of the attack—along with some new faces. Bellamy walked toward them, hand outstretched.

“Otis, it’s great to see you again, son.” He shook hands with Otis, and then he turned to Veronica. He was about six-foot-six, more than a foot and a half taller than she was, and it was disconcerting to stand in his shadow. His expression, now that he’d stopped watching the players with a critical eye, was mild and almost paternal.

“Mrs. Jensen, is that right?” He held out his hand.

Is this the hand that left those bruises on Grace Manning’s neck? It was enormous, meaty, but surprisingly cool and dry as they shook. She ignored the shudder it sent up her arm and tried to seem breezy. “So nice to meet you, Coach Bellamy.”

“Can we get you anything? Water? Coffee?”

“I’ll take a Gatorade,” Otis said. Dwayne disappeared immediately.

“I’m good, thanks.” Veronica smiled. “Coach Fennel?”

“Uh, yeah, I’m good too.” He glanced at Veronica, and she gave an infinitesimal nod. “Nice to meet you, sir. Saw you guys play Hearst in the spring—first week of March?”

Bellamy’s grinned and thumped Wallace on the shoulder, all ball-busting camaraderie. “Oh yeah! I remember that game. Man, that was gruesome.” He whistled softly and shook his head. “After a while, I just had to turn my head. Did Hearst ever bother showing up?”

So no sign that he remembers that date as anything but a basketball win. Not that that means anything.

“It must be exhausting being on the road for games all the time,” Veronica broke in. “I hope they at least put you boys up at the Grand. There ain’t nowhere else worth staying in Neptune.”

“You know, in fact, that’s just where we stayed,” Bellamy said with a nod. “No complaints. I slept like a baby.”

For a moment, their eyes met. She stared hard at him for as long as she dared, trying to somehow see inside his head, trying to read him. Was it her imagination, or was there a hint of a smirk around his mouth? She honestly couldn’t tell.

At that moment, Dwayne returned from the hallway, Gatorade in hand. “Here ya go, Big O!”

Veronica grabbed him by the arm and squeezed. “Look at this guy. He’s already been so great to us. What a cutie pie he is too!”

She’d seen enough women bring Wallace plates of cookies and brush invisible lint off his coat to know that flirty moms were a definite type. And she was pretty sure that Dwayne Williams—cute, charismatic, and expressly charged with keeping recruits and their families entertained—had met more than his share. She hoped his comfort level with grabby moms would keep him from minding that she’d slipped her arm around his waist. Or noticing as her thumb and forefinger snagged the jutting tip of his key card.

His eyes widened as he felt her hand against his hip. He edged slightly away from her, but the finger he waved at her was more playful than admonishing. “You’re going to make me blush, Mrs. Jensen,” he said, his eyes sparkling.

Playing it off as a game, keeping everyone’s feelings from getting hurt. The guy was a pro. Luckily, so was Veronica.

She palmed the card, and slid it into her pocket without anyone noticing.

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 550