Killer Ambition - [58]

35

We didn’t talk during the flight. It was packed, so the case was strictly off-limits, and we were too tired for small talk, so the moment we were airborne, we both fell asleep. But in the last hour of the flight a baby-whose Benadryl had probably worn off-woke up and began to cry nonstop. I felt sorry for the little one, but I confess, the noise was getting to me. And from Bailey’s expression, I saw I wasn’t the only one. “Want to send over a shot of Jack Daniel’s?” I asked.

Bailey turned to face the window and closed her eyes.

Now fully, and unhappily, awake, I distracted myself by thinking about what our next moves should be. Apparently, Bailey did the same. The moment we cleared the Jetway, she leaned in and spoke in a low, urgent voice. “We’re getting a telephonic for Averly’s place.”

It was nearly six o’clock, so the only way to get a search warrant right now was telephonically. The only problem with that idea was that it meant we’d have no choice of judge. We’d get whichever one had pulled the after-hours duty. Though I thought we had enough probable cause to hit Averly’s apartment-and his car, for that matter-you just never knew when you’d get stuck with a judge who wasn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier. I started framing the pitch in my head as we raced through the terminal and out to the parking lot.

While Bailey drove, I called in and asked for the duty judge. And got Judge Pastor. A lucky break, because he was both smart and quick on the uptake. With the phone on speaker, I gave him the rundown, and when I’d finished, he immediately said, “You’ve got it. Put Detective Keller on.” I held the phone closer to Bailey and the judge swore her in. By the time she drove up the ramp to the freeway, we had our warrant. I called the station and Bailey found Detective Harrellson.

“I need help. We’ve got a warrant for an apartment and a car.”

Harrellson knew better than to ask on a cell phone whose place we were about to hit. “Send me the address. I’ll get a team together.”

I e-mailed him Averly’s address and the license plate of his car. We got lucky and hit a pocket of light traffic, so it didn’t take us long to get there. I noticed that Jack Averly’s apartment wasn’t far from Brian’s place geographically. But otherwise it was a world away. Though Brian’s place had been impersonal, his building was alive with working people still dialed in to the world. Averly’s looked like a broken toy abandoned in a vacant lot. Worn down and used up. The lobby’s glass door was dingy, the paint on the splintered wood frame was peeling and bare in places, and the carpet runner was stained to the point where it was impossible to tell what color it had been originally. Even in shoes, walking on it was gross.

Averly’s apartment was even worse. Nothing more than a Dumpster with running water. A plastic ashtray overflowed onto the cheap particleboard coffee table with smoked-down roaches, and a baggie of weed lay on the floor next to a beanbag chair. Against the opposite wall, on top of an old, dusty television set, was a pizza box. The buzzing sound coming from inside it told me the flies were taking care of Averly’s leftovers. The bedroom was exactly that: a room with a bed-or rather a mattress-on the floor. Not even a dresser. He’d stacked some of his clothes in U.S. Postal Service plastic bins-the kind you see left next to mailboxes on the street-and the rest he’d just thrown around the room. There was no apparent rhyme or reason to it, just a matter of whim that likely depended on his state of sobriety. I left the bathroom and kitchen to the cops and didn’t even look. It was bound to be the stuff nightmares are made of. Not having to search places like that was a perk of being a DDA. I noticed the cops were happier than usual to glove and mask up before tossing this sty. And they only had to do the general combing for the big, obvious things that might link Averly to the kidnap and murders-like Hayley’s or Brian’s property, or the ransom money. I couldn’t even think about what the criminalists would have to endure when they dug for the fine-point search.

I watched them work for a while, but the place smelled so gamy that eventually I had to get outside. Even the smog and monoxide were a vast improvement over the fetid air in that stink pad.

The luckier officers got to stand watch over Averly’s car, which was parked outside in the carport. It was an old blue Mustang and in only slightly better shape than his apartment. Inside, I could see that the backseat was strewn with McDonald’s bags, Taco Bell wrappers, plastic cups, and empty beer bottles. Surprisingly, the front seat was relatively tidy-just a couple of Coke cans on the driver’s seat.

Bailey was standing behind the car, examining the tires. “Hey, Bailey,” I called out. “We can add a charge of open container if we need to hold him longer.” I pointed to the empty beer bottles. She gave me a sarcastic thumbs-up.

Just then, Dorian’s Tacoma came roaring up the street.

Dorian strode up with her box of magic tricks. I’d never seen someone so short have a stride so long. As she opened her box and gloved up, Bailey came over and asked her to check out the tires and undercarriage in particular. She did it respectfully, but of course it didn’t matter.