J. Jance: Fatal Error

While ER personnel attended to Brenda, Hollingshead commandeered a conference room and herded Ali and Gil inside.

“I don’t know if I should thank you or throw the book at you,” he said. “You caught Ermina, and from what she did to that poor woman in there, she surely needed catching, but you may have blown the cover off an operation we’ve been working on for months. The problem is, this is a white-collar crime case with overriding national security issues. Without a proper security clearance, I can’t even discuss it with you.”

“We know about the UAVs, if that’s what you mean,” Ali said.

Hollingshead looked at her sharply. “How would you know anything about that?”

Gil reached into his jeans and pulled out the two thumb drives. “From these,” he said, placing the drives on the table in front of Hollingshead. “My homicide victim in Grass Valley, Richard Lowensdale, had these hidden in his garage. Ali was able to run the files past one of her computer people. They’re the ones who came up with the drone angle.”

Ali appreciated that creative bit of understatement. There was no mention of High Noon Enterprises in anything that had been said, and she doubted Sam Hollingshead would be terribly interested or motivated to track down the details. He seemed to be preoccupied with his own concerns.

“All right, then,” Hollingshead said, “so you know about that too. We figured Richard was involved in the Blaylocks’ drone project. We had court-ordered access to his computers, and we used his own CCTV to maintain surveillance on his house.”

“So you know about the cyberstalking?” Ali asked.

“Yes,” Hollingshead said, with a dismissive shrug. “As far as I could tell, it was just a harmless hobby. He didn’t appear to be doing anything wrong.”

Ali did a slow burn at that statement, which said more about SAC Hollingshead than it did about Richard Lowensdale.

“What he did to those poor women may have been legal, but it was most definitely wrong,” Ali said.

“Yes,” Hollingshead agreed, “I suppose it was, but that didn’t concern us. It wasn’t part of our investigation. We were convinced that Richard was working for Ermina, but since we haven’t been able to find any record of payments, I surmised that perhaps they had some other involvement that overrode any monetary considerations.”

“You mean you thought Richard and Mina were involved sexually?” Gil asked.

Hollingshead didn’t bother denying it. “Look,” he said, “she drove up there last weekend like she usually did every month or so. She went into Lowensdale’s house in Grass Valley. She went inside for a while and then she came back out again. Maybe she stayed inside a little longer than she usually did, but we had no idea that she had killed the guy while she was there.”

“So you had surveillance in place, but you didn’t actually follow her?”

“The CCTV at Lowensdale’s house went on the fritz while she was there.”

“The video feed ended,” Gil offered.

“Correct.”

“What about her car? Did you attempt to follow it?” Ali asked.

“We didn’t need to,” Hollingshead said. “We had a GPS bug on her car. We know where she went and when right up until tonight when she ditched the car and gave us the slip.”

“So you didn’t know she had picked up Brenda Riley?” Ali asked.

“From what we can tell, Ermina drove to Brenda’s mother’s place on P Street in Sacramento. We’re assuming that’s when she met up with Brenda, but we don’t know positively.”

“But you knew she drove to the Scotts Flat Reservoir?” Gil asked.

“Yes, and we wondered about it after the fact, but she was only there for a few minutes, then she headed home. Since the spot didn’t appear to have any bearing on our case, we just let it go.”

“What about Ermina’s background?” Ali asked. “Did you have any idea about what she’s suspected of doing to her adoptive father in Missouri?”

Hollingshead paused for a moment, then he nodded. “Yes,” he said. “One of our agents spoke to Detective Laughlin months ago. He sounded like an old guy all hung up on a long closed case. We learned about Lowensdale’s death sometime yesterday, but you need to understand, there was nothing we could do about it. Our hands were tied. If we had acted on any of that information prematurely, we might have risked jeopardizing the mission.”

“Yes,” Ali said, “but if you had, maybe Mark Blaylock wouldn’t be dead right now.”

“He was part of this too, you know,” Hollingshead said. “Ermina didn’t do all of it on her own.”

“You think he was part of it,” Ali pointed out. “It’s also possible that he was innocent-innocent and dead, an outcome you might have prevented.”

“I agree,” Hollingshead said. “It’s an unfortunate outcome.”

“Especially unfortunate for Mr. Blaylock,” Ali insisted.

Hollingshead seemed to be running out of patience. “Look, Ms. Reynolds,” he said placatingly, “I understand that you’re angry. You have every right to be. At least two people are dead who probably shouldn’t be, and your friend Brenda has suffered grievous harm, but we need to keep a lid on this. We must keep a lid on it.

“Our intelligence tells us that the drone shipment is due to be picked up sometime tomorrow. We’re attaching bugs to each of those individual boxes. We’re going to let them be picked up and delivered and delivered without incident. We already know that the middleman is a guy named Enrique Gallegos who has been on the FBI’s watch list and also the DEA’s for a very long time. Our intention is to take down the end users-whoever they are and wherever they might be.

“So don’t expect to read about this in the paper tomorrow morning, because it turns out nothing at all happened at the business park tonight, understand? Your damaged car has been hauled away, and so has hers. The Rutherford garage bay has been cleaned up and buttoned up. Hertz is in the process of delivering a replacement vehicle to you here, no questions asked.”

“Wait a minute,” Gil said. “You’re whitewashing this?”

“For the time being.”

“You can’t do that. I’m investigating a homicide that happened on my watch in Grass Valley. Detective Moreno down in Imperial County has one too. In both of those cases, the presumed doer is Ermina Blaylock, and I can assure you that we aren’t going to shut up and go away just because you said so.”

“And what about Brenda?” Ali demanded. “She came within inches of dying at Ermina Blaylock’s hands. And then there’s your own officer. She assaulted him with a moving vehicle, which counts as a deadly weapon in my book. You expect us to keep a lid on all that? Are you nuts?”

“Not nuts,” Hollingshead countered, “but I am in charge. For right now, we’ve taken Ermina into custody. We intend to hold her at least until the drone delivery takes place. Longer if possible.”

“Charged with what?” Gil asked.

“Falsifying a federal document. She may lawyer up, but there’s also a chance she’ll talk to us.”

“This isn’t my first day of being a cop,” Gil said. “What talking to you really means is that you’re going to try to make a deal with her, and your best bargaining chips will be reducing the charges against her-our charges, my charges.”

“I’m not saying yes, and I’m not saying no,” Hollingshead said.

“Which turn out to be standard weasel words for yes,” Ali said.

Hollingshead said nothing in reply.

“And what will happen to the UAVs?”

“We’ll be following the shipment. We’ll also be following the money.”

“With the same kind of GPS efficiency you demonstrated in following Ermina’s car?” Ali asked without trying to disguise her sarcasm.