Ridley Pearson - Killer Weekend

“If I can.”

“Of course you can, Kev. The truth is always a good place to start. You might want to remember that.”

“There was a guy,” Kevin said.

“A guy,” Walt repeated after a protracted silence.

“In the laundry. When we got there. Up there by the register dressed like a ninja. Scared the hell out of us.”

“A ninja?”

“You know, a ski mask. Black clothes. Over in the bags of laundry.”

“A worker? A ski mask? Didn’t you say the alarm went off when you kicked in the door?”

“It beeped and went off. Yeah.”

There’d been no report of a manager or employee being inside the laundry at the time. “What was the guy doing?”

“Scaring the shit out of us.”

Walt suppressed a grin, then sobered to what he was hearing. “Eric went for the window because of this guy.”

“Yeah.” Kevin sounded regretful.

“You were, or were not, trying to steal clothes?” Walt pressed.

“Dry cleaners use a solvent…,” Kevin said softly.

“Meth,” Walt said, closing his eyes tightly. “For cooking meth.”

Kevin let out a slow, ragged breath. “Yeah.”

“Who?”

“Crab.”

“Taylor Crabtree. He put you up to this?”

“Yeah. Said if we were caught, on account we don’t have records, criminal records, we’d get off a lot easier than him.”

Walt fought valiantly to control his temper. “And this other guy-your age, or what?”

“Didn’t seem like it.”

Walt found himself hung up on the alarm having sounded with someone else already inside. “Give me a minute.”

He stepped into the hall to use his cell phone and called Trident Security, the valley’s only security firm. He identified himself and asked to pull up the entry log for the Suds Tub on the previous night, marveling at how quickly he was provided the information.

“There was a log-on at six-forty P.M.,” he was told. “Log-out at one-oh-seven A.M. Another log-on, one-oh-eight. We received an alarm at one-nineteen; called the establishment at one-nineteen, and passed it on to KPD at one-twenty-one A.M.”

Walt clarified that a log-on meant logging on to the security system, an act that would suggest someone leaving the laundry, and that a logoff implied a return.

“Yes, sir. Once we caught that alarm, we called the client in case it was a false. Owner’s supposed to pick up and give us a password. That didn’t happen. No one picked up, so we dispatched KPD.”

Walt asked for a hard copy to be faxed to him. He thanked the guy and hung up, and returned to Kevin. The obvious explanation was an owner or employee-someone who knew the access code. But part of Kevin’s story didn’t add up.

“A ski mask over his head? You’re sure about that? It was dark, right?” This was not the description of an employee hitting the cash register.

“I saw him. He helped Eric. Put Eric’s fingers on his neck to stop the bleeding.”

“The ninja helped Eric?” Walt felt confused.

“You said he saved his life.”

“The doctor said that,” Walt corrected. “He helped Eric?”

“And then, when he turned toward me…” Kevin’s face bunched and Walt could see it was painful. “And I…I just ran.”

Walt helped him to sit. The boy blew his nose and sipped some water through a straw.

“You did the right thing telling me, Kev. We’re going to work this out.”

“I fucked up. I’m so sorry.”

“Couple of things,” Walt said. “One, you’ve got to clean up your language. Two, you say nothing to Eric and, above all, nothing to Crabtree about any of this. I don’t want you talking to these guys. Not a word. Do we understand each other?”

“I got it.”

A nurse cleared her throat. She stood inside the door. Walt had no idea how long she’d been there.

“Need to change a dressing, Sheriff,” she said.

Walt nodded. Kevin reached out and grabbed Walt’s arm. “Can you stay while she does this? It kinda hurts.”

“Sure,” Walt said. He held Kevin’s clenched fist as the nurse removed the bloodied bandage and replaced it with a new one. That side of his face had taken a beating.

“The doctor’s going to come look at this,” the nurse informed the patient. “He may want to take one or two more stitches.” Among the bandages and disinfectant, Walt noticed the sealed needles and suture.

“That’s some small suture,” Walt said to the nurse.

“Five-zero. Very small. Used for face, eyes, ears, nose.”

“You mind?” Walt said, letting go of Kevin’s hand.

She passed him one of the sealed plastic bags. It contained a slightly curved needle and a coil of very fine suture. Walt thought back to the contents of the carry-on bag found at the airport. “This is point-zero-zero-five,” he said, just to clarify.

“We call it five-zero, yes,” she said, “five one-thousandths of an inch.”

“What about three? Plain old three? Just the number three?”

“As suture? Number three suture?” She sounded surprised. “Not in people. Vets, maybe-big-animal work. There’s a joke when you’re studying this stuff: Number five suture is used for towing cars. That’s the joke,” she said, when Walt failed to smile.

“I’ve got to make another call,” Walt said.

“I understand,” Kevin said.

“Remember what we talked about.”

“I’ve got it.”

He left at close to a run. His first call was to Fiona. He asked to see any crime-scene photos of Suds Tub.

“And I was wondering if you could get copies of the contents of that carry-on bag to Mark Aker. I realize it’s a Saturday. I could have a deputy-”

“It’s no problem, Walt. I’ll meet you there.”

W alt didn’t bother to call ahead to the vet’s to check if Mark was in. Given the break-in and the now countywide effort to retrieve the missing pets, Mark wasn’t going anywhere.

Walt entered Aker’s vet clinic with his cell phone glued to his ear. Both of the Cutter brothers’ passports had been delivered to his office. Dr. McClure was consulting an optometrist to verify the prescription of the contact lens found in Cutter’s Land Cruiser.

Fiona entered only minutes behind him. “Got them,” she declared, holding up an envelope.

The receptionist indicated a door below the sign marked DOGS.

Mark Aker needed sleep and his beard held cracker crumbs.

Walt spread the photos out on the counter, as he said, “Suture, needles, bandaging, hypodermic needles. What’s that add up to?”

Aker studied the photos. “Closing an incision.”

“Anesthesia, or some kind of painkiller-is any of that missing from your meds closet?”

“We won’t know for at least a couple days,” Aker answered. “We’re still missing nine dogs, seventeen cats, and a handful of house pets including a pair of Peruvian rabbits, confiscated by Fish and Game. Of those nine dogs, two are my own-Search and Rescue training. Ten, fifteen thousand each. One I’d sold already.”

Walt tapped the enlargement of the packaged suture in the photographs. “Number three suture,” he said. “Not three-zero. Just plain three.” He looked to Aker for some kind of reaction.

“Number three is strictly large animal,” Aker said. “Horse, or cow, or sheep. Rarely used, even around here.”

“Not people,” Walt said. “That’s what a nurse told me at the hospital.”

“No. Never.”

“When I first saw this bag and its contents I was thinking: an assassin’s first aid kit. But now, I don’t know what to think.”

“Maybe some vet lost it,” Fiona suggested. “Left it on the flight.”

Aker rearranged the photographs.

Walt could feel him trying to make sense of it.