Night Watch (Kendra Michaels #4)(19)

Wally nervously looked from Lynch to Kendra. “Yeah. It’s mine. I loaned it to him.”

“You mean you rented it to him,” Kendra said.

“Well…”

“Come on,” Lynch said. “We’re not trying to jam you up for the kind of business license you do or do not have. We know about your side business. Just tell us what we need to know, and we’ll be on our way.”

Wally hesitated once again. “Okay. Let’s step outside. It’s kind of noisy in here.”

They followed him out the door, making a detour past a large barrel of peanuts so Wally could grab a handful. They exited the bar and stood near the parking lot, out of earshot of a few bar patrons smoking on the sidewalk.

Lynch showed him the photo again. “Do you recognize either of these guys?”

“The shorter one with all the hair. He’s the one who rented the car from me.”

“What was his name?” Kendra asked.

Wally cracked open a few peanuts and popped them into his mouth. “Mmm. Don’t remember.”

“Maybe we have to take a ride to your office,” Lynch said.

Wally shrugged. “Maybe we would if it was 1998.” He pulled his phone from his pocket. “I keep all my docs in the cloud. Doesn’t everybody?”

Kendra smiled. “I will now.”

Wally thumbed his way through an app and drilled down to a collection of saved documents. “I do know he rented it from me about three weeks ago.”

“Three weeks? Was he with anybody?”

“Naw, he was alone. He didn’t know how long he’d be in town.”

“Did he say why he was here?” Kendra asked.

“No. He did seem kind of nervous, though. Jittery. At first, he wanted to buy an old car from me, but then he changed his mind. I don’t think he was too interested in messing with registration and all that. He seemed more comfortable staying under the radar.” Wally raised his phone. “Here he is.”

Kendra and Lynch moved closer to look at the screen, where there was a photocopied Montana driver’s license. Definitely the same man who had picked up Waldridge. She read the name. “Peter Hollister?”

“Yep.”

Lynch looked up. “The license is a fake, you know.”

“How do you figure that?”

“There should be a strip of microprint on the front right corner. It’s extremely hard to reproduce. Whoever made this license didn’t even attempt it.”

“Damn.” Wally looked at the license image. “I didn’t know that.”

“Most people wouldn’t. I’m sure that’s why he picked a license for the least populous state in the union. Did he give you a local address?”

“Yeah.” Wally swiped his finger across the screen to flip through the rental contract. On the last page, he pinched to zoom in on the signature and handwritten address. “211 Starvation Flats.”

Kendra grimaced. “Starvation Flats? That has to be a phony address.”

“No, it’s a real street. It’s just off the main road.” Wally popped some more peanuts into his mouth. “You think this guy may have done something to your friend?”

“I don’t know. I’m just hoping I can get some answers from him.”

“And I’d really like to get my car back.”

Kendra nodded. “I’m sure you’ll be hearing from the Santa Monica Police Department very soon. In any case, I’ll pass along your info to them.”

Lynch looked down the street. “Is your lot near here?”

“Yeah, just down the street. But I told you, all that info on this is—”

“That’s not what I want,” Lynch interrupted as he produced a wad of bills. “I’d like to rent one of your cars for a couple of hours. Let’s go pick one out.”

*

IN LESS THAN FIFTEEN MINUTES, Kendra and Lynch drove up Big Bear Boulevard in their rented Subaru Outback. Kendra sniffed the interior. “Did you have to pick a car drenched in the aroma of beef tacos?”

“I thought it was cheeseburgers.”

“Nope. Taco Bell beef tacos with maximum strength Fire Sauce.”

“I’ll take your word for it. It was one of the only vehicles with four-wheel drive. So it was either the taco odor or sliding into a ditch.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I’m not sure which is worse.”

He glanced down at the screen of Kendra’s phone on which she was searching the Web. “Any luck finding out who this guy is?”

“No. The name pops up a few times, but it isn’t him. It looks like a fake name came with the fake ID. Waldridge was obviously comfortable with him, though. I could see it in his body language.”

“On the surveillance video?”

“Yes. Waldridge tends to stick his chest out a bit more when he’s around men he doesn’t know well.”

“Only men?”

“Yes.”

“How Cro-Magnon of him.”

“It’s not all that uncommon. Anyway, he wasn’t doing it with this guy. If we don’t find him here, a thorough search of all his friends and associates back in England would be a good place to start. But maybe we’ll get lucky.”