Gated Prey (Eve Ronin #3)(34)
Captain Shaw came in. “I have good news. While you two were in the field, the victim in the Calabasas Estates home invasion told the deputies about a stain in her purse and they matched it to a bag recovered at Dalander’s. That ties the three guys to at least one other robbery.”
“We can tie them to the rest,” Duncan said, then explained what they’d learned from the phone tracking information.
Shaw broke into a big smile. “Exceptional work. You’ve closed the case in one day. The sheriff will be very pleased.”
“It’s not closed, sir,” Eve said. “The tracking information suggests they had accomplices out there they didn’t want to incriminate.”
“Suggests being the key word,” Shaw said.
“There’s more. We still don’t know how they got into Vista Grande, or any of the other communities, or how they planned to leave, and Sherry Simms is on the run. We know she’s guilty of selling stolen goods.”
Shaw waved off her concern. “You can’t always tie up everything in a neat bow. This is good enough. Write up your reports.” He started to go, then turned back, something occurring to him. “The awards ceremony for Grayson Mumford will be at city hall on Thursday at eight a.m. The sheriff wants you both to be there.”
The captain walked out. As soon as he was gone, Eve faced Duncan.
“Good enough?” Eve repeated Shaw’s words. “That’s a pretty low bar.”
“Look at the bright side—if there were others involved in the invasions, they were probably scared straight when their three friends got killed.”
“What about Sherry Simms?”
Duncan shrugged. “She could be in Paris, Texas, or Paris, France, by now. Besides, we don’t have enough evidence to convict her of anything. She’ll claim she had no idea that what her boyfriend gave her to sell was stolen goods.”
“Do you believe that?”
“No, but I also don’t believe she’s worth chasing across the country or around the globe.”
Eve wasn’t satisfied. “We have enough grounds to get an arrest warrant on her and I want to go for it. That way, if she’s ever pulled over for speeding, she’ll be dragged back here to answer for her crimes.”
Duncan sighed. “Go ahead.”
“You’re giving up,” Eve said.
“No, Eve. I’m retiring.”
They spent the rest of the day on paperwork, writing up their reports on the home invasion case and Anna McCaig’s stillbirth.
Afterward, Eve drove to her condo on Las Virgenes, across the freeway, a half block north of the overpass. It was a very short trip, but even so, she rolled down all the windows and tried to breathe only through her mouth. Her car had been completely cleaned, but it still reeked of dog shit. Or was it her imagination? She wasn’t sure.
She parked in front of her place, a two-story, two-bedroom townhouse, and saw three weeks’ worth of yellowed, soggy issues of the Acorn, the local newspaper, piled on her front steps.
Eve stepped over the newspapers, unlocked her door, and went inside. The air was hot, stuffy, and still. There was a fine layer of dust on everything, despite the huge sheets of plastic that were taped between her open-concept kitchen and her living room. Her bike, propped behind her IKEA couch, was covered in white powder.
The plastic barrier, white dust clinging to it on the kitchen side, was attached to a temporary wooden frame of two-by-fours wedged between the ceiling and floor. There was a vertical zippered seam in the plastic to allow entry and exit to the kitchen. Eve unzipped the opening and stepped inside.
It was even dustier in the kitchen. The cabinets were up, and the marble countertops installed, but work still hadn’t begun on the backsplash, which would have made her angry before she saw the herringbone pattern at the McCaigs’. Now she had the opportunity to make a design change without causing a problem or added expense.
The drywall was in place, but Eve could see that the corner pieces had angled screws that popped out a bit. That prompted her to take a closer look. She also noticed a slight tear where the edges of two adjoining pieces didn’t quite fit and a few instances where the screws were in too deep, puncturing the paper. The holes cut for electrical outlets and switches were rough and not quite square. Clearly, her contractor was better at washing away blood than installing drywall.
Eve made a punch list on her phone of changes and fixes she wanted her contractor to make, took a few pictures, and stepped out, zipping up the plastic behind her. Despite the problems, she was pleased with how the kitchen was shaping up, mainly because it was totally different than it was before the death that had happened there. Her hope was if the kitchen didn’t look the same, she wouldn’t relive the horrible incident every time she made herself a cup of coffee. It would be like living in a new place. Then again, she thought she’d cleaned the smell of dog poop out of her car, too.
There was another sheet of zippered plastic in front of the stairs. She unzipped the opening and went up to her bedroom to get her cycling wear and helmet. There was dust everywhere upstairs, making Eve wonder why the workers bothered with the plastic at all. She got her stuff, came back down, zipped up the house behind her, and left with her dusty bike, which she loaded into the back of her Subaru.
She went back across the Las Virgenes overpass to the Taco Bell, picked up some Cheesy Gorditas at the drive-through for dinner, then got back on the freeway to her hotel on the east side of town.