Gated Prey (Eve Ronin #3)(72)

The idea of doing home invasions was born from desperation, resentment, and chance. Green’s landscaping business was being crushed by “mow-and-blow illegals,” as he called them, who radically undercut him on price.

“The stinking rich are fucking cheap,” Green said. “Which is how they stay rich and why they stink.”

His problem was that he operated a legitimate business that paid taxes, was licensed and bonded, and carried insurance, all costs his “mow-and-blow” competitors didn’t have. That meant he was already priced out of the market before he could even make a bid for a job.

“I had to let office staff go,” Green said. “I was behind on all my bills and facing bankruptcy.”

That was about four months ago. It was also when he saw Grayson Mumford working the gate at Mountain Oaks. They had a few beers that night and discovered they were both at dead ends in their lives and that they shared deep bitterness toward the wealthy people they were working for. Over a few more nights, and a few more beers, they hatched their home invasion scheme. The only issue was finding a crew that would blend into the neighborhood.

“White people,” Eve said.

“That’s right,” Green said. “Nobody notices some white guys in the neighborhood who don’t belong because all whites belong.”

“How did you find Dalander, Colter, and Nagy?”

“Mumford stayed in touch with them from the soccer team days, mostly because their lives had gone nowhere, just like his. Dalander was still working at Burger King, Colter was still living with his parents, and Nagy was a no-talent writer barely getting by as a reader, gleefully preventing other writers from getting the work he wanted, not that it got him anywhere. The three of them were broke, bored, and eager to come on board, as much for the excitement as the money. They walked out of the houses they robbed with hard-ons, not that anybody but Dalander had a woman who might appreciate it.”

That was a mental image Eve didn’t need.

Green explained that Eve was right, that Mumford’s job was picking the houses to hit, checking out the homeowners, and running interference on security issues, while Green did the close-up surveillance of the target homes, then planned and executed the jobs. Most of the bags, wallets, shoes, and watches they stole were sold online and the jewelry was fenced through a shop in Sherman Way run by another former soccer coach. The split was 60 percent for Green, 10 percent each for the other four participants.

He got the lion’s share because he was carrying the operating expenses, like creating the Amazon van and offering his landscaping services to homeowners at well below cost just so he could stay in the gated community. By the time he covered all the costs, he walked away with a little over 10 percent himself. Or at least that’s what he told the other four and they believed him.

Green was aware that his three men skimmed some for themselves, but he wasn’t going to jeopardize the operation over it.

Mumford picked the sting house and said the old man and his jailbait girlfriend would be easy pickings.

“Of course, it all went to hell,” Green said. “I was about to shit my pants when I saw Colter run out of the house and carjack an Escalade. I’m just glad he had the good sense not to come to me.”

Now Eve knew that Green had lied when he’d told her before that he wasn’t in Vista Grande that day, but she let that go for now. “Colter was running for his life. But when he saw he couldn’t escape, he changed his plans. He decided to use his last few minutes of freedom to confront Mumford instead.”

“I can’t blame him for that or Mumford for shooting him first.”

“Did you call Sherry Simms and warn her?”

Himmel cleared his throat. Eve and Green both looked at him. “That wasn’t an objection. You can answer her question.”

“Yeah, I called her the second after it happened,” Green said. “I knew you’d be showing up at her place and she needed to ditch her computer. Instead, she ditched herself, too.”

“There’s just one thing I don’t get,” Eve said. “After things went so spectacularly, violently wrong, why were you casing Oakdale a day later in your fake Amazon van?”

“I was looking for another house to hit. We had a good thing going and I couldn’t afford to give it up.”

“But you didn’t have a crew.”

Green dismissed her comment with a shrug. “There are a lot of guys I coached whose lives have gone nowhere. I even found the perfect house to hit.”

“Which one?”

“You’ll like this. The McCaigs’.” He smiled ruefully. “This just isn’t my week.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE


Eve went with Green to his office, where the LASD technical team installed hidden cameras in the front office but didn’t bother with the warehouse. Green insisted he and Mumford wouldn’t have any reason to go in back. Green was given a cell phone that would constantly broadcast to the LASD mobile command center, which was parked among the mobile homes and campers at a recreational vehicle rental facility down the street and around the corner from Green’s office.

Shaw was in the command center, where the video and audio would be recorded and he could coordinate the operation. Two deputies were hiding in a van parked at the muffler repair shop next door. Eve and Duncan would be parked in her Subaru at the storage facility across the street, watching and listening to everything going down in Green’s office on her phone. Once Mumford arrived, an LASD patrol car would arrive to block the end of Douglas Fir Road, just to be safe.