Masked Prey (Lucas Davenport #30)(78)
Lucas shook his head.
“She said, ‘No.’ Usually, they put the ‘no’ in a complete sentence, which makes you think there’s some wiggle room. Something between an adjective and a verb. Not this time. It was ‘No,’ and she said it with a smile and I could see her fang teeth. They’re gonna nail him to the wall and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
* * *
—
LUCAS PICKED UP BOB and Rae and they went out the door, talking about next moves, when Chase called and said, “I’m told you’re all done. You get what you wanted?”
“Yes. I did,” Lucas said. “What happened with the gun dealer?”
“He’s got a shop outside of Richmond and the building owner has a key and the code to the alarm system. He’s got an unlocked file with his sales receipts in it and the building owner is going to let us in with this guy’s permission. He said he thought he remembered the sale of the gun. He thinks he sold it to a woman.”
“That’d be a little unusual. Woman shooter.”
“Yes. Anyway, I’m on the way there, to the shop. We could meet there.”
“Got nothing else to do,” Lucas said. “See you there.”
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
Wilson’s Outdoors was located between a pharmacy and a sandwich shop in a low-rent strip mall outside the town of Glen Allen, an hour-and-a-half drive south of Alexandria on I-95, and a few miles north of Richmond.
On the way down, Bob and Rae listened to Lucas’s account of his interview with William Walton, then amused each other by speculating on what Lucas might possibly have gotten out of the interview.
“Actually, we do know what he got,” Bob said, as they closed in on Richmond. “He got a guy really, really pissed off at him. So when the guy gets out of prison, lo, these many years in the future, he’ll probably buy another gun and go to Minneapolis and shoot Davenport.”
“Damn hard time finding me in Minneapolis,” Lucas said. “I live in Saint Paul.”
“Well, pardon me for fuckin’ breathing,” Bob said.
“Did you really get something from him?” Rae asked.
“Yes. I’m actually pleased with myself. I’m like a genius.”
“We all say that,” Rae said. She turned to Bob. “Don’t we? You were saying that last night.”
“No, I said he was a penis, not a genius.”
Rae snapped her fingers. “That’s right. Penis, not genius.”
* * *
—
THEY ARRIVED AT THE STRIP mall and Rae said, “That’s a federal Ford pulling in there, or I’ve gone blind, one or the other.” She pointed to a dark blue Ford Excursion, and Lucas, who was driving, turned that way, and Rae pointed again and said, “Gun shop.”
The gun shop was dark, a narrow space, two barred windows with a barred door between them, and a “Closed” sign in the window. They parked and got out as the Ford pulled to a curb. Two suited men got out, followed by Chase, from the backseat, talking, as ever, into her cell phone.
Lucas, Bob, and Rae walked over, and Chase said, “You got here quick. The mall owner’s on his way over.”
Five minutes later, a tall bearded-and-turbaned Sikh showed up, carrying a wad of keys. He introduced himself as Mandeep Kaur. “I hated to hear what Lee had to say, that the gun might have come from here,” he said. “Lee’s a good man and this has upset him. I know he tries to weed undesirables from his clientele.”
“How would he go about doing that?” Chase asked.
“He interviews them, if he has any doubts,” Kaur said, as he found a key and unlocked the front door. “He says he can pick up on it, if a potential buyer has mental problems. Maybe he looks for anger? Pushes them, to see if he can get them riled up.”
They stepped inside the shop to the sound of a beeping alarm. Kaur flipped on the lights, found another key, walked a half dozen steps down the main entry aisle, then stepped between two racks of camo shirts to the side wall, used the key to open a steel box mounted next to a showcase, and punched in a code that killed the alarm.
“Lee’s office is in the back.”
He led the way around a showcase full of pistols to a door that led to the back of the store, then into a small side room that held a desk and a dozen hip-high black filing cabinets.
“He’s old school, there should be some three-ring binders . . .”
They found four fat three-ring binders, two with sales documents listed by the buyer’s name, and two listed by serial numbers on the gun. They found the sale in the second numbers binder, near the end of the file.
“Rachel Stokes,” Chase said. “Sale was last December. It’s all here, address, she lives in a place called The Plains.” She looked up, her glasses sliding down her nose. “I’m cranking the SWAT again.”
“We’ll lead off,” Lucas said. He tipped his head at Bob and Rae: “This is what we do.”
“Reconnaissance only, until I get the SWAT team there,” Chase said.
Lucas said, “Of course” and she gave them the address. Rae poked it into an iPhone app that said they were an hour and a half away from the address, back up I-95. They jogged to the truck, Chase shouting behind them, “Wait for me, wait for me.” She spent a minute talking to the two agents she’d arrived with and then all four of them were in the truck and rolling.