Unstable, page 9
Cora considered the problem, staring around the forecourt, the gears meshing in her brain.
"I have an idea that might work," she said. "It'll take five minutes to plan, and if it does, you can lure him out for long enough for me to get a look."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Five minutes later, Cora waited behind the office's back wall, while Gabe put their plan into operation.
She had no idea if the plan they’d hastily cobbled together would work. If it did, she'd have enough time to have a good long look at that footage. If not, she’d try to make another damned plan. Nothing and nobody was going to deflect her from getting this information in the fastest way.
The plan started with Gabe driving the car around to the pumps.
He wore his shades, and a hat pulled over his head, so that at a glance, he wouldn't be recognizable as the man who'd stood behind Cora in the office. She hoped that the attendant hadn’t been looking too closely.
Gabe began activating the pump, ready to put in gas.
Then he frowned, wiggling the pump nozzle, holding it high in the air, and eventually - Cora liked this touch - actually clenching his fist and hitting the gas pump, hard. It made a banging sound that she could hear from her position behind the office.
The attendant must have heard it too.
Looking angry and frustrated, Gabe stomped toward the office.
"Hey!" he called out. Cora couldn't see the window from her around-the-corner position, but she could hear the attendant call back.
"Yeah? What is it?"
"This pump won't work. It's jammed."
"Well, use another one," the attendant called back.
Anticipating that the attendant would probably shout back exactly those words, they'd come up with a suitable excuse as to why they couldn’t.
"That’s impossible!" Gabe protested. "I coasted in here! I'm literally all out of gas, and now I’m stuck right here. So if you want me to use another pump, you can help push me there! Otherwise, I need to put in twenty dollars’ worth, and I’d appreciate some help to do it."
A loud sigh came from the office. The attendant had bought the story, and that was thanks to Gabe's pitch-perfect acting skills. He was every inch the irate and annoyed driver, down on his luck, and angry with life.
"I'll come and see what's wrong," he said irritably.
Stomp, stomp from inside. The door clicked open. And then, looking almost as put out as Gabe, he was heading across the forecourt to where Gabe was waiting.
This was her chance.
Quickly, Cora rushed into the office while the attendant's back was turned, and his attention focused on Gabe’s sad, lying story about why he couldn’t make this pump work. She hustled up the stairs, ran through the small, stale smelling front office, past the empty chair where the attendant had sat, and unlocked the back office door. She stepped inside the office, closed it, and turned to look at the computer where the footage was stored.
It was turned on already, playing the footage quietly on both screens. That was good, because there would not be any telltale beeping noise when it was powered up.
How far back did this footage go? That was the first question.
Slipping silently into a chair, perching on its edge, and mindful of every noise and movement she was making, she went to work, knowing that Gabe could only keep this man occupied for a minute until he discovered the pump was, actually, working. Then Gabe would blame the fact it was stiff, or old, or hadn’t worked when he tried it.
It seemed that argument was over, because already, she could hear his footsteps returning. If footfalls could sound annoyed, the attendant’s were.
"Stupid idiot customers," he muttered under his breath, and Cora couldn't help a wry grin as she worked, keeping her actions as silent as possible, so that the attendant wouldn't realize there was somebody behind him, on the other side of that closed door, in the back office.
The footage went back a week. That meant that if Louella had been near this forecourt, if she'd been standing at that exit point - which was a good place to stand - she might have been captured on it. Perhaps the person who’d taken her had been, too.
She checked the time stamps, going back further and further until she finally hit the day that Louella was last seen.
Now to go through, hour by hour, and see if there was any sign of her.
She started early in the morning, at five a.m., and began scrolling through. Nothing, nothing. Then she saw a woman passing by, who looked like an ordinary customer.
Her eyes sharpened. Wait, there. Not that woman, but the one hurrying past behind her. There was a familiar looking sight. Was that Louella?
She checked it against the description, and the old yearbook photo that Daytona had sent her.
No, it wasn't, but it was definitely somebody in that profession. With her jacket wrapped around her, her high heels, her legs showing, this clued Cora that the camera picked up where the women passed. That was a sign that this was the right stop. The one they needed.
But it didn't seem to capture the place where they stood. The woman who she'd seen on the footage had walked straight out of sight and disappeared. Cora guessed that they might know where the footage reached, and deliberately wait out of range.
She jumped, as from inside the office, she heard the attendant speak.
"Thirty dollars? Sure, there's your change."
A till jingled, a cash drawer snapped open, and she heard the mumbled response from the customer. She kept listening, just in case there was any reason for this attendant to access the back office. But he remained in his chair.
The customer's footsteps faded away, and Cora breathed a sigh of relief. She resumed her search, scrolling through slowly.
Two more possibles came and went. The time stamp was now showing nine-thirty a.m. This was painstaking work, the grainy footage made the job twice as slow, and she was getting worried that this was a waste of time and they'd learn nothing at all.
And then, just as doubt was descending, a familiar face came on the screen.
Was that her? She looked closer, eyes narrowing. No. It wasn't Louella, but another, similarly dressed woman, with long, tawny hair and red boots.
She was walking past, just as the earlier woman had done. That might be it. That might be all she got. Cora watched her, the frame showing her tossing her head back, hitching her oversized purse higher onto her shoulder.
And then, she was stopping. Cora saw that clearly. She was stopping and looking around, apprehension clearly visible in her body language.
Why was she so scared?
A moment later, Cora had the answer. A bright blue truck with a clumsy looking motif of a snarling animal on the side pulled up alongside her and a man leaned out. Was he speaking to her? She couldn’t tell. Now, he was opening the door and getting out. Not one man. Two. No, three. Three men, all going after the woman, their intent clearly visible. Cora held her breath as they chased her out of the frame.
"Seriously?" she breathed.
She tensed again, as from the front office, the attendant spoke to another customer.
"We're all out of change. Hang on, I'll have to get some."
A chair scraped. Then, footsteps trod toward the back office door.
Her time here was almost up, and knowing this, Cora’s fingers flew over the keyboard. She needed to get the vehicle's license plate details. This was red hot urgent, and even now, she could hear the footsteps coming toward the back office.
One of the men ran back and climbed inside. Only one. She didn’t see the other two. And then, the truck started moving.
Frame by frame, the footage bled slowly forward. She took a better look at the side of the truck. That picture was clearer now, and it was of a snarling dog.
And there was the truck’s plate, in the frame at last. Cora scribbled it down just as the key rattled in the lock.
She stood up. Stabbed the Escape key. Grabbed the paper and pen and her purse and headed for the door.
The door opened, and the attendant let out a cry to see her right there.
"Sorry," she said, with a cheerful smile. "Wrong door, I guess."
She brushed past the attendant, ignoring his astonished cry of "Wait!" and headed out of the office, just as if she was an innocent person who’d walked in by mistake and had every right to leave.
She didn’t expect he'd say anything about this to his boss, and she guessed he'd probably pretend it never happened. That seemed like what he’d do.
But for now, she had a number plate and footage that showed three thugs pulling up and chasing a woman who was clearly a prostitute, in the same area where so many of them had disappeared. Three men had rushed out after her, and only one had returned and gotten behind the wheel. Were the others busy grabbing that woman?
This was an important lead.
Now to locate that truck.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Cora rushed out of the gas station office, hugging the wall, and keeping out of the line of sight of the cameras herself, just in case. After all, she hadn't obtained this important evidence in a legitimate way. But she had it. She had the truck's plate, and it had been a distinctive looking vehicle.
The picture of the snarling dog on the side had been a homemade job, inexpertly done, and badly painted. It was a good distinguishing feature to look out for.
Gabe was waiting in the car. Cora climbed in and showed him the plate number.
"I got some footage,” she said. “Not of Louella. Of another woman in the same game.”
“And?” Gabe asked, sounding hopeful.
“A blue truck pulled up next to her, just outside the gas station office. Three guys piled out and chased her. One came back and drove on.”
“And the others?”
“That was all the footage showed,” she said.
“It’s significant, though,” Gabe said thoughtfully. “Is that how they’re doing this? How big was the truck?”
“Not an eighteen wheeler. Just a smaller sized transportation vehicle with a hand painted image of a snarling dog on the side. Ugly, but very distinctive."
"Excellent," Gabe said. "Plate tell us anything?"
She looked closer at the information she'd scrawled down. "This plate is local. It's from Ohio. Which fits."
Gabe nodded somberly. Like her, she guessed this fit his expectations. They were not looking for an out of state killer. She felt sure that whoever was doing this lived here. Preyed here, and killed here.
And somewhere here was where they would find him.
"I'm going to call in a favor," Cora said. She got on the phone.
As a private investigator, she didn't have access to the FBI databases. She couldn't look up the addresses that were linked to number plates. But she had old work connections who didn't mind giving her a hand, and were often glad to, if she was getting criminals off the street.
Cora called Agent Saul Brady, hoping that this man, the best of her connections, would be available. This was a private arrangement between him and her that wasn’t, strictly speaking, authorized by the FBI. She didn't want him getting into trouble for it.
"It's Cora," she said, when he picked up. "You in the office?”
“Yeah, for the next minute,” he replied.
"Could you help out and run a plate for me? It's Ohio based. It's from camera footage, for a client I'm helping."
"Details?" he asked. He didn't address her by name either, and that meant he wasn't in the office alone. That, she knew.
As she read out the plate to him, she could visualize him in the small, cramped, open plan office, already at work at eight a.m., his day filled with cases, and fighting crime, raids and surveillance and tracking criminals - all things she'd loved.
"Alright, give me a few minutes to run it through the system," he said. As the tapping of keys commenced, she thought about the things she hadn't loved.
His day would also be filled with reporting and in his particular office, occasional micromanagement, with politics, and handling requests from superiors that didn't always gel with what he, personally, knew was best for a situation.
That, Cora had resented. And that big FBI machine had ended up resenting her, too, and spitting her right out of its ranks. Now, she might be handicapped by having to ask favors, but she was far freer than she had been. She answered only to herself and her clients, and that was the way she preferred it.
"I've got the details," he said, reading them out quickly to her. He spoke in a level, calm voice and he didn't ask her for anything else, or ask how she was doing, or anything he would have done if he'd been sitting alone. Cora quickly wrote down the owner's name and address, feeling a flare of triumph when she saw it was in a neighboring town.
Thanking him quickly, she hung up.
They could be at the owner's home in half an hour.
"Let's get going," she said to Gabe.
***
Exactly twenty-five minutes later, thanks to speedy driving and some luck with the morning traffic, Cora pulled into the town of Edgemont.
This was where the truck’s owner, Billy Rogan, lived, at 8 Pleasant Drive.
That, according to her map, was the third street down.
And it didn't look pleasant. This was not the idyllic, small town dream of a quiet, suburban neighborhood with well-manicured lawns and neat, cookie-cutter houses.
This looked to be a poor, struggling neighborhood, with cheap residential real estate abutting a factory and warehousing area. She saw all the signs. Barbed wire on top of uneven walls. Graffiti on those same walls. Old cars, not quite ready for the junk heap, juddering along the road.
The rest of Edgemont might be nicer. She was sure it was. Just not this part of it, where their suspect lived.
Cora and Gabe drove slowly down Pleasant Drive, scanning the houses for any sign of the blue truck with the snarling dog on the side.
There, ahead, was number eight. The house was small, rundown, and in need of a fresh coat of paint. A lone, spindly tree stood in the front yard, the leaves of which were almost entirely wilted.
There was no truck parked in the yard. So, whatever Billy Rogan did, he was out doing it somewhere else, rather than at home, waiting for Cora to question him.
“Damn,” Gabe said, staring at the empty driveway. “What’s plan B?”
"Let's take a look online, search his name, see if we can pick up what he does?" she suggested.
"You do that," Gabe said. "I'm going to get out and check around the house, see if anyone's home. Maybe someone's in, and they can tell me who he is."
"Okay," Cora agreed.
Gabe got out, slamming the car door and striding purposefully up the uneven driveway. Meanwhile, she went online and searched, hoping she could pick up any information on him.
To her surprise, she found something on a local services website. "Rogan's Removals," the short, basic local listing told her. "Big truck available for jobs."
She looked up as Gabe returned to the car, his footsteps scrunching over the chipped brickwork.
"Nobody home, for sure," he said, getting in. "Door's locked from the outside with an industrial strength padlock."
She wondered briefly if that was for security alone, or whether he had anything that he really wanted to protect in there.
"Look at this," she said to him. "While you were checking the house, I found something."
"He's a moving company?" Gabe said.
"I'm not sure. Let's take a closer look."
Reading further, delving into the small print under the listing’s title, she found that he specialized in removing 'squatters and unwanted tenants.' She tilted the phone to show Gabe.
"More of an eviction company, then," he said. "And he specializes in jobs in Edgemont and surrounding areas. I wonder if I can trick him into telling me where he is now? There's a phone number here."
"That's worth a try," Cora said. "You got a plan?"
"Innocent conversation," Gabe said with a quick grin. "It works or it doesn't."
If she'd been with the FBI, they could have tracked that number through its GPS. But she was wary of asking Brady for such a favor. That wasn't just giving out some quick information, but rather embarking on a process that guzzled time and resources. She would if she had to, but she didn't need it now, because she had Gabe, and Gabe was proving to be sneaky.
He called the cellphone number, raising a conspiratorial eyebrow at her when it rang.
"Hello?" Billy Rogan had a gruff, deep voice. He growled the word into the phone, making Cora think again of that snarling dog motif.
"Billy Rogan? I saw your advert." Gabe made his voice hearty and loud, an advertisement of innocence. "Got a job I might need you to do. You anywhere in Edgemont this morning?"
"Yeah, I am," he said.
"You near Hill Street, on the north side?" Gabe asked, glancing hastily at the map Cora had pulled up.
"Nope. I can be there later. I'm on Cox Street, in the east, for another half hour."
"Okay. I'll get back to you."
Gabe quickly hung up and raised the other eyebrow.
"Nicely done," Cora said. Gabe had easily manipulated him into giving his whereabouts. "Cox Street it is. Let's head there now."
She started the car, and pulled out on the two mile drive. They didn't know where on Cox Street he would be, or what he was doing. At least that truck, and its picture, were distinctive. Not as big as an eighteen wheeler, but big enough not to be able to hide.
It was Gabe who spotted the vehicle first, half a mile down Cox Street, which was a hodgepodge mix of tumbledown homes, small factories, and old office blocks.
"There!" he shouted, and Cora hit the brakes.
She stared, surprised.
The truck was parked in a vacant lot next to an office block. It had been driven right into the center of it, surrounded by straggling grass and a few weeds. In real life, the blue looked even brighter, and the snarling dog looked even more out of proportion, its teeth too big, its eyes different sizes, its colors deep and lurid.
Where was Billy Rogan?
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