Chapter Twelve: Exhibits A through E
Steve watched his dad leave his room for the second time that day. He sighed as a small wave of guilt washed over him at not thinking to call to say that he would be late. But to be honest, he was a little busy at the time. He'd had to stop two more times on the way home before the nausea started to abate. And then when he'd finally reached home, the only thing on his mind was getting to the bathroom and clearing the bitter taste from his mouth. The shower was the next logical and necessary step. Now, after getting out of the shower and brushing his teeth yet again, he was starting to feel a little closer to human.
Tightening his robe more securely, he scooted over toward the phone to make the call to Cheryl. He was sure that she would have a thing or two to say to him, too. She answered almost immediately, identifying herself in a serious no-nonsense tone.
"Cheryl, it's me, Steve."
"Hold a moment." He must have caught her in the middle of something. He could hear muffled sounds of her excusing herself, and explaining to someone that she was done for now, then he heard movement and she came back on the line.
"Where've you been?" she asked, her tone mildly scolding. "Your dad is worried about you."
"I know," Steve said, preparing himself for more. "But he found me. I was at home."
"Umm hmm. I'm sure there's a little more to the story than that," she replied. "But I'll let you slide for now. I've got news."
"Really?" Steve's attention immediately refocused. "What do you have?"
"We found a receipt from the Home Central Hardware around the corner from Bob's in Breckish's apartment. It was time and date stamped for around the time of your assault."
"So he was in the neighborhood." Steve saw the connection. Proving Breckish was involved in the assault brought him one step closer to tying Amber to it as well.
"Even better," Cheryl continued. "He's on close circuit video having keys made at exactly 12:07 p.m."
"That's odd." Steve frowned, then glanced up as his father re-entered the room carrying a tray with toast and tea. Jesse followed behind him, waving as he entered the room. "Hi Jess. Thanks Dad."
"That Cheryl?" Mark asked, his eyes brightening with interest. "She find anything?"
Steve sighed, amused. "Cheryl, I'm going to put you on speaker phone." That would save him from having to relay everything she said otherwise. "Dad and Jesse are here."
"Hi guys." Cheryl's voice echoed around the room. "As I was telling Steve, the video at the Home Central placed Breckish in the neighborhood at 12:07 p.m. have keys copied. That's about ten minutes after Steve's assault."
"That still doesn't tie Amber to this, never mind the fact that we're saying this guy got with a buddy, attacked me and then took a trip down to the local hardware store." None of it clicked in Steve's mind.
"No, that doesn't. But the clerk at the locksmith desk might. Turn's out he's some kind of key expert. Told me all of this stuff about how Home Central has special key blanks that are unlike anyone else's in the city. I'm going to go back through Breckish's to see if we can find the keys to go with the receipt."
Jesse spoke up. "If you find them, how are you going to know what they go to?"
"Maybe the trick is to find out what they don't go to," Mark suggested.
"Oh, like if they don't match any of this guys stuff."
"Right," Cheryl said. "We have a little more than that though. The attendant was working late that night because his replacement was late coming in. Breckish was his last customer and he seems to remember him pretty well. He says that he had 2 copies of three different keys made - which is what the video shows. Two were for Schlage door locks and one for a Kwikset lock. So that's a starting point.
"The replacement showed up right after the attendant finished with Breckish. Says that he was headed out of the store about five minutes later and saw Breckish arguing with a woman with red hair in the parking lot.
Steve felt his pulse quicken. "Amber."
"The description sounds pretty close, Steve," Cheryl replied. "Unfortunately, the woman avoided the video pickup on the surveillance camera in the parking lot. But our witness is willing to testify that he saw them and another gentleman in the parking lot that night. He gave us a fairly good description of the other guy. I'm going to be taking him into the precinct to look at a few mug shots. Maybe we'll get lucky and come up with a name for the 2nd attacker."
"We'll get them." Steve felt confident of it. Both he and Cheryl could be tenacious when they got their teeth into something. That was probably one of the reasons why they worked so well together.
He looked up toward his father. "But it still bugs me that they met at a hardware store. Why someplace so public, and why right away? Seems like they would want to go ahead and ditch the truck." He turned back to the phone as a thought occurred to him. "You didn't happen to see my truck on the parking lot camera did you?"
"No, and I tried," was Cheryl's reply.
Mark looked distracted at her response. His expression suddenly sobered. "Cheryl, you mentioned that the guy at the locksmith desk knew a lot about keys. What did he tell you?"
"He said that Home Central blanks are stamped with the word Hillman, like 75% of the key blanks used in hardware stores on the west coast. But Home Central has a special contract with Hillman. Along with a three digit code, which determines the kind of lock the key goes to, there is also a small HC stamped on the back of the key. Otherwise, they would be identical to any other Hillman blank."
Mark got up and quickly looked around the room. "Steve, where are your keys?" he asked. There was an urgency in his voice that sent a cold sinking sensation through the pit of his stomach. He really didn't like where his father was going.
"You don't think . . . "
"I don't know," Mark shot back. "I just want to check. . . "
Steve gave the room a quick once over before he remembered. "I think I left them out in the living room."
Mark disappeared from the bedroom, practically at a run.
"He thinks. . . Oh!" Jesse's eyes widened as realization began to dawn for him, too. "You guys think that they made copies of your keys," he said.
"It fits with the facts we have so far," Cheryl spoke up. "If they got to Steve, stole the truck, copied the keys and then ditched it. The timeline works."
Mark reappeared in the room then, Steve's keys in his palm. "Cheryl, do you know the codes that would have been on the keys that Breckish had copied?"
"Yes. The Schlage blanks would have had HW and number. The attendant remembers that the Schlages were HW9s. The Kwikset would have had a KW and a number - should have been 7."
Mark searched quickly through Steve's keys and looked them over. He held up the keys so that they could see what he'd found. There was a small HW9 on the face of two of his keys.
"Dad. . . " The coldness that had started in the pit of his stomach worked its way through the rest of his body. Amber was two steps ahead of them again. If she had his keys, what else did she have?
"I know." Mark's look covered a lot of ground. That he was aware of the implications was there in the set of his jaw. "I'll call the locksmith."
Steve returned his attention to the phone. "Cheryl. The beach house has Schlage locks. If they copied my keys that would account for two of the keys that were done. The front upstairs door and the one to my private entrance."
"She probably made two of each in case one didn't work. A lot of people do that. Sorry Steve."
"Yeah. Why don't you send the team out, have the place dusted for prints and swept for bugs."
"I'll get right on it," Cheryl replied. "You two be careful. I'll give you a call as soon as I have anything."
-- --
Mark pressed the disconnect button on the phone and looked across at his son. He recognized the look of suppressed fury. He felt a bit of it himself. To think that their home may have been violated left him feeling distinctly unsettled.
His eyes drifted to the untouched tray on the side of the bed, and more immediately needs. Steve would need all of his strength for whatever Amber had in store.
"Why don't you have a bit of that toast and tea?" he suggested.
Steve shot a disdainful look toward the tray. Mark could practically read the thoughts flitting through his mind. Eating the tea and toast was absolutely the last thing he wanted to do.
"I think I'll get dressed." He looked uncomfortably around the room.
Mark read the obvious reference. He didn't want to talk about the case in light of the possibility that someone might be listening. Mark couldn't help copying the gesture. It was probably time to come clean on the fact that Amber had been on the beach the day he'd brought Steve home from the hospital. But, he would have to wait a little longer.
"All right," he said aloud, resting a brief hand on Steve's shoulder. "Jess and I will be upstairs waiting for you."
"Okay Dad."
Mark and Jesse walked out of the bedroom, leaving Steve sitting there atop the comforter.
-- --
Steve was nearly completely dressed, having buttoned himself into his second shirt of the day, when the feeling hit him. It was piercing, like deep muscle pain and took him by surprise for a second. He blew out a slow breath as the pain dulled away to a low-level throbbing. He took in a cautious breath and found that the level of pain remained the same.
Rubbing absently at the offending area of his chest, he wondered that he hadn't pulled something during his earlier escapade on the side of PCH. That thought reminded him of his cellular. It was still out in the trunk of the rental. He needed to retrieve it, and to do something about the jacket.
Pushing the dull pain aside, he moved through his apartment and out to the driveway. He unlocked the trunk, retrieved his cellular and disposed of the jacket in the garbage bin. His cell phone seemed non the worse for wear.
As he took the outer stairs up to the deck, his mind went to work on the next step he would take in the case. The thought was derailed slightly when he found himself a bit winded by the time he reached the deck. Five days without exercise and he was out of shape already. He paused, taking a moment to rest before he entered the house.
Stepping through the doors, he followed the sounds of voices and a pungent smell into the kitchen. His stomach made a half-hearted objection to the aroma, but he pressed on into the room. "What's this?" he asked, upon seeing Jesse at the stove. He was pouring beaten eggs into a pan.
"This," said Jesse, "Is me making lunch. It's a recipe I want to try out for Bob's."
Steve shook his head in amazement. They were in the middle of a case, having just found out that their house might be bugged and Jesse was thinking about food. Never mind that Jess was the one at the stove. "You asked, and Dad said yes?" He questioned in disbelief.
"I did," Mark chuckled and defended the younger man. "It's nearly lunch time. Something to eat will do us all good. Besides, Jesse promised that I'd like it, and well, I was a little curious."
Steve looked at the array of items on the counter. Leftover filing from the previous night's tacos, chopped peppers, tomatoes and cheese and tortillas. There was also a clear plastic squeeze bottle containing something that look suspiciously familiar. "What is it supposed to be?"
Jesse began scooping eggs and meat and peppers into the tortillas. "It's a breakfast burrito," Jesse said, looking mildly offended that Steve hadn't figured that out yet. "Only with a twist." He finished topping the burrito filling off with cheese and then opened the squeeze bottle with a flourish. "A special BBQ Bob's touch." He squeezed something thick and brown atop the rest of the ingredients.
"What's that?" Both Sloan men spoke simultaneously.
"BBQ sauce of course!" Jesse slipped the newly made concoction onto a plate and held it aloft. "Who wants the first one?"
Steve laughed at his father's expression and backed away from the kitchen. "I'm on dry toast and tea last time I checked," he said.
Mark looked at him with widened eyes. Just then the doorbell rang. "I'd better get that," he hurried from the room. "Could be . . . anybody."
Jesse watched Mark leave, and turned toward Steve, the plate still held aloft. Steve's phone rang and he snatched it from his pocket and answered with an apologetic smile. "Steve Sloan."
"Lt. Sloan? This is Jonathan Bright. I'm glad I reached you. Your father seemed a little worried earlier."
Steve was surprised to be hearing from the man again so soon. He moved a few more steps away from the kitchen at the sounds of his father greeting Amanda at the door. "Yes, he's with me now. Thank you for your concern." He was careful to keep his end of the conversation neutral, just in case the team found a bug later.
"I just wanted to be certain that you were okay after your episode this morning. But there is another reason I called."
Steve's brow furrowed. "Why's that? Has something happened?"
"In a manner of speaking," Bright replied. "You asked me before if I had noticed anything unusual recently. Well, I hadn't. But just a little while ago I received a package. Normally, I wouldn't be concerned, but it was a rather unusual package."
"In what way?" Steve asked.
"It was just a box filled with packaging material and a bottle of Vodka. I don't drink, Lt. Sloan -- not at all. No one I know would send me this even as a joke. And I don't recognize the return address."
"What was it?" Steve asked.
"Well, there wasn't a name. Just an address. 3421 Beach Drive. Malibu."
Steve froze. "What did you just say?"
Bright repeated himself, but Steve didn't need to hear it again. He knew that address very well.