Bright light filled the office as Ray sat down with his third cup of coffee of the morning. He'd been reviewing cases all morning and waiting on Detective Midkiff to give him the report on the traffic cameras near Chicago Ice and every ATM along that street as well as State street.
"Welsh knew exactly what he was getting me into and didn't warn me, crazy, ole SOB." The new lieutenant groused under his breath as he fished out his reading glasses for the day. He'd long since quit pretending that he didn't wear them and shoved the prescription spectacles up on his nose.
"Here's what we have, Lieutenant." Midkiff walked in after a short peck on the old door. The younger detective had a slightly southern accent, husky and heavy on the drawl when he tried to charm young ladies. That, and his diamond blue eyes atop a crooked grin didn't hurt his case.
"Lay it on me." Ray Kowalski closed the file folder he'd just opened and laid it aside.
"The lab boys caught these photos from one of the ATM's along state street and used it to find the Explorer on the traffic cameras." A miniscule license plate had been blown up to the size of a three inch by five inch photograph, plenty large enough to be read and run through the computers. Neatly typed on the next page was the owner of the Explorer, his address, phone number, and other vital statistics. The Ford SUV hadn't been reported stolen-yet.
"Good, have a uniform cruise the neighborhood, I'll go over there and check it out, may be something, may be nothing." Ray shooed the detective out and dialed Fraser's cell phone. Without Gordon he'd had to pinch hit as Chief Liaison Officer.
"Fraser, we got a lead on the SUV, I'm on my way over there to get you." Without another word he hung up and grabbed his jacket.
Twenty minutes later...
"Hey, is Fraser in there?" Ray asked Turnbull as he sat at the reception desk just beyond the foyer of the consulate.
"Good morning, Ray, how are you this morning?" The blond mountie asked cheerfully. Sometimes Ray wondered how Turnbull made it through the world without being swindled out of everything he owned.
"I'm fine, Turnbull, is Fraser in there?" The lieutenant asked again.
"Yes, Constable Fraser is in Mr. Gordon's office, well, what used to be Mr. Gordon's office actually, I suppose it shall belong to someone else soon." Ray had quit listening after 'Yes'. After a brief knock he let himself into the office. Fraser sat behind the desk, one ear clamped against the desk phone and his eyes focused on the computer screen on the desk. Diefenbaker sat beside the desk, his head resting on his paws. Curious, he looked up at the human but didn't move. Very little about the office had changed since the first time Ray had walked through the door. Inspector Meg Thatcher had been CLO in those days. She was a bonafide ice princess but at least she stood for something.
Fraser motioned for his longtime friend to sit in the armchair across the desk from him. Ray sipped the cup of coffee that kept him constant companion as he waited on the mountie to finish the phone conversation. Looking around he saw the stack of paperwork on the desk. The in box was a lot fuller than the out box.
"Ah, Ray, you said you had information about the vehicle?" The mountie hung the phone up, glad to get off the confounded contraption. He much preferred face to face interaction, always had.
"Yep, you ready to come with me on this one?" Ray leaned forward, his eyes twinkling like a hound on the hunt. As if he knew Fraser's answer already, Diefenbaker stood up and began to trot toward the door.
"Let me collect my hat." A few moments later they walked out of the consulate together. The old patrol car Ray drove instead of the GTO sat outside the consulate waiting for them. The address of the Explorer owner was on the nicer side of town, with tree lined streets and garages full of new, Lexus cars. Doctors and lawyers called the cul de sac home.
"How did you get the lab to work so fast on the ATM footage, Ray?" Fraser asked, leaning into the right hand turn as Ray took it at well over the posted speed limit. The mountie didn't like breaking the speed limit, but he'd gotten used to it riding with Ray.
"I told 'em I'd buy pizza if they did it faster than the FBI lab guys." Ray chuckled deviously.
"Ah, so you blatantly lied to them."
"Yep, sure did." Ray answered. Fraser simply nodded. He didn't know that he wouldn't have done something similar to speed the search for Ben.
"Here we go." Ray pulled the car up in front of a brick monstrosity that must have cost nearly a million dollars, despite the state of the United States housing market's decline.
"This is William Robert Devane, 45, an accountant for a realty firm here in Chicago, a couple of speeding tickets, nothing serious." Ray quickly informed the mountie walking briskly beside him. He thought of how he must look marching up to someone's front door beside the cheerfully red Canadian. Fraser nodded his understanding, his eyes meeting Ray's gaze before he rang the doorbell. A middle aged Latino woman wearing navy blue nursing scrubs answered the door. Her brown eyes quickly scanned Ray but stuck on Fraser as he stood on the cement stoop smiling politely.
"How may I help you?" The lady asked in barely accented English.
"Ma'am, we are here to see Mr. Devane, could you tell us if he's in just now?" The mountie doffed his Stetson with one hand and kept the other behind his back. A quizzical expression hovered over the woman's doe like eyes as she stood in the door way.
"Mr. Devane isn't at home, do you want to leave a message for him?" Nervous, the woman rummaged around in her scrubs pocket.
"I'm Lieutenant Raymond Kowalski, we'd like to talk to Mr. Devane about a 2010 Ford Explorer registered in his name." Ray pulled a business card out of his inside jacket pocket and handed it to the lady. Taking it, she turned her attention to Fraser.
"Who's this, the police mascot or something?" Her dark brows lifted as she leaned against the door jamb.
"Constable Benton Fraser, ma'am, the authorities believe Mr. Devane's vehicle may have been used in a kidnapping." The mountie studied the woman's reaction carefully, noting her breathing and where her eyes drifted off to. She shifted uncomfortably on her feet as she looked from Fraser to Ray then back over her shoulder. Before speaking again the woman crossed herself and stroked the small, silver cross dangling at her neck.
"Any information would be helpful, Ms." Ray fished for the woman's name.
"I am Carmella Espinoza, Mr. Devane's housekeeper, I'm sorry but I can not help you, officer." She fished out an ink pen from her pocket and wrote, 'Meet me in ten minutes at the corner of the street.' on the back of the business card before handing it back to Ray. Momentarily she winked at Fraser and closed the door.
Back in the Crown Vic, Ray handed the card to Fraser and cranked the engine. A few minutes later they were parked along the street, both of them scanning the sidewalk for Carmella. Neither of them said a word. What was there to say; they'd been solving cases together for so long nothing needed to be verbalized. Sure enough, ten minutes later Fraser spotted Carmella walking toward the car. Quickly, he shoved the back door open and she climbed in beside Diefenbaker, purse in hand.
"I didn't know what else to do, officers, Mr. Devane's brother was sitting in the living room." She looked out the back window, hoping she hadn't been missed yet. "I left a note saying I'd gone to the market for dinner," Carmella's dark eyes were wide and she'd become a shade paler.
"What's the deal with Devane, Ms. Espinoza?" Ray asked, his voice sounding harsher than he'd intended.
"My employer loaned the vehicle to his brother the night before last and he came back very early this morning without it. I don't know where it is. Mr. Devane has always had trouble with his brother, they do not get along. This morning they had a loud argument in the den. I couldn't understand what they were saying, but my employer stormed out shouting, 'I don't care what you do with him, just ditch the Explorer when you're finished.' I went into the kitchen and began using the garbage disposal to drown them out." Carmella rubbed the cross around her neck as she spoke, fear shining in her big, brown eyes.
"What's the brother's name, Ms. Espinoza?" Ray turned around completely in the seat to look at her, as did Fraser.
"Jason Devane, I don't know very much about him, mostly I stay away from him when he visits my employer." The housekeeper shuddered at the thought of dealing with Jason Devane.
"I take it Jason Devane has made inappropriate advances, Ms. Espinoza." Fraser volunteered.
"Yes, Officer, that's one way to say it," She smiled briefly at the younger man's politeness, "he's mean, as if he enjoys being viscous." Carmella shook her head. It was the kind of behavior she would never understand.
"Thank you kindly for this information, Ms. Espinoza." Fraser looked out he window beyond the woman sitting uncomfortably beside Diefenbaker.
"I wouldn't go back to work this afternoon, Ms. Espinoza, call your employer and make up a story 'er somethin'." Ray shrugged. It was better to be safe than sorry.
"I will, I hope you catch the kidnappers, officers, men like Jason Devane should all be locked away from innocent people." Quickly she patted both Ray and Fraser on the shoulders and exited the rear door.
"Ms. Espinoza, may we give you a ride somewhere?" Fraser called out after the woman.
"Fraser, we ain't got time to play taxi here, there's investigatin' to be done." Ray whispered loudly as the woman turned around and walked back.
"I am keenly aware of that, Ray, but it would be easier for Jason Devane to find Ms. Espinoza if she walked home." The mountie pointed out logically.
"Honestly, Fraser, are you some kind of Vulcan or somethin' ?" Ray groused shaking his head.
"No, I'm a RCMP officer, I haven't studied volcanoes since my grandmother made me write a ten page paper on Mount Vesuvius as punishment for getting my new mukluks dirty, she insisted that I use APA citation." Fraser over-informed his unofficial partner, gesturing with his hat as he did so.
"Ten different spin-offs of Star Trek and you haven't seen any of them, have you." Ray groaned.
"Where to, Ms. Espinoza?" The police lieutenant asked, pulling the car into drive.
Scene Break