A Tangled Web (17)
Time passed slowly, that afternoon.
The folder with most of the case notes was still on Sharon's desk. In theory, she should've filed it along with her final report after the case had been declared closed two days previous; she'd held on to it for a while longer, while her team took another look at some of the outstanding questions. Now that they may have finally found something that they'd missed the first around, being able to review the other case details was coming in useful.
Nothing in James Donnell's employment records hinted at who might've approached him at work, and revisiting their diagram of Saturday's timeline didn't help much, either. But they were so close… Sharon could feel it, the way that the pieces were about to fall into place. They had to. The answers couldn't keep slipping through her fingers, not now when some sort of breakthrough was finally on the horizon.
A vague anxiety stirred in her stomach, and she reached for her tea cup in an attempt to soothe her fraying nerves. The wait now was almost worse than the pointless going around in circles of the past few days; knowing that there were answers just out of her reach, she was too eager to see them. Eager for Det. Sanchez to get through to his contact from the USC, for Lt. Tao to finish reviewing the archive files. What if this was just another dead end? What if in the end, they'd still have nothing?
But no. Not this time. Too many loose ends were compounding.
Something had to give.
Sharon drummed her fingers nervously on the desk. A knock on the door caused her to jump a little, and she berated herself the cracks in her composure. Why was she so on edge? "Come in."
Lt. Flynn was wearing his 'everyone's an idiot' face. "Squad car can't get a hold of Danny; they missed the end of his shift at two o'clock because of an accident on Olympic Boulevard, and he's not back at his house yet." He rolled his eyes. "Friday afternoon, he's probably out getting high with his buddies – can I see the address where Cooper and his partner caught them last month, at the docks?"
She handed him the case file, watching silently as he browsed for the necessary information.
"Might as well check it out, maybe he's there," he muttered, pulling a page from the folder. "I'll call the squad car, tell them to go look… Who the hell takes Olympic when they're in a hurry…?"
Sharon grimaced sympathetically.
He put the case file back on her desk. "Thanks." Through the glass wall, he suddenly noticed Provenza waving a hand to get their attention; when Flynn looked over, his partner wriggled his eyebrows and pointed to Julio's desk. "Looks like Sanchez got something."
Sharon stood up, suppressing the undefined nervousness that flickered again in the pit of her stomach.
Unfortunately, Julio's update was only questionable progress.
"Sykes couldn't get the USC staff office to give her the name that matches our mystery card ID," the detective started, "but our contact at Public Safety said that students and staff IDs are different, and 'Professor Sidekick's is definitely staff. So we can rule out any of the student assistants with access to that building and the supply cabinets. Actually – the DPS officer said the ID category corresponds to 'academic staff', so we can rule out custodians and administrative employees, too."
"And we know Professor Sidekick is a guy," Flynn added, "so that narrows it down further."
"All of which would be extremely helpful," agreed Provenza, "except all this narrowing down still doesn't give us a way to get any actual names."
They all glanced briefly at the nine-digit number of the murder board, so close to an ID that it was almost taunting – yet completely useless without a matching name.
Sanchez sighed. "Sykes is gonna try to canvass the different labs," he said, "talk to the researchers and see if she can get an ID that way. But the building houses about two dozen labs, and on a Friday afternoon not a lot of people might be around, so…"
Sharon nodded, understanding his point – without the university's cooperation, or a warrant, identifying their supposed accomplice was going to be difficult. But although slow, they were making progress. She could feel it.
It felt, strangely, inauspicious.
Quiet descended over the murder room. Lt Tao was still leafing through the thick archive file, flipping page after page with long-practiced efficiency. Sanchez was browsing the rest of the card access records for any other information. Flynn and Provenza stood by the murder board, debating in low tones whether or not they had enough for a motion to reopen the case.
Leaning against Flynn's desk, Sharon read through the case file yet again, her mind working to put more pieces together. But as the minutes passed, her focus began to waver, her eyes drawn repeatedly over to the wall clock.
Three twenty-five p.m.. Rusty was usually home from school before three. Why hadn't he texted to let her know he was home yet? Sure, it wasn't that late but… it was late enough.
The anxiety at the back of her mind began to press against her temples – and it was ridiculous, it was, Rusty was old enough but… but she'd seen him drive, and she'd spent so long worrying and…
"Wow…"
At his desk, Lt Tao had a stack of pages in one hand, while typing something into his computer with the other. His absent exclamation momentarily drew everyone's attention, and he shrugged a little self-consciously:
"Uh, it's nothing, just… this project was really ambitious. Spanned a lot of different areas of the city, very smart underground piping infrastructure… it might've been cool to actually see it implemented."
Provenza rolled his eyes. Everyone's attention wandered away again, and Sharon went back to failing to focus on the case notes.
She could text him. She'd done that a few times, before they'd settled into this texting habit that put her mind at ease. But Rusty wouldn't be happy if she texted to check on him, not with the way he'd been accusing her so often that she didn't trust him, that she was unreasonable, that any freedom he had was only skin-deep. The familiar frustration stirred inside her again. Was he testing her, somehow?
Sharon pulled her phone out of her pocket. The screen read 3:29.
She could text something that wouldn't sound like she was keeping tabs. Maybe let him know that she'd probably be late that evening. Ask if he wanted her to pick up dinner on the way home. There – that was innocuous enough, right? A casual question wouldn't sound as though she were checking on him.
Halfway through composing the message she stopped herself.
That sounded exactly like she was checking on him. And Rusty was so smart, he wouldn't be fooled for a second. He'd see right through it, and she'd only be making things worse. But…
With a sigh, she typed in a different text and hit 'send'.
Everything OK? Are you home?
If she was going to be a neurotic parent, she might as well own up to it.
"Captain?" Sanchez was giving her a slightly concerned look. "Everything alright, Ma'am?"
It took Sharon a second to realize that she'd been tapping her foot impatiently; she stopped, but the agitation she was feeling didn't fade. She gave the detective a tight smile. "Of course." Then she checked the screen of her phone as surreptitiously as she could. 3:32.
Maybe Rusty hadn't seen her text. Maybe his phone battery had died? Although she reminded him to charge it every night, he still forgot half the time: maybe his phone was dead at the bottom of his schoolbag and he hadn't heard it and –
"Uh-oh."
Everyone glanced over to Tao's desk, at that. They knew that tone.
The lieutenant double-checked something on one of the pages in front of him, then glanced at his screen, and finally turned his chair to face the rest of the team. "Remember how I thought it was strange," he said, "that Susan Crowley bought the land that she built 'Sun Plaza' on at such a low price?"
"Yes." Sanchez pulled a face; he remembered, mostly, the dissertation on land prices.
"Yea… I think I may have just found out why."
"So , this archive file includes maps of the projected infrastructure of the water redistribution network," Tao started. "Like we already knew, the basic idea was to draw water from the LA river and construct several small channels – like the Dominguez channel, but on an even smaller scale – to irrigate the inner city and the areas with worst water access." He spread out a couple of blueprints over his desk. "According to this, there would be several access points to tap into the river and redirect water to several micro-watersheds throughout the target areas. Then those watersheds would be drained into these small channels and used for a better irrigation system."
Sharon's phone buzzed. Letting out a relieved breath, she glanced at the screen. Yes, all good. See you home for dinner.
That sounded… normal, right?
She wasn't sure why something still didn't sit well. Maybe Rusty was right, she was being unreasonable.
"Are we supposed to be able to read those?" Flynn stared at the blueprints, from which he could barely recognize the basic outlines of the city; the rest was all black and blue lines and dots and X's, drawn over each other and making no sense.
"Uh – no…? Well – the X's are the projected access points, or nodes." Tao put his finger over a couple of them, to illustrate. "Like I said, there was one at the Sixth Street aqueduct – that was actually one of the key nodes, because a lot of the infrastructure was already in place for building the micro watersheds. There's another node in Compton, more or less where 'Sun Plaza' is now, right by the river. And you can see the others," he indicated the dozen or so remaining X's. "If the project had been completed, the network would've spread as far north as Griffith Park, and maybe even North Hollywood, and there'd be access points near inner-city parks in South Gate, South LA, Echo Park…"
"We get it," Provenza sighed. "Lots of water being … redistributed. Move on."
Sanchez crossed his arms. "How does this explain why the land that 'Sun Plaza' is built on was so cheap?"
"Getting there," Tao assured. "When they were designing the network, the engineering teams looked for things like existing infrastructure, proximity to their target areas, settlement patterns and so on. They conducted preliminary topographical surveys and studied soil samples…" he held up a thick stack of papers, "…all those reports are in here… but, after they began construction in 2007, some of the access points started to have problems. It turned out, bedrock erosion was causing some degradation in the stream bed and floodplains…"
"Tao ," Provenza growled warningly. "Get to the point, I'm contemplating retirement."
"The soil near the river banks was low-strength and unstable," Mike finished, "and that posed challenges to constructing the underground channels and piping systems that the project required." He picked up one of the files. "This is the detailed report on the 'Sun Plaza' land. That was actually the worst off – high slippage, greater degradation. The weak-foundation soil was deemed by two separate survey teams as unfit for construction of any sort."
Sharon's eyebrows arched. "Lieutenant… are you saying that that three-story shopping center is built on unstable soil?"
"According to these reports…yes."
Flynn frowned. "Isn't it illegal to sell land to someone and not warn them that it's unstable?"
"Well… it's… murky." The lieutenant gave a lopsided nod. "Depends on how the land is classified, and a bunch of labels…" He grimaced. "The City's land use regulations do require that the condition of the soil be made available to potential buyers, but technically, it's not necessary to highlight it for them. So… it wouldn't be illegal to make the sale to an uninformed buyer, no."
"Only we don't think that Ms. Crowley was an 'uninformed buyer'," Provenza deduced.
"Right – my guess is, she found out about the soil problems and leveraged that information to get the land at a highly reduced price."
"And then she constructed a massive building that holds hundreds or even thousands of people, on an unstable foundation." Sharon shook her head in disbelief. "That entire place is a public safety risk…!"
"Ah, but she makes a lot of money off it," Provenza reminded her dryly, "so that's okay, then."
Sharon passed a hand through her hair, still getting over her surprise. This wasn't something that could've even occurred to her… Here they'd thought that the bomb was the threat, when really, it was the building that had been the danger all along!
That also meant…
"Huh." Flynn looked bemused. "Guess that Donnell kid really was doing people a favor by blowing the place up before it opened."
Something about Rusty's text was still nagging at the back of her mind, but it was hard to focus on two things at once.
"You're not gonna believe it," Lt Tao was saying, "but building the mall on the bad foundation was actually not technically illegal, either."
Various sounds of frustration came from the rest of the team.
"The construction laws are really vague about this sort of thing, so there are plenty of ways to get around it – especially with land that was City-owned and had already been subjected to surveys and soil analyses."
"So you're saying we can't just shut it down," Andy inferred. "What about the risk to all those people inside?"
"Uh… I don't know." Mike scratched at his neck. "I think we're going to need to bring in an actual lawyer on this and see what our options are. In any case, I don't think we can do anything about unsafe land or violation of construction laws, we'll have to refer this to another division, maybe IAS or Commercial Crimes… or maybe outside the LAPD altogether."
Sharon pinched the bridge of her nose. This had grown complicated in unexpected ways – but at least pieces were falling into place. "Lieutenant," she waved a hand to the pile of papers on his desk, "please put together a file that details these findings. I'll take that to Chief Taylor so we can forward it to the appropriate authority."
"Yes, Ma'am."
Provenza leaned against the back of his chair. "You like this motive better for James Donnell's schemes, then?"
It was hard to 'like' anything that had led to a young man dead at the foot of a bridge, to a heartbroken couple burying their only son, but…
"I certainly find it more in line with his character," Sharon acknowledged. Her eyes followed Andy as he wrote 'Sun Plaza - Hazardous Construction' on the murder board. "What I'd like to know, now, is how Donnel found out about the unstable soil in the first place…"
She glanced to the mysterious ID number on the board.
The older lieutenant seemed to mirror her thoughts, "I'm guessing 'Professor Sidekick' might have had something to do with that."
"What are the chances," wondered Flynn, "to find two eco nuts in one place who think that blowing up an unsafe building is a better idea than reporting it to the authorities?"
"Slim," Sharon said dryly. "Which makes it all the more important to find out the identity of Mr. Donnell's presumed… sidekick, and get the rest of our answers from him. In the meantime, however…" She paused, frowned. "I'm not sure I'm comfortable knowing that there is a building out there filled with hundreds of people, that could suffer from structural failure or other damage related to its unsafe construction at any moment. And since it appears that we can't shut it down just yet… I'm open to suggestions, gentlemen."
Andy shrugged, "We could always phone in another bomb threat."
She arched her eyebrows at him. "Let's keep the brainstorming to legal courses of action, for now, lieutenant Flynn."
"We could reach out to Susan Crowley," Sanchez suggested. "Tell her we know about the unstable soil, ask her to close the shopping center…"
"Oh, I'm sure she'll be delighted to oblige us," Provenza commented. "She was so kind and cooperative during our bomb search on Monday, it's hard to imagine what could go wrong with asking her to shut down her business."
Sharon shot him a wry look, then nodded to Julio. "Make the call, detective. It's worth a try."
She ended up calling Rusty.
The niggling unease had finally won out, too irritating to ignore; letting Sanchez get a hold of the mall owner, and the others keep working on figuring out the mysterious ID number somehow connected into all this, Sharon had retreated to her office and pulled out her phone.
After six long rings, the call went to voicemail.
Her heart beat a little faster.
She told herself she was exaggerating. There was absolutely no reason to be worried. So he'd forgotten to text her when he'd gotten back from school, this once, what did it matter? Everything was fine, Rusty had told her that he was home safe, what else did she –
He…
Sharon checked their text exchange again.
Everything OK? Are you home?
Yes, all good. See you home for dinner.
Her eyes narrowed.
He wouldn't.
The rational part of her said to not jump to conclusions, but the mother part of her had already jumped and done three somersaults in the air and landed somewhere between 'I can't believe this' and 'I'm going to kill him'.
She reined that part in, for a moment. Giving him the benefit of the doubt. She could trust him – she did trust him. Maybe it was just ambiguous phrasing.
"Captain?" Lt. Flynn knocked lightly on the open door behind her. "Tao's got something else."
"One moment please," she told him. "I'll be right there."
She called the condo.
There was no answer.
Sharon exhaled slowly, sifting through her emotions and trying very hard not to lose her temper. Rusty was a good child, he wouldn't do anything actually bad. So maybe he'd gone out with his friends after school. She could do the reasonable thing and cut him some slack, talk to him at home that evening…
She dialed his cell again.
Call it mother's intuition, call it neuroticism, whatever it was, something about this was making her profoundly anxious; at this point Sharon was even willing to not scold him too much, so long as he picked up and she knew where he was and that he was okay.
The call went to voicemail again, and was he kidding her?! The last time he'd repeatedly ignored her calls, she'd had to fly down eight flights of stairs and break down a door to make up for his unbelievably poor judgment, and did he really think that screening her calls ever again after that was even remotely acceptable? Because it was not!
All her willingness to cut him some slack flew right out the window.
Rusty, where are you? Pick up your phone!
The fact that she hadn't used any caps was already an exercise in restraint.
She gave him about thirty seconds to read that text, and when nothing happened she was ready to call again. Right before dialing, though, she stopped herself.
Alright. Alright, fine. This wasn't the end of the world. Yes, Rusty was in for heaps of trouble, but no one would be better served if she lost her temper. And… he was probably just acting out. Wait – 'just' acting out? He wasn't allowed to act out like this! But… okay, there'd been such tension between them lately, it was sure to get to him, too… but – lying to her about being at home and then ignoring her calls?!
Sharon was feeling a little ambivalent.
Fine, she could give him a few more minutes.
Taking a second to get her annoyed expression in check, she stepped back out into the murder room to hear Lt. Tao's latest findings.
"So, first the good news…?" At Provenza's inviting handwave, Mike cleared his throat. "I think I might have an idea of why James Donnell would've gone to the Sixth Street Bridge that night."
That was a promising start; Sharon tried to let go of her private worries to focus on what the lieutenant was saying.
"I found this in one of the initial project reports – right after they started actual construction. Like I said earlier, the plan was to use as much existing infrastructure as possible, and the Sixth Street aqueduct had a lot of useful systems already in place," Tao explained, "so they started there. It turns out, there was a 'control room' of sorts built there… sort of an on-site center of operations. There are several more references to it in these files."
"Control room for what?" asked Sanchez.
"Mostly just to coordinate any on-site construction," the lieutenant replied, "but it was also a good place to get humidity, pressure and water level measurements, to test out soil reactions that could then be used to inform construction at other nodes along the network…"
"The bomb squad looked that bridge over from top to bottom Monday," Flynn reminded him, "how the hell did they miss a whole 'center of operations'?"
"Well… first, it's probably not that big, I'm guessing something about half the size of this room maybe," said Tao, "but more importantly, it wouldn't be exactly at the bridge, and it's probably underground. That works better with the aqueduct structure – and it's easier to take those measurements, that way."
Sharon swallowed; it was still taking her a little effort to overcome the vague, distracting anxiety over Rusty, but she tried. "You think Donnell knew about this 'control room'?"
"It's a possibility… if he knew about the soil instability at 'Sun Plaza', then obviously he had a lot of inside information about this project. And… that's kinda the only real reason we have so far for him going to the bridge on Saturday night."
That was true. A question Sharon had been asking herself for days, and now it finally seemed that they were getting closer to an answer.
"If Donnell was there, we might find other evidence inside, too," added Flynn.
She agreed. "It's worth taking a look at this 'control room'. Lieutenant – can you give us an exact location?"
Tao nodded. "Probably. These records don't describe it precisely, but I think it should be pretty easy to find now that we're looking for it."
"It better not require climbing," Provenza warned. "I don't climb."
"So what's the bad news?" asked Flynn, and it was Sanchez who replied this time:
"Susan Crowley won't shut down the mall," he said. "She threatened to sue us if we get anywhere near it, or 'slander' its reputation pursuing the weak foundation issues." He grimaced. "I think I may have accidentally caused her to call her lawyer, Ma'am."
Great. Sharon started to feel her suppressed irritation surging again. "That place is a threat to public safety," she said menacingly, "and I can't believe that there's no legal recourse to help us keep people out of it…!"
"Guess that's why Donnell went for the bomb approach," Andy joked, but he sobered up immediately at her look. Okay – not a moment for humor, then.
"I've put together copies of all the topography reports and surveys indicating soil problems," said Mike, "we can take this to … I guess IAS, or maybe some urban planning commission. They might be able to do more."
"What I want to know," Provenza said thoughtfully, "is how exactly did our hippie pothead find out all these details about the project? Considering we had to go through the DA's office to get these files… how exactly did he get his information?"
Sharon's phone buzzed, then. Her lips pressed together imperceptibly. "I'd like to know that, too," she agreed. Pulling her phone out of her pocket, she saw Rusty's name on the screen; giving the team a terse smile, she said "Excuse me, please," and retreated back to her office.
"Uh, listen, Sharon, my battery is low so I –"
"Rusty, where are you!" So much for the calm approach.
There was a brief silence on the other end, then, "I'm just out with some kids in my class." He sounded so nonchalant that she could've throttled him.
"You –" Sharon took a deep breath. Yelling at Rusty over the phone would accomplish nothing. "Please go home and wait for me there. We'll discuss this in the evening."
His nonchalance evaporated. "Discuss – seriously? Come on, Sharon!"
"This isn't a conversation we're going to have over the phone," she said coolly.
More unhappy silence greeted her.
"Go home. We'll talk when I get there."
"Fine."
She paused; well that felt too easy. "I mean, go home now," she qualified. Today he seemed to be all about ambiguous phrasings. "Straight home."
"Are you kidding me right now!" She could hear frustration fighting with a desire to keep his voice low in a public place. "We're only having milkshakes, this is like, completely crazy –"
"Rusty, you're not doing yourself any favors," she told him. "You are already in a world of trouble, young man, so my advice right now, would be to –"
"Okay why am I in trouble, I didn't do –"
"My advice," she reiterated in a no-nonsense tone, "would be to stop making things worse on yourself, and –"
"Oh my god, Sharon," he exclaimed, "we just went to the mall, what is the big deal?! I can't even have a milkshake without –"
It took a second for her brain to process that. "Mall. What mall?" He couldn't possibly have –
"Just that new one that's opened up, who cares – Sharon…"
Her voice died in her throat. "What…?" Oh God, oh God of all the places – this was why he wasn't allowed to go anywhere! This was why she couldn't breathe easy, this was – "Rusty, you go home right now, do you hear me!"
"Oh my god Sharon what is your problem –"
"Rusty!" She was going to kill him. "Rusty, you will leave and go home immediately or I will send a patrol car after you, do you understand! Rusty!"
"Why are you being this – "
Rusty cut himself off at the sudden silence on the other end. He checked the phone; sure enough, the image of the empty battery was just dimming on his screen, until it was gone completely and the device turned off. He hadn't been kidding when he'd said that the battery was low.
Great.
He glanced back over to the food court tables; his friends had just sat down with their milkshakes, and were trying one of those new multi-player challenges on their phones. Oh, great, now that his phone was dead he wouldn't even be able to play – had Sharon really had to call him? Really?
Unease churned in his stomach at the thought of their conversation, and he blinked a few times to clear his vision.
She'd told him to go home – she'd sounded furious. But… he wasn't doing anything! This wasn't helping his case to make her trust him but… he wasn't doing anything! So he'd tried to get one afternoon to himself, without having to run a detailed freaking ten-point plan by Sharon, so what?! How was that worth 'a world of trouble', exactly? So he hadn't told her where he was going, what, like she always told him what she did every single minute of the day? How was that fair!
(Okay, maybe he could've not yelled…?)
Whatever, if she was just gonna freak out and be all crazy about everything, he might as well enjoy his afternoon. Before he had to go home and deal with it.
(Was Sharon really mad…?)
Whatever. What. Ever. He was right, in this, and she was wrong, and she was just gonna have to deal with it.
With an unhappy shrug, Rusty slipped his dead phone back into his pocket, and joined his classmates at the table.
(She wouldn't actually send a patrol car after him, would she…?)
"What the hell, Sharon!"
The murder room had already been quiet, with most people gone by five-thirty p.m. on a Friday; the boy's furious entrance ensured that all conversation stopped entirely. Two uncomfortable-looking patrol officers followed him in.
Looking over, Sharon let out a breath that she felt she'd been holding for an hour.
The her eyes narrowed.
The room fell silent around them.
"I thought this security escort thing was over," Rusty railed, "why am I –"
"Go wait in my office," she spoke in a low voice.
"That's not –"
"My office."
"I don't –"
"Rusty." She wasn't yelling, but her tone was so sharp that it halted his protests. "I told you very clearly to go home, and you deliberately disobeyed –"
"So you had the police pick me up like some, like some criminal?! How is that even –"
" –and you deliberately disobeyed me," she emphasized, over him, "in addition to lying to me about where you were this afternoon."
Her words echoed a little in the near-empty room.
Rusty looked away briefly, at that, but then his eyes landed on the two officers who had picked him up (they now stood awkwardly a few feet behind), and his temper flared again. "I wasn't doing anything bad! Or, can I like, not even hang out with my friends now? Is that a new rule or something?"
"We'll discuss this later," Sharon said shortly.
"It was just the mall!"
She pressed her lips together. "My office, Rusty."
His shoulders hunched. He muttered, "Whatever," and began to shuffle toward her office with a bleak visage.
One of the patrol officers took a reluctant step forward. "Captain – uh, he left this in our car…" He handed Sharon a keychain, a small bag with a couple of CDs and a set of car keys.
At the sight of the car keys, she grimaced. "You drove there."
Rusty was halfway to her office; he turned and glowered. "Yeah. Guess I didn't know you'd arrange for a ride back."
All the talking back wasn't making her any happier. "Where did you leave the car?"
"In the mall parking lot, Sharon, where do you think I left it… maybe if you hadn't made them drag me out of there like I was the top of the 'most wanted' list, I could've driven it back! And myself."
She sighed, displeased. "You had the chance to drive yourself back when I told you to go home," she retorted curtly.
"Whatever."
She'd have to go retrieve the car later. Matching Rusty's glower, she waved him to resume his walk to her office, and turned to thank the two patrol officers who had picked him up. They looked all too relieved to be able to get away.
Everyone else in the murder room wasn't even trying to pretend that they weren't staring.
Sharon pinched the bridge of her nose. "Lieutenants," she addressed Flynn and Provenza. "Please go search that 'control room' at the Sixth Street Aqueduct." She tried to ignore the glance the two of them exchanged; whatever they were thinking, she did not want to hear it.
"Uh… Captain." Tao cleared his throat a little uncomfortably. "I just went over the personnel records of everyone involved in the project, and… I think I might know how Donnell got all his information. And who 'Professor Sidekick' is."
She'd been waiting for those answers, but at the moment nothing felt particularly satisfying.
"Erik Jensen?" Sharon frowned slightly. "Why does that name sound familiar?"
"He's the one who reported the explosives missing after the inventory!" Sykes looked scandalized. "I talked to him on the phone twice on Monday! He was in on it all along?"
"I don't know about that," Lt. Tao tempered, "but I was looking through the list of everyone who worked on the irrigation project, and I recognized his name. Turns out, he was one of the chief geotechnical engineers, and a main proponent of the project. Now he's a senior research scientist in the Geochem department at the USC." He pulled up a page on his computer. "According to the lab's website, he's been employed there for about three years. I can't get the employee records yet, but I ran a search with his and Donnell's names, and it turns out that they both participated in the same staff orientation when they were first hired by the USC."
"Could be how they first met," Flynn offered.
"The orientation is two days long, so they'd have had plenty of time to chat about their interests," added Tao. "Unfortunately, I can't verify his university ID number without access to the USC files – which they are still refusing to give us," even he looked a little annoyed, "but I've got a home address from his DMV records."
Sharon nodded. "Let's talk to him. Amy, Julio – please bring Dr. Jensen in for an interview." She paused, blinking slowly against her growing headache. "We can check his ID number here, and see if it matches the person who accessed the supply cabinets and James Donnell's locker Saturday."
"He has no criminal record," said Mike, "but I'll keep looking into his background, check if there's anything in there that might suggest why he'd get involved in a bomb plot."
Another nod, and she turned her attention back to Flynn and Provenza, while everyone else was starting on their tasks. "I'd still like you to look into that control room," she told them. "There might be something inside that we can use when we interview Dr. Jensen."
Andy grabbed his jacket. "We'll drive over and have a look."
"Be careful."
"Sharon." Provenza put a hand on her elbow, his voice lowering to give them some privacy. She suppressed a grimace, because she knew what he wanted to talk about and she just wasn't sure that she was up for it at the moment.
"Look… this Jensen guy, he's not going anywhere. We can hold him overnight once Sanchez and Sykes bring him in." He gave her an almost sympathetic look. "Let Flynn and I give you and the kid a ride home – we'll stop by the mall, pick up his car…"
Sharon winced involuntarily; it hadn't even occurred to her that they'd need someone to give them a ride to retrieve the Volvo – but she certainly had no intention of letting Rusty drive it back home, himself, so yes, they would need a ride. Ugh…
"I need to inform Chief Taylor of the new developments in the case," she said quietly; yet another headache in the works. "That means Rusty and I will still be here for some time – and I want you and Lt. Flynn to search that control room sooner rather than later. Thank you, but we'll be fine."
The lieutenant nodded slightly; he looked like he wanted to say something else, and Sharon could imagine a whole list of things that he might've told her. But in the end he just sighed, cast another glance toward her office (Rusty had sunk into a chair, arms crossed, clearly fuming), then gave her another long look, and finally nodded again. "We'll call you if we find anything," he promised. "Go home."
And she hadn't intended to – but after a harrowing half hour on the phone with Taylor, and Sanchez's subsequent call to inform her that the research scientist Dr. Jensen was not home yet, and that they'd have to wait him out, Sharon decided that maybe going home for the evening was her best option after all. She interrupted Lt. Tao's conversation with Provenza ("no, I said on the east side of the storage facility – no, don't cross the bridge, I think it's on your end – no, no the east side…!) enough to ask him to send her the results of Jensen's background check when he had them, thanked him for his help, and went to ask for that ride…
"Here we are, Captain." Buzz put his car into park as he pulled up by the entrance into the 'Sun Plaza' parking lot. "This side of the lot okay?"
Sharon nodded. "Thank you." She turned around to face Rusty in the back seat, and asked, "Where did you park?"
He thrust his chin out. "I don't remember."
Sharon gave him a Look.
The boy just scowled defiantly. "What? It was like, hours ago – and maybe I got a little distracted by the two cops you had drag me out of here like a common criminal!"
She exhaled. "There are hundreds of cars in this parking lot, Rusty," she said impatiently. "Make an effort."
He crossed his arms. "I don't know."
They regarded each other with matching glares for a long moment.
In the driver's seat, Buzz cleared his throat, uncomfortable. "I can circle around…"
Finally, Sharon pressed her lips together and turned back in her seat. "That's alright, Buzz. It will be easier to find the car on foot."
As she opened the car door, Rusty leaned forward a little. "So, what, do you want me to like, come along and look?"
Not if they both expected to make it out of that parking lot alive.
"I think it would be better for all involved if you went home right now and waited for me there," she said calmly. "Buzz – would you mind…?"
"I'll drive him home, Captain."
"Thank you." She turned to Rusty again. "You're going to wait for me at home, do you understand that?" It was absurd that she even had to ask, but…
His shoulders hunched. "Fine."
Sharon let out a tired breath, anger suddenly replaced by sadness. This tension between them, she was sick of it. "Rusty… why don't you order us some dinner when you get home. We can talk about this after we eat."
"Fine." He was not in a meeting-her-halfway mood, clearly.
Sharon sighed.
Rusty shifted in his seat. "What kind of food?"
"Whatever you want."
He scowled, "Are you sure? 'cause like –"
"Rusty."
The boy fell silent.
"Fine. I'll order from Angelo's."
That surprised her, a little, because Italian wasn't his favorite – unless it was pizza, of course. Angelo's was a little more upscale than that. "Alright," she said softly, and stepped out of the car. "I'll see you at home."
Rusty also got out, to move into the front seat she was vacating.
"Be good," said Sharon.
He rolled his eyes.
With one last displeased look, she said goodbye to Buzz, then, stepping away from his car, got out the keys to Volvo and began to press the alarm button. Predictably, that did not work so well. There were two dozen rows of cars, and while they weren't all full, they were full enough. Susan Crowley had no reason to complain that her business had suffered – whatever special promotions she was offering in the opening week had clearly worked. And to think, her entire building was one small step away from a public hazard…
But… maybe it wasn't that much of a hazard. After all, the building was standing, and it wasn't as though customers were planning a stampede that would destabilize the weak foundation. Earlier, when she'd heard that Rusty was in there, the mall had seemed to Sharon a veritable death trap… now it just looked like a normal place. Harmless.
Lt. Tao had said that the dangers of the unstable soil came more from gradual settlement and slippage, and that the degradation was likely to happen over time. God. Had she overreacted terribly?
Walking between two endless rows of cars, she thought back on her fight with Rusty. At the time, she'd thought she was doing a great job keeping her emotions in check but… retrospectively, she'd gotten angrier with him than ever before. Well – they'd had fights in the beginning that had been louder and nastier, but this was worse because now they cared what the other said a lot more.
Ugh. Rusty was right. It really had been an out of proportion reaction on her part. And yes, he'd tried to make her think that he was at home, and he'd ignored her instructions, but she hadn't explained to him why she didn't want him going to the mall, either, and it was unfair to expect him to just blindly follow her instructions and…
Sharon sighed. That vague fear in her heart was only getting stronger, because with every argument, she felt as though they grew more and more distant, and once he turned eighteen…
I'm afraid you're going to be very surprised…
She pressed the alarm key again a little harder than intended, her fingers clenching around it in near desperation. Still nothing. There were dozens of car in each row, and she couldn't spot the Volvo anywhere. (And despite her current guilt trip, a pang of irritation ran through her again, because would it have killed Rusty to just tell her where he'd parked?)
Knowing him, he wouldn't have wanted to leave the car out in the sun all afternoon. With a tired sigh, Sharon headed over to the entrance of the three-level garage, and hoped she'd have better luck there.
Buzz had pulled out of the mall parking lot as slowly as he could, even circling around once in case Rusty changed his mind and decided to accompany the Captain after all, but the boy had just sunk into his seat, arms crossed, glaring at the footmat, and so eventually there was nothing to do but drive out.
The silence between them was a little uncomfortable. It was easy to tell that Rusty was sulking,
"She's only worried about you." He gave the boy a sideways glance as they paused at the stoplight right outside of the lot. "Don't be such a brat."
Rusty glowered back. "She doesn't need you taking her side, okay?"
"There are no sides," Buzz pointed out.
"Whatever."
"Did it even occur to you to ask why she didn't want you to go to the mall…?"
"Of course it occurred to me to ask!" the boy erupted. "How's 'because I said so' sound to you? 'cause that's pretty much what I got."
Buzz sighed. "She's just worried about you," he repeated. Because it was true – maybe more worried than any of them had guessed.
Rusty's shoulder's hunched. "What exactly did she think I was gonna do at the mall?" It was heartbreaking, that Sharon didn't trust him with that, even, anymore.
The older man frowned. "It's not what you were gonna do." He paused, not sure it was really his place to talk… but hey, the rest of them meddled in this all the time, and this time he could probably help.
Great, he was becoming as nosy as everyone else.
They stopped at another red light on the next block. "Look, it's this case they're working on, okay?"
Rusty glared bleakly. "What does that have to do with me?" That guy who'd jumped off a bridge – what, another abused kid? Another street worker? Is that why Sharon didn't trust him anymore?
"Nothing," said Buzz. "But it may have given the Captain reason to think that maybe the mall wasn't safe."
Rusty rolled his eyes. "She thought that the mall wasn't safe? Really?"
The man's reply was lost in an abrupt loud boom. Car alarms up and down the block went off. With a few seconds' delay, traffic skidded to a messy stop; in the rearview mirror, they saw a cloud of smoke starting to coil toward the sky.
Rusty's eyes widened in horror.
Please don't kill me. That is all.