“I’ve been here for almost four years,” she said, “and I’m still not used to it.”
“Used to what?”
She nodded at his coat. “The cold. Seems like Alaska has two seasons. Winter and July. I love the work but I wouldn’t mind a little longer summer. I’m a warm-weather girl. My mom says I’m like a paina—one of those Cook pines.”
“How’s that?” Cutter asked, knowing Lola would tell him anyway.
“They’re not really a pine, I guess, but from some islands near Australia. Anyway, they’re all over now, even in California. In the south they bend to the north. In the north, they lean south—like they’re always looking for someplace a little warmer.” She turned toward him and grinned, showing her teeth. “Just like me.”
“I know what you mean,” Cutter said honestly. Alaska was great, but he missed the warm-water beaches of Florida. “Still, this is a beautiful place.”
“True enough.” Lola’s brow furrowed, the way it did when she was deep in thought. She pushed the sleeve of her jacket up enough to check her watch. “I can’t believe Markham held court so late.”
Cutter shrugged. He made it a point to listen to his deputies when they bitched, just in case there was a bona fide complaint, but he rarely joined in. He had to admit that Judge J. Anthony Markham was a piece of work though.
“I walked past the chief’s office this morning,” Lola said. “Scott Keen was in there talking about some kind of threat. He shut the door when I walked by. All very hush-hush. He likes to make everything double top secret.”
“Must be,” Cutter said. “Because it’s news to me.”
Being out of the loop might have bothered another supervisor, but Cutter didn’t care to know every little thing going on in the district. That was the chief’s job. There was plenty to worry about in his own wheelhouse. His own “swim-lane,” the bigwigs in DC called it. Protective investigations were all well and good, but he’d leave those to the judicial security inspector and spend his energy hunting fugitives.
“Mark my words, boss,” Lola said. “If we don’t get Twig tonight, we’ll be yanked away to work some protection detail.” She threw her head back against the seat and stared up at the headliner like she was in agony. “Let’s get this show on the road. You know we have our FIT test next week. I was supposed to run tonight.”
“I thought you ran this morning,” Cutter said. He enjoyed a good workout, but when it came to fitness, Lola Teariki was beyond maniacal.
“I did three miles,” she said. “But like you said, I am putting in for SOG this next go around. You know how hard they look at your shooting and FIT scores.”
SOG—the Special Operations Group—was the Marshals Service’s version of SWAT.
Cutter almost smiled. “You want exercise? Then let’s get some exercise.” He keyed the radio. “Lola and I are going to do one more drive-by.” He let off the mic so he was just talking to Lola. “And then we’ll go for a walk.”
“In this crap?” Lola peered across the seat in the dim glow of the dash lights. Her brows were raised, eyes wide and slightly crossed, like she was staring at the tip of her nose. Her top lip curled in the grimace of her Maori ancestors’ haka war dance.
“Hold on to that face,” Cutter said. “We may need it if this works out.”
“You mean if it doesn’t work out,” she corrected.
“Nope,” Cutter said. “I mean if it does.” He nodded down the street. “But first the drive-by. When you get in front of the car lot, I want you to punch it so you peel out.”
Lola threw the Expedition into gear. “Peel out?”
Cutter shrugged. “When I tell you, I want you to hit the gas like you’re fleeing the scene.”
Lola did as instructed, stomping on the accelerator to send up a rooster tail of gravel and sludge in front of Honest Sam’s.
Cutter pointed a half a block down with an open hand. “Pull up there and then flip a U-turn.”
The Expedition’s headlights reflected silver-black off the rain-soaked asphalt. Wipers thwacked back and forth against a backdrop of hissing rain and crunching gravel.
Cutter shrugged on the raincoat and opened his door to a gust of wind.
“I was thinking,” he said a minute later as they trudged side by side through the rain toward the lot. “You can’t do any better than a hundred percent on your FIT test.”
“Not true, boss,” Lola said. “SOG looks at times, not max points. I’m competing against other applicants, not the standard.”
Cutter thought on that. In his forties, he could still run a sub-ten mile-and-a-half, bench press his body weight fifteen times, and pump out seventy pushups without any trouble—but contemplating Lola Teariki’s workouts made his bones ache.
They paused two hundred feet from the shop, scanning for security cameras. Cutter found two—one facing outward from the front door, and another that pointed toward the lot. The side of the building next to the roll-up garage doors appeared to be a blind spot. Sean Blodgett and Anchorage PD Task Force Officer Nancy Alvarez were parked around the corner in another SUV, giving them a view of the front and side doors as well as the driveway onto the lot, but not the garage.
“Keep your hood pulled up around your face,” Cutter said to Lola. “In case we missed a camera.”
She adjusted her jacket around the thick bun of hair on top of her head. “Okay. But I’m still not sure what we’re doing.”
“Ranucci says Twig is on the move,” Cutter said. “So time is of the essence. We have a cell number for Sam, but I don’t want to burn it if we don’t have to.”
Lola’s shrug was almost lost in the oversized rain jacket. “Agreed.“
“Sam is our only real lead, but APD says there’s no one at his address of record.”
“Right . . .” Lola said, still not tracking. “So how do we get in touch with Honest Sam if we don’t want to call the only number we have?”
Cutter squatted to the ground, as if he’d dropped something. “You brought your binoculars with you?”
She patted the chest of her raincoat.
Cutter wiped the rain out of his eyes, pointing at the shop with an open hand. “Take a look at that sign in the shop window and tell me what you see.”
Lola fished out the binoculars and raised them. “‘Warning: Facility Protected by All Guard Security.’” She gave Cutter a wary side-eye, then looked back through the binoculars. “I get it,” she said, finally tracking.
Cutter picked up a rock the size of a golf ball and stood, hurling it through the four-by-four window next to the garage doors. “Exactly. We’ll get his alarm company to call him.”
CHAPTER 3
Blodgett and Alvarez didn’t have eyes on the broken window, but Cutter was fairly sure they knew what was going on when the alarm siren wailed.
Officer Alvarez came over the radio.
“I’ll let Dispatch know it was us.”
“Stand by on that,” Cutter said. “We don’t have a three-sixty view of the building. Owner should still respond.”