“Right, so we’ll kick him out before midnight. Age? Lindsay says a five-year range is fine.”
“I’m forty-one,” he says.
“He’s forty-one. Yes, agreed, a good age for a man. Wait, I have a question: What’s your full name?”
Fuck, he thinks. Here goes. “Alex Duran Cassidy.”
“Okay, Alex Duran Cassidy, forty-one, employed, not a serial killer—you’re officially invited. Linds, if you think of anything else, just text me. He’s very forthcoming. What can we bring? Bullshit. Fine, fine. See you soon.” Diane hangs up. “Lindsay told me not to bring anything but we should grab some wine, and not from here. Her husband is an unenlightened snob, like you were.”
“Poor guy,” Alex says. “We’ll get wine on the way. It’s on me this time.”
“I need to stop at home and change,” she says. “I’m gonna politely suggest you do the same.”
Alex has three days’ worth of clothes in the go-bag in his trunk, which he decides not to mention to Diane. The dark jeans and white button-down in his duffel will do just fine. They agree to meet up in an hour at a wine shop, her favorite and also his. And then he’s following her car again, squinting against the afternoon sun, almost certainly over the legal blood-alcohol limit, worried about the loaded handgun in the glove box of his car, running through their conversation on the hilltop and marveling that it only briefly touched on work. She’s driving faster than he would if he were leading. But he’s not, and he trusts her somehow, so he follows.
Six
Sierra Pacific Mortgage owns 327 Kirkland Avenue, where Craig claims he dropped Rider 1 after the Wynn job. The dilapidated ranch-style home has been vacant since the lender foreclosed eighteen months ago, and the two detectives Ramirez dispatched after Craig’s early-morning confession found no signs of forced entry. A Sierra Pacific branch manager referred Harris to Silver State Realty, assuring him that no one from the mortgage company has set foot on the property, and that the listing agent, Heather Richards, has the only other set of keys. Harris had another special agent do some digging on her. She’s thirty-six and bottle blond, a single mother with excellent credit and no criminal record besides a six-year-old DUI.
At 2:45 p.m. the receptionist at Silver State Realty informs Harris that Ms. Richards just stepped out for coffee. When Ramirez asks if she’s expected back, the young man suggests they try a nearby Starbucks with a look that says he knows law enforcement when he sees it.
Heather exits the coffee shop in a white blouse and gray skirt as Harris and Ramirez round the corner. She stops abruptly when the two men block her path, tottering slightly on stiletto heels.
“Ms. Richards?” Ramirez says. “Detective Ramirez, LVMPD, and thi—”
“Oh my God,” she says, raising one hand to her mouth while a large iced coffee lists dangerously in the other. “This is about the place on Kirkland, isn’t it?”
“What makes you say that?” Harris asks after glancing at Ramirez.
“Listen, I don’t know that guy and I have no idea what he was doing there, okay? I took his money, but that’s it, I swear. I’ll tell you everything I know. Please don’t tell me it was kids.”
“Kids?” Ramirez asks.
“In the video,” Heather says. “They shot a video there, right? It wasn’t children, was it?”
“We need to have a longer conversation,” Ramirez says. “And not here on the sidewalk.”
“Okay. Do I need a lawyer?”
“Did you break the law?” Harris asks.
“No. I mean, I’m not supposed to let people use a house to shoot a porno, obviously. My boss will fucking kill me if he finds out. I could lose my license and I cannot, cannot lose my license.”
“Then come with us,” Harris says. “Or we can all go have a conversation with your boss. Your call.”
At the FBI field office on Lake Meade Boulevard, Harris offers Heather the chair across from his while Ramirez perches on a corner of the desk. Harris instructs her to start from the beginning, which she does after a long quaff of coffee.
“This guy calls me up about a month ago and asks about the Kirkland house. Said his name was Richard, Richard … something—I have it written down somewhere. First call I’ve had about the place. We agreed to meet there the next morning. I got there a few minutes early to make sure it was still standing, look around. He showed up right on time.”
“Describe him for me,” Harris says.
“Big guy, muscular, about your height. Bald under a baseball cap. Thick beard, brown with some gray in it,” she says, echoing Craig’s description of the man who booked him for the Wynn job. “And a gray suit, expensive looking. Never took off his sunglasses. Said he was some kind of investor, looking for investment properties, something like that.”
“Did you see what kind of car he drove?” Harris asks.
“He didn’t drive. I was waiting by the mailbox and he turned the corner and came walking down the block. I remember thinking that was weird. We went in, looked around. The place is empty, obviously. Not much to see. He asked a bunch of questions.”
“Like?”
“How old were the appliances, any pest problems, did the garage doors work. He was really interested in the garage. He asked about the neighbors and I was like, What neighbors? Four houses on that block are vacant, nobody’s around. He said everything looked great and could he come back with a colleague.”
“And did he?”
Heather shakes her head. “We were about to leave when he said his friend was looking for a house just like this, and would I be interested in renting it out for an afternoon.”
“For a video shoot.”
“Yeah. The way he said it was like, you know, wink-wink, nudge-nudge. I told him he’d have to ask the mortgage broker about that. He asked if we could keep this between us. I knew right then I should have walked away.”
Harris tents his fingers underneath his chin. “But you didn’t.”
“From that kind of money? I couldn’t. Can’t. I’ve got a six-year-old with hemophilia, okay? It didn’t sound like he was breaking any laws.”
“What happened then?”
“He took the keys and told me not to show the house until after the twenty-third. Promised to have the place professionally cleaned when they were done. Said if anything was out of place, which it wouldn’t be, five grand should cover it. He had it on him. Cash.”
“Did you hear from him again?”
Heather shakes her head. “I stopped by the day after to check on the place. Absolutely spotless. Reeked of bleach. I figured they were cleaning up after … you know, whatever.”
“We need the number this guy called you from,” Ramirez says.
“Good luck with that. When I called to say, hey, thanks for cleaning, I got one of those nonworking-number messages. That’s when I got really worried. How bad was it?”
“Was what?” Harris asks.
“The video.”
“There’s no video.”
“So … am I in trouble?”
“Probably not. We’ll need a copy of those keys.”