Page 18 of Wrong Way

Miles kept his pace steady and unhurried, not slowing and not speeding up, giving Rivera nowhere to put the decision except on himself. Rivera's weight stayed on the balls of his feet. His gaze went to the gap between the van and the building's side wall, a clear path to the street. The moment held a little too long for Miles’s comfort—so long that Vic shifted her position slightly to the left, widening the angle between them without making a production of it. Rivera looked at Miles and then at Vic, but he stayed where he was.

Miles showed his badge when they were just a few feet away. "I’m Agent Sterling, with the FBI. This is Agent Stone. We'd like to ask you a few questions."

Rivera's arms crossed over his chest. His eyes were moving too much, tracking between them and the street and the building entrance behind him. "What about?"

"Two recent deaths in Austin. Both involved modified neon sign transformers. Your name came up in connection with a company that installed equipment at both locations."

"Lone Star." Rivera's voice had a tight, clipped quality. "I don't work there anymore. I haven't for over six months."

"We know that," Vic said. "We're just trying to understand where you were on two specific nights…. trying to get some answers on this case."

Vic gave him the dates and the times and as she spoke, Rivera uncrossed his arms and then crossed them again. He looked down at the asphalt and then back up with a look on his face that looked almost embarrassed. "I was driving around."

"Both nights?" Miles said.

"I drive when I can't sleep. It helps." He shifted his weight and looked over their shoulders, as if wondering if he could make a break for it. "I've had some anxiety issues lately and the meds my doctor gave me screw with my sleep.”

"Both nights, you were just driving," Vic said, sounding very skeptical.

"Yes." He said it too fast. "The second one, I stopped and got something to eat. There's a burger place on Airport. I was there late, working. That damn job didn't wrap until almost ten o'clock."

Miles mentally noted that was the night of the Song murder.

"Mr. Rivera," Miles said, "there’s a van outside, parked right out front. Is that yours?”

“It is.”

“Would you have any problem with us looking it over?”

He didn’t answer right away, which was better than the instant rejection. Miles had been expecting. Finally, he said, "I haven't done anything."

"Then you shouldn't have any problem with us taking a look, right?”

Rivera stared at him for a moment and then started for the door. “Come on then,” he said, sounding slightly angry now.

Outside, Rivera unlocked the van for them and stepped back. He looked almost like a scared child as he stood to the side, letting the agents search through his work van.

The van's interior was dense with the ordinary accumulation of a working electrician's life. The cargo area held a metal shelving unit bolted to one wall, its shelves loaded with organized bins of connectors, wire nuts, terminal blocks, and cable ties. Coils of wire in various gauges hung from a horizontal bar across the top of the shelving. A hard plastic tool case sat on the floor, and Vic unlatched it and went through it systematically: wire strippers, a voltage tester, lineman's pliers, needle-nose pliers, a conduit bender, and a handful of breaker toggles still in their packaging. Standard tools in good condition, nothing modified or out of place.

Miles opened the bins one by one. Wire connectors sorted by size in labeled compartments. Weatherproof outlet covers still in their packaging, untouched. A bin of terminal strips, another of assorted breaker hardware. He worked his way along the shelving methodically, checking behind and underneath each shelf, running his hand along the wall of the van where the metal met the floor. He found nothing that did not belong to the ordinary inventory of a working electrical contractor. No transformer units, no disconnected ground wires, no secondary terminals, nothing that bore any resemblance to the equipment that had been used at either crime scene.

The passenger-side door opened without resistance. The console between the seats held a phone charger, a registration envelope, a pair of sunglasses, and a prescription bottle. Miles picked up the bottle and read the label. Lorazepam, prescribed to Marcus Rivera, was filled three weeks ago; the pill count is consistent with regular use. He set it back in the console.

On the floor behind the passenger seat was a crumpled paper bag from a fast-food restaurant. Miles picked it up and unfolded the top. Inside was the wax paper from a sandwich, a used ketchup packet, and a receipt. He smoothed the receipt and read the timestamp. It was from the night of Derek Song's murder, at 11:05 at night, from the burger place on Airport Boulevard that Rivera had mentioned. The order was two burgers and a large drink.

Miles showed the receipt to Vic without comment, folded it carefully, and set it back in the bag.

“The timing works in his favor,” she said. “But it doesn’t rule him out completely.”

They found nothing else. Miles climbed out of the van and Rivera was there on the asphalt, arms at his sides now, watching them with an expression that was still tight but had shifted from its earlier intensity.

"That it?" Rivera said.

“Yes,” Vic said. “And thank you for your cooperation.”

"One more thing," Miles said. "For the next few days, don't leave Austin. We may need to speak with you again."

Rivera's jaw worked as if he wanted to say something, but he chose not to. In the end, he repeated: "I didn't do anything."