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Well, nothing to do.
She set the file folder she'd just received on his desk. "Actually, Charles, I did wonder if Brad might be a suspect. So I had Rey Carreneo check him out." She tapped the file. "He correlated his whereabouts and checked phone records. After Bay View, we've got the unsub's prepaid number. There was no connection. He's innocent. His boss at MCFD says he's usually on the scene in the first ten minutes of a call. He cruises around the county with a scanner, even when he's off duty. Oh, and he's known for being a real pain in the ass."
A pause. Overby teepeed his fingers.
"Oh. Good. Great minds think alike." And the look on his face wasn't sheepishness for having been outthought, Dance believed; it was pure relief that he hadn't offered up the theory at a press conference only to recant a few hours later based on the findings of his suspended underling.
Dance's mobile hummed. It was TJ Scanlon.
"Hey."
"Boss, I've been plundering various and sundry records. Real estate, deeds, construction permits. Per your request."
She knew he had. "Yes?"
"Dusty. You'd think everything would be online but, un-uh. I've been prowling through shelves, back rooms. Caverns. Where are you?"
"Charles's office."
"I'll be there in one. You're going to want to see this."
He arrived in less time than that. And his flecked Jefferson Airplane T-shirt and, yes, dusty jeans attested to his old-fashioned detective work.
Caverns...
He held a file folder similar to the one she'd just passed to Overby.
"Michael, Charles. Hey, boss. Okay. Check this out. Nobody got back to me from that Nevada company, the one planning that construction near Solitude Creek? So I thought I'd do some digging. Try to find shareholders, whatever. Well, the company is owned by an anonymous trust. I tried to get a look at the trust but it's not public. I could, though, find out who represents it. Barrett Stone, a lawyer in San Francisco. How's that for a lawyer's name? I'd want him representing me, I'll tell you. Okay, I'll get to the point. The phone company coughed up his call log for me, and I looked them over. Guess who the lawyer's been calling? Three calls in the past two days."
Overby lifted his palms.
"Sam Cohen. So I called him. And found out that Stone, on behalf of the trust, made a cash offer to buy the roadhouse and the property it sits on."
"So, there's a motive," Dance said. "Ruin the business and then buy up the land cheap. Build a new development on it. Maybe buy Henderson Jobbing too, now that they're going out of business."
O'Neil asked, "How do we find out who's behind the trust?... I don't know if we've got enough for a warrant."
"I did the next best thing. I pulled together some of Stone's more prominent clients. Recognize anyone?" He set a sheet of paper in front of them.
One name was highlighted in yellow. He'd also drawn an exclamation point next to it.
Neither was necessary.
Dance blinked. "Hm."
"Well," Overby said, uneasily eyeing the name. "This's going to be... I don't know what this is going to be."
"Awkward" came to Dance's mind. Then: "explosive."
Overby looked from her to O'Neil. "You better get on it right now. Good luck."
Meaning he was already thinking about how to save himself from the train wreck about to occur.
Chapter 74
En route to Salinas.
Kathryn Dance was piecing together a portrait of the man now suspected of hiring the Solitude Creek Unsub. She was online. Michael O'Neil, driving.
