Ryan and Jessie exchanged a look. Neither was anxious to broach the main reason they were there. But since Ryan had done most of the heavy lifting so far, Jessie decided it was her turn.
“So did you go back at all afterward, maybe to pick up a final check from the company?”
“Yeah. I went back but not for a check. They stiffed me on that, said I violated some morals clause and I was lucky they didn’t report me to the police. But I had to wash and return my uniform and turn in the key to the truck I used.”
“When did you do that?” Ryan asked.
“The next day—Friday.”
“And you haven’t been back since?” Jessie pressed.
“No,” he said slowly, clearly sensing something else going on. “Why?”
“Because we’re not here about the allegation made by Mrs. Jules,” Jessie said. “We’re here about a series of murders that occurred earlier this week. Did you hear about those?”
“I haven’t been keeping up with the news lately. But one of my buddies from the job told me a body was found in a house just off Sixteenth Street. Is that what you’re talking about?”
“Yes, Carlos,” Jessie confirmed. “But it wasn’t just one body. It was two different people on consecutive nights in the same house. One of them was a local woman. The other was a man who worked for the LAPD. So we’re following up on every lead. And when we heard there might be a Peeping Tom in the area, we had to check it out. You understand that?”
“Sure, I guess.”
“Great,” she continued. “Do you know Priscilla Barton, Carlos?”
Fogata appeared to search his memory.
“I don’t think so, at least not by name.”
“What about Charles and Gail Bloom?”
“I know those are the people who own the house where the body, er, bodies, were found. But that’s only because my buddy told me that.”
“Does Beach Cities Landscaping work on their home?” Ryan asked.
“Yes. But I don’t usually. I maybe helped out there a couple of times in the last year. Besides, they’d cut back on landscaping while they were gone. No one had been there in a few weeks.”
“So you knew they were out of town?” Ryan wanted to know.
“It was common knowledge.”
“Did you have a key to their place?” Ryan pressed.
“No,” Carlos said, sounding offended, his voice suddenly hard. “But that doesn’t get me off the hook, Detective. There was nothing to stop me from getting a copy made at a hardware store on a day when I did work there. Are you about to read me my rights?”
Jessie ignored his indignation.
“Do you know a man named Garland Moses?” she asked, an edge in her voice.
Fogata shook his head.
“It doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Where were you Monday, Carlos, late afternoon to early evening?” Ryan asked.
The man’s head was swiveling back and forth, trying to keep up with their volley of questions.
“I was stuck in a two-hour traffic jam, driving back from Agoura Hills.”
“Why were you there?” Jessie demanded.
“Job interview. It’s an even longer commute than to the beach but I’m in no position to be choosy.”
“Did you get it?” Ryan asked.
“I’m still waiting to hear.”
“We’ll need the phone number and the name of the person you met with,” Jessie told him.
Fogata sighed.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“What do you think it’ll do for my job prospects if a police detective calls them up to ask if they can confirm I was there in order to rule me out as a murder suspect?”
Ryan looked at Jessie, who suddenly felt mildly ill. No matter how this played out, it looked like Carlos Fogata was going to get screwed.
Or maybe not.
“Did you have your phone with you that day?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
Jessie turned to Ryan.
“Maybe we can find another way to confirm Mr. Fogata’s alibi without contacting the folks he interviewed with.”
Ryan looked at her with a mix of bemusement and admiration.
“I was not expecting that,” he said before turning to Fogata. “Carlos, assuming this info checks out, we might be able to rule you out as a double murderer. This could be your lucky day.”
“Man,” Fogata said, shaking his head ruefully, “as much as I appreciate that, I gotta say, I haven’t had a lucky day in four years.”
Jessie believed him. More importantly for her work, she was becoming increasingly aware that her natural skepticism toward rich beach folk wasn’t based in unfair bias but in hard-won experience. It never hurt to be reminded that she was dealing with a bunch of vipers, especially when she was about to return to their pit.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“What do we have left for snacks?” Agent Poulter asked from the driver’s seat. As the senior agent he got to choose whether to drive or ride shotgun.
Agent Cress leaned back and rifled through the cooler in the backseat. Another pitfall of being the junior agent was that he had to stock the supplies each morning.
“We’re down to Sun Chips, string cheese, and juice boxes.”
“No water?” Poulter wondered.
“We used it all up. But at least these will give us a sugar hit.”
“I always crash after the juice,” Poulter complained. “Just give me a string cheese.”
“Your system is falling apart, old man,” Cress replied as he reached back to find the cheese, ignoring the rivulet of sweat that streamed down his back toward his backside.
Agents Poulter and Cress were uncomfortable. They’d heard rumors that one or both of them might soon be pulled off the Kyle Voss surveillance detail. But as of now, they were both still sitting in their black Hyundai Elantra across from his townhouse, blasting the air-conditioning in the ninety-four-degree heat of Claremont, California.
The overnight team was jealous of them, because they got to go home to their families each evening and sleep in their own beds. That was certainly true. But the night guys didn’t spend all day sweltering in a metal box, trying to avoid detection even though Voss was clearly on to them.
No matter how many times they changed vehicles or their stakeout location, he made a point of waving at them every time he drove by. Then they had to follow him as he drove all over Southern California, attending meetings, having lunches, and doing interviews. They had lost him on more than one occasion, though they were later able to confirm his whereabouts.
Both agents were hopeful that the whole detail would be pulled. There was no way one agent could handle the alternative, solo duty, with the need for food and bathroom breaks, not to mention driving around while coordinating with support staff.
Both were confident it would happen by the end of this week. It might have been different if they found something, but they hadn’t. Since getting out of prison, Voss had been a Boy Scout. Neither of them bought the act. The guy was a murderer. He’d killed one woman and then tried to kill his own wife. They were also sure he was in deep with the Monterrey-based Monzon drug cartel. But they couldn’t prove it.