Drone: An Eli Quinn Mystery Read online

  The apartment was not dusty, but whoever had broken in left a couple dusty footprints heading toward another stairway that led to an interior landing and the roof. Solo sniffed the floor and headed straight for the stairs, so we followed.

  I read somewhere that I had about five million olfactory receptors in my nose and Solo had 225 million. I let him continue to do the sniffing.

  The stairs were narrow. We went up single file. At the small landing was a narrow wooden door leading out to the flat roof. The door faced south. Solo sniffed the doorknob, growled a little louder. It was unlocked, too, so I opened it and we followed Solo out onto a small wooden deck that covered the back portion of the roof.

  Solo started sniffing again, went in circles a few times, growled, then sat down and looked at me.

  “Good boy?” I said.

  Solo barked. Just once. I didn’t know what he knew, but I knew he knew something.

  “Great view,” Sam said.

  You could see in all directions, across the one- and two-story rooftops of the old town center and beyond to the suburban homes that surrounded old town. The sun was getting low in the west. The view to the south was unobstructed, with no other two-story buildings in the line of sight. The landscape slid away to the south, through Scottsdale and Phoenix. In the far distance, enveloped in slight haze, the mountains just beyond Baseline Road marked the southernmost border of the Valley of the Sun.

  Around the perimeter of the roof was a parapet maybe two feet high. If you stayed low, nobody could see you up here.

  I told Solo to stay, and of course he did. Sam and I stepped to the side of the structure that enclosed the landing. I looked and pointed to the northeast, purposely not looking directly at the second-story window across the street, due north, but this time I definitely saw movement. A person, big blond hair, black clothing that billowed a bit, maybe a dress, probably a woman, moved out of view behind the curtains. Pinnacle Peak towered behind the building with the mystery snoop. My peripheral vision was pretty good.

  “Look where I’m pointing. We are being watched by Curtain Woman. Act natural.”

  “You got it, Columbo. Curtain Woman?”

  “Don’t look. Second story across the street.” I was still pointing. Too much pointing. I moved my hand to shade my eyes, instead. Put my other hand on my hip. The classic “I’m not looking at you, I’m just acting casual” look. “That the roof of Café Amir?” I nodded my chin toward it.

  “Looks like it,” Sam said. “I’ve never seen it from here. But that’s where it should be.”

  Café Amir and the other two-story buildings blocked any view of the central traffic circle, just more than two blocks away. But we had our bearings, the lay of the land.

  “Short distance as the crow flies,” Sam said.

  “Or a drone.”

  She put her hand on my back. It felt good. Very good. Maybe too good. As close as Sam and I had become, I suddenly realized that touching wasn’t something we’d done yet.

  “Just acting natural,” she said. “We’re talking a lot, acting a little stiff, and it probably looks like we’re pretending not to try and figure out who Curtain Woman is. If she is watching, we don’t want her to think we’re spying on her, too.”

  She laughed, for no reason, and punched my shoulder. That didn’t feel so good.

  “Pretty private up here,” she said, swinging her arms and looking around as if we were considering buying the place. “If you come out the door and stay crouched, nobody would see you. Stay behind the landing and you can stand up without being spotted.”

  “And whoever is watching us probably knows that.”

  “Good place to do something nefarious from,” she said.

  “Like make an assassination attempt.”

  Solo was still sitting in the same spot. Waiting for us to do something. I didn’t know what to do, but there was nothing more to see here, so I said “C’mon, boy,” and we left.

  Chapter 9

  The sun had just risen above the mountains to the east. The air was still. Pleasant was bustling with traffic for a Saturday. I stuck the key in the door of my office but found it unlocked. I knew I’d locked it yesterday afternoon when Sam and I left to follow the path of the drone.

  My body tensed. I wished I’d brought Solo with me. Since I didn’t carry a gun, I had two primary means of protection: Solo, no explanation needed, and my own hands, which could hurt a man faster than he could say “Hey, what the.” Correction: could kill a man. Not that I ever wanted to. But it was good to know they could.

  Still, there were a lot of people around, on the sidewalks, going in and out of the cafes. A clutch of Harleys was parked in front of Lulu’s Grind. A small line of mountain bikes shushed past, heading north on Pleasant Way toward the trailhead. Not a good time to commit a crime, so if somebody broke in, it was probably overnight, and it was probably over.

  I was overthinking all this. After taking an instant to clear my head and focus, ready for anything, I pushed the door open and went in.

  Unless he’d been sitting there all night, the rough-looking pile of muscle sitting in my Aeron chair had recently committed the crime of breaking and entering. His feet were up on my desk.

  I closed the door, kept my hands ready at my sides, moved into the room casually but quickly to get away from the wall, knees imperceptibly bent and ready.

  “You’re sitting in my chair,” I said.

  “My chair right now.”

  The pile of muscle showed his perfect white teeth. He was shorter than me, probably five-eleven or so. Thick everywhere—jaw, neck, arms, chest. Weightlifter. Strong but slow, I hoped. Not likely to be a problem if we ended up tussling, as long as I didn’t let him get close. But you never knew. Skin smooth and dark but with wrinkles starting to form, maybe late forties, maybe Italian, a little too much time in the sun. Black suit, gold chain that screamed tough guy from Jersey, black Reebok walking shoes. Slender hands folded across a flat stomach, fingers manicured.

  “We’ll fix that shortly,” I said.

  He ran his left hand through his gelled black hair, as if it needed to be put back in place.

  “Listen, asshole,” he said. “Nobody’s moving me until I wanna move. Anyway, I don’t plan to be here long. Unless you want to go at it right now. Then I’ll have a nasty mess I have to clean up, and that’ll take a while. Neither of us wants that.”

  “So you’re the thug,” I said. I decided to think of him as Tough Guy No. 1, in case there were more as I continued pulling at the strings that seemed attached to the assassination attempt on Jackie Brand. I wasn’t expecting to get his name, so I figured it best to start keeping track somehow. “How about you just tell me what I’m not supposed to do, then you can leave and I’ll go do it anyway, and we’ll be done here.”

  “Wise ass.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “Listen, asshole. I know who you are. Eli Quinn, private fucking detective.”

  “Says so on the sign outside. Except for the fucking. So now we know you can read. Or at least sort of. And you can pick locks. The surprises are piling up.”

  “And I know what you’ve been up to.”

  “I call it snooping around. What do you call it?”

  “I call it asking for it,” he said. He ran his left hand through his hair again, removed his feet from my desk, stood up. Tried to make himself taller than he was. Five-ten was all he could muster, with hair. Maybe five-nine without. Being a pile of muscle, however, he seemed bigger. I had a good reach advantage on him. That always helped.

  “You been visiting places you shouldn’t,” he said. “That shit stops now.”

  I wanted to ask if he knew Curtain Lady. Kept that to myself. But I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to shake the tree a little and see what bad apples might fall, now that Tough Guy No. 1 had confirmed I’d found the tree. “If I don’t snoop around, how am I going to find the guy who flew that drone?”

  Tough Guy No. 1 didn
’t blink, didn’t give me anything. He might not know much. Sometimes the Tough Guy is nothing more than that, and he doesn’t need to know why. But I was pretty sure whatever I said would get back to whoever had sent him.

  “Let’s keep this simple, asshole. I know where you work. I know where you live. I know where you’re not supposed to be. Knock this shit off right now, you and I won’t see each other again. Keep it up, you’re fucked. Somebody gonna be scraping pieces of you off the floor.”

  “Duly noted,” I said. “Appropriately terrified. Otto send you?”

  Nothing. Tough Guy No. 1 was good at sticking to his script. Or he didn’t know what the heck I was talking about. Good odds both were true.

  “Wise ass,” he said. He moved around the desk, didn’t bother keeping eye contact as he headed for the door. That was the sort of lapse in focus that would’ve been my opportunity, were I looking for one. I had him beat on smarts, reach and focus. And I was pretty sure I had him beat on fighting technique. By a mile. His shoulder bumped mine to make it clear nobody gets in his way. I didn’t bounce out of the way, as he expected. But I didn’t press the issue by bouncing him out of the way, either. Just establishing some reasonable boundaries. He was looking for an excuse to fight. I was not.

  Tough Guy No. 1 paused at the door, turned, flashed his perfect white teeth again. “I do hope we see each other soon,” he said, crossing his arms and gripping his left bicep with his right hand. “It’d be fun.”

  He unfolded his arms, turned, opened the door and left.

  “A blast,” I said when he was gone. I was calm, but plenty of adrenaline had flowed through me, so I pulled my shoulders down, flexed my fingers, and began to relax. I’d been in situations like this before, situations that could go either way, might not end pretty, lots of testosterone on both sides. I wasn’t getting used to it. I’d never get used to it. That’d be dangerous. But I knew how to handle it. And I knew what I’d do next.

  Chapter 10

  Nobody would accuse a Jeep Wrangler of driving itself. You had to wrestle the steering, jam the gears, drive the damn thing, on-road or off. I’d never heard anyone complain.

  South on Cave Creek Road, right on Jomax into Cave Buttes Recreational Area, then I took a right and manhandled the Jeep across a disappointingly smooth dirt road that led to the Desert Drone Club. Solo was in the back, smiling in the breeze we made on an otherwise windless morning. Good day for flying. It would be hot soon, but it was still early and the temperature was enjoyable.

  The lot was nearly full. I parked the Jeep a ways from the small clubhouse, beyond which several drones soared, hovered, dipped, flipped and generally filled the sky.

  Solo and I walked over. The clubhouse was small, low ceiling, noisy fan in the middle of the room, no air conditioning. A few mismatched chairs faced a small TV on the wall. There was a kitchenette, stacks of boxes of bottled water on the counter. Two guys grabbed donuts from a box and a bottle of water each and went out the back door. Another guy came in the same door and went to the restroom.

  Paul E. Peters was sitting in a worn club chair watching open-wheel sprint car racing on the TV. I recognized him from behind. Grey cargo shorts, black Teva sandals and a navy blue polo shirt. Sandy blond hair curled round his ears and flopped over his forehead. He was slouched in the chair, legs in a man spread, drinking a Bud.

  “Pauly, it’s not even nine o’clock.”

  “I know. Amazing. With cable you can watch racing twenty-four-seven.” He glanced at me, tipped his beer my way, then looked back at the television. “I don’t get this channel at home, so I figure what the hell.”

  “Janet must miss you.”

  “Probably doesn’t even know I’m gone.” He looked at his watch. “It’s Saturday. She’s still snoring. Kids probably watching that crap on the Disney channel or playing World of Warcraft.” He turned in his chair partway to face me. “So anyway, where the hell you been, Quinn? It’s been what, a year? You’re a lousy freaking friend, you know that?”

  Last time I saw Pauly was at Jess’ funeral. More than a year ago. Neither of us wanted to bring that up.

  “Yeah, time flies,” I said.

  “Around here it just drones on.”

  “You told me that one before.”

  “Still funny.”

  “Hilarious.”

  Pauly Peters got up. It took some effort. He was six-six and weighed about two-forty. Not fat, just big boned and solid. Though he was putting on a little around the middle lately. Pauly and I were best friends in college, roomed together our first year in the dorms, played some intramural basketball, drank a lot of beer and shot a lot of pool. We took different paths after college but stayed in touch over the years, then found ourselves both in Arizona. We had the kind of friendship that didn’t need much tending. We could go a year without even talking, and pick right up as though we’d been hanging out every weekend.

  Pauly was a hard core gamer, built his own gaming PCs, was a hell of a power forward who always threw an elbow to draw a foul in the first minute and screw with the head of the other team’s big man. And he could run the table in eight-ball. He worked for the CIA and almost never talked about his job. Even I didn’t know exactly what he did. Just that it was classified, involved brains not brawn, that he sometimes went away for weeks to faraway places and couldn’t say where, that Fortune 500 companies had him on speed dial, and that otherwise he seemed to have a lot of spare time. And he knew more about drones than just about anyone.

  “Good lookin’ mutt,” Pauly said.

  Solo stayed by my side. He took his time warming up to strangers.

  “Paul E. Peters, meet Solo. Solo, this is one of the few tough guys you’ll meet who I don’t want you to attack.”

  “Trained to kill?”

  “Not exactly,” I said. “Subdue with force.”

  “Looks like a killer.” Pauly put his hands in the air, fingers spread, made a face like he was afraid.

  “Sometimes he uses just a little more force than necessary. But mostly he’s well disciplined, and friendly, long as you don’t do anything stupid.”

  I put my hand out. Pauly grabbed it, then pulled me into a hug and we gave each other a good slap on the back. Solo didn’t attack.

  “So what brings you here?”

  “I’m looking for someone who knows a lot about flying drones,” I said.

  “You’re talkin’ to him.”

  “Someone else,” I said.

  “I thought you quit drones.”

  “I did. But I’m looking into the strike on Jackie Brand day before yesterday.”

  Pauly raised his right hand, flew it down into his left palm with a waist-high smack. “Dead on target. Somebody knew what they were doing.”

  “Yep.”

  “You’re back at the paper then?”

  “Nope.”

  “So you’re just curious?”

  “I’m a private investigator now.”

  “No shit. Hell.” Pauly rubbed his chin, nodded. “Eli Quinn, private eye. Makes perfect sense. You were always figuring stuff out. So you’re working for the sheriff?”

  “Nope. Can we talk privately?”

  Another guy came in the front door, grunted good morning. The guy in the restroom came out and headed for the donuts.

  “C’mon,” Pauly said. “Let’s walk.”

  At the back door he pointed to an open guest book on a table.

  “Gotta sign in. Put me down as member. Print and sign your name.”

  “Just to take a walk?”

  “Rules is rules. No reason not to follow them.”

  I signed in and we went out.

  Twenty or so guys were spread out around the edges of a broad, flat, bare expanse of desert, each with a controller in his hands, neck craned skyward. Drones buzzed every which way, a flock of mechanical ravens on caffeine. A faint whir of rotors. The ground was all dirt and rock, a few weeds that were fading with the summer heat.

  “Talk to me
,” Pauly said.

  “Between us.”

  “Sure.”

  “Totally between us,” I said, looking him in the eye.

  “C’mon, Quinn. You know you can trust me. I’m with the CIA.”

  “Yeah, about that. Totally between us, OK?”

  “On my mother’s grave,” he said. He put his hand to his heart.

  “Your mother is fine.”

  “Scout’s honor?” He saluted me with his left hand.

  “Here’s what I think,” I said. “The drone was on autopilot. Probably had a bead on exactly where to go. Was set up beforehand and then somehow activated remotely. Or maybe activated manually but then autopiloted to the target. Whoever sent it on its way couldn’t see the target. Flew two or three blocks. Pinpoint accuracy.”

  “Homing device?”

  “I didn’t say that. And if you inferred it, you didn’t infer it from me. And you need to forget you inferred it. I got someone to protect. Way better friend than you. You talk about this to anyone, my friend is toast.”

  Pauly nodded. I trusted him. I had to. “Homing device,” he said. “That’s how I’d do it. And from what you describe, sounds like that’s probably how your assassin did it. But now that I think about it, I can’t remember what we were just talking about.”

  “Thanks Pauly. Failed assassin, by the way. At least for now. Brand is in a coma.”

  “How sure are you of all that?”

  “Hundred percent on the coma. The rest is a working hypothesis, but a damn good one. I shook the tree a bit, and some bad apples are starting to fall out and confirm the hypothesis.”

  “Odds?”

  Pauly’s mind worked like mine. I thought for a moment. All the odds I’d placed on the various scenarios just yesterday were pretty iffy. But I’d learned a good amount since.