He tossed her a pair of evidence gloves. “I could give you a box of these things. You can keep ’em in the trunk of your car, like the rest of us do.”
“It’s not gonna happen.” Kendra snapped on the gloves. “You know it, I know it, and most of the people in this room know it. I need to cling to my delusion that these violent and depressing murder cases are part of my past and someday I won’t need those gloves.”
“That is a delusion,” Lynch said. “You know you’d miss the bloody corpses, the psychopathic killers, and Metcalf’s goofy grin.”
“Goofy?” Metcalf said. “I thought it was more suave and devil-may-care.”
Lynch shrugged. “Whatever gets you through the day.”
“Not goofy,” Kendra said. “That’s not kind. Infectious.”
“Like Ebola?” Lynch said.
“Absolutely not.” Kendra glanced around the room. “I thought you guys were going to hang back until Justin Hayes came back home.”
“That was the plan,” Metcalf said. He looked seriously bummed. “A neighbor in the laundry room saw him go in here just a couple of minutes ago, but when we burst in, he was nowhere to be found. We thought he might be hiding in one of the other apartments, but then one of the agents discovered the torn screens in a third-floor stairwell and in a corresponding window in the building next door.”
“So you think he got away through that building?” Kendra said.
“Most likely.” He was frowning with disgust. “I thought we had him, dammit. We have agents swarming all over the street, but if he slipped out of that building before we knew what had happened, he could be anywhere in the city by now. He probably had his vehicle parked on the street.”
Lynch gave Kendra an I-told-you-so look. She was impressed with his restraint in not calling Metcalf out for the botched operation. She figured it was probably because Lynch, like most law-enforcement agents, knew firsthand how painful it was to suffer a bungle like this one.
Kendra took a quick spin around the apartment, paying special attention to the stove, microwave, and a half-eaten bowl of soup on the coffee table.
She finally turned to face Lynch and Metcalf. “He was just here. Or at least someone was.”
“How do you figure that?” Lynch said.
“That bowl of ramen noodle soup is still warm. The whole apartment smells like it, meaning he cooked it in the microwave with the flavor packet already in the water.”
“Even I picked up on that,” Metcalf said. “Hot and Spicy Chicken flavor. I wouldn’t have made it through my college years without it.”
“He’s had a guest here. There’s Coke and Diet Coke in the fridge. People generally don’t drink both.”
Kendra strode toward the small countertop in the opening between the kitchen and living room. She started to look quickly through a stack of mail. “Has anyone found anything we can use yet?”
“No pay stubs or anything indicating where he might have been earning a living for the past six months.” Lynch held up a key ring. “But we did find a spare car key. An Audi.”
Metcalf nodded. “Which jibes with his auto registration. He owns a silver Audi TT RS. It isn’t in the unit’s parking space. We have a BOLO out for the car everywhere in the city.”
“Good.”
Metcalf nodded at the stack of mail. “Are you finding anything there?”
“Afraid not. Grocery store circulars, Shoppers Value envelopes of coupons, mostly.” Kendra moved into the kitchen, where she started looking through the drawers. A corkscrew and two stained bottle stoppers in the top drawer showed a preference for red wine. A few tools rattled in the second drawer. Kendra reached for a pair of needle-nose pliers, gripping the steel tip with her gloved hands. She moved it close to her eyes and inspected it.
“I know that look,” Lynch said. “What are you seeing?”
“These pliers have an unusual grip pattern. The FBI probably has techs who can identify it instantly, but I’d guess it was made by a foreign manufacturer.”
“So Hayes likes to use foreign tools,” Metcalf said.
Kendra nodded. “That he used to make a phony bomb.”
Metcalf went still. He stared at her for a moment. “You think he used those pliers to—”
“I’m almost sure of it. I’ve seen this grip pattern only one other place and it was on a green wire on that fake bomb we found in my car.”
“I was going to ask if you’re sure but I guess I know you better than that.”