thought about Bender as he returned to his Jeep. Bender had entered the parking lot on foot. So unless someone had dropped him off, he would have left his personal car on the same residential street as Pike.
Pike stopped at his Jeep, and studied the street. Parking by the mall was metered, but parking along the side street was free. With the lunch hour approaching, vehicles lined both sides of the street, but at four in the morning, parking would have been easy. Bender would have parked close.
Pike walked up the street, considering each car, but nothing stood out.
On the way back, he passed two teenaged boys jumping a skateboard in a driveway. Both were skinny, with dark hair and baggy shorts. One was taller, and older. Pike made them for brothers.
“Hey.”
They stopped with the skateboard, and bunched together. Worried.
The taller kid shifted.
“Hey what?”
“You live here?”
“We didn’t do anything.”
Pike glanced at the cars lining the street.
“These cars.”
“What?”
“The cars along here, they belong to your neighbors?”
The taller kid shrugged.
“I don’t know. Why?”
“If you lived here, you’d know.”
Pike pointed at a white Toyota.
“This car. Does it belong to you?”
The older boy looked about fourteen. He snickered, showing off for his younger brother.
“You wanna buy it? How much you gimme?”
Pike stared.
After a few seconds, the boy stopped smirking, and shrugged toward the house next door.
“She owns it. Ms. Renfro.”
Pike tipped his head at a black Chevrolet.
“How about the Chevy?”
“Belongs to the guy across the street. He’s a dick.”
“Any of these vehicles show up last week? A vehicle you didn’t know. Just showed up, and hasn’t moved?”
The younger one glanced at his older brother. The big one toed his skateboard, and shrugged. The younger one cut in fast, anxious to take part in the drama.
“Are you a police?”
The older one sneered, and shouldered his brother.
“Of course he’s a cop, stupid. Can’t you tell?”
The younger one elbowed his brother.
“The red car.”
His brother shoved back.
“No way. You don’t know anything.”
The younger one came down the drive, and pointed at a burgundy Subaru across the street.
“The red one. Ms. Gonzales asked about it. Her husband’s pissed. He parks here when he gets home, and now he can’t.”
Pike crossed to the Subaru and peered through the windows. The brothers followed him into the street, and watched.
The Subaru was dusty, but no more than the surrounding vehicles, and cleaner than some. A pad for jotting notes was clipped to the console, but Pike couldn’t tell if anything was written on it. A cell phone bracket was mounted to the dash. The bracket was empty. Pike circled the vehicle, and lowered himself into a push-up position by the driver’s-side rear wheel. He checked the wheel well, but found nothing. Pike moved to the front wheel, and lowered himself again.
The younger brother said, “What’re you looking for? Drugs?”
A black magnetic key box was stuck to the chassis. Pike pulled it free, and removed the fob.
The older brother hooted.
“Damn! If I knew the key was here, we coulda gone riding!”
The younger brother crept closer to Pike.
“Who does it belong to, a criminal?”
Pike pulled on a pair of black nitrile gloves.
“A dead man.”
The older brother grinned.
“Awesome! That why you put on the gloves?”
His younger brother said, “Of course, stupid. Everyone knows that.”
Pike unlocked the Subaru, and slipped in behind the wheel. A Proof of Insurance slip in the glove box identified the vehicle’s owner as Donald Thomas Bender.
Pike searched under and around the driver’s seat, and found a Ruger .380 semi-automatic pistol in a soft case. The pistol was loaded, but the scents of burnt powder and cleaning solvent were close to nonexistent. Pike decided the pistol hadn’t been fired in years. He returned the pistol to its place under the seat, and examined the notepad. The strip mall’s address was written on the top sheet along with a time and name. 4:30. Karbow. Bender had misspelled Karbo’s name. This confirmed Pike’s read from the video. The two men knew little or nothing about each other. The next page contained Isabel’s home address, along with the make, model, and license number of her car.
Pike found a cell phone and a company ID badge in the console. The cell phone was a high-end Android model, and fit the dashboard bracket. Pike had taken inexpensive throwaway phones from Karbo and Bender the day they attacked Isabel, so the Android was probably Bender’s actual phone. The phone powered up, but required an entry code. The company ID was a plastic card on a lanyard identifying Donald