Gathering Dark, Candice Fox [inspirational books for students .TXT] 📗

me, coming to my side. “Let the record show I got into a car with Ada Maverick and got out again, alive. You sell lottery tickets?”

“I’m here to talk to you about this,” Ada said to me. She put a hand out and Mike passed her a large folded sheet of paper. She swept an arm across my counter, knocking cardboard displays of Twix and Baby Ruths onto the floor to make room for herself. Without asking, Fred took a Snickers from the shelf under the window, peeled open the top, and started eating it. Ada weighed down the piece of paper at the corners. Sneak and I leaned in. It was a United States Geological Survey map of downtown San Jasinte. I took a moment to examine the different levels of lines, sailing blue topographical isolines slashed through with the thin black outlines of properties and streets, red marks that could have been power lines or gas.

“Where’d you get this?” I asked Ada, glancing at the parking lot to check for any incoming customers.

“These guys found it at Officer Marcus Lemon’s apartment,” Ada said, smoothing out the map.

“I’m sorry.” I blinked. “Where?”

“I had them break into his apartment,” Ada said. “You told me he was an interesting person for us. Turns out he was.”

“Oh, Jesus.” I looked at Sneak. “Lemon’s had his phone stolen and his apartment robbed right after. He’ll know something’s up.”

“Forget about it,” Ada said. “They trashed the place and hit three other apartments on the same floor. It will take him a while to notice the maps are gone in the mess. My guys don’t do things half-assed. Now why don’t you tell me what these are all about?” She gestured to the map. “There are others.”

She clicked her fingers and Mike extracted more papers from his jacket pockets. Some were printed screenshots from the internet. I picked up one from a website called the Los Angeles Open Data portal, one from the San Jasinte County website. San Jasinte township was featured again on the Data portal page, crossed with lines, these ones heavier than those on the survey map and joined with little red bubbles. A key gave me the “data layers.” Sewer easements. Sewer flow direction. Sewer pipes.

The buzzer above the door sang and I looked up to see Jessica Sanchez walking into the crowded store with a laptop under her arm.

“Jeez, the whole team’s here,” Sneak said, unwrapping an Almond Joy.

“I need to talk to you.” Jessica strode forward and pointed at me. “It’s important.” She grabbed a bottle of water from a rack near the counter and opened it, guzzled a quarter of it. Her face and neck were reddened with some emotion I couldn’t decipher.

“Take a number and get in line, bitch,” Ada snapped at Jessica. “I was here first.”

“What is all this?” Jessica looked at the maps. She set her laptop slowly on the counter, thoughts obviously whirling through her, slowing her limbs. “Where … Where did these…”

“Marcus Lemon had these,” Sneak said. “We don’t know why.”

“I know why,” Jessica said. Ada came around the counter to give her space. She threw open her laptop and opened her email account. I heard crackling and noticed Fred opening a Hot Pocket.

“Could everybody please stop eating things?” I yelled. “I have to pay for this stuff, you know.”

“Look here.” Jessica pointed. There was a document open on the screen, plain text, a list of words. Under a heading that read Websites last visited I noticed Los Angeles Open Data portal.

“These are bits and pieces recovered from Dayly’s burned laptop,” Jessica said. “Looks like she and Lemon were both researching the sewer system under San Jasinte, sharing the information.”

“Burned?” Sneak said. “You found her laptop burned? Where?”

“Oh, um.” Jessica looked at me for help that I could not offer. “I didn’t tell you. I—”

“Never mind.” Ada slapped the countertop for attention. “What else was on her computer? Anything that says what they were looking at the sewer system for?”

“No, but there are these.” Jessica pointed to a list on the page. We all leaned in again. “This list comes from a document on the laptop named ‘L’s Recon.’ L must be Lemon, so I’m guessing this is reconnaissance that Officer Lemon was doing on some houses in San Jasinte.” She read directly from the file. “Number eleven Redduck. Two men. No—Number thirteen Redduck. Family of four. No—Number fifteen Redduck. Woman lives alone. Possible. Check?—Number seventeen Redduck. Hoarder house. Old man. Looks good. Check?”

Ada snatched the smaller maps away and traced Redduck Avenue on the largest map with her finger. The hairs on my arms were standing on end.

“We were out there yesterday,” Sneak said. “At number seventeen. It was a hoarder house, just like it says here. So number eleven must have two men living in it. Number thirteen must be a family of four. Sixteen has a woman that lives alone. We saw Officer Lemon go into the hoarder house, and there was a plumber there, too. These houses follow the sewer line…” She shook her head. “But … I can’t work it out.”

“I think I can,” Jessica said. “Watch this.”

She opened a video file from the email inbox. I saw CDCR in the address of the sender: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. A black-and-white image filled the screen. Two people in what looked like a steel cage, shot from above. A muscular old man was sitting on a plastic fold-out chair. Almost knee-to-knee with him in the small space was a young woman I recognized immediately.

“Dayly,” I said.

“John!” Sneak gasped, pointed.

“Who?” Ada asked.

“John Fishwick.” Sneak tapped the screen. “That’s … He’s a guy I had a thing with once.”

“It’s not a small club,” Ada said. “What makes him so special?”

“Where was this taken?” Sneak asked Jessica.

“It’s at San Quentin State Prison. Death row. These are the full-contact visiting cages. This is from two months ago. I went and saw John and asked him about the visit, but I knew I couldn’t trust