Loose Ends (The Hammer Commission Book 3) Read online

  "I'll go stand by the door to make sure you're undisturbed and call the local office while you search."

  Mark nodded and quickly stripped down as Michael went out the door and stood on the deck outside the door to call it in.

  Shifting he went to the bedroom first. There were two strong scents here, a man's and a woman. He found both on what were some dirty clothes by a dumped out hamper. He suspected those were Tommy's and his girlfriend Beth.

  Going through the rest of the apartment, Mark became fairly sure that was who those two scents belonged to. He also found about a dozen weaker scents, both men and women, but he didn't know if those were the people who had tossed the place, or were just friends of Tommy and Beth. None of the scents were fresh enough to tell, this had all obviously happened over a week ago.

  The only other thing of interest he found was a false floorboard in the living room, Tommy and Beth's scents gave it away, and it took him a minute to puzzle it out. Shifting back to human form he opened it and found it empty. But the faint traces of devil made it clear what had been stored here.

  "So, how long since they were here last?" Michael asked, coming in as Mark got dressed.

  "It's been well over a week, I can't really tell for sure, but either whoever tossed the place grabbed them, or they saw the mess and took off."

  "Or they went missing and someone came and searched when they didn't show up somewhere," Michael suggested.

  "I found where they hid the sample," Mark said and pointed to the open floorboard in the living room.

  "Anything in there?" Michael asked.

  "A sample had been in there. There's some faint traces, but nothing else and it's empty now."

  "And it wasn't opened when we came in, so whoever searched the place didn't take it."

  Mark nodded.

  "Well, let's go canvas the neighbors while we wait for the crime scene guys to get out here and look for evidence."

  "Breaking and entering is hardly a federal crime though," Mark pointed out.

  Michael nodded, "But kidnapping is, and we have one confirmed missing person. So for now, we treat it like a kidnapping case. We've got a person of interest in another kidnapping case disappear and there is evidence of possible violence at his home," he said, waving at the mess around them. "It's enough to get started on without having to go into too many details with the locals."

  "Okay, so where do we start?"

  "Let's ask whoever lives downstairs if they heard anything."

  Mark nodded and followed Michael back outside.

  Mark looked at the three mailboxes as they walked up to the front door of the main floor of the house. The one stuffed to overflowing was the one for apartment three, so he pulled all of the mail out and started going through it as Michael knocked.

  "Find anything?"

  "Well, first of all, Tommy's last name isn't Kruze, it's Bayer."

  "I guess he's one of Kruze's daughter's sons then.

  Mark nodded, "It would seem so. Beth's last name is Moonwing."

  Michael turned and looked at him, "Seriously?"

  Mark shrugged, "She's from Klamath Falls, and you heard the gal back at the shop describe her as a wiccan. There are a lot of wiccans in Klamath Falls, has been for ages. She may have changed her last name, but I wouldn't count on it."

  Michael knocked again, but no one answered.

  "Must be at work," he said.

  "Well, it's almost five; hopefully they'll be home soon."

  They spent the time talking to the immediate neighbors, several of which were home. No one had seen anything of interest, and they were not at all familiar with the people living in the house Tommy lived in.

  The crime scene people showed up a little after six, Portland traffic sucked even for them. The other two tenants showed up not long after that and were rather shocked to find out that Tommy and Beth had gone missing. But neither of them really knew anything. The guy and gal living in the apartment under them just figured they'd gone away for the week.

  "I think they broke up," the guy's girlfriend said.

  "What makes you say that, Miss?" Michael asked.

  "Both of their cars are gone. If they went someplace, they'd have only taken one, right?"

  Michael nodded, "Any idea where Beth worked?"

  She shook her head, "Some holistic new age shop I think."

  "Okay, thanks!" he said and they both left.

  "So, now what?" Mark asked.

  "Why you asking me?" Michael said, surprised.

  "I've never worked a kidnapping or missing person's case."

  "Oh, yeah. I can see how that would be. I've worked one before, but I wasn't the lead investigator, just one of the guys on the team. I'd say tomorrow morning we go into the office and have them dig up all the information on Tommy and Beth. Known associates, all that kind of stuff. From the sound of Mr. Kruze, Tommy's been in trouble before, so the police should have a file on him."

  "And then we go beat the bushes," Mark said, nodding slowly.

  "Yup. You want to write today's report, or should I?

  "I'll do it," Mark said and smiled, "I figure you're going to be busy, once we get back to Hope's."

  Michael looked rather embarrassed suddenly.

  Mark dropped Michael off at Hope's place, the headed back to Charity's, pulling out his phone when he got there, he called Jeff before getting out of the car. He had a suspicion that there were going to be family issues, because he could see Jess and Gail were sitting on the front porch.

  "So, find anything?" Jeff asked picking up the phone.

  "We found who got the sample from the engine while rebuilding it," Mark told him.

  "What did they say?"

  "I haven't been able to question them yet, both him and his girlfriend have gone missing and someone broke into their apartment and searched it."

  "Foul play?"

  "Maybe," Mark said. "We didn't find any signs of violence, but we called in the local crime scene unit and they're looking at the place. We'll check out their report in the morning."

  "Any idea how many samples the guy had?" Jeff asked.

  "No, but he had a lot of material to start with from the sounds of it. What's the word on Jack Smith? Any idea how many samples he had?"

  "We're pretty sure he had four, he bought enough stuff to keep and transport that many. But it looks like he only got one from your guy in Oregon. The four samples he had were all removed from the labs. We found out he was bribing a couple of people on staff to get access and steal samples."

  Mark sighed, "Wow, Thomas must be pissed."

  "Yeah, he fired all of them and is suing them into total bankruptcy. Course, we arrested all of them on conspiracy charges, so he'll have to wait until we're done with them first."

  "So, where are the samples?"

  "Well, one is the one we found in the safe. Two others we managed to seize in shipping houses that handle biological specimens. Both had been sold to other labs."

  "And the fourth one?"

  "We're still looking. But we did find out that Smith had been selling company confidential information to some rather bad people in Central America. Apparently some of the drug dealers have upped their game now, as they've been investing in some rather high-grade labs."

  "What would drug dealers want with this?" Mark asked, confused.

  "No idea," Jeff admitted, "well, not yet at least. We're thinking that Smith was going to sell that last sample to them, and they decided to just cut him out of the equation by taking your brother and stealing a sample directly from the lab.

  "Might be why they weren't too gung-ho over getting the sample when they tried to grab him. Probably figured they'd just get the one from Smith then."

  "So you go an id on that Raul Silva guy then?"

  "Partial, he's come up in a couple of Interpol database searches and the CIA said they have a file on him that they're sending over. I'll let you know when we get it."

  "Okay, I'll keep you up to date
on what we find here," Mark said. "Bye."

  "Bye."

  Mark put the phone away and got out of the car, walking over to his two daughters.

  "We were told to talk to you," Jess said, looking down embarrassed.

  "By who?" Mark asked.

  "Our mom's," they both said.

  "And why would that be?" Mark asked looking from one to the other.

  "We got into a fight," Gail sighed.

  "A big fight," Jess said, sighing as well.

  "Michael?" he asked.

  They both nodded, rather sullenly.

  "You both like him that much, don't you?"

  They nodded again.

  "Okay, I have a tough question for each of you, and I don't want to hear your answer now. I want you to think about it. I want you to talk to each other about it, first, before you come to me with your answer."

  Mark squatted down in front of the two of them, so he was at eye level, and looked them each in the eye.

  "How the hell did you let this happen to the two of you? If you can't work this out, and stay just as close after Michael, as before, what makes you think you'll be able to deal with being married and having a husband, a family?

  "You both need to figure this out in a way that makes you both happy, and that keeps your friendship alive. Otherwise any relationship with him is going to be doomed before it even begins."

  "Can we talk with him about it?" Jess asked.

  "You can talk to anyone you want about it, except for me. And don't make him be the one to pick, that'll lead to even more hard feelings.

  "Now go, work this out, maybe Michael just wasn't meant to be."

  Mark stood up and went inside.

  "So, what do you think they'll do?" Charity asked.

  "I have no idea," Mark said shaking his head. "Any sign of Denise and Dave?"

  Charity giggled, "They're in the den, why don't you go say hello?"

  Mark sighed, "Sure."

  Mark walked into the den and there were two cougars lying on the floor. The larger one was Dave, the smaller female was obviously Denise. They looked rather comfortable together and were both smiling at him as he came in.

  "When did this happen?" He asked.

  "Two nights ago," Dave said, speaking in the cat tongue. There weren't words for things like 'Saturday.'

  "Well, I'd ask who caught whom, but I'm not sure I want to know," Mark smiled.

  "Denise, call in work and tell them you're taking two weeks off, and for those two weeks I expect to see the two of you together, every moment, of every day, got that?"

  Mark could see Denise roll her eyes at him while Dave nodded yes. She hadn't learned how to talk yet, like everything else, that was a learned skill.

  Mark looked down at Denise and shook his head, "You're my daughter now, and don't think I'm not above dragging you outside by the tail and whupping your butt. My family, my rules. Don't think that Charity won't tar your hide either if she catches you by yourself. Then we'd go tan Dave's ass for not keeping an eye on you.

  "It was a couple of weeks before they were sure I wasn't going to freak out and have to be killed, and that's the only guide we have to go by."

  Mark noticed her eyes got wide as he said that.

  "Hey, you were warned," Mark said. "Not that I expect you to have problems. Now let me go see what your mother is making for dinner."

  "Well?" Charity said as he came into the kitchen.

  "I guess we need to plan a wedding," Mark said.

  "You're not happy?" Charity asked, looking over at him.

  "I'll be happy once I'm sure she's not going to freak out or go crazy," Mark said. "Now I know why you were all so nervous about me."

  "You were a lot more stressed when we got you," Charity said coming over to him and giving him a hug. "She's already very comfortable with her new self. Now, help me with dinner. Helena's coming over in a little while."

  "To terrorize Dave and Denise?"

  "No, just you," Charity giggled.

  9: FBI Offices, Portland

  "So, here are the files on your two missing persons," Agent Jen Towers said dropping two folders on the table Michael and Mark were sharing. One of the folders was pretty thin, the other, was maybe a half-inch thick.

  "Thanks, Jen," Michael and Mark both said.

  "So, you guys have some experience with our Tommy?" Michael asked picking up the thicker folder, which had Tommy Bayer's name written on it.

  "Us? No. The Portland police and the local sheriff's office? Quite a bit. Oh, minor stuff really. Couple dozen drunk and disorderlies, one DUI, bunch of arrests for fights, and vandalism, though none of those went to court. I didn't dig too deeply into it; you can always go talk to the sheriff's office if you want to know more. He's just another local troublemaker. Or used to be. Nothing on him in the last couple of years."

  "What about Beth?" Mark asked picking up the thinner folder.

  "All we got was the local financial and IRS employment data. We know she came here from Klamath Falls, but if you want to know more, call the police down there. Nothing's in the system, so if she got in trouble at all, it wasn't put in the records."

  Mark and Michael both nodded, "Okay, thanks."

  Mark looked through Beth's file; it had the picture from her driver's license, her address here in Portland, a list of previous addresses in Klamath Falls, her parent's names, which were Jebodiah Sundancer, and Kelly Nightwind. Definitely a couple of 'free spirits' he figured.

  It also listed her current place of employment, as well as her last six. One of which was rather curious.

  "Apparently Beth used to be an exotic dancer," Mark said to Michael.

  "Really?" Michael said, looking up from Tommy's records. "It says that?"

  "Well, it just says 'Dancer', but I know the bar in question. It's all strippers and rather good looking ones too."

  "What was a married man like you doing in a strip club?" Michael asked.

  "Eh, how do you think the girls raised the money to buy those houses? If you think regular girls can slink, you haven't seen my wives."

  Michael laughed, "Oh trust me, I've seen your daughters, I believe it."

  "So, how's that battle going?" Mark asked curious, looking up at Michael.

  "Umm, let's just say that they're not competing against each other anymore."

  Mark shrugged, "Just as long as they're not fighting, I'm happy."

  Michael looked embarrassed for a moment, then changed the subject.

  "We have a list of known associates here for Tommy," he said picking up a couple of sheets of paper in the folder.

  "Well, let's go see if they can tell us about him," Mark said.

  "Did you talk to the motor pool here about borrowing a car?"

  Mark nodded, he'd taken care of it while Michael was talking to Jen about getting the files they needed printed out.

  "So, where to first?" Michael asked.

  "Stanich Burgers," Mark said.

  "A food place?"

  "One of our guys works there, besides, they're the best burgers in town and it is almost time for lunch."

  "You're going to order from a guy after we question him?" Michael said looking rather skeptical.

  "No, I'm going to question him after we eat," Mark smiled.

  "Oh, that sounds a lot better then," Michael agreed.

  Mark found a good spot to park their SUV that wasn't visible from the windows and then they got out and went inside.

  "Mark!" The guy behind the bar said, "Long time, no see!"

  "Hi, George. Yeah, home on vacation."

  "Still doing the church thing?"

  "Eh, on loan to the feds. Tell whoever is working the grill that I'll have the usual, and the same for my friend here," Mark looked around the place, it was a little after eleven and the lunch crowd was starting to roll in. "Let me find a table, you look like you're about to get busy."

  "Sure thing, I'll send Grace over with a couple of beers."

  "Thanks!"
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  Michael looked at Mark, "You know the people who work here?"

  Mark smiled, "Yup, this is my favorite burger place in town. If you like Mongolian I'll take you to Chang's for dinner sometime."

  Mark led them to an open table and sat down; a woman came over and set two beers down at the table.

  "Nice to see you back in town, I bet the girls must be happy!" she said with a smile.

  "Ecstatic, thanks, Grace."

  "Umm, we're not supposed to drink on duty," Michael said as Grace walked away.

  "Well, first off, I don't work for the FBI," Mark smiled and picked up his beer and raising it briefly to Michael, he took a drink. "And second off, you're on vacation. Besides, alcohol burns through a were's system rather quickly."

  "Yeah, but I'm not one yet."

  "I'll tell them we were undercover, if anyone finds out," Mark smiled.

  Michael shrugged and picking up his beer he had a drink.

  "So, the waitress knows about your family?" Michael asked.

  Mark nodded, "Yeah, this is pretty much a family place; almost everyone who works here is a member of the Bear clan. Bears are really into good food, always run some of the best restaurants in town."

  "So they're all weres in here?" Michael asked leaning back in his chair and glancing over at the bar. Mark noticed that he didn't seem too concerned, and wasn't looking around.

  "I thought there weren't any were's in the area?" Michael asked, looking a little confused.

  "Oh no, there are quite a few were's around here. The Pacific Northwest is rather full of them. There just aren't any cougar clans between here and the coast, other than mine now that is. The nearest one is five hours to the south of here, and it's pretty small as well."

  "Why is that?"

  Mark shrugged, "Most of them are well north of here, Canada, the mountains around northern Idaho. I think all the logging and gold mining and hunting around here made it too dangerous in the eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds to raise cubs, so no one settled here, and if there were any here before that, they either died off or were killed."

  "I thought were's were supposed to be tough," Michael said, shaking his head.

  "The adults can be. Our cubs? Some are hardier than others, and while adult cougars are pretty damn tough, the cubs are anything but." Mark shrugged, "I think it's a bit of a tradeoff, everything has its weak point, otherwise they'd overrun the world."