He wasted no time getting down to business.
The owner of The Dealer’s Room was Steven Spurrier. Wesley described him as “thirty-four years old, white, with black hair, brown eyes. Five-eleven, one hundred and sixty pounds.”
Spurrier had not yet been picked up or questioned, but he had been under constant surveillance. What had been observed so far was not exactly normal.
On several occasions he had left his two-story brick home at a late hour and driven to two bars and one rest stop. He never seemed to stay in one place very long. He was always alone. The previous week he had approached a young couple emerging from a bar called Tom-Toms. It appeared he asked for directions again. Nothing happened. The couple got in their car and left. Spurrier got into his Lincoln and eventually meandered back home. His license tags remained unchanged.
“We’ve got a problem with the evidence,” Wesley reported, looking at me through rimless glasses, his face stern. We’ve got a cartridge case in our lab. You’ve got the bullet from Deborah Harvey in Richmond.”
“I don’t have the bullet,” I replied. “The Forensic Science Bureau does. I presume you’ve started the DNA analysis on the blood recovered from Elizabeth Mott’s car.”
“It will be another week or two.”
I nodded. The FBI DNA lab used five polymorphic probes. Each probe had to stay in the X-ray developer for about a week, which was why I had written Wesley a letter some time ago suggesting that he get the bloody swatch from Montana and begin its analysis immediately.
“DNA’s not worth a damn without a suspect’s blood,” Marino reminded us.
“We’re working on that,” Wesley said stoically.
“Yeah, well, seems like we could pop Spurrier because of the license plate. Ask his sorry ass to explain why he was driving around with Aranoff’s tags several weeks back.”
“We can’t prove he was driving around with them. It’s Kay and Abby’s word against his.”
“All we need is a magistrate who will sign a warrant. Then we start digging. Maybe we turn up ten pairs of shoes,” Marino said. “Maybe an Uzi, some Hydra-Shok ammo, who knows what we’ll find?”
“We’re planning to do so,” Wesley continued. “But one thing at a time.”
He got up for more coffee, and Marino took my cup and his and followed him. At this early hour The Boardroom was deserted. I looked around at empty tables, the television in a corner, and tried to envision what must go on here late at night. Agents in training lived like priests. Members of the opposite sex, booze, and cigarettes were not allowed inside the dormitory rooms, which also could not be locked. But The Boardroom served beer and wine. When there were blowouts, confrontations, indiscretions, this was where it happened. I remembered Mark telling me he had broken up a free-for-all in here one night when a new FBI agent went too far with his homework and decided to “arrest” a table of veteran DEA agents. Tables had crashed to the floor, beer and baskets of popcorn everywhere.
Wesley and Marino returned to the table, and setting down his coffee, Wesley slipped out of his pearl-gray suit jacket and hung it neatly on the back of his chair. His white shirt scarcely had a wrinkle, I noticed, his silk tie was peacock blue with tiny white fleur-de-lis, and he was wearing peacock blue suspenders. Marino served as the perfect foil to this Fortune 500 partner of his. With his big belly, Marino couldn’t possibly do justice to even the most elegant suit, but I had to give him credit. These days he was trying.
“What do you know about Spurrier’s background?”
I asked. Wesley was writing notes to himself while Marino reviewed a file, both men seeming to have forgotten there was a third person at the table.
“He doesn’t have a record,” Wesley replied, looking up. “Never been arrested, hasn’t gotten so much as a speeding ticket in the past ten years. He bought the Lincoln in February of 1990 from a dealer in Virginia Beach, traded in an ’86 Town Car, paid the rest in cash.”
“He must have some bucks,” Marino commented.