Accelerated by Vaughn Heppner Page B

Had the Chief pulled some strings?
    “The one bright spot is that I did discover the witness to Kay’s death,” Blake said. “Mr. Juan Ortega told the police he heard a squeal of tires and the thud of the car’s impact. It seems Mr. Ortega had just left a movie theater with his wife. He works at a Midas shop on Hunter Street.”
    “Do you have the address?”
    Blake rattled it off.
    I told him what I’d learned at the morgue.
    “Switzerland?” he asked.
    “I want you to go to the airport and check out the story,” I said. “I’ll speak with Mr. Ortega.”
    “Give me that information again,” he said.
    I took out my recorder, pressed play and shoved the speaker against the cell phone.
    “Got it,” Blake said when I came back on. “Talk to you later.”
    “Be careful,” I said.
    He paused. “Is there any reason I should worry?”
    “I don’t know. This shipping to Switzerland—just be careful.”
    “Thanks,” he said. “I will. Talk to you later.”
    “Later,” I said. Then I began searching for Hunter Street.

-9-

    After taking a wrong turn and detouring too far because of several one-way streets, I pulled into a Midas parking lot.
    I heard the whirl of a pneumatic wrench. A blue Mustang in the shop was up on a lift as a mechanic rotated its tires. Oil, gas and grease mingled in a familiar odor, one that always reminded me of Afghanistan and military truck parks where I’d spent too much of my life waiting.
    I asked for Juan Ortega.
    The mechanic grunted as he yanked the tire and let it drop, controlling the bounce and then rolling it to the front. He let the tire plop onto its side, wiped his oil-stained hands with a rag and stared at me.
    “Juan Ortega,” I said.
    He shrugged and turned away.
    I looked around and spied a beefy man with a Pancho Villa mustache and ponytail. He wore a blue Midas shirt with the name “Ortega” on the front.
    “Juan Ortega?” I asked, as I approached.
    He nodded curtly.
    I held out my hand. He hesitated and then shook hands. He was shorter than I was by a couple inches, in his thirties and had a weightlifter’s arms and chest.
    “I’m Gavin Kiel,” I said. “I was a friend of the…of the dead woman.”
    His manner cooled so it almost became outright hostility.
    I took off my sunglasses, wondering if that had made me too standoffish. I had to squint because of the bright light, even though we were in the depths of the Midas Shop.
    “I already told you people all I know,” Ortega said in heavily accented English. “Next time I just walk away.”
    “I’m not with the police.”
    He sneered. “Polarity Magnetics, I know,” he said.
    I shook my head. “I’m from San Francisco. I read about Kay’s death yesterday and came as quickly as I could. We were friends, close friends. She came to me a week ago, in some kind of trouble. Now she’s dead.”
    Juan Ortega searched my eyes and his frown deepened. It made him seem villainous. He glanced around the shop and then nodded, indicating I should come with him.
    We passed a gray-haired mechanic clattering sockets in his giant red toolbox. He glanced at Ortega, at me and with a jingle of metal opened a drawer. I followed Ortega through a door into the reception area where a fan rotated lazily overhead and then followed him into an office, his probably.
    As he turned around, sitting on the corner of his desk, I noticed the pictures on the wall. Several were of him and a pretty, dark-haired woman in a lowrider convertible. One showed him as a young Marine with others just like him. They held M-16s and pistols. I knew the background of the picture all too well, big familiar mountains.
    “You were in Afghanistan?” I asked.
    He raised an eyebrow and turned around, glancing over his shoulder at the picture. “Marines,” he said.
    “Tough hombres,” I said.
    His squint tightened. “You?”
    “Green Beret.”
    “Almost as tough as Marines,” he said.
    I laughed, nodding.
    He breathed through his nose