“I know what black-tip rounds are, Mr. Ash. Did you just see the equipment, or did you actually see the ammunition?”
“Oh, I saw it,” Peter said. “A thousand rounds. It’s in the back of my rig right now. But I think they made a lot more than that.”
Durant swore loudly. “And these gun dealers just let you take it? Or did you have to shoot somebody?”
Peter didn’t answer. If he’d judged Nickels and his mom right, he was pretty sure they didn’t want the police sniffing around. They’d probably already buried the body where it would never be found.
Durant heard what Peter hadn’t said. “And you didn’t call the police? No, you fled the scene.” The captain swore again, even moreloudly. “Mr. Ash, you have broken so many laws, I wouldn’t even know where to start charging you.”
“You need to reopen the case,” Peter said. “I think KT’s murder is connected to the tech conference. Whoever these people are, I think they’re going to hit it. I think KT was looking into it, and that’s why they killed her.”
Durant was obviously struggling to get himself back under control. “Nobody is hitting the tech conference, Mr. Ash. The Seattle PD and the FBI are all over it. The vice president is coming, so the Secret Service is involved, and NSA is monitoring electronic chatter. We’re talking to every informant we have. There is no threat. You are imagining a conspiracy where none exists.”
The captain sighed, his tone softening. “You should really be worrying about yourself, Mr. Ash. You were already in serious trouble because of the Eleanor Thorsen situation. Now you’re doing God knows what else. So I’m going to say this one time and one time only. Even if you don’t care what happens to you, Eleanor Thorsen should be in a safe place. Because if something happens to that girl, it’ll be on your head. And I’m the one who’ll bring the axe down, trust me on that.”
“Durant—”
“No, no. You listen to me. Do yourself a favor and turn yourself in, along with poor Eleanor. You pick the place. I’ll meet you wherever you like. I really do think you’re trying to help. If we can meet soon, in the next few hours, I might even be able to get the charges dropped.”
“I’ll think about it,” Peter said.
“You’re in a deep hole, Mr. Ash. You know what they say about finding yourself in a hole, don’t you? Stop digging.”
“I hope you’re right about the conference,” Peter said. “Because if you’re wrong, those armor-piercing rounds are going to kill a lot of good police.”
Then he hung up.
37
June
June sat in the passenger seat of the used Lexus, laptop open and mobile hot spot on the dashboard, reviewing her notes about the men she’d begun to think of as the KT Three.
Although everyone else KT asked about Gun Club apparently had no clue what she was talking about, these three were the only ones who’d actually denied being involved. June hoped that, if she could talk to them in person, at least one of them would tell her something useful.
Lewis turned south toward Montlake, a favorite neighborhood for tech workers because of the easy access to the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge across Lake Washington to Redmond, where Microsoft’s huge campus sprawled. The UW Medical Center was on their right and Husky Stadium loomed up on their left. “Who’s this first dude we trying to find?”
“Troy Boxall,” June said. “Started a Twitter clone called Chatrbx out of college, had maybe one or two original ideas, ran it for fiveyears, and sold to Meta. His take was about thirty million. In tech, that’s chicken feed.”
She’d emailed Boxall three times, requesting an interview. He’d finally responded with a two-word all-caps reply, “FUCK OFF.” Very on-brand for a tech bro, she thought. KT’s notes had his cell, so June had also tried texting him, but he’d either blocked her or was ignoring her. His social media was full of pictures of his fitness regimen and his Tesla Cybertruck. Unsurprisingly, there appeared to be no wife or girlfriend. Digging into her databases, she’d found his house in Montlake but no other real estate. He didn’t seem to travel much, so she hoped to find him at home.
“Chatrbx,” Lewis said. “Where Scott Enderby was a senior VP.”
June nodded. “And, according to Durant, where Reed worked as a contract employee. Although normally a contractor wouldn’t socialize with the C-suite, the company was small, so they probably all knew each other.”
“Why was KT talking to him to begin with?”
“She was writing a piece about all the startups bought by the Big Five and cannibalized for parts. Half the time, they just used a few pieces of technology and scrapped the rest.”
“Creative destruction,” Lewis said.
June had heard this expression many times from startup founders and venture capitalists, talking about technology-driven change. Few seemed to realize that the concept originated with Karl Marx, who’d thought it would eventually lead to the end of capitalism.
“Or buying up and shelving potential competitors on the cheap, depending on your point of view. Anyway, Troy Boxall didn’t seem to give a shit one way or another.” June flipped through her notes. “He told KT, ‘I got paid, what do I care?’ ”
“Five years of his life and he didn’t give a damn what happened to it?”
“Guys like Troy are always in it for the money. Thirty years ago, he’d have gone to Wall Street. Now all the big money is in tech. And the road to getting rich is a lot shorter.”
