A Living Grave (7 page)

“Tomorrow?” I asked before my mental train pulled into the station.

Understanding must have shown on my face because he didn't explain and I didn't say anything. Still, he nodded, a silent acknowledgement. Mr. Solomon had been sick before the biker got hold of him. Everything fell into its unpleasant but inevitable place as I looked him over again. Loss of weight. Newly bald head. Blood. And worst of all, the look of resignation in his eyes. It wasn't pitiful at all, just kind of sad, like someone who has to leave home for a place and a duty he can't get out of.

If I had to guess, I would have said that the medicine in the IV was some kind of chemotherapy. I didn't want to guess.

Before I could say I was sorry or think of any other words to hide behind, he said, “Now. About that sponge bath . . .”

We laughed together, but it was short-lived. Nelson covered his mouth and hurried into the bathroom. Even though he took the extra time to close the door, I could hear him vomiting. When it was over I heard water running and the brushing of teeth before the door opened again.

“I thought you would be gone,” he said as soon as he came out.

“Told you, I'm not very delicate.”

“Well, that makes one of us.” He smiled again and it was a wounded look, the kind to follow a shameful confession. “I would have been here today anyway getting the drip. Because I was unconscious yesterday they wanted to keep me overnight. Two birds, one insurance bill.”

“You got your ass kicked yesterday and spent today on chemo.”

He nodded and the shame was lingering.

“Then you hit me up for a sponge bath almost as soon as I walked in the door. I'd say you don't have a delicate bone in your body.”

His smile then was genuine. He grinned as a matter of fact. It was the kind of a look that sits well on a man and that makes a woman proud to have put it there. I had to remind myself that his smile was not the reason I was there.

“Can you tell me about the bikers?”

“I would if I had anything to tell. I've seen some around but my first conversation with one was yesterday.”

“And that little spot of land you were on?” I asked.

“Like I said, the bank owns that and I had permission from Jack Elliot, the manager, to be there.”

I pulled the folded paper from my pocket, the one with Cotton Lambert's picture on it, and handed it over.

Nelson held it up in the light from the window. As he did, the short sleeve of his hospital gown rode up and revealed a tattoo on his shoulder. It was a small EGA—eagle, globe, and anchor. Marine.

“That's the guy,” he said, handing the picture back. “You get him?”

“No. But I expect to run him down pretty quick. Are there any other areas that you've been painting lately?”

He hesitated and thought. I could see a question in his eyes and thought for a second that something had sparked a connection that would make sense. I was wrong.

“Is there a Mr. Hurricane at home?” he asked me.

My answer was no answer. “Other places you've been painting?” I reminded him.

Either I was completely transparent—and that I doubted—or my face gave away something without the rest of me knowing it. Nelson nodded again. This time it was a knowing, satisfied bob of the head. “All over,” he said. “Pretty much anyplace I can get interesting views of the lake. I've been doing a lot of painting.”

“Do you know anything about bootlegging?”

“Bootlegging?” He sounded completely surprised by the question. “Do they still do that?”

I nodded.

“Why? You can go into any liquor store and buy whatever you want.” I was about to answer but the aspect of his face changed. He looked like he was concentrating hard on something. For a moment I thought he was going to admit something or give up a piece of information. Instead, he put a hand over his mouth. His concentration was all in keeping himself from throwing up again. After a moment, he said, “I have a friend that might know something.”

That's something cops hear a lot. Not just,
I have a friend
but
I know someone who knows someone
or
I read about this one crime
. . . It's the flip side of what Clare Bolin had said when he was pointing the finger at the sex offender in the neighborhood. People want to help and they always try to fill in the gaps when they don't have actual information. It's a weakness we exploit in interrogation, but in the initial questioning phase it tends to produce useless information.

So instead of asking about his friend, I described the area where Angela had been found and asked if he had been painting around there. It was a question that had to be asked because of the overlap of the cases more than any thought he was involved. He answered no. When I asked if he knew Angela Briscoe he said the same. His negative responses were believable more because of how he looked than what he said. It would take a strong person to lie that well when he was looking like he had to puke again.

“I'll let you get back to resting,” I said and folded the picture back up to tuck it into my pocket. “I'm sorry to bother you.”

“What? No sponge bath?”

Again, I almost put my foot, boot and all, in my mouth. I started to say that he might not be up for it. The unintentional double entendre caught my attention just in time. Instead, I told him that his truck was impounded and where it could be picked up.

“I'll need a ride,” he told me. There was nothing coy about the statement. It was both fact and hope. “I get out of here this afternoon.”

“Maybe you'd rather—”

“No. I wouldn't.”

“The impound closes at five.”

“Then maybe I'll need a ride home.”

S
heriff Benson had told Mr. and Mrs. Briscoe to expect me. They were grief-stricken but gracious, offering tea while we sat in the small family room stuffed with matching floral sofa and love seat. The walls were cluttered with family pictures that showed Angela's entire life from birth to just weeks before her death at thirteen.

I was there for most of an hour with the meat of the time spent in long pauses and painful inward-pointing blame. Parents who lose children violently rarely remain married. The loss is a hard wind on a strong tree. At first they cling, needing the comfort of each other, but slowly seams appear that no one ever suspected. The only thing stronger than the guilt is the need to blame. Even when the person responsible is caught and punished, it's not enough. It's almost as if love demands personal responsibility. Either one partner blames the other or one, or both blame themselves. The truth is that their love for each other becomes the mirror of loss and no one can look into that for very long.

As I sat with the parents of Angela Briscoe I was witness to the opening of the first seams. Mary Briscoe was holding a photo of her daughter. Whenever her husband, David, leaned her way or put an arm around her, she protected the picture. In private, he had probably told her to put it down. I imagined he thought it was unhealthy for her and she wondered why he wasn't showing more pain.

David Briscoe turned from his wife and looked right into my eyes and asked me, “Was she raped?”

I shook my head and dropped my eyes to his hands. They were twisted into each other like knots. “We don't think so,” I said as I brought my gaze back up to his.

“Don't think?”

“There will have to be lab work, medical inspection. That happens up in Springfield. But there are normal indications we look for. There was nothing like that.”

“I was just . . . thinking . . .” he said, picking through his word choices carefully. “Wondering . . . maybe if she had . . . If it had happened. . . there might be DNA. If there was, then you would catch him for sure, wouldn't you? Now there's a chance you won't. The sheriff said things. He wouldn't promise us. He said things like,
do our best
and
never stop trying
, but that's not the same as saying the bastard will be caught. Not the same as saying the man that killed my daughter will pay.”

In his face I could see both the fire that burned and the need he had to throw on more fuel. David Briscoe believed—had to believe, I guess—that the fire could be stoked high enough to consume the pain, then die. He didn't understand that it would linger within him forever, a furnace within his heart.

“Kill him,” he said.

“Sir?”

“If you find him. If you get the chance. Think of my baby girl and pull the trigger on the son of a bitch. It would be the right thing.”

“I understand, sir,” I told him. “But you need to put those thoughts out of your head. They won't help anything.”

For the first time Mary looked me in the eyes. “Can you promise?” she asked.

“Ma'am?”

“Promise that you will catch this man.”

I wondered about the strength of Chuck Benson, an elected sheriff who wanted everyone to be happy and like him. He looked into those same eyes and refused to promise. It was the right thing, but it had to be hard. I know how hard it was for me. I changed the subject.

“Do you know anything about the motorcycle club called the Nightriders?”

“Motorcycle club?” Mr. Briscoe asked, and it was more than a question.

“What would we know about a motorcycle club?” Mrs. Briscoe said with almost no meaning or inflection. She was looking at Angela's picture again.

“You mean bikers,” he said. “There's been one around. I've seen him. Is that the one that did this?”

“We don't know, Mr. Briscoe,” I told him. “We have to look at everything.”

“I should have known,” he said. “A man should know when things are wrong. When people like that show up, nothing is ever the same.”

“When have you seen a biker, Mr. Briscoe?” I asked.

He looked down at his wife, who seemed to still be ignoring us in favor of the photograph. “Sometimes at night,” he said. “You can hear the engine at all hours, fast and loud. She didn't hear it. She sleeps—heavy.” There was a note of accusation in his voice and on his face.

I wondered if by
heavy
, he wanted to say “sedated.” Pills or drink? Either way, it was a source of friction that was only going to heat up between them.

“What nights did you hear it?”

“I don't know,” he said, finally looking up but not at me. He was looking out the window to the front yard and street. It was easy to imagine him, in the middle of the night, watching for a noisy motorcycle. It was easy to imagine that he was wishing he knew then what he thought he knew now. “All hours. Any night. Whenever. I heard it several times but only saw him once.”

“Can you describe him?”

“Big guy. About all I can say. Even at night his arms were bare. He wore one of those biker vests with patches all over it.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me about him?”

He shook his head and simply said, “They're all criminals. Sons a' bitches.”

I asked him some more questions about bikers and moonshine and the name Leech. I asked about the kids that I had seen the day before and Carrie Owens. He had nothing good to say. He seemed to feel about teenagers the same way he felt about bikers. In all, I was there a couple of hard hours asking intrusive questions about their life and their daughter. In the end, I got what you usually get in these situations: Angela was well liked and friendly; she had no known connection to criminals or drugs; she took cookies to a retirement home at least once a month and sang songs to the residents. A perfect daughter.

At the bottom on my notes I again wrote the name Leech then underlined it with thick black marks. The biker was the only connection I was finding.

“I'll be in touch as soon as I have any information,” I told them as I set my card on the coffee table between us. “You can reach me here if you think of anything.”

“Can I have her crucifix?” Mrs. Briscoe asked my back. It was the first thing she'd said in half an hour.

I turned to look at her. “Ma'am?”

“Her crucifix. I want it. What good would it be to the police? I want it.”

“Ma'am, we didn't find a crucifix.”

Mary burst into fresh tears and turned away from her husband to cry against the couch cushions. David Briscoe looked embarrassed but didn't seem to have the strength for it anymore.

“It was a big silver cross,” he said. “Plain silver. It was a present. On the back it was engraved
All Our Faith in You
.”

I nodded and told him that if it was found they could have it back as long as it was not evidence. They stayed on the love seat as I let myself out.

Before I got into my truck I stopped to take a breath and I cursed my Uncle Orson. I was taking his name in vain because he had given me that jar of whiskey. I hadn't opened it last night, but I had taken it with me and it was sitting in the console of my truck. I wanted it. I wanted it badly.

I wouldn't have admitted to a problem, but I would admit that I liked the separation from my thoughts that a few good, long swallows could give. Never had I drank on duty, but honestly, I was tempted at that moment. Instead of opening my door and locking myself inside with Clare Bolin's best, I crossed the road and knocked on the door at Carrie Owens's home.

There was no answer, but I could hear movement within. I knocked again more firmly, like I meant business. Muffled giggles came through the door and more movement. Carrie was in there and she wasn't alone. I couldn't help but picture the Barnes kid in there with her, but I was afraid to imagine what that really meant.

After knocking one more time I pulled another business card and wrote
Please call
on the back. I wedged the card into the door crack and remained on the porch long enough to jot in my notebook the time and what I suspected. As an afterthought, I wrote down the information about Angela Briscoe's crucifix as well.

* * *

The moment of need and self-pity had passed, replaced by a simmering anger at the Owens family. Where were her parents? What was she doing spending all her time with that older boy? It was probably the anger that allowed the jar of whiskey to remain untouched within the box between my truck's seats.

At the sheriff's office I shot off e-mails and made notes. One of the e-mails went to Michael Hamm, the detective who sat two desks away from me. He was our gang unit. I needed a meeting to find out all I could about the Ozarks Nightriders. Another e-mail went to our juvenile case officer for any information on Carrie Owens, Danny Barnes, or any of the other kids that might be in the same group. I had also asked the Division of Family Services for any information they might have that never made it to our files on the Owens family. There are a lot of confidentiality issues about queries like that, but if there is an obvious problem someone will find a way to let me know.

It's funny, but in TV shows and movies you always hear cops talk about the difference between street cops and desk cops. It makes a good image: the solitary detective, out in the field finding clues and tracking suspects. The sad truth for most of us is that the tracking is often done from the desk. We investigators secure the crime scene and then delegate, delegate, delegate. We gather information and sort it out, looking for the things that don't fit or for the information that holds all your ideas together.

That's what I did for the next couple of hours. I made more calls and searched every database available for Leech. I learned the Nightriders were a new club limited to southwest Missouri and northwest Arkansas. There had been an arrest in Oklahoma, but the warrant was for domestic violence out of Arkansas. I developed a list of last known addresses for eight men known to ride with the club. The next step was door-knocking.

I had just picked up my phone to call Billy and check on his day at the crime scene when a shadow moved across my open door. I looked up to find the shadow had solidified, if not gotten any lighter. A tall black man, erect of bearing with coffee-colored eyes that never smiled, leaned against the door frame without slouching. He wore Army class A's and a rod permanently up his ass.

Billy answered his phone and I said, “I'll call you back,” before hanging up. “Major Reach” was all the greeting I gave.

“Hurricane Katrina,” he said, taking his shoulder off the door frame. “I've been trying to get hold of you.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I was ignoring you. Was I being too subtle?”

He laughed, but it was just for show. “It wasn't social. It's all business.”

“Oh? Let me guess: After all these years the Army is actually interested in what happened?”

“A lot of things happen. The happening to which you refer was investigated. And by the way, I'm not Criminal Investigations Division anymore. I'm with the Inspector General's office working with the DOD.”

He stopped there and watched me, goading me with silence, inviting argument. I didn't rise to that bait anymore. In fact, I gave as good as I got, sitting silently and waiting for him to go on. He did, dropping the false smile.

“There was another thing that happened, which is not to say that all things that happen involve you, but . . .”

He spread his hands wide and open in a presenting gesture. I leaned back in my chair and tried to make myself look as comfortable as possible. Neither of us even glanced at the two visitor's seats in front of my desk.

“This one does,” he finally went on.

I answered with a nod.

“You're not going to make this easy, are you?”

“I don't owe you anything,” I told him.

“Fine,” he said. “Major Rice was killed in Iraq.”

“It couldn't happen to a nicer guy,” I said.

“You're not surprised,” he noted.

“It's been almost seven years. Word gets around.”

“I bet it does. What else do you know about it?”

I knew enough not to tell him what I knew. I asked, “It happened. . . how many years ago?”

“A long time ago. Long enough you were still holding a grudge and making a lot of noise.”

“
Major
Rice. I was still lieutenant. I remained lieutenant. My noise and grudge hurt only me. Isn't that true?”

“That's what I'm wondering. See, his death was written off as duty related. There were so many things going on in the conflict at the time, and he was killed working local tribal contacts. Funny thing, though . . .”

I kept listening without saying anything or even acknowledging his words.

“Your name came up.”

“My name came up in what
official
investigation?” I asked.

He smiled his shark smile again. “Homeland Security,” he said. “It seems a man named Sala Bayoumi applied for a special immigration visa based on his employment by the U.S. Army and intelligence services. Certain things about his story didn't add up and State called Homeland. Turns out, Sala Bayoumi was the contact that Major Rice met with before he was killed.”

Reach paused and watched me. He was waiting for a reaction or for me to try to explain something I hadn't been asked. I gave him nothing. I didn't move forward or back, neither opened or narrowed my eyes, and controlled my breathing. He was fishing with the right bait but I'd spent years expecting someone to dangle this in front of me.