A Passing Curse (2011) (12 page)

In any event, his gift to the world would spread. He could let it spread naturally and slowly, or he could send it worldwide: Rio, Madrid, Berlin, Moscow. A dilemma of sorts. Savor the gradual enlightenment of man? Or start a wave that would drown the world?

Reese Tarrant guessed that the burly man sitting across the desk from him was a country boy at heart who wanted you to think he was all hick and just a little bit stupid. The Santa Marina Chief of Police had a solid handshake, like pumping a calf’s leg, sly, porcine eyes, and a face formed from overlapping slabs of muscle. He was balding but making do with a four-strand comb-over.

The overall impression was that of a benign snapping turtle. One thing that the Chief was not, he decided, was stupid, and definitely not benign.

“I’m walking along,” Reese said, “enjoying the weather, the light, when a car stops. A black and white car. A kid jumps out, says you want to see me.”

“That kid would be Officer Thomkins.” The Chief looked at his watch. He nodded and his voice became grave. “And that was some time ago.”

“Officer Thomkins?” Plaques for distinguished achievement littered the walls of the Chief’s office, along with shooting trophies and pictures. In one picture he recognized the current governor shaking the Chief’s hand. “A police officer?”

“He was wearing a uniform?” the Chief asked. “A badge I hope?”

“Didn’t look old enough.”

“Haven’t you heard?” The Chief bit off the tip of a large cigar. “They’re getting younger all the time.” He spit the cigar end into a wastebasket.

“Yes,” Reese said, “they’re getting younger and we’re not. What do you want?”

The Chief paused as if trying to figure out if Reese had been rude, then, “First off, I’m curious why you picked our little town to drop in on. A detective of your standing.”

“I like the seafood,” Reese said. “The Mediterranean climate. The old world ambience. It reminds me of that book, the Tuscan sunset or sunrise…something.”

“Under the Tuscan Sun,” the Chief said definitively. “My wife read it.”

The Chief put half the cigar into his mouth and pulled it out, shiny with spit. A thorough man, he turned the cigar around and did the other half. “Homer Wermels - aka Richard Lamb - lived in the same apartment you just moved into. Imagine that. The same apartment. What are the odds?”

“Astronomical.”

“If you’re wondering….” The Chief thumb-flicked a kitchen match and passed it carefully under the cigar. He blew out the match with a small cloud of smoke. “A detective from LA told me.”

“A Sergeant Hernandez?”

The Chief exhaled more smoke. There was a tart, almost sewer quality to it. Of course it was Hernandez. “He’s a lieutenant now,” the Chief said. “Least that’s what he told me. Sharp looking kid.”

“Lieutenant?” He marveled at Hernandez’s self promotion. “And why would he call you?” He could think of a few reasons. The main one being that Hernandez figured there was more to Richard Lamb’s death than met the eye. Hernandez smelled cover-up. If he could bust a fellow cop for murder, his FBI buddies would go to no end to show their gratitude. They might even hire him. Special-Agent-in-Charge Hernandez. Maybe Hernandez had grander dreams. Lieutenant. Captain. On up the rail to Chief. How did the Chief know Hernandez was sharp looking?

“He didn’t call. He dropped in.”

“He’s in town? Hernandez?”

“He was,” the Chief said. “Claims you’re dangerous. Claims the Feds are looking into that job you did on Homer.” The Chief’s face relaxed as he reminisced. “Poor old Homer. He was a simple boy, I guess. Personally, I don’t think he was a killer, wouldn’t harm a flea - ”

“It wasn’t fleas,” Reese said, surprised the Chief did not have violins playing in the background, “that worried me.”

“Yeah, well, you’re the only one convinced he killed all those girls….” The Chief let the statement hang there and shuffled a few papers on his desk. He pointed the cigar at him. “Suppose you tell me what you’re really up to? There’s plenty of seafood where you came from.”

“Let’s start with who’s responsible for thirteen murders,” he said. He didn’t like Hernandez up here sniffing around, but there was nothing to be done about it, for now.

“You tell me. You killed him. You killed the main suspect. The only suspect. The story ended right there.”

“Who gave him the orders?” Reese asked. “That’s what I want.”

“Orders? Serial killers are taking orders now?”

“Ever ask yourself why the village idiot became a serial killer? It takes a few brains to kill that many people. He almost killed me. And that used to take some doing.”

“It still might,” the Chief said as if he were considering it. “Besides, Homer wasn’t stupid. He just had his own way of doing things. One of those idiot savants. Not that I’m all that convinced he did anything. You aren’t exactly known at the LAPD for your judgment. Hernandez dropped terms like ‘loose cannon’, ‘wildman’, ‘general fuck-up’.”

He looked at the Chief and smiled. What Hernandez thought of him was the least of his problems. “We haven’t had another girl drained of blood since Homer died,” he said and made a point of looking at the picture of the Chief and Ajax Rasmussen standing in front of a fountain, shoulder to shoulder, both grim as if neither liked being close to each other. Hannah had said that the Chief was Ajax’s boy, but it looked more like a business arrangement than a love affair. “I got the killer.”

“Exactly,” the Chief said. “Case closed. Ancient history. Anyway, I want to ask you a favor that has nothing to do with the Anaheim Vampire.” The Chief took another puff. “That ought to thrill you.” He blew out a long squall of smoke and smiled.

“I’m all ears,” Reese said, betting that whatever the Chief was up to had everything to do with the Anaheim Vampire, everything to do with Homer’s killing spree.

“It’s about some old bones a construction crew dug up near the mission.”

“You’re liable to find anything you start digging around a mission,” Reese said. “Why’s that a problem?”

“These bones weren’t found in the mission’s graveyard is the problem. They were found on a patch of private property near the mission. The old mission garden. That’s the problem.”

“Near the graveyard, in the graveyard, who cares?”

“I’ll tell you who cares. Several years ago there was a push to canonize Father Junipero Serra, the guy who built the missions in the first place. A simple enough thing you would think, but not in California. Too many people think Serra was a killer. Indian genocide. We’re talking incidents that happened two hundred years ago, but we had a near riot at the mission. Just a bunch of damn college kids, but tourism dropped. Bus trips were cancelled. Tourists shy away from people jabbing at them with signs. It doesn’t look good on the home videos. The problem finally died down when the church backed off.”

“You think the bones belong to someone Serra killed?”

“No,” the Chief said. “I don’t think it’s someone Serra killed. The point is we already have an archeologist investigating. A very famous one, I understand, and we’re lucky to have her. Rusty Webber.”

“If that’s the point, then why do you need me?” he asked, wondering who’d hire a famous archeologist. Certainly not the Chief or the church, which left Mr. Deep Pockets, Ajax Rasmussen. He wondered why she was famous. Maybe she’d been on TV. She might even have her own show. “All you have to do is call the coroner, make sure the bones aren’t recent, and re-bury them or put them in a museum. Case closed.”

The Chief took another puff. “You’re right. It could have been simple. All Miss Webber had to do was dig up a skeleton and hand it over to the museum. Then a few paragraphs in the paper about the fine scientific job she’d done. Everything aboveboard and professional. The church is happy. The anti-Serra radicals are happy because they wouldn’t have known.” The Chief lowered his head slightly, like a bull ready to charge. “But now she’s found another set of bones and she’s making accusations. Screaming about the church killing all the Indians, acting like she found a mass grave, like she’s going to remake Shindler’s List.”

“Why is she famous?”

“She’s written books. She gives lectures and charges money. Some people in town think highly of her.” The Chief said this as if he weren’t one of those people.

“The favor?”

“Talk some sense into her.”

“Who picked me to save your tourist trade?” His guess was Ajax. His guess was this had nothing to do with Indian skeletons. His guess was the bones were somehow connected to Ajax. More victims? Possibly. Ajax had hired the archeologist to help him cover something up and now she was out of control.

“You’re not saving anything.” The Chief bit his bottom lip and laid the cigar on a blue ashtray. “I don’t want one of my young hotshots ruining things. The Franciscans can be picky. I don’t want Miss Webber distorting the truth. I want things kept quiet. Like you said, it’s no big deal, and I want to keep it that way. You got anything better to do?”

“Now, you’re doing me a favor?” The Chief said nothing. “You just want me to talk to the archeologist? A little talk?”

“I’d like you to act as liaison between my department and the archeologist. I want you to keep the situation in - ”

“ - check?” His guess was Ajax wanted to keep an eye on him, keep him close, see what he was really up to. Have him inside the tent pissing out.

The Chief glanced at his cigar, cleared his throat, said nothing.

“Liaison sounds expensive.”

“You want money?” the Chief looked surprised. “I was thinking of a pro bono job, common courtesy. One fellow cop helping another.”

“For five hundred dollars a day, I can be courteous. Most private detectives get two hundred bucks an hour, the cheap ones.”

The Chief hemmed and hawed a bit for show, citing bottom line and budget restraints. He guessed Ajax had told the Chief to act the reluctant suitor. The Chief went on about how a small department like his didn’t have money to throw around like the LAPD, but finally, “Okay. The District Attorney in Santa Barbara paid some asshole from New York fifteen hundred dollars a day to read blood splatters, so I guess we can afford two hundred for a real McCoy Los Angeles detective. But two hundred is tops.”

“Five hundred for a real McCoy,” Reese said. “Plus expenses…three meals, gas, incidentals.”

“Incidentals?” The Chief picked up the cigar. He tidied up the now smoldering end on the ashtray. “I’ll just have to get my boys to write a few more speeding tickets. People come down that Lobo grade ninety mile an hour.”

“Good,” Reese said. “I’ve never been one to turn down easy money, especially not Ajax Rasmussen’s money. Isn’t he the one giving orders around here?”

The Chief thought about this and smiled. “He seems to think so.”

Ten minutes before three that afternoon the famous Rusty Webber found the brow of the second skeleton. She uncovered the forehead and lower jaw. Using a Phantom number-three boar-bristle brush, she carefully cleaned the parietal bones. The eye sockets, packed with mahogany-colored dirt, stared from the past, stared beyond her at the blue sky.

The morning had been shot arguing with Ramon and mapping out and photographing skeleton number one. Ramon had been no help. Before she’d arrived, he’d already removed number one’s canine teeth, leaving broken stumps, and mangled the sternum, trying to remove a wooden stake, of all things. He’d also hidden away the right leg that had been originally uncovered by the backhoe, refusing to let her see it.

She touched number two’s cool, smooth forehead. Ramon had first claimed skeleton one had flesh, somewhat mummified, when first discovered by the construction crew, and then the flesh had miraculously disappeared, leaving the clean set of bones she’d seen this morning. When she questioned him further, he said it was all a mistake, that all he’d ever seen were the bare bones.

His flimsy attempt at deception had made her mad, and she called him a fool for tampering with the remains. He called her a witch.

She called him a fat pervert and liar. He rushed her swinging pudgy fists. She grabbed her sickle, swinging hard, but purposely only cutting air, missing his nose by a good six inches. He screamed and jumped back, stumbling along the path as if Lucifer himself were hot on his heels. That had been it for Ramon.

After a late lunch at a beach diner, Foggy Ben’s, and calling the cops to complain about Ramon, she returned to a powdery outline, all that remained of skeleton one. A young cop, red-headed and fresh looking, had stopped by briefly to discuss her complaint, but left with a confused look, not sure of what was going on or what she was complaining about.

She had gathered a sample of skeleton one’s bone dust - if that’s what it was - took a few pictures, but before she could stabilize the dust with resin, the afternoon winds blew it away. The left sandal, dried up and curled like a donkey’s ear, the stake centered in the ditch, a mushroomed signpost, and the sample were the only evidence remaining. Ramon had the right leg and sandal, but she’d have hell getting them back.

Never had she seen perfectly good bones turn to dust. Her first thought was Ramon had used acid, but that made no sense and acid left a gummy residue. Or possibly Ramon had removed the bones and replaced them with some kind of powder, borax or cake mix, or put the bones in a blender and returned with the dust. That explanation also seemed both incredible and ludicrous. The only other explanation was the sun. Mineral salts could have weakened the bone, plus, the sun and pollution…it still made no sense.

She found skeleton number two by digging at the feet of number one, in the trough of the existing ditch. Skeleton two was only a few inches below the bottom of the ditch, and it was just dumb luck that the workers had missed it with the teeth of the backhoe.

Now, with a dental pick, she slowly removed dirt from the nasal cavity. She tried to concentrate, but felt trapped, weighing the need for diligence against the need to quickly discover what was going on. She took a deep breath and hoped this wasn’t a replay of Romania, some kind of vampire lash-up manufactured by Ajax.

If this was, as Ramon had loudly proclaimed, an Indian burial ground predating the mission, predating the Church’s responsibility, Ramon’s responsibility, then the ground should be rich with shells and beads, shards of pottery and remnants of Chumash baskets, grave goods. The Chumash often buried the dead next to their possessions, broken so as to be useless to grave robbers - a bow snapped in two, a smashed knife - useful things that would be resurrected in the next world and serve their owners. But this soil was clean.