Blackbird (25 page)

The three of them and LA took over a picnic table under an old lightning-struck pine, Jana sipping a beer as she sat on the table, LA and the girls fishing out Cokes and Sprites from a sea-chest-sized cooler we’d filled with drinks and ice at the E-Z Mart just after breakfast.

LA and I took a walk. ‘Not a bad way to decompress,’ she said as we wandered past a pair of cookers attended by a half-dozen guys hooting over old cop stories and watching the younger studs, one of them being Ridout, run pass plays on the nearby grassy flat. Mouncey and a couple of the other women had wandered off along the shore, but her husband Demond and their nine-year-old son Jarad were kicking a soccer ball around with a flock of other boys about Jarad’s age.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘The job really tightens you down if you let it. I doubt it’s what OZ had in mind, but this is probably good therapy.’

‘Mmm,’ she said, taking a sip of Sprite.

Knowing the Harley-Davidson man would never show up here, I still couldn’t help scanning the crowd for any sign of a pony tail, a biker’s jacket or a face I didn’t know. A couple of the undercover drug guys came close appearance-wise, but the bad-guy feel just wasn’t there. What I did see
was a man in boots, jeans, faded denim jacket and a white Stetson, leaning against a tall sycamore a hundred yards away on the far side of the gathering, eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses but apparently looking in my direction. He was lean, and even at this distance looked as hard as saddle leather. I put him at forty-something, definitely not a local but a guy with a cop look.

LA, standing with me, saw him too. ‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘A guy like you.’

A nasty little tickle ran like a cold-footed lizard up my spine. ‘Why do you say that?’ I asked. ‘He doesn’t look anything like me.’

Reacting to my tone, she glanced at me and shrugged, saying, ‘Different on the outside, kind of like you on the inside. What’s the rub?’

I didn’t know how to answer that, but I thought I knew who the man was. I decided to go have a talk with him, but LA derailed my attention. Looking at the chief standing alone on the point gazing off toward the dam like a ship’s captain spying out whales, she said, ‘So tell me, what did Max have to say?’

‘You guys all bark up the same tree,’ I said. ‘His thinking was pretty much the same as yours. And he told me depression can look like cold-heartedness.’

‘So listen to the man.’

When I looked back toward the sycamore, Stetson was gone. ‘Seems like Jana and the girls are having a good time,’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ LA said, glancing back toward their table. ‘Look at Casey – she’s already as tall as Jana. Word is, the boys are showing a lot of interest lately.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I’ve been meaning to get around to that.’

‘To what?’

‘Selling them into slavery.’

‘Daddy?’

I looked around to see Casey catching up to us, pink and a little breathless, her golden hair loose and shining, modest breasts bouncing under her white sweatshirt.

She said, ‘Officer Harnes wants to know if you and Aunt Lee want your catfish cajun or wuss.’

‘Cajun,’ said LA.

‘Same here,’ I said. ‘Hey, uh, Case – ’

But she was already running back to deliver her message.

Suddenly I smelled Clubman aftershave and breath mints, looked around and saw Dwight Hazen at my elbow, watching Casey run and giving me his jawy, clear-eyed Captain America profile. He wore what I took to be a carefully chosen guy outfit: black tracksuit, brand new Adidas cross-trainers and a fresh-off-the-shelf Longhorns cap. He turned to me with a bright smile and stuck out his hand.

‘Lieutenant Bonham,’ he said. ‘Good to run into you.’ He transferred his smile smoothly to LA. ‘And you must be Dr Rowe.’ Handshakes all around. ‘We’ve certainly got a beautiful day for it, haven’t we?’

‘Haven’t seen you out for one of these before, sir,’ I said.

He looked around the scene as he drew in a hearty breath through his nose and blew it out. ‘Fresh air, changing leaves, great fellowship – it’s a lot to be thankful for. And let’s not forget the chow.’

LA gave me a look. I said something non-committal as Jordan came up to us, decked out in jeans, a red pullover and her beat-to-hell Sea World cap, but looking like a serious little corporal delivering a battlefield dispatch.

‘Aunt Lee, Mom says can you please help her put up the volleyball net?’

‘Sure, hon,’ LA said, and arm-in-arm they were off.

‘Those are lovely girls you have there,’ said Hazen.

Saying nothing, I looked at him until his smile wavered and broke and his eyes slid away.

‘Chief Royal tells me we may be making a little headway on the Gold case,’ he said, gazing off across the lake.

‘We’ll get them, sir,’ I said.

‘Any idea at this point when we might look for an arrest?’

‘No, sir, not really. I tend to think in terms of finding out who did it and getting the evidence to make an arrest before we talk dates. It’s not always easy to go at it from the other end.’

Hazen watched the chief make his way back toward the crowd, longneck Bud in hand. ‘Look at him. He’s a dying breed, isn’t he? I mean a slice of the old West right here in our midst. I don’t care if it is going against the grain, I think he’s a tremendous asset to the city, and it’s going to be tough to see him go when he retires.’

‘Against the grain?’ I said.

Hazen looked at his shoes, cleared his throat. ‘I don’t mean to talk out of school here, Lieutenant,’ he said. ‘It’s just that the chief’s style isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, know what I’m saying?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Well, I guess it’s like anything else – results are the bottom line for all of us, aren’t they? OZ’s a legend, you could even say an icon, and he’s been above question or reproach ever since he stepped in. That was before my time, but I don’t think anybody’d deny he’s done a great job. That
covers a multitude of sins, I’m sure you’ll agree. And everyone knows he wants you for his replacement.’

‘Hard to imagine a higher compliment, coming from him.’

‘Amen to that. And personally I can’t think of a better choice under normal circumstances. But we’ve got a situation on our hands here, Lieutenant.’

‘Situation?’

‘To say the least. When the networks start booking hotel rooms down here, people get nervous. I have to answer to the council, and nobody over there wants to be on the ten o’clock news trying to field questions about hate crimes in Traverton. What I’m concerned about is whether we can show the world we’re able to clean up our own mess. I just had a conversation with the attorney general, and he wants to know why we don’t have anything more substantial for the press on this Gold thing. Frankly, I was at a loss to answer him.’

‘You mind if I ask whether you called him or he called you?’ I said.

Hazen examined the back of his hand and his manicured nails. ‘I think the point is, Jim, everything’s contingent on our getting somebody in custody on this Gold thing. I’m sure you understand.’

‘Yes, sir, I think I do,’ I said, watching a Channel Four reporter and cameraman approach us from the direction of the parking lot. ‘But let me ask you another question.’

‘Shoot,’ he said.

‘It’s about punishment fitting the crime,’ I said. ‘Take a child molester, let’s say – you think prison time is the way to go with a guy like that, or maybe some kind of rehab?’ I glanced back toward my daughters, then met his gaze and
held it. ‘Or would it be best to just cut off his balls and see how far down his throat you can shove them?’

Hazen opened his mouth but nothing came out. By this time the news crew was on us.

The reporter said, ‘Lieutenant Bonham – ’

I held up both hands, nodded my head at Hazen and walked away to join my family as the guy handling the camera started setting his tripod up for the interview.

THIRTY

LA and Zito walked into the mid-morning situation briefing at Three, Zito decked out in black western pants, ropers, white shirt with pearl snaps, a tan cord blazer with its lower right sleeve tidily folded and pinned, and LA somehow looking equally tarted up in faded jeans, a rugby shirt and an old pair of boat shoes. Zito shook with, shoulder-chucked or hugged pretty much everybody in the room, then threw me a crooked little smirk as he grabbed a chair.

But I don’t think this stuff even registered on LA. I was guessing the Miami conference was off the table by now, because she was clearly in the zone. Several times I’d seen her going over some document or listening to somebody with the little
High Noon
squint that told me she was one hundred per cent engaged: no matter where this trail led, she was in for the kill.

What really brought out the predator in her was Dr Gold’s PC, now sealed and gathering dust on a shelf in the evidence room. It engaged LA because as a source of evidence it was the blue-ribbon pig – but, even more importantly, because she couldn’t have it. We weren’t even free to plug it in without a judge’s order.

People tend to treat the computers on their desks almost
like provinces of their own minds, confiding in them like sorority sisters, baring their souls, even believing in the security of their firewalls, filters and passwords, so that the computer eventually becomes in effect a window into the user’s brain. LA was immune to this kind of self-delusion but she knew other people weren’t, and she kept eyeing Gold’s CPU like a fox casing the barnyard. Off and on over the past couple of days I’d seen her head to head with Bytes, the contracted digital geek, a tall skinny straight-backed guy whose actual name was Kevin Hauser, about what they’d do first with the unit if they could get their hands on it.

Settling in his chair, Zito eyed me and said, ‘Say, sport, I came to watch the dogged nemesis at work, see if I can pick up a trick or two.’ He produced a small dog biscuit from his shirt pocket and tossed it to me. I caught it.

‘Good idea,’ I said. ‘But that kind of puts us in a corner, old timer, because I’m gonna be using some two-syllable words here. All I can say is, try to follow along as best you can.’ I looked at the biscuit and took a bite. ‘Needs salt,’ I said.

‘What’s new with the Frix fire?’ asked Ridout.

Crossing his legs, brushing something invisible off his pants, Zito said, ‘Not much to tell. The accelerant was plain old kerosene. Looks like the bug split about five gallons of it between the body in the den and the stairwell, then touched it off.’ He shook out a cigarillo and lit it with his Marine Corps Zippo.

‘No smoking in the building,’ somebody said.

‘Right,’ Zito said, drawing on the cigarillo.

‘Sounded like the fire took off pretty good,’ said Ridout.

‘Yeah, went up the stairwell and involved the second
storey by the time the first floor was going good. Guy was no pro, but he did what it took to send the place up.’

‘So your theory would be the bug was the killer?’ I said.

‘You got it, hombre.’

‘How bad was the body?’

‘Standard crispy-critter,’ said Zito, blowing out smoke. ‘Same as you’d get with napalm. ME’s crew broke him in two places bagging him.’

‘Any sign of what killed him?’

He nodded his head. ‘Sifted out a couple of shell casings. Forty-four Mag.’

‘Wayne’s got them?’ I said.

‘Yeah, he’s got ’em. What’s the connection with your shrink case?’

‘Frix had an involvement with Gold,’ I said. ‘Somebody does her, then a couple of days later he gets it.’ I spread my hands.

He nodded. ‘Hard to laugh off, all right,’ he said, triggering a small grunt of agreement from Mouncey. LA pointed her finger at me, dropped the hammer of her thumb, then found some change in her purse and headed toward the soft drink machines in the hall.

Chateaubriand on me.

Down at the other end of the table Wayne finished the conversation he’d been having with one of his techs about something and looked up at me. ‘I finally gave up on finding a perfesser to tell me about that coin and looked it up for myself, Lou.’ He consulted his notes. ‘It’s Roman, all right. The face on the front is Apollo. Them little curls are supposed to be pigtails, by the way. The other side’s Diana, goddess of childbirth and the forest. Romans decided she was the same deity as Artemis, who was the Greek goddess
of the hunt. That’s why she’s got a bow and arrows on her shoulder.’

‘What’s the coin made of?’

‘Silver, mostly.’

‘And it’s never been in the ground?’

‘No telling, but for sure not recently. Under the microscope it looks like it’s been laying around in a drawer somewhere, a little of the tarnish polished off, couple of green felt fibres and whatnot.’

‘How about a date?’

‘Best I could do is it’s from the reign of Augustus.’

‘So, any reason to think it wasn’t our killers who dropped it there?’

‘Not really, because our information is Gold didn’t collect coins and neither did her husband,’ he said. ‘Beats the hell out of me what the bad guys were doing with it, though.’

No one offered a comment on that.

Next we all looked at his enlarged reproductions of the note found in Gold’s nose. Nobody had any new ideas about the mystery numbers or the ‘glowen’ inscription. Early on, thinking the word sounded vaguely Teutonic, I’d checked a couple of translation sites to see if it meant anything in German. No good. Likewise, since I was at it, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Latin. No luck there either.

‘An anagram?’ Somebody said.

‘Of what, “wongle”?’

‘“Legwon”?’

‘“Newlog”?’

‘How about an acronym?’

‘Let’s see, “Good-looking old women eat noodles”?’

‘“Gina lifts old willie every night”?’

‘Somebody trying to write “glowing”?’

‘Who the fuck knows?’

‘Nobody the fuck knows.’

‘Speaking of that, how about the numbers?’

‘Yeah, will somebody please tell us what the hell they mean?’

‘Four feet something?’

‘Counting something by twos?’

‘Measurements?’

‘Who the fuck knows?’

Trying to figure out what the numbers meant, I had tried a substitution cipher based on the ordinal positions of the letters of the alphabet, but all I got was gibberish. I’d also looked for a connection with decimal notation in library classification systems, navigational and mapping coordinates and the criminal codes, but got nowhere. None of the combinations of digits seemed to connect to any emergency call code, area code, telephone number, ZIP code, radio frequency or address anybody could think of. The spacing of the digits and the underlining of some of them looked like they should mean something, but I had no idea what. I stared at the sequence, massaging my forehead: