Blue Heaven (31 page)

Newkirk stepped forward, his eyes hard. “What are you saying?”

“What I am saying, Mr. Newkirk, is that it’s not too late for you to
save yourself. I’m no longer an officer of the law. I can’t arrest you, and I don’t necessarily want to arrest you. I was the lead investigator for the Arcadia Police Department. I’ve spent the last eight years of my life looking into this crime. I’d like to find the killers, and the money, or at least as much as there is left.”

“What?”

Newkirk was off-balance, taken aback.
Keep going
, Villatoro thought.

“When I first saw you I thought I saw a man with a conscience, Mr. Newkirk. I noticed the wedding band on your finger. It looks like mine. Work with me to solve this crime. If you do, I’ll do everything I can to keep you out of the trouble that will come.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Newkirk sputtered.

“Ah, I think you do. You were a police officer, and a good one. You know as well as anyone that deals can be struck that benefit all of the parties. But the chance to help voluntarily lasts only so long. If you don’t take your single opportunity, well, who knows what will happen?”

Villatoro could see Newkirk’s mind working, see the veins in his temple throb.

“You’ve got a family, a good life here. Would providing assistance in my case help preserve that? Are there some things you can tell me that would benefit you and your family?” Villatoro said. “You’ll need to decide. I would guess that your conscience is troubling you, and this is the way to cleanse it.”

To Villatoro’s mild surprise, Newkirk appeared to be listening.

“It’s Sunday. Tomorrow, I will make a call to my contact at the FBI,” Villatoro said. “So you need to make your decision tonight, my friend.”

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” Newkirk said without conviction.

“Think hard, Mr. Newkirk. Go see your family. Look at them. Then decide.”

Newkirk started to speak, then pulled back.

“Think hard,” Villatoro said softly. “Contact me here and we’ll talk.”

“I’ve got something to say right now.”

“Yes?” “Fuck off, mister.”

He watched Newkirk slide into his car and drive away.

When he was out of sight, Villatoro breathed in deeply. His knees felt weak. It wasn’t what Newkirk said that struck him. It was what he
didn’t
say.

Newkirk didn’t ask Villatoro what specific case he was investigating. He didn’t ask what happened in Arcadia that would have brought him here. He didn’t mention that he’d been at the racetrack that day. And he didn’t ask why the FBI was going to be called.

IN HIS ROOM, Villatoro opened the phone book on his knees. The name he was looking for didn’t have a listing. He thumbed through the book for Singer, Newkirk, Gonzalez, and Swann as well. All unlisted. As he searched, he saw his message light blinking. Donna? Celeste? Would Newkirk be calling already?

The message had been left an hour before, when Villatoro had been on the phone with Celeste.

“Mr. Villatoro, this is Jess Rawlins. I don’t know what it means yet, but maybe you should check on another name. It’s another ex-cop. I’ve got his name here. Tony Rodale. That’s R-O-D-A-L-E. His wife called the sheriff and reported him missing. I’ve got an address.”

T
HE ANCIENT TELEVISION in Jess Rawlins’s home received only three channels, and of those, only one came in clearly. An older satellite dish was outside on a concrete pad, and an electronic box sat on top of the set. Annie watched William try to figure out how to manipulate the blocky old remote control to access the satellite. He wanted to watch cartoons.

“This is driving me
crazy
,” William said, pointing the remote at the set and the box and pushing button after button. “How can that old guy live like this? Without good TV? I can’t even get Nickelodeon.”

“Keep trying,” Annie said. “You’ll figure it out.”

“I wonder if all of the wires are connected from that dish out there? Maybe something is busted?”

“Stay inside,” she said. “You heard what he said before he left. Keep the curtains closed and the lights off. We’re not supposed to go outside.”

William made a face. “If I can’t get this TV to work, I’m going out there.”

“No you’re not.”

“No you’re not,”
he mocked.

She took the remote from him and looked at it. There was a button
marked
SAT
, and she pushed it. The snow cleared on the screen to reveal a Spanish soap opera.

“What did you do?” William cried. “Give me that!”

She handed it over as he scrolled through the channels. “He’s not as big a hick as I thought he was,” William said.

Annie got up off the couch and went into the kitchen. Before he left, the rancher had locked the doors and windows and told them not to open them unless they were sure it was him. Annie was surprised to hear him say that it was the first time he had ever locked the front door. The rancher had to spray the lock with some kind of lubricant to get the bolt to work.

She looked through the kitchen cabinets and refrigerator. Crackers, spices, oatmeal, tea, and coffee in the cabinets, frozen packages of ground beef and steaks in the freezer. She’d never seen so many tins of chili powder in her life. Mr. Rawlins had said he would bring groceries back to the ranch when he returned from town, and he had asked what Annie and William liked to eat. Annie had scribbled a list and given it to him, and he had read it, smiled, and put it in the pocket of his long-sleeved, snap-buttoned shirt.

“When will you be back?” she had asked.

“Early afternoon, I reckon,” he said. “And remember, keep the doors locked and everything shut off.”

“You told me that three times already.”

Jess had looked at her. “Well, I hope one of ’em took.”

WILLIAM YELLED, “Annie, come look at this!”

He had found the Fox News channel, and on the screen was a photo. She hardly recognized him, he looked so bad.

“Why is Tom on TV?” William asked, trying to find the volume button to turn it up.

“Why are our pictures on TV?” he asked, as Annie’s and William’s school photos filled the screen over a scrolling graphic that read AMBER ALERT.

MORE THAN once, Annie had considered calling her mother. She had gone as far as lifting the receiver and hearing the dial tone before talking
herself out of it. With their pictures on television, Annie considered it again now.

What would it hurt to call? To say, “We’re all right, and we love you, Mom.” To hear her mother’s voice? But Mr. Rawlins had said Swann was there, in their home, and she couldn’t bear to think of him answering the telephone.

She hoped that when Mr. Rawlins returned he would have a plan of some kind to get them home where they belonged. He seemed to be on their side, but with his own doubts. Would he turn on them, like Mr. Swann had? It was possible, but she didn’t think so. He seemed to believe them, in his slow way. And he seemed to like her. Annie had caught him looking at her with a soft, sad expression, as if he were seeing her but thinking of someone else. She felt Mr. Rawlins was someone she and William could trust. Besides, they had no other place to run.

“Hey, Annie, come look at
this
!” William called again from the living room.

“What now?” she said as she found him poised in front of an opened dark wood cabinet.

“This is awesome,” he said, stepping aside so she could look inside.

Rifles and shotguns, seven of them altogether, stood in a rack. Boxes of bullets and shells were stacked near their butts. William reached for one of the rifles, and Annie stopped him.

“Leave them alone,” she said, pushing his hand down.

“But they’re cool,” he said. “I wonder why he has so many?”

“He’s a rancher. Ranchers have lots of guns.”

“Yeah, for bears and stuff,” he said, his eyes wide. “I wonder if he’ll show me how they work?”

She shrugged. “I guess you can ask him.” She wished Mr. Rawlins had a lock of some kind on the guns. It was obvious William was fascinated with them, and she didn’t trust her brother not to take them out and play with them if he thought he could get away with it.

“I could help protect us,” William said soberly. “So if he needs to go to town again, we’ll be safe.”

She reached across him to shut the cabinet door.

“No,” he said, stopping her. “Look at this one.”

Before she could intervene, he reached in and snatched a rifle with a
lever action. The rifle was obviously old, with the barrel rubbed silver and scratches in the wood of the stock.

“This looks like something a cowboy would use,” he said, pulling it out. “It’s heavier than I thought.” There was writing on the barrel. “What does it say?”

Annie read the stamping. “Manufactured by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. New Haven, Conn.”

“Con?”

“Connecticut. Patented August 21, 1884. Nickel Steel Barrel. Twenty-five-35 WCF. I don’t know what that means.”

“Wow, I wonder if it’s too old to shoot.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Put it away.”

“Annie …”

“Put it away,
now
.”

He did, taking his time to fit it into the rack. “You have to admit it’s a cool old gun,” he said.

She closed the gun cabinet.

“There’s something else,” William said, walking across the living room to an old rolltop desk. “Wait until you see this.”

“You shouldn’t be snooping,” she said as she followed.

“Oh, like you didn’t snoop at Mr. Swann’s, right?”

He pulled open one of the drawers of the desk. In it was a framed photo of a much younger Mr. Rawlins, very much younger, wearing an Army uniform and a peaked cap. Mr. Rawlins stared right through the camera, as if he wanted to show how serious he was. Inside the drawer were hinged boxes containing war medals.

William opened them. “He was an Army sharpshooter,” he said, showing her the medal. “He also got this silver star thing here. There are a couple of other ones, but I don’t know what they mean.”

She touched the silver star medal with her fingertips.

“Maybe he’s cooler than we thought,” William said.

“I wonder where he got these?”

“We need to ask him,” William said. “I bet he’s got some stories.”

When they heard the sound of a motor, they looked at each other, then furiously shut the hinged boxes, returned the medals, and shut the drawer.

William went to the window and inched the curtain aside before she could tell him not to.

“Someone’s coming down the road,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s Mr. Rawlins.”

THEY HID under the desk with their arms wrapped around their shins, looking out.

“I wonder who it is,” William whispered.

“Could you see anything?”

“Just a black truck.”

“How many people were in it?”

“I couldn’t tell.”

“I wish you hadn’t pulled the curtain back like that.”

“They couldn’t see me.”

“How do you know that? Next time, just look through the slit between the curtains, okay?”

William started to argue, then stopped himself. “Okay,” he said.

The motor grew louder, then stopped. A car door slammed shut.

“They’re right outside,” Annie said. Then she realized: “The TV! You left it on!”

William scrambled out from beneath the desk and found the remote on the coffee table. He pointed it at the screen and started pushing buttons. Before he found the power button, he inadvertently hit the volume, and the sound of a cartoon roared through the empty house, then went silent. Annie sucked in her breath as she watched William drop the remote and rapidly crawl on his hands and knees to rejoin her.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

She glared at him.

They heard a heavy knock on the front door that rattled dishes in the kitchen.

“Hello, hello!”

They looked at each other. A man with a deep voice.

“Hellooooo. Open up. It’s the Kootenai Bay police.”

What should we do?
William asked with his eyes.

Annie put a finger to her lips.

“Hey, I heard the TV. Please open up. I need to ask you some questions.”

She recognized the slight Mexican accent as belonging to the man
who had spoken to Mr. Swann while they cowered on the floor of his truck.

William dropped his face into his hands. Annie patted his back to reassure him.

“Helloooo in there.” The pounding on the door was brutal.

Next, she heard the doorknob rattle. He was trying to get in. Then silence.

She felt William trying to burrow backward farther into the shadows beneath the desk. She heard him sniff; he was holding back tears.

A form passed by one of the curtained windows in the living room, and she could see his silhouette clearly. It was him. She recognized him as one of the killers, the dark one. He was a stocky man, with a big head and mustache. She didn’t want to tell William.