It had happened within the last ten minutes. He’d only been standing on Narvaez’ doorstep five minutes at most. He glanced around to see if he could catch sight of a familiar face hiding nearby, enjoying himself. There was nobody.
‘Anybody see anything?’ he asked the remaining onlookers.
Nobody said anything for a minute and then a young black guy stepped forward. Evan did his best to put a hopeful look on his face when he saw the heavy eyeglasses the guy wore, tried to ignore the greasy fingerprints he could see from six feet away.
‘Yeah, man, I saw it.’ He grinned suddenly and tried to bite down on it. ‘Sorry man, it’s not funny.’
‘No, it is. I’d laugh if it wasn’t my car. Did you get a good look at him?’
‘Hey Rodney, you didn’t see shit,’ a voice from the crowd called out.
Evan looked, couldn’t see who’d said it.
Rodney shrugged.
‘He’s white.’
The implication was clear. All white people looked the same to him. Evan got out his phone and found the photo he’d taken of Floyd Gray. He held it out.
‘Is that him?’
Rodney rocked his head from side to side, squinted at the phone. His black eyes swam around beneath several inches of prescription glass.
‘Could be.’
Then another skinny white guy stepped forward, his pants puckered out where his ass should have been.
‘Here, let me take a look. Rodney can’t see shit.’
Rodney didn’t deny it and the second guy held out his hand, a cigarette between his first and second fingers.
‘That’s him.’
‘You sure?’
‘Abso-fucking-lutely. Mean looking mother. I wouldn’t mess with him.’
‘You want that fish?’ Rodney said.
His friend looked at him, his mouth hanging open, although Evan reckoned it stayed that way most of the time.
‘Shit Rodney, you can’t eat that.’
Rodney gave him a big, toothy grin.
‘Ain’t gonna eat it.’
His friend stared at him a few moments and then grinned back, nodding, some form of communication passing between them. Evan didn’t want to think about the plans they had for it.
‘Take it.’
Rodney picked up the fish, still grinning.
‘Man, that is slimy. Jus’ like—’
‘You want the secret message?’ the friend said.
Evan shook his head as the guy pulled the slip of paper away from the slime.
‘What is that shit, some kind of code?’
‘Something like that.’
‘You want that?’
He pointed towards the sledgehammer, his face lit up like a kid at Christmas.
‘Yeah, I’ll keep that.’
Evan didn’t know what plans they had for the fish, it couldn’t be too bad. But he didn’t want to assist in the commissioning of a crime by letting them have the sledgehammer.
The guy’s face dropped for a moment, then recovered its feral grin when he looked at Rodney holding the fish, its mouth gaping.
‘Hey Rodney, I hope you ain’t thinking of—’
Rodney’s arm cut through the air towards his friend’s head and the fish flew out of his grip, bounced on the trunk of the car parked in front of Evan and ended up in the gutter. The two young men leapt after it.
‘You take care now man, he’s one mean mother,’ the friend called over his shoulder as the two of them ran off down the street.
***
THERE WAS NO WAY he could drive the car unless he knocked the windshield all the way out and that would only fill the interior with little cubes of glass. The rental company would charge him for vacuuming them out. He called a tow truck and sat in the car to wait, put the sledgehammer in the passenger footwell.
Floyd Gray, acting on behalf of Carl Hendricks, had sent a number of very unsubtle messages. The use of the sledgehammer, for one. It was efficient, but that wasn’t the only reason. He picked it up again and studied the well-used head. Were those faint traces of brick dust? It looked the same as the sledgehammer Carl Hendricks forced him at gunpoint to use—to break through into the basement chamber where he’d buried Daniel and Robbie Clayton. And where he planned to bury Evan along with them. The message was clear.
The dead fish was pure Hollywood, notorious as a mafia message—you’ll be sleeping with the fishes unless you heed the warning. Except there was no warning, nothing to heed.
Which is where the message on the note came in. 0712—the date Sarah disappeared. It was becoming Hendricks’ signature, in case Evan couldn’t work out who was behind it all.
Together, the three parts made up one message, delivered from Carl Hendricks to him. Sarah slept with the fishes, buried in an underground chamber, the same as the one Evan discovered. It was the same message as Hendricks had sent by email.
Nobody found the second level.
The only difference was the style of delivery had developed. It didn’t mean it was any more or less true. It just brought closer the day when he would go out to Hendricks’ farm and try to find some answers.
It also raised the question of just how far Hendricks and Gray were prepared to take things. You didn’t have to be a genius to know the answer to that. It was just a question of how long they left him twisting in the wind first.
Chapter 16
NEXT MORNING EVAN HEADED back to the Register-Recorder’s Office in an identical rental Honda. He told the rental office it was a random act of vandalism and they didn’t care, just took a couple hundred bucks off him and handed him a new set of keys.
Pulling into the lot at the Register-Recorder’s Office, he reckoned he must be eligible for his own parking spot, he was here so often, or perhaps a key to the executive washroom. The one thing he wasn’t entitled to was any civility from the clerk. He didn’t suppose even the Mayor got that.
He was wrong.
As he approached the desk, she looked up and smiled at him. It took him by surprise. He wasn’t sure how to react, couldn’t imagine what could have caused such a sea change in attitude. He got an inkling as she got closer to her side of the counter. She was wearing makeup today. Surely that couldn’t be for him. And she was wearing her name badge today, proudly displayed on what looked like a new blouse.
‘Hi Stella.’
She smiled some more. It was a nice smile, lit up her whole face. She should do it more often.
‘Can’t keep away, eh?’
He put on his best aw-shucks grin, the one Guillory would slap if he ever tried it on her. Stella lapped it up.
‘What have you got for me today?’
She made it sound like where are you taking me tonight? Yesterday, she’d managed to make it sound like what are you bothering me with?
‘Same as yesterday, actually—’
‘Births from 1965 and 1966?’
‘Uh, yeah,’ he said, amazed she remembered, looking around to see if the whole thing was being filmed in secret.
She headed off towards the archives, swinging her hips as she went. He wasn’t imagining it. Yesterday, the word for her gait would have been slouched. A hint of perfume hung in the air after she’d gone. That was new too. He didn’t like it, didn’t like any perfume—that was one of the things he liked about Guillory, she didn’t wear any—but he wasn’t going to mention that to his new friend, Stella.
‘Did you manage to load up the machine okay yesterday?’ she asked when she got back with the two spools.
‘Uh, well, it was a little fiddly.’
Before he knew it, she was on his side of the counter. Perhaps she’d find him a comfy chair as well—not that he expected the search to take very long. The fact that Margarita gave her baby two names—Francisco Javier—made the likelihood of other children with the same names much smaller. There was still the chance the adoptive parents changed the name, although he hoped the double name would help there too—if they liked either one of them, they
might leave the whole name unchanged.
‘What year do you want to start?’
It sounded like when shall we get married?
‘Sixty-six, I think.’
She loaded it up and he sat down. She wasn’t in a hurry to leave. There were no other customers this early in the morning.
‘You press this button to move it forward.’
He didn’t bother to point out he’d managed perfectly well on his own the day before.
She leaned across him and advanced the microfilm. Her perfume filled his nose and he felt her breath on the side of his face. He was very aware that if he turned his head to the left, he’d be looking straight down her blouse. One of the buttons seemed to have come undone in the archive room.
‘When do you want, roughly?’
He gave up a silent prayer that he hadn’t started with the 1965 spool and needed to fast forward all the way to December. He was going to sneeze soon if she didn’t move away.
‘First couple of weeks of the year.’
She’d already missed the first few days showing him how the button worked, so she rewound it. Then he heard a sound that made his heart leap. The sound of the door behind them opening—another customer, thank God.
Stella looked around and then straightened up at the exact moment he turned his head to say thank you. His cheek hit her squarely on the right breast.
‘Sorry.’
She giggled and smoothed her blouse, making it gape some more.
‘Thanks for all your help.’
The look in her eyes said don’t worry, I’ll be collecting payment later and then she was gone, off to help the other customer. He turned back to the machine, every second counting now. He sure hoped the other customer had a list as long as his arm. Behind him he heard Stella say Yes? in the exact tone he remembered from the previous day.
The new, helpful Stella with the perfume and makeup was for him and him alone.
It was a scary thought.
There was no time to lose. He advanced the microfilm as fast as possible without risking missing any records. Some of the names he recognized from the day before. The records went by, one by one, but the nearer he got to January 12, 1966, the day of Margarita’s death, the more convinced he became he’d chosen the wrong year to start with. Over his shoulder, he heard Stella returning with whatever the other customer needed from the archives. He didn’t want to think what might have happened to her blouse in there.
He was up to January 10, 1966 when he saw it. They hadn’t changed the name.
Francisco Javier Hernandez.
Seeing the name in black and white brought home to him something that hadn’t registered before, added one more layer of sadness to the whole story—despite everything that had happened, Margarita named her baby after its father. He couldn’t begin to imagine the reaction she got from her brother, Jesús. It was no wonder he didn’t want to talk about any of it.
The child was born two days before Margarita committed suicide. Was it too close? Would they have taken the baby away from its mother so soon? It was a Latino surname. Did that make it more likely it was Margarita’s child? He made a note of the record number and the name and kept on going, had to be thorough, all the way to the end. There was nothing else.
He glanced at the 1965 spool and knew he wasn’t finished. He had to check that one out too. He had a feeling in his gut he couldn’t explain that told him he would find something more on that spool. Something important.
He pressed the rewind button, held it down. A man pulled out the chair at the table next to him, dropped a single spool of microfilm on the table, nodded. Evan nodded back, his heart sinking, finger still on rewind. The counter flap behind them lifted and the sound of Stella’s heels approached. The man next to him was a big guy with large hands, his fingers thick.
‘It’s really fiddly loading these damn machines,’ Evan whispered, ‘I had to get the girl to do it for me.’
He was suddenly aware of Stella’s presence at his shoulder.
‘How’s it going?’
‘I’ve got one name—’
‘Excuse me Miss, can you load this thing for me?’ the guy next to him said. ‘I’m all fingers.’
Evan bit his tongue to stifle his grin, imagined Stella thinking Yeah, and my finger’s gonna be in your eye, buddy. She moved across to help him nonetheless, her hand trailing Evan’s shoulder as she moved away.
The 1966 spool finished rewinding and Evan got it off and the 1965 loaded so fast he felt both Stella and the guy staring at him. He grinned at them.
‘Practice makes perfect.’
He held down fast forward and watched the records go by in a blur, stopped in early December, and then advanced more slowly to Christmas day. It seemed an auspicious day, he had a good feeling about it. What he was also feeling was the weight of Stella’s arm on his shoulder, having finished up with the other guy.
‘Would you be able to print this one off for me, Stella?’
He held up the slip of paper with the details for Francisco Javier Hernandez. She took it, stayed put.
‘Let’s wait and see if you find anything else.’
He advanced the film carefully towards the end of the year, his previous optimism fading as he got closer.
‘There!’ She pointed at the screen, her voice shrill and excited in his ear. ‘You want that one too?’
Evan nodded and she made a note of the details. Francisco Javier Fox, born December 31, 1965. He thought about the name—a Latino first name coupled with a non-Latino last name. Did that make it more or less likely this was Margarita’s baby and not the child born to, or adopted by, the Latino couple, Hernandez?
He finished the last few records and then rewound it. Stella headed off to print the two birth certificates for him. A sign on the wall told him each copy would cost him five dollars. He fished a ten out of his wallet, no need to wait for change.
‘So, what are you, some kind of private investigator?’ Stella said, after she handed over the copies and he paid her the ten dollars.
In contrast to how other people, like Frank Hanna, made private investigator sound, she made it sound very much like man of my dreams.
‘Something like that.’
She leaned on the counter towards him, so close he smelled the faintly apple smell of the shampoo in her hair.
‘That must be really exciting—’
He stuffed his hand in his pocket suddenly as if he’d just felt his phone vibrate, pulled it out and pretended to read the text.
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘What?’
He shook his head, looked at his watch. He pushed his shoulders down into a slump.
‘They want me to check 1964 as well. As if I haven’t got enough to do today. I’m going to be late.’
She smiled at him.
‘I don’t mind. It won’t take long.’
She made her way towards the archives again, giving him the same hip wiggle as before. I bet the other guy didn’t get any of that, he thought to himself as he dashed for the exit.
Chapter 17
FRANK HANNA STARED AT his phone, his irritation growing. He didn’t know what the hell was wrong with it. It had been acting up ever since he left it at Lisa’s. Somehow, he’d just taken a picture of the inside of his pocket. He didn’t need this sort of minor annoyance on top of everything else that was going on.
He also didn’t know what the hell was wrong with Lisa.
She was always a bit jumpy, got it from her mother. The other night, she’d been more nervous than usual. She was still seeing McIntyre, but he had the sense to leave the topic alone. At one point he could’ve sworn he heard a noise from her garage—most likely McIntyre skulking in there. So he’d had another glass of wine and taken his time over it. Whatever was going on with her, it made it even more imperative she didn’t find out about his illness until Buckley finished his investigation.
That was another thing. Buckley had obviously found s
omething out from Narvaez, then pretended he hadn’t. The guy was a lousy liar. He’d have thought you needed to be a good liar in his line of work. At one point he was convinced he was going to give the job up. At least the guy was making progress even if he did want to choose his moments when to reveal what he’d discovered.
The question he’d asked about Thompson worried him, suggested that whatever Buckley had found out had to do with him. He’d never known the guy, only knew him by reputation. He shuddered, felt a wave of shame overcome him, even after fifty years, for not doing anything, not trying to stop his father from sending a man like that to Margarita’s house. It made it all the more important to make amends now.
‘Mr. Hanna?’
Hanna looked up at the pretty young receptionist.
‘Dr Frazier will see you now.’
***
‘HA. THE OLD BASTARD’S got cancer.’
‘Who?’
‘Your father—’
‘Don’t call him that. He’s still my father, however much you hate him.’
McIntyre held up his hands. This wasn’t a good time to get into a fight.
‘Sorry.’
The second half of what he said sank in. She was so irritated by what he called her father, the rest of it didn’t register. Until now. Her hand flew to her mouth.
‘Tell me what you heard.’
McIntyre recounted the gist of the conversation he’d overheard. The pancreatic cancer that Frank Hanna had been diagnosed with had taken an aggressive turn for the worse. The prognosis wasn’t good—he’d be dead within a year. Treatment would only make the last few months of his life a misery for no appreciable gain. It was not recommended.
Lisa dropped onto a kitchen chair, feeling numb. She’d known there was something wrong with her father, never suspected it was as bad as this. Less than a year to live. Why hadn’t he told her?
Despite his own feelings, McIntyre had the sense to go to her. She clamped her arms around his waist, buried her face in his shirt. He held her to him, stroked her hair with his good hand. His mind was a blur as his hand stroked rhythmically, soothing her. This changed everything.
Lisa pulled her head away, looked up at him.
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