Rattlesnake

by Andy Maslen

  Unconsciously, his hand had gone to his hip, and the wood grip of his Smith & Wesson Classic Model 586. Strictly speaking, the retro-styled revolver should have been a secondary weapon, and worn concealed. The department’s standard service pistol was the semi-automatic M&P 40. But Frankland liked to bend the rules, just a little, from time to time. Besides, he’d stopped being a street cop many years earlier, so the gun on his hip was more of a statement than an operational weapon.

  Christie’s cold blue eyes flicked down from their arrow slits and back up again. He smiled.

  “Calm down, Tex,” he said. “No need to start a shooting war with the Agency. I’m just explaining to you how things have to be on this particular case. You needn’t worry. The rule of law is still in place. But let us handle it from here. It would be in your best interests. OK, pardner?”

  The insults were wreaking havoc with Frankland’s self-control. He’d bitten the inside of his cheek and could taste the salty, iron tang of his own blood. He was breathing hard and could feel the adrenaline forcing his right knee into a jiggle he couldn’t stop. Something in Christie’s dispassionate gaze was triggering an ancient reflex deep in his gut. A reflex that was telling him to run. Or to fight. Frankland wasn’t a runner.

  “You know,” he said slowly, “I don’t think I care for your tone, Agent Christie. And so what I think is, you get the hell out of my office – pardner – and come back with something more official than some half-assed threat.”

  Christie remained motionless in his chair. The look – a rattlesnake observing a gopher – intensified. Then he laughed. A low chuckle. He shook his head from side to side a few times. Then he reached into his jacket with his right hand, across the chest.

  Frankland tensed.

  Christie’s hand emerged with a folded sheet of paper.

  “What’s the matter, Cap?” he asked, dropping into a thick parody of Frankland’s accent. “Y’all think I was going to pull a six-shooter like that hand-cannon on your hip? Here.” He placed the slim white rectangle of paper on the desk and slid it towards Frankland. “Read it.” He didn’t add, “and weep,” but Frankland heard it nonetheless.

  Frankland reached for it and unfolded it. It was CIA stationery, the Agency’s famous bald-eagle seal crisply printed in the top right corner. In plain, unaffected English, it instructed him, Captain John G. Frankland of the San Antonio Police Department, Homicide Division, to close the murder investigation into the death of Vincent Calder. The details were as Christie had described. It was signed by a Martha Cruikshank, who was styled ‘Director, Inter-Agency Co-operation’, though for all he knew she could be Chief Assassin of Unco-operative SAPD Police Captains.

  Frankland knew when he was outgunned.

  This wasn’t a firefight with the Taliban.

  Or with some teenaged gangbangers in Houston’s Sunnyside neighbourhood.

  This was the CIA.

  Game over.

  He pushed the paper back at Christie and left his hands palm-down on the desk. To his great relief, he saw that they were both perfectly still.

  “Fine. Case closed. But what if Mrs Calder doesn’t buy the suicide story? I mean, how’d he get himself out there? Where was the weapon?”

  “Not my problem.”

  Christie levered himself out of the chair, which emitted another, louder creak as its ageing metal frame gave under the big man’s pressure.

  He left on silent feet, closing the door behind him with a gentle pull until the latch clicked.

  Frankland blew out his cheeks.

  “Shit.”

  Having delivered himself of this expletive, he left his chair and headed for the detectives’ office down the hall.

  Once there he scanned the open-plan space looking for a particular detective. He spotted her by the photocopier. Her name was Valentina Casamayor, a hardworking Latina with a gift for nurturing CIs and eliciting the truth from witnesses. That she was also a martial arts fanatic, and as fearless as a tiger, he didn’t mind at all. She finished at the copier and headed towards the door on the far side of the office, exchanging banter over her shoulder with a couple of her male colleagues.

  “Detective Casamayor!” he called, threading himself between the chairs and desks as he made his way over to her. “Wait, please.”

  Heads had turned at his call, but once everyone realised they weren’t the one being summoned by the boss, they went back to their computers, phones and conversations.

  Casamayor stopped and turned to wait for him.

  “Yes, Captain? I was just going out to meet a wit in the shooting in McAllister Park.”

  “It’ll have to wait. Let’s go grab a coffee, OK? You can go on after that.”

  She frowned. Not surprising, really, as his detectives were unused to receiving coffee invitations from the boss, but she smiled and nodded anyway.

  “Anywhere in particular, Captain?”

  “Backhouse Bean OK for you?”

  It was a new place, owned and run by a hip-looking guy with a beard and a full sleeve of tattoos on his right arm. A lot of the cops had started going there as it was easily the closest place to the station and served good quality coffee into the bargain.

  They collected their drinks, iced skinny latte for Casamayor and an Americano with cold milk for Frankland, and found a table in a corner. The place was noisy with a steady stream of commuters and students keeping the two baristas busy at the steaming, hissing Gaggia machine.

  “You’re working the Calder homicide, yes?” Frankland asked, though he already knew the answer.

  “Uh-huh and it’s a real bitch.” She blushed. “Sorry, I mean, yes, Captain.”

  He smiled.

  “Relax, Detective. Val, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “OK, Val. Listen, I have some,” he paused, then immediately wished he hadn’t, “some good news for you. About this bitch of a case. I want you to leave it alone. I’m going to review it myself, and unless I find something compelling, I’m going to close it administratively.”

  She put her coffee down and wiped her top lip.

  “Excuse me? How come? I mean, I’m still looking at leads. I haven’t made much headway yet, but—”

  “But nothing. This is no reflection on you, Val. In fact, it’s because you’re such a damn fine detective I need to do this. I want you working that triple homicide out in Harlandale. The current team has hit a wall. Close it and I think I can say with some degree of certainty that your career prospects would be, shall we say, enhanced? Now, I want the murder book, all your notes, the whole nine yards, on my desk A-sap.” He downed the rest of his coffee in a single burning gulp and stood. “Finish your latte. Then go get that murder book. You better go and talk to the widow, as well. If I were you, Detective Casamayor, I’d give her a strong steer that we regard his death, though unfortunate, as suicide.”

  Casamayor opened her mouth to speak then closed it again.

  Good girl, he thought. We might both get out of this intact. Just.

  16

  Who Did Vinnie Know?

  GABRIEL and Terri-Ann were sitting at her kitchen table. He’d slept well and the freshly brewed coffee in his bloodstream was doing a good job of keeping him focused despite the jet lag. They were talking about where he should start looking into Vinnie’s death. Gabriel had a sheet of paper in front of him. He’d just written, “Who did Vinnie Know?” across the top.

  “Let’s start with work,” he was saying. “We have Clark Orton, the boss.”

  “He is such a nice man,” Terri-Ann said. “He always sends us,” she hesitated, “sent us flowers on our wedding anniversary. He’s so busy, what with running the company, but he always has time for those little touches.”

  “OK, so we have Clark. Did Vinnie have a number two in security?”

  She shook her head.

  “I don’t think so. I mean, I’m sure there were people Vinnie could call on, but he was a solo flyer. A troubleshooter, that’s what he
called it. He worked with their general counsel, I think, you know, the legal people. Mainly I got the impression he worked pretty closely with Clark.”

  At the phrase, “troubleshooter," Gabriel’s spider sense emitted a little vibration. That two-word pairing could mean all kinds of things. It could be a guy who fixes PCs that won’t load Windows for their stressed owners. It could be someone who wrangles personnel issues for multinationals, flying round the world to hire and fire, reorganise and renegotiate on behalf of the board. But it had other, darker meanings too. Take Gabriel as an example. He’d been called a troubleshooter before. If there was trouble, he’d turn up and shoot it. In the SAS. As an operator for The Department. And occasionally on his own account, or that of his high-paying private clients. Was Vinnie involved in fun and games for Orton Biotech? It seemed unlikely. Was a biotechnology company really going to be employing the men in black balaclavas to rush in and kill their business rivals? But then he thought some more. Biotech. Bio plus tech. Who used that kind of stuff? Governments, for one. Militaries, for another. OK, he thought, file that under ‘needs more thought.’

  “What about friends outside work? Any ex-Delta friends, Marine Corps guys?”

  She nodded.

  “There are a few he kept in touch with. But when he left, he said he wanted a fresh start. It’s partly why we moved here. I mean the free veterans’ medical care is great and everything, but he wasn’t one of those guys who’s always doing the vet thing, you know? Poker games and sports bars, reliving old glories.”

  “Who was he closest to, then? Down here, I mean. Was there anyone in San Antonio? Or nearby?”

  She smiled and for a moment he saw the beautiful woman behind the mask of grief that had rendered her face dull and lifeless.

  “That would be JJ. Julius Jeffrey Highsmith. He was with Vinnie in the Marines. They left the Corps at the same time: Vinnie went into Delta, JJ joined the Rangers. He’s based in Houston”

  Gabriel scratched his head.

  “Sorry, I’m not up on sports teams. Is that football? Basketball?”

  Her eyes popped open, showing the whites around the grey-blue irises. But she was smiling.

  “Boy, we are going to have to give you a crash course in Texan culture, Gabriel. I didn’t mean the baseball team. I meant the Texas Rangers. Law enforcement. Big, handsome men in white hats. And a few women, but they wear the hats too.”

  Gabriel crossed out the words, “football player?” beside JJ Highsmith’s name.

  “Sorry. Not sports; law enforcement. Anyone else you can think of?”

  She shrugged.

  “Oh, you know, a couple of guys. I have their names in our address book. It’s old fashioned, I know, but we have a real one. Paper pages with thumb tabs.”

  Agreeing that she’d dig the address book out later, they moved on to the police investigation. He already had the names of the two detectives investigating Vinnie’s death: Casamayor and Sayers. From his experience working alongside detectives in London’s Metropolitan Police, and again in Wiltshire after his friend Julia was murdered, he knew they were sensitive, to put it mildly, about civilians asking questions about their cases. If he offered to help, he’d get the polite brush-off if he was lucky, and the full-on, “this is police business, sir, no place for amateurs” stern lecture if he wasn’t. But as a friend of the family, he could surely sit in and listen if Terri-Ann arranged to meet one of them, or invited them to the house.

  “Could you introduce me to the detective you met? Casamayor?” he asked.

  “I guess so. Want me to call her?”

  He nodded.

  “Could you invite her over? Say you wanted an update?”

  “Give me a minute.”

  Terri-Ann went to find her phone and returned with it held to her ear and a business card in between the tips of the fingers of her right hand. She looked at Gabriel and rolled her eyes.

  “On hold,” she said. Then,

  “Detective Casamayor? Hi, it’s Terri-Ann Calder. OK, thank you. Look, I know you’re real busy with the case and everything, but would you have time to come over to the house? I would love an update on what’s happening.”

  Gabriel watched her face crease in puzzlement while she listened to the detective’s reply then said, “Fine, that would be great,” and ended the call.

  “Everything OK?” he asked.

  Terri-Ann sat back down and reached for her coffee mug. She tilted it and swallowed whatever remained before answering.

  “Well that was odd. I was expecting some sort of excuse about being too busy, but she almost bit my hand off. She’s driving straight over here.” She checked her watch. “I guess she’ll be here in about thirty minutes.”

  The doorbell rang twenty-five minutes later. Terri-Ann rose from the table and went to let in the detective. Gabriel stood and waited for the two women to return to the kitchen. Terri-Ann came in first, the detective following. She spoke.

  “Val, this is a friend of mine and Vinnie’s. Gabriel Wolfe. He’s staying for a few days.”

  Gabriel held out his hand.

  “How do you do, Detective Casamayor?” he said, as the detective shook it.

  “How do I do? That is extremely polite. You’re English, right?”

  He smiled.

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “Well, let’s just say we don’t hear your kind of accent in San Antonio much unless it’s on TV. ‘I’ll pour the tea, you serve the biscuits,’” she said, so that biscuits came out as bisskitz. Gabriel reflected that her comic, old-timey British accent had died out around the end of the fifties.

  He applauded.

  “You’re a pretty decent mimic, Detective Casamayor. Ever thought of going on the stage?”

  The pleasantries out of the way, the trio sat at the table.

  Gabriel noticed that Casamayor was fidgeting with her wedding ring. He could see a vein pulsing below the pale, coffee-coloured skin at her right temple. And she was having trouble making eye contact with Terri-Ann. He decided to keep quiet, to watch and listen. For now.

  “Terri-Ann, I have some news for you about the case,” Casamayor said. “It’s being taken over by a new team of detectives. I was just about to call you myself when you called.”

  She flicked her hand across her top lip.

  “Why? Is that usual? I thought you were running it? You said you were the lead detective,” Terri-Ann said, her voice rising.

  “It’s not usual, but in this case the captain and I, we feel it needs some new eyes on it to maintain momentum.” She cast her own eyes down at the table again and began twisting the simple gold band on her ring finger round and round.

  “Are you saying you haven’t gotten anywhere?” Terri-Ann asked. “Because that’s what they say in books and on TV, that you have twenty-four hours before the trail goes cold. It’s when most murders are solved, isn’t it? The first twenty-four hours.” Her voice was insistent now, and Gabriel could hear that telltale catch he’d quickly come to recognise as a sign Terri-Ann was struggling.

  “Yes, you’re right. And we’re way over that now. To be honest, I’m wondering whether we were looking in completely the wrong direction.”

  “What, what do you mean?”

  “Vinnie didn’t have any enemies. You told us that. He helped out at the local homeless shelter. Did yard work for some of your senior neighbours. Wasn’t he volunteering for that charity a while back? In Cambodia, you said?”

  Terri-Ann nodded.

  “Everybody loved Vinnie. That’s why I don’t understand who’d want to kill him.”

  The detective frowned.

  “Maybe nobody did, Terri-Ann.”

  Terri-Ann looked hard at Casamayor.

  “What are you saying?”

  Casamayor inhaled then let it out in a sigh.

  “Is there anything you haven’t told us about Vinnie’s state of mind?”

  “His what?”

  “His state of mind. Was he acting diffe
rently than usual in the days before he died? Stressed maybe? Irritable?”

  “What are you saying?” Terri-Ann’s eyes were wide and she had clamped her hands together, interlacing her fingers so that the knuckles turned white.

  “Just that sometimes veterans can have all kinds of trouble stored up. Stuff they don’t share, even with their loved ones. It can cause trouble down the line.”

  “PTSD, you mean? No. Uh-uh.” She shook her head. “Vinnie was fine. He wasn’t depressed. Wasn’t having flashbacks, or nightmares. He was perfectly normal. Happy.” Then her mouth dropped open. “Wait. You think he killed himself, don’t you?”

  Casamayor shook her head.

  “It’s a possibility, but really we’re just looking at the case from all angles. We can’t discount it.”

  Gabriel had waited for the right moment. This felt like it.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, Detective Casamayor,” he said. “If Vinnie killed himself – which, by the way, I don’t believe – how did he get all the way out there in the desert? That’s where you found him, right?”

  The detective frowned. To Gabriel’s trained eye, she looked uncomfortable, and not just about being questioned by a civilian, and a British civilian at that.

  “Yes. Maybe he walked out there.”

  “Walked,” Gabriel said in a flat voice. “That was a long walk. Terri-Ann told me you found him basically in the middle of nowhere. His car and truck are both here. Did he get a cab, do you think?”

  Flustered, Casamayor looked down at her knees and flicked at an invisible speck of dirt or dust.

  “Look, I don’t know, OK? I said, we’re looking at all the angles.”

  “Have you spoken to his boss? They were on a business trip together. That makes him if not the last person then one of the last people to see Vinnie alive. That’s got to count for something, hasn’t it?”

  “Mister Orton returned from the trip before Vinnie,” she answered. “According to his secretary, he was back a day ahead of schedule. Then booked solid with back-to-back meetings. And yes, of course we spoke to him. He was very helpful, very open.”