Three Weeks to Say Goodbye

by C. J. Box

  Torkleson nodded.

  “What we’re interested in is how a good Cherry Creek High School boy got mixed up with them, and why,” Cody said.

  “That I can’t tell you,” Torkleson said, tapping the file on the table. “What we do have are a half dozen photos of him— Garrett—with known members of Sur-13 going in and out of the Appaloosa Club down on Zuni Street. You know about the Appaloosa?”

  Cody nodded. Even I had heard of the Appaloosa Club. The reason I knew about it was because it was on a block downtown the bureau made sure we steered journalists and other guests away from. Somehow, the area had been missed by the urban developers and probably would be in the near future. The buildings on it were dilapidated. Tattoo parlors, bars, and a couple of liquor stores with bars on the windows. In the middle of all of them was the Appaloosa, easily identified at night because the patrons had smashed most of the ancient red neon tubes above the door so it read POO. I’d heard from Cody that patrolling cops often took a detour around the club so as not to have bricks rained on their cruisers.

  “There are some undercover shots of your boy inside the club, too. He looks like he belongs—he doesn’t stand out like some of the adventurous white girls who show up there every now and then looking for trouble. But if Garrett is welcome and comfortable in the Appaloosa, we know he’s in deep with these guys.”

  “That’s it?” Cody said. “A few pictures?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Cody sighed. I expected him to upbraid Torkleson, but he didn’t. The new detective seemed to have gathered all he could within the department even though it gave us little we didn’t already know.

  “I wish I had more,” Torkleson said, reading Cody’s body language. “Juvie stuff is hard to get without a warrant, even though I have a few buddies downtown. My impression is there was really nothing to get—that Garrett has kept himself clean. And the other name you gave me, ‘Luis,’ well, you can just throw that section in the file away.”

  Cody homed in on that. “What do you mean?”

  Torkleson said, “If the subject you wanted intel on is Pablo ‘Luis’ Cadena, known associate of Garrett Moreland and vice versa, well, he’s no more. His body was found a couple of days ago in the South Platte. He’d been stomped and beaten. The coroner said he was dead before he was dumped.”

  I stared at Cody, willing him to look back. But he didn’t. I realized Cody didn’t want to give any hint of alarm away to Torkleson, and Cody’s face was a mask. Under the table, I felt the nudge of a boot—Cody telling me to look away from him and keep my mouth shut. I did.

  “Any suspects?” Cody asked.

  Torkleson shook his head. “Nothing. Cadena had a sheet as long as your arm. The homicide’s being categorized as ‘gang-related’ and was handed over to the task force.”

  “I hadn’t heard anything about it,” Cody said.

  “You haven’t been in,” Torkleson said, looking away to spare each of them the embarrassment. “And it’s not exactly front-page news when a gangbanger is found dead these days.”

  Cody finished his drink and signaled for another. He seemed not to have heard what Torkleson said. “So,” Cody said, “what’s the word on me in the department these days?”

  Torkleson used the question as a reason to push back and stand up to leave. “Actually, basically, to the brass you’re like dead meat, buddy.”

  AS WE WALKED BACK to my Jeep two drinks (for Cody) later and Torkleson long gone, Cody said he’d personally protect Melissa and Angelina while I was away.

  “Are you up for that?” I asked.

  He shot a hurt look at me.

  “I don’t mean the drinking,” I said defensively. “I meant whether or not your schedule allowed it.”

  “I don’t have a fucking schedule until my hearing,” Cody said.

  We got into the car and shut the doors. I was overwhelmed and could feel my chest constrict.

  “Aren’t you going to start the motor?” Cody asked.

  “We got away with it,” I said.

  Cody looked straight ahead.

  “Cody …”

  He turned on me. “I heard you. And Jack, this isn’t something we will ever talk about again. Ever. What’s done is done. Tell me you didn’t tell Melissa what happened.”

  “Not all of it,” I lied.

  “Good. Don’t.”

  Then: “Who are we kidding here? You tell her everything, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  He sighed heavily. “You may want to rethink that,” he said.

  WE DIDN’T TALK FOR TEN MINUTES while I drove home. Cody was smoldering, thinking, and smoking.

  “This deal with Luis tells me a lot,” he said, finally. “It should tell you a lot as well. That Garrett decided to dump Luis’s body and make it look like a neighborhood hit—it’s interesting. Especially considering what he could have done, like either calling the cops that night or going to the press with it. But what this tells me is Garrett didn’t want it out that he was cruising your street with Luis.”

  I shook my head, not following.

  “If Garrett reported the beating, the question would be asked why he was there in the first place. Angelina would have had to come up, and that would have sucked Judge Moreland into the story. Either Garrett didn’t want his dad involved—or to know he was there—or the good judge didn’t want it known. So instead, they covered it up the way they did.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “I don’t either entirely,” Cody said. “But what this tells us is there is a lot more going on than we know. There’s a reason—or reasons—they would risk dumping Luis’s body rather than have the spotlight turned on them right now. Which makes me wonder what in the hell they don’t want found out, especially since they claim to be on the right and legal side of this adoption business.”

  I said, “Maybe Garrett and Moreland aren’t talking. Maybe they’re operating independently of each other.”

  Cody shook his head. “I can’t buy that. I’d bet money they’re communicating, coordinating their moves.”

  I thought about that.

  He said, “What this also means is they’ve chosen to go below the radar, just as we have. We are no longer operating above the surface. Which means we’re really in dangerous fucking territory.”

  We cruised back downtown into the old ware house and industrial section. There were no pedestrians on the sidewalks and few vehicles. This was the area where Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady used to hang out in the 1950s when Kerouac was “researching” the beat travelogue that would become On the Road. The construction cranes that hovered over LoDo like praying mantises had not yet perched here, but it was only a matter of time. The old tobacco, wool, and dry-goods ware houses would soon be condos and retail stores.

  “I realize what you’re doing, and I appreciate it,” I said, finally. “You’ll never know how much I appreciate it. You’re going above and beyond.”

  “I know,” he said, his eyes half-lidded. “But you’re my best friend. If I can’t help you out, what good am I? You and me and Brian—we’ve got to watch out for each other. We’re just Montana boys in the big city even though Brian pretends he isn’t.”

  The sentiment touched me and surprised me.

  “Is this the drink talking?”

  “Partially.”

  “Well, I appreciate it anyway.”

  He snorted.

  “Damn, you’re cynical.”

  He took a deep drag on his cigarette. “You have no idea,” he said.

  ON THE WAY BACK to my house, Cody leaned back and put his head on the headrest and closed his eyes.

  “One more thing,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Remember when I told you I wouldn’t go after the judge? That I couldn’t go after him?”

  “Yes.”

  Cody flicked his fingers as if tossing aside something small and dead. “Forget that. That ended in the courtroom. I’m going to war with that
motherfucker.”

  Then he slipped off into sleep and his head bobbed while I drove. I thought, This man will watch over Melissa and Angelina?

  WHEN WE GOT BACK to my house, Cody’s head popped up, and he seemed perfectly sober and lucid.

  “I guess I conked out,” he said without a slur.

  “Would you like some dinner?” I forgot I was supposed to pick up something. “We can order a pizza.”

  “Naw, I’m fine. I’ve got to sneak down to my place and get some clothes.”

  “Should I tell Melissa you’ll be here all next week?”

  “Tell her what ever you want. Just make sure she’s okay with that.”

  “Cody …”

  He waved me away. “Don’t worry,” he said.

  I walked him to his car. “You’ll be back in a week, right?” he asked.

  I said yes.

  “By the time I see you next, I will have talked with my uncle Jeter,” Cody said.

  I froze.

  “Don’t worry. I’m just making sure he’s still around and available if we need him.”

  “Don’t you know someone around here who could do the job?” I asked, uncomfortable with the fact that I’d acquiesced, that this all just seemed so inevitable. That I’d said “the job” like some kind of low-rent mobster.

  “I know people,” he said. “But for something like this, I can only trust blood relations. I can’t risk somebody talking, and neither can you.”

  “Jeez,” I said, “I don’t know.”

  “I’m just checking on availability,” he said. “That’s as far as I’ll go. If you want to talk to Jeter, you’ll have to make that decision yourself.”

  I nodded.

  Cody grinned at me, then held out his hand. “Have a good trip,” he said. “And don’t worry about anything. She’ll be safer with me around than she is with you, for God’s sake.”

  I think he meant it to be a joke.

  LATE THAT NIGHT, Brian called. He said, “Get Melissa on the phone—you’ve both got to hear this.”

  “Where are you?” I asked while Melissa scrambled to the other room to grab the extension.

  “San Diego. Seventy-two degrees constantly. I don’t even know why they have weathermen.”

  Melissa picked up, and Brian launched, speaking in his rat-a-tat-tat manner, “I talked to a friend of a friend who went to high school in Asheville with John Moreland. He didn’t paint a happy picture of our boy growing up. Apparently, John was the unwanted son of his wild-about-town teenage mother, who gave the child to her older sister and her husband, the Morelands. Just gave John to them. Apparently it wasn’t all that unusual down there. So John grows up in this tight-assed, repressive house hold where his ‘mother’ is actually his aunt and his ‘father’ is his uncle. They go to court and get John’s name changed to Moreland—I don’t know what it was before and it doesn’t matter. Anyway, John hates his parents. He doesn’t say a lot about them in high school, other than they ‘try to keep him down,’ what ever that means, but my friend’s friend thinks it has to do with his ambition. Maybe they wouldn’t sign scholarship or financial aid applications, something like that, but I’m just speculating. But when they pass on as a result of that car wreck, well, our boy not only gets two insurance-policy payoffs, but the whole world of financial aid must have opened up to him. That’s how he could afford to leave and go to CU. And he just washed his hands of his upbringing, from what I understand. Never went back to North Carolina for reunions or anything like that. Never went back to visit the graves of his parents, according to my source.

  “So,” Brian said, “we’re dealing with one cold bastard.”

  “But he had an alibi the night of the crash,” I said. “You told us that.”

  “And he brought his alibi with him to Colorado,” Brian said. “Later, he married her. And later, she died, too.”

  Berlin

  Monday, November 12

  Thirteen Days to Go

  TEN

  TEGEL AIRPORT WAS AS it always was—too small, bustling, confusing, metallic, and round. Gray-white morning light seeped through windows that seemed dirty but weren’t—it was the quality of the light itself—and I waited for my luggage at a squeaking, lurching, stop-start-stop carousel in a crowd so dense there was no way not to touch shoulders with others and be jostled. I was still lost in the familiar fuzzy twilight of jet lag. I had the feeling of being alone in my head, looking out through dry and bloodshot eyes. My skin felt gritty. I needed a place where I could regroup and shower.

  Arriving passengers were a mix of Euros from the east and west on business, North Africans in flowing robes, large extended families of Turks. The crowd was veined with distinct groups of four or five who were no doubt arriving to attend WTB, as I was. Jamaicans, Thais, Argentines, Cubans—all sticking together, waiting not only for their luggage but their display booths, boxes of tourism brochures printed in German, and in the case of the Cubans their cigar-making gear so they could hand-roll smokes for select German tour operators. Everybody in the world sought the well-heeled and determined German travel market. We all wanted these people who got five to six weeks of mandated vacation time, who thought of travel as a right and not a privilege, who many times knew more about us and our geography and culture than we knew ourselves.

  It was easy to pick out the Americans, with our open and animated faces, our loud talking as if no one else could understand English, our inadvertent and instinctive élan that so annoys others. A contingent from Las Vegas, including tanned men with dark, slicked-back hair and showgirls who, without their costumes and feathers, were simply too tall, pale, and thin, looked like a Mafia excursion to Tahoe or Atlantic City that had taken the wrong airplane.

  As I checked my wristwatch to see how long we’d been waiting for our luggage, I thought I heard my name called out and raised my head. I recognized no faces and decided it was simply a similar-sounding word barked out in another language. Then, in an English accent, “Jack! Are you lost, my boy?”

  Malcolm Harris of AmeriCan Adventures, wearing a tailored English suit with his trench coat folded over his forearm, clapped me on the shoulder from behind.

  “I almost didn’t recognize you,” I said, trying to snap out of my dreamlike state so as to be as sharp as possible for the most important tour operator to our area. “The last time I saw you, you were wearing jeans and a cowboy hat and sitting on a horse.” I remembered how much he’d loved playing cowboy on a dude ranch.

  Malcolm Harris was pale, with thin black hair and a twitchy smile that slid back to reveal two rows of bad teeth. His suit hid his paunch. His sharp nose was discolored with the red and blue road map of a serious drinker and there was a strand of sweat beads along the top of his upper lip.

  Harris tipped his head back and laughed. “I wish I were back out in Colorado now instead of this bloody place.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  “So, when did you get in?”

  They always ask “So, when did you get in?” even though it was obvious I had just arrived.

  I said, “I’m just hoping my luggage got here with me.”

  Then I recalled Linda Van Gear’s first maxim of tourism marketing: It is always about them. It is never about you.

  “It’s good to see you,” I said. “You’re looking very good. Do you have a booth at the show?”

  “It’s good to be seen,” he said as an aside. “No, I never get a booth here. You think I want to talk to bloody Germans?” He whispered that last part, but not quietly enough, I thought. “No, I’m here because it’s the best place to see all of you and get some business done. All of you all in one place—it’s brilliant, even though I despise Berlin. And the whole bloody Fatherland, for that matter. They have no sense of humor here, and that’s just to start with.”

  I quickly looked around to see if we were being overheard. I locked eyes with a green-uniformed Polizist who looked back at me, dead-eyed.

  “Where are you staying?”
he asked.

  “The Savoy. On Fassenstraße.”

  He nodded with recognition. “Fine place. I know it. English ownership. Still have that great cigar bar?”

  “I think so.”

  “Brilliant. How about I meet you there to night, and we go to dinner afterwards. Your treat.” And he laughed.

  “Perfect,” I said enthusiastically, thinking I would rather put a bullet in my head—or at least get some sleep.

  “Seven o’clock then,” he said, patting my shoulder again. “I was hoping I’d see you. I have a lot of questions for you— important concerns. All on the QT, of course.”

  I nodded as if I knew what he was talking about.

  The carousel belt groaned, and luggage appeared. The crowds rushed the apparatus, as if their items would appear sooner as a result of their aggression.

  “I’ve got to get out of this hellhole,” Harris said, sneering at the crowd and patting the carry-on he’d brought with him from London. “See you at seven, then.”

  I reached out to shake his hand goodbye, but he’d already shouldered his way through a family of Turks toward the exit. The Polizist who’d overheard his remarks watched him the entire way, burning eyeholes into the back of his suit jacket.

  THERE WERE SKIFFS OF dirty snow in the shadows between buildings and along the River Spree as my cream-colored Mercedes taxi—something I still got a thrill from, a Mercedes taxi—sliced through the traffic of midmorning. The skies were leaden. Through breaks in the trees, I could see sky cranes in the east bobbing their heads like prehistoric ocean birds.

  I looked at my wristwatch again. It was 2:30 A.M. at home. I couldn’t wait to call. I envisioned Melissa and Angelina sleeping in their beds, and Cody tossing and turning on the couch. And—it came out of nowhere—Garrett Moreland sitting in his Hummer down the block, watching my house in the dark.

  I straightened up and shook my head, trying to shed the image.

  The taxi driver was observing me in his rearview, and when I locked eyes with him, he looked away.