The morning was cool but warming quickly. The sun was unmasked in a clear sky, reflective against the red stone. The air was filled with spring insects that had hatched with the heat—gnats, flies, bees, wasps. Crows cawed lazily as a hawk circled high above, looking for its breakfast.
The search of the first sector lasted just a little over two hours with meager results—a scattering of various fibers and metals including pop-tops and bottle caps. More numerous were horse prints and desiccated horse shit. A volunteer found a shoe impression that was clear enough to merit an alginate cast. The rest of the search was slim pickings. They moved on to sector two and by the time that space had been combed, the crew was hot and tired and needed sustenance. During the twenty-minute allotment they had for lunch break, Wynona called Marge.
“How”s it going inside?”
Marge said, “TMI.”Too much information. “Everywhere we turn, we have blood or tissue or a footprint or hair or a bullet casing.”
“If you have TMI, we”re suffering from TLI.”
“How far along are you?”
“We”re about to start with sector three. I”ll call you in a couple of hours.”
The group resumed their hunt at two in the afternoon. At 4:14, someone sounded two quick toots and the row of searchers lurched to a stop. The whistle blower was a young police officer in his twenties named Kyle Groger. He called Wynona over.
“Take a look at that area, Detective, about twenty feet from here.”He pointed to the spot. “It looks odd.”
Wynona took off her sunglasses and stared at the ground, her eyes traveling forward until she saw what had caught Groger”s attention. From a distance, the patch was indistinguishable from the surrounding area. Same color ground, same types of foliage, same pebble-strewn earth. Yet it looked distinctly different.
First of all, the eight-by-eight plot of ground had sunk into the earth, lower than the surrounding terrain by about an inch or so. There were also two big boulders on top. The environs supported many big rocks, but two in such close proximity was a little odd. Also the foliage on the plot wasn”t faring well: around a dozen drooping sage plants, straw yellow grasses, and scattered daisies with limp petals. It could be that these particular plants had wilted in the heat except that the flora that surrounded the area was erect and hydrated.
She walked over to the spot and pulled up a sage plant. It gave way with relative ease, and the roots were soft and dried out. She dropped to a stoop and dipped a finger in the ground. The soil was compact, and not easy to dig into. It was then she noticed that the earth had been scored by hundreds of little lines running in all directions. She stared at them closely. It was as if someone was hitting the ground, tamping it down with a shovel over and over and over.
A homemade grave?
She stood up and searched for shoe or tire prints, but found nothing. She called Marge on her cell phone and asked her how it was going inside.
“Still slogging through the muck. What”s going on?”
“I think there”s something here that you should see.”
WHILE WAITING FOR extra shovels and buckets, Marge assigned one of the CSI techs the official role of police photographer.
“Get all those little hash marks,”she told him.
The day had been long and fruitful…overly so. The evidence inside the main house included several types of shoe treads, a couple of bloody finger-and palmprints, a number of bullet casings, loose fabric and hairs, and that wasn”t counting the blobs and streaks of blood and massive tissue spatter. The identification of what belonged to whom was to be sorted out later. Marge was happy to take a break from the charnel house, and Pratt”s call was a good excuse for a breather.
Oliver, on the other hand, was probably much happier working inside because it was air-conditioned. He said, “Summer is upon us.”
“You can go back inside. I can handle this.”
“Nah, I”ll stick around.”He wiped his forehead. “We can work inside all night as long as DWP doesn”t turn off the electricity.”
They were both looking at the caved-in spot. Marge said, “It”s disturbed ground. That”s a no-brainer.”
“Big grave for just one man,”Oliver said.
“So maybe it”s more than one man,”Marge said. “I think it was predug. If it was done spur of the moment, it would take too long to dig.”
“Unless it”s shallow.”
“We”re missing two guards. If they”re in there, it can”t be all that shallow. Plus someone took the time to put plants back in the soil. This was a planned thing, Scotty.”
“But not planned too far ahead. Otherwise someone might have spotted a big hole in the middle of the property.”
Marge said, “It”s really far from the main house.”
Oliver said, “I don”t know…maybe.”
“We”ll know soon enough.”Marge tented her eyes with her fingers and regarded the vast tract of land. Wynona”s search crew had scattered but was still in whistle-blowing reach. Most of them were sitting in the few tiny patches of shade available, roasting their butts while drinking tepid water and fanning themselves with their hands or sun hats. A flick of the wrist told her it was almost five.
Sunset was around seven-thirty.
Oliver said, “Do you think we can dig this up in two and a half hours?”
“Depends what”s in there. If we find something, it”s a crime scene. Then who knows?”Marge took out her cell. “I think I”ll put in an order for lighting, just in case.”
Wynona walked over to them. She had taken off her sun hat, and her short blond hair was wet and matted. She took out a tube of sunscreen and started rubbing it into her cheeks. “How many people do you think you”ll need for the dig?”
“I could use maybe eight. Why? What do you need?”
“I still have a sector and a half left to comb. I probably won”t finish the last one, but if I get going now, I can finish the rest of sector four before twilight.”
“If I take six from your gang, how many would you have left?”
“Twelve with me. I can manage with that, but I”d like a few to be police officers.”
“How many cops do you have?”
“Eight.”
Marge said, “You take four, I”ll take four.”
“Sounds good.”Wynona stowed her sunscreen back in her cargo pants. After making the assignments, she said, “I”ll get started. Call me if you find something.”She tooted her whistle and her group stood up, wiping dust and dirt from their bottoms.
Just as the shovels and buckets arrived, Marge”s cell phone sprung to life. The boss was on the other end. He asked what was going on and after she explained the situation, Decker said he was coming down.
He said, “Take plenty of pictures of the area before you put spade to ground.”
“Already done,”Marge said. “Do you want to us to hold the digging until you get here?”
“No, start while you”ve got daylight. I”ve got to finish up something at the station house and it”s taking a while. But I”ll make it over.”
His voice sounded tense. Marge said, “Is Steel Strapp giving you a hard time?”
“I wish.”
“Yowzer, Pete! It must be bad. What”s going on?”
“I”ll fill you in later. It”s not bad, but it is complicated.”
Marge checked her watch. “It”s getting close to Sabbath, Pete. If we don”t find anything, it”s not worth missing Friday night dinner. I”ll call if I need you.”
“Thanks for the offer, but this case is too big for me to take time off. Maybe God could rest after six days, but we mere mortals just aren”t that talented.”
MARGE”S CALL COULDN”T have happened at a worse time.
Although Decker disliked being late for Friday night dinner, usually when it happened, Rina insisted on waiting for him. But tonight Rina had invited several couples, so Decker gave her the go-ahead-without-me speech, knowing in his heart of hearts that the Coyote Ranch d
ig was going to last into the night.
But the dig wasn”t the only thing on his mind.
His mother always told him that it was impolite to stare, but in this case, it didn”t make a difference. So Decker studied the man sitting across his desk, taking in his well-manicured appearance.
Brett Harriman was nicely appointed. He wore an unstructured natural linen jacket over a blue button-down and designer jeans. His sandals showed off his manicured toes, which matched his manicured hands. His hair was dark and shaggy, his face long and lean. He wore dark shades that not only covered his eyes but most of his eyebrows. The only giveaway to his visual impairment was a slight swinging of his head that helped his ears zero in on sound stereoscopically.
Decker tapped his pen on his desktop. “First of all, Mr. Harriman, I want to thank you for coming in and sharing your information with me.”
“It”s Brett and no thanks are necessary. It”s my obligation. If people didn”t do jury duty, I wouldn”t have a job.”A few seconds ticked by. “Well, that”s not true. When you”re fluent in as many languages as I am, there”s always work.”
“How many languages would that be?”
“A lot. Mostly the romance and Anglo-Saxon languages.”
“How”d you learn them?”
Harriman shrugged. “Some I studied, some I picked up on tapes. Finnish and Hungarian I learned with intense tutoring. Also I travel a lot. The only way to really learn a language is to hear and speak it.”Another pause. “Are you asking me these questions to size me up, to get rapport, or because you”re interested in me as a person?”
“Probably all three,”Decker said.
“I”m not a nutcase. I”ve been with the courts for almost five years.”
“How”d you come to work for the courts?”
“Another personal question?”Harriman gave Decker a white-toothed smile as he tilted his head to the right. “Aren”t you trying to solve a murder?”
“Murders, actually. How”d you come to work for the courts?”
“A friend of mine who works downtown told me that the courts were hiring witness translators. Mostly for Spanish but other languages, too. I applied and that was that.”
“They weren”t bothered by your blindness?”
Harriman grinned. “I wore tinted glasses. I don”t think they knew until later. Besides, they would never fire me. I help their federally mandated numbers in hiring the handicapped. I”m also damn good at my job!”
“Where were you working before the courts?”
“I was a patient translator for six different hospitals. The job was getting a little monotonous. How many times can you translate ‘ take two of these pills for regular bowel movements ’ ?”The pause was awkward. “It was more than that. It was hard day after day delivering bad news.”
“That”s miserable.”
“Depressing as hell. Lucky for me I never had to look at the eyes of a patient who just got the news. I sure as hell heard it in the voice. And it didn”t take me long to learn if the doctor was feeding bullshit, letting the patient or the families cling to hope when I could tell by the nuances in his voice that Tia Anabel was a goner.”
Decker said, “There”s a police detective in the Netherlands. He”s blind. They use him to decipher accents and voices—like terrorists. He can tell the origin of the speaker even if he or she is speaking fluent and unaccented Dutch.”
“Nobody speaks unaccented anything.”Harriman rocked his head to the other side “There are always giveaways if you know what to listen for.”
“Could you ever see?”
“I still can see. You see with your brain, not with your eyes. But there was a time I was sighted. I was five when I lost my sight from a rhabdomyosarcoma—bilateral tumors.”He tapped his foot on the floor. “Are you interested in what I told you or do you still think that it”s worthless?”
“You”re confusing worthlessness with a healthy dose of skepticism. I”m very interested in what you”ve told me, Mr. Harriman. If you don”t mind, let”s go over it again.”
The blind man gave an exasperated sigh. “It”s Brett, and I told you everything I know. The story”s not going to change.”
“But maybe my perception will. Please?”
He waited a few moments, then he said, “I was standing around the waiting area of the courtrooms eating a power bar. Two Hispanic guys were talking about the Coyote Ranch murders. One of the guys was from Mexico, the other from El Salvador. They kept on calling the victim Mr. Café because Kaffey is coffee in Spanish. Then they segued into talking about a guy named José Pinon who had gone missing and that the boss was looking for him in Mexico. Are you writing this down again? I can hear your pen scratching.”
Decker said. “Just squaring what I wrote the first time against what you”re saying now. You said then that the Mexican was doing most of the talking.”
“That”s correct. The Mexican said that the boss was looking for José. He—the boss—was very mad at José because he fucked up. And he fucked up by running out of bullets.”A pause. “Does that mean anything to you?”
Damn straight it does. José Pinon translates to Joe Pine. Decker said, “It could. Go on.”
“So José ran out of bullets,”Harriman said. “So the El Salvadorian asked the Mexican why someone else didn”t finish him off. And the Mexican said because José is a retard. Then he said Martin was very angry. Both agreed that Martin was a very bad man, but not as bad as the boss—whoever that is. They also both agreed that José was a dead man. At that point, I felt very uncomfortable eavesdropping. The way that the two of them were speaking…it sounded authentic. When I got home that night, I looked up the murders on my computer…It”s voice activated, in case you”re wondering.”
“I figured.”
“The son…Gil Kaffey…he was shot but he survived. I may be assuming too much but I surmised that they had been talking about Gil Kaffey and that José hadn”t made sure that Gil was dead.”Harriman rolled his head in the other direction. “I”m just relating the information to you. Maybe it”ll do you some good.”
“I appreciate your coming in. You mentioned José”s name as José Pinon. How about Martin?”
“Just Martin.”
“Did he mention Rondo Martin?”
“Just Martin as far as I can recall.”
“Okay,”Decker said. “If you heard these men speak again, do you think you could pick them out from other El Salvadorians or Mexicans?”
“Like a vocal lineup?”
“Something like that.”
“Have you ever done something like that before?”
“No. It might be a first with the courts. Do you think you could ID the voices?”
“Absolutely.”Harriman seemed insulted. “Why? Do you have a suspect?”
“Right now what we have are lots of people of interest.”
“No arrests then.”
“If we had an arrest, your voice-activated computer would know about it. Is there anything else that you”d like to add?”
Harriman thought for a moment. “The El Salvadorian sounded like a smoker. That might narrow it down to a gazillion people.”
“I appreciate your information.”
“Does it help?”
Damn straight. “It might.”Decker reread part of Harriman”s statement. “What”s my best option for getting hold of you in case I need to speak to you again?”
Harriman took out his wallet, pulled a card from one of its compartments. He handed it to Decker. “My business and cell number. And how do I reach you in case I think of anything else?”
Decker dictated the number while Harriman entered it into his PDA by voice. Then Decker said, “Thanks again for doing your civic duty. People like you make our lives much easier. I”ll walk you out.”
“No need.”Harriman activated his locator. “I came in alone, I”ll go out alone.”
ON HIS WAY over to Coyote Ranch, Decker pondered what to do with the information. Without ph
ysical descriptions, the men were nonexistent, but that didn”t mean he didn”t have options. His first call was to Willy Brubeck. “Hey, Detective.”
“What”s going on, Loo?”
“I”m on my way to a dig at Coyote Ranch.”Decker explained what was going on there. “What was on your agenda today?”
“Five guard interviews today, hope to do at least that many tomorrow. One of them had to cancel, but the rest were cooperative. No radar tweaking. Four were pretty freaked by the murders, one was pissed that he was out of a job. All of them gave me a cheek swab.”
“Good work. Have either Drew or you found Joe Pine?”
“Joe”s on my list, but I haven”t gotten around to him yet.”
“Bump him up to the top. Also what about the embezzling account executive, Milfred Connors? Have you made contact with him?”
“We keep missing each other.”
“Set something up with him ASAP, and I want to be there.”
“What”s up with him?”
Decker explained Mace Kaffey”s alleged embezzlement and the charges brought by his brother. “I”m just wondering if Connors took the fall for him.”
“Interesting theory. I”ll give him another call.”
“Good. Last, any word about Rondo Martin from your sources in Ponceville?”
“I haven”t heard back.”
“Push on Martin.”Decker told him about his conversation with Brett Harriman. “I”ll probably wind up sending you to Ponceville, but you need to make all your preparatory calls first.”
“We”re working on information from a blind guy?”Brubeck said.
“He can”t see but he sure as hell can hear. The list of guards who worked for the Kaffeys isn”t public knowledge, and this guy named two guards on the roster. That makes my antennas twitch. And even if the knowledge was public, he used the name José Pinon, not Joe Pine. Marge and Oliver are busy with the dig at the ranch. Take Rondo Martin off their hands, and give Joe Pine to Andrew Messing. The first thing we need is a set of prints.”
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