Gideon's Rescue

by Alan Russell

  Everyone has their definition of true love. I say if you and your partner can do the same Monty Python skit together over and over, and laugh as hard each time, then that’s true love.

  “I needed that,” I said.

  “Oh?”

  “The day started early,” I said. “I was at the Woodland Hills Home Depot at dawn, trying to get a lead on a missing day laborer. It’s believed he was picked up for a job, but no one knows by who, or where he went.”

  “That doesn’t sound like your usual case,” Lisbet said.

  “You mean it’s not strange enough?”

  “Something like that,” she said.

  “Luciana Castillo, the missing man’s fiancée, came to last night’s 187 Club meeting,” I said. “She told me her fiancé has been missing for six weeks. Because Mateo came to this country illegally, it doesn’t sound as if much has been done to find him. From what Luciana told me, the detective assigned the case seems to think it likely that Mateo just went back to Mexico. But I know that’s not it.”

  “How do you know?” asked Lisbet.

  “Love poetry,” I said. “Mateo wrote reams of it to Luciana.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Luciana said that he was working very hard to earn money for their wedding in Mexico. She was holding that money, and said they were halfway to their goal of ten thousand dollars.”

  “I hate to be cynical,” said Lisbet, “but could there be some other woman?”

  I shook my head. “I’d bet dollars to pesos against that. And I didn’t tell you about a key piece of evidence. Last week Luciana received an envelope with twenty-five Benjamins in it. In the envelope were a few personal items that Luciana said were lifted from Mateo’s wallet. There was also an unsigned note with the words So sorry for your loss.”

  “Guilt money,” said Lisbet.

  “That’s what I’ve been thinking. Mateo was hired for work, but he never made it home alive. Something happened. Maybe he was working with electricity. It’s possible he was on a ladder, or up on the roof, and fell down. Last year, I remember reading about this undocumented worker who was doing some gardening at a residence, and he upset a hive of bees or hornets and got stung all over, causing him to go into anaphylactic shock and die. There was some talk that the homeowner might have delayed taking the worker to the hospital because he was afraid of being liable for the death.”

  Lisbet shook her head and made a disgusted sound. “I hope that’s not true. I hope someone didn’t hesitate to treat a human with a medical emergency because of money.”

  “Whoever wrote the letter and sent the money showed some compassion,” I said. “He or she sent along items that I believe were meant to comfort Luciana. I think the words of sympathy were also meant to offer closure. Luciana suspected Mateo was dead but still had doubts. After receiving the envelope and its contents, she’s now convinced he’s dead.”

  “Poor woman.”

  With a sigh and a shake of my head, I said, “She wants to have his body shipped home.”

  “But she just needs you to find it first.”

  “Just?” I said. “I have an essentially anonymous population that’s doing unregulated work, and my potential witnesses are reluctant or uncooperative.”

  “No clues?”

  “It’s too early to even know what might be a clue,” I said, but then realized I sounded testy. “You’re hearing my tiredness, too. I had one of my dreams last night.”

  “Did you dream about the missing man?” she asked.

  I nodded, but knew that wouldn’t be enough for Lisbet. She thinks that our talking about my fire dreams is therapeutic. Of course, Lisbet also thinks my visions are a blessing from God. I haven’t asked her who I can “thank” for the recurring fires.

  “My after-dream was actually a mishmash of two cases I’m working.”

  “If you want to talk about that mishmash, I’d like to hear about it.”

  “In my dream I had this sense Mateo was dead,” I said, “and that was before I went out and did the interviews this morning. Mateo was strumming a guitar and singing in the dream, but he kept his back turned to me and Luciana. He sang a love poem to her, and then the tune changed to ‘Streets of Laredo.’ He stopped playing after the line ‘I’m a young cowboy and I know I’ve done wrong.’ But what wrong could Mateo have done? What did he do that he paid with his life? Then Mateo was gone, and I found myself with Emily.”

  I stopped talking for a few moments, ostensibly to gather my thoughts; the truth is, I didn’t want my voice to break.

  “I wasn’t going to tell you about Emily. She’s a sweet pit bull that I met yesterday when I went in for my volunteer shift at Angie’s Rescues.” I told her what a miracle it was that Emily had survived, even though the vet had to essentially stitch up her whole body, as well as set a broken hind leg.

  “Anyway, Emily and I met up with Mateo, and in my dream I sensed that all of us were being forced to fight for our lives. I don’t think we were in a pit; it was more like we were in an open arena. It might have even been the Colosseum, because earlier in the evening Seth had offered up some of its gruesome history.”

  To me, that seemed like confession enough, especially the way Lisbet takes things to heart. Every week she puts in sweat equity volunteering for several causes that are important to her. She is one of those people who try to shore up the frayed fabric of society. I hoped my unburdening didn’t have the consequence of burdening her.

  “It sounds like you’ve had some tough days—and nights,” she said.

  “I’m sure it sounds worse than it really was.”

  “I’m sure it doesn’t,” she said. “In fact, I’m certain more went unsaid than said. For example, I’m all but sure you’re looking into Emily’s situation.”

  I nodded. She knew me well. There was no way I could let that sleeping dog lie.

  “You’ve probably even talked to a suspect or two.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  I shrugged. “It was a frustrating field interview,” I admitted. “The suspect’s street name is the Black Rooster. He’s not your usual felon. In fact, he operates two legitimate businesses. Our interview was just a game to him. We both know he’s guilty, but he acts as if the only thing he’s doing is providing a service. He suggested that in a so-called natural state, male dogs would be fighting, and that all he was doing was facilitating what comes naturally to them.”

  “He admitted this?” she asked.

  “He admitted nothing,” I said, “but he didn’t try to disguise what he believed.”

  I ran my hand along Sirius’s back. “I let the bastard get under my skin,” I said. “At first he pretended that he believed the reason I was there was to sell him Sirius as a bait dog. He said there was a mastiff he wanted to introduce him to. And he kept offering these paltry sums, all designed to get me to react. I’m sure he wanted me to take a swing at him. That would have given him a free pass to continue with his dog carnage.”

  Once more I stopped talking, not trusting my voice. Sirius was more than my partner; he was family. The idea that I would reward his love and friendship by selling him made me feel sick. Sirius could tell I was upset and nudged my hand. His prompt got me to start scratching him again.

  “Please be careful in your dealings with this man, Michael,” Lisbet said. “If an individual is so depraved that he forces dogs to fight to the death, it’s clear he has no scruples or ethics.”

  “No argument here,” I said. “But his business needs to be shut down. And I can’t wait to put him in a cage.”

  Lisbet’s voice was as deadly serious as my own: “I’m counting on it,” she said.

  Chapter Nine

  Taking a Trip to Trinidad

  Trinidad, Colorado

  1,035 miles from Los Angeles

  April 1

  John Crabbe wasn’t the oldest resident of Trinidad, Colorado, but no one had lived in th
e city for as long as he had. The eight-four-year-old Crabbe had moved to Trinidad when he was a boy of only eight. There had been times in Crabbe’s life when he hadn’t lived in Trinidad, such as the years he’d been deployed in the military, but his roots were deep there.

  As an adult, Crabbe had worked for the post office. All three of his children had been raised in Trinidad, and that was where Evelyn, his wife of almost sixty years, was buried. She had died two years earlier. Crabbe had never imagined that he would be considered an eligible bachelor, but hard as it was to believe, there were a few women in town who thought so.

  Because it was a beautiful spring day, Crabbe decided to take a drive and do some shopping. You never knew if the weather was going to change. April was one of those months that could go either way. Some years it was cold and dreary. This year the month was starting out sunny and warm. Crabbe hoped that wouldn’t prove to be just another April Fool’s prank.

  Crabbe expected there would be lots of tourists enjoying Trinidad’s downtown Victorian charms. Interstate 25 is the most traveled route between Colorado and New Mexico, and Trinidad’s fortunes could long be attributed to its location; in the 19th century it had been part of the Santa Fe Trail.

  It’s too bad I wasn’t around then, Crabbe thought, imagining all the characters who had ridden the trail. Crabbe was Trinidad’s unofficial historian. It’s because I’m old, he thought. What was ancient history to others, he knew, was merely his own history. That was part of it, of course, but it was also true that Crabbe had enjoyed learning all he could about the area.

  Most of the locals, for example, had no idea that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, along with their Hole-in-the-Wall Gang, had hidden out in the canyons and hills south of town. Black Jack Ketchum’s criminal career had come to an abrupt end in Trinidad back in 1899, when his right arm was shot off as he attempted to rob a train. What remained of his arm had been amputated at Trinidad’s Mount San Rafael Hospital, before the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang desperado was transported to New Mexico, where he was hung.

  Our criminal past, thought Crabbe, and known by so few. Even more recent history seemed to have been forgotten. Why, Crabbe would bet that most of Trinidad’s current populace didn’t even know the history of the town’s onetime catchphrase, “taking a trip to Trinidad.”

  In 1969, Trinidad surgeon Dr. Stanley Biber was asked by a local social worker if he would perform a sex-change operation to make the man a woman. After reading up on the procedure, Biber consented, and it wasn’t long before he was performing, on average, four sex-reassignment surgeries a day. Those seeking a sex change began referring to the procedure as “taking a trip to Trinidad.” Biber performed more than 4,000 gender-reassignment surgeries, and Trinidad became known as the sex-change capital of the world.

  Biber’s Trinidad legacy came to an end in 2003, when the surgeon who took over his practice moved it to San Mateo, California. Crabbe was sorry that had happened. To his thinking, Trinidad had been a more interesting place back then.

  Crabbe parked in Trinidad’s downtown, walking over the red bricks with TRINIDAD stamped on each; tourists thought they looked so quaint. At least the town hadn’t withered up and blown away. Lots of residents had thought that would happen when the area’s coal mines had started shutting down. There had been a time when coal was king in Trinidad.

  John Crabbe got his groceries. He didn’t need much, just some canned goods, along with some beer to wash it down. It wasn’t any fun cooking for one; most of Crabbe’s meals came out of the microwave. He missed Evelyn’s cooking, but even more than that, he missed their conversations.

  I’ve lived too long, Crabbe thought, not for the first time.

  He drove home. At the age of eighty-four, Crabbe liked to think he was still a good driver, but he knew better than to drive at night. It was hard for him to see in the darkness. His house was on the outskirts of Trinidad, past the town golf course. He and Evelyn had decided to move to a spot farther out in the country when the kids were young. Back then there had been very few houses in the area, but that had changed.

  Crabbe parked in the garage. The brick and stucco home was neat and tidy. It was out of respect for Evelyn that Crabbe tried to keep the place up. That’s how she had liked it.

  As he was putting away the groceries, Crabbe was surprised to hear someone ringing his doorbell.

  He walked through his living room, and without checking to see who was at the door, opened it wide.

  “April Fool!”

  It wasn’t the words that made Crabbe step back; it was the axe. Seeing it, Crabbe regretted having been so trusting. And then another thought came to him that fiercely contradicted what he’d been musing about earlier: I haven’t lived too long.

  But it was too late for Crabbe to take back that thought. It was too late for him to do anything.

  Chapter Ten

  What Do the Cards Say?

  In the distance I could hear Ellis Haines singing “Jailhouse Rock.” He was always one for making an entrance. The singing grew louder as he neared the meeting room where I was waiting. Elvis’s version of the song was better, but not by much. Haines has great pipes; that’s probably why the correctional officers were letting him belt out the lyrics.

  “‘Let’s rock, everybody, let’s rock,’” he sang, “‘everybody in the whole cell block.’”

  Maybe for some, Haines and his singing livened up the prison; to me, it was like putting perfume on a corpse. I don’t like spending time in prisons, especially San Quentin. It’s a place where over 400 inmates have been legally killed. When I visit, it’s not as if I see ghosts or hear the wailing of poltergeists, but the despair of the place has soaked deep into its concrete walls, and the miasma it exudes feels contagious.

  The FBI seems to think they can learn a lot from Ellis Haines. Their hope is that he will facilitate a dialogue with other serial murderers, a project that is now in its early stages. I have warned the Feds to be careful what they wish for. Haines only cooperates if it’s in his best interest. His price for initially helping the FBI in this endeavor wasn’t special rations or prison favors. Instead, he gets a monthly delivery of crime scene photos compiled by the FBI. The pictures show homicides believed to have been committed by serial murderers. To his credit, Haines seems to have a talent at profiling. In several instances he has identified clues that law enforcement missed. But Haines hasn’t suddenly become a Good Samaritan. The crime scene photos are his fix; it’s like giving heroin to a junkie.

  For me, the worst thing about this bloody show-and-tell is that I am the middleman in the process. Haines refuses to talk to the Feds. They give me the photos, along with any questions they have, and I’m expected to make note of Haines’s impressions. Taking dictation from a killer is not something I like doing. That, I am sure, only adds to his enjoyment.

  Today, though, I had my own agenda.

  “Enough singing, inmate,” said one of the correctional officers.

  Haines shut up.

  Every month I visit San Quentin; every month a shackled Haines is brought to see me in a conference room that is referred to as the “lawyers’ room.” The correctional officers are used to the routine by now; one guides Haines inside the room while the other waits outside to remove his handcuffs.

  As usual, Haines acts oblivious to his constraints and pretends to be as insouciant as an incumbent Congressman in a gerrymandered district. From across the room he called to me: “Good morning, Detective Gideon. If you’ll just excuse me for a moment, I’ll be right with you.”

  Turning his back to the wall and pushing his hands through a slot, Haines waited while his handcuffs were removed.

  “Abracadabra,” he said, showing me his bare hands.

  “Shucks,” I said. “You didn’t disappear.”

  “That would have been rude,” he said, “seeing as we haven’t even had a chance to talk.”

  “Believe me, I wouldn’t have taken any offense.”

  Haines took
a seat across from me at the table. I waved off the CO, telling him there was “no need” to tether Haines.

  The CO shrugged as if to say, It’s your funeral, and then turned around. Before closing the door behind him, he said, “I’ll be outside the door if you need me.”

  The sound of the door locking behind him was overloud, or maybe it just seemed that way because I was now sharing a room with a notorious serial murderer.

  “How nice of you to visit,” Haines said.

  “I’m a glutton for punishment.”

  Haines tilted his head slightly, extending his left ear my way, as if by doing so he could pick up my every nuance. His keloid scarring is on the left side of his face; mine is on the right. Together they tell the tale of our fire walk, and our flesh that burned away while carrying Sirius out of the inferno.

  “You look tired,” he said. “Are you still burning the midnight oil?”

  From what Haines has intimated, he experiences fire dreams much as I do.

  “Business is too good,” I said.

  “How is Sirius?” he asked. “And how are things with the little woman? What’s her name again? Liz Beth? No, that’s not it. Now I remember: Lisbet. That sounds so old-fashioned, almost like a Louisa May Alcott kind of name.”

  I stared at Haines without saying anything. There are certain subjects I won’t respond to, and he knows that. I let my displeasure sink in for a few moments, and then said, “If you cross that line again, I’m out of here. Understood?”

  He lost his smile for long enough to nod, before showing me his teeth again. “You have the advantage of me, of course,” he said.

  I tossed the folder of crime scene photos between us, and Haines began flipping through what he called the “last kill and testament.” Most of the pictures only drew his disdain. The vast majority of victims lived on the fringes of society, prostitutes or drug addicts. They had put themselves in bad positions where bad things often happened. Haines is invariably scornful of these kinds of murders, with most of his vitriol aimed at the killers. He thinks the murderers “unimaginative,” especially if they only take the “low-hanging fruit.” For Haines, those types of homicides are the “lowest common denominator.”