by Rex Burns
“Yeah.” Wager’s fingers rapped the dash. “I guess I do.” He knew he’d held a faint hope that Valdez would lie about something. If the kid had lied, their work would be a hell of a lot easier. But Valdez had not seemed to, and for a cop to have too much imagination was as bad as not having enough. Wager knew that this was one of those dangerous times when his hopes, guesses, and inventions were beginning to be churned by impatience, and he could feel himself pulling against the facts to create a pattern of motive and opportunity. But take it easy—cachaza. “The seed sprouts when it will,” his mother would have said. “Chico, you’ll end up with a fistful of farts,” would be his father’s warning. It all said the same thing: stick to the facts.
“You know the only link we have between Scorvelli and Covino is your informant’s word. Maybe he was wrong, Gabe.”
It could be. Information like that came in whispers and nudges and not in legal depositions. Every informant’s words had to be salted a little, and some more than others; though Tony-O was the most reliable Wager had found in ten or so years of sifting information, the wrong word, the wrong interpretation, was always possible. “Right or wrong, it hasn’t taken us anywhere. I think we should know more about the victim before we talk to the rest of the people on that list.”
Axton eased into the left lane for the turn onto the I-70 freeway and the quickest route to the downtown campus. “Valdez said Covino filled out some work-study forms at the college.”
Max was thinking Wager’s thoughts again, which is what good partners did. “That’s what I had in mind, too.”
Wager was lost. The Auraria neighborhood that had been his home was gone, and in place of the rows of small brick houses there now sprawled two- and three-story buildings that looked vaguely like factories. He recognized the large block of blue tile and white brick that was the defunct Tivoli Brewery and, near it, the freshly painted yellow and gray plaster of old San Cajetano’s bell towers, empty of everything except bird droppings. But these and the abandoned red stone synagogue were the only buildings left that he recognized—churches and breweries being prime targets for historic landmarks—and the very pattern of streets had changed, too. Some were gone completely beneath the new campus’s grass and malls and buildings; others were blocked off by steel pipe and chains. The location was just half a dozen blocks from main headquarters, but since it had its own security force, the D.P.D. detectives had few calls to the area. Except for the bomb squad: several times a year they were alerted by anonymous threats to destroy that symbol of an evil society, the university. “Let’s try the campus security office. It’s supposed to be over on Seventh Street.”
They were helped by a blue-uniformed sergeant whose brightly colored shoulder patch said “Auraria Campus Police.” She had shoulder-length black hair and said “sir” at the end of every sentence.
“How’d you get in police work, Sergeant?” asked Max.
“I was a philosophy major, sir.” That seemed to explain it for her; she showed them on the map where the Metro State student aid office was located and then aimed them out the door in the right direction. Past a building that looked as if it were made of flattened tin cans and was labeled the Learning Resources Center—Wager had always thought books were kept in a library—they rounded a corner to see the granite blocks of St. Elizabeth’s church. Somewhere near here, beneath the Vibram soles of the students in jeans and down parkas who streamed in and out of that Learning Resources Center, was the spot where Wager had lived when he was a kid. Maybe he and Axton were even now walking over the old basement where his father and his mother’s brothers made their wine every year, mashing the grapes in the smoothly worn wooden tub—never a metal washtub like some used—and sending Wager and his cousins scouting through the autumn streets for empty jugs and bottles, tinted glass only, because too much light wouldn’t be good for the wine. Wager could still remember the heavy, dizzying smell trapped between the basement ceiling’s joists, where drops of resin had long ago aged to amber beads and glinted in the motey light of the single basement bulb like the eyes of a hundred spiders. And he could still feel the cold, spongy glide of grapes popping beneath his treading feet; and he remembered, too, the dark-red stain halfway up his shins that wouldn’t wash off but had to wear away while other kids at school, whose fathers didn’t make their own, would ask him what kind of socks he was wearing. His father had always given one of the first bottles to Mr. Ojala; you could never tell when someone in the family might need Tony-O’s help. That was—Jesus!—twenty-five, almost thirty years ago.
“Here we are, Gabe.”
It was an office with thin, movable walls and unpainted concrete beams and pillars. Wager had heard the design described as “functional modular,” but that was just another name for cheap. He hoped the new justice center which they were to move into someday would not be as ugly. The dark-eyed girl in jeans who sat poking two fingers at an electric typewriter seemed surprised to see Wager and Axton, their ties and sports coats, the slacks and shiny shoes. “You need some help?”
Axton showed his badge. “We’re trying to get some information about Frank Covino, miss. I understand he had a job here?”
“Oh, wasn’t that terrible—he really was a nice guy.”
“Did you know him?” Wager quickly asked.
“He was in and out of the office. I bet you want to talk to Mr. Dumovich.”
“Who’s Mr. Dumovich?”
She looked as if Wager ought to know. “He’s the director. Just a minute.”
It was half a minute. Her head came back through the doorway cut into the thin wall. “Come on in.”
Mr. Dumovich was in his late thirties and trying to look younger, pale hair sprayed to lie straight to his collar. He didn’t wear jeans; instead he had on washed khakis that reminded Wager of his own Marine Corps summer uniform. But Mr. Dumovich did wear the same kind of Vibram-soled hiking boots that all the students clumped around in, and as the man walked back to his desk, he rocked slightly fore and aft in the thick, unbending leather.
“Yes, Frank Covino was one of our students. But the only information we have would deal with his family’s financial status and his academic standing. We don’t look into a client’s personal life.”
“Can we see his file?” asked Wager.
Mr. Dumovich frowned. “I don’t know about that. There have been so many changes in the access rules, and the dean hasn’t sent down a memo yet …”
“The man’s dead,” Wager said. “He’s not going to complain about an invasion of privacy.” If need be, they could get a duces tecum subpoena for the records. But that would take time and mean another trip.
“His relatives might! It’s surprising how many people these days are after personal information of the most innocuous type. And I certainly don’t want the college or this office to be embarrassed in any manner possible.”
“Mr. Dumovich.” Axton leaned toward the man like a falling, smiling tree. “Nobody wants to embarrass anybody. We’re just asking for a little help in catching the boy’s murderer. It would embarrass me if I didn’t want to help catch a murderer.”
“Well, of course I want to help! But the records access rules …” He fidgeted and looked from Axton’s gentle smile to Wager’s not so gentle one and finally said, “Oh, very well. But it must be entirely confidential, understand?”
Dumovich called to the girl laboring at the typewriter in the outer office and she brought the folder. Beneath a pile of pay receipts for the last year and a half, it held a computer printout labeled “BEOG-FFS” and a mimeographed form with the title “Application for Financial Aid.” Max took one, Wager the other, and they began reading the several pages of each. Buried among the sections requesting information about the student’s status, about his spouse if any, his parents if living, his residential history, his job history, current instate status, evidence of taxes paid, was a section for Income and Expenses. Covino had listed his basic family income as $500 per month for three peo
ple; source, United Mine Workers survivors pension, social security, Black Lung Pension Supplement. He also listed as his own income his liquor store job at $2.35 an hour, and his sister’s $1.75 an hour as a waitress. At the time of the initial application, almost a year and a half ago, he carried the minimum twelve credits of academic work and had a B average. Under the heading for Assets and Liabilities, he listed only a 1972 Chevrolet, value $1100.
“This is it?” asked Wager. It wasn’t a hell of a lot for Dumovich to get embarrassed about.
“That and the grade transcripts. Each term we check to see if the client is maintaining a satisfactory academic standing in units taken and in grade-point average. If he or she is not, we bring him or her in for counseling—often he or she is carrying too many hours or working too much. And of course, if he or she fails, we terminate the funding. It’s all strictly governed by federal rules and regulations and is part of the contract.”
With him or her. Wager glanced at Axton, who nodded and bent to shake hands with Mr. Dumovich. Outside, leaning against the stinging grit of a sudden gust of raw wind, Max wagged his head. “It looks like everybody’s telling the truth. Hard-working, honest, ambitious—not your usual target for a professional hit man.”
That was true. And it meant they had exactly the same number of motives they began with—zero.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1978 by Rex Raoul Stephen Sehler Burns
cover design by Michel Vrana
978-1-4532-4790-7
This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media
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