The Laura Cardinal Novels

by J. Carson Black

  And two, going through the probation officer could cause problems down the line. She could just hear the defense attorney: overeager cops, abusing the privilege—using a probation officer to gain access to a house when they couldn’t get a search warrant through regular channels.

  That could cause problems if this ever went to trial.

  Frank Entwistle had always taught her to think of police work as a pool game, always setting up the next shot and the shot after that. Thinking about the end game—the trial. The ultimate shot should land the bad guy in prison.

  This strategy made her a lousy pool player, but a good investigator.

  Victor was talking, excited about the case for the first time. She knew he had a pool game of his own in mind: Getting home to his wife and family.

  This was not the first time Victor had cut corners. He saw everything in terms of exit strategy—close the case, boost the solve rate.

  Laura said, “We can’t do that, Victor. We don’t have enough evidence.”

  “That’s the beauty of it. We’ll get the evidence, once we’re inside.”

  “You really think he’s the one?”

  “Don’t you?" Suddenly his mouth flat-lined. “Shit! You don’t. You don’t think it’s him, do you? You’re still fooling around with that motor home idea. Nothing can be easy for you, can it?” He stood up and walked around in a circle. “I knew you were gonna do this.”

  “Victor—“

  “What, afraid you’ll lose your membership in the ACLU?”

  She tried not to lose her cool. “It just won’t work.”

  “Of course it’ll work. You just don’t want it to.”

  Suddenly, it dawned on her. “Did Buddy Holland have anything to do with this?”

  “Oh, that’s great. You never give me any credit, do you? What, I can’t think for myself?” He set the bottle down on the table so hard that beer sloshed up—a sharp yeasty smell.

  “Victor, I don’t want to say this, but—“

  “Then don’t.”

  “It’s my case. Like it or not, I’m the lead. I say we’re not going to do this.”

  He smiled at her sadly. “Too late.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s a done deal. We’re meeting Sylvia Clegg over at Lehman’s tomorrow.”

  It shocked her so much, for a minute she couldn’t speak.

  He stood up. “Sorry you’re not happy about this. I came here as a courtesy. We’re meeting the probation officer over at Lehman’s at eight a.m. See you then—if you want to be there.”

  18

  Driving up West Boulevard the next morning, Laura resolved to do the best she could to hold her case together.

  She knew when she was beat. The probation office had agreed to this search, and if she objected now, it would only send a signal that the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing. That in turn would be communicated to other jurisdictions on many levels and would affect her ability to get things done.

  Perception was reality.

  Victor and Buddy had made an end-run around her. She had to salvage what was left of her case and go on.

  When she reached Lehman’s house, the first thing she saw was a new black Suburban parked two houses down. The vanity plate said RICOPRZ. She knew it: The Suburban had been seized from a Mexican-American drug lord under the RICO laws. It was driven by Lieutenant Mike Galaz.

  What was he doing here?

  Laura remembered a difference of opinion she’d had with Victor about the new lieutenant. Victor insisted that Galaz was a control freak. But as far as she could tell, Galaz seemed detached from the job, letting the sergeants run the day-to-day—which suited her fine.

  She suspected that Victor resented Galaz for other reasons, more ephemeral stuff, like his expensive home in the foothills; his constant talk about his golf game; his breedy-looking second wife, a high-powered Anglo lawyer.

  Laura glanced at Galaz. The fact that he was here really didn’t surprise her. An important case like this, it wasn’t unprecedented that the lieutenant would want a piece of the pie—especially since this one was already unofficially running for mayor of Tucson.

  The Suburban, a Bisbee PD patrol car, and Buddy Holland’s Caprice were all parked on the street half a block from Lehman’s house. A small group had collected near Victor Celaya’s shiny black truck. Laura recognized everyone except a skinny bleached-blonde in Guess Jeans that molded tightly to her ass, and an older Hispanic male: Sylvia Clegg and the chief of probation, Ernie Lopez.

  Victor leaned against the front fender of his new GMC, the window open so he could get his last few minutes of Rush Limbaugh. A Mexican ditto-head—who’d’ve thunk.

  Galaz nodded to her, his brown eyes assessing. She wondered why he was so interested, put it down to the fact that he hardly knew her. He explained that later today he was speaking at a law enforcement seminar in Sierra Vista, and he decided to come by and see how “his people” were doing.

  Those inscrutable eyes, weighing her. Laura turned to Ernie Lopez.

  “Is he home?”

  “His car’s there.”

  They headed up the street, the Bisbee PD officer, Chambers, leading the way. Galaz hung back—not sure of his role? He’d come up through the administration side of DPS, with a long stint in Internal Affairs. Not a cop’s cop.

  Laura glanced back, uncomfortable that her lieutenant was walking behind her. When he saw her looking back he transferred his gaze from Clegg to her and flashed a smile. Galaz was one of those people dirt didn’t stick to. Manicured nails, expensive suit, immaculate white cuffs crisped to a razor edge, micro-managed haircut. With his patrician good looks and Spanish elegance, even at eight a.m. he looked ready for a thousand-dollar-a-plate fundraiser—a world Laura knew existed, but would never in her life see firsthand.

  She could smell the products that went into him: shampoo, cologne, mouthwash, body wash, hair spray. His expensive shoes clicked on the sidewalk behind her like a metronome.

  Officer Chambers rapped on the door.

  Laura was aware that Lieutenant Galaz remained near the curb. Was he worried there might be shooting? Laura’s own hand hovered near her weapon—automatic.

  Lehman came to the screen. Shirtless again.

  He took one look at them and said, “Oh shit.”

  Sylvia Clegg said, “Chuck, I’m informing you that I am here to do a search.”

  Lehman glared past her at Laura. “This is your doing. You trying to get back at me?”

  Unperturbed, Sylvia said, “Chuck, you know that under the terms of your probation, you have to allow me in to search.”

  For a moment it looked like there would be a stand-off. Chambers shifted his weight slightly, his hand near his gun.

  Lehman stood in the doorway, arms folded, looking like an angry Mr. Clean.

  “What did I do?” he demanded. It took Laura back to the other day when he’d yelled at her like a drill sergeant. “What did I do?”

  A powerful engine started up on the street. Laura looked back to see Mike Galaz pull out and drive away. Why had he bothered to come at all?

  Clegg said quietly, “Chuck. May I proceed with the search?”

  “And if I don’t, you’ll arrest me.”

  “Come on, Chuck, this isn’t such a big deal,” Clegg said. “Take a deep breath and—“

  “You’re gonna arrest me, am I right?”

  “No one’s going to arrest you. If you just let me take a look around, we’ll be in and out in no time. You know I wouldn’t—“

  He shoved the screen door open so hard it slammed against the wall of the house. “Go ahead. I have nothing to hide.”

  “First you need to secure your dog,” Clegg said.

  “Oh for Christ’s sake!" He whistled for the dog and took him outside, returning a few moments later. “I put him in his run, that good enough?”

  Clegg smiled like she’d won the lottery. “That’s great, Chuck.”

 
They traipsed in: Laura, Victor, Buddy Holland, and Sylvia Clegg. The rest remained out on the street.

  Buddy Holland cruised the room, eagle eyes taking in everything. Laura was worried that he was going to piss Sylvia Clegg off, but it appeared they were friends. Buddy must not have seen anything incriminating, because he joined them and stood there with a bored look on his face.

  Chuck Lehman lived well. Blond hardwood floors, oriental carpet, Danish furniture. Doggie bed in the corner, near a river stone fireplace. Colorful kites hanging from the walls.

  Sylvia Clegg, gloved in latex, started a low-key but thorough search. Her movements were deliberate and efficient. Laura noticed she had a calming effect about her, which was well-appreciated.

  Victor said to Lehman, “Mr. Lehman, we’d like to ask you a few questions.” He glanced in the direction of the sunny kitchen. “Why don’t we go in and sit down, while your probation officer looks around.”

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “No sir.”

  “Then I’m not answering any questions.”

  Victor smiled. “We’d appreciate it if you would. We just want to clear up a couple things.”

  “I can’t believe this! I’m calling my lawyer.”

  “You’re not under arrest. We’re only asking for a little cooperation.”

  “You can fuck that." Lehman picked up his cell phone from the kitchen table and turned away from them.

  It was a short conversation. When he was through, he closed the phone with a snap and slapped it on the table. “Lawyer’s on his way.”

  “Can we at least sit down?” Victor asked him.

  “I can’t stop you, can I?”

  They sat in the breakfast nook. Lehman leaned against the refrigerator, arms folded.

  Victor set his mini-recorder on the table. He spoke into it, giving the time and date and Lehman’s name.

  Lehman ignored him, staring straight ahead, his eyes like two holes in his face. She could feel his rage under the surface—he hummed like a powerline.

  “Did you know Cary Statler?” Victor asked Lehman.

  Lehman didn’t answer. He was in his own zone, his breathing short and rapid. Staring so hard at a spot on the wall, she thought he’d go cross-eyed.

  The way he’d tried to bully her …

  “When was the last time you saw Statler?” Victor asked.

  Lehman transferred his gaze to the ceiling.

  “Do you remember where you were the evening Jessica was kidnapped?”

  It went on like that for a minute or so before Victor gave up.

  Usually he could charm people with his easygoing nature, his sympathetic ear. But Lehman was immune.

  Laura looked around the kitchen. Everything was spotless, gleaming. The stove, refrigerator and cooking island were all stainless steel and modern. There was not the usual clutter you’d see on shelves or near the sink; in her house the dishwashing liquid sat next to the sink, but here, the kitchen counter was cleared of everything except a bowl of fruit.

  Not much in plain sight.

  Buddy leaned in the doorway, looking at her. A self-satisfied smirk on his face. Laura ignored him and concentrated on the kitchen.

  Place reminded her of a model home. She thought of the way the bad guy had washed the girl, washed her hair, clipped her nails. This guy was that neat. Would there be trace evidence in the shower? She knew that the probation officer’s search wouldn’t extend there, but if she found something else incriminating, they could get a search warrant.

  What would that be? Dress patterns for little girls?

  Sylvia poked her head in the doorway. “Can I get in here?”

  Lehman shot her a virulent look and launched himself away from the refrigerator like a missile. He went out the kitchen door into his yard, letting the screen door slam behind him. Laura, Victor, and Buddy followed.

  Out into the steaming summer heat. Brick patio. Immaculate propane grill. Lehman turned on the hose and began watering the potted plants. The smell of the water mingled with the scent of wet earth.

  Laura knew that Clegg could not do a comprehensive search. She’d noticed how Victor had worked certain words into his conversation with Clegg as they’d walked over here. He asked her if she knew how to sew. Mentioned his own mother’s sewing machine. Asked her about actors, too, what she knew about makeup, wigs, dress-up. How as a kid one Halloween he’d gone as Snidely Whiplash, twiddling his big black mustache.

  Broad hints. Clegg had gotten it.

  Now Clegg spoke through the screen door. “All I have left is the bedroom.”

  Laura glanced at her watch. Victor would have to leave soon; he had Cary Statler’s autopsy in Sierra Vista. She wanted to get out of here, too. She needed to go to Tucson to notify Cary’s uncle about the death in person. The man might know already, although the police had not yet given Cary’s name to the press.

  She glanced at Lehman.

  His intensity scared her. All this time and his anger had not abated. A hard smell to him—could you smell testosterone?—mingling with the smell of water and earth.

  This was Victor’s show. Victor’s and Buddy’s.

  “I’ve got to go,” she said to no one in particular.

  Neither Buddy nor Victor said anything.

  Laura let herself out the gate just as a Lexus pulled up to the curb. An ugly little man in an expensive suit emerged, holding a calfskin briefcase.

  Lehman’s lawyer.

  19

  Tucson-Saguaro Auto & Body, near the corner of Palo Verde and 29th Street, was a cinder block building with three roll-up work bays, a parking lot surrounded by a ten-foot-high chain link fence, and a corrugated iron shed that served as the office. The traffic here was a six-lane river of cars and SUVs flowing past a median on which a person dressed like a chicken waved a sign for a fast food place called El Pollo Grande. Every car window was up, the air conditioning going, people with cell phones attached to their ears. All of them isolated from one another in their speeding steel-and-glass capsules.

  The chicken looked jaunty, even though he must be smothering from the heat—a real trouper. Laura wondered how much he was paid.

  As she stepped onto the curb, she felt that familiar tightening in her stomach whenever she notified people that their loved ones were dead.

  She knew what it felt like. The memory was always close at hand, a penance of sorts. A counselor at the University had explained to her the concept of survivor’s guilt. It ran through her head like film: drifting off to sleep, her thoughts on Billy and the fun they’d had in Nogales, turtle soup at La Rocca’s, coming home late and not feeling like going to her parents’ house for dinner. Making love, Billy having to leave because he had to be at work early tomorrow. The stutter of the sprinklers outside the open dorm window. The bedclothes smelling of sex. That Last Happy Day.

  Someone knocking on her door. She opens it to two men in suits, who look as if they’ve been lurking in the hallway trying to get their stories straight.

  Knowing right then something is wrong.

  The older one with the florid complexion clearing his throat—

  She walked along the weedy curb to the shed. The heat was like a convection oven. The door to the shed was open and a table fan blew sporadically in her direction. It took her a moment to adjust her eyes to the darkness of the shed after the blinding desert sun.

  “Help you?”

  The man sat at a metal desk facing the door. Graying ponytail, a red T-shirt washed so many times it had faded to pink. Behind him, a Tecate poster of a sweaty girl with a bare midriff and cutoffs was tacked to the faded wall.

  The minute he saw her, his smile faded. She realized that he had been expecting this visit.

  “Are you Beau Taylor?”

  There was still a hopeful quality to his expression, as if there was a chance that there had been some kind of mistake. Laura remembered going through the same thinking process when detectives Jeff Smith and Frank Entwistle came to her do
or. It went like this: As long as nothing was said, you were all right. But the moment the words spilled into the air, there was no way to call them back. So the thing was to try and stop those words.

  “If it’s about the Coupe de Ville—“

  “No sir.” Best to tell him flat out, no ambiguity. “There’s no easy way to tell you this, sir, but your nephew Cary Statler was found in Bisbee yesterday morning, dead.”

  His face crumpled. “I thought it was him. The news said they found a body, but they didn’t identify him.”

  “Why did you think it was him, sir?”

  “Jessica was killed and he disappeared. If he was missing, he was either hitchhiking his way here or someone got him, too. He didn’t show up, then they find a body right near her house. You might as well tell me what happened."

  She did.

  “Do you think he suffered?”

  She went for the white lie; for all she knew, it was true. “I don’t think so. It was a massive head injury.”

  “Poor, sweet kid. He wanted to be a vet. His grades were piss-poor, he dropped out of school, but he was always talking about getting his GED and then trying to get into vet school.” He snorted. “Like he could get through a science degree in college. Didn’t talk about it so much lately, though. I grew up in a time when drugs were cool, but I tell you, I’ve seen more kids lose their ambition smoking pot …” He trailed off, looked down at his club-like fingers. “Probably never would have gotten anywhere.”

  “Did you ever hear him talk about a neighbor, a man named Chuck Lehman?”

  “Sure. He and Cary made kites. Kind of strange, a forty-year-old man and an eighteen-year-old kid.”

  And a fourteen-year-old girl, Laura thought.

  “Cary was a funny mixture of a kid. Never could stick with anything, had that attention-span problem, what do you call it? ADD? Plus, he got put off easy.”

  The shack rattled—the thundering whistle of two A-10s from Davis Monthan on final approach. Laura glanced out the doorway and saw one of them over the strip mall across the way, a giant mosquito looking for a place to alight.

  She wondered how Cary’s uncle could stand it, here in the flight path of the A-10s and C-130s—and worse, the F16s—just an iron shed between himself and the stifling heat that killed one or two illegal aliens a day a few miles south of here. He noticed her discomfort and aimed the fan in her direction. Must have been a floor model; it still had the streamers.