Cry Wolf

by J. Carson Black

  She swiped at her bangs. “He made me nervous, is all.”

  “Nervous?”

  “I dunno. Maybe I’m wrong about that. But I can tell you he was full of sh—excuse me, full of it.”

  “About what?”

  Hands flapping in the air. “Oh, I dunno. Everything? You could tell he thought he was God’s gift. Always boasting about something.”

  “Like what?”

  “His wife, his two kids. They were perfect. His wife was a model with Ford Modeling Agency. Well, why didn’t he bring them on vacation with him? He left them in Vegas.”

  “Is that why he was here? On vacation?”

  “He said birding, but I never even saw him with binoculars. He just didn’t look or act like a birder. They’re a special breed.”

  “How else was he . . . full of it?”

  “I didn’t talk to him that much, thank God, I’m too busy working, you wouldn’t believe what a drain this place is on one person, but Cody—my son—seems to think he dropped out of Heaven.”

  “What did Cody say about him?”

  “Oh, God, what didn’t he say? All sorts of stories.” She waved them away along with a horsefly that zoomed in through the hole in the window screen. “I can’t remember half the stuff Cody’s been telling me. I have work to do. My husband died two years ago and saddled me with this place and yes, it’s a living, but it’s such a drain!”

  “Can I talk to Cody?”

  “Sure. Knock yourself out! It’s summer vacation, so he’s around.” She paused. “I just heard from Terry Barnett, he’s the ranger here with the Forest Service? So maybe Cody knows already.” She paused, touched her mouth again. “It’s gonna hit him like a ton of bricks.”

  “You haven’t talked to him?”

  “I just heard myself.”

  “So they were good friends?”

  “He filled Cody’s head with all sorts of stuff. Cody liked him—like hero worship.” Her face crumpled. “This is going to be so hard on him. Especially now, after Jack died.”

  As Laura left the cabins office, the helicopter flew overhead. She squinted against the sun and waved.

  She’d been up in helicopters looking down on crime scenes dozens of times, but was perfectly happy to let Anthony take over. The way the thing banked always sent a thrill of fear into her belly, and she guessed it always would. Anthony, on the other hand, looked at a helicopter ride the way her flat-coated black retriever, Jake, looked at car rides. He couldn’t get enough of them.

  Yellow crime scene tape had already been strung around Perrin’s cabin and blocked off half the parking lot. Additionally, yellow tape had been sealed across the door. A Forest Service ranger named Dolan had parked his truck just outside the tape—she could hear reports on his radio. He was the responding officer, and would block entry to the scene.

  Laura talked to him for a minute, told him she wanted to catch people first and get their accounts, and leave Perrin’s cabin for later.

  She didn’t have to go far to find Cody. The boy was sitting on the low post and rail fence that fronted the road, throwing pebbles into the gravel parking lot.

  His mother said he was eleven years old. He was big for his age, chunky like his mother. He wallowed in an oversize “Zombies Ate My Homework” tee—Xtra Large—and polyester sports shorts—like basketball shorts. Completing the ensemble were new athletic shoes.

  His complexion was mottled strawberry and cream—like her partner Anthony, he didn’t seem to tan. Black curly hair, a broad face like his mother.

  He was wiping his face and sniffling.

  Laura said, “Hey.”

  He swiped at his nose and looked at her. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Detective Laura Cardinal. I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Yeah, well.”

  “Mind if I sit? My feet are tired.” She motioned to the post and rail fence.

  “Free country,” he said. He threw more gravel, picking it out of one cupped hand and flinging it.

  Laura sat. She stared at the quaint, rustic cabins. Must have been built in the twenties, her guess. As she recalled, they didn’t even have satellite TV here. She sat and listened to the pinging of gravel on gravel. Got down, got herself some gravel, and started throwing it herself.

  “What are trying to do? Pretend you’re just like me to get me on your side?”

  Smart kid.

  Laura swiveled her head to look at him. He looked straight ahead, but she knew he was aware of her scrutiny.

  “I’m going to level with you,” she said. “I’m here to find out who killed Sean Perrin, but I need help. I need cooperation or we might never know who did it. You were friends, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, you might know stuff nobody else knows, okay? If you were any kind of friends at all—”

  “We were friends. Good friends!”

  “Then maybe you can help me find out who did this.”

  He stared straight ahead. “You’re scamming me. You’re just trying to get me to—”

  “What? Talk about him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is there a problem with that?”

  She saw a tear shine his eye, spill down his cheek. He shoved his fist to his eye and swiped hard. “Shit!”

  Looked at her defiantly.

  Laura said, “‘Shit’ is right.”

  He slid off the fence. “I’m going for a walk.”

  She remained where she was. He started walking along the road. Got about twenty yards from her and turned back to look at her. “You coming?”

  Later, Laura would realize that that was the moment she hit the Mother Lode.

  Or more accurately, she’d put together the first section of the jigsaw puzzle that was Sean Perrin.

  4: Sean Perrin 101

  Laura liked jigsaw puzzles. They framed her thinking in an entirely different way. If she was trying to work out a seemingly unsolvable problem on a case, she would pick out a jigsaw puzzle and set up the card table on their screened-in porch.

  The jigsaw puzzle took her mind off the subject at hand. Just thinking about something else allowed her mind to range free. Her long-deceased mentor, Frank Entwistle, had told her that sometimes you had to step away from a case and let it work on the subconscious.

  When she worked a jigsaw puzzle, her brain was busy concentrating on the mechanics of fitting one piece to another. She’d work on one section, putting together several of the more obvious pieces, until that section played out. Then she’d look around for other pieces that might connect, and start a whole new section. Eventually they would inch toward each other until she zeroed in on the last piece.

  By not thinking about her job, she let her mind rest. And often, her mind broke through barriers and she would end up with a revelation.

  Cody and Laura took a trail to Madera Creek down below the cabins. Once he started talking, he couldn’t stop.

  Sean Perrin had spent a lot of time hanging out with Cody.

  He was former military—Special Forces. He showed Cody some interesting fight moves—what Sean called “basic stuff”—and told him stories about firefights in the Korengal Valley, and the time most of his platoon was wiped out.

  He had a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart.

  After the military Sean worked for a defense contractor, but quit when he realized how dirty that business was.

  Sean told Cody his own son’s name was Cody, but he was a lot younger.

  “What about his daughter? What was her name?”

  “Tabitha—Tabby for short. His wife’s name’s Gina. Are they coming out here?”

  “I don’t know. We haven’t yet contacted the next of kin. Did Sean mention anyone he had a problem with? From around here?”

  “He said he was estranged from his sister in Tucson. That means they didn’t talk, right?”

  “Do you know her name?”

  He shrugged. “He just called her ‘Miss Priss.’”

  They’d f
ind her.

  “What else can you tell me about him?”

  Cody was picking his way from boulder to boulder, every once in a while tossing sticks into the creek.

  “He lived in Las Vegas. He worked for a . . . I dunno, I forget. A bank? He said he was a . . . ” He screwed up his forehead. “financial consultant.”

  “Anything you can remember about that?”

  “He said . . . he said he got fired because he flagged an account, something about a well-connected mob guy. He said he was on the run.”

  “On the run?”

  “He said he had to leave his family behind because he might put them in danger. From the mob guy.”

  Laura said, “Did he have a phone?”

  “Oh, yeah. A Galaxy S III. Don’t you guys have it?”

  Laura knocked on the other doors, but judging from the number of cars in the lot—hers, the Forest Service ranger’s truck, and Barbara Sheehey’s station wagon—most of the guests were out.

  The place was quiet. Just the occasional blurt of the radio in the ranger truck. She talked to the ranger, David Bolings, in the mellow sunlight, as he ate a sandwich he’d gotten from the Subway in Continental.

  Small talk, mostly, but she did learn this. Bolings wasn’t first at the scene, but he’d arrived shortly thereafter.

  “So I high-tailed down here as soon as we found out it was a secondary crime scene,” he said.

  “Anyone coming and going?”

  “Not since I been here. Quiet as a tomb, except for the boy.”

  “You know the Sheeheys well?”

  “Pretty much. The kid’s pretty cool. Mrs. Sheehey has a temper, but she’s got it rough taking care of this place by herself, so who can blame her?”

  “Have you met any of the other guests?”

  “The birders. Just to say hi to. Oh, and I’ve noticed the girl.”

  “The girl?”

  “Maybe not a girl. She looks like she’s in her early twenties. I guess that would be out of girl territory?”

  Laura ignored that. “Ever talk to her?”

  “No. She’s been here for a week or so. A looker. Don’t tell my wife I said that.” Wink.

  Okay, he didn’t wink, but he might as well have.

  “Did they all leave?”

  Bolings shrugged. “No idea. You want me to go in with you?” He nodded toward Perrin’s cabin.

  “No, thanks.”

  The fewer people in a crime scene, the better.

  He looked a little put out. “Okay, then. Just give me a holler if you need me.” And he went back to his sandwich.

  For the second time today, Laura donned gloves and booties. She stepped onto the porch and into the deep shade. Cool, almost chilly. Even though it was very warm in the sun.

  It was like moving into another sphere.

  She thought of it as the victim’s place to go to ground, to be himself. His home, or the place where he stayed if he was on the road. Where he kicked off his shoes, where he slept, where he showered, where he watched TV.

  This was a venue that always changed from circumstance to circumstance, but in one respect it remained the same. It now belonged to her. She owned it. She owned whatever she could learn from this secondary crime scene, and she would try like hell to make no mistakes. A bell, once rung, reverberates.

  This was where the majority of her successful homicide investigations really started.

  With the victim’s den.

  5: Frank Entwistle’s Ghost

  The room was paneled with an oak or pine veneer, and dark. The cream-colored curtains—cheap and nubbly—turned the outside sunlight into a garish orange glow that seeped around the edges and gleamed off the walls.

  The bed was unmade and a suitcase sat on a folding luggage rack near the bathroom. A robe hung on the bathroom door.

  Laura was looking at the suitcase when she felt the room temperature change. One moment it was warm, and the next, cold enough to raise goosebumps.

  Her eye went to the mirror on the bathroom door. More specifically, to the reflection in the mirror on the bathroom door.

  A man sat on the edge of the bed.

  The last time Laura saw Frank Entwistle she’d suggested he read up on ghosts to get an idea of how they conducted themselves, since he seemed to do such a slovenly job of it.

  He looked old and tired. Like a deflated balloon in his Sansabelt slacks circa 1989. Cheap button-down shirt, blazer, Hush Puppies loafers, a Daffy Duck tie.

  Lately Frank had taken to wearing cartoon character ties. The first time she’d seen him in one, she thought it had been due to indigestion brought on by some pork ribs.

  But it turned out to be a trend.

  “Scare you?” he said.

  “That ship sailed a long time ago.”

  “Thought you could benefit from my encyclopedic knowledge and razor-sharp instincts, kiddo. That’s why I’m here.”

  “You know what I think?” Laura said. “You miss it.”

  “I’m dead. I don’t miss anything.”

  Laura said, “I missed you—can you believe that?”

  “Sure I believe it. Just didn’t think you’d want me showing up, since you finally got a man. Thought it might embarrass you if I showed up at the wrong time.”

  A considerate ghost. Go figure. An old-fashioned, considerate ghost. Laura felt as if she’d stepped into a Mad Men episode, if the characters in Mad Men wore cheap clothes.

  Frank said, “Does he know about me?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “He doesn’t think you’re crazy?”

  Laura thought about it. “No. I think we’re beyond that. He knows I’m crazy.”

  Frank smiled at that, then rubbed his tired-looking face. “Probably should keep it that way. I just wondered what you thought about this guy. Perrin.”

  “I’m not sure. The boy who lives here said he was in Special Forces.”

  “You really think that?”

  “I don’t know. Why? You don’t?”

  “Don’t just go with what’s in here,” Frank said, touching a ghostly finger to his forehead. He pressed his finger to his bellied-out Sansabelts. “You gotta go with what’s in here.”

  “In your pants?”

  “Jesus, you’re getting a mouth on you. Your gut. Do you give your new partner that kind of crap?”

  “I’ve changed.”

  “Changed?”

  “I’m more confident now. I know what I’m doing.”

  “Then why do you need me?”

  “Hey, I’m not the one who—”

  “I wouldn’t be here if you didn’t want to bounce things off me. But hey, if I’m not appreciated, I can go.”

  And he faded away.

  Laura stared at the spot where her former partner and mentor sat last. The bed was messy, but no messier for having Frank sit there. He was gone, except for a trace of his godawful cologne.

  What had he asked her?

  What do you think of Perrin?

  Simple question. Who else would she be thinking about?

  Laura started at the outside of the room and worked her way toward the center, taking photos of everything. She looked but didn’t touch; the unmade bed, the toothbrush on the clamshell sink in the bathroom, a squib of toothpaste in the sink. Toilet seat up. She took note: how long had he been married? Not long enough to adopt the habit a lot of married men did. Or was he just a rebel?

  She smiled at that.

  Was that how you proved you were a rebel in modern society?

  She looked at the clothes jumbled in the suitcase.

  Hiking clothes on a chair. Medium-expensive, she thought.

  No Samsung Galaxy S III phone.

  They would subpoena Sean Perrin’s phone records, which would give them access to every call he made or received. Even if the killer removed the SIM card or turned the GPS off and the phone was lying in a landfill somewhere, the calls would still be listed up to that point. They might not find everything, but it wa
s a good place to start.

  Anthony had already put a call in to the Las Vegas Metro PD to get the ball rolling. It would take a few days, but they would get the information in the long run.

  Three framed photographs sat on a side table; a beautiful woman and two beautiful children.

  Absolutely beautiful children. A stunning woman. Model-stunning. They could have been in Lands' End ads.

  The photos were sunny. The faces were happy. Healthy. Scrubbed faces, American as Madison Avenue could make them. But they still looked like real people.

  He’d caught them unawares, almost. Like he’d said, “Hey! Look here!” and his wife had turned to look at him. A quick smile.

  The kids on the grass, watching ducks in a lake. Beautiful, beautiful kids. A boy and a girl.

  Sean Perrin had quite a family, and quite a resume. Special Forces. Financial consultant. Whistleblower.

  Maybe that was the key. He’d crossed the wrong person and now he was on the run.

  He’d told Barbara Sheehey that he was married to a Ford model from LA. He’d told Cody Sheehey he had an estranged sister in Tucson.

  His car was a rental.

  Lots of undercurrents there. Lots of things that stood out, and piqued her interest.

  Laura thought he’d been sitting in his car in the hours between eight and eleven, although she’d need confirmation on that from the M.E. She thought he was there after dark, because it would be more likely no one else would be there.

  He’d sat there in the car and for some reason, closed his eyes. And then someone came along and shot him execution-style.

  Laura said to the empty room, “Whoever you were running from, looks like they caught you.”

  6: The Canvass

  Fresh from his helicopter adventure, Anthony joined Laura at the cabin. Laura stood back and watched him look at the contents of the room. She wanted to see what caught his eye.

  He went for the luggage.

  “Nice clothes. Not too expensive, but nice.” He looked at Tess. “His watch was a knockoff made to look expensive. You know where he worked?”