Night Eyes (The Detective Temeke Crime Series Book 2)

by Claire Stibbe

  “Skin gets like that when it’s not washed. I already told you. He’s a rogue ranger.”

  Ramsey was busy carving a hole about twelve inches in diameter going in deeper, going in wider. His face was stern, not a flicker of amusement on that tight-lipped mouth. He didn’t mention the rifle either. Just made a vent about six inches to the left and connected it the main hole.

  “Tomorrow,” Ramsey said, “we’ll fill it in, leave a layer of pine needles on the top. Can’t track us then. Tactical clean-up. Didn’t they teach you that in scouts?”

  Adam lifted his chin and stuck his chest out a bit. “They teach us how a compass works, how to orient a map.”

  “And you’re trustworthy, loyal‒”

  “Helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent,” Adam chimed.

  “Very good. You’ll be doing the clean-up tomorrow.”

  A tarp went down and a tent went up in less than a minute, a pop-up with enough room for two. Ramsey threw the duffel bag in with a couple of blankets and a blue leather-bound book. After hacking a few small logs, he made a fire and burned it all down to a pile of red hot embers, balanced the pot on a wooden bridge, and left it to boil.

  Adam looked up through the trees, too tall to catch fire and too tall to climb. He could hear the chatter of birds and the rustle of leaves. There was no way out now. Not unless he had a compass.

  “How long will the water take?” Adam said, hands raised to the heat.

  “Depends on the weather, the altitude.”

  It wasn’t long before the water bubbled and Ramsey wadded up some dried leaves to grip the rim.

  “My dad uses pliers when he doesn’t have a pot holder,” Adam said.

  Ramsey lifted one eyebrow, looked like he was going to smile only he didn’t. “Your dad’s a smartass then.”

  Adam felt the tightness in his jaw. “He’s a badass.”

  Ramsey bobbed his head, gave a half smile. Poured hot water in a couple of tin cups, filled them with a sachet each of hot chocolate and a marshmallow.

  “There’s tea bags in the pack. Coffee if you prefer. And if you think of running, I will find you.” Then he stalked back into the shadows for more wood.

  Adam wasn’t going anywhere, not with that rogue ranger hiding in the woods. He kept looking behind him through the trees, kept wondering how fast an old man could run. If he had a limp like his grandpa once had it wouldn’t be fast because old people had arthritis to slow them down.

  It was only a few minutes and Ramsey was back again, stomping this time like he was fresh out of patience. He took a bag out of his pocket, poured something in his hand and began to chew it.

  Adam lit a hurricane lamp and hung inside the tent. It creaked a bit in the wind casting an eerie glow over the guttering embers. He coaxed what was left of the fire with a stick and wondered if the light would attract the rogue ranger.

  “He won’t come here,” Ramsey said, spitting a brown ball of mucus from his mouth. “Fortunately, we lost him a few miles back.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just know.”

  And then Adam saw it again. A shimmer of a smile on those sallow cheeks, the dimple on his chin. He watched those fingers as they rolled a smoke. Watched the lips as they took a hit.

  “It’s for the pain,” Ramsey said, tapping his chest with two fingers.

  “Are you sick?”

  “The pills take away the worst of it. Wouldn’t want to be in hospital. Rather be free, rather be in the fresh air when I die.”

  Adam wondered how old he was if he was talking about dying. Asked him if he believed in God because the world was coming to an end. Ramsey just shook his head, made a growling sound with his throat.

  “There’s going to be a battle,” Adam said. “A big one. Bad people get trampled like grapes and there’s lots of blood. Horses will be swimming in it all the way up to their bridles.”

  “Bunch of fairy tales.”

  “It’s true. Mom says we need to watch for that prowling lion… not the mountain kind.” Adam sipped that hot chocolate and wiped a coating of marshmallow from his lips.

  “Better learn how to shoot and use a knife then,” Ramsey muttered. “Better turn in before it rains.”

  That night they watched a sheer of lightning on the horizon and a sheet of rain that hung under a cloud blowing across the valley. They huddled in their blankets to keep warm, eating dried crackers and beef jerky and a good cup of tea.

  It was cozy in the tent with that hurricane lamp. Warm too. Adam lay on his back with his eyes half open, listening to the rattle of rain against the leaves. He didn’t know why, but he wasn’t scared any more.

  “Hit the rack,” Ramsey said, tilting that blue leather book towards the lamp.

  “What are you reading?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Doesn’t look like nothing.”

  “Well it is nothing. You wouldn’t like it. Probably wouldn’t understand it.”

  “I read The Hobbit.”

  “And that makes you smart?” Ramsey rolled on his side and put the book between them. He looked up occasionally with those oval eyes and then he’d look back down, finger underlining each word. “Want me to read some?”

  Adam didn’t really care. But it was polite to nod.

  Ramsey cleared his throat. It was a deep whispering voice when it came, kinder than before.

  “She always liked it when I brushed her hair. It was thick and dark, and in the sunshine there was red in it. I remember a song once about a girl with nut brown hair. Can’t remember who sang it. But she liked it. Sometimes hummed it when she thought I wasn’t listening. We’d pick muscles off the sea bed when the tide was low, poke at the lobster pots and watch the sunset. We’d watch the boats and try to guess what type of sails they had. I don’t know what part of her I loved the best. Her voice, her skin, her smile. Probably everything. I liked the way she looked at me. Made me feel special. Made me feel.”

  Adam liked the words, liked the soft resonance of Ramsey’s voice. He could see a girl and a boy staring out to sea and he could see a fat-bellied ship with sails tightly trimmed and close to the wind. It put him to sleep.

  FOURTEEN

  Temeke fought to clear his head and smothered another yawn. Reluctantly, he hauled himself up from the nice warm bed and had a nose around. Sleeping in the cells was the only option when you’re dead tired in the small hours and your house is cold and cheerless. And your sodding car won’t start.

  At least he had someone to talk to during the morning shifts when one of the admins woke him up with a cup of fresh coffee. It was Tuesday, and he could still smell the stench of slag and cinders under his nose no matter how many times he washed his face.

  He padded up the stairs to his second floor office, carrying his shoes in one hand. Malin was listening to a recording of the kidnapper’s voice and her eyebrows shot up when she saw him. “Do you ever answer your phone?”

  “It’s on silence, love. A bloke’s got to get some sleep. Five hours I got this time. Bloody miracle.”

  “Officer Running Hawk called Hackett this morning since he couldn’t get hold of you. Said they traced Adam’s phone near the cabin. Not a scratch on it. Sent it to Flossy at Fingerprinting.”

  Temeke stood in front of the window, eyes following a droplet of rain on the glass. It was the view of the back parking lot that always fascinated him. Tattered gray trees dusted with snow and the distant hills of Santa Fe beyond―a view you couldn’t see in the summer. And thirty black and white units arranged in tidy rows all except Hackett’s. His was parked at an angle and taking up two spaces so it wouldn’t get dinged.

  The tape recorder murmured on in the background and he hardly gave it another thought. The good news was Lieutenant Luis Alvarez was coming back to work in a week. Temeke couldn’t wait to see his brother-in-law, couldn’t wait to have a few pints at lunch. Might get a few nuggets of gossip out about his soon to b
e ex-wife. Serena was hiding again. And that’s what bothered him.

  “That voice,” he began, turning his mind back to the tape, “doesn’t sound threatening.”

  “Thick and gravelly,” Malin said, tapping the screen of her phone.

  He noticed her words tail off, eyes flicking to one side. “What?”

  “The voice… it sounds familiar. Like the one on the Evan Trader tape. It’s the same rhythm, the same pauses. I’ll have it checked.”

  Malin was good with voices. About as good as he was with names. Temeke kept replaying the voice in his head, a voice that demanded three hundred grand in ransom. It was deep now she mentioned it.

  Lost and found. He’s with me. Three hundred grand in ransom, half in hundreds, half in small denominations. Better not be sequenced or the boy’s dead.

  It was Mrs. Oliver’s response before the call ended that puzzled Temeke. I understand… It sounded too calm, resigned, and not the desperate pleading he expected. He thought Captain Fowler had instructed her on how to talk to the kidnapper, to get proof Adam was still alive.

  There were photographs of Bill Oliver on Malin’s desk. Hard but happy features and a deeply lined brow. It reminded Temeke of a wooden plaque he had at home where you could tell the age of the tree by counting the growth rings.

  Malin looked pale. Or perhaps it was the light. He asked her why she was so glum, whether she’d finished typing the report. She said something about working late into the night, hadn’t quite finished it yet. Said she was worried about Adam. Prayed for him to. But Temeke knew that wasn’t all she was worried about, judging by the phone in her hand.

  “What’s up?” he said, turning to look at a face that was determined to remain passive.

  “Hollister,” she said, blowing out another sigh and dropping the phone face-down on her desk. “He keeps messaging me. Won’t pick up the phone.”

  Temeke often wondered why Malin took him into her confidence, why she felt the need to tell him all the gory details. And why did his face always go rigid with fury at the mention of Hollister’s name? She should have been writing that report instead of fawning over top brass. “On the computer?”

  “Yes, on the computer.”

  “It’s quiet when it’s on the computer,” he said. “No one can hear.”

  “It’s not the first time.”

  “How many times?”

  “Six, seven. I don’t know. And he won’t text.”

  “Maybe his old lady checks the phone. She wouldn’t know where to look on the computer.”

  “He doesn’t have an old lady.” She gave him a tight-lipped look and crossed her arms. They didn’t stay crossed for long. Couldn’t drink that cappuccino with her arms crossed. “You think I could do better?” she said, slurping a mouthful of froth.

  “There’s always Jarvis,” he generously offered. “He seems to spend a great deal of time loitering outside the women’s toilets and I don’t think he’s after a safety pin.”

  “He’s a pig!”

  He stole a glance at her and reveled in her discomfort. “Did you see the book?” he said, changing the subject and pouring a shot of coffee into a plastic cup. The lights flickered on and off as a bolt of lightning lit the skies and rain pounded on a darkened parking lot. He was glad he was inside. He hoped the villains were too. “The one on the kitchen counter in the cabin?”

  Malin held her coffee in a death grip and gave him one of those of-course-I-did looks. She was too smart to have missed it.

  “Let me ask you something,” he said, knuckling one eye and yawning. “What type of man reads books on tactical warfare?”

  “FBI, CIA, SAS, ATF… a hunter brushing up on his technique.”

  Temeke took a few sips of his coffee. It always tasted bitter like the last few dregs from a well-stewed pot. No wonder Malin got hers from the Double Barrel coffee shop on Coors, only hers came with a designer price tag. “Why Adam?”

  “Why any kid? Sometimes its random.”

  “This kid wasn’t out walking in the woods, or jogging in a park. He was at home. Whoever took him knew his every move. He even bought a truck in a false name. Intent is what that is.”

  Malin stared down at her coffee, forehead a frown. “A disgruntled staff member who didn’t get his bonus check. You want to hope he was wearing a mask.”

  “So Adam wouldn’t be able to identify him? It’s not that kind of kidnap, Marl.”

  “He’ll kill him then, won’t he?”

  “He doesn’t care about bloody masks. No, this one was well planned, probably planned for years. It’s more than a truck bought in a false name, more than money.”

  Temeke took a cigarette out of his pocket and let it dangle between his lips in flagrant defiance of the ‘no smoking’ sign. “Aristotle once said ‘We make war that we may live in peace.’ Words like that should be written here above the front door.”

  “We’ve got enough graffiti on the front door,” Hackett interrupted, craning his head in from the corridor. “Northwest Area Command is beginning to look like an apocalyptic ruin!”

  “Any news, sir?” Temeke asked, shoving the cigarette in his top pocket and hoping for a few hits at break time. Hackett looked worried. Good. He’d give him something to be worried about.

  “News? Oh, yeah, there’s news. Two dead officers and helicopter peppered with shot made the front page in the Journal. Some idiot leaked it to the press before I did and now the public thinks it’s a bomb. Fowler called in half an hour ago. Still no sign of Adam. Said the Field Investigator’s report noted a big black dog lolloping about in the woods.”

  “I’d just like to make an observation, sir. Half the dogs in the police department are big and black.”

  Hackett sighed loudly and removed his jacket. His armpits were already dark with sweat. “Fowler said he found a set of tracks leading to a waterfall. That’s before his flashlight ran out of batteries.”

  “A set, sir? It’s important see. A set defines one person.”

  “He thinks they were human.”

  “Course that would be difficult to see without a flashlight and we don’t him falling down a hole like Alice in bloody Wonderland.”

  Hackett took off his glasses and began to polish them. “You might also be interested to know he found a human jawbone. Fresh it was.”

  “Tell him to call me when he finds the rest.”

  “Very droll, Temeke,” Hackett pressed on, readjusting his glasses and his smile. “Where Fowler’s concerned, might be time you buried the hatchet.”

  “I’m not really sold on the idea, sir, not after he made a racist remark at the Christmas party. He wanted to shoot my brains out then. I expect you would have called that friendly fire.”

  “If you’re referring to a certain disciplinary letter, I changed my mind. Fowler doesn’t deserve suspension. He deserves a medal. I’ve already received his preliminary report from last night. Where’s yours?”

  “Why’s Captain Fowler leading this case? What’s he got that I haven’t?”

  “Tact, seniority, contacts. Hasn’t rubbed up the District Attorney the wrong way or the Chief of Police.”

  “You’ve got an unnaturally soft spot for him, sir. Better watch that soft spot. Might go raw in a day or two.”

  The daft old bugger wasn’t going to let it go, kept on with a drone of morale-boosting words that Fowler was forensics favorite. Criminalistics too. Fowler was a snappy dresser, had far too many shiny things on that polyester shirt. And who wears gold cufflinks with a uniform?

  “Isn’t he supposed to be studying crime reports in that nice plush office of his? You know, record-keeping, logs, budgets.”

  “I’ve asked him to supervise the investigation with the help of those Navajo boys.”

  “Shadow Wolf officers I think they’re called, sir.”

  “I’m asking you to interview the witnesses. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir.” Temeke’s cell phone gave a little cough in his pocket and h
e checked the screen. Serena.

  He would have taken it if Hackett hadn’t been firing a salvo of insults from that overworked mouth of his. Something about the Impact Sargent being off sick twice this month and how lucky it was he’d finally managed to drag his sorry ass in to work this morning.

  “He can’t keep dining out on the same excuse,” Hackett whispered. “It was his daughter who was kidnapped not him.”

  “How would you feel if your daughter had been molested by a man ten years her senior and just before Christmas? Lucky we caught the disgusting sod. Lucky we found her an all. Oh, I forgot. You had a minor for a girlfriend once. Seventeen wasn’t she?”

  That brought on a lip tremor and a flapping hand. “You dare tell a soul, Temeke. And you,” he said, jutting his chin at Malin. “I promise you―”

  “You’ll melt my badge and pour liquid metal down my jocks. Got it, sir.”

  It was always the same warning, always the same secret, and the only sensational thing Temeke had on Hackett worth a promotion or two. Lucky Hackett’s wife never found out about that little indiscretion.

  The droning of Hackett’s voice came on like a Japanese torture, drip, drip, drip in his ear. Hot, cheesy breath slithering its way into his eustachian tube, coiling into the back of his brain and out the other side.

  Temeke’s mind wandered to Luis Alvarez, who had been in hospital from a gunshot wound to his head. Lucky for him, the damage was a torn up ear and now he looked like a scrawny dog from the pound. Temeke had gone to bring him home and ended up having a screaming row with Serena in the lobby, told her he wouldn’t sign those damn divorce papers unless she killed him first. Even gave her his gun. It was all bollocks of course. He couldn’t sign anything if he was dead.

  Serena didn’t know how badly things had been going; officers’ complaints about his treatment of suspects, even a transgender male had sued for police brutality claiming Temeke had lifted his skirt. All right, maybe he had been a little overenthusiastic, but he had found a big pouch of crack underneath that skirt.

  Hackett’s snapping fingers brought him back to the present. “You’ll be interviewing all staff members this week starting with the Mayor’s wife. Sargent Moran spoke to her on the phone, said she was all freaked out, wouldn’t speak to Fowler. Said he was a jerk.”