“Luis is looking forward to his new job,” she said.
“New job?” Temeke hated to sound so puzzled but the truth was nobody had told him.
“Watch Commander. He’s been promoted.”
Watch Commander? Hello… Fowler was after that position and the poor old git got pipped to the post.
“Score!” he said a little too loudly. “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer person.”
Couldn’t have happened at a better time. If Temeke played his cards right, he might be reporting directly to Luis. Serena ended the call after that. Said she didn’t feel like talking anymore.
Temeke poked a cigarette in his mouth and grabbed a book of matches from the dash. Two long drags and he was in heaven except for the ash stain on his pants which he worried away with a spit-moistened finger. The wind hurled a handful of leaves in his face, and despite the lateness of the morning, there were only a few cars in the parking lot.
Hackett was going to love Fowler. After more than a week, he still hadn’t come up with any leads and the smarmy bastard was making shoddy excuses due to the lack of manpower. Temeke tried to keep the delight from his thoughts. He’d show the yokels how to get a result.
His military jeep was covered in a brown slush and it was time to take it to the carwash. A raccoon had once taken to lying in the sun on the canvas roof. Temeke had no idea how much trash was left up there until he drove home one day and a passing driver gave him the finger, complaining of a windshield full of candy wrappers.
Temeke liked that raccoon. He was the only friend he had these days. Smart those raccoons. They had sharp eyes that burned into your mind like they could read it and they could pick a lock no matter which way it was turned. Must have had a den in that dumpster. Looked better fed than he was.
He puffed a smoke screen out into the parking lot, dropped the cigarette and gave it the full weight of his foot. Sarge was in the lobby on the phone and staring blankly at his clipboard. “Round nine thirty? Very good. I’ll tell him.” He hung up and nodded at Temeke. “Megan Sterling. Housekeeper. She’ll be here in ten minutes. Good news. Seems Mrs. O got a phone call yesterday from the kidnapper.”
“Did they get a trace?”
“West Fork Gila River. It’s a wilderness up there.”
Temeke lowered his voice and leaned towards the desk. “Is the old git in?”
Sarge’s eyes snapped over Temeke’s right shoulder, gave a smile and widened his hands.
“The old git is in,” a loud voice confirmed over a theatrical cough. “And he’s going home.”
“Bad cold?” Temeke said, turning around only to be greeted by a filthy rag bunched up under Hackett’s nose. He’d snuck down the stairs this time in those soft whispery shoes.
“I’ve had it since Christmas.”
“Might I recommend a good dose of whisky, sir. And by a good dose, I mean more than just an eyebath. Good news about the phone call.”
“Freakishly long river. We’ll be lucky if we find him. I’ve emailed you the file.”
Hackett paused by the front door, watching a small white Cavalier as it crossed the parking lot and splashed through a puddle right in front of his nice clean car. “It’s been twenty-two years,” he muttered. “Twenty-two long years in this dried up hell-hole and it’s never rained this much.”
“Good for the reservoirs, sir,” Sarge piped up. “Just think, no water ban this summer.”
“He’s got a point,” Temeke said, hoping to get shot of the boring conversation. “Course it makes no difference to me. My lawn’s plastic.”
They both looked at him with empty stares, the kind that told him he was a traitor to nature. Temeke was partial to his tacked down grass. No mowing, no watering, always green no matter the season. Just needed a little vacuuming now and then.
Hackett buried his nose in that oily rag and braved a slanting rain. When he was gone Sarge gave a big sigh and opened his desk drawer. He held up a pile of telephone messages addressed to Captain Fowler from Gloria Pacheco.
“She’s called three times and he won’t talk to her.”
“Do yourself a favor, don’t show any of these to Fowler on account of his bad temper. Rumor has it, he’s been ghosting Gloria after he found out it was a pair of old socks down her sweater.” Temeke tapped his nose. “Nothing special about her weapons.”
Temeke barged his way past Fowler and Jarvis on the stairs and shut himself in his office. Logging into his computer, he found the sound file from Hackett. It was clearer than he expected, voice deep and homely. Couldn’t think of any other words to describe it.
Midsummer’s day… I should have been there. I wanted to be. He’s a good kid. Knows how to shoot and fish. You know how they made us. Rock hard inside and out so our hearts don’t feel anymore. It wasn’t right… just wasn’t right….
The phone went dead after that. Adam was still alive and still very real to his kidnapper. But there were two things that kept nudging at Temeke’s subconscious, things he needed to talk to Mrs. Oliver about. Accessibility to a private number. And the word’s I should have been there. I wanted to be.
Temeke checked his watch and found an empty interview room near the front lobby. Closing the blinds, he cracked two slats open with a finger to see a ginger blond by the front desk. She was clutching a small yellow purse in both hands.
“Can I help you,” Sarge said.
“Detective Tamale?”
“Temeke,” Sarge corrected. “And you are?”
“Megan Sterling.”
“I’ll tell him you’re here.”
Sarge drifted across the lobby and tucked his head around the door. He gave a slight chin jerk and a long drawn out, “Housekeeper’s here.”
“Get Santiago,” Temeke said, both hands raised.
He didn’t relish the thought of being shut in with a girl whose rear was squirming to get out of those spray-on jeans. As for the accent, he’d need subtitles.
Temeke held out a hand and showed Megan a chair. “We appreciate you coming in today.”
Malin arrived shortly after, hugging two cups of coffee. She recorded the date and time and all the people in the room.
“Do I need an attorney?” Megan asked.
“You’re not a suspect. But if you would prefer to have an attorney―”
“Oh, no, that’s OK.”
“So, how long have you known the Olivers?” Malin pushed a cup of coffee across the table.
“Nine months.” Megan gave that small yellow purse a chair of its own. “I came straight from college.”
“What was your degree?”
“Cooking.” Megan lightly cocked her head towards the handbag. “With a minor in shopping.”
Temeke studied the cat-eye makeup and the pale lipstick which appeared to have been smeared on with a generous helping of lube. Her lips were full… full of dermal fillers, he guessed, unless someone had booted her in the kisser.
“Was there anything unusual you might have seen or heard leading up to Adam’s disappearance?” Malin asked with a terse smile.
“Yeah,” she said, drawing the word out like it was obvious. “Mrs. Oliver was mad, always shouting at Adam to put the seat down, clean his room, do his homework. He’s a good kid. But honestly, she was, like, a total bitch. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ran away just to get away from her.”
“How do you explain the shooting?” Temeke asked, listening to the modulation of her voice, marked by a rise in pitch at the end of every sentence.
Megan sipped her coffee and pulled a face like she was drinking sewage. “Probably an accident. Who knows. Boys and guns. Mayor’s not dead is he?”
“No, he’s in ICU. But don’t let that bother you.” Temeke noticed the pressed shirt and the navy woolen blazer. Even her jeans were designer and he wondered how a housekeeper could afford all that.
“Tell me about Art Ingram’s birthday. Sunday was it?”
Megan nodded. “You wouldn’t think he’s thirty-five. Nic
e looking. Single. So, she called me in to cook lunch. I didn’t mind. It’s, like, overtime.”
Malin looked up at the ceiling and down again. “You were saying something unusual happened.”
“That afternoon, Mrs. Oliver was on the phone. She was scared.”
“Do you know who she was talking to?” Malin said, lowering her head towards the file.
“Know? Of course I know. It was some guy. The volume was turned up so high you could hear it in Roswell. But see, it was really sketchy cause he was talking in code.”
Malin’s head came up. “Code? Can you give me an example?”
Megan had a tongue stud which occasionally popped in and out of her mouth. Since she yawned repeatedly, it spent a good deal of time out rather than in. “Something about PST and LSD. I guess it was drugs. Then he was talking about goals and buds.”
“Where was she when she made this call?”
“In the gazebo.”
“Where were you when this happened?”
“In the kitchen. Only I had to open the window.”
“Bit cold to have the window open at this time of year. Did you burn something?” Temeke asked.
Megan gave a tightlipped smile. “I just wanted to hear what she was saying. See if she was OK. So Cesar and I went outside and hid behind the shed.”
“What else was she saying?” Malin asked.
“She said she was being followed. Said he was angrier now, didn’t want it all to get out.”
“Do you know who she was talking about?”
“Who the he was, you mean?” She shrugged. That was the part she didn’t know. And she didn’t have a clue who the voice on the phone belonged to either.
“How far away were you?” Temeke asked.
“Behind the trellis.”
So not behind the shed. The trellis was at the back of the gazebo as Temeke recalled. They would have been closer to Mrs. Oliver than he was to Megan now.
“Anyway I’m thinking she must have had a stupid-ass mental breakdown with all that crying and carrying on. And I’m, like, wondering if she’s going to pass out, when all of a sudden she starts cussing him out. She said, ‘Don’t tell him, cause if you do, I’ll get an attorney.’” Megan was stabbing the air now with a fingernail. “And I’m like… calm down! Cause she was really yelling and the Press Secretary was coming around the side of the house.”
“Did he see you?” Malin asked.
“No, silly. How can he if he’s on the other end of the phone.”
“The Press Secretary.”
“Oh, Art? Just cause he wears prescription Louis Vuittons doesn’t mean he can’t see.”
“You remember the entire conversation?” Temeke said. “Word for word?”
“Word for word. Another thing.” They all leaned in a little closer now. “She’s got a couple of journals.”
“Anything interesting?” Temeke asked.
Megan grimaced for a few seconds and then rattled an array of gold bangles as she brushed an imaginary piece of fluff from her jeans. “Tried opening one with a paperclip. Lock wouldn’t budge.”
“What made you think there was anything worth reading?”
Megan sucked in her bottom lip and frowned. She took the yellow purse off the chair beside her and placed it in her lap. “Mrs. Oliver said something about it to the man on the phone. Said everything was there. All the proof.”
Temeke waited for her to continue and when she didn’t, he said, “Proof?”
“That’s it.” Megan lifted her chin and gave an easy nod. “I thought you should know.”
Blimey, Temeke thought, wanting to give Megan a mental clap around the ear for not opening the wretched thing. He sneaked a look at his watch, stood up and walked towards the door. “I need to make a phone call so I’ll leave you with Detective Santiago. If there’s anything else you need, you let us know.”
He wanted to call Andrew Blaine of 522 Cragmont Ave, Berkeley, before the crafty old bugger went missing in action. And he wanted a search warrant for those journals before someone else got to them. He slipped out of the door, made a mad dash for the next room and peered through the observation window. Malin knew the drill.
“Between you and me, you don’t happen to know where those diaries are?” Malin asked, barely giving the tape recorder a sneaky glance.
Megan was quiet for a few seconds and then looked Malin directly in the eye.
“In the library,” she said, blowing out a loud breath. “Third shelf down. Between Huckleberry Finn and The Last of the Mohicans.”
TWENTY-NINE
Temeke called Judge Matthews’ office and it took almost a minute before somebody answered. He told the secretary he needed a search warrant, told her why. Judge Matthews refused to issue one, said the information was unreliable and that Madam Mayor’s private journal could hardly be connected to a crime. Matthews and the Mayor were as tight as thieves.
Temeke shook his head, struggled to pull his coat on and rushed downstairs to the lobby. Fast fingernails tapped against keyboards, chattering printers and the sudden shriek of a cell phone. Sarge was reading the newspaper with his feet crossed on his desk, eyes red from scanning his computer screen. “You off again?”
Temeke let his gaze swing towards the voice. He gave a nod and shouldered the front door. The smell of fresh air and a cold wind that hadn’t lost its bite, and the afternoon sun covered the mountains in an eerie glow.
Key in hand, he hurried past four police officers, a cluster of uniforms leaning against a unit and who seemed to be sharing a joke. He cleared the snow from the windshield of the Explorer with his jacket sleeve and put on his sun glasses.
The traffic was thin on Coors and so was the sun. He had to take those glass off again to see all the way to the Mayor’s mansion. Looked like someone had scattered confectioner’s sugar all over the driveway. Looked like Christmas all over again.
“Let’s get this bloody farce over with, shall we,” Temeke muttered to himself, rang the bell and glanced up at the front façade.
He felt lightheaded as he showed his badge to a young woman, five feet, two inches tall, hair tied in a bun, unreadable eyes.
“Your name?” he said, staring down at small feet wrapped in gray moccasins.
“Francisca, señor.”
“May I speak to Madam Mayor?”
“She not here, señor. She back at two.”
He was hoping as much. “Can I wait?”
Francisca showed him into the library, left him sitting on an easy chair with a folded newspaper that looked as if it had been ironed. She wouldn’t ask for a search warrant, didn’t know he wanted to take anything.
He lifted his head and squinted out of the window, trying to make out a line of trees beyond a veil of snow. Some of the wild shrubbery on the south wall had been cut back, trees trimmed so that the sounds of Paseo encroached in a way that they hadn’t before.
Temeke scanned the bookshelves and spotted the journals exactly where Megan said they were. Two embossed leather books both fastened with leather straps and locks. He gave the hallway a cursory glance, dark and deserted, illuminated by two windows either side of the front door. The distant moan of a vacuum cleaner drifted from upstairs and he retrieved both books in a one handed grip.
He checked his watch. Quarter past one. The heater hummed gently in the background, air filtering through the air vents, giving him a tentative sense of calm. It had been a long time since he used two paperclips, one fashioned in a straight line as a pick, the other bent into the letter ‘r’ as a tension wrench. It took three tries before he timed it just right and the lock released.
He flicked through the pages and tried to picture each scene. The writing alone could tell him what Raine Oliver was feeling, the neat layout, the thought that went into each entry. There was something sad about them, something he couldn’t put his finger on.
He leafed through a few more pages until he found what he wanted. The dates started as far back as December 19
99 before Adam was born.
Sunday 23rd December, 1999: Party at the Oliver’s. You weren’t there. I wanted to tell you the good news.
Monday December 24, 1999: I left a letter for you under the tree. We’ve set a date. If you ever want to know how it all happened. It was just this. He captured me.
Tuesday December 25, 1999: Maybe you just wandered away and can’t find your way home. Is your heart breaking like mine?
Wednesday December 26, 1999: Bill wants to move after the wedding. Colorado or New Mexico. I rather like the idea of New Mexico. A promise is a promise. Middle name. Just as you said.
The last entry was resigned, almost cold. Perhaps the language was different in the late nineties for her, perhaps she was just trying to be brave. If he read between the lines, it was someone who didn’t approve of her marriage to Bill Oliver. Felt like a man. Could have been a woman. And as for the middle name, his guess was as good as anybody’s.
Temeke took a cigarette out of his top pocket, played it between his fingers and then put it back. The sound of the wind tugging at a rose bush outside, thorns scraping against a window pane, made his muscles jump. He looked around the room again, this time settling on another photograph of Adam, a concerned little figure with skinny legs and a model airplane in one hand. The mere thought of the boy being out there with a kidnapper made him shudder and he swallowed hard, laid a flat hand against the pages of the journal.
The vacuuming stopped. Temeke looked towards the hall, listened hard, heard a muffled voice upstairs. Francisca was on the phone, voice raised one minute and low the next. It was likely she wouldn’t have heard a phone over the vacuum cleaner, suggesting she must have made the call herself.
Light seeped in through the library window and arced across the floor. Headlights outside. Temeke realized how dark the afternoon sky had become, recognized the sound of a van. A sudden adrenaline spike seemed to send his brain on overload and he broke out in a sweat. Francisca was likely watching out of a window upstairs, just as he was watching downstairs.
Fed Ex. He relaxed his shoulders and realized he hadn’t taken a breath for nearly a minute, slipped the journals back where he found them and sat very still.
Night Eyes (The Detective Temeke Crime Series Book 2) Page 16
