Night Eyes (The Detective Temeke Crime Series Book 2)

by Claire Stibbe

  Malin dropped the file labeled William Stanton Oliver on the table. All she could see was the blur of his son’s face, eyes bright beneath a fringe of hair. She hoped Adam was still alive, hoped he wasn’t defeated into thinking no one cared enough to find him.

  Taking a deep breath, she rubbed her forehead with the heels of both hands. WingMan had been on her mind for the last twenty-four hours, only she hadn’t opened her laptop, hadn’t bothered to see if there was an email. He was probably out-there, you know, a psycho. She wasn’t going to let him off that easily, not after signing off without saying goodbye. She’d make him wait.

  “Hot chocolate?” Temeke asked, hooking his jacket on the back of a chair and grabbing a handful of change.

  “I’m OK.”

  “You don’t look OK.” He reached into the cupboard and pulled out a jar of lollipops. Slapped a couple on the table in front of her. “Here, gnaw on one of these.”

  She could hear him thumping the vending machine in the corridor, tipping it forward and back until a rubber seal popped out from the bottom right-hand foot and bounced across the floor. He left the machine tipped forwards slightly like one of those statues on Easter Island.

  “Who have we got today?” he asked, tearing into a bag of M&M’s.

  “There’s only one name left,” Malin said. “Art Ingram, Press Secretary.”

  “And here he is,” Temeke said, peering through the blinds. “Six foot four. Looks like a professional footballer. Bet that’s an Armani suit.”

  Malin thought Art Ingram smelled even better close up. Probably a cologne worth several hundred dollars a squirt. Handsome wasn’t really the word. Charismatic, charming, funny. Well educated.

  “So, how long have you been working for Mayor Oliver,” Temeke began.

  “Four years. Has it been that long? Wooo! Seems like ten years. He saw me on TV when I was playing for the Oakland Raiders. Got my number from the coach, called me up and was like, it’s me, uncle Bill. Nah… just kidding.”

  Art had a laugh that came from the back of his throat and a soft hissing sound when he spoke. He was nervous, hands tapping on the table, chair creaking underneath. His mouth was like a steam train, never drew breath, always cracking jokes. How Temeke kept up with it all Malin couldn’t imagine. All she could think about was lunch and that heavy cologne was making her hungry. She peeled the wrapper off a lollipop and stuck it in her mouth.

  “I look at the jobs I’ve done,” Art said, “the places I’ve worked… I mean, you have to be the stereotype. The suit, the Gucci shoes. It gets you paid, it gets you laid. It gets you in the business.”

  Temeke was just nodding, taking the odd note in that yellow college lined pad. He looked engaged but somewhere deep in that head he was thinking things, sizing Art up, deciding who he was.

  “Don’t get me wrong, I love my job. But we’ve had our ups and downs. Especially the downs. He tried to get me fired last year. Happened faster than a knife fight in a phone booth. Wooo, this isn’t going to be easy, I thought. If it wasn’t for my pilot’s license and several additional ratings, I wouldn’t be here. I flew Governor Bendish’s Bell 430 five years back. Black it was with a gold stripe down the side and the commonwealth seal on the doors. Hell―you could roll that bird like an F-sixteen.”

  The thought of being upside down in a helicopter gave Malin a brief jolt. She bit into that lollipop with a loud crack.

  “I only did it once,” Art was quick to add. “Flight simulator at the training academy. That’s how I met Mayor Oliver. If you ask me whether I like him, I’d say not really. He can be right asshole when he wants to be.”

  “That’s no way to speak of His Honor.”

  “I do everything. I mean everything. Yes, sir, no sir, absofrickinglutely, sir.”

  “Isn’t that what Press Secretaries do?” Temeke said.

  “Yeah, only Brady did everything for Ronald Reagan and look what happened to him.”

  “Do you like Mrs. Oliver?”

  “Not many people do. I think she’s a doll. She’s been through a lot. Not so as you would know. Hides it all behind a brave smile. But you can sense it, feel it. And I never touched her if that’s what you’re thinking. We just talk sometimes.”

  Temeke crossed his arms and raised his chin. “But you touched a woman four years ago. Rape she claimed. An administrative assistant to the Mayor’s Chief Executive Officer. Course, she’s not working there anymore. Got the old heave-ho.”

  It was like a slap in the face for Malin as she took another bite of that lollipop. Here was a hulking one hundred and ninety pound African American playing the heavy, the funny guy who couldn’t sit still, looked like he had a permanent itch in his rear. But nothing would have prepared her for ‘rapist’. She should have done the research and, as usual, Temeke had beaten her to it.

  “She touched me,” Art said, tapping his tie pin. “Kept groping me at meetings, in the corridors, at the courthouse. It was like, hands round my meat stick whenever she had the chance. I can’t believe she did it under the table at the Annual Gala Charity.”

  “April was it?”

  “Barbara I think.”

  “No, the Gala. April. The month.”

  Art nodded. “Anyway, I went to the bathrooms and when I came out, there she was, all naked and splayed out on a chair. What’s a man supposed to do?”

  “I don’t know. You tell me.”

  “I told her to get lost, that’s what I did. She just laughed. Said I wasn’t the man she thought I was. Didn’t have the balls. She wasn’t much of a looker and I have taste.” Art looked at Malin and winked. “Now if it was you, darlin’―”

  “If it was me,” Malin snapped, “you’d have nothing left to rape with.”

  Art held up both hands. “I didn’t touch her. Promise. I just showed her the biggest rack she’d ever seen and she screamed. Called the cops after that. And bang! There goes my ratings.”

  Malin felt her jaw drop. Wondered if he was joking. But he wasn’t. Just went on talking like it was nothing.

  “The Mayor and Mrs. Oliver were fighting in the library the other day. I thought it was on account of the Darjeeling cause they’d run out and he’s addicted to the stuff. Only it gives him the runs. That downstairs bathroom … Wooo! Stinks like rotten eggs. Mind you, he was doing all the talking at first because he didn’t want to listen to something he didn’t want to hear. She said nothing had happened and how would he feel if she put him on the bricks for a month. He said she wasn’t fit to be first lady.”

  “When did all this happen?”

  Art looked up at the ceiling, took a deep breath. “Three days before my birthday.”

  “Thursday?”

  “Around two thirty. I remember because it was when the security man came to check the monitors. The Mayor said if she didn’t give him up, he’d pack her off to California and tell the Press.”

  “What did he mean when he said ‘if she didn’t give him up’?”

  Art formed a steeple with his hands and shook his head. “There’s someone she talks to on the phone. He’s got to be someone important. Cause one minute she’s all soft on him, the next she’s telling him where to go.” Art gave a resigned shrug. “Listen, I don’t know diddly-squat about the guy. All I know is he reacted badly to something she said. Said he was on his way to Albuquerque. It all went tense after that.”

  “Do you usually listen in to her conversations?”

  “I am the Press Secretary, that means keeping as much from the Press as possible. Mrs. Oliver’s a little hard of hearing. Volume’s turned up all the way.”

  “What do you do in your spare time?”

  “Running women and watching TV.”

  “You do chat sites, blogs, Pinterest?”

  “I have no idea what that is but that's never stopped me before. I'm in.”

  Malin could read Temeke like a book, lip curling, playing that pen in his hand. She knew the signs when he felt threatened, envy had a way of creeping into
his tone and very soon he’d be putting Art down.

  “Think a lot of yourself don’t you?”

  “Hell no. It just goes with the turf. I used to do acting at school. Loved it. My dad wanted me to work in his solvent factory. But I joined the army instead, learned to fly helicopters and earned a bachelors in criminal justice. Sent my dad an autographed picture of the Governor and me in that helicopter just to rub it in. Nah, I’m no pool shark. Just like to party.”

  “On Sunday you were partying with the Mayor.” Malin wiped a wisp of hair from her forehead. “How was it?”

  “No one would have guessed they had such a messed-up life. She was sitting at one end of the table staring into space. The Mayor was in a mood because he was missing the football. I was cantering one of those silver horse salt cellars all over my dinner plate and Megan was having a smashing time in the kitchen from the sound of it. Wooo, I thought. Something’s up. Then the Mayor took a phone call, went into the library and shut the door. Mrs. Oliver beckoned me into the kitchen. Said she needed extra security. I told her I’d look into it. To be honest, that house has more security than the National History Museum.”

  “So you let it go,” Temeke said.

  “I checked with surveillance. All the cameras were working fine.”

  “What time did security come to do the monitors on Thursday?”

  “Around two thirty.”

  “Anyone reposition the cameras in front of the house, dab a little Windex on the lenses?”

  “Not as far as I know. I was in my office.”

  “Correction, your office is behind kitchen. You had your big fat ear pressed to the library door, remember? What time did you leave on Sunday?”

  “About four o’clock.”

  “How would you rate Mrs. Oliver’s state of mind?”

  “I would say she’s been very stressed.”

  “Do you ever call her Raine?”

  “Wooo―no. It’s always Mrs. Oliver. To the house staff that is.”

  Temeke gave that slow nod he always did at the end of every interview. “You’ve been very helpful Mr. Ingram.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Adam left the road and walked towards the cornfield, kicking up a shower of dead leaves as he went. Slats of sunlight passed between the trees and his eyes were almost shut against the glare. He thought of running away, only when the feeling came his heart was heavy like it was the wrong thing to do.

  Ramsey was too sick to move and besides, the rangers might have killed him in the night. Even the dog knew what Adam was thinking, black eyes searching in that way dogs do. If he could speak he would say something fun like, ‘race me to the woods,’ or ‘what’s for dinner,’ or ‘you throw and I’ll fetch,’ because he was already gripping a gnarly old stick in that mouth of his.

  Adam could hear the rumble of traffic on the highway and he wondered how far it was. How wrong would it be to stand on the hard shoulder and stick your thumb out? Grab a lift from a passing stranger. Tell them to call the police. In those three hours he had jostled with the idea of leaving the meds outside the hut and making a dash for it. But Ramsey was lying there all alone. He needed those pills, he needed a clean bandage.

  Adam took out that phone, dialed his mom again. A dialing tone and sometimes a lady came on and said the call could not be completed as dialed. There was only one bar out there in the woods and he couldn’t hold the phone high enough to get any more. Least, that’s how they did it in the movies. Stand on rocks and wave it about. He snapped the thing shut and slipped it back into his pocket.

  Murphy stopped and lowered his head and dropped the stick, taking a scent of something he couldn’t see. He was an old dog. A smart dog. He’d found Adam, hadn’t he?

  And that was strange. Or a miracle. Or a bit of both. When Adam got to thinking, Murphy had appeared just after he had prayed. God must have had a hand in it like He had a hand in everything. God was old and God was smart.

  Snap!

  There was a ridge along the old dog’s back now, one foot lifted, body half hunkered down. Adam squatted behind a tree, pushed his hand out against the bark to keep his balance. There was something up ahead where the path rolled away, a blackened shape rising up and down in the murk, moving unseen between the sun’s tracks.

  There was no sound but the wind in those bare trees. Leaves twisted and fell from a dark gray sky and snowflakes gusted off a branch overhead. Silly isn’t it when you’re walking alone in a wood how you can see things, hear things, and you get to wondering if there’s someone else out there. Watching.

  Angels watch, Adam thought. He wasn’t sure what they looked like, whether they were frightening or just covered in sparkles with feathery wings. Whether they were seven feet tall or just as ordinary as your next door neighbor. But whatever it was had gone. There was no sign of it now.

  He had the uncanny feeling it was hiding, but he plodded on as far as the curve in the trail. Murphy’s head was soft, especially that part between his ears and Adam wanted to take off his gloves and stroke him. But it was too cold. The air smelled of ice just after you’ve opened the freezer and it was sifting down his neck and into his bones.

  Snap!

  Adam held his breath, wrapping one hand around Murphy’s grunting mouth and pressing it to his thigh. He only had to do it once. The old dog knew he had to be quiet. A sheer mist of snow seemed to hang over a tangled hedge and then it was gone.

  Snap, snap!

  Adam looked behind him and to the left and right. There was no moisture in his mouth now and he tried to swallow. It could have been a wolf sauntering along the path ahead. It could have been a dusky grouse. He took cover behind an aspen, each breath keeping time with his thumping heart. Straight ahead was a bristlecone pine and he focused between the leaves at a clearing beyond.

  There… between two white skinned trees about twenty feet away was a man, glossy hair tied back in a ponytail beneath a black cap. He stood waist deep in buffalo grass, one hand nudging the rifle on his shoulder, the other splayed out like a divining rod. He wasn’t alone. There were four more nearby, chins raised, like they were watching something they didn’t believe. One man seemed to be studying a limp map, anchoring the page with one hand, lips moving.

  Adam wanted to unsnap the throat of his coat and peel off that wooly hat. He lifted the rim up over one ear instead, wanted to hear. But the air was thin and biting, and it was getting darker. The first of them tilted his chin as high as it would go and closed his eyes, arms straight out like a wooden cross, mouth half open to taste the breeze. He was listening. Taking in the smells and sounds. Watching for signs. If these were the men Ramsey called rogue rangers, they looked nothing like the old bearded men Adam imagined.

  The light was failing now and a crack of thunder in the distance made him gasp. The first ranger snapped his head to one side, body lit by a flare of lightening. His eyes seemed to dance over the foliage, until they stopped about three feet from where Adam crouched.

  He pulled a knife from his belt, squatted suddenly, hand hovering over the grass again and lower still as if tracing a set of footprints.

  Adam knew those eyes were searching through the leaves and the ranger would sense any movement, track any scent. There were rifles on their shoulders big enough for mule deer or elk, only these men were fanned out like they were searching for something smaller. Adam opened his mouth to breath, looked down at Murphy and shook his head. Hail rattled against the leaves and then the rain came blotting out any noise they could have made. But the ranger hunkered there as if he knew his quarry would tire of hiding.

  Adam slid to a sitting position, thighs trembling from the weight of his pack. He wedged himself in good and hard against that tree, hand patting the air once for Murphy to lie down, one finger raised for combat silence. The dog obeyed.

  The ranger stood again, gripping that knife and holding it out in front. He gestured to the others with a nod of his head and they became shadows, slogging down a south facing slope t
owards a stream and fading into the distance. The first ranger waited in that sea of grass, body lit up with each flash and then he waded forward, just a few steps at a time. He looked big. He looked quick. He didn’t make a sound.

  Murphy’s tongue began darting in and out of his mouth, ears pricked to the threat. His belly wasn’t all the way to the ground, front legs at an angle and carrying the brunt of his weight. A shiny black snout twitched in the wind and when another sheer of lightning lit up the sky, the old dog wasted no time. He ducked beneath a canopy of leaves and stalked off, circling the man at a crouch.

  Adam was surprised the man couldn’t see the dog, one minute a shadow, the next passing slowly between the tree trunks. The ranger turned a half-circle, then he turned back, knife glinting like a silver trout in a dark pool. He knew the dog was there. He just couldn’t see him.

  Adam could feel his teeth chattering and his body was beginning to shake. His knees squelched through wet mud and he stumbled and fell forward under the weight of his pack. It was heavy, wedged against his spine like a turtle’s shell. Turning sideways, he could see Murphy hunkered down on a faint track, tongue pulsing through his teeth and he could see edge of the trees beyond and the silver-gray ruts of a ploughed field. If his gut was right, the hut wasn’t more than a mile away.

  Murphy lunged forward again and ran a complete circle around the ranger, keeping to a ten foot boundary. He would keep this game up for as long as it took for Adam to break free. Herding, growling, snapping, padding about in the darkness and thwacking the leaves with his tail.

  Adam studied the leaning trees and the direction of the wind, and he could hear the beating rain against the canopy. He had two choices. Run for his life or find Ramsey. His feet dug for traction in the mud as he took his cue, racing for a narrow stream at the bottom of the slope, black as tar against the snow. He looked both ways and saw nothing except the beatific face of a big round moon in it’s reflection, no rangers, nothing.