Night Eyes (The Detective Temeke Crime Series Book 2)

by Claire Stibbe

  I can’t tell you that. But I can tell you this. He went back to see the body. To clean up.

  Where did he leave the body?

  Bodies. He drove this one under a bridge, opened the door and kicked her out. Watched her roll into the arroyo. The police found her body frozen in the ice. He didn’t kill again for two years after that.

  Why?

  The FBI profilers had highlighted his pattern and decided to follow his tracks.

  Malin waited for a moment, not sure if she should push him too far. She grabbed a pad, drew a few small circles to wake the pen up.

  You like helping the police?

  I get a kick out of it. Killers don’t have control over what they see. Mental seizures, bright lights, bodies, lots of them. In offender rehab they call it a toxic combination of psychological and physical damage. I call it life. But your man’s different.

  Malin stared wide-eyed at the screen and continued taking notes: Was he abused in some way?

  No. He was loved.

  So what changed?

  She made it change.

  Malin gave him a few seconds, screwed her eyes shut, forced her pulse to slow down. His name’s Ramsey, isn’t it?

  Clever girl.

  How is he able to go unnoticed?

  Because he’s a regular guy doing a regular job. But then he’s smart. Had all the training. If a man sits down beside him in a restaurant, says all the stupid things police decoys say, he’ll know. Go carefully. Otherwise you’ll never see him again.

  What’s his first name?

  You tell me.

  She pressed her hands to her cheeks, felt them tremble. He was making her angry now. If you really want to help, you’ll give me a place, an address.

  Helping doesn’t mean telling. But I’ll give you a place. He could be headed for Apache land. Or he could be headed for the hatchery.

  Why the hatchery?

  That I can’t tell you.

  Meaning?

  Too many questions, Malin. Remember, two strikes and you’re out.

  Malin peered out of the window at a faint horizon, snowflakes drifting towards the cottonwood. He had to know. The bastard knew everything. You don’t know, do you?

  I know this. You’ll go for a drive tonight like you always do. To Temeke’s house. Watch him through the window, wonder what it could be like. Remember, you’re Top Cat. Gonna get that raise, Malin. Gonna go higher and higher. We will meet again someday. Because you owe me. Big time.

  FORTY-FOUR

  It was seven minutes to eight on a cloudy, dark Tuesday morning when Temeke switched on his computer. He could hear Hackett smacking his desk next door, accompanied by a snort or two. Fowler’s coarse, hearty laughter was at the expense of ridiculing Brits and a vulgar joke he was sharing, and that made Temeke’s heart rate gallop.

  These were the corridors of command, where the mighty rule. And God help the people of Albuquerque if they knew how quickly things could change, how many good cops had been destroyed in a matter of seconds.

  His cell phone gave a piercing ring. It was the debonair doc. Old Ginger’s teeth and blood samples had finally found a match, Red Shearer, a former ranger at Gila National Forest. He hadn’t visited a dentist in years and the unusual occurrence of an engraved silver amalgam was traced back to a doctor in Ohio. The engraving was an eternity symbol, like the one on his right wrist.

  Shearer was fired in June 2000 for assaulting a young boy and never showed up for his court date. Spatters of his blood were found on the tree Evan Trader was tied to and ballistics verified the helicopter was brought down by bullets from Ginger’s Enfield. By all accounts, he had quite an armory in that tent of his and he clearly didn’t want police sniffing around his turf.

  Temeke wanted peace, only it had been too damn quiet in his house last night. Too damn cold too. He’d turned down the thermostat when he started sleeping in the cells and forgot to turn it back up again. All he did was pace from room to room, smoke a packet of cigarettes and carve a path in the living room carpet. His mind was wired from midnight to two o’clock, thinking of a woman’s belly blotched in blue and yellow from an old man’s fist. What had Adam seen? What had he heard in those last days?

  Temeke saw his father hit his mother all those years ago. Heard him shout at her, wrench the rent money right out of her hands and come home drunk from the pub. What had he left her with before dying at the end of a rope? Misery and broken bones, and a generous helping of insecurity.

  The door clicked open and in rushed Malin with a half-eaten donut in one hand and a file in the other. Apart from a thin film of sugar on her upper lip, there was something different about her. “I’ve got it,” she said, handing him the file.

  “Got what?”

  “The name.”

  She put the donut on the desk and patted her chest as if that would stop the panting. “Ramsey. Christopher Ramsey.”

  Temeke’s mouth dropped, saw the tilt of her head and the raised eyebrows.

  “They’re headed for Glenwood. I’m not kidding. There’s a trout hatchery there. That’s where they are.”

  “Fish? Blimey, Marl.” Temeke watched that face, the sucked in bottom lip and the hint of a frown. “Did you get a phone call from the Almighty and forget to tell me about it?”

  He was exhausted. Had to sleep soon, find his rhythm, take a sodding long vacation. “You carry on eating that big-ass breakfast and don’t get an ulcer. So who told you about the fish farm?”

  “Listen, I called Andrew Blaine. We talked. He thought I was Berkeley Police.” She grinned then, gave a small chuckle. “Said he was working for Mayor Oliver to find a Christopher Ramsey. Ramsey was the SEAL Jennifer was talking about, the one who had the accident in the storm drain. Blaine followed Ramsey to Albuquerque to the Motel 6 on Alameda. He was there for three nights, rented a black truck, made several calls to Raine Oliver. Threatened to come to the house.”

  “What did he want?”

  “Ramsey failed BUDS because of the accident, couldn’t see too well after that. Mayor Oliver… instructor Oliver, whatever he was then, took away Ramsey’s chance of getting his Trident. Raine Oliver was Ramsey’s girlfriend. It’s all there,” she said, pointing to the file.

  It still wasn’t enough. Temeke wasn’t buying it. “And he told you they were headed for Glenwood?”

  It was the raised chin and the staring eyes which quickly dissolved into a nodding head. She was keeping something from him.

  “Remember the sweet old lady in the cells at Christmas?” he said. “The one with the whitest buttocks you ever saw. She held those goods in tight and proper until we bent her over. Must have been such a relief when we took them out.”

  “Nice try, sir.”

  The phone gave a shriek on his desk, followed by Sarge shouting from downstairs. “Forensics!”

  Temeke snatched the phone. It had to be something, anything…

  “Detective Temeke? This is Matt Black. We found a match for the blood samples on the Buck 110. Christopher A. Ramsey. Last known address, 4565 Lakewood Road, San Diego, California. Adam Oliver’s blood was found on a length of twine Officer Running Hawk found at the site. But here’s the clincher. Ramsey shares fifty percent of genetic markers with Adam.”

  It was the loud knock on the door that threw Temeke out of his trance. Jarvis with a worried frown. “Mrs. Oliver… she wants to see you right away.”

  They drove to the Mayor’s mansion in silence, with the ring of Matt Black’s words in the air. Temeke sat in the passenger seat and read the short report in the file.

  Malin bit her lip more times than he could count, stiff as a ramrod behind that wheel. She turned to look at him briefly after braking for a red light. Turning left by a small branch of the Norcross bank, she took a deep breath and held it for a moment.

  “The Ancient Mariner was a sailor… a tortured sailor. I should have made the connection,” she murmured. “Couldn’t sleep last night. So I went for a drive. Parked outside your
house. Saw you walking from room to room. Head up one minute, down the next. Memories, isn’t it? That’s what happens when you’re on your own. Start thinking things. Taking a few steps backwards. I didn’t realize you were so lonely. But I’m glad you know how it feels because a third of the population in New Mexico live alone. Elderly, singles. You could spare them a prayer or two.”

  Temeke swallowed a dried lump of spit in his mouth, tasted the sour upsurge from his belly. Should have drawn the sodding blinds. It was lucky he couldn’t speak because his voice was about to disintegrate into a blubber of tears. He thought of his mother then. How she died. Alone. In that redbrick apartment with the pale green door.

  They stood in front of another door now, doorbell chiming in the innards of the house. No sign of cracks between the frame and the flashing, just smooth and glossy like the day it was built.

  Raine Oliver stood on the threshold, gave a sharp nod and led them into the library. There were three newspapers on the couch showing pictures of the crime scene and the Chief of Police, and an article on the Mayor who was determined to spend more time with his son when they found him. Megan left a tray of tea in front of them and scuttled off to the kitchen.

  Raine poured three cups without speaking and then sat with her hands in her lap, fingers smoothing a red painted nail.

  “Bill was watching me for years. Had me followed,” she said. “I didn’t believe it at first, not until I saw the invoices from Blaine Investigative Services. He didn’t want me to leave him. Not because he loved me, because I was the only one who knew about the accident.”

  “The accident?” Temeke said, downing a cup of surprisingly unpleasant tea while looking at the bookshelves. The gap between Huckleberry Finn and The Last of the Mohicans had been filled with a plump Bible.

  “When he found out I had once been involved with Christopher Ramsey he wanted to kill him.” She looked around then. Seemed like good old fashioned paranoia. “He was one of Bill’s students. Training to be a SEAL.”

  “Christopher Ramsey was your ex?”

  “My first love. Talking intimately has never been my strong suit. Even my parents never discussed how they fell in love. Ever loved anyone, Detective?”

  She must have seen the slight indentation on the fourth finger of his left hand. The ring was no longer there. “Was it your father who never liked him? Or your mother?”

  “Dad. He wanted me to marry an ambassador and Bill’s father was the closest to a diplomat they had ever met. They figured Bill would go the same way.”

  The Oliver’s were a well-known New Mexican family, but Temeke had never heard the name Leveque. He asked her, of course. She said they were Belgium socialites who emigrated to California in the seventies.

  “If Christopher Ramsey was training to be a SEAL that takes some bad-ass courage and determination,” he said. “What’s not to like?”

  “Dad met him once, said that was enough. He found out Christopher smoked weed now and then. Sold it too. He told me to promise I wouldn’t see him again. But I couldn’t.” She waved a hand as if her mind played back girlhood memories in an arbitrary manner. “I never met anyone so kind, so wild. I don’t think he cared if he lived or died.”

  “But he cared about you.”

  “He said not seeing me was like being under fire. You never really knew if you’d come out of it alive. We used to meet at the end of the road when mom and dad were asleep. It was exciting and dangerous because somewhere in the back of my mind I knew it would all end. But I wanted to soak up every minute with him, to experience the ache, the fever of it all. And then there was good old dependable Bill.”

  “You never loved him?”

  “Not like that. Dad said Bill was good for marrying and Christopher was good for nothing. Said I’d thank him one day. I know what he means… in here,” she said, patting her chest. “Dad wasn’t all words. He was heart too. I think he felt sorry for me. Thought I’d be in the right place if I married Bill. Never have to want for anything, you know.”

  “And you and Christopher Ramsey wrote letters?”

  “Yes.” Raine looked out of the window. Temeke followed her gaze and saw fluttering birds scattering seed on a small bird table. “We’d leave letters under a tree in the park. That’s how we knew when to meet. It was one of those letters… a stupid letter. It tore Bill up.”

  “A love letter?”

  “Christopher always carried them between his body armor and his uniform. Only he must have dropped one on the beach during an exercise. Bill found it… showed it to me one night. Said he’d forgiven me. But I knew he’d never forgive Christopher.”

  “And Bill Oliver was Christopher Ramsey’s UDT/SEAL instructor?” A man, Temeke thought, with a couple of deployments under his belt, a man who ran PT, a man who had access to the men, got close to them.

  Raine ran a finger under one eye, caught a large tear before it ran down her cheek. “A few of them decided to go to the beach after dark. It was Bill’s idea. He wanted to see who’d man up to the challenge. They were told to swim out… I don’t know how far, but it was far. And then they were told to ride the waves all the way back. They lost sight of Christopher. It was too dark to see. They found him three hours later in a storm drain. Unconscious. The medical report said he had a heart murmur. There was no proof Bill did anything. But I think he knew Christopher had a weak heart.”

  Raine’s body just flinched as if hit by an ice cold blast of wind. She rolled up her sweater to reveal a vicious map of blues and yellows on her stomach. “He did this,” she said.

  Temeke had sat in that room for less than thirty minutes and already felt the desperate urge to run. He heard Malin say how sorry she was as he skimmed through his notes, brain slowly slipping into autopilot.

  “Tell me,” he said, suddenly aware of the monotonous ticking of the library clock. “The letter we found in the fireplace was thought to be an eighteen page report. The last few words would have said respectfully submitted, and signature of the petitioner. A petition for what, Mrs. Oliver?”

  Raine looked out at the birds, eyes glossy as she disappeared into the past. “Paternity.”

  “Christopher A. Ramsey… what’s his full name?”

  Tears ran down Raine’s face. No sobbing or any movement. “Christopher Adam Ramsey. He’s Adam’s biological father.”

  FORTY-FIVE

  Above them the sky was dark blue and the mountain ridges were wreathed in a snake-like mist. It was early in the twilight before they came to stream and a log cabin.

  “They’re not far behind us,” Ramsey kept whispering, eyes wide so you could see the whites in them. He was breathless too. Like he’d been running for miles. “Don’t drop anything. Don’t even spit.”

  He staggered for the nearest tree, bent and vomited. Bang went the don’t drop anything and the spit. His skin was slick with sweat and there was a deathly pallor to him, a gray rubbery look as if his smile no longer worked. Adam rubbed Ramsey’s back, offered him water, told him to lie down in the cabin.

  “We’re not going in,” Ramsey said, covering what he’d done with a thick layer of pine needles. He washed his beard with a few squirts of water and drank the rest. “We’ll find a place and watch.”

  “It’s getting cold.”

  “We’ve got the blankets, the dog. Put your hood up.”

  “I need to pee.”

  “You always need to pee.”

  Ramsey found a tree, moved the top soil with the toe of his boot. The dog did the rest, digging with those claws until it was about a foot deep. They both relieved themselves, teeth chattering as they filled in the hole.

  Behind a stand of aspens was a broad skirted fir tree thick enough to hide under and far enough from the cabin to risk being seen. Ramsey pushed Adam to the leeward side and they sat on their packs and stared through the leaves. Adam wondered if they were the only ones who had ever sat under that tree, whether other children had once played in the same forest, listened to the same sou
nds. Murphy scooted close to Adam’s side like he sensed something.

  “You’re getting sicker, aren’t you?” Adam said.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You just threw up.”

  “Everyone throws up now and then. Can you see anything?”

  “No.”

  “Can you hear anything?”

  “No.”

  “You’re just saying that because you’re mad.”

  “Not.”

  “Are.”

  Adam peered into the darkness allowing his eyes to sweep one way and then the other, and he saw the path curving away to the north. As far as he could see, there were paths everywhere if you zigzagged around the trees, only this one was wider as if it was manmade.

  Adam followed the line of that path, saw the bone-white branches of a dying tree in the distance. Just as his eyes began to tire and wander back to the ground, something moved. He thought he could see a man in the shadows about thirty feet away, gun aimed in a gloved hand. But he knew he was seeing things. Too many ghosts in one day.

  “Better start praying to the big guy those rangers don’t find us,” Adam whispered.

  “He doesn’t know who I am.”

  “Of course he does. He made you. He made me.”

  “What with?

  “Dirt and breath.”

  The moon was overhead now, shedding its nightly beam into that small clearing and turning the leaves a bluish-gray. There was light enough to see. Adam heard the distant trickle of a stream, heard Ramsey crunching something in his mouth. It was those painkillers again. He must have eaten eight since noon and he was looking stranger by the minute. “You OK?”