Jason, too scared to talk, nodded.
‘We’re just going to wait here while we sort this out a little,’ the officer said. ‘You’re safe now; I’ll stay with you.’ He was talking like a camp counselor because he thought the kid looked like he might be going to barf, and he hated cleaning his car after that.
Other deputies were putting Steve Navarro, in chains, into the wire-mesh cage in the back of the sheriff’s arrest van, when an old red Dodge Stratus on bald tires came slewing at unsafe speed up the mushy snowmelt of Rosemary Street. The vehicle barely missed wiping out half-a-dozen patrol cars as it slid to a sloppy halt.
‘Turn him loose!’ Frank Navarro yelled, jumping out of his beat-up clunker. ‘Steve didn’t kill that slimy queer! I did.’
TWENTY-ONE
‘I’m sorry to call you on a Saturday, Alice,’ Jim Tasker said. ‘I know it’s been some time since you got a weekend off.’
‘That’s all right, Sheriff,’ Alice said. ‘Where is he?’
‘At the jail. He won’t leave. Says we gotta lock him up and get Steve out of there. I’ve told him twice that Steve’s not in custody on suspicion of murder. “I’m writing the warrant myself,” I told him. “Don’t you think I know what I’m putting in it?” But he can’t seem to hear me. He’s determined to make me believe he killed the man we found after the fire, because he thinks Steve’s being blamed for it.’
‘What makes you think I can get him to listen?’
‘You wrote that story in the paper that explained the autopsy, didn’t you?’
‘Stuart helped me with the medical terms. But yes, I wrote the report.’
‘It was clear and easy to understand. Can’t you explain it again like that to Frank Navarro?’
‘If that’s all he needs, he can read the story. You want me to send you a copy?’ The sheriff cleared his throat. ‘What?’ she said.
‘He’s not much of a reader, Alice.’
‘I see.’ She didn’t, exactly. To get the job he held with the Forest Service, Frank Navarro would have had to prove he was literate. But this was Sheriff Tasker asking. If I’d called him for help, he’d be here by now. ‘I’ll be right there,’ she said.
The temperature had dropped forty degrees in the last hour, Alice noted as she drove. Another storm must be moving in. The sheriff was waiting outside the heavy jail door with his back turned to a biting wind.
‘I can open a door by myself,’ she said. ‘Why are you standing out here in the cold?’
‘I want to show you something.’ He led her into the garage, where a dozen vehicles were parked.
‘Ah,’ she said. ‘The storied pickup.’ She walked around it. ‘Is this the one in the picture? You’re sure? The license plate still covered with mud?’
‘I think they keep it that way on purpose,’ Tasker said. ‘The Navarros like to think of themselves as country slickers. They haven’t paid the registration fee for four years. Like I couldn’t find a rag to wipe it clean! The VIN is better ID anyway. But that’s not what I want you to see.’
‘Oh. What is?’
‘The dent.’ He pointed to the big dent in the front fender on the driver’s side. The cracks were already beginning to rust.
‘OK. So there could have been a fight, and maybe somebody did get knocked into the pickup so hard he put a dent in it. But the man the mop-up crew found on Meredith Mountain died of a Fentanyl overdose.’
‘Good, you still say that.’
‘Because it’s true. That’s not going to change, Jim. The man is dead. The autopsy proved what killed him. Fentanyl.’
‘I hear you. Let’s go in.’ Inside the door, he told her, ‘Our jail isn’t fancy. This is the waiting room for visitors.’ There was a couch and a couple of chairs, with fake leather upholstery. Behind a glass partition with a pass-through, a deputy sat at a desk with a phone and a small computer. ‘Will you have a seat here for a minute?’
They sat opposite each other. ‘The thing is, Frank Navarro’s not a suspect. I can’t lock him up in a cell, which is what he keeps demanding. If we could just persuade him to go home and wait until Steve’s parole officer takes over the case on Monday … I called the ranch and left a message for Tony – he was out with the stock somewhere. As soon as they find him I’m sure he’ll come in, but—’ He shrugged. ‘Steve’s back there in a locked cell. He doesn’t even bother to deny he’s dealing illegal drugs. His father’s up here in the visitors’ room. He begged me to let him sit back there in the cold cells near his son, even though Steve won’t talk to him. I don’t see any harm in that idea really, but I’m afraid it would further prejudice the case against Steve, which is already close to hopeless.’
‘He grabbed Jason Underwood off his own front step, is that it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know yet. I suspect there was a drug deal going on but neither party wants to talk about it. And the parents have their son home safe, so they’re hoping this will all go away. I don’t think we’ll be able to leave it there but for now …’ He shrugged. ‘If you could convince Frank he’s not a killer, we could all go home.’
‘I’ll try. Has Stuart found the right pictures?’
‘Not yet. He says the pizza shop cameras hold a lot of tape.’
‘Tell him to keep at it. I might need the proof to get Frank to give up this new story. Is it possible for me to speak to Steve?’
‘You want to? Sure. He’s not very forthcoming,’ Tasker told her as they walked back.
‘Oh? His father’s one of the best talkers I’ve met in years.’
‘To you, maybe. Not to me.’
The heat was coming on in the cavernous space that held the cells; she could hear the radiators crackling. But the old system wasn’t keeping up with the worsening weather. Alice buttoned the top button on her coat as they walked the long hall toward Steve’s lonely cell.
‘I’m sorry it’s so cold,’ the sheriff said. ‘We had no prisoners this week until now, so we were saving the money.’
Steve’s cell had a toilet and basin – no privacy. There was a mattress on the slab that would be his single cot and he was lying on it under a drab wool blanket. The hood on his fleece jacket was up and tied, and he appeared to have his hands jammed in his pockets. Good for you, kid. At least keep from freezing. His eyes were closed but he was too still to be sleeping.
Alice stood by his cell door and said, ‘Steve, I’m Alice Adams. I’m going to visit with your father now. Is there anything you want me to tell him?’
Ten seconds of silence were followed by a rustle. Steve sat up slowly, stretched and said, ‘Tell him to go home. He’s always trying to save me. Tell him I don’t want to be saved.’
‘What’s he trying to save you from?’
‘He’s afraid I might turn out to be gay.’ His laugh was utterly humorless. ‘He’s so ignorant. Just because I hung out with Dooley Davis and the rest of that gang from County.’
‘Is that what Dooley was doing on the mountain? Looking for you?’
‘No, he was after the Hanrahan brothers that day. He heard they got hired on a crew so he figured they’d have money. Dooley was broke and they owed him drug money.’
‘I’m not sure I understand you. You hung out with Dooley Davis because he was a drug dealer?’
‘Sure. But I kept telling him, you gotta help me get in on this gig, Dooley. There’s no other way I can support my habit. People, for some reason, always think I can work. But I can’t; I get too restless doing stupid little tasks.’
‘So Dooley wasn’t trying to be your lover?’
‘You kidding? Dooley didn’t want to fuck me – he’s got his own guy in Santa Cruz. Dooley just wanted to sell me Oxy.’ He shook his head. ‘Why is it always so hard to get anybody to listen to the plain truth?’
The radiators were still clanking away, but it was going to be some time before the room was livable. She left Steve Navarro to his chilly future and went back to find his f
ather.
Frank was hunched in a hard plastic chair, waiting with what patience he could summon to confess again to murder.
‘Here you are,’ Tasker said, and turned on the light. ‘Didn’t mean to leave you sitting in the dark, Frank. Kind of a rush in here today.’
‘That’s OK, Sheriff,’ Frank said. ‘You ready to arrest me now?’
‘Told you before, Frank, that’s not going to happen. Now say hello to Alice Adams. She’s giving up her Saturday afternoon to explain things to you. She needs you to think hard and answer all her questions. You ready for that?’ He turned to Alice. ‘I’ll be in hailing distance. Anything you need before I leave you?’
‘Maybe a cup of tea? Frank, do you drink tea?’ He considered her question humorous and gave it the grin it deserved. ‘Coke, then?’
A long negotiation followed with a deputy over the many varieties of cold beverage he might have. When he finally had his hard hand wrapped around a can of Sprite and she had her tea, they both sat quiet for a minute and sipped.
‘You’re that reporter, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘The one I talked to in the Gandy Dancer?’
‘Yes,’ Alice said. The tea was actually hot. A good sign, she decided to believe.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Well, I came to see if you’d tell me how you killed that man. Isn’t he the same one whose body you supposedly found on the mountain?’
‘Um, yes.’
‘Well, which story is true? Should I believe anything you say?’
‘You sure are a great one for questions, aren’t you? But hey, I don’t mind, I’ve been trying for two or three hours to get these cops to listen to that story. Maybe if I start with you, I can gradually get their attention, d’you think?’ He gave that sharp bark of laughter she remembered, and stretched his arms behind his head.
The sheriff, Alice noticed, was down the hall, signing papers at a desk with a deputy. ‘I’m ready if you are, Frank.’
‘OK, here goes. I saw our truck parked out back of Carlo’s place,’ he said, ‘so I stopped. I was going to take the truck and leave him the car, so I could pick up some supplies. I put my head in the door to tell him what I was doing, and there they all were in a booth, four of them with a pizza and a pitcher of beer. I know – sounds nice and cozy. Except it was Steve and two of his buddies from that high school gang he got into trouble with before. The folks overseeing his parole had told him to stay away from them. And then that slimy little turd, Dooley Davis, that I told him I never wanted to see anywhere near him again.
‘And you have to understand, me and my brother and two cousins – we all put up our savings to hire the lawyer to get him out of jail. We just couldn’t stand the thought of him in there with all that riff-raff. And then to see him in the booth with that silly queer – it just drove me crazy!
‘I went over to that booth and grabbed Dooley right up off his seat, held him up and shook him till he yelled, “Oh, stop. Stop!”’ Frank did a devastating imitation of a lisping Dooley Davis. ‘And then Carlo came around the counter with that sapper he bought after he got robbed that time, and told me, “Outside.”
‘So that’s where I went – dragged him right out the door by his hair and ears and over to the parking lot where the truck was, stood him up and hit him so hard he flew right off the ground, put a great big dent in the fender of our good old Ford pickup. And then he fell down in the snow—’
He went silent then, as if he’d run out of energy. Huddled inside his jacket, he took another sip of Sprite and put the can down carefully on the fake marble tabletop. After a long minute, he said, ‘He was just lying there in the dirty snow. His nose was bleeding but he was breathing. I walked away, got in the car, drove to Jerry’s Bar and ordered a shot and a draft. I drank that set and two or three more, and then, while I still could, just barely, I drove home. By a lucky accident, I went to the right bunkhouse’ – the bark of laughter again – ‘and slept all night. But when I got up in the morning and got ready to go to work, I couldn’t remember if I ever got the supplies. The pickup was outside. So I lifted the tarp in the back and there was Dooley Davis, very cold and completely dead.’
‘So then you thought you’d killed him.’
‘Knew I had. But I was scheduled to work that day! So I showed Tony, told him what I’d done, we hid the body in an old shed for the day and I went to work. I mean, it’s no time to mess up the schedule, have people asking questions! I arranged to get the next day off, and we put the body back in the truck and drove up to Hastings. We meant to put it in the mine.’
‘But that was the day Grizzly Gulch exploded.’
‘Oh, you know about this part, do you? Yes, the incident commander and the sheriff were driving around with bullhorns, telling everybody to get out of Grizzly Gulch and get down off the mountain. So in the end we just dropped the body and drove away. Just in time, too – that fire damn near got us a couple times on the way down.’
‘All right,’ Alice said. ‘Now I understand why you thought you’d killed Dooley Davis, and I’ll tell you how I know you didn’t.’
‘Oh, now, Ms Adams, you’re not going to turn on me like all these smart-ass cops, are you? I thought I’d finally found somebody who’d listen to me. Please believe me, it wasn’t Steve. It really was me.’
‘You’re half right, Frank. It wasn’t Steve. But it wasn’t you either.’ She opened the many-zippered canvas satchel that had sheltered so many test papers from storms like the one she could hear building outside. ‘I brought along the autopsy,’ she said, ‘and the explanation we published. I was afraid I might forget one or two of those nine-dollar words.’
Over her glasses, she fixed Frank Navarro in her sternest schoolteacher gaze. ‘You did read this, didn’t you? When it came out in the paper?’
‘What, the story about how we found the body? Yes, of course.’
‘No, I mean the autopsy, what the doctors said about how the man died. You read that?’ She was giving him the look again, and he was doing the standard eighth-grader dirty twist, looking at everything in the room but her face. ‘Frank?’
‘Oh, Ms Adams, I kind of skimmed it. I mean, I can’t really read stuff like that, it’s too motherf— It’s too hard!’
‘All right.’ She straightened her bifocals. ‘You didn’t read it at all. You’d rather have your own story and not have to trouble your brain while you harass this poor sheriff who already has too much to do. Look at me.’ She rapped on the table with the end of her pen. ‘Look me right in the eye!’ He finally managed it. ‘Now will you kindly shut up and listen to me while I explain what the report says?’
‘Of course,’ he said, giving her the face that said it was shocking that she should even ask. He folded his hands on the tabletop and became a hard-bodied model student.
‘When there’s any doubt about why a person died,’ Alice said, ‘medical examiners will do an autopsy. That means an examination after death.’ His face was already taking on the oh-Jesus-this-is-dry look she remembered so well from grammar classes. She held up the thick report and shook it close to his face. ‘Don’t go to sleep quite yet – we’re going to skip most of the explanation in these pages. They tell you a lot about what didn’t happen. We’ll go right on to what did; it’s in the toxicity report. Toxic means poisonous – you understand that?’ He managed a nod. ‘OK, they screened for many drugs and found traces of half a dozen, but only one lethal dose – this man had enough Fentanyl in him to kill that beautiful team of draft horses on the beer truck. Remember them?’
A bright nod; he remembered the beer truck. He said, ‘But how could anybody tell after he’s dead how much of that drug he had in him? I don’t get that.’
‘Yeah, right. You remember the horses but you’re all ready to discount the report of a team of scientists with years of education and back-breaking labor behind them, aren’t you? Call their careful measurement a “stream of elitist gobbledegook,” something like that?’
�
�Well, now, come on,’ Frank said, ‘I just think doctors bury a lot of mistakes they never admit to.’
‘Yeah. They also have a string of well-documented successes, but don’t let that slow you down. That’s all right, Frank. I’m a born doubter myself, so I asked the docs when that report came back, how do you measure that? And here’s what they sent me.’ She pulled out the sheet of paper she’d marked with a purple clip and read, In order to determine whether Fentanyl was present and, more importantly, how much he had in him, you need to put a sample of the victim’s urine through a machine called a Liquid Chromotography Tandem Mass Spectometry. How’s that for a gut-buster of a name? Expensive as the Devil too, but worth every penny because it will give you a printout showing whether the drug was present, and if so, how much. You hear me? It prints out the total amount of Fentanyl that was ingested.’ She gave him the over-the-glasses glare and said, ‘Is that convincing enough to float your boat?’
‘He said, ‘Um …’
‘Yeah, right. Don’t give in easily – I might take you for a weakling. Think about it for a minute while I check on something out here.’ She stepped out of the little room and closed the door.
Stuart was standing in the visitors’ room, talking to the deputy through the little hole in her glass window. He smiled at Alice.
She said, ‘You look like a man who found a picture.’
He pulled it out of the letter-size manila envelope. ‘Don’t touch it, don’t touch it. It just came out of the printer – it’ll still take fingerprints. But Tasker said you needed it now.’ He lifted the shielding layer of glassine and showed her the clear image of Lorraine Dahlgren crouched in the alley behind her store. Her head and shoulder appeared in clear outline against the dirty snowbank. Her small, delicate hand was depressing the plunger on a hypodermic needle that was sunk in the outstretched arm of a man on the ground. His forehead looked swollen and his nose was bleeding so his mouth and chin didn’t show up very well, but he had Dooley Davis’s styled hair and silver earring. And, just to the left of Lorraine’s booted foot, it was easy to see a fancy red leather sneaker with checked laces.
Burning Meredith Page 20
