Back on Murder rm-1

by J. Mark Bertrand

  He can’t bring himself to give the order — Clean up around here, all right? — but I can see how bad he wants to.

  “You have everything you need?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He nods, clears his throat. “You’ve been doing good work, March. Keep it up. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re back on form.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  As he leaves, a little ember of pride burns in my chest. It means something, coming from him.

  Lorenz drops by, too, blowing on a steaming cup of coffee, and I notice some kind of encrustation on his collar, a speck of dried milk maybe, though I imagine it’s baby spit. I recall having seen something similar before, only I didn’t appreciate the significance. I try to picture him cradling a newborn on the bridge of his belly, bouncing back and forth. I put baby talk in his mouth, trying to conceive of the sound.

  “You were lucky to get out from under the Morales shooting when you did,” he says. “If that thing goes down now, it’ll be a miracle. No hard feelings, huh? If I overplayed my hand, I’m sorry. I got a talking to from Terry Cavallo yesterday, telling me you were good people. I shouldn’t have come down so hard. What can I say? It was a big break for me, and I kind of blew it.”

  He cocks his round head, smiling anxiously, practically willing me to accept his apology. But I’m too stunned to react all at once. I buy myself some time by nodding and shrugging, a song and dance of body language meant to convey something like it happens to us all and don’t sweat the small stuff. It’s easy to be gracious in the ascendant.

  “Forget about it,” I say, hoping the words don’t sound as hollow to him as they do to me.

  Lorenz takes me literally, blinking a couple of times, smiling, and generally acting as though he doesn’t know who he is or how he got here. He tips his cup in salute and walks away.

  When she arrives a while later, Cavallo turns a number of middle-aged heads, but if she notices the stir, she gives no sign. Aguilar grows attentive all the sudden, abandoning his own desk and pulling a chair up to mine. The crowding seems too ridiculous not to comment on, but Cavallo says nothing so I keep quiet, too. Every time I glance his way, he gives a subtle, conspiratorial grin. My desk phone rings.

  “Can you come up here?” Wilcox says. “There’s something I want you to see.”

  I grab my jacket and leave the field to Aguilar, who seems grateful for the uninterrupted view.

  “You need me?” Cavallo asks.

  Over her shoulder, Aguilar’s eyebrows rise slightly in alarm.

  “I can handle this one on my own.”

  For the first time in more than a year, Wilcox’s lips curl upward at my approach, though his smile is charged not with friendship but triumph. He pulls me into the office, then closes the door.

  “We got him.”

  I turn. “Who?”

  “Have a seat,” he says. “All will be revealed.”

  My heart’s already racing as I sit down. He circles the desk, grabs a thin folder, and slaps it down in front of me, the same way a poker player throws down a winning hand. The paper trembles in my hand. Inside the folder are test results on the handgun recovered from Salazar’s boat.

  “First off, there was dried blood on the muzzle and slide, which had been wiped down but not too carefully. The samples match Joe Thomson.”

  A long breath escapes me. “This is it.”

  “There’s more. The drop-in barrel and the rounds in the magazine both had prints all over them, also Thomson’s.”

  “And the frame?”

  His smile’s as wide as a crocodile’s, showing just as many teeth. “That’s where it gets really good. Like I said, the gun was wiped down. The lab had a hard time lifting prints from the frame and slide. But they pulled a partial off the hammer, another partial off the front of the trigger, and a thumb that wasn’t Thomson’s on the magazine.”

  “Are you going to tell me whose it was?”

  “Look and see.”

  I flip the page over, scanning the lines, until my eye rests on the name. REGINALD ALLAN KELLER. I let out another breath. “The man himself.”

  “And it gets better. That particular P229, the serial number traces back to Keller, too.”

  “So it’s airtight.”

  “Exactly.”

  We observe a moment of silence. This was a long time coming, and now that it’s here, now that my old nemesis is literally in my hands, it doesn’t seem real. The feeling’s very different from the sense I had kneeling next to Hannah Mayhew’s corpse, the numbness at the end of what I knew all along would be an unfulfilled quest. There’s nothing conflicted or ambiguous about this. If anything, I’m giddy, and Wilcox must be, too, the way he’s grinning ear to ear, the way he insisted on us sharing this moment together.

  I start to laugh.

  He laughs, too, slapping his hand on the desk. “You got him.”

  “I got him,” I say. “No, we got him.”

  He shrugs the honor off. “It was all you, March.”

  “It was Thomson,” I say. “If his conscience hadn’t gotten to him — ”

  “It was you.”

  He comes around the desk, clasps my hand in his, shaking, stoking the ember inside me into a full-blown flame. Whatever came between us before, whatever drove Wilcox away, it’s not there anymore, or at least it’s abated for now. I rise out of the chair and he gives me a manly, one-armed hug, beating my shoulder blade with his open hand.

  “Now what?” I ask, reeling back.

  “What do you mean, now what? We’re gonna frog-march him out of here. The man killed a cop. He’s going down.”

  “When?”

  “I’ve got people on him now. He’s holed up in his apartment as we speak. As soon as I can get the team together, we’re taking him. The warrant’s in process now.”

  “I’m in.”

  “I know you are.”

  “And what about Salazar?”

  “We don’t have eyes on him, but we will.” His smile fades. “To be honest, I’m not sure we can make as strong a case there — ”

  “It was Salazar who tried to have me killed,” I say, my voice thick.

  “I realize that, but tying it to him is another matter.”

  “We have him on video carrying the body. It’s his boat the gun was on.”

  “Right,” he says. “Now, think about that. Why would Salazar hold on to that gun? I’m assuming Keller didn’t intend him to. If you ask me, he kept it so he’d have some leverage over his boss, just in case. Which means Salazar might be willing to pull a Thomson. He might be willing to roll over on Keller. Would you be okay with that?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  “You might want to prepare yourself.”

  So the guy who dirtied up my shooting years back will go down, but the one who undoubtedly arranged to take me off the board gets a walk? It’s hard to wrap my mind around. So I don’t even try. There’s no point admitting clouds on what ought to be a sunshine moment. Keller’s done, that’s what’s important.

  My head’s still swimming as I exit the elevator on the sixth floor, punching the keypad code to admit myself into Homicide. When I return to my desk, Aguilar’s gone, replaced by an unexpected visitor. Carter Robb sits across from Cavallo, elbows on his knees, talking earnestly in a subdued voice.

  “What’s the deal?” I ask.

  They both look up. Cavallo speaks first. “Carter came by to talk. He’s got some interesting ideas about the case.”

  “Really.”

  He gazes up at me with haunted eyes, an expression I recognize all too well from the mirror. I know this man is carrying a load of guilt, floundering for some way to slough it off, but I also know he’s not going to find deliverance here, not through talking. And anything helpful he might have been able to give is already in our hands. Cavallo is too compassionate to tell him so, and if I didn’t have somewhere to be, an old enemy to slap the cuffs on, I might even play alo
ng. I like the guy, after all. But Wilcox is going to give the signal any second, and I don’t have time to mess around.

  “It can’t be a coincidence her body was found so close to the outreach center,” Robb says. He rubs at his face the whole time he speaks, probably not aware of what he’s doing, running his fingers so hard across the stubble on his cheeks that I can hear the friction. “There’s some kind of connection, isn’t there? And that’s when all the trouble in Hannah’s life began, when I took the kids to the outreach center. That’s where everything started going wrong.”

  I check my watch. “Mr. Robb, I’m going to have Detective Cavallo take another statement from you, all right? I’ve got to be somewhere, otherwise — ”

  Cavallo’s eyes harden. “Where are you going?”

  I don’t have time for the statement, I don’t have time to explain, and the way they’re both looking at me, one despairing and the other expectant, both thinking they have a claim on my attention -

  “Has something happened with the case?” Robb asks.

  “Not this one.”

  Cavallo stands. I take a step back, only to bump into Aguilar, who extends two coffee cups out at arm’s length, trying to avoid spilling on his shoes.

  “Hold your horses,” Aguilar says.

  My desk phone starts to bleep. I squeeze forward, nudging Robb’s chair aside. Since I can’t push these people out of the way, I push the contents of the cramped cubicle instead, accidentally toppling the topmost box from the nearest stack. Cavallo dives for it, pushing a pile of paper off the edge of the desk, half of it landing in Robb’s lap while the other half hits the floor. Aguilar jumps back for no reason, splashing more coffee on himself.

  I lift the receiver.

  “Be up here in ten,” Wilcox says. “And grab a vest on the way.”

  “Will do.”

  I put the phone down, surveying the scene. While Cavallo reaches across Robb to wrestle the box back in place, he’s on his knees retrieving overturned files from the floor. Aguilar curses his spattered shoes, saying something under his breath about ruined calfskin. It’s ridiculous enough to laugh at, if only I hadn’t set the comedy in motion.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  My fellow detectives glare, while Robb reappears from under the desk with an armload of now intermingled paperwork, which is going to require some organizing. Later. I take it from him, drop it on the desk, and turn to go.

  “Where are you going?” Cavallo asks.

  “I’ve got to grab a vest.”

  “A vest? For what?”

  I glance around, making sure no one’s near enough to overhear apart from Aguilar.

  “Keller,” I whisper. “We’re about to kick his door.”

  “That’s not our case.”

  “It’s not yours.”

  Robb steps closer, holding Thomson’s sketchbook open in his hands. “What is this?”

  “Nothing to do with you,” I say, snapping it away.

  He ignores my reaction, his brows knitted. “No, really. What are those pictures?”

  I sigh, glancing again at my watch, then flip to the back of the sketchbook, producing the cell-phone photo enlargement. “They’re an artist’s representation of that.”

  The photo is weightless, but he reacts like I’ve handed him an anvil, slumping back against the desktop, letting the image drag his arms down.

  Cavallo bends down. “What’s wrong, Carter?”

  “Where did this come from?” he whispers.

  Suddenly, the clock doesn’t seem to matter anymore. I take the photo from him. “We believe this woman was killed during a shooting in southwest Houston. Her body was dumped in the Gulf.”

  “What?” he croaks.

  “Do you recognize her?”

  He reaches for the picture again. “I think. . I’m not sure. It looks like it could be Evey.”

  Aguilar puts the coffee mugs down. “Who’s Evey?”

  “Evangeline Dyer,” I say.

  I slip the photo he gave me out of my notebook and make a comparison. Maybe he’s right. It’s hard to tell, given the quality of the cell-phone snap, and the way Evey Dyer’s hair hides her face in the candid picture.

  I’ve broken men down in the interview room before, had them crying like babies for their mamas, and at moments like that there’s a satisfaction you get, a sense of psychological power. But Carter Robb isn’t broken by any power of mine, and when he hunches over the chair, one knee on the seat, his body across the back cushion like a seasick man leaning over water, I can’t help but pity him. Aguilar backs off, baffled by what’s happening, and Cavallo puts her hand on Robb’s back, stroking methodically.

  “I’ve got to make a call,” I say.

  It takes the rest of my ten minutes to get Gene Fontenot on the line, and as I enlist yet another colleague to obtain yet another dna swab from yet another mother, Cavallo shakes her head, either at the irony or just the weight of the moment. There’s no way Robb could have made a positive identification from that photo, not objectively, but I know in my bones he’s right.

  Fontenot bucks a little. “You want me to get a swab from this lady? And what am I supposed to tell her, that you’ve got a body in the Houston morgue you want to check it against?”

  “I don’t have a body, Gene. Just some blood on a sheet.”

  “You’re a piece of work, you know that?”

  I put the phone down, head spinning, the raid all but forgotten.

  Cavallo gazes at me, eyes shining. “You were right.”

  “About?”

  “The two cases,” she says. “They really are connected.”

  It’s true. If the woman on the bed — just a girl, really — was Evange-line Dyer, then that means the Morales shooting and Hannah Mayhew’s disappearance are truly tethered, just as I’d suspected at the beginning. Only I still can’t fathom how.

  “I’ve got to get out of here,” Robb says.

  He struggles to his feet, shrugging off Cavallo’s touch, and starts loping toward the exit, his shoulders hunched, like Atlas in a T-shirt and jeans. She tries to follow, but I motion her back.

  “Let him go. He needs to lick his wounds.”

  As Robb passes through the door, Wilcox squeezes in, wearing a Kevlar vest over his shirt and tie and a blue hpd jacket over the vest. He bounds over, drawing a lot of attention from the detectives in the squad room, most of them former colleagues, though his move to IAD dampens any impulse they might otherwise have to welcome him.

  “Are you coming or what?” he asks.

  “I’m coming.”

  Cavallo grabs her jacket. “Me, too.”

  Wilcox turns on her, none too pleased. “Do we know each other? Because I don’t remember issuing an open invitation.”

  “The cases are connected,” she tells me, ignoring Wilcox entirely. “This is my case, too. Don’t even think about leaving me behind.”

  “What does she mean, the cases are connected?” Wilcox asks. “What cases?”

  “Come on.” I take each one by the arm and start for the door. “I’ll explain everything in the car. Let’s not keep our man waiting.”

  CHAPTER 26

  The tenants in Keller’s apartment building, a vintage tower on Memorial Drive that was updated a few years back, converted into swanky mid-century pads, react to our shotguns and drawn side arms with a surprising sangfroid, as if they’re accustomed to armed police raids. More likely, the scenario is too foreign for immediate processing, the stuff of television rather than real life, more a product of stunned excitement than alarm.

  We stack up in the hallway outside his door, first Wilcox, then me, with Cavallo on my elbow clutching a shiny-looking Beretta, barrel down. Her vest doubles her width, like she’s wearing a life jacket. Behind her, a couple of iad detectives, one with a pump shotgun and the other with a portable battering ram, and the surveillance boys we picked up out on the curb, who reported that Keller went in and still hasn’t come out and his car’s parke
d in his reserved space.

  Still no sign, they said, of Salazar.

  Advancing to the edge of the door, Wilcox rings the bell. He waits a moment, then knocks.

  “Houston Police Department,” he growls.

  Nothing. He waves the ram forward and a thrill goes through me. No matter what anyone says, taking a door down is exhilarating work, a pure adrenaline rush, the law enforcement equivalent of an extreme sport. Anything could be on the opposite side of that door. Keller could be sitting in his underwear in front of the tv, or deafened by the roar of the shower. Or he could be hunkered down behind a makeshift barricade with an illegally converted automatic rifle leveled at the entrance.

  The detective rears back, then lets the ram do its work. The metal cylinder coasts forward, seeming to move too slowly to do any real damage. But when it connects, the door crunches open, splintering at the dead bolt. He lets go and the ram thuds to the ground.

  We rush the entrance with a frenzy of shouting, advancing into the apartment, making sure no corner goes unswept by the barrel of a gun. My feet thunder through the hardwood entry, breaking right into a wide-open living space with floor to ceiling windows at the far end, and a balcony that overlooks Memorial. Cavallo fans out beside me, circling a white leather sectional. The bedroom is at the far side. I’m the first one there, my gun sights resting just below my plane of vision, ready to snap off a round if necessary.

  Over my shoulder I hear the others calling out.

  “Clear!”

  “It’s clear.”

  “Everything clear.”

  A low platform bed with bookcases rising on either side. Another window, its light baffled by shades. No sign of him. The bathroom door is open, the light on, casting a golden glow into the room. I step toward it, hugging the wall for cover, canting my barrel into space. Getting closer, I use the mirror to scan the room. The glassed-in shower is empty. No sound of running taps or movement of any kind. Taking a deep breath, I push through.

  “Clear,” I say.

  The team regroups in the living room, where the surveillance guys exchange a shrug.

  “Maybe he went down to do some laundry?” one of them says.