Dead Cold

by Claire Stibbe

  “The role-play side, yes.”

  “Did she have occasion to hurt you?”

  “No. We trusted one another.”

  “If I asked you to take off your shirt, Mr. Jaynes, there’d be no hideous scars, bite marks, bruising, that kind of thing?”

  Even Malin was giving Temeke the evil eye, he could tell by the downward slant of her head and the raised eyebrow. But Temeke wasn’t surprised to see Cliff take off his jacket and tie. Offenders did it a hundred times just to prove a point and their mouths flapped off the most surprising things, even after being read a Miranda warning. Cliff unbuttoned his cuffs and the shirt was off in less than a minute. His back revealed several raised scars, mostly active, running from the right shoulder to the waist; same as the ones on his calves after he’d taken off his pants.

  Temeke studied the swollen ridges along the small of Cliff’s back and asked him to stand so Malin could take a few pictures. “So you were the submissive?”

  Cliff seemed to consider that for a moment. “Yes, I was.”

  “Had any steroid treatments, silicon sheets?”

  “No.”

  “So, no pressure then?”

  Cliff gave a look somewhere between pity and annoyance and the question went unanswered. He faced the wall so Malin could get a better shot.

  A premonition skittered through Temeke’s mind and he wondered how this related to the poem left in the McCann’s mailbox.

  “Did Tarian love her husband?”

  Cliff settled back in the chair in nothing but his underwear. “Sometimes. She said they weren’t intimate. She said he was the nightmare she wanted to forget. I liked her, detective. She was exciting, always ready to push the boundaries. But I got this weird feeling Flynn was always in the back of her mind. Never really the nightmare she painted him out to be. Every time I called I wondered if he was listening in.”

  “You called her landline?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Why would you call her at home?” Temeke asked, wanting to be sure.

  “She wasn’t picking up her cell.”

  “That must have made you mad.”

  “Made me watch my back a few times,” Cliff said. “I think Flynn was on to her. He followed her once. To my house.”

  “Just the once?” Temeke asked.

  “As far as I know. I opened the door and there was Tarian, same as usual. Told her not to look over her shoulder because her husband was in the car on the other side of the street. Anyhow, I handed her an old gas bill I had lying around and told her to leave.”

  “When was this?”

  “Two weeks ago. I assume she told him she’d came by my house to pick up a letter.”

  “Did he call you, leave a note?”

  “No.”

  Temeke felt an icy knot in the back of his shoulders as if someone had placed a wet cloth there. There were three calls made from McCann’s cell phone to Cliff Jaynes around that time and he wanted to get to the bottom of it.

  “It was a one-off, you say?” Temeke asked. “Let’s make this easy. You tell me about the telephone calls you had with Flynn McCann and I’ll stay out of your hair. I don’t want to make your job any harder. But I do need to do mine.”

  “I only spoke to him once,” Cliff said.

  Temeke had already factored in the response, watched the flaky lower lip where teeth kept tugging at strips of skin. He seemed impervious to the folly of such a lie and he sure knew shame when it was staring him in the face.

  “Twice if my memory serves me right, Mr. Jaynes. What did you talk about?”

  “He asked me how often I saw Tarian. I told him it was a couple of times a week. He didn’t say anything vulgar like you’re not the only one. He wasn’t mad either. He told me he thought she was insane. I happen to like insane.” Cliff pursed his lips as if considering it for a moment. “She lost a lot of weight. Women do stuff like that. Yo-yo from one size to another. Maybe she thought I preferred the glossy high-end magazine look. Tarian was the good time girl everyone wanted to know. Wealthy, powerful, had this energy about her. I knew she flirted with guys online and off, and made videos of her sessions with me. But I knew she wasn’t sleeping with anyone else.”

  “You should be on the official Oscars ballot, Mr. Jaynes.”

  “Detective, ropes and cuffs aren’t something to take lightly. How much pain, how much pleasure... it’s always a mutual decision.”

  “Really? It’s OK. I’m just trying to get a feel for who she was.”

  “The next time he called me he sounded upset. They’d had some kind of fight, who knows what it was about. He thought Tarian might be on her way over and he was worried she’d hurt me. I thought it was good of him to let me know.”

  Inexplicably, Temeke felt his scalp prickle. Why did the idea of Flynn warning Cliff bother him? He rubbed his temples to clear it. Maybe, just maybe, Cliff was telling the truth. “Any enemies, Mr. Jaynes?”

  Cliff took a deep steadying breath. “None. Although I tried to put distance between her and me. Took a photo of her and Flynn hugging outside Macy’s just to prove she didn’t need me. No guesses how she took it.”

  “Did you see her again?”

  “I heard from her. She was laughing, celebrating the good news. I asked her what good news and she told me she was in love. Said it in a loud voice as if there was an audience in the background. She knew I didn’t want to see her again. Didn’t want any legal hassles, husbands threatening to sue, whatever. She was pushy, told me to stop telling her no because I belonged to her.”

  Temeke saw Cliff’s face flame a couple of times as if his subconscious was whining at him not to spew any more information without an attorney.

  “Sorry. I’m a little nervous,” he said.

  Temeke gave Cliff an encouraging smile. “Go on.”

  “She was freaking me out. Kept telling me how she was going to hurt Flynn... cut him if I didn’t agree to go back to her. It wasn’t me she wanted. It was the meth. She’d go for days without mentioning it and then remember she needed to run it by me again. Keep me curious.”

  “You didn’t think she was serious?”

  “She’s like that. Nothing sticks.”

  Temeke said nothing and ignored a pang of unwelcome sympathy. What Cliff described was a severe case of manipulation, which may have extended to both men in Tarian’s life, men she realized were slipping away. It wasn’t inconceivable given a mind restructured by drugs and hurtling towards crazy. She would have had a heightened awareness of losing control, an animal instinct to fight back with all she’d got.

  Temeke tried to gauge a passive smile, the bowed head as if Cliff was trying to reassemble his thoughts. Perhaps he was recalling erotic scenes charged with grief. Perhaps he recalled a lover he treated with careless indifference.

  Temeke decided to leave the final wrap up to Malin. She’d ask some pointed question that got you thinking, something that came from the pit of her gut, something she’d been dying to ask from the very beginning.

  “Ever saw Mr. McCann when you were out shopping? You do shop, Mr. Jaynes?” Malin asked right on cue.

  “Oh, yes. Uptown mainly. And no. I never saw him.”

  “At the library? In your wing mirror? Behind a tree?”

  Cliff glanced down at his hands for a beat too long and then a sharp intake of breath. “No. But I often saw her.”

  NINETEEN

  Amid the regular noises of the afternoon—the drone of chatter in the corridor and the good-natured whine of a K-9—Malin pretended the computer screen had seized most of her attention. Tapping keys just for the sake of it and writing a message to herself on a post-it note, she watched Temeke out of the corner of her eye where the frame of the screen ended and he began. He was doing that thing with his mouth, pursing it and then stretching it out as if releasing tension in his jaw.

  She loved to watch him. A marksman waiting for hours in a steady position, cheek welded to the stock and focusing on the bead. Then he�
��d exhale in those vital few seconds before squeezing the trigger. He studied people, watched their reactions, raised their stress levels and then left them wired and fragile. He was so good at it.

  It was a cell phone welded to his cheek now as he listened to Harry Hammond. Another minute before he hung up with a long drawn out sigh.

  “You’re not typing anything, Marl, so you might as well stop assing around.”

  His voice snapped her out of a thought cloud which was getting murkier by the second. “Cliff Jayne’s story checks out, sir. Dispatch took a call from Two Fools Tavern at around eleven thirty-eight. There was a nearby unit on Central. Arrived on scene around eleven forty-five. They remember Mr. Jaynes. Covered in foam is what the report says. The police took names and didn’t let anyone leave until almost one. Hammond got anything?”

  “He’s in Flagstaff,” Temeke said. “Got a tip off from his buddy at FPD. Two calls came in from the Little America Hotel. Ever been to one of those? It’s said to have a 70s English vibe without the bursting in fascinating history part. The first call was a disturbance in the front lobby. FPD showed up, scraped a drunk off the front driveway, searched his pockets and found a gram of cocaine and a knife. Eleven sodding months for narcotic possession and a weapon. Make any sense to you?”

  “I bet it was a stainless steel dinner knife, sir.”

  “Does it need to be sharp?”

  “Hickman versus Shaw.”

  “You and your case law,” he said. “Anyway, it was the second call that got Hammond jumping. A Ms. Eryn Harper checked in to do a workshop. Got intimate with a guy last night and lost him this morning. Thing is, he had a limp. Spun her some story which didn’t sit right. She wondered if he was the guy in the newspaper she was reading at breakfast. Thought the police might want to check it out.”

  “Good old Eryn. If anyone got a good look, she did.”

  “Hammond talked to the guy on the front desk,” Temeke said. “He confirmed checking in a guest yesterday afternoon. Claimed to have lost his driver’s license. Paid in cash. Thought he parked a white sedan opposite the front entrance but they weren’t sure. Hammond sifted through the surveillance video hoping to convert a license or a face into a name. Unfortunately, the white sedan belonged to an eighty-five-year-old gran. But he got lucky when he went through surveillance videos. There was an image of a man in his thirties or early forties, wearing a khaki jacket and a backpack. Identifying feature? A limp. Hammond emailed that video.”

  Temeke beckoned her over and clicked his mouse to fire up the computer screen. She couldn’t help catching a sensual whiff of citrus as she leaned over his shoulder to get a better look.

  “You can see he’s got short gray hair now, but the limp’s fairly pronounced,” Temeke said. “When he turns sideways you’ll see his face.”

  “Yep, that’s him.” They shared a glance and Malin knew they had found him.

  “Hammond also noted the room he booked hadn’t been slept in and there were blood spattered bandages in the bathroom,” Temeke said. “Lab reports are coming tomorrow. Trouble is McCann keeps moving, although one wonders how fast.”

  “He must have seen the cops dealing with the drunk and took off like a jackrabbit. Reckon he’s headed for Sedona?”

  “That would be my guess.” Temeke scraped his teeth with a straightened paperclip. “Getting a little volatile over there.”

  “FPD notified Suzi?” Malin asked.

  “They’re keeping her in the loop.”

  “Do you think McCann will survive on his own?”

  “You’re beginning to sound like his bloody mother.”

  “I say a prayer every time a victim or a villain disappears.” Malin walked back to her desk and flopped back into her chair.

  “Of course he might be pitting himself against nature like one of those survivalists on TV. If he gets too good at it we’ll never find him.”

  “On the off chance he finds another place to stay, sir, we’ll need to petition the hotels for their registers.” Malin’s earlier enthusiasm had evaporated replaced by a sense of disappointment.

  “I’m sure Suzi’s thought of that. She got a court order from the judge to tap McCann’s cell phone, probable cause. Now they’re not picking up any signals.”

  “Probable cause? There’s no proof he killed his wife.”

  “No, but we’d like the proof, Marl. And killers like to brag. Unfortunately, we may have to assume he’s got a burner by now.”

  “Well, at least he’s talking to someone.” Malin straightened her back and rolled her shoulders. “There’s nothing on Rosie Ellis’ work phone. Then again she’s probably using another extension. What if McCann bought a couple of phones with cash and sent one to his mom so they could talk?”

  “When you talk to McCann’s mom, take a copy of that poem, whatever the heck it is. You never know, it might trigger something. A cup of coffee, a cinnamon roll. And find out the exact address in Sedona.”

  Malin realized the room held two people and very little air and the drive would do her good. Visiting grieving parents around five o’clock in the evening usually prompted one or two things. Either a frosty greeting followed by the terrible sound of sobbing, or a full-on snack as Temeke predicted.

  “When this hits the press,” Temeke said, placing the poem face down on the lid of the photocopier and closing the lid, “I don’t need to tell you how rumors hurt victims’ families, especially all the stuff about the chair. Email me your report tonight and copy Suzi. And don’t give me that look.”

  “I’d rather chew glass.”

  “Blimey, Marl. We went through all this last night. Suzi gets touchy when she thinks we’re ignoring her.”

  “I don’t know why. We’re the same rank.” Malin took the warm copy of the picture he offered and folded it in half. Suzi with the ash-blonde hair and stick-thin thighs. Suzie, whose shirts clung to two titanic breasts that held a man’s attention like the hypnotic grip of a snake’s eyes. She also had a cultured mind. What was God thinking?

  Temeke’s cell phone did a half spin on the surface of his desk and he picked it up. “Yes, love... I’ll be there. What time? Looking forward to it.”

  If Malin had to venture a guess, the caller was a female. Maybe this was the end of her revival back to number one. She hated to ask, but the words slipped out.

  “Anyone I know?”

  “Serena,” Temeke said, rubbing his hands. “She wants to talk.”

  Malin wanted to ralph all over the carpet. “Why now?”

  “I guess I’ll find out. Now, where were we? Oh, yeah. Suzie. You could ask her if she knows anything about the contents of my warrants file?”

  “She didn’t take your whisky,” Malin snapped. “I did.”

  A long tense moment. “You?”

  “Fowler’s always sniffing around in here, opening drawers, checking your mail. It’s lucky I got to it first. You know they’d pin anything on you if they could. You’re an ass and I’ll say it to your face. You’re blind to everything going on around you. Blind enough to come home one evening and find Serena’s wedding band on the kitchen table and all her things gone. It might have cost you your marriage, Temeke, but it’s not going to cost you your career.”

  “You drive hard and fast, Marl.” An uneasy silence, then: “Doing anything tonight?”

  “I don’t know yet. Why?”

  “I need a ride to the liquor store.”

  “Very funny.” Malin shoved the photocopy in her jacket pocket and headed for the door. “I threw that bottle out with your cigarettes. So it’s no use dumpster-diving. You won’t find it.”

  She didn’t wait to savor the expression on his face, nor did she want to endure questions about her personal life or the state of her mental health. In some strange way it gave her a measure of satisfaction to remove the only crutch he had. The drinking had tapered off since the Eriksen case and so had the smoking, and it was time he quit altogether.

  Little by little the healin
g she prayed for was running its course. Only she hadn’t intended it to fix a marriage.

  TWENTY

  Malin pulled to a stop on a dirt curb, powered down the window to get a lungful of fresh air. The sun cut through a thick cloud highlighting pallets of sandstone and gray. If she had her own way she’d go home and take a long hot shower because if she didn’t take these clothes off soon they were going to mildew.

  A brown sedan pulled out of Caramel Drive, flipped her the bird and shouted something about her mother. She responded with a helpful hand gesture of her own, watched the car lurch onto San Pedro and fishtail out into the middle of the street. She knew there was a speed trap about sixty yards ahead and alerted the traffic enforcement officer to another heavy foot that had just lightened the driver’s wallet by $150. She heard the squeal of a siren, licked a finger and drew a large one in the air. Being law enforcement carried certain responsibilities.

  The agency patch on Malin’s sleeve was enough to identify her, although a light windbreaker covered her sidearm. She walked along a dirt path between the mobile homes, noticing the twitch of blinds. Neighborhood Watch was likely alerting the Jesky’s to her arrival.

  The house was a single-wide in a row of four mobile homes and secluded in the southeast corner of the park. Painted pale blue with a white trim, two ornamental shrubs stood to attention on the front deck along with a gnome wearing a bright red hat. Two vehicles were parked diagonally to the lot; a silver Chevrolet Cavalier and a gray F-250 with the words Rover’s Insurance, Gallup printed on the side. A group of children splashed in a nearby puddle full of floating toys and an old woman sat on a three-legged stool crocheting a shawl.

  A light flickered over the porch and Malin saw the shadow of a broad shouldered man through the storm door. She pressed the buzzer and flinched at a sound that reminded her of a fly in a jam jar.

  “Detective Santiago.” She opened her jacket to reveal the shiny badge in her belt.

  “Drew Jesky,” he said. “Come on in.”