Time of Death

by Alex Barclay

  Colin pointed to his screen and scrolled through a ridiculous amount of data. She rolled her eyes.

  ‘No strange payments in or out of his bank accounts,’ said Colin. ‘One property – the family home in El Paso. Mortgage of two hundred thousand dollars outstanding. No other debts. Monthly retainers from five clients, totaling eleven thousand.’

  ‘Ah, but one property he was more keen to get rid of than his wife suspected,’ said Robbie. ‘I’ve got his phone records here and it looks like he made several calls to real estate agents in the area.’

  ‘Before or after the rape?’ said Ren.

  ‘Both,’ said Robbie. ‘A little more so after. Ren, can I borrow a highlighter?’

  ‘Sure – in my drawer. Grab one. Not the pink one.’

  ‘I can see why Sarvas would want revenge,’ said Cliff. ‘I’d want to take my wife the hell away from there.’

  ‘I’m thinking you might be more honorable than a man who wouldn’t report his wife’s rape,’ said Ren.

  ‘Maybe it was the opposite,’ said Colin. ‘Maybe Sarvas was very honorable. And wanted some old-style vigilante revenge.’

  ‘Pistols at dawn,’ said Ren. ‘Yes, I thought of that.’

  ‘Since when do you play cards?’ said Robbie. ‘Ren has a deck of cards in her desk.’

  Ren frowned. ‘The bottom drawer has the highlighters, you loser. And no, I don’t play cards.’

  ‘You never said the bottom drawer.’

  ‘That’s not the point. There could have been anything in there…’

  ‘I’m going to call these real estate guys,’ said Robbie.

  ‘What about Sarvas’ clients?’ said Ren to Cliff. ‘Did you speak with them?’ She went back over to her desk.

  ‘From what I can gather so far, Sarvas basically worked remotely,’ said Cliff. ‘He had twelve clients. Three of them had never even met him. They were a mix – mainly small-business owners, all in Texas. Across a range of businesses—’

  Cliff looked up as Gary strode into the office and up to Ren’s desk, holding a red Sharpie out to her. She stared at him.

  ‘Your basket is dead,’ said Gary.

  ‘Exsqueeze me?’ said Ren.

  Gary pointed at the gallery.

  ‘Erubiel Diaz?’ said Ren.

  ‘Yup,’ said Gary. ‘How about you put a big red X through that face?’

  ‘Oh my God,’ said Ren, taking the pen from him. ‘Whatwhywhenwherewhohow?’

  ‘His headless body was found on a burning pyre in Nogales, Mexico,’ said Gary.

  ‘Shit. Really?’ Ren stood up.

  ‘Yup.’

  She paused. ‘Maybe I should wait ‘til they find his head before I put the X through it.’ She walked across the room and drew an X slowly across Diaz’ face. ‘What happened?’ said Ren. ‘Was this a drugs thing? Were there other people being served at this barbecue or was he found alone?’

  ‘Here’s what I know,’ said Gary. ‘Diaz ended up dead as part of a message being sent to the Nogales police. Earlier that day, they arrested the second-in-command of the Puente cartel. The guy’s associates tried to spring him from the police station where he was being held, but they couldn’t. They shot six officers trying. The station went on lockdown, so the only way these assholes could come up with to get Puente out was by going on a rampage around Nogales. Not just drive-bys – decapitations, everything. They dragged the bodies behind their SUVs through the streets, dumped them in a pile. They came back and forth a couple times and lit that pile on fire.’

  ‘And that’s where Erubiel Diaz was found…’ said Ren.

  Gary nodded.

  ‘How did they identify him?’ said Colin.

  ‘Dental records,’ said Gary.

  Ren looked at him. ‘You just said he was headless.’

  ‘Temporarily,’ said Gary. ‘One of the Puente cartel used his severed head as a bowling ball that night. Rolled it right on to a dance floor in one of the clubs.’

  ‘We need to talk to Colin about this,’ said Ren, turning to him. ‘He knows what it’s like to have no body to dance with.’

  Colin rolled his eyes.

  ‘But getting back to Diaz,’ said Ren, ‘I don’t see how dental records could’ve been any use. I saw the dude – he’d never been to a dentist in his life.’

  ‘Ah, but someone knocked out two of his teeth last year in Breckenridge. And Frisco Medical Center had to X-ray his mouth. The dentist there checked him out, had everything on record.’

  ‘So,’ said Ren, ‘was Diaz an “innocent victim” caught up in a street war, or was he part of a rival gang or the Puentes cartel or…?’

  ‘I’ll call the police chief in Nogales,’ said Gary.

  ‘If this wasn’t a coincidence,’ said Ren, ‘if someone really had wanted Diaz to disappear off the face of the earth, decaffeinating him and throwing him in with a bunch of burning bodies would be a good way to go.’

  ‘He could have just been wrong place/wrong time,’ said Cliff.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Ren. ‘Right now, the Mexican border is permanently the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s like choosing to go to Iraq on vacation. So is it me or could Domenica Val Pando be back sniffing around what she knows best?’

  ‘She would need some serious connections to break back into that scene,’ said Gary.

  ‘Domenica is well-connected,’ said Ren. ‘And what if her H2S project was for use along the border by a cartel? I mean, there are billions of drugs dollars at stake. What if, knowing she couldn’t grab a slice of the narcotics action by the direct route, Domenica tried a side-maneuver: offering up a weapon to the people who need it most?’

  They all nodded.

  ‘I’d keep my eyes on the dry-ice machine in that nightclub,’ said Ren. ‘The atmosphere could actually be more toxic than an eighties theme night.’

  ‘Maybe Domenica could have gotten a high-enough price for the gas itself that she could hold back after she was paid,’ said Colin. ‘Then set herself up quietly when things calmed down. If they ever did…’

  ‘But, the H2S plant was shut down,’ said Robbie.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ren. ‘But we’re the only ones who know that. The story that made the news was that we shut down a meth lab. All Domenica had to say to whoever her client was – assuming she already had one lined up – was that the guy working for her fucked up, so she had to kill him. And his death could be confirmed, so the story would hold up.’ She shrugged. ‘Diaz’ death right now can’t be a coincidence. I would say that somebody wasn’t happy about all the attention being drawn Diaz’ way.’

  ‘So,’ said Gary. ‘The breaking of the news to Diaz’ wife…’

  ‘Do not look at me,’ said Ren. ‘I want to meet the wife when she has a clear head. I don’t want to be there for the weeping. Or the gathering of her bambinos into her arms. I want the emotion gone. Goodbye. I want to walk right in at a later date and get some informazion.’

  ‘Colin, how about you?’ said Gary.

  ‘Hold up.’ Ren shook her head. ‘I said that I need her to get her emotion out. She won’t cry in front of him.’

  ‘All I seem to hear about Diaz,’ said Colin, ‘is rapist, dead-beat dad, dirtbag, blah, blah. Is his wife really going to give a shit?’

  ‘Maybe not,’ said Ren. ‘But the mother of his children will.’ Ren turned to Cliff. ‘How about you…? Robbie…?’ Everyone looked away.

  ‘Look, I don’t care,’ said Ren. ‘But I’m not doing it. I’m conserving my feminine conspiratorial thing for the real questions.’

  ‘What about continuity of care?’ said Gary. ‘You’re the Diaz guy.’

  Ren grabbed her bag from the floor. ‘Jesus, fine, then. I’ll go. On my way home. Everyone owes me. Every last one of you.’

  10

  The following morning, Ren walked in to the sight and sound of Colin Grabien, hunched over his desk, hammering his keyboard like a man who had learned to type on a typewriter.

  Robbie was
sitting at his desk with one shirt sleeve rolled up over his elbow and an ice pack pressed against it. A white fluffy bandage was taped to his cheek.

  ‘Oh, Robbie,’ said Ren. ‘Could you not find a bigger bandage?’

  ‘It is a massive wound,’ said Robbie. ‘Do you want to see it?’

  ‘My mind is saying yes, but my stomach’s saying no,’ said Ren. ‘And, as we know, my stomach always wins. What happened? Were you in lukewarm pursuit of a suspect?’

  ‘Yup,’ said Robbie. ‘Francis Gartman. We got a tip-off he was at his cousin’s house. We got there, he jumped from a window, I got out of the car after him, crossed the parking lot, I was nearly on top of him – then, bam, I slipped on some ice, took myself out of the game.’

  ‘Ouch,’ said Ren. She moved behind him and gave him a hug. ‘And Gartman, I’m guessing…’

  Robbie shook his head. ‘Yup, lives to fight another day.’

  Ren let out a breath. ‘Can I get anything for the wounded soldier?’

  ‘Well, thank you,’ said Robbie. ‘Could you play the role of over-functioning Mormon mom?’

  ‘I couldn’t think of a role I would be less equipped to play,’ said Ren. ‘Are you missing yo mama?’

  ‘All the time.’

  ‘How Bates Motel.’ Ren straightened up and gave his good arm a squeeze.

  Colin stopped pounding his keyboard to check his notebook. Ren took advantage of the quiet. ‘And Mr Grabien, you were correct,’ she said. ‘There was little emotion from Mrs Diaz for either her husband or the father of her children when told that his crispy headless body had been found. Her only surprise was that he had been found in Nogales. Apart from showing up in Denver last November, the only place she knew he’d been recently was Juárez. That was the postmark on the letter that came last month with the measly hundred dollars in it that pushed her over the edge and made her rat him out.’

  ‘So that’s all we’ve got on the whereabouts of Erubiel Diaz,’ said Cliff. ‘Alive: El Paso, July. Alive: Denver in November. Alive: Juárez in February. Dead: Nogales in March.’

  Ren slapped the desk. ‘Fuck him for getting killed. We’ll have to wait and see what Gary hears back from Nogales. In the meantime, I’m thinking I’ll turn my attention to Gavino Val Pando. Might be worth putting in a call to Sheriff Gage in Summit County for the files on that bar raid at the Brockton Filly last year. Maybe Gavino was with friends or involved with one of the girls who was there that night? There were at least twelve kids pulled in for under-age drinking…’ She shrugged. ‘It’s worth a try.’

  As she reached out to make the call, her cell phone beeped with a text from Matt:

  Cnt tlk – at scan. Xpect call frm mom re Louis Parry.

  Louis Parry? Oh my God.

  The disappearance of Louis Parry was the first case Orenda Bryce hadn’t solved. She was nine years old. Her fifteen-year-old brother, Beau, was Louis Parry’s piano teacher. Ren remembered that summer like a hazy image from a photo shoot; a pretty neighborhood filled with tanned children, frozen under the sun.

  The police had returned missing children to their parents already that summer – kids who had stolen money from their mother’s pocketbooks to pay for the amusements in the park. The police thought Louis Parry was just like all the others, even though his mother tried to tell them her son was more thoughtful than that; he was a quiet boy, he liked nature, he liked music…But by the time the police started to listen to her, half of the first, precious forty-eight hours had been lost.

  Ren had spent weeks looking for the sweet blond boy who used to call to the door with a shy smile and a folder of piano scores. She searched all the places that scared her – abandoned houses, crawl spaces, the woods, the railroad yard – just in case Louis Parry had wandered in there by mistake and that those places scared him even more.

  Ren didn’t realize that someone could have taken Louis. She knew about strangers, never to accept a ride from them, but she never knew why. The world of Ren Bryce was safe and beautiful. And she thought Louis Parry’s was the same. But nothing anyone did brought Louis Parry home.

  Until maybe now. The police must have finally found him. Heartbreaking.

  Ren slid open her desk drawer and pulled out the deck of cards. She opened it and slid out the top card. It was the Ace of Hearts. At its center was the face of Louis Parry, wide-eyed and fragile. And printed underneath:

  MISSING PERSON Louis Parry was last seen at 4.30 p.m.

  on June 20th, 1981

  on Main Street in Catskill, New York.

  He was 10 years old, 4’ 5” and dressed in

  red shorts and a yellow T-shirt.

  If you have any information regarding this case,

  please contact

  New York State Crimestoppers…

  The card featured in hundreds of cold-case decks that had been handed out three weeks earlier in Rikers Island in New York, in the hope that an inmate would recognize a victim, see something or hear something during a game of cards and call the confidential number.

  During a game of cards.

  Her cell phone rang.

  She hit Answer. ‘Hi, Mom.’ There was silence at the other end. ‘Mom?’

  Ren got up and went into the hallway. She pressed the phone to her ear. She heard a huge intake of breath and a desperate sob. ‘Oh, Ren. The police were just here. They’ve torn the house apart. It’s your brother, it’s—’

  ‘What? Matt?’

  ‘Beau,’ said her mom. ‘Beau.’

  Ren’s stomach heaved. ‘Whoa, what? Beau? What the—’

  ‘It’s about Louis Parry. They think Beau had something to do with Louis Parry going missing.’

  ‘What? What are they talking about? Why?’

  ‘They mentioned something about cards being sent out to prisons – I didn’t understand any of that. All I know is that someone called some number—’

  ‘Mom, Mom,’ said Ren. ‘Calm down, OK? This is a mistake, that’s all. A very big mistake. The cards are cold-case playing cards. They’re handed out in prisons, to jog inmates’ memories while they’re playing poker or blackjack or whatever. The hope is that they might have heard someone talk about having committed one of the crimes. Then they can call Crimestoppers with the tip. All kinds of crazy people call Crimestoppers. For all kinds of reasons. A lot of times, the cops just have to follow up as a formality—’

  ‘You weren’t here. You haven’t seen what they’ve done. They are convinced Beau was involved. It’s like tearing his room apart was a formality.’

  ‘God, Mom. Beau didn’t do anything. We all know that.’

  ‘But Beau is dead, Ren. He’s dead. And I’m afraid they’re going to blame this on him for closure—’

  ‘They cannot do that,’ said Ren. ‘They need proof. And they will never find proof. They cannot find something that does not exist.’

  ‘I’m sick, Ren. I am physically sick. People are walking by…standing across the street. And what about the Parrys? What are they going to think? After all this time? Your father, your brothers and I were out looking for Louis—’

  ‘Mom, calm down or you will have a heart attack. The Parrys are good people—’

  ‘The Parrys are desperate people. These cards – whatever they are – are their last hope. Maybe a part of them wants to give up. Wants to take whatever means they can sleep at night.’

  ‘The Parrys are good people,’ Ren said again. ‘They really are. They wouldn’t—’

  Her mother dropped the phone. Ren could hear it bounce across the floor.

  ‘Mom? Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m sorry. My hands are shaking. I’m a wreck…’

  ‘Where is Dad?’

  ‘At the gym.’

  Ren rolled her eyes. ‘Did you call him?’

  ‘I got voicemail.’

  ‘Call someone, Mom, and get them to come over.’

  Her mother let out a breath. ‘Is there anything you can do?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Ren. ‘
You bet there is.’

  Ren put the phone down. She could not move. She had reached a sub-setting of numb. For now, her mind was incapable of getting any further than Beau.

  11

  Ren breathed deeply until she was calm enough to speak.

  ‘Robbie, could you do me a favor, please?’ she said. ‘Would you mind asking Summit County to send over the files on that Gavino Val Pando bar raid?’

  ‘Sure, no problem.’

  She Googled the number for the Catskill Police Department and punched it into her phone as she got up from her desk. The receptionist came on the line as Ren was shutting herself into the conference room.

  ‘My name is Ren Bryce. I’m with the FBI. Could I speak with the lieutenant please?’ Ren sat down in the far corner of the room.

  ‘Putting you through to Lieutenant Stroud…’

  Whoa. ‘I’m sorry – which Stroud?’ said Ren.

  ‘That would be Lieutenant Daryl Stroud, ma’am.’

  Ren hung up.

  Daryl Stroud. This cannot be the person I have to deal with here. Daryl Stroud had witnessed Ren’s first full-blown manic meltdown. He was the low she rode out of Catskill on. Ren had been nineteen years old when she raised her hand to Daryl Stroud – her boyfriend of one year – to slap him across the face for a reason she could never recall. He would have taken the slap, but he grabbed her wrist when he saw that Ren had turned the stone in her ring into her palm to increase the impact. As she stormed off, she had turned to throw a can of beer at him. It landed at his feet, burst open and sprayed all over him. Ren had hitched her way home and as the hours passed and the alcohol started to drain from her system, she began calling Daryl’s house, weeping, ready to beg forgiveness. It was his mother who answered, so Ren had hung up. She then walked to his house and threw stones at his window. He wasn’t home. When he did show up an hour later, Ren roared at him that he had cheated on her, which he hadn’t, and told him he was an asshole. His parents came out and his dad took Ren on a wordless journey home. Daryl and Ren got back together the next day after tears and vows of eternal love. A month later, Ren had kissed his best friend, the biggest asshole in town…while Daryl Stroud remained the sweetest, most genuine, loyal and honest guy you could meet.