Time of Death

by Alex Barclay

  Catherine Sarvas stood nervously in the hallway outside the room.

  Nervous because she knew he would tell the FBI agent nothing.

  ‘Luke is saying that he doesn’t remember much of his accident,’ said Ren.

  ‘No, he didn’t,’ said Catherine. ‘Which is probably a good thing.’

  Hello? ‘Catherine – Michael is still missing.’

  ‘I know that more than anyone,’ said Catherine.

  ‘Luke is back,’ said Ren. ‘And we need to do everything we can to find out what happened to Michael.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ said Catherine. ‘So do I.’

  ‘I think Luke knows more than he is letting on,’ said Ren. ‘I need him to talk to me.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ said Catherine, her voice rising. ‘Are you telling me that my son is not telling you something that could help his brother be found?’

  ‘That is a possibility.’ Slash certainty.

  ‘Maybe in your cynical world it is,’ said Catherine. ‘I have waited eight months to get my son back. You are insane to think that Luke would withhold any information that could be helpful. He has been through a terrible ordeal. God knows what went on during that time. He is disturbed. Maybe, just maybe he does know something, but bullying him won’t get it out of him.’

  Bullying? ‘Nobody is bullying anyone,’ said Ren. ‘With the greatest respect, Luke has lied to you before – about spring break. And when I told him just now that I would come back to see him again when he was feeling less tired, he said to me “don’t bother”. Which I find strange, because his brother is still missing.’

  Catherine paused. ‘I doubt very much he would say something like that—’

  ‘He did,’ said Ren. ‘Is it a phrase he uses much?’

  Silence. ‘If Luke did say “don’t bother”,’ said Catherine, ‘all I would hear in that is the response of a distraught teenager who is in physical pain and his been through a terrible emotional ordeal.’

  ‘I understand that,’ said Ren. ‘I really do. But I think that would be all the more reason why he would not want Michael to have to go through the same. I think that would be the very reason why he would talk to me for hours on end in the hope that even one detail would lead to Michael being found.’

  ‘He can’t remember!’ said Catherine. The volume was rising, the tone turning shrill.

  ‘Did he even tell you that he had seen Michael?’ said Ren. ‘Were they taken together?’ Were they taken at all? Did they kill their father and run? Did Luke kill his father and brother?

  ‘They were taken together,’ said Catherine. ‘By the man who shot Greg. That’s all he can remember.’

  ‘Catherine, I am just trying to help your family,’ said Ren. ‘And to prevent anyone else from having to go through what you have.’

  ‘It’s not helping if you’re harassing a seventeen-yearold—’

  Oh, sweet Jesus. ‘I am reaching out to you, Catherine – I am not in there berating Luke. I’m talking to you because you’re his mother and you’re Michael’s mother and this is urgent.’

  ‘I am so sorry. It’s just…I’m afraid. I’m so afraid to hear what happened to him. Or to Michael. I can’t bear the thought of what I might find out. And I can’t bear the thought of him having to relive any of it—’

  ‘He is not you,’ said Ren. ‘And this situation is different. Maybe this is the right time for him…’

  ‘Oh, God,’ said Catherine. She gestured toward the room. ‘He just looks like a boy who’s been in an accident and part of me can wrap my brain around that. And it makes me feel like he could be any other high school student who…I don’t know if I’m making any sense…’

  ‘You are,’ said Ren. ‘Maybe if you could encourage him to speak with me again…if there is anything he remembers…’

  ‘He would have told you,’ said Catherine. She walked towards Luke’s room. As she opened the door, she turned back to Ren. ‘Thank you for everything.’

  What a total disaster.

  41

  Ren went straight from Denver airport to Safe Streets. Cliff was the welcome face in the office.

  ‘Help me out here, Cliff,’ said Ren, walking in, dropping her bag on her desk. ‘As we know, I am without child, so can you explain to me how parents can be so shut down to the possibility that their offspring can do wrong? Or not even that – obviously some parents do acknowledge that. What I want to know is what makes one parent own up to their child’s bad behavior and another parent swear blind that they couldn’t possibly have done anything wrong? I don’t get it. Especially if there is evidence to the contrary.’

  ‘I was in school with this kid,’ said Cliff. ‘We were seven years old. And he was an arsonist. A full-blown set-a-hugefire arsonist. Who developed into a set-a-huge-fire-and-jerk-off-while-you’re-watching-it arsonist. He smelled of fire the whole time. He had burn marks on his hands. The kid died in a fire, for Christ’s sake. And his parents, one of whom was the school principal, still to this day, talks about his son’s “accident”. I used to imagine the parents, standing in their garage, shaking a jerry can and thinking “Oops, we’re running low again.”’

  ‘It’s insane,’ said Ren. ‘When I misbehaved as a kid – over and over – my mother never once tried to tell anyone I was innocent.’

  Cliff said nothing.

  ‘Oh my God,’ said Ren. ‘That’s why I’m fucked up.’ She paused. ‘Your silence is telling me that that’s not normal, my own mother not backing me up.’

  ‘Hold it right there,’ said Cliff. ‘Mothers have instincts when their kids have done wrong. The crucial thing is – did your mother stand up for you when you were innocent?’

  ‘I never was,’ said Ren.

  ‘There you go, then. I’m sure if someone had accused you of something you didn’t do, she would have waded right in there.’

  ‘But Luke Sarvas is a liar.’

  ‘He’s a seventeen-year-old kid whose mother thought she’d lost him for good.’

  ‘You know in a movie where there’s this kid who just has these knowing eyes that slide around the place to flag the fact that there’s something weird about them? Luke Sarvas gives me that vibe. It’s not that I think he’s weird. But he is not some innocent. You can’t be innocent if you’re doing blow and hanging out in titty bars.’ She smiled at Cliff. ‘I know I sound like someone’s grandma, but I liked it when kids were more innocent. God, if I have kids it’s going to be like The Village.’

  ‘You’d be surprised at how you adjust,’ said Cliff. ‘And you’d be surprised at how you can bring up your children a certain way that acknowledges the world we live in and just gives them the coping skills to navigate through it.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Ren, ‘would you like to be the father of my children?’

  ‘Just up until the point of conception.’

  Ren smiled.

  ‘So,’ said Cliff, ‘about you murdering Douglas Hammond…’

  Ren shook her head. ‘You heard.’

  ‘Of course I heard,’ said Cliff. ‘Why were you meeting him on a dark night?’

  ‘I can’t get into that, Cliff,’ said Ren. ‘I’m sorry. You know I love you, but…I can’t.’

  ‘Is it to do with your friend Helen?’

  Ren nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And while we’re at it,’ said Cliff. ‘Do you know something about Trudie Hammond?’

  ‘Here’s the thing,’ said Ren. ‘I know something about me. Like, I did not have a hand in Douglas Hammond’s death. I do, however, look as though I did. So…if I could, for example, work out whether maybe he was the target of his wife’s killer all those years ago, then I could at least have some evidence in my defense.’

  ‘It probably looks like you did because you lied about it.’

  ‘There’s more to it than that, Cliff. Which I know is annoying to hear when I’m not revealing what that “more” is. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be, but don’t get in trouble because you won�
��t ask for help.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘So, what is the JeffCo Cold Case Unit looking at in the Hammond case?’

  ‘Running DNA tests – glass fragments, nightgown, carpet.’

  ‘Any theories?’

  ‘Firstly, I think it’s weird that Hammond didn’t insist on it earlier. And secondly…well, let’s see what comes up.’

  ‘Was she raped?’

  ‘No signs of rape at the autopsy. She did have consensual sex with her husband that morning.’

  ‘It could just be an intruder expecting to burgle an unoccupied house during the morning when people are out at work,’ said Cliff. ‘They had a nice house, rich pickings…’

  ‘But I’m wondering, could someone have been waiting for Hammond to come home?’ said Ren. ‘Hammond could have been the intended target.’

  Cliff nodded. ‘Maybe he witnessed something and someone needed to get rid of him. Maybe they felt that his wife’s death was warning enough to put him off, but something happened recently that made them think that he could still expose them?’

  Ren shrugged. ‘Could it have been connected to someone who was part of the original investigation? Like…a crooked cop.’

  ‘Doing what?’ said Cliff.

  ‘I don’t know…maybe Hammond came across something recently that led him to believe a cover-up had happened?’

  But could Helen Wheeler fit into that scenario? And if so, where?

  ‘If in doubt, coffee,’ said Ren.

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Cliff.

  Ren’s phone rang as she was carrying the mugs back in.

  ‘There you go, baby-daddy,’ she said, putting one in front of Cliff.

  ‘Thank you, octo-mommy.’

  ‘I have to do it that many times?’ said Ren.

  ‘Answer your phone,’ said Cliff.

  ‘Barefoot and pregnant, that’s all I am to you now.’ She looked at the number flashing on the screen. ‘It’s the lab.’ She picked up and listened. ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘OK.’

  ‘What?’ Cliff mouthed.

  Ren put her hand over the receiver and spoke to Cliff. ‘Curiouser and curiouser. DNA on the nightgown. Semen. And not Judge Hammond’s.’

  She took her hand away and spoke to the lab. ‘In that case, could I ask you pretty please to do a cross-match for me?’

  42

  Ren sat at her desk and rested her hands on her keyboard as if she intended to use it. ‘Ooh,’ she said, a few moments later. ‘Speaking of mothers in denial…’ She picked up the phone and called Kitty. ‘Mom, Cliff and I were talking about moms and kids and denial, etc. I just wanted to know…’ She got up and walked into the hallway. ‘Mom – when was the last time you spoke with Rita Parry?’

  ‘Rita, gosh…Well, that is the most upsetting part,’ she said. ‘It was several months ago, before all this cards business. Ricky called me, he said that his mom wanted to speak with me. So, I dropped everything and went over to her. I was with her for hours, Ren. I even fed her while I was there, I got her out of the bed, I helped bathe her, dress her…it was…I don’t think I’m any saint for doing this, by the way. It just seems such a jump to where we are now.’

  ‘Did she ask Ricky to get you to come look after her?’

  ‘No, no, it wasn’t like that. She asked him to get me to come talk to her. The rest was just…well, it just seemed like the right thing to do. I wanted to help.’

  ‘What did she want to talk to you about?’

  ‘Death. I mean, the two of us, we’re the Catholics on the block, so she thought she could confide in me.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘She wanted to know my opinion about suicide and sin.’

  ‘The gall of her.’

  ‘No, Ren, it’s not what you think. It wasn’t about Beau. Well, not strictly speaking. It was more…she wanted to know if it was wrong in the eyes of the Church, her wanting to let go. She wanted to know if it was a form of suicide to let yourself slip away, to stop fighting for your life.’

  ‘Euthanasia, you mean?’

  ‘No, no. Just letting go. She knew she was failing and she wanted to give up the fight and let go. Because she wanted to meet Louis again. She told me she was ready to meet Louis again.’

  ‘She thinks Louis is dead.’

  ‘She said that she knows he is dead…I think it’s possible that she had known it all along. She wanted to know did I feel that way about Beau, did I want to follow him. That was why she asked me over. So, I told her—’

  ‘Mom, I don’t need to hear this.’

  ‘You do,’ said her mother. ‘I told her that I felt that way for quite some time after Beau died. I’m sorry, Ren, but I did. I’m sure that was obvious to all of you, anyway.’

  ‘We tried not to go there.’ Tears welled in her eyes.

  ‘Rita said that she had felt that way too. But I told her that many years had passed and that to some degree I had managed to come to terms with the loss and that I loved your father and all of my children so much that I could not bear the thought of being without you. And I told her that if I were in her position right now, I would fight. I would not give up.

  ‘Rita Parry wasn’t told she had days to live, Ren. She wasn’t given a finite time. I told her that maybe, if I had felt I was hours from slipping away, I would find comfort in knowing that Beau would be there at the other side to meet me, but it wouldn’t be a reason for me to want to go.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘So I told her that, no, she wasn’t committing suicide by doing what she was doing, but that I believed she should fight. For Ricky. She could have many more years with Ricky.’

  ‘So, after all that, here we are,’ said Ren. ‘Mom…are you sure her motivation was pure?’

  ‘Pure? What do you mean?’

  ‘Are you sure she didn’t believe Beau had something to do with it and was maybe trying to get you to confess to a dying woman?’

  ‘For God’s sake, Ren. That didn’t enter my head.’

  ‘Did she ask you why you thought Beau killed himself?’

  ‘Quite the opposite. She said that she believed that Louis and Beau were our beautiful boys and that a darker force, stronger than either of them, had taken them from us. Different forces she said, but with the same tragic result.’

  ‘The end is not here yet,’ said Ren. ‘For either family. Hasn’t she even called you?’

  ‘No,…No. I heard that she’s very, very weak.’

  Ren let out a breath. ‘My heart goes out to her. I just wish I knew what was going through her head.’

  ‘At this stage, I would say that her only thought is seeing Louis again.’

  ‘How depressing,’ said Ren. ‘But I guess her whole life has been depressing.’

  ‘Why are you asking about this?’

  Ren let out a breath. ‘Why do I ever ask?’

  ‘What is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘I have no idea, actually. I’m tired.’ Ren wandered back into the office. ‘I better get back to work.’

  Ren pulled her notebook out of her desk and looked at her notes on the Hammonds. A lot of them had the numbers 345 doodled around them. One page had drawings of files. Another page had fishes in the margin. Ren tried to remember why. One, two, three, four, five, once I caught a fish alive.

  She sat forward. Oh. My. God. She picked up the phone and dialed Glenn Buddy.

  ‘Glenn, it’s Ren. Can you do me a big favor?’

  ‘No.’

  Silence.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ren. I can’t.’

  ‘OK, I understand. But – if I tell you what the favor is, could that make a difference?’

  Glenn let out a breath. ‘Shoot.’

  ‘Do you have Douglas Hammond’s cell phone in evidence?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Could you just check if his texting language is set to predictive text?’

  Glenn paused.

  ‘How about we try it this way: I tell you that I think it is not? Could you confi
rm that his phone is not set to predictive text?’

  ‘OK. I guess I could do that. I’ll call you back.’

  ‘Thank you, Glenn. I appreciate it. Whenever you get the chance.’ Immediately, please, immediately.

  Glenn called back twenty minutes later. No, Douglas Hammond’s phone was not set to predictive text. Ren thanked him, hung up and stared once more at the Fifty Most Wanted faces lined up across the wall. She remembered Douglas Hammond’s last-ditch panic when he thought the headlights of a car were bearing down on him and the desperate text message he had punched in. But, she now realized, the quickest shorthand Judge Hammond could find to warn Ren was nothing to do with predictive text. They were what they were: numbers. And they matched the faces that Ren was now looking at.

  Three: Domenica Val Pando. Four: Javier Luis. Five: Erubiel Diaz.

  43

  Ren’s heart was pounding. Douglas Hammond. Helen Wheeler. Domenica Val Pando. Javier Luis. Erubiel Diaz. WTF?

  ‘What’s going on in your tiny mind?’ said Cliff.

  ‘Huge thoughts…’

  ‘On…’ said Cliff.

  ‘I’m sorry, I just…’

  ‘Have you stopped trusting me?’ he said. He meant it.

  ‘I think I have stopped trusting myself.’

  ‘That’s very sad.’

  ‘It is,’ said Ren.

  ‘Well, if you change your mind…’

  ‘Thanks. I feel like my head’s about to blow.’ She looked again at the photos. ‘There’s family stuff too.’

  ‘Anything you want to talk about?’

  ‘No, not really. But don’t take it personally.’

  ‘I won’t, and if you need me, you know where I am.’

  ‘Thanks, Cliff.’

  She glanced at the TV to end the awkwardness.

  A box on the top right of the screen read: ARRESTS MADE IN DRUGS TUNNEL COLLAPSE.

  ‘Crank it up,’ said Ren.

  ‘You have the remote,’ said Cliff.

  Ren grabbed it and turned up the volume. When did this happen?

  A photo filled the screen that Ren wished she had seen forty-eight hours earlier. It was of a huge truck beside a gaping hole in a dusty hillside in Nogales, Mexico – the opening to a tunnel under the border that would lead to Nogales, Arizona on the other side. According to the report, it was the fifteenth tunnel found in the area in the previous year and was believed to be linked to the Puente cartel.