“Get an ambulance!”
Danny didn’t see a white light or a long tunnel. No sense of well-being. Peace and tranquility danced beyond his reach as he saw in the glow of a yellow light…his son…chestnut eyes in a thin face, like turning back the clock and looking in a mirror.
Josh’s image came and went like waves on a beach, his expression troubled. Danny had no sense of his own body or where they were. Surely not in heaven.
“Dad…”
Josh’s lips trembled, and Danny could see him forming words but they rolled off his brain. His son looked so tall now, bending over him. Was that a stubble of downy beard on his chin?
“Dad…”
A crinkled film separated them. Josh’s image faded. Danny couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak, and there was so much he had to tell his son. How sorry he was for all the times he hadn’t been there. Present in body, maybe, but not really there. Sorry for all the joints he’d smoked in front of him. Sorry for the lines of coke he’d done with Josh in the next room. Maybe not in the next room. He and Dee hadn’t really cared at the time what they dumped on their kids. Their addictions that they’d called love only turned out to be sex and drugs. He thought he’d fixed things, couldn’t remember how, but now a sense of too late weighed down his chest.
“Dad, I’m sorry.”
Danny felt Josh’s hand on his arm. Saw tears run down his son’s cheeks. With effort, he moved the words up from his heart and heard himself speak: “Josh.”
Finding movement now possible, he grabbed Josh’s hand and held on, afraid he’d turn into a wisp of smoke…but he didn’t.
His senses returning, Danny toured the room with his eyes, took in the machines with their crisp blipping, traced the IV tube back to his own arm, let the footsteps in the hallway and hum of voices penetrate his awareness. And he kept hold of his son’s hand.
It was no surprise really. Danny knew what long-term cocaine use could do to somebody’s heart. It just didn’t seem that it had been long-term for him. He felt Josh’s hand squirming under his and realized he held his son in what could only be described as a life grip. Josh was real only so long as Danny could feel him.
“Dad, I really have to find a restroom. I’ve had four cups of coffee.”
Danny couldn’t let go. He was physically incapable of releasing Josh.
“I’ll be right back.” He felt his son pry open his desperate fingers. “It’s that or pee my pants.”
“No problem.” His words came out whispered. “I’m not going anywhere.”
*****
“I didn’t mean to worry you.”
Josh’s change of clothes seemed to indicate it was later than just a trip to the restroom. But Danny still didn’t have the time-space thing down pat. He was sitting up in bed now. Playing with a dish of Jell-o on a tray. He thought it was maybe a day later. Later than he’d have liked it to be—but not too late.
“Sam sent us to his sister’s in South Dakota. He said we’d be safe there.” Josh’s guileless brown eyes implied it was a logical course of action.
“Sam Garvin sent you to South Dakota?” Danny pushed away the tray. Jello wasn’t exactly his cup of tea. Nor was tea, for that matter.
“We never meant to worry you.” Beth speaking. He hadn’t realized she was there. It was his first sight of Beth since Dee’s funeral when Morgan had whisked her away for good with a temporary custody order. Beth’s face still had that pinched look she’d had at Morgan’s the day after Dee’s body had been found.
“Does your aunt know you’re here?” Danny asked.
Beth nodded. “She knows it wasn’t you.”
“What…wasn’t me?”
“You didn’t send the drug dealer after Mom.”
“It was Kevin,” Josh said. “I’m sorry he’s dead…but I’m not, really. Know what I mean?”
Danny recognized the conflict in his eyes…too well.
“When…” Danny began hesitantly, worried about the time line. “When did you go…”
“Dad. It was before Kevin died.”
The hurt in Josh’s eyes told Danny that his son had read his mind. Then, in a window of lucidity, a flashback of Kevin’s body looking dead longer than the three days Josh had been gone.
Beth got up and went over to Josh’s side. “They called us and told us it was okay to come back. Kevin was dead and couldn’t hurt us. He and that drug dealer killed Mom. My own brother.” Beth’s tone was wooden and her eyes strangely dry as her glance touched Danny briefly.
Danny nodded absently. Something else gnawed at him…the last recollection…or one of them…just before he’d passed out in the interrogation room. “If I’m not mistaken, Beth, somebody told the cops you were missing.”
The kids exchanged glances, Josh replying before Beth. “Sam didn’t tell Morgan. Not until after Kevin was dead.”
“Huh?”
“That didn’t come out right. I meant after they found out Kevin was dead.”
Okay. That made sense. The kids probably didn’t know how long Kevin had been dead. That was good.
“Couldn’t you have let me know you were safe?”
“Sam said nobody could know. He didn’t even tell Aunt Morgan or Uncle Nate. That way nobody could be forced to tell Kevin or that JJ guy where we were.” More expression in her voice now, and her earnest manner convinced Danny that she bought the logic of it. She even made eye-contact with him for a couple of seconds.
“But Sam knew.”
“Sam said they’d never hurt him ‘cause he signs the checks,” Beth said.
“Interesting logic,” Danny said. The kids looked insulted. He gathered that they held Sam in high esteem. If Sam says so, it must be true. Okay.
“Beth,” Danny asked quietly, “why didn’t you just phone Josh and tell him you couldn’t make the mall that night? Why would Sam fly the both of you out of town?”
“It was Greyhound.”
“Huh?”
“We didn’t fly. We went by bus.”
Were they evading his question? Who gave a rat’s ass how they got there? Why did they both have to go? It was almost as if Sam had been thoughtful enough to supply them both with an alibi. Now, if only Kevin’s time of death…
An efficient-looking Asian-American nurse entered the room. Time to check his vitals. He wanted some answers first. The blips on his screen were speeding up. The nurse, Miss Ko, started to usher the kids out. “No, I’m not through--”
“For now you are,” said Miss Ko.
The kids wasted no time in finding the door.
“No, wait,” Danny started out of the bed, dragging the IV on its wheels.
The kids paused in the doorway while Miss Ko did her best to restrain him. She didn’t need to be very strong. He flopped back on the bed like a beached bass.
“Later,” said Josh as he started down the hall. Beth gave him a little wave and smile.
Danny managed a half-assed wave back, noting the looks they gave each other as they passed from his view. So familiar. He’d been there. Please don’t let them turn out like Dee and me. He wasn’t sure who he was asking. Prayer hadn’t been a part of his daily experience in a very long time.
“Veronica Sanchez on line one, Sergeant.” The clerk’s words landed the blow Emily Wehr had been dodging for a week following her initial conversation with Sanchez. Seven calls on her direct line. Now Sanchez had used the main line and Susie, unaware of the situation, had just made call number eight the one that nailed her.
“Hey, Detective Sanchez, sorry about the telephone tag.” Wehr’s tone aimed for conciliatory but came out uptight.
“Telephone tag implies calls returned.”
Wehr tried to hang a face on the crisp, in-your-face reply, but she’d never met Veronica Sanchez though their respective jurisdictions were adjacent and relatively small.
“Right. Sorry about that. What can I do for you?”
“There’s been a development in the Deidre Lassiter case, so we’ve r
eopened it. Mrs. Lassiter’s son is dead. Based on statements from family members, we’re thinking JJ Camacho looks good for this.”
Wehr instinctively lowered her voice. “I can’t help you there.”
“Sure you can. I know your Metro guy’s had Camacho’s machine shop staked out. I’ve driven by, myself, and seen him in his Crown Vic sucking on a Big Gulp.”
Wehr felt her resentment level rise. Anger shoved to the fore by guilt. But it wasn’t her fault. She didn’t want to know what she knew. Honest to God. Fold and run.
Instead she asked, “Isn’t that a tad out of your territory, Detective?”
“Come off it, Wehr. There’s a dead woman who claimed she was raped, tortured and held for ransom. She was so Stockholmed that she wouldn’t even accept our help when we offered it. Now her kid is dead, too. The kid implicated Camacho to his aunt a day or so before he died. I don’t care whose snitch Camacho is, you can’t just make him disappear—along with the vic’s car.”
Wehr, facing the wall of her cubicle, squirmed in her chair, then turned to see who, if anyone, might be observing her conversation. The aisle was bare. A hum of voices from the outer office signaled business as usual.
“I wish I could help you. As far as I can tell, they’ve lost him. Why do you think Navarro has the machine shop under surveillance? Would he still be there if Metro had the scumbag stashed someplace?”
“Might, if it suited their purpose.”
Wehr swallowed hard before continuing, “Word is, he may have jumped the border into Mexico. In case they're wrong, Navarro's still keeping an eye on the shop.”
“We're pretty sure Camacho's still around,” Veronica said.
“How so?”
“We have the dead kid's cell phone. There are texts on it from Camacho as recent as last week. They trace to a tower not five miles from Golden.”
What could Wehr say? That she suspected Navarro was a lying bastard? So she changed the subject. “I heard the kid was a crack-head like his mom.”
“Why else would he hang with Camacho?”
“So, he OD’d, too?”
“Tox screen’s not back yet.”
Wehr heard a stirring behind her and turned to see a specter in her doorway—Reggie Navarro. She hadn’t seen him face-to-face in weeks. His assignment to Metro had pretty much kept him out of the office. Never in the best of moods, he now looked like a bear with a burr up his ass.
“Something’s come up,” said Wehr into the phone. “Can I call you back?”
“Right. Like you returned my other ten calls.” Crisp was fast turning to scorched.
The computer in Wehr’s brain cranked out a response before she’d actually processed the reasons behind her words: “Well, okay. Then give me your cell number.”
“Ooh-kay.” And Sanchez gave it to her in a curious tone of voice, ending with, “I won’t hold my breath, Sergeant.”
Wehr hung up the phone and put on a cop face. “Hey, Reg, you back with us?”
Reggie Navarro shook his head, along with his three or four chins, and settled into the side chair in her little cubicle. Fat cops can’t run, she thought as Reg’s bulk engulfed the small chair. But she knew this to be untrue in Reggie’s case. Like a big brown bear, Reggie Navarro could move at a pace that took her breath away. She knew this from working with him. And, like with a bear coming out of hibernation, you didn’t cross him.
“I heard Veronica Sanchez’s been nosing around about the Lassiter thing.”
“It’s her case,” replied Wehr. “Lassiter died in Lakewood.”
“But the kid bought it in Golden. County jurisdiction.”
“She wants Camacho.” You didn’t lie to Reggie.
“Don’t we all.”
“No shit? You really don’t have him?”
Reggie leaned on her desk, his weight sending paperwork tumbling, which he didn’t attempt to pick up. “Would we be on his shop twenty-four seven if we had him? Metro has guys on all his known associates.”
She maintained eye contact. The papers on the floor could wait. “Maybe the guys you’re trying to put away got wind of things. Took JJ out. Makes sense.”
“Except for one thing. DEA has one of their own on the inside, and he says it didn’t happen.”
“Don’t know what to tell you, Reg.”
“I got the idea that maybe I should have a look at that tape again.”
“Tape?” Fear coursed down her spine sending up the hairs on the back of her neck.
“You remember. The Lassiter broad. Your taped interview. You know. The tell-all.”
A man with a purpose, this Reggie Navarro. A woman and her kid dead. But they had been expendable in Reggie’s big picture. She sat there, silent, looking him straight in the eye, hoping her fear didn’t show. Maybe keeping the tape had been a bad idea.
“Commander Marsh said to lose everything.”
Reggie cuffed himself in the head with the base of his large paw. “Geez. The tape, too? Do you have to be so efficient?”
She tried not to blink. “He said ‘everything’.”
“I got the idea maybe I missed something. Something that would gimme some ideas. Maybe the broad paid JJ off and somehow he got out of the country. But she’s dead and that don’t make no sense.”
“You’re right. It doesn’t.”
“All’s I know is that without JJ, our case is toast.”
“You can’t win ‘em all, Reg.”
“Wanna bet?” He heaved his bulk out of the chair, hoisted his sagging pants, and lumbered toward the door. “See ya around, kid.”
She exhaled slowly as the door closed behind him.
The tape was fast becoming an albatross around her neck. It was supposed to save her ass, in case IAB came poking around. What to do? Nothing to do.
Then she jumped as Reggie’s voice spun her around in the swivel chair. She’d heard his departing steps outside her cubicle, his mumbled greetings to other staff members. But his return had been silent as a ghost’s.
“Hey, Wehr, I almost forgot to ask. Who else seen that tape?”
“Uh, nobody, I guess. Nobody was interested. Crack whore. Who cares?”
“Do I detect a modicum of sarcasm, Sergeant?”
“Modicum?” She raised an eyebrow and tried to keep a smirk from stealing her expression. A modicum of intellect? Swallow those words, fast.
“Soundin’ pretty frisky, Emily.” Reggie laughed, as if he’d read her mind and shared her humor at his expense. “What about Commander Marsh?”
“What about him?” The thought that she’d never discussed the tape with her commander gnawed at her. It was customary to tape interviews of this type. Especially the offer of help extended to the victim. And in Deidre Lassiter’s case, the record of her declining help was important.
Make it disappear he said of the police report. Would her commander have said this if he’d seen the tape? Initially she’d thought yes. What if she’d been wrong? She’d assumed the suppression of the Lassiter file had been a group effort, including Commander Marsh. Apparently not entirely. Something was askew.
“Did Marsh view the tape?”
“I assume so. Ask him.”
“I will.” He was gone again.
What a thought. If she and Reg were the only ones, maybe Commander Marsh didn’t even know about the tape. Maybe she, Emily Wehr, was also expendable.
At the conclusion of her shift, Wehr changed into her civilian clothes and hung up her holstered gun in the locker beside her uniform. This had been her routine for as long as she could remember. Since she wasn’t required to pack off duty, why take her weapon home? It wasn’t an appendage to her ego, like with some of the guys.
As she exited the locker room, she observed Reggie and Commander Marsh at the end of the hall, heads together in conversation. She watched the men’s body language underscore the tension in their conversation. Then the two of them looked up and caught her eyeing them.
Although there was no overt
malice in either man’s expression, she suddenly felt naked without the little friend in her shoulder holster, that was in her locker, not doing her a damn bit of good.
“I really appreciate your letting me tag along,” Rae said.
“I have an ulterior motive,” replied Veronica Sanchez from behind the wheel of an unmarked Lakewood Police vehicle. “I want to pick your brain. Just bear with me while I make a quick stop.” She pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall on Simms Avenue.
“What’s this about?”
“Tracking Kevin’s activity on the day he died. He supposedly made a prescription run for his aunt just before picking up a check at Bayfield Enterprises.”
Veronica pulled the black Ford sedan into a parking space in front of a Rite Way drug center. “Mr. Farris seems a little fuzzy about the details of Kevin’s extortion bit.”
“I thought the threat was made to Mrs. Farris,” said Rae.
“That’s the problem,” replied Veronica. “We can’t interview Mrs. Farris until her doctor clears it. Her migraines have become a royal pain in the ass for us.”
“What about the niece…Beth?”
“The family attorney has requested that we not stress her out right now.”
“That would be Stan Eisley?”
“You know him?”
“Not really. I’ve met one of his associates.” Rae had an unpleasant flashback of her brief meeting with Gil Doucette. “Do you know yet what killed the boy?”
“We're waiting for the tox screen results.”
“You must have some idea,” Rae said, her curiosity unappeased.
The women exited the car and approached the Rite Way. “It’s an open homicide, Rae. I can’t discuss the details.”
Veronica paused in the doorway, her eyes searching out the prescription counter. “I want you to go with me when I revisit Sam Garvin. He claims Kevin picked up the check he cut for him about noon, then split. Nathan Farris confirms that his wife was home in bed, sedated, on the afternoon of that day. Farris claims he heard a phone conversation between his wife and Garvin at around mid-day.”
“Convenient.” Rae, dressed in low-key slacks and jacket, followed in Veronica’s tracks. She noticed that Veronica still tended to wear flamboyant colors, even on the job—but jeans? Never. Rae wanted to be as inconspicuous as possible. Veronica could end up in deep shit for having a civilian in her vehicle. Rae assumed she must have gotten clearance due to their overlapping interests in the case. What did she mean…pick her brain?
Pool of Lies Page 8
