Pool of Lies

by J. M. Zambrano

  Rae put up a hand in protest. “I don’t want the details. I’m handling as much as I can. Small bites, please.”

  “I wasn’t even sure you’d see the resemblance. Nobody else has. We often run into people I used to work with at Metro.”

  “They weren’t married to Anthony. Anyhow, what do you expect? They’re going to say, ‘Ah, I see you have a kid by Anthony Esposito’?”

  “Let’s not debate it. The question is can we get beyond this?”

  “Can it work?” Rae pondered aloud, then quickly cut off Veronica’s pending comment. “Don’t say anything. I’m asking myself, not you.”

  Then suddenly Rae knew why Veronica had been caught off guard by her reaction to seeing Justin. A lover wouldn’t have been surprised at a wife’s recognition of even a minute resemblance to her mate. Anthony’s indelible imprint was on every facet of Rae’s body and soul. The recognition of him in the boy had been instantaneous. He’d left no such imprint on Veronica, though she obviously thought highly of him.

  Now Rae knew without asking that there’d be no pictures of Anthony on Justin’s dresser—no pictures of him anywhere in Veronica’s house.

  Veronica took a sip from her mug. “Cold.” She got up, placed the mug on the countertop and moved toward the door. “When you decide, give me a call. I’ll let you know if the job’s still open.” Pausing in the doorway, she added, “If you want, I can get you my medical records.”

  “No. I believe you.”

  From her seat at the kitchen table, Rae watched Veronica walk away. Against her will, her anger dissolved into stifled giggles. The back of Veronica’s pristine, perfect-fit black slacks was covered with pale gold cat hair from Rae’s kitchen chair pad.

  “What?” Veronica turned at the faint sound.

  Rae let the laughter come. “I’m sorry,” she said as she caught her breath. “It’s just that you’ve grown a pair of cat-hair chaps.”

  Veronica looked over her shoulder at her backside, and then marched toward the front door.

  Rae followed. “I could offer you a lint roller.”

  “No, thanks.” Veronica turned and looked Rae full in the eyes. “You need to decide soon. The longer we wait, the colder the trail. Banks lose things. Documents get shredded. Hard drives get erased.”

  Rae knew the answer she wanted to give Veronica. But the words wouldn’t come. Grandma’s voice rattled in her head: You got a stiff back, Rae. Better learn to bend it.

  “I’ll do it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “As sure as it’s humanly possible to be.”

  “I’ll call you when the contract is ready.”

  Veronica held out her hand. Rae gripped it firmly, noting its dry warmth.

  Nate couldn’t seem to shed the uneasy feeling that had first crept into his gut the day he’d heard that sliver of conversation between Morgan and Sam.

  No more secrets between them, Morgan had said when Nate had questioned her. Really? It was obvious to him that she had read the Lakewood P.D. report before he’d obtained his copy.

  Back to square one. What was different about Wheat Ridge’s report? “We’ve got to find out what she told Wheat Ridge.” Morgan’s words to Sam festered away in his brain. Meanwhile, he was serving as an alibi for both Morgan and Sam. Did they need an alibi? The kicker was that the elusive villain, this Camacho person whom none of them claimed to ever have seen, was out there somewhere, but the cops didn’t seem all that concerned.

  Sam’s sending Beth and Josh into hiding and not telling him or Morgan—no way did he buy the reasoning offered for this diversion. His imagination leapt ahead. Maybe neither Kevin nor Danny had been Camacho’s contact. That chilling prospect erased any desire he had for returning to share his wife’s bed. Not that he wished her migraines to continue. His suspicions could be way out in left field. Part of him hoped so. The truth was, giving up his lifestyle would be far more painful than sleeping alone.

  When he'd gone back to Wheat Ridge P.D. armed with a printout of the Colorado Revised Statutes, he had demanded an interview with the station commander, an old fart with an attitude who’d told him just what he could do with CRS 24-72-304.

  When sleep eluded him, Nate reread the Lakewood reports until something jumped out at him.

  The machine shop on Forty-second Avenue. James Joseph Camacho’s apparent base of operation. The rented machine shop. He knew from his years of commercial real estate management that lease applications are often treasure troves of information.

  *****

  The Harrisons, owners of the machine shop property, lived in a nondescript one-story with white aluminum siding on Reed Street, within minutes of the Bayfield offices. It had been easy for Nate to obtain this information from property records available on the net. Edwin and Betty Jean Harrison. He chose a morning visit.

  “Mrs. Harrison?”

  The sharp-faced woman who answered the door eyed him coldly and nodded.

  “I’m Nathan Farris of Bayfield Enterprises.” He offered the woman his business card which she accepted with tobacco-stained fingers.

  “No solicitations.” The woman pointed to a sign on the chain-link fence that bordered the property.

  “Oh, no,” Nate flashed his pearly-whites, “I’m not a salesman. I’m here about one of your former tenants. Mr. Camacho.”

  “What about him?” Betty Jean Harrison opened the door a bit wider and took a drag on her cigarette.

  “He’s applied to rent one of our buildings and given you as a reference.”

  Betty Jean shook her head and frowned. “He’s still in there.”

  “He is?”

  “Well, he’s still paid up. Never said anything about moving.”

  He had planned in advance for this scenario. “Perhaps he’s expanding.”

  A snort from Betty Jean. “You got a release?”

  “A what?” He knew damn well what she was after. “Oh, sure, I must have…” He shuffled around in his briefcase.

  “You come back after five. My husband’s home then. You talk to him. And bring your release. We don’t want no lawsuits.” Betty Jean let the screen door sag into place and disappeared from his view.

  *****

  Nate’s hours at Bayfield Enterprises had been dwindling, yet Sam never let on if he noticed this. Fat chance of him not noticing. Sam, who processed every flyspeck on the wall. Nate wasn’t exactly neglecting his duties—it was just that looking for JJ Camacho seemed more important—a nasty job, but somebody had to do it.

  By the time Nate had decided, over breakfast at his favorite restaurant, how to attack the problem of the release form, it was nearly ten o’clock. He’d better get to the office. He noticed Sam’s and Fredricka’s vehicles in the parking lot when he pulled in.

  After picking up his phone messages from Fredricka, he retreated to his office to set about the task of creating the release form required by the Harrisons using the company’s standard form. But, what to do about Camacho’s signature? Betty Jean gave him the impression that she might be picky enough to compare it with the lease.

  *****

  Sam was poring over something on his desk when Nate entered without knocking. Sam looked up at him, a pained look on his usually unflappable countenance.

  “Bad news?” asked Nate.

  “The coroner’s report on Kevin.”

  “Will they let us bury him now?”

  “Morgan’s had him taken to Goode Brothers. I’m surprised she didn’t tell you,” said Sam.

  “She was asleep when I left the house. I’ve been checking on─”

  “Nate, you don’t have to account for your time.” Sam handed him the autopsy report. “I told Morgan I’d send this home with you.”

  “What’s the gist of it?” Nate handled the papers as if the smell of death might rub off on him.

  “He died of a drug overdose. Cocaine positive. Dead approximately seven days.”

  “Any chance it was an accident?”

  Sam
gave him a look. “The report says homicide.”

  Maybe the best approach was to just ask rather than stew around in his paranoia. “You ever get a copy of Wheat Ridge’s report?”

  “I’ve got Stan Eisley working on it. He has an in with the Wheat Ridge police chief. It’s only a matter of time.”

  He was about to ask why he’d been kept out of the loop when he heard voices in the hall and footsteps.

  “Nobody up front.” A uniformed Wheat Ridge cop entered Sam’s office followed by that knock-out woman detective who’d questioned him and Sam before. Damn, but her clothes fit her well. Hispanic, thought Nate, but drop-dead gorgeous. It wouldn’t be half bad to get patted down by that.

  “May I help you, Detective Sanchez?” Sam got up from his desk while Nate erased the silly grin that had crept onto his face.

  “We’re here for your computers.”

  Nate felt his desire rapidly receding as the woman handed Sam what was most likely a search warrant.

  Sam perused the paper and then said, “Yes, this seems to be in order. Be my guest.” He gestured toward the computer hutch to the right of his desk.

  Two other uniformed officers entered and boxed up Sam’s computer.

  “Can they do this?” asked Nate indignantly. The woman was looking less good to him by the second. A bit too lean for his taste which ran to the full-bodied. Probably didn’t even like men.

  “They just did,” replied Sam calmly. His tone almost sounded amused.

  “Where are your other computers?” asked Detective Sanchez.

  “There’s one in the reception area,” Sam said.

  “We’ve already got that one. Any more?”

  Sam shrugged. “I’m afraid that’s it.”

  “How about you?” She turned to Nate.

  “Just my laptop, but that’s--”

  “Get it, please.”

  “But there’s nothing financial on it,” he stammered. “It’s my personal computer. Not company property. I assure you there’s nothing--”

  She nodded to one of the uniformed men. “Go check the other offices.”

  Oh, shit, they’d see all the sites he’d visited. He knew they could do that. The porno sites. He hoped they wouldn’t tell Morgan or Sam. But, why would they? Nothing to do with the murders or the financial records. Well, even if they did, he suddenly had a ready answer. Kevin had access to the laptop when he was in the house. Dead kid can’t talk. Oh, but the dates. When had he last—

  “Mr. Farris?” She was looking a hole through him, her eyes blacker than Morgan’s.

  “Yes, Detective Sanchez.”

  “Is there something bothering you? Your computer will be returned, probably tomorrow. Is there something you’d like to tell me before I leave?”

  He composed himself, even managed a very white Nate smile. “No, Ma’am. Just that I don’t see how my computer could help you, me not being on the financial team.”

  “We’ll decide that after we’ve viewed the contents. These machines will be returned as quickly as possible. Sorry to inconvenience you.”

  The troops were gone as quickly as they’d come. Fredricka was still out to lunch. Nate seethed. Had she been there, he’d have had some warning and could have ditched the laptop. Gone out the back door, or… What was Sam smirking about?

  “What’s the joke, Sam?”

  “I’m afraid it’s on those officers.”

  “What?”

  Sam shrugged. “Some people just have to learn by trial and error.”

  Not going to let him in on the joke? Okay, fine. Probably some dumb accountants’ humor that he wouldn’t appreciate anyway.

  *****

  In the privacy of his own office, Nate returned some past-due phone calls, caught up on some paper work and perused Kevin’s autopsy report.

  It was a confusing document. A bunch of medical terms he didn’t understand. There was a needle mark on his neck. Cocaine—yes, there it was. The little shit had probably never stopped using. But, a needle mark on his neck? What was that about? And what the hell was meperidine? Now, if he just had his laptop…

  *****

  The drive back to Harrisons’ bungalow took no more than ten minutes.

  Puffed up by his own cunning, he pulled the standard rent application/release form from his briefcase and gave it the once-over. He compared the signature on the form with the signature on the annual report for the machine shop that he’d pulled off the internet before his laptop got nabbed. JJC Machining Inc. James J. Camacho, President. Great front for laundering money from drugs, extortion or you name it. Man, the cops were dumb.

  He really didn’t worry about forging Camacho’s signature. Come on, really. What were the odds of the creep surfacing and suing him? And it could have been worse about the computer. What if he hadn’t finished this project before going in to check on Sam? So what if they saw he’d gone to the Secretary of State’s page? If anybody had a reason to check on this Camacho creep, it was he.

  Nate felt a surge of confidence as he approached a sixtyish man with a beer gut, watering the front lawn of the bungalow.

  “Mr. Harrison?”

  He could see Betty Jean’s outline just inside the screen door, watching them.

  Ed Harrison dropped the garden hose and turned off the water. “Mr. Farris.”

  “Right. I spoke with your wife earlier.”

  “So she said.” Ed Harrison fished into his pocket and came up with Nate’s card. “Betty said you got a rent application from my tenant who hasn’t said nothin’ to me about movin’.”

  “He didn’t tell me he was moving. Like I suggested to your wife, maybe he was expanding.” Nate walked toward the man.

  Ed Harrison let out a low guffaw. “He don’t seem to be doin’ no business at all. How could he be expandin’?”

  Opportunity called to him as he handed Ed the release form. “Mr. Camacho said it was okay to contact you. When did you talk to him last?”

  That seemed to stop Ed in his tracks. He removed his baseball cap, scratched his thread-bare head and eyed the lease application/release form.

  “Not for at least five months.” Betty Jean fired this response from behind the screen door, jerking both men’s heads around in her direction.

  “You sure about that?” asked her husband.

  “You’re the one said you bet he got arrested. Cop cars all over the place.”

  “Oh, yeah.” This seemed to jog his memory.

  “How did he pay his rent? I guess that’s the bottom line, Mr. Harrison.”

  “Paid each year in advance. In January,” replied Ed Harrison hesitantly, as if he were deliberating the suggestion that his tenant, whom he hadn’t seen in over five months, might be expanding. “Truth is, I thought he run out on the lease. But what do I care? He’s paid up.”

  “Ever have any problem with bounced checks, or─”

  “No checks. Paid cash. Every year for the last five years. One year in advance, every year.” Ed Harrison handed the release form back to him, and Nate was pretty sure that it hadn’t been fully digested.

  “Could I please ask another favor of you, Mr. Harrison?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Could you let me have a copy of Mr. Camacho’s application with you? To make sure that there are no inconsistencies.”

  Betty Jean in the doorway again. “Lemme see that release, Mr. Farris.”

  He approached the door. Betty Jean opened it a crack and snatched the paper from him. He wondered what that had been about—her claiming her husband was the one to talk to. Deviousness was apparently not a commodity that he had cornered.

  “Looks like his writing all right.” Betty Jean came out onto the front porch after a few minutes. “I pulled the lease and his old application. Your office says you work there, so I guess it won’t do no harm to give you this.”

  Son-of-a-bitch. He didn’t need to ask who she’d talked to. There were only two possibilities.

  Betty Jean thrust s
ome papers at him, and he was quick to take back the one he’d created.

  “Thank you. Thank you both very much.” Nate retreated a bit too eagerly into his car. As he pulled away from the curb, he noted puzzled looks passing between the Harrisons.

  *****

  Back at his office, Nate closed the door. No Sam, no receptionist. Fredricka always left by five, but it was not unusual for Sam to be around until late. In fact, it would not be unusual for Sam to return after dinner, to put in more hours.

  He read the documents supplied by the Harrisons with a sense of urgency. Camacho had leased another shop on Thirty-eighth Avenue that he also listed as his home address at the time he applied to lease the Harrisons’ property. Not unusual. Often those commercial properties had little houses in the back. Prior reference: Action Real Estate Management. That was a name he knew. The office manager, Ellie Myers, had a good set of tits on her—full-bodied, the way he liked his women. He’d often imagined that Ellie might be a source of action, but had never really gone down that road. Now he was glad. There was enough friendly business contact with Ellie that she might open up to him. He laughed at his own double entendre as his eyes roamed farther down the page.

  Notify in emergency. Another spic name with an address and phone number. Hmm. Why not? After punching in the code for block caller, he entered the phone number from the form.

  The call was answered before the second ring. He almost dropped the phone as he heard: “Wheat Ridge Police Department.”

  As Nate drove home, he rehashed what he had just learned. Camacho’s next-of-kin worked in some capacity for Wheat Ridge P.D. Why didn’t anybody working on the case jump on this? Because they had different last names? No-brainer: same mother, different fathers. Okay, but there were internet services that traced everything about a person down to their underwear. If he had access to these, the cops would have even better sources.

  He’d never run a trace on Camacho because he didn’t want the charge to show up on the Bayfield account. That would mean explaining what he was up to. Not yet. He preferred to present the fruits of his labor fully ripened.

  And he was about to hand Morgan a real peach. As he coasted to a stop in the garage beside Morgan’s Jag, he performed the new addition to his routine. As he exited his vehicle, he felt the hood of Morgan’s. Garage temperature. Nate withdrew his hand from the Jag and then took the Harrisons’ lease application from his jacket.