by Jan Burke
It was this last that I was most interested in.
The good news was that the photo was in color and the men were all standing with their hats off — tucked into their arms military style, but off. The bad news was that the photo was taken from too great a distance — I’d have trouble getting a very close look at any of them.
“Pardon me,” a low, gravelly voice said. I turned to see the old man standing beside me, leaning on his cane. “Perhaps you could make use of this.” He reached into one pocket of his too large suit coat and pulled out a large red handkerchief. He wheezed a little laugh and said, “Oh no, ho! Not that.” He sniffed and reached again and this time produced a magnifier. He set it on the table next to me. “At my age, it’s impossible to get by without one,” he rasped, chuckling and putting away the handkerchief.
“Thank you,” I said, “I’ll only need it for a moment.”
“As long as you like, honey. As long as you like.”
He picked up his book and cane and shuffled back toward the stacks. That, I thought, was what I liked about people out here — their courtesy and friendliness.
Using the old man’s magnifier, I went to work looking over the group photo. I could not resist going to Frank’s photo first. Standing at the end of a row, young and smiling, but not so very different from the Frank I knew now. His posture was no longer so ramrod straight, and over the years his eyes had come to reflect more wisdom, if not cynicism. But the photo made me feel his absence more acutely, and I quickly moved to scan the other faces.
Many were familiar to me; I had met them when I worked the night shift crime beat. But the next one I studied was of a man I often wished I’d met — Brian Harriman. I stared at his image for a long time, just to make sure I wasn’t trying to see something that wasn’t there. When I thought of the picture on the mantel in Bea’s home, I realized that I should have known what to expect. In that photo, taken when Frank graduated from the academy, Brian had a little gray in his hair. He was far from completely gray then, and now, looking at this photo, I could see that he was still a long way from it two years later. He wasn’t the man Bret had described in the fax.
Some of Cecilia’s doubts about Brian must have bothered me more than I had acknowledged to myself, for I felt a sudden relief that could have no other origin than dispelling those doubts.
I found Bear Bradshaw next. Unmistakably gray. The same was true of Gus Matthews and Nathan Cook. I started making a more orderly search of the photo then. There were not all that many older officers. I found two others.
The next feature to consider was height. I knew Frank was six four, his father a little shorter. I put my notebook next to Frank’s photo, marked on the paper the distance from the top of Frank’s head to the step where he stood. Now I had a rough scale and held it up to the photos of Bear and Cookie and Gus. Not easy to judge, but they were all nearly the same height as Frank, Bear being the shortest. The other two silver-haired cops were shorter than Bear, but were they too short to fit Bret’s description? In Bret’s memory the cop had been bigger than Julian — but it was the memory of a terrified child seeing his father attacked.
I wrote down the names of the two older cops, men I hadn’t met when I’d worked in Bakersfield. The caption gave only initials for their first names.
M. Beecham and Q. Wilson.
I sighed and stretched. I looked for the old man but didn’t see him. The room seemed empty, except for the librarian. She saw me looking around and said, “Can I help you find something?”
“Someone, maybe. The elderly gentleman who was in here a moment ago?”
“Oh, he left.”
“Oh, no. He loaned this magnifier to me. He must have forgotten.”
“Well, perhaps we can page him before he leaves the library. Let’s look on the sign-in sheet.” She reached it before I did and started laughing. “Well, I guess he didn’t want us to know his name. This is a character in a short story.”
I stared at the signature in disbelief.
The name on the sign-in sheet was John Oakhurst. He gave his address as Poker Flat.
“I guess he’s a fan of Bret Harte,” she said. “ ‘The Outcasts of Poker Flat.’ ”
“Call the police!” I said, running to the door.
“For goodness’ sakes, it’s not that serious,” I heard her say behind me.
I stopped and turned back to her. “That man is wanted by the police. Call them!”
As I entered the open area beyond the local history collection, I heard my name paged. I looked back at the librarian, who was watching me as if my next move would help her decide whether I was a harmless lunatic or a dangerous one. No phone in her hand.
I ran to the main information desk. “Please call the police.”
This librarian was studying me, but not as if I were crazy. “Are you Irene Kelly?” she asked.
“Yes!” I said, starting to run out the door without thinking about how she knew my name.
“Stop!” she called out.
I turned back.
“It’s right here, with me,” she said, and to my amazement she held up my purse.
“How…?”
“An old man found it and turned it in. Didn’t you hear me page you just now?”
“An old man… which way did he go?”
“Are you all right? If you’d like to check it to see if anything is missing….”
“Which way did he go?” I shouted.
Her eyes widened, but she pointed toward the front doors.
“Call the police,” I said again, and ran outside.
I looked for any sign of someone pulling out of the parking lot, frantically scanned the area in front of the building for any sign of him. Not a soul. I ran all the way around the building, to P Street and back. It was on the return trip that I saw something red.
It was the old man’s handkerchief, tied to the canal fence. As I walked toward it, I heard a train whistle, saw a freight train on the tracks behind the library. The rumble of the train blocked out all other sound, even the water flowing swift and sure through the narrow channel below. I touched the handkerchief, saw that something was knotted within it. With shaking hands I loosened the handkerchief, then the knot that held the weighty object.
A folded piece of paper and something made of shiny metal fell out into my hand.
Frank’s watch. An old-fashioned watch — his father’s retirement watch — the kind you have to wind. Unable to stand, I sat on the sidewalk next to the fence. I unfolded the piece of paper.
It was a page from a desk calendar. Next Tuesday. In block letters the words “Time is running out.”
The information desk librarian was outside then and walked over to me. “Here’s your purse,” she said gently. “Are you all right?”
“Did you call the police?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Then I’m all right.” I held the watch to my ear, listened to it tick, and wept.
25
“WHAT’S THIS?” Cassidy asked.
“A tampon holder,” I answered, then snapped out of my state of numbness as if I’d been slapped. “What the hell are you doing going through my purse?”
The officer driving the police cruiser that was taking us back to Bea’s house was smiling. She caught my attention and rolled her eyes in sympathy.
Cassidy set the holder between us, on the seat, and was already pulling out my wallet. But at my question he looked up and said, “Feeling any better?”
I nodded. “While you’re rummaging through my belongings, see if there are any tissues in there. I’ve used up all the ones the librarians gave me.”
Instead he reached into his shirt pocket and handed me his neatly ironed and folded handkerchief.
“I didn’t think anybody carried these anymore,” I managed to say as I took the soft cloth from him. “Christ, it even has your initials on it.”
“Hell, yes. I want it back.”
“I’ll wash it first.”
The first police officers had arrived almost immediately — the Bakersfield Police Department is just down the street from the library. The moment I mentioned “Ryan-Neukurk” they were on the radio.
I went back into the local history room to gather my notebook and put away the annual when Cassidy arrived; the Bakersfield officers were already searching the building and surrounding area. The local history librarian, who had been apologetic, had also done a better job than I of observing the man.
A gray wig and dark clothing, reeking of aftershave but found in a neat bundle, were retrieved from a rest room waste bin. But despite an intensive effort to find him, there was no other sign of the person who had played the part of the old man.
Cassidy convinced the local police that it would be best to let me go home with him while it was still possible to evade the reporters who were waiting outside. My fellow journalists had shouted questions, but I simply let Cassidy silently maneuver me into a waiting patrol car.
“I decided to let Officer Brewitt do the driving when we got the call,” he said as he closed the car door, then got in and asked her to take the long way back to Bea’s house.
The circuitous route had given me time to regain some of my composure, but now I realized it had also given Cassidy time to search my purse.
“Cassidy,” I said more insistently now, “give that back to me.”
“Just making sure there aren’t any new items in here,” he said. “Here, you go through the wallet. Don’t just look for things that might be missing. Look for things that might be added. He took your purse for a reason.”
I was noting that Hocus hadn’t left me any poorer or richer when Cassidy said, “Bingo.”
He handed me a little slip of paper. “I take it this wasn’t already in here?”
It was a note that said “Progress report scheduled for midnight — H.”
“No, no, it wasn’t,” I told him. “So they’re calling at midnight?”
“Looks that way,” Cassidy said. “Officer Brewitt, would you please be so kind as to ask your dispatcher to patch me through to Detective Ellie Sledzik?”
“Ellie?” the driver asked.
“Excuse me. Detective Eleanor C. Sledzik.”
Brewitt smiled and made the call.
When Detective Sledzik came on, Cassidy merely said, “Next one at twenty-four hundred.” She acknowledged the information and they signed off.
Cassidy did a little more rummaging, then handed the purse back and said, “Keep checking for me, Irene. I might have missed something still.”
“Who’s Eleanor Sledzik?”
“She’s our liaison with Bakersfield PD. She’s also been working with the phone company on the tap on your mother-in-law’s phone line. Besides being damned smart and a pleasure to work with, she has a gift for getting judges to see when they ought to hurry up and act on a request for a warrant.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t tried to recruit her down to Las Piernas.”
“She’s considering it,” Cassidy said, making Officer Brewitt laugh. Brewitt hadn’t been around Cassidy long enough to know he wasn’t kidding.
As we climbed the porch steps Cassidy said, “Boy, when old Frank is home safe and sound again, I’ve got to be the first one who gets to talk to him.”
I looked up at him. He was grinning.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “I’m dying to tell him that his wife got into trouble just going to the library.”
“Maybe I won’t wash that handkerchief.”
Once inside the house I was fussed over by Bea and Rachel and Pete.
“If y’all will excuse us,” Cassidy said, “it’s important that I have a few minutes to talk to Irene.”
Reluctantly they allowed me to follow him back to his temporary office. I told him what I had learned from Cecilia and at the library.
“Well,” he said, “I was considering Brian Harriman myself. Powell’s arrest records show that Frank’s dad arrested Powell twice.”
“But Brian couldn’t—”
“Hold your horses, there’s more to it. Both times, Powell was right back out again. First time, the substance they found on him was not illegal — at least, it wasn’t by the time the lab looked at it. Second time, key witness came in and said he was coerced into making false statements. When I looked at it a little closer, either problem could have been caused by Harriman’s partners.”
“Which partners?”
“Different one each time — Bradshaw, then Matthews. But Cook had a connection to Powell, too. He was the first one to arrest Powell. He was assigned to Vice at the time.”
“He was a detective?”
“I asked Ellie Sledzik about it. She looked up Cook’s records and found out that Cook spent three years as a detective — blew something on a big case and ended up back on patrol.” He paused, then added, “I asked for information on all three officers — and Brian Harriman, too.”
“What?”
“I know you wanted a ‘head start,’ but the brass in Las Piernas told me to reconsider; they thought I should be talking to Bakersfield about this, and they were right to get on me about it. But just so you don’t blame the department, I have to say I was having second thoughts anyway — I think I would have asked for Ellie Sledzik’s help even if my boss hadn’t pushed for it. We don’t have a hell of a lot to go on, and we need more information than we can get from a dinner party.”
I was silent. He waited.
“It makes sense, I suppose,” I said. “We don’t really have the luxury of a delay, do we?”
“No. Glad you understand. I’ll have these other two names — Beecham and Wilson — checked out, too.”
“So what did you learn about the original group?”
“Not much yet. It will take her — Detective Sledzik — some time to get all of the records. All three of them were respected, thought of as good cops — although Matthews was something of a maverick. All had been Brian Harriman’s partner at one time or another. All had some contact with Powell. Cook was on the force the longest, then Matthews and Bradshaw.”
I thought for a moment, then said, “I have a favor to ask, Cassidy. It’s about Bea. I want to tell her what’s going on tonight. I mean, what’s really going on.”
“Feeling guilty?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact. She’s gone out of her way for us, put people up for the night, even agreed to invite these guys over for dinner. All at a time when her only son is missing. I don’t like the idea of deceiving her. It’s her home, and we’re scheming to snare one of her friends under her own roof.”
“She’s too close to Bradshaw.”
“Her son, Cassidy — her son’s life is at stake. Bradshaw won’t mean anything to her by comparison.”
He hesitated, then shook his head. “We’ll tell her as soon as we can, but not yet.”
I crossed my arms and looked at the toe of my shoe. “Okay.”
“Don’t even think about it,” he said.
“Think about what?”
“Telling her anyway.”
“I said, ‘Okay,’ didn’t I?”
“Yes, but you lied.”
“How the hell can you know that?”
He laughed.
“Shit,” I said. “I need more sleep. What I meant was—”
“Oh, let’s not compound it with another lie.”
“So answer the question.”
“Neurolinguistics,” he said.
“Body language?”
“Basically, yes. But it isn’t as easy as some first-year psych students believe it is.”
“Nothing about human behavior is. So what did you see me do?”
“Why should I tell you? You might just become a better liar.”
“Well, they say imitation is the highest form of flattery, Cassidy, so—”
“For some reason, I doubt teaching you to be a better liar will make my head swell. But, okay, I’l
l tell you what you did this time. You folded your arms — mere resistance. Then you avoided my eyes, suddenly looked away. So I took a guess, provoked you, and got an admission of guilt.”
I sighed. “All right, I won’t say anything to Bea. Honest. I’m not giving any hidden signs or gestures now, am I?”
“No, you’re cranky, but truthful.”
“What is it you have against Bradshaw?” I asked.
He moved over to the desk, picked up a file folder, and opened it. He pulled a photograph from it and handed it to me.
It was the photo of Frank holding the boys after their rescue.
“Oh, shit, Cassidy….”
He lifted a brow.
“You stole this from the Californian!”
“Borrowed.”
“Stole!”
“Mr. North handed it to me,” he drawled, “and didn’t ask for it back. They have other copies. And I believe he said the newspaper should have thrown them out long ago, so it’s not as if they would expect to find it still in their files.”
“Not expect it? After Brandon had been showing it to us that afternoon?”
“We can sit here and bicker over that, or you can take a look at the folks in the background — in the part that got cropped out of the newspaper version.”
I scowled at him but did as he suggested. I immediately saw what he wanted me to see. “Bear….”
“Yes.”
I looked up at Cassidy. “He’s not wearing a uniform.”
“No, he’s not.”
“So he couldn’t have been in a patrol car when Frank’s call came in.”
“No.”
“Well, hell.” I handed the photo back to him.
“It doesn’t mean he’s the one,” Cassidy said.
