Dead Connection

by Charlie Price

  The principal, a blunt-faced, fair-skinned man who seemed too young to hold that top administrative position, was shaking his head, no. A gray-haired man with large plastic glasses, possibly the vice principal, was rubbing his chin, thinking. The two women who were present started to speak at the same time. The younger one stopped; the older one continued.

  “We have an Audiovisual Aids and Media club, but I don’t think they have anything to do with the things that you mentioned.”

  The younger one piped in, “But Benny would know!”

  “Benny?” Gates asked.

  “He’s what-do-you-call-it … uh, the school geek, or is it nerd?” The younger woman was uncomfortable saying those words, like maybe they were racial slurs.

  “Electronics.” The older man entered the conversation. “Benny has his HAM radio license and knows all about any type of electronic gear. He runs the sound for our assemblies, and everybody, students and teachers alike, uses him as a resource. If anyone would know, it would probably be him.”

  * * *

  Benny turned out to be a handsome, smiling boy with neatly parted orange hair and a calm I-can-do-it attitude. “Hi, Mrs. Fender,” he said, nodding to the older woman now behind the counter in the administrative office where Gates had been waiting.

  She ushered them into a small counselor’s room. “Let me know if you need anything else,” she said, and left quietly, closing the door.

  Gates introduced himself and then asked his questions about white cars and antennas. Benny looked away to his right and seemed to be scanning invisible memory files. After a minute or so, he looked back at Gates.

  “CB’s not very cool, and HAM is real geeky. Walkie-talkies are the thing and they’re cheaper than ever, sixty bucks or less at Costco, with a two- to five-mile range, and you don’t need an antenna or anything.

  “Twenty or so kids have satellite radio. It’s pretty expensive still, so they’re mostly the rich kids from the Sunset neighborhood. Those receivers don’t really need much of an antenna, a stubby little wart of a thing, chrome or black usually, on the car roof in the middle at the back.

  “I think I saw a whip on a white Civic, a sophomore guy in choir, he might be a HAM, and I think Gina has one on her white Infinity, but nobody I know has one on a Town Car or a Crown or a Caddy, that I’ve seen, anyway.”

  Gates waited while the boy looked away again.

  “You know who used to have something like that?” Searching, searching … the boy’s eyelids quivered; he was probing for the recollection. “What was his name? He graduated a couple of years ago, I think, and went to someplace like Chico or Sonoma. He played football. And he drove this big old white beast with an antenna on the back fender and some other stuff.”

  Benny turned back to Gates. “Uh, Crandall, or, or, Crallick. No, Craddock. Gary Craddock. I think that was his name. He was back here for his dad’s funeral a while ago and I saw him around. I don’t know if he had a CB or what. I didn’t really know him. That’s all I can think of.” He opened his hands out in front of him and dropped them like a stage direction to indicate he’d done all he could do.

  Gates managed to pull himself together long enough to thank the boy for his help and then he was back in the office, asking Mrs. Fender if she had an address for a past year’s student, a Gary Craddock. Inside he was whirling. Talk about a coincidence.

  FILLING IN THE BLANKS

  Mrs. Craddock was a dour middle-aged woman dressed in a stiff, shiny green dress that made Gates think of the word taffeta. Most people Gates knew would be in their comfortable after-work clothes getting ready to cook dinner. As she opened her front door, she frowned at Gates.

  Gates introduced himself and, without further explanation, asked to speak with her son Gary.

  “He’s at college.” She offered nothing else, not even a question about what he, a deputy, was doing at her home.

  “He came back here for his father’s funeral?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long did he stay?”

  “The day before the funeral to help with the arrangements, and he left the morning after. Is there anything else?”

  “A few more questions. Would you rather talk inside, Mrs. Craddock?”

  “This will do. What else?”

  Gates was surprised by the woman’s demeanor. He had not expected such a frosty reception, these terse responses. Most people in this area were somewhat ingratiating to a law officer on their doorstep, unless they were counterfeiting fifties in their kitchen or growing dope in their sunroom. He collected his thoughts and resumed asking.

  “What kind of car does your son drive?”

  A brief grimace. “He bought one of those dilapidated used highway patrol cars at an auction when he was in high school. I guess he and his friends thought that was funny.” She clearly did not.

  “And is that the car he continues to drive?”

  “Yes, I suppose so. Has he had an accident?”

  Gates thought her question came from fear of inconvenience rather than concern for her son’s welfare.

  “Does your tone of voice indicate that you’re angry at your son?”

  “That’s a personal question, Officer. Do you have any further business here?”

  Gates could see that something, perhaps a great many things, had not gone well for this woman. “I regret coming to you unannounced, Mrs. Craddock, but yes, I do have more questions. We can talk here on your porch, inside in the room of your choice, or downtown at the sheriff’s department. Which would you prefer?” Gates kept his tone of voice even, but he hoped to underline his authority with this remark.

  “Am I under arrest for anything?”

  “No ma’am.”

  “Is my son?”

  “No.”

  “Then ask your questions and leave.” She had been holding the screen door open as they talked. Now she let it close and stood just behind it, arms folded, waiting.

  “This arrangement will not be acceptable, Mrs. Craddock.”

  “I do not respond to threats, Deputy. I have recently lost a husband. I am in mourning and will not be harassed. If you have another question, ask it. If not, please be gone.”

  Gates stepped up close to the screen, where he could see her more clearly.

  “How well did your son know Nikki Parker?”

  There was no sharp intake of breath. Her arms stayed folded. But Gates wondered if he hadn’t seen her shudder. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light behind her, he could pick up a dark living room where the drapes were closed, the lights were off, and the afternoon sun filtered around the base of the windows, creating just enough illumination to distinguish the vague shapes of furniture.

  Mrs. Craddock’s tone of voice was only slightly less exasperated now. “Diane Parker and I are cousins. That makes Nikki Parker and my son second cousins or cousins once removed or some such. They knew each other from family gatherings and, of course, went to the same high school. I wouldn’t say they were friends. She never gave him the time of day, as far as I could see.” She seemed to run out of words and energy with the last remark and stood still behind the screen.

  When Gates had first met her, his grandmother’s word prissbutt came to mind. Now he was thinking enduring. This woman in her expensive dress and empty house had been through something that had left her with this brittle anger, a scab grown over an injury.

  “Did you see Nikki Parker the day of Mr. Craddock’s funeral?” he asked her.

  “No. I spent most of that day in my room, except for the services. Nikki didn’t come to the funeral, that I remember.”

  “What about your son? What was he doing that day?”

  “I saw him at the services. That’s all. I don’t know what he did the rest of the day. We didn’t eat dinner together. I didn’t want any company.”

  That remark struck Gates. This woman experienced her son as “company.”

  “Do you know what time he got home the night of the funeral?”

&
nbsp; “No.”

  “Did he say anything to you that evening or the next morning?”

  “No. I didn’t see him after the service. He went back to school.”

  Gates took his eyes off her to locate his pen and pulled his notepad from his shirt pocket. “May I have the address and number where I can reach him?”

  “If it’s important, Officer, you can find that on your own,” she said. “I have other things to do.” She stepped back and closed the door.

  Gates felt a moment of rage, felt the back of his neck heat up. You’re lucky to have a son.

  The annoyance fell away as he turned and walked back to his car. What would it have been like for Gary growing up in this family? Who would he turn to when his father died? Did he have an older brother or sister? He hated to ask Mrs. Parker, hated to reignite her anguish.

  He used his cell to call Drummond.

  “Go.”

  “Drum, Gates. When you started the Parker investigation, did you run into a family confidant or relative who was willing to help you with the family dynamics?”

  “God, Rome, you do get around. Haggarty has been nominating you for lawman of the week all over the second floor.”

  “Drum, I have some new information, could be the break. Kid who graduated last year, cousin type of thing to Nikki, drives an auctioned highway patrol car. Gary Craddock. He’s the son of the guy buried where Kiefer was shot. He was in town the day she went missing, the day of Craddock’s funeral. She definitely would have gotten in a car with him.

  “After the funeral, the day his dad died, kid had to be pretty upset. His mom is an ice cube. Maybe he was looking for comfort, got rejected, came apart.”

  “Gates, I’m thinking maybe you need a vacation, a little rest after the shooting thing with the kid. This Oprah shit has got to stop. You’re making all these phone calls, got all these theories. We got a perp who fits! He’s a goddamn maniac. He’ll give it up. He’ll cut a deal and it’s over.” His voice softened. “Rome, back off, give it some slack. This is a done deal.”

  Gates knew he better be careful. He did not want Drummond folding up their working relationship. Didn’t want him to think he’d lost it. Drummond knew about his divorce, his kid’s death, his gambling. He knew he was close to losing the man’s respect.

  “Drum, you’re right. I do need to back off a little and take a breather. I’ve just been troubled by the lack of hard evidence. Nobody picked Billup out of a lineup, and all the rest of the loose ends. I’m trying to eliminate possibilities that will hurt us in court, that’s all. Don’t worry about it. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Drummond hung up before Gates had finished speaking.

  Gates drove back to his office, pulled his copy of the case file, and started reading. Half an hour into it, he had the name of the family member who had supplied most of the personal background information. Diane Parker had an older sister she had remained close to, who continued to live and work in Riverton. Marsha Virdon. Gates had heard the name and knew she was a realtor. He called her office.

  * * *

  They met at the Red Lion Coffee Shop for lunch. She was a heavily made-up fifty- to sixty-year-old woman who moved with a confidence that suggested substantially more successes than failures.

  Gates explained that, in continuing to pursue lines of possibility regarding Nikki’s disappearance, he would like to know whatever she could tell him about the family relationship between Diana Parker and Gayle Craddock and their children Nikki and Gary.

  Over mixed-seafood fettuccini, Marsha talked while he wrote. She said that Nikki’s family had always seemed pretty healthy to her—“I mean, Diana’s still married to David and I know she loves him. Nikki’s a bit of a twit, but show me a pretty high school cheerleader who isn’t!

  “Gayle Craddock’s family, on the other hand, seemed troubled. The longer they were married, the colder Gayle became, but she never talked about it when we were all together, at least not to me.”

  Marsha told Gates that, for some reason, Gary had always seemed intense and changeable, “real up or real down,” and that she thought he had a mean streak, but she wasn’t positive about it.

  “I heard that Gary was something of a partier and a bully in high school, but he was always polite at our get-togethers. I know you asked about Gary, but the thing I thought was interesting was that the daughter didn’t come back from college for the funeral. She could have. She was just down in Long Beach, and she has her own car. Made me think she hated her father … or her mother. Or both.”

  BACK TO THE GRAVE

  The third day of Murray’s stay, his nurse was excited about his progress and said she expected him to be discharged. She told him she had been unable to contact his mother and asked if he had any other relatives in town.

  Murray remembered his mother had been cranking the day he was shot. He hadn’t seen her since. Sometimes she went on a run that lasted several days and got pretty crazy. She was capable of picking up anyone or doing anything. He recalled some of the fights and some of the sex he had witnessed. If she was coming down from a spree, she might have taken some pills and could be out cold for a day or so. He didn’t want to face that right now.

  “Uh,” Murray said, “just her brother, Mr. Janochek, my uncle. He’ll pick me up if you give him a call.”

  “I thought the chart said he was a friend of the family,” his nurse said, her expression slightly puzzled as she tried to remember what she had read.

  “Oh, he is. He is.” Murray felt a surge of energy, wanting to convince the woman of his lie. “He’s been a very good friend of the family. It’s just that, as her older brother, he hasn’t approved of Mom’s, uh, dating habits, and so I guess she doesn’t claim him as a brother, but he’d be happy to take me home.”

  The woman seemed skeptical. “Well, we’ll see what your social worker says when she comes in.”

  As soon as the nurse left, Murray found the phone book in the metal cabinet beside his bed and located Janochek’s number. He got Pearl and quickly told her the situation.

  * * *

  When Pearl walked in, she was wearing a yellow dress. That was a first, as far as Murray could remember.

  “Hey, D.C.,” she said, smiling and walking right up to him. “You made it!” She leaned over and gave him a light pound on the shoulder. Murray thought, It’s like I’m one of her teammates.

  “Dad has a funeral till noon and then he’ll be right over. He tried to call your mom, but he couldn’t reach her, so he left a message. If they let you out, we’ll drive you by your house and try to get her to let you stay at our place for a couple of days.”

  Murray couldn’t remember ever feeling so good.

  She slid the heavy metal-armed chair to the side of his bed, sat down, and leaned toward him, putting her hand on his arm. “Plus,” she said, “I can’t wait to get you back over there so we can find out who killed Nikki!”

  “How’ll we find that out?” Murray asked.

  Pearl had that look on her face. “We’ll ask her,” she said, as if explaining simplicities to an idiot.

  We.

  “I’ll help you walk and we’ll go back to the grave and you can ask Nikki who killed her, and we can call the sheriff guy and give him the scoop,” she said, dropping her disdainful look and becoming more animated. Excited.

  Murray did not want to touch that Craddock tombstone again and feel that girl’s misery. “I don’t want to. I can’t face it right now.”

  “Hey, I know you’re still recovering, D.C., but those police guys are stalled out and they need our help. It’s okay. We can do it tomorrow.”

  “Want anything?” she asked as she lifted the muffin off his breakfast tray and took a big bite.

  MR. CRADDOCK’S LEGACY

  Gates took a day off. He got a commuter flight out of Riverton to San Francisco and the next available plane to Long Beach. He rented a car and met the daughter, Denise, at the Long Beach State Student Union. He showed her his id
entification and explained that he was here out of personal concern, gathering information for an investigation involving Nikki Parker. He said that he had no authority in this county, but that he hoped she would be willing to talk with him.

  Her eyes flared for a moment. “Get it over with then. I knew this was going to happen sooner or later, anyway. Did he do Nikki, too?”

  Gates didn’t react, except to reach for his notebook and pen. The girl was tall and slender like her mother. She had fancy wraparound sunglasses stuck in her hair and wore an expensive-looking fleece jacket in a coral color Gates had not seen before. And the girl was angry. Like her mother.

  “Did who do Nikki?” he asked, keeping eye contact, voice dead level.

  “Daddy.”

  Gates saw water in the corner of her eyes.

  “No. She disappeared the day of his funeral.”

  That seemed to surprise her.

  “Why? Would he be capable of such a thing?” he asked.

  “Oh, for shit’s sake, he did us for years.” A tear rolled down. “And everybody in his office, too. He was a goat. Did you talk to Mother? Yeah, you probably did, and she didn’t say shit, right? Right?”

  Gates stayed silent.

  “She never said shit. Not a word. Not the whole time, and I know she knew. She saw him on me once. And I heard her ask him to leave Gary alone, but he didn’t. He didn’t leave anybody alone. God! I was never so glad that anyone was dead!” Tears from both eyes now. “But he was already dead, so why come down here and ask me about Nikki? Did she commit suicide?”

  Gates shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Then what are you doing here?”

  Gates met her eyes. “I came to ask you about Gary. About his relationship with Nikki.”

  “About Gary? About Nikki? About Gary.” She pushed her chair back. “Oh, God, no! Oh, hell, no! No way!” She was yelling and getting up. People nearby were coming over.

  “You asshole! No way. Leave me alone! Get away from me!” She moved away from the table and headed out of the union, almost running.