Echoes of the Dead--A Special Tracking Unit Novel

by Spencer Kope

  “So, what do we do in the meantime?” I ask.

  Ross shrugs and smiles. “Curtain lady.”

  “Curtain lady?”

  “Yeah, every neighborhood has one. We just need to find ours.”

  When Jimmy and I both stare at him without comprehension, he looks almost offended. “Curtain lady,” he says with emphasis. “You know, a busybody who hides behind her curtains all day watching the neighbors. In a place like this”—he glances toward the living room window and the street beyond—“I bet there’s a half dozen of them.”

  We’re near the front door when something occurs to me. “Does anyone know why the bed was propped up?”

  Ross looks around. “What do you mean?”

  “The head of the bed was on wood blocks.”

  “It was?”

  “Yeah, about six inches’ worth.”

  “Huh.” The detective turns around and continues out of the house.

  When I look at Jimmy, he just shrugs and follows.

  * * *

  As we exit, a black Ford Expedition remarkably similar to Jimmy’s government-issued vehicle pulls to a stop in front of the house, blocking the right lane of travel. Leaving his semi-covert emergency lights flashing, Special Agent Kip Weir steps from the SUV and assesses the scene.

  After asking three or four questions, he all but takes command—assuring Gina and the locals that it’s still their investigation—and advocates strongly for activating the FBI’s Evidence Response Team (ERT) out of the Sacramento Field Office.

  Cupping the SA’s elbow in his right hand, Jimmy steers Kip gently away on the pretext of asking about sensitive information. “What has your SAC been hearing?” he asks, referring to the special agent in charge of the Sacramento Field Office.

  A sour look crosses Kip’s face. “The ADIC out of Los Angeles is pushing to take over the investigation, claiming the Sacramento Field Office doesn’t have the resources.”

  Unlike the other fifty-three field offices around the country, the New York City, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles Field Offices are run by an assistant director in charge (ADIC) rather than by a special agent in charge. This is due to the sheer size and number of investigations handled by those offices.

  “It’s all political,” Kip continues, a defeated tone slipping into his words. “An influential congressman goes missing and everyone sees it as a ticket to advancement. Everyone wants to be the hero.”

  Jimmy smiles. “But not you?”

  Kip takes it well. “Yeah, I admit that when the case was first handed to me, I thought it might move me up the ladder. But then…” His voice trails off. “What this guy did to Wade Winchell … and Jason Norris.”

  Kip waves a hand at the house. “And now Noah Long.” He turns and looks at Jimmy, a haunted look on his face. “It’s not about promotion, jurisdiction, or ego anymore. I just want to get this freak before he does to Marco what he did to the others.”

  “What about Abel Moya?” I ask.

  Kip sighs. “They’re still convinced he’s behind this.”

  “You told them about the time line, right? The fact that Abel was smuggling people across the border when Marco was taken?”

  “I told them. They’re not convinced. They’ve ordered me to keep after him, and that’s where they’re going to focus FBI resources.”

  Jimmy shakes his head in disbelief. “Stupid sons of…” He lets the rest of it fall away into indiscernible sounds. Confronted with the ignorance of bureaucracy, all he can do is stand in disbelief with his hands on his hips.

  “What do you intend to do?” I ask Kip.

  “Screw them,” the agent replies indignantly. “I’ll hunt Abel, but I’m with you guys as soon as you find something worth pursuing. Promise you’ll call me.”

  “We will,” Jimmy assures him. “You’ve got good people working this case. Bakersfield CSI is on the way, and they know their business. I’ve seen them at work. Let them do their job.”

  Kip looks to the house and the detectives and officers securing the scene. Letting out a long breath, he asks, “Anything I can help with?”

  “How are you with curtain people?”

  29

  Canvassing the neighborhood is critical to any investigation.

  It’s surprising how many people never reach out to the police, even when they witness or experience something sketchy or downright criminal. Yet, if you knock on the right doors and ask the right questions, they’ll tell you who really killed Kennedy, and why the neighbor three doors down has low spots in his backyard.

  Ross stays behind to help the other detectives, so it’s just Jimmy, Kip, and me. There’s no answer at the house next door—on either side—so we cross the street and try again. The first home, another rancher similar to the one where Noah was found, appears occupied because the front door is open and the blare of a TV issues from someplace within, someplace other than the living room.

  “FBI,” Jimmy calls into the house for the second time, his voice considerably louder on this attempt. He knocks hard on the aluminum screen, but there’s still no response. He slips one of Kip’s business cards in the crack between the screen door and the frame, and we move to the next house.

  At the sidewalk, we shuffle fifty feet to the right and find ourselves standing in front of a salmon-colored cross-gabled rancher. Salmon’s not really a color, or at least it shouldn’t be. In days past, it might have been called peach or pink or pinkish peach, but not salmon. No one says they painted their living room wolverine, or that they added a little boa constrictor to the master bedroom to make the banana pop.

  Or maybe it’s just me.

  I admit I have a borderline neurotic relationship with colors.

  In any case, we find ourselves standing before this peachy house on Tuttle Street, and if houses were people, this one would be ten years past its last checkup and probably in need of a triple bypass. I’m sure the bones of the old house are good, but the rest of it is in desperate need of a makeover.

  As Jimmy knocks, the ratty aluminum screen door bangs against the frame, setting up an echo effect.

  The old woman who answers matches her house.

  Her name, she tells us before we have a chance to ask, is Margaret Mulligan. Not Maggie, just Margaret. She doesn’t like the name Maggie because she’s known too many Maggies who were as cheap as their shortened names.

  “Whores,” she explains, in case there was any misunderstanding.

  When advised that the local police and the FBI are investigating an incident across the street, she hurries the monologue along impatiently with a roll of her hand, as if we’re repeating the obvious.

  “This had something to do with the Fenton boys, I imagine? Jacob and Isaiah? I saw them running from the house, you know? Little thieves, those two. Stole the wind chime off my front porch.”

  When asked if she’s ever seen the man across the street, she says, “Oh, sure,” overemphasizing both syllables. And when asked if she’s ever met him, she says, “Oh, sure.” And when asked if she’s ever seen what he drives, she says, “Oh, sure.”

  She’s big on Oh, sure.

  “It was a white van with BLACK WALNUT CATERING stenciled on both sides. I remember it because my granddaughter, Amy, is getting married next summer to this nice boy from Oxnard. He’s a marketing director at one of those electronic e-commerce stores.”

  Margaret shrugs. “I’ve never been there, but they sell thousands of items, so it must be huge. Like Walmart or Costco, I imagine. Anyways, one day that big man pulls into the driveway and I notice the garage door doesn’t come down. This was unusual because he always closes it behind him, very particular about that. Well, I figured I could go over and be neighborly and maybe ask about his catering business.”

  She shrugs again. “I figured he couldn’t be as rough as he looks, least not if he’s in the catering business, because there’s a business that requires a lot of finesse. Anyways, he was yanking on the garage door something fierce when
I came up behind him, and I guess I startled him because he said some sharp words I didn’t particularly care for, and then he stood there glaring at me as if I were intruding, if you can imagine.

  “Anyways, he wasn’t friendly at all. Not in the least. I asked him what kind of events he catered, and he told me to … well, he told me to go do something to myself, if you know what I mean?” She gives us a look that suggests we better know what she means because she’s not about to explain it.

  “And so, I says to him that he’s a crass individual—crass—and that with that kind of attitude I rightly expect he won’t be in business by the time my Amy gets married anyway.” She folds her arms across her chest. “You know what he did?”

  This appears to be an actual question because it’s not preceded by anyways, and she pauses a long moment, waiting for Jimmy to say “What?” before continuing.

  “Well, he just stared at me. Stared at me as if his eyes were daggers stripping the flesh from my bones. Gave me the chills, it did. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen eyes like that.”

  “Mrs. Mulligan,” Jimmy says, “if we were to bring a sketch artist to your house, do you think you could describe him?”

  “Oh, sure.”

  30

  Just before ten, a frail man in his midfifties arrives at the edge of the crime scene and announces in a diminutive voice that his name is Herbert and that he’s the sketch artist. Kip and I walk him across the street to Mrs. Mulligan’s house, and the old curtain lady ushers us into the dining room, insisting we have coffee and, as it would happen, coffee cake.

  We don’t argue, particularly since Herbert perks up at the mention.

  Over the next twenty minutes, the odd little sketch artist hunches over his large pad and uses a series of pencils and graphite sticks to create an image from words.

  Mrs. Mulligan uses some three or four thousand words to paint a thousand-word picture. Brevity doesn’t appear to be her strong point. We’re left with a thuggish image that could be just about anyone within the criminal element of Bakersfield and the larger Kern County area.

  Not much help.

  When we escort Herbert off the scene, he carries a canvas bag containing his drawing tools in one hand and two slices of coffee cake on a napkin in the other. Mrs. Mulligan insisted he take the slices, apparently thrilled at his appetite. He’d already devoured three slices and two cups of coffee in the short time he was drawing.

  I guess what they say about starving artists is true.

  * * *

  Around ten forty-five, Gina gets a call from the hospital—not from the doctors and nurses attending Noah, but from Detective Alan Thomas, the unlucky soul assigned to stay with the hedge fund manager every step of the way—or at least every step the hospital would allow, HIPAA rules being what they are.

  Ending the call after about three minutes, Gina gives a whistle and waves everyone around, including the CSIs still working the house, the garage, and the yard.

  “That was Al. Noah Long is stable. They’re still not sure as to the extent of damage, but he may need a liver transplant, and possibly both kidneys. The drip he was being fed, maybe for days, contained a diluted form of antifreeze.”

  A murmur rustles through those gathered, like so many dry leaves at the edge of a breeze. They understand in a moment the enormity of the statement.

  “I know.” Gina nods. “The bastard.”

  Antifreeze.

  There are certainly worse ways to die, but not many. It’s the ethylene glycol within the green mixture that’s the real killer. Of the roughly five thousand cases of antifreeze poisoning in the United States each year, perhaps forty to sixty are fatal. Some jurisdictions have even experienced cases of suicide by antifreeze, though why anyone would pick such a horrible way to end their suffering remains a mystery.

  Those so poisoned are usually fine for the first few hours as their body processes and breaks down the antifreeze. Depending on the amount swallowed, symptoms can begin to appear anywhere from thirty minutes to twelve hours after ingestion. After that, things begin to devolve. The afflicted may appear inebriated, demonstrating a lack of coordination and slurred speech. Nausea, vomiting, fatigue, and headache are usually part of the package.

  Organ damage takes place from twenty-four to seventy-two hours after ingestion. Rapid breathing, rapid heartbeat, convulsions, and coma are all possibilities.

  Death … is a possibility.

  Gina continues, “The doctors believe our suspect made a mistake and overdiluted the solution. It’s obvious he wanted to drag out the effects, but in doing so, he may have allowed us to rescue Noah in time to prevent brain damage. We’ll have to wait and see. The good news is that he’s responsive, and other than some visual hallucinations that send him into fits of terror, he seems to understand what’s going on.”

  “Has he said anything?” one of the CSIs asks.

  “He’s tried, but they’re not letting him speak. It seems his vocal cords…” She’s not sure how to describe it. “Well, his trachea, in general, has extensive damage. Irreparable damage, from what Al was saying. It’s doubtful he’ll ever speak above a whisper again.”

  “Damaged?” Kip says. “How?”

  “Something was rammed down his throat. The doctors think the damage was intentional, a rather barbaric way of keeping him from calling for help.”

  “Why not just gag him?” a detective asks in disbelief.

  Gina nods as if to say she understands his horror. “I asked the same question, but the answer is right in front of us: The bedsheets, the room. This guy did his homework. He didn’t want to gag Noah because he didn’t want him to drown in his own vomit.”

  The gathering is silent a moment as that registers, and in that silence, something occurs to me. I give Ross a light elbow. “That’s probably why the bed was elevated,” I suggest when he tilts his head my way. He thinks on it a moment, then just nods.

  No smile. Just a nod.

  It’s been a rough day for everyone.

  “In any case,” Gina continues, “they’ve got him hooked up to a dialysis machine and have him on Fomepizole, so the combination should break down the toxins and sweep them from his system. Again, time will tell what long-term effects he might suffer.”

  She clasps her hands together. “That’s it, so let’s get back to work. We still have a missing man out there, and based on the intervals of the killings, we have twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Time is running short, folks.”

  Time is running short.

  The words stir a dark spot in my mind, a humorless, vapid place with neither warmth nor humanity. It’s not so much the time-running-short part of Gina’s pronouncement that pushes me to this dark spot, but rather her estimation of twenty-four to forty-eight hours.

  I hadn’t put an end cap on Marco’s life.

  I hadn’t supposed we’d fail.

  Now I’m not so sure.

  31

  The white van barely slows as it turns off Old Stage Road in Porterville and races up a worn dirt-and-gravel driveway. The mild angle of the path makes this quick entrance possible, but any speed carried from the road is quickly jostled away as the potholes go to work on the undercarriage, rocking the van violently up and down and sideways. The tires kick up a choking cloud of dust, which spills toward the modest farmhouse and the old woman who sits on her wide porch knitting.

  Again! Barbara Mills thinks, glaring at the van.

  The twenty-three-acre farm was once covered with citrus trees, an orchard of green and orange in an otherwise dry landscape. But that was years ago, back when the owners, Otis and Barbara, were young and still believed in dreams.

  The farm hadn’t fared so well since Otis’s passing in 2001. Barbara tried running the place herself for a spell, but what did she know of oranges? It was a hobby farm, after all, and Otis had always handled the crops and the workers and the contracts, taking a few weeks off from his engineering position each year at harvest time. She threw in the towel
in 2008 and took a receptionist job at a real estate brokerage to make ends meet.

  Most of the orange trees were uprooted or left to die without water, but she kept about fifty trees alive and well tended, scattered in several clusters around the farm. Without them, the place was too flat and dry, she often said. Besides, she could sell the fruit at the farmers’ market to supplement her now-meager income.

  The barn and half dozen outbuildings at the back of the property had fallen into disrepair over the years, and even the once-proud metal sign arching over the driveway had taken a turn for the worse. Where flame-red letters once spelled out FOOTHILL ORCHARDS, now only FOOT CHARDS remains, the red paint surrendering to rust and the gaps between letters standing out like missing teeth.

  The D isn’t entirely gone.

  It’s bent at a ninety-degree angle, though, so that it’s parallel with the ground, held aloft by one remaining weld spot. The vandals responsible for that indignity likely stood on a ladder in the bed of a pickup to reach it, and Barbara kept her shotgun loaded with rock salt in case they returned.

  After a while, she began to hope they’d return.

  She hoped they’d finish the job they started and carry off the sad D, but it never happened. The sign remains a bent, gap-filled mess of rusting metal. Three bullet holes in the F, the C, and the S seem to have symbolically killed it, putting it out of its long misery.

  The corpse remains.

  Rising from her rocker on the porch, Barbara yells something at the passing van as it spews gravel and dust and continues to the back of the property, to the barn and the storage buildings and the sorting room. When the van disappears behind the barn, she scowls and shakes her head.

  Taking her seat, she returns to her knitting.

  The last deputy she’d talked to had encouraged her to get a restraining order … or at least ban him from the property. She’d given it serious thought, but … how could she? Even now, after everything, he was still family, and that means something. Doesn’t it?