Advances had been made in tracing calls to cellular units, so I didn’t want to use mine. Where could I find a pay phone?
There was one at a gas station near my freeway on-ramp. I called 911 and made my voice sound young, male, and frightened. Told the dispatcher that I’d found a dead lady at the Twenty-fifth Street address. Second floor, last room on the right. When they asked for my name, I hung up.
It was a clear, starlit night. No wind, easy flying weather. By eleven I’d be back at my motel in Carson City. And as early as possible tomorrow I’d be at the ranch, to help Ramon and Sara through this latest tragedy in the lives of their family.
The flight back to Carson City had somewhat eased my depression about Miri’s sad end. There’s nothing like breaking free of the earth to mitigate its claims on you. But once I got back to my motel, the gloomy mood descended again and I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep, so I checked out and began driving along the mostly deserted highway.
I thought about Miri. Understandable why she’d had a meltdown upon finding out Hayley had been murdered. Understandable, too, why she’d fled the rehab facility: the prospect of sobriety can be damn scary to a drunk or an addict; I knew all too well because of my brother Joey. But why had she bolted from Elizabeth Long’s office? Because Long had offered her only more of the same, a shelter that provided psychiatric care. She’d then gotten a ride—or rides—to Sacramento and returned to the one place she’d been happy, only to find it in ruins.
Accident or suicide? She’d brought along enough vodka and pills to concoct a lethal cocktail. Before I’d left I’d searched for a note and found none, yet many people who commit suicide don’t feel it necessary to document their reasons. Miri’s reasons were written in the lines on her face, in the history her family and friends could recall.
Vernon was dark and still when I rolled through town at around eleven-thirty, the surrounding countryside even more so. I didn’t turn in at our ranch house, but continued to the driveway that led to Ramon and Sara’s cabin; it was ablaze with light. I pulled the Land Rover up to the shed that housed Ramon’s truck, got out, and noticed an unfamiliar SUV. When I knocked on the door and Sara let me in, I came face-to-face with Kristen Lark.
The Sacramento PD was prompt in having the local authorities notify the relatives of people who had died in their jurisdiction.
“What’re you doing here, McCone?” Lark asked.
“I saw the lights and was worried that Ramon or Sara might be sick.”
“I see.”
“What’re you doing here?” I asked.
“Informing these good people that they’ve lost yet another family member.”
I feigned shock. “Amy?”
Lark shook her head. “Amy’s mother, Miri, was found dead in a deserted building in Sacramento this evening. SPD asked that we notify the Perezes in person.”
“What happened to Miri?”
“Apparent suicide.”
I looked past her, saw Sara had left the room and Ramon wasn’t in sight. “How did she do it?”
“Booze and prescription drug overdose. Somebody found her and put in an anonymous call—dispatcher thought it was a kid who had been looking forward to an evening of partying and ended up with a corpse on his hands instead.”
“That’s a shame. Any idea why Miri was in Sacramento?”
“Ramon thinks she used to live there.”
“Thinks?”
“He really doesn’t know much about Miri’s past. His brother Jimmy showed up here one day with a new wife and her four-year-old baby. Miri didn’t want to talk about her previous life or the baby’s father.”
“That baby would have been Hayley.”
“Right.”
Lark regarded me with narrowed eyes. “Hayley’s murdered, her sister disappears, and their mother commits suicide. And there’s this other problem of a dead man in the lava fields. Plus you and I are supposed to be working together, but all I get here at the ranch is a machine that makes screaming noises at me, and your cell’s always turned off.”
“The answering machine has died and I haven’t replaced it yet. I’ve been flying a lot; you can’t have the cell on—FAA rules.”
“I left messages on your voice mail.”
“The mailbox malfunctions a lot.”
Again that slitty-eyed look. “Okay for now, McCone. I’ll leave, and you go comfort your friends. But I want to meet with you in the morning.”
“Where and when?” I asked, hoping she didn’t want me to drive to Bridgeport.
“I’ll come to your place, around ten-thirty.”
“That’s good.”
I prefer confronting potential adversaries on my own turf.
Friday
NOVEMBER 9
The phone rang as I stepped out of the shower at around eight-thirty. By the time I got to it, the machine had started: Hy was right—it sounded like an enraged chicken. I picked up, but the squawking went on. Moments later my cell rang.
“McCone, you going to have time to replace that damned machine today?”
“I hope so.”
“Good. Try the hardware store. Spare no expense.”
“Where are you?”
“Still in Tokyo.”
“What time is it there?”
“After midnight, your tomorrow. I’m flying back in the morning.”
“Everything go well?”
“Better than well. I’ll tell you about it when I get back. How’re things with you?”
I didn’t want to dwell on yesterday’s grim discovery, so I said, “Progressing. I’ll fill you in later, too.”
We talked a little more, then he told me good morning and I told him good night.
While I was drinking my coffee, the cell rang again. Glenn Solomon.
“Sorry to take so long getting back to you, my friend. Frank Brower had difficulty getting hold of Carl Bates, the attorney back East who asked him to represent Hayley Perez.”
“No problem.” In truth, I’d forgotten about the inquiry I’d asked Glenn to make.
“The client who asked Bates to contact Brower is Trevor Hanover. He’s a major power on Wall Street, owns pieces of Long Island and some of the Bronx, as well as majority shares in several multinational corporations.”
“Did this Hanover give any reason for wanting to pay the legal expenses of a hooker in Las Vegas?”
“People like Hanover don’t have to give reasons for what they do.”
“You know anything else about him?”
“No. I don’t follow the Street news much; Bette and I leave handling our finances to someone who does. But Google will tell you anything you need to know.”
“What would we do without Google?”
“Probably poke our noses in where they don’t belong a lot less often.”
Before I began my search I glanced out the window and saw the Perezes’ truck drive by. Going to Sacramento to identify Miri’s body. Grim task, especially for people as broken up as they’d been last night, but there was no one else to do it. Ramon would shoulder it, though, keeping strict rein on his grief. His responsibility, he’d told me. Even if Amy had been found, he would not have let her do it. He’d already failed to protect her from many of life’s harsh realities; if she came back to them—Dios willing—he vowed to do better.
Google had plenty of information about Trevor Hanover, although the details of his childhood were sketchy: he’d been born in Erwin, Tennessee, a small town in the northeast portion of the state; his only comments about his upbringing were that it had been “dirt poor” and that he was glad he’d been able to help out his parents in their final years. His rapid rise to the summit of finance was something out of the fabled—and largely false—American dream.
The summer after he turned twenty-one, Hanover was working as a bartender in an East Village club when he broke up a violent confrontation between a drunken young woman and her date, sobered her up, and escorted her home. His demeanor when he deliver
ed her so impressed her father—who was CEO of one of the larger Wall Street firms—that Hanover was invited to come in for a job interview. Again the CEO was impressed, particularly by Hanover’s grasp of financial complexities, and hired him as his personal assistant. Later Hanover modestly described his knowledge as “nothing more than anybody could find out from reading the business pages and a few books.” From then on his career ran on a fast upward trajectory.
Articles I accessed about Hanover compared him to investment guru Warren Buffett—except Hanover had achieved that status at a much earlier age. Photographs on the sites I visited showed a handsome, brown-haired man with a strong jaw and intense gaze. Hanover was forty-three but looked nowhere near his age—or else he used old publicity photos. He was a skydiver and a pilot, and enjoyed scuba diving. Fifteen years ago he’d married Betsy Willis, a New York City socialite; the union had produced two children—Alyssa, now fourteen, and Trevor Jr., ten.
And then last May the success story had begun to unravel—
I was about to begin a more detailed search when Kristen Lark knocked at the door and called out. I closed the laptop, went to let her in, and poured coffee, and we sat at the table in the breakfast nook.
“So how about you and I bring each other up to speed on what we know,” I said.
Lark nodded. “Okay. Start with Boz Sheppard: he’s currently in jail in Independence, Inyo County. Got picked up in a drug sting Thursday night. We sent an officer down to interview him. He claims he left Vernon to swing the deal in Inyo County the day you saw him toss Amy out of his pickup, and hasn’t been back to town since.”
“Has he got people who will alibi him?”
Lark snorted. “Not hardly. His associates’re all criminals who’re looking for a way to wiggle out of the mess they’re in. We’ll let Inyo hold him on the drug charges—saves us feeding and housing him—and keep the pressure on. I’m going down there tomorrow.”
“Anything on Amy?”
“We’ve got BOLOs out all over the state and in Nevada, but I don’t have much hope.”
“And Tom Mathers?”
“Well, that’s interesting. The thirty-two-caliber bullet the coroner took out of him is a match for the one that killed Hayley. And it seems T.C.’s alibi isn’t as good as we thought. We’re going to get a search warrant for her house and the wilderness supply store. She certainly has access to firepower, and she’s been one hell of an angry woman lately.”
“Toward her husband?”
“Among others. She recently had something going with Rich Three Wings, but his girlfriend found out and he broke it off. There was a scene between her and Rich at the Union 76 station when they both pulled in at the same time a couple of weeks ago, and she went to Petals and got into it with Cammie Charles in front of two customers.”
“May I see your reports on that?”
“I brought copies.” Lark tapped her fingers on a file she’d set on the table. “Next we’ve got Miri Perez. Troubled lady.”
“She had reason to be.” I explained about the rape over in Nevada, and Miri’s family shunning her until she ran away.
“Who told you this?”
“Confidential sources.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s what you private operatives always say. It’s interesting, though, because it ties in with a local resident—Bud Smith. For years we’ve known he’s a registered sex offender, but of course the details on the underage victim are sealed. Was he Miri’s rapist?”
“He was convicted of the crime. But the general consensus, even of the prosecutor, was that he was covering for his brother.”
“I’ve heard rumors to that effect.” Lark paused to sip coffee. “So do you have anything else for me?”
“No.” I also wasn’t about to own up to finding Miri’s body and phoning in anonymously. And I didn’t want to hand Lark the Trevor Hanover lead till I’d checked it out thoroughly. Once an approach by law-enforcement officials is made to someone that powerful, the avenues of communication become a traffic jam of gatekeepers and attorneys.
After Lark left I went back to the computer, read accounts of the latest chapter in Trevor Hanover’s story. In May several of his investment clients had lodged complaints against him with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Excessive trading without their permission, obviously looking to score a big home run and enrich everybody, especially himself. A criminal indictment against him in August. Divorce papers served upon him in early September. Since then he’d become increasingly reclusive, going to ground in an apartment he owned in Manhattan. His family and financial empire were falling apart and, according to an anonymous friend, Hanover “wasn’t too well wrapped” these days.
I went to the agency’s search engines to dig deeper into Hanover’s background. A child named Trevor had been born to Ina and Clay Hanover on the date the bios indicated, in Erwin, Tennessee. But there were no further public records on him or his parents.
I tried neighboring states. Nothing. Widened the search. Still nothing. By then my eyes were aching from staring at the screen, and I realized it was after three and I hadn’t eaten. I also realized why I paid Mick and Derek such handsome salaries for their expertise.
I shut off the machine and went to make a sandwich.
Agency business intruded with a call from Ted. “You’ve been on the phone all day,” he said.
“Online. There’s only dial-up here. You should’ve called my cell.”
“Maybe you should check its charge.”
“Oh, hell, did it discharge again?”
“Yes.”
Ted sounded clipped, irritated. I said, “I’m sorry. I’ll charge it up right away.”
“That would be helpful.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Wrong? Nothing except we got a notice from the Port Commission about a big rent increase. As did all the other tenants. I think they’re trying to force us out so they can demolish the pier.”
Twenty-four and a half was one of a string of piers along the southern waterfront occupied by businesses; none of them measured up to the glitz of the refurbished Ferry Building and upscale restaurants; the city had plans for the area and they didn’t include us.
“When do we have to respond?” I asked.
“Not till after the first of the year.”
“That gives us some leeway.”
A pronounced sigh. “Shar, can I be frank with you?”
“Of course.”
“This is urgent. It’s hard to find decent space for an operation of our size in the city. And there’re other things here that need your attention.”
“Such as?”
“Adah Joslyn is fed up with the SFPD and considering a move to Denver.” Adah was an inspector on the department’s homicide detail and the live-in love of my operative Craig Morland.
“So if she goes, Craig does, too,” I said.
“Right. Also, morale is at an all-time low here. Mick and Derek have put up a sign on their office door saying ‘genius room’ and it’s pissing off everybody else.”
“For God’s sake, Ted, it’s a joke.”
“It would be if you were here. You’d put an X through the ‘genius’ and write ‘asshole’ instead, and that would be the beginning of a long string of jokes. But without you, everything’s kind of edgy. The staff meetings suck; Patrick’s so . . . earnest.”
They need me.
But do I need them?
“Look, Ted, just tough it out a little longer. I’ll talk to Mick, tell him to tone down the nonsense.”
“You need to talk to him about more than that. He’s kind of in a bad place.”
“I thought he was over the breakup with Charlotte—”
“No, he’s not. And he’s engaging in self-destructive behavior.”
“Such as?”
“Booze. Long, dangerous motorcycle rides at night.”
Shit. “I’ll call Rae and Ricky. Maybe they can straighten him out.”
&nbs
p; “Wouldn’t it just be better if you came back and talked with him yourself? I don’t know anybody he respects more.”
Why me? Why am I always the go-to person in a crisis?
“Okay,” I finally said, “I’ll come down and talk with him. Attend Monday’s staff meeting, too. But I’m working on something up here, and I’ll need to get back pretty quick.”
“When’re you planning on coming down?”
“Well, it’s almost the weekend. I could drive there tomorrow, talk with Mick on Sunday, attend the staff meeting on Monday.” An idea occurred to me. “Actually, I have a project for Mick which may take his mind off his misery.”
“Good. Because he’s becoming a major pain in the ass.”
After I ate my neglected sandwich, I went for a ride across the meadow on King. In spite of the splendid, clear day, I couldn’t keep my mind off the Perezes: Ramon’s strength in the face of various tragedies, past and present; Sara’s love that enabled him to go on. Amy’s disappearance, so long ago now that the sheriff’s department had effectively back-burnered it. I’d promised Ramon and Sara I’d try to find her and had run around gathering information, but all that had resulted in was the unearthing of yet another tragedy.
And now things were falling apart in the city, and I’d promised to go down there and try to set things right. . . .
King seemed to sense my melancholy mood. He stopped by some shoots of green grass that were pushing their way through the brown, put his head down, and munched. I stared out across the meadow. Even as winter was closing in, new life was claiming the high desert. After a while I clicked my heels against King’s flanks, and he trotted obediently toward the stables.
What was it Ramon had said to me about horses?
What you need to do is show them that you’re in control, and that you respect them. Then comes the love.
I was in control, and I respected King.
But love? For a horse?
When I returned to the house, the answering machine was still doing its chicken imitation but my cell had recharged. It rang soon after the machine gave a final shriek that sounded—to mix a metaphor—like the chicken’s swan song.
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