by Elle Keaton
“He pays his half of the rent. I don’t ask where he spends his time, and he doesn’t ask me what I do with mine. I don’t think he’s been here more than a couple weeks at a time recently.”
“Photography didn’t work out for him?”
“No … I don’t think he had the eye for it. Was he attacked?” He hadn’t meant to ask that last question, it just slipped out.
“Why would you think that?” Hernández cocked his head, dark brown eyes boring into Carsten’s.
“I don’t know, maybe it’s because you’re here grilling me at—” Carsten finally looked at the clock on the stove “—oh, it’s ten thirty, I thought it was earlier. But you get my point.”
“We don’t know what happened. If he wakes up, maybe we’ll get to ask him.” Hernández gulped down the rest of his coffee before setting the mug on the counter. “If you can think of anyone we can talk to—other friends, acquaintances—maybe we can figure out what happened. Think about it.”
Carsten shut his eyes for a second. When he opened them, Hernández was watching him intently. “Okay.”
“I’d like to look around Troy’s room before I leave. Is that okay?”
Carsten waved a hand toward the other bedroom, the door firmly shut as it always was when Troy wasn’t there. “Go ahead.”
As he walked toward the closed door, Hernández asked, “Did Troy have a dog?”
Carsten frowned. “Here? Management won’t let us have goldfish, much less a dog.”
* * *
This time it was Carsten who stood in the doorway as the detective looked around the bedroom Troy used. Carsten hadn’t spent much time in there. He respected Troy’s privacy; whatever secrets Troy hadn’t shared, Carsten didn’t need to know about. Ignorance was bliss, sometimes.
Troy’s room was the mirror image of his, the only difference being that the closet was on the opposite wall. He supposed the designer hoped that would muffle noise between the rooms. Looking at it now, Troy’s belongings seemed sad and pathetic: a double bed covered with a brown comforter pushed against one wall to make space for Troy’s weight set, a small area rug, a floor lamp slightly askew. The window shades were pulled closed, making it darker in there than in the living room. Hernández flipped on the light.
The room didn’t look lived in, because it wasn’t. There were no posters or pictures on the walls. No random shoes or clothing lying about. On the small chest of drawers sat a digital clock, a hairbrush, and a paperback book by an author Carsten didn’t recognize. No family pictures—of course, Carsten didn’t have those either.
The cop glanced around, taking in the room’s contents, presumably memorizing everything he saw before crossing the room to slide open the closet door. Not surprisingly, it was stuffed with clothing. Troy loved clothes. The shelf above the hangers was neatly packed with shoeboxes; the floor underneath was clear of clutter.
Hernández efficiently paged through the hanging clothing, lifted the lids of a few boxes, and bent to make sure there was nothing else. Then he opened the dresser drawers one by one. Nothing interesting from where Carsten was standing, only socks, white T-shirts, a few pairs of jeans.
Back in the living room, Hernández pulled his wallet out again and handed Carsten a business card. G. Beto Hernández. A phone number was printed at the bottom underneath the SkPD seal.
“Call if you think of anything, anything at all.” He leaned closer to Carsten, tapping him on the chest and trapping him with his dark gaze. “Don’t leave town. We’ll be in touch.”
With that he was gone, striding down the walkway, his raincoat billowing with the wind. Carsten listened as his footsteps echoed across the open courtyard, clattering down the metal outdoor staircase. He wouldn’t leave town; he had nowhere to go, but it pissed him off that the cop thought he needed to say it. He slammed the door, hoping Beto Hernández got his message.
6
Beto
* * *
Beto heard the door slam behind him and wondered how much of what Carsten Quinn had said could be believed. Quinn was lying, that was certain, or at least he wasn’t telling the complete truth about his roommate. He’d figure out what it was; they’d be talking again.
With any luck, the next time they talked the man wouldn’t answer the door half naked. Beto’d had an unprofessional moment, distracted by the smooth pale chest and barely visible trail of light-blond hair that began just above the waistband of his pajamas. He hoped he’d managed to hide his surprise at seeing the sexy younger man from the other night.
Back at the car, the dog waited patiently for him. When she saw him striding down the sidewalk she perked up, her mismatched ears bouncing as she sat up on the seat and pushed her nose out the slightly open window to sniff his hand. He’d borrowed some towels from the locker room and wiped her down the best he could, but she was still dirty.
“Hey girl.” Beto scratched behind her ears before getting in the car. “Sit down.”
For reasons he didn’t feel like investigating, Beto hadn’t called animal control. He hadn’t dropped her off at the pound. Instead, as soon as he was done being yelled at, he’d driven her to the vet to be checked out.
After checking for injuries and looking her over, the veterinarian had searched for a microchip. Nothing. Beto had decided to call her Freya, for now, after the Norse goddess of love and war. If it hadn’t been for her, Troy Bakker would have died, there was no doubt in Beto’s mind.
There hadn’t been any ID on him, but Skagit was a small town, and one of the emergency room nurses thought he recognized him. According to the nurse, he didn’t know Troy well but had gone to high school with him. He thought that Troy had dropped out or moved before graduation; there’d been some gossip, but he didn’t remember what it was.
Beto had asked the nurse to let him know if he recalled anything else and to keep the information to himself, as it was an active case. Bakker, if it was Bakker, remained unconscious, and the doctors were not encouraging about his condition. Beto was surprised the nurse had been able to recognize him, his face was so battered and swollen. The nurse said he wasn’t positive, but he was pretty sure.
* * *
Back at the station, Beto’d run down the last known addresses of Troy Bakker, which was how he’d ended up at the Bayern Arms. In addition to the address, he’d discovered Bakker had a sealed juvenile record but nothing else since late 2012, when he’d been picked up for shoplifting and loitering on private property. Beto was curious what was in the sealed file, but it was none of his business—yet.
The photo he dug up during his search showed an almost pretty young man with white-blond hair and a lingering smirk on his face. He looked remarkably like the man who’d opened the door of apartment 301B, so much so that at first Beto’d thought he’d found the real Troy Bakker and the nurse at St. Joe’s had been wrong—until the guy had introduced himself as Carsten Quinn.
* * *
The engine roared to life when he turned the key. Checking in his rearview, he saw Freya obediently sitting in the back, her paws hanging off the passenger seat. His next stop was the local pet store for a leash and other necessities: dog food, bags, enough to get by until Beto figured out what to do about her. The name Freya seemed to suit her. He avoided questioning himself about why he was giving the stray a name, instead accelerating out of the parking spot in front of the Bayern Arms apartment building and into Skagit afternoon traffic, his mind on earlier in the day.
* * *
His morning session with Chief Nguyen had been … unpleasant.
“Hernández, the department needs team players. There is too much going on to have one of my better detectives close to being placed on administrative leave.”
One of the better detectives? He opened his mouth to remind her he was the best detective SkPD would ever have, but she cut him off before he could say anything.
“I don’t want to hear it right now. I’m fully aware Dickson is—has views that are unacceptable. He is being
monitored. The last thing I need is for you to give him a valid reason to complain to IA about your behavior. Do you understand?” She glared at him, waiting for Beto’s reply. He was pretty sure she’d been about to say “a dick” before she cut herself off … which was nothing but the truth about the aptly named Matt Dickson.
“Yes, I understand,” he ground out.
“Now I’m forced to find someone else to partner with you. I swear to god, if you cause me one single sheet more paperwork in the next year, I am going to put you on street duty. It’s only March, so you’ve got a long way to go. Go away.”
He left. He considered slamming her office door but thought better of it. The detectives in the bullpen that morning were all pretending they hadn’t heard the yelling, but Beto could feel their eyes on his back as he made his way to his station.
The desk opposite his was pleasantly clean and empty of paperwork and old coffee cups. It hadn’t taken Dickson long to move his mounds of papers back to his old desk. As Beto understood it, Dickson’d sat on the other side of the pen with Stan Getty for years before Nguyen had been appointed and began shaking the old-boy network up. Both Getty and Dickson were tools. Beto’d been told Getty had been one of the first to retire when the city council decided to really try to clean up SkPD.
Beto kept his workstation neat and tidy, just the way he liked it. He’d been the butt of many jokes over the years about his meticulous organization, but wasn’t it funny how no one complained when he could pull up files and notes from old cases at the drop of a hat? Screw the haters. With any luck at all, it would take the chief a while to decide who would be partnered with him next. He pulled out his chair and sat down to work.
When he called the St. Joe’s critical care unit for an update, the only thing they could tell him was their hit-and-run was still alive but on life support. Hit-and-run was what Beto was calling the incident for now. Freya sure couldn’t tell him anything. After ten minutes crouched in the pouring rain waiting for the EMTs, holding the victim’s hand because it was the only thing he could touch without possibly causing more injury, Beto felt a link between himself and the man who was fighting for his life in St. Joe’s.
Beto, you’re doing it again—letting yourself get involved. It’s just gonna mess you up. Jerry’s voice cut across his thoughts. It was hard not to look up, expecting to see his old partner standing there, a cup of coffee in his hand. Jerry had always known when a case was going to get to Beto. But he could never stop it, and during that time waiting in the rain and dark holding Troy’s hand while the dog tried to keep him warm—he’d felt the man’s desperate fight to stay alive.
* * *
Carsten Quinn. Beto tried not to roll his eyes at the name as he drove through the rain. Who was named Carsten Quinn, and what kind of slacker slept in until ten and called it early? Beto had been up for nearly thirty-six hours and admittedly was starting to feel it; likely he was hallucinating. Quinn opening the door shirtless played on some sort of endless loop in his brain: first his chest, then his back as he turned away from the door, colorful tattoo across his shoulder blades accentuating the paleness of his skin. Over and over.
Admit it. You want to fuck him.
Beto wasn’t about to admit anything. Imaginary Jerry could shut it.
The car hit a puddle, pool rather, splashing gallons of water onto the sidewalk. The storm drains were starting to back up. There were intersections that were now shallow lakes, getting deeper by the minute. Maybe exhaustion explained why Quinn answering the door wearing practically nothing gave Beto a moment. It’d been obvious Quinn wasn’t wearing anything under his pajamas. Pajamas with a kids cartoon emblazoned all over them.
He could, and would, admit Carsten was a very good-looking man. He had the look; a lot of the population of Skagit had it, as if some Norse god had swooped down eons ago and spread his wild oats about. The man was either blessed with great genes or he worked out on a daily basis. Quinn’s abs were tight and sexy, his pale skin smooth and mostly hairless.
Dios, he must be exhausted if he was letting a man distract him. He wasn’t good relationship material—that had been proven, and he certainly wouldn’t consider one with someone involved in a case.
Pulling to a stop at the traffic light at Main Street and Steele, Beto tried to force himself to focus on what to do next. The Bakker case hadn’t officially been declared a case by anyone but him, but he was going to treat it as such until it was proven that the young man hadn’t darted out into traffic, gotten himself run over, and then crawled back to the shoulder on his own.
His jaw cracked with an enormous yawn, the effects of being awake for too long making themselves known. He could head back to the station, but it was probably best to avoid Nguyen for as long as possible. The minimart robbery case was open and very firmly shut since the perps were both dead. Sadly, they’d killed the clerk before checking out themselves. A whole fucking lot of paperwork is what the night had amounted to in the end. Beto rubbed his forehead. He hated it when lives were thrown away like so much trash.
A horn sounded from behind him. Beto pushed on the gas, surging through the intersection. Taking a left at the next light, he drove a couple of blocks before stopping at the pet store. One hundred seventy-eight dollars later and an internal reminder that he was not keeping Freya, Beto emerged with all the pet supplies needed to keep them both happy for a few days (and a bathed dog, which was totally worth the extra money). He refused to think about why he was taking in a stray.
* * *
The house he’d lived in for the last year was a welcome sight—not the same as his place in LA, but he’d tried to make it comfortable. He snapped the leash on Freya, and together they dashed through the again-pelting rain to the front door. Once inside, Beto showed her around. He filled a bowl with water and another with a little of the dry food he’d purchased. She sniffed around the small backyard, peed, and raced back inside when he called for her.
“Good girl.” The vet had said she thought Freya was a German Shepherd mix. She wiggled her whole body and lolled her tongue out.
In his bedroom, Beto stripped down to his boxers and crawled under the covers. The shades were drawn, so it was nice and dark. The last thing he remembered was the mattress dipping when Freya jumped up and curled herself at his feet.
“Dog,” he growled into his pillow. He was too tired to kick her off the bed. “Fine, just this once.”
* * *
Beto woke with a start. It was pitch dark. How long had he slept, and what had woken him? He wasn’t due back at the station until nine. He heard the faint chirp of his cell phone, the reminder sound after a caller left a message. He blinked at his bedside clock: 7:20 a.m.
Dios. He’d slept twelve straight hours. He had a sleep hangover, almost feeling worse than he had before. Freya let out a whine and jumped off the bed. She hadn’t disturbed him all night, but he needed to let her out now.
Struggling into his robe, Beto stumbled out of his bedroom. He opened the kitchen slider and Freya dashed outside. Leaving it open wide enough for her to come back in on her own, he searched around for where he’d left his phone the evening before. He eventually found it in the pocket of his suit jacket. There were three missed call notifications. He got a single glance at them before the phone—which had probably been signaling for hours that it had a low battery—flashed off.
“Pinche estúpido.” Where had he left the charger cable? Dios, he wasn’t awake enough for any of this. Carsten Quinn’s tired face popped into his head, and Beto felt a flash of sympathy for him opening the door tired and half naked.
The charger cable was sitting on one of the kitchen chairs. He grabbed it just as Freya raced back into the house, obviously thrilled at being able to come inside on her own. Beto smiled in spite of himself. She paused next to him and shook violently, spraying him with water. He looked outside. It was still pouring, dios. Italy was looking more inviting—anywhere but here. In Iceland, at least there were glaciers and
waterfalls, and possibly the northern lights.
* * *
He should have left his phone where it was. Someone had called 911; they thought they’d seen a body caught on a snag of logs in the Skagit River as it flowed past one of the many fields east of town.
Most likely it was someone who’d gotten too close to the turgid waters of the Skagit, but Nguyen wanted him at the scene. Since he couldn’t afford to replace a second pair of three-hundred-dollar shoes, he dug out the knee-high Wellingtons stashed in the garage. A joke gift from Sammy Ferreira before he moved north; Beto was glad he had them now. And they were kind of stylish.
“Don’t fall in.” Nguyen narrowed her eyes at him, at least that’s what it felt like through the phone line. “Come back to the station when you’re done out there; we need to talk.”
He left some kibble in the dog dish for Freya and scratched her between the ears. “Be a good girl.” She cocked her head at him in that way dogs do when humans are being weird. He felt guilty leaving her. As a last thought, he turned on the local talk radio station. At least it wouldn’t be dead quiet while he was out.
* * *
The river levels continued to rise. Since Beto had been there, the water had risen at least a couple inches. He didn’t know how they were going to retrieve the body without endangering the rescue workers. It was a body, no doubt about that. One of the responders told him logs had been swept downstream from the north Cascade mountain range, deadfall from the summer’s forest fires, logging, and whatever else. An enormous tree trunk had caught on the riverbank and then proceeded to catch everything floating down the river after it. Including the body.