Lost Tomorrows

by Coyle, Matt;

  This was the part of being a PI they didn’t list in the brochures.

  I went backwards one day to the day of Krista’s funeral. Again, nothing suspicious. No black Dodge Challenger or white Jeep Wrangler parked in Krista’s driveway or passed by her house.

  Even though I’d improved my viewing process, I was burned out. My eyes felt like I’d cried for an hour straight and were all out of lubrication. And my head continued to pound.

  My phone rang right as I cued up day number three. Blocked caller ID. I answered.

  “Mr. Cahill, this is Detective Wilkens. I’m following up on the complaint you made early this morning to Officers Phillips and Armenta.”

  I hadn’t really made a complaint until the cops finally figured out I wasn’t a domestic abuser. Took him long enough. It was 2:12 p.m. Phillips and Armenta questioned me twelve hours ago. I was small potatoes. Probably more of an irritant with everyone focusing on Krista’s case.

  “What can I do for you, Detective? I don’t have anything to add beyond what the patrolmen hopefully put in their report.”

  “Would you mind coming by the station so we can go over the report? It’s missing a few details.”

  Despite 1,000 milligrams of Tylenol, my head throbbed and my eyes stung.

  “Can’t we just handle this on the phone, Detective? I’m a little sore from last night.”

  “I suppose I could come to you.”

  As much as my head hurt, there was one advantage to going to SBPD. I might get a glimpse at Mitchell or Weaver and measure their reactions when they saw me. Swollen nose, swollen head, swollen forearm, and black eyes, to boot.

  “I’ll be at the station in ten minutes.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  DETECTIVE JOE WILKENS was tall. Real tall, like six-six or six-seven. Thin and long-armed. Older than I expected, he looked to be in his late fifties. Retirement age for most cops. I didn’t remember him from my days on the force. SBPD was a small department, and while I couldn’t remember the names of everyone in it when I was there, I’d surely seen every cop in the department at one time or another over my two-and-a-half-year career. If you could call it a career.

  After introductions, Wilkens led me upstairs to the second floor where Mitchell had taken Leah and me yesterday. But we turned into a room one door short of the MIU office. There were eight cubbyhole cubes jammed together in the center of the room. A female African American detective sat in the cube at the end talking to a white patrolman who stood at attention. A pale middle-aged doughboy detective sat reading a newspaper two cubes away. No one else was in the room. I didn’t recognize either of the detectives. After my time.

  Wilkens led me around to the other side of the cube bank and rolled a chair out from under a desk.

  “Have a seat, Mr. Cahill.” He sat down in the next cube facing me.

  The detective stopped talking to the patrolman at the mention of my name and Pillsbury Doughboy prairie-dogged his head over his cubicle to get a look at me. Everybody at SBPD still knew who I was even if they didn’t work there when I did. I sat down and now wished I’d taken Wilkens up on his house call.

  “Now take me through exactly what happened last night, Mr. Cahill.” Wilkens had a pen and pad out.

  I told him everything that happened, starting with waking up to an intruder in my room and ending with a bump on my head and a missing gun and computer. I gave him the serial number to my stolen gun. The computer didn’t matter. No one could get shot by it and blame it on me.

  Wilkens filled out a form for the stolen gun and had me sign it. I didn’t tell him about my suspicions that one of his compatriots was responsible. I had no proof. Other than what my gut told me.

  Wilkens finished with me, and I exited the detective room, turned toward the stairs, and almost bumped into a cop going the other way down the hall.

  Detective Mitchell.

  “Whoa.” He lithely sidestepped me, then stopped. “What happened to your face?”

  Mitchell’s body could have been a match for the silhouette I saw standing in my room in the dark and running down the hotel hall. I studied his face for a tell. A curled lip of enjoyment at the damage he’d done. A couple blinks to inadvertently admit his guilt. A tight mouth in disappointment for not finishing the job. He gave me none of that. A surprised look without empathy. Whether it was he or someone else who nearly cracked my skull, Detective Mitchell wasn’t concerned about my health.

  A detective walked by us, then down the staircase. No one else was in the hall.

  “I thought you knew all about it.” I stepped inside Mitchell’s personal space. My swollen face three inches from his. The walls of SBPD fell away. All I saw was the man who covered for the man who killed my wife, conspired to kill Krista Landingham, and ambushed me last night. Just the two of us. He had a gun holstered on his hip. I had vengeance coursing through my entire body.

  “What do you mean by that?” His demeanor turned hard. He stayed right where he was. Eye to eye.

  I’d let my bloodlust override the need to be discreet. To let Mitchell know I was onto him. I could live with that. Maybe he’d get nervous and make a mistake. Or come at me head-on. I could live with that, too. Give me a chance for a righteous kill in the eyes of SBPD.

  “I know word spreads pretty quickly around here. Next time I’ll shoot first and worry about the rest later.”

  “Is that some kind of threat?” Mitchell lifted his chin a centimeter.

  “Not unless you plan on breaking into my hotel room.” I edged in closer, the pain in my head gone for the first time today.

  “You’d better step off.”

  I didn’t move. This couldn’t end well for me, but last night hadn’t either. Today the threat was right in front of me.

  “Gentlemen.” A stern voice behind me. The walls and the file cabinets in the hallway and the open doors to the detective rooms all filled back in. Still, neither of us moved. “Step away, Detective.”

  Captain Kessler came even with us. Dress blues, snap-creased. I saw him out of the corner of my eye as I continued to stare Mitchell down. He did the same.

  “Detective!” Kessler wedged between us, facing Mitchell. “What is the problem here?”

  Mitchell took a step back and finally looked from me to Kessler. The two detectives from the room I just vacated suddenly filled the doorway.

  “You’ll have to ask Mr. Cahill, Captain.” His eyes lasered back on me. “He seems to think I had something to do with his face.”

  “Do you have a complaint to make, Mr. Cahill?” Kessler turned his attention to me.

  “I already filed a complaint with Detective Wilkens.”

  “No suspect identified, sir.” Wilkens aw-shucked his shoulders.

  “That will be all, Detectives.” Kessler put his hands on his hips and looked at each cop. The detectives retreated back into their room and Mitchell stormed off down the hall away from the MIU room. I started for the stairs until a hand on my shoulder stopped me.

  “Rick.” The politician returned to Kessler’s voice. “Would you mind joining me in my office for a brief moment.”

  My adrenaline evaporated with Mitchell’s exit and the pain in my head swooped in to take its place.

  “I’m beat, Captain. I’d really just like to go back to my hotel and lie down.”

  “It will just take a minute. You’ll be doing me a favor.”

  A favor. The currency of politicians. Maybe I could use a favor from Kessler sometime. Plus, I was curious about what he wanted.

  “Sure.”

  “Great.” He patted my shoulder and gave me the candidate poster smile, then led me through the MIU room and into his office in the far right corner. The back wall of the office had photos of Kessler’s career going all the way back to when he drove around Chief Siems and before. Kessler was proud of his time as a cop. Maybe a bit too proud.

  “Have a seat, Rick.” He pointed to a chair in front of his immaculate desk. The desk was bigger and new
er than the ones his detectives used outside his office in MIU. He closed the blinds on the windows facing the outside room. Either so his detectives couldn’t look in or I couldn’t look out. Neither option gave me the warm fuzzies.

  “Seems like a lot of privacy for a one-minute talk.” I tilted my head toward the blinds.

  “I’m hoping the privacy will make you feel comfortable so you can be completely forthcoming.”

  “The last time I was here, you had Detective Flora cuff me for opening my mouth. Why do you want me to talk today?”

  “First of all, I’d like to know what happened to your face and why you think Detective Mitchell is responsible.”

  Straightforward questions from a captain wanting to know if someone under his charge had committed battery. Fair enough. But I bet the politician in Kessler was looking for an angle. Always an angle with these guys.

  But then again, I was looking for one, too.

  “Has anyone corroborated Mitchell’s story about Weaver being in the drunk tank the night Colleen died?” I asked.

  “I’ll ask the questions in this room or any other while I’m wearing a badge and you’re not.” His voice, calm, didn’t match the harshness of his words. Almost like he was playing a part and hadn’t yet found the character’s motivation. Unusual for a politician as practiced as Kessler.

  “I’m just looking for some reciprocity, Captain.”

  “Reciprocity comes after you tell me something. You haven’t done that yet.” He smiled a cigar smoke backroom smile that gave me hope he may actually tell me something about Weaver.

  I told him about the 211 committed on me at my hotel.

  “Sounds like a junkie looking to pawn something for his next fix.”

  Of course, he was right, but he hadn’t connected the dots, yet. I had and there were only a few more to connect before I had a straight line to Colleen’s murderers.

  “Maybe. Or it could have been someone trying to find out how much I knew about Colleen and Krista’s murders. The people who committed them.”

  “That’s right. Two people, not one.” Kessler smiled. Half campaigning politician smile, half cop smirk. Not a pleasant combination. “Jim Grimes filled in the team on your theory after you spoke with an elderly gentleman down in San Diego.”

  “Oceanside.”

  “Right. Mr. Richert, I believe.” The ugly smile. “And it doesn’t bother you that he waited nine years to report what he saw on the beach?”

  “He didn’t learn about it until then.” I didn’t bother explaining. If Grimes filled in MIU, he probably told them why it took Richert so long to report what he saw.

  “Don’t you think it’s possible, if not probable, that Mr. Richert, a man in his seventies, got his dates mixed up after so long?”

  “Possible.” I didn’t expect to have SBPD on my side, but they still had access to information I needed to connect all the bloody dots I needed to justify my mission. Time for that reciprocity. “Have you been able to verify that Lieutenant Weaver was in the drunk tank at the jail the night my wife died?”

  “Still on that track, Rick?”

  “Just trying to nail down the facts, Captain.”

  “An officer-involved DUI is a tricky situation.” Full campaign smile. “If a sheriff’s deputy pulled over Lieutenant Weaver, they didn’t write him up. No one will admit to stopping him that night because they don’t want to get in trouble for giving a police officer special treatment. Especially in today’s cop-hating environment. The same with the deputies on duty at the jail. No one’s going to admit anything unless they’re put under oath. I wouldn’t read too much into the fact that Weaver’s night in the jail can’t be corroborated.”

  Kessler was toeing the company line as expected, but something else was bothering me.

  “Did you know that Krista was investigating my wife’s murder?”

  “Of course. I command MIU. I know what all my charges are working on.”

  “Then why didn’t you tell me when you brought up Colleen’s death at Krista’s service?”

  “I didn’t want to get your hopes up. Detective Landingham was just in the preliminary stages.” He tilted his head and his eyebrows rose. “And, obviously, we have every police officer we can spare on Detective Landingham’s vehicular manslaughter investigation. Even after we solve that, we’ll be a detective short in MIU. I’m not sure when the chief will fill that spot. We won’t be able to spare anyone on cold cases for a while. So, I’m sure you can understand why I didn’t tell you about Detective Landingham’s brief look at the case.”

  Bureaucrat.

  “Sure.”

  “Anything else, Rick?” The political hack smile. “I think I’ve shown you some reciprocity.”

  I wanted out more than he wanted me to leave, but there was one piece of information I needed for the dots.

  “Did you find out what Krista was doing on State Street at that time of night after she quit drinking six years ago?”

  “No, but I have an idea.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m afraid she’d started drinking again.” He pursed his lips and shook his head.

  “Bullshit. Who told you that?”

  “No one told me. I experienced it myself. You’re the only person I’ve told, so please don’t spread it around. We don’t need anyone to think ill of a fallen police officer.”

  “What did her toxicology report say? Did she have alcohol in her system?”

  “You know I can’t give you that information.”

  “Was she drunk when the van hit her, Captain?”

  “Next question.”

  “Okay. What do you mean you experienced her drinking again?” This went against what Leah knew about her sister. Or what she told me about her.

  “Rick, I’ve given you enough information today.” He steepled his fingers again. Sunlight broke through the clouds and backlit him through the window. He looked pious. All he needed to be a saint was for the window to be stained glass. “I can assure you Detective Wilkens will follow all legitimate leads in the investigation into your armed robbery. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do.”

  Captain Kessler stood up and extended a hand across the desk.

  “I appreciate that, Captain.” I stood up and shook his hand. “But I’m baffled by Krista drinking again. Her sister was sure she hadn’t backtracked. It would help if you could explain the incident you had with her.”

  “Like I said, Rick, there’s no need for her drinking again to get out.”

  “I won’t tell anyone. Not even Leah. But it might help me realize why Krista was down on State Street the night she died.”

  “Well … there wasn’t an incident, per se. She called me at home a few nights before she died and was obviously drunk. I know you were a police officer, if just for a short time. You know any good policeman can tell when someone has had too much to drink. Even over the phone.”

  I learned as a child from my father. He was a cop, too, but I learned directly from him.

  “Did she call you at home often?” This had to be the call on the Thursday night before she died.

  “Very rarely.”

  “Why did she call that night?”

  “She had a plan on how to run the unit better. She’d had too much and wanted to straighten her boss out. I didn’t take it personally. Again, keep this just between us.”

  We shook and I left Captain Kessler’s office with two important pieces of information that canceled each other out. First, SBPD hadn’t been able to corroborate Weaver’s supposed drunk tank stay. Second, that Krista may have been down on State Street for a night out on the town when she was killed.

  Maybe Dustin Peck got it all wrong.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  I GOT TO Leah’s house around four thirty p.m. She wasn’t home yet. I zombie-walked to her couch and sat down. The adrenaline of the chase evaporated somewhere on the drive between SBPD and Leah’s. I wanted to go to bed and wake up in a we
ek. Maybe my head would stop pounding by then. But the information about Krista drinking again made me reassess everything I’d theorized about Colleen’s and Krista’s deaths.

  What if Tom Weaver really was in the drunk tank the night Colleen died, but no sheriff’s deputy was willing to risk a reprimand or something worse to corroborate it? What if Krista was drinking again like Kessler said? Maybe I’d gotten so caught up in my lust for justice that I’d jumped way out on an unsustainable limb?

  Mike Richert could be telling the God’s honest truth and Colleen still could have been murdered by someone other than a cop. A lot of security guard uniforms look just like those of the police. Some security guards were wannabe cops who washed out of the academy for psychological reasons. What if Colleen had been murdered by a twisted rent-a-cop and a buddy and not the real thing? That made just as much sense, if not more, as a cop going bad and pulling in a brother in blue to commit man’s worst sin.

  I sat down at my new computer and dosed myself with another 1,000 milligrams of pain reliever and pulled up Frank Cornetta’s security camera files. Day three going backwards from Sunday.

  An hour and a half later Leah came home while I was in the middle of day four. Nothing of importance happened at Krista’s house. Except Leah and her brother arriving at the house and staying inside for an hour. They came out with a couple boxes. The video wasn’t very clear, but I could sense the anguish on Leah’s face. She looked broken.

  “Did you find anything?” Leah sat down next to me on the couch and set the leather satchel with her design notes and tools on the coffee table. She wore blue slacks with a cream blouse and looked very professional. And very beautiful. Her anger from this morning gone.

  “Not yet. Three and a half days down.” I thought about what Captain Kessler said about Krista’s drunk dial. “Is it possible that Krista had started drinking again?”