Dead Time

by Stephen White

  “I spent a good chunk of the drive across southern Utah considering a pair of lime green, high-top Converse All-Stars,” he said.

  “You did?” I replied. Sam had a roundabout way of getting to the point sometimes. This was looking like one of those.

  “Witnesses—other people down at the river that day—said that once she’d set up camp, Jaana switched from hiking boots to a pair of high-top sneaks. Lime green ones. Lesson there, Alan—wear lime green shoes, people will remember your footwear.”

  I assumed there was a point. “Yeah,” I said, hoping the point would develop without any prodding by me.

  Sam spotted the subtext in my reply. “Patience, Alan. Jesus. A single left shoe—a size-eight lime green Converse All-Stars high-top—was found eleven miles downstream on October thirty-first of the year Jaana disappeared.”

  “Halloween.”

  “That part’s a coincidence,” Sam said, displaying irritation that I’d interrupted him with the detail. “I’m pretty sure.”

  “Sorry.”

  “The guy who was initially in charge of the investigation, a National Park Service ranger named Lincoln Oden, thought at the time that the single sneaker was a pretty strong piece of evidence that Jaana’s body had indeed ended up in the river the night she went missing. Natural river currents, he theorized, and the flash flood that followed her disappearance, would have carried her and her sneaker downriver.

  “In the short note he added to the file after the recovery of the shoe the ranger predicted that hikers or river guides would soon be discovering parts of her skeletal remains.”

  I said, “That didn’t happen?”

  “It did not.”

  “You don’t agree with the ranger’s conclusion?” I wasn’t smart enough to guess why Sam didn’t agree, but I knew him well enough to read his skepticism with some precision. “Or you don’t think it was Jaana’s sneaker?”

  “I think it was Jaana’s sneaker. What I’m having trouble with is the inventory that was done of the rest of her stuff after she went missing. In the file there’s a list of all the things that they found at her campsite, things she packed down with her from the rim earlier that day. Pack, sleeping bag, pad, food, water bottles…nothing out of the ordinary, typical stuff for that kind of trip. Something you would expect to be there wasn’t there, though.”

  “You going to tell me?”

  “Her hiking boots,” he said.

  I didn’t see the relevance. I said, “So?”

  “Where were they? She didn’t wear those lime green sneaks on the hike down. The guy she was with said he was sure she was wearing boots. People at the rim who knew her all said in their statements that she was experienced, had done the rim-to-river hike before. Nobody with experience would do that descent in sneakers.”

  “I’m sure it was chaotic in the campsite after she disappeared, Sam. The boots must have gotten misplaced somehow during the search. Or maybe another hiker stole them.”

  “That’s the ranger’s theory too. It’s in his report. He thought somebody ripped ’em off.” Sam wasn’t done. I waited. “A week after that single sneaker showed up downstream—it was early November by then—somebody spotted her hiking boots under some brush not fifty yards from where her campsite had been. Pair of size-eight Solomons, if you’re wondering. Good boots. The woman who spotted them picked them up before any photos were taken, so it’s impossible to know for sure whether they just happened to end up under that brush or whether somebody stuck them there. You know, intentionally.”

  “What are you thinking, Sam?”

  “Let’s just say I’m thinking.”

  I gave him a moment to go on before I said, “Can I change the subject?”

  “You usually don’t ask.”

  “Is Vegas your kind of town?”

  “Spent an hour walking the Strip. I expected tawdry, but the place is harmless glitter, at least on the surface. A terrible town to be a cop, though—all that money’s got to be a magnet for mayhem. Everything bad on earth has to be for sale there.

  “I knew I would see dirt in every crack if I looked down for even a second. I didn’t look down. Hey, not my problem, right? Wasted time trying to find a five-buck blackjack table. Ended up at a ten-buck table at the Venetian.”

  “And?”

  “Started with a hundred. Got up a hundred. Lost the second hundred. Then I lost the first hundred and half of another hundred I didn’t plan to lose.”

  “How long did that take?”

  “Twenty minutes. That’s when I dropped in on Nick Paulson. He’s the guy I wanted to meet.”

  Jaana’s hiking companion. “Yeah? And?”

  “Big fancy office. All glass walls inside. Stupid design. I could watch his secretary walk back to tell him I was there. I could watch his eyes get big. Watch him look at me and shake his head.

  “She came out and told me to make an appointment. I didn’t move. Couch was comfy. Magazines were recent. I asked her if she knows anything about Jaana’s disappearance in the Grand Canyon. She goes and tells him what I said. I thought he might call security on me, but he knew exactly how to get rid of me. He called me in. We talked.”

  “Anything?”

  “He thought I was there following up for somebody else. See? Feel the circle closing? He said he’d already explained everything he knew a couple, three days before. I told him if he repeated his speech, I’d be out of his hair before he could finish his next Red Bull.”

  “Who was the somebody else?” I asked.

  “Another one of the hikers. Guy named Jack Fargo.”

  Shit, I thought. I said, “Carmel has a friend named Jack. He didn’t show up last night when she expected him to. She was upset. I wonder if it’s the same guy.”

  “Didn’t show up?”

  I told him what I knew.

  He chided me. “That’s it? That’s all you got? The guy’s missing since yesterday. You didn’t go online to check it out? Find out if anything happened to him?”

  “I thought he was just a friend of Carmel’s, Sam. I didn’t even have a last name until you just told me. I still don’t know it’s the same guy. As far as I knew, he was just some friend of hers who didn’t show up when he was supposed to. Why would I think it had anything to do with the damn camping trip?” He didn’t offer the absolution I was hoping for. “You’re a cop, Sam. You look for information. I’m a shrink. People bring me information.”

  “That’s your excuse?” he said, laughing. “Nobody brought you the right information? You’re blaming your ignorance on the help?”

  “What can you tell me about Jack?”

  “Nick Paulson said that Jack called him earlier in the week to find out what he remembered about the search for Jaana. From reading the file, I can tell you that no one had any suspicion about Jack at the time of the search. I’ll look into him some more when I get to L.A. I’ll get back to you—you know, bring you some information on a silver platter. Just the way you like.”

  “You learn anything from Paulson that’s going to help Merideth, Sam? To find Lisa?”

  “Not yet. But if it turns out this Jack guy is really missing, he makes three. That should get some attention from law enforcement.”

  “What was your impression of Nick Paulson?”

  “He acts like somebody with nothing to hide. Which either makes him innocent and naïve, or guilty and good.”

  “You’re vote is?”

  “Pending. Headline? Jaana was pregnant. She wasn’t happy about it. Had an appointment set up for an abortion a couple, three days after she disappeared. He said a girlfriend of hers—somebody else from Estonia; the girls partied together in Vegas—was going to take her to get it done.”

  “Was Nick the father?”

  “He admits it’s possible, but he doubts it. Called Jaana a ‘party girl,’ implied she slept around. Remember, Ranger Ramona thought Nick Paulson considered Jaana one of the disposable girls.”

  The news was interesting,
but sounded irrelevant. I said what I was thinking. “Don’t see how it helps Merideth, Sam.”

  “Hard to say. Paulson says he told the Park Service ranger all of this in his original interview. The pregnancy. The abortion. The girlfriend. But none of it’s in the file. Ranger Ramona doesn’t know anything know about it either. She would have said something to me.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I read the file cover to cover. Somebody is lying. Or misremembering. Can’t see the advantage for Paulson to lie about possibly getting Jaana pregnant. I tend to believe that part.”

  “Still don’t see how it helps Merideth find Lisa.”

  “One foot in front of the other. Tomorrow I’m going to drop in on the ranger who was in charge of the original investigation, the one who interviewed all these people, including Paulson. Name is Oden. He’s living near L.A. He’s a Good Hands guy now.”

  “What?”

  “Sells insurance for Allstate. What do you think? Should I try that? When I get off suspension, tell my captain I’m starting a new career selling insurance?”

  He didn’t expect a reply. I said, “Oden say anything interesting on the phone?”

  “He thinks Jaana’s in the river. Makes the search sound like the highlight of his ranger career. Has no memory of Lisa, other than that her name is familiar from the file.”

  “His version of events make sense?”

  “What do I know?”

  “He say anything about those shoes?”

  “The sneaks or the hiking boots?”

  “Whichever.”

  “I’ll ask him tomorrow when I ask him if Jaana was pregnant. Those are look-him-in-the-eyes questions. I also left a message for Ranger Ramona, asking her if she could get any follow-up information on Jaana’s girlfriend. The one who was going to take her for the abortion.” Sam burped. “I’m coming up on the cutoff to San Bernardino. You like the way I let that roll off my fat tongue like I have a damn clue who the hell little Bernard was and why he was worthy of saintification? I should be in L.A. before long. Maybe we can connect later, go to a club.”

  I laughed at the thought of Sam clubbing. Or me clubbing. “I think that’s where the first McDonald’s was, Sam. San Bernardino.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  “It’s sad,” he said, pausing wistfully, “but there was a time in my life that I would’ve found that fact worthy of a detour.”

  I was tempted to encourage Sam’s earlier diversion and hear his fantasy about us clubbing in L.A. But I was more tempted to ask Sam if he ever took the same route he was on right then on any of his road-trip visits to see Carmen in Laguna Beach. His pointed counsel about not prying into sensitive areas caused me to hesitate.

  He didn’t give me a chance to reconsider. “I’m on Merideth’s dime. I’m thinking I should live a little. Know a nice place in Beverly Hills? Someplace trendy? I’d like to maybe have a cocktail or two, sitting a couple stools away from a star.”

  Sam wouldn’t cross the street to meet a celebrity unless he had a reason to interrogate him. I considered how Sam and Hector would get along. Couldn’t predict it, but decided it would be fun to watch. Then I tried to guess how Merideth would feel about Sam staying at her condo. Once Sam spotted my ex-wife’s empty bed, he would not share my reservations about inhaling the aromas embedded in her zillion-thread-count sheets.

  Merideth would not be thrilled with the idea of Papa Bear sleeping in her bed. She’d be much happier springing for a room for Sam at the Comfort Inn on La Cienega.

  “Let me think about it,” I said.

  In a voice laden with sarcasm, he said, “Call me back when you’re done with that. I’ll stay close to the phone.”

  He hung up.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  I watched an immense translucent pillow of mist creep inland from the Pacific. The slippery mass seemed to be losing forward momentum on the far side of the 405.

  I replayed the conversation with Sam. His initial openness about Ranger Ramona left me regretting that I might have done something to poison the interlude of intimacy I’d been enjoying with him. I called him back.

  He said, “You decide to be my wingman after all?”

  I took a leap of faith. I said, “I was out with a…woman tonight,” trying not to sound as though I’d just dropped to my knees in a confessional. When Sam didn’t reply instantly to my disclosure, I added, “She didn’t say as much as a word about suspecting that I was an unreliable lover.”

  A few seconds of silence preceded Sam’s next comment, which was delivered in a slightly sardonic timbre. “They usually don’t, is my experience. Ranger Ramona was unique in that fashion,” he said. “Was this part of that favor you’re doing for your friend in Boulder? Or was it…something else?”

  He was offering me an out, a rationalization for my indiscretion—if it indeed constituted an indiscretion—with Amy. It felt like a small gift, but nevertheless one I was disinclined to accept. “Seeing this woman was tangentially related to Wallace. She’s his daughter’s roommate. I had a good reason to talk with her, but it didn’t have to include us having dinner in some place in West L.A. that’s so trendy it doesn’t have a name, only initials. But that’s what we ended up doing.”

  “Good food?” he asked.

  I laughed. Was he offering me another exit? I weighed the possibility that he wasn’t eager to hear what I had to say. I said, “Nothing you couldn’t get in Boulder. The people were very L.A.”

  “I wouldn’t have been happy?” he said with a laugh.

  “Probably not. Earlier in the day I drove out to the San Fernando Valley looking for Wallace Poteet’s kid. She and I were supposed to meet, but she was with her boyfriend because she was upset about this guy Jack not showing up. Once I was in the Valley, I ended up not being too far from…the town where I was raised. Lots of memories.”

  Sam knew about the family tragedy in Thousand Oaks in my youth. He understood that my prodigal visit to Southern California wouldn’t be uncomplicated.

  “You wanted some company?” he said, offering me a cushion. “Went out with a pretty girl?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Anything happen?” he said. “You now an official member of the axis of evil?”

  I laughed. It felt good, considering the complicated emotions of the day.

  “She’s fun. She’s pretty. She’s smart.” I pictured the freckles by her nose. “Cute. People her age are different from us, Sam.”

  The cop that Sam had been involved with in Boulder—the friend with benefits, the one who had helped him earn his suspension—was young too.

  “Yeah?” he said. “I’ve already been across that bridge. Warning for a friend? It’s dangerous over there. People on the other side don’t view things the way we do.”

  Sam’s sexual fling with the young cop in Boulder had cost him dearly. “Coming back to L.A. can’t be uncomplicated for you, either,” I said. “You spent a lot of time here with Carmen.”

  Silence at first. Then, “I was doing pretty well ignoring that aspect of this trip. Until you brought it up. Thanks for that.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I was trying to be sensitive. In case you were having some…feelings about being so close to—”

  “Save it for someone who likes backrubs, Alan. You know damn well that’s not me.”

  The edge in his tone convinced me of the wisdom of a tactical retreat. “I hear you.”

  “This girl you were with got a name? The one nothing happened with?”

  “Amy.”

  “No Amys on that canyon hike. I have the whole damn roster in my head. Like the seven dwarfs.”

  “Think there were only six, Sam.”

  “I’m counting the guy from Vegas.”

  “After we finished dinner, Amy invited me to invite her to come back here for a drink,” I said.

  “A ‘drink’? Her word or yours?”

  “I knew what she meant, Sam. I don’t get out much, but I
hear stories about stuff like this from my patients.”

  “And ‘here’ is where? Your hotel?”

  “The motel was…full. Merideth offered to let me stay at her condo.”

  “There’s only one motel in L.A.? Damn, I didn’t make reservations.”

  I laughed again. I could have embellished the earlier rationalization I’d concocted about my aborted plan to stay at the Holiday Inn Express, but even with extra buffing, the tale wasn’t going to pass Sam’s bullshit sensor.

  “I’m staying at Merideth’s condo, Sam. Let’s leave it there.”

  “Well,” he said. “Let me see if I have this right. You went out for a spontaneous L.A. on-the-town dinner with a woman, a young woman, someone you just met. It turns out that she finds you so…What? Charming? Yeah, so charming that she was dying to join you for late-night cocktails and…whatever might come next. And you suspect that whatever might come next was going to take place on the clean sheets of your ex-wife’s Beverly Hills condo while your current wife is off with your child looking for her long-lost daughter in Denmark.”

  I swallowed a sigh at his synopsis. “Amy is…beguiling, Sam.”

  “Did you just say ‘beguiling’?” Sam said. “I think you’re a fucking idiot.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.

  Sam waited an additional ten seconds before he said, “Was I right-on with my little summary?”

  It was as though he’d forgotten that he’d just called me a fucking idiot. “When you put it that way, I admit it makes my evening sound kind of sleazy.”

  “Hey…no criticism intended. Not from me. Despite all my recent scar tissue from tangling with women I had no business tangling with, it took all my willpower to decline Ranger Ramona’s invitation of midnight recreation and a hot breakfast. Mostly I was trying to highlight the complication factor you’re attempting. My assessment? The degree of difficulty you’re considering for this dive may be well beyond your demonstrated ability.”