Endangered (A Sam Westin Mystery Book 1)
Page 19
“Coyote Charlie? That nut? What for?”
The pilot interrupted. “We’ve got to go. Now!”
Sam tapped Perez on the shoulder, gestured toward the open door. “You need to handle this yourself.”
“You get in first,” he told her.
“Not with the cat,” the pilot shouted over the whir of the prop. “Only one. If either of you is coming, get in! This bird is leaving now.”
Perez looked at her. “I don’t want to leave you up here alone,” he said loudly.
She studied his face. “Why not?”
They stared at each other for a second. Then she pulled on Perez’s sleeve and when he leaned close, she said into his ear, “I’m headed for the ruins.”
Perez nodded, then swung through the open door and slid into the jump seat by the medic’s side, his boots straddling the inert mountain lion on the floor.
“Catch the hunters that shot Kent,” she yelled. The medic leaned forward and slid the door closed.
Just before it latched, Perez shouted, “Don’t go near that skeleton. And I damn well better not see anything about it on the Internet!”
The helicopter rose from the ground. She ducked her head to protect her eyes. Swirling sand bit into her bare neck and arms.
16
At four o’clock, Thompson dropped Perez at the Las Rojas Police Station. Nicole met him at the door.
She eyed his bloodstained shirt and dirt-streaked khaki trousers. “You’re in violation of dress code.”
“So report me.”
Nicole’s turquoise silk blouse and cream-colored slacks were, as usual, immaculate. Her chestnut hair was clipped at the back of her neck with a tortoiseshell barrette. She folded her arms. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“None of this red stuff belongs to me.”
“I brought you some clean clothes.”
“You broke into my hotel room?”
She smiled. “The maid was happy to open the door. By the way, you’re an incredible slob, Perez. Do you always leave your underwear on the closet floor?”
“Only when I know you’ll be visiting,” he said. “I suppose you hang yours up.”
“How’s the ranger?”
“Don’t know yet. They took him to surgery right after I talked to you.”
“The cougar?”
Perez snorted. “Oh, he was pretty energetic even before we landed. I sat on him the last ten minutes of the flight.”
Her face lit up. “That must have been interesting.”
“Fascinating. I kept envisioning those two-inch fangs sinking into my gluteus maximus. Fortunately, the vet was there when we touched down.”
“What’s with Crime Scene?” she asked.
“On their way from Salt Lake, according to Martino. He was really pissed that they’d just come back from here.”
She nodded, familiar with the normal grumpy attitude of the Crime Scene team leader. “They finished doing the kids’ truck yesterday around two. Flew back last night.”
Perez glanced at his watch. “A ranger is standing by to escort them as soon as they arrive. If there are no hitches, they should be in position by four. That’ll give them almost three hours of daylight—it should be enough to do at least a preliminary check of the immediate dump site.” He turned toward her. “So it’s obvious that I’ve been doing my part. How’s the cushy end of the investigation going down here?”
Nicole stared him in the eye. “Don’t give me that crap. I can tell you’ve enjoyed your little escapade in the wilderness. And don’t think that I didn’t notice the blond reporter pixie you were chasing. I don’t think she’s your type.” She walked toward the station entrance.
He followed. “I have a type?”
The Las Rojas Police Station was quiet, devoid of the hectic bustle and coded conversations that he associated with big-city police stations. Nicole’s heels echoed on the scuffed tiles as they crossed the lobby to the tiny interview room. “I’m surprised the press isn’t here,” she said.
“Give ’em time. When we left the hospital, they were doing live reports in front of the helicopter. They kept asking Thompson if the cougar was the one that killed Zack.”
“You didn’t tell them about the skeleton?” Reaching into her leather briefcase, she pulled out a stack of clothing.
“It’ll get around soon enough.” He thumbed through the folded articles. “Even briefs—I’m impressed, partner.”
“I couldn’t stand the thought of you wearing none.” She faked a shudder.
He fingered the tie on the top of the stack. “I usually wear this tie with my blue shirt.”
“It goes better with the gray.”
“No shoes? Hoover would be shocked at an agent wearing hiking boots during an interview.”
Nicole placed a hand on the interview table and leaned close, her face inches away from Perez’s. “They wouldn’t fit in my briefcase. Hoover’s dead. Go get changed before I shoot you.”
He drew back. “You haven’t had a smoke today, have you, Boudreaux?”
She gazed at him coolly. “I’m quitting.”
“Again?”
She pointed to the door. “Go.”
Perez decided that if Nicole were an animal, she’d be a Siamese cat. Sleek, sophisticated, smart, but more than willing to use her claws when necessary. He tried two doors before he found the changing room used by the local officers. He rolled up his stained clothing and stuffed it into a trash can. It looked like evidence from a homicide.
He checked himself in the mirror. Nicole was right: the tie did look better with the gray shirt. Wetting a paper towel, he scrubbed a smear of dried blood from his cheek, ran his fingers through his hair. He badly needed a shave, but that would have to wait.
He found Nicole pacing the hallway outside of the interview room. “The sheriff’s still out on lunch break. He should be back any time now, and we can interview the boys then. They haven’t deviated an inch from the story they were telling night before last.”
“Did we really arrest them the night before last?” It seemed like he’d been galloping around up on the plateau for at least a week.
Nicole gave him a curious look. “They’re still claiming a shaggy-haired stranger hired them to pick up the money.”
The heavy glass door at the front of the station opened and a party of three walked in. The two women argued loudly while the girl with them sobbed into her hands. One woman wore curlers; a canvas handbag dangled from one hand. The deputy at the desk straightened when he saw the shotgun clutched in her other hand.
“Another reason I love small towns,” Nicole drawled.
The unarmed woman’s green blouse was blotched with damp red streaks. She stomped across the lobby to the desk and threw down a leather dog collar in front of the deputy. “That woman,” she intoned, transforming the word into an epithet, “shot my dog.”
The curlered matron waved the shotgun in the air. “I thought a mountain lion was hiding in the bushes, sneaking up on my little girl.” She gestured at the crying girl. “See how upset she is?”
“She’s freaked out because her mother shot an innocent Labrador retriever right in front of her eyes!”
The girl turned her face into her mother’s ample bosom and sobbed more loudly.
Two news vans screeched to a stop outside the station door. A pair of female reporters in white blouses and dark blazers raced for the door handle. The deputy looked hopefully down the hallway at the two FBI agents.
Nicole closed the door to the lobby, abandoning the deputy to his fate. Perez helped himself to a drink from the fountain. The chilled liquid tasted deliciously fresh in comparison to the tepid water he’d consumed from plastic bottles for the last twenty-four hours. His knees were going to ache for days—not to mention his back. How did Summer Westin pack her heavy equipment around up there day in and day out?
She blended so naturally into the surroundings of rock and cactus and pines, clearly at home with the cougars a
nd deer and eagles. Her petite size and silver-blond hair made her appear delicate, but that woman was made of cast iron. A few cougar scratches probably wouldn’t even slow her down.
Five hours ago he’d been hunched in a cave, staring at a skull; two and a half hours ago he’d been trying to staunch the flow of blood from Ranger Bergstrom’s gunshot wound. He’d galloped for miles over rocks and down sheer cliffs, carried an unbelievably heavy tranquilized cougar not once but twice, and zipped from desert backcountry to air-conditioned town in a fire department helicopter. A strange day. And it wasn’t even five o’clock.
He wiped a drip from his lower lip. “Anything from the APBs or news coverage?”
She shrugged. “Hundreds of little blond boys being abducted all over the place; the cops’ll never forgive us for this one. They’ll be checking reports for weeks.”
“Crap.” It gave him a headache just to think about the logistics. He hoped the locals weren't complaining to the Special Agent in Charge of their FBI office. “Can we get some support from Salt Lake?”
“You know the SAC. Without some real proof to the contrary, he’s assuming that the kid just wandered off or was eaten by a cougar. It’s better for the budget. But your skull will shake a few dollars loose. Serial murderers always get their attention.”
“How about this Wildlife Services business? It doesn’t make a lot of sense to proceed with a cougar hunt right now.” Summer would be so happy if he succeeded in canceling the hunt.
“When did politics ever make sense?” Nicole said. “Now the secretaries of agriculture and interior have gotten involved. They’re vowing to make our national parks safe again.” She rolled her eyes. “The SAC’s not going to touch it unless we have proof that Zack Fischer’s still alive. It doesn’t matter how many old skeletons we find.”
A heavy sigh escaped his lips. “Anything more on those three felons you called me about this morning?”
“Yeah.” She let go of the earring she’d been fiddling with. “Come on.” She pushed open the door to the interview room. He followed her inside.
From her briefcase, she pulled a plastic bag containing a tiny red sneaker, swung it back and forth in the air. “Forensics couldn’t get a decent print. But I told you that, didn’t I?” She tossed it back into her case and extracted a notepad, then plopped down in one of the wooden chairs that ringed the table. “So far there’s nothing of interest on the boys’ lowrider, either, nothing that could have come from Zack or from his parents.”
Perez pulled out the chair across from her. He leaned it back on two legs. He folded his hands across his chest and inspected the yellowed acoustic tiles on the ceiling. The room smelled of stale cigarette smoke.
Nicole read from her notes. “The murderer’s back home in Las Vegas, according to Vegas PD. Nothing suspicious when they cruised his house today. His wife accused them of harassment, so they backed off. But they’ll follow up if we want.”
“Do we want?”
“I don’t see any connection between a guy that got drunk and blew away his business partner eight years ago and this week’s disappearance of a two-year-old, do you?”
Perez considered for a few seconds, then shook his head.
“The stickup artist hasn’t shown up back in Ohio, but his credit card has been used several times between here and Denver. He’s probably on his way home.” She turned the page of the notepad.
“I don’t see a likely link between armed robbery and Zachary, either.”
“No,” she agreed. “But I’m having Highway Patrol catch up with him just to make sure he doesn’t have a toddler in his camper.” She tapped the lined page in front of her. “Of more interest is our child molester, Wallace Russell. Like I told you, his Buick Skylark entered the park five days ago, two days before Zack disappeared.”
Perez put his feet on the floor and returned the chair to all four legs. He felt dazed. This case had started only three days ago?
Nicole continued. “Wallace Russell, arrested and released three times for indecent exposure, arrested and convicted twice for child molestation.”
“Consisting of?”
She consulted her notes. “According to the five-year-old girl involved in the latest incident, he asked her to ‘pet his magic mushroom to make it grow.’”
Nicole’s gaze met his above the notepad. Her mouth crinkled at the edges.
“This shouldn’t be funny.” He clasped his hands together on top of the table.
She nodded. “We both know these perverts can escalate, and there’s nothing funny about that. It’s just the . . . magic . . . mushroom—”
They simultaneously lost it. Perez laughed until his nose ran. He pulled out a handkerchief and honked into it. Across the table, Nicole wiped her fingers across her cheeks, smudging the mascara that ran down from her eyes. He held out his handkerchief to her. Her resulting disgust made him burst into laughter again.
Nicole slapped both hands against the tabletop. “Enough. They’ll be in any moment now.”
She kept her eyes averted, mopped at streaks of mascara with a tissue, composed herself as she regarded her face in her compact mirror. Perez blew his nose again, stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket. From mountain lions to skulls to gunshot wounds to magic mushrooms. This must be what it felt like to trip on LSD.
Nicole snapped the compact shut. “Let’s get back to it. Our pervert got out on parole two years ago. His address is in Flagstaff, but he hasn’t been home for the last two weeks.”
So Wallace Russell had been in the park but was currently unaccounted for. “Nobody’s keeping track of this guy? What the heck has his parole officer been doing?”
“Twiddling his thumbs and counting the days to retirement, apparently. He did condescend to provide us with a photo, even if it’s two years old.” She waved the black and white square of paper in the air.
The door opened. Sheriff Wolford stuck his head in. “Have you seen the lobby?”
They nodded.
“Goddamn vultures.” He ran his fingers through his hair, standing it on end. “Ready for the boys?” The man glanced at Perez, then at Nicole. “Something up between you two?”
“Nope,” Perez snapped. “Bring ’em in.”
The chair squeaked as Perez slid it back. He took the bag containing Zack’s shoe from Nicole’s briefcase, removed the sneaker, and set it in the middle of the table.
“Good idea. Let’s see if they sweat.” She sighed heavily. “This case is a mess, isn’t it?”
So she thought so, too. “I’m not even sure where to look next,” he admitted. “Do you think we have a chance in hell of finding this poor kid?”
“Something better break soon. Miller’s getting antsy, especially now that we’ve asked for Crime Scene two days in a row.”
Perez nodded. Their SAC wasn’t long on patience.
The two teenagers filed in. Stripped of their padded jackets and air-filled tennis shoes, both Billy Joseph and Patrick Wiley appeared to have shrunk during their incarceration. Orange jail uniforms added a jaundiced hue to their complexions. The sheriff motioned for them to sit, then positioned himself behind them, his arms folded over his substantial belly.
“No lawyer?” Nicole asked.
The sheriff shook his head. “Their parents didn’t want to have to pay the hourly fee for this part, and they wouldn’t accept a PD. Said they didn’t take charity.”
“The parents aren’t coming, either?”
“Mrs. Wiley’s in the ladies’,” Wolford replied. “She’ll be here any minute.” Right on cue, a middle-aged woman walked in, nodded to the agents, sat down next to Patrick. She wore a flowered shirtwaist dress. Her graying hair was scraped back from her red cheeks, held in place with two yellow plastic barrettes. She kept her eyes on the table.
“The Josephs aren’t coming,” Wolford added. “It’s a fifty-minute drive from Floral.”
“I had to take time off work myself,” Mrs. Wiley murmured in a soft voice.
Nicole tapped the table top impatiently. “Okay, we’re all here, then. Ready, boys?”
Billy placed his palms on the table. Patrick nodded, a grim expression on his face. A large pimple had blossomed in the crease of his right nostril. His gaze focused on the shoe; he reached for it.
“What a dinky sneak!” He balanced it on the palm of his hand and held it out to his friend.
Billy squirmed in his chair, his cheeks nearly as red as Mrs. Wiley’s. Patrick stared at the miniature sneaker, stole a look at his friend again, gazed back at the shoe. Finally, his eyes met the agents’. “Is it his?”
Nicole narrowed her eyes. “What do you think?”
Patrick dropped the shoe as if it was suddenly too hot to handle. Perez exchanged a glance with Nicole. Inconclusive.
Nicole got serious. “How did you boys put the ransom note together?”
The teens shot nervous glances at each other.
Perez turned to Nicole. “Think we should separate them?”
“We didn’t send it,” Billy blurted.
“Then who did?” Nicole asked.
Billy’s gaze darted to Patrick’s, then back down to the table in front of him. “Don’t know.”
“The copy shop clerk described a young woman.” Perez placed a grainy picture of Jenny Fischer in front of the boys. A head shot had been cropped from the family photo and blown up. Jenny more or less matched the description provided by the attendant in the copy shop from which the message had been sent. “Did this woman fax the message?”
Both boys barely glanced at the picture. “We don’t know nothing about the ransom note,” Billy enunciated carefully, as if he were speaking to an idiot.
Mrs. Wiley picked up the photo. “Isn’t this that poor baby’s mama? She’s so young. ’Cept for that big red blotch there, she looks a little like Suzanna.”
Patrick flinched noticeably.
Nicole perked up. “Who is Suzanna?”
The woman touched her son’s arm. “Suzanna Christensen. Pat’s girlfriend. They go to school together. She wasn’t involved in this foolishness, was she, son?”