Get Lost

by Robert D Kidera

  “Joe and I go way back.”

  “I see. Perhaps he mentioned you the other night?”

  “Calder. Alexander Calder. Mobile Communications.” I fumbled around in my pockets. “Fresh out of business cards, I’m afraid. Anyway, I was thinking a western scene, watercolor or oil, but muted, you know? The dominant color in his office now is red.” I glanced at my watch and pursed my lips.

  The gallery phone rang. “One moment, Mr. Calder.” Addison huffed and hurried to a cluttered desk by the front window.

  I edged toward the door and called back over my shoulder. “Gotta go. I’ll check back in a couple of days, okay? Nice to meet you, Reg.”

  The man was deep into the call. I don’t think he saw me leave.

  My Hudson was down to a quarter of a tank, so I stopped for gas on the way out of town. I held the pump hose steady and considered Mr. Reginald Addison. Any reputable Southwestern art dealer would have known that Summer Rain is a signature work by Gustave Baumann, not Fritz Scholder. He’d also have caught my lousy Alexander Calder joke.

  Addison and the art gallery didn’t add up.

  I settled in behind the wheel and checked my cellphone. Three missed calls from Rebecca, less than ten minutes apart. Maybe word from Nai’ya? I dialed my office number.

  “Sorry, Gabe, she hasn’t called.”

  “So why were you trying to reach me?”

  “You won’t believe this. The cops just dug up another body in your barn.”

  “Shit.” I rested my left arm against the window and braced my forehead.

  “This body’s not as old as the first one. Sergeant Crawford has an idea who it might be. Some guy I never heard of. A guy named Hoffa.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Word that the latest dead body might be Jimmy Hoffa, the Teamster boss who disappeared in 1975, spread like a mutant virus. The Albuquerque office of the FBI intruded a trailer into my back yard and took control. Cable news networks ran with the story. The media locusts swarmed.

  The Feds had a thousand questions. The press had even more. When the networks realized I was the same guy who’d discovered the Lost Adams gold back in April, they came at me with full fury. My dinner plans with Rebecca would have to wait.

  Groups of reporters clustered in my driveway. I walked outside and faced them. “Guys, you’re missing the latest development. Better hustle back to the barn before the Feds rope it off.”

  A few reporters bolted from the pack and raced to the barn. The others, the more experienced ones, stayed put.

  “You gonna let the young bucks scoop you?” I stared back at the lot of them. “I have nothing for you—nothing at all.”

  I gazed at the sky, glanced at my watch, and ignored every question they threw in my face. After several minutes of this nonsense, they got the message and joined their comrades back at the barn.

  Once they were out of sight, I motioned to Rebecca that the coast was clear. We hustled to her car.

  “Should I come in tomorrow morning as usual?” she said.

  “I’ll call and let you know. Let’s stay as far away from the FBI, the cops, and the press as we can. Focus on Nai’ya and Angelina. I don’t give a shit about any of these dead bodies.”

  “Me neither. So I’ll wait to hear from you?”

  “Right. But don’t try to call me. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Feds are tapping my phones.”

  I closed the door to her Accord and waved her down the driveway. Darrell Jackson, the young blonde cop who’d been first on the scene when the initial body was uncovered, intercepted me on my way back to the house.

  “Is Rebecca okay?”

  “She’s stronger than she looks. How’s the investigation going?”

  Jackson set his hands on his hips and looked toward the FBI trailer. “The Feds pushed us out of the way. You probably know as much as we do on this one.”

  “Cup of coffee?”

  The young cop shook his head. “Better not with Crawford still around. He’s super pissed at being squeezed out. Don’t want to add to his aggravation.”

  As if on cue, Crawford emerged, unsmiling, from the barn. He stomped down the hill toward us, all the while talking on his cellphone. “So, McKenna, you’re back at last.” The phone disappeared into his coat pocket.

  “Home, sweet home.”

  Crawford turned to Jackson. “You’re off duty ’til tomorrow morning. Eight-thirty. Don’t talk to any reporters.”

  “Yessir.” The young cop gave me a quick glance and walked down the driveway to his patrol car.

  I moved closer to Crawford. “Seems like a fine young officer.”

  “He’s got a ways to go. I’m outta here, too. Enjoy the Feds.” He buttoned his coat and stepped toward his car.

  “I know how you feel. Buonanotte fiorelino.”

  He turned around and glared. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Good night.” I hurried into my house without a backward glance.

  A seven-thirty phone call woke me the next morning. Archuleta. “You free? We need to talk.”

  “Have you found Nai’ya? Or Angelina?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Is this important? I haven’t showered or had my coffee.” I tried to scratch myself awake.

  “All my calls are important. Meet me for breakfast.”

  “Okay. El Camino on Fourth? Thirty minutes?”

  “Don’t keep me waiting.”

  I beat Sam to my favorite breakfast spot and snagged a booth by the front window, where the clang of silverware and order calls to the kitchen weren’t quite so loud. A middle-aged woman in white shirt and fluffy red skirt floated over. Maria was one of the owners, but doubled as a waitress when things got busy. “No Irish coffee today, señor?”

  I shook my head. “Not this time.” She filled my mug, set a basket of sopapillas on the table, and disappeared into the kitchen. I drank the hot, rich, brew and wondered why Sam had called this meeting. Before I could ask for a top-off, he slid into the seat across the table. He pointed to the plastic menu under my elbow. I slid it over.

  “Morning.” I squeezed a drizzle of honey onto the corner of a sopapilla.

  “What were you doing at the Pueblo-66 yesterday?”

  I savored the last few drops of my coffee and sighed. “You saw me.”

  Sam gave me his I-wasn’t-born-yesterday look. Maria appeared behind Sam’s shoulder and silently mouthed the word “cop.”

  “It’s okay.” I waved off her warning with my right hand.

  She tapped her pencil. I ordered huevos rancheros for both of us. Archuleta wanted his coffee black.

  Sam and I played our staring game. I savored another mouthful of sopapilla.

  “So?” he said.

  “Let me finish my breakfast.”

  “Come on, Gabe. I haven’t got all day.”

  “Look, I told you I couldn’t keep out of this. So I visited Klein, met his muscle boys, too. It was worth it.”

  “You shoulda called.” Sam took an electronic cigarette out of his breast pocket and took a deep drag.

  “Oh my.”

  “I’m working on my vices, okay?” He winced. “Tell me about Klein.”

  “He’s from back east. Has a New York accent, South Brooklyn. He might also be connected to Klein Associates, the real estate firm that sold the house to Aunt Nellie.”

  “We know all that. You’re right about the real estate angle. It’s his company. Has been for more than thirty years. His father ran it ’til he died, now junior’s in charge. Got anything else?”

  “Klein says he was in Santa Fe at the time of the shooting. At an art gallery opening.”

  “He was.”

  Maria arrived with our orders. We dug in. I paused to speak first. “I drove to Santa Fe yesterday afternoon and scoped out the place. Sun Mountain Art Gallery. It’s a front.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “The owner’s a guy named Reginald Addison. Doesn’t know shit from shoe polish. Didn�
��t know the artists I mentioned. Way overdressed for Santa Fe. Guys don’t wear pinstripes on Canyon Road.”

  “That proves nothing. But I’ll send Crawford up there to check him out.” Sam rubbed his forehead. “Now that the FBI’s taken over the investigation at your place, it’ll give him some red meat to chew on.”

  “Just keep him as far away from me as possible.” I sliced up an egg and stabbed the largest piece with my fork.

  “You haven’t experienced Crawford’s softer side.”

  I gagged on the egg.

  Sam drummed his fingers on the table and studied my face. “Have you heard from Nai’ya yet?”

  I stared blankly and moved some beans around on my plate.

  He pocketed his fake cigarette, took out a real one and rested it between his lips. “I suppose you wouldn’t tell me even if you had?”

  “No, I haven’t, and no, I wouldn’t. Sorry.”

  “Look, Gabe. I’m telling you as a friend. Angelina’s gotta come in. I know you’re worried about her. So am I. I’ll see she gets treated right.” He motioned to Maria for a refill.

  I passed on more coffee. “I’ll take that under advisement. Now I’ve got a question or two for you.”

  He looked at his watch. “Go ahead.”

  “The murder victim at the casino. Who was he?”

  “We don’t know yet. White male, fifty, fiftyish. No identification, no wallet. We rolled his prints and sent them to the FBI. Still waiting to hear. Until then, he’s John Doe.”

  “How’d he die?”

  “Nine millimeter to the front of his head from close range. There’s an entry wound on his right palm and an exit wound on the back of the hand. Like he raised it to protect himself.” Sam demonstrated the motion.

  “Tough way to go.”

  “We have no idea why the victim was there. Klein swears he’d never seen him. I’m wondering if Angelina or Nai’ya might have known him.”

  I gazed into my empty coffee cup and felt a burning inside. “What the hell do you mean?” I set down my fork so I wouldn’t stab his hand.

  He tried nonchalance. “Or maybe you know him. Maybe you want to come down to the morgue and tell me if you’ve ever seen this guy before. Hanging around Nai’ya’s, wherever.”

  I picked up my fork and fumbled it back onto the table. “You want me to view the body?”

  “You said you wanted to help.”

  I shook him off. “I’m busy.”

  He leaned forward like he was in pain. “It might help.”

  I crumpled my napkin, tossed it on the table, and motioned Maria for our check.

  “Listen, Gabe. I want to find this killer as much as you do.” He waited for a response, but I gave him nothing. “You’re already in the middle of this, pal.”

  He was right. “How long do you figure this will take?”

  “One hour. Tops.”

  Viewing dead bodies isn’t my thing. But if I agreed, Sam would owe me. “Well...”

  “Maybe we find out who this stiff is, it puts Angelina in the clear.” He cocked his head to the side and gave me a slight nod.

  “That’s something. Okay. I’ll do it.” I looked across the table. “You’re okay. Some of the time.”

  “Don’t spread that around.”

  I paid our tab and accepted a hug from Maria at the door. Sam led the way into blazing morning sunshine.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I kept a respectful distance behind Sam down Fourth Street to the Albuquerque Medical Investigator’s Office. We pulled into a circular driveway before he motioned me into the administrative parking lot. A minute later he marched over and slapped a sticker on my windshield. We walked across a semi-circular red brick entrance and into a four story white building.

  Large fluorescent lights hummed overhead. A shrouded dead body on a gurney was escorted at a funereal pace down a corridor. The living bustled around in uniforms and lab coats. The cold sterility of the place gave me the creeps.

  Sam and I followed the gurney to a desk barely visible beneath a precarious stack of manila folders. A rotund gentleman rocked in a desk chair and muttered under his breath. He popped an Altoid, pushed his glasses back to the bridge of his nose and looked at us.

  “Lieutenant Archuleta. Welcome.” A fleeting smile turned to a frown. “Oh dear, I’m afraid you’ll have to put out that cigarette, sir. Regulations.”

  Sam dropped his smoke and crushed it underfoot. “We’re here to see the shooting victim from Pueblo-66.”

  The attendant handed Sam a clipboard. “You’ll both have to sign in, of course.” He checked me up and down. “Have you come to identify the body?”

  “Something like that,” Sam said. “If you don’t mind, Oliver, we’re in kind of a hurry.”

  “Of course. Follow me.” He hauled about three hundred pounds out of his chair and led us through a pair of silver swinging doors. We moved through a large rectangular room with the sides of Oliver’s unbuttoned lab coat flapping as he stepped.

  Inside the morgue, we followed him past two metal tables that held a pair of bodies, one male and one female. Three bloodstained young women in medical garb held a hushed conference over the body of the dead man.

  “Here we are.” Oliver unlocked a three-foot square door in a wall and slid an aluminum shelf out until it stopped about a foot away from me. The body was covered except for the feet. Oliver’s eyes seemed to sparkle as he looked my way. “Come closer.”

  While Sam remained at the corpse’s foot, I inched around the tagged toe and up the other side of the slab. I paused for a muffled breath behind my hand. “Ready. Let’s take a look.”

  Oliver grabbed the sheet with stubby yet delicate fingers and inched it down, until the dead man’s head lay fully exposed on the slab.

  I leaned forward and stared into his lifelessness. What the fuck? I caught my breath and checked the corpse’s left ear. I grabbed the side of the slab to steady myself. It couldn’t be…I rolled back the years, trying to picture this guy first as a kid and then as a teenager. My stomach and legs cast their votes, but I needed to be sure. “May I borrow your glasses, Oliver? I left mine at home.”

  He pursed his lips. “Well…they’re probably not right for your eyes, but if you think they might help…” He pried the spectacles from his nose and passed them across the body.

  “Thank you.” I held his glasses open and bent down. In a flash, I slid them over the ears of the corpse until they rested firmly on the dead man’s nose.

  Oliver recoiled. “Here now! Don’t do that!”

  “Gabe, what the hell?” Sam reached across the corpse and grabbed my arm.

  “Sorry.” I lifted the glasses from the dead man’s head and handed them back to their flustered owner. “Guess I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “We need to go. Now.” Sam tugged me toward the door.

  “Nice meeting you, Oliver. Thanks for your time.”

  “Move it,” Sam dragged me with such force I nearly stumbled.

  I regained my balance but not my composure at what I’d seen.

  “Jeezus, man.” Sam lit up as soon as we walked outside the building. “I ask you for a favor and you go pull a stunt like that.”

  “I had to. It was the earlobe…I needed to be sure.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Your dead man is Tommy O’Donnell. Fifty-five years old. From New York City. Queens, to be precise.”

  Sam’s mouth fell open. “How the hell do you know all that?”

  “He was one of my best friends. We grew up together.”

  Archuleta wasn’t buying it. “Really? You’re talking half a century ago.”

  I ignored him and continued, “Tommy got a puppy for his eighth birthday. I remember walking over to his place to see it after Mass. The little rascal bit Tommy’s left ear and tore part of his lobe off. Made like it was a chew toy or something. I never forgot it. Of course, we all called Tommy ‘Ears’ from then on.”

  By n
ow Sam was interested. “No shit? Still, the business with Oliver’s glasses, what was that all about?”

  I grabbed the arm of Sam’s coat before he could turn away. “Last time I saw Tommy was high school graduation. He wore glasses by then. I wanted to see the corpse’s face that way. It’s him.”

  Sam scratched the side of his head. “If you say so, I’ll believe you—for now. At least it gets us off Square One.”

  I barely heard him. “That was so long ago…Tommy entered the military the week after graduation…I heard he got married.”

  “You don’t say.”

  The closer we got to the parking lot, the farther away my thoughts drifted. “Siobhan.”

  “What?”

  “That was her name—Siobhan. Red hair, freckles, long legs. My first girlfriend.” I half-smiled. “Only reason I showed up for homeroom each morning.”

  Archuleta sniffed the air and buttoned his coat. “Fascinating.”

  “I never went back to the old neighborhood, Sam. Not once in more than thirty-five years. Hell of a way to be reminded.” I shook my head. “Tommy…”

  “Skip down Memory Lane if you want, I’ve got work to do. And I’ll need you to put your identification in writing.”

  “When?”

  “Stop by my office by the end of the day tomorrow.” He tossed his cigarette butt on the ground near my feet.

  “Okay.” I heard him walk back to his car and drive away.

  Tommy’s youthful face wouldn’t leave my mind. I slid behind the wheel of my Cruiser, swung over to a Central Avenue drive-in and had a couple of burgers in his honor.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Sale signs plastered the windows of a shabby electronics store on Central. I couldn’t see into the place, so I opened the door and maneuvered my way through a jumble of display racks to the nearest sales clerk.

  A pockmarked teen behind the counter was all angles, his face inked and pierced, his eyes full of arrogant, youthful sass.

  I dropped three one-hundred dollar bills onto the countertop. That bought me a moment of his attention. “Whaddya want, pops?”

  “I want three new cellphones. Put fifty dollars of pre-paid credit on each. How soon can they be ready?”