by L. T. Ryan
She shrugged again, adding an eye roll this time.
“Without pay,” I added.
She leaned forward over her arm. “Something to do with the case we worked?”
“Yeah.”
“Knocking that asshole out?”
“You guessed it.”
“He deserved it.”
“Chief didn’t see it that way.”
“How long?”
“Indefinitely.”
“I get placing you on administrative leave for a week or whatever, but indefinitely suspended without pay?”
Now I shrugged. “At least it let me squeeze in a little vacation time.”
“Yeah, but you can’t afford to enjoy it. I mean, looks like you can’t even buy a jacket appropriate for the weather.”
I laughed. “Let me worry about that.”
Her demeanor changed. “You believe what she told you? Cassie?”
I adjusted to the change in topic. “She’s never led me astray.”
“Okay, Mitch, I’ll help. But I gotta warn you.“ She fumbled for the next word. “This will hit close to home.”
“You said that already.” I studied her for a few moments, but she wouldn’t look me in the eye. “What’s going on, Bridget?”
She dropped two twenties on the table. “Let’s get going. I’ll fill you once we get there.”
With our coffee topped off in to-go cups, we drove twenty minutes to a part of town where the houses were small and square and dull and worn down. Most of the yards were brown. Not dead grass. Just plain old dirt. A couple of cars sat on cinder blocks. A few kids ran around with sticks. It wasn’t the kind of neighborhood I pictured existing anywhere near Denver. Everything I’d ever seen about the place was clean cut and picturesque. Didn’t matter where you went, though, the divide between rich and poor existed everywhere.
Bridget leaned forward as though she could get a better view with her chin over the steering wheel. She nodded slightly and pointed toward a dirt alley, the kind with a two foot wide patch of grass in the middle, only there was no grass, just a mound rising in the center.
“We’ve gotta make a stop back here.” She cut the wheel and eased off the street.
“Back there? We meeting with your dealer?”
She shrugged her response, which led me to believe that was exactly what we were going to do. In a roundabout way, of course. She wasn’t here to buy drugs. Whoever she was looking for was one of her CIs. Wasn’t like you’d find your best confidential informants inside a gated community. Not usually.
Big blue plastic trash cans narrowed the already thin alleyway. Not a single one was nestled tight against the chain-link and wooden fences. Bridget brushed up against a couple, almost knocking one to the ground before she stopped at an intersection.
“Come on.” She exited the car and had me fish out a box of latex gloves from the glove box. “Need you to give me a hand.”
I pulled the gloves on, pulling the bottoms far from my skin and letting them slap against my wrist. I’d done it that way since I was a kid, when I’d seen it done like that in the movies. Still gave me a smile, but not much of one, since I was about to spend the next few minutes digging through trash.
“What’re we looking for here?” I rounded the back of her car and met her at a trash can. “Leftovers?”
“Of course.” A smile wider than any she’d displayed so far spread across her face.
I jutted my chin toward the small block house that should’ve been white but hadn’t been pressure washed in a few decades and now was a delightful shade of diarrhea brown. “What’s special about that place? Why aren’t we going inside there?”
She shook her head. “Nothing special about it.”
“Then why are we out here about to look through their trash?”
She flung an unopened white trash bag at my feet. “Why don’t you save the questions for when we’re done?”
I stuck up my index finger. “One more?”
Bridget sighed and almost put her hands on her hips. She stared at the blue gloves and shook her head. “Sure.”
“What’re we looking for?”
She hefted another trash bag, sliced it open, and sifted the contents to the ground as though she were panning for gold. After the last crumpled tissue dropped, she straightened up.
“Wasn’t told that,” she said.
“So, you get a tip, anonymous I’m guessing, that tells you to search a trash can in the ghetto.”
“Brilliant detective work, Tanner.”
“Well, I am a detective,” I said, using my best Groucho Marx impression.
“I thought you were suspended.” She arched an eyebrow. “Indefinitely.” She dug into a bag and stopped when she noticed I wasn’t it that much of a rush to get started. “Tanner, you gonna help or stand there contemplating your existence?”
“Just trying to make sense of my life choices. Figured I’d come to Denver to watch my Eagles destroy the Broncos. Not dig through shit for diamonds.”
She huffed. “Don’t plan on watching any football with me around.”
I shook my head. “And you wonder why I let you leave without a fight.”
“Goes to show, you never know what you’ll get with me.”
“Yeah, well, I think I had a pretty good idea to begin with.”
She looked up at me and her annoyance faded when she saw my smile. The item in her grasp glinted against the peek-a-boo sun, catching my attention.
“Hey Bridget,” I said. “I think you might’ve found your smoking gun.”
She stared down at the foil for a moment, balled it up, and threw it at me. Her delivery was quicker and aim better than I anticipated and the foil ball smacked me in the face. I tracked its descent to the ground and went to retrieve it in order to fire it throw it back when a stained napkin caught my eye. It was from a place called Matteo’s Ristorante Italiano, and there was a name and what appeared to be an address scribbled on it.
“What’d you say the husband’s name was again?”
She leaned over the napkin, shook her head. “Guess I’m getting someone out here to process the rest of this.”
4
Ten minutes later, we stood on the stoop of a house transported in time. An old craftsman, restored to period, with a picket fence and perfect landscaping. Hard to believe we were only a few miles from the dirt-ridden back alley where we dug through the trash.
Bridget said little on the way over about the case or the person we were going to see. She kept conversation focused on small talk. Catching up. That kind of thing. Any time we stepped into territory where emotions might come out of hiding, one of us diverted the topic to something benign. Safe. Easy. No feelings.
She rapped on the door and checked left then right, scanning the windows for signs of movement as her head swung. A few seconds of silence passed, and she banged again, this time harder and louder. Soft footsteps escalated until they reverberated through the floorboards.
The door whipped open and a man about my height and weight stood there with a towel pinched between his fingers at his hip. Shaving cream covered half his face. He had a thick, dark mustache and a dragon tattoo on his left shoulder. His gaze flitted between me and Bridget, settling on me in the end.
“Detectives?” he asked.
“FBI,” Bridget said, gaining his attention.
“You can speak with my attorney.” He stepped back and whipped the door. I wedged my foot in to stop it. The door peeled back a few inches, and he stepped into the narrow opening. “Got a problem, man?”
I figured it was time to build rapport with the guy. “She’s FBI, but I’m an off duty detective from Philly. We just want to ask a few questions. There’s an easy way and a hard way, right? Let’s do this the easy way and then we can get out of your hair.”
“Already told the cops, I had nothing to do with this.” His bottom lip quivered and his eyes streaked red as they misted over. “Can’t a guy grieve in peace?”
I took a deep breath, looked down. “I know what you mean. When my wife disappeared with our son, my partner had to sit through five hours of interrogation. About half of what I endured.” The intensity of the following twenty seconds could be felt down at the end of the block. Bridget held her breath. I held the man’s gaze.
His face twisted and his eyes narrowed as he contemplated whether to trust us. Or, rather, trust me. The moment I had mentioned FBI, distrust ravaged the guy’s face. He stepped back and the door glided past him.
“Make yourselves comfortable at the table.” He motioned toward the dining room. “Gonna get changed, then you’ve got ten minutes.” He backed away and disappeared around the corner.
My first instinct was to look around. Investigate. Bridget had already started to do so.
“Maybe we should just wait in the dining room,” I said.
She looked back at me, eyebrows furrowed, shaking her head. “Might not get another chance in here.”
“You won’t have any problem securing a warrant and you know it. But if he comes out and finds us rifling through his cabinets, he’ll shut down, kick us out, and make damn sure any incriminating evidence is gone.”
“You should listen to the detective, Special Agent.” Bridget spun and found the guy a few feet from her. “Except I’ve got nothing to hide. And if I did, it’d already be gone.”
I couldn’t tell if he was pissed, or if he had expected one of us would attempt to sneak a peek at the rest of the house. Either way, we couldn’t lose this opportunity to glean whatever information the man had.
“How long did you serve?” I asked him.
“Twelve years. You?”
I shook my head. “My best friend was in. You have a similar manner to him.”
“He a cop, too?”
“Yeah, my partner.”
“Where’s he?”
“Back in Philly.”
“Why aren’t you there?”
“Hotheaded.” I smiled. “Got me in some trouble.”
“I been there a time or two.” He studied me for a few more seconds. “What’s your name?”
“Tanner. Mitch Tanner. You?”
“David Lavelle.”
“So were you army?”
“Security Forces.”
“Ah, Air Force.” I glanced over his shoulder and saw his retirement flag. “That how you ended up here?”
He nodded. “Last duty station was Peterson.”
“Did you meet your wife here?” It felt early to interject, but I had built some rapport.
“We should sit down.” He walked over to the table and pulled out two chairs on one side, then continued to the end and took a seat.
Bridget set her notebook on the table, opened to a blank page. “Thanks for letting us in.”
He nodded at her, but almost immediately turned his attention back to me. “What happened with your wife?”
The question unsettled me a bit. I hadn’t gone along for the ride to be interrogated but could tell if he was going to open up, I had to, as well.
“You were an investigator?”
He nodded. “Definitely wasn’t manning the gate, waving people on base.”
I smiled. “Didn’t think so. All right, where to start.”
“The beginning usually works.”
“Right. Well, I was heading home from work, called her. We had a terrible fight. She’d been different, I guess, for the past few months. My sweet, loving wife couldn’t get through a day without yelling at me, or worse, the kids. It was almost a blessing when I got a call from dispatch that we had a fresh body and I was closest to the scene.”
“Homicide?”
“Yeah, homicide. Anyway, I worked the scene, made it home around four in the morning and found my bed empty. Checked on my son and daughter, they were gone. Called my wife’s mother; she hadn’t heard from her. Called my mom. She had my daughter. Marissa had told her she needed to take Robbie to the doctor. Didn’t hear anything from her after.”
“How’d that feel?” There was a sort of pleading behind his eyes, maybe jealousy, that he didn’t get the same sort of relief I had over my daughter being safe.
“Ever felt desperation and relief at the same time?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“Almost impossible to explain, then.” I looked past him, toward the kitchen island where I spotted a lanyard and laminated ID badge. Company name started with an S, but I couldn’t make out the rest. “What kinda work are you into these days?”
He looked away and his lips drew tight. Whatever it was, he had no intention of telling me yet. But he didn’t have to.
“Mr. Lavelle is in the private security industry.”
“Bodyguard?” I asked.
He glanced at Bridget and shrugged. “Ask the know-it-all.”
Bridget cleared her throat. “We don’t have access to anything beyond his employer’s name and a generic title. Head of Operations, is it, Mr. Lavelle?”
“Whatever you wanna call it.” He set his hands on the table in front of him and interlaced his fingers. “Look, I learned things, did things, experienced things, and all those things make me well-suited to handle certain high-level security details. Everything is legitimate, on the up and up, and if you’ll utilize me, I can be a help in this thing. I really can.”
The impassioned plea kinda came out of left field. My immediate reaction wasn’t to turn it down, but it wasn’t up to me. However, I got the distinct feel that Lavelle had nothing to do with his family’s disappearance. “I’m here as an observer, David, here for support. You need to be making this offer to the police, or to Agent Dinapoli here.”
Bridget appeared unfazed. “Tell us the juicy stuff.”
And there it was. Something else. Any given case, no matter how open-close-slam the cell door shut, had something else just waiting to pop out and ruin an investigator’s theories.
“I’m not a bad guy,” he started. “Yeah, things were… stale, I guess, between us. We argued. We didn’t have sex. I was told everything I was doing was wrong, and that I wasn’t a good father. So, I… strayed a time or two. Found a woman who appreciated me.” He dropped his gaze to his melded hands. “Or so I thought.”
And now we had a motive. Love. Money. Power. Any of which can result in homicide. Combine two or more, and homicide was the least of the crimes committed. Was there more than one motive here?
“What happened with the woman?” I asked.
He took his time, measuring his words. “She gave me a timetable, one I did not follow. The result was chaos. Scorched earth. She set my world on fire.”
“So your wife found out?”
Lavelle did not answer. He made no gesture. There were no facial tics. He sat stone-faced, his stare fixed on the middle of the table.
Bridget chewed on her cheek. A tell of sorts, and one I hadn’t noticed before. Did she know there was more to the story? Was she setting Lavelle up to fail if he answered counter to what she knew? She glanced at me and winked, confirming my suspicions.
Bridget leafed through the papers in her file, more for show than anything. “Your wife came into an inheritance recently, correct?”
5
For the first time, I recognized a few things that seemed out of place, starting with the ninety-thousand dollar Mercedes sedan parked out front. Out of place in this neighborhood? Absolutely. And the entertainment center set up. Maybe the guy was all about his A/V, but it seemed overkill for the small house.
Bridget flipped through a few pages in her folder and retrieved a scanned document. “That’s an eight-figure sum. Right?”
Lavelle’s nostrils flared, his cheeks burned red, his eyes narrowed. Not the reaction of an innocent man. Did that mean he harmed his wife and kids? No, not at all. But it meant he was hiding something. What, exactly?
“I think you two should leave now.” Lavelle scooted back in his chair, which tipped over and hit the wall. He didn’t bother to fix it. “If you need anyt
hing else, you can contact my attorney.”
“Wait, now,” Bridget started. “I was only asking you a question.”
“There’s no harmless questions,” he replied. “You know it. I know it. The detective here knows it. And now, I’m not saying a damn word more to either of you. So best you get on your way.”
I took the lead and stood, gesturing for Bridget to follow me out. Lavelle led us to the door. He pulled it open and stood there, his frame filling half the space. I waited for Bridget, then stopped chest to chest with the guy.
“That’s a nice ride you got. Brand new?”
He didn’t reply.
“Well, I’m sure we can find out. Might get all the details, like, whether you paid cash for a car that costs almost a hundred grand.”
The standoff lasted a few more moments before I felt Bridget tug on my sleeve. The door slammed shut behind me hard enough to rattle the support posts holding up the porch roof.
“That went well,” she joked.
“Actually, I think it did.” I contemplated my changing opinion of the man. At first, he seemed much like me. But now, after that reaction, something was most definitely off. “We know he’s on edge. Guilty about something?”
“You think he did it?”
“Don’t have a feeling either way. He might just feel bad about being called out for using his wife’s inheritance to buy that car. Did he do it before she disappeared, or after? That could give us an idea.”
Bridget circled the car with her phone in hand, snapping pictures of the exterior, pausing to get a shot of the VIN, license plate, and dealer sticker. She stopped in front of the vehicle, staring at the windshield.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Inspection sticker,” she replied.
“What about it?”
“It’s from four months ago. There’s no way he bought this after his wife disappeared.”
“They inspect them when they get to the lot. A car like this, costs ninety-thousand or so. Good chance it sits on the lot for a few months before being sold.”
“I say we go find out.” She shoved her phone in her pocket. “Got anywhere you need to be?”