Outside the Wire

by Patricia Smiley

  “The victim is a man named Zeke Woodrow.”

  “Never heard of him.” The door began to close.

  Davie stopped its momentum with her hand. “Your brother John Latham served in Vietnam with him.” The door swung open again.

  The mention of her brother’s name escalated her surliness. “My brother is dead. He never came back from that war.”

  “We have reason to believe he’s still alive and living in Hong Kong,” Vaughn said. “Would you know anything about that?”

  She shook her head in disbelief. “How dare you intrude on our grief after all these years? Have you no decency?” She slammed the door shut. A dead bolt clicked into place.

  Vaughn threw up his hands in frustration. His suit was wet and he hadn’t had any caffeine since leaving the airplane. He raised his voice loud enough to be heard inside the house. “We know your parents took out a second mortgage on this house a few weeks after your brother went missing. What happened to the money?”

  There was silence and then she shouted, “Go away or I’ll call the police.”

  “We are the police,” Vaughn yelled back. “Now you know and so do all of your neighbors.”

  “I don’t have to listen to this.”

  Davie pulled her jacket around her neck to ward off the cold air. She considered the possibility that the woman was telling the truth and truly believed her brother was dead. Now she was unhappy stuck in this house caring for an ill father. Davie couldn’t force her to tell what she didn’t know, but three men were dead and she was their current suspect’s sister. They’d come a long way to talk to her. Davie couldn’t just leave without breaking through her hostility.

  “We believe your brother is a deserter from the United States Army,” Davie said. “If you’re protecting him, you could face charges. You need to talk to us.”

  More silence and then the door opened. “Stop yelling at me. I don’t know what you’re talking about, but if it means you’ll go away and leave me alone, I’ll listen to your story.” She punched that last word to let them know she suspected it was going to be fiction.

  Davie and Vaughn stepped into a small living room full of tired furniture and old carpet that had absorbed the musty smell of mildew and urine. The woman pointed to one of two couches that faced each other with only a narrow walking path between them.

  “Make yourself comfortable.”

  “Ruthie, who’s at the door?” The sound came from somewhere in the back of the house. It was a man’s voice, gravelly and ancient.

  Ruthie’s face sagged. “It’s nobody, Daddy. Drink your tea.”

  “My cup is empty.”

  She squeezed her palms against her temples. “There’s more in the pot. Just pour it in your cup.”

  Vaughn remained standing by the door. Davie sat on one of the couches. “How long have you been taking care of your dad, Ruthie?”

  She sank onto the opposite couch next to a pile of laundry. “My name is Angela. Ruthie was my mother’s name. I stopped correcting him a long time ago. It doesn’t do any good to remind him. It just makes him upset.”

  Vaughn looked up from sifting through a pile of mail on a table near the door. “Alzheimer’s?”

  “His doctor calls it dementia. What’s the difference? He can remember the license plate number on his first car but not a teapot I brought him fifteen minutes ago.”

  Davie’s damp clothes were sticking to her skin, sending a chill up her spine. “I’m sorry about your dad. That’s got to be tough.”

  Angela glared at her. “Why did you say that? You don’t know me. They’re just empty words, and I’m sick of hearing them from people like you.”

  Vaughn’s hair was plastered down with rainwater. He ran his hand over his scalp and shook the excess water onto the floor mat. “When was the last time you saw your brother?”

  Angela pulled half a dozen boxer shorts from the laundry pile and began to fold them. “I told you. He died in Vietnam.”

  Vaughn’s expression hardened. “Let me lay it out for you. A witness saw your brother in Hong Kong, recognized him, and told other people he was alive. The witness got killed because of it.”

  Davie heard a squeaking sound. She turned to see an elderly man pushing a walker into the room, wearing a two-day beard, a pair of rumpled boxer shorts, and a dingy gray T-shirt embossed with the silhouette of an airplane and the words peregrine aviation. His eyes were rheumy. Static electricity had frothed his wispy white hair into peaks.

  When he saw Vaughn, he smiled and turned the walker toward him. “Johnny! You’re here. You said you weren’t coming till tomorrow. Give your old man a hug.”

  As Robert Latham got closer, Davie inhaled the odor of sweat and urine, which caused her to question the daughter’s commitment to care-giving. Vaughn grimaced and reached for his tube of menthol.

  Angela put her head in her hands and sighed. Then she struggled to her feet and walked toward her father. “Daddy, that’s not Johnny. This man is collecting money for the policeman’s ball. I told him we didn’t have any to spare. Go back to your room and have some tea.”

  Mr. Latham frowned. “I have to wait for Johnny. When is he coming home?”

  “Soon. I’ll let you know when he gets here.”

  “He promised to give me a ride in his new car.”

  Davie wasn’t sure if Mr. Latham was remembering back to when his son was young or if his memory was more current.

  “It’s got tinted windows like the movie stars have.”

  Davie glanced at Vaughn. The witness at LAX had seen a BMW with tinted windows leaving the scene of Zeke Woodrow’s murder. The garage video confirmed that information. Robert Latham’s recall may have been cloudy, but maybe he could remember a recent conversation with his son.

  “That sounds like fun,” Davie said. “What kind of car is it?”

  Mr. Latham frowned. “I can’t remember. Does it matter?”

  “No, sir,” she said. “Not a bit.”

  “Nice shirt,” Vaughn said, dabbing a thin layer of menthol under his nose.

  Latham looked at his chest as if he’d forgotten he was wearing a shirt. “That’s Johnny’s airplane.”

  Angela’s body stiffened as she moved toward her father. “No, Daddy. That’s not Johnny’s plane. I got that shirt at the Goodwill, remember?”

  “Johnny didn’t give it to me?”

  “No,” she said, helping her father turn the walker around and steer it toward the hallway. She returned to the couch a moment later and collapsed in a heap.

  “Your father’s short-term memory isn’t completely gone, right? He remembers your brother telling him about his car. Is it by chance a BMW 740i?”

  The color drained from Angela’s face. “How would I know what kind of car he drives?”

  “Drives?” Vaughn said. “I thought you told us he was dead. Look, I know you want to tell us the truth. Now’s the time.”

  She stared at her hands for several moments. When she spoke, her tone was flat. “I was just a kid when John disappeared. I didn’t understand what happened at first. All I knew was my parents told me they couldn’t afford to send me to summer camp or couldn’t pay for new school clothes. They were always short on money. But when they said they couldn’t help me with college tuition, I began to question why. My dad had a good job and my mom worked part-time as a church secretary. She wasn’t paid much, but pleading poverty just didn’t make sense to me. When they finally confessed, I was angry they’d mortgaged my future to protect my brother. They warned me not to tell anyone or we’d all be sent to prison.”

  “When was the last time your brother was here?” Vaughn said.

  She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Maybe six months ago. At first, he never came home. He was afraid. But in the past several years when he traveled to British Columbia on business, he’
d drive across the border to visit Daddy. He’d stay at the house because he didn’t want to risk checking into a hotel. He could have afforded to move Daddy into a skilled nursing facility, but he’d rather protect himself and have me work like a dog to take care of him. I’m worn out from the responsibility. I just can’t take it anymore.”

  “Then why do you do it?” Davie asked.

  Angela shot her a hostile glare. “Because he supports us, that’s why. Without him, my father and I would be living in a shelter or out on the street.”

  “Ruthie, I still hear you talking. Who’s out there?”

  Angela picked up a white shirt from the clothes pile and inspected a dark stain that hadn’t come out in the wash. “It’s just the neighbor, Daddy. She wants to borrow a cup of sugar.”

  “I’m out of tea. Can you bring me some?”

  She threw the shirt on the floor. “It’s in the teapot, Daddy. Just pour yourself another cup.”

  “It’s not hot.”

  Angela turned her face toward the hallway and shouted. “It’s a thermal pot. It’s hot enough.”

  “I hear talking out there. Who’s with you?”

  She threw her head back and stared at the ceiling. “Nobody, Daddy. It’s just the radio.”

  “I thought so.”

  Vaughn crossed his arms and scrutinized her. “It didn’t bother any of you that he was a deserter?”

  She covered her face with her hands. “He was my brother. My parents convinced themselves they weren’t doing anything wrong.”

  “What did you do when they told you?”

  Angela laid an undershirt on the couch and smoothed the wrinkles out with her hands. “I moved to Arizona. Got a job, went to school, married and divorced. In other words, I made a life for myself—until my mother died and I had to come back to take care of him.” She gestured toward the hallway.

  Davie peppered Angela Latham with questions until she admitted that after her brother deserted, he made his way to Bangkok and later to Hong Kong, where he became Van Kuris, worked at odd jobs, and learned the language. She denied he had other aliases. He eventually got a job at Guardian and worked his way up to Director of Security. She said her brother was secretive about his life, so she couldn’t even confirm if he was married or had children.

  “Where is he now?”

  Angela culled a dozen white socks from the pile and began sorting them into pairs. “Is there a reward if I tell you?”

  Angela had given up her life to take care of her father and now she faced losing the income her brother provided. Davie wondered how she’d feel if Bear got sick and she was left to care for him. Not as bitter as Angela Latham, of that she was sure.

  “What I can tell you is that charges could be filed against you for harboring a fugitive or even as an accessory to murder.”

  Her face twitched, like she was swilling mouthwash. “Maybe I should talk to my lawyer.”

  She hadn’t specifically asked for a lawyer, so Davie moved on to the next question. “Where’s your brother now?”

  She had matched all the socks and began rolling them into balls. “I’m not sure, but he called two nights ago. He wanted to talk to Daddy. All I could hear was this side of the conversation. Dad kept asking when he was coming home. He said things like ‘that’s a nasty business’ and ‘Nixon should bring our boys home.’ It sounded like my brother was close by and that he might be dropping by to visit, but you can’t count on that. My father’s memory can’t be trusted. He said some things I didn’t understand, which isn’t unusual for him.”

  “Like what?”

  “Just gibberish. I asked him later what he meant but by that time he didn’t even remember my brother had called.”

  Davie asked Angela for any family photos of her brother, but she had thrown them all out after her mother died. At least John Latham’s employee headshot was in the Murder Book, along with the picture from the MIA website.

  Davie passed the interview to Vaughn, who asked all the standard questions: Who were Latham’s known associates living in the US? Did she know his address, phone, and credit card numbers? Angela gave them her brother’s cell number but claimed she had no other information.

  “I’d like to get a swab of your mouth,” Davie said. “Your dad’s, too. Would that be okay?”

  Vaughn’s raised eyebrows said That wasn’t part of the plan.

  “I don’t like the idea.” Angela said. “Why do you need that?”

  Davie thought of the blood sample they’d collected in the Santa Barbara cottage. If she had samples from known relatives, she could at least compare the two to see if there was a familial connection. That would give weight to their theory that John Latham had been in Zeke’s house and strengthen the case against him.

  “It’s just routine,” Davie said. “We want to make sure the man we’re looking for is actually your brother.”

  “I don’t want you putting anything in my mouth. If Daddy doesn’t mind, that’s up to him.”

  Robert Latham didn’t protest or even ask why she was collecting the samples. He just signed the consent form and waited for instructions. Maybe he’d become so accustomed to people doing things to him he no longer questioned them. Davie got the swabs from the portable Murder Kit in the car and swiped them over the inside of Robert’s cheek. She put the swab in a tube, as she had done with the blood samples. When she was done, she handed Angela her business card. “If you hear from your brother, call me. Please don’t mention that we spoke.”

  “Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

  She and Vaughn left the Latham house and settled in the car.

  “What do you make of that?” he said.

  Davie caught his eye and held it. “She gave up her brother without much of a fight.”

  Vaughn nodded. “You think she’s throwing him under the bus to protect somebody else?”

  “Maybe.” Davie pressed a series of numbers on the keypad of her cell. “She might also know where her brother is, but I don’t trust her to tell us. I’m going to ask Seattle PD to keep an eye on the house for a few days. See if Latham shows up.”

  While Davie was on the phone, she asked the detective to run Angela Latham’s name through the criminal records database, but she had no rap sheet. Davie tried the number she’d given them for her brother’s cell phone but found it was no longer in service.

  The reservation back to L.A. wasn’t for a couple more hours but Davie hoped they could get an earlier flight. If Latham were still in Southern California, he most likely wouldn’t be there for long. As she headed back to the airport, Vaughn called Quintero to let him know what they’d discovered.

  33

  As soon as Davie and Vaughn got off the plane from Seattle, they drove downtown to PAB. It was Saturday, but murder investigations don’t recognize weekends. When she entered the squad room she found Jon Striker huddled in conversation with a female detective she didn’t recognize. He sensed her presence and studied her with a mixture of curiosity and anticipation. She was used to scrutiny, but his made her feel uncomfortable because she had to admit, she found him intriguing. Davie purged those thoughts from her head and beelined to her cubicle to transcribe her notes from the Angela Latham interview.

  Twenty minutes later she heard footsteps. She looked up and saw Detective Quintero charging toward her with a piece of paper gripped in his hand. He looked juiced up on something, probably nicotine gum.

  He stabbed the paper with his right index finger. “Striker just heard from Immigration and Customs. Van Kuris flew into British Columbia the day after Woodrow landed at LAX. From there it would have been easy for him to rent a car and slip across the US border.”

  Davie accepted the email from him and studied the text. “How soon will we know for sure?”

  “We’re working on it. The sister told you he didn’t have other aliases, but she could be lyin
g. Striker notified airports, border crossings, and everybody else to be on the lookout for Latham traveling as Van Kuris. Like I told you before, if he flies back to Hong Kong, we probably won’t get him back.”

  “I still think he may try to kill Lunds before he leaves,” Davie said.

  “Too risky. His sister probably told him we’re looking for him. Latham needs to leave the country, the quicker the better. I’ve set up a meeting with the lieutenant to discuss our options. Once we put everything together, we present the case to the DA’s office and ask for a warrant. We’ll request extradition just in case we don’t scoop him up before he disappears. Is the Murder Book up to date?”

  Davie didn’t believe the case was strong enough to file with the DA’s office. There were still loose ends and unknowns. Educated guesses alone wouldn’t convince anybody of Latham’s guilt. She’d learned that the hard way during the first Grand Theft investigation she worked at Southeast Burglary. The case had been kicked back for lack of evidence and accompanied by a stern lecture from the Deputy DA, warning her to get her shit together before annoying him again. It was embarrassing but instructive. She didn’t want this case to fall apart because of guesswork or overconfidence, but she understood Quintero and the lieutenant would make the final decision, not her.

  “We can pick up Latham and question him without a warrant,” she said. ”Right now we don’t even know where he is. I think we should wait until we get the DNA comparisons back before going to the DA. If Robert Latham’s saliva is connected to the blood found in Santa Barbara then we’ll know Latham stole Zeke’s laptop. At least that would connect him to the burglary if not the murder.”

  “We have to keep the lieutenant in the loop. She can go over the evidence and say yea or nay.”

  Davie spent the next half hour writing her follow-up report while Vaughn organized the forensic information, including an analysis of the shell casing found in Kern County and the surveillance video showing the man with the ball cap speeding out of the airport garage. When everything was stacked in a tidy pile, she set it on Quintero’s desk.