Black Water

by T. Jefferson Parker

  Zamorra outlined the evidence for suspicion and Merci could see Abelera nudge the bait, but not take it. Brenkus was a tougher read.

  "Bring them in here and talk to them," said Abelera. "That can't hurt."

  "We'd like to," said Zamorra. "But it might take weeks to find them. They're way underground. That's where they live. By now they know we're asking questions. What we need to do is splash their fact everywhere, get the public helping. Smoke them out."

  The sheriff stared at Zamorra, still uncertain.

  "The timing is good," said Zamorra. "The public cares about Gwen Wildcraft. People are talking about Archie after the shotgun thing and the press conference yesterday. Tonight's news is going to have the funeral stunt with the flowers. What people are going to be thinking is, this crazy deputy couldn't have shot his own wife. He loves her too much. So now's the time, drop the bomb that we need to question two possible witnesses to the Gwen Wildcraft murder. Use the FBI file photos. Go big with it. Conduct the press conference yourself, sir. Really let people know we need the Russians. The citizens out there will help us. They're worked up about this. That, or we stake out the Bar Czar for the next month and wait. Maybe longer."

  Merci said nothing, but she watched Abelera consider. She could see relief stirring behind his face, as the idea of an innocent deputy sank in.

  "And there may be another benefit," said Zamorra. "If Archie thinks the temperature's down, maybe he'll come to us. We can get him to the hospital, we can question him again about that night. If he' strong enough, and willing, we can hypnotize him and find out everything he saw and heard. To hear Stebbins tell it, it's that easy to unlock his traumatic amnesia. It's done all the time."

  Brenkus sat back, laced his fingers over his neat gut. "Paul, Merci do you honestly think these guys framed Archie?"

  "I do," said Merci.

  "I think there's a damned good chance they did," said Zamorra.

  "Why frame a guy and then kill him, or try to kill him?"

  "To cover their own butts," said Rayborn. "But I don't think they planned it. The opportunity just presented itself and they took it. When Archie went down, Vorapin saw the chance to make the thing look like a murder-suicide. He grabbed Archie's gun and went to work. When they were done with Gwen they wiped their damned glove off on Archie's robe, put his hand on the gun while he bled on the walkway, pulled the trigger using his finger. Messy, but simple."

  Brenkus raised his eyebrows, a man skeptical but optimistic. "I'd love prosecuting two Russian gangsters rather than one Orange County deputy. Talk to the Russians. I don't have a problem with that, especially if it gets Wildcraft back to us." Brenkus looked over at Abelera. "And I'll make a cameo at your press conference if you want, Vince."

  "Maybe Ryan would like to do it," said Merci.

  She sat at her desk and looked through Ike Sumich's handwritten notes on the catalogue companies. All had refused his request for Orange County addresses of their subscribers. Two had asked to speak to his superior, indicating they might cooperate with someone more important than CSI Ike Sumich.

  She called them back and made her case—not for an entire county's worth of subscribers, but for the confirmation of just one name: Al Apin.

  One of the executive big-and-tall catalogues refused again, referring Merci to a lawyer.

  The other agreed to look up this one name, but no Al Apin appeared on their customer lists for the last two years.

  The offices for the Russian-language catalogue out of New York were closed.

  Gail Durkee, the sales manager for Dinky Durkee's Surplus out of Portland, Oregon, pleasantly refused to search her database for the name.

  "It would be a huge help to me if you would, Ms. Durkee."

  "I'm so sorry, Detective. But I can't do it. It's against our policy. Dinky—I mean Ernie—would kill me."

  "I understand, Ms. Durkee, but, please, let me tell you just a little something about this case."

  Rayborn hated to play the gender card, but she played it anyway. She explained that a young wife had been murdered in very cold blood, a girl who'd married her high school sweetheart—a law enforcement officer in good standing with her department—and together they'd struggled to make a good life. Merci even explained that it looked like this young woman had gotten involved with organized gangsters who took over a company she was working for. When this woman resisted their corruption, she was murdered in her own home, and her loving husband was shot and left for dead.

  Zamorra offered Merci a small smile.

  "Oh, the lady with the funny last name?" Durkee asked. "Wildman or Wildflower or something like that?"

  "In strictest confidence, Gail—yes. Gwen Wildcraft."

  "We've had the story up here. I thought the husband was the suspect."

  "Not anymore. The name we need is Apin. Al Apin."

  She spelled it. A silence then, and Merci heard the tapping of a keyboard.

  "Sergeant, can I call you back in exactly five minutes?"

  "Please don't disappoint me, Ms. Durkee. I need your help."

  "Five minutes."

  Rayborn hung up, predisappointed because she knew Gail Durkee was not going to call. She sat back and thought about Archie Wildcraft dumping pounds of flowers over his wife's grave site while friends scattered and flummoxed deputies drew their weapons on him. She wondered what it would look like on CNB.

  Pounds of flowers.

  She thought of something then, and went over to Teague's desk to use his phone. From her blue notebook she got the number of Archie's gardener, Jesus, who had looked at her so forlornly when she asked him to go with God.

  When he answered she identified herself, then told Jesus that it was his duty to tell her what number Archie had given him to call regarding the flowers.

  "Flowers?"

  "The flowers he wanted you to collect. You know the ones I mean, Jesus—he asked you to get a whole bunch of flowers. Just the blossoms and blooms, not the whole stem."

  "He no want me to say nothing."

  "You can say something to me, Jesus. It's important. Where was he? How were you supposed to contact him when you had the flowers?"

  The phone on Rayborn's desk started ringing. Zamorra moved to answer it but she waved him off. "Jesus? I'm going to tell you what you're going to do. You're going to go get that address and phone number, and you're going to hold that telephone to your ear until I come back. Is this clear?"

  "Yes, is clear."

  "Can you do it?"

  "Yes, okay."

  She punched the hold button and got to her own desk on the fourth ring.

  "Sergeant, this is Gail at Dinky's? We sold a pair of Foot Rite Comfort Striders to an Al Apin of Fullerton last March. I've got the shipping address and a phone."

  "Shoot."

  She was half astonished to find Jesus still waiting. Jesus gave her an address in Irvine and a phone number.

  "He is in a room two ... seventeen."

  "Thank you, Jesus, vaya con Dios."

  "Vaya con Dios, police woman."

  She pulled her blazer off the back of her chair and slung it over her shoulder. "I just got addresses for Archie and Vorapin."

  Archie's address was for La Quinta Inn, right off the interstate. It looked to Merci like an old agricultural or industrial building of some kind, or maybe just made up to look like one. She drove around and tried to spot room 217 from the parking lot but the doors were all inside. No Durango.

  She parked in a corner of the lot and followed Zamorra inside. She glanced at the display of some old piece of canning or packing machinery, scanned the sign that told about it, watched the family that burst suddenly from the elevator. There was a bawling boy with tears jetting from his eyes, a woman loaded with baggage scolding a man loaded with luggage, who also pushed a stroller containing a shrieking baby. Zamorra leaned in, holding open the door for them.

  When the elevator was finally empty he picked something off the floor and gave it to Merci: a small wh
ite flower with a yellow center. She looked at him and said nothing.

  The maid's cart was parked outside the open front door. A short stocky woman ran a loud vacuum cleaner and Merci looked in at the made bed, the paper-wrapped water glasses on the counter, the drawn drapes. She opened the trash can on the cart and saw the most recent load: wads of tissues, some faintly pinked by blood, and a collection of now-wilting flowers. No stems or stalks, just flowers and loose petals. She reached in and pulled out a long scrap of blue tarp. It was almost a yard long and roughly a foot wide. One side was cut straight, the other curved. One end was squared, the other rounded graceful like the tip of a sword. She had no idea what it was for so she dropped it back in the trash can, then unhinged the liner bag, knotted it and slung it over her shoulder.

  She nodded at the maid as if she was obeying orders from the woman. She cursed Jesus for tipping off his boss that she had called. On her way to the lobby her temper ebbed as she realized that Jesus might just be innocent and that Archie might just be luckier—or more clever—than she had thought.

  At the desk Zamorra badged the manager and found out that Jim Green had paid cash for room 217 for three nights, but only stayed two. He had checked out at four, just a few hours ago. The manager said that Mr. Green wore a baseball cap and sunglasses and did not make conversation. Mr. Green loaded several large framed pictures of a beautiful women into his Durango. Not provocative pictures, nothing obscene, more like portraits. They may even have been of the same woman. He had also loaded some fairly long, flat objects that were covered with what looked like old bed sheets. Roughly, he said, the objects were the shape and size of surfboards, but appeared to be very lightweight. He had loaded several rocks that sat on stands. Earlier today—in the morning, around ten—Mr. Green had talked with a Mexican-looking man who drove a small pickup truck with gunnysack full of something in the back. It was a gardener's truck, with rakes and hoes upright in holders on the side of the bed. They had loaded the gunnysacks into Mr. Green's Durango and he had driven off, wearing his baseball cap and sunglasses.

  Merci read the registration card. Wildcraft had used his real address and phone number, changing only his name. She pocketed the card then grabbed the knotted trash bag and headed for her Impala, leaving her partner to thank the manager.

  They called for backup on Vorapin. The four uniforms met them on Imperial Highway behind a convenience store, where Zamorra briefed them. One of the deputies would carry the twelve-gauge riot gun from his cruiser, one other a Taser, and the remaining two were instructed to have their pepper spray in hand and ready. The youngest deputy told Sergeant Rayborn that the newly issued spray was "incredibly effective."

  On the drive through the Fullerton hills Merci unsnapped the thumb brake on her Bianchi. She thought of a man she'd killed and the bullet hole he'd put in her. She felt the taut pull of the scar on her side as she leaned forward to make sure her little,40-caliber ankle cannon was snug against her left leg. She sat back and banished these memories. She refused to be haunted by what she had done. Killing another human alters the soul, though, and Rayborn knew this.

  It was a little after seven. She looked out at the big houses, the circular driveways filled with shiny new cars, the old palms that towered and drooped like they'd seen it all before. They passed a Florentine palazzo, a small Norman castle and a Greek temple.

  "Left side," said Zamorra. "The ranch house under the big pine."

  They passed it. It was large and rambling, with dark windows recessed under the deep overhang of roof. The shingles were warped and lifting. In front was an enormous Norfolk Island pine going dry in the August heat. The driveway was cracked and littered with browned needles and led to a garage almost invisible from the road. The place had an air of neglected nobility that made Rayborn uneasy. The bullet scar on her side was still tight and throbbing, like a patch put on tight. Why now?

  Zamorra made a left on the next side street, then a U-turn, then right, heading back the way they'd come. He parked along the two doors short of Vorapin's address. As arranged, the two patrol cars came by a few minutes later and took their time ambling into position, one unit in front of the unmarked, and one across the street facing other direction.

  Rayborn sent one deputy around the left side of the house, and around the right. Then she walked up the drive, with Zamorra two steps behind and to her left, and Taser and Twelve Gauge behind him. She stepped up to the porch, and as her hand went to the grip nine she registered: cobwebs in the eaves and dust on the side windows and cracks in the plaster and most of the shrubs dying.

  She rang the doorbell, heard the muted chime from inside, wait, then she rang again. And again.

  Merci was about to turn away when the door opened and a woman in a tight green dress looked at her. Thirty-something, auburn hair pinned up, eyes the shineless green of cash.

  "No," the woman said.

  "No what?" asked Merci.

  "To whatever you want."

  The woman moved to close the door and Merci straight-armed the wood. "I'm Sergeant Rayborn, County Sheriff's. We're looking for Zlatan Vorapin, also known as Al Apin."

  Rayborn got her duty boot between the door and the floorboard, swung back her coat to show the badge and the nine. Money-eyes looked impressed. There was a hallway behind her.

  "Open this door and invite us in, lady," she said. "Get Vorapin. This is about a murder and you do not want to make me angry right now."

  Rayborn looked past the woman's shoulders, ready for movement. The hallway opened to a living room.

  "He is not here." Her voice was strong and thick with accent, but of which language Rayborn had no way of knowing.

  "Then you don't mind if we look around, is that what you're saying? That's okay, sure, we'll come in if you say we can, just swing that door open for me...."

  "He is only here not very often."

  "My name's Merci. What's yours?"

  "Irene."

  "Irene, just let me in, will you, dear?"

  "I am leaving."

  "I won't make you late. Just give us a few minutes."

  Irene turned away and Merci wasted not one second, pressing in ahead of Zamorra, then turning to wave in Taser and Twelve Gauge. She kept her palm on the Pachmayr grip of the H&K as she followed Irene into the living room.

  A lamp turned low, weak light, gray leather sofa and love seat, a glass coffee table. Zamorra moved into the kitchen. Irene watched the big-armed deputies jangle down a long hallway toward the bedrooms.

  "You work for him?" asked Merci.

  Irene shook her head quickly. "Yes and no."

  "You help out."

  "I help out."

  "Are you his girlfriend?"

  "This is not a word I use."

  "Where is he?"

  "Zlatan never tells. He comes when he comes. This house is one he bought for me. There are others. I don't know them and I don't want to know them."

  "Do you make his pickups at the Bar Czar at one and nine?"

  "Only sometimes."

  "Tonight?"

  "I am not told until."

  Merci flipped on a wall switch and the overhead track lighting came on. She could see that Irene was probably late thirties. Her makeup was half finished, her eyes tired. One pearl earring. Irene looked at her, then away.

  "Where can we find him?"

  "Always moving."

  "Where does he sleep?"

  "I don't know. This is the truth. Sometimes here but not often, time each week, perhaps."

  "And you don't know one single other place he might lay down for the night?"

  "I do not."

  "Or one single other place he does business, collects money, hangs out and drinks with his friends?"

  "Bar Czar."

  "When?"

  "Impossible. I am not often there."

  "What about Cherbrenko?"

  "I have met him and seen him with Zlatan. Partners in business

  "Show me his room."

 
; Without a word Irene led her down the hallway to the end, opened a door and flicked on a light. Merci followed down two steps that led to a big bedroom. There was a gaudy brass bed with black sheets and covers, a gold ice bucket on a stand by one side, a huge television rising from beyond the foot of the bed stand. The room smelled of cologne and BO and cigarette smoke.

  "Does he have an office here in the house?"

  "Yes. This way."

  She led Merci through the bedroom, past a huge master bath with a red-tile shower and whirlpool, toilet and bidet, all with gold fixtures.

  "He's got horrible taste," said Merci.

  Irene shrugged.

  "Why don't you quit?"

  "He knows where to find my daughter."

  "Maybe I'll arrest him for murder, get him out of your hair."

  Irene looked at her, the planes of her face weighted by fear. 'He’s everywhere. You must arrest them all."

  "I'd like to."

  They went through French doors and into a faintly lit back room paneled in dark wood, with a cluttered desk along one wall, a black leather sofa pushed against another. A big TV dominated a corner, viewable from sofa or desk. Irene turned on the lights and a ceiling fan began to turn. More smoke and cologne.

  "What's he watch on all these big screens?"

  "Shopping channels and pornography."

  "Does he make his own movies?"

  Irene actually colored. "No. They show amputated people and violence."

  "Irene, are you going to tell me where to find this guy?"

  "I can not."

  "You can call me as soon as you know where he'll be."

  "I should risk my child for you?"

  "He'd never know."

  "He will know, Sergeant. I am not a foolish girl anymore. Please do not behave that way to me."

  Merci walked around the desk and stood by the chair. The seat was adjusted so high it came almost to her hips. The desk legs rested on cinder blocks, apparently spray-painted gold. On the desktop was a clean blotter, a small Russian flag upright in a holder, a notepad, an ashtray filled with butts, a calendar with August's model reclining invitingly in the back of a black stretch limousine. The promotional header above the photograph was of a neon car swooping through the sky. The name of the company was in hot blue text: Air Glide Limousines.