The Laura Cardinal Novels

by J. Carson Black

  Given that, it was easy to see why he had killed himself. In his mind, he’d had no choice.

  But she did.

  She walked downstairs to Jerry’s office, knocked on the doorjamb. Jerry stood up from his desk, grizzled and smiling. “Congratulations are in order. That was some wild ride you went for up there. Looks like you closed this case and then some.”

  “Looks like it.” Although now she wasn’t so sure. “What I came in to ask you—I’d like to take a couple of days off. I haven’t had much sleep—”

  Jerry sat back down, his blueberry eyes assessing. “I think that’s a good idea. You’ve been through a lot.”

  “So, it’s okay? I can leave now?”

  “I think you should.”

  Laura turned back at the doorway. “I think I’m going to need some counseling, too.”

  She was almost to the turn-off to Vail, to the Bosque Escondido and her reunion with Tom Lightfoot—however that might turn out—when her cell rang.

  It was the chief of police in Lordsburg, New Mexico.

  “Laura Cardinal? I understand you know a Jamie Cottle from Williams, Arizona?”

  “Yes—”

  “We have him here at the jail. He asked to talk to you.”

  “Jail?”

  “He was following a schoolteacher around, Richard Garatano.”

  Laura saw the Wentworth Road exit sign come up, then flash by. She glanced across the median at the mesquites, the road arrowing through the desert beyond. The road to home.

  She pushed the 4Runner up to eighty.

  It was only another one hundred and forty miles or so to Lordsburg, if she kept going straight on I-10.

  48

  By the time Laura got to Lordsburg just over the state line, the lowering sun was hanging on by its fingernails, staining the world red under streaky dark high clouds, the glow almost blinding in her rearview. Red suffused everything: the houses on the outskirts dotting the high grassy plain, the reflective signs, the bargain motels, fast food places, truck stops. The town seeming to stretch out on the left side of the interstate like a giant motherboard. Car lights flashed on as she took exit 22, drove under the overpass, and tracked her way up State Route 70 to Wabash Street.

  She gave her name and badge number into the speaker set into the plastic window dividing the police department from the public. A few moments later Chief Thaddeus Farnsworth himself met her in the small lobby and led her back. Chief Farnsworth was a tall man, a rancher. Square face, square hands, the wrinkles webbing his sure-shooter blue eyes like a badge of honor. He smelled of nicotine and Juicy Fruit.

  “Kid is something else,” he said as he led her to the interrogation room. Laura looked in the window: the boy inside looking small and helpless, even though he was tall for his age. His dark hair flopping over his face.

  “You said he was following Garatano?”

  “I’d say ‘stalking’ is more like it. We confiscated a 12-gauge shotgun from the gun rack in his truck.”

  “Truck?” Laura asked. “He owns a car.”

  “It’s registered to his parents.”

  “What exactly was he doing?”

  The chief summarized the events of the last day and a half. The first time Richard Garatano noticed Jamie Cottle was when he went to the Pizza Hut with his wife and baby boy. He sensed the kid watching him. When he got a good look, he knew right away who it was.

  Apparently, Cottle had followed him around in Williams, too. Ran into him a lot, never said anything, just gave him the Evil Eye.

  “When Garatano saw Cottle here in Lordsburg, it threw the fear of God into him. He called us. By the time we got there, the kid was gone. We didn’t take a report. Last I checked, a cat can look at a king.”

  Laura smiled at that. “Do you know Mr. Garatano’s history?”

  “We do now. I talked to the Williams PD yesterday. Bad situation.” He paused a beat—“poor kid, let him rest in peace. Drowned in Cataract Lake.“ Anyway, two nights ago, Cottle spent the night in his truck outside the Garatano residence. Garatano twice asked him to leave, and Cottle told him what I just told you: ‘A cat can look at a king.’ ”

  Garatano was now teaching at Royal’s Academy, a charter school here in town.

  Jamie Cottle parked outside the school, stayed there all day. When Garatano came out, Cottle got out of his truck and asked him if he’d found another boy. “This was when school was letting out and there were lots of kids around to hear it. According to Garatano, Cottle threatened him, said he better not touch another boy or he’d regret it. Since there were witnesses, we had enough to bring him in for questioning. It was a clear threat.”

  “How did he react when you brought him in?”

  “He seemed happy.”

  “Happy?”

  “Said he wanted to make Garatano’s life miserable, and it looked like he was succeeding.

  “As I understand it, he’s got a real beef, though. After what happened to his brother. Jesus.” He touched his nose. “Chief Loffgren and I go way back. He said this kid had a crush on the girl who was shot up there a week or so ago? She was killed by a 12-gauge shotgun, wasn’t she?”

  “Yes, she was.”

  The chief shook his head. “That kid could be in a heap of trouble. I know he asked for you, but I wouldn’t cut him any slack if I were you.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t.”

  Jamie Cottle looked up when the door opened, his expression interested. Again she was struck by his clear-eyed intelligence. His face open, and yet she knew that he had plenty of secrets roiling underneath.

  “You came,” he said. “I didn’t know if you would.”

  “Looks like you’re in big trouble.”

  His smile dropped. “Not so much. I didn’t do anything.”

  “Stalking someone isn’t nothing.”

  “And pedophilia is? What about drowning someone?”

  That stubborn look again.

  “You don’t know that. You don’t know what happened.”

  “I know my brother’s dead and that bastard is walking free. Even got himself another job teaching the kiddies.”

  Laura set her recorder on the small table between them and switched it on. Gave her name, rank, his name, the location, the date.

  “I called you for help,” he said.

  “I am here to help you. But you have to tell me the truth. Why have you been following Mr. Garatano?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “How did you find out he lived here?”

  “I’ve got my sources. I’m not stupid.”

  “So when did you get this idea? To come out here? What did you think you would accomplish?”

  He leaned forward. “Have you ever lost anyone? Someone in your family? Well, I have. I think about my brother every day. Why should that … that prick walk around, enjoy the sunshine, enjoy going to the Pizza Hut for fuck’s sake, have a whole life, after what he did to T.J.?”

  He looked her in the eyes, his gaze daring her to argue. Laura said, “It’s not up to you to dispense justice.”

  “Dispense justice? Are you kidding? They didn’t even charge him. The only thing that happened was he lost his job. And now he’s got another one. Teaching kids. You call that justice?”

  He was drawing her into an argument she couldn’t win. “I notice you have a 12-gauge shotgun in your truck. Have you fired it recently?”

  “No.”

  “Do we have permission to check that out?”

  “What? Oh, is that it? You still think I killed Kellee, don’t you? What’s your theory? I shot them both in a jealous rage? Is that it?”

  On the offensive. For a moment she thought he’d shoot out of his chair at her. “You honestly think I would kill her? What, you think I shot her and her boyfriend, then I drove out here to shoot the teacher? Like some kind of rampage? Is that what you think?”

  “You have to see it from where I’m sitting.”

  “No, I don�
�t. Because you’re wrong.”

  “Then why are you here? Enlighten me on that. Why did you come all this way? Just to bother him?”

  He stared at her, his face pale. Two pinpoints of color on his cheeks. Eyes like stones.

  “You don’t believe me, do you? You really think I killed her.”

  Laura thought: You only get one chance with this guy.

  “Jamie, you know how it is. I have to ask you questions, but we’re all on the same side here—”

  He folded his arms, glared at her. “I thought I could trust you, that you of all people would understand, but I can see you’re just like the rest of them. I’m not talking to you anymore. I want a lawyer.”

  From that point on, there was nothing she could do. Jamie Cottle had a very strong will. Laura tried a few techniques that sometimes worked, trying to enlist him, get him on her side. But he stared straight ahead and said nothing. When his lawyer appeared, the game was over.

  They didn’t have enough to hold him. The warrant had been denied. As Cottle left, he gave Laura one last resentful look.

  In his mind, she had betrayed him.

  She drove home that night.

  Spent most of that time thinking, working things out, as she flashed past the few small towns strung out along the freeway, a sprinkling of lights here and there. The road unraveling before her. Weary, but her mind alive.

  She thought about Jamie Cottle, about what his world must be like now.

  His brother’s death ignited a fuse. So much rage—outrage. There was a moral component, as if it had been all done to him. His brother had died, but the insult was to him. Yet even after his brother’s death, he’d still had something tethering him to the world. He had his family, and he had Kellee.

  His relationship with Kellee had all been fantasy, but it had been real to him. Was this the reason he didn’t spend all summer following and threatening Richard Garatano? Had his love for Kellee made the difference?

  Then his fantasy—perhaps the only thing sustaining him—was blown to bits.

  He already knew she was with Dan. Probably had it in his mind that she and Dan would split up. But when they went off to get married, that changed the equation. To his mind, marriage was permanent.

  A terrible blow. Something he couldn’t deny, couldn’t gloss over.

  First, his brother is killed, Garatano getting off without even a slap on the hand. And now the girl he loves gets married.

  Brandon Terry had described the young man showing up at Dan’s apartment as agitated, angry.

  Outraged.

  49

  Laura thought: I’ll know in a minute.

  She turned onto the loop road. Glanced at the corrals, but the moon was under cloud tonight and she couldn’t see shapes, just a dark mass. Couldn’t tell if his truck was there or not; it was too far away.

  She drove up the dirt road, through the wash and up again, to the curve. Her house, mi nidito, on the right.

  The house was dark.

  She glanced at the digital clock on the dash: almost one a.m.

  He’d be asleep by now.

  She parked out front and pushed through the iron gate. Walked up onto the old brick portal. A cricket chirped somewhere.

  Laura unlocked the door and was confronted by pitch black. Reached to her right and flicked on the light, a white ceramic globe on the ceiling, held in place by wrought iron. Pretty funky—came with the house.

  She tiptoed through to the bedroom, letting her eyes adjust.

  The bed was made. It looked the same as it had when she left three days ago. She looked over at the answering machine on the bedside table. Blinking manically—too many messages to count.

  She turned on lights. No need to creep around because there was nobody to wake up. She walked into the kitchen, looking for notes. There were none. Checked the refrigerator. A few condiments. Not even the beer he liked. Nada.

  He had not been here.

  Where was he?

  Too late to go to the cantina. Too late to ask anyone. The whole place was sleeping.

  She went back in and played the messages. She didn’t like the sound of her own voice, which sounded tentative and increasingly desperate.

  She walked over to the closet they shared together. His stuff was still here. That was a relief.

  What do you think? He’s going to walk out on you? Why would you think that?

  Something going on, but what?

  Tom was a free spirit. He had mentioned going down to Mexico, a working ranch where sometimes he hired on to round up cattle. The owner was a friend of his from way back. Laura had his name and number in her address book.

  She found the page, started to punch in the number.

  One in the morning.

  Screw it.

  She pulled off her clothes and crawled into bed, sure she wouldn’t get a minute’s sleep, everything running around in her head like a hamster on a wheel.

  The phone woke her.

  She reached across the empty side of the bed. She had been scrupulous to keep to her own side, a habit she had gotten from sleeping with Tom.

  “Hey there, Sleeping Beauty. Rise and shine.”

  It was Richie.

  “What time is it?” she asked. Full sunlight across the bed, the floor: late.

  “Noon.”

  “Noon?” Then she remembered. Jerry had given her some time off. She didn’t have to go in. “What’s up?”

  “Just your genius partner, making another brilliant deduction.”

  “I’m not coming in today. Didn’t Jerry tell you?”

  “He said something about that, but I thought you might change your mind.”

  “Why?” Wishing he’d just come right out and say what he had to say. Everything had to be a production.

  “You sure took a hell of a lot of photos of the scene, you know that?”

  “So what else is new?” Get on with it, so I can get off the phone and do some gardening—or something.

  “I think this time, your anal retentiveness just may have paid off.”

  Will you stop talking in riddles?

  “That’s something about you, Laura. You always play it by the book. You overdo it. Shit, I looked at these photos and I could follow everything you did. It’s kind of a chronicle.”

  “How good for you.”

  “I even have a photo of your footprint—an oldie but a goodie. A little dramatic, maybe, but effective.”

  Laura remembered clearing the dirt, planting her foot in the ground, telling Officer Wingate to do the same. “So?”

  “Just so happens, I think you got a photo of the shooter’s print, too.”

  Laura felt something bump in her chest. “Really? Something turned up?”

  Remembering the scene, how the guy had brushed away the prints, using a push broom. Probably did it in the dark, maybe with the headlights on, missed something—

  “Yup, you got a partial. Almost all of the sole. Size eleven.”

  “A partial. So he covered it up, but he missed some.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She thought of Jamie Cottle in Lordsburg. Could he be a size eleven? “Too bad we don’t have anything to compare it to.”

  “Oh, yes we do.”

  Laura hung up the phone, feeling as if she’d been in an elevator that had dropped ten stories. How had she missed it? She went over it in her mind, how trusting she’d been. It felt as if she’d been duped. Betrayed.

  What a great judge of character you are.

  She had to go in right this minute. Now that they knew who they were dealing with. She started for the closet, eyeing the four navy and black pantsuits. Pick a card, any card.

  She’d missed it. She had missed it completely. But her camera hadn’t.

  Pulling the jacket off the hanger, she had an idea. One more nail in the coffin.

  She went into the den, got her purse, grabbed memo pad she had used most recently, and found the number. Punched it in. “Please be there. Please
, please.”

  A young man answered.

  “Is this Brandon?”

  “Hold on.”

  When he answered, she asked him one question.

  He couldn’t be absolutely sure, but he thought the guy, the kid who came looking for Dan Yates that day, was blond.

  At DPS, Laura and Richie went over the photographs, paying particular attention to the photo of Josh Wingate’s shoe print, putting it side-by-side with the partial. The print had been partially brushed over, but the tread was clear.

  “It could be an old print,” Laura said. “From before that night.”

  “Yeah, it could.”

  “The guy didn’t just cover over his own prints, he covered up all the prints that were there before him. You know that.”

  “Josh was the one who found them—Dan and Kellee.” Richie’s voice holding his excitement. That great feeling when you were finally at the finish line, you’d followed up on all the dead ends and then, finally, you broke through. Laura always thought of that moment as the satisfying sound of a car door closing—kachunk.

  Signed, sealed, and delivered.

  But she didn’t feel good about it this time. Richie could say all he wanted about her dogged police work, but she had missed it completely. Because Dan and Kellee’s killer wasn’t Bobby Burdette. It wasn’t Jamie Cottle.

  Their killer was Josh Wingate.

  Laura looked at Richie. “One thing I don’t get is why?”

  50

  Earlier in the day—

  Josh Wingate had been driving around most of the night, waiting for dawn.

  Now, the sky getting lighter, he went back to his place. Ruckus greeted him at the gate, wanting to go.

  “Want to go for a ride, huh?” he said. Tears pricking his eyes. He wiped at them with the sleeve of his shirt.

  He went through the gate and got the leash from where it sat on the old grill, Ruckus wriggling, making it hard to hook the leash to his collar, especially because the tears were coming again.