Cry Wolf

by J. Carson Black

  “Mrs. Sheehey’s son, Cody, said he was a financial advisor.”

  “In Vegas?” He answered for himself. “Probably. You want me to do that part? See where he worked and what was going on with him?”

  Laura knew he liked that aspect of police work best. Back at the squad bay, kicked back in his swiveling chair, on the phone. Romancing people into telling him their darkest secrets.

  “He has a sister in Tucson,” Laura said. “Apparently they’re estranged. We’re gonna have to run her down, too.”

  Anthony had his phone out, checked it. “Shoot, no cell phone service.” He pocketed his phone. “I’ll go back to the farm and see what I can find. Insurance card, stuff he had to enter for Enterprise.”

  “Why’d he rent a car?” Laura asked. “Why not drive his own?”

  “Got me. You want me to help you here?”

  “I’ve got it covered.” She believed in people doing what they did best. Anthony was good at everything, but he excelled at data collecting and doing his legwork back at the squad bay. She suspected that in down times, he was coming up with movie pitches and treatment ideas, but he was the best talker she’d ever seen on the phone. He could tease answers out of anybody. In person, though, he came off as overbearing. He towered over people, and some folks—most of them older—were intimidated by his bald head. This, she knew, was the reason he often adopted a porkpie hat. It made him look slightly goofy, but it took away the edge.

  Just then tires crunched on gravel.

  They went to the open doorway. A young woman dressed in skimpy running shorts and a clingy top emerged from a metallic yellow Ford Focus hatchback. She bent gracefully into the back for a bag of groceries, and stepped up onto the low porch to her cabin.

  Anthony said, “On second thought, maybe I should stick around and give you a hand.”

  Her name was Madison Neville.

  Laura couldn’t ever remember looking that good. She felt a moment of regret, and then layered it over with her sterling career as a homicide detective, her superior sharpshooting skills, her interrogation chops, and her fiancé of three-and-a-half years.

  Anthony stood back from the girl, porkpie hat cocked over one eye, looking casual, but Laura could tell he was in love.

  “Sean? He’s dead? Really?” Madison asked after setting her groceries down on the small table in the pocket kitchenette. She stared at them both, her eyes like amethyst jewels.

  “Did you know him to talk to?” Laura asked her.

  “Yeah. I thought he was pretty nice.” From the look on her face, she might as well have said, “for an old guy.”

  Embarrassed that they might think there was anything romantic between this twenty-something girl and a forty-three-year-old man?

  At the age of thirty-seven, forty-three didn’t seem as old to Laura as it used to.

  Normal.

  Laura would never know for sure. She was going on instinct and the experience of seeing countless death scenes. But she was pretty sure Sean Perrin hadn’t seen it coming.

  Literally.

  Back at the squad bay, Laura got on the phone and spent a couple of hours calling motels in Winslow. She’d winnowed down the motels to within walking distance of the McDonald's at 1616 North Park Drive.

  From Google Maps, she was able to see the area from above and also from Street View. The land looked as if it had been cleared for building, and new stores were going up near an old neighborhood. There were several motels in the neighborhood—an Econo Lodge, a Quality Inn, and a Motel 6.

  Laura called the Winslow PD, identified herself, and talked to the desk sergeant there. She asked if there had been any shootings at the motels on Park near the interchange approximately two weeks ago.

  “No shootings near the main drag.”

  “None near the McDonald's on Park?”

  “Not in the last two weeks.”

  “How about before that?”

  She could tell he was looking. “I’ll have to get back to you. Can you describe what you’re looking for?”

  From the mouth of a congenital liar, Laura thought. “We have a homicide victim here in southern Arizona, a white male forty-three years old, name: Sean Perrin.” She described him and the story he’d told Terry Delmonte—the woman who was with him, his trip to the McDonald's for breakfast, his discovery of the woman dead in the room. “We believe he was driving a 2006 Dodge Viper Red Clearcoat.” She read off the VIN number.

  “You say he’s a homicide victim? Anything else we should know about him?”

  “He’s a mystery to us,” Laura said. “But he was shot once in the head at close range with a .22. No evidence at the scene. Shot in his car.”

  “Sounds like a hit.”

  “Which is why I’m following this lead.”

  “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire? Can you describe this woman?”

  “This is a guess, but she’s probably between the ages of twenty and forty. She would be a resident of Las Vegas. The name I was given was ‘Aurora’. She might have gone by another name. The last name, but not sure: Tattaglia.”

  Laura knew the name was a shot in the dark. She was on shifting sands here. She thought about elaborating, but realized she’d only dig herself in deeper.

  “So you’re sure he said McDonald's?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s only one of ’em here. I’ll check and see if there’s a homicide in a motel, but I don’t recall anything like this.”

  Laura thought: all you can do is try.

  She got a call back the next morning.

  “No record of anyone shot to death in any of the motels near the McDonald's,” the desk sergeant, Manny Contreras, told her. “But there was a death that fits your time frame. A woman died of an overdose at the Meteorite Inn.”

  “The Meteorite Inn?”

  “Yeah, it’s an old motel, kind of off the beaten track, but if they were hiding out as you say . . . ”

  “A drug overdose? You sure?”

  “To tell the truth, at first it did look like a homicide. She must have flailed around some, hit her head against the bed board and also on the chest of drawers. Turned out it was a drug overdose. Ketamine and PCP in her system, which fits with what we found.”

  “How old was she?”

  “Mid-to-late twenties, but she looked older than that. Her name was Aurora Johnson. She had a Las Vegas DL and one hell of a rap sheet,” he added. “She was a prostitute.”

  11: Running Down the Road

  Laura and Anthony hit the road early the next morning. Early for Anthony was eight a.m.

  Laura picked him up at his home, which was kind of on the way, and they hit Phoenix on Interstate 10 just in time for rush hour.

  It was mid-afternoon by the time they pulled in to Winslow. The police department was situated along old Interstate 40, a white cube of a building on a one-way street.

  It wasn’t far from the Meteorite Inn on State Route 99. They drove by there first.

  The land around here looked like tanned deer hide. There were railroad tracks nearby, and a road that zigged, then zagged, and stuck like a postage stamp in the right angle was the motel. The side to the street was a jigsaw of colored rocks, most of them dark brown, some muddy yellow, pink, blue, red—all natural rock colors from the area. Wafers of flagstone were stacked at the base. Someone had put real care into this, but the result was ugly. And old.

  “It’s a long way from McDonald's,” Laura said.

  Anthony nodded. “You just maybe think we’re on a wild goose chase?”

  “Probably. But a woman did die here.”

  “The Meteorite Inn. Looks like it was hit by a meteorite. If a guy stood on this corner, the girl in the flatbed Ford would’ve driven right by. I’ll bet people rent by the month.”

  Laura looked at the old motel. There was a cluttered look to some of the rooms—doors open, old cars outside. It did look like people were camped out there. “You think they were hiding out?”

&
nbsp; “Could be. You can’t get more out of the way than this.”

  “But the woman died from a drug overdose. Maybe he wasn’t running from anything at all in Vegas. Maybe he just met the woman here and paid her for sex.”

  “It’s a theory,” Anthony said. Hands on hips, he stared out at the bleak side of Winslow.

  “But that would be a coincidence,” Laura said.

  “Yeah—and I know how much you don’t like coincidences.”

  “Coincidences are rare. Besides,” she said. “Sean Perrin was killed by a pro.”

  They met with Greg Wyland, the detective who investigated Aurora Johnson's death at the Meteorite Inn. Wyland was tall like Anthony, so the two of them towered over Laura, even though she was pretty tall, herself. Wyland looked boyish, with a pale blonde buzz cut and startling blue eyes.

  He showed them the file.

  Aurora Johnson did have a sheet—prostitution busts and drugs.

  The crime scene photos were shocking. There was blood everywhere, mostly from Johnson running into things, like the dresser where she ended up, head smashed into the bottom drawer.

  “Ketamine and PCP,” Laura muttered, looking at the sheet. Anthony leaned over her.

  Even dead, Aurora Johnson was a beautiful young woman. She was twenty-four years old. She looked like she might be a mixture of Hispanic, African American, and perhaps Asian. In one of the close-up shots, Laura noticed a tattoo on her forearm: a bullet. Just the black silhouette, but it was unmistakable. “Did LVMPD send a photo of her?” Laura asked.

  “Yeah.” He pulled it up on his desktop.

  It was the first time Laura had seen a mug shot that was actually flattering.

  “Jesus,” Anthony said. “She’s a knockout.”

  Even the cloth they used to drape under her chin looked elegant.

  Aurora Johnson had been arrested for possession of drugs twice and prostitution three times.

  Laura said, “All these arrests were from two years ago or earlier. Since then, nothing.”

  “Somebody looking out for her?” Anthony asked.

  “Cedric Williams,” Wyland said. “A.K.A. WMD.”

  “His name is ‘WMD?”

  “No, A.K.A. WMD. Supposedly he’s a rapper.”

  Laura knew that rappers in Vegas were pimps in actuality. Like the guy in Vegas who was shot and killed on the Strip awhile back, blowing up a taxi in the process.

  Anthony said, “Stands for ‘also known as’?”

  Wyland shrugged. “That would be my guess. She definitely had protection—my contact at LVMPD said she was A.K.A.’s bottom girl.”

  Laura knew that a “bottom girl” was the Most Valuable Player in the pimp-hooker world. She was trained to run the business, make sure the girls did what they were told, groomed to perfection and schooled to be a high-level prostitute worthy of the high rollers who wanted the best. “So what’s she doing dying of a drug overdose in a dump like the Meteorite Inn?”

  They went back to the motel with Wyland. Perrin and Johnson had stayed in room 10, right near the backside of a bar and facing a Dumpster.

  “This was over two weeks ago,” Wyland said, after coming out with the key to the room. “The place has been cleaned up.”

  “Probably not all that much,” Anthony said. He covered his eyes against the lowering sun and stared at the room down at the end. “I can picture this. Fade In: a fleabag motel on the edge of town.”

  Wyland glanced at Laura.

  “Anthony writes screenplays in his spare time.”

  “This would be a good setting for a zombie movie,” Wyland said helpfully.

  The room had not been repainted, but the walls had been scrubbed. There were some dark reddish stains in the carpet, but the carpet was multicolored and they were hard to see.

  “It doesn’t look bad now it’s dried,” Wyland said.

  “But you don’t suspect homicide?” Laura asked.

  Det. Wyland shrugged. “The coroner said she had enough drugs in her system to kill her. All the flailing was consistent with that. Hard to believe, I know, but he’d seen it before.”

  Laura wondered who’d come up with the cocktail like that. Was it Aurora Johnson herself, or someone else?

  Sean Perrin?

  It was possible.

  Sean Perrin was a liar, after all. But the story he told, coming back with breakfast for himself and the woman he was on the run with, made sense. If he’d come back and seen her dead, looking bloody and beaten, he might have run. He said he was on the run with Aurora Johnson. He might have thought the people chasing them had caught up with them.

  If there were people chasing them.

  Aurora Johnson was Cedric Williams’ bottom girl. She would have been valuable in many ways. And she would have known a lot about his business.

  Maybe for once in his life, Sean Perrin had told the truth—at least about running away with Johnson.

  As they parted ways with Wyland, Laura glanced around and saw a Mexican place that advertised breakfast down the block.

  If Perrin was a congenital liar, he could have easily substituted the McDonald's for another restaurant. Why he’d lie about that, she couldn’t fathom. Maybe just out of habit.

  Who knew what labyrinth his thinking process ran through?

  They tried that place, but no one remembered Sean Perrin from two weeks ago. Why would they? Unless he engaged one of the servers in conversation and started lying.

  “There’s another one,” Anthony said. “Way down there, see?”

  This place, Arturo’s, boasted breakfasts Mexican and American style. A sign board out front proclaimed, Yes We Have Menudo!

  Laura glanced up and down the street at all the bars. “Good place for it,” she said.

  They had the photo blown up from his drivers license, and had shown it many times.

  But this time, they hit paydirt.

  The server, a skinny young girl with startling turquoise eyes, said the man had tipped her big, which was why she remembered him. He flirted with her, too.

  “Not in a bad way,” she said. “He was friendly.”

  “Did he eat here?”

  “Yes, he did. But he also bought some food for his girlfriend.”

  “His girlfriend? Can you remember exactly what he said?”

  She thought for a moment. “He said she liked to sleep in, but they had to get on the road and he wanted to wake her up. He ordered coffee and a breakfast burrito to go.”

  “Did he now?” Anthony smiled his most charming smile. “Did he say anything else?”

  “He said he had insomnia. He’d been up most of the night walking around.” She thought some more. “Oh, and he was on his way to a car race in Phoenix.”

  “What kind of race?”

  “NASCAR.”

  “In Phoenix?”

  “Yes. He said he was a driver. He even gave me his autograph on a menu.”

  “Do you have it here?”

  “It’s at home.”

  “You said he was up all night?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  Laura stared out the plate glass windows stretching across the front. Aurora might have been off drugs when she worked for Cedric Williams, but she’d obviously wasted no time getting back in the groove. At least that’s how it looked right now.

  As they walked outside, Anthony said, “My sister’s boyfriend watches NASCAR. He goes to Phoenix every year. In March.”

  “Might as well put a sign on the door to that motel room.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “‘Sean Perrin Was Here.’”

  They’d asked for Detective Wyland to copy them on the police report, as well as the coroner’s findings. He told them he’d send all the information by email. They were on the road to Flagstaff by four in the afternoon, and it was almost dark by the time they reached Enterprise Rent-A-Car.

  There was no red Dodge Viper in the parking lot, as expected.

  The person at the desk was not the p
erson who rented the car to Sean Perrin. The transaction itself was dry and offered no new information, except to corroborate that Perrin had indeed rented the car.

  “Who managed the transaction?” Laura asked.

  The young man looked down at the signature. “That was Colin. Colin Ferry.”

  “We’d like his phone number.”

  “I dunno . . . ”

  “Hey, we’re cops. You want to call the manager and ask?”

  “Nuh-uh. Colin’s the manager. I guess it’s all right.” He wrote down the number.

  “Thanks,” Laura and Anthony said at the same time.

  Looked at each other. Only three months on the job together and they were beginning to click.

  They walked outside under the sodium arc lights and checked the parking lot. No red Viper.

  “You think he ditched it around here?” Anthony said.

  “Probably.”

  “Impound.”

  “They’re closed. We’ll have to call tomorrow.”

  Laura punched in the number for Colin Ferry—no rest for the weary.

  He lived not ten minutes from where they were. They drove to his apartment—a place that tried to look tropical and upscale but came across as a little desperate, and knocked on his door.

  Colin was tall and heavy, kind of like a redwood tree. Or a hippo. Or a redwood tree that had mated with a hippo. His jaw was broad, almost like mandibles. He had just come back from a swim, judging from his wet swim shorts and the towel around his neck. He stood out on the landing, shivering a little in the towel over his shoulders.

  But he didn’t complain about it.

  They stood in a little knot, because his wife had just managed to get their newborn to sleep and he wanted to keep things quiet. Standing under the light above the door, moths flying patterns around them, crowded into the broad leaves of a banana tree from one story down, Colin described the man and woman who had signed for the car.

  “He looked like your average middle class guy on vacation. Shorts, T-shirt. I see them all the time. Tired and kind of crabby. I would have forgot him if it wasn’t for the woman. Jesus, she was a knockout.”