He was debating a second cup of coffee on that miserable Monday morning that wouldn’t give him heart palpitations like the last one he’d had, when the quick chirrup of a siren in the parking lot shattered the silence.
“Hackett wants his car parked,” sang Fowler from his office in his usual monophonic voice.
“Tell him to bloody park it himself,” Temeke chanted back.
He wasn’t surprised to hear a round of laughter from the cafeteria followed by a bout of cussing from Jarvis. There he was, with his pink scrubbed face surmounted by tufts of blond hair carefully teased straight. He looked more like a cherub than a cop, sweeping through the lobby towards Hackett’s car just to see how far he could grovel.
“Nice tie,” Malin said, headed towards the interview room, with a tray of coffee and cookies.
She noticed, Temeke thought, because he rarely wore a tie. Couldn’t stand the pressure against his throat. “So you cussed him out?”
“I did more than that,” Malin whispered. “I called three times. That should have made his night.”
Temeke was almost beginning to feel sorry for Hollister, only he couldn’t help feeling a tingle of salacious excitement. “Probably saw you on the caller ID and switched it off, Marl. One of those mine?” he said, pointing at the cups.
“For the gardener. He’s already here.”
Figures, Temeke thought. The old boy had likely parked in Hackett’s spot.
Hackett breezed in and pushed through the opening door of the elevator. He gave a dry cough which was beginning to sound theatrical in light of the upcoming press conference. Temeke could still hear it as the elevator ground to the top floor.
Cesar Cruz had greenish-yellow eyes and a thin pencil moustache. He also had a limp, left foot turned slightly inward which didn’t seem to impede his progress. He sat opposite Malin and that bag of cookies, flashing the best of three yellow teeth.
“Thank you for coming in,” Temeke said. “Mrs. Oliver will be here in half an hour and the Press can ask some pretty harsh questions. So tell me, how long have you worked for the Olivers?”
Cesar took a deep breath, fingers massaging his chin. “Eh… four years. Before, I work in Tijuana.”
Temeke noted Cesar’s voice was slow and clipped, every word spoken as if it were new. He didn’t look much, but Temeke betted his mind turned over faster than a V-eight.
“Have you found him?” Cesar said, eyes watering.
Malin patted Cesar on the arm. “Not yet. He’s a scout. Remember that.”
“His troop’s out there looking for him and so are the police,” Temeke added, seeing no visible relief on Cesar’s face. He knew how he felt. The first thing he always noticed about people was their humility. You could see it in their eyes. On a scale of one to ten, this man was a firm ten. “You speak good English, Mr. Cruz.”
“No, no, señor. I speak like the pigeons.”
Temeke refrained from laughter and ran a finger down the resume on file. “It says here you were educated at the Instituto México. That’s a private school isn’t it?”
“Catholic.” Cesar bowed his head where a comb-over revealed a gray painted pate. He took a sip of coffee and smiled at Malin. “My mother was a cleaner for Profesor Francisco. He pay the fees. She make him happy. He very good man.”
Temeke gave a tight grin. “Do you like reading, Mr. Cruz?”
“A little.” Cesar scarfed down a cookie and cracked his knuckles before eyeing the bag with renewed interest.
“So you like books?”
“I like poetry.”
Temeke had never known a gardener to have a lexicon of leather-bound literature in his potting shed, but this one did. The field investigators found works by Emily Dickinson and Theodore Roethke. “And you like gardening.”
“Oh, yes, señor. I am a graduate of Foley’s Institute.”
Make that a V-eight on steroids, Temeke thought. “How did you come to work for the Mayor?”
“Because…” Cesar looked up to the ceiling and down again. “I am cheap.”
“Cheap?”
“Yes, señor. I am from Mexico.”
Temeke held back a snort and saw Malin cover her mouth. He was growing to like Cesar more by the minute. Truth was, the Olivers always found their gardeners through Foley’s. Anything less would not have been good enough.
“You keep the garden shed tidy?”
“Ah, the shed. Yes, the shed. Very, very clean.”
“Do you miss Mexico?” Temeke asked.
“No, señor. My father…” Cesar began and then crossed himself. He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Had a violin.”
Temeke snatched a look at Malin as if the word violin had some secret meaning. “He was a musician?”
“Couldn’t play a note,” Cesar said, peeling another cookie from the packet. “It is where he keep his… stash.”
“He was a drug dealer?” Temeke was momentarily speechless.
“Si, si. He talk in code. But every day I do crossword. I know code. One day, he get sick. Look like a naked Chihuahua. Still he work nights. He make money.”
“How much?”
“Forty thousand dollars.”
Temeke had read the case. Cesar was ten years old when a car drew up outside their small house and someone lobbed a hand grenade onto the front porch. Cesar did what any ten year old would do. He promptly pitched it back. By all accounts it was a good shot, slipped inside that car through a crack in the driver’s window. Big bang, lots of police. It was lucky he wasn’t sent to juvie.
“How would you describe Mayor Oliver?” Temeke asked.
“He always say good morning… always take a rose for his coat.” Cesar tapped at his lapel. “He say, ‘Cesar, your roses are the best in New Mexico.’ I very proud to work for him.”
Temeke reached into the brown envelope and pulled out a syringe. “Wouldn’t like to tell me what this is?”
“For the roses. They win the Albuquerque Flower Show every year.” Cesar leaned forward and pointed at the syringe. “I take a white rose, put this in the stalk,” he said, measuring about six inches with his thumb and index finger. “Water for seven days. Color of royalty.”
“So you dye them purple?”
“Of course.”
Temeke knew Cesar had visited the mayor in hospital with a bunch of roses from his own garden. The officer outside the Mayor’s room had counted over five visits since Sunday.
“Are you close to Mrs. Oliver?”
Temeke didn’t miss the quiver of recognition, saw the slight tilt of his head. It appeared that ‘the Señora’ spent a good deal of time on the phone behind closed doors. And when she wasn’t indoors she was out shopping for haute couture.
“Sometimes,” Cesar murmured, looking down at his clasped hands, thumb rubbing against thumb, “she sit in the gazebo and she cry. Sometimes she write many letters. But not when it rains.”
“How does that make you feel?” Malin asked. “When she cries.”
“Sad… because she very unhappy.”
“Unhappy?” Malin scooted the packet of cookies a little closer to Cesar’s elbow.
Temeke gathered that Mrs. Oliver had a close friend she regularly confided in, someone she spoke to on the phone. She was now taking some form of medication and sleeping a good deal. The housekeeper often found her napping on the chaise long and had to rouse her with a hard nudge.
Cesar rustled the wrapper and popped three cookies onto the table with his thumb. “The Señora… she have two journals.”
“Where?” Temeke asked.
“In the library. Look like books.” Cesar wagged a finger. “But not books.”
Temeke knew the sodding FBI hadn’t found them because special agent Stu Anderson would have told him. He was a personal friend. He was also a notorious gossip. “Has the Mayor ever asked you to do extra work? You know, anything after hours?”
“Only the letters.”
“What letters?” Malin asked.
<
br /> Cesar chomped for a few seconds and then licked his fingers. “He ask me to post letters to Mr. Andrew Blaine. 522 Cragmont Ave, Berkeley.
Temeke reckoned there must have been a whole pile of letters to this person if Cesar could rattle off one name and an address. He also reckoned he needed to talk with the mayor, but not before talking to Mr. Blaine.
“Any chance you know this guy?” Temeke hoped it would save a whole heap of time if he did.
“No señor.” Cesar shrugged and examined the palm of his hand.
“Why were you at the Mayor’s house last Sunday?”
“Mrs. Oliver ask me to sweep the driveway and oil the gates. Mr. Art. He thirty-five last Sunday.”
“Did you see anything unusual? Any activity outside the house?”
Cesar shrugged and shook his head.
There was a light tap on the door and Temeke made no attempt to respond. It was only the silhouette of Captain Fowler smeared against the glass. Just another wall of muscle and spiked hair he’d rather not deal with.
The door crashed back on its hinges and in bounded Fowler, eyes bright and wide. Looked like he was spoiling for a fight.
“Santiago,” he growled. “Phone!”
TWENTY-SIX
Malin rushed out to the front desk. Sargent Moran was doing his best to cover up a half-naked body builder on the front cover of Flex Magazine with the remains of his smoked salmon sandwich.
She pressed the phone to her ear. “Detective Santiago,” she said.
“Good morning,” a male voice said, punctuated by a few yawns.
It took her a second and she almost dropped the phone. “Hollister!”
“Got your messages. Wanted to talk before the dust settled.”
“I’m sorry if―”
“You had no business cussing like a marine and leaving hate mail. What the heck did I do? And next time pick up your cell phone. Save me having to call Fowler. He’s bound to think something’s going on.”
“Who cares about Fowler. And why do you think I called nine times? You can’t leave a girl hanging like that. You did that on purpose just to get me all riled up.”
“I didn’t think you wanted to talk to me again.”
“Course I wanted to talk to you,” Malin said, lowering her voice. “It’s my case. Now, who is he?”
“Who’s who?”
“The man we were talking about last night. You seem to know so much about him. All that stuff about having a parking ticket in, what, 2006? You said we’d never find him. You said he’s not even in the database.”
She heard nothing but silence and a chill tickled up to the roots of her hair. What he said was not what she was expecting.
“I wasn’t talking to you last night.”
Malin felt like a cog in her brain wasn’t firing properly. She muttered ‘what’ and some other things as well. “If it wasn’t you, then… who’s WingMan?”
Hollister let out a loud sigh. “You better not be fooling about on those chat sites. Please tell me you’re not fooling about on those chat sites.”
Malin took a few seconds to gather herself before speaking. “He said he was you?” Well not exactly. He never really said he was anyone.
“Someone using my identity?” Hollister was raising his voice now. “First off, let me tell you something. If some little squirt’s out there stealing a cop’s identify I’ll trace his IP address and cut off more than his connection.”
“He knew about the case, asked if I’d heard from the kidnapper.”
“And I suppose you told him everything. Suppose you gave him classified information.” Hollister vented for three minutes, said a few things about federal crimes and a lynching. Said he was going to have her computer tapped, said she was a fatso.”
“Who you calling a fatso?”
“I said FIASCO!”
Malin was making feeble movements with her arms and legs, felt like she’d just been struck by lightning. She must have gone through ten pounds of sweat in the last two minutes. He wouldn’t stop shouting, wouldn’t stop ranting on about how he was going to take this man down a dark alley and give him a shakedown he’d never forget.
“Who are you going to take down a dark alley?” she finally cut in. “You don’t even know who he is. You don’t even know if it’s a he. It could be an old lady with senile dementia. It could be a minor―”
“With classified information!”
He had a point. “Maybe it was Fowler.”
The line went quiet again and Malin had to ask him if he was still there. Hollister muttered an angry yes and said Fowler could be a hick sometimes, but he wouldn’t mess on his own turf. Said her accusations would be better directed at herself since Fowler didn’t use the internet to get dates. He didn’t need to.
“I thought highly of you Malin,” he said. “I really did. Thought you could do this job. Even gave Hackett a reference.”
Malin felt her cheeks flash. He was mocking her now. First he told her she was fat and tried to wriggle out of it, and now this.
“Do your job, Malin,” Hollister said with another deep sigh “And let me do mine.”
He hung up then, left her standing at the front desk with a red face and watery eyes. Didn’t give her an occasion to congratulate him on his promotion to Captain. Would have been OK if Sgt. Moran hadn’t been listening to every word behind that magazine he was pretending to read.
She rushed across the lobby to the bathrooms, stared hard in the mirror. Tried to see herself through his eyes. A five foot five brunette with sallow skin and dark eyes smeared with make-up. She wasn’t beautiful, not by Serena Temeke standards, but she was attractive wasn’t she?
Dang! Hollister was such a brute. So typical to take Fowler’s side. She wiped off a black smudge under one eye and would have cried harder if it hadn’t been for the squeak of the door.
“Marl?”
It was Temeke.
“Can’t a girl have some peace,” she said, wondering why he hadn’t knocked.
“Sarge said you’d had a call from Hollister. What did he want?”
None of your business she wanted to say, leaning back against the sink, hands in pockets. She stared at the opposite wall and hoped her face wasn’t as grimy as it felt. “Just an argument, that’s all.”
Temeke pressed a wrist against the doorframe and heaved a sigh. “About what?”
“About Fowler. Guess I can’t stop thinking he’s the enemy.”
Temeke gave her a narrow-eyed stare and nodded slowly. “I wouldn’t get on the wrong side of Fowler if I were you, love. He has subtle ways of making people pay up, little nudges, that kind of thing. You’ll wake up one morning and find your computer’s been hacked or your hamster’s throat’s been cut. He can be ugly like that.”
Malin held back a chuckle, looked into those black eyes and wanted to tell him everything. She could lose her job with one snap of Hackett’s fingers if he ever found out.
“Called our Mr. Andrew Blaine. Course he didn’t pick up so I left a message, told him we’d get a search warrant. Oh, and Mrs. Oliver’s just arrived. Press conference starts in ten minutes.” Temeke opened the bathroom door and flapped a hand. “Fowler’s leading, poor old sod. Hackett thinks very highly of him. Wants to give him a medal in observation. Course, that’s how he got his GED. Observation.”
“What did you think of Cesar?” Malin asked as they cleared the lobby to the conference room in a few swift strides.
“He said letters―plural. When you left the room I asked him if the letters were sealed. He said yes. I asked him if he could remember what type of envelopes, big, small, window, self-seal. He said self-seal. So I got to thinking, self-seal can easily be reopened if you’re quick. I asked him if he opened any. He said it’s easy if you put the envelop in the freezer for a while. They open all by themselves.”
The conference room was bulging with press as they worked their way through a crush of camera men and journalists to the podium. Mrs. Oliver sat at
a nearby table with Cesar Cruz to her right. They were whispering, seemingly undeterred by the flurry of photographers in front of them. She was whiter than Malin remembered. Maybe it was just the maroon lipstick.
Fowler stood next to Hackett who was fighting hard to keep a rash of anxiety behind a sweaty face. He looked dogged tired.
“So, what have we got, sir?” Temeke whispered, leaning in and frowning at Hackett’s frown.
“A dead man in the woods, no dental matches, nothing,” Hackett whispered. “And why is he dead in the first place?”
Fowler pulled up his belt and tucked his shirt further down his pants. “He’s dead because our kidnapper killed him. And our kidnapper is the Ringmaster. That’s what we’re going to tell the Press.”
“Got enough evidence to back up that statement?” Temeke said. “Cause you’ll look like a right patsy if you don’t.”
Malin was enjoying the banter, wondering if Temeke was doing it for her benefit. He must have sensed her ego had been battered and Fowler only made things worse with that thin smile of his.
“For your information, the dogs picked up a scent in the woods,” Fowler said. “Found the remains of a campfire and blood spatters on a nearby tree. There were rabbit bones and coffee grounds. It was him all right. Forensics are spinning out the DNA as we speak.”
“Could take months,” Temeke reminded. “So could the search.”
Fowler wiped a trickle of sweat from his temple with the back of his hand. “Agent Running Hawk called it off that night. Wouldn’t cross the river. Said there were only cave dwellings behind the cliffs. Said they were sacred.”
“That’s a big bloody shame because our killer was probably counting on that. Probably set up house in those ruins, nice big bed and place to call his own.”
The line of Fowler’s mouth tightened. “Running Hawk said the dogs were tired and so were the men. Said they’d go west in the morning. Remember he’s a Shadow Wolf officer. He’ll find them.”
Night Eyes (The Detective Temeke Crime Series Book 2) Page 14