Malin didn’t like the way Fowler was pandering to the press, occasionally turning sideways to catch a camera flash. He was far too pleased with himself for a man without an ounce of news.
“Oh, just in case you thought to mention it,” Temeke whispered. “The doctor did confirm a match for that jawbone you found. Ovis aries. That’s a sheep by the way.”
Another deep sigh from Fowler and a roll of the eyes. Malin pressed her lips together and snorted through her nose. How like Temeke to keep that precious piece of information to the end.
Jennifer Danes sat in the front row, brown hair, slim body, immaculately dressed in black leggings and pumps. She was already scribbling something in that notepad and the conference hadn’t even started. Cynthia Wrigley, Chief Editor of the Journal sat beside her. She was squeezed into a red suit, legs unshaved, little black hairs visible through a pair of sheer pantyhose. Cyn was a firm believer in the term au naturel. She even had the makings of a thin moustache to prove it.
Raymond Brewster from the Daily Tribune looked oddly ill at ease. His eyes flicked from one side of the room to the other, probably hoping he wouldn’t run into Jarvis who was dealing out citations like a deck of cards.
Fowler walked behind the podium and raised a hand. Malin, Temeke and Hackett followed and stood directly behind.
“Good morning everyone. I’m Captain Fowler and with me today is Madam Mayor, Mr. Cesar Cruz, Unit Commander Fred Hackett, Detective David Temeke and Detective Malin Santiago.” He managed to rattle off a few more department names before the Press began to fidget.
Fowler raised his hand again. “The purpose of this press conference is to provide an update to the disappearance of Adam Oliver. Before I get into details, the last six days have been a tough and emotional time for the Olivers and I wish to add our sincere condolences to the family, friends and co-workers of Mayor Oliver. Here are the details of the most recent incident: Following our investigation, officers searching a stretch of woodland found human remains of a man thought to be in his late sixties, early seventies. There was recent evidence of a campfire, food and the like. Officers also found what appeared to be leather bindings attached to a tree. Further investigation is pending. The community can be confident that we will lead a thorough and transparent investigation. I would like to start with local affiliates to make sure their questions are answered.”
Stan Stockard stood up and dipped his head. “Do we have any leads on the kidnapper? A name?”
“Not at this time, no,” Fowler said, eyes flicking around the room. “Rest assured, the men and women of the Duke City Police Department are working around the clock―”
“I’m sure they are,” Jennifer Danes shouted. “But our sources tell us the camp you mention belonged to the Ringmaster. Can you comment on that?”
“We have no evidence to say that it was.”
“Was there excessive force?” she asked.
“There was.”
“Which woods?” Jennifer Danes pressed.
“A tract of land at the west end of Gila National Forest.”
“Can you be more specific?” she shouted.
“Not at this time,” Fowler said.
“Can you tell us about the trace evidence?” Brewster yelled. “Who does the blood belong to?”
“I’m not able to give information on any trace evidence,” Fowler said.
There was an uproar then. Cameras flashed, people yelled. Brewster accused the police department of hiding crucial details, of being anything but thorough and transparent.
Malin barely heard Hackett’s voice in Temeke’s ear behind a hurl of demands from the press. “Teenagers, that’s all it is,” he whispered. “A perverted ritual. They’re always in the woods, smoking weed and having sex.”
“A word if I may, sir,” Temeke whispered back. “Old Ginger in the morgue might be something to do with these perverted rituals. For your sake I hope I’m wrong.”
“Shut up and stop interrupting,” Hackett wheezed behind a hand and gave another cough.
“I’ll shut up, sir. But before I do, it’s the campfire we need to concentrate on and the rabbit bones. I doubt a pair of horny teenagers had time to build a fire, skin a rabbit and eat it, let alone catch one. I’ll shut up now, sir.”
Hackett hung his head, finger massaging his bottom lip. He didn’t even look up when Jennifer Danes cut in again, shouting over the din.
“In what way do leather straps have anything to do with the disappearance of Adam Oliver?” she asked.
Fowler shot a brief look at Mrs. Oliver whose eyes were wide and searching. “We don’t have all the forensic pieces and it would be wrong to speculate.”
“What’s the motive?” Cyn shouted.
“We think its money,” Fowler responded.
“In exchange for Adam? Well, where is he then? Any news of Mayor Oliver? Is he still in a coma? Are the police really up for this?”
Fowler’s response was drowned out by another volley of questions and the room was louder than the New York Stock Exchange.
Malin heard Temeke’s whisper, warm breath tickling her ear. “Cyn’ll be out stone cold on the floor soon if she doesn’t stop bleating. She’ll also have a surprised look on her stupid face after Fowler’s put his boot in.”
“She’s got a point,” Malin hated to admit. “The first Press Conference didn’t go much better. She accused the police of hiding information she thought the public should be made aware of.”
“When you look at Mrs. Oliver. What do you see?”
Malin saw a woman who should have been the face of Yves Saint Laurent. She was talking to the press now, pleading for the kidnapper to bring Adam home safe. “Confident, determined. She’s looking right at the cameras like a news anchor.”
“She was a model. She knows how to work them.”
“She’s gripping that cell phone, keeps looking at it like she’s expecting a call.”
“Wouldn’t you if you lost your son?”
“You’ve always said concentrate on the facts. Boy goes missing. Fact. Father gets shot. Fact. Kidnapper calls the wife. Fact. Police are no further in their investigation in the five long days since Adam disappeared. Fact.”
“That’s why Hackett’s called this Press Conference, Marl. To see if the local rag can get the ball rolling since we’ve managed to come up with bugger all.”
“But Fowler’s telling them the motive’s money.”
“Good. Then if our kidnapper’s watching, he’ll have a bloody good laugh.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Ramsey was laughing again. Long drawn out sounds that seemed to scrape and churn in his throat and echo around the hunter’s cabin. Sometimes he spat that laugh right out where it left a glistening trail in the carpet. Sometimes he clutched his chest where his heart was because he said there was a tear in it.
It was the grass and tobacco he rolled, smelled like burnt hay every time he took a drag. Said it was safe to smoke inside, said the walls were thick enough to hide the smell. Sometimes, he would grasp his thigh with both hands and then he’d lie back in that chair with a glazed look on his face.
It was Monday morning. Had to be. Adam counted the days off on his fingers and he was on the fourth finger on his right hand when he heard the rise and fall of Ramsey’s voice. He was on that phone again, only this time he was talking to himself, leaving a message that nobody heard.
Something about Midsummer’s day and how he should have been there. The rest was muffled behind a hand, like he didn’t want Adam to hear. The phone lost its juice after that and Ramsey turned the volume up on the TV, sat smoking that thing until it was no bigger than a child’s tooth. He muttered to the wall as if there was someone else in the room and then he sighed, shoulders jigging in a sob.
It was the tears that made Adam shudder. He’d never seen a grown man cry, slumped in the chair with his head in his hands. It went on for a while until Adam could hear no other sound but the wind. He wanted to run away, wanted to
charge through the front door. The deadbolt was engaged, he could see through the gap in the frame and there was no key in the lock to open it. The cabin was old, plaster stripped down to the wall studs and the wind whistled through dirty panes of glass.
He felt sorry for the man, felt a clawing at his heart. Ramsey had been a little harsh in the beginning. But he hadn’t tried to kill him, hadn’t tied him to a tree and left him there for the wolves. Brought him to the cabin… house… whatever it was, and laid him in the bed. Even put a thick blanket over his shivering body. Adam had been crying then, missing his dad, and Ramsey stayed until he fell asleep. But there was something that bothered Adam, something he needed to ransack from that cluttered mind of his.
It was his sixth birthday when they were living in the big white house, the one by the sea. He remembered the cake, the candles. He even remembered the walk down to the beach, the rush of wind across the dunes. He could still feel the warmth of his dad, arms around his thigh like he’d never let go.
They walked in the tideline that evening, watching their footprints as they dimpled the sands. He remembered the thud of the waves, the swell and the foam, and he remembered the man. A figure in the distance at first and then a solid shape as he came up close. His hair was cropped short like the men his dad once knew.
You always remember things like that, when a sharp yellow sun rides along the coastline and stretches out of sight, and all the rest is gray sea, sand and sky. Before they said goodbye, the man crouched down and gave Adam something and said something too, only he couldn’t remember what it was. But there was one thing he remembered. A raw red line that ran along the man’s left temple.
Adam looked over at a pot belly stove in the corner of the room, coals flickering through the fire door. A kettle began to steam on the hotplate, a shoot of it almost to the ceiling. Ramsey pulled his sleeve down, grabbed the thing by the handle and poured two cups of water.
It was the sound of thunder that made Adam flinch, rain rattling against the roof. He came out of the bedroom and sat down on the floor next to Ramsey, looked up at two wide eyes.
“You knew my dad from before, didn’t you?”
Ramsey took a sip of that tea and offered a slight nod. “Well, that would take all night. It’s nothing you need to worry about.”
“But I do worry.” Adam was worried Ramsey’s leg would fester and he would die out here, and Adam would never find his way home.
“A lad like you has a mother for that stuff.”
“Yes, but she’s not here is she. And I’m worried now.”
Ramsey sucked in his bottom lip like he was thinking real hard and he seemed to study the cracks in the floor. “There was a time,” he said, “when I worried a lot. Thought I’d die once, but I didn’t. Better to laugh, remember a few good jokes. Awful world to be sad in.”
Adam smiled at that. He’d laughed about the raptors in the long grass, the stupid growls Ramsey made all the way to the cabin. They’d run like two madmen anyway.
“Got us here, didn’t you, Mr. Night Eyes?”
“You got us here.”
“Between those eyes and my belly, we got us here. Eyes to see, belly to sense. That’s what it’s all about. Teamwork. So tell me about the girl you like at school?” Ramsey said.
Adam told Ramsey her name again, told him how he liked her hair and the way she rocked her head from side to side when she spoke. “She’s Indian. They do that, you know.”
Ramsey glanced down at the phone on his lap. “I like someone too. Well, love, actually. There have been others, but no one like her.”
“Did you ask her to marry you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because it wouldn’t have been right.”
“Why?” And when Ramsey didn’t answer, Adam remembered the photograph. “It’s that girl isn’t it? The one in a bathing suit. Why do guys look at girls in bathing suits?”
“You wouldn’t understand―”
“Why won’t you tell me?”
“Well, it’s hard to explain. So I’ll leave it for now. Until you’re older.”
“What if I die before I’m older. You promised!” Adam was kneeling now, fists by his sides and shaking too. There was something Ramsey wasn’t telling him and that made him mad. “It’s all that sex stuff isn’t it. The kissing.”
“It’s more than that.”
“You did something… you did something bad.”
“Now, son―”
You killed my dad!”
Adam started thumping Ramsey then. On the cheeks, on the head, on the scar. He thumped Ramsey in the chest, on his thighs until he crumpled to the floor. He felt the hand on his head as he sobbed. Felt so wretched.
“Who are you?” Adam whimpered.
“Just a small piece of your life, son. That’s all. I made you a spitfire when you were a kid. Painted it too.”
Adam shook his head at first and sobbed some more. And then he remembered the old plane in his bedroom, the one high up on the ledge, the one with the tattered paint. He recalled running around the garden with his arm in the air, plane banking first to the left and then to the right, tongue bouncing off the roof of his mouth in a stutter of gunfire. He kept it on his windowsill at night, watched the moonlight spill over those gray and green wings and dreamed of it bursting through the clouds. He was proud of it.
“It’s still in my room,” he murmured.
The little plane was no longer in pride of place and half hidden behind a larger Spitfire, a few Junkers and a couple of Messerschmitts. But it was still there.
“That’s one of the small pieces,” Ramsey said. “Maybe you’ll have a good laugh at some of the things we did. Maybe you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me. And maybe you’ll marry Runa and tell your kids about me. I’d like that.” Ramsey always looked at him with squinty eyes, face tilted to one side, mouth almost a smile.
“You never taught me how to shoot a gun. You only taught me how to hold one.”
“I’ll teach you how to shoot. After you learn how to load and aim.”
“And you said you’d tell me everything.”
Ramsey agreed. Said he’d already started writing it down in his blue book. Said he’d give it to Adam as soon as he’d finished writing it. “Do you remember what I said to you that day? On the beach?”
Adam shook his head. It was always blur.
“I said I was proud of you. That you looked like your grandma. Same eyes. Same nose. It used to tilt up like this.” Ramsey pressed one finger against his nose and pushed it as high as it would go. “Looked like Miss Piggy.”
Adam sucked in a smile, wasn’t going to let Ramsey get off too lightly. “Is Ramsey your real name?”
Ramsey pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes. “Ramsey… Gray Fox, whatever comes easiest.” He rubbed his leg then, gave a wince now and then. “You want to aim that gun?”
Adam nodded. They were outside before he could count to six. He was scared, but he was excited too. Ramsey checked if it was loaded, told Adam to do the same.
“It isn’t loaded,” Adam said.
“How do you know?”
“You just checked.”
“But did you?”
Ramsey told him to make sure the safety was on, told him to hold it downrange. He shouted a few times, made Adam jump until he forgot which way was right.
“You won’t load it until I tell you to.”
Adam nodded. He just aimed and steadied it a few times, forefinger below the trigger guard. Something about being bitten by the slide and how painful it was. And there was a story to go with it.
It was fun in a dangerous kind of way and Adam wasn’t sure he wanted to pull that trigger when the time came. Didn’t want the thing to go off and make him deaf. His heart nearly missed a beat, tried to aim at a notch on a nearby tree. Something about sights moving and could he see his aim point. The gun felt heavy in his hands and there was sweat pouring down the side of his face.
“Take a deep breath and hold it,” Ramsey said.
Adam thought he would pop and it wasn’t until Ramsey took that gun away that he let out the breath he was holding. Then Ramsey told him about flying shells and hot gases, how guns were all different. Made him feel important. Made him feel like a man. Told him they’d practice again tomorrow.
It was late when they finished all the food, drank all the tea. Ramsey said there was a town two miles to the north where they could buy more food. They’d stay the night there in a motel, take showers, change clothes. It was something to look forward to.
That night, Adam dreamed of a dark gray sea lifting and falling behind the breakers, and of a man walking through the water, legs frothy from the swell. He woke up once shouting for his dad until a voice soothed him back to sleep.
It was the sound of a dog’s bark that woke him up at dawn.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Temeke drove into his usual parking space to the right of the dumpster and turned off the ignition. His cell phone gave him a jolt. Serena.
It was her voice that made him tense and for some reason he couldn’t stomach her today. He missed her but not enough to bear any more pain. He knew what she wanted. Just couldn’t bring himself to agree to it.
“Yesterday?” Temeke almost smacked his head and dropped the phone. It was Tuesday. He had completely forgotten. “I’m so sorry, love.”
She said she was sorry too. Said he should have been there to hear what she had to say. There was always a sob in Serena’s voice, a tremor that sometimes darkened his dreams and caused him to wake up sweating. He knew he wasn’t good enough, knew he couldn’t fill that husband-shaped hole. Couldn’t have kids either.
And she’d waited for him in the park. Half an hour she said. Then her tone was caustic, one that told him she wasn’t going to repeat any of what she wanted to say that day. He’d quite simply missed the boat, which was lucky really, because it meant she’d have to wait another month for a signature on those sorry-ass divorce papers.
Night Eyes (The Detective Temeke Crime Series Book 2) Page 15