Ramsey looked up at the sky and then out at the fields. But there was nothing to see. When the man had gone on a distance, they crawled slowly through the grass, hearing their footsteps in the leaves. Adam tried to remember where they had come from, whether they were walking east or west, whether they were walking in circles. Ramsey didn’t seem to care. He just sniffed a few times, hiked his chin up and stared at the night sky and then looked back at the field. The man was still walking towards that tree.
Ramsey seemed to know what he was doing. Seemed to know the way. And when he didn’t, he just stopped for a while and looked down at Adam, sometimes smiling, sometimes serious. He was brave, walking on that bad leg and not even stopping for a break. His back was straight when he waited for the wind, head aslant as he listened to the rattle of leaves overhead. He said he liked the sound. Reminded him of the rush of seawater on sand.
Adam knew it reminded him of other things too. Of a girl in a black swimsuit with shiny black eyes. Tiny pinched in waist and cream colored skin.
Ramsey stumbled on and then slowed, took one step forward and then another. It was the sound of a truck on a nearby road that seemed to change his mind. Only this wasn’t the road Adam heard when he hiked out to Trader’s house. This was another road, smaller, snaking up through the aspens and over the brow of a hill.
“This isn’t it,” Ramsey whispered. He stopped and parted a tall clump of grass with his hands. Looked ahead and behind, especially behind.
A creaking somewhere in the trees above them, the hoot of an owl. Adam trembled in the cold, watched the gray serpentine of that road and wished a truck would happen by. Clouds threatened to block out that metallic shimmer, the only light they had. There was a lingering odor of damp wood and soil and the occasional rasp of wet grass in the wind.
They heard that sound again, another snap, another groan. Ramsey was focused behind them now, looking out towards that field. He moved his head from side to side, neck outstretched as if he caught something in the shadows. He pulled Adam gently to the ground, made him sit with his legs out in front, back against a tree. The ground they sat on was dry, long grass weaving around them like an old wattle house.
Adam was too tired to look. He’d only slept in fits and starts since Ramsey took him, images of his mother pounding in his head like relentless waves on a pebbly beach. In just over a week he’d had a year’s worth of scares and now he was drifting aimlessly in a forever gray world. He hoped they weren’t lost.
“Better put a hand over your dog’s mouth,” Ramsey whispered, patting the air with his hand. “He is your dog, right?” Ramsey must have seen the look on his face and if he couldn’t he could sense it. “It says so on the tag. The one in your pocket. Oh, and I took the phone and switched it off. Don’t want that giving us away, do we?”
Adam swallowed back some grit in his throat and nearly coughed. He would have taken another drink if that wretched bottle didn’t crackle so much every time he unscrewed the lid.
Snap!
“He’s come back around,” Ramsey murmured. “He tricked us.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
Rain crawled down the office window followed by a spatter of sleet. Temeke lit up a cigarette. Didn’t care if Hackett could smell it next door. It could have been worse, something slimmer from the evidence locker, only that stuff smelled like burnt sausages and there wasn’t a cop in sight who didn’t know the difference.
He dialed Serena’s number, waited for the sixth ring, resisting that desperate urge to shout when it went to voicemail. Always bloody voicemail.
Taking a long drag and huffing out a large cloud of smoke, he left a message. “It’s me, love. Course you know that. But what you don’t know is, I’m beginning to wonder if I’m married to the Scarlet Pimpernel. I’m also beginning to wonder if you’re too scared to bring me those divorce papers. That’s why you called me, wasn’t it? And if it wasn’t, it must have been on account of the copious quantities of wasp spray in the garage. Two boxes last I counted. You can pick them up any time.”
He tapped the END button and slammed the phone down on the filing cabinet. Never mind weeks of silence, he’d rather have a pile of bleeding insults than silence. And the wasp spray? It was her way of warding off Jehovah’s Witnesses and any other religious freaks in the neighborhood.
Talking of religious freaks, where the heck was Malin? She was missing all the fun. It was nine o’clock on a Friday morning and the officers were already in the canteen raiding a box of bagels and cream cheese. There’d be none left if she didn’t hurry up.
He heard footsteps outside his door, ground that cigarette in the bottom of a china mug and picked up the phone. Just as he expected it went straight through to Mrs. Oliver’s voicemail. He left a brief message that he wanted to meet with her and hung up.
A tapping at the door and Fowler popped his head in. “Thought I could hear voices,” he said.
“And I thought I could hear an earhole pressed against the door.”
“I’d like a couple of words. Preferably not sod off.”
“Listen, unless you’ve got something important to say like lord Lucan is downstairs and has just given himself up, you’re wasting my time. Where’s Hackett by the way.”
“He was talking about a cruise.”
“On the Marie Celeste? I haven’t seen him since yesterday morning.”
“You don’t miss much, do you?”
Temeke frowned. It was a detective’s job to be alert, especially where Hackett was concerned. As for Fowler, he was too cocky for his own good, brass chinking against that starched suit. If he wasn’t careful Temeke would find him a cell to kip in with the usual nightly quota of vomiting, screaming drunks.
“Good news,” Fowler said, squeaking his way to Malin’s chair in a brand new pair of shoes. “Had a Mr. Trader on the phone again this morning. Call box near Glenwood. Said there was something he forgot to mention. Coughing up a storm. Didn’t sound too well. Thinks the boy on the news is definitely the one he saw. Said the kid left him a note and a telephone number. It’s Mrs. Oliver’s number all right. The kid also left him a fifty dollar bill which may have a few familiar serial numbers. Trader said the kid also had a black dog. Now, why would he have a black dog?”
Temeke wondered why Fowler was looking at him all funny and copped a shrug.
“Thing is, the dog had a tag on its collar. ‘Murphy’ it said.”
“Common enough name‒”
“Nah, I’ve never heard that name. Have you?” Fowler turned to Jarvis who was standing in the doorway trying to focus bleary eyes on his wrist watch.
“Sounds Irish,” was Jarvis’ meager offering.
“Funny thing is, Adam’s dog’s called Murphy.” Fowler pursed his lips for a second. “How the dog managed to make it to Gila National Forest I’ll never know. Someone must have given him a ride.”
Temeke kept his eyes on Fowler. Never blinked. Never twitched. “Ever seen The Incredible Journey?”
“I hope you’re not expecting me to believe a trumped up story about a dog traveling two hundred some miles on foot. Cause I won’t believe a word.”
Temeke rubbed his chin. The fact that the same dog had done it in four hours and fifty-two minutes was best kept to himself. “Where does Mr. Trader live?”
“4567 Little Creek Road about seven miles west of the National Monument. I sent Maggie Watts over there. Thought she needed a dose of flu not me.”
“It never rains, but it flaming pees. Why send her? I could have gone.”
“You’re staying right here. Where the action is.”
“What action? I’ve interviewed fifteen bloody people in the past week, three of whom have nothing better to do than listen in to Mrs. Oliver’s telephone calls.”
“And how is Mrs. Oliver?”
He would bloody well ask. Already got the hots for the poor old bat. “Well, now, there’s a conundrum. I’ve called her a few times and she never picks up. Thank Officer Watts for keeping
my seat warm, but I’ll take over now.”
“You want the even better news?” Fowler said, giving a sly old wink. He waited a few seconds and when Temeke failed to rise to the occasion, he said, “Mayor Oliver’s come round. Wants to see you.”
That’s why Mrs. Oliver hadn’t answered her phone, Temeke thought. “Right, I’m on my way. Note to self, get a large box of Darjeeling and two tea cups.”
“Before you go,” Fowler said, jabbing a finger in Jarvis’ arm, “you might want to see this.”
Jarvis pulled out a copy of the journal from under his sweaty pit. The front page was full of the usual propaganda; New Mexico’s largest semi-conductor manufacturing facility was making investments in six far eastern technology companies. A photo of Hackett opening his front door and waving off the morning crew of the paparazzi. An article by Cyn Wrigley persuading the Chief of Police to get more men on the Oliver case since two thirds of the police department had been assigned to a drug bust in the south valley and the other third were playing silly buggers. It was also noted that Detective Temeke’s team were understaffed. All thanks go to Captain Rufus Fowler for issuing prompt press releases and keeping the public notified.
Rufus? Was that a typo? Please tell me that was a typo, Temeke thought. He’d never known Fowler’s first name. Never bothered to ask.
Jarvis jabbed a stubby finger in Fowler’s arm. “I thought you said your name was Rayford.”
Fowler swatted that finger away and dismissed the comment. “They like me,” he said. There was a curl to his lips, but the smile was cold. “They trust me. I was born here. You know what they don’t like? Foreigners. Because there’s no loyalty. No history. My grandfather was Secretary of State to old Governor Mendez. Who are you Temeke? A nobody. From a nobody part of the world where nobody cares. And furthermore, I don’t care ...”
Here he was, Fowler the young bastard who was going to the top because of his influential relatives. Temeke stared past the carefully sculptured hair to the clock on the wall. Twenty minutes past nine. If he was lucky, he’d get a few smokes in before lunch. His phone vibrated on the desk; a text from Malin. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, it said. Sailors lost at sea. Someone shot a bird. Mean anything?
He tapped out the word no and pick me up at 9:30. Hospital. Mayor.
Fowler stopped talking then, gave a frown and stared at Temeke through half-closed eyes. “Who is it?”
“Dry cleaners,” Temeke said, tilting the phone away from Fowler. “You were saying?”
“I was saying Cyn thinks you should stand down.”
If Fowler thought he’d got away with tipping off Cyn at the Journal just so he could promote himself, he had another thing coming. “Is your flaming brain on holiday? You think I don’t know about your seedy flirtation with Ms. Wrigley, not to mention her assistant? It only takes a phone call to correct her about who’s really in charge. I’m sure the people would love that vote of confidence. Women aren’t all fools, Fowler. Give them some credit.”
Fowler exchanged raised eyebrows and a pulled-down mouth with Jarvis. “You’ll never earn any respect, Temeke. Not in this state. It’ll take years for you to redeem yourself.”
Temeke stood, snapped his top drawer shut and locked it. He slipped the phone in his pocket and shrugged on his jacket. “You’d better watch your step, or you’ll be following me out of Albuquerque.”
That made Fowler glare and Jarvis wince. It was worth a picture. Temeke was fed up with detectives being at the bottom of the food chain. It was time for a change.
Outside the station a cold wind slashed his cheeks and the smell of ice was everywhere. He walked over to his car and poked a cigarette though the gap in his lips. Smoking did nothing to improve his temper and he filled his lungs with each drag, heart pounding even faster. Fowler had a bloody nerve and if he wasn’t careful Temeke would find a way to pay him back.
“Where the hell are you, Marl?” he murmured, seeing a tiny patch of sunlight on the pavement.
At that moment a black Explorer crawled around the corner, driver’s window open, ponytail bobbing. “Thought you might need a ride, sir,” Malin said.
“Am I glad to see you.” He ground the cigarette with the heel of his shoe and slid into the passenger seat. “Fowler’s a bit grumpy today,” he warned, telling her about the headlines. “Apparently, we’re due for a transfer.”
“Hopefully, it’s Paris.” She pulled right onto Ellison and up the hill. “I could do with the culture.”
“You’re late.”
“Had a few calls to make.”
“Nothing serious?” he asked, sensing a stab of tension in the air.
She shook her head. Looked like someone had finally told her Santa wasn’t real. “And what’s all this guff about the Ancient Mariner?” he said. “Sailors lost at sea and someone shoots a bird?”
“It was an albatross, sir. Very bad luck.”
“Maybe they were hungry. Not much to eat at sea.”
“There’s fish.”
Temeke nodded. He hadn’t thought of it that way. “Why are you asking?”
“You’re the literary type. You read all kinds of poetry, plays, that kind of thing. Just thought it might mean something to you, that’s all.”
Temeke held his breath as they drove towards the hospital. He should have been happy. The sun was peeking through a bank of clouds and he was feeling warmer by the minute. It was just the silence he didn’t like, didn’t like her mood either. “Someone send you a book? A link?”
“A few lines of poetry,” she said, turning to look at him briefly. “Thought it was rather nice.”
He knew she was smiling to allay his suspicion, but she wasn’t doing a very good job. There was something in her tone that made his lips pucker. Something in that tight frown that made her look scared.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Two secret service were standing at the lobby door to the hospital, speaking into their wrists. One stared at Malin as she squealed into a parking space, shooting up a spray of brown water as the front tire ploughed through a puddle. Temeke cringed as he clicked himself out of the seatbelt, glimpsed the dark stain on Agent Anderson’s pants. Malin always found a way of soaking important people.
He hated hospitals, especially the clinical smells and gurneys carrying people with faces locked in a grimace of pain. They took the lift to the third floor past the room he had visited every day when Lt. Luis Alvarez was sick. He’d seen Serena, what… twice? What a bloody circus that had been.
Two more secret service ushered them in, eyes scanning the corridor without giving them a second look. Mrs. Oliver waved a trembling hand through the window of the mayor’s room and smiled. Her hair was tied high on her head like a cottage loaf, eyes sultry and lips slightly pursed. Temeke knew they were in for a show.
“Mayor Oliver,” he said, extending his hand and looking down at a gaunt husk of a man, well into his sixties, head bald with tufts of white hair visible below the turban of a bandage around his head. There was also an empty carton of ice-cream on the table ‒ bacon and vanilla it said. “I’m glad to see you looking well.”
“Much better,” Mayor Oliver said with a smile, trying to lift his head from a plump pillow. His voice was gruff and his grip weak. “Weather forecast says no more rain or snow. About time for some sunshine, don’t you think?”
“Forecasts have been proved wrong before, Mr. Mayor.”
“Not in New Mexico, Detective.” He seemed to squint at the badge in Temeke’s belt and flicked a sideways look at his wife.
“Good to see you,” Mrs. Oliver said, settling in the chair next to the Mayor’s bed. There was a large vase of purple roses on the window sill, bathed in a shaft of sunlight.
Impeccably dressed, Temeke thought as he shook her hand. All in beige and black, a dress that screamed several hundred dollars. He held her gaze, forcing her to break away.
His mind began to race. This elderly white-haired man was Mrs. Oliver’s husband? He was much olde
r close up, nothing like the round-faced individual he had come to know and admire on the TV. No, the man he saw now shivered under that thermal blanket, thin tube taped to his cheek and running into his left nostril. Another tube descended from a half empty IV bag, dripping fluids into a vein in his hand.
A nurse technician brought in two extra chairs, briefly checked the patient monitor and tapped an update into the computer. He was gone after that.
“Feeding you all right,” Temeke dared ask.
“I had oatmeal this morning and scrambled eggs.” The Mayor shuffled up the bed a little, bracing his arms against the side rail. “Do you think this has anything to do with the Ringmaster murders? Because if it has, this man will get lethal injection. And he better not think Governor Bendish will grant clemency.”
“We’ve no reason to assume it has, sir.”
“I expect you want to know what happened on Sunday night.” The Mayor’s eyes seemed to drift up to the ceiling and there was a crease in that dull gray brow. “I’d been reading a book on the couch… a couple of hours maybe. Adam was late getting back from a scout trip. I was annoyed if you must know. Wanted to go to bed. But he was excited to go. Texted me every hour, said the explosives were the best, real window rattlers. They went to the VLA, saw the antennas up close.”
Temeke remembered a time when he was headed east on 60 towards the Very Large Array, how startling those radio telescopes were, rising out of the flat yellow plain.
“I remember hearing the latch on the patio door,” the mayor said. “Saw a man coming toward me with a gun. Funny thing… I wasn’t afraid. Thought I knew him from somewhere. Just couldn’t place him. He said something about how well I’d done for myself. Asked me if I’d received his letters. I thought he was mistaken. Had the wrong house. I tried to talk to him… asked him to sit down. But he wouldn’t. It was the dog, you see. Military trained. Came charging in from the kitchen and nearly bowled the man over. That’s when the gun went off. I don’t think he meant to shoot me. I think he just wanted to talk.”
Night Eyes (The Detective Temeke Crime Series Book 2) Page 21