by Spencer Kope
Entering the house through the rear slider, I’m instantly aware of what sounds like a muted riot issuing through the open front door and reverberating off the walls and ceiling. The caterwaul only grows louder as we cross the living room and enter the foyer. There’s no doubt as to the source of the discordance, though how a would-be federal judge learned to whine so prodigiously is beyond me.
The target of Judge Ehrlich’s abuse, of course, is the young rookie.
As we step out behind Ehrlich, relief washes over the officer—you can see it on his face and in the way his shoulders rise up from a slump. He’s been taking a steady verbal beating since we arrived.
“Go ahead and collect all the police tape,” Jimmy tells the officer. “Close down the crime scene; we’re done here.”
“Well, it’s about time,” Ehrlich fumes, stepping in front of Jimmy and getting in his face. “It’s beyond me what could take so long and why this process has been dragged out all day.” Jabbing a finger hard into Jimmy’s chest three or four times, he says, “I want your names and badge numbers. Couple of worthless FBI flunkies—” The finger jabs again, but this time Jimmy steps to the side and grabs the judge’s extended wrist. In one swift, smooth motion he spins the judge around and plants him face-first against the side of the house with his arm bent up his back.
“Assaulting an FBI agent,” Jimmy hisses in the judge’s ear, “is a federal offense; I could lock you up for that. I suggest you get inside before I place your ass in handcuffs and file charges.” He lets go of the judge and pushes him toward the front door. “How would that look during your confirmation hearing?”
Ehrlich is spitting mad … and I swear there’s a bit of foam building up at the corner of his mouth.
He’s no dummy, though. You can see him processing his options as he stares Jimmy down with venomous eyes. Without a word, he turns abruptly and walks briskly into the house, slamming the door behind him. We listen as his heavy steps thud down the hall, and then the porch grows quiet.
The El Paso officer is the first to break the silence.
Hurrying over, he cups Jimmy’s hand with both of his and blurts, “I’ve never seen anything like that.” He has a huge grin on his face as he adds, “That was a friggin’ judge!” He’s still shaking his head in disbelief and grinning with glee when he hurries off to clean up the crime scene, eager to be out of there before Ehrlich makes another appearance.
“Place your ass in handcuffs?” I say to Jimmy after we get back into the car and buckle up. “A little vulgar for you, isn’t it?”
“The guy’s arrogant and abusive. I lost my cool.”
“Obviously,” I say, letting the word linger a moment. I could leave it at that, but this is too rare an opportunity to let pass. Jimmy doesn’t believe in polluting his “higher mind” with profanity and vulgarity, so for someone to elicit an ass out of him is a significant accomplishment.
“I get it,” I continue, “the guy’s a real piece of work. But this is the third time you’ve said ass in recent memory. I’m just not sure I can continue working under these conditions.”
“Shut up!” He starts the car and turns the headlights on. “And stop grinning at me; you look like Gary Busey when you do that.”
“Who?”
“Gary—ah, never mind.”
* * *
The GPS in the rental tells us that the road looping around the southern tip of the Franklin Mountains is Scenic Drive. It’s an appropriate name for the road, since the sweeping view is … well, scenic.
We pick up the Ice Box Killer’s trail where we left off, and although there’s no sign of the meandering rattlesnake I keep my window up and the door locked. I’m from the Pacific Northwest; what do I know about rattlesnakes? Maybe they can jump through windows, maybe they can’t. I’m just not going to risk it.
We follow the ice-blue neon path to the south for a quarter mile and then east around the southern tip of the mountain range. The scenic overlook is just ahead and, as expected, the trail of shine terminates in the parking lot.
I get out.
“He parked over there,” I say, pointing to a spot halfway down the limited parking strip, which has room for maybe ten cars. “It looks like he didn’t go straight to his car after he finished,” I add, studying the ground.
And then I start walking.
Jutting out from the parking lot is Murchison Park, a recreational area complete with picnic tables, coin-operated binoculars, and ample observation points for looking down upon the city of El Paso, and to Juárez on the other side of the border. There’s a wall around the entire park, probably to keep the overly curious from taking an unexpected tumble.
It’s a pleasant area—in a rocky, arid sort of way—and my eyes follow IBK’s trail as it makes its way along the paved footpath that parallels the western wall. He stopped halfway to the point; halfway to the tip of the observation area where the whole city is laid out to the east and to the west.
There’s nothing unique or particular about the spot where he chose to stop, but he stood there a long time, I can tell from the shifting pattern of his feet on the ground and the array of handprints on the wall. They’re the signs of long ruminations, of someone with a lot on his mind and the need for a solitary place to sort it all out.
“Is it guilt?” I ask Jimmy after pointing this out.
Jimmy has a master’s in psychology, and though he’s not a profiler, he could be. He’s pretty good at reaching into a person’s head and pulling out the stuff that matters.
“It could be guilt,” he replies. “Or fear, or frustration. For all we know, he just liked the view.”
We stand in silence for a while, looking out over the city. “I have to say, it’s a beautiful view,” Jimmy declares at length. “Probably better at night than it was for him during the day.”
He’s right.
The city is awash in the warm glow of artificial yellow light. Any imperfections are masked and made trivial by the golden hue until all you see is a shimmering city on a high desert plain. Just beyond El Paso is Juárez; if it wasn’t for the border running between them, they’d be the same city.
All of Mexico lies to the south.
It’s a beautiful sight.
The night makes all things mysterious.
CHAPTER THREE
River Belmont Hotel, Room 227—September 2, 10:12 P.M.
There’s an unspoken truth in business travel: if you’ve seen one standard hotel room, you’ve seen them all. There are always décor differences, of course, but the basic rule applies. Some travelers have had the misfortune of staying in hundreds of hotel rooms, as Jimmy and I have, in which case they all seem to homogenize into a generic box with one or two beds, a TV, a hair dryer attached to the wall, a big mirror over the sink, and the ever-present DO NOT DISTURB placard hanging off the inside of the doorknob.
When your hotel rooms start to homogenize, it means you’re probably not spending enough time with your family. I don’t know how my partner does it. Pete, Jimmy’s son, was a year old when the Special Tracking Unit was established. Now he’s six. Half of that time, Jimmy and I have lived out of hotel rooms while chasing down some of the sickest minds in the country.
Jane, his wife, is one of the most patient, self-reliant women I’ve ever met, but it has to get to her, Jimmy being gone all the time. These constant absences—it’s too much to ask of a person, no matter how important the job.
He’s out on the balcony right now talking to Jane and Pete. It’s a nightly ritual when we’re on the road. I could go to my room, give him some privacy, but my room is boring.
Twenty minutes later I’m propped up on his bed, eating some of his dry-roasted peanuts, using his clipboard as a lap desk, and writing a letter on tan stationery, when he comes in from the balcony and closes the slider behind him.
“How’s Jane?” I ask, not looking up.
“Good … well, a little upset that we had to bug out. We had dinner plans tonight.” He shrug
s. “I’ll have to make it up to her when we get back.”
“You said that last week,” I reply, shaking my head. “I thought tonight was supposed to make up for that one. And you still owe her for the wedding you missed last month. I know because she keeps complaining about how she had to dance with your weirdo second cousin, Elmo.”
“Elmore,” he corrects.
“Same difference.”
Jimmy’s my brother in every way except biologically. Our shared experiences include so much more than just working together: we travel together, commiserate together, weep together, scheme together, brainstorm together, and, ultimately, solve horrific crimes together. The bond between us is almost as strong as the one I share with my brother, Jens. That’s what happens when your history includes near-death experiences, gunfire, serial killers, and a freight train of emotional baggage.
I remember not really liking Jimmy when we first met.
He was too stuffy, too straitlaced-FBI—a walking, talking stereotype in polished shoes. We’re polar opposites in so many ways, which makes our friendship that much more unusual. For starters, he’s athletic, into sports, and likes being out in the woods—camping, hiking, you name it.
I rarely watch sports, and though I’m in great shape, I believe that sweating is something one should never do intentionally. As for hiking and all that happy-camper stuff, you can keep it. I can’t stand the woods; clusters of trees freak me out. It’s a condition called hylophobia and stems from that incident when I was eight—more emotional baggage.
While the differences between us seemed immeasurable, those first days and weeks together also turned up a surprising number of similarities. Fragmented conversations on the road and in the air painted a picture of a man I could like, even respect. By the end of the first month, respect had turned to admiration, and the seed that would grow into an unseverable bond was planted.
Jimmy is my brother; Jane is my sister; Pete is my nephew.
Sometimes family has nothing to do with blood.
I set my pen down for a moment and wait for Jimmy to look at me. “We can ratchet this back, you know. We don’t have to take every case they throw our way. What are they going to do, fire us? Good! I’d welcome it.”
“Easy for you to say,” Jimmy replies with a smirk. “You’re the human bloodhound, remember. Without you there is no Special Tracking Unit. Me, I’m just the handler. Handlers are replaceable.”
“You’re joking, right?”
Jimmy doesn’t answer; he just steals the jar of peanuts back and plops down into one of the two generic chairs in the corner and proceeds to stare at the ceiling.
I knock on the clipboard until Jimmy glances at me—irritating, I know, but it’s effective. “We’re a team,” I say. “You go, I go. No exceptions.” I stare at him until he again pulls his eyes from the ceiling and looks at me. “We’ve talked about this,” I say firmly. “Give the word and I’ll quit right now, this minute. We can go be private investigators or something like that.”
Jimmy snorts. “We can’t quit.”
“Sure we can,” I reply forcefully. “We can do whatever we want.”
This sets him back, but only for a moment. “Thanks,” he says quietly, and then his eyes return to the ceiling. I just watch him in silence. “I can’t give it up yet,” he eventually says. “It’s not because I enjoy it,” he adds, “it’s because I know that people will die when we finally stop. People we could have saved.”
He pulls his eyes from the ceiling and looks right at me. “That’s why you can’t stop either, despite your claims to the contrary. You probably need the STU more than I do, you just won’t admit it.”
There he goes again, pulling that stuff out of my head. I smile and give him a single nod, the type of gesture that acknowledges his words without confirming or rejecting them.
He’s about to continue when his phone rings.
Looking down at the calling number, he says, “This should be good,” and answers the call with a friendly, “Hey, Kevin, how’s the investigation going?” The voice of Skagit County Detective Kevin Mueller murmurs from the phone, but I can’t make out the words. “Yeah, he’s right here,” Jimmy says a moment later. “Let me put you on speaker.” He pushes a button and sets the phone on the bed between us.
“Your information played out perfectly, Steps; exactly as you described it,” Kevin begins. “We checked Archie’s house and found that his doorknob is the exact same brand and model as the victim’s back door. As you suggested, we checked John Ballard’s debit and credit card activity and found he made a purchase at Home Depot a week ago for $27.32 using his debit card. It didn’t say what he purchased, but using the date and time stamp from the debit card we were able to pull surveillance video.”
“Which showed him browsing the doorknob aisle,” I say.
“Exactly! He spent some time sorting through the shelves and kept checking a piece of paper in his hand. Eventually he picked out the exact model of Kwikset polished brass entry knob that’s on Archie’s back door.”
The doorknob? Jimmy mouths in my direction. His face is conflicted, stuck somewhere between impressed and puzzled. It’s only then that I remember I never clued him in on any of this.
“Nice,” I say, trying not to grin too much. “Do you have enough for PC?”
Probable cause, better known as PC, is the ever-present standard that must be met to make an arrest. It’s a simple standard that requires enough reasonable suspicion, supported by circumstances and evidence, so that a prudent and cautious person would believe that the facts are probably true—hence the word probable.
“We didn’t at first,” Kevin replies, “so we went back to Archie’s hoping to pull Ballard’s prints off the doorknob or the door itself, but no luck.”
“Still, you have the debit card transaction and the surveillance video,” I say. “That’s got to count for something.”
“Oh, I can do better than that,” Kevin says. “Archie’s garbage can was on the side of the house and for some reason I looked inside. There, right near the top, was an empty Kwikset box, and when we dusted it for prints Ballard was all over it. The fool didn’t want to throw it in his own garbage can so he tossed it into Archie’s.”
“Nice work,” Jimmy says with a pleased look on his face. He keeps looking at me, and then back at the phone. “Did they cut Archie loose yet?”
“Yeah, they released him an hour ago.” He chuckles. “I hope you guys like blueberries, because I think you’re going to get buckets and buckets of them for the rest of your lives. Oh, and speaking of the rest of your lives, you two might want to stay clear of Pastori for at least that long.”
“He’s not happy with us?” I ask with exaggerated inflection.
“Let’s just say I’ve heard the term ‘spitting mad’ plenty of times,” Kevin replies, “but I don’t think I’ve actually seen it until today. For a while there, he refused to release Archie, despite the evidence. It wasn’t until Archie’s lawyer threatened to sue him for violating his civil rights that he finally relented. After that, your names were kicked around so often and so hard you would have thought a one-man soccer match was under way.”
I chuckle … twice.
“Well, we’re glad it worked out for Archie,” Jimmy says. “It wasn’t really looking good for him; I can only imagine what he’s been through.”
“Well, we owe you big; you have no idea.”
“No sweat. Take care, Kevin. And let us know if you need anything else.”
“Thanks. You guys are geniuses.”
There’s a click and the line goes dead. Jimmy picks his phone up and slips it back into his pocket. His face has regained its normal lines and curves, with just a hint of puzzlement at the corner of his left eye.
“Geniuses,” I say, letting the word roll from my mouth slowly. “Or … genius?” I add, tapping myself twice in the chest. I give a little nod and then pick up my pen and turn my attention back to the stationery on the clipboard.
“Switched doorknob, huh?”
“Yep.”
“How’d you come up with that?”
I roll my eyes toward him, pulling my head along for the ride. “I’m a genius.” Then it’s back to the stationery, the clipboard, and the pen.
He watches me in silence for a long minute. I can tell he’s smiling. I don’t have to see him to know; we’ve been partners so long I can almost sense it.
After a minute he says, “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” I reply. “I’m writing Heather.”
“Didn’t you just spend an hour on the phone with her after we checked in? What more could you have to talk about?”
“This is different.”
“I’ll say,” Jimmy replies. “No one writes letters anymore, Steps. We have these new inventions called texting and email.”
“Proof that we’ve all become too impersonal,” I say. “Where’s the romance in a text message? We send two- and three-word texts back and forth using abbreviated symbols that don’t even look like words and we call it communication: OMG LOL YMMD. Frankly, it’s a vulgar display of illiteracy. Besides, what happens when you clear the text or email from your phone? I’ll tell you: It’s gone forever. Even if you try to save a special email, chances are your phone or computer is going to crash at some point and you’ll lose it anyway.”
“So writing letters is the solution?”
“It is.”
“And what brought about this sudden revelation?”
“Geniuses have revelations like that all the time,” I quip.
He’s shaking his head. “Seriously; why?”
There’s no getting around it, so I set my pen down and meet his pressing stare; this must be what it’s like when I pester him for information. It’s a bit annoying. “Remember about three weeks ago,” I say, “when I helped my mom clean out the garage?”
“Yeah, I remember. You said you might have hantavirus because you thought you saw some mouse droppings.”
“I did see mouse droppings.”
“Jens told me it was a couple dead ants.”