J Mark Bertrand

by Back on Murder (v5)

  “You know who uses those things?” I say. “Dealers, gang members, people who want to keep off the radar. If you ask me, that strengthens my case.”

  “Well, we already have a line on someone at her high school we think was making those calls. But you could be right. The point is, we’ve hit a wall. We’re canvassing and re-canvassing neighborhoods, pulling in anybody who might have information, going over the Willowbrook Mall surveillance tapes with a fine-tooth comb. But I’m not sure it’s getting us anywhere. Hence the task force. They’re hoping to get a result by throwing more money and manpower at the problem.”

  “The same old story,” I say. “Look, it sounds to me like you can justify pursuing something like this, whether it’s a long shot or not. I used to work for Wanda. I know she won’t stand in the way. She’s played a few hunches in her time, too.”

  Again, she plunges into thought, knitting her eyebrows together in concentration. I’m tempted to say more, but I keep my mouth shut, letting her argue both sides in her head. It’s not every day a stranger shows up trying to enlist you on his quixotic quest. The fact she’s even halfway receptive bodes well.

  “One condition,” she says.

  “Anything.”

  “You come with me. I’ll introduce you to Donna, and if you still have the guts, I’ll ask her for the swab. That way, no matter what happens, she’ll know it’s not coming from me.”

  Not what I was expecting. Not at all. But the prospect intrigues me. I’m not anxious to spend time with the frantic mother, but driving out to the suburbs in the presence of Theresa Cavallo seems like a worthwhile way to spend the rest of the afternoon. There’s just one little problem.

  “I need to make a phone call first,” I say. Using her desk phone, I dial Narcotics and ask for Mitch Geiger. His number rings, then goes through to voicemail. I leave my name and my mobile number, asking him to call when he gets a chance.

  When I hang up, Cavallo is already standing, slipping her jacket on. She’s about five foot nine. Lean, but not skinny. She clips a holstered sig Sauer just ahead of her hip. It disturbs the line of her jacket, but there’s something about an attractive woman packing a gun. I’ve made the right call on this one.

  “Are you driving?” I ask.

  In answer, she dangles a set of keys.

  CHAPTER 6

  We battle the outbound traffic stacking up on I-45, then cut over on the Sam Houston Tollway to Stuebner Airline, crossing FM-1960 into a wooded, suburban terra incognita. My mental map of Houston grows sketchy this side of the tollway, but Cavallo navigates like a veteran, one hand on the wheel, the other perpetually in motion, punctuating her words. I like the way she talks, putting her whole body into it, like a sentence isn’t really a sentence until it’s acted out.

  In forty-five minutes she’s given me an overview of the entire case, and if I’d paid attention I’m sure it would have been edifying. But the way her watch slides down her wrist distracts me, and so does the movement of her leg as she accelerates and brakes. The shape of her ear, visible as she flicks her hair back. The vein in her throat that grows taut as she cuts off yet another inattentive soccer mom.

  I let out a sigh.

  “What?”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  She eyeballs me a moment, then digs her phone out. After making a call, she tells me that instead of meeting Donna Mayhew at her home, we have to intercept her at church.

  “Donna’s camped out at her office there,” she says. “It’s easier to stay out of the media spotlight that way than going home.”

  “Why would she want to keep a low profile?” I ask, thinking the more attention her missing daughter’s case gets, the better.

  “She doesn’t want to feed the frenzy. I’m not saying I agree with that decision, but the woman’s had some experience in the public eye, so I have to respect it.”

  “What kind of experience?”

  She looks at me with wide-eyed incredulity, like I’ve just admitted never having heard of the Rolling Stones or something. “Seriously? With her husband.” Her voice jumps an octave. “The whole thing when he died? You really have no idea?”

  “None.”

  So she tells me about Peter Mayhew, a local celebrity preacher from the early 1990s. After some kind of charismatic awakening, he abandoned his Baptist upbringing and founded a nondenominational church out in the Houston suburbs. It kept growing, along with his national status. In his early forties he married a woman half his age, fathered Hannah, and booked speaking engagements around the country.

  “I heard him once,” Cavallo says, “at a conference for teens my parents sent me to. He was really good. Very inspirational.”

  I’m not sure what to say to this, so I just nod.

  Mayhew left for a South American tour, boarding a private plane chartered by his supporters. He never arrived. The plane’s wreckage was recovered in the Gulf, but no bodies were found. Suddenly the story starts sounding familiar.

  “So she’s at this church?”

  “She works there. In the women’s ministry.”

  The familiar way she uses terms like that – women’s ministry – and her teenage memory of hearing Peter Mayhew’s inspirational message make me think that cross around her neck is more than decorative.

  When she first mentioned the church, chalk white fluted columns came to mind, along with a needle-sharp steeple, stained glass and stone, like the one my mother dragged me to as a kid. Or maybe white clapboard. Cypress Community Church turns out to be nothing like that. We pull into the parking lot of what could pass for a junior college campus, a sea of blacktop with a ground-hugging brick and glass structure floating in the center. The electronic sign at the entrance alerts passing cars of next weekend’s sermon series and an upcoming concert. Scrolling across the bottom is a reminder: PRAY FOR HANNAH’S SAFE RETURN.

  “This is a church?” Along with the question, a dismissive laugh escapes my lips.

  Cavallo tenses, but ignores my remark.

  As we roll up, a red van with the church’s name painted in white letters along the side pulls to a stop, the window sliding down. Behind the wheel, a heavyset man in sunglasses gives us his made-for-television smile. Cavallo asks about Donna Mayhew, and he directs her inside.

  “Who was that guy?” I ask.

  Cavallo shrugs. “Never seen him before. One of the staff, I guess. They have a lot of people working up here, and now a bunch of volunteers, too. The church is coordinating its own search, putting out flyers, going door to door. It’s pretty impressive.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yes,” she says. “It is.”

  Living in a city where the professional basketball team’s former venue is now a megachurch, it shouldn’t surprise me to find one of our many suburban congregations sprawling on such a massive scale. As we pass through one of a dozen glass double doors into the sub-zero entry, a vaulted shopping mall–style atrium hung with vibrantly colored banners, I’m slightly in awe. We pause at an unmanned information desk so Cavallo can conduct a quick orientation.

  “The auditorium is through there,” she says, pointing to the far side of the entry, where a dozen more double doors – made of wood this time – crouch under the dim mood lights. To reach them, you’d have to hike across a vast open space lit from above by skylights. “Off to the right, they have the classrooms and family life center.” I nod appreciatively in the direction of a corridor wide enough to accommodate four lanes of traffic. “The offices are to the left, which is where we’re going.” A smaller hallway, barely big enough for a city bus, stretches off into the distance.

  I start in that direction, but Cavallo puts a hand on my sleeve.

  “Before we go any further,” she says, “I want you to promise to be on your best behavior.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That crack you made earlier. The attitude. Whatever it might look like to you, this is a house of worship. You need to respect that. O
r at least pretend like you do.”

  My enthusiasm for this woman is starting to wane, and I don’t much appreciate the lecture. “I made one little remark. Don’t you think you’re blowing it out of proportion?”

  “Just try and be sensitive, okay? This is a very . . . emotional situation, and you don’t seem like you’re in tune with that. You’re a very detached sort of person.”

  “You say it like it’s a bad thing.” I crack a futile smile. “And besides, you barely know me.”

  “All I’m asking for is a little understanding.”

  My hands fly up in surrender. “Fine, you do all the talking. I’ll work on my choirboy routine.”

  Satisfied, she leads the way down the left-hand corridor, heels clacking on the floor. I’m so disillusioned with her, I almost pass up the opportunity to study her from behind.

  Almost.

  Informing the loved ones of a homicide victim is hard enough, but at least there’s a format to follow. People react in different ways, from unsettling stoicism to rage to something much worse, the kind of outright wailing despair that precludes all consolation. Still, the detective’s script remains constant. We offer our condolences, even a shoulder to cry on, but make no mistake. We’re here for information. We have a job to do.

  In Cavallo’s role, the dynamic is utterly different, because her appearance offers something a homicide detective’s never does. Hope. It’s no wonder she pauses at Donna Mayhew’s door, working up the courage to knock.

  “Come on in,” a voice says from inside.

  We enter a vanilla-scented, lamp-lit room with sponge-painted walls and fancy oversized couches upholstered in microsuede. The chair behind the desk is empty. Instead, Donna Mayhew sits in an armchair near the door, a mug of tea steaming in her hands.

  “This is Roland March,” Cavallo says. “He’s another one of our 69 detectives.”

  Not a homicide detective, because that would get things off on exactly the wrong foot.

  She rises to greet us, her hands still simmering from the warm mug. If a police artist aged Hannah Mayhew’s photo to show the most flattering outcome of an additional twenty years of life, the result would be standing before me. A compact, radiant woman, maybe five foot three, her beauty undimmed by her obvious stress, dressed in jeans and a frilly, netted top. Her thick blond hair pulled back into a ponytail, her face looking sober and scrubbed.

  “Has something happened?” she asks.

  Cavallo shakes her head. “Nothing like that.”

  Mrs. Mayhew presses a hand to her chest, deflating with relief. “You scared me on the phone. I’ve been trying to stay strong.”

  “I’m sorry.” Cavallo touches the woman’s elbow lightly. “Do you mind if we have a seat?”

  “Not at all.”

  She motions us onto a nearby couch, resuming her place. On the coffee table between us, next to her tea, a fat Bible lies open, its crinkled pages bright from highlighting. A block of pink. A section of yellow. Tiny handwritten notes creeping into the margins.

  That book, it gives a physical form to the woman’s hopes. I can imagine her, stifling back the swirl of fear, forcing herself to focus on the words, reading and underlining anything significant, any stray phrase that can be interpreted as a message. I want to look away, but I can’t. Leaving the book open, it’s like she’s left herself sadly exposed. An image of my wife, Charlotte, flashes, one I long ago weighted and cast into the deepest waters of memory, only now it’s slipped the chain and come back.

  “Tell me what’s happened?”

  “I already have.”

  “I don’t remember. Tell me again.”

  “I can’t. I really can’t.”

  Donna Mayhew notices me looking at her Bible. “I thought about canceling the study today, but to be honest I really needed it. Ironically, we’re in the book of Job. ‘The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.’ I’m trying to live that way, but you know, it isn’t easy.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Cavallo says, giving her ring a nervous twist.

  The two women share a look.

  “You’re doing everything you can,” Mrs. Mayhew says.

  Cavallo leans forward. “That’s why I’m here. There’s something I’d like to ask – ”

  Before she can finish, there’s a knock at the half-open door. A man in his mid-twenties enters, stopping as soon as he catches sight of us. He mumbles an apology and turns to go, but Mrs. Mayhew calls him back.

  “What is it, Carter?”

  He looks like he’s stepped out of a clothing catalog for the terminally hip. A line of fuzz under his bottom lip, his hair lovingly spiked, wearing expensively demolished black jeans and a brown Starbucks T-shirt stretched tight across Bally Fitness pecs. Only on closer inspection, as he advances tentatively into the room, the coffee-shill mermaid turns out to be a thorn-crowned Christ, extending his pierced hands, bracketed by the motto sacrificed for ME.

  A piece of paper hangs limply from his hand.

  “Is that the new one?” Mrs. Mayhew asks, taking it from him.

  She inspects the page, then passes it to Cavallo. The familiar photo of Hannah, a toll-free tip number, a reward offer for information leading to her return. I wave away my opportunity for a closer look, so Cavallo hands the flyer back to the man. Before he can go, Mrs. Mayhew stops him again.

  “Where are my manners? Detective Cavallo, this is our youth pastor, Carter Robb. He and Hannah are really close. Carter, this is the detective leading the investigation.” She turns to me. “And I’m sorry but I’ve already forgotten your name.”

  “Roland March.”

  I stand, moving around the coffee table to shake the guy’s hand. As strong as he looks, he has a weak handshake. I can feel him trembling. He won’t make eye contact, either. The moment I let go of his hand, he backs out the door saying he has more copies to make.

  I give Cavallo a quizzical look. “He seemed a little on edge.”

  Mrs. Mayhew smiles wanly. “We all are, Detective. This is especially hard on Carter because of their friendship. Hannah has been a real ally of his in the youth group since he first came here.” The words are sympathetic, but there’s something stiff about the delivery, running through the lines, not putting much feeling behind them. “It’s hard on everyone, of course.” She leans Cavallo’s way. “Have you heard? They’re trying to get me to go on TV.”

  “You should,” I say. “It can’t hurt.”

  Cavallo gives me a vigorous sandpapering with her glare, but I ignore her. Whether she wants to be in the public eye or not, what mother faced with the prospect of never seeing her daughter again raises scruples like this? She should be desperate to cooperate. Anything that helps the cause, no matter how peripherally, is worth a shot. I’m not about to say all this, but hopefully the way I’m looming over them, hands on hips, gets the gist across.

  “Do you have children, Detective?” she asks.

  I glance down. “No.”

  “My daughter, she grew up without her father. He died when she was still just a baby, so she only knows him through videotapes and other people’s stories.” Her eyes shine in the lamplight. “There was this thing she used to do. She’d come to me and say, ‘Mama, I remembered something about Daddy.’ And she’d tell some elaborate story about how she and her dad went to the park together, or ate their favorite ice cream, things like that. She’d remember the time he brought home a puppy. The most fanciful things – she has such an imagination – and then she’d say, ‘You remember that, don’t you, Mama?’ or ‘That really happened, didn’t it?’ Always wanting me to confirm the stories she made up, so they’d feel real.”

  “And did you?”

  “Sometimes. The thing is, I was always afraid of what she might hear. When her daddy died, people told all kinds of stories. He was kind of famous in certain circles; he’d touched a lot of lives. Since his body was never found, there were people who said he wasn’t really dead. Either he’d faked
it to get out of some kind of financial trouble, or he’d gone undercover as part of his ministry.”

  “Undercover.”

  “Silly, I know. But there was a missionary to Bolivia, a really sweet man, a friend of Peter’s from way back, and he came home on furlough and told me people down there had reported seeing Peter. He would turn up at evangelistic rallies, they said, and lay hands on people, healing them.”

  “Did you believe that?” I ask.

  “My husband died. All the stories never changed that. But I lived in fear that Hannah would get hold of them somehow, and convince herself they were true.”

  “And this is why you don’t want to do a press conference?”

  “Not only this,” she says. “But yes. I’ll do anything to bring her back safely, Detective, but I won’t turn her life into entertainment for strangers. Hannah has a right to privacy, don’t you think? I don’t want to give them more things to talk about on the news. I just want her back.”

  A woman after my own heart, I have to confess. Keep the media vultures on a starvation diet. But there’s always a chance the added publicity will make a difference. Someone will remember seeing something. A witness will come forward. It happens all the time. In the same circumstances, I’d have to hold my nose and cooperate with the news cycle. Give it what it wants in hope that what I want will follow. Not that the world works that way.

  As she listens, Cavallo’s expression turns beatific with sympathy, only hardening when she accidently looks my way. There’s more than just a feminine bond at work, but I can’t quite put my finger on what’s going on.

  “Donna,” she begins softly, “I have a favor to ask.”

  “What is it?”

  “I’d like to get a dna swab from you,” Cavallo explains in her most soothing bedside manner. “It’s not entirely routine” – a glance my way – “but in this case, it could help us with a particular line of inquiry.”