J Mark Bertrand

by Back on Murder (v5)

  “She ran away? When was this?”

  More rustling, accompanied by some humming. “That woulda been in July sometime?” He turns the sentence up at the end, uncertain. “ ’Bout eight weeks or so ago?”

  He gives me the mother’s address and phone number, which I copy into my notebook.

  “Thanks, Gene. I owe you one.”

  “Take care of yourself with this storm coming in,” he says. “I don’t want you turning up on my doorstep, looking for shelter.”

  “This is Texas, Gene. We don’t run.”

  He chuckles. “Keep telling yourself that.”

  Once I get him off the phone, I give Cavallo a call. She’s surprised to hear that Robb has been leaving messages for her, confessing she’s been too busy to empty her inbox. The weary edge in her voice is enough to convince me. I’m almost reluctant to ask about new developments on the Hannah Mayhew case, but I ask anyway, and she replies with a derisive laugh.

  “We were planning a big press conference today, announcing a new reward for any information, but now they’re arguing about whether to reschedule for after the hurricane blows through. People are ‘distracted,’ apparently.”

  “What about the actual casework? Anything there?”

  “Let me put it this way. All the tips we’ve gotten? We’re getting down to the bottom. Everything’s been followed up. We’ve interviewed over a hundred drivers of white vans like the one in the surveillance footage, even done physical searches of quite a few, and I don’t think we’re any closer to finding Hannah than we were on day one.”

  I pass along the news from Gene Fontenot, which seems to irritate her. She makes me repeat everything, then asks for his number so she can call to confirm.

  “Don’t worry about Robb,” I tell her. “I’ll call him back.”

  “I appreciate that,” she says, her tone communicating the exact opposite. Not that I can hold it against her. She’s on a dead-end assignment, one of those cases destined to be rehashed for years to come on the unsolved-mystery shows, a future footnote for journalists writing about how media coverage negatively impacts major cases. Cavallo has a right to be difficult.

  Before calling the youth pastor, I put in an hour at the typewriter before hunting down Wilcox, who’s kept clear of me since his early morning visit to my home. No cubicles for the men and women of Internal Affairs. He has a tiny glass box all to himself, with his name on a plate beside the door. I tap lightly before entering and find him busy typing away, a pair of earphones sealing him off from the outside world. To get his attention, I have to lean across the desk and yank one out.

  “What do you want?”

  He’s dressed in a glossy blue shirt, his tie knot thick as his throat, with his chalk-striped jacket thrown over the back of his chair. Up close, he even smells nice.

  “What I want is a favor, Stephen.”

  “Your case is dead, in case you forgot.”

  I sit down on the edge of his desk. “The informant may be, but the case sure isn’t.”

  The marina surveillance footage warms him up a little, then I slide the sketchbook and the enlarged cell-phone picture across the desk for his inspection. Wilcox is a sharp enough detective not to need everything explained. He flips through the sketchbook, his expression growing thoughtful.

  “There’s something I didn’t tell you,” he says. “The finance guy who skipped to Mexico, Chad Macneil? Guess whose money he took with him.”

  “Keller’s. I already know.”

  His mouth curls down. “Then you probably also know that Keller’s security company rents warehouse space about a block away from where Thomson’s body was found.”

  I blink. “What?”

  Satisfied with my reaction, he fishes a file out of his desk, paging through it until he reaches a stack of satellite images courtesy of Google Earth with the street grid superimposed. From the air, the long gray rectangles look nearly identical, set apart only by the placement of hvac units and natural variations in the color of roofing gravel. One of them is outlined in yellow highlighter.

  “That’s the warehouse Keller rents.”

  “What does a security company need warehouse space for?”

  “Search me,” he says, trailing his finger across the image. “This road along here, that’s where Thomson’s truck was parked, isn’t it?”

  I lean down for a closer look. “That looks to be the spot. There’s a neighborhood across the street, through these trees, and I figured if there was any geographical connection, it would be to the houses.”

  “Instead, it’s the warehouse. All of these are owned and managed by the same outfit.”

  The layout comes back to me, a complex of gray corrugated buildings hemmed in by fields of concrete and a tall chain-link fence. “There’s a security guard there, a guy by the name of Wendell Cropper. Kind of a strange character, used to be with the department back in the nineties. You know anything about him?”

  He shakes his head. “Maybe he saw more than he let on, that’s what you’re thinking?”

  “How likely is it, if Keller’s using the facility, that this guy isn’t connected with him somehow? It might be worth bringing him in and sweating him a little more. In the meantime, you ever think about getting a warrant for this warehouse?”

  “On what grounds? I’d need to show some probable cause. Besides, the feeling on our team is that something like that would only tip our hand. We’d be taking a big risk. If there’s nothing in that warehouse that shouldn’t be there, Keller would know we’re after him and cover his tracks.”

  “Maybe,” I say. “But a warrant is what I’m here for.”

  “Not for the warehouse – ?”

  I shake my head. “The boat. If that really was a body they dumped, then maybe there’s some trace evidence onboard. Now, if I go through the usual channels, there’s no way they won’t know what’s going on. But you guys, on the other hand, have back doors into the judges’ chambers.”

  “You should have come to me sooner,” he says with a laugh. “Trying to find a judge in chambers today is going to be a challenge. They’ve got mansions to board up and yachts to tie down.”

  “Maybe we’ll find one down at the marina.”

  His smile fades. “It’ll have to wait.”

  “If we don’t get in there before the hurricane hits, we could lose the opportunity. They’re talking about Galveston being underwater, Stephen, so I doubt the Kemah Boardwalk is going to be in good shape. I can’t have my smoking gun sinking to the bottom of the sea.”

  “The slips can’t be that deep,” he says.

  “Come on. I know there are strings you can pull. What’s the point of having a man inside IAD if he doesn’t throw his weight around from time to time?”

  After a little token resistance, he gives way. “Fine, March. Whatever you want. But you’re writing it up, not me.”

  I slide the warrant across his desk, typed before my visit. He takes it with a rueful smile, glances over the cover page, then reaches for the phone.

  Thanks to the floating docks, the boats in the marina rise and fall as the water does, the waves choppy harbingers of the coming storm, as is the cloudy gunmetal sky. The late afternoon wind is electric, thick with humidity, smelling of salt. Wilcox is with me, along with a couple of handpicked officers from Internal Affairs. We check in with the security chief, who’s wearing the same shorts and shirt I remember from before, with a little more stubble around the jowls. He guides us through the network of slips, checking his clipboard from time to time as though he’s forgotten which boat we’re heading for.

  The Rosalita is tucked between two newer, larger vessels, its hull pearlescent and dingy from the passage of time. We descend from the pier to the cruiser’s stern, feeling the roll underfoot, then advance beneath the open-backed enclosure that shelters the wheel. In spite of his portly form, the security chief moves in easy strides. The rest of us, already gloved, reach for the nearest handholds to keep our balance.
/>
  “If you think this is bad,” he says, “just you wait.”

  The cabin door is securely locked, but we’ve brought along an officer who specializes in surreptitious entry. After a couple of minutes crouched at the door, he announces victory, stepping aside to let Wilcox pass. My ex-partner pauses, motioning me forward.

  “Ladies first,” he says.

  A narrow row of steps leads into the cramped cabin, which reminds me more of a fiberglass bathtub insert than the opulently appointed, wood-paneled abode I was imagining. There’s a tight banquette molded into one side, complete with folding table, and a set of storage cubbies on the other, lit only by a row of narrow dirty windows that pierce the hull. I fumble along the wall for a light switch, but if there is one, I don’t find it.

  “I hope nobody’s claustrophobic,” I say.

  The cabin smells damp and a little fishy, but the surfaces gleam cleanly in the dimness. At the far end, behind a tiny door, I find a cleverly compartmentalized shower and toilet small enough to make an airplane restroom seem vast in comparison. The others file in, and somebody finds the lights. Fully illuminated, the cabin reminds me a bit of a camper my uncle used to keep in the driveway when I was a kid. The idea of it seemed cool, but whenever I went inside, I couldn’t wait to get out again.

  We search slowly, methodically, using flashlights to illuminate every crack and crevice, causing as little disturbance as possible. It doesn’t take long, because there’s so little ground to cover. A minute or two into the hunt, I begin to lose hope. There won’t be anything here. They brought the body – assuming it was a body – already bagged. Salazar’s truck, assuming that’s where she bled out, might yield a treasure trove of blood evidence, but by the time they reached the boat, the body would have been squared away. At best, this search might allow me to cross another possibility off the list, but there’s nothing – “Sir.”

  One of the IAD officers kneels at the foot of the built-in cabinets, his arm shoulder-deep inside, cheek flat against the frame. He squints in concentration, then jerks back, pulling something loose with a ripping sound. His hand reappears, clutching a bundle wrapped in layers of thick plastic sheeting, secured by strips of duct tape.

  Wilcox takes the package to the folding table, carefully unwinding the plastic. He stops halfway through, once the object’s form becomes obvious. I move in, uncoiling the rest of the sheet, removing the final layer aware that no one in the cabin is so much as breathing.

  The boat rocks. We sway a little. Our eyes remain fixed on the table. Under the pile of plastic, resting unevenly, lies a blued sig Sauer P229. On the exposed side of the chamber, visible through the cutout of the ejection port, the barrel is stamped BAR STO .357 SIG.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Wilcox asks.

  Nobody answers. Nobody even breathes.

  Driving home late that evening, I remember Carter Robb. Instead of calling, I flip through my notebook for the address he gave me, stopping by on the way. I find him with a group of other men, all stripped to the waist, nailing plywood sheets across the windows of a two-story brick building that could pass for the scrawny cousin of the one housing the Morgan St. Café. The ground floor is done, and now they’ve mounted ladders to reach the second, the work illuminated by shop lights in the yard, since the streetlamps are too far away. The boom box is tuned to ktru, only audible during lulls in the hammering.

  I call up to Robb, who shimmies down the ladder and snatches a black T-shirt from a pile on the ground, using it to wipe the sweat from his face.

  “I thought you forgot about me,” he says.

  “I did.”

  There must be a residual glow on my face, left over from the discovery at the marina, because Robb perks up all the sudden.

  “Something’s happened?”

  “Not with Hannah, no. I just happened to be in the neighborhood so I stopped by. The truth is, the task force is waiting for new developments.”

  He nods slowly. “So we’re back where we started.”

  “There is one thing. I talked to a friend in New Orleans and had him track down the Dyer family. According to the mother, Evangeline Dyer ran away from home again. I know you said she’d done it before. She left eight weeks ago. I haven’t spoken to the mother myself, but I have her contact information, assuming you’d want it.”

  “I should call her,” he says.

  I copy the information onto a blank sheet of my notebook, ripping the page out and handing it to him. He studies the writing, though his eyes don’t seem to focus on the numbers. More like he’s looking through the page, or seeing something reflected on it.

  “I should call her,” he says again.

  Over his shoulder, the other workers have knocked off for the moment, keeping their distance but clearly interested in our conversation. I glance their way, prompting Robb to turn as if noticing them for the first time. He waves a hand toward the building.

  “This is the outreach center.”

  “And what is that, exactly?”

  He cocks his head to one side, smiling faintly. “The idea is to provide an encounter space. People from the church, people from the surrounding community, all coming together to talk. Not just about religion, but life. Everything under the sun.”

  “I thought it was more of a homeless shelter.”

  One of the others, a friendly, broad-chested man of about thirty-five, with sunken eyes and a wooden cross around his neck, steps forward to join us, chuckling at what I’ve just said.

  “A homeless shelter would probably be of more use these days, but what can I say?” He shrugs in an outsized, eloquent way. “This is the vision God gave me. ‘If you build it, they will come.’ ”

  “Do they?”

  He seesaws his hand in the air. “We host some book clubs that are pretty popular.”

  “There’s a lot of that going around,” I say, remembering the women gathered at the Morgan St. Café. I pat Robb on the bicep and turn to go.

  “Oh, wait,” he says, digging in his back pocket. He removes his wallet, shuffles through a wad of folded receipts, and finally produces a folded photograph. “Here you go.”

  I hold the picture up to the light. Hannah, radiant in the camera’s flash, smiles invitingly, her hand thrown lazily around the shoulder of another girl, her face half concealed behind a lump of matte black hair, a bad dye job maybe, her one visible eye rimmed thickly in dark liner. Evey Dyer raises two fingers to the lens, her nails painted black. Whoever snapped the photo probably assumed this was a peace sign, but from my Anglophile ex-partner, I know the gesture she’s flashing is rude.

  “Thanks,” I tell him, tucking the picture away. “So you took your youth group to this place for their summer trip?”

  Robb nods. “We helped fix the place up, went out in the community to get the word out, hosted a couple of get-acquainted parties.”

  “And it was much appreciated,” the other man says. “I’m Murray Abernathy, by the way.” His handshake has a lot of power behind it. “Resident dreamer.”

  The three of us stand there in the quickening wind, my jacket whipping around my hips. The sky rumbles overhead, prompting us all to look up momentarily.

  “You met Hannah Mayhew, Mr. Abernathy? And her friend Evan-geline Dyer?”

  “Hard to miss those two,” he says, still gazing overhead. “They really helped out a lot here. It’s a terrible thing, what’s happened to Hannah. We’re praying she gets home safe.”

  “Evey ran away,” Robb says under his breath, causing the other man to deflate.

  As I turn to go, the first fat drops of rain start to fall. One breaks cool against my neck. Robb knits his eyebrows as another splashes the bridge of his nose. Within seconds the clouds open and the rain drills down on us. Everyone in the yard moves closer to the building, sheltering under the eaves.

  Everyone but me.

  I reach my car door, glancing back in time to see Robb, his hair plastered against his scalp, ascending the ladder again
, rain-battered, his face pointing heavenward.

  CHAPTER 23

  The dream ends with a crash. I sit up, peeling the damp sheets off my skin, unable to remember a thing. On the nightstand, the glowing numbers on the clock face have disappeared. The fan overhead whirs to a stop. Uncertain whether the collision happened in real life or my head, I move to the window, peering through the rain-washed pane. It’s black outside, some shadows darker than others. The sky’s accustomed glow – an effect produced by light reflected on the clouds, producing a faint nightlong radiance – is extinguished.

  Wind whistles past the house, slapping branches against the walls. I see nothing, and I’m too dog-tired to go out and look. I lie back down on top of the sheets, cocooned in a womb of white noise, and try to get some sleep. My mind races with the last images I saw on television before hitting the sack, newscasters down in Galveston knocked flat on their backsides and skyscrapers downtown popping their windows left and right.

  A steady banging starts up not long after. At first I ignore it, but as my head clears and I awaken fully, the sound takes on a panicked intensity. Feeling around in the dark, I grab my flashlight, a tiny Fenix that puts my old Maglite to shame, and head down the stairs. The pounding comes from the kitchen door. As soon as I open it, Tommy pushes through, half-dressed and a little crazy, rivers of water sluicing off him.

  “Hey, man,” he says, breathless. “You’re not gonna believe your eyes, I’m telling you. It’s, like, unreal up there.”

  The door swings wide, propelled by the wind, slamming against a breakfast table chair. I shoulder it closed, then turn to check on him, running the light up and down his chest. His jeans, soaked through, puddle around his bare feet, the cuffs ragged.

  “You all right?”

  “Nothing hit me, I don’t think. But you gotta go look, man. It’s like tv.”