Dead Investigation

by Charlie Price

  “So nobody was buried outside the fence?”

  Strange question. “Not that I know of. Don’t see why they would be.”

  “Oh, no … uh, no reason … maybe the lawnmower shed’s over some old graves or something. I was just wondering.”

  Janochek was watching the boy closely now. “Yeah, it could be. Are you hearing things again?”

  “No. No, not … just curious. I clean up … pick up papers around the fence line, and I just wondered. You know, the rodeo grounds down the hill, the northeast side going practically all the way to the river? I just wondered. So, Sunday. Right? I’ll see you and Pearl at uh—”

  “Six.”

  “Okay,” Murray said, turning back to the gravestone. “Thanks.”

  Disappointed, Janochek stood at the boy’s back for another minute before leaving. Always about the dead or the cemetery. Never about school or town. It was worse than Pearl thought. Murray was completely oblivious. Love-struck on a dead girl. Where would that lead? Suicide was the first thing that came to his mind, and he shoved it away.

  MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

  Good Hope Mission had its usual crowd of families and single individuals waiting on the front sidewalk. A few were sitting wrapped in their jackets, taking a nap while they waited to be processed. Gates spoke with the administrator first. The woman was clearly busy filling out forms but set aside the paperwork. She introduced herself simply as Cathy. Said of course homeless people often came and went without anyone knowing where or why. But not the people she’d reported to Pittman. Several of those weren’t really homeless anymore. They’d worked diligently to earn their rent-free motel room or aide’s stipend.

  Gates sought the day’s floor staff but they had no idea why the numbers of missing seemed to increase after David Payne’s disappearance. Yes, everyone said, David was a nice man. No, he didn’t have any enemies.

  Gates found Payne’s counselor in the dayroom. The pudgy man had thinning brownish hair and a kind, round face raccooned by black-framed glasses taped in the middle. Gates imagined the professional staff didn’t make much money in this line of work. After introducing himself, he said, “I’d like to hear what you can tell me about David Payne.”

  The counselor, who had brightened when he saw Gates approaching, now deflated, shook his head. “David was a pleasant man. Quiet. Uh … competent, professionally trained … People like that make up about ten percent of our beds.” The man paused. “May I sit?”

  Gates nodded and the counselor got two folding metal chairs that had been leaning against a file cabinet.

  “Guess I should lose some weight,” the man said, with a self-deprecating smile. Gestured Gates to join him. “So, I encouraged David to use his talents; after all, he’d held a very responsible job for a reputable company.”

  “Were there any people at the mission that David was close to? People he regularly ate or exercised with?”

  The counselor was nodding. “They weren’t friends or anything.”

  Gates waited.

  “I was trying to get David thinking like a financial officer again. I thought I might jump-start him by suggesting he help our ‘client-trainees.’” The man appeared to notice Gates’s perplexity and explained, “Our greeters and our bookkeeper and her aide. Ex-homeless that work for us now.”

  “Would that be the same people who turned up missing shortly after Payne did?” Gates asked.

  “Some of them, I suppose, or maybe most of them, yes … We get so many, I see so many…” The man waved his hand at the dayroom to indicate it was usually crowded. “Uh, at that time, Alicia, Alicia Turner, reviewed our books, confirmed balances. Right up Payne’s alley, so I sent him to her. And to our greeters, Duecker and Miller and Holmes. We called them ‘clerks.’ They pulled shifts in the front lobby, like Walmart greeters, doing triage for those with emergency needs, explaining our system, getting the newcomers clothes or food.”

  The counselor glanced at Gates to make sure this was the kind of information he wanted. Satisfied, he continued. “I asked David to talk with them about public relations. And … who was making sure our records were properly alphabetized at that time? Bobby Sederman, I think. Anything to keep his mind off AIDS. Payne had a session with Bobby.”

  “Those names were on the missing homeless list you gave Frieda Pittman?”

  “Oh, I know Frieda, but I didn’t give her any list. That must have come from our director.”

  “What do you think Payne might have been doing the day he vanished?”

  The counselor inhaled and shook his head. “I have no idea. He wasn’t working here that day.”

  Gates nodded.

  “Uh, he panhandled.” The man held up a finger, went to the nearby file cabinet and pulled out a poster board that had been tucked in behind it.

  Three short lines, but “anything you can spare” jumped out at Gates. Made him sad.

  “I helped him make that sign,” the counselor said, smiling.

  Gates wasn’t sure how to respond.

  “He started like the others, intersections, off-ramps, shopping centers. Just a few days before he … uh, he came up with a different strategy. Wild River Casino. I think he stood at their exit, assuming the winners might be generous. Whatever it was, it worked. Right away he bought rain clothes, more alcohol, I think.” The man shook his head. “Devastating problem, right?” He looked to Gates for confirmation. “In fact, for the first time, the day or so before he went missing he was chipper. Smiling even. Told me he’d come up with an even better idea but he wouldn’t say what it was.”

  HOT SWEET PICKLE

  After Janochek talked with Murray, he and Pearl got together for dinner. His rule was to make sure at least once a day he had the opportunity for a few minutes of conversation—schoolwork, sports, films, books, what-have-you. Tonight they sat to corned beef sliders and another variety of his thousand coleslaws, this with zucchini, corn, red cabbage, and hot sweet pickles. Janochek broke the silence. “I think you were right.”

  “Like I’m ever not.”

  “About Murray. He’s getting more entrenched. Comfortable. Okay short-term, terrible long-term. I think we ought to do something.”

  “Kick him out.”

  “That’s pretty harsh. Where would he stay?”

  “Home. Another cemetery. Where does anyone stay?”

  “This isn’t like you.”

  “He just makes me mad. I was so proud of him for finding Nikki Parker, and now I’m ashamed of him for being such a wimp.”

  “Hey, I’m concerned, too.” But Janochek knew it was more than just concern. “Okay, I’m afraid … and you may be, too. After the shooting, after all the publicity around the Parker case, he’s withdrawn, become almost submerged here. He goes through the motions at school, but everything he looks forward to is here, all his friends … including us.”

  “Dad, all his friends? He’s more interested in dead people than you and me. He’s made his choice. He’s going to sit on graves until he rots, just like they do.”

  Janochek couldn’t let the conversation end there. You can’t throw away friends when they disappoint you. We all make too many mistakes in this life. We all need a little mercy.

  “Have you ever been ashamed of yourself? Ever let yourself down?”

  Pearl frowned. Looked at him. “You know I have.”

  “What helped?”

  “You, I guess.”

  “Who’s Murray got?”

  INTERN INTAKE

  Gates asked the mission counselor if Payne had any acquaintances, men or women, besides those he helped train? Any person that he might have casually talked with once in a while?

  The counselor closed his eyes, caught his upper lip between his teeth as if to better search his memory. “Rex, maybe,” he said. “He sat with Rex once in a while at meals. I guess they talked.”

  Where could Gates find Rex? The counselor told him to try the club chairs in the periodicals section of the public library. “
He’s a character,” the counselor said with a small smile. “You can’t miss him.”

  “What about the boy on the ‘disappeared’ list, Jerel Smith?”

  “Never met him,” the counselor said.

  “Who would have?”

  “Well, Eva, probably. Pretty sure she did the intake. She’s our … I guess you’d say ‘intern’ now, from Guatemala. Cathy’s training her. Eva’s been doing almost all the new people when they sign up for services.”

  “And she is…”

  “Lobby. Desk to the left of the office.”

  * * *

  Eva was not at her desk when Gates walked over but arrived within the minute carrying a bottle of water. Her eyes widened as she saw the badge on his shirt pocket. “Eh, you would like?” she said, gesturing with the water.

  “No, thanks,” Gates said, “just a couple of questions.”

  The woman tried a smile, sat, took a deep breath, and waited for Gates to speak.

  Gates returned the smile, took the chair at the far side of her desk, and sat, hoping to make her more comfortable. “The questions are not about you. What can you tell me about Jerel Smith?”

  The woman’s face relaxed and she shook her head. “No … I haven’t met.”

  “You did his intake, right?”

  “So many,” she said, looking up as if there were a list of names on the ceiling. “I don’t remember. I will look.” She opened the top right drawer and pulled out a scarred ledger, the kind bookkeepers used probably fifty years ago. Numbered rows in green ink, columns in red. “When?” she asked.

  “Probably after the start of this year. He was on the ‘recently missing’ list your administrator provided our liaison, Ms. Pittman.”

  The woman looked at Gates as if waiting for more information, apparently not comprehending. Gave up and looked at the book, found January with her index finger. “What name do you wish?”

  Gates reminded her. She found no such entry in January. Sighed. Looked up at Gates for further instructions.

  “Please go on,” he said, keeping the impatience out of his voice.

  She located the entry two pages later and marked the spot with her fingernail. “Herel Smeet,” she said. “He is fron Chico.” She turned the ledger so Gates could see.

  Jerel Smith, in neat printing. 10 February, Chico CA, age—refus to anser.

  Not much. Gates would call the administrator later to see if she could identify someone who might have actually worked with the boy.

  REX

  As the mission counselor had suggested, Gates located Rex in the public library, a short, stubby man with wild black hair wearing an orange road-construction vest over faded red sweats. Gates could have found him in a crowd of ten thousand.

  Gates took a knee beside the man’s chair and introduced himself.

  “I ain’t in the habit of conversating with pigs,” Rex informed him, not bothering to look up from the car mag he was studying.

  “Maybe you don’t speak oink.”

  The man continued to ignore Gates.

  “Let’s try English. We talk here or you visit the lockup for obstructing and I get what I need from somebody else.”

  “Do your worst, dirtbag.” Rex stood and put up his fists.

  Gates couldn’t help himself, smiled. “Sit down, Rocky, and let’s talk about who might have done something with your man David Payne.”

  Rex looked around to see who all might have witnessed his bravado. Raised both hands in a victory sign and resumed his seat.

  “I heard about Payne,” Gates told him. “Nice guy. Didn’t deserve any more trouble. Think of anybody who’d want to harm him?”

  Rex pursed his lips. Almost a smirk, as if he’d known himself to be a key person and had been waiting to be consulted. “Well, yeah, I’ve given his absentia some considering.”

  “Do you want to talk about this outside so we don’t disturb anyone?” Gates nodded toward the other readers sitting in the section and casting occasional glances in their direction.

  “This’ll do fine,” the man said, smiling to the room, a king and his court.

  Gates took out his pocket notebook. “So, Payne have any enemies?”

  “Guy was a wimp. Anything happen, he backed off.”

  “Get in any arguments that you saw?”

  “I told you. By hisself most of the time. Me and that silly-assed counselor only ones he ever rapped to.”

  “He talk to you about anyone from his prior life?”

  The short man scowled. “Don’t none of us.”

  * * *

  Rex didn’t have a shred of information about Payne’s other relationships or how the man spent his time during the day. Had no idea why Payne had gone missing or whether there was any relationship between Payne’s departure and the several mission residents’ disappearances after.

  “Did Payne say anything about leaving, moving on?”

  “Nope. He was doing good. Good enough to share his hooch.”

  Gates stood. Put his notepad back in his shirt pocket. Said, “Thanks for your help.”

  The short man frowned, probably at the idea of losing his audience. Leaned forward. “Tell you what you don’t know.”

  Gates doubted it.

  “Dave didn’t tell nobody else. Me and him was tight.”

  Gates waited.

  “Payne was onto something. Said he called in a chit. Big bucks. Major bucks. ’Bout the time he split, he told me he was getting his house back.”

  * * *

  Gates drove back toward the department on autopilot, ruminating about what he’d learned. Payne was expecting to get his house back? How?

  And Smith. At the mission he’d said he was from Chico but wouldn’t give his age. Didn’t sign anything, no picture, no prints. Gates couldn’t think of a way to confirm the boy’s identity and appearance. Did the mission have a security camera trained on their lobby? He used his cell and found out: yes, they did, but they’d already erased the first two weeks of February.

  Gates wondered what the public thought when they saw him using his cell phone while driving. If he saw them doing the same thing, they got a two-hundred-dollar fine.

  At the department, the rosters for Northern California missions and shelters in the cities he’d requested were on his desk. He started with Chico since that’s the prior address the Smith kid had given. One hundred seventy-eight names since New Year’s. No Jerel Smith, but a Harold Smith, on February 6. Gates was remembering the Guatemalan intern’s English. She’d said Herel Smeet but wrote it as Jerel Smith. So the boy probably told her Harold Smith and she unknowingly recorded that as Jerel Smith without any official ID to check it against.

  He picked up the Sacramento packet. Eight full sheets of names since New Year’s. He found it in less than five minutes. Harold Smith, teen, no age given, arrived January 31. The kid went from Sacramento to Chico to Riverton and then disappeared. The documents didn’t have earlier dates for San Francisco so Gates couldn’t check if the kid had been there first. He wrote a requisition for the rosters from the Medford and Eugene shelters and perused the ones from Portland and Seattle but found nothing. The kid, if he was still going that direction, hadn’t made it into Oregon or Washington … if he was still going any direction. So, Jerel Smith, Harold Smith. Same kid?

  UNCONSCIOUS INCONVENIENCE

  Gates. Irritated. Why couldn’t he remember work things at work instead of during a movie he’d been wanting to see with an attractive woman? Here they were, but he was thinking about a case. A homeless boy. Jerel Smith to be exact. Gates remembered where he’d heard that name, connected to a different last name. The movie disappeared as his memory spooled forward.

  * * *

  Late last year Gates had been driving east on Texas Springs Road, taking what he thought of as a coffee break, hoping to spot wild turkeys that roamed in the area. The males, an otherworldly mix between a pelican and a throw rug, were one of the several species of wildlife that fascinated him. Turtles
and jacks, coyote and porcupine, osprey and cranes, he invariably lost track of time watching whichever he saw.

  That day he saw nothing because his radio squawked. Domestic dispute. Close by, outside the city limits, just off West Placer Street. Husband, Chuck Barker, was threatening to kill his wife, and according to dispatch, she’d called 911 and locked herself in a first-floor bathroom.

  Gates was there in less than two minutes. Manicured driveway. Fancy house. When he skidded to a stop in the white gravel, the front door was standing open. Uh-oh. He’d vaulted out of the cruiser, forgetting his phone and nightstick, jumped the stairs to the low porch, and slid inside on a slick tile floor that fooled him and nearly put him on his butt. A man was flailing at an interior door with what looked like a bronze nude, apparently taken from the nearby foyer table. A bent and broken metal lamp possibly from the same table lay at his feet. The top panel of the door had several cracks and one jagged two-inch hole.

  The man paused mid-swing. “What do you want?” He saw Gates’s hand on his holster and slowly put the statuette down, leaned it against the wall. “The police are here, goddamn it. You can come out now,” the man said to the door, but glaring at Gates like if he weren’t a cop he’d attack him.

  Barker. The name a perfect fit? The man stood before him, red in the face, fists clenched, wearing light brown gabardine slacks and an ivory-colored shirt open at the neck. Expensive clothes for a day around the house. Obviously wealthy … retired CEO from the Bay Area, this guy? Top executives didn’t often murder their mates with art. White-collar crime boss? Drug money?

  “Dolores, I mean it. Get the hell out here.” The man had an edge to his voice, suggesting he was seldom disobeyed.