by P. J. Zander
“Best I know is he doesn’. And,” he added, “I don’ do heavier.”
“Why do you think it was Nathan who told me about you?”
“Well, he had a thing for Jolene. He liked her.”
“So, it’s ‘Jolene’, huh?” He offered the biker a lopsided smile. “He says the same thing about you, Kyle. You like her, been seeing her? Doing things together?”
Kyle turned his head, those squinty eyes now focused sideways on Banyan. “Maybe a little.”
“How long?”
“Some months, I guess.”
Well, he was a good-looking guy, Banyan admitted, fairly tall like Sean, perhaps a little leaner. Kind of soft spoken. Jo must have had her reasons and he tried not to imagine them. “So, you’re serious friends. You treat her right, don’t you Kyle? Or is that why Nathan smacked you pretty good the other day? Because you weren’t good to her?”
“You got that wrong. Yeah, we were talkin’ about Jolene, but I jus’ didn’ know he liked her ‘til I saw it on his face. I told him ain’t that a fine thing, we’re both hurtin’. Guess he didn’ wanna hear that.”
“You’re telling me Nathan liked her? Do you think she liked Nathan?”
Kyle appeared to ponder that one. “Don’ know. She never told me she did.”
He asked Kyle if he knew anyone who might have been involved. Anyone who might have had a reason to go after Jo. The biker answered in the negative, except he had “a feelin’ Nathan knows somethin’.” He also said he’d been to Wrightwood dozens of times at the end of his Crest rides, and seen Jolene on a number of occasions, but never really noticed any problem people up there as far as she was concerned.
“You know Sean Lowry?”
“Don’ know him, but heard of him. Jolene told me he used to be her boyfriend.”
“You ever meet him?”
Kyle shook his head.
“How about Nathan. Does he know Sean?”
“You gotta ask him.”
Banyan exhaled a little frustration. “What was Jolene like the last time you saw her? Angry, nervous?”
“Last time I saw her . . . was August. She was parked over on a turnout and I was goin’ up the Crest. I went past, then hung a U and came back, saw her truck all loaded with stuff for the big move. Told her I could help, but she said she didn’ need me. We talked about the first time we met, when I got her 4-Runner started when she was stalled up in Wrightwood. Then she said she had to get on her way.” He stopped talking, pausing for ten to fifteen seconds before going on. “I waited a little, then rode back down.”
“You followed her?”
“Hey, man, don’ get all jacked up, now. I jus’ seein’ where she was headed, maybe help out there. Makin’ sure she’s okay. I stayed back.”
“So you tracked her all the way to the rental house? You know where she lives?” Banyan, indeed, was getting jacked up. “Did the sheriffs talk to you, do they know this?”
“Hell, no, they don’t know. And I didn’ talk to ‘em. I told you, I didn’ do nothin’. Listen, I get to the house jus’ after she pulls in. There’s Nathan, bigger than a barn, fixin’ a board or somethin’ on the front porch, all motherfucker this and motherfucker that, tellin’ me to leave. I told him I was jus’ seein’ if Jolene needed help, but seein’ him, I guessed not. So, she looked at me and . . . I just rode off. She was sittin’ in her truck the whole time lookin’ . . . I don’ know. Not really scared. Maybe a little uneasy. Maybe unsure of him, maybe of me ‘cause I followed her. Maybe both of us.”
Banyan was trying to picture Nathan acting how Kyle had just related. They were pointing fingers at each other. He looked long and hard at the biker. “You and Nathan ever hang out? Do something, plan something together?”
Kyle looked at him sideways again. “What, like ride bikes somewhere? Never do that. He has a Harley. That’s not the kind of ridin’ I do. What’re you gettin’ at?”
Banyan nibbled on this morsel. Earlier, he hadn’t missed Nathan catching his breath when asked about a motorcycle-riding boyfriend. But Jolene riding behind him on the back of a Harley—he was having a hard time picturing it.
“Well?”
“I’m just wondering why you and Nathan seem to have it in for each other.”
Kyle’s mouth didn’t open.
“So Jolene didn’t want you to follow her. Did you have an argument with her?”
“Nah. She jus’ . . . wanted to do it by herself.”
“Let’s see. You went after her to make sure she was alright, but then you left? You weren’t worried or jealous with Nathan there? Sounds like she said sayonara to your relationship.”
“Not really. Like I said, she jus’ likes to do stuff on her own.”
“And that was absolutely the last time you saw her? You were never in the rental house for those two months before she got kidnapped?”
Kyle hesitated.
“I’ve been close to Jolene and her mother for many years, Kyle. Very close. You don’t want to cross me.”
He looked down at the asphalt, as if the words he was searching for would appear at his feet. “Well, no. That was it. Day she moved. The last time.” He took a slow, deep breath. “We talked some.”
“Like on your cell phones?”
Kyle nodded.
“How often?”
“Two, three times a week. She needed to study, so I let her be.”
“You have a key?”
The biker looked slightly confused. “Why?”
“It’s just a question, Kyle. Do you have a key to the rental house?”
Kyle didn’t respond.
“You said you haven’t talked to the sheriffs, but don’t you think that’d be a smart move? They’re going to find all those calls on her phone and track them right back to you. Better you go to them on your own now before they haul you in. Clear up everything before I give them your name.”
The biker was unfazed.
Banyan shook his head. “Damn, Kyle. Something’s just not right here. You say Nathan knows something. He points me to you. Jolene’s right in the middle. You’re not bothered by your number on her cell phone. You may or may not have a key. You don’t seem to grasp how precarious your situation is.” He paused. “Fair warning, son. Sooner or later, the sheriffs are going to want you to talk to them. If they’re slow and I start fitting the pieces together, and if a piece has your name on it, even if only because you might know some little fact, I’ll come back for you.”
The sun dropped like a flare behind the San Rafael Hills. Darkness came on fast, dimming Kyle’s serene countenance. Banyan watched him fade to a silhouette, then meld with his big Yamaha sport bike.
EIGHTEEN
Banyan took a deep breath of cold, fresh air. It was a clear morning in the mid-twenties at six thousand feet. He stood next to the rental car in the driveway, snowy mountain vistas holding his view for one-hundred-eighty degrees. The condo had a ski-chalet appearance—dark wood plank siding with a steep roof of red corrugated metal. He had never been to Truckee and wouldn’t have been there then if two disparate thoughts hadn’t collided like a head-on train wreck during the night.
When he pressed the button at the door, he was amused by the ringing of Swiss cowbells.
“Just a sec,” a hard-breathing male voice responded.
A moment before Banyan’s patience ran out, the door opened.
“Hey. What can I do for you?”
The man wiping his forehead with a towel was almost as tall as Banyan. He wore grey sweatpants and a sleeveless, neon yellow Under Armour workout shirt. Ropey muscle wrapped his shoulders and arms. But Banyan was drawn to the remarkable face, with striking blue-gray eyes, narrow nose and strong chin. He couldn’t help but stare as he beheld Jolene’s visage in the face of the man standing before him.
“You okay?” The face had Jo’s smile and what appeared to be an expression of recognition. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Rick Moss.”
#
When
Banyan had sat on the hotel bed to slip off his shoes little more than twelve hours before, he’d been working through his conversation with Kyle Hemphill that afternoon. He’d had to prod Kyle now and then to get him to disclose anything. But he hadn’t figured Kyle to be a taciturn guy; more just laid-back. So why had he clammed up? The enigmatic young man joined Sean and Nathan on the list.
But, as he’d lain sleepless on his hotel bed late at night, Stephanie’s words about Jo being too smart to get pregnant had ping-ponged in his brain. Then, just as he’d dozed off at about 3:00 am, Raylene’s address book notation came back to him—Rick M. Truckee. He was wide awake. If he’d have listened to his head, he’d have blown it off as strange, drowsy, mental mumbo jumbo. However, he went with his gut, got an early, hour-and-a-half flight out of L.A. into Reno, then drove west back into California. It took little time to locate the address of the Ski Ambassador for the Northstar Resort in the town of 16,000 people.
#
“Banyan,” he said as he reluctantly shook the proffered hand. He felt as if he was betraying Jolene and Ray.
“Just a moment. Yes . . . yes. I know who you are.” Moss seemed to be opening an unexpected gift. “You and Raylene, right?”
Banyan couldn’t get past the face, and the incongruity of those words coming out of that familiar mouth. He didn’t answer.
“Whatever you traveled all this way to see me about must be important, at least to you. Please come in.”
At least to you. Why you condescending asshole, Banyan thought. He followed Moss through an entryway into a large living area with windows on three sides and a big corner-mounted TV showing one of the fifty or so non-descript college bowl games played during the holidays. Facing the TV was an elliptical exercise machine onto which Moss tossed the towel. He muted the volume and indicated a separate conversation area opposite a faux stone fireplace. Banyan sat on one of two facing sofas.
“Something to drink?”
Banyan shook his head. He just couldn’t bring himself to be civil. He watched Moss mix some powder and filtered water in a stainless steel bottle.
Moss got comfortable across from Banyan, untying his athletic shoes while looking over his shoulder at the game. “Came all this way.” He took a few gulps of his Muscle Milk and turned to face Banyan. “You look like a man possessed, Rusty. The floor is yours.”
He scowled at the use of his name. “When did you move here?”
“I bought the condo about ten years ago. A place to get away from Taos.”
“You split your time between here and New Mexico?”
“Well, now I pretty much live here fulltime.”
“Since when?
Moss swallowed some more muscle builder before answering. “Not quite a year ago.”
“Ever get down to L.A.?”
“On occasion.”
“When’s the most recent occasion?”
“I guess it was two, three months ago.” He shifted to put one of his bare feet on the sofa. “Rusty, you’re throwing me softballs. Why not ask me about my daughter?”
Banyan was off the sofa in an instant and got to Moss as he rose. He glared at the smiling face. “Jolene’s not your daughter. Never was.”
Moss sat down deliberately. “So, what are your real questions?”
He stood over the man, silent, wondering what made him tick. In a few moments, he returned to the sofa.
“Why were you in Southern California?”
“Visiting friends. Getting some beach time.”
“Did you go to La Crescenta or Wrightwood?”
Moss swigged from his bottle. “You mean the most recent trip?”
Banyan stared at him.
“Okay, I’m just playing with you. No, I don’t recall being there.”
“You don’t recall, huh? Have you ever contacted Jolene?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. Maybe once or twice. How do you think I found out about you?”
“You never met her in person?”
Moss gave the appearance of thinking about his answer. “Well, I didn’t say that, Rusty. But, I wouldn’t tell you if I had because you’d be really angry.”
“Did she give you a—” Banyan checked himself before asking about a key. Moss wouldn’t have answered anyway. “What about Raylene?”
“What about her?”
Banyan shook his head. “Listen, Moss, if you want to just kick each other’s asses right now, let’s do it. Might tear your place up quite a bit, but that wouldn’t be my problem. And, the uproar could draw some unwanted attention to your ambassadorship, also not my concern.”
Moss ran his fingers through his longish brown hair going gray at the temples. “Probably within the past year, when I moved here permanently, I called her.”
That accounted for Ray’s note in her book, Banyan concluded. For a moment, he puzzled over why she hadn’t told him . . . except she knew he would’ve gone berserk. It was better left unsaid from her point of view. “Let’s see, you move out here, get in touch with both of them. You needed to get closer. What happened? You finally had to do something about this stain from your past, to go after Jolene, the one flaw in your otherwise perfect life?” There was a long pause as he pinned Moss’s eyes across the eight feet between them.
Moss finally turned away and simpered. “So, the moment I recognized you, I guessed why you were here. You’re helping Raylene by doing the cops’ work and you think I could have had something to do with what happened to Jolene. Cops never came to talk to me. I’m impressed with your ability to think outside the box, Rusty. But it looks like you made a long trip for nothing.”
Banyan stood. “I’ve despised you for so many years, I had no idea I could feel any more hatred for you. You got Raylene pregnant and that didn’t fit your plans. So you turned your back on her and her baby. Took off. No matter how good you think you look, or how important you think you are, that moment defined you. It’s who you are and you can never change that. You’re no man, Moss. You’re not worth shit.” As he walked to the front door, Moss rose and smiled.
“I’m glad we finally met, Rusty. Maybe we can do this again.”
He turned around slowly. “If you’re somehow mixed up in this, if you’ve hurt Jo, or if you so much as call Raylene again, you won’t be glad to see me the next time.”
NINETEEN
It went beyond the anchor-dragging of two nights before. By the time he was back in his room at the Marriott, Banyan felt as though he had gone down with the ship. After forty-eight hours of little sleep and several new pieces that didn’t seem to fit into any puzzle, his body and brain were drained. He crashed on the bed without calling Raylene.
The exhaustion had an upside. He slept well into the morning and awoke rested and energized by another sunny day with much more warmth than the Truckee sun. The downside was he’d left his dead cell phone in the truck which he noticed as he was on his way out. He mumbled obscenities to himself and left the room. Around noon, he picked up a cheap phone at a small shopping mall on Foothill and drove a couple minutes over to Oak Grove Park. He watched a man about his age walking a Belgian Malinois off leash. The dog stuck by the man’s left side observing, but not breaking for the squirrels and birds. They disappeared on a trail into the oak woodlands.
With phone in hand while sitting in the truck bed over the open tailgate, Banyan weighed the risk of bringing in someone else. The fact that his most trusted friend lived in Alaska was an impediment but not insurmountable.
“Chris, I need your help.”
“Rusty, you ol’ coot. Didn’t recognize the number. Que pasa, compadre?”
“Barely keeping my ass above the gators. Listen, I have a name for you to check out. After you ply your magic and give me whatever you come up with, you have to forget you ever heard that name, for your own welfare as well as mine. There is a possibility—maybe remote, maybe not—that the name could appear in the news under nefarious circumstances.” Banyan let it sink in. “In or out?”
Chris Reed slowed his speech. “My memory’s fading. Soon, I’ll be an electronic luddite, like you. Better fire away.”
“Rick Moss. Late forties to fifty, came from New Mexico, attended Northern Arizona U in the early ‘80s. Seems to have been around skiing most of his life. Currently living in Truckee.”
“I have previous knowledge of this na—”
“Chris . . .”
“. . . but now I’m not so sure.”
“Call me at this number. I don’t want your info on my regular cell phone. Thanks, pard.”
Two early-twenties women got out of a compact convertible and started tossing one of several Frisbees back and forth. They giggled as they took turns trash-talking each other, how their upcoming duel on the disc-golf course wasn’t even going to be close. A smile momentarily crossed Banyan’s face, then vanished.
He went to a picnic bench and made another call. Quintana wasn’t picking up on his cell phone, so he tried the bureau number.
“Homicide. Lieutenant Meeks.”
“Well, well, Erin. The captain has you answering his phone now, huh? One of Quintana’s clones?”
“You didn’t hear? They’re going to move his ass out to pasture and move me in. Part of the department’s program to get more of us female types in senior positions. Too damn many of the male persuasion around here.”
Banyan laughed heartily. “Oh, Christ. I’m in deep trouble now.”
“At least you didn’t say Quintana’s clowns. I’d have to clock you for that.” She spoke to someone, then came back on. “Haven’t talked to you in a while, Banyan. How you been?”
“Okay. Better since I got in gear on Jolene’s kidnapping. What’s with Ernie not answering?”
“Big meeting this morning downtown with the boss.”
“I won’t take your time, then. Just wanted to run something by him on the case.”
“Maybe I can be your sounding board. Not right now, but my schedule is open in an hour and a half. Can you get to Commerce by then?”
Banyan thought for a moment. “Oh, why not.”