Dead Cold

by Claire Stibbe

  Flynn felt the familiar flutter of anticipation as he walked into the foyer, muscles burning from the day before. He had spent the last few days building a wall around himself, even his voice sounded unfamiliar.

  “Ms. Chance?” He smiled at the woman behind the front desk.

  “Name?”

  That was a hard one. The tabloids possessed the only one he had. “Drew Jesky. It’s been a while.”

  She pointed to a row of blue couches and said she would be with him shortly. Shortly took longer than expected. It was twenty minutes before she pecked her way across the foyer toward him, short hair, amber eyes. The presence of a buff file under one arm was puzzling and she gave him a flaccid handshake.

  “I remember you calling last year. About Abe McCann, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  Flynn covered his mouth with a hand and cleared his throat. It was strange hearing his father’s name from someone else, a name he had sounded in his own head so many times. If she recalled Jesky calling, she had to have known Abe well.

  “Let’s go to my office.”

  He followed a waft of perfume to the north side of the building and watched her slip behind a large mahogany desk. She opened the file and ran a red painted finger to a place half way down the first page.

  “Abe McCann. Schnebly Hill Road.” She frowned and flicked over the next page with a moistened finger. “No house number, which explained why he always picked up his checks.” She gave him a long, hard stare. “Off the record, your last name isn’t Jesky is it?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “I remember his voice. Sounded a lot older than you.”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “You look exactly like your dad. Same smile, same eyes... No one told you, did they?”

  Oh crap, here we go. Flynn knew what she was going to say before she said it. Knew what his gut had been telling him since that empty night in the railroad car. His world began to spin as her voice slurred, slowing down altogether.

  “He passed on October 26th. Pancreatic cancer. Took him real quick.”

  “Were you—”

  “Yes, I was with him. And yes, he often talked about you. Had a photo by his bedside. You and your mom.”

  Flynn felt the tightness in his chest and he tried to gulp in air. She mentioned Hillcrest Cemetery in McKinley County. How they’d done a whip-round for a simple headstone because Abe had been family to them. The plot was easy to find. Right-hand side under a piñon tree.

  “Abe was a private man, lived alone as far as I know. Never remarried. I told him about the phone call with Mr. Jesky last summer,” she said. “Abe wanted to call him, but he didn’t think it was fair on you... to start a relationship and then this.”

  “How long was he sick?”

  “Three months.” She handed him a tissue. “If you want my honest opinion, he was sick longer than that. He struggled with alcohol. Did AA for a while. He was happy for the most part. Always cracking jokes. Had one of those deep laughs that reminded me of my dad.”

  “Did he have a car?”

  “A motorcycle. Some foreign brand. He wasn’t particularly patriotic.”

  Not a Harley then? Abe would have approved of Flynn’s bike. Might have approved of a whole lot of other things too. “Did he always live in a railroad car?”

  She jerked her head forward and there was a rise in her voice. “He lived in a railroad car?”

  “Yeah. Coolest thing you’ve ever seen.”

  She lowered her head and rubbed a hand against her chest. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. My mom said home was the most important thing to him. It’s where he hung out to dry.”

  “He never forgot a birthday,” she said, brightening. “Yours is March twenty first. Jean and I used to take it in turns to make you a cake every year. Then the three of us would blow out the candles and eat it.”

  Flynn thought he’d misheard, but she didn’t stop talking. Kept getting faster as if she was more comfortable now. Either that or she was running out of time.

  “The last couple of years he wasn’t himself. Lost the passion to help people, I guess. He started drinking again. Security had to escort him out of the building once.”

  Flynn felt a jolt of shame. He didn’t know why. Whether it was the way she said it, or an image that suddenly flashed in his mind of a large man staggering about in the lobby, nose and cheeks red with broken veins. “I wish I could have met him. He never called, never came to see me.”

  “He left a letter.” She opened the top drawer and slid a white envelope across the desk. “He wasn’t proud of his life. If it helps... he was inside a couple of times for DWI. Last year he had his license revoked so he couldn’t work for us anymore.” She held her hands out over the desk as if weighing them in the air. “Listen. You should leave.”

  Flynn stuffed the letter in his pocket and pushed his chair back. “Thank you... for everything.”

  She didn’t say you’re welcome. It wouldn’t have been appropriate in light of what she was about to do. Her eyes flicked to the telephone on her desk, hands already on the handset by the time he reached the door. She likely thought he hadn’t seen it, but he had. Everything was empty, his mind, the foyer, the parking lot. No young man leaned against the sedan and Flynn felt like the whole world had suddenly gone on vacation. He swung his leg over the bike and blasted through the city center traffic toward I-40.

  It was the end of his normal. No more dinner at Tucanos, long talks with his mom, a good job near the air force base, and a stepdad who never gave up on him. All replaced with suspicion. Trust is a precarious thing—hard to earn, easy to lose.

  Flynn couldn’t help comparing himself to Abe McCann. Chased out of a building, only to die in a hospital bed surrounded by regrets. It was humiliating, and humiliation wasn’t Flynn’s bag. He didn’t regret seeing the railroad car, drinking in the sights and sounds and imagining his dad trudging down the hill to his bike.

  But he’d made up his mind. There was nothing more to say. He ranged east this time with a lump in his throat, speeding away from excitement and freedom. Drawn inexorably back to Gallup, a city that ran along historic Route 66 and known as the heart of Indian country. Going fast.

  Going home.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Malin found an empty cubicle downstairs away from the incessant phone chatter while Temeke prepared a search warrant for Ms. Ellis’s residence. He had already called an on-call DA to review it and a hard-of-hearing judge to sign it. Had his right hand in the air, fingers wrapped around a cigarette to swear an earsplitting oath that had likely been heard in Washington.

  Malin had just received a call from the Gallup Police. A woman called Misty Symonds had reported a case of child abuse. Said she’d received help from a man who looked like Flynn McCann. Thought she should report it. Malin wondered why Misty had waited almost a week?

  Agent Stu Anderson was tailing McCann and sucking up false trails and losses with the dignity only the FBI could muster. Harry Hammond, on the other hand, was doing OK. Even though he drove a burgundy 1971 Oldsmobile Cutlass with sagging upholstery which made it hard for him to see over the steering wheel, he had the reflexes of a rattler. Game on.

  Placing her tablet and a brown evidence bag on the desk, Malin laced her hands behind her head and recalled the Jesky house. Nothing out of the ordinary. Master bedroom neat and uncluttered and the only medications she found were for sinus congestion and allergies. On the dresser in Flynn’s room were two autographed NASCAR photos and a blue Plymouth Superbird in a die-cast case. A bookshelf held eight middle-grade fiction books and a photograph album. Typical things a kid would have. Normal things.

  While Temeke had interviewed Jesky she had texted Officer Maggie Watts for a lockout tool, met her on San Pedro outside Jesky’s truck. Let the slim Jim tell her what she already knew. They found the usual stuff in the glove box—registration, proof of insurance, receipts—but no cell phone. Not even in the stuffing of th
e back seat where they found a slit about five inches long. There was no sign of it under the driver’s seat or in the wiring under the dash. Nothing under the floor mats or in the tool box in the flatbed and no sign of it in the exhaust or any other likely place under the vehicle.

  She called Rover’s Insurance and sure enough the lady at the front desk confirmed a recent call-in for a missing cell phone. The line would be transferred as soon as Mr. Jesky came in to pick up the new one. That meant Jesky still had the old line open, just in case the phone showed up.

  Malin took the album out of the evidence bag and counted over twenty-three pictures. There were four exterior shots of 10508 Vista Bella Place and twenty-nine interior shots. Several of the bathroom window substantiating Flynn’s story about new drapes. It seemed odd to her that the album had been found in the Jesky’s house and not in the McCann’s house with the rest of their personal effects. She made a mental pattern of each room.

  Scanning the three photographs of the shed, she noticed a Barbie doll sitting on a shelf dressed in a pink floral dress and a white floppy hat. She opened her tablet and googled The Barbie Collection. Under the section marked Pop Culture Dolls she found Kentucky Barbie. The only difference between the one listed and the one in the McCann photos were two strips of paper clasped in one hand.

  The cell phone rattled in her pocket, announcing an incoming text from Wingman. He couldn’t have timed it better.

  Wingman: It’s a crazy world with violent people, Malin. Everyone’s got their wires crossed and the game is particularly hot where you are. Might be a good idea to strap your lot to a polygraph to see where the press leaks are coming from.

  Malin chuckled. I have a feeling you already know.

  Wingman: I could quote a riddle but I won’t. What about an inscrutable smile?

  Malin could think of a number of people who would match that description, but she wasn’t going to waste time on it. She tapped out another message.

  Malin: Let me guess. A person with a huge sense of self. Someone like you, for instance.

  Wingman: They do say all the best minds are the ones on the inside.

  Malin looked down at the photos of the living room furniture. She found herself wanting to ask his opinion as to why each piece was so refined and nothing like the tattered pieces she had witnessed at the Jesky’s.

  Malin: I’m studying photographs of the house and there’s something about it.

  Wingman: Explain.

  Malin wanted to ask him if the photographs had been taken for insurance purposes but decided on a description of the contents instead.

  Malin: There’s a Chateau Beauvais console table in the hall, couches are leather and the draperies are thick jacquard, lined and custom made. Even the king sized bed is a baroque style. Not the type you’d find in a house like that. Probably came from the wife’s parents. But you’d think the husband would want something of his own. A desk, an easy chair. Maybe it’s down to taste. Maybe he doesn’t care.

  Wingman came back in a rapid burst. Oh, I think he cares, Malin. It tells you something, doesn’t it? A person who yearns for power likes to take control.

  Malin couldn’t help biting down on a smile. If McCann really cared about interior design he would have left his mark somewhere. She continued typing.

  Malin: There’s a picture of a Barbie doll on the shelf in the shed. I looked her up. Kentucky Barbie.

  He seemed to hesitate for a while before responding: Is she the focal point of the photo? Or in the background?

  Malin: In the background. There’s something in her hand. A piece of paper.

  Hesitation this time and then he came back with. A ticket for the races?

  Malin could have kicked herself. As to the relevance of the doll in the first place, the only thing that resonated was the place where Tarian and Flynn first kissed. She pounded out another message.

  Malin: We found a poem in the residential mailbox the day before the fire. Something about meth and not being able to live without it. I’ve got one of those nagging feelings.

  Wingman: You mean you wish the poem had been mailed a day earlier? Life isn’t like that, Malin. It’s not what you think.

  He left her to savor the moment as he often did and it was no use typing out a where-the-hell-are-you and who-the-hell-are-you. She was surprised he didn’t want more information about the poem. Perhaps it left something to talk about next time. But there might not be a next time. Wingman’s texts were getting shorter and less frequent.

  She dropped the phone on the desk and slowly released a deep breath. Two pictures of Tarian McCann caught her eye. One sitting on a fence near a weeping willow and the other standing under an archway. Her eyes were narrowed as if she had been caught off-guard. Malin tried to read the expression in that static moment before the shutter was released.

  Looking out of the window, she heard the drone of a distant plane and wished she was on it. Temeke loitered in the parking lot near his jeep, standing in a halo of headlights, sneaking a smoke. On his way to Rosie Ellis no doubt, but with the amount of tar he sucked up he’d wind up in hospital.

  The phone shuddered again. Matt Black, a man who had the type of calm confidence she gravitated towards. “You got something for me?” she asked.

  “If you haven’t had your flavonoids today there’s a coffee and chocolate fest up at the state fairgrounds. Want to go?”

  Malin felt her body quake, blew out a soundless laugh and began to sift through a hundred reasons why she shouldn’t. “I’m behind with my reports, Matt, and Fowler will throw a wobbly if I don’t get them done. He insists on no more than two REM cycles or I’ll forget all the finer details.”

  “Captain Fowler... There’s a man who likes the limelight. There’s a rumor circulating about him and Ms. Danes. Even the media might pick up on it.”

  Malin knew how close Matt had been to Jennifer Danes of the Journal. A hit and miss type of dating that ended up in tears. Her tears. It would only take a slight nudge to persuade Jennifer to take a few incriminating photos at Fowler’s expense if it meant getting Matt back. She wondered why Matt had dropped her name into the conversation.

  “They shouldn’t be poking their lenses in his car windows, Matt,” she teased. “There are privacy laws, you know.”

  “He consumed a large macchiato with extra cream and blueberry pancakes this morning. She had a black coffee and half a grapefruit. Hannah and Nates. Seven fifteen.”

  “You were there?”

  “It was a drive-by,” Matt said. “I was on my way to work.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to come? I could rip through a fast shower and wear my denim cutoffs. I’ve got really good legs.”

  “I don’t doubt it, Matt.”

  Malin had the sudden image of white legs that looked like they’d been scrubbed down with bleach. Legs that rarely saw the sun, well-defined at the thigh and skinny at the calf. Matt wasn’t what she would describe as muscular. More wiry with a tendency towards thin. But they shared a connection. The same sense of the ridiculous and the conspicuous fact they were both single. There was only one possible explanation for him asking her out. He was in love.

  Hooray, she told herself. But somehow it didn’t feel like hooray. Matt was a step up from the last fiasco. Not as good-looking perhaps but not without charisma. So why did she feel uncomfortable? Was it the possibility that Jennifer Danes might want Matt back? Would she make one last ditch effort to turn his head? The obvious reason for the discomfort was because Malin was jealous.

  But she was getting ahead of herself. Right now, she could rank the possibility of dating Matt possible. Even probable.

  “Let me bring you a box,” he said, slicing through her thoughts. “How’s that?”

  She shifted her eyes over to the parking lot and saw Temeke had left. “Alright then. But only one.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  Flynn sat astride the bike at the intersection of Florence and Route
66 waiting for the light to turn green. There was a white van in front with the logo of a camera on the back door and underneath the words Get Your Pix On Route 66. Brake lights flashed and engines revved for a light change. Where the hell was all this traffic coming from?

  The average person might think running away is easy, that dodging undercover cops in a busy city’s a cinch. Especially on a motorbike with a powerful boxer engine and well over one hundred and twenty horse-power.

  The average person would be wrong.

  Costing less than a quarter of what it was worth, Flynn knew the bike was stolen. He wasn’t safe from speed enforcement measuring vehicles through a Lidar gun, nor could he assume the interest shown by the sheriff in Holbrook was anything but casual. He could feel someone’s gaze on him, passengers straining to get a good look at what all the fuss was about. As the light turned green, he heard the whoop of a siren before he saw the unit, four cars behind and purring to a stop. A Challenger with a big-bore engine, impossible to outrun on the straight, unless Flynn wound through a line of idling cars and down a side street. The idea was looking more appealing by the minute.

  He drifted in behind the van as it turned right onto Florence, taking the first left onto Barbara before coming to a stop outside a residence with a blue painted door. Flynn checked his rear-view mirrors and saw the unit about seventy feet behind firing over the intersection before skidding to a stop. Then it began to reverse and spin.

  Sonofabitch.

  He overtook the van and swung a right at the end of the road, houses moving so fast he couldn’t process where he was going. Blasting to the end of the street, he curved hard right as he followed the road about half a mile seeing only parked cars on either side. He could hear the wail of sirens behind him as he decelerated before a second corner. This time to the left.