Earthquake Games

by Bonnie Ramthun

  He’d put the book down when she awoke and showered with her. He’d kissed her and gone off to work at the same time as she. He came and went as he pleased. Just as long as he produced miracles every game time. Which, he allowed modestly, was never a problem.

  “Why am I not crazy?” she asked Rosen, after taking a sip from her latte.

  “Because there was hair and traces of blood on the sidewalk where the skull of your ‘man-in-black’ bounced after you shot him,” answered Rosen. “Because we didn’t find a bullet.”

  “My ‘man-in-black’?”

  “Harben’s idea,” Rosen said. “He’s been on the phone to Sheriff Gonzalez down in the San Luis Valley about the Lewis homicide. Evidently they’ve got a UFO frenzy going on.”

  “Men-in-black should be appearing in the valley, not up here,” Harben said. As usual, Eileen hadn’t seen him approach. “But since your mysterious gentleman appeared to be able to absorb a nine-millimeter bullet in the chest, I felt some humor was in order.”

  “At least I’m not crazy,” Eileen said in relief.

  “But you do appear to have attracted some attention,” Harben continued. “That was quite clearly a hit, and I’m quite sure it originated on Planet Earth. We checked your apartment but there were no signs of entry or explosive devices. I’d still prefer that you stayed away until we figure out what went on last night. Your neighbor, Maria, took your cat to her place. She says she takes care of her when you’re away.”

  Eileen nodded and took an enormous gulp of her cooling coffee. Explosive devices? “Okay,” she said weakly.

  “You and Rosen will work Leetsdale, also this side of the Lewis homicide. I’ve assigned Peter O’Brien to your case, Eileen. Try to put it out of your mind.” With that, Harben was gone.

  “Put it out of your mind,” Rosen said soberly as Harben disappeared into his office.

  “Ho, ho,” Eileen said heavily.

  “What about Joe?” Rosen asked. “Did he crack those files yet?”

  “Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you!” Eileen said. “He did. He put together a—”

  “Hold it,” Rosen said. “Let’s keep that thought until we’re in your Jeep.”

  “Where are we going?” Eileen asked.

  “No questions,” Rosen said. Eileen shrugged and recapped her latte.

  * * *

  “What’s up?” she asked crossly, as soon as they’d buckled into her Jeep. Rosen hadn’t said a word the whole way to the parking lot. This kind of silence was extreme, even for Rosen.

  “Let’s cruise up in Garden of the Gods,” he suggested. “It’s a nice day.”

  The Garden of the Gods was a spectacular natural rock formation in the midst of Colorado Springs. The rocks were sheer and vertical, hundreds of feet high and sometimes no more than a few feet apart. Their bright red color and the deep green of the trees and shrubs that surrounded them made for breathtaking views from any angle. The garden was crisscrossed with sandy trails, perfect for a run or a leisurely hike. It was a lovely place.

  The drive to the garden was only a few minutes. Rosen said nothing at all the whole time. Eileen stubbornly refused to try and make conversation. Rosen would talk when he was ready.

  The parking lot at the entrance to the park was nearly full. A couple of women with a flock of brightly clad children were struggling with two double strollers. They inserted babies and bottles into one and older children into the other and strode off with expressions of exasperation and triumph as Eileen pulled into an empty slot.

  The afternoon was hot and still as Eileen got out and closed her door. The air was full of the smell of pines and sun-warmed rock. In the distance, the chattering of the double-stroller moms was tiny and meaningless, like the conversation of geese.

  “Beautiful day,” Eileen said to Rosen. “Shall we walk? Does this mean you’ll talk, now?”

  Rosen’s eyes glittered. He tucked a water bottle into a pouch at his belt and gestured toward the first trail. Eileen sighed. Whatever.

  As soon as the trees closed in around them and the parking lot was gone, Rosen worked his big shoulders in a circle and took a swig from his water bottle.

  “Here’s the why for the cloak and dagger,” he said. “Who can take a nine-millimeter bullet in the chest?”

  “I don’t know,” Eileen said. “But I get the feeling you do.”

  “A cop can,” Rosen said grimly.

  There was silence. They continued walking. The stroller moms had taken another path and now there was nothing on the trail but themselves and a man with a dog, further ahead.

  “Kevlar vest?”

  “Something like that. That’s the worst option, is a cop. Here’s another one. Who else has Kevlar?”

  “The military,” Eileen said. The day was hot and she was sweating, but the sweat suddenly felt chilly on her forehead.

  “I’m not sleeping at my place tonight either,” Rosen said. “Harben and I had breakfast this morning. I’d gotten most of the way there, but he had more arguments than me.”

  “This has to do with the Leetsdale case,” Eileen said. “And the Lewis case.”

  “That’s what Harben thinks. Me, too. So here’s the next question, if supposition number one is true. What did you do that makes you worthy of a hit?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Eileen said.

  “You tied together Leetsdale and the Lewis girl,” Rosen said. “Water?”

  Eileen took the bottle and drank it gratefully. The late August sun felt like the height of summer. There was no wind and no thunderstorm clouds along the Front Range. This was a certain sign of a change in weather. By tomorrow there might be a solid bank of rain clouds to the west. Or it might snow a foot by midnight. Indian summer was unpredictable.

  “I found out something else, too,” she said. “Or at least, Joe did.” She explained the earthquake simulations in a few minutes. Rosen stood motionless, his face calm and remarkably unsweaty. When she explained about the New Madrid earthquake, Rosen shifted and blinked his eyes.

  “This is not good,” he said after she finished.

  “No, it isn’t,” Eileen said. “Though we found a couple of duds among the pictures Leetsdale stored. I think this one has to be a dud, too. We still don’t know why Leetsdale died. But how could anyone know what Joe’s discovered? How could they even know about Joe?”

  “Nobody knows about you and Joe but Harben and me,” Rosen said. “And Lucy Giometti.” This was true. Eileen, as discreet as a cat, didn’t discuss her lover with anyone in the department. Not even her friend Gary Hilyer knew Joe Tanner’s name. Hilyer, who’d been a reporter longer than Eileen had been alive, knew she had a lover. He’d tried mercilessly to find out who was putting that creamy, satisfied expression on her face, as he put it, but even he had been unsuccessful.

  They crested a mild rise on the trail, coming into an open space amongst the scrub oak. The rise held a breathtaking view of the spires of the garden. The man with a dog had paused here and was sitting on a bench with a sketchpad on his knee; his face turned dreamily to the view. Eileen looked at him suspiciously as she and Rosen walked by, but he didn’t move his head.

  “So it’s probably Lewis and Leetsdale, which sounds like a floorwax,” Eileen said. “If that’s true, then—”

  “Then your contact, Alan Baxter, might also be in danger,” Rosen said casually. “Harben got a hold of Gonzalez. Evidently Mr. Baxter is on his way up to see you, so he’ll be in town sometime tonight. We’ll talk to him then. What’s the matter?”

  Eileen stood still, her hands clenched together. The view from this vantage point, further down the slope from the dog man and his sketchpad, was still stunning. She saw nothing beautiful in it. She wanted to turn and run for her car, to find her father and make sure he was safe. And if she did so, she’d have to explain to Dave Rosen about the real Eileen Reed. The abandoned Eileen Reed, the adopted one, the one who was so worthless her own mother . . .

  She made a strangled sound i
n her throat. Rosen stood calmly, watching her. She cursed Teddy Shaw in her heart, cursed him for bringing her to Gerri Matthews, for breaking her eggshell of a life into a thousand pieces that couldn’t be brought back together again. She had to stop trying to paste all the ruined pieces into some sort of covering. The thought brought a certain relief, in the midst of roaring embarrassment.

  “Oh, shit,” she said, when she could get spit back into her mouth. She looked Rosen squarely in the face and met his undemanding eyes. “I have to tell you something.”

  “He’s related to you, isn’t he?” Rosen said immediately.

  Eileen burst into laughter. She covered her mouth with both hands, but the laughter kept coming. Rosen stood without smiling, waiting for her to stop. She felt sure that if she started weeping hysterically, he’d slap her with the same level demeanor. That more than anything caused her laughter to dry up to a stream of giggles.

  “Sorry,” she said finally, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes. “I just was all prepared to tell you this incredible secret, and—”

  “I saw his picture from the background report I did. He looks just like you,” Rosen said. “Is he your dad?”

  This, on top of everything else, was too much. Eileen held up her hand politely, then turned and stumbled behind the nearest shrub. There she threw up everything in her stomach, her latte, her breakfast cereal, what appeared to be last night’s pizza. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see a lunch from grade school.

  Finally, an endless time later, she sank back onto her heels and spat a couple of times to clear her mouth. Rosen nudged her elbow and handed her the water bottle. She rinsed her mouth and then drank gratefully. She handed the bottle back to him and scooped dry, reddish soil over her vomit.

  “Sorry,” she said, standing up.

  “It’s okay,” Rosen said, with a shrug of his shoulders. “We should go back, though. We need to make sure we get Mr. Baxter into safety as soon as he gets here.”

  “Let’s keep him Mr. Baxter to everyone but you, for now,” Eileen said. “I’m not ready for more than you.”

  “Well, Harben knows I think,” Rosen said. His dusky face suddenly looked darker, and Eileen realized he was flushing. This was a first. She looked at him curiously, then understood.

  “You were talking about me!” she accused him. He looked down and blinked rapidly and the flush increased. She laughed again, but this was her old Eileen laugh, a good one from the belly. “Gossiping like girls. What did you talk about?”

  “Nothing, except that Alan Baxter sure isn’t your dad from Wyoming. Harben met him, remember, when you got promoted to detective.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Eileen said, and felt a longing like a pain for her mom and dad. They’d been puffed up like spring mushrooms when she got her new badge and had insisted on taking her to dinner up in Denver at some fancy place in LoDo they’d discovered on one of their trips to the National Western Stock Show. The dinner was extravagant and enormously expensive, and she drank too much champagne and spent the whole trip home sleeping on her mom’s shoulder.

  “They’re my adopted parents,” she said sadly. “I never knew my dad. I thought he was dead, or something. My mom took me away and never told me how to find him before she died. It was a big weird coincidence that we met that way.”

  “Stuff like that happens sometimes,” Rosen said. His face had lost his unexpected flush. He held out the water bottle again and she took it and drank deeply. She handed it back and nodded without a word. The water was his version of a hug, a reassurance, and an entire conversation that they would never have about the subject of Eileen and her father. Rosen would never pry, never tell Peter O’Brien over a few beers at the pub about Eileen’s past.

  “Thanks,” she said, and knew she needed to say nothing else.

  “Let’s get back and find Mr. Baxter,” Rosen said, and turned to walk back up the trail.

  “Where are we going to take him?” Eileen thought to ask, after they passed the man with the dog. She could see the parking lot at the end of the trail ahead of them. The stroller moms’ van was still in the parking lot but many of the other cars had gone. The lunch crowd had gone back to work.

  “I think we should take him to Joe’s house,” Rosen said. “If you can handle it. I want to see Joe’s simulation. And nobody knows about Joe except us.”

  Eileen tried to shrug nonchalantly. She felt like an iron bar had just been driven side to side through her shoulder blades.

  “Great, I’ll just get this all over at once,” she muttered, and Rosen surprised her with what sounded suspiciously like a snort of laughter.

  16

  Briargate Subdivision, Colorado Springs, Colorado

  “Hey, Eileen, take a look at these—” Joe Tanner stopped abruptly. She wasn’t alone. There were two additional people on his pocket-sized porch. One of them he recognized; Dave Rosen, her partner. The other was a much older man, tall and white-haired and somehow familiar-looking.

  “Hi, Joe,” Eileen said. Her face was pale. When she was very tired or very stressed, he could see freckles scattered across her nose, remnants of a childhood spent outdoors.

  “Come on in,” Joe said. He dropped the books he had in his hands to his mail-collector table and put his arms around her as she stepped inside. She came into his arms woodenly, but she didn’t push away. He didn’t move from his doorway. She smelled of breath mints, which she usually scorned, and oldish Eileen-sweat. Something had happened today.

  “Can we come in, Joe?” Rosen asked. “Somebody tried to kill Eileen last night.” As usual, Rosen said a lot with very few words. The tall white-haired man flinched in surprise and his mouth dropped open.

  “What?” he said, too loudly. “You didn’t tell me!”

  “Let them in, Joe,” Eileen said, pushing away from his shoulder. She had spent only a second or two hugging him, but her color was back and the freckles were gone. Joe backed up, and in a few seconds Rosen had closed and locked the front door. Joe’s mind was still full of earthquakes and the Mississippi and the New Madrid fault line. He had trouble coming to grips with what Rosen had just said.

  “I was grilling brauts for supper,” he said stupidly. “Can we still do that?”

  Eileen laughed and the good color came back even further into her face.

  “We sure can,” she said. “Let’s go into the kitchen and break out some beer and we’ll all fill each other in.”

  “Somebody tried to kill you?” the white-haired man said. Eileen’s color was good but this man’s face was paling. Joe wondered, not for the first time, who the hell he was. Then what he was saying sank in.

  “Somebody tried to kill you?” he said, turning to Eileen.

  “Yeah, that’s one of the reasons we’re here,” she said, shrugging her shoulders as though the topic held little interest for her. “But first things first. We need to sit down and talk. Then eat, because I’m starving.”

  Joe led the little group to his kitchen. The table, a slab of oak, sat in what would be a breakfast nook in an ordinary person’s house. He’d paved one blank wall with shelves so that side was a solid mass of books. Two other sides of the nook faced into his mostly unused kitchen and the family room. Sliding glass doors led to his deck and a smallish backyard. His propane grill was on and smoking off the remains of the last thing he’d cooked. Joe believed a good grill scrubbing consisted of turning up the flame really high and waiting fifteen minutes. The smoke from the grill spiraled into the late afternoon air, hot and still as a held breath. There would be a change of weather later, he was sure of it.

  Tonight, he was planning to grill fat Polish brauts and smother them in sauerkraut and mustard. He’d also picked up some potato salad at the deli and some green salad ingredients that he hoped Eileen would want to assemble into something good. After days of pizza, he wanted to make it up to her. Luckily, he always bought his food in family packs. What he didn’t eat tonight he was planning to freeze for later. He’d be a
ble to feed his guests.

  “Beer?” he asked the strange man, opening the refrigerator. He fetched beer and brought out a bottle of distilled water for Rosen without asking. He still had the remains of the last six-pack Rosen had brought over. If Rosen hadn’t been Eileen’s partner, he supposed he could be friends with the man. But he was certain Rosen was secretly in love with Eileen. Joe couldn’t imagine any man failing to fall in love with Eileen. He handed the distilled water to Rosen and sat down with his own beer. The other man, still unnamed to him, sat down.

  Eileen took a healthy swig of her beer, eyes closed, as though she were taking medicine, and seated herself. Rosen opened his distilled water and headed toward Joe’s back deck.

  “I’ll check on the grill,” he said, and disappeared neatly out the door.

  “Okay, then,” Eileen said. She took Joe’s hand in her own and looked into his eyes. Her freckles suddenly stood out on her face again. “This is going to be the hardest part for me, so I’ll just get it out of the way. This is Alan Baxter, and he’s my father.”

  “But,” Joe said. He realized Eileen was gripping his hand far too hard.

  “I met him two days ago, and I’ve never seen him since I was three,” Eileen said. Her voice was small and husky and determined. “I was adopted when I was four and all I’ve ever wanted to be was my mom and dad’s child.”