One Through the Heart

by Kirk Russell

  ‘I’ll be there.’

  ‘Do you want to be the one to tell them they might get dirty-bombed because of the Indian Wars of the nineteenth century?’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to steal your thunder.’

  ‘Then maybe you can explain the western expansion.’

  ‘Don’t worry about any of that. The TV networks will come up with experts within half an hour,’ Raveneau said.

  ‘And what if this is some big hoax?’

  ‘Then they’ll never forget you.’

  ‘That’s what I’m thinking,’ Coe replied. ‘We’ve got agents at food processing plants and at businesses where they deal with medical radiological devices and we’ve narrowed it to a list of twenty-five in California, but I get the feeling we’re not going to get anything from that list. We put out these warrants and do the press conference and then they come out of hiding and get in front of the cameras and explain that they never were going to hurt anybody and it’s all about focusing attention on the plight of the Native American and a broken reservation system that stripped the tribes of their dignity and purpose.’

  ‘She hit right at a truth,’ Raveneau said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Coryell.’

  ‘You’re funny about her. Are you going to go to the boundary place? I bet if you go there you get out of this heat and wind.’

  ‘Some stuff doesn’t stay buried. You said “true believer” earlier talking about me. I think that’s what we’ve got in Alan Siles. He’s a true believer and he took the name of a dead man.’

  ‘That’s just identity theft, and I don’t trust much about this Lindsley. I see an act. Nothing about him is fixed. He’s completely liquid. We caught a serial killer in Iowa that we chased for seven years. He was working three jobs, one as bartender, completely garrulous, easy-going, one as a building manager, monosyllabic, hostile, vindictive, and a third as a volunteer school crossing guard. Not quite volunteer. He got a little stipend and kids and the parents loved him. Gentle, watchful, you know, keep an eye on the kids while the parent ran an errand. Same guy. Lindsley reminds me of him.’

  Coe shook his head and stood. ‘You ready to go?’ he asked.

  ‘Not yet. What about Ike Latkos and the other federal agency?’

  ‘She did work for a US agency and the operation was successful, but it was awhile ago and they’re not with him – her now – anymore. Not an issue.’

  Raveneau took another drink of iced coffee and then slid the cup into the trash. Coe expected him to go back up to the Field Office with him but Raveneau shook his head.

  ‘I need to go see an old friend who may be able to help with all this. I’ll call you later.’

  THIRTY

  Hugh Neilley lived across the street from John McLaren Park in the two-story, three-bedroom house his parents left him. Several of his neighbors had known Hugh most of his life. Raveneau’s guess was they saw Hugh as an outgoing man, generous with his time and protective of the neighborhood. Once a week he took an elderly neighbor to buy groceries, as he had for more than a decade.

  But in many ways he was a complicated and private man. When his marriage ended, Donna, his ex, told Raveneau she didn’t know if it was the drinking, the sarcasm, or both, but she was done. She quit on a cold December night when Hugh’s brother officers gave him yet another ride home after a night out and Hugh hadn’t spoken a word to her since.

  Hugh believed it a mark of masculinity that he could turn his back on anyone who crossed him or he fell out with, even Donna. Some went from being the best people in the world to being the worst and as Raveneau knocked on Hugh’s door he knew he and Hugh were on that path.

  ‘I’m not even going to ask why you’re here, but come on upstairs.’ When they got upstairs Raveneau followed him into the kitchen. ‘What’s on the great homicide inspector’s mind tonight?’

  ‘Ferranti told me you bought the job. He had some other things to say that I want to ask you about as well, but that’s not why I’m here. I think you know why I’m here.’

  ‘Make yourself at home.’

  Raveneau pulled out a bar stool at the island and sat as Hugh stood across from him, palms pressed down on the tiled surface, face reddening as he launched into Ferranti.

  ‘Fuck him and his three hundred dollar jeans and Hollywood haircut. He’s all over me now that Matt’s not there. He beat me down on price, whined, wheedled, and whittled me down until he got what he wanted. You can bet he’s charging the owner twice as much. That’s how guys like him operate.’

  ‘He told me a laborer claims two loads of debris you were hauling away got dumped off a slope on Skyline Boulevard.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, this laborer knows how we operate or was it the guy Matt had to fire that came up with the story later? Ferranti is also telling me my hauling tags are fraudulent and some other bullshit that’s going to let him keep my money when we’re finished. Can you imagine me doing that?’

  ‘You don’t drive the truck.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about this.’

  ‘Did Matt dump loads off the side of a road?’

  ‘If he did, I’m ruined.’

  ‘Is Ferranti lying about the dump tags being forged?’

  ‘I’ve got to ask, are you a homicide inspector or a building inspector? Which is it? It’s not clear to me.’

  ‘I’ve got someone who says he was in the bomb shelter a month before the start of construction, and that this UNSUB the FBI is looking for, Alan Siles, expected the skulls to get found as the construction work started. So I’m more interested than ever in how everything went down, what Matt took from there, the delay calling us, illegal dumping, everything. Where are the things Matt took out of the fallout shelter that were going to make their way back to me and haven’t?’

  ‘They’re here and you’ll leave with them.’ Raveneau saw questioning and uncertainty enter Hugh’s eyes. ‘I planned to bring them to you tomorrow. They’re not coming from Matt because I asked him to leave them behind when he moved out of here. As soon as he got out on bail I let him know he didn’t live here anymore and he was through working for me.’

  ‘Stop right there, how long have you known he took these things from the bomb shelter? Did you lie to me before?’

  ‘No, I didn’t lie. I didn’t find out until after you confronted him. He confessed to me as part of a bullshit apology. I don’t want to talk about him anymore and you’ll leave with the things he took.’

  Hugh turned around and opened the cabinet. He pushed several things aside, bottles and cans clinking and then turned around with a container and without a word slid it across to Raveneau. The label read ‘Blue Diamond Almonds’ and below that the word ‘Bold’ and, underneath that, ‘Blazin’ Buffalo Wing.’

  ‘Open it up,’ Hugh said.

  ‘Hand me a bowl.’

  Raveneau emptied the contents into a bowl and two gold rings, both with jewels on them, slid in among the almonds. So did a necklace with an onyx-eyed silver eagle.

  ‘This is not what he said would be here. He told me one ring was gold with carvings on it and one was silver with a turquoise stone, and there should be a locket.’

  ‘He lied to you to fuck with you. That’s him. That’s my nephew. There was a knife but he sold it.’

  Raveneau stared at the jewelry but didn’t touch any of it yet as he debated his options. He didn’t have many.

  ‘There you go, Ben, now you’ve got what you need to solve the case. Take them to Coryell’s mother and maybe she’ll recognize them. Good luck with it and I’m sorry Matt took them, but that’s the last apology I’ll make for him. So don’t look for anymore. If he dumped loads I’ll pay my fines.’ He tapped his chest with a forefinger. ‘I’ve made a lot of mistakes, an awful lot of mistakes, but I really don’t need you reminding me. Anything else before you leave?’

  ‘I want to keep talking.’

  ‘You want to keep prodding and probing, so I’m going to keep drinking. Do you want one?�
�

  ‘No.’

  ‘I don’t have any wine anyway.’ Hugh pushed a glass up against the refrigerator ice maker, his back to Raveneau as ice clacked into the glass. He poured from a bourbon bottle and Raveneau listened to liquor flow over the ice and Hugh say, ‘Ben. Ben. You may be sorry where all this goes.’

  ‘Where what goes?’

  ‘You’re putting pressure on me. I needed you to help me keep Matt out there. I needed you to help me get him out of jail and keep him working. I needed you to tell the contractor you’ve known me forever and I’m a straight shooter, not to cozy up to him so he’d open up that tiny little suspicious mind of his and share his dark theories with you. I needed you to just sit tight on the things Matt stole until I had the situation in hand. Now you’re going to ring them into evidence and the smirking bastard there who checks them in is going to have a new story to tell. The only thing you’ve really done to help me is to tell me straight up to step away from my nephew and let him stand on his feet as a man. I listened to you on that.’

  He took a long drink as he turned around then put the glass down on the island. ‘I followed your advice on a lot of things over the years and you used to never give it until I asked for it. I always admired that. Mattie’s the last of my family and that’s it. He’ll break from me now and maybe he’ll straighten out and marry someone who helps keep him in the right direction and the family will rebuild through their children. But I won’t be part of it. He and I have parted and that’s the end of something very important to me. No more family.

  ‘Now Ferranti, Ferranti is going to sue me for fraud. He’s hired a fucking lawyer and filed a complaint with the city and police department. Matt dumped two loads. I didn’t know that before. I know it now and I don’t know how I’ll pay for the clean-up or the fines or keep my license and the business going. My last ten years have been one downward spiral. I’m inside ninety days to retirement and I’m not going to have the money to pay my bills and keep going. I’m trapped. I have nowhere to go.’ He drained the rest of the glass, turned and refilled it, then opened a drawer Raveneau knew held a pistol.

  ‘Shut the drawer.’

  ‘Just hang on here a minute; nothing is going to happen to you, old buddy.’

  Hugh pulled his hand back but left the drawer open and took a long swallow. When Raveneau started to move around the island, Hugh wagged a finger and said, ‘No. Stay there and listen to me. Matt is my nephew. He’s got my sister’s blood, but it’s my honor he’s taking down too. There’s not going to be anything left for me when this is over. San Francisco will file a criminal complaint over the forged dump tags and I got a call an hour ago from a Chronicle reporter. That newspaper is so thin you can’t see it when you turn it sideways, but this guy writes for the online version and he wants a scoop. He wants a quote from the career police officer before he’s charged with dumping construction debris in the sacred watershed and trying to cover it up.’

  He rattled the ice in the glass as he swirled the bourbon.

  ‘I’m in a bad hole. I’ve fallen. The pedophile bastard of a priest where I go to church loves to say we’re all fallen. He’ll be delighted to hear this story. It’ll make his fucking day. But I have fallen and there is no way to get back from here.’

  He reached quickly, pulled the gun, brought it to his right temple, held it a moment and then lowered it, though not all the way and the barrel wasn’t quite resting on the tile. The nose was up just slightly and turned a little more Raveneau’s direction. Raveneau looked at it but didn’t move yet.

  ‘That’s what I should do. That’s probably what I will do, but I’m going to let it all play out first. I’m in a very bad space where anything could happen, anything at all, Ben. I think you should avoid me because I feel like you’ve betrayed me. You’re circling me. You’re asking questions that suggest you think I was a drunk and a fool and Lash used me or worse I helped him. I honestly don’t know what I’m capable of right now. Why don’t you take the jewelry and leave? You’re making progress. Take the jewelry to that bitter old woman and let her rub her hard fingers over the silver and tell you how the drunk homicide inspector failed her daughter.

  ‘But hurry, because right behind that one is a new cold case, perhaps one that has sat fifty years. But a rag in someone’s attic with DNA on it might let you solve it. You’ll get another one before you’re done. Get out of my house because you’ve got what you came for and this is not a good place for you to be. I hope this jewelry helps you and too bad you can’t solve them all before they nail the coffin shut on your career. Too bad about that, Ben. Too bad you’re running out of time and cases. Too bad you missed that phone call from Coryell. You might have saved her life and you wouldn’t have to do all this.’

  ‘Let me have the gun.’

  It was another twenty minutes before he did, and Raveneau called Hugh’s doctor and his ex-wife. Donna got there first and led Hugh into the front room. He heard them talking and at one point Hugh sobbed. When the doctor arrived Raveneau let him in and as the doctor went up the stairs Raveneau left. He took the rings and the necklace with him after sliding them into an evidence bag. He didn’t know how close Hugh came to pulling the trigger. He wasn’t sure yet what had really happened, but he was sure that if he stayed he’d be asking Hugh questions and there would be a better time later. This was by no means over.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Raveneau headed to Toasts, or rather M33, to meet Celeste. Wind or not, the warm weather brought people out tonight. Margaritas were selling. So were rum drinks, and there were people at all six sidewalk tables despite gusts that lifted litter from the gutter and sent it spiraling overhead. He watched a young woman’s hair wrapped around her head by the wind.

  ‘I’ll be awhile,’ Celeste said. ‘At least half an hour, maybe an hour. It’s been crazy since around five o’clock.’ She plated a salad and wiped away a drip along the edge of the plate.

  Raveneau saw a table clearing outside. He pointed. ‘I’ll be out there.’

  He took a glass of wine out with him. He sat with his back to the wind, and if the wind were cold it wouldn’t even be worth the try. But warm fall wind was a Bay Area phenomena – the heated valley air from the dry north kept the cooler moist marine air offshore. He rode out the gusts as others gave up and went inside. He had the wine and a chance to think and then a text from Brandon Lindsley: ‘Paranoid. Meet you later?’

  ‘You home or in the city?’ Raveneau replied.

  ‘City. Under surveillance and freaking.’

  ‘What did you expect?’

  Raveneau took another swallow and a waitress came out and put a small pizza down in front of him, explaining Celeste sent it. She asked if he wanted another glass of wine and he shook his head. He typed, ‘Why r u paranoid?’ When there was no answer he laid the phone on the table. As soon as he did, it lit up.

  ‘The wind. Want to meet?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Raveneau rested his phone on the table ticking through once more what they knew. They knew the caskets weren’t uncovered by the Mississippi floods until last spring, 2011. The skulls came from those caskets and were moved across the country and into the bomb shelter after the Mississippi flooding, and they knew the house was unoccupied from the time Lash moved out. Escrow closed before the flooding. The new owners’ house plans ground slowly through the approval process. Which left a window of time and it probably happened as Lindsley described, though who knows what his real role was.

  Lash wasn’t there for any of that. Once again, the good professor was exonerated though somehow Lindsley was the link. It was also possible the compulsive Lash wrote something in the mythical diary. They needed those diaries, if they existed. He picked up his phone, looked at the texts from Lindsley as another came in: ‘This is the wind.’

  ‘OK. What do we do?’

  ‘where r u?’ Lindsley replied.

  ‘Is it tonight?’

  ‘don’t know.’

  ‘think
u do,’ Raveneau sent. He waited and when there was no response laid his phone down on the table again and picked up the wine. He ate a bite of pizza and his phone buzzed.

  ‘meet me now?’

  Raveneau followed his gut. He didn’t respond. Not long after he got a call from Coe.

  ‘We’ve been texting,’ Raveneau said. ‘He wants me to come get him and go drinking. I could do that. Are you on him?’

  ‘We’re all over him and we’re reading your messages. He’s back in his apartment with the lights off, but he’s at the window every few minutes. I guess he doesn’t know about our thermal gadgetry.’

  ‘I don’t either, and what don’t you wiretap?’

  ‘Good question. I think we’ve got it all covered now.’

  ‘He’s talking wind and radiation and wind dispersal but I’m starting to think he doesn’t know what’s going to happen, just that it is. He’s guessing. Not too many years ago he was a grad student in history and now he might be wrapped up in something that could put him behind bars for the rest of his life and he is scared.

  ‘So maybe an FBI team ought to grill him tonight rather than me drink with him. Go upstairs, knock hard on his door and make it feel like it’s now or never for him. He warned about wind. The wind has arrived and that’s enough reason to question him. I’ll meet you there.’

  ‘I’ll call you back.’

  Raveneau ate the pizza and when Celeste came out they moved inside and took a table in the corner. The crowd thinned. They talked and ate and then Coe called. They were already on the way to the San Francisco Field Office with Lindsley in the back seat, one FBI vehicle in front, one behind.

  ‘It probably felt like a rendition to him,’ Coe said. ‘He jumped about five feet when we came in. We took him out like a suspect.’