Blood Ties

by Nicholas Guild

  As he waited for the water to boil, his cell phone rang. For an instant of wild hope he thought it might be Ellen. In spite of everything he had said and believed about the dangers, he wanted it to be Ellen.

  But it wasn’t. The screen displayed Eugenia Lockwood’s phone number.

  “Did you watch the news? How does it feel to have a celebrity in the family?”

  “Hi, Dad.”

  “Did you see it?”

  “I saw it.” Tregear searched for something else to say. “They only credited you with four. They’re not sure about the one at the Marriott.”

  “I noticed that. You can tell them from me that the score so far is five, plus the doctor. I killed the whore too.”

  “I’ll pass it along. I’m sure they’ll be grateful for the correction.”

  “You should have been there, son. She complained that the front sight hurt her asshole.”

  “I can’t say I’m sorry I missed it, Dad.”

  “That’s because you have an underdeveloped sense of humor.”

  Tregear could feel his heart pounding. He noticed that the tea kettle was boiling furiously and he pulled the plug out of the wall socket. He was grateful for that little distraction. It helped him find his voice again.

  “Could be.”

  Apparently Walter didn’t like that answer, because there was a silence that probably lasted ten or twelve seconds. Tregear could hear traffic sounds in the background, just loud enough to suggest that his father was out of doors somewhere.

  “You can tell them something else from me,” Walter said finally. “You can tell them that I’ve decided to raise the stakes.”

  Then Tregear found himself listening to a dial tone.

  * * *

  At seven-thirty that evening, Tregear phoned Homicide. He expected merely to leave a message but apparently Sam was still in the building and he was put through directly.

  “Hello, Steve—what have you got for me?”

  “I had a call from Walter. You can move the Marriott hooker into the ‘confirmed’ column. He told me all about it.”

  “Give credit where credit is due?”

  “That’s about right.”

  “Anything else?”

  “He says he’s decided to ‘raise the stakes.’ Those were his words.”

  “Any idea what he means?”

  “Yes. It’s not anything you’ll have trouble guessing.”

  “More dead bodies?”

  “That’s the prevailing currency.”

  There was a brief interruption, during which Tregear could hear Sam complaining to someone who had not renewed the coffee urn. Then he came back with another question.

  “Can you come in tomorrow morning?”

  “What for?”

  “To make Ellie happy, and to talk to me.”

  “What time?”

  “Early.”

  * * *

  Ellen was at her desk by 7:00 A.M. Within forty-five minutes she had the technical people hooking up communications equipment in a couple of unused waiting rooms, and she had a squad of recent police academy graduates, rescued from traffic duty, to man the phones.

  When Sam came in, at a quarter to eight, he rewarded her with a chocolate-covered doughnut and a gigantic paper cup of Starbucks Caffè Misto.

  “I’ve sworn off the house brew,” he said. “When we catch him, I’ll use it to poison Walter. He’ll die by lethal ingestion.”

  He paused, clearly waiting for some appreciative response to his joke, but Ellen’s attention was elsewhere.

  “What am I supposed to do with that?” She made a disparaging little gesture toward the doughnut. “Doughnuts are bad for you. Have you ever seen me eat a doughnut?”

  “Doughnuts are part of the police subculture, but if you don’t want it you can always give it to Tregear. He could use the calories.”

  The phone rang. Sam picked up the receiver, listened for a few seconds and said, “Yeah. Send him up.” His smile was catlike.

  “Guess who.”

  For a moment Ellen didn’t say anything. She seemed to be trying to make up her mind about whether or not she should be angry.

  “What’s he doing here, Sam?”

  “He’s here by invitation. Mine.”

  The elevator at the opposite end of the hallway made a loud pinging noise.

  “That’s him,” Sam announced. “I’m going to have a talk with him—you know, get his perspective on how things are developing—and then you might want to find a nice, quiet interrogation room where you can take his statement. If you feel like it, you can arrest him as a material witness. I don’t suppose he’ll mind.”

  They saw him first through one of the plate glass windows that ran along the whole inside wall of the duty room. He was wearing the same tan Windbreaker he’d worn in the film taken the morning Sally Wilkes had been found. When he saw Ellen, he smiled.

  “Mr. Tregear. Such a pleasure.”

  Sam stood up and offered his hand, which Tregear accepted without taking his eyes from Ellen’s face.

  “Let’s find somewhere we can talk.”

  That turned out to be the lieutenant’s office. Hempel was attending a conference at city hall, agreeing with everything the mayor said, and wouldn’t be showing his face until after lunch. Sam sat down behind the desk.

  “Why don’t you begin by filling Inspector Ridley in about last night’s conversation with Walter?”

  Tregear and Ellen were sitting in the two visitors’ chairs, and Ellen flashed him a look of instantly suppressed astonishment.

  “He surprised me,” Tregear said, clearly offering an apology. “I wasn’t able to record the call, so I phoned Sam. Pardon me—Inspector Sergeant Tyler. I wrote out a transcript, as near as I can remember.”

  He fished a sheet of paper, folded in thirds, from an inside pocket and put it on the desk.

  “I’ve set up my equipment so that all future calls to my cell will copy to a sound file.”

  “So what did he say?” Ellen asked, not even glancing at the folded transcript.

  “It’s all there.” Tregear nodded toward the desk. “You can read it.”

  Sam picked up the paper, opened it and handed it to Ellen. She read it through without apparent reaction, then handed it back to Sam.

  “What did I tell you?” she asked, as if the two of them were alone in the room. “We’ve hurt his feelings, so he’s going to punish us. He’s going to ‘raise the stakes,’ which means he’s going to go from killing people we don’t know to killing people we do.”

  “Maybe he’ll shoot the mayor,” Sam answered, smiling faintly.

  “He isn’t mad at the mayor, Sam. The mayor didn’t put his picture up on TV. He’s mad at us.”

  Sam glanced at Tregear, who merely shrugged—he wasn’t disagreeing.

  “Which means he’s mad at you, Sam,” Ellen went on, still ignoring Tregear’s presence. “And probably Mary Plant, since he’ll have figured out that she gave us his face, but mainly you.”

  The perfect host, Sam turned his attention to Tregear.

  “What do you think?” he asked, giving the impression that he found all this just a touch absurd. “Should I start coming to work in a Kevlar vest?”

  “I think she’s probably right,” Tregear answered. Then he looked at Ellen and smiled.

  “This is all about him,” he went on. “Your motives and feelings don’t mean anything to him. He’s like a child who isn’t getting his way. He’ll hit back.”

  “And he’ll probably try for you at home,” Ellen put in. The idea had just formed in her mind. “He can’t get at you here, but he won’t have any trouble finding out where you live. You should get Millie out of the house.”

  Still amused, Sam turned to Tregear.

  “Millie is Mrs. Tyler,” he announced, as if he thought the question might have been preying on Tregear’s mind.

  Tregear nodded. “It’s good advice,” he said.

  “Why did he phone you?�
�� Ellen asked, relenting a little. “Did he think you wouldn’t tell us?”

  “No, he knows I’ll convey the message.” Tregear made a despairing little gesture with his left hand. “It’s part of the act—his little pantomime. He’s playing Dear Old Dad. He’ll kill me first chance he gets and he’s knows I know it, but he likes to play the role.”

  “But…” Sam seemed at a loss. “He is your father.”

  “So what?”

  “So he’d really kill you?”

  “Yes. I think that’s what this is all about. For some reason of his own, he needs my death.”

  “Why would that be?” It was Ellen who asked the question. “Because you’ve been hunting him?”

  “I don’t think so. Five years ago, even five months ago, I might have said yes. I might have flattered myself that he was afraid of me.”

  “Why shouldn’t he be afraid of you?” Ellen leaned toward him. “He said as much himself yesterday morning. ‘You’re the one I’m afraid of.’ And he’s right. If we’d done it your way in Half Moon Bay, he’d be dead or in jail right now.”

  “You’ll never put him in a cell. He won’t ever just surrender. And I don’t think he’s afraid of death. He’s leaving a trail of evidence the Brownies could follow. He wants a showdown, but it isn’t out of fear.”

  “Then why?”

  “Maybe to get even.” Tregear could only shrug, perhaps to suggest his own doubts about the theory. “I got away from him. Twice. Three times, if you count running away when I was twelve. Maybe he just wants to prove that I’m not smarter than he is.”

  * * *

  When he was alone, after Ellie had dragged Tregear off somewhere, Sam kept thinking about retirement. He had been a cop for twenty-four years, an inspector for nineteen, on Homicide for fourteen. If he wanted to, he could start cashing his pension checks next month.

  But did he want to? He wasn’t sure. Aside from a stint in the Marines, being a cop was almost the only job he had ever had. What else was there for him to do? He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life surf fishing.

  But was Homicide any better? About once a month it occurred to him that he was bored with murders. The average murderer was some dunce who just about caught himself. Then there were the drug killings, which were rarely solved, but which didn’t matter because that particular crime almost counted as a public service. And finally there were cases like this one, real mysteries. But what kind of a job was it in which finding a corpse in the trunk of someone’s car constituted a refreshing break from the routine?

  And now Ellen was telling him that his life might be in danger.

  But it did occur to him that he might as well follow her advice and send Millie down to her sister’s in Palo Alto, just until Walter was off the streets.

  * * *

  But strictly speaking Walter wasn’t on the streets. He was at the public library, trying to figure out how the computer worked.

  Eventually he stumbled on the Search function and then things got easier. When he typed in “Samuel Tyler” he was rewarded with a long list of references, most of them newspaper articles about criminal cases. He learned that twenty years previous then Patrolman Tyler had received a departmental commendation for saving a three-year-old girl from a fire. Upon promotion to inspector, he had worked in Vice and then Robbery for five years before reaching Homicide. His list of arrests was impressive. He had a wife named Mildred and a married daughter who lived in Bakersfield. The daughter’s wedding had been held at St. Andrew’s Catholic Church in Daly City.

  A search of the Daly City phone book revealed a “Tyler, Mildred” living at 441 Belhaven Avenue.

  That was easy.

  29

  Tregear left Homicide a few minutes before eleven. They couldn’t even have lunch in the diner around the corner because he didn’t want to risk being seen with Ellen. But at least they had had a few hours together, a little interval in which to feel human.

  And then it was back to work.

  Ellen sat at her desk with the evidence reports from the Lockwood crime scene. They made an eight-inch-high stack of manila folders. She was a third of the way through it before she found the parking ticket discovered by Officer Ludlow, Timothy J. She brought the DMV link up on her screen and typed in the plate number.

  Wait a minute. The ticket described a gray Kia, but the plates belonged on a white Ford. The Ford was registered to a Stanley Eco of 221 Winding Road in Belmont. It would be interesting to know where Mr. Eco thought his car was. Ellen dialed the phone number.

  A woman answered. “Hello?”

  “Is this the Eco residence?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Inspector Ridley from the San Francisco Police Department. Could I speak to Mr. Eco, please?”

  “He’s at work. This is Mrs. Eco.” By then a thread of anxiety had found its way into her voice. “Can I help you?”

  “I hope so, ma’am. We’re looking into a possible grand theft auto of a gray Kia, license plate number 6AOB291. Have you or your husband reported such a car lost or stolen recently?”

  “That’s the number on my husband’s car—but it’s white, it isn’t gray.”

  “Where is the car now, ma’am?”

  “It’s in the garage, where it’s supposed to be,” Mrs. Eco almost shouted. “What is this all about?”

  “There’s nothing to be worried about, ma’am. But I will need to verify that the car is in your possession. Could you arrange to be home for the next few hours?”

  “Well … I suppose so.”

  “And, please, don’t touch the car.”

  As soon as she was finished with Mrs. Eco, Ellen phoned Evidence and gave them the address.

  “I’ve got a lead on Walter’s car,” she told Sam. “He switched the plates.”

  Two minutes later she was in her Toyota, leaving the police garage.

  Traffic was light and Ellen was in Belmont in a little over forty-five minutes. She drove up Ralston Avenue and found the Eco house in a tangle of streets west of the Alameda de las Pulgas. It was a beige two-bedroom tract house, probably built right after the Second World War. It was clinging to the down slope of a hill, so the driveway was quite steep.

  The door was answered by a fiftyish woman with unconvincingly black hair. She looked up at the street, where Ellen had parked, and seemed relieved not to see a squad car.

  Ellen held up her badge for Mrs. Eco’s inspection.

  “I suppose you’d better come in,” was all the invitation she received.

  The front door opened directly into a living room that was no more than about twelve by twenty. On the far side there was a wooden table and chairs and a china cabinet to demarcate it as the dining area. The inside of the house was oppressively hot, as if no one ever opened a window.

  Mrs. Eco had not asked her to sit down.

  “Ma’am, as I told you over the phone, I’m with the San Francisco Police Department.” Ellen smiled thinly. She was taking her revenge. “I have no jurisdiction in Belmont, so if you would rather deal with the local police I can have them here in ten minutes.”

  “Oh, no! I … Please.” Mrs. Eco turned her face slightly away and seemed to draw some spiritual comfort from contemplating her fireplace. “I’m sure…”

  “Then I wonder if I might look at the car.”

  Ellen phrased it as the most distant surmise, which was her way of relenting.

  The garage was accessible through the kitchen and had space for two cars. The white one was on the left. There were three wooden steps down to the cement floor, and Mrs. Eco stood on the landing and pushed a button just to her right that lifted up the door to the outside.

  “Those aren’t Stan’s plates,” she said, standing with Ellen behind the car. “How could that have happened?”

  “Mrs. Eco, how does your husband normally get to work?”

  “By train. I drive him down to the station in the morning. He works in the city.”

  “So the car is usu
ally in your garage?”

  “Yes.” Mrs. Eco nodded sharply—but only once, as if a doubt had begun to creep into her mind. “Except when he travels. He’s a compliance officer for Bank of America, and they send him all over the place, even up to Seattle. Most of the time he flies, but sometimes he drives.”

  “Has the car been away from home over the past week?”

  “Yes. Stan flew to San Diego. He drove to the airport and left the car in long-term parking. He just got back Wednesday.”

  “How long was he gone?”

  “Four days.”

  “Then that’s probably when the plates were switched.”

  Ellen looked up the driveway to the street, where an unmarked panel truck had pulled up behind her car. The doors popped open and two men in coveralls came out, each carrying a dark brown canvas satchel.

  The boys of Evidence had arrived.

  “I want prints, front and back of the car,” she told them. “And print Mrs. Eco here. Her husband works for a bank, so his will be on file. And I want the plates.”

  She turned to Mrs. Eco, who looked aghast, and smiled.

  “One of these gentlemen will take your fingerprints.” While she was talking, she brought out her notepad and jotted down the license number. “Don’t worry. The ink rubs right off and it’s only for purposes of elimination. Your husband’s prints and yours are going to be all over this car, and we just need to know what we’re looking at.”

  “But the plates…” Mrs. Eco’s voice was pitched somewhere between outrage and pleading. “We can’t drive the car if it doesn’t have any plates.”

  “They’re evidence in a felony investigation. I’ll have the DMV send you a new set. I’ll tell them to put a rush on it.”

  Using the laptop in the Evidence truck, Ellen fed the license number into the department database. The car was not listed as stolen, so the odds were the owner had put it in the long-term parking lot at the airport, the same place the Eco car had been parked, and hadn’t yet come back to discover his loss. A check of the DMV site listed a 2009 Kia, color gray, plate number 2FLN211, as registered to a Chester Mowry, 2504 Middlefield Road in Berkeley.

  She phoned Sam.

  “Have you got any friends in the Berkeley PD?”

  “Sure. What’s up, girl?”