by Joseph Flynn
Tall Wolf said, “You believe in the power of work to heal all wounds?”
“That’s about all I believe in,” Benjamin replied.
The BIA and the FBI approached the locals to remind them they all had jobs to do.
Under the direction of Sergeant Stanley, the Goldstrike PD stepped up the effort to find Helios “Sonny” Sideris. He hadn’t checked out of the Renaissance Hotel but a review of the security videos showed no sign of him on the premises since Tuesday morning. So he hadn’t returned to his room in over forty-eight hours.
He’d left a valid credit card number — Marjorie Fitzroy had checked that — on file with the hotel. So it wasn’t like he was trying to run out on his room charges; he was continuing to pile them up. Sideris had no criminal record so there was no reason for him not to check out like any normal guest would do.
Abra Benjamin and four of Goldstrike’s finest paid a visit to Sideris’ room.
Maybe he’d just kept to his room and was a real heavy sleeper.
Turned out, there was a Please Do Not Disturb card hanging from the doorknob of his room. A quick check with hotel housekeeping showed that the request had been honored. Had the card been left in place one more day, it would have been reported to management.
The assistant manager on duty offered to let Special Agent Benjamin into the room. She chose to call a federal judge in the district court and get a search warrant over the phone. The real possibility that Sideris might have delivered radioactive waste to a domestic terrorist persuaded the jurist that urgency was required.
Making the most of the moment, the FBI agent also asked for and received permission to search the safe deposit box Sideris had recently rented at Sierra National Bank.
Having obtained judicial permission to snoop, Benjamin and the cops entered Sonny Sideris’ hotel room. It was in serious need of tidying. Every drawer in the room’s dresser and desk sat on the floor. The bed’s box springs and mattress leaned against a wall. Light fixtures sat on the desktop. The room’s digital combination safe had been hit with a blunt object hard enough to pop its door open.
The bathtub, where Benjamin thought she might find a body, was empty.
The rest of the room was also free of human remains.
But somebody had been looking for something that Mr. Sideris had possessed.
The extent of the search suggested it might have been unsuccessful.
The jumble spoke of both determination and frustration.
Tall Wolf, being the sharing soul that he was, had told Benjamin whom he suspected had been working with Sideris. Almost made the FBI agent felt guilty about being so personally ambitious. Almost but not quite. A girl had to do what she had to do.
Especially after she’d let herself get knocked up.
She had the room sealed and left a cop to guard it.
Another review of the security videos would be needed. Someone had entered Sideris’ room to conduct the search. If the hotel’s door locks had been upgraded to protect against hacking, that would lead Benjamin to think the searcher had used Sideris’ key-card to gain access to his room.
If that was the case, it was a good bet Sonny-boy was dead.
Next up was the safe-deposit box at the bank.
Sergeant Stanley was orchestrating the larger search for their wanted man from police headquarters. Feeling a momentary impulse of collegiality, she called the sergeant and asked if he’d like to be on hand when she opened the box. He said he’d be at the bank in a flash.
Benjamin felt an immediate pang of regret.
Shared credit was diminished credit.
Damn that Tall Wolf, she thought.
Him and his subversive goody-two-shoes influence.
As long as she’d been suckered, though, Benjamin gave Sergeant Stanley the first look at what was in the safe-deposit box. His eyes widened and a look of avarice washed over them. He reached a latex-gloved hand into the box and brought out a shining object too big for him to close his fingers around. That didn’t stop him from trying, though.
The huge nugget of gold was something made to be grasped.
Wealth in its purest, rawest, most potent form.
The sergeant took a deep breath, restoring a measure of rational thought, and opened his hand to let Benjamin get a good look. The irregularities of the nugget, the shining crests and shadowed crevices, only made it more mesmerizing. The FBI agent was tempted to grab it.
But she didn’t want to start a scuffle.
So she looked at Sergeant Stanley and asked, “May I?”
He nodded, but when she took it from him there an expression of loss on his face.
“It’s heavy,” Benjamin said.
The heft of the nugget added to its allure.
Examining it closely, she said, “We get jaded by seeing cash, even in large amounts, because it’s an everyday thing. Its appeal becomes merely symbolic. Checks and credit cards have even less attraction. This thing is beautiful.”
“Yeah,” the sergeant said softly.
He was still under the gold’s spell, and seeing that broke its grip on Benjamin.
Emotions, she’d long held, were strictly for suckers.
Sure, she was susceptible to it, but she came to her senses faster than most.
She handed the nugget back to Sergeant Stanley.
“I’ll go get an evidence bag from my car to put that thing in,” she said. She turned in the doorway of the windowless bank room where customers got to be alone with their possessions. A gleam of gold fever still lingered in Sergeant Stanley’s eyes. So she told him, “Don’t make a run for it. Your girlfriend might not visit you in prison.”
He jerked his head back as if she’d slapped him.
But he didn’t pretend to be insulted because they both knew what he’d been thinking.
John Tall Wolf had learned from experience that the least obvious cars from which to conduct surveillance weren’t necessarily those with neutral colors and faded paint. The best colors were those that blended into the working environment. He and Keely Powell had stationed themselves down the block from a house in a Goldstrike neighborhood thick with conifers.
Their vehicle was a borrowed Subaru Forester. Painted sage green.
With tinted windows to cut down on the glare of winter sun reflecting on snow.
When those conditions prevailed.
Otherwise it was just what you’d want to obscure people lingering for hours inside the vehicle. There was even a port to plug your MP3 into the stereo. You could listen to your tunes through your earbuds and no one outside would know you were there.
Keely had told Tall Wolf, “By your logic the best car to follow someone down a highway would be painted the color of asphalt with a broken white line down the middle.”
The special agent smiled. “That’d be just the thing, if you could find one like that, and you stayed on the open road.”
Now, Keely was working on Tall Wolf’s iBook Pro. He’d given her a quick tutorial on the Apple OS and she’d taken to it like a tech-savvy middle schooler. He was still watching the house down the street. They’d seen their quarry moving around inside when they’d driven past. They’d made a three-point turn in a driveway down the block and were now parked facing the target house.
Without looking up from the computer, Keely said, “The guy has a pretty big house, but it looks old and not particularly upgraded.”
“Probably inherited the place. Word is his people were early white settlers.”
Keely looked at Tall Wolf. “How do you feel about that?”
“What, the coming of the white man?” Tall Wolf asked. “Worked out great for me.”
He gave her the condensed version of his harrowing arrival in the world.
Then he added, “Mom’s brown, Dad’s white, I’m red. How could you get more American than that?”
“Probably a lot of families can match that combination these days, but I take your point. What’s giving me trouble right now is I can�
��t find any connection between Helios Sideris and our man in that house.”
She’d been searching the Internet for two hours.
Tall Wolf thought about that, looked for an answer.
Keely could see the wheels turning in his head.
“Ron thinks you might be smarter than him or me,” she said.
The special agent looked at her and smiled. “Because I’m a fed? BIA does good work but we’re hardly a glamour agency.”
“Not because you’re a fed, because you’re you.”
“Always best to deal with particulars.”
“See. Most cops don’t talk like that.”
“Your syntax seems pretty polished,” Tall Wolf said.
Keely gave him a sheepish smile. “English major,” she said, adding, “with a gun.”
“English major with a gun. Good title for a whodunnit.”
“I’ve thought about that. Writing a novel based on my LAPD experience.”
Tall Wolf nodded in approval of the idea. Then he said, “Not to show off or anything, but I have an idea about that connection you’re looking for.”
“What’s that?”
“Kevin Bacon.”
The reference left Keely behind, but only for a second.
“You mean that six degrees of separation thing or whatever it is?”
“Right. When you next talk to the chief ask him who our target pals around with. If he doesn’t know, Sergeant Stanley probably does. Old timers in a town this small tend to know those things.”
“Then look for connections between those people and Sideris. I get it.”
“Well reasoned and well phrased,” Tall Wolf said.
“Yeah, but it was your idea.”
“Only I’m too modest to remind you.”
Keely laughed and gave him a playful sock on the arm.
She said, “So everything you’ve learned tells you the guy we’re watching knows where the town’s long lost gold … I was going to say where the gold mine is, but the mining hasn’t happened yet. Has it?”
“Not on an industrial scale, but on a scavenging level it has.”
“That’s what you were told, but can you really be sure?”
Before Tall Wolf could reply, an e-mail arrived on the laptop.
Keely pulled it up and handed the computer to Tall Wolf.
“For you. Special Agent Benjamin.”
A sneer in her voice accompanied the name.
Tall Wolf maintained his stance of neutrality. Opened the message. Saw the photograph that accompanied it. Nodded at what he saw.
He said, “Now we know for sure.” He handed the laptop back to Keely.
“Jesus … they struck gold in Sideris’ safe-deposit box. I’d like to go into that house right now and grab that guy. Start questioning him.”
“We’re a little light on probable cause for an arrest.”
Keely sighed and bobbed her head. Then her phone chimed.
She answered, listened a moment and said, “Ron, I’m so sorry. You know how much I liked your father.” She listened some more. “Right. I’ll pass the word. Yeah, me too. I’ll see you later.”
She clicked off and Tall Wolf limited himself to a questioning look.
“The chief of police would like you, me and that FBI person to gather this evening at Mayor Steadman’s house to put our heads together and see if we might solve a crime or two.”
“Let’s wrap up both of them,” Tall Wolf said.
Keely called Sergeant Stanley.
He sent two plainclothes cops in Tall Wolf’s rental car.
The cops got into the Forester.
Tall Wolf and Keely drove past the target’s house.
Sitting in the driveway was a forest green Chevy SUV.
A perfect fit for the one Brant Sutherland had seen on Monday morning.
Chapter 24
Glynnis Crowther, behind the wheel of her car, was leaving Clay Steadman’s house that evening, pulling out of his driveway, as John Tall Wolf, Keely Powell and Abra Benjamin arrived in Benjamin’s car. In the interests of efficiency and environmental conservation, they’d decided to carpool. The two feds sat up front; Keely, sitting in back, pretended she was the bigshot with the FBI chauffeur.
All three of them saw the look of profound relief on the face of the late Hale Tibbot’s housekeeper.
“Who’s she?” Benjamin asked. “And why does she look like she got a death-row pardon?”
Tall Wolf informed his federal colleague who Glynnis was.
Keely said, “She probably did get some kind of deal. Spared herself an accomplice-after-the-fact rap.”
Further questions were postponed when the cops in the car saw Ron Ketchum open the front door to the mayor’s house. His period of mourning seemed to have passed. He wore a peaceful smile on his face, and hugged each of them as they entered Clay Steadman’s abode.
Keely sat next to Ron in Clay Steadman’s home theater. Tall Wolf and Benjamin took flanking seats. The lights in the room were off. The largest HD screen any of them had ever seen was mounted on the wall in front of them. Ron had said he had a video he wanted them to see. A faint electronic hum came from it as an image appeared.
Walt Ketchum was talking to Clay Steadman.
“My old man was a miserable sonofabitch, and I did my best to follow in his footsteps. Made a first-class job of it, too. Fact is, I got bigger and stronger than my father faster than he counted on. I was fourteen when he took after me one day, not really appreciating I was finally ready for him. I beat him silly. He might have tolerated that, but I kept going until he begged me to stop. Then I went after him some more to show him it was me who decided when the punishment would stop … just like it had been with him up to that point.
“My mother told me that night I had to leave home. She wasn’t going to let me kill my father and have Texas electrocute me for my crime. But if I didn’t kill my old man, she said, he was going to kill me. So in 1954 I got put on a Greyhound bus to Los Angeles with twenty dollars in my pocket. I went to live with my widowed Aunt Patsy, my mother’s sister.
“Bad thing was, I brought my old man’s meanness and bigotry right along with me. Seemed to be a pretty good fit with people out here at the time. They might not have used the crude language I did, but their attitudes were pretty much the same. When I went into the army and when I signed on with the LAPD, the guys’ attitudes were just about exactly what mine were. They talked just the way I did, too. Some of them a bit worse, in fact.
“Times changed, of course. My problem was I saw no need to change with them. My job brought me into daily contact with the worst elements …” Walt paused to laugh. “Elements, shit. Being a cop, you deal with the dumbest, meanest, most depraved assholes you might ever imagine, and most of them looked just the way I expected them to.
“Having grown up the way I did, I didn’t want to hear from anybody how the bastards I was locking up day in and day out had it tough from the git-go. Shit, so did I, and I wasn’t raping, killing or selling drugs to anyone. That was despite getting beat so hard and so regularly I should’ve had brain damage.”
Walt stopped to consider things again.
“Hell, who knows? Maybe I do have brain damage. But I was still able to recognize the most beautiful girl I ever saw. I was still smart enough to try to act like I was a civilized human being around her. I managed to get myself cleaned up enough and minded my manners to the point where I felt it wasn’t a lost cause to ask Nora Clemmons for a date. I about got dizzy when she said yes.
“Then when she agreed to a second date, Aunt Patsy took her aside and let Nora know what she might be letting herself in for. We were supposed to go to the movies that night but we sat in my car down by the beach in Santa Monica looking out at the ocean, and she asked me to tell her all about myself, every last thing. I knew if I didn’t, if I wasn’t honest, I was done.
“So I told her, everything.”
Walt spent a moment remembering and shaking his head.
“I still have a hard time understanding why she didn’t get out of the car and walk away right then. She told me I would never hit her and if we stayed together and had children I would never hit any of them either. I promised I wouldn’t. I never did hit Nora. I came close a time or two with Ronnie. I think that’s because he’s my son and, though I hated what happened to me, I still had it in the back of my mind that beating your boy was how you were supposed to raise him.
“Only the fear of losing Nora kept me from doing that. Also, being a cop in L.A. in those days meant I was free to beat just about anyone else I pleased. So I had an acceptable outlet for all the hostility I felt most times of day and night. Not being a complete fool, though, I kept most of the rough stuff I dished out from Nora.”
Walt took a deep breath and let it out as a long sigh.
“Then one day this kid, a friend of Ronnie’s named DeWayne Michaels, came by my house looking for my son. DeWayne was a light-skinned black kid, kind of skinny. He was about twelve or thirteen years old. It had never occurred to me for one second Ronnie might have a colored friend. I thought DeWayne was casing my house, looking to break in, not coming by to see if my son was home and might want to go play basketball with him.
“So I did to DeWayne what a lot of white cops would have done to a colored kid they thought was trying to break into their house: I beat the hell out of him. With my baton. I’m in the thick of it when all of a sudden Ronnie’s there and he tries to tackle me, trying to get me to stop killing his friend.
“I don’t rightly remember if I kicked Ronnie away or sort of pushed him off with my foot. Anyway, he’s clear of me and I go back to whacking DeWayne. The next thing I know a shot is fired, and there’s Ronnie with my duty weapon in his hands. He’d fired a shot into the air. Right then I thought life had come full circle. I’d wanted to kill my father, and if I’d kept beating Ronnie’s friend I was sure my son was going to shoot me.”
Walt shook his head, lines of deep regret etched into his face.