Echoes of the Dead--A Special Tracking Unit Novel

by Spencer Kope

“No one ever said people are rational,” Jimmy offers, “especially when they’ve made up their mind about something.”

  “Right, but they don’t even try. If my opinion differs from theirs, and they hear me say that we need to increase security along the border and crack down on sanctuary cities, they’ll hear only the first few words and then ignore the rest. With a few words, they’ve already decided that I’m wrong and they’re right. Worse than that, that I’m evil! Simply for having a different opinion on how to solve a problem. How are we supposed to run a country that way?”

  She leans forward. “When logic and reason are treated as anachronisms, what becomes of justice and rule of law? Are we no better than the many corrupt and lawless countries around the world, places where favor is courted and purchased at the expense of freedom and justice?”

  “I saw some kids at that warehouse today, three of them,” I say soberly. “They couldn’t have been more than seven or eight years old. How do we tell them no?” I pet Roller, who had parked himself next to me as soon as I sat, and whose head now rests affectionately on my lap, his eyes looking up at me.

  Ella looks down and sighs resignedly. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? I see them too, and I ask myself why we can’t make room for just three more, or three hundred more, or three thousand more. Surely it can’t make a difference. But there are seven billion people on this planet, and six billion of them would do just about anything to come here. If we were to take just a tenth of them, the population would triple, and America would cease to be America. It’s a matter of balance and survival as much as it is law and order.”

  Ella lets the room lie in silence a moment, then adds, “As much as we may want to help, the fact remains they entered a country that is not theirs and from which they have no claim or expectation, and they did so illegally. If I slipped across the Mexican border illegally, I’d find myself in an unpleasant prison for several years. Where are their outstretched arms?”

  “What about our moral obligation?” I press.

  “If someone breaks into your home, are you obliged to give them a room?”

  “Of course not, but that’s—”

  “Different? How?”

  I don’t have an answer for her. “That’s not the point—”

  Ella cuts me off. I expect her to be incensed by now, but she’s suddenly as calm as a glassy lake. No doubt she’s had this same conversation a hundred times, maybe a thousand.

  “It’s exactly the point, and because my brother says what he believes, he’s a traitor to his race. And now, someone’s gone and—” She cuts the words off before her mouth can utter them.

  When she speaks again, her voice once more comes from the depths of the high-back chair, where her face lies in shadow. “What are we all, really?”

  “How do you mean?” Ross asks.

  She leans forward and looks the detective in the eye, her face striking and beautiful under the single light and the directional shadows. “Did you know that our last name—Marco’s and mine—has Hebrew origins? Perez, a name so Spanish and Mexican that it could be nothing else, yet it had its origins in the Hebrew language and means ‘son of Peter.’

  “Garcia is Basque and pre-Roman in origin. Cantu is Italian, and Fernandez is Germanic. It’s the same with Gonzalez, Gomez, and Rodriguez, all of which are Germanic, a family of languages that includes not just German, but English, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian”—she pauses as if referring to a list in her head—“Swedish, Icelandic, Gothic, Burgundian, and some others.”

  She looks at us, her question genuine and sincere: “So what are we?”

  “Bunch of mutts,” Jimmy says with a half smile.

  Ella returns the smile grudgingly.

  “My mom was first-generation,” Jimmy explains. “Came over with her parents when she was ten—legally,” he quickly adds. “I still have relatives in Sonora.”

  “Was?”

  Jimmy gives her a quizzical look.

  “You said your mom was first-generation?”

  He holds her gaze. “She died when I was five.”

  Ella nods in understanding. “I’m sorry. What about your dad?”

  “Alive and obstinate as ever.”

  “Irish,” I say with a nod as if that explains everything.

  “So, we’re a bunch of mutts, then,” Ella says with a note of satisfaction. If she had a drink in her hand, she’d have raised it at that moment in a toast to consensus and solidarity.

  “I suppose it doesn’t matter,” Jimmy says. “In a few more years, DNA is going to rewrite what we think of ethnicity, for better or worse.”

  “Let’s pray it’s for the better,” Ella says.

  * * *

  As we leave the congressman’s office, Ross texts a former colleague, now a member of the NYPD Intelligence Division. He asks for anything they have on Noah Long, leaving the request intentionally broad. Better too much information than not enough.

  Marco may be the most likely target, but Noah and Wade are still contenders.

  19

  Tuesday, March 10—1:00 A.M.

  The BMW’s distinct Long Beach Blue paint job is a wonder even in the pale light of the witching hour. With its deeper shadows and sharper reflections, it’s a razzle-dazzle of cobalt and metallic. It rolls silently into an empty parking lot, finds a secluded spot, and the lights go out.

  Long it sits.

  If one were to watch the SUV long enough, eyes adjusting back to the dark, one would soon notice that shadow also lies within the vehicle. Something ominous wrapped in black.

  It occupies the driver’s seat as if overflowing, a freakishly large mass that can’t be real. Any thought that it’s an illusion, however, a trick of light or night, vanishes when a match is struck and a cigarette is lit. As the shadow inhales, the angry orange flare of the tip is high in the side window, placing the shadow’s head near the ceiling.

  He takes his time smoking the cigarette.

  * * *

  When the SUV’s door finally opens, a monster of a man steps out and stretches in the weak luminescence of the dome light. He shows little concern as he walks to the back of the vehicle and opens the rear hatch, once again bathed in yellow light. Effortlessly, he drags a body close and then lifts an unconscious man free of the vehicle, slinging him over his shoulder like a thirty-pound bag of beans. As he walks toward the dark office complex, he pauses to thumb the key fob and is rewarded by a small chirp from the BMW.

  He whistles while he jimmies the front door.

  It only takes a moment and then he’s through the entry. His hulking figure fades to nothing as he strides into the gloom, a shadow within shadow.

  20

  Tuesday, March 10—7:20 A.M.

  The coffee shop buzzes with morning noise: the hiss of steam, the tink of stainless-steel pitchers, the bark of baristas calling out drinks. Underscoring this impromptu performance is the desperate shuffle and murmur of those seeking a much-needed fix, something to get them through the morning without the unpleasant consequences of murdering a coworker with the removable armrest from their office chair.

  Coffee saves lives.

  Based on Jimmy’s mood during the drive over, he’s my lead suspect for any spontaneous homicides we might happen upon. As we clear the door, he makes a beeline for the counter, and I half expect him to push the waiting customers out of the way and muscle his way to the front. He doesn’t, of course. He’s too polite and proper for that.

  Then again, the Nazis were occasionally polite and proper.

  When the Third Reich took power in Germany, the Nazis made decaffeinated coffee a part of state policy, believing caffeine to be a poison. They were determined to keep the Aryan population healthy, and because the party knew what was best, they had no problem forcing their will on the German people.

  Turns out their understanding of caffeine was just as flawed as all the other things they knew for certain. The Mormons abstain from caffeine and you don’t see them invading neighboring
churches or subjugating Presbyterians.

  Maybe the old saying is right: everything in moderation. If that’s the case, I still have a problem, because Jimmy left moderation behind six months ago.

  * * *

  Most mornings Jimmy would have tanked up at the motel’s breakfast bar, but not today; he’s cutting back. It’s a laudable goal considering how off the chart his caffeine consumption has become in recent months. In this case, however, cutting back means waiting a whole seven minutes while we drive from the motel to the coffee shop halfway between us and the police station.

  When Jimmy reaches the cash register and orders a twenty-ounce dark roast, you can almost see the tension fall from his shoulders. At the same time, I feel a hand at my elbow and turn to find Detective Ross Feng grinning at me.

  “Morning, Steps,” he says cheerfully, that big, contagious smile wrapped across his face like a caricature. You’d think we had a day of golfing planned.

  “Morning, Ross.”

  “How’s our boy?” He tips his head toward Jimmy.

  “He’ll be better when he gets some coffee into his system.”

  Ross chuckles. “Reminds me of myself when I was with the task force.” Extending a hand, he presents a manila folder with a quarter inch of paper peeking out.

  “What’s this?”

  “Intel on Noah Long out of NYPD.”

  “Already?”

  “They work twenty-four-hour shifts these days. One of their analysts put it together for us while we slept. It was waiting in my email this morning.” Ross rears back on his heels and stretches, chest out almost as far as his gut. “It’ll cost me an expensive bottle of Scotch next time Portman’s in town,” he says through a yawn, “but I always pick up the tab, so it’s no great sacrifice.”

  “Well, thank God for little miracles. Have you looked at it yet?”

  “Cursory glance. Nothing jumped out, but we can divide it up and go through it while we drink our breakfast.” He looks at my empty hands. “You’re not getting anything?”

  “I’m not much of a coffee person. I sometimes get a watered-down mocha, but I had some orange juice at the motel, so I’m good.”

  Nodding, as if he doesn’t understand, he leaves me where I stand and queues up at the register with the other lemmings.

  “I’ll just … find a table,” I call after him.

  * * *

  A spot in the corner is just clearing, so I hover nearby and swoop in as the departing customers gather their empty cups and head for the door. When the pistol-packing caffeine fiends work their way through the line and join me a few minutes later, Ross sets a bottle of orange juice and an orange-and-cranberry scone in front of me.

  “Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”

  “Can’t have you succumbing to hypoglycemia while we’re chasing down bad guys. Besides, I used the department credit card.”

  Dividing up the Noah Long report, we read and eat and sip in silence for perhaps ten minutes. Jimmy is well into his clump of pages when his cell phone breaks into song. It’s the theme from The Pink Panther, and he answers before the second da dum, putting the phone on speaker.

  “Morning, Diane.”

  “I’ve been going over the time line,” our matron replies without preamble as if continuing a conversation already in progress. “There’s no doubt that Marco is the target, as I suspected from the beginning.”

  “It’s a little premature—”

  “I’ve been staring at the whiteboard for hours,” Diane blazes on, “and it just hit me.”

  “Hours? Diane, it’s like”—Jimmy glances at the time on his phone—“seven thirty in the morning. How long have you been in the office?”

  “Since three. Couldn’t sleep. Marco is the target,” she again insists. “He’s the only local. The only one actually living in Bakersfield, even if he spends half the year in DC.”

  “What does local—”

  “Because the killer is local.”

  “And you know that how?”

  “Think about it, genius: William Johansson was buried six days before they found him on that park bench; that’s a week ago Monday.”

  “So?”

  “So, on the day he was buried, Jason Norris was at a conference in Atlanta, Wade Winchell was in his office in Los Angeles, and Noah Long was in New York signing the papers for the acquisition of a forty-million-dollar software company.”

  “So?” Jimmy repeats.

  Diane sighs. “William Johansson’s obituary didn’t print until Sunday. His grave is unmarked, and the only people who knew where he was buried were family and a few friends. If the suspect was looking for a fresh body, how’d he know about Johansson?”

  “Are you saying it’s a friend or relative of Johansson?”

  “No! Well … maybe. What I’m saying is that anyone stalking Noah or Jason would have been on the other side of the country. If it was Wade, the suspect would have been staked out in Los Angeles, though I suppose he could have driven to Bakersfield on the off chance of finding a funeral service in progress.”

  Jimmy’s quiet a moment, then he exchanges a look with Ross. The two men raise their eyebrows in unison as if agreeing that Diane’s theory has merit.

  “Okay,” Jimmy finally says, “you’re usually right on these things—”

  “Usually?” Diane scoffs.

  “Let’s see what we can find out about Johansson,” Jimmy continues, ignoring the remark. “We’ve kind of ignored him in all of this, thinking he was just a prop—and I’m still not convinced he’s anything other than that,” he adds quickly. “It can’t be that hard finding a fresh grave and a convenient body; all you have to do is drive through a few cemeteries and look for the stack of flowers and wreaths.”

  “I’ll get started right away,” Diane replies in a sugary-sweet voice, which probably means she’s already working on it. With Diane, it’s hard to tell. “By the way, I have an update on Abel Moya for you.”

  Jimmy glances at me, an odd look on his face.

  “I found two new addresses in Bakersfield,” Diane drones on. “He’s not directly linked to either of them, and I’ll spare you the brilliance that led to their discovery since I know you don’t have the patience for such things. Suffice it to say that he has a girlfriend, and what he lacks in paper trail, she makes up for. I’ll send the addresses to your cell.”

  Jimmy’s reaction perplexes me, but then I realize we never told Diane that Abel was no longer our prime suspect.

  “Thanks, Diane,” Jimmy replies hurriedly. “Special Agent Weir is heading up the hunt for Moya. I’ll make sure he gets the addresses.”

  There’s silence for a moment. “Why aren’t you heading up the hunt?”

  “We … we are,” Jimmy replies—a drowning man gasping for air. “We’re just working a different angle … for now. A new angle.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Thanks, Diane.” Disconnecting the phone before she can reply, Jimmy lets out a long breath and looks at me. “Think she knows?”

  “Nah,” I say with a shake of my head. “You were very subtle, particularly the new-angle part.” I give him an okay sign with my thumb and index finger.

  Ross chuckles at us like we’re a couple of knuckleheads and says, “I like her.”

  21

  After the conversation with Diane, it seems pointless to continue through the Noah Long dossier, but we do anyway. When Jimmy turns over his last page and Ross pushes his unfinished stack to the center of the table, the feeling seems to be mutual.

  “There’s nothing in here worth killing for,” Jimmy says, and Ross gives an accompanying nod. The table grows quiet, and then their eyes turn my way, looking for consensus.

  Stacking my papers neatly together, I stand them on end and tap them against the table to align the tops and bottoms, then I hand the stack to Ross. “Looks like we’re back to Marco.”

  “Marco,” Jimmy concurs.

  “The big question, then—”

&
nbsp; Ross is interrupted by his phone. He answers before it chirps a second time, pressing it to his ear and covering the opposite ear with his left hand to block the noise and bustle of the busy coffee shop. The cacophony is too great, however, and he soon rises and gives us the one-moment signal with his index finger. Stepping quickly left and then right, he works his way around tables and chairs and out the front door. We watch him a moment as he paces back and forth on the sidewalk, his conversation animated, his belly jiggling with laughter at one point.

  When the detective returns, he’s decidedly more cheerful. “I had some of our guys do a neighborhood canvas of the area around the cemetery yesterday afternoon—”

  “What neighborhood?” I interrupt. “It’s in the middle of nowhere.”

  “True, but a mile north there’s a housing community that includes an old strip mall and a half dozen small businesses. With burglaries on the rise in the area, I thought we might catch a break and find some surveillance cameras pointing toward the road.”

  Jimmy leans forward in his seat, suddenly attentive.

  “They found four cameras, but only two of them were pointing at the road—and only one of those works.”

  “Typical,” I mutter.

  “The owner was happy to provide a copy of Saturday night’s recording, and my guys stayed late last night and watched six hours of mostly stagnant video.”

  “But?” I say expectantly.

  “But,” Ross says with considerable gusto, “a white work van got their attention, maybe a mid-2000s Ford. They first spotted it heading south about one A.M.”

  “There must have been dozens, even scores of vehicles that went down that road Saturday night and into Sunday morning,” Jimmy says, less than impressed. “What makes this one special?”

  “Because four hours later the same van passes by heading north.”

  Silence settles over the table.

  “How do they know it’s the same van?” I ask.

  “It’s got some logo on the side, faded, but they say it looks like a tree.”