‘Anyway, I didn’t call to talk about this.’
‘Because you know I’m right.’
He laughed, knew she was grinning on the other end of the line.
‘If I didn’t want to talk about things just because you’re right, we wouldn’t be able to talk about anything, would we? According to you. Because you’re always right.’
‘That’s because I’m a woman. You should know that by now. Anyway, what is it you want? Don’t tell me Lewis—’
‘Levi.’
‘—hired you again. Was that him calling last night?’
‘Yeah. Just before a couple guys tried to pull out his fingernails.’
‘You serious?’
‘Never more so,’ he said and then filled her in on the rest of Levi’s story.
‘So, is his wife dead or not?’
‘You tell me. But I’d like to know what’s in the file. If there is a file.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
He told her about Levi and the missing documents.
‘Give me an hour and I’ll call you back,’ she said.
He spent the time while he waited thinking about what Levi had told him. Things had suddenly gotten a whole lot more serious, that was for sure. Something must have happened between them pushing their way into Levi’s house and punching him one day, then threatening to torture him a couple days later. Maybe they’d found something on the laptop that made them think Levi knew more than he was saying. Evan understood how they felt. He felt the same. Levi was holding something back. It made him wish he had a pair of pliers himself.
When Guillory called back he was half expecting her to say the file was missing. It wasn’t quite as bad as that. He heard her flipping through it. Then it sounded as if she started over.
‘There’s no autopsy report,’ she said.
‘Is that unusual?’
‘Not necessarily. If it was a homicide, the investigating officer would definitely request a copy for the file.’
She was quiet a few moments. The sound of fingers being drummed on a desktop told him she was reading something in the file.
‘Hmmm.’
She was quiet again.
‘Did you know that’s your new favorite noise?’ he said. ‘It’s usually followed by something I don’t want to hear.’
She suddenly laughed, a sharp bark of a sound, way too loud in his ear. It subsided to a low chuckle.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘You’re right. It’s something you’re not going to want to hear.’
‘Spit it out, Kate.’
‘I skimmed the investigating officer’s report. Something about the style seemed familiar.’
Evan got the first inkling of what was coming. She was right. He wasn’t going to like it.
‘Then I saw the investigating officer’s name at the bottom . . .’
‘No!’
‘Yup.’
Evan groaned out loud. He thought back to breakfast at the diner with Levi the previous day, how he’d thought Ryder looked familiar when they bumped into him coming out with Guillory.
‘Ryder was the investigating officer?’
He felt her grin oozing down the line.
‘Uh-huh. He was in traffic before he made detective. Bet you wish now you weren’t so rude to him all the time—’
‘Me rude to him?’
‘You want me to see if he’s around? I can pass you over.’
‘Ha, ha.’
It seemed to him she was enjoying the situation far too much. She went back to reading. He couldn’t believe his bad luck. But she was wrong. He didn’t regret his attitude one bit. He suddenly remembered that he’d bought her dinner the previous night. She owed him.
‘Maybe you—’
‘No.’
‘You don’t know what I was going to say.’
She didn’t bother with a reply. They both knew it didn’t deserve one.
‘Your best bet is to talk to the patrol officer who was first on the scene. Martina Perez. I know her, she’s good. You’ll like her. From a quick look at the file, it doesn’t look as if much more came out of the investigation anyway. Start with Perez. If you don’t get what you need, I’ll dust off my diplomacy skills and see if I can get you and Ryder in the same room without spitting at each other.’
‘Sounds good. How about we do a reconstruction? We put Donut in the car and push it over the edge.’
The phone must have slipped from her mouth as her next few words were indistinct. He still caught God, give me strength.
‘Can you set up a meeting with Perez?’ he said.
If you can hear someone holding their breath, mouth clamped tightly shut, that’s what he heard now. He counted to five in his head with her before she spoke again.
‘You know what I don’t understand, Evan? How do you manage to get your shoelaces tied in the morning? Seeing as I’m not there to do it for you.’
For once he didn’t have an answer for her. He’d been ambushed by one of those random thoughts that come out of left field at the most inopportune moments. Would she be there to do it one day? And was that day now very close?
It seemed to him she was very quiet herself on the other end of the line.
Chapter 12
EVAN MET OFFICER MARTINA PEREZ when she came off shift later that same day. He was sitting in a booth in the window when she slipped in opposite him, surprising him. She had the sort of figure that would stop a clock and didn’t look like any traffic cop he’d ever seen, more like an actress playing the role of a traffic cop—in the days before Hollywood got realistic and started hiring real-life ugly people. He passed a pleasant few moments as she got settled imagining her wrestling him to the ground after he refused to show her his documents, maybe putting him in a choke hold, her shapely body in its crisp uniform pressed hard against his back, her breath hot on his neck . . .
She seemed equally taken with him, but for a very different reason, peering at him like a strange new exhibit in a zoo.
‘So you’re Evan Buckley.’
For a moment he thought she was about to reach out and pinch him, see if he was real. He shrugged self-consciously, leaning forward slightly so she could reach more easily.
‘You sound as if you’ve heard of me.’
Her perfectly painted eyebrows raised an inch over her dark eyes as if to say, are you serious?
‘You’re famous in the station. Not quite a legend, but people know who you are.’
‘Famous of infamous?’
She smiled at him, showing him her perfect teeth behind the full lips. He noticed that she’d applied some lipstick, thought about asking her to have a word with Guillory, point her in the right direction.
‘Depends on who you talk to.’
He nodded, a small smile on his own lips. He didn’t suppose he was about to hear anything he didn’t already know.
‘If you talk to Kate it’s not so bad.’
He noticed the first name familiarity and felt a small pang of disappointment that he only scored a not so bad.
‘But if you ask Ryder . . .’
‘The feeling’s mutual,’ he said, not wanting to spoil things by talking about Donut. ‘Which is why we’re here together and not him. Much better all round. Especially for me.’
She smiled again, a faint flush climbing up her cheeks. He understood why Guillory had said he’d like her. She cocked her head like a curious dog might, her eyes narrowing a fraction.
‘I can see why Kate likes you.’
He cleared his throat. Time to move the conversation along.
‘So, anyway, I was hoping to talk to you about a fatal car crash five years ago.’
She nodded, some of the light going out of her eyes as they got down to business.
‘Kate told me. Lauren Stone, right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You’re working for the husband.’
‘Levi, that’s right.’
Her eyebrows pinc
hed together.
‘Why now, after all this time? You’d think he’d have gotten over it by now. The last thing I’d want to do is rake it all up again. Besides, what’s he hope to achieve?’
He was pleased Guillory hadn’t given Martina any of the background details. But it did make things a little awkward now.
‘He, uh . . .’
‘Don’t worry about it. Client confidentiality and all that stuff. I understand.’
The waitress finally arrived to take their order, putting an end to any uncomfortable tension. They both ordered coffee. Evan said he’d have a slice of Pecan Pie to go with it. Martina said she was watching her weight. Evan did a double take, said she didn’t need to. The table top suddenly got a whole lot more interesting, the flush on her cheeks more pronounced. Things were going very well indeed.
‘On the face of it—’
She didn’t get far.
‘Hang on, that’s a bit of a giveaway, starting like that. That sounds like you’ve got some doubts?’
‘Let me finish, or start, then we can discuss it.’
‘Sorry.’
Their coffee arrived. The waitress forgot the slice of pie. He waved it off when she suddenly remembered. He didn’t know why he ordered it in the first place. Martina sipped delicately at her coffee, leaving a smear of lipstick on the cup. She seemed slightly reluctant to resume the story, regretting starting the way she had instead of giving him a straight rendition of the facts.
‘The bare facts,’ she said, her voice all business now, ‘are that she was driving too fast and lost control on a curve. She was on the downhill side of a sharp left-hand curve. The car went off the edge of the road into a ravine. It bounced down the hillside a couple times and landed upside down on its roof. She was trapped inside. She’d been knocked unconscious. The gas ignited and the car exploded. She burned to death without regaining consciousness.’
He wondered whether the emphasis on Lauren being unconscious was for his benefit in case he reported the conversation verbatim to Levi.
‘But . . .’ he prompted.
She took another sip of her coffee.
‘Are you sure you shouldn’t be talking to Detective Ryder?’
‘Positive. He wouldn’t talk to me anyway, except to tell me to piss off.’
She looked as if she’d rather get into what the problem was between him and Ryder.
‘I’ll fill you in on the details why later,’ he said. ‘If you’re interested.’
She shook her head like he didn’t need to try to buy her off.
‘There was nothing definite, nothing proven,’ she said. ‘It was a gut feeling I had. Have you seen the file?’
‘No. Above my pay grade.’
‘Doesn’t matter. There’s nothing in it. But after you’ve been on the job as long as I have—what?’
He reckoned his eyes must have been bulging or some other subtle tell.
‘You don’t look old enough.’
‘I’m older than I look.’
‘You could’ve fooled me.’
She grew an inch in her chair, took another sip of coffee to hide her embarrassment. He hated to think what was going to get reported back to Guillory, felt a smack on the back of his head already.
‘Anyway, there were a few things seemed off to me. The weather that day was dry and sunny, the surface of the pavement in good condition. Normally you’d identify the point of initial braking, then measure the length of the skid marks. You’d want to carry out a skid test as well under similar weather and other environmental conditions.’
‘You said normally. You didn’t do any of that this time?’
‘I’m just saying. Because it’s not my job to do that stuff. The crash investigators do all that. The reason they didn’t in this case was because there were no skid marks. That’s what I thought was unusual.’
Evan saw her point.
‘Yeah. You come around the curve way too fast and there’s the edge of the road coming right at you, you’re gonna stomp on the brakes. You’re probably going straight over the edge anyway but it’s human nature to hit the brakes. There’d be some kind of skid marks.’
‘The only circumstances I can imagine the driver not reacting in some knee-jerk way is if they were so high or drunk they didn’t actually realize what was happening until it was too late. But I seem to remember there wasn’t anything like that. The autopsy and toxicology reports should confirm it.’
She noticed the frown on his face, gave him a searching look.
‘There’s no autopsy report in the file,’ he said.
‘Really?’
‘That’s what Kate told me.’
‘You need to ask Ryder. See if he remembers getting a copy.’
Evan knew that wasn’t going to happen. However he might phrase it, any question along those lines would be interpreted by Ryder as how come you lost the autopsy report or how come you forgot to get a copy in the first place. It would be swiftly followed by Ryder’s standard response—up yours, Buckley.
‘What about other cars? If somebody’s coming up the hill too fast, they could be on the wrong side of the road. She comes around the curve, sees the car in front of her. She wrenches the wheel hard right and goes over the edge.’
Martina hesitated a fraction of a second before replying. It was fast but Evan caught it anyway
‘There weren’t any other vehicles.’
‘How do you know?’
‘You’d have skid marks from the uphill vehicle. Debris in the road if they collided before she went over the edge. There’d be something. There was nothing.’
They sat in silence for a few moments, Evan pretending to think things through. In reality, he was thinking about the small but significant pause of a moment ago.
‘You want some more coffee,’ he said.
She shook her head.
‘I should be getting home.’
He cleared his throat. She looked up sharply. The look in her eyes told him she’d realized she hadn’t got away with it after all.
‘You said there weren’t any other vehicles involved. You didn’t sound totally convinced.’
She looked down at the table top for a few seconds, her hair covering her eyes.
‘I’m only a patrol officer,’ she said to the table top, ‘it’s not my job to investigate.’
‘Except you’ve got the gut instinct of somebody with more years’ experience than anybody looking at you would ever imagine.’
Her head snapped up, a smile on her lips.
‘Kate warned me. She said if all else failed, you’d try the old silver tongue routine.’
He opened his hands, palms up. You got me.
‘There were tire tracks on the shoulder below where she went over.’
‘But you don’t think the other vehicle was actually involved.’
She shook her head.
‘I don’t think so. For all the reasons I told you. Most likely they saw it happen and stopped to gawk.’
‘They called it in?’
‘If they did, they didn’t hang around. They weren’t there when I arrived.’
‘I don’t suppose that’s so unusual.’
‘No.’ Her voice had a weary, dull acceptance to it, an admission that what she’d seen over the years had long ago stopped her from expecting anything from the public she was paid to protect. ‘People don’t want to get involved. They call it in, they’ve got nothing to add, they get the hell out of there. They don’t want a bunch of awkward questions. Maybe they’ve had a drink or they’re not insured. There are a million reasons.’
‘But you don’t buy any of them.’
‘No. Something was a little off with this one. If it wasn’t for the fact that she was killed, I’d say it was an insurance scam. Maybe it was and it went horribly wrong. They pushed the car over the edge and he was supposed to drive her home again. Except she was so dumb she forgot to get out first.’
Chapter 13
EVAN’S THURSDAY MO
RNING didn’t start well. Kate Guillory cancelled their regular breakfast meeting—punishment for flirting with Martina Perez most likely—so he spent the time trying to track down a copy of Lauren Stone’s death certificate. By ten a.m. he wanted to throw his laptop out of the window.
He didn’t even need an actual copy of the death certificate. He knew how she died, he just wanted to confirm the date—May 15, 2013. He tried the Social Security Death Index first, an online database of all deaths recorded by the Social Security Administration going back to the early ‘60s. Anyone who’d been issued with a Social Security number and had died since that time would be in the index. It wouldn’t give him all the details that the actual death certificate would, but it would give him the basics of name, dates of birth and death, her age and the last known residence—enough to identify her and establish she really had died. The best part of it was it was free to perform a search via one of the many online genealogy websites. The bad thing about the SSDI was that he drew a complete blank.
He widened the period he was searching, entering a date range and not just the specific date of death. Then he sent Levi a quick text to see if she had a middle name. He got a reply by return. Darya. He smiled to himself when he saw it. It was an unusual name and would make things easier. He tried all the different combinations, searching for the full first, middle, and last name, then just first and last names and finally with the middle initial. It didn’t matter what he did, the result was the same. Nothing.
He tried a number of other sites that provided official, government-issued vital records for a small fee. They all came up blank.
If Lauren died on May 15, 2013 it seemed nobody had been told about it. Not the authorities, at any rate.
The more he looked into it, the more it seemed that Levi and the men who’d abducted him were right. His wife wasn’t dead. The problem Evan had with that—apart from the fact that somebody had been buried in her coffin—was that Levi had been in possession of a death certificate and an autopsy report until he’d lost them. Evan didn’t suppose he’d imagined or been mistaken about it.
He sent Levi another text asking if he was free to talk. He got a call back within the minute.
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