Back on Murder (38 page)

“Who was keeping tabs?”

Balinski shrugs. “Joe never talked about things, and when he did, you couldn’t really ask for more detail, you know? He just said what he said and you listened. That’s what I did, anyway.”

“So he never said who was keeping tabs on him?”

“Well . . .” He glances around the studio as though he’s misplaced something. “That night he was kind of tripping. He said he’d gotten into something, and they started out dirty but went in clean. He kept repeating it, like he thought I was arguing with him. ‘No, we were dirty at the beginning, but not going in. Going in, we were clean.’ And he was really proud of it, too, whatever it was.”

“Did he say what he was going into?”

“I don’t know what he said, man. It’s not like I was paying close attention or anything. It was all kind of confusing. He was dirty but really he was clean. Whatever. The guy handed me a box full of blow. Then he shot his own head off. It’s not like he was sane or anything.”

We leave him to do his work. Back in the car, Cavallo asks for the sketchbook again, flipping absently through the pages.

“He meant the Morales house, right?” she asks.

“Going in clean? I guess so. They went into the house clean, whatever that means.”

“They went in for the woman. For a righteous cause.”

I nod. “Maybe.”

“But that’s not why they went in the first place.”

“They started out dirty, going for the money or maybe drugs, but they were clean when they went in, meaning their aims changed.” Castro’s computer-generated crime-scene sketches come back to me, the abstract figures transected by red lines. “According to one of the crime-scene investigators, the guys who hit the Morales house showed some tactical sophistication. Maybe they did a little recon first, got the lay of the land – ”

“And saw the woman tied to the bed.”

“Right,” I say.

“And instead of scrubbing the mission, they went in anyway. Not for the loot, but to rescue the victim.”

“Something like that.” I shake my head. “Only it’s quite a coincidence, isn’t it? The place they decide to stick up just happens to be the one where this woman’s being assaulted? They interrupt the crime in progress, decide to intervene. Seems like a long shot. Besides, these guys aren’t the type. We’re not talking about heroes here. Just the opposite.”

“Yeah, but isn’t that the point of the whole dirty-clean thing?”

There’s something to it, I realize, but Cavallo’s already put a human face on Lorenz. I’m not going to let her humanize Keller and Salazar the same day.

“The point is,” I say, “she’s dead. Whoever she is. And maybe she wouldn’t be if they hadn’t gotten involved. Maybe they’re the ones who put the bullet in her.”

The last time I was at Cypress Community Church, the parking lot was near empty. Now every space marked out on the vast plane of blacktop appears to be filled, with overflow lining the street. Cavallo, dressed head to toe in black, sits beside me in the passenger seat, rubbing her hands nervously against her thighs.

“I don’t think I can face her,” she says.

Maybe she means Hannah. Maybe the mother. I don’t know and I don’t ask.

“If what Bridger says is right,” I say, “there was nothing you could have done. Hannah was dead before you even started to look.”

She nods, but it’s one thing to see the sense in an argument and another to really believe it. The girl’s death has hit her hard, and Cavallo’s not the type to let herself off the hook. I can relate. I feel the same. For me, though, the territory is more familiar. To loved ones, the only promise I can fulfill is to deliver up a suspect. Cavallo works a job where it’s still conceivable to bring the runaways home and set the captives free.

We hike across the boiling pavement, blending in with the other mourners streaming between the rows of cars and trucks, of station wagons, minivans, and sport-utility vehicles, each one gleaming hot in the sun. In parts of the city, the power is back, though more for a visit than a permanent stay. It still flickers back and forth, forcing me to run my generator most nights, though it’s never enough to get the house truly cool. I’ve grown accustomed the past few days to always sweating, always feeling dirty, none of us being quite as presentable as we are when the electricity’s on. I am not as impervious to heat as I’ve always assumed.

As the entrance gets closer, I remember the blanket of cold air that descended the first time I was here. Pulling the glass door open, I can almost feel it. But no, as I pass over the threshold in Cavallo’s wake, the air is only marginally cooler inside. No respite awaits us inside the church, not even this.

The crowd carries us along through the soaring atrium, and I find myself wondering how many of these people actually knew Hannah. There are surely too many. Glancing around, I observe what I always do at funerals, a throng of people behaving only marginally more sober-minded than usual, most of them dressed for comfort in everyday clothes, a few dressed more formally – usually older, usually present in some quasi-official capacity. The teenage kids in front of us wear jeans and striped rugby shirts, while the women behind us, chatting among themselves, are in blouses and khaki capri pants and sensible flats.

I feel a hand on my elbow and, turning, find Gina Robb staring up at me through her cat-eye glasses. She tugs me out of the crowd and beckons Cavallo to follow, guiding us through the side exit toward the church offices. Her demeanor is grave, her eyes raw from crying, and whenever she tries to explain herself, her throat seizes up. So she relies on hand gestures to convey the fact that someone wants to see us.

Donna Mayhew’s office door stands open, but the entrance is blocked by a throng of attendants. Gina parts them wordlessly, conducting us inside until we are face-to-face with the bereaved mother. She stands, austerely composed, at the very corner of her desk, draped in swathes of black, with black netting over her face. In contrast to the casual mourners in the atrium, she’s like a figure from the distant past. Her hands, clasped tightly in front of her, are also gloved, prompting me to wonder where this funeral regalia comes from. I keep a black suit in the closet for funerals, but then I attend them with a fair amount of regularity. Of course, this is not her first bereavement. The woman has lost her husband and now her daughter, too. She is alone in the world, a feeling I can relate to only in part.

“Detective,” she says, extending a hand to me. “They tell me it was you who found her body.”

An awkward cough at the back of my throat. Do I correct her or let the error stand? Glancing around, I see men in dark suits, women with clenched tissue pressed to their eyes, a murmur of grief passing between them.

Cavallo tries to say something. I turn, and find her face wet with tears, her lips trembling. Donna Mayhew opens her arms and the two women embrace. I glance away. In the corner, Carter Robb stares glumly back at me. We haven’t spoken since the day I summoned him to the scene. Then, I’d been unable to coax him anywhere close to the body, and he’d only agreed reluctantly to enter the derelict building for a look at the purse. Trying to confirm it was hers, he couldn’t stop choking on his words. He’d wanted to help, to do something, but that wasn’t what he’d had in mind.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Mrs. Mayhew is saying. “This was not your doing. We all have to be brave in the face of it. The Lord gives and he takes away.”

The words seem empty to me, and desolate, but her voice is anything but. There is a strength in her that wasn’t here before, back when there was still some chance of a happier outcome. She no longer agonizes over whether she’s meant to drink from the cup. Now she knows, and the effect of the knowledge is heartbreaking to witness. Some people, when they suffer, derive power from the ordeal, a certain dignity, and along with it the grace to bestow benediction, as potent as it is unlooked for. In response, the usual hollow assurances about bringing the killer to justice die on my lips, and sensing my inability, she nods, as if she wouldn’t want me to say such things, to commit myself to the impossible.

“I wanted to see you both,” she says, “because I know some of the things I’ve said to the media must have sounded like criticism, and I want to say I’m sorry. It was not directed at you.”

Cavallo tries to silence her with a lifted hand.

“It’s all right,” I say. “You don’t need to justify yourself to us.”

“I also wanted you to know that I’m done. I won’t talk to them anymore. I didn’t want to at first, and I only did it in the off chance it might help bring my baby home. But now there’s no reason, and I won’t talk to them again. I wanted you to know.”

She speaks quietly, with a determination that doesn’t seem congruent with the subject, as if the decision she’s referring to runs much deeper than the one her words avow. An embrace of silence encompassing much more than television interviews, as if she’s sworn off saying anything ever again.

Her gloved hand closes around mine briefly, squeezing, her eyes gazing at me through the netted veil. “I know you’ll do everything you can. Thank you.”

I step back. She gives Cavallo a similar blessing, and then we both retreat out into the hallway, joined by Gina Robb and her silent husband. He comes close to me, leaning almost to my ear, speaking in a harsh whisper.

“I want to talk to you later. I want to do more this time.”

This time, as if there’s a second round to play and everything might still come right.

We leave them, rejoining the other mourners. Cavallo wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, pretending I’m not beside her, probably embarrassed by her show of emotion. We file into a wide, soaring auditorium, a stadium of worship with a semicircle of seats around a raised platform. Behind it, a multi-tiered choir loft and a backstop of abstract stained glass, but I’m not looking past the platform. My eyes get no further than the casket at its base. The lid is closed, and a large portrait of Hannah is erected on an easel behind it. A hush descends on everyone who sees it, the crowd growing still, struck by the reality of that small wooden box.

Another casket flashes in my mind, another body. I see Charlotte pale with grief, the vein in her forehead throbbing, the bruises from the car accident still evident under a layer of makeup. My eyes sting.

“I can’t stay,” I say, turning back, not waiting for any reply, hoping she won’t come after me, hoping she won’t try to follow.

CHAPTER
25

Hedges casts a disapproving eye over my cubicle, staring the way he might at a spelling error in the first line of a report. I weather the scrutiny. There’s nothing I can do about the mess. Casework grows like weeds all around me. My cup overruns, and so does my murder book. In addition to evidence recovered with Hannah’s body, the copious lab work that’s been trickling in all morning, and the first wave of file boxes couriered over from the former task force hq in the Northwest, there’s also a layer left over from the Thomson investigation, things I haven’t had time to box up for Wilcox. Aguilar has been detailed to help, and Bascombe checks in every half hour or so, looking at me the way a kid looks at a magician, wondering what’ll happen next time I reach into my hat. So I haven’t had a lot of time for tidying up.

“Everything all right, sir?” I ask, hoping to move him along.

He can’t bring himself to give the order – Clean up around here, all right? – but I can see how bad he wants to.

“You have everything you need?”

“Yes, sir.”

He nods, clears his throat. “You’ve been doing good work, March. Keep it up. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re back on form.”

“Thank you, sir.”

As he leaves, a little ember of pride burns in my chest. It means something, coming from him.

Lorenz drops by, too, blowing on a steaming cup of coffee, and I notice some kind of encrustation on his collar, a speck of dried milk maybe, though I imagine it’s baby spit. I recall having seen something similar before, only I didn’t appreciate the significance. I try to picture him cradling a newborn on the bridge of his belly, bouncing back and forth. I put baby talk in his mouth, trying to conceive of the sound.

“You were lucky to get out from under the Morales shooting when you did,” he says. “If that thing goes down now, it’ll be a miracle. No hard feelings, huh? If I overplayed my hand, I’m sorry. I got a talking to from Terry Cavallo yesterday, telling me you were good people. I shouldn’t have come down so hard. What can I say? It was a big break for me, and I kind of blew it.”

He cocks his round head, smiling anxiously, practically willing me to accept his apology. But I’m too stunned to react all at once. I buy myself some time by nodding and shrugging, a song and dance of body language meant to convey something like it happens to us all and don’t sweat the small stuff. It’s easy to be gracious in the ascendant.

“Forget about it,” I say, hoping the words don’t sound as hollow to him as they do to me.

Lorenz takes me literally, blinking a couple of times, smiling, and generally acting as though he doesn’t know who he is or how he got here. He tips his cup in salute and walks away.

When she arrives a while later, Cavallo turns a number of middle-aged heads, but if she notices the stir, she gives no sign. Aguilar grows attentive all the sudden, abandoning his own desk and pulling a chair up to mine. The crowding seems too ridiculous not to comment on, but Cavallo says nothing so I keep quiet, too. Every time I glance his way, he gives a subtle, conspiratorial grin. My desk phone rings.

“Can you come up here?” Wilcox says. “There’s something I want you to see.”

I grab my jacket and leave the field to Aguilar, who seems grateful for the uninterrupted view.

“You need me?” Cavallo asks.

Over her shoulder, Aguilar’s eyebrows rise slightly in alarm.

“I can handle this one on my own.”

For the first time in more than a year, Wilcox’s lips curl upward at my approach, though his smile is charged not with friendship but triumph. He pulls me into the office, then closes the door.

“We got him.”