Back on Murder (8 page)

“Fine.”

I reach across him for the blood work, whipping the sheet within an inch of his nose. Just to be on the safe side, though, I keep the folder, too.

Bascombe’s office, just a fraction of the size of Hedges’s, is slotted into a row of glassed-in cubes along the back of the bullpen. On my way, I sense more than a few pairs of eyes tracking my progress. No one butted in on my conversation with Lorenz, but they all know what’s going on. I can only guess where their sympathies lie. Lorenz has made a lot of buddies on the squad, but he’s still pretty raw. My guess is, underneath the superficial bonhomie, my fellow detectives wouldn’t be too sad to see him taken down a notch.

Plus, a few of them have been around long enough to remember what I was like in my prime. Their respect might not be what it once was, but all those years on top have to count for something.

Passing by a cubicle opening, I catch a flash of movement. I turn to find Mack Ordway beckoning me over. Before I teamed up with my ex-partner Wilcox, he and Ordway were the dynamic duo. Now, thanks to some health issues, Mack’s mostly holding down a desk until retirement. Apart from a little water-cooler banter about the old days, we haven’t had much contact since Wilcox left the fold.

“What are you trying to prove?” he whispers.

“Meaning what, Mack?”

He scratches his double chin. “I will lift up mine eyes to the lieutenant’s office, from whence cometh his strength. The lieutenant is his shepherd, he shall not want.”

“What is this, Sunday school?”

“Word of advice? You’re not gonna score any points trying to make that kid look bad. He’s on the fast track, no matter what. All you’ll do is hurt yourself in the process.”

“I’m just trying to do my job.”

He shrugs. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

I thank him with a nod, then keep moving. He’s not telling me anything I don’t already know, but I guess his heart is in the right place.

Bascombe’s door hangs open, as always. He never shuts it, never even lowers the blinds. Unlike the captain, he takes a hands-on approach, which means his office is a hive of activity. He’s on the phone when I tap on the doorframe.

“One sec,” he says.

I settle into a chair, using the time to flip through the incident reports in Lorenz’s folder. They’re mostly recaps of street intelligence. An informant complaining about supply problems driving up retail cost on the corners. Latin Kings issuing warnings after one of their packages gets jacked. A couple of Southwest cholos gunned down, supposedly in the aftermath of a rip-off. It’s all pretty vague, which is to be expected. If there was anything solid, Lorenz wouldn’t have passed all this paper my way.

Bascombe ends his call, prompting me with a palms-up shrug. “Now, what can I do for you?”

I slide the folder across the desk. “You seen this?”

“I’m the one who gave it to Lorenz in the first place,” he says, not bothering to look inside. “But don’t come to me about it – you need to talk to Geiger. He’s got some kind of angle on this.”

“I can do that,” I say.

“Thank you, Detective. I appreciate your willingness to do your job. If there’s nothing else I can help you with . . .” Bridger’s printout shuts him up a second. He scrutinizes the results with a little smile. “What do you want from me? Congratulations? Here you go, March. You were right. Good job, man. Way to deliver.” An ironic handclap, one-two. “Now, was that good for you?”

“What I want is your permission to follow up a lead.”

“My permission? You don’t need it. I’m not gonna hold your hand on this thing.”

“Lorenz wants me to follow up with Geiger, which comes from you. But I’d like to pursue something else in addition.”

He hoists his eyebrows in mock surprise. “And what’s that?”

Taking a deep breath, I launch into it, making my case as strongly as I can. Once he sees where I’m going, though, Bascombe starts shaking his head and shuts me up with a throat-slicing gesture.

“You wanna be assigned to the Mayhew task force, is that it? ’Cause I can make that happen right now.” He reaches for the phone, then pauses. “Or, maybe you’d prefer to stay in Homicide instead? If that’s your choice, then you better go talk to Geiger this minute. And if there are any headlines to grab in this case, believe me, you better not be the one I catch reaching for them.”

“Is that what Hedges will say?”

“You wanna go ask him?” He smiles like he’s starving and I’m his favorite dish.

The fact is, I don’t. If Bascombe really wants me off the squad, I’m already pushing my luck too far. By giving me a shot, the captain put a wrench in the works, but he won’t back me up the way Bascombe is backing Lorenz. So either I play their game or I’m out. Simple as that.

I can’t bring myself to meet his eyes. “I’ll go talk to Geiger.”

But in the elevator I decide Geiger can wait a half hour. There’s a stop to make on the way.

Missing Persons turns out to be a ghost town. I corner one of the civilian aides, asking to be pointed in Wanda Mosser’s direction. She tells me the task force is operating out of the Northwest station, then starts rubbing her temples like they’ll explode any moment. I thank her and turn to go.

“Hold on a second,” she calls after me. “Cavallo’s still here. You can talk to her.”

I follow the direction indicated by her red fingernail, heading down a row of cubicles a bit more shabby and threadbare than our Homicide digs, though identical in principle. At the end of the row I discover a slender, dark-haired woman of about thirty, one long, pinstriped leg crossed over the other. The sleeves of her white blouse are rolled up, revealing sun-browned forearms and a diminutive silver diving watch on the left wrist. An engagement ring on the left hand, but no wedding band.

“I’m Roland March,” I say, holding out a hand. “Homicide.”

She looks up. “Theresa Cavallo.” Her skin is cool to the touch.

I’ve never laid eyes on her before, or even heard the name, a testament to how out of touch I am. Because a woman like this gets talked about. I’m probably the last to find out about her. Large brown eyes, a sharp nose dusted with freckles, just a hint of makeup, and a slight dishevelment to her limply thick black hair. Letting the world know she can look like this without trying.

“You’re working for Wanda?” I ask.

“Obviously.” She motions lazily at the surroundings.

A knot forms in my throat. “I mean, on the task force.”

“What have you got?” she asks. “I was just on my way out.” She nods toward a black purse and a canvas messenger bag stacked side by side on her desk, a striped jacket nestled between them.

I’m not usually tongue-tied, but getting my hunch out proves surprisingly difficult. If I’d gotten Wanda face-to-face, there would have been no problem. If she laughed, I could take it in stride. But I don’t want to look ridiculous in front of Cavallo, and the more I struggle for words, the more ridiculous I feel.

“What is it?” she asks with an impatient frown.

“Take a look at this,” I manage, thrusting the printout from Bridger under her nose. “It’s from the medical examiner’s office.”

“I can see that. So what?”

“This is going to take some explaining . . .”

She checks her watch. “I’ll give you two minutes.”

“Fine.” I pull up a nearby chair, setting it just inside her cubicle. “That’s a blood sample recovered from a house off West Bellfort. We got a call early Friday morning and found the house full of bodies. A Crip named Octavio Morales, if that name means anything to you.”

She shakes her head.

“Anyway, under the bed we found parachute cord still attached. Somebody had sliced through the restraints, leaving the knots behind. Whoever was on that bed, the shooters took her with them.”

“There was a woman tied to the bed?” Her eyebrows rise. “Was she sexually assaulted?”

I shrug. “Like I said, they took the body. Based on the amount of blood, I’d say she was seriously injured, or even deceased. But I’m just speculating about that.”

Cavallo runs her fingers through her hair, shaking out the wavy mane. She has my attention. At her clavicle, a tiny silver cross catches the light.

“And you’re telling me this why?”

“I’m looking for her. We didn’t get a hit in the system, so her dna’s not on file.”

For a moment she smiles with incomprehension. Then the bloom fades from her lips. “I see. And you think – what? That your missing body could be Hannah Mayhew?”

“It’s worth a shot.”

Cavallo laughs, showing off a pair of sharpish canines. “You’ve gotta be kidding.”

“I realize it’s a stretch – ”

“A stretch? It’s a hyperextension.”

“I was hoping we could check our sample against one from your girl, or maybe the parents?”

“There’s only the mother,” she says. “Don’t you watch the news? Her father died when she was a baby. Peter Mayhew? You don’t remember him?”

“Should I?”

She shrugs. “Anyway, what am I supposed to do? Ask Donna if we can swab her mouth on the off chance her daughter was tied to a bed and gang-raped by a bunch of dead bangers? I’d just as soon not.”

“I can appreciate that.” I lean forward. “But before you say no, consider this. Your girl disappeared midday Thursday, right? Our shooting went down late Thursday, early Friday give or take.”

“On the other side of town.”

“Yes, but does that mean anything here? I can think of a thousand scenarios that would land a nice girl from the suburbs in a situation like this.”

“But not this girl,” she says. “You don’t know her.”

“Do you?”

“Not personally, no. But I’ve gotten to know Donna, the mother. She’s quite a woman, I’ll tell you that. If her daughter was mixed up in the kind of thing you’re talking about, I think she’d know. And anyway, she’s dealing with enough stress without putting something like this on her.”

As she speaks, my eyes fix on the shape of her lips. This kind of sudden infatuation isn’t common for me, but I’m having a hard time shaking off the feeling. Cavallo’s my type, trim and striking and faintly exotic. A younger, taller version of Charlotte, without all the shared baggage. I inhale her perfume discreetly, then sit back, gazing at the sheerness of her blouse.

“I need your help,” I say. “Call it a favor. I’ll owe you. I can’t do justice to my investigation without following up this lead. If it doesn’t pan out, fine. At least we’ve ticked off that box. But if you don’t help, I’ll be honest, I won’t be able to sleep at night. This is . . . important to me.”

I shouldn’t be pleading like this, exposing myself, but something about her seems to invite it.

“This is important to you,” she repeats, glancing away. “What’s important to me is not burdening this woman with more fear. She’s living with the unthinkable as it is. I don’t want to make her nightmares any worse than they already are.”

“You don’t have to tell her what it’s for.”

She thinks this over for a moment, resting her elbows on her knees, her mouth covered behind her long fingers. The engagement ring sparkles in my face.

“Look, here’s the thing,” she says finally. “The last couple of weeks, Hannah was getting calls from a certain number. And she called back a lot. The day she disappeared, she got a call at half past eleven. The problem is, the number belongs to a prepaid phone.”

I nod in sympathy. Working murder, plenty of our leads dead-end at a prepaid number, enough to inspire legislation requiring IDs and tracking – not that it would help, given the ease with which a fake driver’s license can be obtained. The things ought to be illegal.

“You know who uses those things?” I say. “Dealers, gang members, people who want to keep off the radar. If you ask me, that strengthens my case.”

“Well, we already have a line on someone at her high school we think was making those calls. But you could be right. The point is, we’ve hit a wall. We’re canvassing and re-canvassing neighborhoods, pulling in anybody who might have information, going over the Willowbrook Mall surveillance tapes with a fine-tooth comb. But I’m not sure it’s getting us anywhere. Hence the task force. They’re hoping to get a result by throwing more money and manpower at the problem.”

“The same old story,” I say. “Look, it sounds to me like you can justify pursuing something like this, whether it’s a long shot or not. I used to work for Wanda. I know she won’t stand in the way. She’s played a few hunches in her time, too.”

Again, she plunges into thought, knitting her eyebrows together in concentration. I’m tempted to say more, but I keep my mouth shut, letting her argue both sides in her head. It’s not every day a stranger shows up trying to enlist you on his quixotic quest. The fact she’s even halfway receptive bodes well.

“One condition,” she says.

“Anything.”

“You come with me. I’ll introduce you to Donna, and if you still have the guts, I’ll ask her for the swab. That way, no matter what happens, she’ll know it’s not coming from me.”

Not what I was expecting. Not at all. But the prospect intrigues me. I’m not anxious to spend time with the frantic mother, but driving out to the suburbs in the presence of Theresa Cavallo seems like a worthwhile way to spend the rest of the afternoon. There’s just one little problem.

“I need to make a phone call first,” I say. Using her desk phone, I dial Narcotics and ask for Mitch Geiger. His number rings, then goes through to voicemail. I leave my name and my mobile number, asking him to call when he gets a chance.

When I hang up, Cavallo is already standing, slipping her jacket on. She’s about five foot nine. Lean, but not skinny. She clips a holstered sig Sauer just ahead of her hip. It disturbs the line of her jacket, but there’s something about an attractive woman packing a gun. I’ve made the right call on this one.

“Are you driving?” I ask.

In answer, she dangles a set of keys.

CHAPTER
6

We battle the outbound traffic stacking up on I-45, then cut over on the Sam Houston Tollway to Stuebner Airline, crossing FM-1960 into a wooded, suburban terra incognita. My mental map of Houston grows sketchy this side of the tollway, but Cavallo navigates like a veteran, one hand on the wheel, the other perpetually in motion, punctuating her words. I like the way she talks, putting her whole body into it, like a sentence isn’t really a sentence until it’s acted out.