Blackbird (13 page)

Wayne cleared his throat, his cheeks flaming red.

‘We all missed them the first time,’ I said. ‘They were on the other side of the tree, behind the body – hard to see them at all unless you were already thinking they might be there.’

Wayne sketched a quick nod but stayed red.

‘Nobody but a deer hunter owns a stand like that,’ I said. ‘He’s gonna carry it around in a pickup or SUV, or possibly a van. But considering what they’re up to, they’re gonna throw it in the van if it’s not already there. One with no windows on the side – ’

‘Be your Abduct-O-Matic special,’ Mouncey said.

I said, ‘What did you find out, Danny?’

He took a sip of water and said, ‘First, cyberspace, the final, final frontier; I spent two and a half hours trying every keyword, combination and tag I could think of. Bottom line, I got ass lividity but I can say without fear of contradiction that nobody’s ever done anything quite like this murder anywhere in the whole wide world. Unless
you want to count dead guys with their dicks stuffed in their mouths.’

‘Uh uh,’ said Mouncey, shaking her head. ‘That godfather bidness a whole different tune.’

Ridout grunted, flipping a couple of pages in his notebook. ‘So back to the here and now. The civilians who beat us to the scene were Michael Phillip Haber, 16; Joseph Neil Baines, 15; John Alan Haber, 41, the father of Michael; and Darryl Lewis Pascoe, 46. No dippers, no bubble-gum chewers, DNA pending.’

‘Don’t sound like no Romans to me,’ said Mouncey.

‘What would sound Roman to you?’ I asked.

She shrugged. ‘Thinkin’ Alfredo Linguini, maybe Chef Boy-ar-dee.’

Ridout continued, ‘Mike and Joey were out kicking around, looking for something to do, saw the body, freaked out and ran home to Mike’s house south of the interstate, where they told his father and the next-door neighbour, Pascoe. All four returned to the scene after leaving instructions with Mike’s mother to call the police. No serious sheet on any of them other than a DWI Pascoe caught four years ago after a Christmas party outside Longview. No connection I could find between Deborah Gold and any member, friend or neighbour of either family.’

‘How them players feel about Jews?’ asked Mouncey.

‘My thought, about as much as they like lawyers and proctologists; not necessarily crazy about ’em but probably don’t run into ’em at cocktail parties that often either. Just my personal take, there’s nothing there.’

‘I think you’re right,’ I said. ‘Much as I hate it.’

‘So,’ he said. ‘Forgin’ ahead. Best guess, the doers originally approached the scene along the tracks from the north
instead of from the road. Looks like three or four good-sized people scrambled up the bank about twenty-five yards back from the scene. Figure it was our guys, and they left their vehicle someplace up the way, out of sight. I’m them, I secure a perimeter and then detail a couple guys off to go grab the doc. They come back by way of the road to get as close to the scene as possible before they have to pull her back out of the vehicle. Three access points within a couple miles along the tracks north of the scene. The next one after that takes you almost halfway to Texarkana. Long way to hoof it along a railroad track in the dark and the rain, so I’m figuring the first or second crossing. It’s all crushed rock at the crossings, so there’s no tracks. Towsack full of cigarette butts and soda cans, but no useable prints left on anything, DNA pending again. There’s plenty of access to the south and the track right-of-way is wooded most of the way down to the trestle, but in that direction the rails are never more than about thirty yards from the road. And that approach puts you pretty much in town except for the last hundred yards or so. Plus why approach from the south and walk past your site, then come back?’

Wayne said, ‘Recon?’

‘Could be, but I’m thinkin’ characters like these would’ve already done that. And anyway, how much recon can you do at night in the middle of a storm? Assuming no night-vision gear.’

‘Which we can’t.’

‘Can’t what?’

‘Assume.’

‘Right. But it’s still better logistics to come in from the north.’

I nodded.

‘Nobody I talked to that lives around any of the accesses said they saw or heard anything unusual that night, except a couple of ’em said the thunder sounded a little funny.’

‘Funny how?’

‘Couldn’t put their finger on it,’ he said. ‘Same hear-no-evil story for the doc’s office. There’s some houses not too far from there, and other offices in the complex, but nobody heard or saw a thing.’

I said, ‘Any witnesses talking about horses or the sound of marching?’

A general turning of heads, all eyes finding me. After a couple of beats Ridout said, ‘Not that I heard, but then I clean forgot to ask. Dast I enquire where that question came from?’

Before I could answer him the phone light flashed. ‘Medical Examiner’s on the line,’ said Bertie’s voice. Dr Huang Huang, the assistant examiner who’d done the autopsy on Gold.

‘Lady have total hysterectomy, belly liposuction, also thighs and butt, different times. Gotta cellulite all over the place, pregnant one time, maybe more, tummy tuck, face and neck tighten up. Gotta five-eighths-inch gold ring through left nipple, looka like maybe fourteen-carat. Semen inna vagina say intercourse five-six hours before die when vagina where belong – no gotta DNA yet. Gotta old green-stick fracture right ulna, no other fracture, little bit of arthritis, not bad. Gotta lotta new scratch and bruise onna face, neck, hands, arms – ’

I said, ‘How close to the time of death did she get those?’

‘Figga one-two hour bottom, maybe ten top.’

‘What killed her, exactly?’

‘Okay, we gotta dead heat here: lady die from shock and asphyxia, plus she drown – one don’t getcha, other two will.’

‘Drowned?’

‘Buncha blood from her mouth inna stomach and lungs, lady strangle along with she not breathe worth damn anyway. Shock is ice onna cake.’

According to Huang, Dr Gold’s septum and mucus membranes showed signs of regular cocaine use. ‘Take-a cocaine less than twelve hour before she die,’ he said. ‘Plenty, but not gonna kill her. Also, we gotta little estrogen replacement here, we gotta little over-counter antihistamine, we gotta lotta THC. Guy who cut out her tongue and pussy, he pretty good, but don’t think he surgeon.’

‘Why not?’

‘Way docta think. Certain places he cut, certain ways. This guy more like hunter.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Yeah, I say you gotta some kind crazy-ass case here, man.’

I thanked him and hung up, thinking about killers wearing gloves and long-sleeved shirts but probably not hoodies.

Ridout flipped to another page in his notebook, saying, ‘We got two tip lines and the Crimestoppers lead sheet running, and so far ninety-eight concerned citizens have had enough civic spirit to pick up a phone and try to help us out. Sad to say – and naturally it comes as a shock to us all – it looks like most of ’em are clinically stupid, bad crazy or rattling our cage for one reason or another. Got one here thinks we ought to take a real close look at the
husband, and while we’re at it find out if Dr Gold had any enemies. Lady over on Beech suggests questioning local criminals with violent histories, see if they know anything.’

‘Good plan,’ Mouncey said. ‘It pointers like that make us better investigators.’

‘Et cetera, et cetera,’ said Ridout. ‘Other perpetrators: the FBI, the Trilateral Commission, a crew of seven or eight real small but well-conditioned and unusually vicious extraterrestrials, a conspiracy of the Mafia, the CIA and rogue elements of the Catholic Archdiocese of San Antonio, the Daughters of the Confederacy, the niggers, the honkies trying to get the niggers in trouble, the Jews trying to get the goys in trouble, Hell’s Angels, the Dog Men of Arcturus, the offensive line coach of the Dallas Cowboys – which is who my money’s on – somebody called the Chaplain, that Channel Ten weekend anchor with the maroon hair and – last but definitely not least – you, Lou.’

Imaginary headlines began materialising in my mind: ‘POLICE INVOLVEMENT?’, ‘DEPARTMENTAL COVER-UP?’, ‘HOW HIGH DOES IT GO?’

‘Don’t know about the rest of y’all,’ Wayne said, ‘but that last one woulda clean got by me.’

I tossed the sheets on my desk.

‘Least you be handy when we ready to make the collar,’ noted Mouncey.

I looked at Ridout. ‘You don’t talk in your sleep, do you?’

‘No, why?’

‘Just thinking of your social life lately.’

He stared at me blankly for a few seconds before he got
it, then said, ‘Don’t worry, Lou, these irresistible lips are super-glued when I’m in dreamland.’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Anybody have anything else?’

‘Define “anything”.’

‘Define “else”.’

‘Haemorrhoids count?’

I stood up, stretched, and unclenched my teeth. LA had once told me that denial was the workhorse of ego defences, and I had no reason to doubt it. Ignoring the piles of message slips on my desk, I walked out of the office and across to the break room, got a can of tomato juice from the refrigerator and went to the bulletin board. Culling several dozen old notices, outdated memos and miscellaneous clutter, and dropping all of it into the wastebasket against the wall, I made enough free space to spell out ‘glowen’ in red, yellow, green and blue thumbtacks. I stood looking at it for a minute without getting any new ideas, rearranged the tacks to represent a drooping upper-case T, got no inspiration from that either, then tried the arm and hammer but ran out of tacks before it looked like anything at all.

The small TV on the counter caught my attention; all morning the news programmes had been running shots of the Tri-State Justice Building and the crime scene, but now there I was on the courthouse sidewalk, trying to answer some question about the investigation. I looked out of shape and discouraged, and I didn’t like the way I sounded. I wondered if broadcasting schools actually trained their students in editing footage to make interviewers seem smart and tough and people like me dull and slow. I walked over to turn the set off, visualising plaid flannel shirts and leather work gloves. For a second I thought I caught an
odd, unfamiliar smell – a mixture of hemp, tobacco, maybe something a little chemical – and looked around for the source, but the odour was gone so quickly and completely that I ended up writing it off as one of my useless little flashes of the so-called Sight.

THIRTEEN

Back at my desk I pulled up ‘Psychologists’ and found Dr Porfirio Benavides, with numbers for ‘Off.’ and ‘Ho.’ I dialled ‘Off.’

‘Professional offices,’ said a woman’s voice as calm and congenial as the one in space movies that announces the ship is going to self-destruct in eighteen seconds. A picture of the receptionist formed in my mind, but I couldn’t retrieve her name.

I told her who I was and she promised to have Benny call me back between patients.

While I waited I read through the background information in Deborah Gold’s file. In the last ten years she’d given media interviews on what I took to be standard topics like ‘Beating the Holiday Blues’, ‘How to Talk to Your Teenager About Sex’ and ‘Recovery From Divorce’. She had also taught some undergraduate courses at the university as an adjunct, but not recently, and had had two clinical associates working for her, both with master’s degrees, which in a psychology practice, going by what LA had told me, meant they probably did most of the actual work. Before that she’d had a psychologist partner, Mark Pendergrass, for two and a half years. Dr Pendergrass was originally
from Houston, divorced with two middle-sized kids, who’d left the partnership this year and was now working in the federal prison system. I had met him but didn’t really know much about him.

Gold’s first marriage had been to a defence lawyer in San Diego, but after a couple of years of being single she’d married a former patient of hers named Andy Jamison.

I picked up a pencil and put a check mark next to this paragraph and another at the bottom of a yellow sticky note on the same page, which read ‘Lawy’s call Whore’ in Ridout’s handwriting. Then, after arguing with myself about it, I left a message on Ridout’s phone asking him to run background on all the psychologists in town, with a little extra emphasis on the ‘all’. I didn’t like the feeling, but I knew going the other way would have been even worse.

I called Johnny at his office. ‘Hey, Houdini,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a question.’

‘Sure, what’s up?’

‘Exactly what do lawyers mean when they call somebody a whore?’

‘What’s the context?’ he said. ‘We talking about another lawyer, a witness, or what?’

‘Expert witness, let’s say.’

He said, ‘If it’s not an actual prostitute, or just somebody the lawyer doesn’t like, the word means pretty much what it sounds like – an expert who’ll deliver any opinion you’ve got the scratch to pay for.’

‘Any difference between that and a hired gun?’

‘Not much. I’d generally think of a hired gun as being a little farther up the food chain, not necessarily a liar, just more of a selective observer. Why?’

‘Does “whore” sound like Deborah Gold to you?’

‘Yeah, that was her rep. What’ve you got?’

‘Nothing yet,’ I said.

‘You make her for something other than just being a victim?’

‘No idea.’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Not hard to picture her on either side of that one. I hear she used to make noises about anti-Semitism – skinheads, latter-day Nazis and what-have-you. Wonder if that could’ve had anything to do with it?’

‘Wish I knew,’ I said. ‘Anyway, I’ll catch you up at the cookout if anything turns up.’

Getting back to the file, I saw that Gold had a son who’d moved to Israel two years ago after finishing a year at the community college, where he majored in History. Apparently he was living in Tel Aviv now, but nobody seemed to know what he was doing there. Her daughter had also left for Kansas City after getting pregnant and marrying a burglar named Dumarcus Shoe. This had caused a falling-out between mother and daughter, and they’d been out of touch for a couple of years. Andy Jamison had two teenage children, a boy and a girl, who lived with their mother and never visited the Jamison-Gold home if they could help it. Gold had a brother who’d drowned during a lake party when he was eighteen, and another who was now a realestate broker in Austin. Her father had died of a heart attack ten years ago and the mother was in a nursing home in Hot Springs, where Gold saw her once or twice a year. Not a tight-knit family, apparently.