Blue Heaven (29 page)

Buddy said, “She said he’s a retired police officer, and he’d never be late without calling.”

“Was he one of those L.A. cops?” Jess asked, his mouth suddenly dry.

“That’s what she said. Why?”

Jess couldn’t think of a lie. He wasn’t good at them. Instead, he glanced at the pad Buddy had scribbled on. He memorized the name that was written on it.

“No matter,” Jess said.

WITH HIS STOMACH in turmoil, Jess found the men’s room. He splashed cold water on his face and dried off with a paper towel. He felt weak, and his legs were rubbery, his wounded hand throbbed.

He heard the splashing of a mop in a bucket and saw the janitor behind him. Jess closed his eyes for a moment. It was too much for him right now.

The janitor swirled his mop, kept his head down with his long hair
covering his face and his shoulders hunched like a man who wanted not to be noticed.

“J.J.?”

The mop stopped. Slowly, the janitor looked up. Eyes looked out through the strings of hair. Jess thought of how he had observed earlier that you could see the characteristics of the future adult in the photographed face of a child. Not that he’d recognized it at the time, but when he looked at the old photos, the grade-school photos, he could see it now. The boy was disconnected early, already on a destructive path. He was born with a form of sickness that was always there, lurking, but didn’t show itself until he was in his late teens, and it hadn’t erupted until his first year of college. The doctors said it was paranoid schizophrenia, and other names Jess couldn’t recall. The boy had always had quirks—talking to himself, brushing his teeth until they bled, refusing from age twelve on to be touched. Then it got worse: hallucinations, rages, the drowning of a litter of barn kittens because the mother cat supposedly had tried to smother him while he slept. He opted to use chemicals to try to change the world around him, to bring it into line with what he perceived it to be. He had succeeded, to some extent. J.J. had never been meant to join the ranchers at the breakfast table.

“Jess Junior, do you recognize me?”

His son stared at him dully. The medication he was on that allowed him to work while incarcerated rendered him passive and emotionless. But without it, he would hurt himself and others.

“Dad.”

“How are you doing, son?”

A slight, simple smile. “Not good.”

“You’re working hard, it looks like.”

J.J. nodded. “Jes’ moppin’.”

Jess tried to sound encouraging. “Are things going all right?”

It took a moment, but J.J. began to sweep his woolly head from side to side. Jess stepped forward, but J.J. held the mop out to keep him back. “Don’ you touch me.”

“I won’t, son. I remember how you hate that. What’s wrong?”

Jess waited a full minute for his question to penetrate and for J.J. to form an answer. His struggle to put thoughts together to speak broke Jess’s heart.

“There’s some bad men here, Dad.”

“In the jail, sure.”

“No,” J.J. said, making his eyes big, shaking his head from side to side in an exaggerated way.

“Do you mean the ex-cops?” Jess said, and withdrew the sketch Annie had made and unfolded it, showing it to J.J. “Is this them?” Jess asked, already knowing the answer by the look of alarm in his son’s face.

J.J. gave an exaggerated nod. “They’re really bad.”

“Son,” Jess said, feeling his eyes mist, “I believe you.”

“Don’ touch me.”

“I won’t, son.”

AFTER RETRIEVING his possessions, Jess found a pay telephone in the lobby of the county building. He tried to shove aside his devastation from seeing Karen and their damaged son on the same morning. He dug Villatoro’s card out of his pocket while he dialed, and was transferred to the motel room. The line was busy, so he left a message.

“Mr. Villatoro, this is Jess Rawlins. I don’t know what it means yet, but maybe you should check on another name. It’s another ex-cop. I’ve got his name here….”

As he spoke, Jess thought things had become much more clear and much, much worse. He knew for sure now which side he was on.

N
EWKIRK ROOTED through Monica Taylor’s refrigerator not because he was hungry but because he knew he should eat. His body was starved for something besides Wild Turkey. His hands shook as he pushed a half-full gallon of milk aside on the shelf and looked for something he could warm up. He checked the freezer. Aside from containers of juice and ice trays, there was only a large, aluminum foil–covered pan. He tapped it: frozen solid.

He was unsettled from a telephone conversation he had just had with his wife. She was coldly furious with him when he told her he likely wouldn’t be home for a while. She reminded him of their son’s spring baseball practice, and of previous plans to spend the day preparing her vegetable garden. It all sounded so trivial, he thought, given the situation right now. It reminded him of the bad old days on the force, when he was on a high-stakes assignment and she would be angry with him because he wouldn’t be home to watch television with her. Now, it was happening again. It was exactly what he thought he had left behind in L.A., the tension, the resentment, the fights. Everything was back again. As for his wife, who was showcased in a home she could have only imagined years before, who didn’t have to work outside the home,
whose idea of a tough day was to take an exercise class at the gym or turn over the soil in her vegetable garden, well,
fuck her.
She didn’t know what he was going through—she couldn’t see any farther than her own false eyelashes.

Monica Taylor was in the living room, sitting alone and alert on the couch, staring at who-knows-what. She seemed frustratingly serene. There was something wrong with her, he thought, to be that way, given the circumstances. She was also more attractive than he thought she would be. Now that she was so sure that her children were alive somewhere, she was intolerable. Plus, he didn’t trust her. It was almost as if she knew what they were up to, but there was no way she could know that.

He slammed the refrigerator door shut so hard that he heard a bottle break inside. “Don’t you have anything here to eat?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m starving,” he said, charging into the living room. “I haven’t had a normal meal in two days. All you’ve got in the refrigerator is milk, salad, and eggs. Do you have something I could eat?”

She said, distracted, “I think there are some cans of soup in the pantry.”

“What’s that in the freezer? There’s something in a casserole dish. Is it something I can thaw out?”

She turned and looked directly at him. “Leave that alone. It’s lasagna I made yesterday and froze. Lasagna is Annie’s favorite, and I’m saving it for when they’re back. The first one got burned up Friday night.”

Newkirk snorted, “Jesus, lady.”

His cell phone burred and he drew it out and looked at it. Singer calling. He went back into the kitchen and closed the door.

“How is it going there?” Singer asked.

Newkirk sighed. “Okay. She’s nuts, though. She insists her kids are coming back.”

A pause. “They aren’t.”

Newkirk felt a flutter of both terror and relief. “Did something happen?”

“No, not yet. But I have confidence that you and Gonzo will find them. The more I think about it, the more I agree with Monica Taylor. Those kids are somewhere hiding out. We’ve got to find them.”

“I thought for a second there …”

“No. But we’re in control. I just heard from Gonzo. The package was delivered to Swann, and Swann is overseeing disposal. He should be heading back to the house within an hour or so to relieve you.”

Newkirk tried not to think of what Swann was disposing of.

“I told Gonzo to start on the house-to-house. He’s got a couple of good maps from the sheriff’s office, with every residence and building in the county. He’s going to start visiting people one by one, working out from Sand Creek. When Swann gets back, I want you to recon with Gonzo and do the same.”

“Do you want us to work together or separately?”

“I’ll leave that call up to Gonzo,” Singer said. “My guess is you’ll split up but stay in the same vicinity. That way, you’ll be able to cover twice as much ground, but you’ll be close enough to each other to provide backup if necessary. I think it’s just a matter of time before we find them.”

Newkirk didn’t need to ask what would happen if they did. As he listened, he cracked the door to check on Monica Taylor. She was still sitting there, hands in her lap, relief on her face.

“I’m kind of looking forward to getting out there,” Newkirk said. “This lady is creeping me out.”

Singer laughed softly. “Swann can handle her. Don’t worry.”

“I wish this thing was over with,” Newkirk said, immediately regretting he had confided in Singer. “You know what I mean.”

A long pause. “Are you still solid?”

“Sure, it isn’t that.” But it was.

“Stay tough, Newkirk. We’re only as strong as our weakest link.”

“Believe me, I know.”

“It’ll be over when we find those kids,” Singer said. “So let’s concentrate on that.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh, I nearly forgot. I heard back from my contacts about your guy Villatoro.”

“And …”

“You’re right. We may have more trouble than I thought. He was the lead investigator for the Arcadia PD on the Santa Anita robbery. That’s where I’d heard his name. He used to give our guys headaches.”

“Fuck.”

“No doubt our former friend’s indiscretions brought him here. So we were right about that.”

Newkirk didn’t care whether they’d been right or not.
What’s done is done
, he thought. But now they had a new, serious problem, one Singer had predicted long before if anyone went off the reservation and got sloppy.

“What are we going to do about him?” Newkirk asked, anticipating the answer.

“I’m not sure yet.” A note of hesitation, which was unusual in Singer. “He’s retired, so he’s not here in any official capacity. He’s got no juice, so he can’t make any demands. I know he’s not making any progress with the sheriff. He might just give up and go away, if we’re lucky. But we need to keep an eye on him. A very discreet eye, if you know what I mean.”

“Hmmm-hmmm.”

“Before you join Gonzo, take a quick run around town. Take a look at motel registers for his name so we can nail down his location. If anybody asks, just tell them you’re doing follow-up for the sheriff for his sexual predator list. See when he plans to check out. Call me, and we’ll go from there.”

“Okay.”

“Try not to let him see you,” Singer said. “He’s seen you a couple of times already, and we don’t want him to put anything together.”

Why don’t
you
check out the registers, then?
Newkirk wanted to ask.
He hasn’t seen
you
before
.

“Are you okay with that?” Singer was asking.

“Sure,” Newkirk sighed.

“Be discreet,” Singer said again. “Then go help Gonzo. Let’s wrap this thing up.”

“Ten-four,” Newkirk said, and closed the phone.

WHILE NEWKIRK was in the bathroom, Monica stared at the telephone and made up her mind. She would call the man she thought could help, who’d helped her before. If nothing else, maybe he could calm her down, soothe her, tell her everything would be all right. He owed her, after all, and she’d not reminded him of it in twelve years.

She crossed the room and snatched the phone out of the cradle. There was no reason to use the phone book. She had memorized the number years before, had intended to dial it a hundred times and never had.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Newkirk asked her, coming out of the bathroom, speaking loud enough to be heard over the sound of the flush.

“Making a call.”

“To who?”

“None of your business.”

“Stay the hell off the line,” he said, snatching the phone from her and slamming it back in the cradle. “You need to keep the line clear in case someone calls who knows about your kids.” Newkirk’s face was red, his eyes dark.

“Are you helping me or guarding me?” she asked.

“Take it up with Swann,” he said.

“Maybe I should go find that reporter and tell her I’m being held prisoner in my own house.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Newkirk said. “We’re trying to keep you out of the spotlight so the investigation can proceed to its conclusion. Didn’t Swann tell you that? There’ll be time for press conferences and other shit once this is over. You don’t want to be gone if a call comes through about your kids, do you?”

She glared at him, tried to see through his words. She wondered why he was suddenly sweating.

V
ILLATORO’S HEART leaped when the receptionist at the motel handed him a sheaf of documents that had been faxed from his old office by Celeste throughout the morning. The receptionist eyed him with amusement as he shuffled through the papers, and said her invitation would still be open for tonight, if he was interested.