Defiled: The Sequel to Nailed Featuring John Tall Wolf (A Ron Ketchum Mystery Book 2) (29 page)

Sutherland rolled his eyes.

Ron asked, “And you are?”

“Tara Driscoll, Mr. Sutherland’s attorney.”

“Well, Ms. Driscoll, this interview is entirely voluntary. Mr. Sutherland is free to leave at any time. And there is no record being kept. So I’m afraid there’s no context in which to note your objection.”

“Your sergeant implicitly threatened Mr. Sutherland with indefinite detention by the federal government if he left this room without speaking to you.”

Ron shook his head. “Sergeant Stanley never threatens anyone, certainly not with outcomes he has no power to enforce. He may have advised you of potential consequences.” Looking at Sutherland, he asked, “Does that sound right to you?”

“Yes. Ms. Driscoll is young and zealous and that’s a fine combination, in its place. But I think cooperation would be more helpful right now.”

Turning to the lawyer, Ron said, “Ms. Driscoll?”

“I continue my objection.”

Sutherland told her, “Tara, please wait outside. Alert the media if I disappear into a CIA gulag.”

The attorney glared at her client, but when Ron opened the door for her, she left.

The chief closed the door again and sat opposite Sutherland.

“How well do you know Jake Burkett?” Ron asked.

Sutherland covered the point of familiarity provided by Sergeant Stanley and added that he and Burkett had become good but not inseparable friends.

“Anything else?” Ron said.

“We’ve paired up in three fishing competitions and won two of them. Went out and had too many beers after the first win. Knew better by the next time we won.”

The chief thought about that and said, “People are sometimes more forthcoming when they get drunk. Did Jake say anything to you that you’d never heard before?”

“No, the only thing that surprised me was the … I guess vehemence would be the word about how he felt society at large was failing to protect the environment. He has more anger in him than I ever would have guessed. At times, anyway.”

“Do you think he’d be a bad man to cross?”

“As in screw over? Yeah, I think he would.”

“Did you ever do anything to make Jake mad at you?”

Sutherland sat back, surprised. “Me, no. I can’t think of a thing.” He sat back to give the question a closer look and shook his head. “Not a thing. We get along.”

“All right. Do you think, then, Jake might sacrifice a friend to achieve some higher goal?”

That idea really shook Sutherland. “I hadn’t until just now. Christ, I wouldn’t have had anything to do with him, if he was going to put me … well, in a room like this talking to a cop.”

Ron let that reality work on Sutherland for a minute.

“Is there any way Jake could know about your connection to the Viper that blew up on Lake Shore Drive?”

“Sure, there is. I told him all about it. Told him Jessica nagged me into backing out of the agreement with the car dealer. Now,
that
guy was pissed.”

“Your wife didn’t want you to have a sports car?”

“She didn’t want me to have a sports car that couldn’t carry the whole family. I just put a deposit down on a Tesla sedan. She’s fine with that.” Sutherland just thought of something else. “You know, I mentioned that to Jake, too, about ordering the Tesla. He liked that. Said an electric car is the way to go.”

Ron took a moment to digest everything he’d heard.

Sutherland interrupted his reverie by asking, “You think I should steer clear of Jake for a while?”

“Yes, I do,” Ron said.

“That anger I saw in Jake when we got drunk? There was just a flash of that in his eyes when I told him about getting the Viper. Like he disapproved, someone buying a ten cylinder gas guzzling pollution monster, but he didn’t say anything, wasn’t going to let it mess with … what I thought was our friendship.”

“Thank you for coming in,” Ron said, getting to his feet.

Sutherland stood and said, “No problem. You know, whatever demons Jake Burkett might have, he isn’t close to taking the prize for the guy I know who has a really dangerous temper.”

“No?” Ron asked. “Who’d take that prize?”

“Clay Steadman. He financed my film, ‘California Wild and Free.’”

“So what’s the connection, if any, between the mayor and Jake Burkett?” Keely Powell asked Ron.

The two of them were at the chief’s house. Keely, having arrived first, had brewed a pot of Sleepytime herbal tea. A blend of chamomile, spearmint and lemongrass, it had a pleasant taste and its name suggested when it might be enjoyed rather than claiming any sedative effect. Keely set out a jar of clover honey that Ron knew had made its way into his pantry only after the arrival of a retired LAPD detective.

Ron added a spoonful of honey to his tea and stirred it.

“I know they know each other because Clay introduced me to Jake. Jake was born here; Clay’s lived here for decades. So chances are they go way back. Whether they’re more than acquaintances, though, I can’t say.”

“No gut feeling?” Keely asked.

“Having talked to Roger Sutherland, watching him interact with his lawyer, listening closely to the way he answered my questions, I don’t think he’s involved in anything criminal, unless it’s unwittingly.”

“You ask Sutherland if Jake inquired whether he knows any hitmen from Vegas?”

“Didn’t want to hit Sutherland with everything all at once. People start to feel overwhelmed, they get defensive. But I have the feeling he’s not the connection between Helios Sideris and Jake Burkett. I’ll call Sutherland in the morning and ask, just in case I’m wrong.”

“I could do that, if you want. Might be easier coming from me.”

Ron nodded. “Okay, thanks.”

“Hey, what’s a consulting detective for?”

“You’re going to take the job?”

“Well, if —”

They were interrupted by a knock at Ron’s front door.

Keely got up to see who was there, but the chief grabbed her wrist and put an index finger to his lips. Maybe, he thought, Jake Burkett was stopping by. Possibly to express his displeasure with gunfire.

Ron gestured Keely to a position off to his right. Just down the hallway to the bedrooms. Where she’d be out of a direct line of fire from the doorway, but would still have a sightline on whoever came calling. Both of them had their guns in hand by now.

Standing to the left of the door, the chief called out, “Who’s there?”

“It’s me,” came the reply, “Oliver.”

The deputy chief of police, back from Arizona. Ron looked at Keely. She winked at him and slipped down the hallway to the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

Ron said, “Just a minute.”

He stuck Keely’s teacup and spoon in the cold oven.

If he’d left things in the sink, Oliver might have seen them.

He went to the door and opened it. The deputy chief stood there unsmiling. He was wearing civilian clothes. A polo shirt, jeans and tennis shoes. It had been less than a week since he’d last seen Oliver, but he thought the deputy chief must have spent every free minute pumping iron. He looked half-again as big as Ron remembered him.

“Getting chilly out there,” the chief said, “come on in.”

“Not interrupting anything, am I?”

Ron closed the door behind him.

“I was heading to bed in a few minutes, but we can talk if you want.”

Another nonresponsive answer.

Oliver knew it, too, but didn’t say anything. The two men took seats in the living room. Ron waited patiently. Oliver sighed and crossed his arms in front of his chest. Defensive.

“I talked to my old commanding officer down in L.A.,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“They’re looking for new cops. Told me I could come back at my old rank. Keep the time I’d accrued from before toward my pension.”

“That what you want?” Ron asked. “To be a sergeant in Los Angeles again.”

Oliver put his hands on his legs, looked at them and then at Ron.

“No, but I’ve got to have something.”

“You still have a job right here.”

“You’ll take me back?”

“As far as I’m concerned, you never left. As far as I know, you haven’t accepted another job. Have you?”

“No.”

Ron shrugged. “Then there’s no problem. Not for me. In fact, your timing might be really good.”

Oliver looked at Ron, suspicion in his eyes.

“What’s that mean?”

“Well, I’m going to run for mayor.”

“Mayor?”
The deputy chief was incredulous.

“Clay’s leaving town. See what happens when you take a week off. The whole world changes. Well, the whole town anyway. The mayor has his reasons. That’s all I’ll say about that for now. He has told me, though, he expects me to win the election.”

Oliver nodded. “I would, too. I read about you keeping that bomb from going off. Made me think about the time you saved my life.”

Ron laughed. “Yeah, I’ve really got to take fewer chances in the future. Anyway, I become mayor, I’m going to need a new chief of police. As you know, that job’s a mayoral appointment around here.”

“I do remember that. If you were, say, to pick an old friend for the job, would anyone give you grief about that?”

“No way. Goldstrike mayors are revered by one and all. Or else.”

Oliver smiled, briefly.

“So what’s the catch? There’s always a catch.”

“I’ve just hired a consulting detective for the department, my old partner from LAPD. You’d have to honor both the letter and the spirit of that decision.”

“Your old partner good at detecting?”

“One of the best.”

“But doesn’t want to sign on full time?”

“She’s sorta like you in one way. Has trouble cutting ties with L.A.”

Oliver nodded. “But something comes up, she comes when needed?”

“Absolutely.”

“Will she be making more money than me?”

Ron was certain Keely was eavesdropping.

Wouldn’t do to tick her off now.

“If you calculated things by the hour, yeah. But you’ll have more hours available to you, and you’ll get a big bump in pay from what you’re making now. That’ll have to be enough.”

Oliver looked like he was weighing the situation. Might go either way.

Ron knew that was all a pretense.

Lauren would kill her husband if he turned down Ron’s offer.

“One last thing,” Oliver said. “If the consulting detective and I have a difference of opinion on how to conduct an investigation, how’s that get settled?”

“You bring the matter to me and I decide.”

Oliver laughed. “You sound like you’re the mayor already.”

The two men shook on the deal. Oliver said it was good to be back.

Before he left, he asked Ron, “You need any help with the new cases?”

“No, we’re good, I think. See you next Monday.”

Ron watched Oliver drive off.

Hoped he wouldn’t regret turning down the deputy chief’s offer of help.

John Tall Wolf asked for a six a.m. wake-up call but he awoke with a start an hour earlier. He canceled the wake-up call and took a brief, hot shower. With his hair still wet and only a towel around his middle he opened the room’s curtains. He had a lake view. It wouldn’t be long until sunrise and the world was already becoming visible. A breeze stirred the trees and set up a light chop on the waters of Lake Adeline.

He booted up his laptop and got the local weather forecast. Mostly sunny skies. High temperature in the mid-seventies. Current reading sixty degrees. He returned to the window and looked out at the lake again. He could feel the chill of the water from his hotel room.

He’d been dreaming about the lake. About being in the cold water. Way
down
in it. He didn’t know how he got there. He tried to stay calm as he held his breath and swam toward the surface. He knew he was heading upward because he could see the sun above him.

Reaching the light was both a life-saving goal and an exercise in pain. The sun was so bright and the water so clear that the radiance seared his light-sensitive eyes. He had to close them for relief. With the darkness came terror. He was no longer certain he was swimming toward the surface, and his legs started to go numb from the cold.

His progress faltered and his lungs felt as if they would burst. The cold clawed its way up his body. He was losing all sense of feeling except for the lacerating hunger for air. Death had all but draped itself around his shoulders. Determined to get one last glimpse of the world, he opened his eyes.

The sun was gone, replaced by a full moon.

Then he heard Coyote howl.

Laughter rang in its cry of triumph.

Tall Wolf opened his mouth and … sucked in air as he woke up in his hotel room.

Turning away from the window, he said, “Fuck you, Coyote. See if you can get me into that lake.”

Sergeant Stanley, already at his desk and planning his day, received a phone call. “Burkett is outside and moving.”

The senior officer on watch was reporting.

The sergeant looked at the wall clock. Not yet six o’clock. The sun was up, yeah, but state workers, even the dedicated ones, didn’t punch in this early. Something was up.

“Is he taking his state vehicle?” Sergeant Stanley asked.

“No, sarge. He’s in a Land Rover. Gray.” The cop relayed the license plate number. “Vehicle looks maybe five years old, and he’s towing a boat. About twenty feet long, red hull. Says Nomad on the side. Single outboard motor. Suzuki 175 logo.”

“One minute,” the sergeant said. He opened a desk drawer, took out his one concession to the digital age, a laptop computer. Marjorie had given it to him last Christmas. He booted it up and punched the information about Burkett’s boat. Got a picture, specs and designation. “It’s a shallow-draft fishing boat with an open cockpit. Is that what you’re looking at?”

“Yeah, Sarge. Looks like he’s got some fishing rods in it. He’s heading for Lake Adeline. Please advise.”

“Pull him over,” Sergeant Stanley said.

“Say again.”

“Pull him over. I can tell from here his trailer hitch looks wobbly.”

“Will do. Good eyes, Sarge. Anything else we should be looking for?”

“Consider Burkett to be possibly armed and dangerous. Do not take
any
chances with him. I’m sending additional units to back you up. They’ll be with you shortly.”

The officer said, “Checking for CCW license … He’s got one. What do we do if he’s armed?”

“Take his weapon. Tell him it’s illegal to shoot fish on Lake Adeline. Check his boat and car for weapons. If you find any, seize them, too. Tell Mr. Burkett all his firearms will be returned when he pulls his boat out of the water.”

“If he complains, Sarge, then what?”

“Bring him to see me.”

“Will do. Is that all, Sarge?”

“If you see anything resembling a bomb, say with plastic explosives and a timer, grab that, too, and we’ll lock Mr. Burkett up.”

“He’s pulling over, Sarge. Stopped now. Has both hands out the driver’s side window.”

“Well, that’s a good start,” Sergeant Stanley said.

Ron Ketchum and Keely Powell looked at the remains of Walter Ketchum. He’d been groomed and dressed for his farewell performance. Laid to rest in a coffin of polished mahogany. Not that he’d be buried in the fancy box. According to an e-mail Ron had received from the mayor, Walt’s wish was to be cremated and have his ashes scattered on the Pacific.

The chief looked over at his new consulting detective.

He’d drawn up a contract that morning and she’d signed it.

Keely had a tear running down each cheek as she looked at Walt.

“You didn’t know the old goat
that
well, did you?” Ron asked.

“I was his secret lover,” she said with a straight face.

“Okay. So it was you who gave him the stroke.”

She laughed. Took out a tissue and blew her nose with a good honk.

Ron put an arm around her shoulders.

“You be careful, Mr. Future Mayor,” she told Ron, “or I’ll give you one, too.”

“Well, I’ll go happy and you can have another good cry.”

Keely slipped an arm around Ron’s waist and they gave Walt a quiet moment’s attention.

“You think he’s really with your mother again?” Keely asked.

Ron considered the idea. “He might have to walk a mile barefoot over broken glass to get to her, but it would be great if that was how it worked out. He was at least heading in the right direction at the end. Maybe that counts for something.”

The door behind them opened. The funeral home wasn’t supposed to be open to the public for another three hours. But the aptly named Mr. Greevey, already garbed and coifed even nicer than Walt, was admitting a well-dressed middle-aged African-American woman to the room.

She walked down the aisle between the rows of padded folding chairs. She dabbed both her cheeks with a lace-edged handkerchief. She was crying in far greater volume than Keely had been. Ron and Keely stepped forward to greet her.

The chief had never met her, but he said, “Esther? You got here in a hurry.”

“Mayor Steadman sent his plane for me. May I?”

The two cops stood aside and let Esther Gadwell approach the casket.

To their surprise, she started to laugh quietly. After a moment, she turned to look at Ron and Keely. She wiped away the last of her tears and said, “The poor man’s dead and gone, and I never saw him looking so fine.”

“He’s been surprising a lot of people lately,” Ron said.

The three of them sat in the front row of chairs, Esther recounting some of the days she’d spent with Walt as he recovered from his stroke. She told them, “Oh, my, he and I had some terrible arguments about black people and white people. One time, I even threatened to drown him in his bathtub. He wouldn’t let me take a damp washcloth to him for a week after that.”

Being cops, Ron and Keely found that hilarious.

Esther was relieved they didn’t take things the wrong way.

“Toward the end, though, we both got past a lot of foolishness. I shook his hand when we said goodbye in Los Angeles, the night before he came up here. You want a surprise? I about fell over when your daddy leaned in and kissed my cheek.”

“He always knew a good woman when he saw one,” Ron said.

Esther smiled, and her eyes started to fill again.

Mr. Greevey reentered the room. He made his way to Ron and said with a quiet tone that belied his message, “Sergeant Stanley needs to speak with you. He says it’s urgent.”

Before Ron could apologize to Esther, she took his hand and said, “You go on now, the two of you. I’ve spent many an hour sitting alone with this man. One more time … that’ll be just what I need.”

Ron and Keely both kissed Esther’s cheek and left.

John Tall Wolf called his counterpart with the FBI, Abra Benjamin.

“Glad I caught you before you went out.” Benjamin was still in her room at the Hilton. “Would you mind doing a computer search on Jacob Burkett?”

“This is something
you
can’t do?” she asked.

“I could, but it would be easier for you. I’ll be working another angle, and what you might find out is likely to bring more credit to you in the final accounting of this case.”

“An appeal to self-interest then. You are a silver-tongued devil, Tall Wolf.”

“The best kind to be. So you’ll help?”

“How could I say no?”

She listened to what her federal colleague had to say. He wanted her to check Jacob Burkett’s federal tax returns for the past ten years. The IRS was supposed to keep returns strictly private. Richard Nixon, of course, had both perused the returns of his political enemies and had them audited. Those misdeeds were noted in Article 2 of his impeachment proceedings. So things hadn’t worked out so well for him. But post 9/11, aided by the vast reach of the Patriot Act, and given a substantial suspicion of an individual’s participation in an act of terrorism, access to IRS returns had become less problematic.

More so for the Federal Bureau of Investigation than the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Benjamin knew that and now had a better understanding of Tall Wolf’s request.

Even so, she asked, “The point of this exercise is?”

“Twofold. Mr. Burkett is the plaintiff in a civil suit in which he claims to have offered a nine-figure sum for a parcel of land. He might be ever so thrifty but I don’t see how he could manage that on a state employee’s salary.”

Benjamin laughed. “No, neither do I.”

“But Mr. Burkett has an outside source of income, a very substantial income.” He told Benjamin that Burkett had discovered more than one large nugget of gold.

Benjamin said, “This is for real?”

“What you found in Helios Sideris’ safe-deposit box was but a crumb.”

“Christ.”

“Gitche Manitou,”
Tall Wolf replied. Before she could ask what he meant, he continued, “I have a confidential informant who says he knows Burkett has accumulated a large amount of gold. Now, if Burkett hasn’t reported that on any of his tax returns, and is using it to finance acts of domestic terrorism —”

“We’ve got him dead bang on tax evasion, and might be able to get him to cop to the terrorism, too. Talk about a big arrest.”

“Worth doing a little online snooping?” Tall Wolf asked.

“Yeah, it is,” Benjamin said. Ever suspicious, though, she asked, “So what’s the angle you’ll be working?”

“Well, I’m fresh out of animal entrails, so I want to see if I can find out what makes Burkett tick. Why he’s doing what he’s doing. How he’s going to react when we bring out a net to throw over him.”

Benjamin was silent for a moment.

“My guess is he won’t go peacefully,” she said.

Jake Burkett asked Ron Ketchum, “Are you going to harass me full time? I can’t even go fishing without getting stopped?”

“I thought you were going to work.”

“I decided to take a vacation day. That all right with you?”

Ron had a question of his own. “You’re not Catholic by any chance, are you?”

“No. What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“I was going to tell you confession is good for the soul. That’s something you still might want to consider.”

The chief was sure he was about to hear a “fuck you,” but there were ten cops watching Burkett at the moment, and none of them was smiling.

Burkett contented himself with another question, “Can I go now?”

“Be sure to take care of that trailer hitch of yours,” Ron said.

Sergeant Stanley, no doubt from years of watching people haul boats, campers and who knew what else up mountain roads, had made a good guess. The cops’ reason for stopping Burkett had been entirely legitimate.

“Yeah, you can go,” the chief added.

“You going to have your patrol boats watching me?”

“Might put up a helicopter, too.”

The PD and the county medical evac people shared one.

Burkett abandoned self-restraint. “Ah, fuck all of you.”

He waited a moment and when he wasn’t arrested got back in his Land Rover and towed his boat off in the direction of Lake Adeline. Ron directed two cars to follow Burkett and called Sergeant Stanley to have two lake patrol boats follow Burkett closely.

He was tempted to go with them. He didn’t want to let the man out of his sight. But more than that he wanted to talk with Tall Wolf and Benjamin to see if either of them might come up with a solid reason to put the man in a jail cell.

Still, he felt it’d be a mistake not to have a higher authority watch Burkett.

Ron took out his cell phone and called Oliver Gosden. He said, “Your offer of help still stand? You willing to get to work right now?”