Terry Odell - Mapleton 02 - Deadly Bones (29 page)

“Of course,” Irv said. “You can count on me.” A pause. “No, Sir. Haven’t heard anything about it.” Irv hung up the phone.

Gordon cleared his throat. Irv seemed oblivious. “You solo here?” Gordon asked.

Irv jerked his chair around. “Chief. Didn’t hear you come in. All the fire stuff makes for a noisy background.”

Gordon dropped it. He didn’t need a confrontation right now. He stepped toward the large map of Mapleton tacked to the wall beside the desk and located the bone site with a pushpin. As he found the address from the first break-in report, he casually asked Irv where Connie and Tessa were.

“Connie’s still here, Chief. I knew she’d be busy helping with the fire coordination, so I volunteered to come in and help out. There was a lull, so she’s taking a quick break. Tessa will come on at midnight. Not much else going on in Mapleton tonight. No, Sir, it’s been mostly calls from people wanting to know what’s going on.”

Gordon stuck another pushpin at another address and moved on to the next report. “Is that what you were doing before? Talking to a citizen?”

There was an extended pause, and Gordon turned to meet Irv’s eyes. The man seemed to be weighing his words. Or was he simply trying to remember the phone call? “A citizen.” He nodded. “Yes, that’s right. A citizen. Was worried about the fire. I told him to rest easy. We had everything under control.”

“Does this citizen have a name?”

Irv’s face scrunched in puzzlement. “A name. Yes, I’m sure there was a name.” He ducked his head. “I can’t recollect it. There were a lot of calls. They all blend in together.”

Gordon would check the call logs later. “Thank you, Irv,” he said and went back to putting pins in the map. When he finished, he stepped away.

If someone had orchestrated the break-ins, wouldn’t it be logical for them to be laid out in some sequence? Mentally, he connected the dots. Not a line, not a circle. A zigzag. Why drive all over town? Didn’t make sense. He used his cell to call Solomon in.

“On my way, Chief. Give me ten.”

While he waited for Solomon to arrive, Gordon went to the break room. Colfax was right. Couldn’t function without fuel. Inside, a few officers mingled with off-duty firefighters, chowing down on pulled pork sandwiches. His men straightened as he entered. The firefighters glanced up but continued eating. Gordon simply nodded and fixed himself a sandwich. A hint of guilt at the way he’d ignored Angie when she’d delivered the food plucked at his gut, but given the circumstances, he needed that line between his work and personal life clearly etched. She understood what his job entailed.

He noted an assortment of homemade desserts on the table as well, provided by considerate Mapleton citizens, no doubt. Gordon spotted Connie and picked up a chocolate chip cookie. “Mind if I join you?” He dangled the cookie.

She smiled, although there was a weariness in her eyes. “Not at all, and you didn’t need the cookie.”

“Can we man the perimeter of the evacuation area with our staff, or do I need to make sure we’ve still got county backing us up?”

“You give me more men, I can put them where they’re needed. I can’t manufacture personnel.”

“I’ll take that as an ‘add deputies.’ “ Gordon scooted his chair closer to her. “Actually, I wanted to ask you about Irv. How was he tonight? He seemed to drift off into the clouds when I asked him some simple questions.”

She nibbled at the edge of the cookie. “I was involved with fire coordination, and normal traffic was quiet, so I wasn’t checking on him often. I admit I was surprised to see him, since it’s not his night, but he said you wanted extra coverage.”

“He told you I called him in?”

She narrowed her lips and stared into the distance, as if she was recalling what had transpired. “Not in so many words. I think what he said was, ‘I’m here to help.’ Frankly, things were crazy and I was grateful for the extra hand, so I never questioned it. I think he’s like an old war horse, wanting to be part of the action, whether he’s ordered to or not.”

Connie would have had no reason to doubt Irv’s statement. “So, there were a lot of calls about the fire.” Gordon bit off a hunk of sandwich.

“Of course there were. And way too many people call the emergency line. We tried to direct them to the main switchboard, but we had to field a good number of them ourselves. Why? Was Irv being unprofessional again?”

“No, at least not from what I overheard. It didn’t sound like an official call, but since I didn’t hear the other side of the conversation, I can’t be sure. What bothered me was he didn’t seem to remember the call or the caller.”

“We did have a lot of them. I’m not sure I could tell you about every call I fielded.”

“Yes, but we’re talking a matter of a minute between the call and my question.”

“I can pull it.”

“Appreciate it. It would have been in the last ten minutes.”

Connie took the cookie with her as she left. Gordon was finishing his sandwich when Solomon burst into the room and headed straight to the table. “Hey, who forgot to tell me there was food?”

“Don’t you listen to your radio, Solomon?” one officer said.

“We wanted to be sure we had some for ourselves,” added another.

“Up yours,” Solomon said. He carried his plate to Gordon’s table, eating as he walked. “What do you need me for?”

“The break-ins.” Gordon explained what he’d discovered about the pattern—or the lack thereof. “Do you think we have more than one suspect?”

“I wasn’t thinking that way, Chief. Show me the map.”

Gordon led the way back to Dispatch. Solomon snagged a napkin full of cookies as he passed the table and devoured them as they walked. “Damn, these are good. Too bad it takes something like a major fire to bring out the donations. You think we could arrange something once a month or so?”

“You’re starting to sound too much like Colfax.” Gordon crossed Dispatch to the map. He referred to his reports as he pointed out the order of events.

“You sure this is how they happened, and not just when they got called in?” Solomon asked.

Gordon folded his arms across his chest. “You’re the detective wannabe. Didn’t you check?”

Solomon had the decency to look chagrined. “Sorry. I was following up on suspects. Didn’t look at the whole picture.”

“Did you get any viable suspects?”

“Hang on a second.” Solomon stared at the map, running his fingers from one pin to the next. “Can I see the reports?”

“Let’s go to my office,” Gordon said. “It should be quieter.”

After Solomon and Colfax exchanged polite hellos, Gordon spoke to Colfax. “Incident Commander says he wants the perimeter covered tonight. You have men on it?”

Colfax shoved away from the desk. “What do you think we are, Hepler? Small-town cops like you? The IC tells us what he needs, we make sure he gets it. We’re on top of things at our end.”

Gordon scowled. “Covering the bases. I’ve brought Solomon in to discuss the break-ins.” He pulled a smaller map of Mapleton from the file cabinet and spread it on the desk. Using a pencil, he put Xs on the break-in locations. “These calls all came in within fifteen minutes of each other. Let’s ignore the order they were reported, as you suggested. What’s the most efficient route from one to the next?”

Colfax leaned over the desk, apparently following Solomon’s thought process. Solomon traced a route with the back end of a pen. He poked one of the Xs. “Either start or end here.”

“How long would it take?” Colfax asked. “Assuming you can figure it out without consulting MapQuest.”

Solomon didn’t seem to notice the jab. Or was very good at ignoring Colfax’s remarks. He drummed his fingers on the edge of the desk. “At least twenty minutes, and that would be driving straight through, without stopping to throw rocks.”

“Which means?” Gordon said.

“More than one person.” Solomon said.

“Were any of the residents home?” Colfax asked.

“Only one,” Solomon said. “Elderly woman. Never heard a thing. She’d been visiting her grandchildren, and left a day sooner than she’d planned. She got home late and was dead to the world.”

“So, someone could have thought she was still away,” Gordon said. “What about the others?”

Solomon consulted his notebook. “Two houses for sale, empty. One woman works the night shift at a bar in Centennial. Last one, I couldn’t make contact, but the neighbor said he’s on a business trip. I couldn’t reach him.”

Colfax toyed with his coffee mug. “Five minor acts of vandalism. Five homes where nobody should have been there. That screams non-random to me.”

“Like, a bunch of kids were told to go find a vacant house and break a window,” Gordon said. “Solomon, tomorrow you should go to the high school and see what you can find out.”

“Only one thing bugs me,” Colfax said.

“And that would be—?” Gordon asked.

“You’ve got one high school, right? Serves the entire town?”

“Yep.” Gordon followed Colfax’s train of thought. “If it’s high school kids, they should be living all over Mapleton, and the fact that none of these break-ins was anywhere near the bone site is suspicious.”

“And how would kids know which homes wouldn’t be occupied unless they happened to live nearby or know the occupants would be gone?”

“You want me to check homes in the vicinity of the five break-ins to see if high school kids in the right behavioral demographic live there?”

“If by right behavioral demographic you mean
voted least likely to succeed
, then yes,” Colfax said. “Although my money is on this being one of those possibilities we’re eliminating.”

“Solomon, you follow up,” Gordon said. To Colfax, he said, “I’m going to work it from the other side.”

Solomon left, immediately replaced by Connie. “Chief, I don’t think you’re going to like this.”

Chapter 34

Gordon braced himself for another addition to his overflowing plate, and from Connie’s expression, it wasn’t going to be in the chocolate chip cookie category. She held several sheets of paper, and her hand trembled. He’d never seen her look like this—a combination of confused, concerned, and dismayed. Colfax cleared a stack of files from the visitor chair and motioned her to sit.

Gordon’s first reaction was that the fire had spread to Rose and Sam’s. But, because of the papers she held, he dismissed that fear. “Tell me.”

She took a deep breath. “I pulled the phone transcripts like you asked. There were no incoming calls for the timeframe you mentioned, so I went back until I found the most recent. It was twenty minutes earlier, and only lasted forty-seven seconds, so that couldn’t possibly have been the call you overheard.”

“So who was Irv talking to?” Gordon asked. “Making personal calls on the Dispatch lines? You’d think he’d be smart enough to use a cell phone.” But maybe this was another sign that Irv was losing it.

“That’s what had me worried,” Connie said.

“You traced the number he called, right?” Colfax said.

Connie rolled her eyes in Gordon’s direction. She knew her job, and she knew Gordon knew it. Gordon ignored both Connie’s reaction and Colfax’s unnecessary question.

“Who did he call?” Gordon asked.

“That’s just it,” Connie said. “The call went to a disposable cell phone. No way to trace it.”

This time, Colfax remained quiet instead of coming up with some quip about what was the big deal beyond abusing police policy by making personal calls. A lot of law-abiding people used burn phones. Gordon knew there was more. He nudged his chin in Connie’s direction.

“I went back through the phone records,” she continued. “I found more outgoing calls from my desk, all when Irv was on duty, all to the same disposable cell number. They’ve been going on for a month or so.”

“It’s not a crime to have a burn phone. Or that unusual. Girlfriend? Bookie? His great-aunt Matilda?” Colfax said.

“Here’s what worries me,” Connie said. “I checked all the logs, and the calls that came in reporting the break-ins were also from disposable cell phones. One of them matches the number Irv called.”

Colfax’s eyebrows winged upward. “Good instincts. Sure you don’t want to come work for us?”

“I’m sure,” Connie said without meeting Colfax’s gaze.

Colfax hoisted himself out of his chair and added Irv’s name to the white board. “You want me to have a little chat with this guy?”

“I can handle my personnel,” Gordon said.

“But that could be a problem. He’s your personnel. He might feel less threatened if I talk to him,” Colfax said. “Over coffee. Nothing official. A little one-on-one, man-to-man. Not boss to employee.”

Gordon considered it. “Don’t suppose it would hurt. If he’s taking trips to la-la land, I can’t have him working Dispatch. If he’s working for someone else and involved in any aspect of the investigation, I can’t have him working here at all.”

“I’ll send Irv on break. Give me a few minutes.” Connie left the paperwork on the desk on her way out.

Colfax grabbed for the pages. “There might be something in here that will help me push the conversation in the right direction.” He slipped his readers onto his nose, crossed an ankle over his thigh, and started reading.

“When did you start using those glasses?” Gordon asked.

“Huh?” Colfax looked up.

“Your readers. When did you need them?”

Colfax took the glasses off and twirled them by an earpiece. “I don’t know. Four, five years ago, maybe. Why?”

“Just wondering. How did you know when it was time?”

“Ah, someone’s starting to feel the fearsome age monster breathing fire down his neck. Trust me, it’s no big deal. Whatever keeps you on top of your game. I’ll bet you gave up pick-up basketball because you couldn’t keep up with the youngsters.”

“I never played pick-up basketball.” Gordon didn’t bother to mention that he’d given up his Sunday football games a few years back, blaming it on all the time and energy he had to devote to his job, not that he’d slowed down. His shoulders stiffened. “I’m not ashamed to say I’m thirty-six.”

“But you think there’s a big, thick, brick wall called forty. And you’re trying to avoid hitting it for as long as possible. Take my word for it, it’s not a straight brick wall. It’s an undulating sheer curtain with lots of gaps. You’ll cross some points before other people do, and lag behind at others. If you’re having trouble seeing, go to the eye doctor. That’s not rocket science.” He extended his glasses to Gordon. “These are cheap, from-the-discount-store readers. But they work, and my eye doctor approved. I had perfect vision before. Still do, just not up close.”