Hocus (34 page)

“You’re right. There would have been plenty of sunlight at the turnout by the time he arrived. And he probably took time to change clothes — I don’t picture Nat Cook being the kind of guy who would wear his uniform to do that kind of work.”

“No,” Cassidy agreed, “even if he was willing to get it dirty, he wouldn’t want to attract that kind of attention. So with all those delays — Cook might have been able to take a look at the turnout by Saturday afternoon, but probably couldn’t have done any digging until Saturday night, after traffic settled down. That was just too many hours for Powell.”

“Right,” I said. “Powell got restless, and by the time Cook showed up at the warehouse, Powell had killed the men and left. And my guess is that Cook knew Powell well enough to figure out where he was headed. Cook might have been concerned about the boys, but he would have been out-and-out terrified that Powell would be caught, covered with blood, and raving about his good buddy Nathan Cook.”

“Yes, he’d take care of Powell before making a call to the dispatcher — otherwise, Bakersfield PD might find Powell first. That would explain why there wasn’t a call until Sunday morning.” He thought for a moment, then nodded. “It’s all possible.”

“There were other things that bothered me,” I said.

He smiled. “Namely?”

“What’s so funny?”

“Oh, nothing. Just wondering if old ‘smart Cookie’ had any idea of what he was up against.”

“When Gus said that about him — called him ‘smart Cookie’ — did you get the impression it was meant as a dig?”

“Yes, and I think Cookie saw it as one. I’m pretty sure Bradshaw did, too. I’m hoping Gus and your friend the Bear stay out of this now.”

“Hmm. Why do I have the feeling you’re already planning something in connection with Cookie?”

“Surveillance only, at this point.”

“He was followed from here?”

“Yes. Now what were the other things that bothered you?”

“He asked Cecilia if she had found any signs of an accomplice. Why would he mention the area where they found Powell’s body, instead of the warehouse?”

“Probably a slip, but he could always claim that he already knew they hadn’t found signs of an accomplice at the warehouse, and was just confirming information from a scene outside Bakersfield’s jurisdiction.”

“Yeah, right,” I said.

Cassidy smiled.

“It won’t work for him to claim that — tonight he tried to pretend he was hearing the warehouse information for the first time.”

“Anything else?” Cassidy asked.

I hesitated. “The other stuff isn’t so….”

“Isn’t so what?”

“Objective, I guess.”

“Try it out on me anyway. Half of what I have to work with most of the time is impressions. They’re important.”

“Okay, I tried to get an impression of this cop from Bret Neukirk’s fax. He seemed to be an uptight kind of person, rigid. He’s also careful, able to hide things. Gus is a man of action, but he isn’t very careful. Bear — can you picture Bear hiding anything? And he’s just too easygoing. Cook — he’s more cautious. In those stories you got them to tell, Cook was the one who could make long-term plans.”

“I don’t know that I got them to tell—”

“No time for false modesty, Cassidy.”

“What other impressions?”

“The man in Bret’s fax goes ballistic over foul language,” I said. “Did you see Cook’s reaction tonight?”

“You’re probably glad you didn’t say anything to set him off first.”

“Hilarious. Does any of this make sense to you, Cassidy?”

“Absolutely. I think you’re right, by the way.”

“You do? Great!” I started pacing. “I know this isn’t the kind of thing you could take to court. Not that we have anything even remotely resembling admissible evidence at this point, but—”

“Irene,” he said quietly, “I’m afraid I may have misled you.”

I looked up at him.

“I am very rarely interested in the same thing a district attorney is interested in,” he said. “It’s part of why I like my job. I’m almost always trying to help somebody stay alive. I have never had any real hope of seeing this rogue cop convicted for his part in the murders.”

“What?” I said. “I don’t believe this! What have we been trying to do all this time?”

“You want to hear my goals? I want to keep Frank alive. I want him to be located and freed — ideally, unharmed. I want Samuel Ryan and Bret Neukirk and any other members of Hocus to surrender — ideally, peacefully. If they won’t surrender, then I’ve failed, and this becomes a job for the tactical folks on the CIT. The people you know as the SWAT team.”

“But—”

“If I do my job right,” he went on, “and everything goes well, people are alive at the end of the day. That’s it. The DA isn’t saying, ‘Yes, we’ve got enough evidence to go to trial.’ The trial is over. Court is adjourned, one way or the other.”

“Forgive me if I’m missing something,” I gritted out, “but it seems to me that bringing Nathan Cook to justice is going to go a long way toward freeing my husband!”

“Not really.”

I stood there gaping at him for a second before my anger kicked in. “Damn it, Cassidy, what the hell has this been? Busywork? Some project to keep Frank Harriman’s nosy reporter wife out of the way?”

“Now, Irene—”

“Don’t ‘Now, Irene’ me! What have I been running my ass all over Bakersfield for? What would you have done if Tuesday came along and we had no idea who that cop was?”

“I would have lied,” he said.

“Shit.”

“You would prefer that I tell them, ‘Sorry, fellas, Irene can’t figure it out, you win — so feel free to go ahead and kill Frank’?”

I felt a rage so pure, I went deaf, dumb, and blind. I knew my hand hurt before I had calmed down enough to realize what I had done. It was a good, hard slap. My palm and fingers had a thousand needles in them. I was breathing hard, panting, as if I had gone ten rounds with him.

He was rubbing his face with his left hand, but he hadn’t lifted either hand to defend himself. He could have, I realized. He had proven hours ago that he could anticipate my reactions.

“You knew that was coming,” I said, the rage nearly gone, despair ready to step in.

“Yes,” he said, still rubbing his cheek, “but I’ll admit I misjudged your speed and strength. And most women wind up a little — you know — raise their hand up by their shoulder.”

“I shouldn’t have hit you,” I said.

“Was that an apology?”

“Not exactly, was it?”

“No.” He laughed. “I’ll start. I’m sorry I provoked you.” He rubbed his face again.
“Real
sorry.”

I was shaking. I didn’t give a damn.

The anger was subsiding, going out like a tide. I didn’t like the sense of despair it was leaving behind. My lower lip quivered, and that was enough to scare me, so I thought of Cassidy letting me spend my morning listening to Cecilia honk her fucking horn, just to make that tide come in again.

But once you’ve hit high tide, the waves never reach the same point on the beach.

“Tell me you won’t say that again,” I said.

“That I’m sorry?”

“No, Cassidy,” I said, feeling an almost pleasant return to being irritated with him.

“Oh, you mean don’t ever suggest that Frank might be killed?”

“Don’t say it,” I said quietly. “I know what might happen. I know.”

“Do you?” he asked, sounding weary. “I was convinced a moment ago that you thought we were almost home free. That if we gave up Nathan Cook to them, they would send Frank out, and that would be that.”

I almost denied it but couldn’t.

“You’re right. I just wanted to believe — Never mind, it was foolish.”

“No,” he said, “just human. And I really do apologize for making you so angry. I would have picked another way to get the point across, but midnight is getting closer, Hocus plans a call, and this seemed like it might be a fast and sure method to get you to change gears. Anyway, I didn’t want you to say anything to them about Mr. Cook just yet.”

“Couldn’t you just ask me not to?”

“Because you’re noted for doing as you’re told?”

I had no answer for that.

“I thought so,” he said.

Frank’s alive, I told myself. Hold on to that. Hold on. If he can put up with whatever they’re doing to him, you can deal with one lousy Texan.

But it was a mistake, thinking of what might be happening to him. I swallowed past a lump in my throat. “Yeah, well,” I said, “sorry about slapping you.”

“Irene.”

“What?” I said, not looking at him.

“What you’ve been doing — that hasn’t just been busywork.”

I sighed. “Don’t lie to me, Cassidy. I might look like I need a lie, but I don’t.”

“I’m not lying. If you think about it, I’ve told you the truth. You don’t always want to hear it.”

I didn’t reply.

“Not that I blame you,” he added.

“Thanks for that, anyway.”

“Listen to me now. It’s always better for us to know as much as we can about the takers. Knowing who, in all likelihood, took them that night — that gives us something to bargain with.”

“You just told me you could have bargained with a lie.”

“Better if we can bargain with the truth. Much better.”

Somehow I just couldn’t work up any enthusiasm over that. I felt as if I’d spent precious hours hunting for a lost key, only to come back home and find out all the locks had been changed.

He put a hand on my shoulder. “Let’s go in.”

“I’m tired, Cassidy.”

“I know you are,” he said. “I know you are.”

I looked up at him. He looked sad. I was going to apologize again for slapping him, but his cell phone rang.

Everything began to change with that call.

“S
O WE’RE ALL SET
?”

It was Samuel’s voice. He tried to listen, to pay attention. It was better than thinking about the restraints, about being back in the bed. Better than thinking about the curtain being around the bed again, cutting off his view.

Bret had drugged him again, given him something mild in a drink that made him less upset about being placed in the restraints again. But now, awake, he had nothing to take the edge off. Better to be alert, he told himself.

He was marveling at how easily he had awakened this time. He did not feel nearly so groggy. And the dizziness was not so severe. Had Bret cut down the dosage?

“Of course we are, Samuel.” A woman’s voice. “Don’t you trust me to do anything right?”

The stranger’s voice startled him. He felt a deep sense of shame that yet another person would see him like this, then set aside those feelings. Pay attention, he told himself again.

“No, Faye, as a matter of fact, I don’t.” Samuel. “Especially not after you broke that bottle of after-shave.”

“I wasn’t the one who broke it!”

“You were the one who didn’t pack it right,” Samuel said.

“It doesn’t matter. Thanks for making the arrangements, Faye.” Bret’s voice, placating.

“The only one who has made any kind of mistake so far is you, Sammy boy,” Faye said.

“Don’t call me that,” Samuel said. Couldn’t she hear his anger? Frank wondered.

“Did he tell you?” Faye went on. “He screwed up the fax yesterday.”

There was a silence.

“Bret doesn’t care,” Samuel said. “You think you can divide us, but you can’t.”

“This isn’t about division. Bret’s not interested in me. But he’s interested in knowing how you really sent that fax. I can see it in his face.”

“No,” Bret said. “Samuel doesn’t have to tell me anything he doesn’t want to.”

Another hesitation. “She’s trying to make a big deal out of nothing!” Sam’s voice, exasperated. “I couldn’t get the computer to work with the pay phone at the airport. So I used the hard copy you gave me and sent it on an actual fax machine. Big deal.”

“Sorry you had problems,” Bret said. “Must have been frustrating.”

“It was,” Samuel said. Frank could hear him gloating, heard his belief that Faye hadn’t caused the trouble she’d intended.

“Where was the fax machine?” Bret asked.

“There in the airport. A commercial one. Self-service.”

“Oh, so you didn’t have to hand it to anyone else.” Frank heard the relief in Bret’s voice.

“No,” Samuel said. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“Well, Faye, he didn’t make a mistake. He ran into unforeseen difficulties and found a creative way around them. Which is what an intelligent person does when he encounters the unexpected. A lesser person would have given up.”

“You still haven’t heard just how creative this greater person was. How do you suppose he paid for the fax?”

Silence.

“He stole a woman’s wallet,” she said.

“Faye, I removed one credit card from a wallet and returned the wallet and everything else that was in it to the woman’s bag — all before she even knew it was missing. The charges for the fax are so small, she’ll never have to pay them herself. So try some new way to make trouble.”

“Faye, did you have some problem with the contractor?” Bret asked.

“None,” she answered quickly. “Now, when do I get to take a peek at our guest?”

“You don’t,” Bret answered. “It’s very difficult for him to be in this situation. It would make him feel ashamed to have others see him as a hostage.”

“But he’s asleep! He’ll never know!”

“Doesn’t anyone’s dignity matter to you, Faye?” Samuel asked.

“Honestly! As if a guy who’s knocked out on morphine is going to know who looked at him.”

“People aren’t exhibits,” Samuel said. “This isn’t a zoo or a carnival. Right now, I feel a greater affinity to that man than I do to you. I know what it’s like to have someone else view you as a curiosity. It stinks.”

“We have a lot to do,” Bret said. “We should get to work.”

Faye seemed to understand that it was time to drop the subject. Frank kept listening, but most of what he heard was the sound of the trunks being moved.

He listened and lay wondering why Bret had allowed this wakefulness. When he wasn’t thinking about that, he was thinking about the cop in the story that Bret had given him to read, and Bakersfield, and men who had always made him proud of being a cop, men who had always treated him like a son.