The Juan Doe Murders: A Smokey Brandon Thriller (20 page)

The voice on the third message took me a moment to place: Gil. For a moment I felt disoriented, even intruded upon. “Thought I’d just say hi,” he said. “Been thinking of you a lot. Wanted to ask if you’d like to go out to Hemet this weekend, see a train museum.”

I walked back into the kitchen to hear the rest.

“ ’Course I don’t know if that sort of thing would interest you at all. But give a call. We could take in Palm Springs,
great
about now. And hey, you know what? Some group is moving the heron nests. Too much doo-doo and fish heads raining down. Moving them with a crane and a truck. Audubon’s trying to make them wait till the hatchlings are grown, but in case the city wonks do anything funny, a bunch of us are going down to stage a protest under the pines. Want to join us, be a heron hero? Now if that doesn’t get your interest, what would?”

Gil finished with, “Really, Smokey, I’d use just about any excuse to see you again. Call me?” Pushy, this guy. But I smiled. I could be a heron hero, but I could also be a fool. Not now. But sometime. Gil. Joe. Don’t think about it.

I fell into bed and awoke an hour later, seeing Nita Estevez with her battered body; smelling the smell; hearing Binky whimper, and the Doe on the hill raising his head and spilling blood from his mouth as he stared at me.

I got up and drank water and gazed at the darkened bay, then went back and forced myself to see flowers blazing along the bluffs where a developer generously spread seed before he mangled the tract with two-story boxes covered in Spanish tile.

TWENTY-FOUR

I
 walked into Stu’s office and pulled a chair directly in front of his desk. “Stu, you can fire me, you can fire me two weeks from now, but I have to tell you something you’re not going to like. And I have to ask you for something at the same time.”

He looked up over new granny glasses and put his pencil down. “Let’s have it,” he said, and not irritably.

I handed him a chart I made before leaving the house:

It took him a while to absorb. He asked a fair number of questions. “Please, Stu, this can’t get back to Joe.”

“We’ll see,” he said.

I was breaking a boy’s trust and feared for his father as well, but I said, “I’ll trust you to know the right time.”

Stu sat back and put both hands on the arms of his chair. “Smokey, I don’t know if you know I am married to a woman of Mexican heritage.”

“No, Stu, I didn’t know that.” Just pick me up off the floor.

“I’m not going to waste time chewing on you, even though you deserve it. What I want you to do is get in touch with the investigators on these cases without delay.”

“I will. I know it’s time. But can you understand—”

“About Joe?” He brushed his bald head and said, “Do you think this happened from teaching kindergarten?”

“Thanks, Stu.”

“Now, what about this boy of Sanders’s? Has he ever been in trouble with the law?”

“Never…er, that we know of.” Stu looked at me skeptically. “I mean, I guess nothing surprises me any more.”

“Where is he now?”

“In the keeping of a CHP officer friend of ours.”

“Well, I hope he’ll whack some sense in him. Now get to work, Brandon. You think this is a social club?”

“Thanks, Stu. Thank you very much for understanding,” I said, getting up and sliding back the chair.

“I didn’t say you were off the hook. We’ll talk later.”

“Right,” I said, and turned to leave, and looked back and said thanks again.

Joe wasn’t getting out today. “I blipped when I should have blapped,” he said. “They want to keep me a while longer.” He sounded depressed. He also asked if I’d seen David at all. I told
him I thought David was spending some time with Ray Vega. “They hit it off, huh? Terrific.”

“You mind the medics now. I’ll come see you soon as I can.”

“Latuh, gatuh,” he said.

I met Boyd Russell for lunch at a sandwich shop downtown. He said, “What’s this about?” as we were walking to get in line.

“I know someone who knew the Capistrano Doe. Not well, but knew him. This person was also acquainted with the Doe found in Turtle Rock, Will’s case.”

“Yah?” he said, then studied the menu board over the heads of three other customers in line. “Who is it?” He was wearing a yellow shirt with his brown suit. In the angle of the sunlight, the channels in his chin and lip looked like beard growth.

“There’s more,” I said, and waited till we got our sandwiches and sat outside. I felt relief, yet a certain dread.

Boyd took out a pen and notepad after we sat down. “Who is this guy? I’ll give a call.”

“Well, Boyd, there’s a little problem there.” He looked at me, pen poised. “You know Joe Sanders.”

He nodded, giving me a funny look. “Of course.”

“Right. Well.…”

“How’s he doing?”

“Not perfect. I’m worried, matter of fact. He was supposed to be released today. Then something kept them from it.”

“So Joe’s the one knows these dead taco-burners?” He laughed to acknowledge the idea was absurd.

“Not exactly,” I said. “It may be, though, his son does.”

Boyd took a copy of the chart I compiled and promised to keep it to himself for the time being. He’d run checks on Hector Lizzaraga and Binky Jalindo. He said I should, however, be prepared to have him and Bright interview David shortly. I was grateful to him for the breathing room. Somehow I didn’t
expect it from him. “This Binky,” he said, “we’ll want to talk to her too.”

When he was done with his lunch, he leaned back in his chair and yawned. He pulled out a pack of Camels, tapped one out, and said, “Not much sleep last night.” Then he looked at me and asked, “You ever been married?”

At the end of the day I ran into Harold Raimey. “Give that old geezer Joe Sanders a message for me, okay? I’d call him myself, but my wife’s waiting on me, we’re going up to Arrowhead.”

“Sure, Harold.”

“Tell him we got hold of Charles Dobson’s exercise shoes. Got a good match to the plaster cast y’all made. It’s not enough yet to send invitations to the hangin’, but we’ll get there.”

“I know you will,” I said.

“Give ’im a kiss for me, too,” he said, waving as he walked off.

I dialed Joe’s number just before leaving and got no answer.

On the way home I stopped to get gas and bought three lottery tickets even though the big pot had been won the night before: 20 million to a leaf raker who says he’ll keep working just because he loves his job.

At home I tried Joe again. No answer. I rang up the reception desk. It took a while for the woman to look up the room record. Joe had been moved again. “Where to?” I asked.

“I’m afraid he’s gone back to IC.”

I was at Hoag Hospital in twenty minutes. I’d blown through the yellows at intersections and was angry at the slow pedestrians making their way on the crosswalk to the hospital front door.

I got blocked at the nurse’s station by ICU. The nurse asked who I was looking for. When I told her, she said, “Not just now. Why don’t you call in the morning?”

“I will call in the morning. But I’m here now.”

“I just gave him his meds. He’s about gone,” she said, then realized how dire that sounded. “Asleep,” she said.

“If you just gave him meds, he must still be awake.”

We stared at each other, a war of emotion over profession.

“Are you a relative, Miss…?”

“Look, it’s only a little after seven.”

“I have seven-thirty-five.”

“He never goes to sleep this early.”

“Are you his daughter?”

“A friend.”

“Why don’t you talk with the doctor tomorrow?” she said. “I think that’d be a better idea.”

I could tell her the better idea I had. But didn’t.

TWENTY-FIVE

R
ay was home, off-watch/on-call. He said, “We lost Binky. She slipped David when he went to his old apartment to get clothes.”

“Damn! Where’s David?”

“He’s here. You want to talk to him?”

“I guess. Jeez.”

“He’s in the john. When he comes out.”

I told Ray I finally went to Homicide with the info and they were going to work with us. “Wise girl, kid.”

“Except they want to talk to Binky.”

“Tough titty. She’s vam-ooso.”

“Well, I’m sorry for her, but you know what, Ray? Maybe it’s best. For David, I mean. I hope she makes it though. Where would a girl like that go, out there in the world, no English?”

“She’ll get along, believe me.”

“I hope you’re right, Raymond.”

He put David on.

“I have
so
messed up,” he said. “But I’m going to find her. I think what happened is Greg or that creep Izzy saw her sitting in my car. I worried about leaving her there, but I worried more about bringing her in. It was so stupid.”

“David, I have something to tell you. Your father’s back in Intensive Care. They wouldn’t even let me see him tonight.”

“Oh, Christ.”

“I think you’d better call your mother.”

“I will.”

I could hear the sadness in his voice but I had to go on. “David, I have something else to tell you. I have broken my promise to you.”

“No! What if it gets back to Dad now?”

“If it works the way I think, we may be able keep it from him indefinitely. That is, if you have truly told us everything. Have you, David?”

“Yes!”

“Good, then.” I told him he needed to pick a time when he could come in and talk to Boyd Russell.

“And what about Binky? What about
her?
”

“Dave, please. Will you wait for my call in the morning, after I set up a time with Boyd Russell? Let’s do it in an orderly way.”

“When will you call me?”

“Figure about eight. I need time to be sure to reach him.”

“All right,” he said, but I knew that could change with the wind.

I talked to Ray again, said I needed to catch some sleep. “Hey, keep an eye on our boy, huh?”

“I’m doin’ what I can. But I can’t put an ankle monitor on him, you know.”

“I do know, Ray. Thanks, old bud.”

“Here to serve,” he said. Then he said, “Tamika’s here. She wants to say something to you.”

She came on and said, about Binky, “She’s just a baby, barely seventeen. That evil prick’s got her paying off what she don’t need to. If you guys catch that puke, hold him so I can take a turn.”

I smiled. “Can you remember anything Binky said that might indicate where she would go?”

“I think she’ll go back to the motel.”

“Why would she go back there?”

“Moths go to flame. I’ve seen it a lot. That girl, that Nita she was talking about? She thinks Lizard did it. He told Binky once, you don’t behave, you wind up like her.”

“Yet you think…”

“Like I said. Listen, there’s a word she used belongs to somebody older than her.
Aguantar
. It means to put up with things you can’t change.”

That night I slept—overslept. As soon as I could muster, I phoned Hoag to find out how Joe was doing. Same. Then I raced to work and phoned Homicide soon as I could. Boyd said he could see David late afternoon, maybe four. Perfect.

I went into Stu’s and told him what had evolved, that I’d be taking off early to bring David to Boyd Russell. “I don’t need a report every half-hour, Brandon,” he said. “End results is what I’m interested in.” He was standing at a file cabinet, fingers stuck in a folder, glasses down on his nose. I smiled and thanked him.