Blue Heaven (27 page)

He snapped the phone closed and dropped it in his pocket.

“Newkirk, you with us?” Singer asked suddenly.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not wavering, are you?”

“No. It’s just that I had things to do tonight.”

Gonzalez snorted.

“This is a little more important, don’t you think?” Singer asked, stepping across the room and throwing an arm over Newkirk’s shoulder. Despite the gesture, Newkirk could feel Singer’s fingers digging hard into his neck. “I’ll get us through this, Newkirk. Then everything will be like it was, and we can forget about it and move on.”

“Okay.”

“Trust me,” Singer said. “It’s under control.” Newkirk could feel Singer’s fingers stop digging and relax. Singer tousled Newkirk’s hair, knocking his cap off.

“Keep your cell phone on,” Singer said.

Suddenly, a thought came to Newkirk, something he had meant to tell Singer earlier.

“I saw that Barney Fife dude again this morning, at the restaurant. The ex-cop from Arcadia.”

“Villatoro?”

“He was sitting there watching everything. The fucker makes me nervous, Lieutenant. There’s something about him.”

“I’m running a check on him,” Singer said. “He’ll likely turn out to be trouble.”

Gonzalez actually laughed. “Good. More trouble. The hits just keep on coming.”

NEWKIRK MADE it to the bathroom before he threw up. As he cleaned his face with a wet paper towel, he looked in the mirror and saw the janitor trustee, the same one who had bumped the door with his mop the night before.

“What the fuck are you looking at?” Newkirk asked.

“Nothing,” the janitor said. “I guess I gotta clean that up.”

“I guess you do,” Newkirk said, going out the door, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

M
ONICA TAYLOR took the news with a calmness that surprised her, and told Swann, simply: “I don’t believe it.”

“What do you mean you don’t believe it?” Swann said, closing his cell phone. “He confessed on
videotape.
”

Monica shook her head. “No.”

Swann’s eyes were unblinking. “Why would he lie about something like this? What could possess
you
not to believe it?”

She didn’t know, and she didn’t care. And it wasn’t about Tom Boyd at all, she thought. It was about the feeling she had when she’d awakened that morning. She couldn’t explain it to herself, much less to Swann. But she had awakened simply knowing that her children were still alive. It was as if, for the first time, she had recognized an invisible cord that connected her to Annie and William that had always been there. She was sure it hadn’t been severed. They were still out there. Probably scared, probably alone. Possibly hurt. But they were still out there.

“Do you want to see the tape?” Swann asked, his voice rising. “We could go down to the station right now, and you can watch it.”

“I don’t want to see it.”

Swann sighed angrily and turned away. Monica sipped her coffee. She had refused to take the prescribed medication that morning. Her head was clearing. She could see Swann near the stove, see him thinking while holding his phone. Was he weighing whether to call someone back?

He turned back to her. “Denial is a powerful emotion, I realize that,” he said. “It’s a natural first reaction. At some point, though, you need to accept the truth, Monica, as hard as that may be.”

“I don’t have to accept anything, Oscar.”

Again, his eyes bulged, and he turned away. It seemed odd, she thought. He was dealing with her intransigence not with sympathy or pity but with anger. She thought:
As if I wasn’t playing the game correctly
. She almost smiled to herself, thinking,
I’ve never played any game correctly. That’s been my problem. Maybe this time, it’s my advantage.

“Maybe I can ask the sheriff’s office to make a copy and bring it here,” Swann said, mostly to himself. “You’ve got a VCR, right?”

“I do,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter.”

“Is it Boyd?” Swann asked. “Is that your problem? Do you think the guy just isn’t capable of this?”

She didn’t answer. She knew Tom was capable of anything when he was angry.

“Do you still love the guy, or what?”

“I never loved him, I realize now,” she said. “Not the kind of love I have for my children.”

Swann started to speak, then drew back. He simply stared at her, as if she were a mutant, devoid of appropriate human emotion.

“What was the name of that rancher you talked to yesterday? Do you remember?” she asked.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Swann said. “Besides, he didn’t give me a name.”

“Why did you open my door last night?” she asked.

The question derailed him. “What?”

“Why were you standing in my room?”

Swann leaned back on the kitchen counter, still looking at her in that way. “I was making sure you were all right.”

She smiled slightly. “Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“You weren’t hoping I would invite you into my bed?”

She watched him carefully, saw his neck flush.

“You’re nuts, lady,” he said, but he couldn’t meet her eyes.

“That’s what I thought,” she said.

How could a man who seemed to be as kind and mature as Swann portrayed himself even think of bedding a mother whose children were missing? Why would his reaction to telling her about the murder of her children be anger when she didn’t fall apart?

Was he really there to protect her, to provide guidance and comfort? Or was Swann there to keep her imprisoned? And if so, why? What did he know?

Monica held all of this in. She hoped her face didn’t betray what she was thinking. She hoped she wasn’t nuts, after all.

Swann anticipated the doorbell ringing in the front room and was moving toward it before it did. Monica waited, frozen with her thoughts, as she heard a brief conversation on the threshold.

Swann ushered a man younger than himself into the kitchen. The visitor looked at her cautiously.

“This is Officer Newkirk,” Swann said. “He’ll be staying with you for a couple of hours while I attend to some business at home. He knows the situation, and he’s a good guy. He’s here to help you, Monica.”

She looked Newkirk over. He was shorter than Swann, with a shock of dirty blond hair sticking out from beneath his baseball cap. He looked strained, and pale, but his eyes had the same hardness Swann’s did. Another ex-cop. She noted his wedding ring.

“You’re my new jailer?” Monica asked.

Newkirk looked quickly to Swann for an explanation. Swann shook his head sadly.

“She just found out about the videotape,” Swann said. “She’s shaken up by it.”

Newkirk nodded as if he understood. “I’m here to do anything I can,” he said.

“Who exactly are you helping?” Monica asked.

Again, Newkirk looked to Swann for an explanation.

“She needs to take her medication,” Swann said like a grumpy father.

“You can talk directly to me, Mr. Swann. I’m right here. You don’t have to talk about me like I’m not.”

Swann sighed again and zipped up his jacket to leave. “See if you can get her to take her meds. If you can’t, call the doctor and ask him to come over. She needs rest.”

“I’m perfectly fine,” Monica said.

“Good luck,” Swann told Newkirk before leaving. “Keep her off the phone, and if the press comes, don’t let them see her.”

J
ESS RAWLINS and Eduardo Villatoro left the restaurant together after Villatoro had insisted on paying the tab. Jess was aware of the ex-cop behind him as he walked across the street toward his pickup.

“Nice morning,” Jess said, stopping on the center line and looking around at the mountains on all sides. There was no traffic. The sky was clear of clouds, and endlessly blue. The sun had yet to take charge of the day, although its intensity warmed his exposed skin.

“Very nice,” Villatoro answered. He could see the news crew from Fox News packing their cameras and sound equipment into their van down the street. The reporter who had been on-screen earlier stood to the side, brushing his hair in a mirror.

They had spent the last half hour probing each other, Jess knew. He had learned why Villatoro was in Kootenai Bay and had listened to the details of the robbery at Santa Anita. He had believed the man when he said he thought he was getting close to something and how important it was to him to solve the case. Jess had listened patiently, trying not to let his mind wander to his ranch, where the children were, or to the implications of his current situation. He had waited until the end of the robbery story, where it would logically loop back to the present, to hear
what Villatoro had to say about the ex-cops who were helping the sheriff with the investigation. Jess didn’t want to tip his hand and ask too quickly about them.

When it came to Singer, Villatoro had not provided as much information as Jess had hoped. Lieutenant Singer was a familiar name to Villatoro because he’d been involved in the investigation of the Santa Anita robbery in a peripheral way. He wasn’t the lead investigator, but one of the prime administrative hurdles. Newkirk was connected to the investigation as well, Villatoro said. He was pretty sure Newkirk was one of the team assigned to the case. There were others, Villatoro said. He was waiting for the names, and their ties to the case. There was something else, too. He just couldn’t connect it yet.

“There is simply too much coincidence,” Villatoro had said, “that two of the names involved in Santa Anita are now here, of all places. Don’t you think?”

Jess had said he didn’t know. And he didn’t. “I don’t like the idea of bad cops up here,” he said. “I don’t like the idea of bad cops, period.”

Villatoro agreed. “I hope in my heart that’s not the case,” he said. “I’ve worked with police officers all of my life. For the most part, they’ve been dedicated and honest. Sure, there were some lazy ones. But truly bad cops—no. The idea disturbs me, and I hope it’s wrong.”

“Yup.”

“There were some officers I didn’t like, and who didn’t like me. Too many of the cops I worked with out of L.A. looked down on me and my department. They thought we were small-timers. We probably were, but we were very close to our community at one time. It’s not like that anymore. It’s hard to adjust to being swallowed up, I guess. I see that happening here.”

Jess said, “I’m not one to oppose change. No offense, but my grand-dad changed this place when he moved here and started the ranch. I’d be selfish if I thought, ‘Now that I’m here, no one else has a right to be.’ Live and let live, that’s what I think.”

Villatoro nodded. “That’s a good attitude to have. I admire that.”

“I just want the new ones to have some respect for what was here before they got here,” Jess said. “Hell, if I moved to Los Angeles, I wouldn’t expect ’em to put a cow in every yard and elk in the parks just so I could feel more comfortable.”

Smiling, Villatoro said, “We agree about respect.”

“Damned right. Maybe it’s also having a sense of history,” Jess said.

“And duty,” Villatoro said. “There is duty. I can still repeat the last words of the Peace Officers Code of Ethics, even though I haven’t said it out loud for thirty years.”

Jess raised his eyebrows “Let’s hear it then.”

Villatoro said, “I know that I alone am responsible for my own standard of professional performance and will take every reasonable opportunity to enhance and improve my level of knowledge and competence. I will constantly strive to achieve these objectives and ideals, dedicating myself before God to my chosen profession—law enforcement.”

“Too bad you retired,” Jess said.

“I haven’t retired from that. Not yet.”

Jess thought how unusual it was to have a talk with a man about these subjects. Especially a man he’d met for the first time. That there were others who thought this way made him feel good. He liked this Eduardo Villatoro, but he couldn’t tip his hand about the children, not yet.

Crossing the street, Jess had decided that if nothing else, Villatoro could be an outside resource. If Jess couldn’t work with the sheriff’s department, which he was more and more sure he couldn’t because they were compromised, he would need to contact someone else. Villatoro might be a man he could trust.

As he approached his pickup, Jess slipped his hand into his pocket to make sure Villatoro’s card was there. The man had written down the number of his motel and his room as well. In turn, Jess had given Villatoro the number for his ranch.

“I hope I can talk to you from time to time as my investigation continues,” Villatoro said. “It’s good to have a local expert who knows how things work. I hope you don’t mind. This is a foreign place to me.”

Jess turned. “I don’t mind. Just don’t ask me to gossip about my neighbors. I won’t do that.”

“I wouldn’t dream of asking,” Villatoro said, flashing a smile. “It is just that I see this place as, I don’t know, a million trees with a few people walking around in them. I can’t see the whole picture, it is too strange. It would be like if you were dropped in the middle of East L.A. with no one to help you out. You wouldn’t know what to do, where to go, what
was proper. There are predators there, too,” he said, gesturing toward the bear, “but they wear colors and carry guns. It’s so different.”