Читать книгу: «Time of Death»
ALEX BARCLAY
Time of Death
Copyright
HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2010
Copyright © Alex Barclay 2010
Cover design layout © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016 Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com
Alex Barclay asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express permission of HarperCollins ebooks.
Source ISBN: 9780007356263
Ebook Edition © JULY 2010 ISBN: 9780007346349
Version: 2016-05-04
Praise for Alex Barclay
‘The rising star of the hard-boiled crime fiction world, combining wild characters, surprising plots and massive backdrops with a touch of dry humour’ Mirror
‘Tense, no-punches-pulled thriller that will have you on the edge of your deckchair’ Woman and Home
‘Explosive’ Company
‘Darkhouse is a terrific debut by an exciting new writer’ Independent on Sunday
‘Compelling’ Glamour
‘Excellent summer reading … Barclay has the confidence to move her story along slowly, and deftly explores the relationships between her characters’ Sunday Telegraph
‘The thriller of the summer’ Irish Independent
‘If you haven’t discovered Alex Barclay, it’s time to jump on the bandwagon’ Image Magazine
Dedication
To Mary Maddison
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Praise
Dedication
Note
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Acknowledgements
Keep Reading
About the Author
Also by Alex Barclay
About the Publisher
NOTE
Eleven years ago, an organized crime operation was dismantled following a year-long undercover operation in which FBI Special Agent Ren Bryce infiltrated the inner circle of its head, Domenica Val Pando.
On the night that Val Pando was to be arrested, the compound was burned to the ground by a rival gang and Val Pando escaped with her husband and young son.
Her whereabouts remain unknown.
PROLOGUE
El Paso, Texas
Erubiel Diaz lay curled on the wet floor of the soiled gas station restroom. He had been violently ill. But to a man with damaged senses, a weakened stomach and voided bowels could never be anything more than a physical condition. It could never be the bad omen that he had been foolish to ignore. As a result, his instinct that morning had not been to turn back, but to hook a fingernail into a small bag of white powder and take in a pure cocaine rush. Outside, a car radio crackled with a thunderstorm warning. Within hours, the searing heat was set to be broken by quarter-sized hail.
Erubiel Diaz now stood in the cobbled courtyard of a million-dollar home on the west side of the Franklin Mountains. Diaz was squat and muscular, short-limbed and heavy-browed. He was wearing a yellow sleeveless T-shirt and black shorts to his calves. His body, his clothes, hadn’t been washed in days. He was a dark blot in a space that was filled with light, with flowers, plants and trees that he would have recognized if he was the landscape gardener on his van’s fake sign. Only the plant by the living-room window looked familiar to him. Something to do with a bird.
Diaz had a round, lined face, sallow skin, and bloodshot eyes. He squinted against the bright sunshine that bounced off the white walls of the Spanish-style house. He had done what he came here to do. As he made his move to leave, he heard a car pull up outside. The security gates to his left slid slowly open. He pressed himself against the cool stone of the perimeter wall.
The woman who stepped out of the car was nothing like the women he paid for, or took for free, nothing like the worn-out mother of his children. This woman was tall and delicate, with fine blonde hair to her shoulders and a light, freckled tan. She wore a long, flowing skirt, and a white cotton blouse. Three gold bangles shone on her slender wrist. Her polished toenails were the color of the flowers beneath the window. Diaz looked down at his feet. They were wedged into Tevas that were a size too small – their criss-crossed straps digging into his flesh. His toes were short, covered with black hair, their nails caked in dirt.
Diaz checked his watch. It was an absent glance; no matter where the hands pointed, he knew what time it was. What he could not have known as he lurched forward and slammed the woman face-down onto the trunk of her car, was that he had just sent those hands spiraling wildly toward his time of death.
The sound of the woman’s breath as it was forced from her lungs died in the rumble of the forecast thunder. The charcoal sky exploded with light. And the woman watched as the quarter-sized hail came crashing down, severing the fiery blossoms of the Red Bird of Paradise.
1
Special Agent Ren Bryce pulled into the parking lot of The Rocky Mountain Safe Streets Task Force office. She reached out to turn off the radio.
‘Coming up next,’ said the presenter, ‘we take a look at Denver’s Fifty Most Wanted. The list will be released later today by the Rocky Mountain Safe Streets Task Force and the US Marshals office …’
Ren turned to her back-seat passenger.
‘Coming up next, Misty – you and me in the office, trying to find these assholes.’
Misty was the black-and-white border collie she had adopted seven months earlier when her owner was killed. Her collar had a special engraving: ‘I Smell Dead People’. Misty and Ren were recent graduates of cadaver dog training school – Misty’s second time, Ren’s first. But there were no plans to put her to work. For now, Misty’s skills were on the down low.
Ren’s boss, Supervisory Special Agent Gary Dettling, had given Misty security clearance for the week, so she could spend it in the office, instead of Ren’s temporary motel home.
When Gary Dettling set up The Rocky Mountain Safe Streets Task Force, the maverick in him chose a building that was a piece of Denver’s agricultural history. The Livestock Exchange Building, red brick, four stories high, was one of the few buildings in Denver that had its original interior: polished marble floors and grand mahogany staircases. It started out as home to the Denver Union Stockyard Company and one hundred years on, still kept a link to its roots; the Colorado Brand Inspectors’ office was on the second floor, Maverick Press was on the third: cowboys still had a home in the Livestock Exchange Building.
Gary Dettling was the straightest maverick Ren knew. He had created something that shook things up – a multi-agency task force – yet he ran it with a tight grip on the reins. The nine-man one-woman team worked from a bullpen. There were no formal partners, but two years earlier, within months of Ren Bryce starting there, she had fallen into a natural group with the three men who sat around her – Cliff James, Colin Grabien and Robbie Truax. A filing cabinet to Ren’s left and one to Colin’s right created a subtle break in the room to seal the deal.
Ren secured Misty in her quarters and headed down the hallway to her office. She threw her coat on the stand by the door and hung her gray suit jacket on the back of her chair. Her work wardrobe was always a slim-fit black or gray suit, a top in whatever color matched her mood in the morning, and black three-inch heels. Years earlier, Ren had bought an Armani pant suit after a drunken lunchtime date. She had no idea where it was, but the forgeries – expertly made by her mother, Kitty – were holding up well.
Cliff James was the only person in the office when Ren arrived.
Cliff was ex-Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department, fifty-two years old, a big warm bear with a face set to permasmile. Happy family life, happy man.
Ren turned to him. ‘My motel room is the type of place a man called Randy would take a girl called Bonnie in his pick-up on a Friday night when her trucker husband, also called Randy, is out of town.’
‘Does it have a heart-shaped bed?’ said Cliff.
‘To Randy and Bonnie, every bed is heart-shaped.’
‘God bless them and the illegitimate offspring Randy-the-husband will unknowingly have to bring up as his own.’
‘The good news, however,’ said Ren, ‘is that I am leaving. I will soon have in my possession the keys to a beautiful home on Mardyke Street, straight out of Olde Denver.’
‘How did you swing that?’
‘My mom’s friend, Annie, is in need of a housesitter.’ She paused. ‘Desperate need, clearly.’
‘What? You’d be a great housesitter,’ said Cliff. ‘Clean. Rarely home. Avoids the kitchen. Excellent firearm skills …’
‘I like the way you said “clean”.’ Ren smiled. ‘I note, also, that “tidy” didn’t go along with it.’
Cliff glanced at her desk. That was all it took.
‘Where is everyone?’ Ren checked her watch.
‘Two separate robberies in the wee hours.’
‘Lucky escape for me.’
‘Yeah, because being here today will be a whole lot more fun,’ said Cliff. ‘Hey, here it is. He pointed at the television mounted on the wall in the corner and hit the volume on the remote control. Gary Dettling was standing at a podium, flanked by officers from Denver PD and the US Marshals Office.
Gary was athlete handsome, taller than all of them, dark-haired, loved by cameras. Ren had read posts on a 9 News forum from women who prayed for him to get a regular slot. Ren worked with him every day. She smiled at the screen. And you still do nothing for me. And please let it stay that way.
‘Agent Dettling, can you tell us a little more about The Rocky Mountain Safe Streets Task Force?’ said the reporter.
‘Just that it’s fabulous,’ said Ren.
Gary was nodding at the reporter. ‘The Safe Streets Violent Crimes Initiative was set up by the FBI in 1992 to tackle violent gangs, violent crimes and the apprehension of violent fugitives.’
‘Violent, violent, violent,’ said Ren. ‘Do you have any idea how brave we are?’
Cliff laughed. ‘My neighbor’s kid, he’s about sixteen years old? He thinks we help little old ladies cross the street.’
Ren shook her head slowly. ‘Safe Streets is not a great name, though …’
The reporter’s voice struck up again. ‘So, this is about pooling resources?’
‘Yes,’ said Gary. ‘The task force is FBI-sponsored, so we have access to all the FBI’s resources, but we also benefit from local law-enforcement knowledge, and we’re working together as one unit, instead of each agency taking care of individual cases that may overlap. It saves time, money, and it’s proven to be a very successful formula.’
‘You bet,’ said Ren. ‘Two people at Safe Streets are currently and fiercely protecting the city of Denver and beyond, as he speaks.’
‘Three,’ said Robbie Truax, walking in and putting his knapsack on the floor beside his desk. Robbie was a former Aurora PD detective. He was Ren’s pal; kind, wholesome, blond-haired, blue-eyed, healthy – an elongated boy scout. He was also a strict Mormon – no caffeine, no alcohol, no swearing, no sex before marriage. Robbie was the 30-Year-Old Virgin.
The TV screen flashed quickly across the first few lines of faces on the Fifty Most Wanted list. A stab of anger hit Ren.
When the hell did this change happen?
Gary picked a few fugitives from the list, pushed by producers, as always, to choose the most glamorous cases – the fallen-child-star fugitive, the murderous teen, the homecoming hooker … The Crimestoppers number scrolled across the bottom of the screen. Ren stood up and went over to the office gallery of the Fifty Most Wanted, pinned across a huge corkboard on the wall.
Cliff checked his watch. ‘Ren, don’t bother – Gary will be back in a half-hour. He said he’d go through it all when everyone’s here.’
‘Well, let me just do this—’ Ren began grabbing pins from the photos and stabbing them into the top five faces as she re-arranged them.
‘Easy tiger,’ said Cliff.
2
Gary slipped quietly into his office without visiting the bullpen, but Ren had seen his car drive into the lot. She paused outside his door. Despite her years at Safe Streets, there were still times when she took a moment before going in. Gary’s office was like a Dutch minimalist armchair – handsome and elegant, but you wouldn’t want to stay in it for too long. It was as if it had been designed as a quick stop-off on your way to solving a case.
Ren knocked. Gary didn’t respond. If someone said jump, Gary Dettling, wouldn’t say ‘How high?’ He would probably never jump again for the rest of his life.
Ren leaned an ear to the door.
‘Come in,’ said Gary.
He was sitting at his desk. Ren imagined him there on his first day in the job, carefully flattening out a sheet of graph paper and marking in the exact location of each piece of furniture and drawing red circles with Xs through them over any spot that would typically hold a personal touch. But Ren knew that the polished mahogany, the pristine blue carpet, the sharp lines, the austerity did not define the man. It masked him. Gary was not just head of the Safe Streets Task Force, he also trained the FBI’s UCEs – undercover employees. He had spent so long in deep-cover assignments that hiding his real life had become a habit. He had a wife, a teenage daughter, a house in the mountains, but his office gave no indication of who Gary Dettling really was.
After her own deep-cover assignment, Ren had gone the other way. Once it was all over, she wanted to reinforce who she was more than ever. The problem was, she had never worked out who Ren Bryce was. And somewhere along the way, she had given up. Now, her workspace was as impersonal as Gary’s.
‘Hey,’ she said. ‘How are you?’
Gary looked up. ‘What’s up?’
‘Uh … the Most Wanted, maybe?’
‘Late-breaking change of play.’
‘How did you let that happen?’ said Ren.
Gary stared at her. ‘It happened. US Marshals wanted it that way. I said, sure, OK.’
‘Right …’
‘Ren, it’s done,’ said Gary.
‘I know, but …’
‘You still get to highlight the Val Pando three. OK, so they’ve dropped a few places on the Billboard charts …’ He shrugged.
‘That’s not the point.’
‘Ren, here’s the deal. Last year, we almost had the Val Pandos. And it dead-ended. This new top two have had confirmed sightings in Denver in the last month …’
‘Ah, meaning it’s going to be easier to strike this top two off the list. So everyone looks better?’
‘Including you,’ said Gary.
‘I could give two shits,’ said Ren.
Gary looked at her patiently. And glanced at the door behind her.
‘Fine. OK,’ said Ren.
‘Where are the others?’ said Gary.
‘In various states of “on their way”.’
Back in the task force office, Ren checked her email, flagged most of the new messages, then ignored them.
‘Coffee, anyone?’ Colin Grabien walked in the door with an offer he usually didn’t make until at least two hours into the day.
Colin Grabien had transferred to Safe Streets from the FBI White Collar Squad and was the task force’s IT and numbers expert. He was five foot eight in the flesh, six foot eight in spirit and a ball of latent anger. He was the mosquito – Ren was the citronella candle.
Gary finally appeared in the office as Ren was walking out with her makeup bag hidden by her side. She didn’t wear a lot – sheer foundation, brown or gray eyeshadow, black mascara on her poker-straight lashes and clear lip gloss – but she couldn’t go without it, even when it meant applying it in the ergonomically challenged Safe Streets ladies room.
‘Nice makeup,’ said Colin when she got back.
‘Fuck you,’ Ren coughed into her hand.
‘OK,’ said Gary, ‘everyone’s here. I’m going to give the lowdown on one and two on our list. Ren will do three through five.’
‘Sure,’ said Ren.
Gary’s phone beeped. ‘Ren, go ahead. I need to take care of this.’
Ren stood up. ‘OK, gentlemen: here’s the lowdown on the Val Pando posse. If I’m repeating myself, please realize that I don’t care. First up, number three – Domenica Val Pando, Latina, DOB 10/02/64.
‘Domenica was head of a huge cartel operating in New Mexico in the nineties – people trafficking, drugs, weapons, branching into biological weapons. No one has actually seen her since she disappeared the night the compound was stormed, with her seven-year-old son, Gavino Val Pando and her fifty-year-old husband, Augusto Val Pando.
‘Domenica showed up on the radar again last August when she was attempting to set up a lab outside Breckenridge to make H2S – colorless, odorless, fatal in seconds. We stopped her. But we couldn’t make any firm links to her, because she was, sadly, too fucking smart.’
Ren stood back. ‘This photo is eleven years old.’ The team followed her gaze to the noticeboard. Domenica Val Pando used to have an exotic beauty, but she had Americanized it, tweaked her features with surgery. Her hair was now the yellow-blonde that only very dark hair can be dyed. It was perfectly styled, but wrong. Her eyes were deep brown, slightly protruding, her lips full.
‘Not every psycho is dead in the eyes,’ said Ren.
Colin stared a little too long at the picture. ‘I’d hit it,’ he said.
‘Your standards are rising,’ said Ren. ‘Let me quickly give you the lowdown on Gavino Val Pando, Domenica’s son.’ She pointed to his photo, stapled under his mother’s.
Gavino had flawless dark skin and longish black hair that he pulled back off his face. He had strong bone structure and full but angular lips. His eyes were brown and lost. Ren stared at the photo. She had spent one year looking after six-year-old Gavino Val Pando and trying to deny how much she really cared about him.
‘Gavino’s eighteen years old,’ said Ren. ‘Our last encounter with him was last year in the Summit County jail, where he was taken in for under-age drinking. More significantly, he was paying for it with bait money from a robbery in Idaho Springs, of which he claimed to have no knowledge. We couldn’t prove otherwise, but it was definitely connected with Domenica. There is nothing to suggest that Gavino Val Pando is violent and a lot to suggest he was drunk and stupid that night. We had to release him and we don’t know his whereabouts, or whether he has remained in contact with Mommy Dearest.
‘His relationship with her is complicated. Her husband, Augusto Val Pando, was not Gavino’s biological father, but Augusto probably suspected that – he had no time for Gavino. So, while Gavino may be with his mother and therefore a very effective route to her, he definitely will not be with Augusto.’
‘And what about his real father?’ said Robbie.
‘James Laker – presumed dead,’ said Ren. ‘It is believed he was killed in the fire that destroyed the compound.’ A sweet, kind man, used and abused, first by life and then by Domenica.
‘Now to number four on our list,’ said Ren. ‘Another of Domenica’s minions: Javier Luis, born 1973, five foot two, one hundred and sixty pounds. First-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, aggravated robbery; drugs; rape, sexual assault on a minor … he went MIA from Domenica’s compound in 1998, just before the shit hit the fan.’
Ren remembered Javier Luis. He was always dressed in concert T-shirts for bands he had never seen. He was not tall, so his shorts almost reached his ankles. His voice was nasal and whiny. He would look at Ren in a way that reminded her to shutter the windows at night and lock all the doors. She rarely spoke with him and, when she did, she kept it brief.
‘Finally,’ said Ren, ‘number five, Erubiel Diaz, Latino, DOB 12/10/58, one of Domenica’s shit shovelers.’
She pointed at the photo.
‘This roidy little man was involved in the H2S lab – as a gofer, not a scientist, so that qualifies him for our hit list,’ said Ren. ‘He’s violent, a probable rapist and every daytime chat show’s favorite – a dead-beat dad. He was ratted out by his ex-wife four months ago for showing up in Denver, penniless, trying to see his kids. And off the record? He tried to assault me late one night in the parking lot of the Brockton Filly in Breckenridge and I—’
‘Kicked the living daylights out of him?’ said Robbie.
‘All the way to Frisco Medical Center,’ said Ren.
‘Where he told everyone he was attacked by a man,’ said Gary.
‘He was,’ said Colin.
Ren rolled her eyes. ‘Diaz obviously didn’t know at the time that I was an agent, but I let him know when I paid him a visit in the Summit County Jail, where he was being held for failure to pay child support. I couldn’t let the sheriff there know what Diaz had done to me because then the sheriff would know what I had done to him. So Diaz was released, we had nothing on him. But after he’d gone we found out that he had been working for Domenica Val Pando.’ She paused. ‘And probably still is. So, right now, although he is a little lower in the pecking order, I believe that Erubiel Diaz may well be our golden ticket.’
3
Gary walked back into the office. ‘All done?’
‘Yup,’ said Ren.
‘Number one on our Fifty Most Wanted,’ said Gary, pointing to a photo of a man with long, thin, greased-back hair, balding at the front. He had fuck-you eyes and a nose that looked broken, re-set and broken again. His face was hollowed out. He had two shaven patches of white hair high on each cheekbone and a downturned slit for a mouth. ‘This piece of shit,’ said Gary, ‘is Jonah Jeremiah—’
‘Jim Jams,’ said Ren.
‘Jonah Jeremiah Myler,’ Gary finished, ignoring her.
‘Priiiceless,’ said Ren.
‘Caucasian, DOB 08/12/57,’ said Gary. ‘Myler springs up in a different city every few months, preying on vulnerable teens and setting up short-lived “cults”. He grooms the kids for sex. He has young followers, so he gets them out on the streets. And he waits behind the scenes for the disenchanted youth to show. They may not always use the same name for their sect. Names to date: Crystal Wakenings, Army of the Risen, The Witness Gathering, Divine Seers of the Watchful—’
‘You are making them up,’ said Ren.
‘You couldn’t make them up,’ said Cliff.
‘And The Watchful what?’ said Ren. ‘That’s a lot of seeing and watching. The Watchful Observers. Divine Seers of the Watchful Crowd of Onlookers. Divine Seers of the Watchful Blind …’
Gary ploughed on. ‘Don’t be fooled by Myler’s gaunt face. He’s not as feeble as he looks.
‘Next up is number two, Francis Gartman, African-American, DOB 01/15/83. First degree murder, aggravated robbery, drugs, sexual assault on a minor.’
Gartman looked like someone had paused while inflating his head to allow him to pose for the photo. Every feature looked like it was about to blow.
‘Those eyes are completely vacant,’ said Ren. ‘Soulless.’
‘Gartman is a former boxer,’ said Gary, ‘which translates in his case into giant man, huge strength. He’s had enough blows to the head for his frontal lobe to have left the building.’
Gary stepped back. ‘Not as dramatic in my delivery as Agent Bryce no doubt was, but there’s our top five. Knock yourselves out.’
‘Ren,’ said Colin. ‘Call for you on one. She wanted to speak with a female. She didn’t give a name.’
Ren picked up the phone. ‘This is Special Agent Ren Bryce. How may I help you?’
‘My name is Catherine Sarvas. I’m calling from El Paso, Texas. I saw your Most Wanted List on line this morning …’
Ren slid her notebook across her desk. She picked up a pencil. ‘And do you have something you’d like to tell me, ma’am?’
‘I … yes,’ said Catherine. ‘Yes, I have. I do. I …’ She paused. ‘I’m sorry … I thought I could do this.’
She hung up.
‘Short call,’ said Robbie.
Ren nodded. ‘Weird.’
‘What did she want?’
‘To give me a little flicker of hope on a dreary Monday.’
‘Are you going to call her back?’
‘I’ll give her a little while. El Paso … What’s going on down there?’
Ren spent Monday lunch-times in the offices of Dr Helen Wheeler. The psychiatrist all lunatics should have: intelligent, warm, caring, wore great shoes you could admire while avoiding your issues.
Until Ren was diagnosed bipolar at twenty-six, she had never guessed that there was anything wrong with her. Mental illnesses were for the mentally ill. It seemed like one minute she was the youngest FBI agent to go under deep cover and blow apart an organized crime operation and the next, she was lying in her pajamas on the sofa, eating junk food, crying, not answering her phone, drinking, obsessing about all the regrets she had in her life, wondering what point there was in doing anything again. Ever.
Her older brother, Matt, suggested she get help. But he already knew what was wrong with Ren. So he brought her to his computer one evening and gently opened a checklist on a psychiatry website that covered her symptoms: the despair, the exhaustion, the sofa, the hopelessness. Ren had looked up at Matt and shrugged. ‘That’s just depression, though. Everyone gets like that.’
Matt had scrolled down to the mania checklist: I have lots of energy. I feel amazing. I want everyone else to feel amazing. I want to go out and party. I love everyone. I know everything. I feel creative. I’m working hard. I’m talking too quickly. I’m loud. I’m impatient. I’m exercising. I’m alert. I’m swearing. I’m invincible. I’m hypersexual. I’m overspending. Check, check, check, check, check …
Ren had cried her heart out. ‘This is so depressing. My entire personality can be reduced to a checklist. If I buy lots of shoes, it’s because I’m nuts. If I’m having sex five times a day, it’s because I’m nuts. Me and two million other losers. And it’s not that I thought I was special or unique, but there is something so grim about fitting into this formula. It’s like we’re some fucked-up alien race. I mean, did you read all that shit? It affects every part of my existence. And there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t be fixed.’
Matt had cried too and explained that it may not be fixable, but it was treatable. He told Ren that she was unique and smart and loving and funny and generous and all women have too many shoes and that she was beautiful and he loved her to bits. And she loved him too. Because Matt had also read that telling Ren all this could come back and bite him. Because there was a high risk that someone bipolar would shoot the messenger; at some point, maybe not the same day or maybe not the same year, they would turn to the person who wanted to help them the most and scream, ‘This is all your fault. If you hadn’t told me all this, I would never have known, and I would have been happy just the way I was.’ And then they would scream, ‘You. Ruined. My. Life.’
Before that year was out, Ren had fired every one of those razor-sharp words at Matt and they had struck his heart. Ren did, indeed, shoot the messenger. And with a true bipolar flourish, had come back six months later, laden with guilt and gifts, to apologize.
Ren had tried different psychiatrists and psychotherapists since then, but when she met Helen Wheeler two years ago, Ren knew she had found her savior. Helen was in her early sixties, with a cultural awareness that spanned decades and created a bridge to all her patients. On Ren’s first visit, Helen had told her, ‘I am a psychiatrist, not a mind reader. What you tell me is what I will know about you. And you can leave your brave face at the door. If you’re having a bad day, my office is the perfect place to have it in.’
Ren checked her watch as she waited to be called in to Helen’s office.
Hurry up. Hurry up. Hurry up.
Helen leaned her head out the door of her office. ‘Come on in, Ren,’ she said. ‘How are you today?’
‘I’m … good,’ said Ren, sitting down.
Helen smiled. ‘OK …’
‘I don’t know,’ said Ren. ‘Did you see the news? It’s Most Wanted time … which is fine. It’s just … this year, it’s got Domenica Val Pando on it and I feel I’m being taken back years and …’ She hung her head.
Helen waited.
‘It’s just …’ said Ren, ‘I guess … I was diagnosed at the end of that assignment and some part of me, I know it’s not rational, but some part of me thinks that if it wasn’t for that, I would be fine, there would be nothing wrong with me. And then … then there’s another part of me – and it’s so screwed up – that wants to be back there, because I was oblivious, I didn’t know how lucky I was to be sane. Or at least to think I was sane.’
Helen smiled at her. ‘Ren, you are sane. And those feelings are understandable.’
‘But what makes no sense is that paranoia is the worst part of bipolar disorder for me, yet undercover work is a whole world of paranoia. You are lying all day every day and you’re never sure if you’re going to be found out. Give me depression over paranoia any day. Because I just … I feel paranoia is what will ultimately bring me down.’
‘Ren, nothing is going to bring you down,’ said Helen. ‘You are in control of all of this. And you are not alone. You have an entire team working with you. Good people, from what you tell me. So, rely on them, Ren.’
Ren nodded. ‘I can’t stop thinking about the assignment, though. I told this terrible story to gain someone’s confidence and get into her life – I sat on a park bench crying to Domenica Val Pando, telling her I had lost my four-month old baby …’
‘That is part of undercover work, Ren. You were doing your job.’
‘I know, but I look back sometimes and I think “How could I have done that?”’ Ren shook her head. ‘Nothing to do with Val Pando personally – she’s a piece of shit – just, me. How could I have done that?’
‘It was your job.’
‘I know it’s what I signed up to do,’ said Ren. ‘But I guess I get scared at how easy it was for me to do it. Undercover work is such a rush – the better you are, the greater the high. The more you find out, the more you want to find out. It’s addictive. You go to bed at night, you write notes, you give them to your contact agent. He’s making a case, he’s happy, you’re happy. But I was still playing the role of Remy Torres, a fake name in a fake life. She was like part-me, part-stranger. So … in a way, you never know what she’s capable of.’ She paused. ‘And when it’s over and you bring your real self into the equation, when you’re away from whatever group of dirtbags you’ve been investigating, you’re faced with how good a liar you were and how well you manipulated people. And you tell yourself that the ends justify the means. But sometimes the means just make you feel dirty.’
‘OK, take some breaths.’ Helen handed her a box of Kleenex.
‘Thanks,’ said Ren. ‘Oh sorry, I’ve pulled out the whole lot. It must be a sign. I’ll be here weeping all day.’
‘I’m sponsored by Kleenex,’ said Helen. ‘It’s written on the back of my blouse.’
Ren laughed through the tears. ‘I honestly don’t know why I’m crying.’
‘Ren,’ said Helen gently, ‘Remy Torres did not take you down with her. Here you are, Ren Bryce, over ten years on, successful, stable, still pursuing these people, not turning into them.’
‘Still pursuing,’ said Ren. ‘Exactly.’
‘You are so hard on yourself,’ said Helen. ‘You’re doing great. Stop beating yourself up. Get back to that office this afternoon and kick some butt. Like you always do.’
‘Thanks. I’ll try.’
When the session was over and Ren was driving back to work, she could feel her anxiety drifting away. She smiled.
Helen’s room always felt like the furthest room from the crazy house.
4
Ren walked back into the bullpen, took off her jacket and put her purse on the floor.
‘Did you all go out to lunch?’ she said.
‘Yup,’ said Cliff. ‘Someone’s got to feed these investigative brains.’
Ren pointed to a brown paper bag at his feet. ‘Did you get anything wrapped to take home to your dog that you would now be willing to hand over to one of your hungry colleagues?’
Colin rolled his eyes. He reached out to answer the phone on his desk.
‘Yes, as a matter of fact,’ said Cliff. ‘It’s half a steak sandwich.’
‘I owe you,’ said Ren.
She looked down at her file tray. ‘Hey, what’s this?’
‘I left it there for you,’ said Cliff. ‘It’s Francis Gartman’s alleged lady friend …’
‘Slash woman of the night.’ Ren looked at the picture, scanning the details.
‘Yup,’ said Cliff. ‘We need to find her.’
Ren nodded. ‘Sure, I’ll take a look at this.’ She rested her left hand on the neatly folded waxed wrapping of the sandwich. She could smell steak.
‘She’s running scared,’ said Cliff.
‘Did someone call in?’
‘Yes,’ said Cliff. ‘Her broken-hearted mama.’
Ren sucked in a breath. She looked down at the photo of Natalie Osgood, the pretty African-American girl with the bruised, vacant eyes and the tousled red wig. ‘Sweetheart, let me find you before that piece of shit does.’ Ren pushed her finger under the fold in the paper and slid the sandwich toward her.
‘Ren,’ said Colin. ‘Line three. Sounds like your El Paso woman again.’
I am not meant to eat today.
‘Hello,’ said Ren.
‘This is Catherine Sarvas again.’
‘Ms Sarvas—’
‘Mrs. I’m … married.’
‘Mrs Sarvas,’ said Ren. ‘Are you all right?’
The woman let out a sob. She was struggling to breathe.
Please don’t hang up.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Catherine. ‘I’m so sorry for this.’
‘Please,’ said Ren. ‘There is no need to apologize. Please, take your time. I’ll listen to you whenever you’re ready to talk.’
Catherine sucked in a breath. ‘Thank you.’
Seconds passed.
‘I saw your Most Wanted list on the internet,’ said Catherine. ‘And I wanted to let you know …’ She started to cry. ‘Oh, God … I was raped.’
Ren had heard women say that they were raped before and no matter how many times she heard it, it caused a visceral reaction – a recoil.
‘He is number five on your list,’ said Catherine.
Number five. Ren glanced up at the board, for a moment forgetting the new order. Oh my God.
‘Erubiel Diaz,’ said Ren. ‘Number five, Erubiel Diaz.’
‘I recognize his face.’
His hideous face. Ren’s hand hovered over the page. Every phone in the office seemed to be ringing. It felt disrespectful, the wrong place to listen to what Catherine Sarvas had to say. Ren pressed the phone to her ear. ‘Take your time, Mrs Sarvas.’
Eventually, Catherine Sarvas spoke again. ‘Maybe you’ve heard about my family. My husband is Gregory Sarvas?’
‘I’m sorry, ma’am,’ said Ren. ‘I’m not familiar with your husband.’
‘Oh …’ Another pause. ‘Eight months ago, my husband, Greg, was shot dead near our home in El Paso. He had been driving our sons home from school.’ She paused.
Ren waited, but all she could hear was Catherine Sarvas’ breathing. ‘I’m so sorry to hear that.’
She quietly typed Gregory Sarvas’ name into Google. Hundreds of hits. She did an image search. She clicked on one of the photos. It was a wide shot taken from behind a pale gold SUV with all its doors open. There was something beautiful and artistic in the angles and the light. Then the headlines: Murder. Shooting. Shot dead. Cold blood. Gunned down. The beauty and light of the photo was quickly gone.
‘Our sons … Luke and Michael … were in the SUV with Greg,’ said Mrs Sarvas. ‘They’re still missing …’
‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Sarvas.’ She glanced at one of the articles. Luke, 17, Michael, 15.
‘I can’t even … I can’t talk about my family right now,’ said Catherine ‘I … just wanted to … help.’
‘OK,’ said Ren. ‘So … were you also there in the SUV? You were raped?’
‘No, no. It was two weeks before that.’ Catherine sucked in a breath. ‘I saw the photograph of that man on your list and I had to call. I came across it by accident. But I knew it was him, right away.’
‘Did you report the rape at the time?’
‘No, I couldn’t bear it. I was …’ Catherine started to sob.
‘That’s OK.’
‘It was so terrible,’ said Catherine. ‘He was waiting in the … it was so …’
Ren waited for her to finish the sentence, but she couldn’t.
‘You mentioned your husband,’ said Ren. ‘Did you tell him about the rape?’
‘Yes. He was devastated. He was always talking to me about staying safe. Our house had a lot of security. I still don’t know how that man got in …’
‘How did your husband react? What did he do?’
‘He … was so good to me,’ said Catherine. ‘He took care of me, he did everything he could. And … when I was feeling a little more up to it, I asked him to report the rape to El Paso PD. I couldn’t bring myself to do it before then. I didn’t want to be … I didn’t want doctors … anyone examining me.’
‘I understand,’ said Ren. ‘And when did he report this?’
‘The week he died.’ Catherine began sobbing harder. ‘You never think it’s going to happen to you. None of this feels like it’s my life. We’re a regular family. Greg’s a lawyer, we live in a very nice neighborhood. We have two boys who go to a good high school and have bright futures ahead of them.’
Husband – dead. Sons – missing. And she just used the present tense.
‘I think my boys are still alive,’ said Catherine, as if she was reading Ren’s mind.
Ren could sense Catherine Sarvas’ rising panic. She had just revealed her terrible secret to a stranger and had heard for the first time how her story sounded out loud. Catherine Sarvas’ surge of courage had hit its peak and was starting to waver. She was like a bird paused in mid-flight.
‘Please, can you help me?’
Ren paused. ‘Mrs Sarvas, I am so sorry to hear what you’ve been through. I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you. And we will do everything we can to apprehend this man.’
‘And my boys?’ said Catherine. ‘My children. The rape doesn’t even seem important compared to getting my boys back.’
‘Are you happy to make a full statement? Would it be easier for now to get the statement your husband made to El Paso PD?’
‘I can talk now,’ said Catherine. ‘I can talk to you. I don’t know who else to turn to. I’m not comfortable going to El Paso PD.’ She paused. ‘I think they think that Luke and Michael had something to do with Gregory’s death …’
‘I’ll go through everything they’ve got.’
‘Thank you.’
‘It was very brave of you to call,’ said Ren.
‘What have I got to lose?’ said Catherine. ‘But you’ve been very kind, thank you. You made it easier.’
I have no idea how.
‘Can we still do this over the phone?’
‘Yes,’ said Ren. ‘Whenever you’re ready.’
‘OK.’
Thirty minutes later, Ren put down the phone. She turned to her computer and read ten different articles on Gregory Sarvas’ murder. The lead investigator was a man called Kenny Dade from El Paso PD. Ren called him and asked him to email her everything he had on the Sarvas family.
She pushed back from her desk and shouted out to the rest of the team.
‘Hey,’ she said. ‘I just got something on Erubiel Diaz.’
Colin put down his phone. ‘And I got a sighting on our number two, Francis Gartman: around midnight last night, waving a gun at a bar in Five Points.’
‘Any sign of Natalie Osgood?’ said Ren.
‘He was alone,’ said Colin.
‘And Erubiel Diaz?’ said Cliff, turning to Ren.
Ren let out a breath. She picked up her notes and recounted the harrowing details of Catherine Sarvas’ violation, the pages and pages of notes on what Erubiel Diaz did to a kind, gentle, mother-of-two in the walled-off courtyard of her quiet suburban home.
5
A Denver winter stretched on for months and March was its snowiest. Blizzards whipped up out of nowhere, plans were ruined or stalled or put to bed under a blanket of snow. But it could make everything beautiful. And for a place like Mardyke Street, lined with hundred-year-old homes and towering oaks, a thick layer of snow, glowing under the streetlights, created a special kind of magic.
Ren pulled up outside Annie Lowell’s house. It was eight p.m., she had taken a break from the office. There were appointments you could bend or break, but calling on a beloved eighty-year-old woman was sacred.
Annie welcomed Ren with a hug that brought a rush of memories from a time when their height difference went the other way. Annie was five feet tall; Ren was five seven.
Everything about Annie Lowell was warm and pastel-colored and soft-focus.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t get to see you before now,’ said Ren.
‘Sweetheart, do not give that a second thought,’ said Annie.
‘Thank you,’ said Ren. ‘I am so honored you asked me to do this. The motel is killing me.’
Ren took in the house: a William Lang, designed in the late 1800s. One of Denver’s most famous architects, he had built the homes of the rich and famous until the Silver Crash swept their wealth away. Lang fell from such a height that he never recovered and died a pauper, a thousand miles from the city where he had made such a mark.
Annie led her into the formal living room and sat on the hardbacked sofa with her legs crossed at the ankles and her hands in her lap. Ren smiled.
What a lady. And what an uncomfortable sofa.
Annie had bought the tumble-down house and restored it with money from a life insurance policy she didn’t even know her late husband had. She had been widowed as long as Ren had known her and in all that time she had never looked at another man. On her ring finger were the same three beautiful rings she had always worn – engagement, wedding and eternity.
‘Did you know that this home was Edward’s last gift to me?’ said Annie. ‘I feel as though he led me right to this door. In the jacket pocket he was wearing when he died, there was a little ticket for a yellow tie he had left at the laundry. I loved that yellow tie, so I went to pick it up. I know that sounds a little silly, but I didn’t want to leave it there. On my way back to the house we had been living in, I took a wrong turn and I ended up outside here.’ She stared off into the past. ‘It looked as broken as my heart.’
‘I never knew all this.’
‘I think messages are around us every day – you just have to be open to them.’
‘I must have been sending one out to you from my motel room,’ said Ren.
Annie smiled. Her gaze wandered to a spot on the wall opposite them.
‘Oh my goodness,’ said Ren, getting up and walking over to the faded photo. It was Ren, her parents and her three older brothers, Matt, Beau and Jay.
‘You must have been five years old there,’ said Annie. ‘Look at you.’
‘Look at the boys,’ said Ren. ‘All sandy brown like Dad. And then me. Do you know, when I was in school, the kids used to tease me. Not in a bad way – it was funny. They’d say, “So … your mother obviously had a visit from the mailman – Big Chief Little Stamps.”’ She pointed to her mother in the photo. ‘I mean, even Mom hasn’t really got my eyes.’
Ren was an ethnic mystery to most. She had passed for Hispanic, Italian and French. But in the shape of her striking brown eyes, the one heritage no one could deny was Native American – from a distant Iroquois past somewhere on her mother’s side.
‘You were such a cutie,’ said Annie, ‘and those boys adored … adore you.’ She squeezed Ren’s hand.
‘We always loved coming here.’
‘And I loved having you.’
Ren’s cell phone rang. She glanced down. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Annie. It’s work.’ It’s always work.
‘Go ahead, take it,’ said Annie.
Ren went into the hall and took the call. She came back in to Annie. ‘I am so sorry. I wanted to spend more time with you.’ I always want to spend more time with the people I care about. ‘But I have to go,’ said Ren. ‘There’s this guy we’re trying to track down, he’s a nasty piece of work and—’
‘Ren, you’ve an important job, you’re a busy woman. I wouldn’t expect you to have the time to spend here.’
‘But you’re being kind enough to give me your house, and I feel I’ve just come in and out.’
‘Oh, it’s only me,’ said Annie. ‘I understand. You are so dear to me. I would be happy to have five minutes with you.’
‘Good Lord, I can’t think why.’ Ren squeezed Annie tight. As she was pulling away from the embrace, she could see two places set for supper on the table behind her. Her heart sank. She hoped it wasn’t meant for her. But she saw a brand-new bottle of her favorite hot chili sauce. Annie pressed the keys of the house into Ren’s hand and hugged her again. Tears welled in Ren’s eyes as she rushed to the Jeep and drove to a part of town that hadn’t quite got the same kind of history.
Five Points stands where the diagonal grid of downtown meets the rectangular grid of East Denver. It’s one of Denver’s oldest neighborhoods, known more for what it had been – the Harlem of the West – and what it wanted to be – a triumph of gentrification – than what it actually was – a neighborhood that fell between two stools. The high crime rate had fallen since the nineties, but it still struggled with gangs, drugs, and convincing people that its beautiful Victorian renovations and stylish lofts were in a safe setting.
Robbie and Ren were parked outside a Five Points’ alleyway dive, waiting for Francis Gartman. He had been drinking there from noon until six p.m., but had left. The barman’s girlfriend had called in the tip, and said that she expected him back.
Ren looked at the time. ‘This has been a most pleasant five hours, thank you for coming, but y’all are going to have to make your way home now.’
‘I know,’ said Robbie. ‘This feels a little … over.’
‘He’s not going to come back,’ said Ren. ‘He sat in that bar watching the pretty snowflakes pile halfway up that tiny barred-up window and that was his cue to leave.’
Robbie’s cell phone rang. ‘Gary,’ he said.
‘Let this be our cue to leave.’
Robbie listened as Gary spoke. ‘Gartman,’ he mouthed, then shook his head slowly. He nodded, took down an address. ‘We’ll be right over.’ He started the engine and turned to Ren.
‘Aw, fuck Gartman,’ said Ren. ‘What did he do?’
‘He shot dead a fourteen-year-old deaf girl who didn’t drop to the floor when he tried to hold up a convenience store. And shot her ten-year-old brother a few aisles down who, with his hands in the air, tried to explain why she didn’t.’
‘God, why were those kids out so late?’
‘So early. The family were on their way to the airport to catch a flight. The girl was going for surgery to—’
‘No, I can’t even hear that,’ said Ren. ‘That is just too much.’
‘And,’ said Robbie, ‘when Gartman walked in to the place, he was already soaked with blood.’
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