J Bertrand - Back on Murder

Not that they’re making things up. I’ve interviewed witnesses before with impossible stories, the details obviously culled from news coverage, yet they were convinced what they said was true. Most could probably have passed a lie-detector test. No doubt at this very moment a young woman sits in front of the television in her Abercrombie T-shirt, convinced she was close enough to Hannah Mayhew to hear her weep.

“So you see where the manpower’s going,” Cavallo says. “We’ve got a small army checking out every delivery van and contractor in a ten-mile radius, and another one following up on every sighting that’s been reported.”

“What about her friends at school? Her church?”

“We got surveillance going on a kid at the school. Deals a little weed. Depending on who you ask, Hannah was either dating the boy or trying to convert him. His name is James Fontaine, and so far he’s the likeliest suspect.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“Honestly? I don’t have a feeling one way or the other. Usually I do.”

I hand the photos back, then walk a circle around the empty parking space, studying the pavement for I don’t know what. The wind ripples my pant leg. Overhead, the clouds are black-rimmed and foreboding.

“Can I level with you?” I say. “There’s only one thing I’m concerned about, and it’s the dna sample. If we get a match back on that, it blows this case wide open and puts me back where I belong – ”

“And if it doesn’t match?”

“It will. You may not have a feeling one way or the other, but I do. The girl on that bed was Hannah Mayhew. I don’t know how she got there, but she did.”

“You’re convinced.”

“Absolutely. So just tell me when to expect the answer.”

She shrugs. “Maybe a day, maybe a week. How am I supposed to know?”

“You said you had juice.”

“That doesn’t mean your hunch goes to the top of my list. Like I said, I’m not convinced, so you can’t expect me to put resources behind it, no matter how badly you want there to be a link.”

My collar tightens around my neck. “If that’s how you feel, I can go back to the me myself and get it done. You should have let me do that in the first place.”

“It’s not your case.”

“It’s as much mine as yours now.”

She crosses her arms. “No. It’s not.”

We head back to her car, neither of us very interested in continuing the conversation. Teaming us up was Wanda’s idea. Maybe it was a favor to me – or maybe it was punishment, the hair of the dog, her way of teaching me a lesson.

She starts the engine, letting the air-conditioning blow, then turns in her seat.

“March, let’s get something clear.”

“All right,” I say, not liking her tone or the intensity of her gaze.

“You see this?” She makes a fist of her left hand and brandishes the engagement ring. “You appreciate the significance?”

“Uh… yeah.”

“It means that no matter what you and Wanda have cooked up between you, nothing’s gonna happen. You understand that?”

“I’m a happily married man,” I say.

Her eyes narrow in contempt.

“Look,” I say. “You don’t know me. All I care about is getting those results back. If you’d just make that happen, you could get rid of me a lot sooner.”

She puts the car in gear. “Anyway. You’re old enough to be my dad.”

“What? No, I’m not.” I punch the window button, then lean my head out to yell. “Thank you, Wanda, wherever you are.”

Cavallo smiles, but just barely. When we hit FM-1960, I point right and she turns left.

“I need to get back,” she says.

“Fine, but there’s a lead I want to follow up while we’re out here.”

She sighs. “What?”

“That youth pastor from yesterday. I want to swing by and rattle his cage.”

“There’s no point.”

“Just turn around, all right? Pretty please? You can drop me off. I’ll hitch a ride back with some uniforms.”

She glides into the left-turn lane, tapping her fingers on the wheel. When the light changes, she whips the front around late, giving the tires a squeal, then pours on the gas. The woman always drives like she’s chasing someone. Or being chased.

Finding Carter Robb is easier said than done. His office at the church proves empty, and the number I worm out of the secretary goes straight to voicemail. According to Cavallo, who’s decided to stick with me for the moment, he runs after-school programs on Tuesdays and Thursdays, trading slices of pizza for a captive audience to evangelize. But Hannah’s disappearance trumps the usual schedule.

“All he does anymore is make copies of the flyer,” the secretary says. “Then he posts them all over the place. Sometimes the youth group kids go with him.”

“You have any idea where I could intercept him?”

She fingers the beads around her neck in thought. “His wife teaches at Cypress Christian School – no relation to the church. There’s a coffee place across from there, Seattle Coffee. His home away from home, I think.”

“I know where it is,” Cavallo says.

This turns out to be only partly true, as she proves by hunting around for twenty minutes while I dig through the Key Map and try to navigate. When we finally locate the coffee shop, there’s no sign of Robb, so I persuade Cavallo to take me to the school where his wife teaches. We page her from the office, then wait.

After a few minutes I check my watch.

“You’re not like the other homicide detectives,” Cavallo says.

“So you know a lot of them?”

She gives me a look like I’m an idiot. “They’re mostly big talkers. Gift of the gab. But not you. You’re more of a brooder, aren’t you?”

“Maybe I’ve got more to brood about.”

“I always expect them to be depressed,” she says. “Doing that kind of work, seeing what they see. But I guess you develop an immunity. I don’t think I could.”

“You might surprise yourself someday.”

Cavallo starts to reply, then looks past me. “Here she is.”

Gina Robb can’t be a day over twenty-five, but in her cardigan and cat-eye glasses she’s serious enough for an elderly librarian. She’s pinned a swag of dishwater blond hair back with a tortoiseshell barrette, exposing a swath of pale forehead. Under the cardigan, she wears a flower-print dress that flares at the hips, a self-consciously vintage look.

“You wanted to see me?” she asks, looking from one of us to the other, uncertain whom to address. “Are you from the police?”

I glance at my dangling shield. “How can you tell?”

She parries my attempt at humor with a grave frown. “Has something happened?”

“No, nothing like that,” Cavallo says.

I would never have picked this girl as Robb’s type. Proof, I suppose, that opposites attract, bookworms pairing off with jocks and vice versa. For some reason it makes him more interesting.

“We’re trying to find your husband,” I say. “Any idea where he might be?”

Her gray eyes flick toward the wall clock. “At church?”

“We checked. They said he might be out distributing flyers.”

“I guess that’s where he is then.”

“We checked the coffee shop,” Cavallo says. “They told us he hangs out there sometimes.”

She nods. “Sometimes.”

Either she’s trying to make this hard, or she’s genuinely baffled by our questions. “Would you mind giving him a call? Maybe he’ll pick up if he sees it’s you.”

Her hands fret the hem of her cardigan. “We haven’t dismissed class yet. I should really – ”

“Please,” Cavallo says. “Just humor him, ma’am.”