C Box - Blue Heaven

“It’s okay,” Villatoro said. “You’ve obviously thought a lot about it.”

“I want to know my customers,” Hearne said, sitting forward and grasping his hands together on his desktop in a gesture that brought the meeting to a near close.

Villatoro turned to open the door, but Hearne cleared his throat. “Before you leave, Mr. Villatoro, I’ve got a question for you.”

“Yes?”

“Is the Santa Anita robbery the real reason you’re here?”

Villatoro hesitated before answering. “Yes,” he said softly.

Hearne considered it, then said, “Well, good luck. And welcome to Kootenai Bay.”

“Thank you. Everyone seems friendly here.”

“We are,” Hearne said. “Although the guy with the hundred-dollar bills might disagree with that.”

“I trust everything we’ve discussed is confidential?”

“Of course,” Hearne said, showing Villatoro out the door, “of course it is.”

As Villatoro walked across the lobby toward the door, Hearne called out after him. “The sheriff might be a little busy right now,” he said, gesturing toward the poster of Annie and William Taylor. Villatoro looked at it, then back to the banker.

“I don’t have that much time,” Villatoro said.

AFTER VILLATORO left, Jim Hearne went back into his office and shut the door and leaned with his back to it. This, he knew, was the only place in his office where no one could see him through the windows.

He closed his eyes tightly and breathed deeply. But there was a roar emanating, building within him. His palms were cold, and he reached up and rubbed his face with them.

Villatoro had taken him by surprise. There was a time a few years ago when Hearne thought about what he’d done, or, more accurately, what he hadn’t done, and the thought kept him awake at night. But like everything, it gradually went away. He thought he’d gotten away with it, since there had been no repercussions. Sure, he’d known better, deep down.

He should have known this day would come.

OSCAR SWANN PARKED his pickup in front of Monica Taylor’s house and got out quickly. The pickup was closer than necessary behind a white news van emblazoned with FOX NEWS KUYA SPOKANE on its side. He could see plainly what was happening and was there to stop it.

Monica stood on her front lawn looking aimless and haggard. A young man in dowdy clothes was fitting a video camera on a tripod in front of her, with her house in the background. Near the van, a slim blonde, who seemed scarcely out of college-except for the wolfish look of advanced ambition-held a mirror to her face with one hand and violently raked the other through her hair to make it appear that she had run to the scene. Her bright red lipstick looked like a knife wound slashed across her made-up face, he thought.

He was nearly too late. He should never have taken the time to shower, shave, and put on fresh clothes before he left his house. Singer would tear him apart if he knew that. But the urge to look decent after a long night of driving the roads near his house and staking this one out had left him tired and drained. Plus, he still had a thing for Monica. He remembered the first time he saw her behind the counter of the retail store. She was the best-looking woman he’d run across since he’d moved up there, he thought. After a little small talk, he learned she was single. His cop sense told him she was available if he played it right. Unlike Singer and Gonzalez, Swann couldn’t stand endless hours at his own place with only himself and his hogs for company. He had to get out, and he liked to roam the town, saying little but observing everything. Not to the degree of Newkirk, though. Swann thought Newkirk was naïve and reckless, pretending he fit in.

Swann knew better, and he was learning not to mind. Sure, he looked the part. He was a careful observer, and within a year of arriving he’d learned how to dress down to look like a local: T-shirt, open chambray shirt, fleece vest, blue jeans, ball cap. Maybe a couple days of beard. He’d come to the conclusion that although it was possible for country people to move to a city and eventually adapt, it didn’t work the other way around. He’d never fully get used to doing without; not having a vast choice of restaurants, grocery stores, shopping, the welcome blanket of anonymity within a white noise soundtrack. Here, they noticed you, talked to you without hesitation, asked where you were from. To deal with that he’d invented a persona and wore it around like he used to wear blue. People knew him here as affable Oscar Swann, retired cop who sought the simple life, raised some hogs, chewed tobacco, and admired the pure country goodness of the natives. They’d never know in his heart he thought of them as jaded Europeans thought of Americans: as childlike, boisterous, loud, too insular to appreciate what they had, too unsophisticated to realize how easy it had been for them. Nevertheless, they seemed to accept him although he learned too late that raising hogs wasn’t exactly common. By then he’d come to like it. When he knew Monica, he sensed she’d seen through him, knew intuitively it was an act. He pulled away before she could confront him and confirm it, but that didn’t keep him from still wanting her and jumping on this opportunity. He had needs, after all.

“No, no,” he said to the newswoman, who had paused in her hair-raking while he strode toward her. “There’ll be no interview.”

The reporter glared at him. “What do you mean, there’ll be no interview? I asked her, and she agreed. She wants to put out a plea for her children.”

“Sorry, that won’t happen.”

The reporter reacted as if he’d slapped her, and she squared off to fight back. “And who in the hell are you?”

“Oscar Swann,” he said, extending his hand but looking across the lawn to make sure the camera wasn’t rolling yet.

The newswoman didn’t reach out. “That name means nothing to me,” she said.

“I’m with the task force for the sheriff’s department,” he said, showing her a laminated graphic of a badge on a lanyard they’d made just that morning. “We’ve been authorized to help with the investigation. If you want an interview, you need permission from Sheriff Carey. In fact, he’s going to hold a press conference in a few hours. But we need you to leave Mrs. Taylor alone for now.”

The reporter hesitated, looked at his plastic badge, then his face. He knew he looked fatherly, concerned, avuncular. Trustworthy. He always had.

“Are you a cop? I’ve never seen you around.”

“Retired,” he said in a way he thought clipped and official, as if Singer were addressing the media. “Twenty years, Los Angeles Police Department.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “The woman already agreed to speak with us.”

“Consider that permission revoked,” Swann said. “Let me talk with her.”

“Hey…” the reporter called after him, but he was already gone. He positioned himself between the camera and Monica, who had watched the whole thing.

“Oscar,” Monica asked, “what’s going on?”

He kept his voice low. “Monica, I need to ask you not to speak on camera. This isn’t a good idea.” He told her about the task force at the sheriff’s department, how they’d met and decided to funnel all requests for interviews through the sheriff’s department so they could keep some control of the information.

“But why?” she asked, her eyes big. He took a moment to look at her. She was tired, pale, worn-out. There were dark rings around her eyes, and she wore no makeup. Still, though, he thought she was lovely.