A Desperate Silence (Dr. Sylvia Strange Book 3) (18 page)

     
"Sylvia?"

     
"What?"

     
"Give me something I can use to catch the bastard." Matt worked to keep impatience from his voice. "Last night somebody tore your kid's Honda to shreds. We're dealing with a really scary bad guy, so talk to me."

     
She shook her head, covering her eyes with her hands. She tried to clear her mind, reaching for the remnants of memory, but individual events had blurred into a confusing haze. She groaned in frustration.

     
"What did you hear?"

     
"His scream when Nikki hit him."

     
"What else?" Matt was watching her closely, and he thought he saw something register. "Don't think about it, just tell me."

     
"His voice. He spoke Spanish. He sounded . . . not exactly refined, but educated."

     
"Good. What else?"

     
"Tall, thin . . . maybe Mexican or Indian blood. His face was scarred—acne or smallpox."

     
Sylvia pressed both hands against her eyes. Her breathing caught. She said, "He drove a dark green four-wheel-drive." She swallowed. "He was a professional—but more than that . . . he went for the child, and he didn't give up even when Nikki had him down."

     
Her voice rose with excitement. "CZ . . . CZ three. That was on the license plate."

     
Matt wrote the symbols on a pad Behind the criminal investigator a man in khakis approached from a distance. Sylvia knew a deputy medical investigator was attending to the corpse while detectives were preserving and processing the scene. She didn't recognize this man, but she saw that he carried something gingerly in one gloved hand.

     
Sylvia heard Matt ask, "What you got, Ed?"

     
Ed was wide, flat-faced, and earnest. He tipped his head toward Sylvia. "The buckle she found? It's real fancy silver work, and it goes on the dead guy's belt; one of those decorative jobs—like this one has P-A-C-O stamped into the leather."

     
Matt nodded, waiting. Ed whispered something in a low voice. Sylvia just heard the words "dust" and "smack."

     
Ed's voice rose. "You maybe should take another look, sir." The man held up his final offering. "This was jammed behind the body—like he fell back on top of it. It slid out easy. Really. I didn't mess up the rest of the scene."

     
Sylvia could see a small purse—a woman's clutch, inexpensive vinyl, long past its prime. She walked the few steps to stand beside both men. Matt asked Ed to open the bag. It contained only a few items. A delicate lacy handkerchief. A cheap ballpoint pen. Several coins—pesos, dimes, and nickels. A plastic comb. A snapshot.

     
The photograph was frayed at the edges and creased with age and handling, but the colors were still somewhat true: two young faces gazed out at the camera. For an instant, Sylvia thought the woman was Serena. The eyes, the mouth, the cheekbones—all the child's features were duplicated. But this face was older, more sensual, already reaching its promise.

     
Serena's mother looked no older than sixteen. She was wrapped in the arms of a young man. Their cheeks were pressed together, their eyes shining. They smiled shyly, like first-time lovers.

     
Ed said, "The guy looks familiar."

     
Matt was studying the photograph intently. He lowered his head until he was only a few inches from the images. Finally, he grunted and said, "He should. He's in the newspapers every day."

     
Both Sylvia and Ed stared at Matt. She spoke first. "You know who he is?"

     
"Yeah." Matt's voice was harsh. "So do you. That's Cash Wheeler."

     
"The Cash Wheeler who's gonna be executed?" Ed nodded in dawning recognition; he'd answered his own question.

     
Sylvia plucked the photograph from Matt's fingers. She swallowed, and her throat ached. "Can I take my truck, or do I need to beg a ride into town?"

     
"Slow down."

     
"I'm going with Serena."

     
"I don't think they're finished with your truck. They'll need to dust for prints."

     
"Fine. I'll beg a ride."

     
"Sylvia, that photograph is evidence—you can't take it. Dammit!"

T
EARS STREAKED
S
ERENA'S
dirty face where she sat in the backseat of the police car. When she saw Sylvia at the door, she gave a small cry of excitement and relief.

     
The policewoman next to her tried her best to comfort Serena, but the child would have none of it. She struggled to escape the car and reach Sylvia. Finally, the officer gave in and let Sylvia slide into the backseat. After a few minutes, Serena quieted. Then she looked at the photograph.

     
Almost instantly, the word escaped her lips. It was ever so soft, almost inaudible, but Sylvia heard it, and so did the others. Serena said, "Dada."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

C
ASH
W
HEELER WAS
cuffed and shackled—he'd been giving prison staff a hard time. The restraints intensified his gaunt appearance—a vivid reminder that he was on day five of a hunger strike. He stared at Matt England through narrowed eyes and shook his head.
"I
don't know any Mexicans."

     
"I heard you grew up in El Paso. Few years back, Juárez and El Paso were one town."

     
"I lived in the American part."

     
"Your wife was of Mexican descent." Matt leaned back in the hard plastic chair. He was puzzled by Wheeler's almost perfunctory resistance. The slight wedge of compassion he'd previously felt for the inmate was in danger of collapsing. He reminded himself that a guy on death row would be short on trust—and social graces.

     
"Never had a wife," Wheeler said.

     
"Your girlfriend, then."

     
"What girlfriend?"

     
The one they say you murdered, asshole
. "Elena Cruz."

     
Wheeler put on the act, searching his memory for some clue to the lady's identity. The interview was off to a great start.

     
Wheeler had been waiting for Matt in a private visiting room in North Facility's administration building. The visiting rooms were all identical—plain, hard floor, beige walls, a grilled security window set in the steel door, one table, two chairs.

     
Matt found the room grim. Cash Wheeler probably found it agreeable; he had consented to this meeting on the condition that he be allowed to leave Housing Unit 3-B. Although the administration building and the housing unit were separated by only a yard and a sally port, the short walk meant fresh air and sunshine for the death row inmate.

     
Matt gazed directly at Wheeler's pasty face; to a man who had spent years locked in a north-facing cell, sunshine was more valuable than any type of contraband. He was reminded of Wheeler's cryptic comment from their previous meeting.

     
"Are you like your friend Bowan?" Matt asked quietly. "Are you tired of waiting for rain and sunshine?"

     
To Matt's surprise, Cash Wheeler's whole demeanor softened. "The state is calling the shots for me." The inmate paused to light a cigarette, then quoted softly, " 'He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good. . .' "

     
Matt kept his attention on Wheeler, but he was thinking about his earlier discussion with Rosie Sanchez, who had arranged this early-morning interview.

     
"Who's Wheeler close to?" he had asked.

     
"His sister. His lawyer. He used to talk to Bowan."

     
"Staff? Any of the C.O.'s? Anyone from the libraries? Medical?"

     
"A nurse practitioner got involved in his sister's protest; she quit her job. Most of the time, Wheeler finds very little social interaction—he's on twenty-three-hour lockdown. He's always welcomed visits from the chaplain and various missionary types."

     
"He's a born-again?"

     
"He's lonely and scared . . . a dying man—unless the court rules favorably on the final appeal."

     
"It must piss the hell out of Wheeler's sister—all that money, all those connections haven't saved her brother from a goddamn thing."

     
Cash Wheeler's ankle chains clanked against the legs of his chair. The sound refocused Matt's thoughts, bringing him back to the present.

     
The inmate inhaled deeply on the cigarette that dangled from his lips. He exhaled smoke and words, asking, "You got a family—any kids?" The raw pain in his voice echoed off hard surfaces.

     
"No." Matt regretted the word as soon as it flew out of his mouth. He knew he should tell some part of the truth—even make up a sympathetic lie—to reinforce rapport and keep Wheeler talking. But a barrier had slammed down inside him, shutting off memories of his dead wife and son, guarding thoughts of Sylvia.

     
Matt could feel the inmate watching him closely; Wheeler had sensed the sudden emotional shift. To cover the moment, Matt said, "Tell me about Paco."

     
"The Mexican?" Wheeler's voice had a new and understandably hostile edge. "He's dead." After a beat of silence, Wheeler shrugged. "I got a gut feeling about . . . what's his name?" Smoke from his cigarette wafted into his nose and eyes, but he didn't seem to notice. He smiled, apparently enjoying the slow rhythm of half answers and nonanswers.

     
He said, "I know some guys named Paco."

     
Matt told himself he was in no hurry. At the same time, his sudden and unsettling reaction to Cash Wheeler had disturbed his sense of himself; he preferred to believe he was the master of his emotions.

     
"Yeah . . . I know a guy, Paco Montoya . . . but he's locked up." The inmate turned to stare down the correctional officer whose face filled the observation window.

     
Matt said, "This man probably died on Wednesday night. He was driving a car with El Paso plates."

     
"Yeah?"

     
"You ever heard of a business called Hat-Trick?"

     
"They make sombreros?"

     
The session went on for another fifteen minutes. At times the only sound in the room was the growl of Wheeler's empty stomach. As Matt asked questions, Wheeler smoked three more cigarettes. Matt's head began to ache from secondhand smoke and tension; he wasn't getting information he could use. Still, he took his time, inching toward a goal. There was this moment that happened in some investigations, the moment when you were holding pieces of separate puzzles in your hands and, suddenly, you knew all the pieces fit in the
same
puzzle—and together those pieces made a brand-new picture.

     
He seemed half asleep when he pulled a C.P.S. interoffice photograph from his pocket. Lazily, he set the photo on the table.

     
Wheeler exhaled smoke and glanced down. From the look on his face all he saw was a girl. No apparent curiosity, no particular puzzlement about why this photograph of a child would be brought to his attention. Well—
there
—Matt thought maybe Wheeler's mouth had tightened around the cigarette.

     
Finally, the inmate said, "That's not Paco, is it?"

     
"No, that's not Paco."

     
"But she was traveling with your guy?" He smiled. "I saw the news. About that kid who crashed her car into a train . . ."

     
"Do you know her?"

     
"Maybe." He shifted position, working around shackles. "Maybe not."

     
"Too bad."

     
"Should I?"

     
Matt didn't answer as he started for the door. He got so close he could hear the C.O.'s footsteps in the hallway. But then he turned, a finger raised to his temple—as if he'd forgotten one last unimportant detail—and he walked back to the table. He set down a second photograph—this one taken from the child's purse the night before: Cash Wheeler and Elena Cruz.

     
Cash Wheeler was good, but this time Matt knew he'd seen the slight, involuntary stiffening of muscle, the vein in the jaw. And then the blood drained from the inmate's already pale face.

     
The investigator asked, "Can you think of any reason why a little girl would have a ten-year-old photograph of you and Elena Cruz?"

R
OSIE
S
ANCHEZ SHOOK
her head. "She's not his kid."

     
"We don't know that." Sylvia frowned.

     
"It's all too weird, is how I know. Anyway, she's Hispanic."

     
"She could be half Anglo."

     
"It's possible." Rosie Sanchez tapped the metal desktop with scarlet fingernails and returned her attention to the phone in her hand. She asked, "Have Criminal Agent England give me a call when he's through with Wheeler."

     
Sylvia Strange was seated across the desk from the penitentiary investigator; she watched as Rosie nodded for her benefit and mouthed, "
He's still with Cash
."

     
Behind the investigator, grilled windows offered a grimy view of a guard tower. Voices drifted up from outside. The air was tinged with the faint, familiar aroma of wastewater from the prison's treatment plant. From here, the world seemed terminally gray. But Sylvia knew for a fact that the sky was a brilliant blue.