A Garden of Vipers (21 page)

The night before, the whole crew had been in the conference room—the war room, in Lucas's self-amusing terminology. He had used his new microwave to make popcorn, then sat in the dark and watched events like a movie. It became quite dramatic near midnight, a fistfight breaking out between Nelson and Racine, the others pulling them apart.

The blame game with no one to name. Or everyone.

He'd also seen something of consummate interest, the sort of thing his mentor had suggested would be occurring. In his current role of primary family mouthpiece, Buck Kincannon was often absent from the firm. No one could enter his office but his personal assistant, middle-aged, a prim and efficient woman, pear-shaped with a plain face and heavy ankles. The very same pair of ankles he'd seen above Nelson Kincannon's ass two afternoons running, the couch sessions lasting six minutes. Lucas wondered what fantasies Nelson conjured to keep his equipment engaged. It would take some major sleight of mind.

It was thus no surprise that whenever Buck left the building his assistant scampered into Nelson's office with a file in her hands. Buck's phone calls and message slips, he supposed! Nelson shuffled through, made a note or two, the assistant returning the file to BK's office. Buck would keep personal e-mails private and password protected. But calls to Buck would be slipped to Nelson via his plain-faced loverette providing an indicator of Buck's activities and intentions. The woman's duplicity thrilled Lucas.

He crept to the window and looked out into the bright sunlight. On the road below was a gray truck that looked like it had just driven in from Guadalajara. A white guy in scruffy clothes was pulling it away. A janitor type, maybe. Not interesting. But it was a beautiful day. Maybe he'd go sit in the back lot, out of sight, just for a few minutes of sun.

“Do you think they'd let me outside today, Doctor?”

“You disappointed them the last time, Lucas.”

“We learn from our mistakes, Doctor. I'll just go sit by the window and watch Freddy play in the woods. I like to hear him laugh.”

“I got the photo you sent, Detective Ryder. Pretty fuzzed-up by the time it came across our fax. The fax machine's ancient, coal-powered, I think.”

The next morning I started by calling Pettigrew to see if the augmented photo of the man called Crandell had struck a chord. I didn't expect it to, but everything had to be tried. I used the conference room phone, Harry listening from across the table. I hadn't told Harry about my trip to the two Kincannon sites. He wouldn't have been pleased.

I said, “The pic was fuzzy to begin with, Ben. It spark anything?”

“Four years have passed. Sorry.”

Dead end.

I said, “Thanks for trying, Ben. For Barlow to know Crandell was a long shot. Your knowing anything would be longer.”

“Crandell? You never mentioned the name,” he said.

“The name mean something?”

I heard Pettigrew shift in his chair and pictured him leaning forward, elbows on the desk, phone tight to his ear.

“Not long before I left for Montgomery, Barlow crept around to the side of the headquarters, nothing there but weeds. He was talking. I wouldn't have heard him with the windows tight, but I don't like too much AC, so I keep my window open a few inches.”

“Barlow met someone out there?”

“He was on his cell. I figured the call was one of his girlfriends, a scary bunch. Then I got caught by how polite he was being, deferential, saying yessir and nossir. That's not Cade Barlow.”

“He was talking to Crandell?”

“I remember him saying Mr. Randall, but…”

“Awfully damn close,” I said.

“Barlow came back into the building grinnin' like a shitbird. That was strange, too. Even before Barlow turned nasty he didn't smile much. I think he's sensitive about them corn-colored chompers.”

Harry leaned in. “After that time…Barlow ever come up with any interesting property or money?”

“How'd you know? Just before I moved he started riding a big ol' vintage Harley Panhead. Fifties-era, heavy custom work. I figured thirty grand minimum.”

“This has been a real good talk, Ben,” Harry said.

We hung up. Harry pushed the phone device out of the way.

“Barlow ain't just nasty, Cars, he's dirty. I smelled it on him. This clinches the deal: Rudolnick, Taneesha, Fur Face or Funky or whoever, Frederika Holtkamp, the pressed-down grass beneath that microwave tower, Barlow. It's all the same case—find out something about one, we find out something about the other.”

It was a daunting array of investigative possibilities. “What do we do next?” I asked.

“Taneesha, Ms. Holtkamp, and Bernie Rudolnick are dead. Barlow's alive. Let's drop the photo of Crandell in front of him. Out of thin air. See how he reacts.”

I ran the scenario in my head. “Barlow's a cop, Harry. Good at the stone face. He might not give anything away if we just drop a picture in his lap.”

“You got something better?”

“How about we come at Barlow with an angle, something that confuses him just enough to mess with his response mechanism?”

A half hour later I was bending over a paper cutter, Harry handing me copy paper a dozen sheets at a time. For the first time in two weeks, the air felt refreshing to breathe, like it had gotten a jolt of new oxygen.

“How much, you think?” I asked, tapping the stack of paper rectangles.

Harry lifted the stack, riffled it like money.

“Gimme another half inch, Cars. I want Barlow's fingers to touch it and get horny.”

We finished, headed to Forensics, and found Thaddeus Claypool in the ballistics section, banging on computer keys and muttering about apogees and parabolic decay and whatnot. He wore an aloha shirt with blue macaws on a field of green. His jeans looked field-tested at Woodstock. When Claypool saw us he jumped up and created an ad hoc group hug. It took a few seconds to disentangle.

“Remember that tape you cleaned up for us, Thad?”

“Sure. I played with the program a bit after that, squeezed a couple bugs out. I talked to a game developer buddy of mine, got input on spatial modeling. What you do is map a grid of floating points on the—”

“Want to try a project?”

“Whatcha need?” His earnest eyes sparkled behind scarlet reading glasses.

“You still got the tape of the suited guy?”

“Sure.”

“But he's looking to the side, right?”

“I've got two frames where he almost moves to three quarters.”

I reached in my pocket and pulled out a photograph taken last fall at Bellingrath Gardens. Harry and I are standing in front of a tumbling wall of azalea, Dani between us. We're grinning at a camera held by a ninety-year-old tourist from Bath, England. Her name was Mabel Hodge and we ended up taking her to a gumbo joint where she out-ate the three of us. I set the photo in front of Claypool. He looked at me, raised a questioning eyebrow.

I told him what I needed. He did a little dance and said to come back in an hour.

 

Barlow lived in a brick split-level, nothing spectacular. The garage door was open and we saw that the sergeant liked big toys, including a tri-wheel ATV, a couple of dirt bikes, and the vintage Harley Panhead Pettigrew had mentioned, a low-slung hog encrusted with chrome.

We pulled into the driveway and got out, Harry carrying a bucket of fried chicken from Popeye's. He fished out a drumstick, set the bucket on the hood. We leaned against the Crown Vic and ate chicken until a drapery twitched, followed by the front door banging open. Barlow stepped to the stoop and looked at us in disbelief. Harry waved his drumstick in greeting.

“Howdy, Cade. Join us for lunch.”

Barlow pointed down the road. “The dump's a mile thataway. Take your fuckin' picnic there.”

Harry made a point of scoping out the house, the bike. “Nice digs, Cade. Cool ride, too. What's a scoot like that cost, twenty-five grand? Thirty?”

Cade strode off the stoop, walked to us, his eyes dark with anger.

“Get off my property.”

Harry held the drum at Barlow like a microphone.

“Where's the material from the Holtkamp case, Cade? Remember her, the teacher got killed on your watch? You didn't tell us the case materials got mislaid.”

“Don't remember you asking. I want you off my driveway. I got nothing to say to you.”

Harry fished around in the bucket, pulled out a biscuit.

“You implied the state cops had all the materials. They have bupkus. Where'd it go?”

“How the hell would I know? For all I know, it got picked up by a maintenance crew, tossed in the trash.”

Harry studied his biscuit like he was deciding something. He came up with a packet of honey, squirted it over the biscuit. He started to take a bite, paused, looked at Barlow.

“We talked to Pettigrew, Cade. In person.”

I saw Barlow freeze. But a split second later he was smirking.

“Pettigrew ain't been around here in four years. He ran off to Montgomery to be a big shot. What's he know about anything?”

Harry took a bite of biscuit and chewed with his eyes closed. He smiled, like the honey had been the answer.

“You saying you don't know jack shit about the Holtkamp murder? Never went near the evidence?”

“You fuckers are big-time crazy. That's my answer.”

“Say it again,” Harry challenged.

“Glad to: You're crazy.”

Harry made a show of looking at me and raising an eyebrow, like he was weighing something. I looked back, nodded, like I'd come to the same conclusion. Harry turned to Barlow and applauded.

“Chill out, Cade, m'man. Have a piece of chicken. You earned it.”

Barlow looked at Harry like my partner had lapsed into Gaelic.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Like they say on TV, this has been a test. You passed.”

“Make sense, dammit.”

Harry said, “We were sent here to make sure the past stays buried.”

Barlow's eyes narrowed at the word
past
.

“I got no idea what you're talking about.”

“Which, as I said, is the right answer. And the right answer just won you a little something for your silence. A bonus for passing the test.”

Harry pulled an envelope from his pocket, flipped it to Barlow. The county cop trapped the package against his chest. His fingers danced over what was probably a familiar rectangular shape inside the envelope.

“Where'd this come from?” Barlow said, squeezing the package.

I slipped my hand into my jacket pocket, fished out my own envelope. “Is a picture worth a thousand words? Or is it a photo?”

I slid the photo from the envelope, shooting a final glance at Claypool's computer handiwork as I passed it over: Harry and me at Bellingrath Gardens, between us a manipulated photo of Crandell. We were all grinning. Shadows weren't exact, and Claypool had blurred everything a notch to help conceal the problems, but for a one-shot roll of the dice, it was damn good.

I passed it to Barlow. He looked down and froze, his eyes wide.

“You mean you guys know Cran—”

It was the wrong thing to say. Barlow knew it one second too late, eyes trained to spot forged registrations and licenses, finding the photographic discrepancies. He threw the photo to the ground. Kicked it away.

“I don't know who that is.”

“You think we're stupid?” Harry said. “You just said the name.”

Sweat beaded on Barlow's forehead. His left eye ticked and he swallowed hard.

“You're running a game on me.”

“Crandell who?” Harry asked. “Crandell what? Crandell where?”

“I never saw him before.”

“Am I going to have to get my chalk, Barlow?” Harry said. “Make you a free space?”

“What?”

“Why'd you mess with Pettigrew's investigation?” Harry shot.

I said, “What are you hiding?”

“What'd you get paid?” Harry asked.

Barlow's eyes bounced between Harry and me like a rabbit between two wolves. He rubbed his palms down his thighs to dry them.

“Who the hell are you?” he said. “State? Federal?”

Harry stepped whisper-close, narrowed his eyes. “We're just two cops who have you figured out, Cade. And when we get to the bottom of what's going on, your ass is mulch. Want to talk about it?”

“Get out of here.” Barlow's voice quivered. “Now.”

Harry shot me a look. We'd done all we could. I grabbed the chicken from the hood, Harry headed back to the driver's side. He turned, looked at Barlow.

“We heard you used to be a good cop.” Harry flipped one of his cards to the ground. “Call me when you make the right decision, Cade. When you remember what side you represent.”

We drove away. When I turned, Barlow was as still as a statue, torn envelope in his hand, white paper the size of money fluttering at his ankles.

 

We needed time to make sense of all we'd seen and heard in the past few hours. Then decide how to proceed. Flanagan's was too public and distracting, my place too far, so we went to Harry's. He poured the coal into Ellington's “A Train.” The chair in Harry's living room held a box of Rudolnick's case histories, so he pulled a ladder-back chair from the dining room and set it backward, facing me on the couch. He was in lecture mode: I'd seen it at the Police Academy when he taught classes there.

“There are a fair amount of cops like Pettigrew around, Carson. Bright and talented hotshots in quiet burgs. Some get press, nail someone from the FBI's most-wanted list, take down a major pedophile, talk a jumper off a building in the glare of TV lights, that kind of thing. Pettigrew was first-rate, but probably never made any splash that would have carried to Montgomery. Why was he selected? What even got him noticed?”

“I don't know, but it sure seemed like he was plucked away just in time to keep him from the Holtkamp investigation, good cop or not.”

“I don't believe in coincidence anymore,” Harry said. “Not on this case. I want to know exactly why Pettigrew flew the coop.”

“Call him and ask.”

Harry shook his head,
not an option
. “Pettigrew told us the outside details. I want inside details. Plus, I ain't trusting anyone involved to tell us the truth. Not even Pettigrew.”

“That leaves us high and dry. I couldn't get that kind of political info from the MPD, much less Montgomery's force.”

Harry stared at me. It was uncomfortable.

“You've been dating an investigative reporter for a year and don't know how it's done?”