Blood on the Tracks (14 page)

“The word on the rails. Pretty easy to find out who’s connected. Can you get a sketch artist?”

“Miles ahead of you, Parnell.”

“There any witnesses? Hobos, I can run them down.”

“No. But Rhodes has a fresh tat on his arm, a double lightning bolt. It’s—”

“Used by the white-supremacist jail gangs. He spend any time in prison?”

“No.” Cohen frowned. “Claims he’s not a racist, either. Says some old German, a railroad man who works on the lines, did it for him after Rhodes took a beating. The German told him no one would bother him with that tat.”

“He’s probably right. There’re a lot of white power skinheads riding the rails. Rumor has them killing hobos as a form of initiation. With transients and miles of empty space, it can be months or even years before someone is reported missing. If they ever are.”

Something small and distant switched on in my memory like a feeble light bulb. I tried to follow its faint glow, but nothing came.

We sat in silence. The wind flicked a random backhand at us, flapping open Cohen’s overcoat and sending a swirl of dust around the courtyard.

I straightened, pressing my palm against the small of my back where a muscle had locked. “So if what he says is true, if he’s innocent, how do we help him?”

“Whoa, Parnell. You may live in a world of innocent until proven guilty. But I tend to take the long view. You want to play Fairy Godmother, be my guest. But my job is to find a killer.”

“Who says those are mutually exclusive? We look for someone else who could have been at Elise’s Friday night. Verify Rhodes’s story about the key. See if it’s still there and—”

“We checked. It’s not. If it ever was.”

“—and find the guy who jumped him. Dig for motives. Talk to family and friends and coworkers to see if she was afraid of anyone or fighting with anyone.”

He caught his errant coat, buttoned it. “Christ, Sydney. This may not matter worth a shit. The ME says what I think she’ll say, none of us can do a damn thing for him. My captain will hand Rhodes off to the DA and that’ll be that.”

“How will that make you feel?”

He set his cup on the ground. Another flutter of wind blew it over, and he grabbed it before it could roll. “You know, he’s probably good for it, no matter how sorry we feel for him. ME connects all the dots for me, I got no choice. I gotta move on.”

“Bandoni’s already connected the dots.”

Cohen shrugged. “Len can act like an ass sometimes, but he’s a good cop. Best partner I’ve had. He won’t shut this case down just because doing so would give us a win. But his instinct is usually dead-on, and right now his gut is sending up warnings like a five-alarm fire.”

“And my gut says he’s innocent.”

“We’ve got means, opportunity. Maybe a motive.”

“PTSD isn’t a motive.”

“So you don’t like it. That doesn’t make it go away.”

“Do you really care about these people, Cohen? Or are they just stats on a spreadsheet?”

He didn’t say anything for a while. Finally he smiled that cynical smile. “If you knew me, you wouldn’t need to ask me that.”

I gave him a long, hard look. “You really think my life would be better if we were friends?”

“Just saying.”

“Jesus, let it go already. For your own sake. I make a shitty friend.”

“That what you told Rhodes?”

“He’s not looking for a friend. He needs a Marine.”

Cohen tossed down the dregs of his coffee and flattened the cup. “Don’t overstep, okay, Parnell? You’re a cop, and I suspect you’re a good one. And we really want your help on this. But you aren’t a murder cop. Don’t lose sight of that.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I downed my cold coffee. Between the nicotine and the caffeine and the sugar, I wondered if I’d ever come back to earth. I held myself still and listened to my heart complain at the extra work I’d ladled on.

I said, “You going to run him by the doc again? He acts like he’s in pain.”

“We’ll have the EMTs take a look at him. He was pretty tired. Why we cut the interview short. But he was against going back to the hospital.”

A small, ugly voice inside me pointed out that if Rhodes were to die, the worry about Habbaniyah would die with him.

I’d heard this ugly little voice a lot in Iraq. My survivor voice. What kind of shit excuse for a world is it when you have to choose between honor and survival?

“You need to keep him on suicide watch,” I said.

“We’ve made it official and arrested him. Now that he’s in the system, we can take his belt and anything else he might use. We’ll have someone watching him.”

“I’ll find the German,” I said. “I’ll want that sketch as soon as you have it.”

“Should be later this morning. Want me to text it to you?”

“Sure.”

I was already forming workarounds to avoid bringing Cohen into my piece of the investigation. But if the skinhead proved to be our perp, I wouldn’t have to worry about Habbaniyah or the mysterious man behind it, whom I was starting to think of as simply the Alpha. The skinhead offered all of us—Rhodes, me, his squad mates—a way out.

A flutter of hope stirred in my chest. Or maybe it was the sugar.

“I’ll ask around the camps, too,” I said. “And the homeless shelters. See if there’s any talk about someone carrying a hate for Elise.”

“Or maybe unrequited passion. She was a beautiful girl.”

“Yeah.” I stood. “I’ll bring whatever I learn to you.”

“Including our German, right?”

I rose and busied myself with an errant strand of hair so I wouldn’t have to meet his gaze. “Of course.”

His expression was quizzical. “I’m not feeling the love, Parnell.”

“It’s not about love. It’s about faith.”

“Whatever,” he said, trailing me across the plaza toward my truck. “I’m not feeling it.”

“You need to learn to trust, Detective Cohen.”

“Give me a reason, Special Agent Parnell.”

I turned and looked him straight in the eye. “I promise. I’ll tell you everything I know.”

“Dante placed liars in the eighth circle, you know.”

“An educated murder cop. Don’t forget he put traitors in the deepest pit of Hell.”

One eyebrow shot up. “An educated railroad cop. You thinking of betraying someone, Parnell?”

“Not you.” I stopped at the curb. “I’m thinking of someone else entirely.”

C
HAPTER
13

Do not call us heroes. Not if you are calling us that in order to absolve yourself of guilt over sending us off to an unwinnable war. Some of us are heroes. But some of us never had the chance. And some of us got slammed face-first into the fact that when we looked inside, we found nothing heroic at all.

—Corporal Sydney Rose Parnell.
Denver Post
.

January 13, 2010.

When I got home, Clyde greeted me at the door, light on his paws and ready to rumble. I pulled out the donut I’d lifted from a box at the police station.

“Last one, buddy,” I said. “You’re going on a working-dog diet starting in about thirty seconds.”

He ate the donut in one gulp and licked his chops.

“Okay, ten seconds.”

I started the coffeepot, took a few minutes to clear the driveway and steps, then called the personnel office at Denver Pacific Continental. Nik would probably know right away who the German was. But I didn’t want him to know I was working the case.

“It’s Special Agent Parnell,” I said when Ted Rivers picked up.

“Ah, our hero. Good job, bringing that perp in.”

“This mean I’ll get a hero bonus in my next paycheck?”

“Settle for a bag of M&M’s?”

“Throw in some kibble for Clyde. Look, Rivers, I’m trying to track down a man on one of our repair crews.”

“Sure thing. You got a name?”

“A name is what I need. All I know is he’s German, probably over fifty, and he was working near Wolf, Wyoming, two nights ago.”

“Roald Hoffreider,” Rivers said immediately. “Guy’s been with us for thirty-some years. You want his cell number?”

“Rivers, I could kiss you,” I said after I’d jotted down the phone number.

“Name the time and place. I’ll be there, lips puckered.”

I laughed despite myself and hung up. I dialed Hoffreider’s number and left a message when he didn’t pick up, asking him to call me.

I poured a cup of coffee then went into the tiny dining room, which I’d converted into a study of sorts, and sat at the computer. First I did a little digging to see if I could find Rhodes’s chain of command. Nothing. Since 9/11, those sites have been locked down tighter than a maximum-security prison. I turned to pulling information on ex-Marine Jeremy “Jeezer” Winston Kane.

Married and with a daughter, Kane worked as a night stocker for the Costco Warehouse in Littleton. From an adrenaline-charged soldier risking death every day to a man driving forklifts of Pampers—I wondered how well he was making the transition.

Especially given that before the war, he’d been a premed student at the University of Colorado. Tough change in career plans. Why hadn’t he gone back to school on the GI Bill?

I called the Costco, pretended to be a friend, and learned Jeremy had gotten off work at six a.m. I whistled to Clyde, and we headed to the door. If I moved quickly, I should be able to catch Jeremy before he went to bed.

Littleton is a fourteen-square-mile municipality on Denver’s southwest side. It’s a surprisingly quiet place, given that it’s home to the gravesite of America’s only convicted cannibal and shares a zip code with the site of one of the deadliest mass shootings in US history. I drove south out of Denver’s downtown congestion—heavy even on a Sunday—and then west on 285. I kept the window cracked, trying to keep myself awake. A few miles away, the Rocky Mountains gleamed with silver indifference under clear, cold skies.

The Kanes lived in a split-level set halfway down the block of a lower-middle-class neighborhood, where the homes looked mean and the yards amounted to postage stamps. I pulled over near the crumbling curb and studied the house.

At just past eight o’clock, it was quiet, the drapes half drawn. The porch light still burned and a newspaper lay in the driveway, its plastic cover sparkling with frost. The snowy front yard held an abandoned wheelbarrow and shovel; it looked like someone had been scooping gravel into a border. An old Ford pickup sat in the driveway, filthy with mud from the recent storms. A
Beware of Dog
sign hung on the chain-link fence.

I left Clyde in the heated dog crate and walked up the drive, picking up the paper as I went by. No dog barked from the yard. At the scuffed front door, I paused and listened for people moving or talking. A faint sound of singing came through the wood—a children’s television show. I caught the smoky aroma of bacon frying.

I took a breath and rang the bell. Act One of my subterfuge. From inside, a dog unloosed an artillery of deep-throated barks. A sharp command from a female voice, and the dog immediately quieted. A house with discipline.

The woman who came to the door was in her early twenties, with long blond hair and an open, pretty face. She was six or seven months pregnant and dressed in loose-fitting sweats and a Broncos hoodie.

A muscular pit bull/grizzly bear mix strained against her legs where she held him by his collar. She jerked the collar hard and said, “Ogre, sit.”

Ogre sat. But he didn’t look happy about it.

The woman took in my uniform coat. Her gaze flicked past me to the Denver Pacific Continental truck at the curb then back to me, settling on my black eyes and bandaged cheek.

“Can I help you?”

I lifted her newspaper—a peace offering—and showed her my badge. “I’m Senior Special Agent Parnell with the Denver Pacific Continental Railway. Are you Mrs. Kane?”

“I’m Sherri Kane, yes.”

“I need to talk to your husband. Is he home?”

A crease marred her pretty forehead. “He’s watching
Dora the Explorer
with our daughter. It’s the only show she’s allowed. Could you come back in half an hour?”

Very disciplined.

“I’ll be as brief as I can.”

The crease deepened, matched with a frown, and I thought she might refuse. Cross a mother bear by threatening her child’s happiness, and it likely won’t go well. But I needed Jeremy Kane off-guard and tired.

“It’s official business, Mrs. Kane.”

She shook her head and sighed. Her ponytail danced. “Let me just put Ogre in back,” she said. “He’s not big on company.”

A minute later and the dog was barking at me from behind the
Beware of Dog
sign. He looked like he hadn’t had his breakfast yet.

Sherri Kane returned to the front door and unenthusiastically waved me in.

The house opened into a living room with cheap, new-looking furniture—matching sofa and love seat, oak coffee and end tables, and a curio cabinet filled with ceramic animals. Sherri led me through the room and into a hallway. At the kitchen she paused to turn off the stove, then went down a short flight of steps to the family room. A man and a girl two or maybe three years old sat with their backs to us, snuggled together on a couch watching
Dora
on the small TV.

“Jeremy,” Sherri said.

The man glanced over his shoulder, saw me, and got to his feet. He was tall and athletic looking, with bright-blue eyes, sandy red hair, and a trim beard. Like his wife, he had an open, friendly face, which I decided on principle to mistrust.

The little girl hung with the television show.

“I’m sorry,” Kane said. “I thought it was our neighbor again, back for more coffee.”

“I’m Special Agent Parnell with DPC,” I said.

“The railroad?” Jeremy Kane’s brow furrowed much as his wife’s had. But he came around the couch and offered his hand. He walked with a slight limp. “What’s this about, Officer?”

“I’m here at the request of Tucker Rhodes.”

Kane blinked. “Tucks? Why didn’t he come himself?”

“He’s not free to do that, Mr. Kane.”

I watched Kane connect the dots. Hobo. Railway cop. “Damn, he’s not under arrest or something, is he? Not hurt, or anything?”

“Why would you think he’d be under arrest?”

Kane flushed. “Well, trespassing, I guess. No secret about him and trains.”

“Mr. Kane, could we talk in private?”

Kane and his wife exchanged glances.

“Um, sure. Honey, can you take Haley to our bedroom? She can watch TV up there.”

Sherri gave me her angry mommy face, but she scooped up the little girl with another cheery swish of her ponytail and pushed past us. Haley watched me over her mother’s shoulder with dark, liquid eyes as she and Sherri climbed the stairs and disappeared into the hallway.

Kane clicked off the TV. “Get you some coffee?”

“No. Thanks.”

He gestured me toward the couch.

“What’s going on with Tucks?” he asked after we sat down.

“Mr. Kane, Elise Hensley came to visit you a few days ago.”

For the first time, Kane looked uncomfortable. His long fingers drummed the legs of his jeans. “Yeah. She wanted to let me know Tucks was on his way back to town.”

From upstairs the floor creaked and then came the murmur of the TV.

“Some reason she came by instead of calling?”

He shrugged. “She said Tucks had gotten his hobo beads stolen. She wanted to see if Sherri would make him more. She’s going to surprise Tucks with them.”

That sidetracked me. “Sherri makes hobo beads?”

“Yeah. It lets her stay home with Haley and still make a little money. She sells them at boutiques and craft fairs. Amazing what people will pay. But of course she doesn’t charge Tucks for his.”

I filed this information away. “Does Elise come by often?”

“Sure. Usually when Tucks is in town. Elise and Sherri aren’t the best of friends, but Sherri knows I need to spend time with my old buddies. She’s good about it.”

“But this last time Elise came alone.”

Another affable shrug. “Sherri and I tell her to come as often as she can. Watching out for Elise is just something we do. Tucks likes to know she’s being taken care of.”

“You stay in touch with any other guys from your platoon?”

He blinked at the change in topic. “My squad, sure. A few others.” He kept drumming his fingers. Still friendly but growing cautious. “What’s this about?”

“Mr. Kane, did Elise’s visit upset you?”

Another blink. “Um, no. Of course not.”

“But she came to talk to you about Habbaniyah, isn’t that right?”

Kane’s eyes dropped and his fingers stopped their fidgeting. His body twitched once then went still as a mannequin’s. The only thing that gave him away was his Adam’s apple sliding up and down as he swallowed.

“What do you know about that?” he asked in a soft, careful voice.

“Before I worked for the railroad, Private Kane, I was a Marine with Mortuary Affairs. I processed the bodies of Haifa and Resenko.”

His eyes came back up, taking me in. “Yes.” He nodded to himself. “I remember you now, even with those shiners. We used to talk about you. The lady with the yellow hijab.”

“What did Elise want, Mr. Kane?”

For the first time I saw his intelligence shining through the friendly demeanor like lamplight cutting through fog. A premed student, I reminded myself. Probably good with a knife.

“I always figured you hated us for what happened,” he said. “Are you really here as Tucks’s friend?”

“More as an interested party. And I need to know, Mr. Kane. Why did Elise want to talk about Habbaniyah? And who else did she talk to?”

Another bob of his Adam’s apple. “Special Agent Parnell, I don’t think I have to tell you anything. You’re not regular police. You have no authority here. I don’t know what dirt you’re trying to dig up, but you tell Tucks that if he wants to talk to me, he needs to come himself.”

Hoping I wasn’t doing something that Cohen would rightfully want to shoot me for later, I said, “Elise was found dead in her apartment yesterday morning. Rhodes is under arrest for her murder.”

Kane went white. “What?”

“Where were you Friday night and Saturday morning, Mr. Kane?”

“Me? What?”

He stood so suddenly that his knee caught the flimsy coffee table, flinging it over. Books and coffee mugs and magazines spilled to the floor. Overhead, footsteps thumped on the floor. Sherri.

“Does she know?” I asked. “Does your wife know about Habbaniyah?”

“What? No.” He looked at me in panic. “You can’t think I had anything to do with—with Elise being killed. Oh, my God. And poor Tucks. Not another one.”

Sherri appeared at the top of the stairs. “Another what?”

Jeremy looked at her, eyes wild. “Sherri, no. Go back with Haley.”

But Sherri came on down the stairs, a matriarchal elephant. She looked at the toppled table and then at her husband.

“Jeremy? What’s going on? Why are you—what’s wrong?” When he didn’t answer, she whirled on me. “What did you say to him?”

Kane found his voice. “Elise is dead. She thinks I killed her.”

For a moment, the room was utterly still. Ogre’s tags jingled from the backyard as he paced the fence. Upstairs,
Dora the Explorer
and her friends sang,
We did it!

Sherri shoved her face into mine.

“Get out of our house,” she whispered harshly. “Get out!”

“No, honey, it’s okay.” Kane took his wife’s arm, tried to pull her back.

She shook him off. Eyes still on me, she said, “What is she talking about, Jeremy? Is Elise really dead? How can she think that—”