Night Eyes (The Detective Temeke Crime Series Book 2) (14 page)

Malin rushed out to the front desk. Sargent Moran was doing his best to cover up a half-naked body builder on the front cover of Flex Magazine with the remains of his smoked salmon sandwich.

She pressed the phone to her ear. “Detective Santiago,” she said.

“Good morning,” a male voice said, punctuated by a few yawns.

It took her a second and she almost dropped the phone. “Hollister!”

“Got your messages. Wanted to talk before the dust settled.”

“I’m sorry if―”

“You had no business cussing like a marine and leaving hate mail. What the heck did I do? And next time pick up your cell phone. Save me having to call Fowler. He’s bound to think something’s going on.”

“Who cares about Fowler. And why do you think I called nine times? You can’t leave a girl hanging like that. You did that on purpose just to get me all riled up.”

“I didn’t think you wanted to talk to me again.”

“Course I wanted to talk to you,” Malin said, lowering her voice. “It’s my case. Now, who is he?”

“Who’s who?”

“The man we were talking about last night. You seem to know so much about him. All that stuff about having a parking ticket in, what, 2006? You said we’d never find him. You said he’s not even in the database.”

She heard nothing but silence and a chill tickled up to the roots of her hair. What he said was not what she was expecting. 

“I wasn’t talking to you last night.”

Malin felt like a cog in her brain wasn’t firing properly. She muttered ‘what’ and some other things as well. “If it wasn’t you, then… who’s WingMan?”

Hollister let out a loud sigh. “You better not be fooling about on those chat sites. Please tell me you’re not fooling about on those chat sites.”

Malin took a few seconds to gather herself before speaking. “He said he was you?” Well not exactly. He never really said he was anyone.

“Someone using my identity?” Hollister was raising his voice now. “First off, let me tell you something. If some little squirt’s out there stealing a cop’s identify I’ll trace his IP address and cut off more than his connection.”

“He knew about the case, asked if I’d heard from the kidnapper.”

“And I suppose you told him everything. Suppose you gave him classified information.” Hollister vented for three minutes, said a few things about federal crimes and a lynching. Said he was going to have her computer tapped, said she was a fatso.”

“Who you calling a fatso?”

“I said FIASCO!”

Malin was making feeble movements with her arms and legs, felt like she’d just been struck by lightning. She must have gone through ten pounds of sweat in the last two minutes. He wouldn’t stop shouting, wouldn’t stop ranting on about how he was going to take this man down a dark alley and give him a shakedown he’d never forget.

“Who are you going to take down a dark alley?” she finally cut in. “You don’t even know who he is. You don’t even know if it’s a
he
. It could be an old lady with senile dementia. It could be a minor―”

“With classified information!”

He had a point. “Maybe it was Fowler.”

The line went quiet again and Malin had to ask him if he was still there. Hollister muttered an angry yes and said Fowler could be a hick sometimes, but he wouldn’t mess on his own turf. Said her accusations would be better directed at herself since Fowler didn’t use the internet to get dates. He didn’t need to.

“I thought highly of you Malin,” he said. “I really did. Thought you could do this job. Even gave Hackett a reference.”

Malin felt her cheeks flash. He was mocking her now. First he told her she was fat and tried to wriggle out of it, and now this.

“Do your job, Malin,” Hollister said with another deep sigh “And let me do mine.”

He hung up then, left her standing at the front desk with a red face and watery eyes. Didn’t give her an occasion to congratulate him on his promotion to Captain. Would have been OK if Sgt. Moran hadn’t been listening to every word behind that magazine he was pretending to read.

She rushed across the lobby to the bathrooms, stared hard in the mirror. Tried to see herself through his eyes. A five foot five brunette with sallow skin and dark eyes smeared with make-up. She wasn’t beautiful, not by Serena Temeke standards, but she was attractive wasn’t she?

Dang! Hollister was such a brute. So typical to take Fowler’s side. She wiped off a black smudge under one eye and would have cried harder if it hadn’t been for the squeak of the door.

“Marl?”

It was Temeke.

“Can’t a girl have some peace,” she said, wondering why he hadn’t knocked.

“Sarge said you’d had a call from Hollister. What did he want?”

None of your business she wanted to say, leaning back against the sink, hands in pockets. She stared at the opposite wall and hoped her face wasn’t as grimy as it felt. “Just an argument, that’s all.”

Temeke pressed a wrist against the doorframe and heaved a sigh. “About what?”

“About Fowler. Guess I can’t stop thinking he’s the enemy.”

Temeke gave her a narrow-eyed stare and nodded slowly. “I wouldn’t get on the wrong side of Fowler if I were you, love. He has subtle ways of making people pay up, little nudges, that kind of thing. You’ll wake up one morning and find your computer’s been hacked or your hamster’s throat’s been cut. He can be ugly like that.”

Malin held back a chuckle, looked into those black eyes and wanted to tell him everything. She could lose her job with one snap of Hackett’s fingers if he ever found out.

“Called our Mr. Andrew Blaine. Course he didn’t pick up so I left a message, told him we’d get a search warrant. Oh, and Mrs. Oliver’s just arrived. Press conference starts in ten minutes.” Temeke opened the bathroom door and flapped a hand. “Fowler’s leading, poor old sod. Hackett thinks very highly of him. Wants to give him a medal in observation. Course, that’s how he got his GED. Observation.”

“What did you think of Cesar?” Malin asked as they cleared the lobby to the conference room in a few swift strides.

“He said letters―plural. When you left the room I asked him if the letters were sealed. He said yes. I asked him if he could remember what type of envelopes, big, small, window, self-seal. He said self-seal. So I got to thinking, self-seal can easily be reopened if you’re quick. I asked him if he opened any. He said it’s easy if you put the envelop in the freezer for a while. They open all by themselves.”

The conference room was bulging with press as they worked their way through a crush of camera men and journalists to the podium. Mrs. Oliver sat at a nearby table with Cesar Cruz to her right. They were whispering, seemingly undeterred by the flurry of photographers in front of them. She was whiter than Malin remembered. Maybe it was just the maroon lipstick.

Fowler stood next to Hackett who was fighting hard to keep a rash of anxiety behind a sweaty face. He looked dogged tired.

“So, what have we got, sir?” Temeke whispered, leaning in and frowning at Hackett’s frown.

“A dead man in the woods, no dental matches, nothing,” Hackett whispered. “And why is he dead in the first place?”

Fowler pulled up his belt and tucked his shirt further down his pants. “He’s dead because our kidnapper killed him. And our kidnapper is the Ringmaster. That’s what we’re going to tell the Press.”

“Got enough evidence to back up that statement?” Temeke said. “Cause you’ll look like a right patsy if you don’t.”

Malin was enjoying the banter, wondering if Temeke was doing it for her benefit. He must have sensed her ego had been battered and Fowler only made things worse with that thin smile of his.

“For your information, the dogs picked up a scent in the woods,” Fowler said. “Found the remains of a campfire and blood spatters on a nearby tree. There were rabbit bones and coffee grounds. It was him all right. Forensics are spinning out the DNA as we speak.”

“Could take months,” Temeke reminded. “So could the search.”

Fowler wiped a trickle of sweat from his temple with the back of his hand. “Agent Running Hawk called it off that night. Wouldn’t cross the river. Said there were only cave dwellings behind the cliffs. Said they were sacred.”

“That’s a big bloody shame because our killer was probably counting on that. Probably set up house in those ruins, nice big bed and place to call his own.”

The line of Fowler’s mouth tightened. “Running Hawk said the dogs were tired and so were the men. Said they’d go west in the morning. Remember he’s a Shadow Wolf officer. He’ll find them.”

Malin didn’t like the way Fowler was pandering to the press, occasionally turning sideways to catch a camera flash. He was far too pleased with himself for a man without an ounce of news.

“Oh, just in case you thought to mention it,” Temeke whispered. “The doctor did confirm a match for that jawbone you found. Ovis aries. That’s a sheep by the way.”

Another deep sigh from Fowler and a roll of the eyes. Malin pressed her lips together and snorted through her nose. How like Temeke to keep that  precious piece of information to the end.

Jennifer Danes sat in the front row, brown hair, slim body, immaculately dressed in black leggings and pumps. She was already scribbling something in that notepad and the conference hadn’t even started. Cynthia Wrigley, Chief Editor of the Journal sat beside her. She was squeezed into a red suit, legs unshaved, little black hairs visible through a pair of sheer pantyhose. Cyn was a firm believer in the term
au naturel
. She even had the makings of a thin moustache to prove it.

Raymond Brewster from the Daily Tribune looked oddly ill at ease. His eyes flicked from one side of the room to the other, probably hoping he wouldn’t run into Jarvis who was dealing out citations like a deck of cards.

Fowler walked behind the podium and raised a hand. Malin, Temeke and Hackett followed and stood directly behind.

“Good morning everyone. I’m Captain Fowler and with me today is Madam Mayor, Mr. Cesar Cruz, Unit Commander Fred Hackett, Detective David Temeke and Detective Malin Santiago.” He managed to rattle off a few more department names before the Press began to fidget.

Fowler raised his hand again. “The purpose of this press conference is to provide an update to the disappearance of Adam Oliver. Before I get into details, the last six days have been a tough and emotional time for the Olivers and I wish to add our sincere condolences to the family, friends and co-workers of Mayor Oliver. Here are the details of the most recent incident: Following our investigation, officers searching a stretch of woodland found human remains of a man thought to be in his late sixties, early seventies. There was recent evidence of a campfire, food and the like. Officers also found what appeared to be leather bindings attached to a tree. Further investigation is pending. The community can be confident that we will lead a thorough and transparent investigation. I would like to start with local affiliates to make sure their questions are answered.”

Stan Stockard stood up and dipped his head. “Do we have any leads on the kidnapper? A name?”

“Not at this time, no,” Fowler said, eyes flicking around the room. “Rest assured, the men and women of the Duke City Police Department are working around the clock―”

“I’m sure they are,” Jennifer Danes shouted. “But our sources tell us the camp you mention belonged to the Ringmaster. Can you comment on that?”

“We have no evidence to say that it was.”

“Was there excessive force?” she asked.

“There was.”

“Which woods?” Jennifer Danes pressed.

“A tract of land at the west end of Gila National Forest.”

“Can you be more specific?” she shouted.

“Not at this time,” Fowler said.

“Can you tell us about the trace evidence?” Brewster yelled. “Who does the blood belong to?”

“I’m not able to give information on any trace evidence,” Fowler said.

There was an uproar then. Cameras flashed, people yelled. Brewster accused the police department of hiding crucial details, of being anything but thorough and transparent.

Malin barely heard Hackett’s voice in Temeke’s ear behind a hurl of demands from the press. “Teenagers, that’s all it is,” he whispered. “A perverted ritual. They’re always in the woods, smoking weed and having sex.”

“A word if I may, sir,” Temeke whispered back. “Old Ginger in the morgue might be something to do with these perverted rituals. For your sake I hope I’m wrong.”

“Shut up and stop interrupting,” Hackett wheezed behind a hand and gave another cough.

“I’ll shut up, sir. But before I do, it’s the campfire we need to concentrate on and the rabbit bones. I doubt a pair of horny teenagers had time to build a fire, skin a rabbit and eat it, let alone catch one. I’ll shut up now, sir.”

Hackett hung his head, finger massaging his bottom lip. He didn’t even look up when Jennifer Danes cut in again, shouting over the din.

“In what way do leather straps have anything to do with the disappearance of Adam Oliver?” she asked.