The 9th Hour (The Detective Temeke Crime Series Book 1) (18 page)

Temeke wiped a trail of spittle from his mouth and stretched. It wasn’t the first time he’d slept in his office, neck stiff and trousers wrinkled. Flakes of snow and sleet began to tap against the window and he wondered if the storm would ever stop.

It was seven forty-two in the morning according to the clock on the wall. He fired up his computer and found an email from Hackett. The poor old sod was at home with a bad case of the flu. With any luck he’d be off for a month.

No news on Luis.

Attached to the email was a video file confirmed to be the voice and face of Patti Lucero. It had been emailed by an anonymous subscriber yesterday whose IP address Stu Andersen described as anywhere between Roswell and outer space.

The video showed Patti sitting on a couch with a sandwich in her lap and leaning against a pink quilt. The background was different. Not the house on Smith and Walter. Somewhere else.

The other party’s voice had been edited out so it could not be traced and she appeared to be giggling, as if the question she had been asked was uncomfortable and funny at the same time. Then she went quiet, eyes dazed, head slumping against her chest.

The picture faded after that.

Behind her was a small window, blackened by the darkness. There was something on the sill that caught his eye. A small wooden figure of a chubby Santa smoking a pipe like the one in the house on Smith and Walter. When incense was placed inside, the figure blew out smoke rings. It was German if he could bet on it.

To take away the stench.

His mind was trapped by the medical report which confirmed the wooden block had traces of Patti’s blood and so did the axe. A luminol sweep had been done of the back yard at the house on Smith street and the concrete apron lit up like a beacon. Cause of death was manual strangulation which seemed almost redundant in Temeke’s opinion. But what caught his eye was the pink quilt.

Just as Knife Wing had said.

Patti had been drugged and killed at the house and the rest of her might well be lying behind a boulder. A flicker of heat arced through his body as he expounded Knife Wing’s theory in his head.

I saw a dead body wrapped in a pink quilt. Behind a boulder
…
beneath Turtle Rock.

Temeke looked at his watch to see he had just enough time to get a burrito before ferreting about in the foothills. Grabbing his leather jacket, he raced out into the corridor and ran down the stairs.

“Sir? Where you going?”

“Oh, there you are, Marl,” he said. “I was just going out for a smoke.”

“I’m coming,” she shouted, sprinting down the stairs and dragging a padded ski jacket. Her woolen scarf was already wrapped around her neck, pockets spilling with latex gloves. She knew where he was going.

“You feeling better,” he said as they headed for the door.

“Need some fresh air.”

“Might not be that fresh where we’re going.”

“Anything’s fresher than a can of coughing cops.”

He was inclined to agree. The office was beginning to fill with crumpled tissues, all stinking of snot.

They reached the upper parking lot of the Peak Tram at eight-thirty in the morning and there was a tram waiting at the gate already filling with passengers.

Temeke stuffed a few evidence bags in his jacket pocket and grabbed two bottles of water.

“Vicks?” he said, throwing her a small container and smiling as he did it. “Wrap that scarf round your nose,” he warned.

They walked beneath the tram cables, showing their badges to an official before striding off into the foothills. It was hard work steaming up a narrow path between boulders and sagebrush. Clumps of snow nested between grass stems and, occasionally, the wind would blow a spray into the air.

“Ever been up in one of those?” Malin said, surveying the tram as it sailed over a ridge.

“Not bloody likely.”

“Don’t like heights, do you?”

“Don’t like nosy parkers much either. Get a move on.”

The first tower rose up out of the sand, a blue painted frame that held the cables between the terminals. There was no disturbed soil beneath it, except the unmistakable tracks of bear and fox pressed into the sand and snow. Mountain lion were scarce and were rarely seen so close to the city limits.

As Temeke stared at the scene, he saw something flapping in the wind like a tiny pennant. He took the pen out of his jacket pocket and stabbed at a soiled wipe that had hooked itself to a clump of grass. He lifted it up to the sun, hoping there were traces of the killer somewhere deep down in the weave of that fabric. A distant memory began to crank to life in his mind, playing out like a sequel to the Kizzy Williams murder.

The field investigators had combed a two mile stretch of the trails and forest, and found twenty-eight bloodstained wipes, evidence that someone had tried to remove all essence of Kizzy from his skin. They ran the DNA evidence against the CODIS database and found no match.

“I know you’re here,” Temeke whispered under his breath as he bagged the wipe. The killing field was now more widespread and frequent.

He kept seeing Kizzy’s wholesome face staring back at him, in his dreams, in his thoughts. He never told anyone, never took her picture down from beside his desk. There was Patti with her long brown hair and pale blue eyes, and Mikaela May with her heart-shaped face and dimples. They were all there on his wall. All in his heart.

He no longer cared when Malin signaled for lunch. He shook his head and crouched amongst the boulders, searching, sniffing. For four more long hours.

A tram car trundled above him, inquisitive faces pressed against the glass. Temeke watched it disappear behind a steep knoll where a turtle-shaped boulder jutted out against a pale blue sky. He almost ran toward it, hearing the crunch of gravel under Malin’s feet behind him. Crouching in the dirt, he felt a mix of sand and wet snow between his fingers. He must have searched for two more hours before he found a shard of denim stained with blood.

He snapped on a pair of latex gloves before bagging the item and waving it at Malin. The last flush of sunlight would soon give way to dusk, leaving behind a hazy moon to light up the deep tones of a New Mexico sky.

“Higher,” he shouted, nodding at the path.

The chill was internal, a sense there was something out there, a dark shadow flitting about in the trees. If a bear was as inquisitive as the tourists, he’d have a problem.

He glanced at where the path curled upwards around a steep knoll, coming to a head at the foot of a boulder and a piñon sapling. Listening to a whisper of wind from the crevices above, his forehead began to prickle with sweat and his hands were damp. Surely, there were no bears up there. He would have seen one by now.

In spite of the feeling that continued to plague him, he tried to stop his ragged breathing and his pounding heart. There was a sour taste in his mouth. Something had spooked him.

“She was dragged up there,” he heard Malin say, teeth chattering in the night air. “There’s broken twigs and stuff. We’re close. She’s got to be here somewhere.”

The higher they went, Temeke began to see more broken branches, as if something had been hauled at least fifteen feet to a natural gulley bristling with stickers.

“…
Temeke
…”

The whisper was irrefutably clear.

“…
left a little
…”

Something about the voice was otherworldly, familiar.

“…
there now
…”

He turned to the sound, aware of a sensation like a thousand insects trailing down his spine. He watched Malin poking around in the dirt, occasionally stopping to look up at the mountain and back at the horizon. Not like she had a masculine voice. Nor was she prone to whispering.

It was his voice and he knew it.

He turned his collar up against the damp chill and picked his way through waist-high sage flowering on each side of the path. What he did find odd was a downy drift along the path, some of which stuck to his lips and tasted of cotton. The worst of it was the stench, strong now as they climbed around the knoll.

“Blimey, Malin, what’s that stink,” he said, sniffing what seemed like the sour breath of the city’s worst dumpsters. “Not you, I hope.”

“This way, sir.” Malin led him off the path, trampling through a tangle of weeds that clung to his calves.

Winding his scarf around his face and nose, Temeke began to take shorter breaths. It was warmer that way, only he’d be hard pressed to fit a smoke through thick layers of wool. Night was creeping across the mesa now and above it was a sky stippled with stars. To the east a large orange moon lounged above the Sandias and to the west a single slash of sunlight, bloody like a hunter’s blade cleaving the sky from the desert.

He turned on his flashlight, training the beam on the hard-packed earth, looking for anything that might be peaking between tufts of sagebrush. It amazed him how strong that smell was, even over the fresh air. From here it reminded him of a teenager’s bedsit, sickly and stale.

Temeke snapped his fingers when he saw the bundle tied with rope and partially covered with a pink quilt. It was propped up against a boulder, a torso of a young girl,
young
he assumed by the angel charm bracelet wrapped around the wrist. He prodded it with a foot.

“Well past its best,” he muttered, wishing he’d smeared a large dollop of Vicks on his upper lip a little sooner. Wishing Malin would open her eyes and stop talking to herself. “And she’s past prayer and all.”

“Animals have had a go at her,” Malin whispered, hand pressed against her scarf. She appeared to be holding back a heave or two. Then she stared at where the head should have been, imagining the face perhaps, imagining the girl’s last moments.

Temeke could see what she meant. Bloody paw marks pressed against one leg where chunks had been torn from the waist and thighs, and remnants of a denim shirt were strewn about her feet. Mountain lion, he thought, judging by the three lobes he could just make out on the back edge of the heel pad.

Where the other leg was he couldn’t fathom until he suddenly remembered the bone on his front door mat. If it belonged to this body, the 9th Hour Killer had a titanic ego. He put his flashlight down and fumbled for a packet of cigarettes.

“Don’t talk and you won’t have to taste the smell of it. Here,” he said, handing her a cigarette. He struck a match on the rugged face of a boulder and cupped a hand around the flame.

She took it even though she didn’t smoke and the coughing wasn’t as severe as he thought it would be. She’d smoked before.

“See the quilt,” he said, picking up the flashlight and pointing it at shreds of pink flowery squares. “Looks like he had a little empathy for this one, but it’s not the case. He’s getting sloppy. Each victim is the chink in his armor because he’s leaving clues. I should have taken Knife Wing more seriously. He was right about the quilt.”

He took the cigarette Malin returned and unwound his scarf. It was worth getting cold over a much-needed drag.

“Doctor’s report said something about a tranquilizer,” she said. “Nembutal, I think he mentioned.”

“Must have given her a bloody big dose.”

Crouching closer, he pulled the quilt out from under the right side of the body and ran the beam of the flashlight up and down the exposed flesh from shoulder to buttocks. There were signs of insect activity even in the low temperatures and Temeke wondered if the forensic entomologist would concur she had been killed elsewhere.

“I reckon this one wasn’t left in a house for several days while the killer decided what to do with it.”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“See how she’s wrapped up nice and warm. Propped up against the rock like she’s looking out at something. If this is Patti Lucero, her mother lives down there.”

Malin looked at the direction of his finger and flinched. “That’s so sad. So sick. I can’t imagine what dragons she saw.”

Temeke looked up in time to see Malin cuff away a tear. “G. K. Chesterton once said, ‘Fairy tales are more than true, not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten.’”

She jutted her chin at the scrunch of material Temeke had in his hand. “What’s that on the quilt?”

There was a brown stain on the topside, streaking outwards in two wide smears. At first glance, it looked like a rough sketch of a bird with outstretched wings.

Temeke took another lungful of smoke and exhaled loudly. “It’s where the killer wiped the axe.”

It was an icebox of an apartment, nothing more than a studio with a tiny trundle bed in one corner and a stove in the other. Malin tried to keep the disgust from her face, tried not to flinch at the stench of stale cigarette smoke, tried not to put herself above the old lady who squinted through a pair of blue-rimmed glasses.

Tess had been gone three days and not one phone call. Not one clue. Not one witness. Until now.

It was ten after nine in the morning according to a digital clock on the mantelshelf and there was a roaring wind outside. The front door faced a large parking lot and, by the look of the gap in the door, most of that wind streaked in beneath it.

Edna was a tiny woman, no more than five foot tall, no more than sixty, with swollen ankles stuffed into a pair of pink furry slippers. “Rank and name?” she insisted.

Malin watched Temeke fumble in his pocket for an ID and stick it under her nose. It wasn’t long before a kettle was singing on the stove. Edna dropped one tea bag in a cup and drowned it with boiling water, dipping the same bag between three mugs before flinging it in the vague vicinity of the bin.

Temeke leaned closer to Malin and whispered, “Hello… either stale water in that pot or Edna’s boiling her drawers.”

Malin stifled a smile and refused to react to Temeke’s raised eyebrow. That dry sense of humor was hardly appropriate in such spartan surroundings and she knew she’d start giggling if she let herself.

“You heard he died,” Edna said, walking back with a tray. “Heart attack, they said. I didn’t believe it for a minute. More like indigestion.”

“Who died?” Temeke said.

“Alan Barnes. He was a good man.” Edna brushed a small cactus plant out of the way with the edge of the tray before putting it down on the coffee table. She handed Temeke a mug. “Used to work for district nineteen.”

Temeke knotted his brows. “Oh no, not Senator ‘Lucky’ Barnes. I heard he keeled over on the golf course in the summer. Can’t have been indigestion.”

“No, not him,” she said, shuffling to her chair. “Alan. My husband. He used to clip their hedges. You know, those big ones outside the Round House. Course they’re not like that now.”

“Oh,” Temeke said, winking at Malin and handing her a mug. “
That
Alan Barnes.”

“Muffin?” Edna said, pointing at a plate on the tray.

Temeke shook his head and a raised hand. “You’ve been keeping up with the news, I take it?”

“That poor girl. Patti, they said her name was. She was headline news. More like
deadline
news.”

“Tell me about the man you saw, the one at the school,” he said.

“Big.” Edna’s hand hovered over the muffin plate. “Like you.”

Not that tall then, thought Malin. But then anything must have been tall to her. Temeke was, what… five foot ten? Slim build though bulked out with muscle. The more she thought of that muscle the more she hated herself. Liking a married man wasn’t right. But then again, nothing in her life had been right. Until now.

“About what time was that?” Temeke said.

“Just before four o’clock. My granddaughter had detention after school. Often does.”

Malin wrapped her hands around the mug hardly hearing the questions Temeke asked. At least the tea was hot, only she couldn’t drink it. The rim smelled of moldy old rags and as for the muffins, at least one had grown a beard.

Edna merely peeled off the blue gingham liner of her second muffin, stuffing it between two cracked lips and chewing for a time. The glasses she wore were well past their prescription, judging by the look of that squint.

“So what was he doing?” Temeke took a sip of his tea, made a face and promptly replaced the mug on the tray.

“Waiting by the crossing like he was looking for someone. And then he spotted her.”

“Who?”

“That Patti. She didn’t hug him or say hello. But she smiled a lot, shy like, you know.”

“And then what happened?”

Edna cupped a hand over her ear and leaned over the coffee table.

“And then what happened?” Temeke repeated, raising his voice a little. He took out a cigarette and waved it at her. She nodded and they both lit up.

“She got in his car,” Edna said, blowing a spray of crumbs and smoke down a fair isle cardigan. “It was disgusting.”

“What was?”

“Put his arm round the back of her seat and kissed her on the mouth. Made me feel sick. He was old enough to be her dad. I’m telling you, those cops have no business picking up girls.”

“What made you think he was a cop?” Temeke said, pulling his chair a little closer.

“It was the car.”

“Could you tell me the model?”

“It was black, fast looking.”

Temeke drew on his cigarette and blew smoke out of the corner of his mouth. “What happened after that?”

“They drove right past me,” she said, eyes shifting about as if she followed her thoughts. “I didn’t like to stare.”

Temeke turned to Malin and gave her a wink and then used one of the abandoned muffin liners as an ashtray.

“What was he wearing?”

Edna shrugged and stared long and hard at her muffin.

“Jeans, shirt, hat?” Malin asked, trying to jog her memory.

Edna looked at her and shook her head. “Had one of them pictures on his head. Can’t have had a hat on if I saw that.”

Temeke flashed Malin a look, one that conveyed the old lady wasn’t as blind as she was letting on. “A tattoo?” he said. “How big was it?”

“Big enough. Looked like a circle and something else. Had a chain one on his arm.”

A Celtic knot
,
thought Malin, wondering why the man was out in the freezing cold in nothing but a flimsy t-shirt, showing off more than his livelihood. A man who looked nothing like a regular cop.

“Edna, did you notice anything else unusual?” Malin asked.

“A kid came out of the school wearing a ram’s head and riding a toilet plunger. Creepy if you ask me.”

“No, I mean about the man.”

Edna wiped her mouth and took a sip of tea. “Did this man do something bad?”

Temeke dropped the remainder of his cigarette in his tea and went to stand against the mantle. He seemed to study an old antique jar. “We’re just trying to find out who he is, Mrs. Barnes. Nothing to worry about. How long have you had this?”

Edna merely peered over the rim of her glasses and raised one eyebrow.

“Retirement gift from Governor Bendish,” she said. “Worth a buck or two. There’s some toffee inside if you want some.”

Temeke took a couple and walked back to his chair. “You said you used to be a composite artist?”

Edna nodded and took a slip of paper from her cardigan pocket, unfolded it and slapped it on the table between them. “This is him,” she said, jabbing a pudgy finger on the drawing. It revealed a faint smile in the finely chiseled mouth and eyes that seemed to contradict the expression.

Temeke popped the candy in his mouth. He stared and blinked. And stared again. He seemed to chew for a while and then eased the toffee from his back teeth with a finger. “Sitting there for a long time, were you?”

“I can do them in five minutes.” Edna stuffed her cigarette in the cactus pot and stared into space.

“Are you sure that’s him?”

“One hundred and fifty percent sure. Can’t get any surer than that. There was something else…”

Temeke leaned forward in his chair, nostrils quivering like a pointer. And when that
something else
never came he said, “What else?”

“Darned if I can remember.”

“So you’d recognize him again if you saw him.”

“Oh, yes. Handsome. Nice eyes.”

“Thank you for the tea, Mrs. Barnes,” Temeke said, lifting himself out of the chair and grabbing the sketch. “We should be going.”

Malin left her card on the table, feeling uneasy as she watched the old lady fumble for the door. She had good eyesight; that much was certain.

Temeke’s cell phone made a loud clattering sound in its plastic holster and he was already frowning at the screen.

“It’s cold outside,” he said to Edna, not bothering to cover up a yawn. “Be sure to lock your door.”

He rushed toward the car, phone pressed against his ear. Malin heard the loud expletive, saw the look on his face. She wanted to run after him but Edna was right behind her, fingers wrapped around her arm.

“You’re a pretty one.” Edna jerked a thumb at Malin’s face. “You better lock your door and all.”

“I’ll be OK,” Malin heard herself say as she patted her holster. “I can look after myself.”

“That’s what it was,” Edna said, slapping her thigh. “He was packed too.”

That’s when Malin paused, felt the cold wind against her cheeks and heard a faint buzzing in her ears. “He had a gun?”

“In his waistband.”

“Like a cop?”

Edna shook her head. “Slipped down the back of his pants like he was hiding it.”

“Thank you,” said Malin, trying to keep the tremor from her voice as she walked toward the car.

“Next time, I’ll bake a cake,” Edna shouted, before shuffling back inside her apartment.

Malin faked a smile as she hauled herself into the driver’s seat and slammed the door. “Who was on the phone?”

She heard the hammering of her heart against her rib cage, heard the desperate hitch to her voice.

“They found Luis in the northeast heights.” Temeke lowered his head and stared at his hands. “Been lying in a ditch for days. Bullet grazed the side of his head and nearly took his ear off. No sign of his car. No sign of Tess Williams.”