The 9th Hour (The Detective Temeke Crime Series Book 1) (2 page)

Temeke shrugged. “Not before he’s answered a few questions that is.”

“I want you to take him this.” Hackett handed him a small red notebook. “Let him know she would have wanted him to have it.”

“And he’s going to be okay with the fact that the field investigators didn’t find it all those weeks ago when they were clearing for evidence. He’s going to be okay with the fact that a dog found it instead.”

“Dogs are just as intelligent as man. Only a little more thorough I should say. Eriksen leaves for the Pen this morning. If you guys hit it off, better pin Highway 14 in your GPS. You’ve got three hours before he leaves.” Hackett handed over the buff file and jerked a thumb towards the end of the corridor. “Interview room 3, last on the left.”

“Is his face in the papers yet? Because if not I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Your case, your choice.”

Temeke had hoped he’d seen the last of dead bodies for a while, only recently they were becoming as common as weed. It was the faces he couldn’t stand. Granted, the eyes were closed unless you found one in a back alley all pale and staring. Drunks and the elderly who had seen something of life were bad enough, but it was the kids that tore him apart.

He nodded at an agent and stared through the security glass at the man sitting at the table. Blond hair braided in a rope from the forehead to the nape of the neck. There was the hint of a tattoo above one ear, barely visible behind the stubble.

Two officers peered through the glass. Captain Fowler, straight-faced and coldly efficient, whose humor never rose higher than sarcasm, and officer Jarvis, fleshy and a little overweight, jaw working over a wad of gum.

“Morgan Eriksen,” Fowler said, folding arms corded with muscle. “Half Norwegian. Apparently. Can’t see why he’d want to talk to you.”

“Has he been read his rights?” Temeke asked.

“Yeah, only he’s too frozen to speak.”

“Frozen with fear, amusement? What?”

Fowler shrugged and shook his head. “Who knows.”

“Lucky he’s hobbled at the ankle and wrists, sir.” Jarvis chimed in, jabbing a pudgy finger at the window and winking a pale blue eye. “There’s no way he can escape. But he could spit.”

Temeke felt the nudge at his elbow, saw Fowler’s thin lips making a beeline for his ear. “Really gets under your skin, doesn’t he?”

Temeke knew the best way to craft an interview was to allow the prisoner to plead his case, to be comfortable enough for the tougher questions. This one looked nervous and he didn’t look much like a pleader.

Temeke nodded at Agent Stu Anderson, tried to restrain a snort at his blue-gray hair and matching tie. His throat tightened as he leafed through the top file. There were pictures of several female victims and his eyes froze on little Kizzy Williams, a nine-year-old African American girl. “How long was Eriksen in processing?”

“Two weeks,” Stu said. “First orientation didn’t go too well. Tried to slice the finger off a prison guard with a plastic knife. He’s smart though.
Very
smart.”

“Doesn’t sound smart to me.”

“He tucked that knife in his cuff when no one was looking.” Stu folded his arms and rocked back on his heels. “He’s from California, an athlete.”

So that’s why the Fabulous But Incompetent had been called in, Temeke thought. Eriksen had crossed several state lines.

“Been in the Westwood Journal a few times. Won the Josiah Royce award for swimming at college. Looks like a good all-rounder. Recent medical showed dissociative personality.”

“Not sure how you’d tell,” Temeke said, scratching his chin, “because he was drugged up to the eyeballs when he was found. Who in their right mind would give an overdose of Nembutal to a little girl and then turn the bottle on himself? They both should have died peacefully.”

Stu frowned. “What do you mean?”

“The girl was devoid of a head in an area where you’d normally find one. Morgan couldn’t have given her the old chop. Not in his state of mind.”

Stu stopped rocking. “You’ve got a heart as warm as the Sandia Crematorium.”

“So when’s Hackett holding a press conference?”

“Hasn’t said.”

“Probably not advisable. Don’t want the public knowing what the suspect looks like. Don’t want the suspect knowing what the suspect looks like.” Temeke frowned and held up the earpiece. “You leading?”

“I’ll prompt if you need me. Give him regular breaks. He works better that way.”

“Oh, and by the way, when he gets to PNM, make sure he’s allowed a few calls. I’d like to listen to the tapes.”

Temeke knew Eriksen’s world would be different once he was locked in the Penitentiary of New Mexico. Guards yelling, the echoing clang of metal gates and the constant reek of cleaning fluids. It would be a cacophony of sounds and smells, and bright-ass lights on at seven o’clock in the morning. A few months of dominoes slamming against metal tables and he might be itching to tell the truth.

Temeke entered the small cell and slapped the file down on the desk. He had a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach and if he could put a name to it,
fear
was the first thing that came to mind.

“I’m Detective Temeke—”

“I know who you are.” Morgan Eriksen scuffed the floor with one foot. “Word gets out.”

“Oh really,” Temeke said, sitting. “And what did you hear?”

“Your mother’s British. Lived in Brixton. So you moved to the US in, what, 2001? Just after your father died. He was from Ethiopia. That’s something you and I have in common. Immigrants. Now you’re a big shot in the department, only you had to crawl your way to the top because you’re black. They don’t like blacks, do they?”

“They don’t? I hadn’t noticed.”

“You’re married to Serena, double vision, hates the heat. Oh, and you have a very big secret.” Morgan lifted his thumb and index finger to his lips as if he was smoking a joint. “That’s what I found.”

“Looks like you know all about me.” The constant clink of the cuffs reminded Temeke that his prisoner was restless but well-shackled. As for the spitting, Jarvis was in for a kicking.

“I suppose you’re wondering why I wouldn’t talk to anyone else. There was no one else. At least nobody I could trust.” Morgan inclined his head and smiled. “I like you. But don’t think I’m going to plead my case because I won’t. I’ll be walking out of here in a week or two.”

Temeke pursed his lips and flicked an eye over the cuffs. “You won’t be
walking
anywhere, son. You’ll be in the Pen this afternoon under lock and key.”

“I’m not your son, detective.”

“No, you’re quite right. Lucky me.” Temeke glanced briefly at the file.

“What do you see?” Morgan said, tapping his chest.

Temeke stared at Morgan long and hard. “When I look at you?”

“Yes, when you look at me.”

Maniac,
Temeke wanted to say and shrugged. “Player.”

“Ah, you’ve studied my file. You’ve studied me. You’ve no idea how special that makes us feel.”

“Us?”

“Him and me,” Morgan said, eyeing the empty chair beside him.

“Oh him.” Temeke looked at the chair, wondering what ghosts the poor boy saw. “And who’s
him
?”

“My brother.”

“What’s his name?”

Morgan lifted his chin and sneered. “You can’t see him can you?”

“Neither can you.” Temeke heard a snarky remark in his earpiece and decided to move on. “Know anything about the recent disappearance of Patti Lucero?”

“Know about it? It’s all over the news.” Morgan chuckled. “I’m a celebrity now.”

“It may have escaped your tiny little mind, Morgan, but you’ve been inside longer than that. So we really can’t assume you did it. And the public aren’t privy to a recent picture. We decided to spare them that horror.” Temeke noticed how the smile twitched off. “So who’s been snatching these high school girls in your absence?”

Morgan bowed his head and studied his feet. “There’s two of me and only one of you. Good luck with that.”

“So you keep telling me,” Temeke said, thinking of another bullet to fire. He wanted to know how Morgan got involved, how he did it all those months ago. “Let’s talk about something else, shall we? On the night of Monday, October 27
th
at around eleven o’clock, did you take Kizzy Williams from a tent in Cimarron State Park?”

“Yeah.”

“When you took her from the tent was she asleep?”

Morgan’s mouth twitched slightly. “She was.”

Temeke was relieved. There was no way the little girl would have gone willingly with a man like Morgan Erikson. His arms were covered in Celtic knots and on one side of his head were tattoos of the sun, moon and stars peeking out between the stubble.

“Where did you take her?”

“About fifty yards downriver there’s a ranch,” Morgan said slowly, staring at Temeke’s bald head as if he could see his face in it. “That’s where I parked my pickup.”

“Shelby’s ranch, right?”

“Yes.”

“Did you talk to her?”

Morgan looked down at his hands and clenched his jaw. “I asked her about her dad, her sisters.”

“Tell me about her sisters.”

“One sings, the other’s an athlete. What’s to tell?”

“The athlete’s tall for a fourteen year old. Looks about sixteen, doesn’t she? Girls can do that… you know… look older.”

Temeke watched Morgan lean back in his chair as if distancing himself from the comment. His eyes seemed to dance around the room, lips pressed into a thin white line.

“Have you always got along with your brother?”

Morgan shrugged. “We’ve had our moments.”

“Bad moments? You know, when you make a mistake… mistaken identity.”

Morgan’s open mouth began blowing out short breaths and he bounced a curled knuckle against the desk.

“When did you realize she was the wrong girl?” Temeke watched Morgan’s eyes, saw the eyebrows hitch upwards almost to his hairline. “Because she was the wrong girl, wasn’t she? I expect you found out when you pulled her out of the tent. She was half the size of the older one. Underage and all. That must have been a big disappointment. Did you hurt her?”

“When she woke up I had to choke her. She was making too much noise.”

Temeke listened to the Nordic accent fading in and out. “Did she die when you choked her?”

“No.”

“When did she die, Morgan?” Temeke gritted his teeth. This was the part he dreaded the most.

“Not until the ninth hour.”

“According to this, your girlfriend spent her time getting a bit of the old heave-ho with another man. Who was this other man? Because you didn’t kill Kizzy Williams, did you? No, someone smarter than you did.”

Morgan gave Temeke a pitying shake of the head. “Why am I here?”

“Because you were
there
.”

That’s how it was with Morgan, taking his sweet time with everything. It took the next half an hour to describe the ranch and the stupid trees he cared so much about. His slate-gray eyes were dull as if he was already dead and sometimes he would look up and sniff the air, flexing his hands. Big choking hands.

“We like the dark ones. Brown eyes, china doll faces. This one did everything we asked.”

Temeke felt his chin come up sharply. “What did you ask her to do?”

Morgan frowned and gave a scoffing laugh. “It’s isolated out by the farm. Mountains, trees, so many trees. They’ll do anything for me because there’s no one there to help them. I asked her to be my friend. She was happy then, chirpy, you know.”

Couldn’t have been that chirpy
,
Temeke thought, not if the rest of her remains had never been found even after a pack of sniffer dogs had swept the entire countryside with volunteers from the County Sheriff’s department.

They found the statue of a dwarf with an eye in the middle of its forehead and nine human faces carved in tree trunks. There were four areas where upright stones marked some kind of ritual ceremony, only they were mostly grown over with grass.

The shadows gave a man that feeling, that keen instinct that something wasn’t right. Even the dragonflies with their membranous wings that wafted just above the surface of a small pond were no longer beautiful. There was a jaundiced blush about the place as if the sun would never set.

“Tell me about the barn,” Temeke said, studying Morgan’s sallow face.

“A barn’s a barn. Straw, stalls… what do you want to know?”

“I want to know about the fridge.”

The report showed photographs of a tired old barn on the property and a commercial fridge against one wall. It was wrapped in chains and padlocked and quite out of place with its hideous display. Inside were four shelves filled with partial human remains, all girls.

“He kept all kinds of things in there, things I wasn’t supposed to see,” Morgan whispered.

“But you did see something.”

Morgan nodded, eyes flicking sideways to an empty chair beside him. “There’s no way I can tell you that.”

Temeke knew what happened to Kizzy. She survived just long enough to write one line and to hide a little red notebook between two planks in the wall. She was only nine years old and her head was one of the seven found in the barn.

“I put her to bed.” Morgan half-smiled then.

“Whose bed?”

“The caretaker’s. He comes midweek to empty the traps.”

Temeke remembered the day they drove in to examine the ranch. The caretaker was walking up the hill towards them and gave a wave and a smile, the kind that lingered long after the car had gone past. Hunchbacked and weighing in at about a hundred and fifty pounds, he was not a man Temeke would call threatening. Come to think of it, he had a walking stick and all.

“Did she go willingly?”
No, of course she didn’t go willingly
.
She was likely dragged kicking and screaming by a half-wit three times her size.

“She asked for her dad.” Morgan said with a prick of irritation. “I told her he would come for her in a day or two. I told her he knew where she was.”

Darryl Williams had no clue where his daughter was. He was fifty yards upriver, wide awake and rousing half the campsite.
Temeke had stewed for a night or two just thinking about it. “Did she believe you?”

“No. She bit me. She always bit me.” The bow of Morgan’s lips stretched in a generous curve.

“
Where did she bite you?”

“Here mostly,” Morgan said, turning his wrist just enough for Temeke to see the underside of his arm.

There was only a slight blemish now, so tiny anyone would have thought it was a birthmark. But the scar would have been different then, deeper, redder. They arrested Morgan soon after Kizzy’s head was found. There was enough DNA on those teeth to incriminate him.

“Did you have occasion to hit her?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“Uh, I told her to be quiet and she kept talking. So I backhanded her.”

“Pardon?”

“I backhanded her.”

“That would have shut her up.”

“You have no empathy for what I did.” Morgan’s eyes slid to the empty chair. “Isn’t that right? He has no empathy.”