“Take my advice,” Kathleen told him. “This didn’t sound like an invitation-more like an order. ASAP.”
“I hear you’ve been a very busy boy this weekend,” Chief Jackman said when Gil entered his office. “From what I see on the time clock, you worked damned near around the clock for three days.”
“Three homicides in three days means working round the clock, and since I’m the only guy on the Investigations Unit who’s in right now-”
“Good work on the first two,” Jackman interrupted, “but I’ve got to tell you, we can’t handle this kind of expense. It’s unfortunate that Investigations is so shorthanded at the moment, but while your team members are legitimately off work for one reason or another, they’re still on my payroll. In the meantime, you’re running up enough overtime that it’s turning into a budget disaster.”
It seemed to Gil that the chief would have been better off mentioning that to the killers who made the messes rather than to the cop charged with cleaning them up. That’s what he thought, but he didn’t mention it aloud, because Jackman didn’t leave room in his rant for any kind of reply.
“And don’t you go tracking Judge Osborne down at home today either,” Jackman continued. “He just called to tell me you were on your way. He read me the riot act about it. He and his wife are trying to have a relaxing day off. The last thing they need is you turning up on their front porch.”
“I need a search warrant,” Gil explained, “for a person of interest in the Richard Lowensdale homicide.”
“Yes,” Jackman said. “By all means, let’s talk about that.” He clicked a few buttons on his computer. “That would be for the residence of one Brenda Arlene Riley on P Street in Sacramento, correct?”
Gil nodded.
“And your person of interest would be the same person who apparently went for a one-way swim in the Scotts Flat Reservoir over the weekend.”
“We don’t know for sure that it’s a case of suicide,” Gil began. “Yes, Brenda Riley’s personal effects-her purse and her shoes-were found next to the lake, but as far as her committing suicide-”
“Do you personally know of a single woman who would just walk away from her shoes and purse for no reason? Here’s some news from the front, Detective Morris. Your prime suspect offed herself. She left her shoes and purse there as a message, and not a message for you either. It’s just a fluke that the Connor kid brought the purse to you, but if she did commit suicide, that’s the county’s problem and not ours. Your pal, Detective Escobar, can be the guy who pisses off Judge Osborne. We don’t have to. Let him be the one who goes to Sacramento to search her house. That way it’s on the county’s budget, not the city’s.”
In other words, this was a budgetary issue that had nothing to do with the real world of justice, crime, or punishment.
“So here’s what I’m thinking,” Jackman continued. “I want you to stand down, Detective Morris. Take the rest of the day off. Get some sleep. In other words, no more damned overtime! And before you start writing checks on all this accumulated OT, you might want to think twice. Once your unit members get their butts back on the job, you can take it out in comp time. Fair enough?”
It wasn’t fair, but this was a rhetorical question that came with an obligatory answer. Right or wrong had nothing to do with it. “Yes, sir,” Gil said.
“Very well then,” Jackman said. “Do us all a favor and head home.”
Still steaming, Detective Gilbert Morris did exactly that.
39
Salton City, California
In the old days, Ali had sped around on L.A. area freeways with wild abandon. Today, as she made her way north to the ten and then east toward Salton City, she was glad to have the rental’s GPS giving her play-by-play directions. It was early enough on a holiday morning that people weren’t yet creating their own day-off rush hour traffic jams. The only downside was that she did much of the three-hour-plus drive heading straight into the rising sun-a blinding rising sun.
Not sure what kind of food she would find available in Salton City, Ali stopped off in Palm Springs for close to an hour to have breakfast and take on a load of coffee. By the time she turned onto Heron Ridge Drive, it was verging on nine thirty. Heron Ridge Drive was far longer than she expected, winding north along the edge of the Salton Sea. The name had a grand sound to it. The reality was nothing short of grim. Yes, there were clusters of motor homes parked here and there, but most of the few permanent structures looked as though they weren’t long for the world.
At least, that seemed to be the case until Ali caught sight of the Blaylock place, which looked more like a fortress than a house. The windows and doors of the structure were covered with closed roll-down shutters-metal roll-down shutters. It occurred to Ali that although they weren’t exactly aesthetically pleasing, they were probably downright impervious. A silver sedan of some kind was parked in the driveway. Other than that, the place looked deserted. Abandoned. It didn’t seem likely that anyone would be inside the structure with all the shutters rolled down and buttoned up. Too dark. Too hot. Too claustrophobic.
Ali drove past once. Then she turned around in another driveway about half a mile farther on. As she drove past the Blaylock driveway a second time, she was startled to see a beefy woman standing in the middle of the street with her hands planted on her hips. When Ali started to drive past, the woman flagged her down.
Ali pulled up next to her, stopped, and rolled down her window.
“Can I help you?” the woman asked.
“I was looking for the Blaylocks,” Ali lied. “Mark and Ermina.”
“That’s their place over there,” the woman said, pointing toward the roll-down shutter marvel. “Nobody’s home. I saw her leave first thing this morning. She was all alone in that big old Lincoln of hers. I don’t know where Mark is. His car is here, which usually means that he’s here too, but I can’t imagine he’d be inside the house with all those shutters down all the way. One thing for sure, he wasn’t in the Lincoln with that battle-axe of his when she left. Who are you?”
The woman went from volunteering information to demanding it in one easy segue.
Ali didn’t want to make the mistake of impersonating a police officer. With all the Blaylocks’ burgeoning financial difficulties, it wasn’t too much of a stretch to pretend to be the minion of a circling creditor. And the way the woman referred to Ermina implied there was no love lost between this frowsy neighbor in her faded tracksuit and Ermina Blaylock.
“It’s actually about her Lincoln,” Ali said confidentially. “There’s a lien on it. I’m doing some scouting for the repo company.”
“You mean to tell me Miss High and Mighty is about to lose that fancy car of hers?” the woman said with a wide-faced grin. “Don’t that just beat all! And it would serve her right too. Care for a cup of coffee? I just made a new pot.”
Ali could hardly believe her luck. She held out her hand. “Coffee would be nice,” she said. “My name is Ali Reynolds, by the way.”
“Like that old baseball player from Oklahoma?”
“No,” Ali said. “I’m Ali with one
“Florence Haywood,” the woman said. “Most people call me Flossie. Just pull right in and park in the driveway. Jimmy went off to play keno at the casino. He won’t be back for hours.”
All her life Ali had marveled at her mother’s ability to know everything that went on in town and outside it. From Edie Larson’s station behind the lunch counter at the Sugarloaf Cafe, she managed to keep her finger on the pulse of everything that went on in and around the Verde Valley. At the police academy down in Peoria, Ali had sat through several classes on the ins and outs of conducting interrogations, but nothing she had been taught there could hold a candle to what she had learned at her mother’s knee.
Ali knew at once that Flossie was golden. She was nosy, she was lonely, and she hated Ermina Blaylock’s guts. From Ali’s point of view, that was definitely a win-win-win situation.
