morning. Maybe, maybe not — we may never know. If he had stopped there, no red flags would have gone up. But then he tells us that he remembers coming into work on Friday night and working until about eight on Saturday. Why? Why should he remember that?”
“You think he was lying?”
“No, Mr. Neurolinguistics. I think he was telling the truth about working that graveyard shift. He worked it all those years ago, and remembered it. Do you remember which nights you worked and which ones you had off ten or twelve years ago? No. You remember the nights when something extraordinary happened. So does Cook. That was a night he probably won’t ever forget. He pulled Julian Neukirk’s car over, and set hell in motion. Yeah, I think it was a busy night for him — knocking people unconscious, taping up children’s hands, going treasure hunting. Saturday night was busy for him, too, since that’s probably when he gave Powell a shove.”
“I think he was doing his treasure hunting that night, too,” Cassidy said. “You said you thought that slope was visible from the campground during the day, right?”
“Yes. The campground is on the same side of the canyon, but upriver.”
“This was Father’s Day weekend,” he said. “Mid-June. By the time Cook ended his ten-hour graveyard shift, turned in a car, and drove up to the place where X marked the spot, it would have been midmorning.”
“You’re right. There would have been plenty of sunlight at the turnout by the time he arrived. And he probably took time to change clothes — I don’t picture Nat Cook being the kind of guy who would wear his uniform to do that kind of work.”
“No,” Cassidy agreed, “even if he was willing to get it dirty, he wouldn’t want to attract that kind of attention. So with all those delays — Cook might have been able to take a look at the turnout by Saturday afternoon, but probably couldn’t have done any digging until Saturday night, after traffic settled down. That was just too many hours for Powell.”
“Right,” I said. “Powell got restless, and by the time Cook showed up at the warehouse, Powell had killed the men and left. And my guess is that Cook knew Powell well enough to figure out where he was headed. Cook might have been concerned about the boys, but he would have been out-and-out terrified that Powell would be caught, covered with blood, and raving about his good buddy Nathan Cook.”
“Yes, he’d take care of Powell before making a call to the dispatcher — otherwise, Bakersfield PD might find Powell first. That would explain why there wasn’t a call until Sunday morning.” He thought for a moment, then nodded. “It’s all possible.”
“There were other things that bothered me,” I said.
He smiled. “Namely?”
“What’s so funny?”
“Oh, nothing. Just wondering if old ‘smart Cookie’ had any idea of what he was up against.”
“When Gus said that about him — called him ‘smart Cookie’ — did you get the impression it was meant as a dig?”
“Yes, and I think Cookie saw it as one. I’m pretty sure Bradshaw did, too. I’m hoping Gus and your friend the Bear stay out of this now.”
“Hmm. Why do I have the feeling you’re already planning something in connection with Cookie?”
“Surveillance only, at this point.”
“He was followed from here?”
“Yes. Now what were the other things that bothered you?”
“He asked Cecilia if she had found any signs of an accomplice. Why would he mention the area where they found Powell’s body, instead of the warehouse?”
“Probably a slip, but he could always claim that he already knew they hadn’t found signs of an accomplice at the warehouse, and was just confirming information from a scene outside Bakersfield’s jurisdiction.”
“Yeah, right,” I said.
Cassidy smiled.
“It won’t work for him to claim that — tonight he tried to pretend he was hearing the warehouse information for the first time.”
“Anything else?” Cassidy asked.
I hesitated. “The other stuff isn’t so….”
“Isn’t so what?”
“Objective, I guess.”
“Try it out on me anyway. Half of what I have to work with most of the time is impressions. They’re important.”
“Okay, I tried to get an impression of this cop from Bret Neukirk’s fax. He seemed to be an uptight kind of person, rigid. He’s also careful, able to hide things. Gus is a man of action, but he isn’t very careful. Bear — can you picture Bear hiding anything? And he’s just too easygoing. Cook — he’s more cautious. In those stories you got them to tell, Cook was the one who could make long-term plans.”
“I don’t know that I got them to tell—”
“No time for false modesty, Cassidy.”
“What other impressions?”
“The man in Bret’s fax goes ballistic over foul language,” I said. “Did you see Cook’s reaction tonight?”
“You’re probably glad you didn’t say anything to set him off first.”
