Time of Death

‘I know,’ said Robbie. ‘This feels a little…over.’

‘He’s not going to come back,’ said Ren. ‘He sat in that bar watching the pretty snowflakes pile halfway up that tiny barred-up window and that was his cue to leave.’

Robbie’s cell phone rang. ‘Gary,’ he said.

‘Let this be our cue to leave.’

Robbie listened as Gary spoke. ‘Gartman,’ he mouthed, then shook his head slowly. He nodded, took down an address. ‘We’ll be right over.’ He started the engine and turned to Ren.

‘Aw, fuck Gartman,’ said Ren. ‘What did he do?’

‘He shot dead a fourteen-year-old deaf girl who didn’t drop to the floor when he tried to hold up a convenience store. And shot her ten-year-old brother a few aisles down who, with his hands in the air, tried to explain why she didn’t.’

‘God, why were those kids out so late?’

‘So early. The family were on their way to the airport to catch a flight. The girl was going for surgery to—’

‘No, I can’t even hear that,’ said Ren. ‘That is just too much.’

‘And,’ said Robbie, ‘when Gartman walked in to the place, he was already soaked with blood.’

6

The Safe Streets team were back from the convenience store crime scene by eleven a.m. Ren sat at her desk with a half-full coffee pot. Coffee pots are half-full. Beer bottles are half-empty.

‘Gartman does not give a shit,’ said Ren. ‘He just walks right in there, covered in blood from God knows what, kills a little girl, puts her brother in the hospital…and does not really care who sees his fucked-up face.’

‘When this gets out, there’ll be a bunch of people he’s screwed over who’ll want to hang him out to dry,’ said Cliff.

Ren’s computer pinged with an email. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, turning to her screen. ‘I just got my email from El Paso on the Sarvases.’

She clicked on the jpegs first. Rows of photos popped up in iPhoto under her brother Matt’s wedding photos.

A beautiful day that happened under black clouds and rain.

She looked at the destruction of the Sarvas family.

A terrible day that happened under a blue sky and a hot Texan sun.

The first photo was similar to the one of the SUV that Ren had seen online. But when you looked at the driver’s side, something was clearly wrong: Gregory Sarvas’ limp left leg was hanging out the open door. Ren continued through the sequential photos and focused on the car’s interior and the melting corpse of Gregory Sarvas. He was a big man with a full gray beard; more lumberjack than lawyer. He was dressed in a pale blue shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbows and beige shorts to his knees. He was slumped across the passenger seat, his face turned toward the glove box. The gun had been fired point blank through his left temple. The hole ripped in his skull was filled with flies. The windscreen was spattered with red, like an exploded dye tag.

The next photo was of the back seat, an eerie reminder of the two people now missing. It was an incomplete picture of a terrible day.

Ren wondered what the chronology was. Did Luke and Michael Sarvas watch their father die? Did someone tell them to run before it happened, so that they wouldn’t have to? Did one of the boys pull the trigger? Did they plan this together? Are they lying dead somewhere else? Are they on a beach in Rio?

The last photo attachment was of the two boys. Luke Sarvas, the seventeen-year-old, had a surfer-dude look, messy blond hair, tanned, healthy, lean, smiling. His arm was resting around fifteen-year-old Michael’s shoulder. They were so clearly related, yet styled by a different hand. Michael was brown-haired, wore metal-rimmed glasses and had a more reserved but genuine smile as he looked up at his brother. The only concession to his age was a black long-sleeved T-shirt with skulls down one of the sleeves. Luke and Michael Sarvas looked like regular, happy kids.

Ren often wondered about mothers and whether their instincts about missing children were right. She had so often heard them say ‘I know he’s still alive’ or ‘I know she’s still out there’ even when there was no evidence, even when years had passed. Was it instinct? Was it denial? Or was it just hope? Fathers would usually stand quietly by, slow to comment but reluctant to hurt their wives by focusing on the facts.

Was Catherine Sarvas right? Were her boys still out there? Or was it the talk of a woman desperate to believe that, in the space of a few minutes on a beautiful summer’s afternoon, God would not choose to wipe out her entire family?

Ren went through the rest of the email. There was something missing.

She dialed Kenny Dade’s number. ‘It’s Ren Bryce again from Safe Streets in Denver. Thanks for that email on the Sarvases. Just one thing – I can’t see the original report on the rape, filed by Gregory Sarvas. All I’ve got here is the statement taken from Catherine Sarvas after he was killed.’

Dade paused. ‘Uh…’

Uh, what? ‘Yes?’ said Ren.

‘There was a slight problem with that request,’ said Dade. ‘See, Gregory Sarvas never filed a report.’

‘What?’

‘There was no rape reported.’

‘But…I spoke with Catherine Sarvas yesterday and she told me that her husband had reported the rape.’

‘I know,’ said Dade. ‘But the first we heard of Catherine Sarvas was when we found her dead husband. Then, when we were interviewing her, out of the blue she asked could his murder have been anything to do with her rape. We were kind of confused at this point. She said that her husband had reported it to Detective Juliana Hyde in our office. We kind of all looked at each other, because Juliana had been on maternity leave for three months at that point. So…well, I figured we would just get the details of the rape from Mrs Sarvas all over again, which we would have done in any case. She would have been able to give us more details than her husband.’

WTF? ‘Does Catherine Sarvas know that her husband didn’t report the rape?’

‘Well, we didn’t tell her,’ said Dade. ‘What was the point? He was dead. She couldn’t get any answers from him.’

‘Jesus, didn’t you find the whole thing a little strange?’

‘Of course we did.’ Dade sounded irritated. ‘But at least we knew he hadn’t reported it. We could factor that into our investigation. We weren’t the ones in the dark about it. So, yeah, we’ve been looking into whether there was any connection between the two things.’

‘Or the three things,’ said Ren: ‘the rape, the non-reporting of the rape and the murder.’

‘Well, we haven’t been able to connect them, either way.’

‘I’m going to have to tell her.’

‘What?’ said Dade. ‘And she’ll know we all lied to her? No way. No way.’

‘Trust me,’ said Ren. ‘She really won’t give a good goddamn about that. This is a woman whose two teenage sons are missing right now. She will want to know everything that has gone on, so that she can do everything she can to get those boys back. If they can be gotten back.’

‘Do you have to give her this information?’ said Dade. ‘Her whole family is gone. She—’

‘I have no choice,’ said Ren. ‘Because if she realizes that her husband did not report her rape, her brain might take another route, she might start thinking why and maybe we’ll all get something we want out of this.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘You want to get your guy. I want to get mine,’ said Ren. ‘And Catherine Sarvas wants her boys.’

‘Your guy – is that the Erubiel Diaz you mentioned yesterday?’

‘Yes. Catherine Sarvas ID’d him.’

‘Any idea where he’s at?’

‘Not yet,’ said Ren. ‘We’re working on it.’

‘If you know anything more about the Sarvas family, I’d like to know,’ said Dade. ‘Our case dead-ended.’

‘I’ll keep you posted.’