Tess said, “Do you know a man named Steve Barkman?”
She saw something in his eyes. Which was new, because there’d been nothing there during the whole interview.
“Barkman…Judge Rees’s son? I’ve heard of him but I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure. Why?”
“He was in Credo,” Tess said. “I got the feeling he was interested in George Hanley’s death. He mentioned you.” Lying was an important tool in the homicide detective’s toolbox.
For an instant, Tess saw something new cross DeKoven’s face. She couldn’t read it. Then his expression smoothed back to bland. “He mentioned me? I’m flattered.”
Tess waited.
“What did he say?”
She shrugged. “Just that he knew you.”
Michael DeKoven didn’t take the bait. He smiled broadly and held out his hand for her to shake. “This has all been very interesting. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you out. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment I’m late for.”
The official term for this in the detective’s handbook was “the bum’s rush.”
Tess sat in the car in the parking lot with the air running. She felt shopworn and vaguely greasy having just talked to Mr. DeKoven.
She looked the family up on her laptop.
There were four children—two boys and two girls. Their father had died a few years ago in a plane crash, leaving them a massive fortune. (At least that was what she read.) Tess managed to find a photo of the pioneering family in happier times, when the kids were young and the mother, Eloise, was still alive. The photo was of a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a water treatment plant in the desert south of Tucson, to be built by DeKoven Construction. It was a sunny day, everyone shading their eyes and staring into the camera, the whole brood. A big day for DeKoven Construction. The patriarch of the family, Quentin DeKoven, looked both proud and grim, as if he had just finished climbing Mt. Everest and had some time to gloat. He stood apart from his wife and children.
The mother, Eloise, had a bland expression. Tess sensed discontent there. The girls wore shorts and tops. Jaimie looked thin and bored. The younger sister, Brayden, was a little shorter and a little plumper. She had a sweet expression. Her hair was blonde, lightened by the sun. Michael looked like the teenage version of what he was now.
Tess tried to think of a word for it. Disconnected, maybe? As if he were watching a play, but not participating. Removed.
Except when she mentioned Steve Barkman. That had wiped the self-satisfied smirk off his face.
She squinted at the photograph. The fourth child was the younger son: Chad. He looked slightly down and away from the camera. Tess got the impression that the boy didn’t want to be there, which would fit with his age —he was just starting his teen years. But the biggest impression she got from him was passivity.
No so with Michael. Michael gave her the impression of smoothness. Smoothness and distance.
Except when she’d mentioned Steve Barkman.
CHAPTER 15
Tucson, Arizona
Irene Contreras had the key to Steve Barkman’s house.
His place was on a little patch of desert, which could be reached off Ft. Lowell Road, not far from El Fuerte across Craycroft—the old army post ruins at Fort Lowell Park.
Her granddaughter played soccer there.
The dirt lane off Ft. Lowell Road meandered through creosote desert and ended up at a brick house built in the sixties. Irene knew the house was from the sixties because her father had worked for Beauty Built Homes, building houses just like this one.
Irene once was the secretary for a construction company for over twenty years, but times were tough and she’d lost her job, so now she worked for a cleaning service, Happy Maids. She wasn’t all that happy, because she’d loved her old job and this was a lot more work and hard on her back, but the nice thing was, she lived only five minutes away from Mr. Barkman’s, and he was on her regular schedule.
She pulled up behind his SUV, got the cleaning caddy from the hatchback of the Happy Maids car, and crunched up the lane to the house.
When she pushed the door open, she caught a whiff of something spoiled. Meat, maybe? Or fruit or vegetables that had turned?
But the stronger smell was alcohol. She was used to that. Mr. Barkman liked his bourbon and his beer. She’d had to put enough of the bottles in the recycle bin.
The room was dark, the blinds drawn.
But even before her eyes adjusted, she knew something was wrong.
It took a moment for Irene to make sense of the scene. Her first thought was that someone had shoved a massive tree stump through the living room coffee table.
Only, tree stumps didn’t bleed.
CHAPTER 16
