Bullet Beach (17 page)

Cross called Collins and peppered the homicide lieutenant with a series of questions. Had they identified the female victim? ‘Nope.' Had they found any link between Edelman and the crime? ‘You,' the lieutenant said. Had they traced the shotgun to anyone? ‘Nope.' Anything new at all? ‘Additional frustration and pressure.' From whom? ‘Guess.' They suspect anyone from the Taupin family? ‘No comment.' Do you know an E. V. Lancaster? ‘Nope.' Could they see if there is a criminal background attached to the name? ‘Maybe.'

‘You probably weren't that good with essay questions,' Cross said to Collins.

‘And you were probably the clown at the back of the classroom making faces.'

‘I'll call you this afternoon about Lancaster.'

‘I'm working for you now?'

‘You always were. I am a taxpayer.'

‘Yeah, I bet you contributed mightily to tax revenues.'

Cross, feeling like a telemarketer, called his parents. Maya was fine. She was outside with Cross senior. They were still doing their morning chores. Chores. The farm was the only place he heard the word. ‘And we're all doing very well,' his mother said. ‘You usually don't call this soon after a visit. Is there something wrong?'

‘No, you guys were on my mind. I felt like calling.'

‘Your father is almost completely back to normal. It was like the heart attack never happened.'

‘Good.'

‘And Maya goes to school in a couple of weeks.'

Cross sat back in his chair. He looked around. Casey and Einstein were asleep. What Cross needed to do was look through Edelman's stuff, but daylight wasn't made for a break-in. His decision to go back up to the lake was merely to do something rather than nothing to alter a path to prison. He'd get up there by noon. He'd spend a few hours and be back to meet Casey and Einstein's dinner expectations.

He gathered his usual stakeout gear, modified for a couple of sun scorching hours on a boat. Binoculars, hat, sunscreen, sunglasses, water, a Snickers bar, a book, a gun.

Outside, he noticed a black Chrysler sedan, the ominous style favored by high testosterone males, parked half a block away. He allowed himself only a glance. It may be nothing, but he knew the cars that usually parked on the street. He'd lived there for ten years. It seemed out of place among the Volvos and Saabs.

Cross pulled away from the curb, then made a U-turn so not only would he pass by the car, but, if he was followed, it would force the driver to make a U-turn himself. There was someone in the driver's seat. A male. But the man's head was turned away. He looked in the rearview mirror. He was well-practiced in reading numbers and letters backwards, quickly, and memorizing them. Cross felt his heartbeat accelerate. It wasn't fear. It was a little bit of gamesmanship and it was a lot of satisfaction, knowing that – unless this was the police – this would connect him to people worried about him nosing around. But he would not let them follow him up to Lake Wawasee.

He pulled into the grocery store to buy a couple of extra bottles of water and called Kowalski. He explained his situation.

They agreed to meet at a gas station on Michigan Road. Cross needed to fill the tank anyway. It was a long drive and he didn't want a gas stop to come in the middle of something important. While Cross was at the pump, the Chrysler pulled into a 7-11 parking lot across the street.

When Kowalski arrived, riding his Harley, he pulled up next to the Chrysler and engaged the driver in conversation, blocking his view of Cross, who used the moment to feel the underside of his car and find a tracking device. In a few moments, Kowalski pulled into the gas station and went inside to talk to the attendant. He ignored Cross who attached the device to Kowalski's bike.

Cross pulled over to the tire pump, checked the pressure on one of his tires, while Kowalski used the rest room. Kowalksi pulled out first, followed by Cross in what would seem, they hoped, coincidence.

Cross drove east and eventually pulled into the parking lot of Keystone at the Crossing, a shopping center. Kowalski kept close. If all went well, after a vehicular dance in the lot, the tail would lose Cross and follow the electronic beeps now coming from Kowalski's Harley.

Cross was in the first hour of his dog day afternoon – without the dog, this time. Casey was not fond, Cross discovered from the last outing, of the heat or the water. He liked solid ground and plenty of shade. After all, Cross thought, the dog's ancestors herded pigs, not ducks. The plane was gone. The boat was docked. The house was quiet but there was activity inside. People appeared and disappeared in the huge, paned windows. It was about one when a young girl who looked to be Hispanic or perhaps Middle Eastern, came out to the table on the Taupin's lawn. She opened the umbrella and went back inside. In minutes, she returned with a pitcher of something that looked as if it could be filled with lemonade or margaritas and glasses that suggested the latter. She went back inside.

Two women, one a younger version of the other, with sandy blond hair, pant suits, straw hats and sunglasses, found their way to the table and sat. The first woman returned with plates, each with a sandwich and a green salad. The server asked them something and was waved off by the older woman. It was a rude dismissal – as if the server were some sort of annoying puppy.

Mother and daughter spoke, occasionally leaning in, toward each other. If they were not trading government secrets under the yellow umbrella they were engaged in some serious gossip. Cross tried to read lips, but couldn't make anything out. He unwrapped the end of a Snicker's bar. He had packed it next to the cold water, so it held together pretty well despite the heat.

He picked up the paperback he'd packed and read a few paragraphs before he realized he wasn't in the mood. He called Kowalski to ask about his stalker. Kowalski, along the way back to his place, located a blue Trooper in front of a Chinese restaurant and put the tracking device on it.

‘Your guy was pissed.'

‘Ouch,' Cross said. ‘You waited?'

‘No fun without seeing the results. The guy quizzed the senior citizen who claimed the Trooper. The Chrysler peeled some angry rubber getting out of there. And what are you doing, my friend?' Kowalski asked.

‘Sitting in a boat on a lake watching two rich women on shore drink their lunch.'

‘Jealous?'

‘I could do with some tequila. If it's in a margarita, so be it.'

‘Get anything?'

‘They have a maid,' Cross said.

‘The two women? Mother and daughter?'

‘I think so,' Cross said. ‘And the maid looks a little bit like the Jane Doe.'

‘You staying awhile?'

‘I'm roasting out here. I'm going to call it quits.'

‘You run the plate?'

‘I called Collins. He's supposed to call me back.'

Collins did call back. Cross's cell wiggled in his pocket like an electronic fish. The car that followed Cross belonged to Richard Talbot, thirty-four. ‘License says six foot three, two hundred and forty pounds.' He gave Cross the address in Fountain Square.

‘Got anything for me?' Collins asked.

‘You know that Taupin has a home on Lake Wawasee?'

‘So, what difference does that make?'

‘He owns a plane that can land on water.'

‘Again, does this matter?' Collins asked.

‘It might. Have you ruled out the family?'

‘I'm trying to. So these observations, what am I to make of them?'

‘I'm playing ball, Ace.'

Collins laughed. ‘You know my real name?'

‘Yes.'

‘Don't ever use it.'

‘OK. How's Lauren?' Cross asked. He wasn't sure why. The woman had stayed in his mind in ways that weren't connected to his dilemma.

‘How's Lauren? You're getting real familiar all of a sudden. Calling me Ace, asking about Lauren. We're not a team.'

‘Ms Saddler, then. How's Ms Saddler, Mr Collins?'

‘Lieutenant Collins,' Collins said. ‘I imagine she's OK, but we don't talk about feelings.'

‘Richard Talbot. Victim's brother, cousin, what?' Cross said, changing the subject.

‘Brother. Older brother,' Collins said. ‘Cross, don't go busting down his door, OK? We'll ask him what he's doing. Appreciate the cooperation.'

‘You'll pass that on to Ms Saddler.'

‘Cross,' the cop said with warning in his voice.

‘Ace,' Cross matched tone for tone, ‘I was on your team once upon a time. I know how it works. I don't want any part of it. I know what the big blue line is capable of. And that leads me to this: I don't want to spend the rest of my life in jail because you can't find the real perp.'

Collins laughed.

‘I know,' Collins said without malice. ‘I'm playing nice, Cross. For now.'

‘Me too.'

The black Chrysler was parked where it was before, half way down the street from his house. The car itself seemed demonic, waiting like a stalking animal, waiting for the right moment to pounce. Cross could confront him now or wait. Nature was calling and he had a bag full of stuff to get inside. He waved, but went up the steps across the yard toward the gate and inside. Casey exited as Cross entered, also to answer the call.

Cross heard the front door shut. When he came into the middle room, he saw the wide silhouette of a man backlit by the strong light coming in through the window. Casey barked, but it was hushed because he was on the other side of the front door. It was a smart move, keeping the dog out of potential hostilities.

‘You go by Rick, Rickey, Richard or Dick?' Cross asked. Getting names right was fresh on his mind.

‘Doesn't matter, I'm only going to visit you once, and it's not friendly.'

‘This just isn't my day,' Cross said.

‘No, it isn't.'

‘I think I'm going to become a bartender. Everybody likes bartenders. You want to sit down or do you want to stand there looking all Smokey the Bear?'

Despite his heft, he was quick. He covered the seven feet between him and Cross with such speed the detective's reaction was totally instinctive. Cross stepped to his left where there was just enough space to accommodate him, and put his foot out to trip the big guy. The thud was so loud Cross thought the man's fall had broken the floor.

The man was up on his haunches before Cross could get to him, jumping up and lunging at the same time. Cross dropped back as quickly as he could. The attacker grabbed Cross's waist as he went down. Cross brought his knee up, catching the guy in the face. The man fell forward, his head hitting the wood floor with a thud. Cross grabbed an arm, pulled it back, and stepped on his neck.

‘I'm very sorry about your brother,' Cross said, his voice and body strained from holding the guy down. ‘From all accounts he was genuinely a good person. I did not kill him and I am devoting, for selfish reasons, whatever time it takes to find out who did kill him and the girl. Do you understand?'

No answer.

Cross pressed down his foot harder. ‘Grunt once for yes and two for no.'

‘All right.'

Cross moved away and as the big guy got up, Cross plucked his handgun – a small Sig-Sauer P232 – from the bag. He sat in the comfortable chair, the handgun in his lap and motioned for Talbot to sit in the other.

‘You're in my house. You get tough or you don't cooperate, you die and I just put a knife in your hand and tell people it was self-defense. Got it.'

Talbot straightened himself and sat down. Cross remembered him from the burial ceremony. He was the man that stood in back of his family, alone. Now, he was red-faced. Anger, fear and embarrassment all mixed up.

‘I didn't kill your brother,' Cross said.

‘Why should I believe you?'

‘I don't know. Why would you think I did?'

‘You had the bodies in your trunk, man.'

‘Not in my trunk. In the trunk of the car I was confiscating for the guy who financed the sale. How the bodies ended up in the trunk I don't know. Could be you for all I know.' It was clear Talbot was keeping his body in that chair out of sheer will.

‘Where did you go? When you lost me.'

‘You don't have any right to that information,' Cross said.

‘I want my brother's killer,' he said.

‘So do I. Tell me about your brother.'

‘Nothing to tell. He was good. A good person. Foreign to me as an Eskimo.'

‘You're not a good person?'

‘Not like him. He believed that anyone and anything could be turned around. All we have to do is work at it. He worked at it. Somebody killed him. Here's me. The older brother, as miserable a son of a bitch as there ever was. I don't take shit from anybody.'

‘What do you know about his life, who he knew, who tried to make his life miserable . . .'

‘Don't know anybody who didn't like him, except maybe his wife's family. I don't think they disliked him so much as they saw him as a failure and they didn't want their daughter to marry somebody like him.'

‘He ran a foundation,' Cross said.

‘They thought it was left wing and, of course, it was nonprofit. He was never going to be a successful business man. And he didn't agree with the Taupins politically. There was so much they couldn't talk about. Marsh could only speak of the weather at family dinners.'

‘I met Thad Moore.'

‘A little dweeb, but an OK guy. He and Marsh were friends since first grade.'

Richard Talbot had calmed down, but his chest was still heaving and anger still filled his eyes. He stood up abruptly and Cross tightened his grip on the gun.