Lost Dog (A Gideon and Sirius Novel Book 3) (15 page)

“She’s always refused to be a victim.”

He nodded. One thing we could agree upon was that Heather Moreland had always shown lots of guts. I hoped she was still alive.

CHAPTER 20

AULD LANG SYNE

While waiting for SID to show up, I was able to contact technical support for Doggone. My hopes that the tracker had a memory were quickly dashed. A man who identified himself as “Roger” told me with a pronounced Indian accent, “The tracker can only tell you where it is now, not where it has been.”

It was a disappointment, but at the same time, Reyes and I were now that much more convinced Heather had been abducted. This wasn’t depressive disorder, or someone running away from her problems.

SID showed up right after I got off the phone with Roger. I didn’t know the tech, a young woman who identified herself as Linda Handler. She was new to LAPD, she told me. Her enthusiasm was refreshing, and she didn’t make me feel as if I was wasting her time.

“You can always tell the new hires,” said Reyes on our drive back to Burbank. “They’re so damn rude.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She kept saying, ‘Yes, sir,’ and ‘No, sir,’ to me. It made me feel damn old.”

“I’m sure her politeness won’t last.”

“That will be a relief.”

The two of us began discussing what we had, or what we didn’t have.

“Why didn’t he just smash the tracker to pieces?” said Reyes.

I shrugged. “Maybe he planted it for misdirection. It’s probably nowhere near his home or business.”

“Or maybe he just wanted to send us on a wild-goose chase.”

No one likes to be played for a fool, but . . . “That’s possible. If so, the spot he picked makes for a good commentary.”

“What do you mean?”

“He left his tracker at the site of the city’s biggest false front. Maybe he was saying welcome to my hidden world.”

“You think he was sending us a message?”

“I hope not. If he’s gaming us, he’s probably gaming Heather. My hope is that Emilio has locked Heather in a shed somewhere. This year a woman in Missouri was imprisoned in a wooden box for four months. Her boyfriend put her there after she threatened to break up with him. Luckily for her, she was able to free herself. That’s our best-case scenario.”

“What’s the worst-case scenario?”

“I’ve crossed paths with one serial murderer,” I said. “I’m hoping that this isn’t a case of encountering a second.”

“Why would you even think that’s a possibility?”

“For the last two years, I’ve been working with the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit, and one of the profilers there told me that at any given time, there are upward of forty active serial murderers doing their stalking around the country.”

“That’s not something I’ve been looking at.”

“I think we’re going to have to take a hard look at break-ins in the Southland. Serial murderers usually don’t begin by going all-in. Their fantasies set them on a slippery slope. It’s a learning curve for killers. We need to look at women who were threatened in their homes or apartments, and red-flag anything that resembles a potential abduction.”

“What kind of time frame?”

“Let’s narrow it to the last year. And while we’re at it, let’s also look at recent crime scenes that were staged so as to thumb their nose at law enforcement.”

“You think that’s what this is?”

I shrugged. “It’s more likely I’m grasping at straws.”

“Maybe the tracker was just left where it was for the sake of convenience,” said Reyes. “Like my old man used to say, ‘Location, location, location.’”

“Was your father a real estate agent?”

Reyes shook his head. “Septic tank cleaner. He liked to say he knew his shit.”

The one good thing about spending time with Reyes was that the two of us had come to a better working arrangement. Our border wars felt like a thing of the past, put aside for the greater good of finding Heather Moreland.

“Another suck day,” said Reyes as he exited my car.

“Another suck day,” I agreed.

It was already getting dark, and I decided to give up for the day. Sirius and I drove home in silence. My partner didn’t like that and gave me a nudge with his muzzle.

“I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up,” I said. “It was a long shot to begin with.”

Heather Moreland was still out there—I hoped.

Sirius nudged me again. “No, we’re not stopping at a restaurant,” I said. “You’re getting too used to eating out. Uncle Seth said he’d be making you a nice meal tonight.”

Only a few nights before, Sirius had been getting handouts from both me and Langston Walker. Thinking about Walker, I asked the car system synced to my cell to dial up Dave Holt, a detective in Robbery-Homicide.

“Make it fast, Gideon,” he said. “It’s almost time for the Final Jeopardy question.”

“I’m calling about Langston Walker’s death,” I said. “Did you know him, and what can you tell me about what happened?”

“I knew him, but not all that well. And I don’t know much about his death other than that he died like Jack.”

“Jack who?”

“Jack fell down and broke his crown.”

“I take it you’re not reading the eulogy, or that poem, at his funeral?”

“Like I said, I didn’t know him very well. But every year I pay close attention to the Darwin Awards. What’s a sixtysomething guy doing climbing a mountain?”

“If you really want to know, he was keeping a promise to his murdered son. The two of them had planned on doing the Cactus to Clouds Trail together four years ago. So every year since, Walker has remembered him by doing a hike on the anniversary of his death.”

“I didn’t know that.” Holt sounded a little chastened, but his conscience didn’t trouble him for long.

“Hold on,” he said. “Here’s the Final Jeopardy question: ‘He was prime minister of the UK from 1945 to 1951.’”

I didn’t say anything.

“The category is World Leaders,” Holt said, apparently thinking he was helping me to the answer.

“That stands to reason, but I still can’t help you.”

“A lot of good you are, Gideon. I think it’s a trick question. Everyone is going to say it was Winston Churchill. But I happen to know that right after World War II, the Brits showed their gratitude to Winnie by booting him out of office. I can’t remember who the hell replaced him, though, so I’m going to be forced to look at Trebek preening. He thinks he’s so goddamn smart. Of course you’re smart if you’ve got the answers written down in front of you. You know what I’d do if I didn’t know the answer? I’d write down:
Who is Jack Mehoff?
And I’d be the one smiling when that smug prick Trebek read what I wrote.”

Before I could comment, Holt said, “Neville Chamberlain? What’s that lady thinking? What an idiot. Neville was the PM who bent over for Hitler and dropped trou. She might as well have guessed ‘Wilt the Stilt’ Chamberlain. Churchill replaced Chamberlain as PM. Everyone knows that.”

I tried to get back to the subject of Langston Walker. “Who’s still working in RHD who’d know Walker best?”

“Clement Attlee,” said Holt.

I was trying to think if I knew a detective named Clement Attlee when Holt said, “Who the hell is Clement Attlee? And look at Trebek. He’s acting like Clement Attlee is a personal friend of his. What a self-righteous SOB. Yeah, you know Clement Attlee, Trebek. He probably buggered you.”

Clement Attlee, I deduced, had been the prime minister of England from 1945 to 1951. I decided that I’d heard enough about buggery, Alex Trebek, and Clement Attlee, and ended the call.

And then I was forced to think about the real Final Jeopardy question and Langston Walker, and wished that it wasn’t so.

Seth opened his door and said, “I’m sorry about what happened to your friend, Michael.”

“I won’t pretend he was a friend,” I said, “but in the short time we spent together, I grew to respect him, and I couldn’t help but think he was a real stand-up guy.”

I found a seat in my usual chair, while Sirius took to his hemp doggie bed. My partner sensed the seriousness of the situation and wasn’t as buoyant as usual, even when Seth brought him his dinner.

Seth went to the bar to get us our drinks. Before he began his pour, I asked, “Do you happen to have Hennessys?”

“I do,” he said.

“If you don’t mind, barkeep, I think I’ll have that.”

Seth replaced my usual bourbon rocks glass with a snifter and poured two fingers of cognac. Then he chose his drink, filling a wineglass with cabernet sauvignon.

He handed me my cognac, then tilted his glass my way. “Auld lang syne,” he said. I echoed his words, and we clinked glasses and sipped.

“His choice of drink?” asked Seth.

“It was on the night we had dinner.”

I took another sip. Even though I’m not much of a cognac drinker, the drink was certainly smooth.

“I printed out a few articles on Walker and his death,” said Seth. “They’re on the table.”

“I appreciate that. I meant to catch up on that today, but my lost-dog, lost-human case kept me running. I did call a detective in Robbery-Homicide hoping to get an up-to-date account of how Walker died, but he didn’t know much.”

“From what I read, Walker was by no means the first to die on that trail. Apparently half a dozen other hikers have died from a variety of causes.”

I nodded. “The night we dined, Langston told me how difficult the hike was, but he did it as his way of spending time with his dead son.”

“What’s going to happen to his club?”

I shook my head. “His nickname was ‘The Speaker for the Dead.’ I don’t know who’s going to speak, or advocate, for them now.”

“He must have had an assistant.”

“I’m not sure about that,” I said. “During my visit it looked as if he was the club’s glue, organizer, and motivator. It will be a real loss if the club falls apart.”

I looked into my drink. Maybe I was looking for Langston Walker.

“Did I tell you that Detective Walker was black?” I asked.

“You didn’t,” Seth said, “but there were pictures of him in the articles.”

“One of the reasons he started the club was that he was sick and tired of how many young black men were dying violent deaths. That’s what happened to his youngest son. He wanted to create a place of healing, and I think he wanted to put a spotlight on the violence and how those deaths were devastating in so many ways.”

Seth nodded, happy to serve as my sounding board.

“Before giving my talk to the club, I wasn’t looking forward to it, and I sure wasn’t looking forward to having dinner with Detective Walker afterward. But the talk went well, and our dinner went even better. I thought our conversation would be forced and we wouldn’t have anything to say to each other. But it turned out to be just the opposite.”

I found a smile in a good memory. “We covered a lot of ground, but we also talked shop. You have to expect that when two cops get together. He was still thinking about some of his old cases. It sounded to me as if there was one case in particular that was gnawing at him. I got the impression he was actively working it. ‘There’s this ghost that’s been haunting me,’ he said.”

“What kind of case was it?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. He didn’t tell me the particulars. I wish he had.”

Both of us drank in silence for a few minutes. Finally I said, “He was big on special remembrances and making occasions out of dark days. That was why he did the Skyline Trail walk on the anniversary of his son’s death. He said it was a way of taking some of the sting out.”

“I wish I had met him,” said Seth. “He was practicing what I like to preach.”

“Why is it the good die too young,” I said, “and scumbags live as long as Methuselah?”

“It does seem that way, doesn’t it?”

“I wonder how Walker’s wife is going to cope with this. Every year she’s going to think about how she lost her son and her husband on April 15. That’s a bad enough day in most people’s minds to begin with.”

“Are you going to go to his service?”

“I haven’t even thought about it. You said it was this Saturday?”

Seth nodded. “Some people, and some faiths, don’t like to delay.”

I remembered how Seth, Father Pat, and a few other good friends had done most of the organizing for Jennifer’s funeral service. I hoped Walker’s wife had people like that in her life.

We went back to our individual wells, each of us drawing from our glasses. Seth eventually broke our comradely silence.