Coeur d'Alene Waters, page 8
“Hello, Andy?” The voice was loud, as if the person thought that you had to shout to be heard. “Hello—did you put me through?”
“Hey, Reverend, this is Sheriff Andy Merrill, what can I do for you?”
Matt didn’t recognize the voice. He had the sinking feeling this was one of
Merrill’s crackpot constituents. Silently, Matt cursed Phyllis for putting the call through.
“Oh. Andy,” said the voice. It sank in tone and volume, until it was almost at a normal level. It was a rich baritone—a preacher’s voice. “Andy, I never thought I’d want to call you again, but after our last little talk, I thought that one good turn deserved another.”
Now Matt recognized the voice. Inwardly, his curses became more colorful. He knew who it was on the phone. Even thinking about the man put a foul taste in his mouth.
“Well, damn me to hell and back,” said Merrill. “If it isn’t the Reverend Richard Butler. How is your flock in Hayden Lake?”
“Doing well, doing well. God does bless his One True White Flock,” said the reverend. “We pray you’ll repent and join us in worship one of these Sundays.” “Not likely,” said Merrill. He winked at Matt. “Too many Jew folks vote, especially your mother-in-law.”
“Now that’s blasphemy, Andy. I called in the spirit of helpfulness. I might as well hang up right now, bring this Jew talk to a close.”
“No, no, I’m so sorry.” Merrill mocked a pout at Matt. “I do apologize, Reverend. Now I’m all ears—what’s on your mind, Dick?”
“You remember that little talk we had, Andy?”
“Sure I remember. As I recall, I told you that in felony cases, I would charge the Nations with aiding and abetting, unless you started to help us out here.” Merrill nodded at Matt, as if to tell him that he could, under duress, take the law seriously. Then he put a middle finger out at the phone, and laughed silently.
Reverend Butler paused. “Well now, Andy, I remember it different. You said you wanted to support the uplifting activities of the Nations. Didn’t want us taking in degenerates unawares. And I appreciate that. So I guess I have one to report—see, this one young man I need some advice about, he grew up in Coeur d’Alene, and was recruited to the Aryan cause a few months ago. Things seemed to go fine for a while.”
“Let me guess.” Merrill cackled silently at Matt. “He was doing just fine until you discovered he was a Jew and a Negro.”
There was a snort from the phone. “Now, I can just hang up, Andy. My time is valuable too. I figured you all would be interested in this tip.”
“Okay, okay, so you got a name and serial number for me?” Carefully, Merrill wrote down a name.
“I’m sorry about this, Sheriff. We do try to get the best and the bright—but we take whoever the Good Lord brings us. We can’t reject one of his sheep, you know.”
Merrill glanced at Matt and raised his eyebrows. He mocked a yawn. “Now, Reverend, are you turning in this guy because you owe him back pay for working security? That’s what happened last year, you know. I don’t need the grief now. I got an election coming up.”
The reverend made a sound again, somewhere between a sigh and a huff. “That was just a misunderstanding, that was. I’m calling you just to make sure you don’t think I have any responsibility for this boy. He’s been antisocial here, despite the Christian Identity training. And I don’t want the Nations to be charged for any crime he’ll commit.”
“Sure, sure, sure, I’ll make sure Matty here can put the kid’s description in some ongoing case—we can pick him up for you on some charge, get him back in the fold.” Hurriedly, Merrill motioned at Matt, handing him a piece of paper. Matt shook his head, disgusted, and pushed it back. Merrill tried again, and the paper moved back and forth.
Finally, Matt stood, the paper stuck in his hand. He motioned that he’d be down the hall. He didn’t have time to waste like this on Merrill’s games.
As he went down the hallway he heard the reverend make another demand. “Now, the boy is still a member of this church. He’s an Aryan. So I need you to swear before Yahweh that you won’t give this information to any non-Aryan, to any mongrel . . .”
As Matt walked to his office, he could hear Merrill snort loudly at the request.
Matt was on the phone, talking to Sall, when someone entered the doorway of his office. The door closed with a bang. Matt looked up. First Reverend Richard Butler, and now her.
Valerie Herrick was tall and slim and wore a blue suit. The suit sheathed her body in a new and shiny material, tight as a car’s metallic skin. Her mane of curling hair was faintly copper colored. It was set off by the armor-like cloth, jewelry in a shadow box. A pair of glasses in thin gold frames rested on perfect cheekbones.
Matt cupped a hand over the receiver to ask Valerie what she wanted, but she ignored him entirely. Instead, she sat down and took out a small canister that could have held expensive makeup or perfume. As he talked on the phone, Valerie opened the canister. Inside were what looked like small foil-wrapped vials. She peeled one and put it in her mouth. Almond Roca.
She gnashed each piece apart, a certain calculated violence in her movements. As she ate, individual pieces of gold foil drifted down to his floor.
“Yes,” he said to Sall. “I hear you. I know I should call him, and I haven’t called him . . . but okay, I’ll take care of that dang shed in Pop’s backyard. I know he’s worried about rats in there. I’ll knock it down, get it out of there, as soon as I can.”
Valerie put another piece into her mouth and broke it violently apart with her perfect white teeth. As he talked on the phone, Matt watched her chew and swallow.
When she was done eating, she put the canister firmly on the corner of his desk and stood from his chair. She left him with a glare and stalked down the hall, her heels clicking on the ancient floor.
Matt could hear her immediately in Merrill’s office. The voice was grating, it came through the walls like a saw. “Dammit, Andy—listen to me!”
Merrill’s voice was more muted. “Hey, all I said, Val, was that you got one sweetheart of an ass there. Is that harassment, ’cause I just want to—”
“Listen, Andy, you’re going to call the union guys on the highway, make ’em pay up. Anything goes south on that deal with the new highway, there’s going to be a state audit! You gotta make sure those union bastards finish it. Otherwise, my brother will just . . . dammit, I don’t want Will to get away with . . .”
Matt put the phone down and went to the door, intended to shut it against the sound of Valerie’s voice. “Hold on a sec, Sall. Got some screamer here in the office.” Then he paused for a moment, listening to an unnatural whine in Merrill’s response.
Matt went back to his desk, stepping over the pile of gold foil near the door. He could still hear Valerie’s voice, all the way down the hallway.
“Why won’t your boy just cry wolf? Hell, I’ll just go talk to him myself!”
Matt was not surprised when his office door banged open again. But he turned his chair away from Valerie as he spoke to his wife on the phone. “Sall, I really want to hear this—I want to hear what Doug said. But I really gotta go. Can you tell me about what Doug said at dinner? He’s okay, right?”
Valerie sat down, clearing her throat harshly, as if Matt were interrupting her, instead of the other way around. Matt’s shoulders grew taut against the material of his uniform. “Good, good. Yeah, I want to hear all about what he’s doing at dinnertime. Yeah, I’ll be home by four o’clock. I love you too.”
Then Matt put the phone down. He turned the chair back around and rubbed his large hands across his face before he spoke again. “What the hell is so important?” he said to Valerie. “What do you want of me?”
Valerie Herrick moved her head, the wave of hair shifting in the sunlight, changing color as she moved. He couldn’t tell what shade it really was anymore. It crossed Matt’s mind that Valerie was like her hair—you could never get a fix on what she was thinking. Somehow, between Merrill’s office and Matt’s, she’d become calm again. It made Matt wary, as if some unknown color was about to swamp him.
Valerie breathed carefully before speaking. “The sheriff says you are the one responsible for keeping it closed, for making my entire main floor a crime scene. That you don’t feel this is a serial killer thing, and that the scene won’t open until you approve it.”
A tremor ran through Matt, he was tense all over. “Is that what he’s telling you?”
Valerie lifted a file folder from her lap and tapped it against her thigh slowly, as if it were a weapon. “Look at the file, Matt. It’s so clear that a damn child could—”
“How did you get a copy of the file? From Russ? I’ll have his ass.”
Valerie grimaced, as if Matt’s comment had a bad smell. “No, not from my errant husband. He doesn’t show me anything, if you must know. It’s from Andy Merrill—he saw fit to let me have a copy of the file, even if you did not.” She put the papers down on his desk with a slap.
“As I was saying, look at the file. It’s open and shut. It’s just a serial killer’s body dumped on our property, and I want you to call in the professionals. Call the Feds. That’s all I’m asking. Every day, I’m losing thousands of dollars in potential revenue. All I’m asking for is—”
“I’ve got something to ask you for too.” Matt spoke in a measured tone. “Why won’t the resort give me a list of every employee or contractor? I’ve asked, but—”
“You aren’t listening!” Valerie reached in her briefcase and tossed a stapled stack of paper next to the folder on his desk. “That damn roster is not going to help—my people didn’t do it! But I’m paying through the nose for your damn games.” She grabbed a plastic pen from Matt’s desk and held it tightly between her clenched fists.
Matt sat back. “I don’t think you care about who died there. You just don’t care.”
“Really?” The pen snapped in her fingers with a sudden explosion. She did not seem to notice.
“Yeah, really.” Somewhere in his neck there was a throbbing thing, a fluttering frantic and worrisome. “Yeah, really. Just like your father didn’t give a shit.”
Valerie looked across the desk at him. “Look, Lieutenant, I’m not my father. I know you’ve still got a chip on your shoulder because of how my father treated the mining union. And I’m sorry your pop lost his lawsuit against Herrick Industries.”
“He didn’t lose—it was dismissed. On a damn technicality. Men died, you know.”
Valerie sighed and leaned forward. “You realize I was in my twenties then, right? What did I know about what the mine was doing? All I can tell you now is—”
“That you’re sorry, right?” Matt breathed out, his breath hissing. “Is that all?”
Valerie pulled her fingers through her hair and stared at the ceiling for a moment. Finally, she looked down again. “No. I don’t think there’s anything I have to apologize for. Look, Russ and I already saved your ass when you were drunk in that accident—the least you could do is act a little grateful now and then.”
“Yeah, I am grateful, still.” Matt sighed. “There, I said it. That enough for you?”
At that, she stood and threw the broken pieces of the pen across the papers on his desk. “You seem to hate me so much, but there must be something. I mean, all the damn years I’ve been married to Russ, you’ve been the only one who’s tried to keep him from cheating on me. For a decade now, you’ve kept him on the straight and narrow.”
Matt opened his mouth, the truth about the pandering charges about to come spilling out. Then, slowly, he closed it again. She did not need to know.
“You must have some liking for me, some kind of a—”
“Point of principle,” said Matt. “Nothing more. I just don’t think that a guy should be screwing around on his wife, even if she’s a . . .”
Valerie stared at him, daring him to continue. Matt glimpsed a world of pain underneath the strident glare. Then, she whirled away from him, picking up her file folder and briefcase in one swift motion.
“Look,” she said sharply. “We all have to move on sometime. I’ve moved on, maybe it’s time you did. I’ll just ask Andy to pull Russ off the case—you don’t need his help, obviously, and I don’t think we’re getting any damn movement on this. Fuck it.”
Matt stood as she did, feeling himself suddenly awkward behind his own desk. A tremble came over him, the sense that something had slipped sideways.
“Okay,” said Matt. “So you want me to move on. I got that part, I’ll consider it. So what else did you have to ask me about?”
“Never mind.” Her eyes seemed to settle into him, sharp as talons.
Valerie’s hand-tailored coat swung to the side as she went out the door. Matt looked up at the clock, it was an hour yet until four o’clock. He picked up a piece of the broken pen in his hand. The plastic tube in the middle was cracked. He looked down at it. Ink was still welling through his clenched fingers when the phone rang.
Matt took the box of tissue from the shelf beside his desk and wiped his hands clean. They were still trembling, the ink dripping down, when the ringing stopped.
He sighed and rolled his shoulders. Then he glanced at the clock again and pulled a heap of papers toward him. There was a faint note. “Leo / Lenny (?). Urgent. Call him back.”
“Don’t think I know a Leo or Lenny,” muttered Matt, peering at the note.
Then he flipped back to the top of the stack. “Shift discrepancies at resort,” read a strident note from Phyllis. “Please see attached time sheets, reconcile officers under your command.”
Reconciling Time Sheets was right up there with Latrine Duty and ancient Missing Persons. Matt stuffed the time sheets under some folders and picked up the list Valerie Herrick had finally provided for him.
The Bitterroot County terminal for the National Crime Information Center— the NCIC—was at the end of the hallway, in Phyllis’s office.
“Thank God,” said Phyllis. To her, it seemed that every use of the machine was an opportunity for conversation. “I’ve been waiting for someone who can operate that thing.”
“I’ve got work to do. Checking for felonies,” Matt said briskly. Then he entered a password and pecked at the keyboard, entering names from the resort list.
Phyllis smoothed the wrinkles in her jeans. “Okay,” she said. “But when you got a chance, check my manicurist for me. I swear I’ve seen his face on a Wanted poster.”
“Sure,” said Matt. “Whatever.” According to the screen he was on, the employees had a few misdemeanors among them, and three unpaid speeding tickets. Dead end.
“I’ve got something here you might want to look at,” said Phyllis. She tapped a piece of paper on her desk. “You aren’t really listening to me, are you, Worthless?”
Matt tapped through the menu, looking for a way to search by similar names, aliases, and family members. He put his hands on the sides of the keyboard and took a deep breath, remembering how the program worked. “Sure I am,” he answered.
Matt entered the terms of the search. Now there was a result. Brewmer, May. Five years for manslaughter. A cocaine charge had been dropped. Probably a plea. She’d been paroled after a year. In fact, she’d just walked out of Leavenworth three months ago.
Matt did not like the common wisdom about repeat offenders. He liked to believe that people made their own choices.
Brewmer—this time listed as Mary—was a past resort employee. He checked the phone book. There were only three Brewmers listed in Bitterroot County. The name jogged in Matt’s memory, the security guard had mentioned someone with a similar name. He checked the transcript from his interview with the guard. May Brue. He searched for the address of record.
Phyllis was still talking. “You know Arlen’s green car you were looking for? Your friend and mine, Mister Can’t-Keep-It-In-His-Pants, he found it last night.”
In September, the case officer’s notes said, May Brewmer had ditched out of parole. No sign of her since September. Twelve weeks out, and already in parole violation.
Not for the first time, he thought of how prison stripped the good out of a person. It infected you with something, watching people hang themselves or stab each other with sharpened spoons. An infection—a disease of the soul. Every now and then he tried to change that, to make a difference in one person who might be headed to prison.
His most recent attempt had been only a few months before, a girl named Angie. She was young—so petite he knew on first sight that she wasn’t really legal. They found her turning tricks at the Washington-Idaho border. The annual sheriff’s raid on the Post Falls massage parlors—only this time conducted without advance notice. She was the one Russ got caught with.
Lieutenant White, of course, claimed to be working undercover. It was a first offense, and Angie was a girl fresh from Scobey, Montana. Matt thought she could change her ways. Tearfully, Angie agreed. So he managed to convince her to own up to her real age, making her file confidential, and getting her therapy and probation instead of prison.
Now he wasn’t so sure he’d done the right thing by the girl. Her number had changed and he hadn’t been able to reach her since, to tell her that her proba tion hearing had been rescheduled. Matt had heard that a girl who fit Angie’s description might be working in Wallace, in the old Oasis cathouse.
Phyllis bit her nails. A tiny crunching, rats in the walls. “Car crashed into a tree. Looked like someone had been living in it too,” said Phyllis.
“Since he’s dead, I got an insurance hassle to deal with now.”
Matt took the piece of paper, the department log for the car. “Who discovered the car?”
“I told you already. The Ladies’ Man. Russell White.”
“So, at least someone’s still earning their paycheck,” said Matt under his breath. “He might have testosterone poisoning, but Russ is still a goddamn good cop.”
