Blood Runs Cold

64

The next morning, Ren arrived into an atmosphere in the office she couldn’t quite get a handle on: Colin, Cliff and Robbie were sitting around talking and stopped as soon as she walked in.

‘Good job,’ said Colin, nodding.

‘Well done, young lady,’ said Cliff.

‘You go, girl,’ said Robbie.

‘Well, thank you very much,’ said Ren. She slumped down on the edge of her desk.

‘Have you been up all night?’ said Robbie.

‘I have,’ said Ren. ‘And I was in Vail by six thirty this morning to deliver Patrick Transom the ultimate good news/bad news scenario. The good news? We found your sister’s killer. The bad news? Your whole family lied to you all your life; your family name isn’t exactly real and your parents are dead, so you can’t even find out any more. Your beloved sister was abducted and raped as an eleven-year-old. Oh — and you have a niece you never knew existed.’

‘When you put it like that …’ said Cliff.

‘She probably did,’ said Colin.

‘Yes,’ said Ren, ‘at times like that I think “If only I had the tact of Colin Grabien”.’

‘How did Transom take it?’ said Cliff.

‘You name it,’ said Ren. ‘Relief, shock, anger, happiness, sadness … a quick burst of all the emotions that he would have to really deal with for the rest of his life. Like a trailer for the big feature.’

‘Wow,’ said Robbie.

‘And,’ said Ren, ‘he wants to meet Caroline Quaintance. And if she agrees to a meeting, he wants me to be there too. Yikes.’

‘Aw, you’d be good at that,’ said Robbie.

‘I don’t know,’ said Ren.

‘Yeah, you’re kind of heartless enough to be neutral,’ said Colin.

Cliff and Robbie both turned on him.

‘Thank you, guys,’ said Ren. ‘Now — anyone know why I got a text from our great leader, Gary Dettling, to get my ass in here for nine a.m.?’

‘That’s what we were talking about when you walked in,’ said Robbie. ‘There are some interesting people here to see you.’

‘What?’ said Ren. ‘Who?’ She studied their faces. No one looked particularly upbeat.

‘I fear for you,’ said Colin.

Asshole.

‘Shut up,’ said Robbie.

‘Yeah, that’s not very helpful,’ said Ren.

‘She could be getting a Shield of Bravery or something,’ said Robbie.

They all laughed.

I have a bad feeling about this. ‘Who’s here?’

Robbie was about to answer when Bob stuck his head in the door and told her she was needed immediately in the conference room. Facing her, side by side were Special Agent in Charge, Tim Monahan, and Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Jeff Warwick — Gary Dettling’s superiors. All the tension in the room was radiating from one point — where Gary Dettling stood.

What are you all doing here?

‘Good morning, Agent Bryce,’ said Warwick.

‘Good morning,’ said Ren, taking a seat.

‘We’ve had some interesting developments into the suspected Val Pando robberies …’

‘OK,’ said Ren, nodding.

‘And we were curious to know,’ said Warwick, ‘what exactly is your relationship with Billy Waites?’

Ren stared at the photo of Billy Waites that Warwick had thrown down in front of her. It was Billy’s mug shot again, long hair, beard, cold eyes: everything about him that was designed to conceal. But Ren knew what those eyes looked like laughing, what the mouth under that beard could do, what his shaved skin felt like, how his short hair looked shit without gel.

Ren shot a look at Gary. His face said nothing.

‘Billy Waites was Jean Transom’s one-three-seven,’ said Ren. ‘He was a source for her around Breckenridge, Frisco, Alma, Fairplay … and he was the last person who saw her the night she was killed.’

‘This guy ring any alarm bells up until now?’ said Monahan.

Ren’s heart pounded. ‘No. And he’s not ringing any alarm bells for me now.’

‘Really?’ said Monahan.

‘Obviously I was wary … in the beginning,’ said Ren. ‘But no … I am confident that Billy Waites has turned his life around.’

Monahan raised an eyebrow.

‘Why do you ask?’ said Ren.

‘OK — detectives from the Sheriff’s Office here were concerned Waites was serving alcohol to minors in the Brockton Filly. It seems he wasn’t paying too much attention to the IDs he was being shown and to what state the kids were in when they were leaving or planning to drive home.

‘They raided the place Friday night and, along with rounding up under-age drinkers, they found money in the till from one of the Val Pando robberies.’

‘How much?’ said Ren.

‘Not much,’ said Monahan. ‘Several hundred dollars.’

‘That could have come from anywhere,’ said Ren. ‘Do you have anything to say he has any connection with Val Pando?’

‘Not yet,’ said Monahan.

Ren frowned. ‘What do you mean?’ She glanced at Gary. His eyes were lit with anger.

‘I just mean not yet,’ said Warwick. ‘Mainly because of this — ’ He lay down another photo.

It was a handsome Hispanic boy, late teens with huge, lost brown eyes.

Sweat was slowly soaking into Ren’s shirt. Where the tiny buttons closed at her chest, the fabric trembled. Her face was hot. Her throat felt closed over. Every part of her body seemed to be giving her away. Everyone needs to stop looking at me. She uncrossed her legs and leaned slightly forward.

‘He is seventeen years old now,’ said Monahan.

Ren looked up at them. ‘But — ’

‘When we took in the under-age kids from the Brockton Filly, there were about ten of them. Apparently this guy, who nobody knew, shows up and starts buying them all drinks. He had an extremely professional fake ID. All the kids were rounded up, brought here and searched for drugs, This guy has no drugs on him, but over a thousand dollars in cash. We ran it through NCIC and it was bait money from the Idaho Springs robbery.

‘We’re wondering if there is a connection there between him and Billy Waites.’

‘No,’ said Ren. ‘No.’

‘Then why did Billy run?’

What? ‘What?’

‘He ran. Not long after the raid, he was gone,’ said Monahan.

The bar was in total darkness …

‘I just don’t believe Billy Waites is involved, I’m sorry.’

‘You don’t know that,’ said Monahan. ‘Billy Waites could be one charming motherfucking pig.’

‘Yeah, well, charm doesn’t cut it with me,’ said Ren.

‘I’m not talking about a guy chatting you up in a bar,’ said Monahan. ‘I’m talking about work.’

‘So am I,’ said Ren, her eyes boring into him.

‘I’m talking about the charm of a man who has lied for years, gotten what he wanted for years, evaded law enforcement …’ said Monahan.

‘I would be surprised if he had anything to do with this,’ said Ren.

‘I bet you would,’ said Gary.

Everyone looked at him. Monahan frowned.

‘Well, she knows Billy Waites better than any of us,’ said Gary, shrugging. ‘And if she says he’s reliable, that’s good enough for me.’

‘Thank you,’ said Ren.

‘OK,’ said Monahan. ‘OK. We’ll see what comes up. But for now, Mr Waites has the benefit of the doubt. Or at least the benefit of an association with Special Agent Ren Bryce.’

‘Now,’ said Warwick, ‘Agent Bryce. Are you ready to go in and talk to our little friend?

The boy sat in the interview room with his elbows on the table, his hands in fists against his forehead. Ren watched through the small, glass window. Reinforced. Unlike me. She breathed in and out, afraid to close her eyes in case she’d see something she didn’t want to see. But what she was looking at was hitting her just as hard. Shut down and you can do this. It was a physical sensation in her chest, like the sliding shut of prison bars. Her heart was all locked up by the time she was at the other side of the door and it was closed behind her.

The boy looked up. He watched her walk all the way across the room with those lost eyes that had almost broken her before. Ren could see the fight inside him. She sat opposite him. They hung there in silence. Eventually, he looked up at her. Before she had a chance to speak, he did.

‘It wasn’t always like this,’ he said, looking down at himself as if the clothes he wore were telling her something. ‘I used to have someone who looked after me. I was six years old when we met her — in the playground, me and Mama. She was sitting on a bench, crying. She was a pretty lady with a sad story. She told Mama she’d lost a baby and that she liked to come to the playground to be around kids because it made her feel sad and she was hoping that one day it would make her feel happy. It was the only time I saw my mama cry. The only time. Ever. The next week she brought this lady home. She ate with my family, drank with my family and one day? She moved in.

‘I was six years old and … this lady was, like, magical. She made everything all right for her bambino. We lived in this beautiful home, in a secure compound with guards and guns. But hidden in the building at the far corner, there were other things going on that I didn’t know about. The men who worked for Mama — her servants, her goons, her guinea pigs? This lady would explain away these creeps. The guy with the twisted spine would walk around with his head tilted sideways, raising his eyes up to you to talk. He scared the shit out of me. Mama would get crazy if she heard me cry out. So this lady — Remy was her name — my Remy would hold me in her arms and rock me and she would say: There was a crooked manAnd he walked a crooked mile …

‘And it just made it OK for me. It was like a game. Her little rhymes made everything seem like a fairy tale, made these men seem just like characters who had something in them that was good, something we could smile at.

‘My father was a monster. He would provoke me like I was an animal. And then he would disappear. For weeks on end. One day Remy was there with me when I had to watch him leave. She said to me: As I was walking up the stair I met a man who wasn’t there

‘And a few days later, I was able to finish it: He wasn’t there again today I wish, I wish he’d stay away.

‘I’ll never forget it. And I’ll never forget my Remy. You guys don’t change your names too much, right? You need to be able to turn your head and respond at the right time, right? Ren. Remy. Ren. Remy.

‘So, how are we all doing? You and your fake dead baby. Me and my real gone father. You and your fake name, your fake job, your fake sad, tragic fucking life …’ He shrugged. ‘No wonder the stories you told me were so … imaginative.’

Ren got up and left the room. My little Gavino Bambino Val Pando.