Time of Death

33

Ren went to her desk and sat very still, her hands in her lap, her eyes straight ahead, staring at nothing.

My file is safe.

She couldn’t quite believe it would stay that way. She pulled her keyboard toward her and typed Trudie Hammond’s name into Google. Almost a decade ago, Trudie Hammond’s murder file had become the responsibility of the Jefferson County Cold Case Unit — a one-person unit run by a detective Janine Hooks. Ren went to the website and scrolled through the forty cases posted on it — missing persons, homicides, unidentified remains — the text broken up with images of the victims or their possessions or their reconstructed clay faces. She scanned through the reports. Trudie Hammond’s case was the twelfth one in and read like the news report. There were three other cold cases listed whose victims had last names beginning with H. Ren picked one at random and studied it. Then she grabbed her jacket and purse and headed for the door.

The Jefferson County Cold Case Unit was housed in a government complex off Main Street in Golden. Ren had been there before — to Dr Barry Tolman’s office, the pathologist to sixteen counties, including Jefferson. Ren went to reception and asked for Janine Hooks.

There was a temp on reception who looked as though she had never used a phone, a piece of paper or a pen before. She managed to get through to Hooks on the third attempt. She turned to Ren. ‘She’ll be free in about ten minutes. Are you OK to wait, ma’am?’

Ma’am. ‘Yes, thank you,’ said Ren. ‘I’m going to go outside for a cigarette.’

‘They’re not too keen on smoking out front,’ said the receptionist, as if she was delivering a death notification.

‘OK,’ said Ren.

She went out the front door and took a cigarette from the pack she kept in her purse for use whenever she needed it. Real cigarettes, fake uses. She headed round to the back of the building where two PAs stood smoking and bitching. They gave Ren a light and, in pushing a few buttons on a keypad on their way back in, provided some helpful information she didn’t even have to ask for. She stubbed out the cigarette, popped two sticks of cinnamon gum in her mouth, and strolled around to the front entrance and up the stairs to the second floor.

Janine Hooks worked in a blow-your-brains-out office: small, brown, beige, seventies. Hooks was sitting in the visitor’s chair, facing her own empty chair. From the back, she looked like a teenage boy, her neck skinny and sinewy, her head small with short, wispy dark brown hair. She turned at the sound of Ren’s footsteps. She had huge brown eyes, faintly shadowed, sharp cheekbones and a large, wide mouth with prominent teeth and full, angular lips. Individually, it was a strange collection of features, but it came together to create a pretty vulnerability. If dogs could look like their owners, Janine Hooks could look like her job — there was something lost in there, waiting to be saved. She was a living cold case.

‘Hello,’ said Hooks, standing up, trying to repackage a sandwich with her left hand while holding out the right one.

Ren was thrown by Hooks’ body. She wondered if Hooks was used to people having a delayed reaction to her — she was remarkably thin. Probably anorexic. Her shirt was tucked in as far as it could go, her pants tied with a belt that she probably had to cut in half to fit. She was immaculately dressed. She offered Ren coffee and revealed a warm smile. There was something likeable about Janine Hooks.

‘Hi,’ said Ren, carefully shaking Hooks’ tiny hand. ‘Ren Bryce from Safe Streets in Denver.’

‘Yes, sit down, sit down.’

‘I’m sorry to arrive unannounced, but I read that you are investigating the…Hopkins murder from 1989 and I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about it.’

‘Why?’ said Hooks. She didn’t take her eyes off Ren.

Shit. ‘I read online that Hopkins was shot and his body was dumped in the Golden River. I was wondering if you could give me any further details on that. Last year, I worked a case where the victim was dumped in the Clear Creek River. Dr Tolman performed the autopsy, in fact, if you’d like to check with him.’

‘So, what…you’re looking at body dumps in rivers as being connected?’

‘Yes, actually,’ said Ren. ‘Why not?’

‘Sure, but…’ Hooks shrugged, got up and walked over to a cabinet and pulled the file. Hopkins, filed under H. Hooks’ files were organized by the victim’s last name, not the year of the crime, not type of crime, not in a file cabinet hidden away in a back office — just right here in this grim little space.

She opened the folder. Her tiny hands had long, delicate fingers. ‘OK, let me see…here it is. GSW-’

‘My guy was shot close range, back of the head with a.22,’ said Ren.

‘Nope,’ said Hooks. ‘Hopkins was a chest wound, 45 caliber.’

I could care less. ‘Ah. OK. Well, thank you for that.’ Ren stood up and said her goodbyes before Janine Hooks had the chance to ask her why the hell she didn’t just call.

Ren was drawn to cold cases, but to investigate them every day would have driven her crazy. Knowing that, before you even started investigating, many people — experts with the same information at their disposal — had tried and failed, had a certain predestination about it. The older the case, the more likely it was that the evidence had been compromised, the original investigators were retired or dead or the witnesses were dead. If anyone was still alive, their memories had most likely faded.

What lay in Trudie Hammond’s file could be something or nothing. What it could not be was ‘asked for’. If she’d walked into Janine Hooks’ office with a request for Trudie Hammond’s file right before the story broke that Judge Hammond had also been murdered, Ren might as well have walked into Denver PD and held out her hands for the cuffs to be slapped on. There was no official reason for her to be there.

Billy Waites got out of his car when he saw Ren pull up outside Annie’s. He jogged up to her.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Why the mystery?’

‘Not so much mystery,’ said Ren, ‘as…well, yes, mystery, I suppose. In many ways.’

‘How does Misty feel about it?’

Ren smiled. She put the key in the door and they went into the living room.

‘Take a seat.’ Ren sat beside him on the sofa. ‘OK…I wouldn’t ask this if I wasn’t — as the song goes — Desperado.’

‘In the land of Ren, desperado could mean so much,’ said Billy.

‘You know what?’ said Ren. ‘You are correct. But take it as a compliment. I am asking you because (a) I think you are up to it and (b) I will watch your back for the entire process.’

‘OK — what is it?’

‘It’s…well, it is a biggie. I need you to break in…somewhere.’

‘Whoa, I did not see that coming,’ said Billy. ‘Are you for real?’ He looked at her. ‘Oh. You are.’

‘I am,’ said Ren. ‘And obviously I’ll understand you saying no…actually, more than I understand you saying yes.’ But please say yes.

‘Hmm. There is steel in your eyes,’ said Billy. ‘Which I respond to better than that puppy-dog crap.’

‘Not quite steel,’ said Ren. ‘What you see in my eyes is a substance one hundred times stronger than steel, a material incapable of destruction.’

‘Right. Jesus, Ren, I’m not sure about this.’

‘I have a watertight plan-’

‘What, water with the power to tighten my ass muscles one hundred times more than regular plans?’

‘There’s a reason why I’ll be watching your…back.’

Billy shook his head. ‘Tell me your plan.’

‘I need you to break into the office of Detective-’

‘Oh no, no detectivey things, no law-enforcementy things.’

‘Hear me out,’ said Ren. ‘It’s a low-security office. It belongs to Detective Janine Hooks of the Jefferson County Cold Case Unit. I need a file from a cabinet that I will mark clearly on a room plan. It’s under H for Hammond. Trudie Hammond.’

‘As in Judge Hammond Hammond? Hey, why don’t you throw a few congressmen’s offices into the mix, maybe the DA?’

‘It’s the file of his wife’s homicide in 1983,’ said Ren.

‘And then what do I do?’

‘I’m trying to think of the best thing to do…’ Ren paused. ‘Use your digital camera.’

‘I don’t have one.’

‘Use mine, then.’

‘And how will you be watching my back while this is going on?’

‘I’ll be in my car in the complex. I’ve already been in Janine Hooks’ office, so it is not beyond the beyond the bounds of possibility that I could be there again. Anyway, the JeffCo pathologist is there too. I have a few options.’

‘And…?’

‘And I can make a big show of arresting you if anyone stumbles across you. Which they won’t, because you are so good.’

Billy rolled his eyes. ‘What about the security guard?’

‘There’s no one at the back door,’ said Ren. ‘It’s punch-code access. And I have the number.’

‘Cameras?’

‘May have been tampered with,’ said Ren. She handed Billy the map she had drawn.

‘What is it with you and Douglas Hammond?’ he said, studying the map. ‘Why does it matter?’

‘Because,’ said Ren.

‘You child,’ said Billy. ‘You will tell me at some stage.’

‘I will. I promise.’

Billy stood up. ‘OK, let’s do it,’ he said.

‘Now?’

Billy nodded. ‘Billy Waites: Photo-copying While-U-Wait.’