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Chapter 13

‘So we’ve got a William. And a… Dodge, was it?’ The detective edged his coffee mug meticulously into one of many ring stains blemishing the surface of his too-small desk. The big man had a lantern jaw, a wide and crooked seam of mouth, and a Slavic family name – Markovic – printed across a peeling nameplate.

His partner, a study in contrast, had precise, focused features and smooth, dark skin. Simone Elzey wore a cheap button-up with her sleeves cuffed. Callused hands and a bull neck betrayed a propensity for the weight room. An angel tattoo walling the left side of her throat gave her an intimidating air, which Mike assumed was precisely the point. After they’d run through the essentials, she’d gone to the back office to key in an incident report, which sounded like deputy shorthand for doing fuck-all.

The Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station, a few miles from the Wingates’ house, was tumbleweed-dead. Eleven o’clock on a Sunday, and everyone had better things to be doing, Markovic and Elzey included. Mike and Annabel sat on stiff wooden chairs, Kat slumped with exhaustion in her mother’s lap. They’d recounted the story a number of times, the detectives asking the same questions in different keys, a symphony of skepticism.

Since the confrontation had occurred in Tarzana, they’d been informed, LAPD would be called in if a formal investigation was opened. Because Mike and Annabel had agonized over what to do for most of the drive home, they’d wound up at their local station. It occurred to Mike that it was the only location he actually knew. What a contrast with the Shady Lane years, when he and Shep knew intimately the interiors of every cop shop within a joyride of the Couch Mother’s domain.

‘Yeah. Like I said.’ Mike rubbed his neck.

Markovic studied him with dull gray eyes. ‘You get a last name?’

The question, in its third incarnation, knocked Mike further off-kilter. He felt unease, and an odd creeping guilt that defied explanation. Sensing his discomfort, Annabel reached over and rested a hand on his shoulder.

‘A last name?’ Markovic prompted again.

Finally Mike sourced the echo, his mind racing back to that first hazy memory after his father abandoned him. A similar station, questions lobbed at him like fastballs, one after another, driving him further into his amnesiac haze: You don’t know your last name? How about your dad’s name? Do you know your dad’s name? Trying to regain his bearings, Mike soaked in the room around him – missing-children flyers, dark-complected men scowling from mug shots, the bitter scent of stagnant coffee. Parallel in so many ways. But – he reminded himself – completely different. He was an adult now. A taxpayer. A member of the community.

The Steve Miller Band, piped in through decades-old speakers, was flying like an eagle above the crackle of police scanners.

‘No,’ Mike said, perhaps a bit too firmly. ‘Like I said. I figured that license-plate number would be good.’

‘Like I said, the number you gave us is from a brown 1978 Eldorado last registered in 1991 to Jirou Arihyoshi, a gardener in Yuba City. So unless you made a mistake…’

‘I didn’t make a mistake.’ ‘Mmm.’

TV always made this look so easy. A book of mug shots, a fingerprint, and next thing you knew, Jack Bauer was kicking down a front door. But all Mike had was no last name, a white van, and a plate number that had been out of circulation for two decades. He thought of how he’d felt in Hank’s office when he’d confronted the File of Dead Ends. A needle in a stack of needles.

Annabel still didn’t buy that William or Dodge had broken into the house at night to steal the polar bear and whisper into the monitor; she was more concerned about their general menace. The fact that they’d picked up the bear somewhere meant they were either following the family or snooping around behind Kat. Clearly, they wanted something.

Markovic flipped through his notes. ‘You have this… stuffed polar bear?’

‘No, I… no, we-’

Annabel said, ‘We drove away and left it on the ground. It didn’t seem wise to go back and get it.’

‘Mmm.’ The gaze settled on Mike. ‘And you said another car followed you?’

Mike had mentioned the Mercury in passing, drawing a curious glance from Annabel. Now he regretted raising it at all. ‘I think. But I can’t be sure. On Wednesday. A Grand Marquis.’

‘But these guys tonight, William and’ – glance to the notepad – ‘Dodge, they had a van.’

‘They could own two vehicles.’ ‘Sure. Of course.’

Mike pressed his fingertips to the sore spot on his forehead, testing the bruise. Markovic had zoned out, contemplating his notes. In the adjoining office, her tapered back turned to the interior window, Elzey was still tapping away on a keyboard. She was on an old-fashioned phone now, the coiled cord stretching up into view. She hung up, dialed someone else. Her neck was flexed, and Mike didn’t like the intensity of her body language. She stepped to the doorway and curled a finger. ‘Marko.’

Markovic pushed back, his chair offering a feeble squeak of protest, and joined her. Something about the way they were talking flicked at Mike’s nerves. Faces close, teeth shut, lips barely moving. Elzey noticed him observing through the office window and closed the blinds with a single wrench of the turning rod.

Troubled, Mike refocused his attention on his family. Kat’s eyes drooped, then finally closed. Annabel whispered, ‘We gotta get this one home.’

‘As soon as he comes back.’

‘Do you think-’ Annabel stopped. Mike nodded her on. ‘Do you think this has anything to do with that sleazy contractor? Or the governor’s agenda?’

‘What are you guys talking about?’ Kat had stirred to life again. ‘What sleazy contractor?’

‘Nothing, Kat,’ Mike said. Then, to Annabel, ‘I doubt it. It’s hard to picture them doing this over that.’

‘Over what?’

‘Not now, Kat,’ Mike said. ‘Go back to sleep.’

She furrowed her brow at him before tilting her head against her mother’s chest. Annabel stroked Kat’s hair absentmindedly, her eyes fixed on Mike.

He hoped that this – whatever this was – had everything to do with PVC pipes and Bill Garner’s latest PR campaign for his boss. That felt containable, known, a world of clear-cut motives and back-scratching. So Mike didn’t say what he feared most: that this had nothing at all to do with Green Valley. That this was a whole different order of ugliness that had yet to reveal its face.

Markovic and Elzey returned, a fresh energy stiffening their strides. Elzey spun a chair around, mounted it like a Harley. ‘We’re encountering some difficulties nailing down biographical details,’ she said. ‘For you.’

Mike felt his pulse tick up a few beats. ‘Why are you running me?’

‘“Running” you.’ Markovic gave an impressed frown. ‘Look who’s been watching Law & Order.’

‘Listen,’ Elzey said, ‘a guy asks us to look into something, we look into it. You have a squeaky-clean record with a number of blank spaces. If you’re really as concerned as you claim, you can probably fill in some of those blanks so we can know where to look.’

Mike pictured them shoulder to shoulder in that back office and wondered what they’d been discussing that had prompted them to take such an aggressive tack. He said, ‘I have no idea where to point you.’

‘Come on. There must be something. A bad deal, a weird overlap, a near miss… You’ve never bumped up against anything like that?’

‘No.’ Mike was out of shape when it came to this and was sure his face showed the lie. But he couldn’t exactly spill here about PVC pipes and an implicit deal struck with the governor’s office. Besides, he felt certain that the confrontation had nothing to do with that anyway. The near-surface violence, the circling-shark approach, the unspoken threat to his family – the whole thing was raising more red alerts than some PR bullshit involving subsidies and green houses.

Elzey held out her hands. ‘We can’t help you if you’re not more forthcoming with us.’

‘Wait a minute. Why are you making this about him?’ Annabel came vertical in her chair, nearly pushing Kat out of her lap.

Kat grumbled a complaint, and Markovic leaned over and said to her, ‘Why don’t you go play on those chairs over there?’

‘She’s tired,’ Annabel said. ‘Then she can lie down.’

Kat dragged her backpack over to the row of chairs and slouched into one, her dangling sneakers a few inches off the flecked tile.

‘Two men came after me in a parking lot,’ Mike said. ‘What’s my background have to do with that?’

‘You want to tell us?’ Elzey’s tone was polite, conciliatory. When she bent her head to listen, her angel tatt – black ink on dark skin – looked like an elaborate birthmark. ‘Plus, it doesn’t sound like they came after you any more than you went after them. So they were acting strange-’

‘This wasn’t just strange. It wasn’t some game or random harassment.’ Disheveled in his overpriced suit, Mike yanked his tie free and stuffed it into a pocket. ‘These are dangerous men. I can tell the difference.’

‘How?’ Markovic matched Mike’s stare. ‘I mean, an upstanding businessman like you – where would you have learned to read men like that?’

‘Anyone could’ve read these guys.’ He was burned out, his fuse short, his words terse. ‘Plus, they stole something from my daughter.’

‘Sounds like they were trying to return missing property.’

‘How do you think it got missing?’ Annabel said.

‘Your daughter had a backpack with her,’ Elzey said. ‘It couldn’t have fallen out at the ceremony?’

Kat said, loudly, from across the room, ‘I think I’d notice if there was a stuffed polar bear in my backpack.’

‘Maybe she lost it at the ceremony and was embarrassed,’ Markovic offered quietly. ‘Or she was worried she’d get in trouble. Kids. Maybe she lied.’

‘We don’t lie in our family,’ Mike said, before he could catch himself.

‘It was stolen days before,’ Annabel added.

‘Maybe Katherine misplaced it. Like in your truck, by the door. You get to the party, open the door, it falls out…’ Markovic’s face said he was just painting a scenario, but his eyes said something else.

Mike’s confidence faltered. He couldn’t be certain that the detective was wrong. After all, Kat wasn’t positive where she’d last seen her stuffed animal. He felt himself growing more defensive, shoring up his own case, which he knew was exactly what you’re not supposed to do. He spoke low so Kat wouldn’t hear but felt his teeth clenching around the whisper. ‘No. They broke into our house and stole it.’

‘Oh, good.’ Markovic’s face softened. ‘So you filed a burglary report?’

Annabel cast a sharp look at Mike; she’d recommended, wisely, that he leave out the possible break-in. He looked away glumly. ‘No.’

‘Why not?’ Markovic asked.

What was he going to say? Because I thought I was hearing ghosts in the baby monitor? Because there wasn’t a single sign of forced entry? Because maybe it was all in my head?

Even though she didn’t believe it herself, Annabel shouldered in in his defense, ‘We may have heard something-’

Elzey’s cop stare made her pause, the phrase – ‘may have’ – reverberating in the abrupt silence.

Annabel pressed on, trying to explain without making them seem crazy, but Mike stayed quiet, drawing into himself. He knew this drill, the feeling of being on the wrong side of an interrogation. Though it had been years since he’d been on the receiving end, he could still read the shifts that made clear that you were subject to the law, not being aided by it.

He stood, touched his wife on the back. ‘Let’s go.’ He nodded at the detectives. ‘Thank you for your time.’

‘Sit down,’ Elzey said.

Mike stayed on his feet. Waited a moment. When he spoke, his voice was perfectly even. ‘I’ll stand, thanks.’

Elzey stood, matching him eye to eye. Annabel rose, too, jostling Elzey a bit since the detective was standing too close to her. Markovic watched the whole thing with an air of been-there detachment that seemed weary and faintly amused all at once.

‘The way this shit went down,’ Elzey said, ‘you better hope your boy William doesn’t press charges against you.’

Her temper was up, her intonation shifting, dropping into a street cadence. She and Mike were different pages from the same book. She’d made good, gone legit, but the street kid was still in there, wanting to scrap, needing to prove something. She blinked once and looked away, uncomfortable under his gaze.

Mike said, ‘You seem awfully dug into this all of sudden.’.

Elzey made a pronounced shrug, all shoulders and spread hands. ‘You came through our door.’

Annabel let out a single, mirthless laugh. ‘My husband gets assaulted at a ceremony honoring his community service and you start investigating him?’

‘“Assaulted”?’ Markovic finally stood as well, the four of them now around shoved-back chairs like a huddle that wasn’t huddling. ‘From what you said yourself, they never so much as threatened you.’

Mike said, ‘The whole thing was a threat.’

‘Then help us figure out why you’re being threatened,’ Elzey said. ‘Your records look like Swiss cheese. You just appeared outta thin air when you were nineteen, yeah?’

‘I grew up locally.’

‘What’s “locally” mean? Strip mall across the street?’

‘I haven’t broken any laws. I’m fully in the system. Taxes, Social Security number. I don’t need to report every fact from my childhood.’

‘How ’bout any fact?’ Elzey said.

‘You’ve got my date of birth.’ The one he’d been assigned along with the last name Doe. Even when he’d personalized his surname, he’d kept the birthday, since it was the only one he had.

‘What about the rest? Parents? Childhood address? Grade school?’

‘Why are you so interested in my past?’

Elzey’s lips met in something like a smile. ‘Me and Marko, we’re just askin’ questions here.’

Annabel took Mike’s arm and said, ‘Thanks for all your help.’

Kat was on her feet, watching anxiously, chewing on a backpack strap. She scurried across to meet them. The whole way to the door, Mike could feel the detectives’ stares boring a hole through his shoulder blades.