Steelie had just gone inside to order coffee when Jayne saw Scott and Eric drive past, looking for a parking space on the adjacent residential street. She ducked inside the door and told Steelie to increase the coffee order.
The Suburban parked at the end of the block. When Scott and Eric came up the street, Jayne noticed that they were still wearing their office clothes: dark pants and white shirts, the latter now open at the neck. They’d removed their jackets and ties but still didn’t quite fit in with the Friday evening crowd at the café with its mix of sandal-wearing academics, kids wearing Che Guevara t-shirts, and people who were either too cool or too broke to go to the Westside for entertainment. As she watched the agents advancing, she realized they’d probably never fit in to a café culture because they were too watchful; they took in rooflines and locations of cars, their posture looked more alert than most, and they walked in step with each other without looking like they meant to do it.
Steelie came out as they arrived. They shook hands. ‘How you guys doing?’
‘Glad it’s Friday,’ Eric replied, taking a chair.
‘I’ll second that,’ said Scott, putting his hand out towards Jayne.
She took his hand but was afraid he would be able to tell she’d been crying less than an hour earlier, so she addressed Eric. ‘Long week?’
‘Oh yeah. But next week’s going to be a doozy.’
‘Why’s that?’ asked Steelie.
‘Well, we’re going to Arizona and if it wasn’t bad enough to lose a day driving there, we’re on stake-out for a couple of days.’
‘And nights,’ said Scott, waving his finger. ‘Can’t forget the nights.’
‘What’s in Arizona?’ Jayne asked, stealing a look at him over the top of her mug.
‘Ironically, it’s where the Georgia license plate takes us.’ He settled in his seat and told them about tracking down the van through body shops near the freeway.
Steelie said, ‘OK, so you’ve got this description of a guy and his van and you know he tried to call someone in Arizona. What does that add up to?’
‘Well, we initiated a search of campgrounds between LA and Tucson, figuring that if he headed out there he had to rest at some point.’
‘And,’ interjected Eric, ‘given he’s got a freezer in the back, he’d need to stop at a place where he could hook up power or recharge a battery.’
‘We got a hit at a KOA campground nine miles west of Phoenix. The old guy who runs the ground doesn’t hold much stock in keeping records of license plates but told us that a van matching our description hooked up there last night for just a couple of hours. Seems this old guy had a nice chat with the driver of the van who mentioned he was heading over to Mesa.’
‘Old guy reckons he can learn more about people from talking to ’em, not taking down their ID,’ Eric added.
‘Turns out he might be right,’ said Scott. ‘We put out a request for Phoenix PD to look out for the vehicle in Mesa and it seems they’ve found it parked in a suburban side street. The van’s the right make and model, the right color, and has a padlock on the back door handles.’
Steelie and Jayne looked at each other.
‘That sounds like the one, right?’ said Jayne, turning to Scott.
‘Maybe,’ replied Scott. ‘But it’s not wearing a Georgia plate. That may or may not be significant because it’s easy to flip a plate. But there’s enough to warrant checking it out.’
‘I hope it’s the right one,’ Jayne said, then had to avert her eyes when she had a sudden vision of the body parts by the freeway. A leg, a midriff, Mrs Patterson’s arms. Jayne pictured the van in Arizona leading to the rest of Mrs Patterson.
Steelie pushed her chair back. ‘Anyone for more coffee?’
‘I’ll get it,’ Eric said, joining her as she turned into the café’s side door.
Jayne hoped that by looking upwards, the tears welling up in her eyes would just slide back to where they came from. Music from the café’s outdoor speakers was suddenly more audible, a live recording of Ruben Blades’ America.
‘Hey,’ Scott said gently.
Jayne chanced a look at him. The tiny movement gave a waiting teardrop its big break and it scudded down her cheek before she could brush it away. But something in his expression made her feel like she might be able to leave the wet trail, that when it was dry, it would be as though it had never happened.
‘Hey, yourself,’ she replied. It was their traditional phone greeting and the fact that he’d used it now comforted her.
‘Thinking about Mrs Patterson?’
Her lips parted in surprise. ‘How did you know?’
‘I was thinking about her myself. Or I should say, talking about this case with you and Steelie always makes me think about the victims, not the perps.’
He put his elbows on the table as he looked toward the traffic stopped at the light on Sunset. ‘Y’know, when I was sent to Kosovo, I was just thinking about killers – people who burned their victims alive after locking them in a house – what their psychology was. But once I’d been in one of those houses, trying to work out if my eyes were tricking me or if the ash on the floor was actually a person reduced to a . . . to a fucking shadow . . .’
Jayne felt her arms come out in goose bumps as she watched him.
He looked back to her. ‘Well, I came out just thinking about bodies. And I’d guess that’s how it is for you all the time.’
Jayne was stunned into silence. Any time they’d talked about Kosovo before, he’d never described this; just as she’d never described seeing Benni blown to pieces by a mine when on their way to a gravesite . . . that day in northern Kosovo, that day of blood, and sweat, but no tears. Those came later, when she was home, jumpy and demoralized, not sleeping well, the type of person for whom an empty filing cabinet could now produce an outpouring of pent-up grief; mingled grief about victims and killers, graves and booby traps, life and loss. These were her reasons for omission with Scott, and other people. And now she knew he’d omitted things too.
She examined his face, his features softened in the glow of lights threaded along the café’s umbrellas, looking for physical traces that he was like her. But he didn’t look like damaged goods. He looked rested, excited, and engaged, his fingers twirling the salt shaker on the table between them. She sensed his anticipation to get to Arizona and now understood this fundamental difference between them, why he seemed so balanced. The same phenomena might demoralize them both but where she got stuck or felt overwhelmed, he pushed through, powered on, and closed the case. Maybe he could be future-oriented because it was his job to catch perpetrators who were still out there, not stop at digging up evidence of their past deeds, as she had done, as she had had to do with the UN.
She noticed he had stilled the salt shaker. She wanted to pull his hands to her lips and thank him for caring about people reduced to shadows. Especially when he needn’t because that wasn’t his job; when he needn’t look back, only forward.
Steelie’s voice came from behind her. ‘Here you go. Long line but worth the wait.’
Eric put a mug down in front of Jayne. ‘Steelie tells me you’ve got some kind of situation at your place.’
Scott looked from Jayne to his partner. ‘What’s this?’
‘Looks like maybe someone planted a bugging device outside Jayne’s apartment.’
Scott’s eyebrows lifted. ‘This is what you wanted to talk to us about? When Eric said bugging, I figured you meant legals or clearances. If you’d have said something, we could have brought sweeping equipment.’