He showed me my brother’s mugshot. “Would you like to have a closer look?”
“I can see it, thanks.”
“Very well.” He put the phone away. “It is peculiar. The last twenty-four hours have witnessed significant social media activity regarding Mr. Edison. The other Mr. Edison. As of Sunday, he looks to have disappeared, though there is no active missing persons report. From the tenor of the discussion, however, one can infer that his wife and friends are extremely concerned for his safety. I expect you must share their concerns.”
I said nothing.
“Please take the foregoing in the spirit of professional courtesy,” Rigo said.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“I’m glad you can appreciate the humor in these circumstances,” he said. “Though at this juncture I think it might be beneficial to relocate to a more neutral setting.”
“The PD.”
“We have air-conditioning.”
Busting a fellow cop embarrasses both parties and creates headaches. What was the worst Rigo could produce? Destroying evidence? I’d plead out. Slap on the wrist.
It wasn’t me he wanted to nail. He wanted a solve on his murder.
I could give that to him. I’d found his killers.
Or I was wrong and I hadn’t.
Ryan Hanlon thought I was full of shit.
Delilah Nwodo and I had history. She trusted my instincts. But she was smart, with every reason to proceed with caution, and having Rigo call her created its own set of problems. Once she learned about the murder, she’d know I’d lied to her by omission. Good chance she’d feel — justifiably — that I’d taken advantage of our friendship.
That happened, she might hold on visiting the Dormers till she’d sorted out the facts.
How long before she assembled a team? Two hours? Three? Twelve?
What was my play?
Open the virgin bread machine and hand Rigo the gun?
“Deputy?” he said. “May we proceed to the station?”
A request? Or a command?
How much did he have, really?
My pocket buzzed.
In a perfect world, Nwodo calling. She was en route to the Dormer compound.
“I have to take this,” I said, fishing out my phone.
Not Nwodo.
A text message. An image.
The sender was Luke Edison.
I touched the thumbnail.
My brother’s face filled the screen. The picture had been taken in poor light. Flash wiped out the background.
His face, and what had been done to it.
One eye a purple egg. Lips split; red and brown crust in his beard, at his temple. The line of his nose deviated grotesquely. His head was averted. I couldn’t see the other eye, whether it still had the wet sheen that fades with death.
A second text arrived. A map and a pin, red dot floating in a gridded beige field.
Rigo tilted forward eagerly. “Deputy.”
A third text.
30 minutes alone or he dies
Chapter 22
Rigo rose, angling to see the screen.
“You look unwell, Deputy. Are you all right?”
Concern in the words. Suspicion in the tone.
I slid down the sofa, away from him, and snatched the duffel off the floor. “Something’s come up. I need to go.”
“How unfortunate. I had hoped we could continue with our conversation.”
“We will. Later.” I stood up and walked toward the door. “Stay as long as you’d like.”
He came along, first blowing out the candles.
Striding over the lawn I tapped the red pinhead to explode out the map, a set of coordinates hovering in the heart of the Altamont wind farm. The shortest route, thirty-one point eight miles, had a projected drive time of fifty-eight minutes.
I slung the duffel into the passenger seat and got into the car and waited with my hand on the ignition while Rigo got into his. I didn’t want him following me.
The sedan didn’t move. He was making notes, maybe. Waiting for me to leave.
I sat another twenty seconds, twenty seconds I did not have.
The sedan’s headlights came on. It drove away.
I let him reach the end of the block, then reversed squealing into the street.
I thought he might circle back after me, but the sedan’s brake lights shrank in the rearview. He was a homicide detective, like most of his ilk considered himself an intellectual, not some high-speed-pursuit hotshot. He’d come for me in due time.
I blew through the intersection and whipped onto 580, pressed centrifugally to the door. At the top of the ramp I came to a dead stop. It was 6:27, the peak of rush hour. Fires and outages had taken a few cars off the road, but any slack was offset by closures, short tempers, and wretched driving conditions.
My brother was scheduled to die at 6:53. GPS estimated a 7:24 arrival.
I forced in front of a semi and began bullying toward the interior shoulder.
“Call Luke,” I barked.
Voicemail.
“Text Luke.”
A robotic lady inquired sweetly what I’d like to say.
“I’m coming as fast as I can. There’s traffic. Please wait.”
She parroted my words. Was I ready to send? Yes, I yelled, ready, send, send. I was pushing from one lane to the next, perpendicular to traffic, raising honks and soundless screams of indignation, the Most Hated Man in the East Bay.
“Call Delilah Nwodo.”
“... Clay?”
“They texted me.”
“Who did?”
“Whoever has Luke. They’re going to kill him if I’m not there in twenty-five minutes. They sent a location for the meet. I’m forwarding it to you. When can you have a team?”
“Whoa, whoa, hang on. Where are you?”
“In the car. Be quiet on approach, they’re expecting me alone.”
“Clay. Wait a second.”
“I need to make some calls. Get back to me as soon as you have an ETA.”
“Wait wait wait wait wait. How do you know it’s them?”
“They have his phone. They sent a picture of him. He’s messed up, Delilah.”
“Clay. Listen to me. I hear you’re in a bad way, but you need to think. I’m sorry to have to say it but Luke could be gone.”
“I know that.”
“They’re playing you. Think about it like it’s someone else.”
“It’s not someone else.”
“Pull over and we’ll figure this out together.”
I’d reached the shoulder. “Send the team.”
I disconnected and pressed my foot to the floor.
Immediately she was calling me back. I ignored it, accelerating to forty miles per hour, fifty, sixty. I called Gabe Zaragoza, a former coroner now at the ACSO Special Response Unit, and left a rushed voicemail. Nwodo called again. Too soon for her to have done anything. She meant to talk me down. I sent her the picture of Luke’s ruined face and ran the needle up to eighty-five. Every pebble or crevice rammed a fist through the chassis. The engine sobbed. My car had a hundred thirty-four thousand miles on it. I maintained it, but this was a lot to ask.
“Half a mile ahead,” the nice robot said, “stop-and-go traffic.”
A Day-Glo orange work zone ran at me.
I braked and was thrown forward. The steering wheel bit into my rib cage. The orange resolved to a cautionary sign and cones. Beyond them, the shoulder was open, no break in the road and no work crew. I edged around and sped up.
“Call work.”
Deputy Lisa Shupfer answered: “What’s up, buttercup?”
I’d known her for ten years. Like Lindsey Bagoyo and Kat Davenport and Brad Moffett and everyone in an Alameda County Coroner’s uniform, she was my colleague and my friend.
I told her to contact Dublin station; coordinate with Delilah Nwodo at OPD. “She’ll fill you in.”