She dropped her hands. “You know, I don’t get why we can’t find a way to work together.”
“Me either, actually.”
“So why are you being so stubborn?”
I stared at her. “Tell me exactly what you or your agency has done, besides piggy back on all the work I’ve done here. I tracked her for years. I found her. And I’m gonna find out what happened to her. I’m really close. But that’s me.” I gestured at her. “Tell me exactly what the hell you’ve done.”
She looked away from me and took a deep breath. She rubbed her hands together, almost like she was cold, then shoved them into her pockets and looked at me again.
“You know what happens when a case like this actually turns out like yours?” she asked. “I mean, when a kid is actually found and returned to whomever she belongs to?”
I wasn’t sure if it was a real question or a rhetorical one, so I didn’t say anything.
“Fingers get pointed,” she said. “Everybody’s doing everything they can to make sure it wasn’t their fault, that it didn’t happen on their watch. No one wants to take the blame. So while everyone’s sure happy that the kid gets found, no one wants to dig in because they don’t want anyone looking at them like it was their fault. No one want to raise their hand and say ‘Yep. I was the one who fucked up.’”
I knew how vital politics were to surviving in any profession, but especially in law enforcement. She was telling the truth.
“Everyone slowly backs away,” she continued. “Paperwork gets filled out, but unless it’s clear cut, everyone chooses to focus on the happy reunion rather than backtracking the case. Because somewhere, sometime, someone’s going to get hammered for missing something. So resources get cut, requests get denied and you get assigned something else to keep you from finding out what happened. Not always. But a lot of the time. And this is one of those times.” She shook her head. “People are slowly backing away because they’re afraid of what they might find. I don’t have the freedom to go do what I want to do.” She paused. “So I need some help here.”
I looked up at the sky. The fog was beginning to burn off, strips of blue visible through the gray. I didn’t think she was playing me, but I also wasn’t willing to just jump into the investigative bed with her. I didn’t give a crap who got credit for finding out the truth or how it happened. I just wanted the truth.
But I believed her more than I didn’t.
I looked at Blundell. “Give me a day or two. I’ll give you what I have then.”
“That’s not what I was hoping for,” she said.
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t give me the sob story about your investigative obstacles and then bitch at me, alright? I said a couple of days and I meant it.”
“You find anything in Phoenix?” she asked.
I hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah, I did.”
“What?”
I shook my head and walked up the driveway. “I’ll call you in a couple of days.”
“You aren’t a cop anymore, Mr. Tyler,” she said behind me. “Don’t forget that. There are boundaries.”
I stopped and turned around. “So maybe I should just stop then? And then no one can do anything and we’ll just all let it go as one of those unlucky things that happens in life? That what you want?”
She didn’t say anything.
“I didn’t think so,” I said. “So don’t tell me what I’m not. Because right now, I’m more of a cop than you are.”
I turned and left her in the driveway, slamming the front door behind me.
THIRTY FIVE
The doorbell was ringing before I was out of the shower.
I heard it the first time and ignored it, letting the hot water sting my neck and back, trying to roll the tension that had gathered in both places. The ringing stopped and I took longer than normal working the shampoo into my scalp, again trying to rid myself of the anxiety and anger that Blundell’s visit seemed to have brought me. I was rinsing it out when I heard the bell again. I shut off the water, toweled off, pulled on a T-shirt and jeans and stalked to the door as the bell chimed again. I was irritated and ready to take the head off whatever solicitor was wearing out my doorbell.
Except it wasn’t a solicitor.
A tan-skinned man in his twenties stood there, wearing a light blue shirt beneath a dark blue suit, sans a tie. His close-cropped black hair was damp, not a single hair out of place. He was slightly taller than me and stood with that loose confidence that guys who can do anything between dunk a basketball and break a leg seem to possess. He was holding sunglasses in his right hand and he held up his left in greeting.
“Mr. Tyler?” he asked.
“Yeah?”
“My name’s Robert Simmons,” he said, a thin smile on his face that came off as neither friendly nor unfriendly. “John Anchor sent me.”
Anchor. Fast as always.
I offered my hand and we shook.
“I know I showed up without a phone call and I apologize,” Simmons said. “But I’ve been told you were advised that setting up this meeting could happen quickly. And it has.”
Anchor. Mind-blowingly fast.
“Okay,” I said.
“My colleague, Jason Benning, is in your driveway in our vehicle and we have instructions to accompany you to this meeting,” Simmons explained. “And to avoid being late, we need to go as soon as possible. Again, I apologize for the lack of warning.”
I wondered if Codaselli made all of his guys go to charm school.
“No, it’s fine,” I said. “Let me grab a couple things and we can go.”
Simmons nodded. “Excellent. And, just so there are no misunderstandings, Jason and I will be accompanying you and we are properly equipped. There’s no need for you to bring anything other than your necessary personal belongings.”
Translation: don’t bring a gun.
“Got it,” I said. “Give me one minute.”
Simmons nodded.
I left the door open and jogged to the bedroom. I pulled on a zip up Adidas jacket, socks and running shoes, found my wallet and phone and headed out with Simmons.
He introduced me to Benning, who was behind the wheel of a gray Land Rover and looked nearly identical to Simmons. He was exceedingly polite, but didn’t say much after the introduction, focusing instead on the driving. Simmons sat up front with him and I was in the backseat. Simmons assured me we weren’t going far.
We took the bridge over the bay back toward downtown and I was surprised that we headed north on five rather than south. We cut through downtown and past the airport on the highway and then got off the freeway again five minutes later at Moore and turned toward Old Town.
Old Town was an area in San Diego that had undergone multiple incarnations and refused to die. When I was a kid, it had been a place full of Mexican restaurants and small vendors selling handcrafted wares, meant to resemble a small downtown village in Mexico. But the city and vendors had butted heads over the years and the city brought in more development, much to the chagrin of those that wanted to keep the traditional vibe that the area had always exuded. Merchants and restaurants vacated, only to be replaced by chain storefronts and a more commercialized feel. Developers had tried to retain some of the original feeling by convincing several of the restaurants to stay, but Old Town felt more like a shiny new tourist attraction that had been constructed in a historic neighborhood.
Benning drove us through Old Town and parked in a paved lot across from a small, family owned Mexican restaurant.
Simmons twisted in his seat to look at me in the back. “You’ll be meeting with a man named Mario Valdez. Are you familiar with him?”
“No.”
“Within his organization, his position is probably most similar to that of a vice president,” Simmons explained. “Perhaps the number two most senior member of his organization, number three at worst. He agreed to this as a favor to Mr. Codaselli. I have no idea what to expect, except that we should treat him with the kind of respect a man of his stature is accustomed to.”
“So don’t go in and start demanding things or grab him by the neck,” I said. “I got it.”
Simmons nodded and pushed open his door.
I followed him and Benning into the restaurant. I was surprised to see that the restaurant was actually busy, a mix of families and businessmen enjoying an early afternoon lunch. Soft mariachi music played through the speaker system and waiters bustled by carrying large plates of steaming burritos and tacos. At the front of the building, adjacent to the hostess stand, a group of elderly Hispanic women gathered in a makeshift kitchen, hand-forming and cooking flour tortillas. Simmons nodded in greeting at one of the women, who offered a mostly toothless smile in return. He approached the hostess podium, leaning in close to speak to the young woman stationed behind it. She smiled at him, picked up the phone attached to the wall, spoke several words into it, hung up and said something I couldn’t hear to Simmons. He nodded and smiled back.