Final Edge s--4 Page 9

  "Are you sure Mira isn't simply hiding from you, Dwayne?" Jana asked.

  Her question was dripping with sarcasm, but it went well over Dwayne's head, and he excitedly answered. "No way. Like I checked with every member of the family- hers and mine-and like every single friend, close and like not so close even. I tell you, I'm worried shitless about Mira. She's a good woman, certainly my better half."

  Lucas had studied Dwayne's body language and speech, his hands and eyes. His concern appeared genuine; he was shaken and certain something awful had happened to Mira. His act, if it were an act, was well rehearsed and performed; either that or the weed Dwayne had been smoking was good stuff.

  Jana reminded Lucas of the reason they had come, and she suggested they not bother with the car at the moment.

  Overhearing, Dwayne said, "I told her mom to forward the medical records card thing you guys left with me when I filed the report."

  "Well, Mrs. Lourdes has failed to carry through," Jana assured him.

  "The woman thinks Mira wanted to get shed of me, and that Mira ran off and doesn't wanna be found. She's sitting around waiting for a phone call from her," Stokes confided about the mother.

  He gave them a phone number and an address, and as they walked away from Stokes, he added, "Crazy mother of hers thinks maybe I did something to Mira! Don't listen to none of her bullshit. It's a lie!"

  They left for the mother's house, and along the way, Lucas got on the phone to the CSI unit downtown, getting Nielsen on the phone. "I've got a Saab story for you, Dr. Nielsen."

  "Oh?"

  He explained that he wanted Mira Lourdes's Saab impounded and detailed for possible clues in her abduction, whether she was a match to his case or not. He gave her the address. "The boyfriend has okayed our taking the car, but you best get a warrant anyway, to cover our behinds."

  "Will do."

  "And please contact me should you get there and find the vehicle mysteriously gone."

  "I will call you in such an eventuality, Detective."

  Once at the home of Mira Lourdes's parents, they went through a similar tirade as with Dwayne, except here both parents had nothing but vile words and suspicions sur-rounding Dwayne. They had a hatful of stories illustrating Dwayne's mistreatment of Mira that included physical and emotional abuse. Finally, the parents allowed Jana to get what they had come for, the release signature and the name and address of the dentist they must see.

  Lucas and Jana arrived next at Irma Nance's home, as it was closer than Mira Lourdes's dentist. The seventeen- year-old's parents were a pair of drunks who talked over one another, trying to top each other for stories of how Irma was no good, but that she always came home with money from her job. When asked about the type of work she did, neither parent knew anything of how she earned "enough to keep them in booze." This was followed by a gaggle of laughter. The Missing Persons report had been filed by an aunt and uncle, while the mother and father "expected Irma to walk through the door at any time." They hadn't filed a dental release form because they didn't think she was truly missing, claiming that Irma was in the habit of disappearing for days at a time.

  "Probably at a friend's house. She sleeps over a lot." Mother took another sip on her beer bottle.

  "You guys like a beer?" asked Father.

  "Do you know her friend's address or phone number?" asked Jana.

  Lucas looked on stoically holding onto his calm. The father, scratching beneath his T-shirt and ogling Jana, replied, "She don't tell us who her friends are. How're we supposed to know who they are, much less have a number on 'em. Could we interest you two in a cold one?" he repeated.

  "No, just please sign the medical release for her records, sir, and we'll be on our way," Jana said, her skin crawling.

  Lucas escorted her off as soon as Mr. Nance released the pen and returned the signed card. When they got out of earshot, Jana whispered, "Missing Persons runs the entire gamut of human experience, Lucas, trust me. We see all kinds."

  "Sad part is that they're parents. Ought to have a DMV- type office where people have to register before having r kids."

  Now they raced to a Dr. Patel's office for Irma's records, getting there just at closing. The Pakistani doctor didn't want to be bothered, something about his kid's soccer game, but Lucas urged the doctor into cooperating, pointing out that he could be liable in a lawsuit if someone's child died because he was too busy to cooperate with police. They got the records.

  Calling ahead to Mira's dentist, Dr. Edward Palmer, they got the answering machine. Too late for office hours, but in case of emergency dial Dr. Palmer at 555-9293.

  Lucas made the emergency call, and got Palmer on a cell phone in his sports car, Lucas listening to the rev of the powerful engine in the background. Palmer, in sharp contrast to Patel, was instantly curious and interested in helping in any way that he could, promising to meet Lucas and Jana at his office.

  "I'm turning around right now," he said. "Mira's a lovely, wonderful person, beautiful bicuspids."

  They met Palmer outside, and he eagerly opened his office to them without question, hardly glancing at their badges. "I got a call earlier from her mother, but when you guys didn't show, I guessed you'd get around to it tomorrow. Any rate, here are her records. I had them pulled earlier." He lifted the file filled with Mira's charts from his desk and handed it to Lucas. "God, I hope she's all right. She's a great soul, that one. Full of life, always with a bright smile and kind word for everyone, you know? Wonderfully cared-for teeth."

  Not any more if she's our girl, Lucas painfully thought.

  "Thanks for your cooperation, Dr. Palmer," said Jana, who caught the doctor eyeballing her straight, bright teeth as if he wanted to get a closer look at them.

  Outside, Jana congratulated Lucas on achieving the impossible, gathering up three dental records in one afternoon.

  "I owe it all to your help," he countered. "Couldn't have done it without you. Fact is, if you hadn't like been with me to like deal with Dwayne Stokes, I might have like shot him."

  She laughed at this. "I'm thirsty. Let's stop for a drink somewhere, shall we?"

  "First things first. Next step, get all the data into Dr. Davies's hands and hope for a match."

  "All work and no play, Lucas. You haven't changed."

  Lucas drove Jana back to the precinct and thanked her for her help. It had grown late, and Jana decided to call it a night, so they parted on the street in front of the station house. "I hope you find the bastard who set you and Meredyth up, Lucas. And if there's anything else we can do over at Missing Persons, don't hesitate. Fact is, should there be a match with one of our girls, you'll have to include us."

  "Will do."

  "Good luck and good night."

  "Thanks again, Jana."

  "Nothing succeeds like results, Lucas, and you get results. It's why people respect you. You're no ordinary detective on the force, you are a force."

  Lucas caught a light in her eye and a curl to her lips, a subtle invitation to call her at any time. She waved as she stepped away, again saying good night, adding, "It's been fun."

  Overhead, in a precinct window, other detectives stared down on the scene, and Lucas could almost hear their catcalls and whistles behind the windowpane. He saw several of his colleagues raise hands and wave in the universal gesture that all men recognized as "go get 'em." Lucas knew instantly that rumors would be flying about Jana and him.

  Lucas entered the precinct and went for the crime lab. He found the place empty save for a few medical personnel working at microscopes and a handful of others working on an autopsy. Chang was at the center of the postmortem, which looked as if it would go on for some time. Lucas looked around for anyone who might help him.

  Dr. Lynn Nielsen stepped through a door and stood face-to-face with Lucas. The tall Scandinavian and the tall American Indian stared into one another's eyes. They had had few dealings with one another, she having only recently come on staff at the crime lab.

  "D
etective Stonecoat," she said, "we've found nothing but healthy tissue on the specimens found in your possession."

  "Careful how you word that. I wouldn't want Internal Affairs thinking I had anything to do with excising those organ portions from someone's abdominal cavity."

  "I'm certainly not proposing such a thing," she countered, as if angry he should suggest anything of the sort.

  "Sorry," he heard himself saying. 'Translation problem," he suggested now. "At any rate, I have here three separate sets of dental records on possible matches, and the records need to go to Dr. Thomas Davies's team as soon as possible and put on priority."

  "Oh, yes, Dr. Chang told me of your plans."

  "Is Dr. Davies in?"

  "He's promised to return after dinner and get right on it if we can have the records and the victim's teeth all in one place."

  "Then you'll call him back, and he'll begin his analysis tonight?"

  "You can be sure, Detective."

  She took the three dental files from Lucas. "You work quickly," she commented.

  "Is there any other way?" he asked, smiling. "Besides, if we can identify the victim, then we have a chance-"

  "I know, we may be that much closer to the killer."

  "Exactly."

  "More so if the killer knew her."

  "Precisely." Lucas thought of Dwayne Stokes. If the teeth belonged to Mira Lourdes, he would be elevated to suspect number one, but then why send her brutalized parts to him and to Dr. Sanger? What did Stokes have to gain by such a bizarre action? To throw them off his scent? Lucas could not fathom Stokes ever having that much cunning.

  "Is everything all right, Detective?" she asked, seeing his troubled face.

  "Yeah, fine. Just a passing thought. Okay, then you'll have Dr. Davies call me when he has results?"

  She nodded, holding the dental records against her ample bosom with one hand and extending the other. As she shook his hand and said good night, she added, "I hope we have a long and fruitful working relationship, Detective." It sounded like a rehearsed line she had likely repeated often since coming on board.

  "Yes, of course," he replied.

  She then stiffly turned and went for her desk to make any necessary calls and arrangements. Her back to him felt like a dismissal.

  Lucas, tired and hungry, left the crime lab and returned to his desk in the bowels of the precinct house, a building that had been built before the turn of the 19th century, in 1898, as a schoolhouse. The Spanish architecture and stone exterior gave it an Alamo appearance, despite all the modem improvements. Here in the closed-in Cold Room office in the dungeon like basement, its stone walls dripped with condensation. The conditions under which the old files had been housed since the early twenties had prompted the move to place them all on computer before they were entirely consumed by time, mold, and mites. In fact, some of the oldest of the lot had crumbled to dust and could not be saved.

  Lucas stood over his desk and punched the memo pad on his computer for any messages. He had it rigged to play the familiar Indian warpath tune to alert on any messages. There were the usual number of reminders of investment opportunities for city employees, 40IK information briefings, AA meetings, town hall discussions on union issues, weekend fish fries and ball games, but nothing from Meredyth. He yawned and dropped into his chair, his arm batting the yellowed Yolanda Sims file, accidentally sending it over the side. Cursing, he bent to pick up the scattered reports and photos, finding Yolanda's image-a close-up of her looking like a death mask, staring back at him in what felt like an accusatory fashion, as if to say, "What've you done for me today?" Gnashing his teeth, Lucas gathered up the aged material, realizing that anyone else would have let it go long before.

  "Nineteen fifty-six, Lucas?" asked Detective Harrelson, another cop who worked cold cases. "God, I thought we did away with all the hard copy stuff. Mind?" He lifted it from Lucas's grasp, examining it. "Hell, hardly enough here to call it a murder book. Real bottom-drawer, Lucas. How much time and energy you puttin' in on it?"

  "None, not really. Like you said, found in a bottom drawer upstairs and dropped on my desk," he lied.

  "You're kidding. Sloppy, huh?"

  'Too right."

  "Well, calling it a night myself. Catch you in the A.M."

  "Night." Lucas found a large brown envelope and dropped the thin murder file into it, not wanting anyone else to third-degree him on it. Harrelson was right. Hardly enough to call it a murder book, he told himself. No one in his right mind would waste valuable time on it; only a fool would pursue it. Lucas called out to Loma Mendez, the in- charge night person here, telling her he was gone for the evening, and going for the door, he stopped, fingered the file in the envelope, and snatched it up, taking it with him.

  Outside in the cool evening air, he searched the sky, unable to find a star or a moon, the firmament shut out by a ceiling of artificial daylight, the reflective mirror of an entire city under a blanket of the orange glow of sodium- vapor lights. It made Lucas feel trapped, earthbound. He thought of what city dwellers gave up in the name of safety, wondering if Yolanda Sims might have lived that warm night in 1956 had her neighborhood been lit up then as it was now. No way to determine, no more so than deciding on rain, wind, lightning, hailstorm, an early frost, clear skies on the cusp of an Indian summer. No way to know-given the limited view from here on the precinct steps. On the reservation or in the hills, where his grandfather had taught him to read the desert signs both on the earth and in the sky, things were simpler, easier to read. In the cityscape, with its constant electrical pulse beating in the ears, a tracker like Lucas must travel down concrete canyons that cast deep shadows, and dig in the subterranean recesses for the scum-sucking trolls, the stone- hearted gargoyles, and the urban predators that flourished on this plain. For Lucas, the reward was in putting away such animals, a far cry from frightening off coyotes from the sheep herds with a.22-caliber smooth-bore.

  Lucas made his way down the steps to the city's electrical pulse-stepping to the dull music-a reverberating echo rising out of a stone gorge, unrelentingly steady, distant yet near, hollow yet thunderous, the tempo taken up a notch, each time a siren joined in the melody of what was Houston's symphony. The daily Houston metropolitan symphony, he thought as squad cars came and went from the parking lot, uniformed officers bantering with one another, putting each other on, laughing, coaxing a boxing match here and there. Across the street a firehouse bustled with men returning from a fire call, and somewhere another siren sounded as a city bus belched and roared in its effort to accelerate, a kind of urban pachyderm putting everyone on notice, charging ahead. Lucas's nostrils pinched with the odors of the city, his throat clogged with the spent emissions, as his ears took in the sound of the city. How long, he wondered, before a man became absorbed by it all to no longer be apart from it?

  Walking toward the lot, he caught the scintilla of a fresh coppery odor flit by-ozone. So there was electricity in the air overhead, promising rain to a parched city, teasingly so. Beyond this, Lucas smelled discarded and molding foodstuff and the trail of rats scurrying about the sewers underfoot. He thought of how just below the surface of calm lived the degenerates, the sociopaths, the kind of man who could slice up a woman and send parts of her to him and to Meredyth, and the kind of man who could take the life of a small child in 1956 and get away with it all these years, the kind of man who had no compunction about his crimes then or now.

  "Lucas, that you?" asked a beefy uniformed cop passing him in the lot. "It's me, Pete."

  "Pete Blackhorn! Been a while. I thought you were in the Two-five now." Blackhorn was one of the few other Native Americans on the force. He was an Alabama mixed Sioux, who went by Pete Black in the white world.

  "Just transferred over. Heard about that nasty package you and Dr. Sanger got. Weird shit, man. What's up with that?"

  Lucas and Blackhorn had been in the academy together, and while they occasionally bumped into one another on the job, they had not see
n each other socially since those days at the academy.

  "How'd you hear about it, Pete?"

  Blackhorn blew out air. "You kidding? It's all over the precinct and the res. I've had calls from the family. Word out at the Coushatta is you and Billy Hawk have bad blood going again. That true?"

  "Fuckin' gossips're going to make it true if they repeat it enough. Shit, aside from everything else, I'm going to have to look over my shoulder for that damned fool cousin of mine?"

  "What is it the cowboys say, amigo? You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your kin?"

  "You get a chance, set the record straight. There's no feud going on between Billy and me, understood?"

  "Then you don't think he sent you and your white friend those Care packages?"

  "No, I don't. Eunice Tebo and her cronies are at it again, stirring up ancient history they can't let go of. They got no fucking life of their own, do they?"

  "Not to speak of… not so's you'd notice, no. But it's you too, Lucas."

  "Whataya mean, me?"

  "It's 'cause you're you, Stonecoat, Houston's most decorated Native American cop. You kidding? On the res, you're like Jimmy Smits or Lou Diamond Phillips, man. Get used to it."

  "Indian tabloid press headlines, I know, and I'm sick of it."

  "Can't bury a story like this. It's got everything. Red hero, white blond heroine, old love in the background, and Billy Hawk playing the heavy."

  "Blackhorn, it's most likely some nutcase who's seen me on TV or read about Meredyth in the papers and is going for his fifteen minutes of fame by targeting us."

  "Yeah, that sounds more logical, agreed."

  "Some lunatic demanding his place in the media spotlight beside the 'luminaries' of murder history."

  "So you want me to put it on the grapevine like that for you?" Blackhorn had extensive family ties on the reservation, whereas Lucas's had dwindled to a handful of distant relatives.