Over Tumbled Graves (34 page)

“My son’s,” the old security guard said. It was dark and newer, a one-story ranch with a daylight basement. There wasn’t even any grass, just dirt in the front yard along with a wheelbarrow and a couple of shovels.

She followed the old man around the side until they came to the back of the house, perched on a steep bank overlooking the river, a mile downstream from the falls. The backyard had been terraced into the riverbank; beyond that was a five-foot ledge and at the bottom of that, the ground began sloping at a forty-degree angle to the water.

“It’s beautiful,” Rae-Lynn said. With the sun fading, the river beneath them was like some dark crease in the world, a river of darkness. Across the river were the restored miners’ shacks and brownstones of the Peaceful Valley neighborhood, where Rae-Lynn had been to a party once. Downstream were vacant fields of wild grass and scrub trees, and the river made a sharp turn, and the city ended. Beyond that was Moses Lake and Kelly. Rae-Lynn felt sad thinking about him and how he’d fucked up her last chance.

She looked back at the house. There were only a handful of houses on this bank of the river, probably because it was so steep and because it was cut off by a railroad trestle behind the house. “I didn’t even know there were any houses down here,” she said.

“Ain’t many,” said the old security guard. “Just us and Mrs.
Amend down the way.” He smiled at her and fished in his pocket for the back door key.

Rae-Lynn followed the river upstream, toward the falls and the line of bridges that crossed the river into downtown. Beyond the bridges, the city’s skyline rested against the darkening sky. She’d never really seen a whole city before, not like this, where you could see the edges of it, where you could put your hands out and contain all of it.

“You coming?” asked the old security guard.

Rae-Lynn felt a shudder and knew she wasn’t strong enough to withstand the shakes and the sickness tonight. Maybe earlier, with Kelly, but now she was tiny and weak and she wasn’t beautiful the way people said. She was tired, but sleep only made the itch stronger. For a moment she thought about giving him back his coat and telling him that he shouldn’t leave her alone in this house, that she would steal from it. She could see inside the picture window that overlooked the river. From outside, it looked like a huge TV screen. The old man stood on that screen, in front of a big shelf of books, holding a telephone. He seemed so frail, this old man, but she knew that even the frail ones were strong, stronger than she was. They were all so fucking strong.

She could hear her own breathing as she watched the old man speak into the telephone in the huge picture window of the house etched into the bank of the river. At one time such a sight would have sent Rae-Lynn daydreaming about dinner parties and babies and waking up in her husband’s shirt, but now she just took a deep breath, pulled the old man’s jacket tight around her shoulders, and walked into the house.

Kevin Verloc’s shoulders were carved and sculpted, and he had the big-veined, round arms of a serious body builder. His neck seemed an extension of his shoulders, and the entire effect was to make it seem as if his weight had all been shifted into his upper body, as if someone had taken him by the legs and squeezed. His hair was short and dark, combed perfectly straight onto his forehead, and he wore small, rectangular-shaped glasses that he removed and slid into his shirt pocket as he came outside. But the thing that surprised Dupree the most was that Kevin Verloc walked.

He leaned on a tripod cane and had to swing his hips heavily to start each leg in motion, but there was no other way to describe it: Kevin Verloc walked. He moved with great concentration as he emerged from the All-Safe Security building—which Dupree recognized by the stucco walls and Spanish style as a former Taco Time. Verloc turned and locked the glass door, and it was only when he was a few steps from the building that he looked up and saw the police car in his parking lot. If he was surprised to see the patrol car he didn’t reveal it, walking over with that double hitch,
like someone limping on both legs. Dupree stepped out of the car then and stuck out his hand. Verloc stopped, leaned on his cane, and shook Dupree’s hand. They were about the same height, but Verloc had a way of tilting his head back, exposing his tree trunk of a neck, so that he seemed to look down on Dupree.

“Something I can help you with, Officer?” Verloc asked.

“Actually, we spoke on the phone a couple of months ago. I’m Alan Dupree. I talked to you a little about the prostitute murders?”

“Sure,” Verloc said and his expression didn’t change at all. “Dupree.”

Dupree laughed. “Yeah. I got that crazy tip from your neighbor and I called you. Remember?”

“Mmm-hmm, it’s coming back to me,” Verloc said. “You ever catch that guy in the paper? From California? Right? Guy sounded like a real piece of work.”

“Lenny Ryan,” Dupree said. “No. I guess he’s still out there somewhere.”

“I’ll bet he’s back in California again.” Dupree didn’t answer and Verloc glanced down at Dupree’s uniform. “I understand you have two FBI profilers working on the case. That must be fascinating, working with them so closely.”

“Actually, I’m not on the case anymore.” Dupree ran his hand along the seam of his uniform pants. “I’m…uh…taking early retirement, finishing up on patrol. That’s why I came to see you.”

“Oh?” Verloc asked.

“Did I catch you at a bad time? You look like you’re racing off somewhere.”

Verloc shrugged. “Me? No, I was just going to get a bite to eat. Little dinner break.” Then he smiled. “What can I do for you?”

“Well,” Dupree began, “yeah, like I was saying, I’m taking early retirement and I’ll get a decent pension, but you know what it’s like when you get out. I just think I’m gonna need another source of income, not to mention I’d go nuts without something to occupy my time. And I heard that you hire old badges sometimes.”

“Sure,” Verloc said, “I hire ex-cops. They’re the best.”

“Yeah, I know some guys who work as private detectives, but I don’t think I could stomach that shit.”

“Working for sleaze-bucket lawyers.” Verloc shook his head. “Hundred-and-eighty-degree turn, man. I couldn’t do it.”

“Right,” Dupree said.

“Come on,” Verloc said. “Let’s get you an application.” He shifted his weight onto the cane and turned back toward the office.

“Are you sure I’m not keeping you from something?”

“No,” Verloc said. “It’s pretty slow around here right now.”

“Because you could just mail it to me if you like.”

“No need,” Verloc said, “as long as you’re here.”

Dupree was surprised at how quickly he could move, scuttling across the parking lot. As he walked behind Verloc, Dupree’s shoulder radio squawked and he could hear Teague on the other end. “Dupree? Where are you?”

After talking to Caroline, he had planned to go back to John Landers’s house, but he’d gotten to thinking about the empty files marked “Security” and his mistaken phone call to Kevin Verloc three months ago. It was probably nothing, but Teague would have to wait at the house while he indulged the nagging little voice in his head one last time. Dupree reached up and switched his radio off. Verloc turned and smiled at him.

He unlocked the door, and Dupree followed him into a small lobby, where a love seat and matching chair sat across from an unmanned desk. Behind the desk was a narrow door that Verloc opened and entered, turning sideways to fit his wide shoulders through the doorway.

Dupree didn’t have to turn to follow him into this interior office, which was set up like a small police command center, with a map of the city on one wall and a telephone dispatch panel right in front of the map. Small flags were tacked to the map, apparently marking clients. The desk in front of the map appeared rigidly organized, a can of pencils sharpened to razor points, files stacked so that their edges lined up perfectly with the edge of the desk. “So, mostly you’re looking for security guards?”

“That’s certainly what we try to do,” Verloc said. “That’s why I started the business. But a lot of people don’t want to bother with guards with all the computerized systems out there—video cameras and fancy lasers and stuff.”

“Just like the police department,” Dupree said. “Thank God there are still jobs that we can do better than computers, huh?”

Verloc was looking through a cabinet. He turned and smiled weakly at Dupree, then resumed his search in the cabinet. “Anyway, it’s awful slow right now, so I can’t promise anything. We do a lot of concerts, special event stuff earlier in the summer, and we have a contract with a couple of school districts, so we do some of their events. We had a mall for a few years, but I got underbid last year.”

“That’s tough. Must be great to have an account like that boat place. Good, steady client, huh? You do any other security work for Landers?”

Verloc straightened up from the cabinet. “Where the hell did she put that stuff? New receptionist. I like things a certain way.” He rolled his eyes and stuck his cane out. “I’ll check my office.”

He disappeared behind an unmarked door at the end of the dispatch room. Dupree picked up a log book and leafed through it. He walked toward the open door and he could see Verloc’s cane in the middle of the room, but not Verloc himself. “I know it’s here somewhere,” he heard Verloc say.

Dupree reached to his belt and unsnapped his holster.

“Ah, here we go.” Verloc emerged with a single sheet of paper, his face red. He leaned heavily on the cane and handed the application to Dupree. Then he took the log book from Dupree and set it down, carefully lining it up with the edge of the desk.

“That’s great,” Dupree said as he looked over the application. “Hey, I met your father the other day. Did he tell you about that?”

For the first time Verloc seemed to flinch, but only slightly. “I don’t…think so.”

“I saw him down there at Landers’ Cove. How many guards you got down there?”

“Just my father. How did you…come to meet him?”

Dupree reached up and rubbed his own shoulder. “The big wrestling match with the drunks down there, couple weeks ago. I was the cop who got stabbed.”

“It wasn’t serious, I hope.” Verloc looked behind himself for a chair and then eased himself into it, sighing as soon as he was seated.

“It was nothing. Couple of stitches. It changes you a little,
though. Most of the time, the bastards are just out there and they can beat each other up and steal from each other and you see it, but it doesn’t really touch you, doesn’t get to you. But when it’s you they’re coming after, it’s different. It changes you, makes you feel harder, less forgiving…But I guess I don’t need to tell you that.”

“No,” Verloc said simply.

“Yeah, I remember when you got shot. Jesus. It affected every cop in the state…you know. It’s great that you’re walking now.”

Verloc just stared at him, no expression on his face.

“It must’ve been hard,” Dupree said. “You’ve made quite a recovery.”

“Eight years of physical therapy,” Verloc said quietly.

“You still use a chair, then?” Dupree asked. “’Cause when I called you that day, you made this great joke about a wheelchair.”

“Sometimes I use a chair. I get tired.”

“Yeah,” Dupree said. “That’s something. So you’re pretty well recovered. I mean, as much as they expect?”

Verloc eased himself up out of his chair. “I really should get my dinner.”

Dupree stepped aside. “Oh, of course. Sure.”

Verloc nodded to the application. “Why don’t you fill out that form and bring it in on Monday, and I’ll see what my staffing looks like for the fall.”

“Yeah, that’d be great.”

As they walked toward the glass front door, Dupree walked ahead of Verloc and watched his reflection in the glass. In the window, he could see Verloc staring at his back. Outside, Verloc locked the door again and made his way to a dark red pickup parked in the corner of the lot. Dupree made a note of the license plate, then nodded to Verloc.

“Thanks a bunch. I really look forward to working with you,” Dupree said.

Verloc just smiled.

“I’ll come by on Monday, then.”

“Yeah,” Verloc said. “Monday.”

He used his upper body to climb up into the truck, fired it, and
backed out of his parking spot. He turned on his blinker well before he reached the end of the parking lot, and then pulled out slowly.

In the car, Dupree picked up his cell phone and used his thumb to hit the numbers.

“This is Teague.”

“Hey, it’s Dupree.”

“What the hell’s the matter with you? You’re acting all crazy. I was about five minutes from calling dispatch and telling ’em you were missing again.”

“I’m sorry,” Dupree said.

“I gotta tell you, Sarge, this thing is pretty weird.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, I’m here at the house and the neighbors had a number for Mr. and Mrs. Landers at Lake Coeur d’Alene, so I called. A sheriff’s deputy answered and said Mr. Landers was on his way to Kootenai Medical Center.”

“What happened?”

“Don’t know, for sure. The wife came back from the store and saw some guy driving away from their cabin in a red car. When she went inside, someone had done a number on her husband. Broke his collarbone and his leg, knocked out a couple of teeth, and drained him of a little blood.”

Dupree stared back at the office of All-Safe Security. “Are you in the house?”

“On the porch.”

“Go inside,” Dupree said, “into that office next to the living room, where everything was messed up.”

Dupree could hear Teague’s footsteps on the hardwood floor. “Okay. I’m here.”

“There are a couple of files open there on the safe. They say ‘Security’ on them.”

“Got ’em,” Teague said.

“Open the one that says ‘Expenses.’”

“Yeah, right here.”

As he shifted the car into drive, Dupree looked up at the security business once more. “The most recent receipt, it says ‘Miscellaneous.’ How much is that?”

“Let’s see.” He could hear Teague flipping through pages. “Two-forty.”

He quickly did the math. Six. Maybe there was one they didn’t know about. “Don’t move. I’m coming up there.” Dupree stomped on the gas and his car bounded over the curb and onto the street just as a red Nissan Sentra was pulling into the parking lot behind him.