The Concrete Pearl (19 page)

“S,” he said. “C…What can they mean?” Then his eyes lit up. “You have a map of the North America hanging around?”

I shook my head.

“We can go online,” I said.

We went into my bedroom, looked up North America on Mapquest.

“Go north,” Spain said. “To Canada.”

I did it. When the border between Canada and New York State appeared, he pressed the sketch up against the screen.

“The parallel lines don’t match exactly,” he said. “But what if they represent the Canada-New York border. What if that box attached to the far left is really the Great Lakes region?”

The letters S and C shot through my head.

“S,” I said. “Southern—”

“C,” he jumped in. “Canada.”

I felt a little lightheaded.

“Maybe Jimmy went north to Lake Desolation to meet up with someone on the sly,” I said. “Then he caught the Northway, made the straight vertical run to Canada.”

“Looks very probable,” he said.

“I wouldn’t jump to conclusions, Spain. Jimmy had a pretty nice life down here. That .9mm slug tells me that if he went to Canada, he might have very well crossed the border in a pine box.”

“You’re making progress though.”

“I’m further along than I was yesterday at this time,” I said.

I folded the sketch back up, put it back in my desk drawer.

“We’ll keep that hidden away for now,” I said. “We can keep on mulling it over until we can be sure what it means. If it means anything at all.”

I remembered the Mpeg. Leaning over him, I set my hands on the keyboard, triggered the keys that brought it back up.

“Next item,” I said. “Check this out.”

I played the Mpeg.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” he said. “But now we know for certain that Natalie wants to help us out. We also know she and Jimmy had a pretty friendly relationship and that Marino was aware of it and even willing to put it on film.”

He closed the Mpeg for me.

“You sure that’s all the evidence you got collected thus far?”

I thought about the lighter. It was Jordan’s and I wasn’t about to surrender it. Not yet. But the Desolation Kill also came to mind, and the lake of the same name that it fed. I recalled the trash that littered the stream bank—the empty beer can, the used cigarette butts, the used condom. For all I knew an entire slew of evidence pointing to Farrell’s disappearance still occupied the site—evidence that I might miss, but that a professional detective might spot right away.

I stole a glance at my fifteen dollar Target wristwatch.

“Six-ten,” I said. “Still two hours of daylight left.” Walking out of the bedroom, I asked, “Wanna take a ride, Spain?”

“Where to?”

“Lake Desolation,” I said, picking up my beer, downing what was left of it. “Now that my new partner is a real honest to goodness licensed private detective, it might be a good idea to retrace some footsteps.”

Chapter 42

It took just under a half hour to make it from my North Albany apartment to Greenfield in my Jeep. As we came upon the metal bridge that spanned the stream I slowed down, pulling into the gravel-covered public fishing access area parking lot.

I got out.

Spain followed.

“Private place,” he said, hands stuffed in his jacket pockets. “Peaceful. That is if you want to set up an out of the way meeting.”

He bent down at the knees, studied the lot’s gravel surface, focusing his eyes at the many tire tracks that crisscrossed it; the many foot and boot prints that tattooed it.

“Mind showing me where you found the shell casing?” Spain asked, now going out of his way to be polite.

I did it.

He gazed down at the precise spot as if it had something more to reveal other than rock and dirt. I moved on towards the path and the stream. Spain took my lead, following me down the path until we came to the edge of the rushing water. I took another look around—under the bridge and beyond it. I stared into the fast moving water, at the deep green pool. I looked for trout holding steady in the water, just like I used to do when I was a little girl. But I saw nothing but stream and rock.

Strange
.

Turning back to Spain, I saw him pick up a small stick, saw him pick at the empty beer can and a cigarette butt. He picked and poked at the used condom, the gray semi-translucent rubbery material flopping over grotesquely with each thrust of the stick. When he pulled out a hanky from his back pocket, he put the used condom onto it. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him grab up the beer can and a cigarette butt, setting them both inside the handkerchief as well.

Then, pocketing the evidence in his leather jacket, he pulled out his mobile.

“You mind?” More politeness.

“Under the circumstances,” I said.

“I’ve got friends who can help us with this stuff.”

“You think that’s Farrell’s cum inside that condom?”

Spain’s face went red.

“Yeah, I think it could very well be his D…N…A in there.”

“Won’t know for sure unless we have it tested, right?”

He nodded.

“Guess I’ve got no choice. Go ahead, call your friends, Spain.”

He did it.

“I have a job that needs attention,” he said into the phone a beat later.

He mumbled a few other directives that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

When he hung up and pocketed the phone he looked into my face.

“A-P-D Forensics?” I said. “They your friends?”

“Sort of,” he said.

“You don’t think the condom and beer can belong to a couple of local kids doing a little partying and…well…whatever?”

“What do you think?” he said. “There’s a reason you brought me out here and I think this is it.”

“You’re right, Spain. I’m pretty certain that condom and those cig butts belonged to a couple of people long passed adolescence.”

He looked all around—at the running stream, then beyond it to the still lake, the setting sun reflecting off of its glass-like surface.

He said, “Jesus, it’s pretty here. But why not just get a room somewhere? I mean, why meet here of all places on the same Saturday you’re trying to split town for good?”

I shook my head. Suddenly the taping compound buckets stored in the back of Farrell’s car came to mind as if my built-in-shit-detector was trying to alert me.

“Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, does it?”

It was another one of those unanswerables. But I did know this: there had to be a reason Farrell came to this place. There had to be a reason he met someone at this very spot; there had to be a reason for the used condom and the spent .9mm casing.

I started walking back up the bank.

“Let’s get back in the Jeep, Spain.”

“Where to now?”

“Back to Dott’s Garage,” I said. “I want to take another look at those stinky buckets together.”

Chapter 43

I stopped about a hundred yards up from the main entrance to Dott’s garage. I pulled the Jeep off the rural road, parked it inside a thick patch of pine trees and briars across from the yard. It was almost full night, but we waited for total darkness to fall outside the tall perimeter privacy fence before approaching the gate on foot.

It was chained and padlocked.

But that was good news. It meant Dott had gone home for the night.

“Got a plan, Spike?” Spain said.

“Underneath the Jeep driver’s seat you’ll find a framing hammer,” I said. “Go grab it for me.”

He took off. When he came back with the equalizer, I took it from him, told him to take a step back.

“I’ve got a sidearm,” he said. “I can blow a hole in it.”

“Or I can use my quieter equalizer, avoid attracting unwanted attention.”

I raised up the hammer, brought it down onto the padlock.

It shattered on the first swing.

Spain smiled.

“You’re pretty handy with that thing,” he said.

“It’s in the blood,” I said.

We slipped in through the gate, using the light of the moon and the few pole-mounted spotlights to guide us through the darkness. Far as I could see, old man Dott didn’t believe in surveillance security cameras. But that didn’t mean they weren’t there somewhere, filming our every step. It was a chance we had to take.

We found Farrell’s BMW where we left it.

“I suppose you have the keys,” Spain said.

“You didn’t keep them yesterday when I handed them over to you?”

“I set them on the hood of the car and split before Dott caught site of me.”

I held up the equalizer.

“That should work,” he said. “But I don’t think Farrell would like it.”

I inverted the hammer, claw-end down, jamming the claws into the narrow space between the trunk and the lock that secured it. I yanked back with both hands. The lock released and the trunk raised slowly up.

I looked inside.

The buckets weren’t there.

“They’re gone,” I said.

Spain stared into the trunk along with me. It was as if we expected the buckets to somehow reappear out of the thin night air.

I turned, faced the dark yard.

“What are you thinking?” Spain said.

“I think that whatever was in those buckets was important enough for somebody to come back here and take them away.”

“Ya think?” Spain grinned.

“Okay wise-ass,” I said, “whoever wanted the buckets just wanted the buckets. They didn’t want anything to do with Farrell’s impounded ride. Which tells me they snuck in here and somehow opened the trunk without jimmying it open.”

“Who’d have a key other than Dott?”

“Tina,” I said. “Maybe her father.”

Just outside the front gate, a truck pulled up. It was Dott’s old tow truck.

“Run away,” I said.

Together we ran for the perimeter fence. Ducking down, we watched as the grease-pit overall wearing Dott examined the broken padlock. We watched him peer over one shoulder and then the other like he got the feeling he was being watched. After a time, he got back inside his tow truck and drove in through the gate.

Spain started for the gate.

“Not yet,” I said.

He ducked back down.

That’s when we saw Dott do something odd. Once through the gate he stopped the tow truck, got out, went around to the passenger side and opened the door. He pulled out two white five-gallon taping compound buckets identical to the ones that were now missing from Farrell’s ride. He carried them into his office, then came back out and retrieved two more, then one more after that.

Spain turned to me.

“Looks like Dott’s been keeping busy,” he said.

“Working for Farrell and Marino,” I said. “Let’s go.”

We ran for the open gate and snuck our way back out onto the main road. Under the cover of the night, we sprinted the hundred yards of open road to the Jeep.

Funny how the course of events can change in an instant.

Chapter 44

I called Tommy.

Asked him to look up as much dirt on Dott as he could find. Where he lived or stayed; if he had partners, silent or otherwise. In my head I saw Tommy seated at Lanies, perpetual Vodka and soda set before him on the bar. I knew his laptop would be stored inside his pickup. I pictured him sliding off the stool, heading out of the bar to use it.

By the time he called me back we were ten minutes out from Albany.

“Dott’s first name is Victor,” he said. “Owns the garage outright. Bought it off his partner back in ’79…a one Robert Becher, mean old bastard, shot himself in the head when one of his daughters married a Catholic behind his back.”

“Where’s Victor live these days?”

“This is where it gets a little interesting. Victor Dott owns most of the north side property that abuts Lake Desolation. You know, the precise area where the Desolation Kill feeds the lake at the Malden Bridge. The state owns the right-of-way to the public fishing access area. But Dott owns the rest of it. About two hundred fifty acres.”

I felt my pulse pick up a little.

“Who owns the rest of the lakefront property?” I said, the warm phone pressed against my ear as I drove.

“Assorted farmers, most of them living just above poverty level, or out of business entirely. Word is they’re looking to sell out…Excuse me…Fucking
desperate
to sell out. But here’s the catch. They want to sell but only for a premium, like they can have their cake and swallow it too. My uncle was a farmer. You know how fuckin’ stubborn those old timers can be?”

Interesting
, I thought.
The entire lake is for sale by a bunch of broke but hardheaded farmers. The few hundred acres that surrounds the Desolation Kill is owned by a guy who’s probably connected to Farrell and Marino
.

“Anything else?”

“That’s about it,” Tommy said.

“Keep your phone close,” I said.

I told Spain what Tommy told me.

“The reason for the Desolation Kill becoming a popular destination point for Farrell is suddenly taking shape,” he said.

“Be nice to know what kind of shape,” I said. “But what we do know is that the stream, the lake, the property, old man Dott and those five gallon buckets of stinky little clams have a whole lot to do with it.”

“So does a .9mm shell casing,” Spain grinned, “and a used Trojan…size extra large...Just like me.”

“Sex marks the spot,” I said, “which is precisely why we’re going back to the Thatcher Street tittie bar.”

Chapter 45

The usual collection of pickups and Harleys were parked outside Thatcher Street.

Before we got out of the Jeep, I told Spain to hang on a minute. Told him I had a plan. When I finished relaying it to him, we both got out. But before I made my way to the front door of the pub, I reached under the driver’s seat, felt for the equalizer, and made certain the handle was positioned perfectly, just in case I needed it in a hurry.

I nodded towards the bar’s front door.