The Pain Scale (23 page)

My BlackBerry went off. It was another automated text from Patrick’s monitoring program. Bradley was using his card again.

I speed-dialed Patrick.

“Hey, Danny,” he said. “What’s up?”

“Just got another text about Bradley’s card. Can you check it?”

“Hang on.”

He came back a few seconds later.

“AMC Marina Pacifica. About ten minutes ago.”

“He’s at the movies?”

“Looks like it.”

“Perfect.”

His Panamera Turbo S was easy to spot. It was the only $170,000 car with a cognac metallic finish in the whole lot. I parked a few spaces up the row from it, and as I walked past, I pretended to tie my shoe while I slipped a GPS tracking unit housed in a magnetic case under the rear fender.

Then I headed down to the box office and tried to guess what movie he was seeing. Based on the start times, it was most likely either
Cedar Rapids
or
The Eagle
. I figured Bradley for a Channing Tatum guy. I couldn’t imagine an Ed Helms fan driving that car of his. It was chock full of apparent aesthetic value.

Rather than take a chance on being spotted coming in late to one of the movies, I badged the employee behind the window selling tickets and asked her the end times of each of the movies. The first one didn’t get out for an hour, so I wandered upstairs to loiter in Barnes & Noble. I dodged the guy in front trying to sell me a Nook and found a seat in one of the comfy chairs back by the magazines. An article in
Combat Handguns
gave a glowing review to a 1911 .45 made by a company called Nighthawk Custom. I gagged at the price. Who would pay $4,000 for a pistol?

A guy like Bradley.

I went back outside twenty minutes early and waited for him. He surprised me by coming out with the crowd from the comedy.
If the film had done anything to lighten his mood, though, it wasn’t apparent. He moved slowly, and his shoulders were slumped forward. His hair was unstyled, and he wore jeans and a sweatshirt. The
Stanford
across his chest was the only recognizable thing about him.

He came up the stairs toward the parking lot, and I headed him off.

“Hello, Mr. Benton,” I said, surprising him.

He looked taken aback for just a moment, as if he had been caught doing something he should not have been doing. Almost as quickly, though, his face fell again into the same sad emptiness it had held before I spoke. He didn’t place me immediately.

“I’m Detective Beckett,” I said. “How are you?”

In any normal circumstances, it would have been a stupid and thoughtless question to ask—his wife and children had been murdered. How could any answer adequately address that fact? But I asked it intentionally, so it was just callous and mean.

“I...uh...” He didn’t know how to answer. I had been hoping he’d have a practiced response. A politician’s response. One that would prove to me his insensitivity and coldness. One that would allow me to believe he’d been responsible for the deaths of Sara and Bailey and Jacob.

“It’s okay,” I said. “You don’t have to answer.”

I led him over to the tables outside the Starbucks, and we sat down. He looked a lot more like a shell-shocked war casualty than someone who’d just stepped out of a comedy that was pulling 86 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

“You just see a movie?”

“Yeah.”

“Good,” I said. “Which one?”

He couldn’t answer. He didn’t remember.

“It’s okay. I understand. I lost my wife violently a few years ago.”

I think that was the first time he really looked at me. “Yeah,” he said.

We sat there for a minute or two in our grief. I waited for him to talk.

“I thought...I thought if I got out for just a little while...that maybe I...”

“I know,” I said. “I know. It’s going to take a long time.”

He nodded at me, and the pain in his eyes was so palpable and despairing that it was hard to believe he was a rapist.

When I called the Deering factory, which turned out to be located just outside San Diego, I talked to a guy named Barry, whose name I recognized from the company’s website. It had identified him as their worldwide sales manager. I told him about the situation, and he asked me a few questions about the banjo. When I described the part with the metal that seemed discolored, he stopped me with an excited “Oh!”

“Oh?” I said.

“You’ve got a Saratoga Star with Jens Kruger tone ring.”

“I do?”

“Yes.” He told me a detailed story about a bell foundry in Switzerland and how they made a special part for that particular banjo. There was a keen enthusiasm in his voice that actually got me a little bit excited, even though I had trouble following much of what he was saying. Barry seemed to have a surprisingly thorough knowledge of metallurgy. He finished with, “It’s a very subjective thing, but I think that model of banjo has a better tone than just about anything else out there.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah. Tony Trischka and Bela Fleck have both played them.”

I’d actually heard of Bela Fleck, so I didn’t feel quite as lost as I had through most of our conversation. “It must be very valuable, then,” I said.

“Well, depending on its age and whether or not there were any custom features added, it’s probably worth somewhere between seven and eight thousand dollars.”

I was silent long enough for him to think we’d lost the connection. “Hello?” he said.

“Wow, that’s a lot more than I expected.”

“It is an excellent banjo.”

“Thank you, Barry. I really appreciate the help.”

“Happy to. Do me a favor, would you?”

“Sure. What?”

“Let me know what you decide to do with it.”

“I will.”

And I really will, I thought, if I can ever figure it out.

We assumed Turchenko had heard the news about Shevchuk, but we wanted to see if we might be able to leverage some kind of information out of him. Bob Kincaid, the DDA handling the case, had an unusual idea. Because the Ukrainian had invoked his right to legal representation, we weren’t allowed to question him without his attorney present. We could, however, make a death notification.

The interview room in the administrative segregation unit of the county jail was even smaller than the one we used back at the station. Looked about eight by eight or so. Jen sat at the table, and I stood just behind and to her left.

One of the two deputies who had led Turchenko down the hall waited outside, and the other prodded him into the chair across the table from Jen. He wore the ubiquitous orange jumpsuit and had his hands cuffed to a leather belt around his waist.

“Hello, Mr. Turchenko,” she said. “Do you remember me? I’m Detective Tanaka.”

“Without lawyer,” he grumbled, “I am not supposed to talk.”

“That’s okay, Mr. Turchenko,” she said. “You don’t have to say anything. We won’t be questioning you.”

“Then what?” There was a dull groan in his voice, and I remembered the first time I had seen him, with milk running down his chin but thinking about going for his gun. The danger seemed suppressed. But not the oafishness.

“I’m afraid we have some bad news,” Jen said. “Your friend, Taras Shevchuk, has been killed.”

He already knew; that much was clear from his expression. But he was clearly confused. I figured he was struggling with what to make of the fact that we were bothering to tell him anything at all.

“I know,” he said.

“Your friend was murdered,” I said with as much sympathy as I could fake.

“Don’t worry, though,” Jen said. “We have it on good authority that you’ll be able to stay here in ad-seg. Whoever killed your friend probably won’t be able to get to you.”

He raised his head and lost a bit of the slump in his shoulders. “Probably?”

“You shouldn’t worry, Mr. Turchenko,” Jen said, leaning forward. “I’m sure you’re very safe here.”

It actually was unlikely that anyone would be able to get to him where he was. But we were betting on the fact that he wouldn’t believe it.

“Is there anyone else you’d like to tell us about, Mr. Shevchuk?” Jen asked.

“Anton Tropov?” I asked, as if the idea had just occurred to me. Turchenko’s eyes widened at the name, and he lost even more of the slouch.

“You might want to talk to your lawyer about him, Mr. Turchenko,” Jen said.

“Yeah,” I said, “you should. Unless, of course, he’s Tropov’s lawyer, too.”

He looked confused.

I gave him the best fake look of surprise I could muster. “He’s not, is he? Your lawyer doesn’t represent Anton, too, does he?”

We watched him for a few moments, and we could almost hear the screws turning inside his skull, and then the realization that we were reading his behavior dawned on him and his shoulders re-hunched and his eyes returned to the slits they had been when he came in.

“No,” he said. “No one else to tell about. Can I go now?”

“Of course,” Jen said. “Good luck.”

He glanced back at her once and then trudged back the way he had come with the two deputies at his heels.

“How do you think that went?” I asked.

“I almost feel bad taking advantage of someone that dim.”

“Really?”

“No,” she said, “not really.”

It was a bit after seven when I stepped up onto Harlan’s front porch. He saw me through the front window and motioned for me to come in. Before the screen door even closed behind me, I said, in what was probably the loudest voice he had ever heard me use, “Why the fuck did you give me an eight-thousand-dollar banjo?”

When I saw the expression on his face, I regretted my tone. When I saw the woman who came into the living room from the kitchen, I regretted it even more.

“Danny,” Harlan said, “I’d like you to meet my daughter, Cynthia.” The alarm I’d seen in his face had given way to a bemused smirk as he saw me squirm, trying to cover my embarrassment.

“Hello, I...uh...” I realized I’d misspoken, but she spoke before I could correct my mistake.

“Hi,” she said. “Dad’s told me a lot about you.”

“Yes,” I said. “Me too.” “He’s right,” Harlan said. “I tell Danny a lot about himself. He just never listens.”

They both thought that was very funny. She was tall, like Harlan, with broad shoulders and hips, and a smile that seemed comfortable on her face.