Dead Time Read online

  “I called you back, of course, but you’re not answering. Not a good sign.

  “My options are kind of limited. I wake up that LAPD detective I talked to last night—the friend of the friend of Carmen’s—and I tell her about the emergency you have in Tarzana involving the women whose house almost exploded the night before, all the missing people from the Grand Canyon, and the ‘Kick them this way. I got a gun’ phone call that woke me up, and she agrees to have a patrol car sent to the Tarzana address to look around. Two cops get there within a few minutes. They find a bunch of sleeping people. A suicidal girl—”

  “Kanyn.”

  “Yeah, Kanyn—”

  “Still suicidal? Or by history?”

  “All I know is ‘suicidal’—what the—”

  “Did she make an attempt last night? After I left?”

  “Suicidal, that’s it. And—”

  I said, “The body. Oh shit, Sam. I haven’t told anybody about the body. Did they find the body?”

  “The one in the garage? That’s Jack. Somebody whacked him on the head with a wrench. Timing? Not sure, the forensics guys will get all that—”

  “Oden?”

  Sam took my face in both of his fat hands like a grandmother about to plant a wet one on her favorite grandkid. “How ’bout you stop interrupting me so I can tell you what the hell happened?”

  I nodded. I was relieved he didn’t actually kiss me.

  He released his grip on my cheeks. “At that point we still don’t know who said he had a gun into your phone.

  “The patrol guys find lots of interesting stuff when they look around. First, they spotted blood in the garage—Jack’s body came later. A stolen pickup on the street out front. Your beguiling friend Amy’s car on the driveway, and her keys on the floor of the garage—but no Amy. We think you were there, too, of course, but your rental’s no place to be found. One theory getting a lot of immediate attention is that you and Amy have been abducted, probably in your car. That’s when I tell the LAPD detective about Chloe.”

  I almost said, “You remembered Chloe?” I didn’t say it.

  “I remember how enamored you are with the GPS in the car. It’s worth a shot, is what I’m thinking. Sure enough, Hertz tracks your car in, like, no time. They find it heading northbound on the 15, not too far from San Bernardino.

  “We scramble to put our little operation in place. The resources they got here? In L.A.? Helicopters. Highway Patrol. Rescue rigs. Bang, bang, bang. Like being in the damn army.”

  Sam hadn’t been in the army. In other circumstances, I would’ve mentioned that just to aggravate him.

  “Anyway, by the time the Camry gets to the other side of Barstow and cuts off the 15 onto some little road that heads toward the Mojave, we were mobilized.”

  I said, “Can I ask a question?”

  He said, “Yes.”

  “Why did you drive past us in the ambulance? That must have been one of the most depressing things I ever saw in my life.”

  “Had to know what we were dealing with. Drove by, we saw him, saw you, saw the gun. We didn’t see Amy, though. That worried us. We didn’t know how much time we had. We also had to come up with a way to lure him away from the car without you. If he heard us tracking him with a chopper or saw us pass by in a marked car, we knew there was a good chance he’d get suspicious and we’d end up in a standoff. If we tried to stop him or approached the car, we knew we might get into a chase, or he might kill anybody in the car before we were able to kill him. One of the local guys suggested using the ambulance for surveillance. Brilliant.

  “We were mobilizing down the road for whatever might come next. Once we knew what we were dealing with, we faked the accident to block the road. Had to get the guy out of the car. Had to. We guessed he wouldn’t drive up next to the accident with a bound hostage in the car.”

  “You knew it was Oden?”

  “Not at first,” Sam said. “That’s where Ranger Ramona comes in.”

  I could tell from the way he said it that Sam was proud of Ranger Ramona’s contribution. I understood. I was proud of Chloe.

  Ramona had been thinking. Two things had gotten her going. One was her discovery that Jaana’s Estonian girlfriend had walked away from her life only months after Jaana disappeared in the canyon. The other was Sam’s curiosity about Lincoln Oden.

  Ramona had done some quick checking and discovered yet another coincidence—Oden had moved from Kingman, Arizona, to L.A. exactly five days after Jaana’s girlfriend was reported missing by her boss in Las Vegas.

  Ramona went to the Internet looking for signs of Oden. She located a recent photo from an online community newspaper of Oden and his son—Ramona didn’t know Oden had a son—and another Allstate agent and that guy’s son after the foursome had won a charity father-son team sandcastle-building contest over the previous Father’s Day weekend. The team had built a giant serpent of some kind, using plastic buckets for teeth. In the photo, they were all sweaty and happy and covered with sand.

  Ramona had immediately called Sam. She didn’t know that at that moment he was in an LAPD patrol car being escorted to catch a helicopter for the short hop to the edge of the Mojave Desert.

  She told him about the timing of Oden’s move from Arizona to California. Sam told her he found that interesting. She’d said, “There’s more,” and told Sam about the sandcastle photo. “His son’s Asian, Sam. Not all Asian, but part. Japanese, be my guess. You can tell clearly from the picture the kid’s got Asian features.”

  Ramona explained to Sam that she had been in the navy. She’d been stationed on Okinawa for a while. She knew the Japanese.

  Sam had understood the relevance of Oden’s son’s Asian features immediately.

  “Oden got a wife? Girlfriend?” Sam had asked. “She Asian?”

  Ramona had wondered the same thing. So she had called Oden’s house just minutes before she phoned Sam in the back of the LAPD patrol car.

  Ramona told Sam that when a woman had answered at Oden’s house, she’d said, “Mrs. Oden?”

  The woman had said, “Sí.”

  Ramona told Sam, “I speak some Spanish. We talked a little. I told her I was an old colleague of her husband’s. She said he was out of town on business; he’d be back that evening. She’s from Oaxaca. I don’t think that lady is the kid’s natural mom.”

  Sam didn’t either.

  “The kid’s the right age, Sam,” Ramona told him.

  “The right age for what?” I asked at that point in his story.

  I blamed it on the concussion, of course, but I didn’t add things up right away. Sam was able to recognize that some of my neurons weren’t firing on command. He encouraged me to lie back on the gurney in the exam room.

  In a kind voice, he said, “Oden’s kid has Asian blood, Alan. The only Asian on the roster we’ve developed from that week in the Grand Canyon is Jaana’s old flame in Vegas. That rich guy I talked to, Nick Paulson. He’s definitely part Japanese. I saw him. Sure, there are other explanations for the kid having Asian features—Oden could’ve married an Asian woman that no one knew about; that’s one—but the most obvious explanation is that Oden somehow ended up with the baby that Jaana was pregnant with when she disappeared from the canyon.”

  I said, “There’re lots of Asian adoptions these days. Lots of mixed-race kids. L.A.’s diverse, Sam.”

  “You playing devil’s advocate, or are you injured worse than I think? China? Yeah, there’re adoptions. Korea? Sure. Other places? Yeah. But not too many from Japan,” Sam said. “Bet you the kid isn’t adopted.”

  “Then where’s Jaana?” I asked. As soon as I said her name aloud, the pieces fell together in my head. I said, “Oh shit, that’s the two.”

  “What?” Sam said. “What’s the two?”

  “Jaana and her friend from Estonia?” I said. I was frustrated that my memory was returning in burps. “They’re the two people that Oden said he dumped in the desert. Oh my God, Oden told me that h
e had dumped two people once before. He left their bodies in the desert. Two people, Sam. I couldn’t figure it out. But it had to be Jaana and her friend, right?”

  Sam’s shoulders dropped. “If my theory is correct about Oden, it has to be Jaana and her friend,” he said.

  “Nick Paulson?” I asked.

  Sam thought about it. “Asshole? He’s guilty of that. Everything else? My guess is the guy skates.”

  The ER doc was a moonlighting resident from UCLA. She was a tall, thin black woman with a wry wit. She checked me for other things—a fractured skull and a subdural hematoma—but settled on the diagnosis of a concussion. “Common things happen commonly,” she explained. She told Sam and me what to watch for, and she sent us on our way.

  The Camry had been wounded. It had taken three slugs during the Mojave shootout. I was trying not to think about what amount of additional brain damage I would suffer making Hertz happy with me again.

  I couldn’t remember if I’d opted for the extra insurance.

  I hoped Chloe hadn’t been hit.

  Sam finagled a ride for us back to L.A. with the brother-in-law of the cop who lived in Randsburg. The guy’s mom was coming back from a holiday in China. He was picking her up at LAX.

  I slept the whole way to West Hollywood.

  Southern California was having one of those days that makes L.A. magic. When L.A. is stunning, the hills come closer, the basin shrinks, the Pacific sparkles, and the air is as clear as the melt from an icicle. A billion fanciful dreams have been born on days when L.A. is stunning. Most of the dreamers have stayed behind.

  I woke up to the L.A. brilliance thinking that I didn’t want it to be the day that Lisa and Amy died.

  Hector was on duty when Sam and I walked into the lobby of Merideth’s condo. Hector greeted me with the news that Merideth had been trying to reach me. Sam told Hector he’d already left her a couple of messages. I told Hector I’d lost my cell phone.

  Hector’s face said, “Yeah, right.”

  Sam sensed some attitude. His tone morphed into cop. He said, “You can watch it on the news tonight if you want. Any channel.”

  Hector thought Sam was blowing smoke up his ass. He lifted his chin before he spoke to me. “She’s on her way here. To L.A. You have to leave. Got somebody coming to clean the place”—he looked at his watch—“in an hour.”

  Hector was infusing a little more street into his accent. It was an interesting metamorphosis.

  “No problem, Hector.” I turned to Sam. “God, I hope that means she’s talked to Eric. And knows about Lisa. I’d rather not be the one to have to tell her.”

  Sam kept his eyes on Hector. “I got it covered. Don’t worry.”

  Each of them was stiffening. I put a hand on Sam’s back and led him to the elevator.

  Sam still hadn’t learned anything about Amy or Lisa. We weren’t family, and he hadn’t been able to bluff his way around the HIPAA privacy restrictions at the hospital. Merideth might have better luck—she and Lisa certainly had family ties, even if theirs were the kind of postmodern relationships that tend to give institutions fits.

  The first thing I did inside the condo was to use the landline to again call Lauren. Again she didn’t answer. I left her a message that I was heading home to Boulder and would call her from the airport. I didn’t tell her about the concussion or the shootout. There was no reason to alarm her at that point. I prayed she was staying away from the day’s news.

  The second thing I did was shower in Merideth’s splendid shower.

  The concussion was evolving. My head felt as though it was being propped up on my neck by a couple of swollen spikes. I couldn’t wait to get home.

  Sam drove me to LAX. On the congested drive from Hollywood to the airport, Sam’s phone buzzed with updated information about the aftermath of the confrontation with Oden in the desert. Oden’s wife was being interviewed by authorities. His son was indeed of mixed race, with Asian features. A photograph—suspected to be of his son as an infant—had been discovered in his wallet. The baby in the picture was being held by a white woman. The photo was scanned and sent to the Grand Canyon. Ranger Ramona phoned Sam. She was ninety-nine percent sure the woman was Jaana Peet.

  Oden’s oxidized Mazda hatchback had been located a block and a half from the Mt. Washington duplex.

  After getting that last piece of news from his contact at LAPD, Sam said to me, “I bet Oden followed Jack there. That’s how he found Lisa. He must have stolen that truck to follow Jack to Tarzana.”

  “But how did he find Jack? Why was he looking for him?” I asked.

  “Still working on that,” he said. “Must have something to do with Jack’s call to Paulson.”

  Sam still couldn’t get any information about Lisa or Amy.

  I gave Sam a big hug at the curb at LAX. He played along.

  He was undecided about what he was going to do next. He wanted to hang around L.A. long enough to learn the final pieces of the Grand Canyon puzzle. After that, he thought he might head north on Highway 1—he’d never been to Big Sur—before crossing the wide expanses of the desolate west on I-70.

  He was determined to have one last Animal Style burger at In-N-Out, and to find a Trader Joe’s before he returned to Colorado. He admitted that he’d become addicted to some of the market’s peculiar victuals on his visits to see Carmen. He wanted to get a few months’ supply of his favorites. I asked him to pick me up a mixed case of Two-Buck Chuck. I wondered how the wine would taste after spending a week in the desert in the back of his Cherokee.

  I bought a phone card and tried unsuccessfully to connect with Lauren before I boarded the plane to Denver.

  I was having a hard time understanding why she hadn’t answered her phone all day. It had been midafternoon in Holland when I’d phoned her from the bed of the old Ford pickup. As I stood at a public phone near the gate at LAX, it was well past Grace’s bedtime in Amsterdam. Lauren should have noted my missed calls. I had checked our home voice mail to see if she’d left a message there. She had not.

  My wife got along fine with technology. She was adept at every esoteric feature of her mobile phone. She should have heard my messages. After listening to them, she should have been ready for my next call.

  The landing at DIA was crappy. The captain had warned during the approach that there were microbursts in the vicinity of DIA. We bounced twice and had a hold-your-breath moment as the left wing took a dive in the instant after the second bounce. My pulse barely registered the jeopardy. I was running out of adrenaline.

  I checked my cell voice mail from the nearest pay phone in the concourse. I had no messages from Lauren. I had one from Merideth: “I just heard the details. Oh my God. Call me. I’m in L.A.”

  And I did have one from Marty.

  Oh, God. I hadn’t worried about Marty in at least a day.

  SIXTY-THREE

  “Marty? Alan.”

  I started a silent mantra. I will be at LaGuardia in two days to retrieve my son. I will be at La…

  “Alan,” Marty said. His tone of voice was like a warning flare in front of my eyes. He had spoken my name softly, and without any of the usual nasal qualities that made me wince. “We have a…problem with Jonas.”

  Don’t. Don’t tell me he wants to stay in White Plains. Fucking don’t. I don’t want to fight you, but I will fight you with every last watt of energy in my body.

  “Is he okay?” I said in my best therapist voice.

  “Umm…”

  “Tell me,” I said, fighting to feign composure.

  “It’s been going so well here,” Marty said.

  No. He is not staying. I will be at LaGuardia in—

  “But…it’s like he hit a wall. He didn’t want to get out of bed yesterday morning, said his stomach hurt. We almost had to drag him out for breakfast. Kim made pancakes. All of a sudden he’s barely eating. He never eats much—you saw how skinny he is—but he likes Kim’s pancakes. Everybody does. And now he’s started cryin
g at nothing. When we ask him what’s wrong, he just says that he misses Callie.”

  I held an imaginary level to my demeanor to be certain I could make my voice appear calm. The bubble floated to the middle and stayed. Good. My act would have to suffice—I did not want to alienate Marty. “That’s what Jonas said?” I asked. “He said he misses Callie?”

  “Callie” was the emergency code word Jonas had chosen to use with me.

  “We have a dog,” Marty said, misinterpreting the problem as canine in nature, and misinterpreting the solution to be generic. Marty believed his dog should have been enough for Jonas.

  “The puppy was a gift from his mother,” I said, offering a fresh perspective.

  Marty paused a beat before he responded. He’s getting it, I thought, hoping I was wrong about him.

  Marty said, “So? Everything he has is a gift from his mother, isn’t it? I mean, think about it.”

  Were I not so intent on not alienating Marty, it would have been a fine time to ask if he’d ever taken Introductory Psych. Or ever watched Oprah.

  “Is he there, Marty? Can I speak with him?”

  “Hi,” my son said a few seconds later. His voice was completely devoid of the confidence I’d heard from him as he kicked the stone during our walk in White Plains not too many days before. I imagined Marty hovering behind Jonas as he spoke to me on the phone that hung from the wall next to the refrigerator in Kim’s cluttered kitchen. I needed to find a way to give the kid a cushion.

  “Hi,” I said. “Hey, can you grab your cell and head out to the swing? There are some important phone lessons I need, and this may take a while. Will you do that for me? I will call you there in two minutes.”

  My impulse was to go straight to New York from the Denver airport, but a compassionate gate agent at DIA quickly helped me comprehend that such a trip wasn’t in the cards. The last two flights from Denver to LaGuardia that day were overbooked. I’d be at the end of long stand-by lists. Other than the red-eye into JFK—I really didn’t want to make Kim schlep Jonas all the way to JFK from White Plains at the crack of dawn—the first chance I had to get out of Denver to New York was on the earliest United flight the next morning.