The Last Detective Read online

  Lucy stalked past me and went outside onto the deck.

  “Ben! Benjamin, you answer me! Ben!”

  “Luce, I've been calling him.”

  She stalked back into the house and disappeared down the hall.

  “Ben!”

  “He's not here. I called the security patrols. I was just going to call the police.”

  She came back and went right back onto the deck.

  “Damnit, Ben, you'd better answer me!”

  I stepped out behind her and took her arms. She was shaking. She turned into me, and we held each other. Her voice was small and guilty against my chest.

  “Do you think he ran away?”

  “No. No, he was fine, Luce. He was okay after we talked. He was laughing at this stupid game.”

  I told her that I thought he had probably hurt himself when he was playing on the slope, then gotten lost trying to find his way back.

  “Those streets are confusing down there, the way they snake and twist. He probably just got turned around, and now he's too scared to ask someone for help; he's been warned about strangers enough. If he got on the wrong street and kept walking, he probably got farther away, and more lost. He's probably so scared right now that he hides whenever a car passes, but we'll find him. We should call the police.”

  Lucy nodded against me, wanting to believe, and then she looked at the canyon. Lights from the houses were beginning to sparkle.

  She said, “It's getting dark.”

  That single word: Dark. It summoned every parent's greatest dread.

  I said, “Let's call. The cops will light up every house in the canyon until we find him.”

  As Lucy and I stepped back into the house, the phone rang. Lucy jumped even more than me.

  “That's Ben.”

  I answered the phone, but the voice on the other end didn't belong to Ben or Grace Gonzalez or the security patrols.

  A man said, “Is this Elvis Cole?”

  “Yes. Who's this?”

  The voice was cold and low.

  He said, “Five-two.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Five-two, motherfucker. You remember five-two?”

  Lucy plucked my arm, hoping that it was about Ben. I shook my head, telling her I didn't understand, but the sharp fear of bad memories was already cutting deep.

  I gripped the phone with both hands. I needed both to hang on.

  “Who is this? What are you talking about?”

  “This is payback, you bastard. This is for what you did.”

  I held the phone even tighter, and heard myself shout.

  “What did I do? What are you talking about?”

  “You know what you did. I have the boy.”

  The line went dead.

  Lucy plucked harder.

  “Who was it? What did they say?”

  I didn't feel her. I barely heard her. I was caught in a yellowed photo album from my own past, flipping through bright green pictures of another me, a much different me, and of young men with painted faces, hollow eyes, and the damp sour smell of fear.

  Lucy pulled harder.

  “Stop it! You're scaring me.”

  “It was a man, I don't know who. He says he took Ben.”

  Lucy grabbed my arm with both hands.

  “Ben was stolen? He was kidnapped? What did the man say? What does he want?”

  My mouth was dry. My neck cramped with painful knots.

  “He wants to punish me. For something that happened a long time ago.”

  Boys Being Boys

  On the second day of his five-day visit, Ben waited until Elvis Cole was washing his car before sneaking upstairs. Ben had been planning his assault on Elvis Cole's personal belongings for many weeks. Elvis was a private investigator, which was a pretty cool thing to be, and he also had some pretty neat stuff: He had a great videotape and DVD collection of old science fiction and horror movies that Ben could watch any time he wanted and about a hundred superhero magnets stuck all over his refrigerator and a bullet-proof vest hanging in his front entry closet. You didn't see that every day. Elvis even had business cards saying he was “the biggest dick in the business.” Ben showed one to his friends at school and everyone had laughed.

  Ben was convinced—profoundly supremely certain—that Elvis Cole had a treasure of other cool stuff stashed in his upstairs closet. Ben knew, for instance, that Elvis kept guns up there, but he also knew that the guns and ammunition were locked in a special safe that Ben could not open. Ben didn't know what he would find, but he thought he might luck out with a couple of issues of Playboy or some neat police stuff like handcuffs or a blackjack (what, to his mom's horror, his Uncle René down in St. Charles Parish called a “nigger-knocker.”)

  So when Elvis went outside to wash his car that morning, Ben peeked out the window. When he saw Elvis filling a bucket with soapy water, Ben raced through the house to the stairs.

  Elvis Cole and his cat slept upstairs in an open loft that looked down over the living room. The cat didn't like Ben or his mom, but Ben tried not to take it personally. This cat didn't like anyone except for Elvis and his partner, Joe Pike. Every time Ben walked into a room with that cat, the cat would lower its ears and growl. This cat wouldn't run if you tried to shoo it, either; it would creep toward you sideways with its hair standing up. Ben was scared of it.

  Ben worked his way to the head of the stairs, then peered over the top riser to make sure the cat wasn't sleeping on the bed.

  The coast was clear.

  No cat.

  The water still ran.

  Ben ran to the closet. He had already been in Elvis's closet a couple of times when Elvis showed his mom the gun safe, so he knew that the little room contained boxes on high shelves, Tupperware containers filled with mysterious shadows that might be pictures, stacks of old magazines, and other potentially cool stuff. Ben riffled through the magazines first, hoping for hot porn like his friend Billy Toman brought to school, but was disappointed by their content: mostly boring issues of Newsweek and the Los Angeles Times Magazine. Ben hoisted himself up to see what was on top of the gun safe, a huge steel box as tall as Ben that filled the end of the closet, but all he found were a few old baseball caps, a clock where time had stopped, a framed color picture of an old woman standing on a porch, and a second framed picture of Elvis and Ben's mom sitting in a restaurant. No handcuffs or nigger-knockers.

  A high shelf stretched across the closet. The shelf was beyond Ben's reach, but he saw boots, some boxes, a sleeping bag, what looked like a shoe shine kit, and a black nylon gym bag. Ben thought that the gym bag might be worth checking out, but he would need to grow a couple of feet to reach it. Ben considered the safe. If he pushed himself up, then sat on the safe, he could probably reach the gym bag. He carefully placed his hands on top of the safe, heaved himself straight up, then hooked a knee on top and pushed himself up. He was crushing some of the hats and had knocked over the picture of the old lady, but so far so good. He reached for the gym bag, stretching as far as he could, but couldn't quite reach it. He leaned farther, holding onto the shelf with one hand and reaching for the gym bag with the other, and that's when he lost his balance. Ben tried to catch himself, but it was too late: He tumbled sideways and pulled the gym bag with him. He hit the floor with a rain of shirts and pants.

  “Crap!”

  When Ben scooped up the clothes, he found the cigar box. It must have been sitting on top of the gym bag, and had fallen when he pulled the bag down. A few faded snapshots, some colorful cloth patches, and five blue plastic cases had spilled from the cigar box. Ben stared. He knew that the blue cases were special. They looked special. Each case was about seven inches long with a gold band running vertically down the left side and raised gold letters in the lower right corner that read UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

  Ben pushed the clothes aside and sat cross-legged to examine his discovery.

  The pictures showed soldiers in Army uniforms and helicopters. Some guy sat
on a bunk, laughing, with a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. A word was tattooed high on his left arm. Ben had to look close to read it because the photograph was blurry: RANGER. Ben figured it was the man's name. Another picture showed five soldiers standing in front of a helicopter. They looked like hardcore badass dudes: Their faces were painted green and black; they were loaded with rucksacks, ammo packs, hand grenades, and black rifles. The second soldier from the left was holding a little sign with numbers on it. Their features were hard to see because of the paint, but the soldier on the far right looked like Elvis Cole. Wow.

  Ben put down the pictures and opened a blue case. A red, white, and blue ribbon about an inch and a half long was pinned to gray felt. Beneath it was a red, white, and blue pin like a smaller version of the ribbon, and below that was a medal. The medallion was a gold five-pointed star hanging from another ribbon, and covered by a clear plastic bubble. In the center of the gold star was a tiny silver star. Ben closed the case, then opened the others. Each of the cases contained another medal.

  He put the medals aside, then looked through the rest of the pictures: One showed a bunch of guys in black T-shirts standing around outside of a tent, drinking beer; another showed Elvis Cole sitting on sandbags with a rifle across his knees (he was shirtless and he looked really skinny!); the next picture showed a man with a painted face, a floppy hat, and a gun, standing in leaves so thick it looked like he was stepping out of a green wall. Ben had hit the mother lode! This was exactly the kind of cool stuff he had hoped to find! He concentrated so hard on the pictures that he never heard Elvis approach.

  Elvis said, “Busted.”

  Ben jerked with surprise and felt himself flush.

  Elvis stood in the door, thumbs hooked in his pockets, his raised eyebrows saying, What do we have here, sport?

  Ben was mortified and ashamed. He thought Elvis would be mad, but Elvis sat on the floor next to him and stared at the pictures and little blue cases thoughtfully. Ben felt his eyes well and thought Elvis would probably hate him forever.

  “I'm sorry I snooped in your stuff.”

  It was all Ben could do not to cry.

  Elvis made a little faraway smile and rubbed Ben's head.

  “It's okay, bud. I said you could look around while you were here—I just didn't think you'd go climbing in my closet. You don't have to sneak around. If you want to check out my things, all you have to do is ask. Okay?”

  It was still hard to look Elvis in the eye, but Ben burned with curiosity. He held out the picture showing the five soldiers by the helicopter.

  “Is that you, second from the end?”

  Elvis stared at the picture, but did not touch it. Ben showed him the picture of the guy on the bunk.

  “Who's this guy, Ranger?”

  “His name was Ted Fields, not Ranger. A Ranger is a kind of soldier. Some guys were so proud of being Rangers they got the tattoo. Ted was proud.”

  “”What do Rangers do?”

  “Push-ups.”

  Elvis took the photo from Ben and put it back into the cigar box. Ben grew worried that Elvis would stop answering his questions, so he snatched up one of the blue cases and opened it.

  “What's this?”

  Elvis took the case, closed it, then put it back into the cigar box.

  “They call it a Silver Star. That's why there's a little silver star in the center of the gold star.”

  “You have two.”

  “The Army had a sale.”

  Elvis put away another box. Ben saw that Elvis was uncomfortable with the medals and the pictures, but this was the coolest stuff that Ben had ever seen and he wanted to know about it. He snatched up a third medal case.

  “Why is this one purple and shaped like a heart?”

  “Let's get this stuff away and finish with the car.”

  “Is that what you get when you're shot?”

  “There are all kinds of ways to be wounded.”

  Elvis put away the last medal case, then picked up the pictures. Ben realized that he really didn't know much about his mom's boyfriend. Ben knew that Elvis must have done something pretty darned brave to win all these medals, but Elvis never talked about any of that. How could a guy have all this neat stuff and keep it hidden? Ben would wear his medals every day!

  “How did you get that Silver Star medal? Were you a hero?”

  Elvis kept his eyes down as he put the pictures in the cigar box and closed the lid.

  “Not hardly, bud. No one else was around to get them, so they gave them to me.”

  “I hope I get a Silver Star medal one day.”

  Elvis suddenly looked as if he was made of steel and thorns, and Ben grew scared. The Elvis that Ben knew didn't seem to be there at all, but his hard eyes softened and Elvis came back to himself. Ben was relieved.

  Elvis took one of the Silver Stars from the cigar box and held it out.

  “Tell you what, bud—I'd rather you take one of mine.”

  And just like that, Elvis Cole gave Ben one of his Silver Stars.

  Ben held the medal like a treasure. The ribbon was shiny and smooth; the medallion was a lot heavier than it looked. That gold star with its little silver center weighed a lot, and its points were really sharp.

  “I can keep it?”

  “Sure. They gave it to me, and now I'm giving it to you.”

  “Wow. Thank you! Could I be a Ranger, too?”

  Elvis seemed a lot more relaxed now. He made a big deal out of placing his hand on Ben's head like Ben was being knighted.

  “You are officially a U.S. Army Ranger. This is the best way to become a Ranger. Now you don't have to do all those push-ups.”

  Ben laughed.

  Elvis closed the cigar box again and put it back on the high shelf along with the gym bag.

  “Anything else you want to see? I have some real smelly boots up here and some old Odor-Eaters.”

  “Ewww. Gross.”

  Now they both were smiling, and Ben felt better. All was right with the world.

  Elvis gently squeezed the back of Ben's neck and steered him toward the stairs. That was one of the things Ben liked best about Elvis; he didn't treat Ben like a child.

  “Okay, m'man, let's finish washing the car, and then we can pick out a movie.”

  “Can I use the hose?”

  “Only after I put on my raincoat.”

  Elvis made a goofy face, they both laughed, and then Ben followed Elvis downstairs. Ben put the Silver Star in his pocket, but every few minutes he fingered the sharp points through his pants and thought that it was pretty darned cool.

  Later that night Ben wanted to see the other medals and the pictures again, but Elvis had acted so upset that Ben didn't want to ask. When Elvis was taking a shower, Ben heaved himself back atop the safe, but the cigar box was gone. Ben didn't find where Elvis had hidden it, and he was too embarrassed to ask.

  3

  time missing: 3 hours, 56 minutes

  The police arrived at twenty minutes after eight that night. It was full-on dark, with a chill in the air that was sharp and smelled of dust. Lucy stood sharply when the doorbell rang.

  I said, “I've got it. That's Lou.”

  Adult missing persons were handled by the Missing Persons Unit out of Parker Center downtown, but missing or abducted children were dealt with on a divisional level by Juvenile Section detectives. If I had called the police like anyone else, I would have had to identify myself and explain about Ben to the complaint operator, then again to whoever answered in the detective bureau, and a third time when the duty detective handed me off to the Juvenile desk. Calling my friend Lou Poitras saved time. Poitras was a Homicide lieutenant at Hollywood Station. He rolled out a Juvie team as soon as we got off the phone, and he rolled out with them.

  Poitras was a wide man with a body like an oil drum and a face like boiled ham. His black leather coat was stretched tight across a chest and arms that were swollen from a lifetime of lifting weights. He looked grim
as he kissed Lucy's cheek.

  “Hey. How you guys doing?”

  “Not so good.”

  Two Juvenile Section detectives got out of a car behind him. The lead detective was an older man with loose skin and freckles. His driver was a younger woman with a long face and smart eyes. Poitras introduced them as they came into the house.

  “This is Dave Gittamon. He's been a sergeant on the Juvie desk longer than anyone I know. This is Detective, ah, sorry, I forgot your name.”

  “Carol Starkey.”

  Starkey's name sounded familiar but I couldn't place it. She smelled like cigarettes.

  Poitras said, “Have you gotten another call since we spoke?”

  “No. We had the one call, and that was it. I tried reverse dialing with Star sixty-nine, but they must've called from a blocked cell number. All I got was the phone company computer.”

  “I'm on it. I'll have a backtrace done through the phone company.”

  Poitras brought his cell phone into the kitchen.

  We took Gittamon and Starkey into the living room. I described the call that we received and how I had searched for Ben. I showed them the Game Freak, telling them that I now believed Ben had dropped it when he was taken. If Ben had been abducted from the slope beneath my house, then the spot where I found the Game Freak was a crime scene. Gittamon glanced at the canyon through the glass doors as he listened. Lights glittered on the ridges and down through the bowl, but it was too dark to see anything.

  Starkey said, “If he's still missing in the morning, I'll take a look where you found it.”

  I was anxious and scared, and didn't want to wait.

  “Why don't we go now? We can use flashlights.”

  Starkey said, “If we were talking about a parking lot, I'd say fine, let's light it up, but we can't light this type of environment well enough at night, what with all the brush and the uneven terrain. We'd as likely destroy any evidence as find it. Better if I look in the morning.”

  Gittamon nodded agreeably.

  “Carol has a lot of experience with that type of thing, Mr. Cole. Besides, let's hold a good thought that Ben's home by then.”