About Time: Tinkering Part 8

NOTE: This concludes the trilogy that began with Titty Show and In Absentia

THE DAY OF THE DEAD

3/2/2014 (2)

“You crazy old fuck,” Reynolds greeted, sotto voce, nodding cheerfully to Unit 63 and her bug-eyed bichon frise across the lane.

Theron Cross stepped aside, as if the big man had merely dropped by with an inexpensive but thoughtful bottle of pinot noir. “You look haggard. I think there’s a Foster’s left in the fridge.”

“You crazy old fuck,” his friend reiterated, carefully easing the inside door shut. “What did you do? Get back here. I don’t want a fucking beer.”

Cross turned, mid-room. “Ah. You were at the filling station.”

Reynolds mopped his broad forehead and swiped his palm on his khakis. “Yeah, I was at the ‘filling station.’ So were you, apparently, according to 116.”

“Sit down and let me fetch you a beer. You’re distraught.”

“I still don’t want the damned beer,” the big man rumbled. Reynolds flopped into a captain’s chair. “What were you doing there?”

“As I told the policemen, I was here the entire afternoon, watching Jimmy Stewart and catching up with Kurt Lederer. Settle down – the detective was only interested in how our exchange impacted my ‘alibi.’ Now. What happened at the filling station?”

“Some meth head or something, think he might have been ready to hold the place up but something went wrong and he wound up getting gutted,” Reynolds said. “Except whoever stabbed him appears to have vanished into thin air. I can’t imagine why 116 reported seeing you at the minimart. Mike Dodge, Illinois snowbird, used to be a reporter. Some Corn Belt farm journal, relax. You know this guy?”

“Tried to talk me up the first time we met. Surprised he’d even recall me.”

“Apparently didn’t recall you too vividly, since you were here watching Jimmy Stewart all day. Right?”

“Yes,” Cross murmured. He perked. “Now that you’ve vented, you want that Foster’s?”

“You’d better ‘fetch’ me something a little more potent,” Reynolds growled.

**

3/6/14

“Need I remind you, we do have an actual homicide – not natural causes or witchcraft or a quantum rift.” Yu was still rattled after the interview with the old whack snowbird from the minimart and Cross scenes. Despite Mike Dodge’s insistence Theron Cross had been prowling the FastFill and the complete lack of evidence or for that matter Theron Cross at the scene of the Palm Shadows “explosion” or implosion or whatever, the cop suspected the retired reporter had a toe in here somehow. 

“In that regard, Hernandez called about a half-hour ago,” Yu continued, hangrily starting another Bosa’s old-fashioned. “So your Cousin Juanita gave the minimart a good sweep during the dead spell after lunch, few hours before the call on Kyle Whitson. Hernandez isolated some trace may have come off the killer. Halite.”

“Salt.” It was Jesus’ first word of the day. His partner’s quiet meditation on the ride back from Palm Shadows, as well as the FBI’s abrupt appearance to hijack the Cross case that didn’t seem to be a case by any law enforcement definition, had heightened Yu’s irritability quotient. He swiped some creamy filling from his chin.

“Natural halite, lower purity than commercial salt. Like what they used to get from the mines in the Camp Verde area, which is actually where Hernandez thinks it may have come from. Whitson never strayed much further than the I-60 ramp on Val Vista, and I don’t see your Cousin Juanita communing with the desert spirits on a Mesa bus pass.”

“What about Cross? Seemed to be into the regional lore. They check out his shoes?”

Yu licked sugar from his fingers, then reluctantly swiped a napkin from the Bosa’s bag. “Nada for blood, nada for sand. Which makes sense since he wasn’t at the fucking FastFill. Why?” That last had a bite.

Jesus smiled. “You hear about the body they found at Camp Verde, at the base of Montezuma? IDed him as a local meth cook, shot and presumably dumped of the ledge. Literally popped up for some Japanese tourists on an early hike.”

“Yeah? You think Cross is some kinda Social Security Charles Bronson, taking out the Valley narcotics trade one lowlife at a time?”

Jesus finally selected an apple fritter. “Maybe just one family of them. Our dead cook – that is, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s dead cook – is one Russell Whitson.”

**

3/5/14

Unit 123

Reynolds set to work. Tuesday normally was an uneventful day, barring religious holidays, but the baselines shifted as the Palm Shadows’ tenants moved on and/or up, snowbirds migrated back north, east, or west, and the “charters” transferred, retired, or simply lost their value.

Unlike Danzer on the moneyed side of Val Vista, Reynolds led a fairly solitary life -- a toxic, childless former marriage back in Illinois; a lack of commonality with most of his middle-aged, transitory neighbors. Sharing his poolside condo with DOD-grade sensors, receivers, and data-crunching toys had made it an easy lifestyle choice.

That was OK – Reynolds had his Cubs, and even with the move from rickety Hohokam to the sleek new park at Tempe, spring training was a whim and a pleasant half-hour’s drive away. He had 340 channels of cable, Netflix, Facebook, the occasional visiting physicist seeking geek camaraderie or retrospective validation, and, when nostalgia or biology compelled, a sanitary and discreet hooker in Surprise (Reynolds delighted in the irony – Mellanie offered little innovative or revelatory). Given the Valley’s Cubbie fanbase, Chicago deepdish or a creditable Italian beef were available virtually at a snap of the fingers.

Project Tinkerbell had provided secure semi-retirement in a subtropical urban Eden, a sop to Reynold’s waning academic curiosity, a measure of back-alley cache among the black budget folks. It wasn’t Fermi or Oppenheimer. But Reynolds had found something new, and to the research community, something new was a shiny find even if you couldn’t quite figure out its conceivable application. That was Danzer’s job, and apparently, one finally yielding fruit: His vociferous associate had hinted at a deep-pocketed new project “patron.”

And the flap with Cross and Dodge had settled out the day the minimart bandit got murdered. The cops appeared satisfied with the creepy troll’s alibi. He’d suspected Cross had been tinkering with some extracurricular shit either related to or independent of Tinkerbell, but, hey, not his circus.

Reynolds snagged and snapped open a Tecate, fired up a fresh American Spirit, snapped on CNN, and, moving beyond the white noise into the “guest room,” dropped into a pleather Officemax chair before the monitor bank.

A dozen monitors lined the west wall of the windowless room (the remaining windows were shielded by Phifer Super Solar Screen and a classified signal defense security film not just impervious to the most elite black hat crackers but theoretically capable of blocking an electronics-canceling electromagnetic pulse from a dirty bomb). Unlike Danzer, Reynolds was content with the theoreticals when it came to Tinkerbell. No international cybercartel or postgrad hacktivist looking to bring down Target or Wall Street was likely to go prowling in Palm Shadows’ servers or puzzle out the data they’d uncover.

Each 8640p monitor displayed a vertical cascade of windows, each containing a luminous waveform. For the most part, the flatlined forms signified vacancies, snowbird sublets between winter occupancies. Most of the windows displayed a trickling succession of shallow crests and troughs, a pulse barely present. In a few cases, the waveforms were jagged, irregular, occasionally leaping for minutes at a time only to drop back into a calmly flowing baseline. 

Reynolds wheeled to the third monitor, where one window was alive with a palsied dance, extended flatlines, and abrupt jags of electronic snow. Even to the lay observer who had no concept of Tinkerbell or Reynolds’ shiny find, the green-on-slate signature would be disturbing, unsettling, would raise hackles. The physicist slugged down his cerveza, chased it with nicotine, and jerked to his feet, sending the chair spinning backwards, as he sought out another Tecate.

The circus apparently had come to town.

**

Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department

9:35 a.m.

“Yeah, get this shit,” the county detective snorted as the trio approached the interview room. Jesus was relieved Arpaio was out at the capital probably lobbying waterboarding of day laborers. The old bigot wouldn’t be thrilled to host a couple city cops looking to milk a county suspect, especially this particular couple. The detective himself was no great Arpaio fan -- Jesus figured he likely had eyes for the top job once Sheriff Joe dug his heels deep enough into the shit.

“We heard tell our boy Russell liked to hang at the Javelina, biker bar in Saguaro Junction, and in fact he’d got his tweaky little ass in deep with the owner, Fred Whitehorse, rough character we’ve tried to hang at least three homicides on. So we go out and have a chat with Whitehorse and his bartender, gal named Treena who’s a tough little piece herself. She pops forth with a handy alibi for the boss, and when we push, she admits this guy Kurt Treweiler -- minor-league dealer out of Mesa – was in the night before, acting kind of squirrelly about seeing something go down at Verde. Kept talking like somebody was with him, then backtracking. So boom, we figure somehow Russell pulled some shit with Treweiler and got popped.

“So we pull Kurt in – smart boy, didn’t give us any shit – and before we could offer him a Yoohoo and chips, he just breaks down sobbing that, yeah, he wasted Russell, but he’d been of ‘insane mind.’ He was possessed, he says. Well, you gotta hear this shit yourself.”

Kurt was a chinless buzzcut who nearly jumped from his fish-belly skin as Jesus and Yu entered. He drained his chocolate milk, fingers shaking with, as Jesus discerned, fear rather than meth.

“I gotta get protection,” Treweiler squeaked.

“Russell’s people?” the sheriff’s man asked with interest. “You got something to trade?”

“Russell ain’t got any fucking people,” Kurt wailed. “It’s the kachina! It saw me, and I think the old hippie did, too.”

The detective gave Jesus and Yu a “See?” smirk, but Jesus pulled a chair to the table.

“Old hippie?” the Gilbert cop inquired gently.

And Kurt spilled the whole deal – the old hippie picnicking on ‘shrooms or hummus, whatever, on the well’s rim, glitching out and in while Cloverfield meets Alien meets an Apache Junction gift shop piggybacking on his bandwidth. Russell wigging out and you know what can I have one of those attorneys you offered earlier after all?

“Idiot doesn’t get the concept of no backsies,” Yu said out in the hall as their county cuz conferred with a female deputy.

“Sometimes, you don’t really hear it ‘til you’ve said it aloud a few times,” Jesus murmured. “Any man’s death and all that mierda, but I don’t think Sheriff Joe and the boys will have much trouble one way or the other. It sounds like the world’s lamest insanity defense, like Kurt here’s dipping into his own stock.”

“I don’t like the sound of that ‘sounds like,’” Yu said. He remembered his partner’s silent reaction to Dodge’s lizard people Ted Talk on quantum physics and matter and energy and alternate timelines, and conceded the incident at Palm Shadow defied standard Gilbert PD theory or procedure. At least the dealer confirmed the disappearing coot as Theron Cross before he lawyered up. Whatever that shit meant.

“Got divers in the well looking for Treweiler’s weapon and now maybe Cross” the county detective reported as he dismissed the uniform. “Course, he’s older than Moses, so could be he simply wandered off the wrong direction and wound up Coyote Chow. We’re setting up a search team with the Parks folks. Care to join in?”

“Be lucky to find our way back to Gilbert,” Yu suggested. County Guy liked that, as Jesus knew he would.

**

“Hate to waste county resources,” Jesus finally sighed as Yu headed though the old downtown. A busy day in Old Gilbert once meant the Liberty Market’s egg and Joe’s BBQ brisket deliveries had landed simultaneously for a potential 5-minute bottleneck. But the original strip now was sprouting tendrils and arteries that would feed hipsters and haute snowbirds and generally the millennial money that had outgrown Chandler and Scottsdale’s geographical capabilities. Bands and neon and raw fish on seaweed and avocadoes being used in new and suspicious ways and drinks woulda got you backshot when OG’s neighbors were lizards and scorpions.

Yu beeped gratuitously at a flock of jaywalking pantsuits seeking greens and bruschetta on Postino’s terrace. “You might have told ‘em Cross’ Passat’s still in its regular slot. Or was – prolly been towed by now. Thing is, even if we find Kyle Whitson’s blood in the car, what do we got? Nobody except your loco friend may actually have seen Cross at the minimart. Nobody saw or heard him leave when there was only one available exit. One bloody partial shoeprint but no trail anywhere else, and Cross’ shoes were clean. And then Cross just vanishes with part of his living room, with literally no trace.

“So, OK. We got Cross at the scene of somebody else’s murder, if I trust Treweiler’s account. So he prolly wasn’t at home when whatever happened happened. What are you saying? This was a hit? Cross hit Whitson, and somebody else hit Cross? With some kinda Dr. Evil vaporizer? Guess this Reynolds guy did work at a federal energy lab near Chicago…”

“Fermi.”

“Whatever. And turns out he’s buddies not only with Theron Cross but with this Carroll Danzer who seems to own half the condos in Palm Shadows. Danzer was a physicist at some national lab in Maryland in the ‘70s before he retired to Gilbert. Makes sense a couple of government scientists might wind up in the same complex, especially in the Southwest, Alamogordo and Area 51 and all. But then add Cross. Who was, what, an anthropologist? Don’t these atomic science guys hate biologists and anthropologists and psychologists?”

“They rerunning Big Bang on TBS again?”

Yu pulled onto Civic Center Drive. “So what we got at this point? A time-traveling anthropologist murders an armed vagrant in the FastFill snack aisle three days after the murder, then teleports to the desert, summons Kachina Monster, gets bored and goes home, and gets transmogrified by a cabal of has-been scientists?”

“You put it that way…”

**

“You want a Titty Show?”

Now, Jesus was doubly glad Yu had a seventh grade musical to attend. As it was, he’d been as reluctant to drag him out to Saguaro Junction as he had been to lie to his partner.

“Gracias, just a Coke,” he told the deadpan brunette behind The Javelina’s bar.

“Shit, so you’re on the clock,” Treena sighed. “Though good call on the Titty Twister – Sunny D for the alcoholic kindergartner. Kurt’s favorite. Hated to rat him out – one of the lesser assholes in this place.”

“Don’t worry about him coming after you. Sheriff got a full confession.”

Treena placed Jesus’ soda rawdog on the beaten wood. Couple of Sons of Silence down the bar followed their titular credo, studiously ignoring the cop. “So what more you need?”

“Kurt shut things down before we could get a few essential details. He said you had him draw that thing he said he saw out at Montezuma’s Well. I don’t guess you did that as a therapeutic exercise.”

Treena grinned crookedly. “You gonna put out an APB on a kachina?”

Jesus sipped his Coke. The bartender shook her head, retrieved her bag, and fished out a folded flyer. Jesus flattened the sheet on the bar and studied Kurt’s crude but not altogether incompetent rendering.

“And who or what is this? Detective Arthas says you’re a sharp one. What’d you find out?”

Treena regarded Jesus incredulously for a moment. “OK, so a friend on the res says it looks like some old Hopi god called Masau’u. The Skeleton Man, Lord of the Dead, spooky shit. Supposed to be a real douchebag – a trickster or something, real pussyhound.”

“Thanks,” Jesus said, placing some bills on the bar.

“Want me to call if he shows up?”

**

Jesus cruised back up Main, cranking a mariachi station to stave off the monotony of RV parks, strip plazas, and redneck dives that made The Javelina look chic.

He’d entertained dropping in on the show at Camp Verde – Arpaio’s guys had put out a Silver Alert with the evening news blurb painting Theron Cross essentially as a befuddled pickle-baller, and thus committed to an overnight search. But he’d texted Jack Arthas with his request, and if Cross’ well-side picnic site yielded Kyle Whitson’s blood (as had the Passat’s floor mat), he had at least some confirmation that might ruin Yu and Arthas’ Wednesday…

Jesus would for the time being contain his own nagging reflection, planted by the quirky minimart witness Dodge. If the first law of physics applied, and Theron Cross and a sizable chunk of his condo just ceased to be, what the hell took his place?

**

3/2/14 (1)

“That crazy fuck,” Reynolds muttered.

“Let’s focus,” Danzer murmured. “You want some scotch? I’m sure you need it after what you witnessed.”

“I don’t need any fucking scotch, but thanks for your belated concern. What do we do now? Everything shot to shit over a fucking minimart robbery. You know, she was smiling, actually smiling at the kid right before he put a bullet in her forehead. Why didn’t she just give him the cash?”

“Juanita was a young woman of great faith,” the elder physicist reflected. “Also a woman burdened with great pain and tragedy. This may have been what she desired.”

“Well, God bless us everyone. You got anything better than a eulogy for our dear departed meal ticket? Or that crazy fuck Cross’ ramblings. ‘Time heals all.’ My ass.”

“He meant well,” Danzer said curiously.