Gun Games - Faye Kellerman [3]
Currently, Rina was teaching the fifteen-year-old how to drive.
I thought I was long past that one, she had told him. We plan and God laughs.
The good news was that his baby grandsons, Aaron and Akiva, from his elder daughter, Cindy, were almost three months old. They had been born three weeks early at five pounds, thirteen ounces and six pounds, one ounce. At the end of her pregnancy, Cindy had been carrying around more than sixty pounds of baby weight. But being athletic and working out almost every day, she had dropped the pounds and then some. She was currently on maternity leave from her position as a newbie detective with Hollywood. She planned to go back as soon as she found the right nanny. In the meantime, Rina and his ex-wife, Jan, were willing substitutes. The babies were way more work than Gabe.
Decker smoothed his mustache while studying the phone message.
The tip had been given by the New Mexico State Police. This was the fourth sighting of Garth Hammerling in New Mexico, and Decker was beginning to think that maybe he was on to something. He called up the 505 area code and after a series of holds and call switching, he was connected to CIS—Criminal Investigative Section—in Division 4. The investigator who was assigned to follow up the lead was named Romulus Poe.
“I know the guy who phoned it into the show,” Poe told Decker. “He owns a motel in Indian Springs located about forty miles south of Roswell. The man is what you might call an indigenous character. He sees and hears things that elude most of us mere mortals. But that doesn’t mean he’s totally loco. I’ve been out here for twelve years. Before that I was ten years in Las Vegas Metro Homicide. I’ve seen and heard my fair share of freak. The desert is no place for the fainthearted.”
“What’s the guy’s name?” Decker asked.
“Elmo Turret.”
“What’s his story?”
“He claims he saw a guy that looked like the picture of Hammerling shown on Fugitive. Elmo said he saw him a few days ago, camping out ten miles south from his motel. I’m just clearing out a drug bust. I spent the afternoon pulling out around an acre of mature MJ plants and I don’t mean Michael Jordan. As soon as I’m done with the processing of the local yokels who owned the land, I’ll swing by the area on my bike and see if I can’t find any veracity to the story.”
“Call me one way or the other. You know, this is the fourth spotting I’ve received from New Mexico.”
“Doesn’t surprise me. Ever been here?”
“Just Santa Fe.”
“That’s another country—civilized for the most part. Down here . . . well, what can I say? The Wild West is alive and kicking.”
Paperwork took up another hour, and by seven-thirty in the evening, Decker was about to call it quits when his favorite detective, Sergeant Marge Dunn, knocked on the sash to his open door. The woman was five ten with square shoulders and wiry muscle. She was dressed for winter L.A. style, wearing brown cotton slacks and a tan cashmere sweater. Her blond hair—and getting blonder by the years—was pulled back into a ponytail.
“Have a seat,” Decker told her.
“I’ve got a woman outside wanting to talk to you,” Marge said. “Actually, she wanted to talk to Captain Strapp but since he left, she settled for the next in line.”
“Who is she?”
“Her name is Wendy Hesse and she told me that her business is personal. Rather than push my weight around, I figured it would be easier to send her to you.”
Decker peeked at his watch. “Sure, bring her in while I go grab a cup of coffee.”
By the time he got back, Marge had seated the mystery woman. Her complexion was an