Cold Springs(20)

“Sergeant?”

Damarodas closed his notepad. “Unfortunate timing, your wife sending your daughter out of state. You knew nothing about this?”

“That's another question Mr. Zedman has already answered,” Detective Prost said. “I think it's time we left.”

Damarodas picked up his coffee, took a sip, then set it carefully back on the table. “I appreciate your openness, sir. I'll be in touch.”

The two cops walked through the entry hall, Damarodas scanning the art prints with a look of mild consternation, as if wondering which of them were done by professional artists, which by six-year-olds. John realized the sergeant's unimpressive demeanor was a weapon—he came into your house and infected it, made everything there seem as meaningless as his smile or the color of his cheap suit.

Damarodas gave him one more appraising look from the porch, then tapped his fingers against the golden oak door frame, as if wondering if the wood were real.

It wasn't the first time Pérez had watched his boss go crazy.

Zedman cursed the hills. He shattered the coffee cup the policeman had been drinking from. He threw a $300 piece of pottery at his quilt and cracked the glass.

Then he started weeping. He touched the broken glass, like he wanted to caress the quilt panels—the fading stick figures, the peeling scraps of felt.

Pérez didn't know what to do for him.

He imagined writing to his estranged wife back home in Monterrey—Dear Rosa, These americanos are locos. He never actually wrote her, but thinking about it made him feel better.

He had been with Mr. Zedman for five years, since just before the Boss got divorced. The pay was good, the work easy. He'd never fired his gun, never protected Mr. Z from anything worse than panhandlers.

Then a month ago, out of the blue, Mr. Z told him about the letters.

He wouldn't say how long they'd been coming, or what the demands were, or what leverage the blackmailer had, but Pérez understood it had been going on a long time, it was ugly enough to ruin Mr. Z, and Mr. Z, for some reason, was convinced the Montroses were behind it.

That was why no matter how much he hated that kid Race, or how close Race got to Mallory, Mr. Z wouldn't let Pérez touch him. The Boss put up with them messing around together. He endured the bad stories Ms. Reyes would bring him from his ex-wife's school. And the more Mallory flaunted her punk boyfriend in her father's face, the more Mr. Z drank, yelled at Pérez, bit his nails and slammed things around in the middle of the night. Finally, after Mallory's visit three weeks ago, Mr. Z had found a hypodermic needle in her bedroom. That sent him ape-shit over-the-top crazy. He sat down with Pérez and explained a game plan—not the one Pérez wanted, the simple, violent kind, but a plan to end the blackmail “peacefully, to everybody's satisfaction, once and for all.”

The whole idea had pained Pérez. A quarter of a million dollars. For what—silence? Peace of mind?

A bullet cost seventy-five cents.

He remembered Talia Montrose in the Starbucks—that piece-of-shit whore, could barely keep from drooling at the satchel full of money. Pérez had told the Boss it was a bad idea. You didn't make people like Talia go away with money. Pérez hadn't been convinced she was even the blackmailer. She didn't have the look.

And now—Mr. Z had f**ked up. He'd paid off the wrong person. Another letter had come, and just from Mr. Z's attitude, Pérez could tell the stakes had shot up. The police were asking about Talia Montrose's murder. Mallory had gotten herself abducted. Shit, if John Zedman was a number, he'd be a big red thirteen.

But maybe it was all a blessing in disguise. Maybe the Boss would finally get smart.

Pérez came up behind Mr. Z, waited for him to cry himself out. Mr. Z had cut his finger on the broken glass of the quilt frame, and was pressing it into the tail of his dress shirt.

“Let me help, Boss,” Pérez said.

Mr. Z stared at him, his eyes glassy. “My daughter's been taken away, Emilio. Do you know what that means? Do you know what the police will think?”

“We'll get her back,” Pérez said.

“It wasn't supposed to get out of hand. I just want my daughter safe, Emilio. That's all I've ever wanted.”

“I know that. So what are you paying me for—driving?”

The Boss wiped his face. He took a long few minutes putting himself back together. “What do you suggest?”

Pérez watched a thin line of Mr. Z's blood trickling down the glass, streaking the face of a kindergarten stick figure.

He felt like that quilt—something useful stuck in a display case, gathering dust. What was a little blood if it meant breaking the glass once and for all?

“For starters,” Pérez said. “Who the f**k is Chadwick?”

4

“Where are you going?” Olsen asked. “The airport was that way.”

She leaned forward from the back seat, her fingers gripping the top of the headrest like she wanted to rip a chunk out of it.

Chadwick took the Ninth Street exit, drove west into downtown. “I need to talk to her mom.”

“Our flight.”

“We have time.”

“This is against policy, isn't it? You told me that, didn't you?”