Читать книгу Malicious - Jacob Stone - Страница 11

Chapter 4

Charlie Bogle entered the Long Beach police station on West Broadway and informed the desk sergeant he was there to see Detective Vernon Howard. The sergeant sized Bogle up quickly.

“You used to be on the force?” he asked.

“Sixteen years with the LAPD.”

The sergeant’s expression showed he had guessed that. “Name?”

Bogle told him his name, and the sergeant got on the phone, had a quick conversation, then told him Howard was waiting for him. “Squad room’s upstairs. Take the first door on your right.”

Bogle thanked him, went up the stairs, entered the squad room, and spotted Howard sitting at a desk. When they had worked together years earlier, Howard had looked like he could’ve been an NFL linebacker. Now he was even bigger—not fat, but much wider, almost as if he had doubled in size. As Bogle approached him, Howard sat motionless with his thick, heavy arms crossed over his chest, his face locked into a deadpan expression. It wasn’t until Bogle reached the desk that Howard at last broke out in a wide grin and offered his meaty hand, which was nearly the size of a baseball glove. Bogle’s own hand disappeared inside it.

“Damn, Charlie, how long’s it been?” Howard asked.

“How long have you been working in Long Beach?”

“Ten years.”

“That’s how long it’s been.”

Howard’s expression drifted into something wistful. “How’s Jenny and the kids?”

“We divorced five years ago. Her idea. Tom and Eileen are both in college, and even though they’re local it’s still costing me an arm and a leg.”

“Ah, man, sorry to hear about the split.”

Bogle shrugged. “I can’t blame her. I wasn’t the easiest guy to be married to. How about you and Marcie and your brood?”

“She’s still busting my balls every day, and will be until the day they lower me into the ground. Boys are behaving themselves. Last fall, Vernon Jr. started his freshman year at UCLA. Got himself a football scholarship. Defensive end.”

“Wow. That’s terrific.”

Howard beamed, showing his pride. Then his expression turned serious and he asked, “So you’re here to talk about Karl Crawford’s disappearance. The wife hire you?”

“Yeah.”

Howard’s eyelids lowered a bit, but whatever he was thinking he kept to himself. He grabbed a folder from his desk, and told Bogle they’d talk in one of the interrogation rooms. “You want some coffee?” he offered.

“Is it any better than what we used to have on Wilcox Ave.?”

“Some.”

“Sure, I’ll have a cup.”

On the way to the interrogation room they stopped to pour themselves coffee, and Bogle, remembering what the Wilcox Ave. precinct coffee had tasted like, grabbed himself four packets of sugar. Once they were seated in the ten-by-eight-foot windowless interrogation room, Howard peered at Bogle through half-lidded eyes as he sipped his drink. He asked, “Your take on Lauren Crawford?”

“I think she’s legit. You don’t, huh?”

Howard took another sip before shaking his head. “Not necessarily. But it’s one of two things: someone killed Crawford and buried his body, or he took off to parts unknown. If it’s the first, she’s the only one I could find who would profit from his death, but that would only be if there was a death certificate issued so that she could collect on the life insurance.”

“You’re thinking she might not want to have to wait seven years to have him declared legally dead, and that we were hired to help speed things along?”

Howard shrugged. “I’m just saying it’s possible. Especially if she gave you any hints where you might find his body.”

“She didn’t give us anything. She seems in the dark about what happened. But if that changes and she calls us with some sort of epiphany, I’ll let you know.”

Howard appeared satisfied with Bogle’s remark. He took out a map of the greater Los Angeles area from the folder he had brought and spread it out on the table.

“Karl Crawford worked for Samson Oil & Gas maintaining the oil wells we’ve got dotting the Los Angeles landscape,” Howard said. “He’s been doing that for twenty-two years, and according to his company, he’s been a conscientious and reliable employee with a spotless record. On November fourth of last year, he serviced this well over here.” Howard pointed a thick index finger to a spot on the map near the outskirts of Long Beach that had been marked with a red x. “According to the maintenance log kept at the well, Crawford signed in at eight thirty-seven a.m. and signed out at ten forty-nine a.m. He was next scheduled to go to this well over here, but he never showed up. Or at least he didn’t sign in on the log, and according to Samson there was no sign that maintenance had been done that day.”

Howard pointed to another red x drawn on the map, this one north of the first, and near Lakewood.

“Hmm. It looks like the two wells are about seven miles apart,” Bogle commented.

“Yeah, that’s about right.”

“Did anyone see him leave the Long Beach well?”

“Not that I could find. The wells are unmanned, and in isolated locations. Nobody else from Samson was there.”

Bogle frowned at that. “So he just disappeared somewhere between the two wells?”

“Yeah, seemingly both him and his car.”

“What have you done to try to find him?”

“The usual. Checked hospitals, monitored his credit cards, activated his car theft retrieval system, did a spot check of the area around both wells, looked into his home life. I got nothing with any of that.”

“Why didn’t you bring in bloodhounds to search for him?”

Howard made a get real face at that question. “Are you serious, Charlie? I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere requesting that. Maybe if I’d found the car abandoned, or better yet, with his blood, it would’ve been different. But as it is, what it looks like is he got in his car and decided to drive to a new life somewhere else.”

“Why would he do that? Were there any signs he was planning to leave? Marital discord?”

Howard gave Bogle a look as if he couldn’t believe Bogle was asking him that.

“Come on, man, the guy’s forty-five and doing the same lonely, tedious job for twenty-two years. He was a perfect candidate for a midlife crisis. He could’ve been putting money aside for months planning for this. Are you seriously going to tell me you’ve never daydreamed about getting in your car and driving someplace far away and starting your life all over?”

Straight-faced, Bogle said, “Me? I’m living the dream. Why would I ever think of something like that?”

“Yeah, well, I’ve had those daydreams.” Howard seemed surprised that he had admitted that out loud. “Not that I ever thought about it seriously, mind you.”

“If that’s what happened, why’d he spend two hours working on that first well before taking off?”

“Maybe he finally reached his limit. Who knows?”

“You think that’s what happened?”

Howard drank more of his coffee, his eyes narrowing into slits. “For now,” he admitted. “But let’s see what you come up with.”

“Anything else you can think of that might help?”

“Not a thing.” Howard crumpled his cardboard coffee cup into a ball and tossed it into a trash can, banking it off the wall.

“Let me walk you out of here.”

The two men got up and left the interrogation room.