A Slow Walk to Hell Read online

  We crested the hill and turned left at another stop sign. Here the homes qualified as palatial, each nestled on several wooded acres and surrounded by an assortment of intimidating fences and walls.

  “Jeez,” Amanda said. “Look at the size of these places.”

  I was. Impressive.

  “Doesn’t figure, Marty. Even if the Enquirer article was wrong and Talbot and the congressman were close, what uncle shells out millions for his nephew’s house?”

  A valid question. Talbot was a bachelor and a relatively junior military officer. Why would he need to live in a mansion?

  I sat up and pointed. “It should be the next house on the right. The one with the iron fence.”

  We rolled to a stop in front of an ornate wrought iron gate. A sign attached to it said in big black letters, PRIVATE PROPERTY. TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED. And below: DANGER. ELECTRIC FENCE.

  “Interesting,” Amanda said.

  I nodded. Another inconsistency. Why would an Air Force major feel the need to have an electrified fence?

  Peering through the gate, we saw an elegant hacienda-style home, sitting at the end of a crescent drive lined by light poles. The grounds were expansive and immaculate, and included a guest house, a tennis court, and a small pond.

  “You sure we’re at the right place?” Amanda said.

  I’d felt similarly perplexed and was comparing Amanda’s downloaded address against the one I’d written down. I clicked off the map light with a nod. “They match.”

  “So where is everyone?”

  It was a mystery. This was supposedly the scene of a brutal murder. There should be police vehicles and cops everywhere. But there was nothing—not a person or a vehicle of any kind.

  I said, “Charlie Hinkle did say they’re trying to keep the killing quiet.”

  “This quiet?”

  I studied the main house. It was a sprawling, white adobe structure with a two-story center section and single-story wings fanning out on either side.

  “A light just came on,” I said. “Someone’s home.”

  Exiting the car, I headed toward the intercom affixed to a gatepost. After a couple steps, I was suddenly bathed in a bright light. Glancing up, I saw that a spotlight attached to the top of the gatepost had come on.

  “Video camera,” Amanda called out. “Two o’clock.”

  I blinked, trying to focus through the light. I located the camera attached to the right gatepost, peering down on me. It moved fractionally.

  Then from the intercom, I heard the crackle of a familiar voice.

  “We’re opening the gate now, Martin.”

  As I returned to the Saab, Amanda said, “That sounded like Simon.”

  “It was. He wants us to park around back.”

  She shifted into drive as the gate bumped against the stop. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Yeah. This could be a short investigation if the killer is on videotape.”

  “Someone’s coming,” she said.

  As we rolled through the gate, we watched the approaching car. It was a red BMW convertible and as it went by, I caught a flash of silver hair.

  “Looked liked Harry,” I said to Amanda.

  “The guy who sometimes drives for Simon?”

  I nodded.

  “Wonder why he’s leaving?”

  Following the curve of the driveway, we swung around to the rear of the house and found it ablaze in light. Close to a dozen vehicles were parked against the fence that surrounded the pool. Except for the coroner’s van and an ambulance, all the vehicles appeared unmarked, no doubt in an attempt to prevent the media from learning of the killing. This would prove to be a futile exercise. Police departments always had leaks. In a killing this big, someone would talk.

  Amanda nosed in beside a gleaming black stretch limo that was parked at the end of the line of vehicles. Among the sedans and vans, it seemed glaringly out of place. It wasn’t.

  Some of Simon’s fellow cops resented the fact that he cruised around in a chauffeured limo; they assumed he did it to flaunt his wealth. Not true. Simon used a limo because he had pathological fear of driving. When he first told me this, I thought he was kidding.

  Then I saw him drive. His hands shook and he broke out in a sweat. He was genuinely terrified.

  They say geniuses tend to be eccentric and Simon is no exception. Included among his many idiosyncracies are an aversion to handshaking and a compulsion to wear the same suit. I don’t mean the exact same suit, I’m actually talking about identical-looking suits. Specifically, Simon has a closet full of dark blue Brooks Brothers suits, which he wears with a razor-pressed white shirt, a red carnation in the lapel, and a wild bow tie. The only variation to his dress is the bow tie, which he cycles depending on the day of the week. Even though the ties are hideously ugly, they get your attention. That’s the idea; no one forgot meeting Simon.

  Amanda and I got out of the car and took in our surroundings. By the pool, we could see two burly men in suits—probably plainclothes cops—standing on the decking, smoking cigarettes. Neither looked familiar. Several uniformed officers armed with flashlights angled past us and disappeared down the slope of the hill.

  “Neighbors probably didn’t see much,” Amanda said, pointing out the heavy woods on the property.

  “No…”

  She’d gestured with her left hand and I was staring at her ring. In the darkness of the car, I never had a chance to appreciate its size.

  The diamond was huge. It was the biggest rock I’d ever seen. It had to be five or six carats.

  Bob, it seemed, had money. A lot of money.

  “Company,” Amanda said.

  I followed her gaze toward the pool. One of the cops had detached from his buddy and was walking toward us. His suspicious squint suggested he hadn’t been briefed about our arrival. Leaning over the short fence, he casually fired his cigarette butt to the ground and not so casually asked, “Can I help you?”

  When I told him we were with the OSI, nothing registered on his fleshy face. Obviously, he hadn’t graduated at the top of detective school.

  As Amanda and I passed him our credentials, a voice sang out, “They’re okay, Richie. Simon’s expecting them. We got the green light for you and Ben to interview the neighbors. Be cool. Don’t let on that Major Talbot is dead until we get the okay.”

  Looking toward the rear of the house, Amanda and I saw a man emerge from the French doors and hurry toward us. He was slender, medium height, with wavy dark hair and movie-star good looks.

  As usual Enrique Garza, Lieutenant Simon Santos’s chauffeur, was dressed like a Vegas headliner. He wore a purple Armani suit, a dark blue shirt, and a purple tie. From his ears dangled looped gold earrings that had to be an inch in diameter. On anybody else, his flamboyant getup might look cartoonish, but Enrique could pull it off. He could wear a leisure suit to a biker convention and still exude cool.

  “Okay, Enrique.” Richie returned our credentials without bothering to look, then motioned to his friend and lumbered toward a gate at the back of the pool fence.

  You wouldn’t expect a homicide detective to take orders from a chauffeur, but then Enrique wasn’t a typical chauffeur.

  A former Navy SEAL, Enrique had been a homicide sergeant in the Arlington PD until last year, when he got canned because he almost killed a child killer during an arrest. In Enrique’s defense, the other guy swung first and Enrique simply reacted. Normally, that shouldn’t have been a problem, but Enrique used some kind of a ninja punch and drove the guy’s nose cartilage into his brain, turning him into an eggplant.

  Anywhere else, Enrique would have probably gotten a medal. But this is America, the most litigious country in the world.

  The killer’s family got a big-time lawyer and sued the city, claiming Enrique intentionally tried to kill the man. No one thought the family had a chance of winning the case, but the city decided they just might. After all, Enrique was a highly trained SEAL and should have
been able to control his punch.

  So the city settled the case out of court. In addition to whatever money they paid to the family, they also agreed to fire Enrique.

  I’d once asked Enrique why he didn’t sue the city for his job back. No jury in the world would punish him for turning a child-killer into a drooling slab of meat.

  “It’s not worth the hassle, Marty,” Enrique said. “Besides, I got me too good a gig now. Simon pays me three times what I made as a detective and I get the added benny of assisting on his investigations. Hell, it’s like still being on the force, only without having to put up with the horseshit.”

  He was lying. Later, Simon told me the real reason that Enrique never sued for reinstatement.

  Enrique knew the trial would turn into a circus and had no desire to become a poster child for other people’s agendas. He also didn’t want to play the discrimination card. According to Simon, Enrique believed that his firing was justified; he’d made a mistake and lost control.

  By discrimination, Enrique wasn’t referring to bias against his Hispanic heritage. Rather he was talking about his sexuality.

  Besides being a former SEAL and arguably the toughest cop in the Arlington PD, Enrique also happened to be gay.

  I suspected that fact explained his presence here tonight.

  Enrique waited for Amanda and me by the rear gate in the pool fence. He greeted us with a smile and we shook hands. As he turned away from Amanda, his eyes dropped to her ring. I expected him to offer his congratulations on her engagement, but he never did.

  Curious.

  When I mentioned we’d seen Harry leaving, Enrique confirmed that he’d had the day off.

  “Simon called and said to meet him here ASAP. My place is over by Balston Mall, so I got here pretty quick. About the same time as Simon.”

  “Where was he tonight?” I remembered Charlie Hinkle’s comment that the Arlington PD chief of police had been trying to locate Simon.

  “At a Kennedy Center concert. The chief had an usher hunt him down.” He nodded toward the cars parked along the fence. “Some response, huh, Marty? We’ve got twice the usual crime scene units. Forensics, CID, investigative support. Must be thirty people inside. Even the ME got here in under an hour. But, hey, it’s not everyday the nephew of the next president gets knocked off.” He turned and started across the decking toward the house.

  As Amanda and I sidled up to him, she asked, “Who’s the ME?”

  “Who else? Cantrell.”

  Dr. Agatha Cantrell was the natural choice. A thirty-year veteran, she was easily the most experienced ME in the coroner’s office.

  We skirted the edge of the pool. Amanda slipped me a glance which I interpreted and answered with a nod. Enrique wouldn’t take offense. You can’t be a gay cop and have thin skin.

  Amanda still sounded like she had a mouthful of marbles when she said, “Ah, Enrique, there were some rumors about Major Talbot. The military is concerned whether he might be—”

  “The answer is, we don’t know,” Enrique said, smiling at her awkwardness. “We haven’t turned up anything which suggests Talbot was gay.”

  “You checked his computer?”

  “Doing it now. The problem is Talbot had one of those programs that scrambled the internet addresses of sites he visited. That doesn’t necessarily mean much. A lot of straight people cover their tracks on the net.”

  I said, “I don’t.”

  He looked at me. “You’ve never visited a porn site?”

  I hesitated. “Well…”

  He winked. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  Amanda appraised me with an amused smile. I did my best to ignore it and her.

  But she kept right on smiling at me.

  “Anyway,” Enrique said, thankfully changing the subject, “they’re reading his emails. Might be something there. Simon asked if I’d seen Talbot at some of the clubs. To be honest, he looked a little familiar, but I can’t swear to it. Could be I remembered him because his picture had been in the paper.”

  Amanda asked if Simon had questioned the housekeeper.

  “He tried. Mrs. Chang’s from China and her English is pretty poor. Finding the body also threw her for a loop. She was shaking so badly, she could barely talk. Simon had her driven home. He’ll question her tomorrow, with an interpreter.”

  We were approaching the French doors and Amanda and I stopped to don latex gloves. Enrique was already wearing a pair.

  “So,” he said, eyeing us, “you figure out that Major Talbot was one paranoid man.”

  I said, “The electrified fence?”

  “For starters. Notice that?” He pointed above our heads, to what looked like a light fixture. “That’s a video camera. There are fourteen on this property. Eight monitor the fence, six the house. All computer controlled and linked to motion sensors. Simon and I were checking out the surveillance room when you drove up. It’s a concrete box in the basement with a keypad entry system. The door’s made of steel that has to be two inches thick. You should also see the alarm system. Infrared beams on all the windows and doors. It’s even got a back-up power supply, in case the electricity was ever cut off.” Enrique shook his head. “Major Talbot didn’t screw around when it came to security. If someone did manage to get inside his house, Talbot was determined to preserve them on tape. Now the question is, what the hell was Talbot so afraid of?”

  Amanda and I exchanged glances. I could tell she was getting excited and so was I.

  Beating me to the punch line, she said, “With that many cameras, the killer must be on videotape.”

  “Depends. We need to review the remaining tapes. Could be the killer missed one.”

  Amanda and I were deflated by his response. She said, “Missed one?”

  “Five tapes were removed from the video recorders. Had to be the killer. Billy Cromartie’s in the surveillance room, checking out the ones that were left.”

  Amanda swore.

  I was frowning, trying to understand. “But the surveillance room door. You said it had a secure entry system.”

  Enrique was reaching for one of the French doors, when he turned back to me. “Right. We had to call the security company to get inside.”

  “That must mean—”

  “I know where you’re going, Marty. You think the killer must be someone pretty damned close to Talbot for him to have entrusted that person with the entry code. Not necessarily. We figure the killer could have obtained the code from—”

  At that instant, the door flew open, striking him hard. He spun. “Dammitt. Why don’t you look where—”

  A young woman rushed past us and ran over to a flowerbed at the edge of the decking. She bent over and began throwing up.

  Enrique looked away from her, his annoyance fading. “Marva’s new. Worked in CID less than a month.”

  Amanda said quietly, “That bad, huh?”

  Enrique nodded. “That’s why we figure Talbot told the killer the entry code to the surveillance room. He wouldn’t have been able to help himself. Someone tortured the poor bastard before killing him.” He motioned us through the door with a tight smile. “Welcome to church.”

  “Church?” Amanda said.

  “You’ll see.”

  4

  Enrique had exaggerated; it wasn’t a church.

  But it wasn’t far off.

  Amanda and I found ourselves in an open room of maroon tile and textured gold wallpaper. The proximity to the pool and the built-in wet bar suggested it was intended to be a family room, but it didn’t look like any family room we’d ever seen.

  The furnishings were Victorian, heavy and somber. The sitting area consisted of several ornately carved wingback chairs spaced across from a similarly intimidating couch. Heavy tapestries and formidable gilt-framed paintings lined the room. All depicted religious scenes. An enormous mahogany curio cabinet filled with icons and symbols of the Christian faith dominated an adjacent wall. In one corner sat a life-sized statue of Jes
us; in another, a smaller one of Mary.

  Amanda made a slow 360. “This is…amazing.”

  “Gets your attention, doesn’t it?” Enrique said, coming forward. “Talbot was a big Catholic. Almost all the rooms are decorated like this. A spare bedroom upstairs even has an altar.” He winked. “Simon must have felt right at home when he walked in.”

  He was only partially kidding. Before becoming a cop, Simon had attended seminary school. He never explained why he passed on becoming a priest, but I had a pretty good guess. His father, a big Miami real estate developer, got his rocks off by strangling young girls between business deals and dumping their bodies in Biscayne Bay. Simon learned the truth when he was something like ten or eleven. Since then, it’s been the defining event in his life. He became a homicide cop not because he wanted to; he had to. In his mind, hunting down killers was the only way to atone for his father’s sins.

  Amanda said to Enrique, “Almost all the rooms…”

  He shrugged. “Several are decorated with a single gold cross. Talbot’s bedroom is the only place where I didn’t notice anything religious. Just the opposite, in fact. It’s pretty wild. C’mon. The body’s in the west wing.”

  He led us through a door into a carpeted hallway. Large windows lined the left side, providing a view of the softly lit center courtyard. The hallway made a left and we passed a series of rooms: a spacious kitchen with dirty dishes in the sink, a formal dining area with a table that could seat a dozen, a music room complete with a grand piano. All contained a variety of religious images and icons. As we walked, Amanda said to me, “We can relax. Talbot’s probably straight.”

  I tended to agree. Devout Catholicism and a gay lifestyle didn’t strike me as compatible.

  We entered a dramatic mosaic-tiled foyer designed to resemble a Mediterranean grotto. A tapestry depicting the crucifixion hung over a bubbling faux-stone pool. On either side of the foyer were marble hallways, leading to the two wings of the house. Amanda and I gazed up the staircase, which rose to a balconied landing. Several latent-print technicians were dusting the handrails. From the second floor rooms, we could hear the sounds of voices emanating down.