White Ghost Ridge Read online

  “So, you start putting the squeeze on him?”

  “Not at first. He was still splashing the cash he had on me. Then it started to run out. That cousin of his went to court in England to stop him getting any more of his mother’s money. She won too. Old lady had some sort of dementia. Alec started to refuse when I asked him for money. One night, we came back to his apartment. Nat and I were desperate for a fix. I did what I had to do to try softening him up a little and then asked him for money. He refused. He said he didn’t have any. So I said I’d cut him, right? I wouldn’t have. That’s not my scene. I’m small-time stuff. But he wouldn’t back down. I put a knife to his neck and just about nicked him. He screamed like a baby. Old lady across the hall rang the cops. Alec didn’t press charges because I told him I knew what he’d done and I’d have had no problem telling what I knew if I had to.”

  Locklear thought about this for a moment. Something didn’t quite add up. The timeframe of the emails meant that Holton had been stealing Native American artefacts before Caird started blackmailing him.

  “Who were the emails from? A name?”

  Caird smiled again. “They all ended with ‘Toh-way cheen’ so I guess that was his name.

  Locklear sighed and hoped that O’Brien could figure out where in the US the emails had come from.

  “There’s more,” Caird said. “But if I tell you, I definitely walk?”

  Locklear thought about what Benson would have to say about that but decided he’d risk it.

  “OK. If it’s good – you’ll walk.”

  “I came to the apartment one day with Alec. An Indian had arrived at the building earlier. Knocked on the old woman’s door across the hall by accident and threatened her. Alec and me got out of the elevator and Alec and the Indian started arguing.”

  “Date?”

  “I dunno. Maybe a Saturday? Alec wasn’t working so it must have been the weekend. I went into Alec’s apartment while this was going on. It was none of my business. But I could hear everything. I watched the whole thing through the peephole. The Native guy had a big tattoo of a feather on his cheek. He left and Alec went into his office in the apartment to make a call. I heard him telling whoever he called what happened and telling them to sort it out. Then Alec got really drunk. He was terrified. Didn’t wake up the next day until after two. He went over to the old lady to check on her. Two days later I see a photo of the Indian on the news – saying he’d been pushed off a bridge in Richmond.”

  “You didn’t go to the police?”

  “You fucking kidding me? This was gold dust. I had Alec where I wanted him. I only had to show up at the apartment and I got cash. No more favours for it neither.”

  “Any idea where he was getting it from?”

  “Wasn’t my problem.”

  Locklear sighed again and tapped his pen off the metal table.

  “We done here?” Caird asked.

  “Yes. For now.”

  “Bad news, sarge,” Mendoza said out in the busy station.

  “Shoot.”

  “No-one except Carter came anywhere near Holton’s apartment door on the night he was killed.”

  “No-one? You sure.”

  “Yes. I spent two hours going over the footage.”

  Locklear glanced over to where O’Brien was sitting staring into his computer screen.

  He walked up to him.

  “Check Holton’s phone records and see who he phoned each Saturday for the last number of weeks. I want that information yesterday, O’Brien.”

  O’Brien pulled a face and did not look up from his screen.

  “O’Brien?”

  “Yes?”

  “When I speak to you, you look at me and you say ‘Yes, sir’. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir,” O’Brien replied as he narrowed his dark pools at Locklear.

  “Come on, Mendoza,” Locklear said, stalking towards the entrance.

  “Where to now?” she asked.

  “Back to the innocent-looking Meara Henschel. Seems the old lady knows even more than I thought she did.”

  Chapter 5

  Locklear could see the light flicker behind Meara Henschel’s peephole as the old lady stood behind her door and tried to decide whether or not to let him and his trooper inside. He took her missing earrings out of his pocket and dangled them in front of the peephole until she pulled back the chain and unclasped the lock on her door.

  Meara put her hand out and waited for Locklear to drop her treasured earrings into her hand. Then she stood to one side and motioned for the pair to come in.

  “Where did you find them?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Thank you,” she replied with glistening eyes.

  The old lady was not surprised to see the sergeant and his trooper again only a day after their first visit. She had known the sergeant had realised she had not told him all that she knew about her long-term friend. She had loved Alec and even now her overriding emotion was to protect the man she looked on as a son. Even when she knew it was too late. Even now that she knew it no longer really mattered to Alec.

  When her visitors were seated she sat in silence and waited to see how much Locklear had figured out and how much she might still be able to keep to herself. If not for Alec’s sake, then for his family.

  Locklear matched her silence with a brooding stare but the woman remained silent.

  It was Mendoza who broke the quiet of the room.

  “We know you didn’t tell us everything about Alec,” she said. “We also think we know why. You loved him. You wanted to protect him. But what you’re actually doing is protecting his killer. We don’t want to cause you any more upset than you’ve already been through and we don’t want to take you downtown for questioning – but if we have to, if it means we can find out what happened to Alec Holton, then we will. So, we’d advise you to tell us what you know and don’t waste any more of our time.”

  Locklear squirmed a little at his trooper’s forthrightness towards the old lady but Mendoza’s tactics appeared to throw Meara off guard. She glanced quickly at Locklear before focusing her tired swollen eyes on Mendoza.

  “I admit that I didn’t tell you everything and you’re right – it was to protect Alec’s reputation. It’s his family I’m thinking of. I didn’t want to upset his mother.”

  “Holton’s mother is in the early stages of dementia,” Locklear said. “She’s a ward of court in the UK. She may not even understand that he is dead.”

  “He has a cousin. She’s a British diplomat. It could ruin her career.”

  Locklear took out his pen and notepad. “Her name?”

  “Amelia Hirsch.”

  Locklear jotted down the name and inhaled. “Now, tell us everything about the day a Native American mistakenly knocked on your door.”

  Meara rubbed her lined hands together as though she was cold while Locklear sweated in the heat of the apartment. A radiator clicked beside him. The temperature outside was around 32oC yet the old woman had the heating on.

  “Do you mind if I turn that down?” he asked.

  “Yes, I mind,” Meara snapped. “I doubt you’ll be here long enough to melt,” she added curtly. “I gather you’ve spoken with Simon Caird.”

  Locklear nodded.

  “Did he kill Alec?” she asked.

  Locklear did not answer.

  “The Native American,” Mendoza interjected swiftly.

  Meara cut her a sharp glance.

  “Alec wasn’t here when the man arrived. I don’t know if he knocked at his apartment. I don’t even know how he got into the building, but the carpet-cleaning company were here so perhaps they’d left the front door open while they were working. I’d asked the janitor if the men would clean two of my rugs while they were here so when I heard the knock at my door, I thought it was them. My carer wasn’t here so it took me a while to get to the door and by the time I reached it he was yelling and pounding on it.”

  “What was he yelling?” Lockl
ear asked.

  “He was just calling out Alec’s name and some foreign words, repeating the same thing over and over.”

  “Foreign? Have you any idea what language it was?” Mendoza asked.

  “I’m sorry, no. I didn’t recognise it and I’ve a good knowledge of languages. I speak five.”

  “Really?” Mendoza replied.

  Locklear could hear the admiration in his trooper’s voice. He wasn’t sure if Mendoza was genuinely impressed or if she was putting on the charm to get as much out of the old lady as they could.

  “Yes. My native Polish, of course. I speak some Russian, German and English. I learnt Italian while studying music.”

  “I speak Spanish,” Mendoza offered for no apparent reason.

  “I should imagine that you do. You are Hispanic,” Meara replied curtly.

  “Gee, you’re tough but, sweetie, so are we,” Mendoza said. “Now that we’ve become friends, you need to get to the point. If you’d prefer your rich neighbours to see you being brought downtown in a marked car, Sergeant Locklear would be happy to arrange it. So, get to the point.”

  Meara pursed her thin lips.

  “As he repeated those words over and over, do you remember them?” Locklear asked.

  “Yes, It was ‘lakotayate’ or something close to that.”

  “Do you mean Lakota Oyate?”

  “Possibly. He said it very fast.”

  “Do you know what it means?” Mendoza asked Locklear.

  “Well, Miss Henschel, that’s not foreign,” he sniped. “Lakota Oyate means ‘Lakota People’ or ‘Lakota Nation’. It’s one of the languages of America’s first people.”

  “So what happened when he knocked?” Mendoza asked to distract from Locklear’s sarcasm.

  “I opened the door and he seemed surprised to see me. He looked past me into my apartment and insisted on speaking with Professor Holton. I said Alec didn’t live here. Just then the elevator door opened and Alec and Simon got out. Alec and the man argued. Simon fled like a scared little rabbit into Alec’s apartment. The Indian had a small box which he thrust into Alec’s hand. He called him a traitor.”

  “Traitor? So, he and Alec knew each other?”

  “Yes, it seemed that way,” Meara replied weakly.

  “Then what?”

  “He said Alec would pay for the betrayal. That they’d be coming for him unless he put things right.”

  “Did he say anything else?”

  “No. But Alec was terrified. He tried to explain that it wasn’t his fault. He tried to hold onto the man, to reason with him and the man pushed him and began to say those words again over and over. Alec grabbed onto him. He was trying to make him stay. They struggled a bit. The box fell and burst open. The Indian picked up the contents from the floor and took off down the stairwell.”

  “What was in it?” Mendoza asked.

  Meara began to cry and both Locklear and Mendoza could see the sharp old woman’s tears were heartfelt.

  “Something I saw too much of already in my life. Something I tried hard to forget. It was a human skull.”

  “Did you ask Alec later what it was all about?”

  “Not until the next day. He stayed in the apartment all evening with that Simon. It showed me how caught up he was with that man. I’d have expected him to call after something like that happened. He knew how upset I was. When he called the next afternoon, he was dreadfully hung over and in need of a shower. It looked like he’d slept in the clothes he was wearing.”

  “Did you ask him outright or did he just tell you?”

  “I asked him.”

  “And?” Locklear said.

  “He said that some time back he’d been trying to help a local tribe block further digging on a sacred site. He’d come up against the Dean of his university and some other university he’d been working with about it. Alec said the tribe had turned on him and were blaming him for missing items that were to be returned to them. Alec said he feared for his life.”

  “What did you do then?” Mendoza asked.

  “I was horrified. I’d never seen Alec so … so vulnerable. Someone was threatening to kill him and even if they weren’t really going to do it, even if it was an idle threat, he should go to the police – but he wouldn’t. I had to do something so I phoned the number I had for his cousin. Alec had given it to me in case of an emergency.”

  “Was she alarmed? Had she had any idea that he was in trouble before that?”

  “She sounded worried but, no, she seemed to have no idea that Alec had such problems.”

  Locklear watched as the woman’s face clouded over. Her lips moved as though she was trying to make sense of something.

  “What?” Mendoza asked.

  Meara shook her head. “She seemed so refined when I spoke with her that day. I asked her if I should call the police but she said there was no need. She thanked me for telling her. She said she’d talk to him, that she’d help him sort it out. When I got off the phone I was relieved.”

  “But you were wrong?”

  “Yes.”

  “How so?” Locklear asked.

  “I tried to reach her on her landline to tell her Alec was dead. It rang out so I phoned her on the second number Alec had given me. It was a cell-phone number. Amelia travelled a lot with the diplomatic services.”

  “Did she answer?” Locklear asked.

  “Yes. I was shaking when I heard her voice. I dreaded telling her that Alec was gone. I assumed she’d be devastated.”

  “Assumed? Why, what did she say?” Mendoza asked.

  “I decided to just come right out and say it. I prefer that myself. There is no other way to give such terrible news. I remember the day a prisoner in the adult section of the camp told me my parents were dead, that in fact they had been dead for weeks. He sought me out when he had reason to work in the area I was placed in. He walked up to me and he just said it and I remembered how I appreciated his honesty although I was just a child. So I did the same. I said: ‘Amelia – Alec is dead’.”

  Meara stopped speaking and looked down at her lined hands. She shook her head and heavy tears fell down her worn face.

  “She said … she said ‘Don’t ever call this number again’ and hung up. I haven’t heard from her since.”

  Locklear eyed Mendoza. Amelia Hirsch had two reasons to be glad her cousin was dead as far as he could see. First, once Holton’s mother died, Hirsch would be the sole heir to what was possibly a substantial banking fortune and, second, the public figure could no longer be embarrassed by whatever her troubled cousin had got himself involved in.

  “I’m sorry,” Mendoza offered.

  “Alec was a weak man but a good man. You need to know that. Whatever trouble he was in you can be sure it was something that had got out of hand. Something that was beyond his control.”

  Locklear nodded and sat silently for a while, thinking. Then he rose to his feet.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  He and Mendoza let themselves out while Meara remained seated in the soaring temperature of her overheated apartment.

  Locklear’s phone rang. “O’Brien,” he muttered to Mendoza and answered.

  He listened as the curt man told him that there had been only one Saturday night in the past number of weeks that any calls had been made from Holton’s home phone. He nodded as he absorbed the information.

  “Sartre’s office, huh?” he said. “The only call.”

  Mendoza eyed him quizzically.

  “Right, Mendoza,” he said as he ended the call. “You need to go back to the janitor. See if he still has the security tapes from the day the Native American called. We might see something that neither Caird nor Henschel remembered. Then, go back to the station and pull the record on this native guy’s murder. Find out as much as you can about him, who he was, anything that will explain what he had against Holton.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Locklear looked at his watch. “I’m going to
Richmond University. I think it’s time I had a chat with the Dean.”

  Chapter 6

  Gerard Sartre was younger than Locklear had expected him to be. The Dean of the prestigious university sat in a leather chesterfield armchair and beckoned for Locklear to take the chair facing his in the large office which felt chilly despite the searing summer heat. He reached across the desk and shook Locklear’s hand warmly but did not stand.

  He was dressed in similar clothing to those hanging in Holton’s stuffy wardrobe – a crisp white shirt over tan corduroy trousers. Locklear glanced down at the man’s small feet which were clad in comfortable brown shoes under which Locklear could see socks of an almost identical shade. Sartre was not wearing a tie which Locklear noted did not fit in with his pristine, albeit boring appearance. He had light-brown hair, tan skin and small brown eyes. From the level of his head on the chair, Locklear could tell that he was not a tall man and was probably barely five foot eight. Locklear placed him at being around forty-five years old and wondered how the man had achieved the most prestigious position at the university at such a young age.

  “Can I offer you something to drink?” Sartre asked.

  Locklear zoned in on the man’s accent, the crisp consonants and over-accentuated vowels typical of the cut-glass accents of the British upper class.

  “No, thank you. You’re British?”

  “French-born, actually. My parents moved to London when I was a child. I came here to do my PhD. I met my wife here at the university. She’s from London and was also doing her PhD. In politics, of all things! How utterly boring. Unfortunately, we were just getting settled here when she got a post back in London. So, we have to travel a lot just to see each other. But, well, c’est la vie!” He smiled.

  “I’m here about Alec Holton,” Locklear began.

  Sartre nodded and waited.

  “Can you think of any reason why anyone would want to kill him?”

  “No,” Sartre replied.

  “Do you think that Holton was involved in anything illegal? Anything that could bring unscrupulous people into his life?”