The Unseen - A Mystery (The Baudin & Dixon Trilogy Book 2) Page 5

  He went over to where the remains had been found. The vat had been emptied, and the officers and techs had cleared out. Baudin went to the office, where Henry sat staring at a computer screen.

  “Excuse me,” he said with his best smile.

  “Your buddies left a couple hours ago.”

  “Yeah, I just had a couple of questions of my own, if that’s okay.”

  “Shoot.”

  Baudin took a seat by the door. Henry had black fingernails, so black that Baudin thought he might’ve had some disease that was eating away at them. “That vat Hannah was found in, how often do you turn it on?”

  “It’s on four hours a day in two shifts. It overheats, so you gotta give it a few hours in between.”

  “How long before the processor spotted the body was it off for?”

  “A couple hours. We was gettin’ ready to clean it out when he saw it.”

  “She’s not an it.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Baudin took out a cigarette and placed it between his lips without lighting it. “She’s not an it. Her name is Hannah.”

  “Yeah, I know. I didn’t mean nothin’.”

  “So you don’t think she was in there when the machine was on?”

  “No way. She’d be ground up like the rest o’ the meat.”

  “Maybe the other half of her was ground up, and you don’t want to throw away all that meat. I bet your bosses would be right pissed if you had to do that. Easier to send it out to the public for sandwiches, isn’t it?”

  The man didn’t answer right away. His silence was long enough that Baudin knew he was thinking of what to say. “I don’t need this shit. You wanna talk to my boss, go talk to him.”

  “No, I wanna talk to the man that found her.”

  13

  Baudin stopped in front of the home. It was in a section of Cheyenne he’d driven through but never stopped in. The section had a lot of liquor stores and pawn shops but not much else. He got out of the car and strolled up the lawn. He peeked in a window before knocking. A Hispanic woman answered, a slight fear in her eyes.

  “Habla usted Inglés?”

  “Yes,” she said, a heavy accent hanging on the word.

  “I need to see your husband.”

  She opened the door for him, and he stepped through. The home was clean, and paintings of Jesus hung on the walls. The television blared a cartoon in Spanish, and two children sat in front of it, their eyes glued to the screen.

  “Qué están mirando?”

  The children didn’t respond. Baudin didn’t sit because he wasn’t asked to. Instead, he stood by the door and waited, his eyes slowly taking in everything in the home. The man he was about to meet could possibly have killed Hannah. Baudin had seen several cases over the years where the perpetrators of the crimes were the ones to notify the police, hoping to deflect interest in themselves.

  Ramon came out in a white T-shirt and jeans. His face was darkly tanned, and his haircut, with certain sections longer than others, had obviously been done at home. Baudin instantly sympathized with him. When he and his wife were newly married and living on the salary of a beat cop, she’d cut his hair at home, too.

  “Yo estoy con la policía. Necesito hablar con usted acerca de lo que viste ayer.”

  He nodded and motioned for the front door.

  Baudin stepped out onto the porch and waited as Ramon came out and closed it. He didn’t say anything until Ramon folded his arms and asked in accented English, “You here about girl?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know nothing. I found her there. That is all I know.”

  “That’s all, huh? Usted no está mintiendo?”

  Ramon nodded.

  Baudin leaned back against the door. “They’ve already talked to you, haven’t they?”

  The man averted his eyes and shook his head. “No, no one talk to me.”

  The fact that the man knew who Baudin was referring to made Baudin think he was on the right path.

  “Let me guess,” Baudin said, “you’re not a citizen. And they told you what to say. If you didn’t say it exactly like they wanted, the understanding was that they would call Immigration. Eso es lo que pasó, no es así?”

  The man looked away. “No. I don’t know.”

  Baudin had seen the same thing a thousand times before. People with illegal immigration status were blackmailed by bosses into doing whatever the boss wanted—whether that was mowing their lawns on the weekends in order to keep their jobs or lying to the police.

  “This stays between me and you,” Baudin said. “Your name will not be mentioned anywhere other than saying you discovered the body. This conversation will never be known about. I just need to know the truth. She’s a person, Ramon. A person. You believe in Jesus, and I know that means something to you. Usted es Cristiano, y yo sabemos que va a hacer lo correcto.” The man wouldn’t look at him, so Baudin stepped closer, forcing his eyes up. “Did they tell you to say you found her later than you did?”

  He hesitated, his eyes on the porch, and nodded.

  Baudin lit the cigarette in his mouth. Someone at the plant had forced this man to lie. The rest of the body had been ground up early, probably in an entirely different vat of meat, but they hadn’t wanted to waste all that pork.

  “What time did you actually see the body?”

  He swallowed. “In the morning. I take it to my boss. He come out, and they stop the machines. They take it out and… put it on the side. Then they put it back later in another place.”

  “They took the body out and put it into a different vat that didn’t have much meat?”

  “Yes. That meat, the meat we throw away, is the hot dog meat. The… cómo se dice? … guts and stomachs, cheap things. Not expensive meat.”

  Baudin couldn’t believe what he was hearing. They’d destroyed a crime scene to save a few bucks. For the first time, he wondered if Cheyenne really was any different than LA.

  “Who told you to do that? The man I spoke with last night? Henry?”

  Ramon nodded.

  Baudin let the cigarette dangle between his fingers. “Thank you for telling me. I promise, no one at your work will know we had this talk.”

  Ramon nodded and went back inside without meeting Baudin’s gaze.

  Baudin took out his cell phone before putting out the cigarette. Dixon answered on the second ring.

  “Yeah,” Dixon said.

  “You’re not gonna believe this—they moved her body.”

  “Hannah? Who did?”

  “The workers were told to by that fuck Henry. She was apparently ground up in the good stuff, and they didn’t want to throw all that meat away. So they pulled out the remains and then put it back later into the vat with all the leftover shit that wasn’t worth that much.”

  “You gotta be shittin’ me?”

  “We gotta find that meat. Maybe he threw something else in there. Maybe someone else.”

  Dixon was silent a moment. “Shit. I had a barbeque sandwich for lunch.”

  “Just meet me down there.”

  14

  Dixon sat on the balcony of his apartment and hung up his phone. He should’ve told him he’d had too much to drink, but admitting that to anyone, even to Ethan, was too painful. The last thing he wanted right now was to be judged, and even someone as nonjudgmental as Ethan might’ve had a hard time not doing it.

  Dixon rose and went to the bathroom. He washed his mouth out with mouthwash and then splashed on cologne. Then he decided to take a shower because he knew the alcohol had come out of his pores when he sweated.

  After a quick shower in lukewarm water, he dressed in a fresh shirt and tie with slacks and a suit coat. Slipping on his sunglasses, he looked at himself in the mirror. He had become exactly what he hadn’t wanted to when he was younger: a lonely middle-aged man.

  Pushing the thought from his mind, he left the apartment and got into his car. As he pulled out, he saw one of his neighbors heading to her ca
r. The young woman had brunette hair that came down to her shoulders. Her name was Jenny something. She waved. He waved back, and she came over.

  “Hey, Kyle, how’s it goin’?”

  “It’s goin’.”

  “I hate to ask, but you think you can give me a ride somewhere? I was gonna call a cab, but I’d really like to save the cash.”

  “Yeah, hop in.”

  She got into the car, and her scent hit Dixon’s nostrils. The scent wasn’t familiar, not like Hillary’s, but it was pleasant.

  “So you never told me what you did?”

  “Seriously? I usually try to impress all the girls with that right away.”

  “Oh, this does sound interesting. Let me guess.”

  He glanced to her. “Take a shot. You’ll never guess.”

  “Well, I wanna say actor, ’cause you’ve got this, like, chiseled jaw and an adorable smile, but that’s not it. You’re too down-to-earth to be an actor. It’s not anything with your hands ’cause your hands don’t have a lot of calluses, so it’s something with your mind.” She stared at him for a second in silence. “High school teacher.”

  He chuckled. “Close. I actually wanted to be a high school teacher when I was a kid.”

  “Why didn’t you do it?”

  “College wasn’t for me. I start reading a book, and I go right out.”

  “So what’d you end up doing?”

  He grinned at her. “I’m a cop.”

  “No shit. My daddy was a cop.”

  “No shit?”

  “Seriously. He was with the Miami PD for like twenty years.”

  “So you moved from Miami to Cheyenne? What was that about?”

  “It was about getting away from someone that wouldn’t go away.”

  “Oh, one of those.”

  “Yeah,” she said, staring out the window.

  A long moment passed before Dixon said, “Well, that’s depressing as shit. Can we talk ’bout somethin’ else?”

  She chuckled. “Sure. What would you like to talk about?”

  Dixon dropped Jenny off at the mall, where she worked. He said bye to her, and as she was walking away, she turned back around to say that she hoped she could see him again.

  Without thinking, he blurted out, “How ’bout tonight?”

  She smiled and agreed.

  Driving to the slaughterhouse, Dixon felt something he hadn’t felt in almost a year: excited anticipation. Lately, his life seemed like going from one slog to the next. As soon as one chore was completed, another one began. But tonight, he had something to look forward to.

  He parked, got out, and saw Baudin sitting on the hood of his car, smoking. Dixon sauntered up to him and sat on the hood. He took the cigarette out of his hand and took a puff before handing it back.

  “Those things’ll kill ya,” Dixon said.

  “So will being drunk in the morning.”

  “I’m not…” He decided it wasn’t worth fighting. “So what? It doesn’t affect anything.”

  “If you say so.” Baudin hopped off the hood and tossed the cigarette on the ground. “Let’s get this over with. I hate this fucking place.”

  Once they were buzzed in, they found Henry on the floor, directing a few men on one of the machines. When Henry saw them, he rolled his eyes. He rushed over and said, “We’ve got kind of an emergency here. Can’t you guys just call?”

  “We need to speak to you,” Dixon said.

  “It’ll have to wait.”

  He went to turn away, but Baudin grabbed his arm. “Now would actually work best for us.”

  Henry didn’t fight when he saw their faces. Dixon’s stare bore into him, letting him know he hadn’t made a request. He finally nodded and led them back to the office. Dixon sat down on the couch, wondering if Henry could smell the booze on his breath.

  “What do you need?” Henry asked as he remained standing.

  Baudin stood in front of him, just a couple feet away. “You lied to us.” Henry tried to talk, but Baudin held up his hand, silencing him. “You lied to us, Henry. You impeded a murder investigation. That, by itself, is obstruction of justice. But I don’t care about that. See, I don’t care about that because I’m thinking to myself, ‘Why would someone lie about the death of a girl?’ Kyle, can you think of any reason?”

  Dixon shrugged. “I guess if they’re the ones that killed her, they’d probably lie about it.”

  “That’s what I was thinking, Henry.”

  Henry’s face went slack, and his mouth opened. “What the damn hell are you two talkin’ about? I didn’t have nothin’ to do with that.”

  “See,” Baudin said, holding up a finger, “I think you did. And I think you need to come with us. Now.”

  Henry recoiled. “No, no, I didn’t do nothin’.”

  “Then why would you lie about it, Henry?”

  He swallowed. “It weren’t me.”

  “Someone told you to do it?” Dixon asked.

  He nodded. “It was Mr. Walk.”

  “Who’s that?” Baudin said.

  “Roger Walk. He’s upstairs. He’s the owner.”

  Dixon asked, “What did he tell you to do?”

  “I ran up and told him what we found after Ramon told me. He told me to take it out, to not let all the top-shelf stuff be shit on, and then to just dump it in the hot dog meat later.”

  Baudin turned and began pacing. “That seems pretty callous. He always a callous man like that?”

  “Yes.”

  Baudin turned back to him. “Did he seem surprised when you told him there was a woman’s body in one of your machines?”

  Henry swallowed again and looked down at the floor. “No, he didn’t. But that’s just him. He’s like that.”

  Baudin motioned with his head, and Dixon rose.

  “We’ll go pay him a little visit,” Dixon said.

  “He ain’t here. He’s at home.”

  “We’ll find it.”

  “If you tell him I told you about all this, he’ll fire me.”

  Baudin said, “He won’t know. As long as you’ve told us everything.”

  “I have.”

  Baudin stared at him a moment longer then nodded before they left the office.

  15

  Before heading to Roger Walk’s home, Baudin decided they should stop for an early lunch. Dixon reeked of alcohol, and Baudin could tell he hadn’t eaten anything by how drunk he was.

  They stopped at a diner Baudin had been to several times. The red vinyl seats were new, and everything else was at least fifty years old, including a beat-up jukebox against the wall. When food was ready, the cooks tapped a bell as Baudin imagined they had decades ago. The waitresses wrote everything down on little pads, and even their uniforms looked as if they were from another decade, one that valued modesty more than sexuality.

  They sat down at a booth, and Baudin ordered two coffees. For a while, neither of them said anything.

  Then Dixon finally broke the silence. “I don’t like coffee.”

  “You need some.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine. You’re about as far from fine as I’ve seen you.”

  Dixon watched a couple leaving the diner. They were holding hands, and Baudin could see his partner’s eyes focusing on that.

  “You ever feel like you’re not in the right place?” Dixon asked. “I don’t mean in the wrong town or somethin’. Like you’re in the wrong time. The wrong century.”

  Baudin nodded. “I always pictured myself leading the French Revolution.”

  Dixon chuckled. “I can see that.”

  “Where do you see yourself?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe caveman times. When life was just about getting food and getting shelter and nothin’ else mattered. You had sex and ate and shit, and that was it. I bet they were happy.”

  “Maybe, or maybe they were miserable and died early.”

  Dixon leaned back in his seat when the coffee came. He stared into th
e cup. “I think I might’ve always known. I’d look at Randy sometimes and think that he didn’t look anything like me. Nothin’. Not an eyebrow, not his nose, eyes… nothin’. But I’d push that thought outta my skull. It was so awful, so fuckin’ devastating, I just couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe she would do that.”

  Baudin took a sip of the coffee. It had a rich aroma and was fresh. “I’m sure she didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean? How could she possibly think it would do anything but rip my heart out?”

  “I don’t know. You should ask her.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t… I don’t want her to see me like this.”

  Baudin pushed a menu in front of him. “If she loves you, it won’t matter. If she doesn’t, then it won’t matter, either. You need to eat something.”

  They ordered grilled cheese sandwiches and ate in silence. After two cups of coffee and a glass of water, Dixon looked much better, more alert. They got back into Baudin’s car, and he drove to the address they’d gotten from the Spillman database for Roger Callen Walk.

  The home was in an area known as Mellon Road, a section of the city up on a hill that was little more than a cluster of about fifty expensive homes. Baudin guessed they were maybe half-a-million or million-dollar homes, but they would have been worth ten or twenty times that in Los Angeles. Many of the homes had sprawling lawns or entire fields with horses running around. He was surprised the area wasn’t gated. Then he remembered that, other than the list, nothing much happened in Cheyenne. But it would. No city was immune from what was coming.

  “It’s that one,” Dixon said.

  They parked at the curb. Corinthian columns, white pillars that thrust up about ten feet, ornamented the porch. The door was solid mahogany and about seven or eight feet high. The trimmed plants and bushes on the lawn looked like something from the lawn of a castle, not twenty minutes from downtown Cheyenne.