Blue Heaven Part 11

It was the opening night reception for the Kootenai Bay Recreation Center, financed through his bank. He had been the princ.i.p.al officer for the project and was on the board of directors. The Rec Center had a full-size gymnasium, an Olympic-size pool, racquetball courts, aerobics and weight rooms, a climbing wall, sauna rooms, Jacuzzis. Although financed jointly by the bank, the city, and the county initially, enough charter memberships had been sold-primarily to newcomers to the valley-that first-year financial projections would be exceeded. It was the first facility of its kind built in the community, and over two hundred people were touring it, drinks in hand, talking excitedly, slapping him on the back.

Two of the bars were located in the gym, one under the rim of each basketball hoop on opposite ends of the floor. To disguise his intent, which was to become obliterated as clandestinely as possible, Hearne alternated bars each time he ordered a drink so the bartenders and guests wouldn't notice how much he was drinking. As The Banker, he was always being watched, observed, talked about. It came with the territory, and he accepted it. But tonight, there was too much on his mind, too many problems, and a serious one he had to keep entirely to himself.

He circulated through the building, exchanging pleasantries, greeting old friends, welcoming new residents, most of whom were bank customers. He tried hard to remember names because they certainly knew him. If he didn't know their names and couldn't read name tags, he simply said, "Great to see you, thanks for coming," and moved on. He tried not to be drawn into any conversations, most of which were about either the new facility or the missing Taylor children.

The sheriff had held a press conference in the afternoon that was televised on the local affiliates and excerpted nationally. Hearne had watched it nervously, always concerned how his community would be portrayed. He was pleasantly surprised how well the new sheriff presented himself, especially since the banker had not supported Carey in the election, thinking him pompous and unqualified. Carey stressed to the media that it was too early to draw any conclusions, that at this point it was a missing persons investigation, not kidnapping or worse. Carey seemed competent, in charge. Photos of the Taylor children were flashed on the screen along with a hot line number. He explained that he'd tapped the resources of a team of retired big-city police officials to a.s.sist him with the investigation. The performance was flawless. Hearne wondered who had coached him.

The makeup of the crowd at the center was interesting to him, and something he was getting used to. Three-quarters of the guests were newcomers to the area, having arrived in the last five years. The remaining quarter were from the area, mainly professional people. It was notable how the newcomers grouped together, and the locals did the same. In only a few instances did he see them mixing. The response to the new facility was different also, he noted. The locals were proud of it almost beyond words, their comments a mixture of awe and reverence, as if saying, "I can't believe what we've done!" The newcomers, on the other hand, were happy with the new facility, but in a different way, as if finally they were receiving something they'd long deserved, something they were used to. As if they had taken another step forward in dragging the hidebound old-timers into the twenty-first century.

But Hearne had trouble mingling, spending much time in either group. As the banker he was sort of a host, so he constantly used that excuse to take his leave, as if pressing matters in another part of the facility pulled him away. His position at the bank and his long history as a resident of the valley gave him knowledge that ran deep. His familiarity with the residents and his customers was a huge a.s.set to the bank, one of the reasons he continued to be promoted every time the inst.i.tution changed hands. He often felt like the human bridge between the old and the new. His life was a balancing act between ingrained loyalties and newfound wealth, power, and status. But sometimes, like now, he felt he knew too much.

The fact was, Hearne couldn't think of much else than the missing Taylor children and the meetings he had had that morning with Jess Rawlins and Eduardo Villatoro. They all disturbed him, but in different ways. They were moles in a mental Whack-A-Mole game: When he suppressed one the other popped up automatically, as if they were somehow interconnected in a way he couldn't comprehend.

He approached a bar situated in the alcove to the swimming pool and ordered a fifth Scotch. As he sipped it, he looked out on the pool. The black lanes painted on the bottom wavered in the water more than they should. He would have to slow down. But he didn't want to.

"What's wrong with you?"

It was his wife, Laura. He hadn't seen her approach.

"What do you mean?"

"I've been watching you," she said. "You've been running around this place like a chicken with its head cut off. The only places you stop are the bars. Don't think I haven't noticed."

He felt himself flush. Caught.

Laura was a plain-speaking, handsome woman, with strong features and all-seeing eyes. Her skin was dark from being outside so much, riding her horses, working at her stables. She was a horsewoman, a former barrel racer, from a third-generation Idaho family. Despite their rise in status within the community, Laura chose to dress in what was comfortable to her: Western shirts, jeans, sometimes a broomstick skirt and boots, like tonight. She was considered vivacious and home-grown by the locals, and Hearne still saw her that way. Only when she was in a big group of newcomers, with their fashion and trendy haircuts, did he realize how different she looked. He appreciated her sense of tradition, though, and admired how she was comfortable with who she was. Sometimes, though, he wished she would dress up a little, like tonight. Didn't she notice? The thought made him instantly ashamed of himself.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "You seem just a tad distracted," she said in a mischievous way. "My dad would have said you are jumping around like a fart in a skillet."

Hearne almost blurted out his Whack-A-Mole a.n.a.logy but caught himself. Mentioning it would open doors he wanted kept shut.

"I keep thinking about those Taylor kids," he said, which was true but only part of the reason. "That isn't the kind of thing that happens here."

"Maybe it didn't used to," she said, then gestured toward the crowd. "Before the immigration and all of your new friends."

He smiled sourly. It was a point of contention between them. Laura would have been fine if the valley had remained the way it was when she grew up, small, intimate, rural, eccentric.

"My 'new friends,' as you call them, helped buy your last three horses and the new barn," he said.

"I know. Boy, you are testy tonight."

He looked away, wishing he hadn't said that.

"You had better slow down," she said, nodding toward his gla.s.s. "I don't want you falling into the pool in front of all of your ...customers."

"I will."

"And, Mr. Jim Hearne, don't play coy with me," she said, leaning into him, staring up into his eyes. "I know you. You drink when you're worried, or fretting about something. It never helps, but it's what you do."

"I said ..."

"Right, the Taylors," she said dismissively.

"Really."

She asked, "Which Taylor are you most worried about? The kids or Monica?"

Hearne felt his neck get hot. Laura had never liked Monica Taylor and harbored suspicions about her. Hearne felt defensive whenever Monica was brought up, even though he had explained the situation to Laura more than once. He had told Laura Monica thought of him as a father figure because of his friendship with her father. Laura had raised her eyebrows, and asked, "Is that all?" He stammered, said, "Of course. You know what happened."

When Jim Hearne was riding saddle broncs on the college rodeo team, and later on his own when he was sponsored by Rawlins Ranch, his closest friend and traveling companion had been Ty Taylor, Monica's father. Ty was handsome and enigmatic, a star performer, a man who attracted women like a magnet, despite the fact that he was married with a young daughter at home. One of the reasons Hearne partnered with Ty early on was for exactly that reason-where Ty went, women appeared. When Hearne injured his knee and laid off the circuit for a year and returned home, his on-again off-again courtship of Laura got serious, and they married. Ty was the best man, flying home between rodeos in Salinas and Cheyenne to be there.

Hearne finished up his degree in finance while he recovered, but the rodeo was in his blood. Laura didn't like it when he went back to rodeoing and liked it even less when he hooked up again with Ty. Although Hearne was faithful to Laura and tried his best to rein Ty in, he wasn't successful. Ty loved women-as a gender, if not individually-and women loved Ty. When the two cowboys came home together, Hearne watched little Monica look up to her father with unabashed hero worship that broke Hearne's heart, even though it didn't appear to faze Ty. Apparently he was used to that kind of look, Hearne thought at the time.

Ty was severely injured at the Calgary Stampede when his boot caught in his stirrup and he fell, breaking his neck. Hearne stood by his bed in the hospital while they waited for Monica and her mother to get there, and Ty grabbed Hearne's hand and asked him to take care of Monica. Ty didn't care much for his wife, but he said he'd cheated on his daughter, and she didn't deserve a dad like that. He planned to die before they arrived.

But he didn't. Over the next few years, Ty stayed home, recovered, but wasn't able to get medical clearance to rodeo again. So he went back to chasing women throughout North Idaho and eastern Washington. On a warm day in May, he left his family without a word and never came back. Hearne had lost track of him completely over the years, although Ty once called him at the bank to see about a loan "for old times' sake." Hearne hung up on him.

Hearne was no psychologist, but it was easy for him to see how Ty's abandonment affected both Monica and Monica's mother. Her mother became an alcoholic and moved to Spokane, supposedly looking for a permanent job before sending for her daughter. Monica stayed in the area, bouncing around from place to place, growing wilder and more beautiful by the year. Boys were as attracted to Monica as women had been to her father. Monica didn't discourage the attention at all. The most important man in her life had walked away. Others were lining up to step right in. The way Hearne saw it, Monica's mission was to prove to herself she was likable and desirable after all, that her father had made a huge mistake. She looked for men who were dazzling, dangerous, and charismatic like her father had been. That she didn't seem to recognize what she was doing, despite her intelligence, was one of life's mysteries to Hearne.

So he had done what he could do, from a distance. He approved a home loan for her after the loan committee turned her down due to insufficient a.s.sets. He quietly dismissed overdraft charges on her checking account. When she was seriously overdrawn, he would call her and tell her to move some money into the account and, on occasion, lend her a few hundred when she was strapped. She'd always thanked him for his help very sincerely and never acted as if she was ent.i.tled to it.

He liked her, in spite of her reputation and the poor choices she had made. She had come to him the first time she was in trouble, and he'd tried to help her, but helping Monica back in those days was like trying to stop a freight train by standing on the tracks with his palm upraised. Hearne hadn't been surprised when Monica's husband was sent to prison. But even now, he couldn't see her on the street without seeing the face of her in childhood, looking up to her father, unabashed worship on her face. Was he attracted to her? Sure. Every man was. But it wasn't that. She was a casualty, and he had been there when the damage was done. Even though he thought he couldn't do anything about it at the time, he had been there when it happened. Looking back, he felt responsibility for the way things turned out with the Taylors. He should've knocked Ty down, sat on him, and told him to straighten the h.e.l.l up. Maybe that would have penetrated Ty's thick skull. And even if it hadn't, Hearne would have at least showed Ty he disapproved of the life he was living. Instead, he had stood by, observing, shaking his head, watching Ty wreck his own family. Then going off with Ty to the next rodeo. Laura thought he was nuts for thinking he could have done anything to stop the situation, and said so.

"They'll find those kids," Laura said, breaking into his reverie. "I'm sure they'll turn up at somebody's house or something."

"I hope so," Hearne said. He couldn't imagine what it would be like to have children missing. The Hearnes had a son and a daughter, both married and moved away. Their lives had revolved around their children while they grew up. Imagining them missing when they were young was incomprehensible.

But, of course, it wasn't only that. He thought of Jess Rawlins, how he could see no way to save him, either. Jess was, in Hearne's mind, the conscience of the valley as he was growing up. Jess had taken Hearne under his wing and treated him as if he were his own son. Jess had never asked for anything for his sponsorship other than "to do us proud." Us, meaning the valley. Jess was stubborn, independent, but intrinsically fair. That his own family had failed the way it did was a tragedy, Hearne thought, and he blamed Karen, Jess's ex-wife. Hearne knew things about Karen, about her personal bank account and growing balance while the ranch accounts went dry, about her many dinners with men other than Jess, about her secret life. Karen had drained off the cash flow of the ranch, and Jess never knew it. Hearne had been duty-bound to keep quiet about it for years. A banker had no right to reveal that kind of information without the permission of the account holder. After Karen finally left Jess, and Jess was devastated, Hearne felt immensely guilty for not softening the blow. He could have taken Jess out for a cup of coffee, or taken Karen, and talked to them about what he knew. It would have been an ethical breach, but it would have been the right thing to do, he saw in retrospect. Jess had not recovered from the financial or emotional loss, and now his ranch was literally on the block.

And it wasn't that Jim Hearne was immune to ethical breaches, and that's what troubled him most. The meeting with Mr. Villatoro had laid bare Hearne's own deception, even though Villatoro didn't yet know it. Hearne knew his own actions-or lack of them-had brought Eduardo Villatoro to North Idaho.

He recalled his first meeting with Eric Singer, who had flown up from Los Angeles to meet with him and make an offer. The timing of the visit was opportune, just days after the board of directors meeting where the chairman decided the only way to keep the bank viable and growing was to change their strategy from low-return and high-maintenance agricultural loans to commercial finance. The bank needed to grow up and out, increase its cash deposits exponentially, and aggressively get ahead of the development boom that was starting to occur at the time. Since Hearne was in charge of ag loans, he saw the writing on the wall. So when Eric Singer walked into his office, it was as if fate had sent a messenger.

Hearne's first impression of Singer was not good. He didn't like the man's superior demeanor and thought his att.i.tude toward the community was condescending. He told Hearne he sought isolation, cheap land, and a live-and-let-live att.i.tude. Rather than being put off by the reputation Kootenai Bay had of harboring white supremacists, Singer seemed drawn to it, saying he'd had his fill of "political f.u.c.king correctness." Hearne remembered biting his tongue as Singer talked, weighing a defense of his home against the prospect of lucrative new accounts. Singer was not the first retired LAPD officer to find his way to North Idaho, nor the last. But unlike the others Hearne had met, Singer promised to bring up a small but well-heeled group of colleagues with him if Hearne was willing to make the conditions right.

Hearne made the conditions right. Singer delivered. Hearne was promoted personally by the chairman of the board. But it haunted him still.

He knew too much, as The Banker. He wished he didn't. But it was too late for that kind of thinking.

Despite the disapproving look Laura was giving him, Hearne put the empty gla.s.s on the bar and ordered another.

Sat.u.r.day, 6:18 P.M.

THE COMMAND CENTER for the disappearance of the Taylor children had been established in a modern conference room off the Kootenai Bay City Council chambers, down the hall from Sheriff Ed Carey's office. Off-duty dispatchers had been called in to help set it up with telephones, computers, a fax machine, along with a coffeemaker and mini refrigerator. The straight-backed chairs surrounding the long table had been replaced with the comfortable, ergonomic chairs used by council members for their meetings. Ex-Lt. Eric Singer, the volunteer in charge of the effort, had long since used his sleeve to wipe the white-board clean of past council business. He stood at the board with a fistful of different-colored pens.

Ex-Officer Newkirk was slumped at the foot of the table, looking vacantly away from the whiteboard through a window at the city council chambers, at the nameplates of each absent council member. He felt ill, his skin gritty. His stomach was acting up, and despite the fact that he hadn't had breakfast or lunch and there was a cold-cut tray in front of him, he wasn't hungry. The scenario that was playing out in front of him was the last thing in the world he wanted to be involved in. This was the situation that had kept him awake at night for years. This, right here, was the reason he had ulcers.

"Are we ready?" Singer asked, pulling the cap from a green pen.

"Ready," Gonzalez said, adjusting a legal pad filled with scribbles in front of him. He began to read, and Singer started writing on the whiteboard. The marker squeaked as he wrote, and it filled the room with a watered-down airplane-glue smell.

"When we're done here, I want you to go get the sheriff," Singer said, pausing and looking over his shoulder. "Newkirk?"

Newkirk wasn't paying attention, and Gonzalez leaned over and whapped him on the arm with the back of his hand, saying, "Wake the f.u.c.k up."

Newkirk wheeled in his chair, startled. "What?"

"The lieutenant was talking to you."

"I asked you if you would go down and get the sheriff when I'm done here," Singer said quietly, enunciating every word in an exaggerated way. "We need his approval to proceed."

"Okay."

"Are you okay, Newkirk?" Singer asked, his ice-blue eyes unblinking. "You with us here?"

Newkirk nodded, then looked to Gonzalez and nodded again.

"You better be," Gonzalez said.

Singer lifted the marker to his nose. "Ah, it smells like a briefing room in here, doesn't it?"

They were in control.

AS NEWKIRK entered the Pend Oreille County Sheriff's office, he noticed a paunchy man in a brown suit waiting in the reception area. Newkirk nodded at the man, then told the receptionist that Singer was ready in the command center.

"The command center, Officer Newkirk?" the receptionist asked.

"The conference room," Newkirk said, an edge in his voice. "We're calling it the command center now until we get those kids back."

The receptionist flushed, turned in her chair, and walked back toward the sheriff's office.

"It's a good thing you are doing," the man in the brown suit said to Newkirk. "Very community-minded."

"What?" Newkirk turned, adjusted his ball cap, and studied the man. A man wearing a suit in the sheriff's office on a Sat.u.r.day evening. He looked out of place, enough so that Newkirk's antennae went up.

"I heard your name. You are among the volunteers who have come forward. You used to be with the LAPD," Villatoro said pleasantly, a statement more than a question.

"That's no secret. You a lawyer?"

"No."

"You have some kind of interest in this case?"

The man shook his head. "I'm here on another matter." The man stood and extended his hand. "Eduardo Villatoro."

Newkirk didn't reach out immediately. It grated on him when Latins gave their names with Spanish p.r.o.nunciation, rolling the "r's" and playing up the accents. g.a.n.g.b.a.n.gers would do that, even though most of them were second- or third-generation American. He felt his street cop dead-eye stare take over. Usually, when he did that, the other person in the situation would reveal himself, talk too much.

"I'm here to see the sheriff as well," Villatoro said. "But it's after six. I was wondering how long you might be with him before I can talk with him."

"About what?"

"Another matter."

Newkirk continued the dead-eye. "Fine, don't tell me. I doubt it's as important as this one."

"I have no doubt of that," Villatoro said, holding his hands palms up and widening his eyes to try and clear the air. Newkirk liked that.

"What is this other matter?" Newkirk said, letting sarcasm creep into the question.

Villatoro smiled. "You are right. It isn't as important as the community service you are performing here. I was just wondering if I should wait for the sheriff this evening or come back tomorrow. That's why I was asking."

This dark guy made Newkirk uncomfortable, and he wasn't sure he knew why.

"Come back tomorrow," Newkirk said.

Villatoro nodded and seemed a little cowed. Good, Newkirk thought. He needed to be knocked down a peg.

The receptionist came out of the sheriff's office, and said to Newkirk, "He's finishing up a call and will be with you shortly."

"I'll wait."

He watched Villatoro dig for his wallet and approach the receptionist. "I would like to leave this card," Villatoro said. "I'll be in early tomorrow morning to see the sheriff."

The receptionist took the card without looking at it and placed it on her desk. She watched the light blink out on her handset.

"He's through," she said.

Sheriff Carey came out of his office a moment later, looking haggard. His eyes were deep-set, his hair mussed. He was a worried man, Newkirk realized. Cops were one way or the other, he knew. Men like Singer got a case like this and were energized by it like it was new, fresh blood pumping through their veins. But for people like Carey, and Newkirk himself, it was just the opposite. It wore them down.

"That was the FBI in Boise," Carey said. "They want to know if we're ready to call them in. I told them to give us a day or two since we should have things wrapped up by then. I hope."

Newkirk nodded. Singer would be interested in that, since he had advised the sheriff early on to keep the Feds at bay.

"So you're ready for me?"

"Yes, we are. In the command center."

Newkirk noticed that Villatoro had slipped out during the exchange.

"Okay, then," Carey said, heaving a weight-of-the-world sigh.

"Sheriff ..." the receptionist called after him.

"Yes, you can go home now, Marlene."

Newkirk waited a moment while Marlene cleared her desk and the sheriff strode down the hall toward the conference room. When Marlene turned around, he reached over and plucked the business card from her desk and slipped it into his back pocket.

ON THE WHITEBOARD, in green, Singer had written TIMELINE. Under the heading, each fact of the case was bulleted next to the military time it had occurred. The children had left school the day before, Friday, at noon on early release. Between noon and 15:35, when the mailwoman Fiona Pritzle had picked them up on the road and dropped them near Sand Creek, they had presumably gone home, taken the fishing rod and vest, and set out on foot. Monica Taylor became concerned about their absence at 17:30. Her fight with Tom Boyd had occurred at 18:00. She called the sheriff's department at 19:00, after first contacting friends and neighbors. Boyd staggered from the Sand Creek Bar at 23:30 and hadn't been seen since.