Time of Death

3

Gary walked back into the office. ‘All done?’

‘Yup,’ said Ren.

‘Number one on our Fifty Most Wanted,’ said Gary, pointing to a photo of a man with long, thin, greased-back hair, balding at the front. He had fuck-you eyes and a nose that looked broken, re-set and broken again. His face was hollowed out. He had two shaven patches of white hair high on each cheekbone and a downturned slit for a mouth. ‘This piece of shit,’ said Gary, ‘is Jonah Jeremiah—’

‘Jim Jams,’ said Ren.

‘Jonah Jeremiah Myler,’ Gary finished, ignoring her.

‘Priiiceless,’ said Ren.

‘Caucasian, DOB 08/12/57,’ said Gary. ‘Myler springs up in a different city every few months, preying on vulnerable teens and setting up short-lived “cults”. He grooms the kids for sex. He has young followers, so he gets them out on the streets. And he waits behind the scenes for the disenchanted youth to show. They may not always use the same name for their sect. Names to date: Crystal Wakenings, Army of the Risen, The Witness Gathering, Divine Seers of the Watchful—’

‘You are making them up,’ said Ren.

‘You couldn’t make them up,’ said Cliff.

‘And The Watchful what?’ said Ren. ‘That’s a lot of seeing and watching. The Watchful Observers. Divine Seers of the Watchful Crowd of Onlookers. Divine Seers of the Watchful Blind …’

Gary ploughed on. ‘Don’t be fooled by Myler’s gaunt face. He’s not as feeble as he looks.

‘Next up is number two, Francis Gartman, African-American, DOB 01/15/83. First degree murder, aggravated robbery, drugs, sexual assault on a minor.’

Gartman looked like someone had paused while inflating his head to allow him to pose for the photo. Every feature looked like it was about to blow.

‘Those eyes are completely vacant,’ said Ren. ‘Soulless.’

‘Gartman is a former boxer,’ said Gary, ‘which translates in his case into giant man, huge strength. He’s had enough blows to the head for his frontal lobe to have left the building.’

Gary stepped back. ‘Not as dramatic in my delivery as Agent Bryce no doubt was, but there’s our top five. Knock yourselves out.’

‘Ren,’ said Colin. ‘Call for you on one. She wanted to speak with a female. She didn’t give a name.’

Ren picked up the phone. ‘This is Special Agent Ren Bryce. How may I help you?’

‘My name is Catherine Sarvas. I’m calling from El Paso, Texas. I saw your Most Wanted List on line this morning …’

Ren slid her notebook across her desk. She picked up a pencil. ‘And do you have something you’d like to tell me, ma’am?’

‘I … yes,’ said Catherine. ‘Yes, I have. I do. I …’ She paused. ‘I’m sorry … I thought I could do this.’

She hung up.

‘Short call,’ said Robbie.

Ren nodded. ‘Weird.’

‘What did she want?’

‘To give me a little flicker of hope on a dreary Monday.’

‘Are you going to call her back?’

‘I’ll give her a little while. El Paso … What’s going on down there?’

Ren spent Monday lunch-times in the offices of Dr Helen Wheeler. The psychiatrist all lunatics should have: intelligent, warm, caring, wore great shoes you could admire while avoiding your issues.

Until Ren was diagnosed bipolar at twenty-six, she had never guessed that there was anything wrong with her. Mental illnesses were for the mentally ill. It seemed like one minute she was the youngest FBI agent to go under deep cover and blow apart an organized crime operation and the next, she was lying in her pajamas on the sofa, eating junk food, crying, not answering her phone, drinking, obsessing about all the regrets she had in her life, wondering what point there was in doing anything again. Ever.

Her older brother, Matt, suggested she get help. But he already knew what was wrong with Ren. So he brought her to his computer one evening and gently opened a checklist on a psychiatry website that covered her symptoms: the despair, the exhaustion, the sofa, the hopelessness. Ren had looked up at Matt and shrugged. ‘That’s just depression, though. Everyone gets like that.’

Matt had scrolled down to the mania checklist: I have lots of energy. I feel amazing. I want everyone else to feel amazing. I want to go out and party. I love everyone. I know everything. I feel creative. I’m working hard. I’m talking too quickly. I’m loud. I’m impatient. I’m exercising. I’m alert. I’m swearing. I’m invincible. I’m hypersexual. I’m overspending. Check, check, check, check, check …

Ren had cried her heart out. ‘This is so depressing. My entire personality can be reduced to a checklist. If I buy lots of shoes, it’s because I’m nuts. If I’m having sex five times a day, it’s because I’m nuts. Me and two million other losers. And it’s not that I thought I was special or unique, but there is something so grim about fitting into this formula. It’s like we’re some fucked-up alien race. I mean, did you read all that shit? It affects every part of my existence. And there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t be fixed.’

Matt had cried too and explained that it may not be fixable, but it was treatable. He told Ren that she was unique and smart and loving and funny and generous and all women have too many shoes and that she was beautiful and he loved her to bits. And she loved him too. Because Matt had also read that telling Ren all this could come back and bite him. Because there was a high risk that someone bipolar would shoot the messenger; at some point, maybe not the same day or maybe not the same year, they would turn to the person who wanted to help them the most and scream, ‘This is all your fault. If you hadn’t told me all this, I would never have known, and I would have been happy just the way I was.’ And then they would scream, ‘You. Ruined. My. Life.’

Before that year was out, Ren had fired every one of those razor-sharp words at Matt and they had struck his heart. Ren did, indeed, shoot the messenger. And with a true bipolar flourish, had come back six months later, laden with guilt and gifts, to apologize.

Ren had tried different psychiatrists and psychotherapists since then, but when she met Helen Wheeler two years ago, Ren knew she had found her savior. Helen was in her early sixties, with a cultural awareness that spanned decades and created a bridge to all her patients. On Ren’s first visit, Helen had told her, ‘I am a psychiatrist, not a mind reader. What you tell me is what I will know about you. And you can leave your brave face at the door. If you’re having a bad day, my office is the perfect place to have it in.’

Ren checked her watch as she waited to be called in to Helen’s office.

Hurry up. Hurry up. Hurry up.

Helen leaned her head out the door of her office. ‘Come on in, Ren,’ she said. ‘How are you today?’

‘I’m … good,’ said Ren, sitting down.

Helen smiled. ‘OK …’

‘I don’t know,’ said Ren. ‘Did you see the news? It’s Most Wanted time … which is fine. It’s just … this year, it’s got Domenica Val Pando on it and I feel I’m being taken back years and …’ She hung her head.

Helen waited.

‘It’s just …’ said Ren, ‘I guess … I was diagnosed at the end of that assignment and some part of me, I know it’s not rational, but some part of me thinks that if it wasn’t for that, I would be fine, there would be nothing wrong with me. And then … then there’s another part of me – and it’s so screwed up – that wants to be back there, because I was oblivious, I didn’t know how lucky I was to be sane. Or at least to think I was sane.’

Helen smiled at her. ‘Ren, you are sane. And those feelings are understandable.’

‘But what makes no sense is that paranoia is the worst part of bipolar disorder for me, yet undercover work is a whole world of paranoia. You are lying all day every day and you’re never sure if you’re going to be found out. Give me depression over paranoia any day. Because I just … I feel paranoia is what will ultimately bring me down.’

‘Ren, nothing is going to bring you down,’ said Helen. ‘You are in control of all of this. And you are not alone. You have an entire team working with you. Good people, from what you tell me. So, rely on them, Ren.’

Ren nodded. ‘I can’t stop thinking about the assignment, though. I told this terrible story to gain someone’s confidence and get into her life – I sat on a park bench crying to Domenica Val Pando, telling her I had lost my four-month old baby …’

‘That is part of undercover work, Ren. You were doing your job.’

‘I know, but I look back sometimes and I think “How could I have done that?”’ Ren shook her head. ‘Nothing to do with Val Pando personally – she’s a piece of shit – just, me. How could I have done that?’

‘It was your job.’

‘I know it’s what I signed up to do,’ said Ren. ‘But I guess I get scared at how easy it was for me to do it. Undercover work is such a rush – the better you are, the greater the high. The more you find out, the more you want to find out. It’s addictive. You go to bed at night, you write notes, you give them to your contact agent. He’s making a case, he’s happy, you’re happy. But I was still playing the role of Remy Torres, a fake name in a fake life. She was like part-me, part-stranger. So … in a way, you never know what she’s capable of.’ She paused. ‘And when it’s over and you bring your real self into the equation, when you’re away from whatever group of dirtbags you’ve been investigating, you’re faced with how good a liar you were and how well you manipulated people. And you tell yourself that the ends justify the means. But sometimes the means just make you feel dirty.’

‘OK, take some breaths.’ Helen handed her a box of Kleenex.

‘Thanks,’ said Ren. ‘Oh sorry, I’ve pulled out the whole lot. It must be a sign. I’ll be here weeping all day.’

‘I’m sponsored by Kleenex,’ said Helen. ‘It’s written on the back of my blouse.’

Ren laughed through the tears. ‘I honestly don’t know why I’m crying.’

‘Ren,’ said Helen gently, ‘Remy Torres did not take you down with her. Here you are, Ren Bryce, over ten years on, successful, stable, still pursuing these people, not turning into them.’

‘Still pursuing,’ said Ren. ‘Exactly.’

‘You are so hard on yourself,’ said Helen. ‘You’re doing great. Stop beating yourself up. Get back to that office this afternoon and kick some butt. Like you always do.’

‘Thanks. I’ll try.’

When the session was over and Ren was driving back to work, she could feel her anxiety drifting away. She smiled.

Helen’s room always felt like the furthest room from the crazy house.

4

Ren walked back into the bullpen, took off her jacket and put her purse on the floor.

‘Did you all go out to lunch?’ she said.

‘Yup,’ said Cliff. ‘Someone’s got to feed these investigative brains.’

Ren pointed to a brown paper bag at his feet. ‘Did you get anything wrapped to take home to your dog that you would now be willing to hand over to one of your hungry colleagues?’

Colin rolled his eyes. He reached out to answer the phone on his desk.

‘Yes, as a matter of fact,’ said Cliff. ‘It’s half a steak sandwich.’

‘I owe you,’ said Ren.

She looked down at her file tray. ‘Hey, what’s this?’

‘I left it there for you,’ said Cliff. ‘It’s Francis Gartman’s alleged lady friend …’

‘Slash woman of the night.’ Ren looked at the picture, scanning the details.

‘Yup,’ said Cliff. ‘We need to find her.’

Ren nodded. ‘Sure, I’ll take a look at this.’ She rested her left hand on the neatly folded waxed wrapping of the sandwich. She could smell steak.

‘She’s running scared,’ said Cliff.

‘Did someone call in?’

‘Yes,’ said Cliff. ‘Her broken-hearted mama.’

Ren sucked in a breath. She looked down at the photo of Natalie Osgood, the pretty African-American girl with the bruised, vacant eyes and the tousled red wig. ‘Sweetheart, let me find you before that piece of shit does.’ Ren pushed her finger under the fold in the paper and slid the sandwich toward her.

‘Ren,’ said Colin. ‘Line three. Sounds like your El Paso woman again.’

I am not meant to eat today.

‘Hello,’ said Ren.

‘This is Catherine Sarvas again.’

‘Ms Sarvas—’

‘Mrs. I’m … married.’

‘Mrs Sarvas,’ said Ren. ‘Are you all right?’

The woman let out a sob. She was struggling to breathe.

Please don’t hang up.

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Catherine. ‘I’m so sorry for this.’

‘Please,’ said Ren. ‘There is no need to apologize. Please, take your time. I’ll listen to you whenever you’re ready to talk.’

Catherine sucked in a breath. ‘Thank you.’

Seconds passed.

‘I saw your Most Wanted list on the internet,’ said Catherine. ‘And I wanted to let you know …’ She started to cry. ‘Oh, God … I was raped.’

Ren had heard women say that they were raped before and no matter how many times she heard it, it caused a visceral reaction – a recoil.

‘He is number five on your list,’ said Catherine.

Number five. Ren glanced up at the board, for a moment forgetting the new order. Oh my God.

‘Erubiel Diaz,’ said Ren. ‘Number five, Erubiel Diaz.’

‘I recognize his face.’

His hideous face. Ren’s hand hovered over the page. Every phone in the office seemed to be ringing. It felt disrespectful, the wrong place to listen to what Catherine Sarvas had to say. Ren pressed the phone to her ear. ‘Take your time, Mrs Sarvas.’

Eventually, Catherine Sarvas spoke again. ‘Maybe you’ve heard about my family. My husband is Gregory Sarvas?’

‘I’m sorry, ma’am,’ said Ren. ‘I’m not familiar with your husband.’

‘Oh …’ Another pause. ‘Eight months ago, my husband, Greg, was shot dead near our home in El Paso. He had been driving our sons home from school.’ She paused.

Ren waited, but all she could hear was Catherine Sarvas’ breathing. ‘I’m so sorry to hear that.’

She quietly typed Gregory Sarvas’ name into Google. Hundreds of hits. She did an image search. She clicked on one of the photos. It was a wide shot taken from behind a pale gold SUV with all its doors open. There was something beautiful and artistic in the angles and the light. Then the headlines: Murder. Shooting. Shot dead. Cold blood. Gunned down. The beauty and light of the photo was quickly gone.

‘Our sons … Luke and Michael … were in the SUV with Greg,’ said Mrs Sarvas. ‘They’re still missing …’

‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Sarvas.’ She glanced at one of the articles. Luke, 17, Michael, 15.

‘I can’t even … I can’t talk about my family right now,’ said Catherine ‘I … just wanted to … help.’

‘OK,’ said Ren. ‘So … were you also there in the SUV? You were raped?’

‘No, no. It was two weeks before that.’ Catherine sucked in a breath. ‘I saw the photograph of that man on your list and I had to call. I came across it by accident. But I knew it was him, right away.’

‘Did you report the rape at the time?’

‘No, I couldn’t bear it. I was …’ Catherine started to sob.

‘That’s OK.’

‘It was so terrible,’ said Catherine. ‘He was waiting in the … it was so …’

Ren waited for her to finish the sentence, but she couldn’t.

‘You mentioned your husband,’ said Ren. ‘Did you tell him about the rape?’

‘Yes. He was devastated. He was always talking to me about staying safe. Our house had a lot of security. I still don’t know how that man got in …’

‘How did your husband react? What did he do?’

‘He … was so good to me,’ said Catherine. ‘He took care of me, he did everything he could. And … when I was feeling a little more up to it, I asked him to report the rape to El Paso PD. I couldn’t bring myself to do it before then. I didn’t want to be … I didn’t want doctors … anyone examining me.’

‘I understand,’ said Ren. ‘And when did he report this?’

‘The week he died.’ Catherine began sobbing harder. ‘You never think it’s going to happen to you. None of this feels like it’s my life. We’re a regular family. Greg’s a lawyer, we live in a very nice neighborhood. We have two boys who go to a good high school and have bright futures ahead of them.’

Husband – dead. Sons – missing. And she just used the present tense.

‘I think my boys are still alive,’ said Catherine, as if she was reading Ren’s mind.

Ren could sense Catherine Sarvas’ rising panic. She had just revealed her terrible secret to a stranger and had heard for the first time how her story sounded out loud. Catherine Sarvas’ surge of courage had hit its peak and was starting to waver. She was like a bird paused in mid-flight.

‘Please, can you help me?’

Ren paused. ‘Mrs Sarvas, I am so sorry to hear what you’ve been through. I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you. And we will do everything we can to apprehend this man.’

‘And my boys?’ said Catherine. ‘My children. The rape doesn’t even seem important compared to getting my boys back.’

‘Are you happy to make a full statement? Would it be easier for now to get the statement your husband made to El Paso PD?’

‘I can talk now,’ said Catherine. ‘I can talk to you. I don’t know who else to turn to. I’m not comfortable going to El Paso PD.’ She paused. ‘I think they think that Luke and Michael had something to do with Gregory’s death …’

‘I’ll go through everything they’ve got.’

‘Thank you.’

‘It was very brave of you to call,’ said Ren.

‘What have I got to lose?’ said Catherine. ‘But you’ve been very kind, thank you. You made it easier.’

I have no idea how.

‘Can we still do this over the phone?’

‘Yes,’ said Ren. ‘Whenever you’re ready.’

‘OK.’

Thirty minutes later, Ren put down the phone. She turned to her computer and read ten different articles on Gregory Sarvas’ murder. The lead investigator was a man called Kenny Dade from El Paso PD. Ren called him and asked him to email her everything he had on the Sarvas family.

She pushed back from her desk and shouted out to the rest of the team.

‘Hey,’ she said. ‘I just got something on Erubiel Diaz.’

Colin put down his phone. ‘And I got a sighting on our number two, Francis Gartman: around midnight last night, waving a gun at a bar in Five Points.’

‘Any sign of Natalie Osgood?’ said Ren.

‘He was alone,’ said Colin.

‘And Erubiel Diaz?’ said Cliff, turning to Ren.

Ren let out a breath. She picked up her notes and recounted the harrowing details of Catherine Sarvas’ violation, the pages and pages of notes on what Erubiel Diaz did to a kind, gentle, mother-of-two in the walled-off courtyard of her quiet suburban home.

5

A Denver winter stretched on for months and March was its snowiest. Blizzards whipped up out of nowhere, plans were ruined or stalled or put to bed under a blanket of snow. But it could make everything beautiful. And for a place like Mardyke Street, lined with hundred-year-old homes and towering oaks, a thick layer of snow, glowing under the streetlights, created a special kind of magic.

Ren pulled up outside Annie Lowell’s house. It was eight p.m., she had taken a break from the office. There were appointments you could bend or break, but calling on a beloved eighty-year-old woman was sacred.

Annie welcomed Ren with a hug that brought a rush of memories from a time when their height difference went the other way. Annie was five feet tall; Ren was five seven.

Everything about Annie Lowell was warm and pastel-colored and soft-focus.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t get to see you before now,’ said Ren.

‘Sweetheart, do not give that a second thought,’ said Annie.

‘Thank you,’ said Ren. ‘I am so honored you asked me to do this. The motel is killing me.’

Ren took in the house: a William Lang, designed in the late 1800s. One of Denver’s most famous architects, he had built the homes of the rich and famous until the Silver Crash swept their wealth away. Lang fell from such a height that he never recovered and died a pauper, a thousand miles from the city where he had made such a mark.

Annie led her into the formal living room and sat on the hardbacked sofa with her legs crossed at the ankles and her hands in her lap. Ren smiled.

What a lady. And what an uncomfortable sofa.

Annie had bought the tumble-down house and restored it with money from a life insurance policy she didn’t even know her late husband had. She had been widowed as long as Ren had known her and in all that time she had never looked at another man. On her ring finger were the same three beautiful rings she had always worn – engagement, wedding and eternity.

‘Did you know that this home was Edward’s last gift to me?’ said Annie. ‘I feel as though he led me right to this door. In the jacket pocket he was wearing when he died, there was a little ticket for a yellow tie he had left at the laundry. I loved that yellow tie, so I went to pick it up. I know that sounds a little silly, but I didn’t want to leave it there. On my way back to the house we had been living in, I took a wrong turn and I ended up outside here.’ She stared off into the past. ‘It looked as broken as my heart.’

‘I never knew all this.’

‘I think messages are around us every day – you just have to be open to them.’

‘I must have been sending one out to you from my motel room,’ said Ren.

Annie smiled. Her gaze wandered to a spot on the wall opposite them.

‘Oh my goodness,’ said Ren, getting up and walking over to the faded photo. It was Ren, her parents and her three older brothers, Matt, Beau and Jay.

‘You must have been five years old there,’ said Annie. ‘Look at you.’

‘Look at the boys,’ said Ren. ‘All sandy brown like Dad. And then me. Do you know, when I was in school, the kids used to tease me. Not in a bad way – it was funny. They’d say, “So … your mother obviously had a visit from the mailman – Big Chief Little Stamps.”’ She pointed to her mother in the photo. ‘I mean, even Mom hasn’t really got my eyes.’

Ren was an ethnic mystery to most. She had passed for Hispanic, Italian and French. But in the shape of her striking brown eyes, the one heritage no one could deny was Native American – from a distant Iroquois past somewhere on her mother’s side.

‘You were such a cutie,’ said Annie, ‘and those boys adored … adore you.’ She squeezed Ren’s hand.

‘We always loved coming here.’

‘And I loved having you.’

Ren’s cell phone rang. She glanced down. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Annie. It’s work.’ It’s always work.

‘Go ahead, take it,’ said Annie.

Ren went into the hall and took the call. She came back in to Annie. ‘I am so sorry. I wanted to spend more time with you.’ I always want to spend more time with the people I care about. ‘But I have to go,’ said Ren. ‘There’s this guy we’re trying to track down, he’s a nasty piece of work and—’

‘Ren, you’ve an important job, you’re a busy woman. I wouldn’t expect you to have the time to spend here.’

‘But you’re being kind enough to give me your house, and I feel I’ve just come in and out.’

‘Oh, it’s only me,’ said Annie. ‘I understand. You are so dear to me. I would be happy to have five minutes with you.’

‘Good Lord, I can’t think why.’ Ren squeezed Annie tight. As she was pulling away from the embrace, she could see two places set for supper on the table behind her. Her heart sank. She hoped it wasn’t meant for her. But she saw a brand-new bottle of her favorite hot chili sauce. Annie pressed the keys of the house into Ren’s hand and hugged her again. Tears welled in Ren’s eyes as she rushed to the Jeep and drove to a part of town that hadn’t quite got the same kind of history.

Five Points stands where the diagonal grid of downtown meets the rectangular grid of East Denver. It’s one of Denver’s oldest neighborhoods, known more for what it had been – the Harlem of the West – and what it wanted to be – a triumph of gentrification – than what it actually was – a neighborhood that fell between two stools. The high crime rate had fallen since the nineties, but it still struggled with gangs, drugs, and convincing people that its beautiful Victorian renovations and stylish lofts were in a safe setting.