Here is a preview from Silent Remains by Jerry Kennealy.
Chapter 1
San Francisco
The door to the construction shack swung open and banged against the wall, causing the overhead florescent lights to stammer off and on for several seconds.
Kurt Thorsen snapped his head around and saw the hulking figure and scowling face of Benny Machado, his lead foreman.
Thorsen jumped to his feet and slammed his coffee mug to the desk sending a spray of hot coffee onto the project blueprints. He was a tall, well-built man in his early sixties, his once blond hair now a silvery gray and worn in a lion’s mane style. “What’s up, Benny?”
“You better come with me, boss. I think we got us a problem.”
Thorsen grabbed a hardhat from a peg near the door and followed Machado out to the construction site.
It had been a cool summer, interrupted by a tropical storm from the Mexican coast that dropped several inches of rain on the city. Dark, cauliflower-shaped cumulous clouds dominated the sky. The bay waters were the color of gunmetal. The wind, stronger than it had to be, tossed food wrappers and old newspapers around like wounded birds. The air was filled with the smell of diesel smoke from the tractors, backhoes, and trucks lined up to haul away the mud Thorsen’s crew was moving to enable the placement of underground parking garages and foundation pillars.
Thorsen had to hand it to his employer, Cinco Construction Company, for having the guts to build a sprawling fifty-seven-story Art Moderne-style complex, featuring a hotel and conference center, along with retails stores, office space, and high-priced condos, in this undesirable section of the city—eleven acres of raw, deserted land, parts of it running right alongside the bay, consisting of crumbling, rat-infested piers that were once attached to thriving shipyards, abandoned commercial hot houses with every single pane of glass missing, and railroad tracks that had sat idle for fifty years.
Before accepting the job, Thorsen had checked out Cinco with people he trusted in the construction game. Cinco had built complexes similar in size and scope to this one in cities up and down the East Coast. Six months ago, the firm was taken over by a man by the name of Henry Chung. Chung was Chinese, via Brazil, having run a construction firm in São Paulo for several years. He was a nervous nail-biter who spoke Cantonese, Portuguese and English with equal ease. According to Chung, Cinco was well-financed and committed to the project. There would be no worries of work stoppages from banks or insurance carriers due to a lack of funds.
Thorsen hurried to catch up to Machado. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on, Benny, or am I just supposed to guess? Don’t tell me it’s another garden snake.”
His last big job, a high-rise on the peninsula, had ground to a halt when a single garden snake, an endangered species, the size of a licorice stick was found under a rock.
“No snakes, boss. Bones. Lots of them. Over on section A-six.”
The construction site was divided into sections. A-six skirted the bay’s shoreline.
“Bones? What kind? Cats? Skunks? What, Benny?”
Machado, a hatchet-jawed man with a thick neck and the heavily muscled shoulders of a wrestler, increased his pace, the hammer in his tool belt slamming against his thigh like a cowboy’s six-shooter. “Human.”
A ring of workers—laborers, carpenters, electricians and plumbers—were standing around the end of a ruler-straight foundation trench, four-feet wide, ten-feet deep, stretching out some fifty yards. The dark green backhoe that had been digging the trench stood silent, the tilted digger-bucket at the end of the two-part articulated arm looking like a yawning, prehistoric animal.
Thorsen peered down into the trench and swore silently. There were several ravaged bones and small skulls lying in the clammy, foul-smelling mud. He sat down and dangled his feet over the edge. “Give me a hand, Benny,” he said, holding his arms above his head. Machado grabbed both of Thorsen’s wrists and lowered him into the trench.
Thorsen landed in a heap, dropping to his knees before righting himself. All three sides at the very end of the trench were layered with bones of various shapes and sizes, exposed when the backhoe had taken its last gulp of mud. There was no sign of coffins—just bones. He looked up at the ring of faces staring down at him like mourners at a funeral. Only these guys weren’t mourning for the dead. It was for their jobs.
Thorsen removed his hard hat and slapped it against the trench wall. “Okay,” he shouted out. “We’re through here for the day. You’ll all get full pay for your shift. I’ll get in touch with you and let you know when we can get back to work.”
He squatted down near one of the skulls. It was small, mud crusted, no sign of teeth. He stood up and wiped his hands on his pants.
There was a thudding noise and Thorsen turned to see Benny Machado placing the butt end of a ladder down into the trench.
“I got a hunch,” Machado said from above. “This many bones, I think they’re Indians. A burial ground maybe.”
“Indians? Like in cowboys and?”
“Yeah, but from before the cowboys. The Bay Area was home to a lot of Indians—then the missionaries came around and killed them. I worked on a job in Oakland and we found an Indian burial ground there.”
“What happened to the job?” Thorsen wanted to know.
“Scratched. Some tribe from up north claimed the land. I think it’s a trailer park now.”
Thorsen took out his cell phone and began snapping photographs. The mass of bones hadn’t been buried very deep. Three feet, maybe less. He was about to climb up the ladder when something caught his eye. He moved cautiously, then dropped to one knee and gently massaged the mud from one long bone, a leg, with the foot still attached at the bottom of the ten-foot-deep dig. There was a thin link chain encircling the ankle. As he picked away at it with his fingernail he realized it was gold. An ankle ID bracelet? He moistened his finger with his tongue and carefully wiped at the piece until he saw two initials: a V and an A. Thorsen didn’t know much about native Indian tribes, but he was certain they weren’t into gold ID anklets.
He took several more pictures and then climbed up the ladder and onto relatively solid ground.
A sudden crack of arrowy lighting was followed by a drum roll of thunder. Raindrops the size of nickels began falling as Thorsen headed back to the construction shack.
“What are you gonna do, boss?” Machado asked.
“Call Henry Chung, call the cops, and get drunk. But maybe not in that order, Benny.”
“Chung’s already here. I saw his car coming through the gate when I went back for the ladder.”
“Good, I’ll let him handle the police.”
Chapter 2
Beverly Hills, California
San Francisco Police Department Homicide Inspector Rick Jarnac pulled the airport rental car into the same Reserved for Guests stall at the Carlomont Nursing Home that he’d parked in earlier that morning. It was evening now, a few minutes after six.
He opened the car door and was greeted with a wave of heat. He straightened up and rubbed both hands against the small of his back. Jarnac was tall and slender, with a lean, angular face and strong jaw. He was in his shirtsleeves, which were rolled up to his elbows. His collar was unbuttoned, his tie at half-mast. He sighed, rolled down the sleeves, slipped into his suit jacket, buttoned his shirt and cinched his tie. It was oppressively hot, but he felt the least he could do was look professional when he delivered the news to an elderly woman that her missing daughter’s remains had been found and that she had been murdered some forty years earlier.
Jarnac walked along a herringbone patterned brick path bordered by a head-high privet hedge. He noticed an elderly man in a light blue bathrobe leaning back against the hedge, one hand cupped around a cigarette. He had a bald pate and his face was a grainy white color, like boiled rice. He inhaled with cheek-sunken concentration. His eyes got that deer-in-the-headlight look when he spotted Jarnac.
Jarnac nodded a hello and the man held a vertical finger to his lips and said, “Shhhh,” before giving Jarnac a conspiratorial wink.
The front entrance to the pink stucco, four-story nursing home was guarded by a stand of towering royal palm trees.
He trotted up the steps and into the lobby. The walls, ceiling, and the carpeting were in various shades of beige. Plush chairs and couches in pale floral designs sat empty. The smell of freshly popped popcorn hung in the air. The only person in sight was a young dark-haired woman sitting behind the check-in counter.
Jarnac figured her to be in her late twenties. She was wearing a beige blouse with a plastic tag on the pocket that identified her as Sherry.
“Can I help you, sir?” she asked.
“Yes, I’m here to see Janine Ashcroft.”
“Oh, how nice,” the woman said. “Are you a relative?”
He slipped a business card from his coat pocket. “I was here earlier this morning and spoke with Mrs. Ashcroft.”
“Is there something I can help you with?”
“No. I just have to speak to her again.”
Sherry picked up a phone and did some whispering. After she cradled the phone she took a deep breath and said, “Mrs. Ashcroft is on the east patio.”
Jarnac found Janine Ashcroft sitting comfortably in a wicker chair that was positioned next to a small glass-top table. Misting fans situated under the veranda overhang sprayed tiny droplets of water into the air which evaporated immediately. She had a tall iced drink in one hand. When he’d spoken to her at nine-fifteen that morning it had been in her two-room suite, which had a view of the Beverly Hilton Hotel. She was eighty-six years of age—a thin, elegant looking woman with snow-white hair. It was obvious that she’d once been very beautiful, but now her sun-damaged face was stitched with wrinkles.
Mrs. Ashcroft had accepted the information Jarnac had given her with solemn understanding. The remains of a young woman wearing a gold ankle bracelet with the initials V.A. inscribed on it had been found at a construction site in San Francisco. The medical examiner estimated her body had been in the ground for approximately forty years. X-rays revealed a broken right femur bone and a fractured big toe on her right foot, injuries that had occurred years before her death.
Jarnac had checked old missing person’s files and found one young woman with the initials V.A.—Valerie Ashcroft, who had been reported missing by her father, George Ashcroft, a Hollywood studio mogul who had died eight years ago. He’d located Janine Ashcroft’s current address through motor vehicle records. She was no longer licensed to drive but she did have a DMV ID card.
Janine Ashcroft’s long-term memory was excellent. She remembered Valerie had been eleven years old when she’d been bouncing on the diving board of their home swimming pool and injured her right leg. She even remembered the color of the swimsuit Valerie had worn, the names of her playmates, and the name of the treating doctor.
Her short-term memory was poor. Several times during their conversation she gotten confused and asked, “Who did you say you were?”
She’d signed the medical release forms Jarnac had brought along with a shaky hand. “I hope these help, Inspector.”
They had indeed. The treating doctor had since passed away; however, a call to the state medical board revealed that his medical records were stored in Los Angeles. The X-rays matched perfectly, which was a relief to Jarnac. Somehow asking an eighty-six-year-old woman for a DNA sample rubbed him the wrong way.
Jarnac approached Janine Ashcroft slowly, so that she could get a good look at him. She’d changed from the pearl gray slacks and sweater she’d worn in the morning. She was sporting a large white straw hat and a flowing pink ankle-length dress. At first, he got a blank stare, and then she recognized him. She sat up straight, tilted her head upwards and said simply, “Bad news, I assume.”
“I’m afraid so, Mrs. Ashcroft.”
Perla, a diminutive Filipino woman in nurse’s whites, hurried over to them, carrying a wicker chair. Jarnac had met her that morning.
“Can I get you something, Inspector?” Perla asked, after setting the chair alongside Mrs. Ashcroft.
Janine Ashcroft waved her glass at the nurse. “Bring two more of these, dear.”
“These” turned out to be vodka tonics.
They sat in silence until Perla returned with the drinks, Janine Ashcroft’s head down, staring at the well-clipped grass. She took a deep sip of the fresh drink, and it seemed to restore her energy.
“Thankfully, the cocktail hour is a daily ritual, though they do water the drinks down something awful. So, Mr. Policemen. You found my girl.”
“Yes, ma’am. The remains discovered in San Francisco are definitely those of your daughter.”
Ashcroft grunted something under her breath, and then said, “San Francisco. I always felt that she was there. My husband spent an absolute fortune searching for Valerie. There were alleged sightings in Mexico, New York, Los Angeles and Reno.” She smiled ruefully. “I thought it was all bogus; schemes made up by people trying to cash in on our grief.”
She set her drink down on the table and her right hand crabbed over and grabbed Jarnac’s wrist. Her hands were knob-knuckled, the nails yellowed like old ivory. “What was your name again?”
“Jarnac. Inspector Rick Jarnac.”
“Is that French? I seem to remember George and I taking a wine tasting cruise on a small river in France shortly before he died. We visited a town by that name. It’s where they make cognac, isn’t it?”
“Yes. The Charente River. It’s very beautiful.”
“You’re going to find the man who did this to my Valerie, aren’t you, Inspector Jarnac?”
“I’m going to try ma’am.”
“Promise me,” Janine Ashcroft said in a husky, sobbing voice. “Promise me you’ll find him.”
“I promise,” Jarnac said, freeing her hand and seeing that her fingernails had dug in deep enough to leave indentations.
It wasn’t the first time that he’d made a promise to a grieving family member that he knew he was going to have a hard time fulfilling.
San Francisco
Two black-and-whites were parked side-by-side, nearly rubbing fenders, their light bars turning the fog-slick street into a kaleidoscope of red and blue patterns.
Homicide Inspector Paul Ellis nosed the unmarked car within inches of the patrol cars. His face was a mere silhouette in the dashboard lighting. He took a deep puff on his cigarette, opened the window an inch to let the smoke out, and then climbed stiffly out of the vehicle.
Ellis was a thick-set man with hulking shoulders. He’d been an excellent athlete in his youth, making All-City in high school football and had excelled in water polo at U.C. Davis. Now he had a beer-barrel stomach that he claimed was “slipped muscle.” His stiff, bristly gray hair was in disarray and in need of a trim. He had watery blue eyes and a tobacco-stained mustache.
Ellis stumbled briefly, and then regained his balance—his untied rubber-soled shoes making slapping noises as he made his way over to a line of day-glow yellow plastic crime tape that stretched from the street to a storefront with windows opaque from condensation.
A young uniformed patrolman hurried over to Ellis. “The medical examiner hasn’t arrived yet. The body’s over here.”
“Have we got a name?” Ellis asked, sizing up the patrolman: young, tall, clean-shaven, hat squared, badge polished. An eager beaver, like I used to be, Ellis thought.
“Yes, sir. The bartender at the Casbar, there on the corner, knew him. Kurt Thorsen. He lives just a couple of blocks away.”
The body was spread out between the front bumper of a metallic-gray shark-jawed Porsche and a gnarled tree trunk that had buckled the sidewalk.
His head was resting on the curb—a frozen look of surprise on his features.
“I think I know this guy,” Ellis said. “He was a construction engineer at the place where they found all of those Indian bones.” He turned to face the patrolman. “What’s your name?”
“Chacones. Ken Chacones, Inspector. I took the promotion test for the Bureau. I’d sure like to work Homicide.”
“Would you now?” Ellis asked, as he bent over the corpse. Thorsen had been right there when the bones turned up—a bunch of scrawny little buggers that were quickly identified as American Indians, and the remains of a single young woman who’d been shot in the head years ago according to the information that his partner Rick Jarnac had come up with. Jarnac was in Beverly Hills now, trying to make a positive ID.
There was a pear-shaped blood stain on the front of Thorsen’s chest.
“Knife job is my guess,” Officer Chacones said. “We had a similar case a few weeks ago down on Mission Street. Gang killing.”
“Which gang?” Ellis asked.
“Sureños. Punks. Pants hanging below the crack of their asses, flannel shirts, and no matter what kind of shoes they wear, the laces have to be blue.”
Ellis scanned the area. There was a small island of onlookers, ten or twelve older white guys, hanging out behind the crime tape. Losers from the bar, he figured.
“Did you check his pockets, Chacones?”
“No, sir.”
“Well do it, now. Good training for you.” And it saved Ellis from kneeling down on that wet sidewalk.
The officer squatted down and performed the search just like they had taught him to do at the academy.
“Nothing, sir,” he said as he bounced back up to his feet. “Stripped clean. No watch or ring, either. Pockets all empty.”
“Okay. We’ll wait for the medical examiner. What’s the bartender’s name?”
“Herb.”
“Tell Herb not to go anywhere until I talk to him.”
Ellis made his way back to the unmarked car, dropped into the driver’s seat, breathing hard and grimacing.
Fucking back, he said to himself as he struggled to pull his wallet out of his pants pocket. He searched for Henry Chung’s business card. Chung was the head honcho at Cinco, the outfit running the building project. Thorsen had barely said a word at the construction site, nor had his foreman, a big, ugly Mexican named Benny. Chung had been something else: jumpy, on edge, moving from one leg to another as if he was about to wet his pants.
Chung had invited Ellis into his on-site office for a drink. Expensive single malt Scotch. Chung was worried that the find would shut down the job site for a long time—and made it plain that he’d be thankful for anything that Ellis could do to make sure that didn’t happen, and he would appreciate being updated on the investigation.
So thankful that he’d invited Ellis to his house twice, the last time not more than eight hours earlier—a mansion on Jackson Street, complete with an indoor swimming pool. There’d been more Scotch, and Ellis had ended up in the shallow end of the pool with Tina, a Barbie-doll blonde, bobbing her beautiful head between his legs while Chung and his hot-looking whore Becky watched.
The medical examiner’s wagon arrived as Ellis punched the number in his cell. Chung answered after the fourth ring.
“Henry, I’ve got some bad news for you. One of your employees, Kurt Thorsen, who I spoke to briefly at your job site, was stabbed to death a couple of hours ago.”
“My, God,” Chung said. “That’s awful. I hope you don’t…don’t think that it has anything to do with Cinco, Paul.”
“No. Looks like a gang killing. Some punks nailed him on the street and took everything he had.”
“Kurt was a valued employee. He’s going to be hard to replace. If there’s any consolation, it’s that Kurt wasn’t married, and had no children. He was devoted to his work. Tell me, the remains of the woman with the ankle bracelet, is there anything new on that investigation?”
“I think we’ve got a positive ID. Someone who disappeared a long time ago. I talked it over with my boss. An old case like this isn’t worth wasting the manpower. We’ve got more work than we can handle now.”
“Once again, I am most grateful. Could I see you again? Tomorrow? At my home. Say around noon. I have a proposition you may find of interest.”
“You bet,” Ellis said, before breaking the connection. Maybe the cards were finally turning in his favor. Running into a rich guy like Chung, doing him a small favor, and now this—one of his employees murdered. A lucky break for him, not Thorsen. He could milk it along—more booze, more Tina. More of everything.
Ellis’s back started to throb again as he struggled out of the car. The pain was getting worse every day. He’d found an attorney that thought he could wrangle a disability pension for him. Depending on what Chung’s proposition turned out to be, this could be his last case.
He tapped the young patrolman on the shoulder.
“What did you say the bartender’s name was, kid?”
“Herb, sir. Do you want to speak to the medical technicians?”
Ellis watched the two men in white coveralls examining Thorsen’s body. “No. You do that. I’ll talk to Herb.”
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