Double Take (2 page)

California? What was in California?

Wind-driven rain pelted the glass with sporadic blasts. The sky was unusually dark for the afternoon, and the streetlights below glowed with life. As he sat there staring at the charcoal haze and listening to the storm’s chatter, he searched his memory for anything Amy had ever said about California. He could think of nothing. No aunt, brother, cousin, friend, or otherwise; no bucket list wishes to visit the Golden Gate.

He logged on to Verizon’s website and paged through their phone bills for the past month, looking for calls to the 415 area code. There were several. The month before there were more still. Clearly, she was conversing with someone in San Francisco. The only questions were who, and why.

With a few mouse clicks, he did a reverse phone lookup and found a name: David Gilbarco. Several moments later, he had Gilbarco’s home address. The location meant nothing to him.

Dyer sat there, the glow of the screen in the dark room illuminating his face against the mirror-like window. Rain whacked the glass, then the wind blew it aside and slapped some more water against it. Like fits of anger, the storm’s force ebbed and flowed.

He opened Facebook and poked around Amy’s page. Like her credit card, there was no recent activity. Nothing to, or from, David Gilbarco. Gilbarco was not listed as one of her friends—in fact, a quick search indicated that the man did not even have a Facebook account. Dyer opened Amy’s email account and looked around there, as well, to no avail.

Dyer realized the answers to his questions lay on the other coast, and there was only one way he was going to resolve them. He had to go there. The foot surgery took him off work, so that wouldn’t be a problem. He’d call in periodically and chat with Russo, play it cool. Russo would send him to the department shrink if he was having difficulty dealing with Amy’s sudden departure.

He was en route to Kennedy at four the next morning, his duffel bag sitting beside him in the cab. He left the crutches behind, but the painkillers—and a slight limp—accompanied him on the trip.

As the JetBlue flight made its approach to San Francisco International, Dyer saw dense fog enveloping the city, the salt lakes and gray-green bay sliding by as they peeked in and out of the thickening clouds. He landed in a light mist, the runway asphalt-slick with puddles of water as the jet taxied to the gate.

Dyer cabbed it to the Hotel Whitcomb, located in the Tenderloin district. The neighborhood was sketchy at night, but the facility was well maintained and, most importantly, the price was right. He deposited the duffel in his room and, after grabbing a street map from the concierge, took BART, the local subway system, to the Hall of Justice on Bryant Street.

He had done a lot of thinking on the flight, and one persistent thought he couldn’t shake was that Amy had been having an affair with a man who lived in San Francisco. Farfetched though that might be, something was up with David Gilbarco, and Dyer figured it made sense to look into this guy with the assistance of the police. He knew his way around that world, and it was likely the quickest way to draw straight lines between theoretically related objects—Amy Dettlinger and David Gilbarco.

Dyer took the elevator to the fourth floor and walked across the green tiled corridor into Room 400, passing beneath a sign that read, “Bureau of Inspectors - Administration & Information.” He badged the desk clerk and asked to speak with someone about a missing person. The woman stuck her head into the back room and called out, “Inspector, a minute.”

A thick, squat man stepped up to the counter and the clerk turned to Dyer. “Inspector Chuck Wong, this is Detective—”

“Ben Dyer,” he said, extending a hand across the wood counter. “NYPD.”

“Detective Dyer’s working a missing persons case and wants to know who to talk with.”

Wong’s chin jutted back. “All the way from New York? And you didn’t call ahead?”

“No time.” Dyer pulled Amy’s photo from his shirt pocket and held it out, figuring that recognition of any sort would lead him somewhere. But Dyer accidentally caught a glimpse of the picture, and the image of Amy’s smiling face stuck him again like a fresh injection of pain.

Wong’s eyebrows rose. “Yeah. I’ve seen this woman.” He continued staring at the photo, then snapped his fingers. “On the board. She’s posted on the board. C’mon back.”

Dyer followed Wong into the main room, and then turned left past multiple desks. As they walked, Wong answered a call on his cell. He stopped at a cubicle, twisted the phone away from his mouth, and gestured at a tall, lanky man. “This is the guy you want to talk to.” He nodded at Dyer. “Lance, help him out.”

Dyer turned back to thank him, but Wong was already headed back the way they’d come. He again displayed his badge. “Ben Dyer.”

“Lance Burden.” He glanced at the gold shield. “New York?”

“I’m looking for this woman,” Dyer said, holding out Amy’s photo. “Inspector Wong said he saw her on ‘the board,’ and brought me over to you.”

Burden gave the picture a cursory look. “What does NYPD want with her?”

An intensity in the man’s demeanor told Dyer he needed to be straight with him. “It’s…a bit complicated. Any information you can give me would be appreciated.” Dyer suddenly became aware of his New York accent. It was something he heard in every conversation his whole life, and though he’d never thought about it, he was now conscious of his pronunciations.

Burden studied his face a minute, and then said, “Let’s take a walk. I was supposed to get breakfast on the way in this morning, haven’t gotten there yet.” He glanced at the clock. “Wait any longer, it’ll be time for lunch. You hungry?”

“Coffee’d be great.”

As Burden led the way out of the building, Dyer limped along, trying to keep up and making small talk about the beauty of the city—what little he had seen of it—and how BART differed from the New York City subway.

“You probably don't have any time to sightsee, but you should check out Alcatraz before you leave town,” Burden said. “Just wrapped up a case there and…well, pretty creepy stuff. Being a cop and all, I think you'd appreciate the prison's history. In some ways, putting a penitentiary on a rock in the middle of the ocean was a pretty damn fine idea.”

“And in other ways?”

“Not such a damn fine idea.”

“Hey,” Dyer said, wanting to get back on the topic of Amy. “About my case, what Inspector Wong said about that photo being ‘on the board.’ Does that mean it’s a missing persons case? Because I can explain—”

“Watch it!” They maneuvered around a homeless man who’d camped out in the doorway of the adjacent building, his legs stretched out onto the sidewalk. “Mayor’s a big homeless advocate, trying to help ’em out. But it’s a big problem.”

They turned the street corner and entered a Starbucks.

“Inspector, about my case—”

“Yeah,” Burden said. “About that. Just a guess here, but Amy Dettlinger is more than just a case to you. Am I right?”

Dyer nodded. He had pegged Burden as sharp, and now he had confirmation. “She's my fiancé.”

“Can I help you?” the barista asked.

They placed their orders: Burden a low-fat cranberry muffin and a tall Frappuccino, and Dyer a high-octane venti, black. Dyer peeled off a ten, waving away Burden’s attempt to pay.

They moved to the wood counter to await their drinks. Others sat at tables throughout the café, staring at laptop screens, iPads, or newspapers.

Burden offered Dyer a piece of muffin, but the detective declined.

“Just so I understand,” Burden said, biting a whole cranberry off the top, “you came out here because your fiancé’s gone missing.”

“Venti black and tall Frap for Ben,” the Starbucks barista said as she set the coffees on the counter. Dyer took the cups and handed Burden his drink.

“Close enough.”

“Something you should know,” Burden said. “I work in the Personal Crimes division. Homicide.” He stared hard at Dyer, as if that simple fact explained everything.

Lack of sleep, inadequate food, painkillers, the emotionally taxing 30 hours, or just plain denial—whatever it was, Dyer was slow in processing it. “Are you saying—”

“Amy Dettlinger was found murdered in an apartment not far from here. I’m sorry.”

Dyer’s coffee was on the floor, his shoes splashed with burning liquid—yet he felt nothing other than profound lightheadedness as he groped for the tabletop. Burden was up and steadying him, pulling him into the chair.

Dyer’s world was still spinning.
Blindness, this is what blindness is like.
He looked in the direction of Burden’s voice.
What’s he saying?

“—you okay? Dyer, focus on my eyes. Detective—”

And the fog lifted. He felt himself crying, the burning liquid on his feet, the pain of profound loss. “Amy’s dead?”

“We’ve got the guy. He’s in lockup, but he—”

“What’s his name?”

“David Gilbarco.”

Dyer shivered. Using the denim sleeve of his shirt, he wiped at his eyes and cheeks. “Jesus Christ, how— I mean, why?”

“Gilbarco denies it, of course. Lab’s still processing everything, but prelim report says it’s Ms. Dettlinger’s blood on his clothes. Says he found her dead in his apartment and cradled her, that’s where the blood came from. As to how, a sharp blow to the head. Best we can tell, he pushed her and she fell backwards into the range. Opened a nasty gash on her head. But that’s not what killed her. The impact broke her neck. Died instantly.”

Dyer sucked in a nose full of air, counted to ten and blew it out of his mouth to another ten count. His anger calmed, he said, “I wanna see the fucker. Gilbarco, I wanna see him.”

Burden eyed him. “You sure?”

“Now. Can you do that for me?”

DAVID GILBARCO WAS NOT WHAT HE EXPECTED. A medical device salesman, Gilbarco was in his late thirties, California-tan with boyish good looks and a coy demeanor. His hair was well-trimmed with a dab of gray at the temples. Dyer could see why Amy would be attracted to this guy, but how’d she get involved with him—and when? So many questions. He cleared his head to get into detective mode; he had to approach Gilbarco as he would any other murder suspect.

It’d been two hours since Burden broke the news to him. During that time, Burden contacted Gilbarco’s attorney and gave Dyer the case file.

No priors. Not even a parking ticket. Gilbarco was not your typical criminal—let alone a typical murder suspect.

Dyer pushed open the interview suite door. He tossed down the manila folder he was carrying and placed both hands on his hips. He ignored Gilbarco’s attorney.

“The NYPD’s been looking for Ms. Dettlinger,” Dyer said. “And we come to find out she’s been here in ’Frisco the past few days, rotting away in a goddamn drawer in the morgue. You killed her, you fuck.”

“Now wait just a minute,” the lawyer said, holding up a hand.

Dyer placed both palms on the table, directly opposite his suspect. “You say you didn’t kill this woman. I don’t believe you.” He leaned forward, his gaze boring into Gilbarco. “I wanna hear it from your mouth. Tell me. Convince me.”

“Who do you think you are?” the attorney asked.

“A detective from the fuckin’ NYPD, that’s who.” Dyer faced Gilbarco. “Now, Amy Dettlinger. You knew her, you had a relationship with her.”

After a nod from his attorney, Gilbarco said, “I’d been seeing her for about five months.”

Five months. Holy Jesus
.

“I have several accounts on the East coast. New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut—”

“Yeah, I know what the goddamn East coast is,” Dyer said.

“Right. Okay. So I was servicing my accounts.”

“Apparently, that’s not all you were servicing.”

“Detective, please.” This from the attorney. “We’ve stipulated that my client had a relationship with Ms. Dettlinger. That’s not at issue.”

Dyer straightened up but didn’t take his eyes off Gilbarco.

“I ran into her one day at one of the doctor’s offices I was visiting. We hit it off, I guess. That instant attraction thing. I could see the way she was looking at me, that she wanted me.”

Dyer fisted his hand. He quickly loosened it and took hold of the chair back. “She wanted you.”

“Yeah, the look she gave me. I— Anyway, she was there after my visit with the doc, so I asked her if she wanted to grab a drink. We spent the evening together. Until around nine, I think, because she said she had a boyfriend and he’d wonder where she was.”

“Didn’t it bother you that she was seeing someone? Didn’t it bother her?”

Gilbarco shrugged. “She said he wasn’t good enough for her. They were having problems. It was just a matter of time before she left him.”

“She said that? Those were her words?”

Gilbarco squinted confusion. “Yeah.”

Dyer realized he’d made it personal. He had to back off.

“She say anything else about this guy she was living with?”

“She was living with him?”

Dyer cleared his throat. His forehead was sweating. He’d gone 24 hours without a smoke and was in withdrawal. And he had no idea how much the painkillers were affecting him. “So you saw Ms. Dettlinger when you were in New York. How many times would you say that was?”

Gilbarco shrugged. “About a dozen, maybe more.”

Dyer bit the inside of his lip, counted to ten. Keeping it centered, keeping it together. “Okay, so you saw her whenever you came to New York.”

“Yeah, then she called to see if I was going to be in town on the eighth. I was getting back that afternoon. She said her boyfriend was in Dallas at some conference, so she was flying out to see me.” He chuckled. “I couldn’t believe it. I thought, it’s one thing for me to see her when I’m in town, but here she was making a special trip. Wow, I started thinking, we’ve got something here.”

Dyer waited a beat, but Gilbarco stopped talking. His eyes were teared over, and he was clearly doing his best to maintain his composure. The man who was having an affair with the woman Dyer loved was crying because she had been killed. Dyer should’ve wanted to pound his face into horsemeat, but he felt nothing. Through the eyes of her lover, Dyer was seeing a side of Amy he wished he had never gotten the chance to see.