Babson and Santo Alighieri smiled, saluted and left.
The deputy chief had Cardwell’s photo up on his smart phone now.
“That’s him,” Oliver said.
Ron and Benny Marx agreed.
They’d identified the victim. Reverend Isaac Cardwell of Echo Avenue, Oakland, California. In the DMV photo, though, Reverend Cardwell wore wire frame glasses; his license mandated corrective lenses when he drove. Ron remembered the indentations on the victim’s nose. So what had happened to the man’s glasses?
“Benny,” Ron asked, “you find any eyeglasses in the area where the victim was found?”
“No, Chief.”
“Look for a pair when you go over that car. Oliver, go talk to the supermarket manager and his staff. See if their security cameras cover the spot where the reverend’s car is parked. If not, ask if anyone noticed when Cardwell’s car was left here. See if anybody remembers seeing him in the store; if so, was anyone was with him? If the store personnel are no help, ask them for the names of regular customers who came in the past few days. There have to be times this parking lot gets a lot more filled up than it is now. Somebody might have seen something. Ask the manager when his slow times are, when it’s least likely anyone would notice a car being dumped here. If we don’t get anything else, that might give us a time frame to work with.”
Oliver and Benny knew Ron was saving the heavy lifting for himself.
The chief said, “I’ll notify the next of kin — and the mayor.”
Ron went to see the mayor first. He’d been to Clay Steadman’s house a dozen times in the three years he’d been Goldstrike’s chief of police. Every time he visited, he had the same thought. It was perfectly sited for the man who governed — ruled , Ron often thought — the town.
The house sat alone on a rise that looked directly down on the center of town and the sparkling waters of the lake. If the mayor were so inclined, he could step out his front door and, with a pair of good binoculars, peer into half of the windows in the Muni Complex. And since Clay Steadman had everyone who worked for the town out to his place twice a year, for a Fourth of July picnic and a Christmas party, every municipal employee on the inland side of the Muni knew that the boss might be watching at any time.
On the other hand, nobody was going to get the drop on Clay Steadman. His grounds were high enough above the adjacent road that he felt no need to enclose the property behind a wall. A private lane was the only way in. It cut through a grand sweep of lawns, terraced flowerbeds, ornamental trees and a recirculating stream that featured a small waterfall and a large pond. All of the features of the landscaping fit together like a masterfully composed oil painting — and all of them allowed for a clear view from the house to the property line. Out back were a simple lap pool and an austere tennis court. Just beyond these amenities, the sheer face of a cliff rose over two hundred feet.
The house itself was a single story rambling structure of redwood weathered to a handsome silver with a pitched roof and tinted Thermopane windows. It was big but seemed exceedingly unpretentious for a man who’d made a billion or so dollars in entertainment and real estate. When you stepped inside, there were understated furnishings that cost more than most people made in a lifetime, paintings by Winslow Homer and three generations of Wyeths and Remington bronzes. Everything had been arranged by somebody whose sense of interior design was probably genetic.
For all the room in the house, Clay was the only one who lived there. His only ex-wife didn’t like snow and lived, elegantly, in the Arizona desert. He had no children. He drove his own cars. The cook and the cleaning people were ferried back and forth, and the groundskeeper came and went in his own truck.
It was only when the mayor had an occasional lady friend over or threw one of his rare parties for his
The deputy chief had Cardwell’s photo up on his smart phone now.
“That’s him,” Oliver said.
Ron and Benny Marx agreed.
They’d identified the victim. Reverend Isaac Cardwell of Echo Avenue, Oakland, California. In the DMV photo, though, Reverend Cardwell wore wire frame glasses; his license mandated corrective lenses when he drove. Ron remembered the indentations on the victim’s nose. So what had happened to the man’s glasses?
“Benny,” Ron asked, “you find any eyeglasses in the area where the victim was found?”
“No, Chief.”
“Look for a pair when you go over that car. Oliver, go talk to the supermarket manager and his staff. See if their security cameras cover the spot where the reverend’s car is parked. If not, ask if anyone noticed when Cardwell’s car was left here. See if anybody remembers seeing him in the store; if so, was anyone was with him? If the store personnel are no help, ask them for the names of regular customers who came in the past few days. There have to be times this parking lot gets a lot more filled up than it is now. Somebody might have seen something. Ask the manager when his slow times are, when it’s least likely anyone would notice a car being dumped here. If we don’t get anything else, that might give us a time frame to work with.”
Oliver and Benny knew Ron was saving the heavy lifting for himself.
The chief said, “I’ll notify the next of kin — and the mayor.”
Ron went to see the mayor first. He’d been to Clay Steadman’s house a dozen times in the three years he’d been Goldstrike’s chief of police. Every time he visited, he had the same thought. It was perfectly sited for the man who governed — ruled , Ron often thought — the town.
The house sat alone on a rise that looked directly down on the center of town and the sparkling waters of the lake. If the mayor were so inclined, he could step out his front door and, with a pair of good binoculars, peer into half of the windows in the Muni Complex. And since Clay Steadman had everyone who worked for the town out to his place twice a year, for a Fourth of July picnic and a Christmas party, every municipal employee on the inland side of the Muni knew that the boss might be watching at any time.
On the other hand, nobody was going to get the drop on Clay Steadman. His grounds were high enough above the adjacent road that he felt no need to enclose the property behind a wall. A private lane was the only way in. It cut through a grand sweep of lawns, terraced flowerbeds, ornamental trees and a recirculating stream that featured a small waterfall and a large pond. All of the features of the landscaping fit together like a masterfully composed oil painting — and all of them allowed for a clear view from the house to the property line. Out back were a simple lap pool and an austere tennis court. Just beyond these amenities, the sheer face of a cliff rose over two hundred feet.
The house itself was a single story rambling structure of redwood weathered to a handsome silver with a pitched roof and tinted Thermopane windows. It was big but seemed exceedingly unpretentious for a man who’d made a billion or so dollars in entertainment and real estate. When you stepped inside, there were understated furnishings that cost more than most people made in a lifetime, paintings by Winslow Homer and three generations of Wyeths and Remington bronzes. Everything had been arranged by somebody whose sense of interior design was probably genetic.
For all the room in the house, Clay was the only one who lived there. His only ex-wife didn’t like snow and lived, elegantly, in the Arizona desert. He had no children. He drove his own cars. The cook and the cleaning people were ferried back and forth, and the groundskeeper came and went in his own truck.
It was only when the mayor had an occasional lady friend over or threw one of his rare parties for his
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