‘I thought you people believed in forgiveness.’
Narvaez let the you people slide.
‘That’s for old women who are scared to die.’
‘Did Crow tell me the truth?’
Narvaez rocked his head side to side.
‘Pretty much. Except the neighbors had to pull him off me. He had the knife by then. He cut off a piece of a neighbor’s ear before they overpowered him. He must have been in a lot of street fights in his time.’
Evan tried to imagine the old man he’d met, with his pet bird and his laptop, ever being a fighter. It was a stretch.
‘Did he say anything about—’
‘Thompson?’
Narvaez smiled again.
‘That’s the quid pro quo isn’t it,’ Evan said.
‘Yes.’
‘You want to know what happened to him.’
‘What did Crow say about him?’
‘I asked him if he’d ever met him and he said yes. But when I asked what happened he said I’d rather not say. Those were his exact words.’
‘He killed him, you know.’
Evan didn’t know it, even if he’d been thinking along those lines. It seemed most people who met Thompson would happily have killed him given the opportunity.
‘Why would he do that? Why would he kill the man who had disfigured you, the man who just tried to cut his own eye out?’
Narvaez’ expression said it all. And none of it was good.
You’ll learn, as you grow older. And trust me, nothing you learn will warm your heart.
‘Because he likes to kill people.’
‘You know this for a fact, do you?’
Narvaez surprised the hell out of him by nodding. He’d expected him to backtrack, say something about feeling it in his bones. Maybe the old women who said Crow turned his wife into his namesake whispered it in his ear.
‘I told you last time, I was going to kill him. Somebody beat me to it.’
Even after all these years, his fists still clenched tightly at his sides, his frustration still tormenting him.
‘Every time I looked at myself in the mirror I told myself I would kill him. I would close my eyes and picture it in my imagination. Pushing his fifty-dollar bills down his throat one by one until he choked on them.’ He snorted. ‘I would play a game with myself. How much before he choked to death? Three hundred dollars, five hundred dollars?’
He stared at Evan, looking for some hint of understanding.
‘And sometimes, if I was really low, I would think to myself, if it only takes, say, two hundred and fifty dollars before his bloodshot eyes stopped bulging, before he soiled himself, then I would have plenty left over for Frank Hanna.’
‘And somebody took that away from you.’
‘Not somebody. Elwood Crow.’
Evan knew then he’d be calling on Crow again very soon if he wanted to move forward.
‘You haven’t explained why it was Crow.’
‘I asked around. I was desperate to know what happened. There were rumors. People knew who—what—Crow was. It wasn’t hard to put it together. And ...’
He was back in the hallway outside the apartment in Ciudad Juárez.
‘And what?’
‘I saw something in Crow’s eyes, before they pulled him off.’
‘Evil?’
Narvaez’ face twisted, his own eyes full of something you didn’t want to look at.
‘Your mocking will be the undoing of you. You don’t have to believe me. I know what I saw. What I felt.’
It was time to put a lid on the superstitious mumbo-jumbo, however much Narvaez took it to heart. Evan was surprised he didn’t cross himself again.
‘What’s the quid pro quo?’
‘I want to meet Crow. I want him to tell me exactly what he did. If you can arrange that, I will tell you everything you want to know about Francisco Javier Grajales. But ...’
Why was there always a but? Evan thought as Narvaez lifted a bony finger and wagged it in front of his eyes.
‘I guarantee it’s not something you will want to hear?’
Chapter 33
‘NARVAEZ WANTS TO MEET with me?’
‘He’s got something he wants to talk to you about. A mutual interest.’
They were standing in Elwood Crow’s hallway. Evan wasn’t planning on it being a long visit. In the back room, the feathered crow cawed loudly. Elwood Crow was different too. Evan was sure it was just his imagination. It would’ve been impossible to listen to Narvaez talking and not feel something. It was as if he was trying to picture the old man killing somebody—for the fun of it. He’d also love to ask him about his wife, whether that was her flapping around in the other room and being rude to visitors.
He knew he’d have to be ready for Crow to turn the conversation back on him before he entered into a conversation about wives. Just being here again brought Crow’s parting words back.
There are none so lost as those who will not be found.
Crow had one arm held across his body, his other elbow resting on it, his chin held between finger and thumb.
‘Things didn’t turn out too well last time we met.’
He pointed to the scar on his cheek.
‘You said you saw him in the street.’
‘True. But we didn’t stop and chat. Why are you here, asking for him, anyway?’
The words were barely out before it clicked.
‘He made it a condition of helping you.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘It must be something very important to him if he’s prepared to help you.’
‘I get the feeling it is.’
The change in Crow’s face was almost unnoticeable unless you were looking for it. Evan thought that was the moment he put the remaining pieces into place. The next ten seconds were crucial.
Crow stared at him, or through him. Evan almost wished they’d gone through into the other room with the bird. Something to break the tension, take the focus off him.
‘He wants to talk about Thompson,’ Crow said.
‘Yes.’
‘He thinks I killed him.’
Evan nodded, tried to read something, anything in the old man’s eyes. He’d have been better off trying with the one in the back room.
‘I’m going to have to think about it.’
Evan’s heart sank, the breath he’d been holding exiting in a rush. But it wasn’t quite over. Crow’s curiosity was piqued. He was as bad as Evan, he couldn’t help himself.
‘Why does he want to know? The man’s long dead.’
‘The honest truth?’
Crow sucked in air through his teeth.
‘That sounds ominous.’
‘This is just my opinion’—he paused to let Crow acknowledge the fact—‘he feels cheated. By you. He’d like to relive it with you. And you haven’t denied it.’
Crow’s face went through a succession of emotions. In the end, the decision was taken out of his hands. There was a knock on the still half-open front door.
‘Mr Crow,’ Narvaez said from behind it.
Evan spun around.
I told you to stay in the car.
Crow stepped around him and opened the door fully.
‘Mr Narvaez.’
They stood there, staring at each other like a pair of old vultures eyeing each other across the carcass of a dead dog.
‘Please come in.’
Evan gave a mental fist pump as Narvaez stepped inside with a polite nod of the head. He took off his dark glasses and followed Crow down the hallway towards the back room. Evan was tempted to shout after him:
Not in there. His wife’s in there. Go in the kitchen.
‘I’ll wait in the car,’ he said instead as the two old men disappeared from view.
***
HE DIDN’T WAIT IN the car, of course. It was too good an opportunity to waste. Besides, Crow had as good as given him carte blanche last time when he said:
You would
n’t be much good at your job if you weren’t nosy.
A printed RSVP invitation on some expensive card, with or without fancy scrollwork in the corners, would be more formal. It wouldn’t be any clearer.
Upstairs was as good a place to start as any. He hesitated. The house was old. Those stairs were bound to creak. What was he hoping to find anyway? But he couldn’t help himself, hoped the two old men would be so deeply immersed in their shared history of fifty years ago they wouldn’t notice.
He climbed the stairs slowly. They creaked, although not as badly as he’d feared. Halfway up he paused and listened, heard nothing apart from the low rumble of men’s voices coming from the back room. He stopped at the top, saw four doors off a large landing. The doors to two of the bedrooms were open. He crossed the landing carefully, keeping to the rug as much as possible, off the bare boards. There was nothing of interest in either room—an old-fashioned single bed, an antique dresser and the musty smell of rooms that hadn’t been used for twenty years or more.
The door to the third bedroom was ajar. Evan pushed it carefully, stuck his head around it. An old woman lay on her back on one side of a large double bed, her long white hair fanned out on the pillow, mouth open, snoring gently.
Looks like he hadn’t turned his wife into the pet crow after all.
The nightstand was overflowing with pill bottles. Evan held his breath, tiptoed across the room. He picked up one of the bottles and read the label. Prescription strength painkillers made out to Sarah Crow.
He almost dropped the bottle. It was stupid. Crow’s wife was called Sarah, same as his own, so what. But it had unsettled him for reasons he couldn’t put his finger on. He put the bottle down carefully, picked up another. Aricept. He recognized the name, one of the most common drugs used in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.
Crow had lost his wife as well, mentally if not physically. Maybe that was behind his offer to help find Sarah—all the computer hacking skills he might have picked up couldn’t help bring back his own wife.
‘Elwood, is that you?’
The sudden voice made him recoil. Then a hand as cold as the grave shot out and grabbed his wrist. He gasped, dropped the pill bottle. The top came off as it hit the floor, pills spilling everywhere. It sounded to him as if he’d dropped a bowling ball. Instinctively he knew the room he was in was directly above the back room where Crow and Narvaez sat.
Sarah Crow’s eyes were open but she didn’t see him, as lost in the past as the two old men downstairs. She rolled her head from side to side on the pillow, her lips moving silently.
‘Go back to sleep, Sarah,’ he whispered, the words making his legs weak, his stomach turn over, as they ripped away the last five years of his life like so much tissue paper.
He talked about Sarah—to Guillory, to Charlotte—all the time, but the last time he talked to a woman called Sarah was over five years ago, the day his own Sarah went to work and never came home.
He had to get out of this house.
He tried to pull his arm away. She held on tight, as if the bony fingers had fused together. He carefully uncurled them one by one, a low moan on her lips as he unpeeled them.
‘No, don’t leave me alone.’
He laid her hand gently on the bed, held it in his until the only sound was a low puffing from between her lips. He scooped up the scattered pills and poured them back into the bottle, put the bottle back on the table, unable to remember where it had been, amongst all the others. He crept out of the room. A board creaked loudly as he stepped back onto the landing. Downstairs, a door opened, then Crow’s voice.
‘Bathroom’s at the end, if that’s what you’re looking for. It’s the small room with the toilet, no bed.’
Damn. Crow had caught him again.
The door closed again. Evan went through the charade anyway. He went into the bathroom and stared at his reflection in the mirror for thirty seconds, a thousand jumbled thoughts going through his mind. Part of him was tempted to wait until Crow and Narvaez had finished their conversation, then take up Crow’s challenge.
Find Sarah if you can.
He flushed the toilet, clumped noisily across the landing and came down the stairs two at a time. He half expected Crow to poke his head out the door and acknowledge the evident end to his nosing around.
He went outside to wait in the car, wishing he’d never gone upstairs.
***
EVAN TAPPED A BEAT on the steering wheel with his fingers, checked his watch. Narvaez had been in there for two hours. Either, one of them had killed the other, or it was a hell of a story. Maybe Narvaez enjoyed it so much he asked Crow to tell him one more time, like a kid who doesn’t want to settle down for the night.
He’d been tempted to follow Narvaez down the hallway as Crow led him into the back room, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, the assumption that he was included. The thought of how Crow’s face might have looked as he held up one of his large hands, told him no, this is a private matter, had put paid to that one.
Did he really want to know? It wasn’t relevant to his investigation, so what did it matter? A sudden clammy, dampness on the back of his neck told him he might have just missed a trick. Crow would have found out from Thompson before he killed him whether Frank Hanna was party to what Thompson had done.
Thinking about Hanna brought McIntyre to mind—and Vasiliev. At least something had come out of the situation in the diner. He now knew the name of the man he needed to watch out for. That wasn’t all. He had McIntyre’s phone. He got it out and found the image gallery, scrolled through the photos McIntyre had taken of him and Frank Hanna. The guy must have been following both of them on and off ever since Hanna first came to him.
There was still no sign of Narvaez. He checked his watch again. It was only five minutes since he last looked. He hefted McIntyre’s phone in his hand. It was a top-of-the-range model, expensive, felt good in his hand. The home screen was stuffed full of icons. He swiped with his thumb, a second page, then a third. Jesus, how many did the guy need? His own phone had the handful of default apps it came with and that was it. He swiped again. The last page, finally. He was about to switch it off and put it away when one of the icons caught his eye, made his breath catch in his throat.
It was a magnifying glass surrounding a cell phone with the word spy underneath it. The word was what made him sit up and take notice. He couldn’t think of one innocent explanation for anything to be called spy—an app on a phone or anything else.
Maybe he was paranoid. The events of the past days suggested otherwise. McIntyre seemed to know exactly what he was up to, despite all of Hanna’s warnings about secrecy. He opened up the browser on McIntyre’s phone and searched for the app developer’s website. He found it immediately. It was exactly what the name implied—an app for spying on somebody else’s cell phone without their knowledge.
He spent the next five minutes reading up on one privacy-invading feature after another. And when he came to the one called ListenLive he knew he’d found the answer. He read the sales blurb, amazed and appalled anyone could buy something so invasive.
Simply make a call to the phone whenever you want to secretly listen through its microphone. The target will not ring or show any signs of an incoming call, but will answer and turn on the mic immediately. No record of this call will be left in the call logs. Safely, discreetly and remotely. Send another hidden message to turn the feature off, when you want to place a normal call that will ring again.
He knew damn well whose cell phone the software was installed on—Frank Hanna’s. McIntyre had been listening in on Hanna’s conversations. He went back to the home page on McIntyre’s phone and opened up the image gallery. It didn’t take long to find the one he knew would be there somewhere—a discreet doctor’s clinic with Hanna’s Bentley in the parking lot.
All McIntyre had to do was follow Hanna around and when he went somewhere interesting, simply call his cell phone. Then sit back and listen to ev
ery private word spoken.
McIntyre knew Hanna was dying.
Had he listened in on Evan’s own conversations with him?
He opened up McIntyre’s contacts and found Hanna, sat there with his finger poised over the green call button. What harm would it do to find out if it really worked or if the sales pitch was all hyperbole. If it didn’t work very well, they might not have anything to worry about.
He hit call.
The phone was answered immediately. He heard a radio playing in the background, something classical. Then another closer sound. A hissing, sizzling sound. It made him think of something dropped into a hot skillet. Bacon. He didn’t know exactly what bacon frying sounded like, but he was pretty sure that’s what it was. His mouth watered. Then his stomach growled. He hoped it wasn’t loud enough to alert Hanna. If he listened much longer it would be.
Then, off in the distance, the sound of a doorbell. Evan froze, his mind awash with the effects of a lifetime watching too many bad movies. Was he about to eavesdrop on Hanna being attacked in his own home? Should he shout down the line, don’t answer the door! The sound of sizzling bacon was still loud in his ear as he heard the door open in the background—the phone must be sitting on the kitchen counter, not in Hanna’s pocket.
He heard laughter in the background, faint, getting louder as they approached, friendly voices. He relaxed. Hanna wasn’t about to be murdered as he listened—although if you were going to kill somebody in their own home, the kitchen housed the most opportunities. He’d listen a little longer.
A man’s voice said that bacon sure smells good. Then a loud sniff. Mmm hmm, coffee too. The good stuff.
Evan’s stomach was churning like crazy. He couldn’t listen to this much longer or he’d give himself away, shout down the phone, save some for me!
Suddenly the car door opened. It was Narvaez at last, climbing in.
Evan panicked. He had to cut the call before Narvaez said anything. Even though he’d only been testing the system, didn’t mean to pry, he’d rather not have Hanna catch him. It wasn’t only that. He didn’t want Hanna to inadvertently be party to a discussion in which Narvaez might describe how Crow had dealt with Thompson.
The Evan Buckley Thrillers: Books 1 - 4 (Evan Buckley Thrillers Boxsets) Page 75