by Barry Eisler
She took out her cellphone and speed-dialed him. Two buzzes, then his voice. “Livia.”
She heard the smile, and it made her smile back. “Hey, Rick.”
She’d never called him “uncle,” even when she’d first met him at thirteen. She’d hated his sister, Dotty, who knew perfectly well what her husband, Fred Lone, was doing to the little Lahu refugee girl the Lones had agreed to foster in their home. Even now, she never asked about Mrs. Lone. One day, she expected Rick would mention that the woman had died. Livia would of course tell him she was sorry. But that would be a lie.
“How’s everything?” he said. “Been a while.”
She smiled again. He always said that, even if it had been less than a week. Though this time, he was right—it had been a month since she’d told him about the attack at the martial-arts academy, and of course about being cleared in the officer-involved investigation that followed.
“Everything’s fine,” she said. “Just busy. How’s Gavin?”
Gavin was Rick’s partner—another now-retired Portland cop, and another man who had been kind to her, and trustworthy, when she had been a traumatized teenaged girl.
“We’re good,” Rick said. “Taking it easy. Drinking too much beer. We miss you. You should come down.”
That might happen sooner than you’d guess, she thought, though she didn’t know how she would manage another disappearance right now.
“I’d like that,” she said. “In the meantime, I have a question.”
“Shoot.”
“I read online about a rape-murder in Beaumont-Wilshire. A woman named Hope Jordan and her two-year-old son.”
“Yeah. A bad one.”
“Anything you can tell me about it that’s not on the news?”
“If I were still with the bureau, probably. But these days . . . not so much. What’s your interest?”
“Did you know Jordan went to high school with Bradley Kane? Boomer, the congressman, not the vice president.”
“I didn’t.”
“The article mentioned it. And I was wondering . . . how the reporter found that out. And why it was included. It struck me as strange, so soon after the crime.”
“That would be a little strange. You want me to ask around?”
“Yeah. And if PPB has any leads, I’d like to know. Security-camera feeds, witnesses . . . anything.”
“Not that I’m ever sorry to hear from you, Livia, but you mind if I ask why you’re not liaising with PPB directly?”
She hesitated, then said, “I’m looking into an associate of Boomer’s. A war buddy of his named Stephen ‘Snake’ Spencer. And maybe Boomer himself.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah. So you can understand, for now, I want to keep it on the down-low. Is that okay?”
“More than okay. Let me do some digging.”
“Thanks. Talk to the reporter if you can. Helen Matlock. I want to know what her angle is with Boomer.”
“I know Matlock. Half the homicides I investigated, she showed up before the cops did.”
That sounded promising. “Can you call her?”
“Yeah. Let me see what I can find out, from Matlock and the bureau. I’ll call you back.”
She clicked off. It was frustrating, to know there was so much more but to not yet be able to see it. Or use it. She reminded herself of how much progress she’d made, and how fast. She knew Boomer and Snake had taken all those girls. And killed those women. All she had to do was find a means to prove it.
Or, if she couldn’t, make them pay another way.
25
Livia had just gotten off the phone with Rick when Strangeland came by. She glanced at Livia’s diagram, the places and dates of the girls’ disappearances. “Something I should know about?” she said.
Livia shook her head. “I don’t want to bother you with it yet.”
The lieutenant had accepted that kind of explanation before. She knew that when it came to rapists, Livia played a long game. But this time, she said, “Let’s talk.”
Shit.
Strangeland turned and headed in the direction of her office. Livia got up and followed her in. She closed the door without asking—if Strangeland hadn’t wanted privacy, she would have said whatever was on her mind at Livia’s cubicle.
Strangeland leaned back against her desk, facing Livia. Cop to cop. That was good. If the news was bad, the lieutenant would have delivered it sitting, the desk between them.
“I just got back from Chief Best’s office,” Strangeland said.
Livia didn’t allow her expression to change. But she felt her heart rate kick into a higher gear. Maybe she’d been wrong about the news not being bad. “Okay,” she said.
“It seems Charmaine had a visit from the mayor. Who is currently agitated following receipt of an extremely disturbing phone call about you. Specifically, about you being in Bangkok when Senator Ezra Lone died there, and in Paris when Oliver Graham was kidnapped and assassinated.”
Livia felt an unfamiliar wave of dizziness. This is it, she thought. She’d always known it would all catch up to her. And now it was actually happening.
But if they were going to take her down, they would have to work for it. She would never help them.
“Okay,” she said again, and she was gratified to hear the coolness in her own voice.
“Charmaine asked whether I thought there was anything to these anonymous allegations. I told her I didn’t know.”
She waited, and when Livia didn’t respond, she went on. “She told me that was a problem. That I should know, because you’re my detective and my responsibility. I agreed with her.”
Again, Livia said nothing.
“Charmaine told me she had a difficult play to make here, especially because the department is under scrutiny from the DOJ, and we can’t afford a scandal, and was it a mistake that you were cleared in the officer-involved last month, etc., etc. She asked for my candid opinion of you. Not what’s in your fitness reports. The bottom line. Do or die.”
Livia’s heart was beginning to pound. She clenched her jaw for a moment and worked to control her breathing. Then she said, “What did you tell her?”
Strangeland looked at her for a long moment. Then she said, “I told her you are one of the finest cops I’ve ever had the privilege to serve with. That you are fearless, even heedless, in the pursuit of justice. And that you need people who have your back, not who are trying to take you down. Meaning Charmaine and I can either be your sister cops, or we can be politicians, but we can’t be both.”
Livia clenched her jaw again. This time she kept it clenched. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t trust herself to speak.
“I wasn’t wrong before,” Strangeland went on. “When I told you Charmaine has it in for you. She still does. But you know how it can be with a domestic-violence call. A man’s beating the shit out of his wife, and when a cop shows up and intrudes upon their domestic spat, the woman turns on the cop.”
“Because it’s none of the cop’s business,” Livia managed to say.
“Yeah, that’s the mentality. You know what Charmaine told me?”
Livia shook her head.
“She said, and I quote, ‘I’m not a fan of Detective Lone. I don’t like her mysteries, I don’t think she respects authority, and I don’t trust what she’s up to. But that’s between her and me. I’ll be damned if some anonymous cowardly asshole telling tales to the mayor is going to turn me against my own officers. So tell Detective Lone she’s got forty-eight hours to put the toothpaste back in the tube.’ She says if she can’t jerk around a mayor for at least that long, she doesn’t deserve to be chief of police.”
Livia nodded, her jaw still clamped shut. She felt the wetness in her eyes, but there was nothing she could do.
“Is that enough time?” Strangeland asked.
Livia nodded again.
Strangeland returned the nod. “It better be. Because if you don’t take care of whatever this bullshit is bef
ore then, Charmaine is going to crucify you. And by you, I mean both of us. Now, do you need anything from me?”
Livia brushed a sleeve across her cheeks and shook her head. “Just the time you already got me.”
Strangeland nodded. She reached out and squeezed Livia’s shoulder. Livia didn’t flinch.
“All right, then,” Strangeland said. “Go make me proud.”
26
An hour after the meeting with Lieutenant Strangeland, Rick called Livia. “Nothing from the bureau,” he said. “A witness who thinks she saw a homeless man in the parking garage where cellphone records indicate Hope Jordan and her son were taken. The witness thinks the homeless man was white and wearing a hoodie. Doesn’t remember enough beyond that to even work with a sketch artist. And no security-camera video footage.”
“Forensic evidence?”
“Clothing fibers. Other than that, nothing. Jordan’s attacker seems to have used a condom. And the interior of her car was wiped down with bleach.”
Livia wasn’t surprised. “Does that sound like an impulse crime to you?”
“No, it does not. I read up on this guy Boomer. The other one, there’s no online information. But they’re both Special Forces veterans. Those guys get some pretty esoteric training, including renditions, that kind of thing. Boomer, I figure, must have an alibi, with all the campaigning in California. But the other one, Snake, sounds like a ghost. Did you know he did nearly seven years in Leavenworth for a sex crime in Iraq?”
She wasn’t surprised Rick had found a way to look into it. “Yeah, I did.”
“You think Snake’s our guy?”
“I’m sure of it.”
“Can you tell me how you know?”
She thought of Little. If Rick fed Snake’s or Boomer’s name to his contacts in Portland homicide, things could go in directions she hadn’t had time to consider. Things could be uncovered. Maybe the two dead men outside Campo. Maybe the one from the cemetery. She wasn’t ready to go there. At least not yet. And besides, what would PPB do with the information, really? Open up an investigation into a sitting congressman and son of the vice president, on the say-so of a Seattle cop?
“I can’t yet,” she said. “I need a little more time first. But I’m glad you know. Just in case.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
She hesitated, then realized if she waited she would invent reasons to stop. So she said quickly, “Rick, listen. I’m not being morbid. Just prudent. But if anything were to happen to me, you could get in touch with a guy named Mark Fallon in Bangkok.”
“Bangkok?”
“Yes. Bangkok. You can find him on the Internet. Mark Fallon—‘Tips Tours & Trips.’ Mark with a k, Fallon with two l’s. He can tell you more.”
She had never wanted to close that loop, but as soon as it was out, she felt better. If something happened to her, Fallon would tell Rick what he had told her. And Rick would find a way to make Boomer and Snake pay.
Assuming Little didn’t get to them first.
“Livia, you need to tell me what’s going on here.”
“I have. And I’ll tell you more. I promise. But I can’t have your people involved yet. Not with me. Okay? Let me make a case against Boomer and Snake my own way.”
“The Snake guy is at large. How do you know—”
“I only need forty-eight hours, okay?” She didn’t say that she only had that much time. It amounted to the same thing.
“Why? How do you know that?”
“You have to trust me on this, Rick. Look, what would your people do, anyway? You said it yourself, Boomer has alibis falling out of his pocket. Along with a father who’ll bring holy hell down on any local cop who even dared mention his name in connection with Hope Jordan and her son. And Snake isn’t in any databases. Believe me, I’ve checked. If you give your people his name, they’ll be looking for a ghost, if they even look at all. What I need is to figure out his next move. Did you talk to the reporter? Matlock?”
“I did.”
Livia felt a surge of hope. Or maybe it was desperation. “What did she tell you?”
There was a pause. “I think you ought to talk to her yourself.”
27
Livia’s conversation with Matlock was brief. The woman had clearly been fishing for more information about the nature of Livia’s interest, and when Livia explained that she wasn’t at liberty to reveal details of an ongoing investigation and then went silent in the face of further probes, Matlock gave up. But, to her credit, the woman didn’t retaliate by holding back herself. Instead, she’d given Livia the number of Hope Jordan’s sister, and assured Livia the sister would want to talk. Matlock had offered nothing more, but the logical inference was that Matlock’s source on the Jordan-Boomer high school connection was the sister. Her name was Grace, the parents apparently having been fond of names that were also virtues. She had a 619 area code—Southern San Diego County. Livia called her.
“Grace Jordan?” Livia said to the woman’s voice that answered.
“May I ask who’s calling?”
“Detective Livia Lone, Seattle PD. I was hoping to talk to Grace Jordan.”
A pause, then, “This is Grace.”
Okay.
“Ms. Jordan, I got your name and number from a mutual acquaintance, Helen Matlock. I’m very sorry about your sister Hope and your nephew, and I apologize for intruding at what I know is a terrible time.”
Another pause while Grace digested those bona fides. She said, “Thank you. It’s not an intrusion. Did Helen tell you about Boomer Kane?”
Livia suppressed a surge of excitement. “She didn’t tell me anything, ma’am, other than that you might want to speak with me.”
“She didn’t . . . wait, why were you in touch with Helen? Are you investigating Boomer?”
“I’m a sex-crimes detective,” Livia said, thinking it would be enough under the circumstances to bait the hook. “I can’t go into detail about the investigation that’s behind this call, but I’d be grateful for anything you can share with me about Boomer.”
Grace didn’t even hesitate. “I’ll tell you exactly what I told Helen Matlock,” she said. “Boomer’s a rapist. He raped Hope when we were in high school. He raped Noreen Prentis. He raped Sherrie Dobbs. He bragged about it in his yearbook entry. But Helen Matlock wouldn’t print any of that. Are you going to do anything?”
Livia suppressed another surge of excitement. “I wouldn’t be calling if I weren’t. Can you tell me, Who is Sherrie Dobbs?”
“Another woman we went to school with. In my class, two years younger than Boomer. Everyone knew what Boomer was. People used to whisper about it, tell girls to be careful. The stalls in the girls’ room were covered with warnings about him. But everyone was afraid of his family. His father. The admiral. Who’s now the fucking vice president.”
“You don’t seem afraid.”
“I’m terrified, Detective Lone. My sister was just raped and murdered, and my two-year-old nephew murdered along with her. And I know why, even if the Helen Matlocks of the world won’t print it.”
“You think Hope was going to speak out?”
There was a pause. Livia heard the woman breathing, and realized she was crying. She waited, not letting herself feel anything. That would happen later, whether she wanted it or not. For now, her best weapon was her detachment. For as long as she could maintain it.
“She was afraid to,” Grace said after a moment. “She was in touch with Noreen. And with Sherrie. Hope and Sherrie wanted to corroborate Noreen’s story by telling their own. They were scared because Noreen was getting all those death threats, but they were going to. But then . . . Noreen disappeared. And we all knew what that meant.”
“You don’t believe Noreen went into hiding.”
“Do you?” Grace said, practically spitting the words.
“Not for a minute.”
“Then why did you ask?” Grace said, sounding taken aback.
“I already know my o
wn opinions,” Livia said. “I want to hear yours. That’s how I’m going to learn something new. Something I can use.”
“Against Boomer?”
“Against whoever took your sister and your nephew from you,” Livia said. “No matter who they are. Or how connected. Or how powerful.”
A long, silent beat went by. Grace, her voice cracking, said, “Promise.”
Livia waited, then said, “I fucking swear.”
Another beat, during which Grace must have been collecting herself. Livia said, “What did you mean when you said Boomer bragged about it in his yearbook entry?”
“There was a song he liked. ‘Good Times Roll,’ by the Cars. Boomer wrestled, and the team used to run out to the song before matches. But Boomer had it on a Walkman, too. And he . . . he plugged in two sets of headsets. So he could listen while he . . . did it. And make them listen, too. Years later, Hope would hear that song on the radio and start crying and throwing up.”
“He mentioned the song in his yearbook?”
“Yes. And if anyone ever asked, of course he would say, ‘Oh no, that’s just the wrestling song, what are you talking about?’ But he knew what he was doing. Laughing at Hope. And Noreen. And Sherrie. Reminding them.”
Livia thought of what Ezra Lone had said about Chanchai Vivavapit, who she would know always as Skull Face. The man who had forced her onto her knees on that boat, telling her it was the only way he would spare Nason. And who had raped Nason into catatonia anyway.
And really, I think he missed you. The way he talked about you . . . you were special to him.
Special because of the way Skull Face had traumatized her. Infected her. Become a part of her. Skull Face had loved that. Loved that she would never be able to forget him. That he would always matter to her. She didn’t need to be familiar with all the studies and psychological profiles to know there were men so broken that for them, a woman’s anguish felt like a bond.