Stigma

by Philip Hawley Jr

  “Whoa, you’re not calling anyone. By now the po-lice probably have a fix on every person you’ve called in the last six months. You can bet that Wilson’s on their list. You call him from a landline, they’ll probably be tracing it. You call him from a cell phone, they’ll have your location mapped on the cell grid in less than a minute.”

  “Then you get to him. Tell him to leave this thing alone.”

  Sammy nodded. “I’ll talk to him.”

  “And tell Ben to get ahold of my father, let him know that I’m okay.” Luke reached into the backseat and grabbed a small backpack with some clothes and travel items that Sammy had bought for him. “How much farther to Riverside?”

  “We should be there in about twenty minutes.”

  “So you’re clear on your assignments?” Luke asked.

  “Give me two days. I’ll have some dope on that company, Zenavax. But it’d help if you could tell me who mighta left the copy of Tartaglia’s e-mail on your doorstep.”

  “I have no idea.”

  Sammy started playing the steering wheel like a set of bongos. “I’m also gonna see if I can turn up anything on your lady friend, Megan Callahan.”

  Luke pulled a bulky cell phone from the backpack. “Tell me about this phone.”

  “It’s a satellite unit, uses a lotta energy. Fifteen, maybe eighteen hours between charges.”

  “You sure this thing is safe? They found me on your other cellular.”

  “Sammy burns through a lot of cell phone numbers in his work. That’s a clean number, never been used.” He jabbed the handset with his thumb. “And this has encryption, but it only works when you’re transmitting to me. My unit has the same algorithm. It’s smaller than most satellite phones—that’s the advantage—but it’s also less powerful. Unless you’re out in the open, forget it.”

  “When will I hear from you?”

  “I’ll call you once a day,” Sammy said, “at 1900 hours, Guatemala time. That thing has voicemail, but I’m not leaving you any messages so make sure it’s turned on at seven o’clock each night.”

  Sammy glanced at the rearview mirror again. “Highway Patrol. Coming up on my side.”

  Luke affected a relaxed pose. The cream-colored sedan with no markings or roof lights passed them without a glance. The only clue of law enforcement was a shotgun mounted next to the driver, pointing up toward the rearview mirror.

  “Get outta California before you go near an airport,” Sammy said. “Take a bus into Arizona, or New Mexico. Then, maybe you can fly to…”

  Luke could hardly listen through the grim desolation that washed over him. He was on the run with a rapidly dwindling supply of cash and no weapon. He didn’t know whom he was up against or why they were targeting him, nor did he know how Megan’s abduction fit into this nightmare. The only thing he knew with certainty was that he had set in motion the events that led to her abduction. Because of him, Megan’s life had suddenly turned into a hellhole.

  “You listening to me?” asked Sammy.

  Luke stared at a freight train crawling along the side of the freeway. “Yeah.”

  “One more thing. I know someone who might be able to help you. You know him too.”

  “Who?”

  “Calderon.”

  “Forget it.”

  “Just listen,” Sammy said. “Calderon used to work for me, but he didn’t really fit into corporate security. He was a little too much into bone breaking. The Guatemalan army offered him a job training their special forces, so he headed south a few years ago.”

  “What does that have to do with—”

  “Coupla years ago he got tired of working for their army and started his own company, doing security-type work in places where the sun’s a little hotter and the laws are a little more relaxed.” Sammy laughed. “He hired away some of my best people. I guess he needed English speakers for some of his clients. I didn’t take it personally. In fact, we do favors for one another from time to time. We each have our special skills.”

  “I know what his are.”

  “Just keep it in mind. Maybe he knows someone in Guatemala, someone who’s connected. Hell, you don’t even know where to start looking.” Sammy turned to Luke. “I know there was some bad blood between you and Calderon, but that was a long time ago.”

  “Bad blood? The last time I saw that scumbag, he was taking the skin off a prisoner’s face with his Ka-Bar. Calderon had his knee on the guy’s throat and was cutting off an eyelid. That man was our captive. We were responsible for him.”

  Sammy’s face puckered like a fish. “Calderon has some strange shit going on in his head, that’s for sure, but he’s learned how to control himself. And he’s the best wet-ops guy I ever worked with. The man’s a human sledgehammer. I doubt you’d last ten seconds in a room alone with him. Who knows? His skills might come in handy.”

  “I said forget it.”

  • • •

  “So, McKenna’s alibi for Tartaglia doesn’t hold up,” Groff said. “Now we got him for two murders.”

  The lieutenant slapped the table as though his hand were a gavel and he had just rendered his decision. He winced when the motion carried to his ribs, three of which McKenna had broken the previous day when he kicked Groff down the stairway.

  O’Reilly had been summoned to the windowless third floor conference room at LAPD headquarters to give an update on the Tartaglia investigation. They were sitting in what had become the “war room” in the hunt for McKenna.

  “Lieutenant, I don’t think we can say that yet,” O’Reilly countered. “There are problems with the timeline.”

  The blond muscle-bound detective who’d gone down the stairs with Groff was sitting to the lieutenant’s left, staring at O’Reilly. The man was finding it awkward to chew a stick of gum with his neck wrapped in a brace, but he was doing better than his female partner, who was laid up at home with a back injury.

  Sitting on Groff’s right was a drop-dead gorgeous LAPD psychologist who specialized in profiling suspects.

  She was looking at the knot on O’Reilly’s forehead when she asked, “What problems, Detective?”

  Groff said, “Yeah. You just told us that the security video showed McKenna leaving the hospital at 10:07:22 on the night of Tartaglia’s murder. The victim’s phone call with her mother didn’t end until seven minutes later, at 10:14:29.”

  “Give or take,” O’Reilly said. “The hospital’s security clock runs seventeen seconds behind Tartaglia’s cellular service.”

  “You’re splitting hairs,” Groff said. “If, like you say, it only takes four and a half minutes to walk from the hospital exit to that parking lot, that means he had two and a half minutes to do her.”

  “Not exactly,” O’Reilly said. “The owner of Kolter’s Deli remembers McKenna entering the restaurant while a customer was paying his bill. There’s only one cash register receipt within ten minutes of the murder. It had a time stamp of ten-thirteen.”

  “Which still leaves him with a minute and a half,” Blondie said. “What’s your problem?”

  “The clock in that restaurant’s register”—O’Reilly checked his notes—“runs sixty-seven seconds behind the cellular company’s. That means, when McKenna walked through the front door at Kolter’s, the time on Tartaglia’s phone was somewhere between 10:14:06 and 10:15:06. I can’t narrow it down any more than that because the restaurant’s register doesn’t show seconds on the printed records. But even if we use the later time—10:15:06—and we assume that McKenna murdered Tartaglia at the moment her phone call ended, that would leave just thirty-seven seconds to take her purse and keys, and get to the restaurant.”

  O’Reilly allowed that thought to sink in, then said, “It takes almost a minute to walk to the restaurant from where her car was parked—”

  “So he ran to the restaurant,” Blondie offered. “We already know the guy moves a lot faster than you, O’Reilly.”

  The embarrassment and anger about McKenna’s escape hung
over the room like a stench, and no one was hiding the fact that they blamed O’Reilly. They couldn’t fathom how McKenna had sent them sprawling, jumped to his feet, swept Blondie’s partner onto her back—all before O’Reilly could unholster his weapon.

  “Let’s just get through this.” Groff aimed a finger at O’Reilly. “What else do you got?”

  Shortly after McKenna’s escape and the discovery of Kate Tartaglia’s e-mail message in his apartment, Groff had officially taken charge of O’Reilly’s investigation. The investigation and search was now a task force operation involving all four of Groff’s teams—eight detectives. Three of the teams were out hunting for McKenna, which was the only reason that O’Reilly was still working the case. As soon as things settled down, Groff would reassign the Tartaglia case to one of his own teams.

  O’Reilly tapped his notes with a pencil. “Tartaglia’s e-mail. I’m still trying to find the attachment she sent with it, but then I don’t even know what I’m looking for. There’s nothing in McKenna’s apartment that looks like it belongs to that e-mail. Tartaglia’s ISP has a record of the transmittal, but not the e-mail message itself. They wipe their server clean as soon as an e-mail goes through to the recipient. And McKenna’s cell phone carrier confirmed he doesn’t have a phone that sends or receives e-mail. So that leaves University Children’s. That’s where Tartaglia sent her e-mail, and the hospital’s IT group told us they save everything for thirty days. But so far, our computer forensics team hasn’t found any record of her message on their server—nothing. Our guys say they need another couple of days before they can tell me when it was erased and whether they can recover a copy.”

  “I’ll get you more resources if you need ’em, but I want that e-mail attachment. McKenna didn’t just lie to us about not receiving her message. He tried to erase the whole goddamned trail. I wanna know why.” Groff sat forward, flinching as he did so. “What about Tartaglia’s employer, Zenavax?”

  “Talked to her boss, and the company’s CEO. Both of them said the usual stuff. She was a good employee, she’ll be hard to replace, they can’t imagine why someone would’ve wanted to kill her.”

  When asked about Tartaglia’s project at the Coroner’s Office, they had produced a bland memo describing the creation of a “library” of human blood serum from non-U.S. Hispanic subjects for undetermined future purposes. According to them, it was no more than a collection and storage program. In other words, it was an investigative dead end unless he wanted to slap a warrant on them and search their files, which Groff would never approve.

  So instead of tilting at that windmill, O’Reilly said, “Lieutenant, it’s what they didn’t say that I found interesting. When I mentioned that Tartaglia was murdered on her way to a meeting with someone at the hospital, neither of ’em asked me who. I didn’t mention McKenna, and they didn’t ask.”

  “What’s your point?” asked Groff.

  “Well, I’ve already told you about the big brouhaha that happened when she first joined Zenavax. She used to work for McKenna’s father, remember? So wouldn’t you think they’d be curious enough to ask who she was meeting with at the hospital?”

  Groff was shaking his head. “Where you going with this? I don’t need more suspects—McKenna killed her. Tartaglia’s mother puts him at the murder scene, and you just tore a hole in his alibi. His military file tells us that he has the skills. God knows, he had motive. In his mind, the woman stole his father’s work, and maybe cost him a big inheritance.”

  “This is about retribution, not money,” the psychologist said. “It’s important that you understand who you’re dealing with. McKenna sees the world in terms of good and evil, and he has no doubt about his judgments. He’s acting with absolute moral clarity.”

  “So he makes up his own rules,” Groff said, “and whacks anyone who breaks ’em?”

  “More likely, he sees himself as enforcing time-honored rules that society has let lapse. Ironically, people like McKenna consider themselves strong law and order types, but when the world doesn’t live up to their expectations, they snap. It may have happened when that rapist attacked his woman friend, but whatever the trigger was, McKenna decided that he needed to right the wrongs. He had no other choice—people with his mind-set see weakness as the greatest sin.”

  Blondie used a finger to free something between his teeth. “Typical nut case.”

  “Don’t make the mistake of thinking he’s insane,” she said. “McKenna has a firm grasp on reality, but he’s chosen to deal with that reality differently than you or I would. He’s a completely rational thinker. That’s our advantage—we can use that to anticipate him.”

  “How?” Groff said.

  “First, think about how he views his current situation. He knows this will end badly for him, but he’s committed now. He’s probably going to continue to”—she made quotation marks in the air—“‘right the wrongs’ until we stop him. We need to examine his life, come up with a list of people who, in his mind, deserve to be punished.”

  A uniformed officer across the room called out, “Lieutenant, phone call on line four.”

  Groff picked up the receiver while snapping his fingers at Blondie, who handed him a pen. The lieutenant listened to the caller for almost a minute without making a note.

  Then he dropped the pen and spread a hand over his eyes. “Oh, shit.” When he finally hung up the phone, he looked at O’Reilly. “ Barnesdale.”

  “What about him?” O’Reilly asked.

  “He’s dead. Somebody crushed his windpipe, then broke his neck.” Groff turned to the psychologist. “Looks like we’re a little late making that list.”

  37

  “You sure you know where you’re going?” Luke asked.

  Ari, an Israeli student Luke had latched onto during his flight out of the U.S., turned the travel guide map one way, then the other, before pointing down the side street. “This way.”

  They had arrived in Santa Elena, Guatemala, at 2:00 P.M. Luke had been on the move for almost twenty-four hours: a Greyhound bus to Phoenix, a nearly empty plane from Phoenix to Houston, a direct flight from Houston to Belize, and then a dusty bus trip west into Guatemala.

  Tomorrow, the Israeli was traveling to the Mayan ruins at Tikal. Until then Luke would use his Spanish-speaking companion as human camouflage.

  “By the way,” Ari said while hefting a backpack that towered over his shoulders, “your share of the hotel room comes to three U.S. dollars. In Guatemalan currency, twenty-four quetzals.”

  “Fine.” The moist air stuck to Luke like a wet blanket, and a furious itch had taken hold under his improvised scar. “Take a look at your maps and tell me how far it is to Santa Lucina from here.”

  The risk of going to the University Children’s clinic was obvious—his colleagues would send word back to the hospital that he was in Guatemala—but he had to act quickly. After the call from Megan’s captors, Luke had no doubt that her abductors and the people who had framed him for Erickson’s murder were one and the same.

  And they had already shown that they dealt with their problems by killing them.

  The storefronts changed as they walked along a wood-slat sidewalk. Over a distance of three blocks, Laundromats, convenience stores, and pharmacies became bars, dance halls, and what looked like an occasional brothel. A woman wearing a filthy yellow blouse pointed at them and whistled while strutting along the second-story colonnade of a ramshackle clapboard structure. A string of naked light bulbs hung over her head.

  They stopped at the edge of an alley while Ari looked at his map again. Santa Elena secreted an aura that had Luke checking his pants pockets every few minutes for his wallet and passport.

  A small boy holding a box ran up to them, dropped it next to the Israeli’s leg and said, “You need shine, boss. Six quetzals.”

  Ari looked down at his dust-covered boots. “Two.”

  “No way, boss. Four.”

  “Okay, four.” Ari glanced back at his map. “We’re g
oing the wrong way. We need to head in that direction.” He threw a thumb over his shoulder.

  The boy, who looked to be no more than eight or nine years old, lifted one of Ari’s boots onto the box and went to work rubbing polish into the leather with his black-tipped fingers. But he didn’t seem to have his heart in his work. The boy glanced to the side every few seconds, as if already searching for his next customer.

  On the third or fourth glance, the boy nodded at the air, then tapped Ari’s boot.

  Luke looked in the direction of the boy’s nod.

  Two men with oily, matted hair and clothes to match were walking toward them. One glanced down when Luke met his gaze. The man was holding his right hand inside a jacket that struck a discordant note in the sweltering heat.

  Luke said, “Ari, let’s go.”

  “What?”

  “Move, now.” Luke grabbed the Israeli’s shoulder.

  The urchin yanked on Ari’s leg. “Hey, boss, no move.”

  Ari lost his balance, stumbling under the weight of his pack.

  Before he recovered, the shorter of the two men had reached them. He unsheathed a knife from his belt. His taller partner, who wore a thick white scar where one of his eyebrows should have been, pulled a 9mm Glock handgun from under his jacket and shoved it into Ari’s face.

  Luke allowed his arms to come up in surrender as he watched the little urchin step away in what looked like a rehearsed move.

  It seemed impossible that his enemies could have discovered him this easily.

  The scarred man jerked his head toward the alley. Luke and Ari stepped back into a shadowed area that smelled of urine and rotting fruit.

  Ari was on Luke’s left, and Scar Face stood on the other side of the Israeli, away from Luke.

  Scar Face said something in Spanish while the second man circled behind them.

  Ari nodded nervously and choked out some words, his tone pleading.

  Whatever he said, it didn’t work. Scar Face bit off an angry response and the gun barrel ended up on the side of Ari’s head.

  Luke tried to draw attention to himself by waggling his hip and eyeing his right pants pocket, as if to say, The money’s in there. Take it.