The Stars Shine Bright

by Sibella Giorello

  I squinted at the photo. Like most images lifted from video surveillance, it was mostly smudges. But I could see glasses. Dreadlocks. A beard. And a pole-thin body that, with all that hair, made him look like a mop wearing granny glasses. “Not my idea of a ladies’ man.”

  “I told you, they’re nuts.”

  “What happened to the source in Portland?”

  Ortiz sneered. “Her parents lawyered her up. She got off with community service. But before she stopped talking, she said Thor built the bombs. He’s some kind of mechanical genius, majored in engineering at UW. But without a real name or even his age, we couldn’t get school records.”

  Ortiz handed me another photograph. “The girl in Portland. Brain of a beetle.”

  Her dark hair was tucked messily behind large ears. Her blue eyes were dull and sloped down at the outer corners in an expression of perpetual melancholy. The lost soul.

  I handed the photo back to her. She adjusted her posture, rolling her shoulders. Army, I decided.

  “And somehow you tied Thor to Handler’s ranch?” I asked.

  “Not ‘somehow.’ I went to a lot of trouble.”

  I nodded. Certain of it. “How did you do it?”

  She gave her first indication of melting. “I ran that picture from the security camera in the Yakima Herald-Press. It said there was a five-hundred-dollar reward for information leading to his arrest. Two days later a hay distributor called me. Claimed he saw this same guy working at a place called the Dark Horse Ranch.”

  “He identified him from that photo?”

  “He was positive. But when I ran the usual six-man lineup, our so-called witness got squishy. Basically he saw a white kid with glasses and dreadlocks. No judge is giving me a search warrant based on that.” She almost sighed, but I doubted she knew how. “So I’ve been watching that place. Waiting. I know they’re there.”

  There were more grainy shots of Thor. Blurs, mostly, as he raced to the cages.

  “Do you mind?” I touched a second folder, underneath.

  She shook her head.

  Case notes from Portland. I glanced over them, flipping through the pages. There was a scanned copy of a color photo. Not as grainy as the surveillance images. I saw young people standing in a field. Some kind of picnic. Posing for the camera like a team photo. I felt some sympathy for the “squishy” witness. All those dreadlocks made them difficult to distinguish. But one girl had short hair. The ends were uneven, like she’d hacked it off with a pair of kindergarten scissors. Coppery hair. Her thick arm dangled around a friend’s shoulders. Face covered with freckles. I lifted the photo, reading the data sheet stapled to it. Sketchy information. Sally Jamison? was one guess for the short-haired girl. Beneath that, other guesses. Univ. of Wash.? Social work? I flipped the photo back over, staring at her face. I followed her arm. To the wrist.

  “I saw her at Handler’s ranch.”

  “Really?” Ortiz sounded almost happy.

  “Just about positive.”

  She straightened. “Oh. I get it. You think a positive ID’s going to make up for what happened tonight.”

  I felt a temptation half spawned by sleep deprivation. I wanted to tap my thigh and sic Madame on her. But Ortiz would probably shoot the dog. Or me.

  “Actually,” I said slowly, “that never crossed my mind. It was this mark on her wrist.” I tapped the photo. The mark was just a dark smudge in the picture but in the same spot. “I saw it. It said Elf. But she’s got dreadlocks now.”

  Ortiz snatched the photo from my hand. “Five-seven?”

  “Around there.”

  “Her nickname is Rain. Rainy?”

  I shook my head.

  “Rainbow?”

  “Wait,” I said. “I heard a guy call her Bo. Short for Rainbow?”

  Ortiz had picked up a data sheet, searching for more information. I glanced at my watch. My eyes were dry and struggling to focus.

  “I know this is important,” I said. “But I’ve also got to find that horse. Forty-eight hours is almost gone.”

  Ortiz shook her head. “You still don’t get it.”

  “Get what?”

  “Animal rights.”

  “I got it.”

  “No, you don’t,” she said.

  I was so wrung out, so tired, that my mind was on time delay. I could feel a thought pressing forward through the fog. But it was taking too long. And Ortiz wasn’t the patient type.

  “The horse is fine,” she said. “Wherever he is. They won’t hurt him. People. That’s what you need to worry about. People. Because ELF actually likes killing people.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Ortiz drove us to the police impound lot where I picked up the Ghost.

  I filled the gas tank and bought coffee for myself and a breakfast sandwich for Madame. The dry russet land passed in a blur, and when we climbed Snoqualmie Pass, the wind was swirling among the white-capped peaks, sliding into the car, whistling like a real ghost. My eyes kept shifting to the glove box.

  The small door was still locked. But the three-inch tube inside pointed at me like an accusing finger. It was evidence, yes. But of what? Maybe Handler’s tie to the race fixing. Maybe an act of terrorism against the track. But definitely evidence of how far I’d drifted, despite all my vows to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So help me, God.

  I lied to my mother. Aunt Charlotte. My fiancé. The cops. The shrink. My case agent. The only person I hadn’t lied to was Eleanor, a professional actress. Trained for deception.

  I was braking the Ghost down the steep western side of the pass when the doo-dahs rang from my purse. Madame raised her head on the second round. She was using my purse as a pillow. We waited for voice mail to pick up the call. Twenty minutes later I pulled into North Bend and parked outside Twede’s Café.

  Jack’s message was deceptively simple: “We’re meeting in the SAC’s office. Wear your armor.”

  I looked over at Madame. She quirked her head, wondering.

  “Me too,” I said.

  The wind had whipped Puget Sound into an angry cauldron, bubbling at the bottom of James Street. I turned right on Second Avenue, then took another right on Spring Street and hung a left midway up the hill, pulling into the short bay at the FBI’s parking garage. My phone rang again. Jack, following my cell phone via the GPS. Making sure I showed up. I didn’t even bother looking at the caller ID.

  “Quit worrying,” I said. “I’m downstairs.”

  “Good. Because I want out of this place.”

  I pulled the phone from my ear. Harborview Hospital was on the caller ID. “Sorry,” I said, “you have the wrong number.”

  “Nice try, Raleigh. I know it’s you.”

  It took me two seconds. “Felicia?”

  “Yeah, Felicia. Who needs a ride.”

  My mother’s favorite orderly. The woman Jack hired to work at Western State. But I felt a moment of utter confusion. No sleep, too much stress. And Felicia, flying in from left field. All I could think of was, “How did you get this number?”

  “Jack. Now come get me. I’m sick of hospitals.”

  The Ghost faced the hinged metal door, the bland entrance that offered no clues to who occupied the building or what went on inside. I squinted my eyes, trying to focus. Something about Felicia’s voice. The problem. “Felicia, what are you doing at Harborview?”

  “Those crazy people made me sick.”

  “Who—?”

  “Not your mom,” she added. “She’s fine. Well, you know, she’s—”

  “I know.”

  “But Harborview says I have to leave. Now. And I lost my apartment, just so you know. I need a place to live.”

  Her tone implied that this entire mess was somebody else’s fault. In particular, mine. Felicia’s apartment was part of her drug rehab program, a halfway house rental.

  “What happened with the apartment, Felicia?”

  “Oh, they’re having a cow because the rent’s
late.”

  “How late?”

  “Just three months.”

  “Just?”

  “I can’t exactly pay it now. I don’t have a job.”

  I closed my eyes. Dry, burning. “You quit.”

  “Hey, if you think that job’s so great, you go work with those crazies.”

  “Nice.”

  “Not your mom. I’m talking about the guys eating paint so their pee glows. And you need to come get me. Now.”

  I looked to my right. Two women were coming down the steep sidewalk, hands splayed on their thighs to keep the wind from lifting their skirts. They walked around my front bumper, glaring at me through the windshield. Madame replied with a growl.

  “Felicia, now is not a good time. I’m heading into a meeting—”

  “And I’m, what, on vacation? Raleigh, the hospital’s kicking me out. Where am I supposed to go?”

  “Ask Jack. You want to blame somebody, he’s your man.”

  “I’m not speaking to him.”

  I hadn’t slept in more than twenty-four hours. It felt like sand was embedded under my eyelids. And now Felicia’s whine needled into my ear. My sigh had no restraint. “What happened?”

  “I told him this was all his fault. You know what he said? He said I should ask the doctors if they knew how to do a personality transplant.”

  “I’d like to help you, Felicia, but I’m swamped. Isn’t there anyone else you can call?”

  “Like Booker?”

  Booker Landrow. Her drug-dealer boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. Jack put him behind bars, but with overcrowding and leniency, he was probably out again. I gazed out the driver’s side window. The electronic card slot inches away waited for my FBI identification. Which was upstairs. In a folder. Waiting for the meeting to begin.

  “Felicia, I’m sure there’s somebody you can call.”

  “Here we go again. All nicey-nice when you need something from me, but when I ask for one small favor, suddenly everyone’s too busy. You know what? I’m heading straight for a pipe. At least it makes me feel better.”

  She hung up. And I growled, actually growled. Madame quirked her head at me.

  “There are no words,” I said.

  Felicia Kunkel would get an extra boost from smoking cocaine and blaming the relapse on me. Or Jack. I dialed his number.

  “I’m downstairs,” I said. “Get them to open the door.”

  “Don’t hang up.”

  I stayed on the line. Moments later, the metal door rattled up. I pulled forward. Jack came back on the line.

  I said, “Felicia just called.”

  “No need to thank me,” he said.

  I hung up on him and parked in a visitor’s slot by the guard shack. For one split second, I considered taking Madame with me. My security blanket. For the little girl inside of me who felt like she was being sent to the headmaster’s office. I keyed open the glove box, took out the tube, and picked up my bag. Madame was watching me.

  “I probably won’t be long.”

  The elevator opened on the top floor and I walked over to the SAC’s receptionist. There was a salad on her desk. Probably told to stick close for the next hour.

  “Special Agent Raleigh Harmon,” I said. “I have an appointment.”

  She was pressing buttons before the words were out of my mouth. She knew. The boss had told her to stay for lunch. “Have a seat,” she said. “They’ll be right with you.”

  I did the same thing as last time. Standing at the floor-to-ceiling windows, I gazed out at the cliff-jumping visibility and the pedestrians who looked insignificant from this distance.

  “Agent Harmon.”

  Breathe.

  “You can go in now.”

  There were too many faces inside the big office that had the best view. The SAC remained behind his desk and McLeod stood to his right, leaning against the credenza again. But the guy who left before our last meeting was sitting opposite the SAC. Taking notes. And now Jack was here too, perched on the windowsill to the SAC’s left. He was the only person who didn’t look at me. He stared down at the floor, as if something interesting was happening on the fine blue carpet.

  “Raleigh,” the SAC said.

  The only open chair was next to the note-taker. The padded seat reminded me of my lie-detector test. I placed my hands in my lap, wondering about sensors. The note-taker turned to look at me. I smiled, the official smile, but this guy was an expert at the game. His dispassionate expression masked everything. Except his eyes. The eyes belonged to somebody dismayed by people refusing to behave like numbers. I looked away, blinking, and felt the scratching pain that almost extinguished fear. Almost. But anxiety always blew on itself, coaxing embers into full blazes. My pulse kicked in my wrist.

  “I wasn’t planning on meeting this soon,” the SAC said. “But OPR delivered its report to me yesterday. I called Allen to find out the status of your UCA—”

  McLeod jumped in. “I just went with what Jack told me.”

  If Jack was supposed to leap into the discussion, he ignored his cue. He continued to watch the carpet. Sunlight streamed through the window behind him, outlining his head and broad shoulders. The way dawn looked this morning, the light tracing the ridges. That seemed like a long time ago.

  “Jack and I agreed,” McLeod finally said, realizing his agent wasn’t going to speak. “We both thought you should go look for the horse. Nothing else, it would break up the mahogany.”

  Jack lifted his head, looking directly at me. The green in his eyes was like some rare earth mineral, from a deep mine in a remote location.

  There was another silence, so I opened my mouth, ready to explain the situation with Cuppa Joe.

  But the SAC cut me off.

  “And then we got a call from Yakima first thing this morning.”

  Jack looked over at him. “We?”

  Ever so slightly, the SAC gave a conciliatory nod. “Agent Ana Ortiz claimed there was a problem with one of our agents. A rather significant problem.”

  Jack was looking at the floor again. But everyone else was staring at me. Waiting. The note-taker—who had yet to be introduced—held his pen poised. I glanced at McLeod. The red suspenders looked tighter than normal, the white shirt sticking to his skin. I looked at the SAC. But there was nothing.

  Because I had nothing.

  Except the truth.

  Placing my forearms on the chair, I suddenly wished the furniture had polygraph sensors. Then they’d know it was the truth. I laid it out. All of it, beginning with the EKWAS license plate, my visit to Bainbridge Island, and the trip to Selah to interview Paul Handler. How the trailer hadn’t been moved in ages. Sensing piqued curiosities, I plunged into the forensic geology. Poisonous clay. Radioactive elements leaving a literal trail of evidence from Handler’s ranch to the racetrack. “These particular minerals are so specific they’re as good as fingerprints.” I reached into my bag, removed the tubing, and placed it on the SAC’s desk. The jagged plastic ends were covered with dirt. It looked crude, almost vulgar, against the pristine wood.

  “An irrigation tube similar to this, if not identical, was hidden under the starting gate at Emerald Meadows. It was used to blow something into the air, just as the gate opened. A horse belonging to Eleanor Anderson died. If this tubing matches the pieces in the state crime lab, that would give us two significant connections to Handler’s ranch. I’m certain there’s enough for a search warrant. Paul Handler would shift from a person of interest to a suspect. There’s also another aspect, with his ranch hands. They’re part of an animal rights group. Agent Ortiz probably mentioned that part.”

  The ensuing silence seemed like a good sign. At first. But it went on too long. Holding my breath, feeling a pulse tap at my temple, I decided they needed more information.

  “Ortiz has been watching Handler’s place for several—”

  The SAC held up his hand. His fingers were long, like the startling length of Byzantine icons, pointing to the Almighty. The di
fference was the SAC’s eyes weren’t mournful. Or even vaguely spiritual. The man had the pellucid gaze of the decision maker, the person who conquered the upper rungs of the federal ladder and whose memory of that climb didn’t involve feeling sympathy for anybody, including himself.

  “Let me jump in here,” he said, as though permission were necessary. “According to Agent Ortiz, you trespassed on Indian land, destroyed another man’s private property, and almost killed one of his horses. Then you forced a colleague into a compromising position with local law enforcement. Finally, Ortiz claims you have jeopardized her own case.”

  I hated her all over again.

  “Raleigh,” he said, “it sounds to me that you’re conveniently glossing over those actions.”

  “No, sir, I’m not glossing over anything.” I glanced at Jack. The light shifted slightly behind his head. One nod. Encouraging me. “My actions were my own, I understand that. And I accept full responsibility. But right now our first priority should be life and death. The people who kidnapped that horse left a note. It said the killing would begin in forty-eight hours.” I looked at my watch. “That was forty-seven and a half hours ago. Agent Ortiz herself pointed out that the note doesn’t mean the horse. These people are animal rights fanatics. They don’t kill horses. They kill people.”

  “What . . . people?” McLeod said.

  “Anybody who gets in their way.”

  The SAC’s face twitched. “Quite a large demographic, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Yes, sir. But I can narrow it down. People at the racetrack. Agent Ortiz believes some of Handler’s workers are responsible for a bombing at the University of Washington. The medical lab?”

  The SAC didn’t move.

  “The same group that bombed the pharmaceutical company in Oregon,” I said. “Thoroughbred racing, in their eyes, is just as bad as medical research on animals. Sir, if you’ll call the state lab, they can confirm what we’re dealing with. The mechanism under the starting gate required considerable planning. We’re not dealing with novices.”

  I waited, feeling spent. There was no reaction. But it was different than the previous quiet. Now it seemed that nobody wanted to look dumb, uninformed, below his pay grade.