by R. J. Jagger
“No one.”
“What’s the deadline?”
“Monday.”
Wilde lit a book of matches on fire and let it burn. Then he stepped to the window, made sure no one was directly below, and tossed it down.
“We’ll never find him in time,” he said.
“So what do we do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well think.”
“I am,” he said. “We can pretend we have the money and try to catch him at the exchange but I’ve got a gut feeling he’s going to be too smart for that.”
He hung his suit jacket on the rack, reached into the left pocket, pulled out the red book of matches and handed them to Senn-Rae.
She wasn’t impressed.
She’d seen them before.
“No,” Wilde said. “These aren’t the ones from the boxcar. These are from Natalie Levine’s house.”
“From last night?”
“No, I went back again today,” he said. “These were in the pocket of a pair of shorts.” He opened his desk drawer and pulled out the original book of red matches. “These are the ones from the boxcar. Compare the handwriting.”
She did.
It was the same.
Same style.
Same red pen.
“Compare the numbers,” Wilde said.
She did.
“616 and 604,” she said. “What do they mean?”
Wilde shrugged.
“I don’t know, but I’ll bet dollars to donuts that Natalie Levine’s dead somewhere. Our friend has at least two notches on his belt. Probably more. Your client is the best link we have to this guy. I need to talk to him.”
Senn-Rae shook her head.
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“He doesn’t know about you,” she said.
“Fine, tell him.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“He told me not to tell anyone about what’s going on, remember?”
Yeah.
He remembered.
“That reminds me of something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he said. “How well do you know this guy, your client?”
“Not well.”
“What’s he look like?”
“I wouldn’t tell you even if I could,” she said. “He’s confidential.”
“What do you mean, even if you could?”
“It means—”
“You’ve met him, right?”
“Only by phone.”
“You’ve only talked to him on the phone? You’ve never seen him face to face?”
“Correct.”
“Well that’s strange.”
Senn-Rae wasn’t impressed.
“Not really,’ she said. “He killed someone, remember? He’s trying to insulate himself, even from me.”
Wilde lit a Camel and blew a smoke ring.
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“What are you saying?”
“What I’m saying is that you’re pretty enough to be a pinup. Maybe his interest in you isn’t as a lawyer at all. Maybe it’s as a victim.” A beat then, “I’m starting to wonder if he’s the pinup killer.”
Senn-Ray wrinkled her forehead.
“I don’t get it.”
“What I’m saying is, it’s possible that he’s actually the person who killed the woman on the boxcar,” he said. “He’s actually hired you to find himself.”
“Why? That’s crazy . . .”
“It’s a way to get close to you before he kills you.”
Wilde turned on the fan and stood in front of it. “I’ll admit it’s a little farfetched,” he said, “but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m wrong. I’m going to find out who he is, just for grins.”
“No, it’s too dangerous.”
He sat down, patted his lap and said, “Sit.”
She did.
He put his arm around her waist.
“Look,” he said, “if he’s not the killer then it’s not dangerous, he’s just a guy being blackmailed. If he is the killer, though, we need to wonder if this is how he got close to his victims, by entering their worlds under some type of pretext.”
She chuckled nervously.
“I don’t think I qualify as pinup material.”
Wilde smiled.
“You’re trying to get a compliment out of me. Compliments are like fishing. Don’t try too hard to land them. They taste better if you just wait until they jump out of the water and land in the boat.”
40
W hen Fallon and Jundee got to the cliff, the desert shadows had gotten too long to even be shadows anymore and the sky was gray with twilight. In another half hour, climbing would be dangerous.
They headed down anyway.
“Watch your step,” Fallon said. “These rocks are slippery.”
“You too.”
They made it down with a few missteps but nothing that sent them into a death spiral.
The car was still there.
That was expected.
What wasn’t expected is that the body would still be behind the wheel. Two ravens were on the window ledge picking at the face. They didn’t stop until Fallon and Jundee got too close for comfort. Then they hopped off and took a perch on the wall of the cliff.
Most of the man’s face was gone.
“Nice,” Jundee said.
They slowed as they approached, fighting the stench, then forced themselves all the way to the vehicle and looked in the passenger window.
“I don’t see anything,” Jundee said.
Fallon didn’t either.
Jundee opened the door.
No briefcase was anywhere in the front, that was clear. He pushed the seat forward and looked in the back. “Nothing back there,” he said.
“Are you sure?”
“Take a look.”
Fallon did. She saw nothing.
Then she climbed all the way inside and looked under the seats.
No briefcase was there.
Nothing was there.
A book of red matches, that’s all she saw.
She shoved them in her pocket.
No use letting them go to waste.
When she got out, Jundee was at the back of the car. He pulled on the trunk lid, which opened without resistance. The latch was destroyed.
Inside they found a spare tire, a jack, a blanket and several cans of spray paint.
“No briefcase,” Fallon said.
Right, no briefcase.
Jundee looked at the vehicle.
“The windows are down like you thought,” he said. “Maybe the briefcase flew out on the way down.”
They checked.
They checked all around, behind every rock and bush for a good distance in every direction.
No briefcase.
Fallon picked up a rock and threw it.
“The light’s going,” she said. “We better head up.”
Jundee stood there.
“Wait a minute,” he said. Then he bent down and looked under the car, from all four sides.
No briefcase.
“Damn,” he said. “I had my hopes up for a second.”
“Come on, let’s go.”
They headed off.
Ten steps later Jundee stopped and turned.
He stared at the cliff.
“What’s wrong?”
He pointed.
“There’s a ledge right there,” he said. “See it? It’s about halfway down.”
Fallon saw it.
“Maybe the briefcase landed there,” Jundee said.
Fallon wasn’t impressed.
“That would be almost impossible.”
“Almost but not totally.”
Jundee ran his eyes up above the ledge.
“We won’t be able to see it from above,” he said. “I’m going to have to climb up.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It’s almost straight u
p.”
Jundee swallowed.
“I can do it.”
“We’re almost out of light,” Fallon said.
Suddenly a movement on the ground a step away attracted her peripheral vision.
She looked down.
A rattlesnake was coiled up.
It was huge.
Thick.
It shook its tail for a split-second and then lashed out with a lightning speed. White-hot fangs sunk deep into Fallon’s leg, so fast that she didn’t even have time to scream.
41
C ivilization disappeared as Shade drove farther and farther south. This would be a good place to keep a woman captive, somewhere around here, where the screams could only carry so far. The perfect place hadn’t shown up yet but it would. Put yourself in his shoes. You scalped someone. You’re holding another woman—a witness no less—captive. The place had to be absolutely foolproof.
It had to be in your control.
So rule out squatting or trespassing, unless you were nuts.
Rule out abandoned buildings where anyone and everyone could stumble in to get out of a storm or see if a still-useable sink or toilet had been abandoned in place.
The best hideaway would be one you owned.
The second best place would be one you rented.
Okay.
Good.
Look for a house or cabin or shed, something off the beaten path, something that was private. While good in theory, the thought wasn’t helpful. Every quarter-mile there was another dirt road, a private road, heading off into the terrain. Sometimes the reason was obvious but more often the road just disappeared into the brush. It would take weeks to drive down every one.
She passed a dozen of them.
Then an equal number again.
It was useless.
She turned around.
A mile later she noticed something she didn’t before, namely a post sticking out of the ground where a dirt road led to the west. On the ground, lying next to it in the weeds, was a plywood sign with words handwritten in red paint, For Rent.
Why was the sign down?
Was it because someone rented the place?
Rented it recently, in fact?
Shade drove another two hundred yards and parked in a small turnoff by a bridge. She headed west on foot into the rolling Colorado prairie until she was invisible from passing cars and then paralleled the road back towards the turnoff.
She didn’t have a gun.
She didn’t have a knife.
That wouldn’t happen again.
When she got back to town, she’d take care of that little omission.
A jackrabbit took off from the dirt ahead where it had been standing still. Now it was too dangerous to play the camouflage game.
Now it was time to run.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Shade said.
She wore shorts and the longer prairie grasses rubbed abrasively against her legs with an irritating itch. The rental theory made more and more sense with each passing step. According to Mojag, the man had worn a gray suit on the night in question. Suits weren’t exactly the clothes of choice out here in the north forty. The man probably worked in the downtown area. It was too far to commute from here to there. If he had something out here, it probably wouldn’t be something he owned.
A rental would be more likely.
Suddenly the dirt road appeared in front of Shade.
Nothing was visible in either direction.
No cars.
No humans.
No animals.
No nothing.
She turned left and headed deeper into the topography. The walking was easier now. The scratching against her legs was gone.
She picked up the pace.
42
W ilde was about to leave the office when the door opened and Alabama tossed a white cat inside. “Watch him for a second, will you? I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
“Alabama!”
Too late, she was already gone.
He headed for the window and shouted down, “I don’t have time to babysit a cat.”
“Just leave him alone,” she said. “He won’t hurt anything.” She took two steps then looked back up, “His name’s Tail.”
“Whose is he?”
“Yours,” Alabama said.
“No he’s not.”
“Okay, ours then,” she said.
“Alabama!”
She blew him a kiss and disappeared behind a beer truck.
Wilde turned to find the animal on his desk.
Tail.
Tail the cat.
Great.
He hesitated, not sure that he was actually going to do what he was thinking about doing, then said, “What the hell?” and picked it up.
“Where did Alabama get you? Did she find you in an alley? You have enough dirt on you, that’s for sure.” The cat said nothing. It was pure white except for the tail which was pure black. The eyes were green, just like Wilde’s.
He set it on the desk.
It walked over to the coffee cup, stuck its head in and took a few careful laps with a sandy pink tongue. It worked the liquid around in its mouth, as if deciding, then stuck its head back in and didn’t stop lapping until there were only a few sporadic drops left.
Suddenly the door opened and Alabama walked in.
“Have you two bonded yet?”
“That will never happen. This thing has to go.”
Alabama picked it up, then hugged Wilde.
“He’s part of us now,” she said. “We’re a threesome.”
“This is not happening.”
“It already has, cowboy, so just get used to it. You can change the name if you want. That’s just the first thing that came to me.”
Wilde shrugged.
“Actually I sort of like it,” he said. “Not the cat, the name. What I’m saying is that if a cat has to have a name, that’s a good one for this one.” Then he noticed something he didn’t before.
The cat had a limp.
“Something’s wrong with his front leg,” he said.
Alabama nodded.
“I’m guessing he only has eight lives left,” she said. “So we need to keep that in mind.”
Wilde put a serious expression on his face.
Then he told Alabama about finding a book of red matches at Nicole Levine’s house earlier this afternoon.
She studied them, especially the handwriting, and said, “they both start with a six—604 and 616.”
Wilde nodded.
Right.
He knew that.
“The sixth month of the year is June,” Alabama said.
Wilde tilted his head.
“What are you saying, that these are dates?”
“Could be. June 4th and June 16th.”
Wilde scratched his head.
“June 16th hasn’t come yet,” he said. “It wouldn’t make sense.”
“It would if that’s when he’s going to strike next,” Alabama said.
Wilde lit a pack of matches on fire.
Tail scrambled off the desk so fast that he lost traction and landed on his side. Then he ran to the other side of the room and cowered in the corner.
“Sorry about that, but get used to it,” Wilde said. Then to Alabama, “So what you’re saying, if I’m following you correctly, is that he leaves a clue with the last victim as to when the next victim will be.”
She nodded.
“It makes as much sense as anything.”
Today was June 12th.
Thursday.
June 16th was in four days.
Monday.
43
T he rattlesnake fangs sunk so deep and so white-hot into Fallon’s flesh that she dropped to the ground. The reptile was right next to her face, recoiled and ready to strike again.
Then a large rock hit it with a frantic force.
It uncoiled and tried to get away.
It was injured.
Mo
st of it worked but part of it didn’t.
Part of it was flat.
It was cut.
Guts were hanging out.
Fallon didn’t care.
It was leaving, that’s all that mattered.
Then another rock crashed down, thrown by Jundee with every ounce of strength he had. It ricocheted off the dirt next to the snake’s head.
A miss.
Jundee tripped and landed spine first on a rock the size of a breadbox. A noise came from his mouth, partly a scream, partly pain, partly surprise. It was strange enough to force Fallon’s eyes off the snake and onto him. Even in that split-second, she could tell he was hurt to the point where he didn’t move, other than to roll onto his side and curl his legs.
The snake dragged its broken body behind a man-sized boulder and didn’t reappear.
Fallon focused on her leg.
The fang marks were red and obvious but weren’t bleeding. The swelling hadn’t started yet. She could wiggle her toes. The poison hadn’t taken effect yet. She got to her feet and went to Jundee who was still on his side. His face was etched with pain. Suddenly the snake reappeared and headed directly at them.
It seemed disoriented, crazy, unsure of where it was or what it was doing.
It was four steps away, now three.
Fallon grabbed a rock the size of a baseball, waited until the snake was a step away and then threw it directly at the head.
Bones crashed.
The head flattened.
The back end of the snake wiggled furiously for second after second after second, then all movement stopped.
Jundee stared in disbelief then focused on the pain in his back.
“I can’t climb,” he said.
“I’ll help you.”
“I’m not talking about getting out of here, I’m talking about getting up to that ledge and getting the briefcase.”
“Are you nuts?”
“You’re going to have to do it,” he said. “My back’s hurt too bad.”
“No.”
“Yes. This is our only chance. We need to do it and we need to do it right now.”
Fallon looked at the ledge.
It was high, sixty feet minimum.
The wall was almost straight up.
There were a thousand ways to fall off it and die, even if her body wasn’t full of poison.