“Good,” Tyler replied, sounding pleased. “We need to meet in person. Where do you want to do that?”
“I don’t know this place at all,” Carson said, “I’m not even sure where I am.”
“Okay, find that out and call me back. I can drive to you somewhere up there and meet you tonight.”
“Alright, I’m at a truck stop, I'll find out where I am and what town is closest by and call you back in half an hour.” Carson said, still not sure if he was doing the right thing.
“I’ll be waiting,” Tyler said, “And Carson, if you’re innocent you don’t have anything to worry about. We’ll get to the bottom of it.”
These words were almost enough to make him cry but Carson knew this was only hope trying to get the better of him. It was a beautiful thing to hear, for sure, but that didn’t mean it was going to turn out to be true.
Chapter 22
TYLER HAD LEFT THE OFFICES of ‘The Baltimore Echo’ right after the first call came in from Carson Lemond. The wait for the second call was interminable and was over the half hour they had spoken of. He was beginning to think Carson had changed his mind again and would continue his journey into Canada.
The call had come, however, and Tyler arranged to meet Carson in a diner in Buffalo, New York. It was going to be a close to six hour drive, but he had to do it, had to get the inside story. He thought of his book and how this would make excellent side material to that about the serial killers.
As he filled the gas tank of his car, Tyler thought about the inevitable call he was going to have to make to Sarah. She was not going to be happy about this turn of events at all, but he couldn’t include her yet. She would be obliged to arrest Carson if she knew where he was and that was going to be of no use to Tyler in getting the information he felt both he and Sarah needed. How was he going to deflect her anger, he wondered.
Then it came to him. This was the perfect time to play the Spalding card. He hadn’t told her about the phone call yet, and she didn’t have to know it had been days ago. He could say it was this morning-that should be enough to take her mind off Carson Lemond for a bit. With this thought in mind, he went into the store, paid for the gas and got some snacks or the trip
Truth be told, he didn’t want to make the drive, but it was too hard to fly on a plane these days if you wanted to hide your tracks. Still, it was all for the greater good (his greater good) and would be worth it in the end.
Two hours in, Tyler made the call to Sarah. He was surprised and a little relieved at a reprieve when she didn’t answer. Instantly, however, his mind was whirring and he wondered if the FBI had caught Carson? Were they closing in on him right now? There was no way Tyler could find this out unless something came in over the radio news. He turned this on just in case but knew it wouldn't be news until Carson was already apprehended. He was just going to have to keep on going and hope Carson was there to meet him when he arrived in Buffalo.
Ten minutes later, the phone rang and glancing at the screen Tyler saw a number he didn’t recognise. He pressed the answer key.
“Hello?”
“Tyler, it’s me,” came the out of breath voice of Sarah.
“What phone is this?” he asked her.
“Field office in Washington,” she said. “Were you looking for me?”
“Yes, are you able to talk a minute, alone?”
“Yeah, I’m in this room alone. If anyone comes in I'll let you know,” Sarah replied.
“First off, I have two things to tell you. One you won’t be happy about but the other you will,” Tyler said easing into things.
“What have you done?” she said angrily and then as though catching on to the fact he was driving added, “Where are you going?” She was shrewd, he had to give her that.
“I’m on my way to meet Carson Lemond,” he replied and waited for her tirade.
“What!” she almost shrieked. “You were supposed to tell me as soon as you heard from him!”
“I am,” Tyler lied, “Why do you think I was calling you?”
“Where are you going to meet him?” she asked, getting down to business. He could see her in his mind’s eye clearing a page in a notebook and getting ready to take down whatever he told her.
“You know I can’t tell you that, Sarah,” he answered. “You can’t know that and not act on it.”
Sarah was silent at this for a long time but he knew she was still there. Was she seething or taking stock of the situation; it was hard to guess. Probably both.
“What did he say when you spoke to him?” she asked finally.
“He says he’s innocent, and to be honest he sounds it. He’s scared out of his wits about all this.”
“Why doesn’t he turn himself in, then?”
“He’s afraid of what will happen to him if he does.” Tyler said, thinking Carson was right to be afraid of being railroaded into the electric chair.
“I want you to call me as soon as you are done talking to him,” Sarah said sternly. “Don’t forget we are supposed to be on the same side here.” There was a bitterness in her voice that took Tyler by surprise. It wasn’t like her, but she was under a lot of stress and this news probably wasn’t doing anything to lessen that stress. Time for a sweetener.
“Yes, I promise,” Tyler said, “But there’s something else you need to know. I got another phone call today.”
“From who?” he could hear her perk up at once, her curiosity and drive overcoming her anger in a single moment.
“You know who,” Tyler teased out, “He didn’t have much to say except that the game is back on.”
“Is that all he said?” she asked.
“Apart from observing the formalities of a phone call, pretty much,” Tyler said and then added, “He called only a minute after I got off the phone with Carson.”
“Do you think they are working together?” Sarah asked suddenly and Tyler smiled but as he was about to answer he thought seriously about this. They hadn't actually both called at the same time like he told Sarah, but it was possible Carson was part of this game and was an agent of Spalding. Then he shook his head, no, that was ridiculous. Carson was a low level criminal and was terrified of everything.
“I don’t think so,” he answered Sarah, “But it is something to think about.”
“This is why I wanted to know what was going on,” Sarah said. “This is a lot more dangerous than I think you give it credit for.”
“This is all part of my work,” he said. “I’ve been doing this for years, I can take care of myself.”
“You haven’t dealt with anything like this before,” she said and he knew she was talking about Spalding, “Neither of us have.” Tyler nodded, from her point of view he supposed she was right, but only because she didn’t know the full extent of what his work had involved for the last ten years.
“We need to meet up soon and go over everything face to face again,” Sarah said.
“I’ll call when I’m back in town and we can set something up then?” he suggested.
“Yeah, fine, but that doesn’t mean you get to hold anything out on me until we meet. You call me later after you've spoken to Lemond and you tell me everything, you hear, everything.” This wasn’t a request and Tyler liked this side of her.
“Yes ma'am,” he replied smiling.
The call ended and Tyler thought more on Carson Lemond and any possible tie to Spalding. He thought back on his conversation with Carson and as he ran through it over in his head he came to a realisation. He’d just assumed it was Buddy who told Carson to ring him, but he’d never asked Carson himself. Was it possible Spalding had somehow been the one to tell Carson to call Tyler, or was it more likely Carson was in with Spalding all along? Perhaps this wasn’t as cut and dry as it seemed. Tyler would have to be careful with this one, a lot more careful than he was with young Danny Kercheck. There was no telling what Spalding was in control of and each step had to be taken with care.
Chapter 23
W
HEN SARAH GOT OFF the phone to Tyler she was furious. She thought she’d hid it well from him, but the urge was to smash the receiver down and break the whole desk phone, and if she had been at home that is possibly exactly what she would have done.
What was she getting herself into! Why was this the thought she had to grapple with all the time! If only they would let her investigate the real case, the one for Spalding, everything would be fine. All this running around after Carson Lemond and the game playing of the ‘Agrarian’ was getting her nowhere, frustrating her and making her less effective at work. Why couldn’t they see that?
The agent whose desk she was occupying came and Sarah left the room without a word. Nothing she could say was going to come out right just then and there was no point in biting this fellas head off when he inevitably said the wrong thing to her.
Sarah went straight to her car; there was no need for her to be wasting her time searching for Carson Lemond if Tyler knew where he was and was on his way to meet him. She put an agent in charge to report any updates to her and then drove back to the Academy.
Her intention was to chew out the team who were supposed to be deciphering the latest message from the ‘Agrarian’ but who had so far come up with nothing better than she had. What the hell were they doing? They were supposed to be the experts at this stuff!
As Sarah came into the building, though, she saw Malick at the far end of the corridor. He hadn’t seen her and as she looked at him there was something surreptitious about him that she didn't like. It was something she hadn't seen before. Sarah stayed still so as not to draw attention to herself and when he disappeared off down another corridor, she ran to the end to see where he was going.
Malick turned another corner and as Sarah came up after him she tried to guess where he might be going. Wherever it was, he seemed to be taking the long way there and they came to another corridor that he could have gotten too much faster by an alternate route he would know well.
Then she understood.
There was only one reason Malick would be so sly in the Academy building. He was scoping out the routes to the firing range. He wanted to be sure no one else was on their way down there so he could have the place for himself. That had to be it. A pang of sorrow came over her and it mixed sourly with guilt at her following him. She was about to turn on her heels and go back the way she came when curiosity got the better of her. She wanted to see how he was getting on, if he had made any progress.
Sarah backed off a little to give him the chance of building up more of a head start and then she made her own way to the shooting range by a service door on the side of the building. From there she would be able to peer in through a small glass panel in the door and if she was careful he wouldn't see her. He would never know she was there at all.
As she came down the service hall, narrow and smelling of old steel and plumbing, Sarah noted that she hadn’t heard any shots yet. Was he not set up yet? He’d had plenty of time. As she came close to the door she bent down and then edged her cheek to the cold steel and looked with one eye into the glass panel (which she had to assume was bulletproof if it ran alongside a shooting range).
Malick was at one of the booths, alone, and there didn’t seem to be anyone else there at all. He had his ear protectors and glasses on. Sarah watched with bated breath. Inside she was rooting for him but she felt nervous too. She had no desire to see her friend fail and feel weak.
“Come on, you can do it,” she whispered as she saw him raise his gun and take aim at the target.
It was clear at once, however, that this was not going to have the happy ending she’d been so hopeful of. The gun rattled about in his hand like it weighed two hundred pounds and when he drew his supporting hand up it didn’t make all that much of a difference. Sarah found herself hoping again that this door and window was bulletproof because the way he was waving that gun around there was no telling where a bullet might end up if he managed to pull the trigger.
No bang came and Sarah felt a deep sadness in the pit of her stomach as she saw Malick drop the gun on the counter in front of him and burst into tears. His body was shaking and his eyes were clenched closed. It was somehow even worse than when she saw him huddled up cowering beside the car in the store parking lot.
He wasn’t going to be able to get past this. As well as everything else that was going wrong in her life, she was now going to lose her partner, the only person on the force she actually felt she could trust. It just wasn’t fair.
Tears came to Sarah’s own eyes as she stepped back from the window. Turning to place her back against the metal, she slumped to a sitting position with her head in her arms between her knees. She was very thankful of not being able to hear his crying, as that would have sent her over the edge and she would have gone to him, thus exposing her own sneakiness and distrust of him.
She moved away from the door and without looking back walked away. This was the lowest she had been since Marcus left and it was not going to be easy to shake this off tonight.
Chapter 24
THE DINER WAS QUIET when Tyler arrived and at first glance it didn’t look like Carson was here. Tyler had been in enough situations with scared informants to know not to worry yet. He ordered a coffee and steak sandwich and took a seat in a booth away from the window but that afforded him a view outside.
It wasn’t long before a man wearing a hoodie came from an alley across the street and came in. He walked straight down to Tyler and sat down across from him.
“Take your hood down,” Tyler whispered with a smile on his face for the benefit of the nervous looking staff, “You’re drawing attention to yourself.” Carson’s eyes widened but he did as he was told, not turning to look at the staff behind him.
“Can we get another steak sandwich and coffee over here, please?” Tyler called to the waitress before she could come over. She nodded and went to the counter to relay the message to the counter girl.
“I shouldn't have come here,” Carson said, sweat thick on his brow and his eyes darting out the window to the street.
“Take it easy,” Tyler said, “The FBI are still looking for you in Washington.” This seemed to have a slight-very slight- calming effect on him. “Meeting me now is the start of getting you out of trouble, let that idea put you at ease.”
“What can you do for me?” Carson asked right away.
“I won’t know until I’ve heard the story from you, the full story with nothing left out.”
“Then what?”
“Well, if you are innocent there will be something in what you tell me that I can use. I’m extremely good at my job and if I want to find something I’ll find it.”
“What do you want to know?” Carson asked, sounding dubious.
“Everything, right from the start as you see it,” Tyler said. Carson nodded and then began to tell his tale.
For the next half hour Tyler mostly listened, only asking the odd question for clarification purposes. He wanted Carson to be at ease and say as much as possible in the first out letting. This was often where Tyler could gleam the most information when he interviewed someone as nervous as Carson was.
When the story ended Carson sat back looking physically exhausted and he stared at Tyler as though he were going to end all his troubles with his single verdict. After a short pause Tyler said to him,
“I don’t know what this will mean to you, but I believe you.”
Tears came to Carson’s eyes but he fought them back well.
“So where does that leave us?” he asked.
“In a hell of a lot better place than you were an hour ago,” Tyler said smiling at him. “Let’s get out here, we can talk on the way to my car.”
“Where are we going?” Carson asked, alarmed again and looking poised to set off running if Tyler said anything he didn’t want to hear.
“We don’t have to go anywhere,” Tyler said, “that’s up to you, but I think we need to move on from here. We’ve been here long enough now.”
“Okay,” Carson said, this was something he could definitely agree with.
Tyler paid at the counter for what they’d had while Carson waited in the alley across the street. Tyler was sure alleyways and derelict buildings were where he’d been spending most of his time lately. This thought made him think of the rickety shed on the building where he’d found Ferguson during the ‘John the Baptist’ case. A man who was a suspect at the time but was innocent and actually wound up a victim in the end.
“Thanks for getting the sandwich,” Carson said when Tyler came over to him.
“Think nothing of it,” Tyler said, and then he went straight back into journalist mode. “Tell me about the man who actually killed Jeff Suchet.”
“He was a big guy,” Carson said, “Well over six feet tall. Brown eyes, thick eyebrows...” At this Carson stopped and looked to be in thought.
“What is it?”
“Thinking about it, those eyebrows must have been fake,” he said, “I didn’t think so at the time but the image I have in my head is ridiculous.”
“You said earlier he was talking to you through a mirror, maybe the reflection was warped?”
“Maybe,” Carson replied and Tyler nodded for him to go on. “He had a beard but no hair and his voice was deep. That’s about it, I only saw him for a second, really.”
“Did you notice any tattoos or scars or anything like that?” Carson was shaking his head at this,
“No. I told you I only saw him for a second and then he shoved me from behind on top of Jeff.”
“What about the other two victims? Did you know them at all?”
“No, I never heard of either of them. Anything I know about them is from the newspapers.”
They reached Tyler’s car.
“Why don’t you come to my house?” Tyler suggested. “I live alone, way out in the sticks. There’s no one around for miles and it would be the last place anyone in the world would look for you.”
A Clattering of Jackdaws (The Birdwatcher Series Book 2) Page 9