by Steven James
During the search, I texted Tessa half a dozen times to find out about Lien-hua’s condition, but her only reply was that she still hadn’t awakened.
More often than not, working with the media backfires, but tonight we put out word for them to inform the public that Basque was at large and in the vicinity. I honestly wasn’t sure how much good it would do, but right now the team thought it was the best chance we had of finding Basque. And, reluctantly, I had to agree with them.
Ralph and I touched base, and I recounted the search through the tunnels beneath the water treatment plant, outlining the specific course I’d taken while pursuing Basque. Shaw was standing nearby. “That’s a lot of tunnels to remember,” he said. “You sure you didn’t get turned around down there?”
“I’m sure.”
A pause. “Okay.”
“Trust me,” Ralph said, “Pat’s good with directions.”
Latex gloves on, I took some time to inspect the car Basque had driven to the facility. Inside, I found two empty water bottles, a number of crumpled-up napkins and discarded fast-food wrappers, three fashion magazines from last year, and a beat-up mass-market version of a crime novel.
And that’s what caught my attention.
The novel, On My Way to Dying, was written by Saundra Weathers, a mystery writer who’d grown up in my hometown of Horicon, Wisconsin.
She was a year older than I was, but besides being from the same town, we were linked in another way, a macabre connection that not too many people knew about.
When I was a junior in high school, an eleven-year-old girl who’d recently moved to town with her parents disappeared while walking home from school. The next day, I was the one who found her body in an old tree house on the edge of the vast marsh just outside of Horicon. The girl had been raped and then killed by a man I tracked down nearly a decade later while I was a homicide detective in Milwaukee.
Saundra’s parents owned the land that bordered the marsh.
And now, here was one of her books in the car Basque had stolen.
It might have been a coincidence that this specific book just happened to be in this specific car at this specific time, but I don’t believe in coincidences.
I flipped through the novel to see if there were any underlined words, highlighted passages, or dog-eared pages that might have been clues left intentionally or unintentionally by Basque about where his burrow really was, but I didn’t find anything.
The Lab could analyze the book and the rest of the items in the car. Maybe they’d be able to pull something up. I put a call through to FBI Headquarters to find out where Saundra Weathers lived. “Basque has worked with partners in the past. I want some agents to check on her and then watch her house tonight. I’ll be in touch with her in the morning.”
“Yes, sir.”
Finally, after more than an hour of searching the area and finding no clues whatsoever about which direction Basque might have gone, Ralph told me to get my butt back to the hospital, that they could finish the search out here.
“It’s dark, we’re not coming up with anything, and you need to be there with your fiancée.”
Even though I was more than ready to change out of my wet clothes, I wanted to see Lien-hua a lot more than I wanted to switch outfits.
And truthfully, she wasn’t the only one I was concerned about. Tessa was used to staying up late, but I’m sure she was stressed. It was almost two o’clock, and she’d be useless unless I got her home to bed.
The chopper pilot needed to stay on hand in case Ralph and the rest of the team came up with anything, but one of the SWAT guys who wasn’t involved in the search lived near the hospital and offered to give me a ride.
“I’ll catch up with you later,” Ralph told me. But before I left, he pulled me aside. “Pat, you can be headstrong, I get that, but the next time I make it clear to you that I don’t want you accessing a potential crime scene, you don’t access it. Period. End of story.” Then he sighed. “As if you’re gonna listen to that anyway.”
“You would have done the same thing, Ralph.”
He scoffed, and I took that as a form of agreement.
“Just don’t do anything stupid that would screw up our case against this guy,” he said.
“You have my word on that.”
As I was walking to the car, I received a text message from Tessa that Lien-hua was waking up.
15
Back at the hospital I hurried to Lien-hua’s room and found Brineesha, Tessa, and the white-haired doctor, who was checking Lien-hua’s charts, gathered around the bed. My fiancée was awake and looked weak, but remarkably alert, considering all that she’d been through.
Before I could ask her how she was doing she said, “Did you get him?” Her voice was scratchy and soft but she spoke with just as much quiet intensity and resolve as ever.
“No.” I went to her side, took her hand. It seemed like whatever I said at the moment would be inadequate, but I managed to get out what was in the forefront of my mind. “Lien-hua, I love you so much. I was . . . I knew you were going to be okay.”
“Yes.” She coughed slightly and cringed, and it was clear that despite the pain medication she was still having a rough time.
I kissed her, then asked the obligatory question: “How are you feeling?”
“Like I was strangled, stabbed twice, and then hit by a car.” She gave a faint smile.
Brineesha glanced at Tessa. “Well, at least the woman still has her sense of humor.”
Lien-hua said to us, “The doctor here tells me no sparring for a while.”
“Too bad,” I replied. “I practiced my spinning side kicks while you were in London.”
“You’re not falling over anymore every time you do them?”
“Only about half the time.”
“We’ll work on that as soon as this leg starts feeling better.”
The doctor finished up and left the four of us alone.
I wasn’t sure what to do. I wanted to spend the rest of the night here in the room with Lien-hua, but with Basque out there I didn’t like the idea of Tessa being at home alone—even if we assigned a team of officers to guard the house.
It was almost as if Brineesha read my thoughts, because she suggested that Tessa spend the night at their place. In their basement they had a spare bedroom—actually more of a mini apartment—where Brineesha’s mom had lived until last August when she died. “Tessa can stay downstairs,” Brineesha offered. “There’s plenty of room.”
Considering Ralph would be at the house with them, it seemed like a good plan to me.
“I guess we’ll have to postpone that cake-sampling trip tomorrow,” Lien-hua told Tessa.
“Maybe I should give it a trial run on my own. Test the waters, you know?”
“Not without me you don’t.” Lien-hua scolded her lightly with her finger, but then coughed again, and I could see on her face how much the coughing hurt.
“Shh. You don’t have to talk. Just relax.”
“I feel better than I look,” she said, but I wasn’t sure I believed that.
As Tessa and Brineesha were getting ready to leave, Brineesha called Ralph to tell him the plan and he said he’d meet them at the house. I phoned dispatch to have them send a squad to escort Brineesha and Tessa on the trip home, and then stay there with them until Ralph arrived.
After they were gone, I wanted Lien-hua to rest, but it seemed important to her to tell me about what had happened when she was attacked. She was one of the toughest women I knew, but going through an encounter like that would be terrifying for anyone, and that fear came through clearly in her voice as she recounted the story.
She said, “You know how they talk about your whole life flashing before your eyes right before you die?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it wasn’t as if
my whole life flashed before my eyes, it was more like one moment appeared, then time, well . . .” She struggled for how to phrase things. “You’ve faced death before, Pat.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s like time stretches out and . . . and you see how, well, I’m not sure of the right phrase.”
“How unfathomable it is. And how brief.”
“Yes. How unfathomable life is—how unfathomable every moment is. And how fleeting they are.” She shook her head. “I really thought I was going to die, Pat. And all I could think of was how I’d never see you again.”
Shame stung me, regret for not looking back at her car as I drove away from her at the park. “I should have made sure you were safe. Before Tessa and I left.”
“No, that’s ridiculous. I’m not a child. There was no way you could have known I’d be attacked.”
That might have been true, but it didn’t really make me feel any better. The whole situation still seemed surreal to me. “You thought to call 911 and then shoot him while you were being strangled.” I shook my head. “You’re amazing.”
“I just wish I had better aim.”
When she pressed me, I summarized the chase at the water treatment plant and related the fable Basque had told me about the dog and the hare.
She reflected for a moment, then, always the profiler, said, “Think about it—he’s a cannibal and he tells you a story about one animal trying to capture and eat another.”
“But in this case I would be the one chasing him.”
Maybe he was telling you that you’re not all that different.
No, I slid that thought aside. It was just a story. Just a fable.
“There’s no way he thought of that off the top of his head. He had it prepared. All of it, everything, was a way of taunting you,” Lien-hua said, then coughed harshly and winced again.
“Shh,” I said. “Just rest.”
But she went on. “That’s why he waited outside the metal gate. He could have fled, but it’s become more than that to him now. It’s all about the chase.”
“The hunt.”
“Yes.”
That reminded me of the crime novel I’d found in the car. Lien-hua already knew about me finding Mindy’s body in the tree house back when I was a teenager, but I’d never mentioned the family that lived beside the marsh. It’d just never come up. So now I told her I’d found the novel, and then I explained who Saundra Weathers was.
She repositioned herself slightly on the bed. “The Lab is looking over the book?”
“The ERT guys were there at the scene. I’m assuming they have everything back to the Lab by now.” I patted her arm. “Really, I think you should rest.”
“When was the last time you saw her, Saundra Weathers, I mean?”
“It’s been over twenty years. Now, Lien-hua—”
“We should find out where she lives and get a car over there.”
“I did that while I was at the plant.”
“Great minds.” She yawned, although it was clear she was trying to stifle it.
“Great minds.”
“It’s possible he chose to leave the book behind to do more than show a connection to your past. It’s possible he also left it there to show you a connection to the future.” She yawned again.
“Miss Weathers is safe. We can talk about all this tomorrow. You need to sleep, Lien-hua.”
“Yeah,” she said wearily. “I think I agree.”
I shed my wet socks and damp pants, hung them up to dry, pulled up one of the hospital chairs so I could sleep by her side, and tucked my legs under a blanket. Thankfully, the chair reclined, but I’m over six feet tall and I found it impossible to position myself comfortably on it. However I was mentally and physically exhausted and hoped that, as awkward as sleeping like this was going to be, I’d at least be able to get a little rest.
“I love you, Lien-hua.”
“I love you, too.” It sounded like she was already half asleep.
As soon as I closed my eyes, thoughts of Basque and his tale of the dog and the hare invaded my thoughts. I tried to clear my head, to relax, but failed.
And so as I lay there, I mentally reviewed the case—what we knew, what we didn’t know, what Basque had done, and if there was anything I was missing. And I tried to figure out what our next step in tracking him down needed to be.
16
3:27 p.m. India Standard Time
Keith Tyree and Vanessa Juliusson landed at the Chennai International Airport just seven kilometers south of the city.
Though they’d been planning to get there earlier in the day, a canceled connection out of Frankfurt had set them back, and now they were already behind schedule.
Ever since watching Corey Wellington bleed to death in his living room in Atlanta the other day, they’d been on the move, and they still had one more leg of their journey to complete. This wasn’t their first assignment together and it was no coincidence that their employer had chosen Corey, just like it was no coincidence that he’d chosen that specific woman in Montana two weeks earlier.
And now, although Keith was weary of traveling, he said nothing to Vanessa, who never seemed to sleep, thinking that it might appear to her as a sign of weakness.
He needed to focus, to stay alert. It might end up being a long night.
Especially if he had to use the handheld pruning shears he’d brought along.
Admittedly, that part of his job was unpleasant, but he wasn’t about to take chances; he would do what he needed to do to see this project through to the end.
After all, the man whom he and Vanessa worked for did not like loose ends, did not like it when people disappointed him, did not make allowances for even the smallest degree of incompetence. More than once they’d seen what he did to the people who let him down, and to say the least, it would not be an enjoyable way to go.
Keith was not about to let that happen to him.
He knew that running or trying to hide would be useless, would only make things worse in the end. So he’d decided long ago that he would rather eat a bullet—or take the drug himself—than fall into the man’s hands.
Now he directed his attention to the reason they were here.
First order of business: get to the facility in Kadapa and do a little quality control.
Then make sure the shipment and paperwork were all in order. Finally, get back to Boston by the end of the week to visit the inspector.
Whenever he and Vanessa were in India, they didn’t rent a car but rather hired a driver. Today the man was supposed to meet them in Chennai, so they would need to take a taxi that far.
Normally, beggars were not allowed on the premises of India’s international airports, but for some reason today they were congregated outside the terminal, and Keith and Vanessa had to push their way past them.
As they passed an elderly woman with an outstretched, leprous hand, Keith reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin, but Vanessa stopped him before he could hand it over, clutched his arm, and led him to the street corner. “If you give money to one of them, they’ll all gather around you expecting handouts. I’ve told you this before.”
“Yes.”
“So don’t do it.”
A pause. “Okay.”
Even though the caste system was officially banned, it wasn’t culturally banned—and millions of people still treated cows with more respect than they treated human beings from the lowest caste. Streets all throughout India’s major cities were cluttered with invalids and outcasts.
On an earlier trip to India, Keith had realized that this was a natural result of the country’s prevailing belief in reincarnation. After all, if these people were being punished for deeds done in a previous life, why would you want to get in the way of the natural order of things and relieve their afflictions? It would serve
both your best interests and theirs if you let them suffer now so they could be purified and appear in a better form, or as a member of a higher caste, in a future life on their journey toward nirvana.
Love of outcasts and a belief in reincarnation simply do not go hand in hand.
Keith did not believe in reincarnation; he believed that one time around was all you got, but despite what he did for a living, he felt a twinge of guilt whenever he passed these suffering, dying people who were so categorically ignored and scorned by their culture.
Once they were in Chennai, buses, trucks, oxen, cars, taxis, and the ever-present motorcycles whipped past and jockeyed for position on the frenetically busy street, in some cases leaving only inches between the vehicles. In India, people flip their car’s side-view mirrors back so they don’t stick out because otherwise they’d almost certainly be ripped off or end up taking out a pedestrian.
Five people were killed every day in traffic accidents in Chennai, mostly from being struck by the three-wheeled taxis. Taking into account the number of motorcycles with a husband driving, his wife behind him, their baby on her lap, Keith found it astounding that there weren’t more fatalities.
• • •
Their taxi driver dropped them off, and Keith and Vanessa found their man, Baahir, waiting for them across the street, parked at an angle in front of a small storefront. Indian music and the smell of musky incense drifted out the front door. Two men sat outside the shop smoking languidly, eyeing the two Caucasians as they climbed into the vehicle.
Baahir was a rotund man full of energy who was always talking about how he needed to “reduce,” which was the Indian way of saying “lose weight.” But despite his outgoing personality, he knew how to keep secrets, and they knew he would never admit to anyone where he had driven his two American passengers. They paid him well for this confidentiality and had also made it clear to him what would happen to his two children if he ever failed them at all in this regard.
Fear can be just as effective a motivator as money. In Baahir’s case, they decided to go for both approaches.
• • •