But how could that be?
His cell phone bleated, startling him. Fumbling through his coat pockets, he found it, flicked it open. Hesitated. “Donovan.”
Or should he have said Reed?
“Where you been all night?” Waxman barked. “I must’ve called you a hundred times in the last couple hours.”
Donovan was reeling. A spike of nausea assaulted him. “I, uh… I–I must’ve turned my phone off.”
“Nice going, genius. You better get your ass out here to Fredrickville, pronto. The Wayfarer Inn.”
Donovan’s gut tightened involuntarily. “What’s going on?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
Donovan felt like a drunk who’d had one too many on the golf course, only to wake up in a four-by-five jail cell with a fresh new shiner adorning his face. The last few hours were a complete, impenetrable blank.
“Jack? You still there? I got some news you aren’t gonna like.”
He wasn’t liking much of anything right now. He braced himself. “What is it?”
“We found Luther. He’s DOA.”
Before Donovan could respond, a horn blared-a blast so loud and long it startled a flock of pigeons perched on a nearby telephone line.
Lucille Baker had lost her patience.
46
The Wayfarer Inn looked even worse in the daylight. An oblong box with peeling blue paint, a row of dilapidated doors, windows sporting stained curtains.
The parking lot was host to a Crown Victoria convention. More cars than it had seen in over a decade. Sheriff’s cruisers. Unmarked federals. Coroner’s van.
Donovan pulled in and found a spot near a stretch of crime-scene tape, dread bubbling in his stomach as he stared out at the mix of uniformed and plainclothes cops flowing in and out of an open doorway.
What the hell had happened last night?
He thought about the headache, and the odd, erratic glimpses into Gunderson’s mind. He thought about the previous night, his plunge into the river, those few minutes that seemed like hours, stranded beneath a black, turbulent sky as Gunderson reached for him, grabbing his face.
Give us a kiss.
He remembered the serpentine tongue, the heat of Gunderson’s breath burrowing deep into his chest like an invading force, an aggressive, ravenous parasite.
Could it have been more than just a kiss?
Was it possible that Gunderson…
No, Jack, don’t even think it. That’s crazy talk. Follow that whacked-out train of thought and before you know it the men in white will be scooping you up to take you straight to the booby hatch.
Wacky Jacky’s adventures on the other side.
“Hey, Jack! Over here!” Waxman stood near the open motel-room doorway.
Fighting to steady his nerves, Donovan cut the Chrysler’s engine and climbed out. Glancing down, he noticed his shoes were caked with dried mud.
Yet another mystery.
He tapped them against a tire to knock the mud loose, then crossed through the maze of cars. Waxman gave him the once-over as he approached. “You look like hell.”
“I love you, too,” Donovan said.
“Gotta make this quick. Brass could be here any minute, and if they see you nosing around, they’re gonna go ballistic. As it is, our little stunt with Nemo will probably land us both on the unemployment line.”
“Where’s Luther?”
Waxman handed him a pair of gloves and white cotton shoe covers. “Let’s go inside.”
Donovan slipped them on, then stepped through the doorway to find a dingy motel room with decades-old furniture and threadbare yellow carpet, the air ripe with decay.
The place looked vaguely familiar:
Pizza box on the dresser. Carpet stained with blood and vomit.
There were two beds in the room, the far one missing a bedspread. Crime-scene techs hovered around the one closest to the door, where a man about the size of a house was curled up in the fetal position, a gelatinous mass of bloody flesh where the back of his head used to be.
Donovan recognized the paisley shirt.
“Charlie Kruger,” Waxman said. “Manager and part owner of this wonderful establishment. Why he’s in here is anybody’s guess.” He gestured to the blood on the carpet. “Looks like the assailant put a couple in Kruger’s legs, then Kruger stumbled to the bed, collapsed, and got a bullet to the head for his trouble.”
Donovan looked at the stained carpet, then shifted his gaze to the bed. “I don’t see a trail.”
Waxman shrugged. “So sue me. I’m no homicide whiz. But if that isn’t Kruger’s blood, we’re short a body.”
“What about Luther?”
“We’ll get to him in a minute. First I wanna know what the hell happened with you and Nemo last night.”
Donovan looked around at the crime-scene techs. Sensing his hesitation, Waxman nodded toward a corner of the room. They moved into a huddle, keeping their voices low.
“Well?”
Donovan knew he had a choice. He could tell Waxman the truth-that the last few hours had been sucked into a deep black hole-or he could lie.
“I lost him,” he said.
“Lost him?”
“Everything was working like we planned. He went to Carla’s apartment looking for his stash, swallowed the bait, told her he was going after Luther.”
“And?”
“I started a tail, got caught by the rain, and lost him. Spent half the night looking for him, but couldn’t catch a break. You and Rachel were right. I was so exhausted by then I wound up pulling to the side of the road and crawled into the backseat. That’s where I was when you called me.”
“Explains the suit,” Waxman said. “You didn’t think about clueing me in?”
“It was late and I was out of it. You may have noticed I haven’t exactly been thinking straight.”
“No shit, Sherlock. What was he driving?”
“Who?”
“Nemo. Who else?”
“A Honda Del Sol. Carla’s car.”
“You know the tag number?”
“Not offhand,” Donovan said. “You’re thinking Nemo did this?”
“It crossed my mind once or twice.”
Donovan looked at the body, scanned the room. “Where’s Luther?”
Waxman jerked his head. “Follow me.”
In back of the motel was an empty lot. A patch of mud and weeds that might have been prime real estate at one time.
Those days were long gone.
A far corner of the lot was roped off with yellow crime-scene tape. A cluster of cops and technicians quietly worked the spot, their attention focused on a body lying faceup before them.
The rain-soaked earth sucked at Donovan’s shoes as he walked. Remembering the dried mud he’d just knocked off, a fresh spike of nausea assaulted him.
Had he been here before?
Thoughts of Gunderson’s kiss drifted through his mind again, but he immediately smothered them. Play this out, he told himself. Don’t jump to conclusions.
Yet even as he pushed himself toward denial, his old friend instinct dragged him in the opposite direction, connecting the dots.
He didn’t like the picture that was forming.
“Luther Dwayne Polanski,” Waxman said as they reached the body. Luther’s face was a death mask, glassy eyes staring heavenward. “Looks like the assailant came into the room, shot Kruger, managed to wing Luther”-he turned and gestured toward the rear of the motel where a row of windows faced the field. One of them was hanging open-“then chased him out here and put another one in his back. The impact spun him right around.”
Donovan swallowed. Stared down at Luther’s body. “You’re talking about Nemo.”
“Who else?”
“Because of the money?”
“That would be my guess,” Waxman said. “You realize we’re completely screwed, don’t you? This is all on us. Once the brass puts it together, we’ll both be lucky they don’t
bring us up on charges.”
Donovan kept his gaze on Luther’s body. “That’s the least of my worries. Without Luther, I’ve got nothing. He was my last link to Jessie.”
“You don’t know that,” Waxman said.
“I don’t know much of anything right now, except time is running out.”
And so was Jessie’s oxygen.
“Maybe Nemo’s been the key all along,” Waxman said. “I wouldn’t put it past him. He’s definitely a chilly bastard.”
“What do you mean?”
Waxman gestured to a nearby tech. “Hey, Joe, can I see that butt again?”
The tech nodded, then opened his forensics case and brought out an evidence bag, handing it across to Waxman. Waxman held it up for Donovan, showing him the damp cigarette butt inside.
“Son of a bitch stood here and had a smoke after he shot Luther. Mr. Casual. Flicked it onto Luther’s chest. Pretty cold, you ask me.” He handed the baggie back to the tech, but Donovan couldn’t take his eyes off the butt inside.
The filter was torn off.
Donovan felt himself starting to teeter.
“Joe’s gonna try a saliva trace,” Waxman said, “but the rain probably ruined any chances of…” He paused, looking at Donovan, grabbing him by the elbow. “Christ, Jack, you look like you’re about to keel over.”
“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Donovan said, then turned abruptly and headed back toward the motel.
47
He went straight to the Chrysler, shut himself inside, then closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the wheel.
Willing himself to concentrate, he tried to remember what he’d done last night. He knew he’d followed Nemo, saw him get out of the Del Sol, go into the motel office — then nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero.
Now Luther was dead and Donovan had mud on his shoes. And a dull, sick ache in his stomach told him that Waxman was wrong. It wasn’t Nemo who shot Luther. It wasn’t Nemo at all.
Sitting upright, he reached under his coat, pulled out his Glock, and ejected the cartridge. It had been full when Al Cleveland gave it to him. Now, three rounds were missing.
Three rounds.
But that didn’t add up, did it? Luther had taken one to the arm and another to the back, while Charlie Kruger took three hits, making a total of five.
So maybe Waxman was right, maybe the killer had been Nemo after all.
But what about the blood on the carpet?
Unlike Waxman, Donovan had spent some time with homicide, just prior to going federal, and he knew-just as the forensics techs would soon confirm-that it wasn’t Charlie Kruger’s blood on that carpet. Charlie was already on the bed when he was shot.
The simple process of elimination said it was Nemo’s blood. It had to be.
And if Nemo had been lying on that carpet, where was he now? No way he could’ve lost that much blood and walked away. Besides, the stain was static. No trail to the bed, no trail any…
The bedspread. One of the bedspreads was missing.
Had someone used it to transport the body?
When investigating a crime, it’s easy to come up with a half dozen different theories, different ways the job could have gone down. Each one is kept in mind as the crime scene is processed, but no matter how many theories you come up with, there’s always one that stands out. One that makes the most sense. One that sticks in your mind even before the evidence is collected.
The one in Donovan’s mind went something like this:
Nemo drove straight to the motel, which meant he’d been here before. He knew Charlie Kruger, had met him sometime in the past, and he knew that Kruger was hiding Luther. Pissed off and wanting his money, he grabbed Kruger and forced him to take him to Luther’s room.
Once inside, Nemo demanded the cash, shooting Kruger in an attempt to scare Luther into giving it up.
Then something unexpected happened. An uninvited guest arrived, shot Nemo, winged Luther, and chased him through the bathroom window and onto the field.
Luther had been shot twice.
And Nemo?
Judging by the pattern of the stain, Donovan would guess he’d suffered a head wound. Probably a single shot, close range.
Which meant three rounds from the same weapon.
Nemo’s head, Luther’s arm and back.
Glancing uneasily at the Glock and its cartridge in his hands, Donovan shifted his gaze to the cigarette butts crowding the ashtray.
The killer had smoked a cigarette, flicked it onto Luther’s chest, then calmly walked back to the motel room, grabbed a bedspread, and rolled up Nemo’s body.
But why? And where had he taken it?
A sudden thought occurred to Donovan, accompanied by a surge of panic.
Bracing himself, he took the keys from the ignition, then climbed out of the Chrysler and moved around to the trunk. Shoving the key into the slot, he hesitated a moment, then slowly turned it.
The latch popped open with a loud thunk.
Glancing around to make sure no one was watching, Donovan carefully raised the lid, knowing exactly what was in there before he even looked inside.
To his surprise and relief, however, he was wrong. The trunk was empty. No bedspread, no Nemo.
Not that this changed anything. He had no doubt that Nemo was dead, nor did he harbor any illusions about who had pulled the trigger.
But again he wondered, where was the body?
Then he remembered the Del Sol.
He found it in the back of the gas station, only yards from where he’d parked last night. It sat in the middle of a row of cars in various states of disrepair. They looked as if they’d been there for half a decade.
The gas station was closed, just as it had been the night before, and judging by the condition of the pumps and the graffiti on the windows, it wouldn’t be opening anytime soon.
Donovan exited the Chrysler and crossed toward the Del Sol, pausing when he realized the driver’s seat was occupied.
Bobby Nemo.
He put a hand under his coat, touching the butt of his Glock, a precautionary habit more than anything else.
“Bobby?” he said, not really expecting an answer.
He didn’t get one. Nemo didn’t move. No reason he should. He was dead, the missing bedspread wrapped around him, a single gunshot wound to the right side of his head.
Donovan leaned in for a closer look and something caught his eye: a folded scrap of paper protruding from between Nemo’s lips.
He hesitated. What the fuck?
With trembling fingers, he reached in through the open window and pulled it free.
There was a logo just above the fold. Motel stationery, a dozen years old, printed back in the days when the Wayfarer Inn was halfway respectable.
His name was written across it in black ink:
Special Agent Jack
Not knowing what to expect, Donovan slowly unfolded it and found more black ink with nine underlined spaces beneath:
AUTOGENOUS WORK THAT CAN GET YOU ARRESTED
A makeshift crossword puzzle.
Knowing he’d just stepped off a high cliff into the abyss, Donovan mulled the clue over in his mind a moment, trying to make sense of it.
Autogenous work that can get you arrested.
Autogenous.
Produced from within.
It took him a moment longer, but when Donovan finally solved it, there was no doubt in his mind who the message was from and what it meant.
Alexander Gunderson was back among the living.
48
Rachel was in the shower when her doorbell rang.
It was just past 8 a.m. and she’d already been up for hours, unable to sleep. Ever since she’d left Jack yesterday afternoon she’d felt anxious and uneasy. And at the root of it was the story he’d told her.
His trip to the other side.
Rachel had never been deeply religious, but she was a believer. Growing up in a Chinese-American household with a grandmother who
, as a little girl, had come straight from Tai Wo, Hong Kong, she’d heard her share of ancient stories. Tales of gods and goddesses, ghostly apparitions, the Ten Courts of Hell. Stories told with a quiet reverence and a conviction born of faith.
She remembered the fireworks and the colorful dancing dragons on the streets of Chinatown during the Chung Yuan Festival-Ghost Day-which celebrated the rising of souls from the bowels of hell to visit their earthly homes. Every year, Grandma Luke lit incense and set out plates full of mango, peaches, and roast duck on a card table in the living room, an offering to appease the restless spirits.
Against her family’s wishes, Rachel had made the mistake of marrying David in August, smack in the middle of Ghost Month. And while she didn’t exactly blame the denizens of hell for the disaster her marriage became, at times she had to wonder. Had they been cursed from the start?
Rachel wasn’t a strong believer in the stories Grandma Luke had told her-every religion had its share of tall tales-but she believed enough to feel just a tickle of anxiety whenever the subject arose. That anxiety had been reinforced the moment Jack had told her about his otherworld encounter with Alexander Gunderson.
The possibility that he might have imagined it all, that his mind had conjured up some bizarre death dream, was not a thought she even entertained. She knew that what he’d experienced was all too real.
And potentially dangerous.
Now, according to Sidney, Jack had been cut loose from the investigation, asked to step aside while the fools upstairs took over the case. She understood that they were simply following procedure, that the leeway they’d given Jack was a courtesy they weren’t obligated to extend. But she wondered how they could turn him away. Why deny a father access to the resources that might help him find his own daughter?
Now, with Jack at loose ends and still reeling from his encounter with death-and with time ticking at its ever relentless pace-the probability of disaster loomed large.
Jessie could die.
And a part of Jack would go with her.
Kiss Her Goodbye Page 21