As he listened to the end of the tale, George remembered the feelings of pride he had felt as a boy when he had heard the stories of his namesake, the hawk, saving Coyote.
His grandmother continued, “But they did not stay forever. The rocks are gone. The monsters are free again, and Coyote has gone to live with the Great Spirit in the sky.” She opened her eyes and looked at George. They were suddenly sharp and clear, and they bored deep within him. With a withered hand, she reached out and grasped his wrist.
“You must become like Coyote. You must destroy the monsters before they kill our people.” The room seemed to close in around him. It was hot, and the incense was too thick, which made it hard to breathe. He rose to his feet unsteadily and made his way toward the door. He was dizzy.
He pulled the bead curtain apart and was about to step into the hallway when his grandmother’s voice came to him once more.
“You must become like Coyote, Little Hawk,” she repeated. “But beware, for unlike the hawk, the coyote cannot fly.”
George stood in the doorway a moment longer, trying to understand what had just happened. But as it had so many years before, understanding the old ways still eluded him.
CHAPTER 12
Maryland
Dr. Myles Bennett walked briskly down the marble-tiled corridor, the bottom of his white lab coat flapping about his knees. He stopped before the large oak doors and pushed his glasses back up from the end of his nose.
His palms were sweaty as he grasped the door handle. He stepped into the office, and surreptitiously checked under his right arm to make sure he hadn’t sweated through his lab coat.
“Hello, Dr. Bennett.”
“Uh, hello—” He glanced at the nameplate on the desk. “Oh, yes, Linda. Hello.”
Linda was tall and thin, a lady of exquisite beauty and composure with ruby red lips and long dark hair. She wore a shapely wool skirt and a silk blouse. She made Myles even more nervous than before.
“I’ll tell the general you’re here,” she said. “Make yourself comfortable.”
The waiting room looked like the inside of a law office. There was plush, dark green carpet on the floor and a mahogany sofa table with the latest issues of TIME and Newsweek in front of him. On the mahogany-paneled walls to his right and left were large, gilded-framed pictures of colonial Williamsburg that had been painted in the early 1800s.
Just as Myles was about to sit down, Linda hung up the phone. “The general will see you now.”
Myles stood back up and stepped into General Colquitt’s office.
“Good-afternoon, Dr. Bennett.” The general stood and motioned toward the chair across from his desk.
Myles stepped up to shake his hand, but the general had already taken a seat. Even so, Myles noticed that the general was considerably shorter than he had thought. He had guessed the general to be at least five ten or five eleven like himself, but he couldn’t have been more than five seven.
Myles took a seat, sinking into the low-slung leather chair, and found himself eye-to-eye with the general.
The general cleared his throat. “Dr. Bennett, I am sure by now you are aware of the tragic death of Dr. Jacobson and his family.”
“Yes, sir, I am. It was a shock to us all.”
“Indeed. A terrible accident … that,” the general said, picking a piece of lint from the sleeve of his suit. “I am sure you are also aware that we will have to find a replacement as team leader on the Mandarin Project.”
“Yes, sir, I am,” Myles said. In spite of his best efforts to appear calm, his left leg was twitching up and down uncontrollably. His heart pounded in his chest so forcefully that he was certain the general could see it.
“You don’t have a family, do you, Dr. Bennett?”
Myles was caught off guard by that question. “Uh, no, sir, I don’t, but—”
“I don’t have to tell you how important this project is, do I, Dr. Bennett? You see, we want to be certain the person we select as Dr. Jacobson’s replacement is totally dedicated to the success of this project. Committed to do whatever it takes. Someone who will not be encumbered by—shall we say … family responsibilities?”
“Oh, yes, sir, I understand. And let me just say that I have been involved with this project since the beginning. I was the one who—”
“Yes, yes, but are you committed to seeing it through, no matter what it takes?” The general leaned forward and looked directly into Myles’s eyes.
Tiny circles of fog had formed on the bottom half of each lens of Myles’s glasses. He quickly pulled them off and began wiping them clean with the corner of his lab coat. “Uh, yes, sir, I’m committed. I am.” He squinted to try to see, but all he could make out was a blurry figure rising behind the desk.
“That’s good, my boy. That’s what I wanted to hear.” The general pushed a button on his phone. “Linda, send a memo to all department heads, informing them of Dr. Bennett’s promotion, effective immediately.”
CHAPTER 13
Seattle
Joe’s Barbeque was a small storefront restaurant a couple of blocks down Third Avenue on the ground floor of the Washington Mutual Tower. A cold wind swirled into the place, rifling the stack of yellow to-go menus beside the front register as Kyle walked in. Lewis had already grabbed them a spot at one of the tables, which was a good thing, because it was already getting crowded. It wasn’t one of Kyle’s favorites, but Lewis loved the place. Their claim to fame was coffee-based barbeque sauce with plenty of kick to more than just the taste buds.
It wasn’t much to look at inside, even though they had tried to give the place some atmosphere. The walls were covered with weathered wood and rustic hardware like the inside of an old barn, while wooden picnic benches covered with red-and-white-checkered tablecloths filled the room.
Kyle squeezed between the people and benches and took a seat across from Lewis.
Lewis nodded at Kathy, the only waitress in the place, who in spite of her enormous bulk, slipped effortlessly down the narrow aisle.
As always, Lewis ordered the pulled pork sandwich with the espresso sauce, home-style fries, and a Coke, while Kyle ordered the sliced turkey with decaf sauce, coleslaw, and water.
“You go to Haskin’s funeral?” Lewis asked.
“Yeah,” said Kyle. “It was strange. His parents didn’t want his remains cremated. They just had a closed casket. The whole time, all I could think about was the fact that there was nothing in there but his head.”
“Shit.”
“I know. The forensic report come in?”
“Yeah, I’ve already gone over it, and in a long-winded, scientific manner, it basically says we don’t have shit.”
“What do you mean?” Kyle asked.
“What I mean is that all the blood samples collected were matched to the three dead men, so whoever killed them wasn’t wounded. And all the fingerprints taken belonged to either the dead men or Henderson.”
“That’s it?”
“Basically.”
“So what do we do now?”
“We keep working the leads until something comes up.”
They fell into silence. It was so loud in the place that it was hard to hear anyway. Kyle would have pressed Lewis for more information, but today, his mind was elsewhere. He stared out the window, watching as bits of loose garbage picked up by the growing wind went tumbling and bouncing across the street and into the gutter.
“You doing anything this weekend?” Lewis asked.
“Not really.” Kyle knew Lewis was just trying to jump-start the conversation, but he wasn’t in the mood for small talk. Thankfully, it didn’t take long to get their food. The place was so small that it had to “turn ’em and burn ’em” in order to make any money.
“Ah, here we go,” Lewis said and smiled as Kathy returned. She set the red-and-white paper-lined, plastic baskets down in front of them along with a bottle of the espresso sauce. Lewis smothered his sandwich with the stuff. It was thick and black a
nd looked like used coffee grounds in molasses to Kyle. Lewis then picked up the squeeze bottle of ketchup from the table and covered his fries. Kyle just shook his head.
“Man, what’s wrong with you today?” Lewis asked. “You’re acting like a puppy that got whipped for pissing on the rug.”
“Sorry, I just … never mind.”
“Come on, man. Spill it.”
Kyle sighed. He knew Lewis wouldn’t let it go until he told him. “It’s Angela.”
“Your girlfriend, right?”
“Ex-girlfriend.”
“Oh—” Lewis grimaced.
“Yeah,” Kyle said and nodded. “She finally called me back last night. Told me she had been seeing someone else for about a month now. Some doctor she works with at the hospital.”
“Damn. That sucks.”
“Yeah,” Kyle said. “You know what really pisses me off is I should have seen it coming. I thought everything was fine, but I should’ve known when she stopped calling as often as she used to.” It was something he had been afraid of for weeks, but even suspecting that it was coming had not prepared him for the devastation he had felt when Angela had told him it was over. He hadn’t slept at all last night. He had just laid there, staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out what he had done wrong.
He had felt like a kid again, bounding downstairs with one of his finger paintings to show Janet while she gossiped endlessly over the phone about an affair one of the ladies at the club was having with the tennis pro. A cigarette in one hand and a vodka soda in the other, she had casually dismissed him with a wave and a: “That’s nice, honey. Why don’t you stick it on the fridge?”
“I know it may not seem like it now,” Lewis said. “But things’ll work out for the best in the end. You wait and see.”
At least Lewis seemed to care enough to try to cheer him up. Kyle had never felt close enough to either of his parents to have a real conversation about things that were going on in his life. His father had always been gone somewhere, building his dams and superhighways, while his mother had always been more concerned with the country club’s social scene and what time happy hour started.
“You know,” Lewis said around a mouthful of food. “I got dumped once by this girl I just knew I was going to marry, and I was determined to win her back, so you know what I did?”
“What?”
“I took flowers to her place every day for a week. I didn’t have them delivered by the florist. I took them myself. Every day for a week straight. And every day, she refused to come to the door. She kept sending her roommate to tell me she didn’t want to see me anymore. But I was young and dumb and full of cum, so I just kept on going back for more, and you know what happened?”
Kyle wasn’t really in the mood, but Lewis was just trying to help, so he humored him. “She agreed to go out with you again?”
“Hell no, she still didn’t want to have anything to do with my ass, but her roommate did. On the seventh day, she handed me a note that said, ‘Just because my roommate is too stupid to appreciate a good man doesn’t mean I am.’”
“So did you go out with her?”
“Hell yeah.”
“How’d it go?”
“Why don’t you ask Rochelle the next time you talk to her,” Lewis said, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.
Kyle rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t keep from smiling. “Thanks.”
“No problem. That’s what partners are for.”
Lewis’s cell phone rang. He answered and mouthed to Kyle that it was SAC Geddes. “At Joe’s, just finishing up lunch. Yeah, he’s right here. Why? What’s up?” Lewis’s eyes grew larger as Geddes spoke. “No shit? All right, we’re on our way,” he said and then hung up.
“What is it?” Kyle asked.
“They’ve found Henderson’s body.”
They were both up and moving for the door when a booming thunderclap rattled the windows and cold, silvery rain began to spatter the pavement.
CHAPTER 14
Montana
It was late afternoon by the time they arrived in Kalispell. Agent Marasco picked them up and informed them they were going to the county morgue, where Henderson’s body had been transported for the autopsy. In Kalispell, there were relatively few suspicious deaths that required an autopsy at any given time, so instead of having to wait several days, the autopsy was scheduled to take place that afternoon.
“Where was he found?” Lewis asked as they drove into town.
“He was off the Forest Service road about three miles up one of the trails leading to Margaret Lake. Poor bastard either didn’t know where he was going or got lost, but he sure as hell wasn’t going that way on purpose. The trail’s uphill all the way and dead-ends at the lake.”
“Any idea what killed him?”
“Not yet. There were no visible injuries. The corpse was in good condition, though. It had been buried under the snow, and with the warmer weather this last week, it was just becoming exposed when one of the search-and-rescue patrols found him this morning. They found the missing ax from the cabin too. It was about ten yards from where the body was found. We already packed it up and shipped it off to the lab for analysis.”
“Let’s hope they come up with something more than they did last time,” Lewis said.
“I wouldn’t count on it,” said Marasco. “It looked pretty clean. There wasn’t any blood on it that any of us could see. A lot of the snow around it had melted away, but not enough to wash a bloody ax clean, and there were no traces of blood in the snow around it either. If you ask me, it wasn’t the murder weapon. When whatever went down at the cabin, I think this guy just grabbed it and ran.”
When they arrived at the morgue, Marasco got out and lit up a cigarette before he went inside. Lewis joined him. Marasco offered his pack to Kyle, but Kyle shook his head.
“You sure?”
“I don’t smoke.”
“No shit,” Marasco chuckled. “Stick around. That’ll change.”
Kyle waited outside with Lewis and Marasco. As they stood in the small entryway, Kyle noticed Marasco seemed taller than he had thought when they had first met. As inconspicuously as possible, Kyle looked down at Marasco’s feet. Along with the black jeans he always seemed to wear, Marasco wore a pair of black, square-toed harness boots, with circular metal rings on each side and thick leather bands running under, behind, and across the top of the foot. The boots didn’t look to be particularly old, but they appeared to have been resoled or perhaps custom-ordered. Instead of the typical flat soles, these had thick, rubberized ones like the soles of hiking boots. The heels seemed especially tall for a man’s boot. Then Kyle began to understand.
“Who’s the coroner,” Lewis asked.
“Technically, the sheriff is,” Marasco said as he exhaled. “But since he ain’t a licensed physician, the autopsies are all handled by the assistant coroner, Al Crowe.”
“He any good?”
“Good enough, I suppose.”
They finished their smokes quickly and stubbed them out in the sand-filled ash can in the corner beside the door. Apparently, it was a common ritual. The dirty sand was littered with at least a dozen butts.
The sheriff was waiting for them inside. When he stood up from the chair he had been sitting in, Kyle was again surprised by the size of the man. Without further discussion, he led them past the receptionist and down the stark, industrial tiled hallway toward the autopsy room. Kyle noticed that Marasco walked on the far side of the hall from the sheriff.
As they walked down the corridor, the reason for the smoking ritual became clear to Kyle. The air was thick with the nasal-burning tang of chemicals and more noxious scents that grew stronger as they approached the autopsy room. Anything that would have dulled or numbed his sense of smell would have been preferable.
Larry Henderson’s naked body lay on a cold steel table. Kyle wasn’t sure if it was the body itself or the harsh glare of the fluorescent lights, but the man’s skin seemed to gl
ow with a ghostly, bluish-white tint. His mouth was agape, as if frozen in the rictus of a scream.
Standing next to the body with a clipboard in his hand was Alvin Crowe. Crowe was a lean, stoop-shouldered old man with thinning gray hair atop his head, round, gold-framed glasses, and a neatly waxed, handlebar moustache. He was already wearing latex surgical gloves, and even though he had yet to start the autopsy, Kyle was glad when he didn’t offer to shake their hands.
“You’ve done a preliminary review of the body?” Lewis asked.
“Sure have. I’m about to start cutting if you’d care to watch. There’s gloves and masks over there.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Lewis said.
“Suit yourself,” the old man said with a mischievous grin. “But you’re missing all the fun.”
“That’s all right,” Lewis said. “What’s your initial impression?”
“Well, considering the amount of time he’s been missing, the body’s in excellent condition because of the snow, but that will also make it difficult to pin down the exact time of death. The report said the body was found lying face down, which is in agreement with the fixed lividity, so it doesn’t look like it had been moved. There’s very little decomposition and no signs of it being mauled or damaged by any animals.”
“Any signs of injury at all?” Lewis asked.
“Not externally. I’ll know more after the cut.”
“So what? Did he just freeze to death?” Marasco asked.
“Well, this isn’t official or anything, but he was found lying face down with his right arm across his chest as if he might have been clutching or grabbing it when he fell, and I noticed a small amount of frothy blood around the lips, which leads me to think he might have died from sudden myocardial infarction. It could have been caused by several contributing factors, including alcohol and sudden exertion in the cold. We see it all the time. A big snow hits, and you can expect a least one or two to kick it just from shoveling their drive. But you mix that with intense fear or panic, and you’ve got a heart attack just waiting to happen. Of course, we won’t know anything for certain until after the cut and the tox screen.”
Shadow Dragon Page 6