Fair Chance

by Josh Lanyon

  Something had happened, some of the fight had gone out of him, from the moment Honoria Sallis had offered her condolences in that cool voice with her cool smile.

  Not that she had said anything he didn’t already know. The clock had started ticking from the moment Tucker had been taken. In fact, the very idea of a clock was a self-protective fantasy. It was far more likely the clock had stopped when Tucker had disappeared.

  What would be the point of keeping him alive?

  Not only would it be dangerous and difficult, what would it achieve?

  There had been no ransom demand. No demand of any kind.

  Maybe one reason Elliot needed to believe that Tucker’s disappearance was somehow connected to the Sculptor was because it gave him the illusion of control. If he could just figure out what Corian’s game was...

  Elliot had been over that final note from Corian so many times he had it memorized right down to the punctuation.

  It was possible that whatever the original plan had been, it was in disarray now, and that might work to Tucker’s advantage.

  But wasn’t it more likely that Corian’s letter had referred to handing over this unknown and maybe imaginary accomplice? The unsub in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table?

  In all probability, Tucker’s fate had nothing to do with the Sculptor and was the result of another investigation that had hit too close to home for someone. In all probability, MacAuley had been taken out by someone offended by his politics—or maybe his heavy-handed seduction routine.

  Elliot could come up with at least two alternate scenarios for every single thing that had happened over the past week.

  Except maybe his shootout with Torin Barro.

  That was still troubling. If Barro hadn’t been following Elliot, how had he shown up at MacAuley’s just as MacAuley was about to make his grand reveal? Elven telepathy?

  Sheba came and rested her head in his lap, gazing up at him. He stroked her head, fingers carding silky soft fur, smoothing back her pointed ears.

  “I don’t think it’s good news,” he said.

  He wasn’t sure if he meant Tucker or Todd. In either case, he didn’t think it was good news.

  * * *

  It was late for phone calls, but maybe that worked to his advantage.

  Only family called that time of night. Family or the bearer of bad tidings, and that last probably described Elliot in Ellen Haysbert’s opinion.

  The phone rang twice and then picked up. Elliot started speaking into the wary silence.

  “Mrs. Haysbert, please don’t hang up. I’m not a reporter. I just need to ask you a couple of questions. Two questions.”

  He could hear her breathing on the other end of the line, but she hadn’t slammed down the phone yet and that was something. This was the closest Elliot had come to having an actual conversation with Andrew Corian’s foster mother in the seventeen calls he’d placed to her.

  “Two questions,” Elliot repeated quickly into that tense and breathy silence. “That’s it. I know what you’ve been through. What this has cost you. I don’t want to cause you any further pain. Please believe me.”

  That was the truth. Elliot had spent the remainder of Friday reading everything he could find on the Haysberts and he now knew that the press had hounded them relentlessly when their relationship to the Sculptor had been made public.

  He’d had some experience with that himself, only the media treated a “hero” a lot differently than they did the parents of a serial killer. Plus, he’d had both the Bureau and Roland to run interference for him. The Haysberts had only had each other—and then Mr. Haysbert had suffered a heart attack and died.

  Mrs. Haysbert blamed the media, and Elliot—having watched some of the news footage—wasn’t sure she was wrong. Something about the Haysberts, with their ugly clothes and thick glasses and funny, awkward behaviors, had brought out the worst in, well, pretty much everyone. They seemed weird and strange and vulnerable...and it had sparked the killer instinct even in people who had lived beside them peaceably for twenty years.

  “Why are you harassing me?” Her voice shook. She sounded old and frail. She was old and frail. “Why won’t you leave me alone? I don’t have anything to say. I don’t know anything. I haven’t seen Andrew in thirty years. Why do you keep calling and calling and calling?”

  “I’m sorry,” Elliot said. “I really am—”

  “You just want your story. You don’t care about people. You don’t care about the truth.”

  “I’m not a reporter. I give you my word. I do want the truth. I need your help. Please help me.”

  There was another of those long, shaky silences. He clutched the handset and prayed.

  Give me this much. Just this. Give me a starting point. Something.

  Maybe she heard the underlying desperation in his voice because she quavered, “Do you promise?”

  It caught him off guard. That high, rather childish voice. Because even now, as frightened and hurt as she was, she wanted to trust. He was telling the truth, but he could so easily not be.

  “I promise.”

  She said plaintively, “Everybody blames us, but it wasn’t our fault. We didn’t do anything different. He was different. From the beginning he was different.”

  No question of who “he” was.

  “How was he different?” Elliot questioned automatically. He had to let her take the lead, no matter which direction she went.

  “He thought he was different. He was like a prince.”

  That was the kind of comment that had got the Haysberts into trouble. People had taken it to mean that the Haysberts regarded Andrew Corian as a prince, but Elliot had known Corian and he understood what she meant. Larger than life. To the manner born. Arrogant ass.

  However you wanted to describe it, Corian had always had a sense of his own importance, his own destiny.

  Elliot said cautiously, “When you say you didn’t do anything different, do you mean you were fostering other children?” This was the million-dollar question, the information he had been hounding every child welfare agency he could think of for the past week: How many children did Ellen and Odell Haysbert foster?

  He held his breath waiting for her answer.

  There was a fraction of a hesitation before she said, “We had our own boy, Krayle. He died. We treated them both the same.”

  The letdown was rough. He had been so sure this was the trail. But it wasn’t. It was another dead end.

  Then Elliot considered that pause before she answered. He considered the new note in her voice.

  Protective.

  Not protective of this Krayle kid because he was dead and past hurting.

  He said, “But you fostered other children.”

  She hung up.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  It was very late when he went upstairs to bed.

  He flicked on the lights and studied the room for a moment. The Franz Schensky carbon seascape, the ginger jar lamps with their cheerful yellow-and-gold leaf patterns, the brand-new bed with the brown-and-cream-striped duvet. How could everything look so...normal?

  Tucker’s slippers were half-tucked beneath the bed. His bathrobe hung on the back of the door. His extra pair of Oakley sunglasses lay on the dresser. A half-read copy of Kill or CURE, The Destroyer #11 sat on Tucker’s bedside table. Elliot opened the closet and stood motionless, staring at the neat row of Tucker’s immaculate suits, paralyzed by the ghostly scent of Tucker’s aftershave.

  He rested a hand on the shoulder of Tucker’s favorite navy-blue blazer, and for a funny moment the hard wood curve of the hanger beneath the soft wool created the illusion that he was touching flesh and bone.

  “Don’t do this to me,” he said.

  When he finally cl
imbed into bed and switched out the light, it was to stare through the parted curtains, watching numbly until the last sharp sliver of moon faded out of the sky.

  * * *

  The dog was barking downstairs.

  Elliot’s eyes jerked open. He rolled over, reaching for his backup Glock, which sat on the bedside table, and scrambled out of bed.

  Sheba was still barking, a deep, full-throated sound that was half snarl. It raised the hair on the back of Elliot’s neck as he padded barefoot downstairs.

  He left the lights off, but he could see the pale shadow of Sheba positioned before the front door, hackles raised. He could hear her fury and her fear.

  What the hell?

  That was not triggered by a foolhardy raccoon or a suicidal cat. That indicated a real and present danger.

  Elliot went to the side of the window, keeping out of sight as he tried to view the porch.

  He couldn’t see immediately in front of the door, but he could see most of the porch and it appeared to be empty. Unless someone was standing deep in the shadows off to the side.

  Sheba’s bark cut off and she came to him, wagging her tail frantically and whining, almost moaning her distress, and he patted her, still listening.

  “Good girl,” he whispered.

  He left the window, taking care not to step directly in front of the door—he did not want a telltale creak of floorboard to end with him being shot through the door—and headed for the kitchen, unlocking and soundlessly opening the back door, going through the mudroom, unlocking that door and stepping into the damp autumn night. He closed the door on Sheba.

  That was a mistake because she began to scratch at the door and howl.

  Elliot started around the side of the house, gun held low, wincing as he stepped on rocks and sticks. It had been a dumb-ass thing to run outside barefoot, but he was committed now.

  He picked his way down the length of the house, reached the side of the porch and risked a quick look around the corner.

  The porch was empty. Completely empty. No one lurked in the shadows.

  Sheba, still howling, was now scraping at the front door.

  Elliot stayed out of sight, studying the empty drive and the woods beyond.

  Nothing moved.

  He closed his eyes, concentrating, but he couldn’t hear anything over the racket the dog was making.

  It was sprinkling. Not much harder than a mist, but the ground was wet and the air nippy. Goose bumps stood up on his bare shoulders and back. His sleep pants felt thin and uncomfortably drafty.

  Sheba, shut up.

  She continued to claw and cry, drowning out whatever there might be to hear. He turned and went the other way around the house, stepping gingerly, wincing at the occasional sharp object underfoot.

  At least Sheba’s racket also camouflaged any noises he might make.

  There was no sign of anyone.

  No indication anyone had tried to pry open a window or force a door.

  After a couple of minutes, he began to feel silly. And very cold.

  If there had been someone, they were long gone, and the sole reason for even suspecting there had been an attempt at a break-in was Sheba’s reaction. The truth was, he didn’t know how nervous and jumpy Sheba might be. Up until now she had seemed amazingly calm, given all that had happened to her, but the house and surrounding woods were still strange to her.

  He picked his way to the back step and let himself inside the mudroom. Sheba greeted him on her hind legs, pawing at him.

  “Okay, okay. There’s nothing out there. It’s okay.”

  She went past him and went to the door, listening, then came back, circling around him and nearly tripping him as he went into the kitchen.

  “Sheba, for Christ’s sake.” He set his pistol on the counter and poured a glass of water from the tap, considering the dog.

  She was still uneasy, no question.

  He didn’t think either of them were going to get much more sleep that night. On Saturday the earliest ferry was at 6:15 a.m. According to the clock on the microwave it was nearly five o’clock.

  He remembered the last time he’d woken at this time of the morning. Remembered the strength of Tucker’s arms, the always surprising softness of his lips. He thought of that morning coffee on the deck with Tucker—and Tucker dropping the bombshell that Elliot might be invited to apply for a nonagent job at the Bureau.

  All of it moot now. He had to take a couple of deep breaths against the pain. Would there ever come a time when the memory of Tucker wouldn’t feel like a body blow?

  He’s not dead. I would feel it if he was dead.

  This week had been the longest and most difficult of Elliot’s life—up to and including the period after he’d been shot and learned he would not be returning to active duty. He’d prefer to be kneecapped every day for the rest of his life to losing Tucker.

  If he could not save Tucker, he would make it his life’s mission to catch and punish whoever had taken him.

  But even that... It was the kind of promise you made—the lie you told yourself—when you didn’t have the guts to face the truth. Who knew better than Elliot that not every murderer was caught and punished? His mother’s hit-and-run death was still unsolved. And he was the guy who had been working the Thompson cold case without success and eventually had to see it handed over to Tucker.

  Now Thompson’s case would be handed on to another investigator.

  The brutal fact was sometimes people did get away with murder.

  He listened to the slow, steady tick of the clock over the sink.

  They sure as hell got away with it if you didn’t even try to stop them.

  He picked up his pistol. “Come on,” he said to the dog. “We can’t sit around here looking at each other.”

  * * *

  Gravel crunched beneath the tires as the Nissan pulled up in the drive in front of Corian’s. A raven perched on the for-sale sign in the front yard looked like an early Halloween decoration.

  The bird spread its glossy wings and flew away as Elliot got out and opened the passenger door.

  “Come on,” he said, and Sheba jumped down and began sniffing the gravel, plumy tail wagging.

  “Where’s Todd? Go find Todd.”

  She cocked her head, as though trying to understand, and then took off like a shot for the woods.

  Elliot followed swiftly, keeping an eye out for nosy neighbors and an ear peeled for gunshots. This was deer hunting season.

  Yellow leaves drifted lazily down. He crossed Corian’s yard and started into the woods.

  He could hear the dog crashing ahead of him through the undergrowth, though she was now out of sight. He had her leash, but he didn’t want to guide or distract her. Border collies were supposed to be the smartest dogs, so maybe she would have success where the HRD canines had failed. Either way, Sheba was the closest thing he had to a material witness.

  Every now and then she raced back as though to be sure Elliot was still following, and then raced on ahead again.

  They reached the old access gate. Sheba wriggled under on her side. Elliot climbed over and dropped down. They continued along the road overgrown with lush ferns.

  Lush but not tall.

  The road had not been traveled for a year or so, but it was possible it had been in use before that. So far Elliot had seen nothing to discourage the very tentative theory that had formed in the back of his mind.

  This was a hiker’s paradise. Despite the old road, the world seemed brand-new and completely unspoiled. Shafts of sunlight penetrated the canopy of old-growth trees, gilding foliage so that the leaf tips seemed to glow. Through the green-gold shade he could hear running water, a stream chattering over rocks.

  It was very quiet. Other than himself and
the dog, the only sounds were birdsong and the stream.

  Sheba doubled back once more, plunging around him, as though she wasn’t sure if they were playing or working.

  “Where’s Todd? Go find him, Sheba,” Elliot urged, and she obediently sprang away again.

  Were they still on Corian’s property? Elliot wasn’t sure. They were probably about three miles from the house, deep into the woods. He surmised this was approximately where the canine teams had given up.

  And he had seen nothing to suggest that was the wrong decision. It was not impossible that Corian could have transported bodies out this way using the access road and then hiking farther in. But farther in to what? Why bother? There were better—certainly easier—places to dispose of bodies and body parts.

  Up ahead he could hear Sheba whining.

  His hopes rose.

  Perhaps hopes wasn’t the right word.

  He followed the sound, pushing through the bushes, and found Sheba in a small clearing, digging at whatever lay beneath a pile of dead pine branches.

  She was scratching something hard and solid. That thin, scraping sound of her nails on metal sent a shudder down his spine.

  He went to the dog, dragging away the dead branches and staring down at an old sign.

  DANGER. KEEP OUT. Authorized Personnel Only.

  Elliot’s unease grew as he realized the faded red-and-white sign was fastened to a hunk of metal. A heavy, round...something.

  What the hell was that? Because it looked like a manhole cover in the ground.

  He knelt down to get a better look. Yes. In the ground. Not merely lying there, not randomly dropped—from where?—in the middle of the woods. It appeared to be resting on a kind of framework built into the soft soil.

  “Wait, Sheba. No.” He pushed the dog back as she pawed at the ground around the weighty iron cover. “Let me see.”

  She whined and came back to him, trying to nuzzle his face.