Pattern of Wounds

by J. Bertrand

  I give him a blank stare. “Back up a little bit and explain it to me from the beginning.”

  “It’s really simple. He sent the message from her MacBook, so maybe he’s expecting some kind of reply. If we send one with some embedded HTML code that exploits a loophole in WebKit—that’s the rendering engine in the Macintosh’s Mail software—we can grab his current wireless network name and possibly zero in on his location. We could even activate the laptop’s built-in camera and snap a picture of the guy that the software will mail back to us.”

  “You’re serious? Is it really that easy?”

  He smirks. “It’s not easy, but based on what I’ve done so far, I think it might be possible.”

  “Might?”

  “I’ve never tried it,” he says. “And nobody I’ve talked to has, either. In theory it should be doable, assuming I can figure out the rendering engine issue. The point is, it’s worth a try.”

  When it comes to information technology, I’m out of my depth. Having the killer open an email and send us a photo of himself seems like television, not reality. But in the brave new world of bits and bytes anything is possible. At least Hanford seems to think so.

  “It’s ironic,” I say.

  “What is?”

  “I doubt he took her laptop just so he could send taunting emails. He must have had some contact with her, and he was afraid emails, pictures, something would lead us to him. He’s been smart enough not to use the phone, knowing we can trace him when it pings the nearest tower, but he couldn’t resist sending the email. It must give him a thrill, a sense of power. Without realizing it, he’s left a trail of bread crumbs that lead right back to him.”

  “Assuming my plan actually works.”

  “How soon can we try it?”

  Hanford cocks his head. “If I can get the help I need, there might be something to test by this time tomorrow. At the latest, we’ll have something Monday. Obviously, we’ll have to send the reply through your computer. Then it’s a waiting game until he checks for mail. I can’t guarantee we’ll have a lot of information to work with, but I’ll get as much as I can.”

  “Get me a picture, Quincy, and you’ll become a crime-fighting legend. Then you can buy yourself a couch.”

  I delete Tammy’s message within a second or two of hearing her voice. Force of habit. The one from Curtis Blunt leads me to the emergency room at Ben Taub, where I find the reverend in another all-black ensemble wedged into a row of molded plastic seats with his face resting in his hands. I pause over him, not wanting to interrupt any in-progress prayers. Sensing me, he gives a startled jump.

  “Where is he?” I ask.

  “Surgery. They beat him up pretty good. You know what an open skull fracture is? The doctor says they’ve gotta pick all the bones out of the brain before they can suture it up.”

  “Was he conscious when they brought him in?”

  He shrugs.

  I sit next to him, exhaling. “What happened?”

  “All I know is somebody cracked his head open. I thought you’d want to be informed on account of that message you left yesterday. I take it you expected something like this might happen to him? You don’t seem surprised.”

  “Jason seems to have a self-destructive streak. He goes out looking for a fight, and if he can’t find one, he starts it. So yeah, I’m not surprised. It was a week ago today Simone was killed. He’s just marking the anniversary.”

  “The way they made it sound, he’ll be lucky to survive. And if there’s no permanent brain damage, it will be a miracle.”

  “You believe in miracles.”

  “Yeah,” he says, “but I’m not so sure the Lord will bless a thing like this with healing.”

  “Jason’s not a bad kid.”

  He turns in his chair. “Last time the two of us spoke, you were telling me Jason filleted his wife, and now you think he’s not a bad kid?”

  “It’s my job to think people are guilty,” I say, “until I know otherwise. The presumption of innocence is for the jury.”

  Blunt gives my words more weight than I intend, chewing them over as he rubs his tired eyes. The fact that he’s here at all surprises me. His concern for Jason Young must be genuine.

  “You know something, Detective,” he says. “The devil’s name—Satan—it comes from an old Hebrew word that means ‘the accuser.’ Ha-Satan. The way you talk about your job has me wondering if there’s a whole lot of difference between you and him. On the one hand, you act like you care about what happens to this boy, and on the other you drive him to it.”

  “Jason was on this path long before I showed up,” I say, shaking my head. “Last weekend, while I was with his dead wife, he picked a fight in a strip club.”

  He winces. “At a what?”

  “Never mind,” I say. “Forget I said that.”

  “You just don’t stop, do you? Jason’s laying in there on the stretcher with his head in pieces, and here you are, kicking him when he’s down.”

  “I wasn’t going to say anything, but you—”

  “So it’s my fault now? Listen, Detective, I made a mistake calling you. I can see that now. You’ve done your duty, so why don’t you get on out of here? Whether that boy lives or dies, it’s got nothing to do with you.”

  “I’d like to see it through—”

  “I absolve you of guilt,” he says. “I’ll handle this from here on out.”

  Since my daughter died, I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol, but at times like this, standing outside the automatic doors as a fresh ambulance pulls up, feeling the glare of the jumped-up preacher right between my shoulder blades, I could drink myself into oblivion without regret.

  But he’s right, I tell myself. It’s got nothing to do with me. I didn’t push Jason Young into anything. He made those choices all on his own.

  All I did was stand by and let him.

  The lights are on in my kitchen, and when I push through the back door, a solemn conversation is in progress between Charlotte and Carter Robb. She leans in a crook in the counter, the right angle connecting the sink and the stove, with an oversized coffee mug in both hands. Carter perches on a stool by the island. Both of them stare, surprised by my sudden appearance.

  I’ve had enough people staring at me for one day.

  “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming back,” Charlotte says. “You left so early this morning, I didn’t hear you go.”

  “I left last night about one. Something came up with the case.”

  “Have you made a breakthrough?” Carter asks.

  I ignore this. “Tomorrow morning I’m driving up to Huntsville. I’d better get my head down for a few hours.”

  “We were just talking about Carter’s job,” she says. “If you have a few minutes to spare, maybe you could give us your opinion.”

  “My opinion on what?” I lay my damp jacket over the back of a breakfast table chair, then help myself to some of the newly brewed decaf. “If it’s a life coach you’re after, I’m not exactly your best option. Not tonight.”

  “Things with Murray are getting a little awkward,” Carter says.

  His boss, Murray Abernathy, is a wealthy benefactor in the mold of Curtis Blunt, only instead of minting DVDs of himself preaching to a studio audience, Murray bought an old brick building off of Westheimer and opened an outreach center for the community, a place where people can walk in off the street for a little social interaction, shoot the breeze about the great philosophical conundrums, and leave feeling better about themselves. When Carter was a suburban youth pastor, he’d taken a group of his teenage charges to the center to do volunteer work, and a couple of them met their future murderer, a man named Frank Rios. Personally, I would have razed the place to the ground before taking a job there, but I’m not Carter.

  “Awkward in what way?” I ask. “Murray seems all right.”

  “It’s not him exactly. It’s just . . .” He glances toward Charlotte. “I assumed Murray was dipping into his o
wn pocket to support the center, that it was a labor of love. And I found out today it’s not exactly like that.”

  “What did you discover?”

  “Usually Murray keeps me out of the support side of things, but I saw some paperwork I wasn’t supposed to. Turns out the center wasn’t Murray’s idea. Some of the larger churches around here got together and they came up with this as a kind of experiment. They brought him in to run the center. I asked him point-blank and he admitted it. The center’s a laboratory for new ideas. What we’re doing today, he says, will be best practices for the church of tomorrow.”

  I smile at this. “In that case you should ask for a raise.”

  “It’s not funny.”

  “I realize that, but what exactly is the problem?”

  “When I made the move, I was looking for a more authentic ministry. I wanted to get clear of the corporate church and all the ordained CEOs. I wanted to do something real.”

  “And now you’re out of the frying pan and into the fire.”

  “Pretty much. With a baby on the way, I feel like there’s a decision I need to make. Do I keep up this charade, or do I move on?”

  “What does Gina have to say?”

  He gives me a pained look. “She’ll support my decision either way, but she says it’s up to me to decide.”

  “Oh.”

  “Exactly. As it is, she’s already making more from her teaching job than I bring in, so what am I supposed to tell her? I want to quit again and look for something else?”

  “Carter,” Charlotte says, and by the tone of her voice I know what’s coming.

  She’s going to swoop in and solve his financial anxiety: If you need money, you just have to ask. I stop her with a look. I’m not against helping the couple, but there are some problems the magic money wand can’t wipe away.

  “Gina is right,” I tell him. “You do have to make this call on your own. If Murray’s deal somehow violates your principles, then suck it up and walk out. If you can live with it, then stay there.” Charlotte starts to interrupt, but I shake my head. “But if you’re hoping to find the perfect scenario, you should give up now. You already know what I think. Everything’s tainted, and this is no different. If you believe in the work, what does it matter who pays the bill?”

  “It does matter on some level.”

  “If you say so. It’s your choice to make. I’ve already been accused once tonight of being the devil, so maybe you shouldn’t listen to what I have to say.”

  “The thing is, if I could just get clarity. On just one thing.”

  “Give it up,” I say, patting him on the shoulder. “We always operate in a muddle. That’s the human condition.”

  Charlotte comes over to me, loops an arm under mine, and leads me toward the stairs.

  “Now you do sound like the devil,” she says.

  “It’s the company I keep.”

  SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13 — 10:13 A.M.

  Against a backdrop of tall pines, a statue of Sam Houston looms over I-45, marking my arrival in the prison town of Huntsville. He’s made of concrete atop a granite base, but to me the lack of detail from the neck down makes him look like an oversized soap carving. This morning the great man is wreathed in fog, glowering down on the half-empty highway, bone white against the gray sky.

  Across the highway from the penitentiary, there’s a museum in the form of a miniature block house, complete with a half-sized guard tower. Inside, you can put your head and hands through the holes in a painted display and have your picture taken as a prisoner in old-fashioned black-and-white stripes. I’ve always wondered how many wives and kids visiting Daddy in jail actually stop by and take some souvenir snaps.

  One day I’ll grow up to be just like him.

  The seventy-mile drive gave me plenty of time to think, and I get plenty more at an empty visitors’ table, waiting for the correctional apparatus to deliver the requested prisoner, a repeat offender named Coleman who once helped put some of his colleagues behind bars. Thanks to that cooperation, he spent his first few months back in prison waking up each day expecting a shank in the ribs. But I talked to some connected people inside, doing what I could for him. I even visited his grandmother a few times, a courtly old lady who walks every morning to Emancipation Park, finds herself a shady spot, and reads her daily psalm. Today I’ll discover whether Coleman appreciates my effort.

  The visitors’ area is silent. On the other side of the door I hear the muffled hum of voices, the clang of metal, the squeal of rubber soles on linoleum floors.

  It’s always possible that Jason Young did murder his estranged wife, that afterward, consumed with guilt, he sought to punish himself in a series of provoked fights, until he finally found the darkness. If I could ignore the Fauk connection, ignore the oddly detached frenzy of the wounds to Simone Walker’s body, then the textbook answer could be made to fit.

  The only problem is that I don’t believe it.

  Whatever inner demons haunt that man, they aren’t ones that would drive him to such a controlled and depraved execution.

  Which leaves Joy Hill, an unlikely perpetrator to say the least. Middle-aged academics might be likely murderesses in an Agatha Christie yarn, but in real life not so much. The only scenario in which I can imagine Dr. Hill wielding the knife is a crime of passion, if she found herself overwhelmed by thwarted desire. But in that case, the scene would have looked very different, the deed stamped indelibly by the motive that drove it.

  It sure looks like a serial killing.

  Cavallo’s words, and they happen to be right. Which means she is probably right about the rest, too. The blind man in this situation isn’t Lauterbach. It’s me. I need to turn the table on this thing, to look at it with fresh eyes.

  The door at the far side of the room opens. Coleman is escorted in. When he sees me, he stops in his tracks. He’s put on a few pounds since last time, lost some of his muscled definition. Maybe he hasn’t been putting in as many hours on the prison yard weights. Maybe he’s afraid to. A couple of corrections officers hang by the door, giving us plenty of space.

  “Aw, come on, now.” He makes a show of turning, but when the guards look ready to let him retreat, he pauses. “All right, all right. I’ll talk to the man. I’ll let him talk, anyway, just don’t be expecting no replies.”

  “Lower your voice,” I say. “Nobody can hear you. How you doing, anyway?”

  He cracks a smile. “Just grinding time up here until I get out. You know, you can’t just drag a man out of church. I got a right to worship, just like everybody.”

  “Did I interrupt? Accept my apologies. As much sin as you have to confess, I know the time must be precious. I’ll make this as short as I can.”

  “All right, all right,” he says. “You drove yourself all the way up here; least I can do is hear you out.”

  Coleman props his elbows on the table, clearly curious about my unexpected arrival, calculating how he might work whatever I want from him to his advantage. When I don’t say anything, his smile fades.

  “It ain’t my grandmama, is it?”

  I shake my head. “Far as I know she’s fine. This is about something else. I need a set of eyes and ears back in the cages, all right? There’s a fellow inmate of yours I’m interested in.”

  “Man,” he says, “I ain’t no snitch. I start acting like one now and somebody in here’s gonna cut me a new orifice, feel me? Now, I’ll be happy to barter back and forth on something out there.” He waves a hand to indicate the outside world. “Up in here, though, you can’t even be asking.”

  “Maybe you already have the information I want.”

  A pause. “All right, then. Shoot.”

  “Donald Fauk.”

  “Fauk?” He smiles. “What kind of name is that?”

  “Do you know him?”

  He sits back, arms crossed, casting a glance up at the ceiling. “Maybe I know of the man.”

  “What do you know of him?”

  “D
oing life, ain’t he? Got him some juice inside, for an old white boy, on account of he’s rich. Hear tell he’s fixed some people up on the outside.”

  “Fixed them up?”

  “In a financial way.” He pauses again. “Speaking of fixing, how you gonna fix me? Ain’t no milk until you buy yourself the cow.”

  “That’s charming,” I say. “Nicely put. How about I have a word with the warden and take you home with me today? You like the sound of that?”

  He shakes his head. “You offering me nothing, is that it?”

  “Coleman, you have to think of this relationship like an investment. You want a big return over time, and that means putting in something up front, and putting in a little bit more every so often. Now, can I offer you anything right this minute? Probably not. I can’t move your next parole hearing forward. I can’t even switch you to a nicer cell. Think about it: if I did, would you really want to go back into general circulation and try to explain?”

  “So you want something for nothing.”

  “I want something today for nothing today. But a time’s gonna come when I can help you in a big way.”

  “Man,” he says, “you the one put me back in here.”

  I show him open palms. “My bad.”

  He laughs a little, waits, then laughs a little more. Getting used to the idea. “There is something I can give you, and I got half a mind to do it. Only you gotta give some assurances that when that day comes when you got the power to do me a good turn, I can count on you to pay up.”

  “Scout’s honor.”

  “All right.” He leans forward. “There’s a story about this dude. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I hear people talking—you know how they do. Anyways, this boy who was getting out, Mr. Donald Fauk, he gives him a job to do. And in return there’s something waiting for him.”

  “What kind of job?”