Skin Deep

by Jerome Preisler

  Catherine was staring at him. “How’d you get a line on her?”

  “I didn’t. She contacted us,” Nick said. “Miss A’s my reason for missing the press conference. I needed to head over to her place, hear her part of story. And she had plenty to add that I didn’t know.” He paused. “She’s also got a whole album full of newspaper articles on the Dumas case. I found a piece written maybe a month after the abduction about the lack of police witnesses. A columnist for the paper interviewed everybody around, spoke with someone identified as an event planner at the Starglow.”

  “No name?”

  “The columnist said she asked to stay anonymous. Not that it would’ve been hard for anybody to figure out who she was. Stacy Ebstein was the only one there with that job title.”

  “What’d she have to say?”

  “Not much. She remembered a white van almost running her over. After hearing about Kyle Dumas on the news, she guessed it must’ve been the getaway vehicle. But she was in too much of a hurry to notice anything else about it.”

  “Then why’d this writer bother quoting her?”

  “In a way, I think it made his whole point in a nutshell,” Nick said. “A child’s grabbed in plain sight. Middle of the afternoon, one of the busiest sections of town. He’s asking how nobody sees it happen. And Stacy kind of represents your average person. Blinders on, rushing around—”

  “Caught up in trying to beat the clock,” Catherine said. “Like the clock on Stacy Ebstein’s face. Our writer wasn’t alone using her to illustrate a point, Nick.”

  They looked at each other for a long moment.

  “Your mind reader—” she began.

  “Psychic,” Nick said.

  “Whatever.” Catherine frowned. “You told me she had new information.”

  He nodded. “Archie, take us to three twenty-six. Main and Carson. Wait to go in tight.”

  On his screen, the traffic along Main was now spaced apart in normal patterns, the road seemingly open and clear. Although a police car was still parked between the Starglow and the indoor garage, the two cars involved in the accident had been removed, leaving shards of broken glass as the only evidence of their impact.

  “Didn’t take long to get the mess cleaned up,” Catherine said. “A half hour or so, huh?”

  “And keep in mind this is eleven minutes after we saw the Lester van take off,” Nick said. “Arch, drag and zoom to the outdoor parking-lot exit.”

  Again the lot itself was a mass of black pixels. But Catherine could see the lowered curb where vehicles would exit onto Main Street, and leaving it in the frame, angling south—

  Her upper and lower molars met. “Another white van.”

  “No writing, no markings. Just moseys out of there when everything’s quieted down,” Nick said. “Okay, Arch. Now, show us the front tag.”

  He went in on it. It was a California license plate, plain white like the van, the state’s name written in red script above the blue tag numbers.

  “That’s either stolen or a fake. I ran a check with the California DMV, and no van was ever registered with it, white or otherwise,” Nick said. “If we follow this one south on Main and match the time stamps to the traffic-cam images, we’ll see that it travels along nice ’n’ easy till it’s left the police car and the mall way behind. But when the driver reaches Stewart Avenue a few minutes later…”

  Archie had already jumped ahead, the stamp on his frozen screen image reading, “Stewart/N. 1st Street. 3:31 P.M.”

  Turned off Main now, the white van was heading southeast on the corner of Stewart, a woman in a peasant dress also visible in the frame.

  “That’s Miss Annabelle pushing her shopping cart,” Nick said. “You can’t tell from the still shot, but the driver’s burning rubber around that corner. We can play you the full video footage, and you’d see.”

  “Where’s he headed?”

  “The video tracks the van almost to Eastern Avenue before we finally lose it.”

  “Lousy neighborhood, no traffic cams.”

  “That’s how it goes,” Nick said. “The time stamps on the video we’ve got tell us he was doing almost seventy miles an hour on city streets. I’d bet he turned onto Eastern, took it to the highway. From there, it’s anybody’s guess whether he went straight to Red Rock Canyon or detoured somewhere.”

  “And Miss Annabelle… what did she see that tells us the driver’s anything but a speed demon?”

  Nick looked at her. “She saw the boy,” he said. “Through a rear window. He was hysterical, banging his hands against it. But when she told detectives about it, nobody paid attention.”

  She stared at him. “Nick… why?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. But we’re talking a long time ago… things were different. This was before Grissom headed the CSI unit. Even before Brass had the job. He was just working his way up as a detective after transferring from Jersey…”

  “And there’s the white Lester van outside the arcade.”

  “And its driver, Ronald Clarkson, who had the opportunity to hunt out Kyle in the arcade. Clarkson had a prior claim of sexual harassment against him. It was deemed totally wrongful—the woman even apologized. But you know how it goes.”

  Catherine nodded. “Hard to live down that sort of accusation.”

  “Like it’s hard for people to believe a Gypsy, especially when they’ve locked in on a suspect,” Nick said. “The detectives who spoke to her never even filed her statement, but she eventually got in touch with the Vegas Metro reporter doing his series. The judge alludes to her statement in his ruling summary, but he’s indirect… I’m guessing because Clarkson’s lawyers didn’t hear about it in time to include it in their motions.”

  “Were there reprimands?”

  Nick shrugged. “If not, it’s never too late,” he said. “Luckily for Clarkson, Judge Dorset never saw enough evidence against him to have the case go to trial.”

  “And Clarkson… why was he speeding from the scene?”

  “Easy,” Nick said. “He had another appointment.”

  “That was confirmed by… ?”

  “His boss and the client. When he saw a chance to shoot through the jam-up on Main, he took it, figuring he’d be stuck there otherwise,” Nick said. “The driver of the plain white van had everybody deked. Maybe he saw the Lester van and figured it might help confuse things. Or maybe he didn’t and just sat there in the parking lot waiting for things to quiet down before he gunned out. Probably had the boy subdued in back…”

  Catherine closed her eyes, massaged her brow with her fingertips. She could see it all too vividly.

  The killer holds Kyle Dumas in the van’s rear section, covering his mouth to mute his scream from passersby, restraining him there in back. Taking his time, waiting for the majority of police officers to leave the scene, then climbing into the front of the van and slowly driving away. Whether he used brute force to hold the boy or had him bound, Kyle somehow gains enough freedom of movement to begin pounding on the van’s windows before it reaches Miss Annabelle at the corner of Stewart, but by then, it is too late. His captor is already speeding on toward the highway.

  Her eyes opened. “After they found the body in Red Rock, what did the trace evidence show? Besides that he was unmolested?”

  “Not much,” Nick said. “No fingerprints. No hair. Fiber transfers were inconclusive. To make matters worse, his father got there before the body was removed. The news stringers pick up a four-one-nine over the police band, and next thing you know, Dumas hears about a dead boy in Red Rock on his television or radio. Shoots over in his car before the uniforms arrive, sees his son in the ditch, then pushes his way down and picks up the body. It winds up as a front-page headline photo.”

  Catherine looked at him. “I’m guessing the shutterbug’s Mitchell Noble.”

  Nick slowly nodded his head. “It was submitted to Dorset by Clarkson’s lawyers in a motion to exclude evidence—such as there might’ve been—on gro
unds of contamination.”

  “With good reason, too.” Catherine sat there looking thoughtful. “Our tattooer gives the judge who dismissed the case a king’s crown, monocle, and kisses on his ass. Gives a clock to the woman who didn’t see anything because she happened to be rushing to work. Gives a camera to Noble, who takes a picture that helped get the case dismissed…”

  “And gives a see-no-evil mask to Miss Annabelle, who threw more cold water on the prosecution,” Nick said.

  Silence. Catherine’s eyes were on him. “Do you know when anybody last saw Frank Dumas?”

  “Not for sure. But the house he lived in with Kyle is his most current address, and public records show he sold it.”

  “Sold it when, Nicky?”

  Nick was silent for a very long time, his gaze meeting hers. “Ten years ago,” he said. “Give or take.”

  10

  OUT ON THE RIDGE, the coyote’s baying cries of pain had diminished to feeble bleats and whimpers toward evening and then finally ceased altogether.

  Fatigued, Bockem was grateful for the silence as he prepared to tap out a simple five-letter message on his notebook computer. He had labored on his newest gallery items throughout the afternoon, as might have been expected with art created on their large scale. But when evening had fallen outside the cabin, he had happily found himself past the most delicate, time-consuming stages—one of the pelts tumbling in the drum as its companion piece drained off fluids in a dish-drying rack over the sink. After showering, he had gone into the bedroom and plugged the laptop into a cable connection at a small writing desk.

  Ever his father’s son, Bockem considered himself as much an enthusiast as an astute dealer and so had decided to follow his inclination to mount and auction off the pieces together. In his connoisseur’s heart, he felt that separating them, even optionally, would be a shame for aesthetic reasons, while Bockem the shrewd entrepreneur was willing to gamble that they would draw higher or equal value as a diptych. There was no conflict within him.

  He had been taught long ago that it was always preferable to service the high-end patron rather than pander to the low. His was an elite group, a secret fellowship of sorts. More than a handful of them shared an obsession that had been passed on from a previous generation and that, like his own, was in and of the blood.

  Chenard, for example. Although Bockem had been purposefully blunt with him, he appreciated his pedigree and his passion. While it went unspoken between them, the frisson they felt on discovering an extraordinary work was without question one and the same.

  Now, Bockem opened his Web browser, navigated to a popular social-networking website, and logged on with his user name and password. Its millions of daily users would send brief, text-based personal-status updates to its readers, or subscribers. Although the great majority chose for their messages to be publicly viewable, Bockem had opted for a locked account whose posts could be read only by members he approved.

  Bockem had just twelve approved readers, and the update he was about to send could not have been more basic. There was no reason to use cryptic language or codes, since the content was hardly important. For all real purposes, the sending and receipt of his post constituted its entire message.

  Vaguely aware of the slap-slap-slap of the skin against the sides of the drum, Bockem typed in his update and clicked the onscreen “Share” button. Then he sat back in his chair and relaxed, knowing the message had been instantaneously delivered to his subscribers.

  “Chirp,” it read.

  Basic.

  “If we wish to understand the human capacity for acts of atrocious violence, we must be willing to recognize it within ourselves,” Ray Langston said. “Only then can we begin our transformation.”

  He looked out over the university’s lecture room and was glad to see it filled with young, interested faces. He’d worried about a light turnout. This was the first academic talk he’d given since the publication of his book on the psychopathology of serial murderers, and its sales had hardly broken records.

  “Our antlers mark us as a species. Their removal is at best partial and temporary,” Langston went on, looking at a young man with a large, sweeping pair in the front row. He tapped his own head and felt the bandages over his stumps. “The koi are relentless as they swim upstream, so hiding from our feelings is useless. Questions are welcome.”

  An orange young woman toward the rear shyly raised her hand, and he pointed to her with his fingerprint brush.

  “Beep,” she said in a quiet tone.

  “Excuse me?” Langston said.

  “Beep,” she repeated, gills pulsating.

  “Beep-beep!” added the antlered young man.

  Langston moved around his lectern toward the edge of the stage, cupped a hand behind his ear. “I’m not sure I understand—”

  But now the entire audience had joined in, including a girl with a spur of cheekbone protruding from ragged flaps of skin. “Beepbeepbeepbeep—”

  His head pillowed in his folded arms, Langston awakened from his doze with a jerk. He saw his ringing cell phone on the cot near his elbow and groped for it. “Hello?”

  “Is this Dr. Langston? With the police lab?”

  “Speaking,” Langston said. He rubbed the crust from his eyes. “May I ask who’s… ?”

  “Cody Vaega,” the caller said. “My partner, Mick Aztec, told me you had some questions.”

  Langston straightened. “Yes,” he said. “I thought you were out of town for the weekend.”

  “I was,” Vaega said. “I’m over at the terminal. At McCarran, you know. Just got in from Dallas.”

  “Right, that’s where he told me—”

  “Caught a late flight out. Sunday nights are the joint. No crowds, cheap. Anyway, you want to talk?”

  Langston glanced at his wristwatch to orient himself. It was almost eight P.M. “Yes… when can we do it?”

  “That’s why I called. Right now works best for me. Ain’t gonna have much time the rest of the week—got to catch up with business.”

  “I understand,” Langston said. “Would you like me to meet you at the airport?”

  “S’all right. I know where you are. It’s on my way home,” Vaega said. “You gonna handle the taxi fare?”

  Langston nodded, the phone to his ear. “I’ve got it covered,” he said.

  When he heard the incoming e-mail tone on his PDA, Chenard was in the glass atrium behind his home, sipping Ceylon green tea as he looked out past the shore over a lake shimmering red in the sunset. He set down his teacup, lifted the device from the antique cane table beside his armrest, glanced at its display, and produced a soft trill of excitement.

  The message was a notification that he’d received an update—and Chenard had no need to waste a second contemplating who might have posted it. The user account, of course, was “Bart12.” It was the only account he followed. Or would possibly care to follow.

  He opened the e-mail, read its one-word message, and felt a charge of excitement kick through his body. Forty-eight hours now. Just two days until the auction.

  Chenard recalled what Bockem had told him, sounding conciliatory at the end of their last, somewhat tense conversation: “If my plans hold, there will be more than a single additional offering.”

  Teased by those words, Chenard had been unable to keep from wondering what the mentioned offerings might be. And as he did whenever an auction was about to come up, he’d compulsively gone back to the Flash Ink website, browsing the appropriate galleries again and again, becoming wishfully thrilled by the possibilities.

  Then, late Sunday morning, Chenard learned which pieces Bockem had gotten hold of. It hadn’t taken much deduction. A scan of the Las Vegas newspapers online had run a breaking report of the murders in Floyd Lamb Park. Although details were initially sparse and no photographs of the scene were yet available, the eyewitness who’d discovered the victims had given his story to a member of the press. Two bodies alongside each other under a tree, a m
an and a woman, the male Asian. The disclosure that both of them were partially skinned had set the media abuzz with understandable speculation.

  Again, however, Chenard hadn’t needed to engage in guesswork. Throughout the rest of the day, and long into a night in which his eagerness had denied him any sleep, he had delved repeatedly into Flash Ink on his handheld device, no longer looking among pieces that might become available but touring the photo galleries containing those he knew Bockem had acquired for his imminent sale.

  The PDA in one hand now, Chenard reached for his tea with the other, sipped, and delicately replaced his cup in its saucer. The orange light of sundown washed the orchids lining the atrium in woven bamboo baskets, gently tinging the colors of their blooms—blush cymbidiums, mauve Vartuglands, creamy white moths. What a glorious evening it was!

  Two days. Two more days.

  Chenard trilled again, like a cat eyeing a nest of pink infant squirrels. Then, fingers moist and tingling around his handheld, he returned his attention to Flash Ink.

  Greg Sanders clacked at his computer keyboard with a vengeance. Hours after Nick had barnstormed into Archie’s office and practically shoved him aside, he continued to fume at being treated like a twentyish lab tech with spiky hair pretending to be all about overactive hormones and punk rock. That bit was done for him long ago.

  Past the need for attention, Greg wasn’t the insecure adolescent who’d once hated being smart because it just seemed to get him pushed face-first into walls. Grissom had instilled pride in his intelligence and inspired him to utilize it with confidence. This was the Las Vegas Crime Lab, not high school. And he was a CSI-3.

  No, Greg was hardly pleased with Nick tonight. Or with Archie for deferring to him instead of having insisted that he wait his turn. But although Greg’s specialty was DNA, he knew his way around computers. If people were going to cut into line around here, he could simply step off and go it alone.

  The Flash Ink user log passwords typed in, access to its databases acquired, he opened his tracker program, typed some more, jabbed the “Enter” key with authority to complete his query, and then sat back with his arms crossed. What he was doing was more time-intensive than difficult.