The Answer Man

by Roy Johansen

  “Yes.”

  “Weren’t you worried about your husband?”

  “Carlos said it would be okay. I believed him.”

  He looked at her doubtfully. “Ms. Valez, your husband was found dead at the apartment complex of a man he had fought with only days before. That’s a fact. A reasonable person might suspect that man of killing him. You might suspect it. And, knowing that no arrests have been made, you might be tempted to come forward with a lie to help the case along.”

  “It’s not a lie!”

  “You have to be completely truthful with me. Otherwise, you could be in a lot of trouble. Obstruction of justice, perjury—”

  “I’m telling the truth!”

  He nodded as he pulled a report form from his desk. “Okay, Ms. Valez. Let’s go through it again.”

  —

  As Ken drove into his complex’s parking lot, he saw a car in his space. A police cruiser. Shit.

  He pulled into a visitor space and hurried up the stairs to his apartment. The door was wide open. Voices came from inside. He entered to see a pair of uniformed officers going through his kitchen drawers. Gant stepped from the hallway.

  “Hello, Mr. Parker.”

  “What’s going on?”

  Gant presented a document with an official-looking seal on it. “Search warrant. For your car too. Is it downstairs?”

  Ken waved toward the open door. “Help yourself.”

  His mind raced. What could they find in here? Anything that could connect him to Myth or Sabini?

  Or Don Browne? That’s all he would need.

  The officers emptied the contents of his kitchen drawers onto the floor.

  “You guys don’t clean up after yourselves, do you?”

  Gant shook his head. “Sorry.”

  “That’s okay. It’ll force me to get off my ass and finally straighten up around here. What are you looking for? Maybe I can help.”

  “Murder weapon.”

  “Can’t help.”

  Ken opened the sliding glass door and stepped onto his balcony.

  Gant joined him. “Carlos Valez’s widow says you threatened her husband’s life.”

  “It was the other way around. He came after me, remember?”

  “She also says her husband failed your polygraph test because he wouldn’t pay you off.”

  “Bullshit. I don’t take bribes.”

  “Been offered many?”

  “A few.”

  “It seems like a way for an Answer Man to make a lot of extra money.”

  “I wouldn’t be living here if I did.”

  Gant looked at the gray, cloudy sky. It was about to rain. “Her statement is going to take this thing to an entirely new level. If there’s anything you want to tell me, you’d better do it now.”

  “I’ve told you everything already.”

  “Okay. Just so you know.”

  “Does her statement give you the right to trash my place?”

  “I could have gotten a search warrant at any time. But her statement made it mandatory.”

  “She’s lying.”

  “Perhaps.” Gant went inside.

  The search was over in less than an hour, owing more to the sparseness of Ken’s apartment than to any particular efficiency of the officers on duty. They, of course, left empty-handed, but only after photographing each and every knife in the silverware drawer. None was even close to the size and character of the blade suspected in both Sabini’s and Valez’s murders.

  The officers gave Ken a card with a number to call in case he discovered anything broken as a result of the search. The cops could not promise the department would reimburse him, but at least the complaint would be logged. Ken immediately threw the card away.

  An entirely new level, Gant had said. Whatever that meant. Police surveillance? Phone taps, maybe? Ken wasn’t sure. But he knew it was more dangerous than ever to contact Myth.

  He felt his pocket for the name and address Warner had given him. Jessica Barrett. She didn’t live far away.

  Maybe he’d take a drive tonight.

  —

  Heading east past Peachtree City, Ken ventured into a section of De Kalb County he had never explored. The neighborhoods deteriorated, then slightly improved as the afternoon sun softened into twilight. What would he do once he found the address? He wasn’t sure.

  He checked the rearview frequently to make sure he wasn’t being followed. Between Michaelson, the police, and whoever tried to dunk him into the lake the other night, he imagined himself leading a veritable parade down the two-lane highway. But he was alone.

  To his surprise, the address was on the main thoroughfare of a mobile home community. As he proceeded slowly down the main drag, he noticed the trailer park was a cut above most, with orderly, well-kept lots and tree-lined streets. Still, it did not appear to be the neighborhood of anyone who could afford to hire Myth. He slowed as he approached the address. He stopped. There was a motorcycle parked out front and a light in one of the windows.

  As he sat idling, trying to decide what to do, a petite young woman appeared from behind the trailer carrying a laundry basket. She was walking toward the trailer’s front door.

  Jessica Barrett?

  He jumped out of his car and jogged over to the woman.

  “Jessica Barrett?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she replied cautiously, shifting the basket between them.

  “What’s your interest in Myth Daniels?”

  “Who?”

  “Myth Daniels.”

  “Never heard of her.” She stepped up to the door, but Ken leaned against it, preventing her from pulling it open.

  “I think you have. You requested her data sheet from the Department of Motor Vehicles, didn’t you?”

  She hit him with a jab to the stomach. While he was off balance, she knocked his hand off the door. He fell forward, cracking his chin against the side of the mobile home.

  “Christ!” he yelled.

  She jumped inside the mobile home, closing and locking the door behind her.

  He kicked a plastic patio chair. He whirled toward a window, where he could see her shadow against the curtain. “I just want to talk, okay?”

  No answer.

  “Jessica?”

  “Did she send you?”

  “Who?”

  “Myth Daniels.”

  “No. As far as I know, she doesn’t even know about you.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Good question,” he murmured, more to himself than to her. He stroked his sore chin. He hadn’t expected a new set of bruises. “Look, I just want to know what you’ve found out.”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Is there any other way we can talk about this? It’s starting to get dark out here.”

  The porch light came on.

  “Thanks,” he said dryly. “I found out about you because I’m doing the same thing. I’m trying to find out what I can about Myth Daniels.”

  “Why?”

  He’d already said more than he probably should have. But if he expected her to be forthcoming, he’d have to pony up some info of his own. Even if he had to make it up.

  “Because I’m thinking about hiring her for a big case,” he said. “And I’m not sure I can trust her. I’ve heard rumors.”

  “What kind of rumors?”

  “Unh-unh. You next. And I’m not going to talk to you through this window all night.”

  She was silent for a moment. Then he saw her silhouetted form pick up a cordless phone and dial a number.

  He heard her say, “Change your greeting, Marcie, it’s getting old. It’s me, Hound Dog. I’m about to talk to a guy on my front porch. He drives an MG with the license plate HVK11A.”

  Ken was impressed. He knew she could not see his license plate at the moment, so she must have glimpsed it before going inside.

  She rattled off his physical description and concluded with “If anything happens to me, make sure thi
s guy gets nailed to the wall. Bye.”

  She hung up the phone, opened the door, and stepped outside. What looked like a thin pile of eight-by-ten photographs and proof sheets were in her hand.

  He smiled at her. “Very good. C.Y.A.”

  “C.Y.A.?”

  “Covering Your Ass.”

  “Scary world out there. What’s a girl to do?”

  “You’re doing it.”

  “We’ll stay outside.” She gestured across the street, where a few elderly neighbors were sitting on lawn chairs. “I like their company.”

  “Fine.”

  She sat on a patio chair, and Ken righted the chair he had kicked. He sat next to her.

  “Do you have a strong stomach?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  She handed him the photographs. He thumbed through them, stopping when he realized what he was seeing.

  Sabini’s murder scene.

  There, in grainy black and white, was Sabini’s corpse. Ken flipped through the rest of the pictures, pausing at a shot of Myth.

  “Where did you get these?”

  “Took ’em myself.”

  “You work for a newspaper?”

  “No. I do it for fun.”

  “Something tells me you’re not being sarcastic.”

  “Something tells you right.”

  “Okay, so you were there. Why the big investigation? Why Myth Daniels?”

  She gave him a suspicious look. “I still don’t know if I should be talking to you about this. You could be working for her.”

  “What if I were?”

  “Are you?”

  “No. I told you that—”

  “Yeah, you told me. I’m just not sure I believe you.”

  “Worst-case scenario. What could happen if you trust me and I am lying to you?”

  She thought for a moment. “Well, I wouldn’t be telling you anything I’m not prepared to tell her. As a matter of fact, I tried to call her today.”

  “Then tell me.”

  She handed Ken the fax of Myth at the Denver crime scene. “Meet Madeleine Walton.”

  His eyes never left the photo as she related to him the entire story of her investigation. He barely even glanced at the Lexis/Nexis newspaper printouts she handed to him.

  After she finished her story, Ken looked away. Lies. Myth had lied to him. Would they ever stop?

  “Hey, I’m sorry,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “This isn’t just about business, is it?”

  He did not reply.

  “She’s very beautiful,” she said, taking back the photos and fax. “But tell me something, what made you investigate her?”

  “There’s a lot about her I don’t know.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Is this all you got?”

  “Yeah. I tried to call her. She wasn’t in all day. The last time I called I left a message. I told her secretary my name was Madeleine Walton. I figured that would get her attention.”

  “I bet it did.”

  He stood up and walked toward his car. “I gotta go.”

  “Hey…” She rose and took a few steps toward him. “Let me know how it comes out.”

  “I will. Thanks, Jessica.”

  “Call me Hound Dog.”

  —

  Matt Lansing drummed his fingers on the conference table.

  Michaelson had deposited him there twenty minutes before, promising—or threatening—a meeting with Herbert Decker. Lansing hated his confrontations with Decker, which almost always ended with the company president screaming at him about something. How would he react this time?

  Lansing had withheld information from the company’s investigator, and he knew that Decker would not be pleased. It went against everything Vikkers preached to its employees. Commitment. Teamwork. A unified front. The Sabini embezzlement had dealt a blow to the corporation, and this was only packing salt into the wound.

  Lansing hadn’t asked for any of it. The FBI agent, Lars, had approached him three times, on each occasion affecting a loose, casual demeanor even when he was threatening poverty, prison, and public scorn. The guy acted almost as if he didn’t want Lansing to cooperate, so he could take him down with the rest of the company.

  Vikkers Industries hadn’t exactly been supportive either. Although Decker and the investigator maintained that the wireless mike was there only to study the FBI’s line of inquiry, Lansing suspected it was also to make sure he didn’t reveal anything. He patted his chest to make sure the wire was still in place. It had become a habit, like feeling if he still had his wallet.

  Damn Herbert Decker.

  Lansing stifled a gasp as Decker walked into the room. Don’t be a wuss, he told himself. Decker couldn’t read minds, even if it sometimes seemed like it.

  “Relax, Lansing. Stress kills, don’t you know that?”

  Then why hadn’t this job killed him years ago? Lansing rolled his shoulders, trying to loosen up.

  Decker sat on the other side of the conference table. “Ted Michaelson said you and he had an interesting conversation.”

  “Yes. Do you want me to recap it for you?”

  “Not necessary. He told me what I needed to know. Did you give him the complete list of executives the FBI wants you to put them in touch with?”

  “Yes.”

  “What took you so long to tell us about this? The FBI may have gotten to these people by now.”

  Lansing cleared his throat. He wasn’t supposed to mention the polygraph exam to Decker. That was probably to protect the company from liability since his taking the test violated the terms of the Employee Polygraph Protection Act. Michaelson told Lansing to pretend he had decided to come clean on his own, which would make him look better anyway. “I was confused,” Lansing said. “The feds have a way of screwing with your mind, I gotta tell you.”

  Decker’s face turned red. “You fucking moron. Would you accept that excuse from one of your subordinates?”

  Probably, Lansing wanted to say. Instead, he replied, “Of course not. That’s why I’m talking to you now. Don’t I get some points for that?”

  Decker patted his pathetic comb-over as he suddenly became calm. The change in mood frightened Lansing even more than the angry outburst. That, at least, had been predictable.

  “Don’t worry,” Decker said. “You’ll get exactly what you deserve.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Mark was right, Hound Dog thought. Her inquiry into Myth Daniels’s life suddenly seemed childish. It was all a big game to her. But after meeting her visitor, she felt ashamed. He obviously had a reason for needing to know, and his pain was real. The truth mattered to him in a way it never could to her.

  She took solace in thinking she may have helped him with her information, but it wasn’t enough. She felt rotten.

  Maybe she’d skip the scanner surfing tonight.

  Or maybe not. She wasn’t going to feel better hanging out in the trailer, that was for sure. After flip-flopping on the issue a few times, she finally attached her multiband scanner to the belt of her black jeans, pulled on her helmet and denim jacket, and set out on her motorcycle at ten-thirty P.M.

  There wasn’t a lot of activity on the streets—a few nonfatal accidents and a drug buy gone bad that ended in the shooting death of a seventeen-year-old boy. Hound Dog was squeezing off pictures of the boy’s family when his bereaved mother, a hugely overweight woman in her late thirties, started screaming and had to be restrained from attacking her. Hound Dog backed off. At the urging of the police on the scene, she hopped on her motorcycle and left.

  She didn’t get a shot of the body, but that was no great loss. She had seen plenty of dead bodies. Her first had been a teenage girl who was the victim of a serial rapist. Hound Dog had brought her camera but couldn’t bring herself to use it. She stood on a bluff overlooking the crime scene, just sobbing. It was the last time she had cried at a crime scene. She still refused to photograph dead rape victims whose bodies wer
e exposed; it would be like perpetuating the rape, becoming an accessory after the fact.

  Cruising east on Ponce De Leon Avenue, she spotted the blinking neon FRESH DOUGHNUTS sign at Krispy Kreme, meaning a batch had just come out of the oven. She rolled to a stop near the shop’s plate glass windows. The harsh fluorescent lights were so intense, she had to squint to see inside. At the counter were the usual four A.M. customers: prostitutes, bartenders, a homeless guy. But no cops. Good, she thought. Officers on the graveyard shift made a habit of harassing scanner geeks, and they knew her. She had to be especially careful of traffic violations, since the police relished each and every opportunity to ticket her.

  She dismounted, went inside, and bought a doughnut and a cup of coffee. She kept her scanner on as she sat at the counter. Her right earphone dug uncomfortably into her ear, and after checking it, she discovered the foam had almost worn through. She put it back on, mostly to discourage conversation from the guys staring at her a few seats away.

  A 10-71 crackled over the scanner. A shooting.

  “Murphy sixteen, Murphy sixteen. Code 10-71. Unidentified white male wounded, paramedics en route. Perpetrator at large. 15614 Corsair, repeating, 15614 Corsair. Please respond.”

  Hound Dog felt as if she were yanked outside her body, looking at herself from above.

  Mother of God.

  She grabbed her helmet and bolted for the door.

  It was her home address.

  —

  Hound Dog pushed her motorcycle harder than she had ever pushed it before, tearing through deserted streets, through red lights, through a construction site. She had to get home.

  To Mark.

  No further details came through on the scanner; police had not reached the scene yet. She gritted her teeth and roared through an intersection.

  Mark had to be okay. He just had to.

  She raced into the trailer park, catching sight of two sets of police flashers in front of her home. She threw the bike down and ran for the open front door, pushing past the half-dozen neighbors standing outside. An officer tried to block her.

  She yelled at him. “Goddammit, I live here! Where’s Mark?”

  Before the officer could answer, she slipped past him. Mark was lying on the floor.

  He wasn’t moving.

  His white shirt was soaked with blood.