CHAPTER EIGHT
Later, with a Chicago coroner named Jeremy Likes, who worked for the FBI —a huge, red-headed, dapper man who didn't look as if he'd care to get his hands dirty —Thorpe unwrapped the package. It was Bate- man's decaying head.
It made everyone, including Likes, tremble. Thorpe could hardly swallow, and her knees had gone weak. She found a place to sit down. One of the others brought her a coffee. She felt, for a moment, that she was the cause of Bateman's mutilation, that Ovierto was doing these unspeakable acts just for her, as a kind of sick floor show. She had never hated anyone so much as she hated Maurice Ovierto.
He knew she was here. He knew she would be at Fermilab. And still he'd come to play the game. It was all a game to him, a deadly game.
She worried that she would lose her wild card, Swisher, if he learned about the recent turn of events. "I want this kept absolutely quiet," she told the others.
"Within reason, sure," said Special Agent Jack Harris, who had been assigned to give her any and all help she requested. Harris hadn't liked his assignment as yet, and he had done his work in a sullen, joyless silence. Now he wanted some answers.
"How did he know you were here?"
"How the hell should I know? We sent the chopper out with my look-alike aboard. Everything that could be done—"
"And now a man dead and another man's head is left for you like a goddamned valentine."
"Macabre son of a bitch," said the coroner.
"Get what you can from the... from Bateman's head," she told Likes.
"Sure, sure Inspector."
She walked out on her confused collaborators, going for a room where she could get some sleep. She wanted to be ready for tonight.
Sleep, however, was short-lived, troubled, and disturbing. She almost welcomed the interruption from a courier who brought word from Nebraska. It was in-formation rerouted from D.C., from Boas —the final autopsy report on Tom Sykes. Her hands shook when she signed for it.
She took the brown, clasped envelope to a coffee table in the suite provided at the Bureau. The place gave one the impression she was actually in a room at the Hilton or the Marriott. There was even room service, which she called now, laying the report aside.
She asked that fresh coffee and toast be sent in. She then went to the telephone and rang her husband at home.
"Donna, how are you? How is everything there?'
"Just wanted to hear your voice, Jim. Everything is... fine... everything here is... fine," she lied. "Are the kids home from school yet?"
"Just arrived."
"I need to talk to them."
"Sure, sure, honey. You sound tired."
"Very."
"And depressed."
"Don't worry. I'm not suicidal... not yet."
"This case is driving you too hard, Donnie."
She wiped a tear from her eye. "The kids, Jim... the kids."
Talking with her children was like a balm, a way to keep sane. She listened to their petty squabbles, to their news of school. Brucie was trying out for baseball while Jim Jr. was writing for the school newspaper and planning his future down to the last detail, which included a Pulitzer someday. Kay was having difficulties with her girlfriends at school, something about her nose being too large, and the fact she did not own a Billabong jacket.
For a few minutes, she forgot about Dr. Maurice Ovierto and what he was doing to her insides.
Then Jim got back on the phone and wanted to know exactly what the kids wanted to know. When are you coming home?"
"When it's finished here."
"You really think you guys’ll get the bastard there?"
"It's our best shot... best we've had in a long time."
"Then you know for sure he is there?"
"Yes... quite sure." She thought of the head in the locker stinking up the airport.
"Honey," he said, "please, please come home safely."
In one piece, he meant. "I will. I will."
"God, I hate this."
"Jim... Jim, I love you."
"But you put me and the kids through hell, Donnie... you do."
"It's my work, Jim." She thought he had no idea of true hell.
"Your work is here, in Nebraska. You didn't have to go to Chicago, and you don't have to be in the bloody lion's den when—"
"Yes, I do. I have to see that this man is stopped, Jim."
"Why you, babe? Why?"
"We've been through this before and—"
His tone changed. "Want to know the truth, kid?"
Jim...
"Truth is, you're tied to this guy at the fuckin' hip, like Ahab to the goddamned whale."
"Jim."
"I've got to go! Thought I'd say it this time!" He hung up.
"Jim, Jim... I need you."
But he was gone and she was alone in the empty room with the report on Sykes which she had all but blackmailed Boas for. Her coffee and toast arrived and she was grateful for the new interruption. It would take a certain amount of bolstering and posturing in front of the screaming brown" envelope before she could open it. She thought of the times she and Tom Sykes, alone and far from home, had found comfort in one another's arms. She sensed that Jim knew about it, but she was uncertain. Tom's wife most certainly had known... no secrets there. Donna hadn't loved Tom passionately, but she and Tom had loved one another's company, loved working together, loved the danger and the wonderful sweet experience of closure when a case was resolved to her satisfaction. On occasion, amid week-long stakeouts, amid the joy of success, she and Tom had fallen into one another's arms. But she loved Jim, and he knew this....
She filled her stomach with toast, drank the coffee, and when she had no further excuses she went in and took a shower. In her robe a few minutes later, she did her hair and watched the clock tick away. It was nearing three. In a few hours she'd be out at Fermilab, preparing to kill Ovierto once and for all.
The phone rang and she went for it, her eyes still avoiding the report on Sykes. She had fought so hard for the report, and now she was beginning to wish she'd lost the battle. "Hello, this is Thorpe."
"I thought you were in Nebraska," said Robyn Muro on the other end.
"Who is this?"
"Sergeant Muro, as if you didn't know."
"Why are you calling me, Sergeant? And how did you get this number?"
"Let's just say I'm a resourceful cop."
"What is it you want?"
"I want Joe to stay alive, and around you I'm sure that's not possible."
"Someone's told you about the airport?"
"Things like that have a way of spreading."
"Listen, Sergeant, we are involved in the biggest manhunt of the decade, and Joe is a big boy."
"Yeah, well that's the problem. Joe is just a big boy."
"He was given a choice, and he made his choice. A man like him, I suggest you back off and let him do his job."
"Do you intend telling him about the airport?"
"I already have," she lied.
"You've talked to Joe today?"
"He came by my place... we talked... yes."
There was a long silence at Robyn's end. "I see. I... don't think Joe cares to work blind. You should
know—"
"We discussed everything in detail... every little thing"
"If Joe is hurt in all this—"
"What? You're coming after me?"
"Something like that, yeah."
"I hope it doesn't come to that, Robyn. I like you."
"And I like snakes, Inspector, but I'm not crazy about rats." She hung up.
"Just don't get in the way," she said to the dead phone.
Now there were no more excuses. She grabbed the autopsy report on Sykes and began scanning it.
Sykes had been alive when he was intered in the sandy earth in Florida. He had not died of his wounds or scars or torture, but through suffocation. Ovierto had buried him alive. She gasped at the thought, her trembling hand going to her fac
e as she fought back her emotions.
She scanned past the cause of death to information on Sykes's shoes, which had been embedded with a layer of mineral-rich earth that did not match with the soil where he was buried. The minute earth sample corresponded with the alkaline-rich deposits of the western United States. Boas matched it to Utah, Colorado, or Nevada.
Bateman's severed head had come by way of Denver, Colorado. What was Ovierto doing out that way? Had he held Sykes there? Did he have a hideout there?
She got on the phone and called HQ in Nebraska. She identified herself, giving her code name and number, and then she told her people to scan the news coming out of Denver for anything remotely smacking of Ovierto's work. She was assured that such information would be scrutinized and that she would be apprised.
She went back to the report on Tom Sykes. Ankles were cut at the tendons... impressions on the skin had been from chains... heated chains... some evidence of having been force-fed cleansing fluid of an undetermined nature...
She stopped, unable to go on.
"Tonight, you lousy bastard... tonight…
CHAPTER NINE
The hard FBI woman had left Joe Swisher a lot of data to read, mull over, and scan through, and he had scanned a good deal of it, finding the information on Sykes's death especially revealing. Now he was working a mop at the Fermilab, and he found himself trying to recall all that Donna Thorpe had said as well as what she had only half-said the night before when she had surprised him with a second visit. He had learned from the files just what a nasty piece of work she had put him on to. This guy Ovierto was very bloody, very deranged, and filled with rage, a real maniac's maniac. And she had lost a partner in the most gruesome way imaginable.
Donna Thorpe had sauntered back in looking like Lauren Bacall in Key Largo. Her sultriest look came when she suddenly lifted one of Swisher's guns from the wall of his apartment, shouldering the weapon, which had been his father's M-16. It had been a heavy rifle to carry all over Europe.
"Government issue," she had said.
He asked her why she'd returned.
"Your father's, right? World War Two? I know all about you, Swisher."
"You think so?"
"And, in many ways, I understand and sympathize with you."
Swisher gave her a skeptical look, wondering what she was getting at, but he said nothing.
She continued to fondle the M-16 and talk. "I've lost people close to me. I know how badly you feel. I know how guilty you feel."
"Guilty? Not me, lady."
"Yes, guilty. Any cop who loses a partner wonders why it wasn't him... or her, that got it."
He frowned. "Maybe."
"I know how the hate takes hold."
"Don't expect me to bow and scrape shit off your shoes, Thorpe."
"I know, you've got your own shit to clean up."
"So, what're you saying? That we're alike? Not in your wildest dreams, Thorpe."
"Just wanted to leave you with another file."
"What's this?" he asked, taking it and the heavy rifle from her. He put the M-16 back in its place, realizing that the barrel now smelled like her, as did the file. He lingered over the odor a moment.
"All I have on what happened to my partner at the hands of this maniac we're after."
"All right. I'll look it over."
"This man is more than just a maniac, he's a cunning maniac. Listen, despite what your partner thinks-"
"Leave Robyn out of this. I have."
"Despite what she thinks, I didn't come here to see you killed."
"But you won't shed too many tears if I am."
She stared at him. "I only want to bury Ovierto." She turned from him and walked away, speaking. "Just a bit of advice from someone who knows what Maurice Ovierto is capable of. You read about the death of Lady Hugh Cartier? The English scientist who died in England a week ago?"
"I seem to recall something about it; reported as an accident."
"Read the Scotland Yard report in your files. They figure he spent some time before he pushed her over into that ravine, just to watch her scream and beg mercy before he turned her and her lawyer into ashes. He's a psycho, and to get him, everything you need will be placed at your disposal. I have a chopper on standby at O'Hare for you, and a mobile unit with communications equipment parked outside right this moment."
"I see you've thought of everything. You are worried about me, aren't you?" he replied in a flippant tone, going to the window that overlooked Kedzie, where he stared down at the unmarked van across the street.
"Get familiar with the two scientists at risk."
"Which one do you figure to be next?"
"Oliguerri."
"What is that, Italian?"
"Ibi Oliguerri is Nigerian."
"Look for a black guy in a white lab coat, huh?"
"Picture is in the file, and please take care of those records."
Swisher shrugged, poured himself another drink and said, "Hey, unless some overachiever with too much time on his —or her —hands steals them, they're in good hands. Besides, you must have copies."
"Joe —can I call you, Joe?"
"Make it Swish."
"All right, Swish, this is all hush-hush; a leak in the wrong dike and we all drown, you understand?"
She wheeled at the door, staring back at him, her eyes boring into his. "Swish, let's try to put the past behind us."
"You're just trying to play me for a fool, Donna."
"I only have one aim in all this, Joe."
He smirked. "Yeah, to get me into bed."
"To get Ovierto in the neck."
He rushed at her, his eyes blazing. "No matter how you do it? No matter who gets killed, like your pal, Sykes? Or me?"
"You've got all the answers, or so you think. Get your head out of that bottle long enough to smell the blood! This guy's a psycho and he will leave a trail of bodies in your city that—"
"Really?"
"Yes, damnit."
"Is that right?"
"Bank on it. Anyone who gets in his way, anyone he must use hell kill. Hell, he'll kill for the use of a ballpoint pen if it helps him achieve his ends. You may think you are ruthless in your desire to see an end to these two men you've hounded through the years, Swisher, but beside Maurice Ovierto you're a charitable and good citizen of the realm."
"Compliments?"
"Get to Oliguerri as soon as you can."
"Is he on the run?"
"No. He's shaken, but he doesn't know the extent of the danger he is in. Oliguerri, like the other American scientist on Ovierto's hit list, believes it has to do with the Major Government, or possibly the KGB, and that it will not cross the ocean."
He stared, sizing her up. "But it has, hasn't it?"
"The two others—"
"Two others?"
"—met with accidental deaths in the States, but they were Canadian citizens on holiday. Good friends, they were traveling together when they got botulism —or so the death certificates read."
"What did they die of?"
"Rare poison extracted from a mushroom. Very painful death. Seems their waiter was an imposter."
Swisher considered this for a moment. "Maybe it is just coincidence. How do you know otherwise?"
"They were fed poisonous mushrooms. Found on autopsy."
Swisher paced about the room in a small circle, thinking. "So, 111 be as much a surprise to this guy, Oliguerri, as this doctor character?"
"Not quite, but close. We've contacted Oliguerri discreetly to tell him we were talking precautions, just in case."
"I'm to approach him as a Fed?"
"Any way you like. It's Ovierto we're after. Any way that ensures we get Ovierto."
"Hold on. Are you asking me to distance myself and wait for Ovierto to strike this Nigerian guy before I should step in?"
"Your prerogative entirely, Swish."
"Christ, and I thought I was a cold bastard."
"I'd trade six Oliguer
ris for Ovierto's fuckin' head, you'd-"
"How many Swishers would you trade?"
She slowed down. "All I'm saying is that if you spook Ovierto, we've lost him. Simple as that. And if we lose him, his killing spree will continue."
"Better choice of words, huh?"
She had a look on her face that said slap, but she was too strong for that. She took a deep breath and matched his stare with her own. "Ovierto will smell you, and he will kill you along with Oliguerri if you go near Oliguerri."
"So, bait him with the scientist, bring the bird out in the open, and after Oliguerri is dead, get Ovierto, a nice slug for his brain?"
"However you can get Ovierto, get him."
"Christ, lady, are you as cold as you act?"
"I can be very warm."
"I’ll bet you can."
He went to her, unashamedly attracted to her despite his words, attracted to her callous exterior, wishing to scrape it down, find out what was beneath. He embraced her and she returned his passion with passion, but suddenly she put him off. "Get Ovierto for me, and then... and then I'll come to you."
He smiled wide at this. "It's a deal... a solid deal."
"No one but you and I know about this operation until I can make it stick as official, Joe ...
"Sounds fine to me."
Despite herself, she became angry with him. "Damnit, you don't get it, do you?"
"Get what?"
"Anything happens to you, and we never heard of you." She closed the door on him.
"Standard operating procedure," he had said through the door.
Now here he was, in what amounted to a sterile environment surrounded by pencil-toting, white- coated people with enough optical wear to open a booming franchise. He had learned as subtly as possible where Oliguerri operated, since the building was enormous, going up and up as far as the eye could see. He had stood in the brightly lit lobby, looking up to the pinnacle of the building, a sleek, tall, pyramid. Each floor was littered with greenery in the form of live trees and shrubs which required watering. He had been put to this task as well.
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