More Deaths Than One

by Pat Bertram

  “Eyeballs and feet? Oh, ick.”

  ***

  After they ate and cleared away the dishes, Kerry drove Bob to City Park so he could peek at the boardinghouse. Each time he’d checked, he’d seen either a new blue Buick or a late model white Ford parked on the street where the occupants had a view of both the front door of the boarding house and the French doors at the side. Today it was the blue Buick.

  They strolled around the park.

  “Why don’t you call the cops?” Kerry asked.

  “They are more of a problem than a solution,” Bob said.

  “I take it you don’t like cops.”

  “My father was a cop.”

  Bob hunched his shoulders, remembering how his father had swaggered about town in his uniform. The people Edward had dealt with on the job were “low lifes,” as he called them, and this added to his belief in his superiority. Since he assumed no one obeyed the law, he treated everyone, from the most harmless witness to the most vicious criminal, with the same unmerciful arrogance. Bob had met many like Edward, people who became puffed with the weight of a uniform’s authority.

  “I can’t go to the cops with a story about far away jungles and gold Buddhas,” he said, “but you’ve given me an idea. First, I’ll need to get some dark clothes.”

  “I have a warm-up suit I bought Pete’s Porches for his birthday next week. It will probably be too big for you, but the pants have an elastic waistband, and you can roll up the cuffs. Will that do?”

  “Perfect.”

  Her eyes sparkled. “What’s the plan?”

  ***

  At ten o’clock that night, Bob hid in the dark shadows of a honeysuckle bush, key in hand. He’d left Kerry at a phone booth on Colfax Avenue. If she followed the plan, she had called the local police station, claimed to be Ella Barnes frightened of the suspicious characters parked in front of her house, and immediately hung up.

  As soon as Bob saw the police car stop behind the Buick and two cops get out and approach the vehicle, he stole across the yard. With one fluid motion, he put the key in the lock, turned it, opened the door, and slipped through. Crouching in front of the heavy drapes, he yanked out the thread he’d used to tack the hem, and removed his passport and traveler’s checks. He glided from the room and strolled to the end of the alley where Kerry waited.

  “How did it go?” she asked.

  “Fine. I got what I needed.”

  “It’s a shame you had to leave your paintings behind.”

  He shrugged. “Can’t be helped.”

  “How did you know your things would still be where you hid them? And why did you hide them in the first place? Oh, right. Your nosy landlady.”

  “I didn’t know my things would still be there,” Bob said. “I had a hunch. They called me a nothing.”

  Kerry looked at him out of the corner of her eyes. “Do you know why I needled you that first day?”

  “You didn’t needle, you challenged, and yes, I do know why. You were upset with your boyfriend and wanted to get back at the whole male gender. You picked me because you thought I was a ‘mousy little fellow’ who wouldn’t fight back.”

  She smiled sheepishly. “It’s scary how well you read me.” She drove back to the house in silence. As she stopped to let him out before continuing on to work, she said, “I don’t imagine many people see you as you really are.”

  ***

  Bob woke at dawn, did his stretches, sit-ups, and push-ups, then went out for a run. Feeling fall in the air, he was glad he’d worn the warm-up suit Kerry had given him. He didn’t even care that it bagged; he hadn’t been so comfortable since he’d left Bangkok, where he’d dressed like the Thais in baggy, lightweight cotton clothes. Not only were those garments best adapted to the climate, while wearing them, especially with the ubiquitous lampshade-style straw hat, he’d melted into the crowds on the teeming streets.

  When his work visa expired along with his job, he’d purchased western-style clothes, which he’d worn on the flight home, but he couldn’t seem to get used to them. Maybe he needed a closet full of warm-up suits.

  He covered the blocks in an easy lope and soon ran along Seventeenth Avenue at the edge of City Park. Passing the street where the boardinghouse stood, he noticed that a dark green Ford had replaced the blue Buick and the white Ford.

  He could see two heads bobbing as if to music. Were the surveillance teams getting lax? Maybe he could sneak past them, jump into his car, and drive off.

  Deciding it wasn’t worth the risk, he continued his run, circling back to the church where the Vietnam vet support group met.

  He found Scott Mulligan outside, cutting the grass.

  Smiling warmly, Scott turned off the mower and extended a hand. “Good to see you, Bob. Just last night Rose mentioned how much she enjoyed having you over for dinner.”

  “I enjoyed it, too,” Bob said.

  “How about if we do it again—say, tomorrow night?”

  Bob hesitated. “I’m staying with a friend.”

  “Great. Bring her along. Or him.”

  “That would be nice. I’m sure she’d like meeting you.”

  Scott gave him a shrewd look. “What can I help you with?”

  “Do you know anyone I could hire to tail a car, see where it goes? It seems my place is being staked out, and I’d like to know who’s behind it.”

  “I have a friend at the police department. He’d run the plates for me.”

  “I’d prefer to keep the cops out of it.”

  Again that shrewd look. “Are you in trouble with the cops?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  Scott nodded thoughtfully. “I know a couple of Lurps, guys from the Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol, who are bored with civilian life. They might be willing to do the job, probably wouldn’t charge a lot. How much are you willing to pay?”

  “Whatever they ask. At the moment, I only have traveler’s checks, and whoever’s looking for me might be able to trace them and connect your friends to me, but I’ll try to get some cash.”

  “If you can’t, we’ll work something out. Where’s the car you want tailed?”

  Bob gave him the address, described all three cars, and apologized for not knowing the license plate numbers.

  “I never got close enough to get a good look,” he said.

  Scott wrote down the information. “Maybe I’ll have something to report when you come to dinner tomorrow night.”

  ***

  Bob was preparing another stir-fry when Kerry came home from work.

  Her eyes lit up at the sight of him. “I thought maybe you went back to the boardinghouse.”

  “I can’t. The place is still being watched.”

  “So the cops didn’t scare those guys away.”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t expect them to. I just needed a diversion.”

  “Do you know what we should do?” She flicked the hair off her face. “Stake out the people who are staking you out and follow them when they leave, see where they go.”

  “I’ve already arranged for that.” He told her about his conversation with Scott Mulligan, ending with the invitation to dinner.

  “That sounds like fun,” she said. “I probably ought to get someone to cover my shift in case we get back late.”

  She went into the other room to make the call. “I traded days off,” she said on her return, “so I have to work tonight instead of tomorrow. What are we going to do after we eat?”

  “Don’t you need to get some sleep?”

  “No.” She yawned. “Well, maybe I could use a nap. Then what?”

  “I need to go shopping, replace some of the things I had to abandon.”

  “Shopping! Why didn’t you say so? I can always sleep afterward.”

  ***

  Kerry drove them to Bear Valley Mall in west Denver. They went to several stores, buying one or two items at a time. Bob paid for each small purchase with a large traveler’s check. Since he wouldn’t be ret
urning to the mall, it didn’t matter if they found out he’d been there, and he needed to get as much cash together as he could; he’d need plenty for motels after Kerry’s roommate returned, and enough to pay Scott’s friends.

  Kerry shot him a curious glance when he added a child’s watercolor paint set to his purchases, but she made no comment. She did remind him, however, that a bottle of wine would make a nice hostess gift for Rose Mulligan, and she even picked it out herself.

  ***

  While Kerry slept, Bob painted a picture of his garden in Bangkok.

  Soon after his arrival in that city, he happened to notice a narrow lane leading to a cul-de-sac containing several charmingly ramshackle teak houses with corrugated tin roofs, surrounded by shrubs, unpruned rosebushes, and oleander. In a window of one of the houses was a placard, written in English, advertising a room for rent.

  A cadaverous Englishman answered Bob’s knock and led him up a creaking staircase to a sparsely furnished room with stained walls and a scuffed wooden floor. A warped door opened onto a balcony where a rickety stairway descended into a garden with more shrubs and bushes, and a wild profusion of tropical flowers—jasmine, frangipani, orchids. Red-blossomed bougainvillea climbed the walls, purple wisteria dripped from the balcony, and a bushy ebony tree provided shade.

  As Bob inhaled the glorious scent wafting through the inhospitable room, he realized he could be content there.

  Since the Englishman seldom stepped outside, the garden had been Bob’s alone until three months previously when the man’s recently divorced daughter had moved in with her many offspring.

  Bob did not have to contend with their invasion of his garden for long; shortly afterward, Hsiang-li had announced he was closing his restaurant.

  ***

  Bob stepped back and studied his painting. The bright, translucent tints of the watercolors had been the perfect choice. The garden looked so vibrant, the fragrance seemed to swirl out of the paper, and he thought it might be the best thing he’d ever done. Perhaps the thin paint, unlike the heavy opaque acrylics and fast-drying oils he generally used, allowed no place for menace to hide.

  “It’s lovely.”

  Bob turned around. A sleep-tousled Kerry gazed at the picture, a smile gracing her lips.

  “Is it a real place?”

  He nodded.

  “The hand is interesting,” she said. “It makes the garden seem like a living creature.”

  “What do you mean?” Bob glanced back at the picture, and for the first time noticed the clawed hand reaching out from the mass of blooms.

  As if sensing his disquiet, Kerry put an arm around his waist and rested her head against his shoulder.

  After a moment, she lifted her head and looked at him. “It just dawned on me. There are no people in your paintings. Don’t you ever paint people?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  He hesitated, then spoke in a low voice. “I’m afraid of what my fingers would see.”

  Chapter 9

  Kerry stepped out of her bedroom, stopped, then turned around slowly. “What do you think?”

  Bob swallowed. She looked stunning. She’d brushed her black hair off her face and loosely bound it at the nape of her neck, making her dark eyes appear enormous. The long-sleeved dress that he had last seen in the shop window at Buckingham Square skimmed her body, flared out at the hem, and bared enough of her breasts to tantalize. The deep rose color made her skin seem luminous and put a blush on her cheeks that no cosmetic could duplicate.

  He nodded. “It’s definitely your color.”

  She held out the skirt and frowned at it. “You’re sure? I never much liked pink. Too little-girlish.”

  He smiled at her. “Believe me, you do not look like a little girl.”

  She put her hands on her hips and stared at him as if waiting for something more.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said.

  “Thank you. You look nice, too, but I wish I could have talked you into buying something dressier than those navy slacks and that pin-striped shirt.”

  “I don’t wear suits, and I definitely don’t wear ties. Shall we go?”

  ***

  Kerry immediately took to the Mulligans and they to her. She chatted with them about her family back in Chalcedony: fiery-tempered mother, easy-going father, staid brothers—one older, one younger—both married with children. All lived on the family acreage, which included hayfields, apple orchards, and pastures for horses, cows, goats, and llamas.

  During a lull in the conversation, Beth fixed her with a challenging stare that reminded Bob of the way Kerry sometimes looked at him.

  “Jimmy says girls can’t like toads.”

  “Why not? I like toads. I think they’re cute. Back home, we have a great big toad living in our garden. Whenever I’d go out and water the flowers, he’d turn his back on me like a little kid who thinks if he can’t see you, you can’t see him.”

  Beth threw a triumphant glance at Jimmy, who shrugged his shoulders good-naturedly.

  “Sometimes after a heavy rainstorm in the spring,” Kerry continued, smiling at both children, “there would be so many baby toads hopping around you could reach out and catch them.”

  “What did you do once you caught them?” Jimmy asked.

  “Let them go, of course. I suppose it’s silly of me since I’m from a ranching family, but I don’t believe we have the right to deny any creature its freedom. Especially wild animals. I once had an or-phaned baby cougar. I loved her, but when she didn’t need me to feed her anymore, I let her go. She came back every day at first, but the periods between her visits grew longer and longer, until one day she didn’t come back at all. I miss her, but I like to think of her out there somewhere, wild and free.”

  Beth scooted over on the couch until she sat next to Kerry. “What other pets did you have?”

  “A baby llama, a raccoon, rabbits, lots of cats. I even had a prairie dog once. I called him Speck. When I came home from school, he’d run to the door and greet me with a happy little jump. My mother wasn’t too thrilled with the way he kept digging holes in the sofa.”

  “Do you like video games?” Jimmy asked.

  Kerry nodded.

  “Do you want to come play?”

  When Beth jumped up and took her by the hand, Kerry gave Bob, Rose, and Scott an apologetic glance, and let herself be towed out of the room.

  “Your girl is delightful,” Rose said.

  The corners of Bob’s mouth twitched. “Believe me, she’s no one’s girl but her own.”

  Rose excused herself and went to see about dinner.

  Scott leaned forward. “I heard from my Lurp friends today.”

  Bob tried to keep his voice casual. “What did you find out?”

  Scott handed him a small piece of paper containing an address. “They followed the green Ford to this place out in Broomfield—the corporate headquarters for ISI, Information Services Incorp-orated.”

  “I’ve come across the name,” Bob said, barely able to hear himself over the beating of his heart, “but I don’t know who they are.”

  “According to my friends, they’re a closely held corporation, which means they do not fall under the jurisdiction of the SEC since they are not listed on the stock exchange. The stock is held by interlocking private trusts, so actual ownership of the corporation is shrouded in mystery and legal language. Ostensibly, they set up security systems for major corporations, and their research division awards grants to colleges, universities, private laboratories, and even individuals. They also seem to have a strong link to the intelligence community—they’re supposedly involved in a lot of black ops stuff. In fact, many ex-CIA, ex-FBI, and ex-DEA agents work for them. That’s all my Lurp friends found out.”

  Bob stared at him, his mind blank.

  “They appreciated the challenge,” Scott said. “When they saw they were dealing with a major corporation, not a couple of small timers, they got curious and did so
me digging.” He gave Bob a level look. “If you tell me what trouble you’re in, maybe I can help.”

  “I wish I knew.” He thought about Herbert Townsend and the way the two of them seemed to connect. Like the veterans whose experiences in Vietnam had made them identifiable to one another, did both he and Herbert have ISI’s name clearly stamped on their foreheads?

  Then, recalling the concentration of U.S. government agents in northern Thailand because of the drug trade, he wondered if perhaps Kerry was right after all, and they had somehow gotten wind of Hsiang-li’s gold Buddha.

  Feeling Scott’s eyes on him, he stirred. “How much do I owe your friends?” When Scott named an amount that seemed too small, Bob added a bonus. “For the extra work,” he explained.

  Scott pocketed the money. “They said to let them know if they could do anything else for you.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Rose appeared in the doorway. “Dinner’s ready.”

  ***

  When the lasagna, garlic bread, and salad had been mostly consumed and Bob and Kerry’s wine bottle emptied, Kerry glanced from Bob to Scott.

  “How did you two meet?”

  Bob and Scott busied themselves with the remains of their dinner, but out of the corner of Bob’s eye he could see Rose and Kerry exchanging looks.

  Rose shrugged. “I don’t know what the big secret is. They met at a Vietnam veteran support group.”

  “My dad was a CO in the war,” Beth said proudly.

  Bob shot a questioning glance at Scott. “A commanding officer?”

  Scott snorted. “Not hardly. I registered as a con-scientious objector.”

  “He got sent into combat,” Rose said. “Can you believe that?”

  Bob drew back. “Combat? A lot of conscientious objectors, including Quakers have served in the military, but they were usually given duties like medic or clerk. I never heard of any being sent into combat.”

  Scott shrugged. “Well, they sent me. I don’t know if it was a mistake or someone’s idea of a sick joke.”

  “Dad wouldn’t fire his weapon,” Jimmy said. “He believes killing for any reason is wrong.”