The Rook pbf-2

by Steven James

  And then there was that whole bizarre thing last night. That crazy homeless guy had actually killed himself right there, just like that, and if she hadn’t covered her eyes, she would have seen him die.

  Falling headlong.

  Falling and dying.

  Tessa caught sight of her outline in the mirror, a faint reflection, distant and blurred, surrounded by steam and dreams. For a moment it hardly looked real. Just the vague shape of a girl with dripping black hair, faceless, emotionless, obscure around the edges. In a fog.

  Her reflection reminded her of looking at a phantom.

  An Eidolon, she thought, remembering the phrase from Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Dream-Land”: Where an Eidolon, named Night, On a black throne sits upright…

  Poe really seemed to understand the landscape of pain, and she’d walked through it with him since her mom died, reading his poems and stories over and over, letting their stark images soak into her-the raven and the pit and the cask and the thumping heart. Usually after reading something once or twice, she could remember it pretty well, but she remembered some stanzas of “Dream-Land,” word for word.

  There the traveller meets, aghast,

  Sheeted Memories of the Past-

  Shrouded forms that start and sigh

  As they pass the wanderer by-

  White-robed forms of friends long given, In agony, to the Earth-and Heaven.

  Her reflection.

  A ghost in the slim shape of her mother.

  Sheeted memories of the past.

  A phantom lurking in the land of dreams.

  Tessa spread her fingers against the mirror. It felt warm against her fingertips, but cool too. She slid her hand across the glass, and her eyes and forehead became visible. But just that much. The rest of her still remained a ghost, wrapped in white, lost somewhere in the misty curls of thick, warm steam.

  Caught between two worlds. Drifting. Falling.

  A raven unable to fly.

  And then Tessa snapped the rubber band against her wrist and did it again and again until the skin was red and raw.

  But it didn’t help her feel better at all.

  And the drops of water began to trickle down the mirror, as if her reflection were weeping to see her standing so sad and alone on the other side of the glass.

  25

  As I sat in the hotel lobby and waited for Tessa, I thought about the man’s death the night before. I’d told Detective Dunn I was going to untangle the circumstances surrounding John Doe’s death.

  I intended to keep my promise.

  Using my cell phone’s Internet browser, I logged onto the city’s digital video archives and reviewed the videos of the trolley’s departure, but found no images of men with black duffel bags boarding the trolley. So, the two men who climbed into the Ford Mustang were already at the scene when John Doe committed suicide.

  I put a call in to the Bureau to run the plates on the Mustang. I also left a text message for the San Diego County medical examiner’s office to see if he’d been able to identify our John Doe from last night, and then I set up a meeting with Lieutenant Graysmith, the head of the SDPD homicide division. I wanted to find out more about Detective Dunn and his interest in John Doe’s death.

  I looked around the hotel lobby again.

  Still no Tessa.

  I grabbed an apple from the bowl at the hotel’s registration counter.

  She likes to sleep late, but since we only had a couple of days here in San Diego, she’d agreed to get up by nine, and that was over an hour ago.

  After I finished the apple, I checked the time and realized I’d been awake for over five hours. No wonder I was so hungry. I pushed myself out of the leather lounge chair and was halfway to the elevator when I heard heavy footsteps behind me and a harsh, growling voice that I recognized right away. “Morning, Pat.”

  “Ralph?” I turned. Special Agent Ralph Hawkins came lumbering toward me. I greeted him with a slap on the shoulder, and it felt like I was hitting a bag of concrete. Ralph had started lifting weights again, and I could tell. “What are you doing here? I didn’t expect to see you until next week. I thought you’d still be testifying at Basque’s retrial in Chicago.”

  “It’s a mess up there.” Ralph’s voice sounds just like what you’d expect from a man who can twist a frying pan around a burrito with his bare hands. “A real circus.” Ralph worked his shoulders back and forth, probably trying to make them comfortable in the shirt that he’d obviously bought before he started pumping iron again last year. He’s not quite in the shape he was as an Army Ranger twenty years ago, before he joined the FBI, but he’s close. “Defense found out one of the state’s DNA experts, guy named Hoyt, lied on his resume. Never attended Ohio State at all. Messed up our case even worse. Pushed things back at least a month.”

  I felt an echo of the chill I’d known in the slaughterhouse. Even without this kind of delay, trials as complicated as Basque’s typically last several months. This would drag things out even longer, and all the while Richard Basque would be out of maximum-security prison. Not something I wanted to think about.

  Ralph tried to hold back a yawn. Failed.

  “Long night?”

  “Got in late, plus they lost my bags. Can you believe those-”

  Then Ralph filled the air between us with a string of inventive and somewhat profound curses, and I was glad Tessa hadn’t arrived yet after all.

  “Well, anyway, it’s good to see you. Brineesha doing OK?”

  “I’m a happily married man, she’s a very patient woman. We’re good, Tony too-just turned eleven. Tessa?”

  “Witty. Sarcastic. Endearing.” “Good to hear.”

  My stomach grumbled, reminding me once again how hungry I was. I looked past Ralph to the bank of elevators. Then it struck me. “Wait a minute. You never answered my question. Why are you in San Diego, anyhow?”

  “Margaret has a couple meetings out here on the Coast. She’s-”

  “Margaret Wellington is coming to San Diego?” At least for the moment, I’d lost my appetite. Margaret and I get along about as well as two piranhas in the same tank.

  “Probably in L.A. right now,” Ralph said, “but she’ll be flying here sometime this afternoon. She’s on some kind of defense committee or something. Guess it goes with the territory of being an executive assistant director, and since I’m heading up the NCAVC for now, she wants to brief me on some policy changes.”

  Ralph, Lien-hua, and I all work for the FBI’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, and Ralph was currently serving as the division’s interim director while human resources looked for a replacement for Louis Chenault, who’d retired on the first of the year.

  “You know how Margaret is,” he continued. “She didn’t want to wait until next week, and since my testimony’s been put off in-definitely, she decided to fly me in.” He picked at his travel-weary, crumpled shirt. “Last night Delta told me my bags were in Minneapolis. Do I look like I’m standing in Minneapolis, Minnesota?”

  I sensed that he was winding up for a fresh round of curses, so I said, “I still can’t believe they gave Margaret the position.”

  He finished brushing off his shirt. The elevator behind him dinged. “Most power-hungry woman I ever met. But don’t worry; she’s not here to see you. I doubt your paths will even cross.” As the elevator doors began to open, he let a sly smile play across his face.

  “Besides, being here in California gives me the chance to keep an eye on you and Lien-hua.” A wink. “Keep you two kids in check.

  Know what I mean?” “No,” said one voice from the elevator.

  “Why don’t you tell us?” said the other.

  First voice: Lien-hua.

  Second voice: Tessa.

  “Oh.” Ralph’s voice shrank to the size of a mouse. “Good morning, Lien-hua. Hi, Tessa.”

  Lien-hua’s arms were folded. “Hello, Ralph. What a surprise.”

  An unreadable expression crossed Tessa�
�s face. “Nice to see you, Uncle Ralph.”

  Ralph patted Lien-hua’s shoulder and gave Tessa a quick shoulder hug. “I better go track down those suitcases,” he muttered.

  “You boys and girls have fun now.” Then he ambled through the uncomfortable silence and left me alone with the two women and their four raised eyebrows.

  I looked from Lien-hua to Tessa. “OK,” I said, “so, who’s hungry? I know I am. Famished. Let’s get in line before they run out of quiche.” Then I hurried off to the hotel’s restaurant, wondering how I’d ever come to the point in my life where I would’ve actually been willing to eat quiche if necessary.

  While Creighton watched Cassandra through the video cameras, he thought of spiders crawling across his face and of the videos he’d taken of the women over the years, and he thought of Shade.

  Creighton had met some elusive characters over the last ten years, but this guy, Shade, was like a ghost. Every time Creighton thought he might be able to catch a glimpse of him-nothing. Even though Creighton had no idea what it was like to feel fear, he suspected that the growing discomfort he felt whenever he talked to Shade was close to what other humans felt when they were afraid.

  A few times over the last two months, Creighton had thought about taking off, just slipping away into the shadows. But two things kept him here: he knew Shade would find him, and Project Rukh really did exist. All the Department of Defense documents that Shade had sent him regarding the project checked out. The device was real. And from everything Creighton had been able to uncover, the prototype really did what Shade said it would.

  Building B-14. That was the key to everything.

  Freedom or pain?

  Pain.

  And as Creighton thought of that word, he imagined the meeting he would have with the FBI agent later in the week, and he thought once again of the closure Shade offered.

  Everything coming full circle. Yes. Creighton was the perfect one for the job after all.

  Shade wanted to keep their communications to a minimum, and Creighton wasn’t expecting to hear from him until three o’clock, so after leaving Cassandra alone again, Creighton pulled out a pair of handcuffs and practiced escaping from them just in case he needed to do so in the next couple days.

  Yes. He was the perfect one for the job after all.

  26

  In line for the brunch buffet, I tried to guide the conversation away from Ralph’s comments as quickly as I could. “So what took you two so long to get downstairs?”

  “Shower,” said Tessa.

  “I was on the phone with Aina,” said Lien-hua. Then she lowered her voice to a whisper. “She told me Austin Hunter wasn’t home, but MAST managed to get a warrant. Aina wants to talk to you.

  She said to give her a call as soon as you can. They found gasoline and a professional makeup kit in his spare bedroom.”

  I began ticking through the possibilities. Gasoline? I thought we’d eliminated that as the accelerant for the earlier fires. Unless… my mind flashed back to previous arson cases I’d worked over the years

  …

  Unless…

  I saw Tessa grab her plate and I remembered that even though I’d already had a full morning, the last thing she probably remembered was the bloody pork tenderloin and John Doe’s suicide last night.

  The arsonist could have mixed it with something to make it burn longer. That would do it.

  I was torn; the biggest parts of who I am were wrestling with each other again: the FBI agent part and the dad part. I knew the dad part was supposed to win, and I wanted it to, but I didn’t know exactly what that was supposed to look like in real life. Tessa was busy lifting the metal lids off the chafing dishes to see what was for breakfast.

  Sausage links. “Ew.” Then bacon. “You have got to be kidding me.” And finally breakfast patties. “I am so done with this.” She clomped to a nearby spread of fruit and pastries.

  Well, she seemed to be acting normal enough. I decided it would be OK to return Aina’s call. I loaded a bowl with oatmeal, and dialed her number.

  “Dr. Bowers. Gracias.”

  “What do you have, Aina?”

  I piled a plate with hash browns and followed my nose to the coffee carafes.

  “No sign of Hunter,” she said. “But, it looks like someone broke into his apartment. His dresser drawers were disturbed, but his checkbook is sitting in plain sight on the kitchen counter, so I don’t think it was a robbery. And, even though his cell phone and laptop are gone, he left the cords here.”

  “Car keys?”

  “Gone.”

  “So, Hunter left in a hurry.”

  “Si. And you were right about the gloves. We lifted a partial. It’s not Hunter. But-”

  He would have pulled off the first glove with his dominant hand, and then left the print with his non-dominant one. “Which glove had the print?”

  “The left. But I need to tell you — ” So, the arsonist from last night is most likely left-handed. Then she finished her sentence by saying, “It’s the print of one of our officers.”

  “What? He contaminated the evidence?”

  “Si.”

  Why didn’t that surprise me.

  “Just a minute.” Exasperated, I balanced the phone on my plate. One of the restaurant staff was standing beside the coffee carafes.

  “We proudly serve Starbucks coffee,” she told me with a smile.

  I didn’t say the words aloud, only thought them: Starbucks is to coffee what McDonald’s is to steak.

  The woman was still smiling at me. “Oh,” I told her as cordially as I could. “Actually, I’m just looking for the juice bar.”

  “Right over there, sir.”

  “Thank you.” I headed over to get a glass of OJ. Maybe later in the morning I could track down a cup of coffee that had actually been roasted within the last two months.

  Wait a minute.

  Juice.

  Yes.

  Orange juice.

  I grabbed the phone. “Aina. Check Hunter’s freezer.”

  “His freezer?”

  “Give it a shot.”

  By the time I’d found my seat she’d finished her search. “Mr.

  Hunter must be a juice lover.”

  “So, he’s got the juice,” I said softly. “Have one of your officers check the nearest dumpster to his apartment. Look for empty boxes of laundry detergent.”

  “Concentrated orange juice and powdered laundry detergent,” she said. I could hear agitation in her voice. “ Claro. I should have thought of that earlier. Mix them together with low-octane gasoline, make a paste. Burns hot enough to create full room involvement-”

  “But slow enough to sustain sufficient oxygen in the room for the fire to spread.”

  “So, you have worked arson cases before,” she said.

  “A few.”

  “Between the two of us we should have thought of it earlier.”

  “Well, without any suspects I’m not sure it would have done us any good.” I downed some of my juice. “So, if he’s got his laptop and his cell phone, what does that leave us? Any snail mail there?

  Return addresses, postcards we can check on?”

  I heard her shuffling through some letters. “All bills. That would have been too easy anyway.”

  “OK, GPS. Track his cell phone or his car.”

  “We tried. Nothing. Older models.”

  “Ex-wife, fiancee, girlfriend? Someone he might have gone to stay with?”

  “We’re working on it. He has a photo on the wall of him on the beach with an attractive young woman, late twenties, scuba gear beside them. Her hand is resting on his thigh so I think they’re more than just friends. We checked his phone records, found his favorite number to call, and sent some cars to her place. She’s a shark researcher. Works for the Sherrod Aquarium. Cassandra Lillo.”

  “Cassandra Lillo,” I mumbled. “The aquarium, huh? OK. Email me whatever you pull up on her, and call me back if you find the detergent
boxes.” As I hung up, I noticed that Tessa, who had been watching me carefully, let her eyes wander past me toward a couple of cute guys laughing in a booth nearby.

  During the next few minutes, I ate in hungry silence but then I noticed Tessa’s long-sleeve T-shirt slide back from her wrist, exposing a red, inflamed streak beneath her bracelets.

  “What happened to your wrist, Tessa?”

  She pulled the sleeve back in place. “Nothing.”

  Over the last year Tessa had struggled with cutting, and I wondered if maybe the rubber band snapping was her way of trying to break the habit, kind of like smokers who start to chew gum instead of lighting up. But it was still a bad habit, and obviously, since her wrist was raw, she was taking it too far. “You need to stop snapping that rubber band so much. You’re hurting yourself.”

  “I’m all right.”

  “I’m just saying-”

  “I’m all right!”

  Lien-hua, who had been eating quietly beside us, cleared her throat softly. “Anyone else want some coffee? I’m going for a refill.”

  Tessa and I both shook our heads.

  Lien-hua rose and I decided that now was as good a time as any to tell Tessa what I’d started considering while I was waiting in the lobby. “Hey, listen. I was wondering if maybe we should head back to Denver.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Well, I just thought that after last night, after that guy, well

  …”

  “Killed himself? Ew. Yeah. That was totally disturbing.”

  “Well, I thought if we went back to Denver, we could maybe, you know, deal with it together. Talk it through.”

  “He’s dead, what is there to talk about?”

  “I know. But it happened so close to us.”

  “As if people don’t die in Denver. Besides, I want to stay.”

  “You’re right, people do die everywhere, but…” I let my words trail off as I noticed Lien-hua pause beside one of the tables. A woman who appeared to be deaf was anxiously trying to communicate with one of the restaurant managers. Lien-hua stood between them, interpreting. She watched the deaf woman’s quick gestures, then spoke softly to the manager, listened to his reply, and let her own fingers fly nimbly through a series of words to the deaf woman.