Fairborne stared. “I’m here to identify a body, sir, not to be interrogated.”
Gardner was surprised. The man was being uncooperative, almost defiant. “Don’t you want to help?”
Fairborne turned and walked away.
“Want me to detain him?” one of the cops asked.
“No,” Gardner finally said.
“What’s his problem?” Jennifer asked.
“Maybe he knows something.”
“You think they killed their own leader?”
“It’s happened before. Cults are dangerous businesses.”
Jennifer studied his face. “But you don’t think that’s what happened here. You think one of our cops might be involved, like Harvis said.”
“Could be,” Gardner whispered.
“That’s why they’re buttoning down the investigation. No photos, no rush to judgment.”
“Yeah.”
“So who do you think did it?”
Gardner put his lips to her ear. “There’s only one cop on the force with a motive.”
“Brownie?”
Gardner nodded.
“Brownie couldn’t do it,” Jennifer said, “wouldn’t do it….”
Gardner glanced east. The sun had just breached the horizon and filled the forest with saffron light. It was the beginning of another stunning autumn day. But Gardner barely noticed.
Nicholas Fairborne sat at a computer terminal in the CAIN administration building, feverishly fingering the keys. He was running the files of Thomas Ruth, looking for references to money.
Fairborne selected a title from Ruth’s personal menu: “CASH.” He keyed the file name and hit enter.
The “CASH” file booted up, and Fairborne scanned the page.
“Cash is essential to commerce, but it has no place in the realm of spirit. ‘Render unto Caesar,’ Jesus taught. Feed the hungry. Provide for transportation, communication, clothing, and shelter. Invest wisely. CDs at 7 and 1/4 percent. Buy Wensco Industries at 12, sell at 18….”
Fairborne skipped to the bottom and scrolled the next three pages until the file said “END.” It was more of the same, fragmented musings, Bible quotations, investment strategies. But there was no banking information, no account number. Ruth had taken CAIN’s finances with him to the grave.
The “CASH” file was still on the screen. Fairborne hit the print mode and printed it. Then he ripped out the pages and slapped them on the desk.
This was a disaster. Ruth had promised to bring him up to speed on the money, but each time the subject came up, it was artfully dodged. Fairborne slowly rubbed his beard. Three years ago he’d lost his own business, a string of inner-city liquor stores that had been robbed and shot up and vandalized so many times his insurance lapsed and he went bankrupt. Then his wife left him, his house and car were repossessed, and he was set adrift in the world of the middle-aged, broke, angry, and alone. Then he met Thomas Ruth.
Fairborne was CAIN’s unofficial second-in-command. He was smart and well organized, and Ruth had included him in the inner circle soon after his arrival five months ago. Ruth had shared some secrets, pledged untold power and wealth. But in the end, he hadn’t delivered.
Fairborne scanned more files, until “FILESEARCH COMPLETE” flashed on the screen. Nothing even hinted at the whereabouts of the cash. He returned to the main menu and selected “ERASE FILES.” Then he dumped Thomas Ruth’s ramblings into electronic oblivion.
The door popped open, and a woman ran in. “Nicholas!” she called.
He stood up. “What is it, Dorothy?”
She was crying. “They won’t let us have the body!”
“What?”
“I called to find out when we could pick Thomas up, and… and…” Her voice choked.
“Take it easy.” Nicholas steadied her with his hand. “Start over.”
Dorothy took a breath. “They said we can’t have Thomas Ruth’s body back after the autopsy. Don’t we have a right to bury him?”
“I don’t know. What exactly did they say?”
“The medical examiner’s office told me that we could not take him because the body has already been claimed.”
“By whom?”
“They wouldn’t say. Can’t you do something?”
Fairborne gritted his teeth. Ruth was dead, the money was missing, and Fairborne was in charge.
“I’ll try,” he said. Right now there were more important things at hand than an electrocuted corpse.
“Please!” Dorothy begged.
“I said I’ll try,” the new leader snapped. First he’d have to find the money. And then he’d attend to the arrogant jerk who’d hidden it.
The Blocktown elders were gathered in Reverend Taylor’s church. After Joseph Brown’s funeral, more of Reverend Boyd’s faithful had defected to Brother Taylor. He was now the religious king of Blocktown.
Taylor presided at the meeting. “The man is dead,” he said solemnly.
“Amen,” came the refrain.
“He raised up his evil head, and God cut it off.”
“Praise the Lord.”
“So now we must be vigilant.” Reverend Taylor looked in each person’s face. “We must be prepared for the consequences. We must protect God’s warrior, the one who carried out his word.”
The group fell silent.
“You know what we must do. When they come knockin’ at the door asking questions.”
“Don’t let them in.”
“Say what?”
“Don’t let them in.”
“I hear you.” Reverend Taylor was subdued tonight, quietly making his point. He slipped his hand into the breast pocket of his three-piece suit. “But they may try to bust down the door.”
Silence.
“They may force their way in, but they don’t have to find anything when they get inside.”
“They ain’t come yet,” an elder declared.
Taylor leaned on the podium. “Any news on the street?”
They all shook their heads.
Taylor clasped his hands in front of him. “The deed was done in the dark, and nobody saw a thing.”
“That’s right.”
“And nobody knows a thing.”
“Amen.”
An elder stood. He was Officer Bobbie Thompson’s uncle.
Taylor pointed to him. “Brother Richard?”
“The man might not come, Reverend.”
“Why not, brother?”
“I heard say a cop mighta done the Lord’s work this time.”
There was a stir, and the reverend raised his hands. “Speak on, brother.”
Richard stood. “It’s supposed to be, uh, confidential, a secret, but I heard it through Bobbie. Rumor is a cop took out the snake man.”
Taylor narrowed his eyes. “Is that why it’s so quiet?”
The man shrugged.
“That won’t be the last of it,” Taylor said. “If a cop did do it, they might point the finger of suspicion at Blocktown anyway.”
Heads nodded.
“They might come around lookin’ for a chump to lay it on. They might try to shift suspicion away from their own selves.” Taylor glanced around the room. “But they won’t find anything, will they, brothers?”
“No, sir.“
“The cupboard will be bare.”
“Amen.”
“No clothes in the closet.”
“Uh-huh.”
“No shoes under the bed.”
“That’s right.”
Taylor raised his arms in the air and closed his eyes. “We have been delivered from evil, my friends. We must praise the Almighty. Please join hands now and say a prayer of thanks for the benefactor, God’s faithful unknown soldier.”
There was a networking of hands around the room.
“Lord, you’ve seen fit to embrace our little town,” Taylor began. “You sent us a deliverer, a warrior in the night. Shield him, Lord, from the vengeful wrath of men, and bless his soul.… Amen.�
�
The hands disconnected silently. Then all eyes turned to Reverend Taylor. His face was taut; tears streamed down his cheeks.
“Reverend?” The elders had never seen him like this.
Taylor removed a handkerchief and wiped his face. “Sorry, brothers,” he said self-consciously. “The spirit suddenly came on me….”
It should have been a joyous occasion. The man was dead. But Reverend Taylor looked like he’d just lost his best friend.
Brownie crouched in the darkness and looked over his shoulder. It was late at night and the woods were quiet. But he had to make sure he was alone. He couldn’t be seen out near the power station, especially not now. The lieutenant had restricted him to house duty after the word had come in on Ruth. He could work cases in the lab, but the murder investigation was strictly forbidden. Brownie had agreed to keep out of it. But he had lied.
The death reports on Ruth had been easy to obtain. Fellow cops had dropped them in the lab long enough to run copies. And then they’d supplemented the information with whispered conversations and bathroom meetings. Now he was as current on the case status as anyone on the force.
Brownie lowered himself into a narrow trough between the rocks. The deep shadow of the power grid lay fifty yards away, lurking like an oil derrick in the depths of the sea. Brownie pictured Ruth pinned to the panel, spasming and convulsing as the current coursed through his gasping and burning body.
Brownie looked into a hole and poked around. A white object shone in his flashlight beam. He pulled it out. A candy wrapper. Brownie tossed it on the ground. “Where are you?” he asked, moving to another rift in the stone. “Where the hell are you?”
In studying the police reports, Brownie had encountered a glitch in the investigation: not all of Ruth’s personal effects had been found in the crime scene search. Two crucial items were still missing. And those items were crucial enough to crack the case.
Brownie pointed his light into a crevice, and something moved. He shuddered and jerked away. Maybe it was a snake, hiding in its den.
Brownie pinched himself hard to remove the thought. “Goddamn it!” he cursed, the words echoing off the trees.
He took several breaths and tried to relax, but the vision still flickered. A man was writhing in torment, but it wasn’t Joseph. This time it was Thomas Ruth.
Brownie switched off his flashlight and sat on a rock, pulling his knees up to his chin and hugging his legs. He had to get himself under control. Slowly the images faded, and the screams evolved into noises of the night. Finally he was calm. It was time to get back to work.
Brownie resumed his search, checking more cracks and crevices without success. Then he moved to another sector, well below the grid. There was a layer of slate cut into the side of the hill off the path. Several ledges jutted out, and there were holes and crannies underneath.
Brownie scouted the outcropping first, playing his light in a tight search pattern. On one sweep, his eye caught something.
Brownie approached and knelt down. There was a small thatch of threads caught between the rocks. He pulled a pair of forceps and a plastic evidence envelope from his pocket. Then he sealed the tiny piece of cloth in the bag.
For the next hour the search continued up and down the vine-tangled slope. Finally there was one more hole to check, one more rock crevice in an almost inaccessible overhang. Brownie shinnied out on the ledge and pointed his light into the crack.
“Yeah!” There they were: Ruth’s missing effects, tucked away where no one was supposed to look.
Brownie cautiously reached into the fissure and removed a pair of brown shoes. Then he slid off the ledge, extinguished his light, and faded into the darkened woods.
Gardner snapped upright in his bed. The clock glowed 4:25 A.M.
Jennifer stirred and awoke. “Gard?”
He was sitting in place, silent and immobile. “Huh?”
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Can’t sleep.”
Jennifer switched on the bedside lamp, and Gardner shielded his eyes. “Brownie?” she asked.
“He won’t return my calls. He’s dropped out of sight, and the cops say they don’t know where he is.”
“Try not to worry.”
“Can’t help it. He’s never done this before.”
“I’m sure he’s fine.”
“You are, but I’m not.”
“Stop it,” she finally said.
“What?”
“Stop thinking what you’re thinking. Brownie is not involved in Ruth’s death.”
“The cops have clammed up, and he won’t speak to me. It’s like they know something that we don’t.”
“I’m sure there’s a good explanation.”
“There’d better be. I’m starting to worry big-time.”
“He didn’t do it,” Jennifer said firmly. “Go back to sleep.” She kissed him on the neck and turned off the light.
Gardner lay awake, remembering a foggy April night four years ago. Renegade bikers had set up a drug processing plant in an isolated farmhouse near the ridgeline. The undercover narcotics squad had made several buys of PCP and obtained a search warrant. Brownie was assigned to head up the bust, and Gardner was along as an observer. They drove to the lonely site in a drizzle and set up a perimeter on the road. The SWAT team was supposed to strike first, smash the door, and secure the scene. Then the rest of the crew could enter and search.
Brownie and Gardner stood by their car as the assault commenced. There was an explosion and shots, and a man ran out of the door firing an automatic weapon. He made it past the first wave and raced toward Gardner and Brownie, blasting away with his burp-gun. The rounds whistled through the rain and blew out the windshield.
Brownie threw Gardner to the ground and lay on top of him as he returned fire with his sidearm. The man was still on his feet, still approaching, still shooting. Bullets splashed the mud and stitched the side of the car. He was ten feet away when Brownie finally dropped him with a head shot.
Gardner stood up and wiped the grime from his face. He wasn’t wearing a bulletproof vest like the SWAT team, and he thanked Brownie for protecting him. Then he noticed that Brownie wasn’t wearing one, either.
Now Gardner rolled on his side and hugged Jennifer’s back. Brownie was in trouble. He could feel it. And somehow he had to help.
nine
Police Chief Larry Gray paced the floor of his office. An appointee to the top cop position the year before, he was usually a calm, hardworking professional. But today he was uptight.
Gardner and Jennifer sat on the other side of his wide desk. They had just asked the question: Was anyone on the force implicated in the death of Thomas Ruth?
“I don’t know yet,” the chief said, spiking the bristles of his short silver hair with the palm of his hand. “The whole department is whispering about it, but so far this is the only proof we have.”
Gray opened his drawer and removed a plastic bag. Inside were the handcuffs Ruth was wearing when he died. “They are definitely ours,” he said, dumping the cuffs out. They jangled and hit the mahogany with a thunk.
Gardner glanced at Jennifer.
“They were not available on the commercial market, and they belonged to someone on the force; that much is certain.”
“Is there a serial number?” Jennifer asked.
“Not on this particular model. But we can narrow down a time frame when they were issued. This handcuff series came out in the late seventies and was discontinued in 1981. Any officer who joined the force after that time would not have had them.” He pulled out a folder and withdrew a piece of paper. “That limits the exposure to these twenty-five officers.” He handed the paper to Gardner. Brownie’s name was at the top of the list. “Why are you going through this bullshit, Larry?” Gardner asked. “Order the men to turn in their cuffs. That should isolate the one who owned these.” Brownie could not have done anything so stupid,
he kept telling himself.
“It isn’t that simple. When the new model came out, we issued it to all officers. The older set”—Gray gestured to the cuffs—“we allowed the men to keep as a backup. All we know is that twenty-five officers now on the force had sets of these cuffs in eighty-one.”
“So call them in and demand an accounting.”
The chief shook his head. “That won’t work. These men are tight. They’ll never put one of their own in jeopardy. They’ll cover for each other, say they all lost their backup sets.”
“Does that include Davis?”
“Davis never owned cuffs like these. He joined too late.”
“He could have picked them up from another cop.”
The chief frowned. “Frank Davis didn’t kill Ruth. The medical examiner said that Ruth died at approximately six P.M. Frank was at the Mountain Road station servicing his cruiser at that time. That has been verified.”
Gardner and Jennifer exchanged glances. Medical examiners were notorious for miscalculating the exact moment of death.
“Anyway, I wish you’d get off Frank’s back. He’s a good officer. Harvis is assigning him to head up this investigation.”
“Davis?” Gardner was stunned. “He’s not even a detective.” It was bad enough they put him on the Joseph Brown case, but this could be a disaster.
“He’s the best-qualified person at this point. He knew more about Ruth than anyone.”
“Maybe that’s the problem,” Gardner said.
“Frank can do the job.”
Gardner and Jennifer shared another look. The chief had a right to manage his own personnel, and they were not going to win the loose cannon argument. “So what are you planning to do next?”
Gray fiddled with the plastic bag. “That depends on you.“
Gardner leaned forward.
“You know the rumor,” Gray went on. “Someone in the shop iced Ruth.”
“More like burned,” Gardner interrupted.
“Burned, iced, what the hell is the difference? The son of a bitch is dead. But now, under the circumstances, I need to know from you, how far do we push it?” He stared into Gardner’s eyes.
“Are you asking me what it sounds like you’re asking me?”
Gray did not respond.
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