False Friend

by Andrew Grant

  The medium-size rectangle had been thrown into the trash. It had been folded in half, stapled around three sides, then crumpled up. Devereaux fished it out, flattened it, and then an idea came to him. He crossed to Nicole’s Barbie house and swung it open. He checked the doormat. The dining room table. The study. There was no sign of what he thought he might see, so he was about to close up and head downstairs when he noticed that the dolls’ desk wasn’t level. Something had been jammed under the left-hand pedestal. He squeezed his hand into the small space, tipped the desk back, and flicked a small homemade envelope out from under it.

  Devereaux sat back on the bed and looked at the dainty envelope. Should he open it? Why not. It wasn’t like he’d be reading his daughter’s mail. Dolls have no expectation of privacy. And he was intrigued to see what Nicole had made. Alexandra got to see to their daughter’s work every day, but he hardly ever did. What would be inside? He wondered. A birthday card? A love letter? An alarm schematic for an upcoming bank job?

  Very carefully, using just the tips of his fingernails, Devereaux extracted the four tiny pieces of paper. Nicole had drawn on each one. Very neatly, and in great detail.

  Devereaux pulled out his phone and hit redial.

  “Alexandra. You need to come home.”

  “We’ll be leaving in ten minutes.” Alexandra sounded like her mouth was still full.

  “No, Alex. You need to come home right now.”

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Monday. Evening.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Hale drew herself up straight and looked down at Irvin. “Because you know I’m going to seriously kick your ass.”

  Irvin was certain that she didn’t want to do it. She had no interest in racquetball as a sport. She’d had to borrow an outfit, which didn’t fit properly. And she was cursing the cousin who’d convinced her that signing up for the “friendly” interagency league would be a good way to break the ice with the people she’d be working with in her new city. She’d certainly never have agreed if she’d known that her first match would be against this enormous, and apparently furious, lieutenant.

  “Of course I want to.” Irvin tightened her grip on the racquet. “But listen. You’re not mad about the initiative I suggested in the meeting earlier, are you? Because I wasn’t trying to cross you in front of your boss. I honestly think it’s the best way to go.”

  “No.” Hale allowed half a smile to ghost across her face. “I’m not mad. I just want to blow off a little steam. You ready?”

  “Sure.” Irvin shifted her weight onto the balls of her feet. “What I suggested isn’t some fly-by-night scheme, you know, Lieutenant. I didn’t make it up on the spot. It’s tried and tested. And you know Special Agent McMahan, right?”

  Hale nodded. Larry McMahan—the special agent in charge of the Bureau’s Birmingham Field Office—was an old friend of hers. “Ready?”

  “Absolutely.” Irvin raised her racquet a little higher and looked nervously at the length of Hale’s reach. “So you know you can trust McMahan’s judgment. He got involved personally when that little boy went missing, back in June, didn’t he? And he’s going to get involved again now. He’s going to review every step with Captain Emrich. And if he’s not totally satisfied he won’t—”

  Hale launched the ball, Irvin lunged, but she was too slow to come close to making the return.

  “That’s one.” Hale strolled across the court to retrieve the ball. “But listen. Tell me something. You heard about what Fire and Rescue found at the school?”

  Irvin nodded.

  “And you don’t think that’s reason enough to abandon tomorrow’s operation?” Hale adjusted her wrist tether. “The game’s clearly changed. This is a multiple-homicide investigation now. And don’t worry. This place is soundproof. You can speak freely.”

  “OK.” Irvin kept her eye on Hale’s hands. “I will. The answer’s no. We shouldn’t abandon. And I don’t agree with your assessment, either. The arson investigation hasn’t changed. The multiple homicides should be treated as a separate case.”

  Hale drove in another serve and this time Irvin got her racquet to the ball, but without enough strength to carry it back to the wall.

  “Two.” Hale picked the ball up again. “Why separate cases?”

  “Lots of reasons.” Irvin risked pushing her eye shield up for a moment. “If there’d been one fire, and the murders were recent, and evidence of the killings had been close to actually getting destroyed, I might buy the arson as a secondary crime. But why set the fire in the wrong part of the school? And why was there a second fire in another school? And why now? There are no matching missing persons reports in the last five years. I checked. And the business with the missing heads? That suggests a whole different can of psychological worms, which will almost certainly be at odds with the personality of an arsonist. The crimes are at opposite ends of the spectrum.”

  Hale launched the ball, deflecting it off the side wall this time, and it had bounced twice before Irvin even moved.

  “Three.” Hale let the ball roll away. “So why not this scenario? Joseph Oliver, pervert principal of Jones Valley, whereabouts currently unknown, hears that Cooper’s old buddy has finally grown a pair and is telling unsavory stories about his time at school. Now, Oliver had other victims. Four of them were a little feistier than Cooper’s buddy, back in the day, so Oliver didn’t feel safe letting them leave the premises with breath in their bodies. Maybe that’s why he switched to younger targets, who knows? But the point is, Oliver doesn’t want his retirement spoiled by a lethal injection if word spreads and we take an interest in the school. So he reaches out from wherever he’s hiding and pays someone to torch the school, thereby burning up any evidence that remains. Only, the guy he hires is incompetent and sets the fire in the wrong place. Or Oliver’s marbles are going, and he gives them the wrong information. Then finally, to deflect suspicion further, he goes for a twofer and has Inglewood hit, as well.”

  “That’s possible, I guess.” Irvin stepped to the side and put her foot on the ball to stop Hale getting it. “But regardless, one case or two, catching the arsonist has to be the priority right now. The fires are where the present danger lies. Catch the torch, and if you’re right we’re halfway to solving the murders, too. If I’m right, we at least know where we stand. And if the guy takes the bait the way I think he will, we’ll know which it is by this time tomorrow.”

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Monday. Evening.

  Devereaux laid the four tiny drawings out on the kitchen table and waited for Alexandra to come downstairs after tucking Nicole into bed.

  She appeared after ten minutes, walking slowly and looking down at the floor. She slid onto the seat next to him without saying a word and forced her eyes to survey each of the images. She noted the composition. The use of perspective. The pen control. The use of color. Black. Blue. Yellow. Green. Brown. Pink. And red. Lots and lots of red.

  “What the hell are these, Alex?” Devereaux struggled to keep the anger he was feeling out of his voice. “Where did her ideas come from? What on earth kind of filth are you filling her head with?”

  Alexandra got to her feet and left the room. She returned a minute later with the white envelope from her desk. She shuffled through its contents. Selected a photograph. And laid it on the table next to one of Nicole’s drawings. Both were versions of the same scene. A man lying on his back on a tiled floor. One of his arms had been hacked off and dropped on the wrong side of his body. His legs were twisted upward at an unnatural angle. A cleaver was lodged in his abdomen. And his corpse was surrounded by a vivid slick of fresh crimson blood.

  “What are those?” Devereaux snatched the stack of papers from Alexandra. “Where did you get them from?”

  “See for yourself.” Alexandra dropped the empty envelope on Devereaux’s lap then backed away to the far wall. “The other three are in there, somewhere. The originals, I mean. Our sweet little daughter’s apparent
inspiration. And don’t stop till you reach the end. Take a good look at the last one. Then get back to me about who’s the filthy one.”

  Devereaux felt as if a rope had been tied around his chest, and that it was being pulled tighter with every fresh page he looked at. He saw pictures of stabbing victims. Men who’d been shot to death. Dismembered. Bludgeoned. In one case, garroted. But he knew it wasn’t just some sicko’s random collection of murder porn. It was his family’s history. Ending with the Polaroid of him and his dad. Which Alexandra had seen.

  The evil genie was out of his bottle.

  “Where did you get this from?” Devereaux struggled to get the words out.

  “Why does it say Raymond Kerr’s your father?” Alexandra kept her distance. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “I can explain.” Devereaux focused on his breathing. “And I will. But please. First things first. The envelope. Where did you get it?”

  “It was left on the doormat.”

  “Here? When?”

  “This morning.”

  “And I’m just hearing about it now?”

  “What? Like you get to set the timetable for my day? I was shocked! I didn’t know what to do. And I did call you. I can’t help it if you put your precious job first and me and Nicole second.”

  “Who left it?”

  “I don’t know. The bell rang. I opened the door. No one was there. Only the envelope. It wasn’t addressed. I figured it was a mailshot or something. So I opened it.”

  “Did you see anyone? Running away? Or in a car?”

  “You think I’m stupid? You think I wouldn’t have mentioned something like that?”

  Devereaux held his hands up.

  “OK.” Alexandra levered herself off the wall. “Your turn. Spill.”

  “I will.” Devereaux covered his eyes. “Just give me a minute. I need to think.”

  A question had started to whisper inside Devereaux’s brain while he was talking with Alexandra, growing louder and more insistent until he could no longer ignore it: Why are there no demands?

  “Was there anything else with this?” Devereaux turned the envelope over, rechecking for marks or symbols. “A note? Another envelope? A phone message? Or anything else weird delivered at a different time?”

  “You don’t think I’d have mentioned it, if there was?”

  Devereaux’s cynical mind was screaming blackmail, but could there be any innocent explanation for the envelope showing up? If there was, he couldn’t see it. Someone was looking to hurt him. With his job. In the press. With his family. Father and son. Guilt by association. The problem was, the asshole hadn’t shown his whole hand yet. Which was no doubt part of his plan. He was trying to ratchet up the tension so that when he made his next move, Devereaux would jump all the higher. Which left him with an immediate choice. Wait. Do nothing. And surrender the initiative to the other guy. Or take preemptive action to close the asshole down.

  There wasn’t much to work with, but two things did stand out to Devereaux. Timing. And content. The envelope had appeared in the early stages of the arson case, when the main suspect was Dave Bateman. Bateman, who was making allegations against Principal Oliver. Oliver, who Devereaux had crossed swords with many times nearly thirty years ago. And the photographs? They were incredibly rare. Devereaux had never seen most of them before, despite all the research he’d done into his father’s crimes. They weren’t the kind of things you could put your hands on anymore. They must have been collected a long time ago. By someone with a reason to think that one day they might need some leverage.

  “Honey, we will talk.” Devereaux swept Nicole’s drawings into the envelope along with the other papers. “I promise. And I’ll explain everything then. But first I’ve got to check on an old acquaintance. He’s about to be in a lot of trouble.”

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Monday. Late evening.

  Alexandra double-locked the front door for only the second time since she’d bought the house. The first time was on the day she moved in, when she was paranoid that Devereaux would somehow find out where she was and try to force his way back into her life.

  She turned out all the lights, as she’d done that first night, and sat alone in the dark. Only this time she was haunted by a different vision. It wasn’t a newspaper photograph of the boy Devereaux had shot. It was the four snapshots of Hell on earth, so painstakingly re-created by her innocent little girl and laid out in a neat square on her kitchen table.

  Alexandra didn’t move for…she didn’t know how long. Eventually she dragged herself to the cupboard where she kept her bottles and poured herself a generous slug of Blanton’s. Then another. And another. And finally, with her world starting to spin for a different reason, she clumsily retreated to her bedroom.

  It was a warm night. Alexandra didn’t like the air to be on while she slept. But she pulled the comforter tight around her, anyway, right up to her chin. It’s funny, she thought. Last night I’d have given anything for Devereaux to come home. Tonight, I’d give anything for him to stay away. Is that ever going to change back again? And while she was still pondering that question, other thoughts hit her. I keep calling him Devereaux. But who is he really? And do I even want to know?

  Chapter Forty

  Monday. Late evening.

  Devereaux still didn’t like the Ferrari, but he took it, anyway. He figured it was suitable for what he had in mind. It would set the right tone. And he wouldn’t care too much if it ended up getting damaged.

  There were more direct ways to get back downtown, but Devereaux found himself cutting across to 18th Street South and sticking with it as it became Arrington Boulevard. That was the route with the best views of Vulcan. The first place Devereaux would go as a kid, whenever he ran away from a foster home. The statue looked a little different in those days. The giant was holding a torch, instead of a spear. And the column was clad in marble, concealing the rough limestone that was now exposed again. One thing that hadn’t changed, though, was the god’s lack of underwear. As a kid, whatever was going wrong for him—whether he was cold, or frightened, or hungry—Devereaux could always look up at that enormous bare ass and feel himself start to smile. He wished it had the same effect on him that night. But instead, he was imagining a design for a new statue. One where the god of DNA was pounding Devereaux’s head into an anvil with an enormous club of cursed double helixes.

  The sign on the roof was painting the white terra-cotta cladding of the upper floors its nightly red as Devereaux approached the City Federal. He liked that. It reminded him of the iron ore in the soil that had fueled his city’s magical growth. But after he parked in the building’s underground parking lot and rode the elevator to the twenty-fifth floor, his mind turned to more practical matters. He entered his apartment. Crossed to the bookcase in his living room. Removed all the books from two shelves, then lifted down the shelves themselves. Prized open the detachable panel this revealed. Reached into the opening. Took out a package. Checked the contents. Returned everything else to the way it had been when he arrived. Then headed back down to retrieve his car.

  —

  The half-dozen brick warehouses on Hollingworth Boulevard, just east of East Lake Park, had been abandoned for decades. Ever since the airport expanded and bigger, more efficient units had been built closer to the terminals. No one used the old ones anymore. Not officially, anyway. And not obviously. Devereaux hoped his information was correct as he eased the Ferrari past the line of dark, hulking structures, trying to keep the rumble of the engine to a minimum as he searched for signs of occupation.

  The roof had collapsed on the building farthest from Fifth Avenue so Devereaux was about to discount that one when a detail caught his eye. It was hard to make out in the gloom, but something was snaking its way out of the ruined steel framework. It was a jury-rigged cable, leading to a nearby power line. And when Devereaux was turning at the end of the street, ready to take a run from the opposite direction, his headlights pi
cked up movement. Very slight. A figure, dressed in black, stepping back and disappearing into the shadow of a crumbling buttress. It was enough.

  Devereaux pulled up out of sight on Fifth and reached for his portable radio. “Detective to Central. 10-31. Unit 6, Hollingworth Business Park.”

  The 10-31 is a police radio code for Crime in Progress, as every self-respecting criminal knows.

  Thirty seconds later he heard the roar of a high-powered engine, being driven hard. A black Lincoln Navigator sped past him. A blue Escalade followed hard on its heels. Then two red Suburbans. A white Range Rover. A silver Lexus SUV. And a navy blue Tesla. An electric car. A smart choice for a crook, Devereaux thought, easing away from the curb and adding the Ferrari to the end of the convoy. Let the big V8s make all the racket. Attract all the attention. Meanwhile you just slip silently away in the other direction.

  The Navigator was still thirty feet shy when a door opened in the side of the warehouse and two men ran out. They started to slip and slide their way across the deep strip of gravel separating them from the street, and were soon followed by maybe ten more guys. Devereaux didn’t pay them too much attention, though. He was watching the Tesla. It slowed before the rest of the vehicles, and turned to head off-road between the central two buildings.

  Devereaux followed, struggling to keep the Ferrari straight on the slippery surface and crouching low in his seat in case the Tesla driver decided to loose off any shots. They reached the far side of the warehouses without any gunplay and swung to the right, bringing them parallel with the street again. Devereaux backed off the gas, allowing a gap to open up. He kept the car rolling slowly until the Tesla reached the last unit. A door opened in the back wall of the building and three men emerged. One was holding a briefcase. The other two, shotguns. Both weapons were pointing at the Ferrari. Devereaux surged forward and spun the wheel hard right, sliding the rear around one hundred and eighty degrees. He hit the gas again, spinning the wheels and spraying the trio with a sudden hail of sharp, pointy stones. Then he dived out of the car, sprinted forward, and grabbed the briefcase guy around the neck.