Chasing the Ghost

by Bob Mayer

  York’s lips seemed to tremble for a moment and Chase thought he was going to cry. York struggled and pulled himself together.

  “When did you initially meet Rachel?” Porter asked.

  York swallowed hard, and then spoke. "I first met Rachel Stevens last summer. We were in a class together. I noticed her the first night because she was late. There were no seats left so she had to sit near the door. There were some folding chairs against the wall. She just set her stuff on the floor, opened one up and sat down. No hesitation. She had an air about her. Something.” York shook his head, as if he still hadn’t figured it out, and then continued.

  "Later, on the break, she just walked right up to me and asked what she had missed. You know, if the professor had said anything important. I showed her my notebook and she asked me if she could borrow it. Right then she went to the library and Xeroxed it. Later she started asking for my notes for the nights she was absent.

  "She missed class every so often. At first, I didn't think about it, but then I saw her in the parking lot one night after class when she'd asked me to take notes for her. That's when I began to suspect that she was up to something. She was there at school, but she wasn't going to class. I wondered where she was and what she was doing?"

  “When did you take the pictures of her?” Porter asked.

  York looked down. “Different times.”

  “Before or after you saw her that time in the parking lot?”

  There was a long silence. “Both.”

  “You’ve got more than the ones on that table?”

  York nodded.

  “How many more?” Porter asked.

  With a sigh, York got up and walked over to one of cabinets under the counter. He pulled out a photo album and put it on the table. With his free hand, Chase opened it and flipped through. There had to be at least a hundred pictures of Rachel Stevens. Chase paused on one page. “You followed her to her house?”

  “I didn’t follow her there,” York said, with a slight tinge of indignation. “I work in the post office. I looked up her address. I went there when they weren’t around—they’d put a stop-hold on their mail for a week over Christmas.”

  “Why did you go to her house?” Porter asked.

  “I just wanted to see where she lived.”

  Porter had his eyes on York. “Did you know where she was going when she cut class?”

  York glanced up, then back down. "I waited again at the parking lot a few weeks ago. She showed up five minutes after class started and waited in the lot, and then got into a cab when it came. I followed her. I saw the house she went in to. The next day at work, I did some checking on the address. I found out what went on in that place.”

  “So she was using you while she went there,” Porter said.

  York’s head twitched in a nod. “Yes. I prayed for her. God was worried for her too.”

  “God talks to you?” Chase asked it before he could think, and Porter shot him a look.

  “The Lord answers prayers,” York said.

  Porter leaned forward. “Did God tell you to kill Rachel Stevens?”

  “I swear, I never touched her,” York said. “I didn’t kill her.”

  “What did you do after class last Wednesday?” Porter asked.

  “I came home.”

  “Were you in the parking lot waiting for her?” Porter pressed.

  A nerve ticked on York’s face. “I…” he fell silent.

  “You were waiting for her.” Porter made it a statement. “Why?”

  “I wasn’t waiting for her,” York said. “I came home. I never saw her that night. I swear.”

  Porter stood up and pulled out his handcuffs. "Come on, we have to go now."

  Chase also stood his gun at the ready. York acted surprised and for the first time fear came into his eyes. "But why? Why? I didn’t do anything!"

  “We’ll let others decide that,” Porter said, snapping the cuffs on him.

  For a brief moment as the left the house, Chase dwelt on Rachel, and what he had learned about her. She had paid a heavy price to live her life by her own rules.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  They say time heals, but Chase wasn’t sure he bought off on that as he crawled out of bed the next morning and headed into the yard to work out. Donnelly was happy about the Stevens case when they brought York in. Porter was like the dog that got the bone, and then buried it. Sylvie still wasn't talking to Chase. York already had a court-appointed lawyer who was claiming his client, while innocent, was a nut job. Not those exact words, of course, with God speaking to him and he already had a shrink coming in this morning to examine York to see if he was capable of standing trial.

  And Chase thought everyone was wrong, himself included.

  Nevertheless, with York’s arrest, the Book of Rachel was closed and the DA had a copy of everything. There’d been a meeting last night at the courthouse with the DA’s reps, the chief, Donnelly and even Doctor Stevens had shown up for a little while. There had been lots of people patting each other on the back.

  Chase and Porter had discovered little more about what had really happened. They had the partial license, the photos and the stalking.

  But no confession or murder weapon.

  Chase’s private little Book of Patriots was still locked in his lower drawer. Chase had no positive ID on the ex-SEAL who had accosted him. The Patriots were still hidden in the Medicine Bow Mountains of Wyoming. The authorities still thought they had all the roads in and out blocked off. That standoff continued, fading further and further back in the pages of the newspaper as the days went by.

  The attack in the Barnes’ house was still an open case, but getting less priority as the couple’s drug history came to light. As Buck had predicted, the phone call to the local hotel had gone nowhere.

  Chase had yet to hear from Fortin again, about what had happened in Wyoming. The rest of the team was still in Wyoming, as the stand-by force in case the Patriots decided to break out, and Chase hadn’t been called in to work with the CT team again. He had a feeling the wheels of federal bureaucracy were slowly turning and eventually he would be ground under.

  Chase’s shooting of Tim Barnes was to go before a review board. Catching York had made Chase look good for the moment, and he had a feeling the chief was burying the paperwork until his name was out of the paper as one of the two detectives who caught a suspected murderer. That happened so rarely in Boulder that he and Porter were sort of heroes for the moment.

  Chase hit his watch and began pound on the heavy bag with his feet and hands. It felt good, a simple routine that pushed away all the confusion in his life for the moment. He was near the end when he saw someone out of the corner of his eye. Chase stopped as Louise came down the stairs, two mugs in her hand.

  “You’ll catch your death out here, dressed like that,” Louise said, offering one of the mugs.

  Chase accepted it and took a sip, all the while eyeing Louise, expecting her to say something about Astral. It was tea, warm and soothing.

  “Horace,” Louise began, but then stopped.

  Chase waited, steam rising off both his body and the mug in his hands.

  “Were you named after the Roman poet?”

  Chase was surprised. “Yes.”

  Louise nodded as if that confirmed something, but abruptly changed the topic. “I saw in the paper that you caught the killer of that woman yesterday.”

  “Alleged killer,” Chase said.

  “You don’t think he did it?”

  “I don’t know,” Chase said.

  Louise frowned. “Horace. Uncertainty doesn’t suit you.” She looked over at his garden. “You buried Astral there, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. On the southern edge.”

  “You didn’t want me to see her.”

  Chase simply nodded.

  “Does this murder have anything to do with what happened to her?”

  “I don’t,” Chase began, but then nodded. “I think there’s a
chance it does.” Although how, Chase had no idea.

  “And this man you arrested. Did he kill Astral?”

  Chase thought of York and knew he had not done the standoff in the alley the other night. “No.”

  “So.” Louise said it in a way that got through to Chase.

  “I don’t think he killed the woman either,” Chase said.

  “Do you have an idea who did?” Louise asked.

  “Not yet.”

  Louise patted him on the arm. “It’s chilly. You need go inside. But trust your instincts, Horace. I believe you have good ones.”

  * * * * *

  His instincts led him to Jefferson County Airport. Chase knocked on the old wooden door and walked into Masters’ office. His friend was seated behind his desk, staring out the window at the Rockies.

  “Bad weather coming,” Masters said, nodding his head toward the mountains. “Thunderstorms.”

  “I saw Fortin again,” Chase said. “Or more appropriately, he saw me.”

  Masters turned from the mountains to look at Chase. “Do tell.”

  Chase succinctly told Masters of the confrontation in the black van.

  “Strange times indeed,” was Masters comment when he was done. “So what exactly triggered him to say this to you?”

  “The only thing I can think of is the computer search I did in the office regarding the Patriots.”

  “Carnivore,” Masters said.

  Chase sat down. “What?”

  “It’s a program the FBI uses on the Internet. I’m sure the other alphabet soups have it too. It’s a sniffer program. Monitors all Internet traffic from targeted computers. It’s like a fucking wiretap on your computer. Originally called Omnivore, then Carnivore, and now technically called by the much nicer DCS1000. It can be programmed to search for any number of key words or phrases.”

  “Fuck,” Chase said.

  Masters nodded toward the dusty computer in the corner of his office. “I use that for ordering parts and that’s it. Any electronic signal, and I mean any, can be picked up by the government.”

  “We are the government,” Chase pointed out.

  “Not that part of the government,” Masters said. “That’s the black world.”

  “And Fortin is black ops?”

  Masters shrugged. “He’s never said where the fuck he comes from, but I’m figuring CIA or NSA. Technically the FLI program falls under the FBI, but if Fortin is a Fed, then I’m a fucking Girl Scout.”

  “Fuck,” Chase muttered.

  “You’re getting repetitive,” Masters said. “Listen. I know some people. In the dark world. Let me ask a few questions, very discreetly.”

  “You sure you want to stick your neck out?”

  “I’m just asking questions.”

  “I was just running a Google search,” Chase pointed out.

  “I’ll be careful,” Masters said, but he paused. “Are you sure you want to stick your head into this hole? Because it might be full of nasty rattlesnakes.”

  “I can be pretty nasty myself,” Chase said.

  Masters smiled. “Amen to that.”

  * * * * *

  Chase and Porter took off at six and went to the Wagon Wheel ostensibly to celebrate breaking the case, although Chase didn’t feel much like partying. They settled in at the end of the bar and ordered the first round.

  Porter held up his mug. "At least we got the killer."

  “You really think York is guilty?” Chase asked, and he saw the smile fade from his partner’s face.

  “Damn, Chase.” Porter put his mug down on the table. “You couldn’t give me a couple of days of happiness?”

  “The defense’s shrink told the DA’s office today that York has an atypical psychosis, whatever the fuck that is.”

  “Fucking lawyers,” Porter said. “Fucking shrinks. Fuck ‘em all.”

  Chase looked at his partner. “We don’t have a murder weapon and we don’t have any solid physical evidence linking York to the crime scene.”

  “We have the photos and the fact he was obsessed,” Porter threw back. “We have the license plate. He admitted he went to her house.”

  “Partial license plate from an anonymous source,” Chase pointed out. “I might not be a real cop, but even I think that’s kind of flimsy.”

  Porter took a deep chug of beer. “All right, smart-ass. If York isn’t—“

  Chase held up a hand as his phone buzzed. He pulled it out. “Yes?”

  “Hey, bud, its Masters. I got someone you should talk to. He’s DEA, on the edge, kind of in the dark. He’s flying through Denver tomorrow. He’ll meet you in between switching flights. Name’s Cardena. Ask him about Colonel Rivers.” Masters gave him the flight number and location for the meeting, and then hung up. Chase had wanted to know about Fortin, not Rivers. He frowned at this twist, remembering his conversation with Thorne.

  “You were saying?” Chase asked his partner.

  Porter shook his head. “Nothing.”

  They sat for a long time, lost in their own thoughts. "She's a good woman no matter what she does." After four brews, Chase’s words were getting slurry.

  Porter shot Chase a questioning look and Chase realized his partner thought he was still talking about Rachel Stevens. "No, no. I mean Sylvie. She really is a good woman."

  Porter slammed his mug down on the bar. "Shit, you don't have to tell me that, Chase. I don't know her that well, but if the last couple of days are any indication, she's a lot better than what you have now."

  "I don't have anything now."

  Porter nodded in drunken affirmation. "That's what I mean: you don't have anything. Don't you think there must be something special about Sylvie if you turn into a world-class bum when she leaves you?"

  Chase gathered a little indignation, hard to do when the room was spinning faster than the CD in the jukebox. "Sylvie didn't leave me. We mutually decided to part."

  Porter tried to grin and sip at the same time. The trickle of beer that escaped from the corner of his mouth had almost made it through the meandering roll of flesh on his neck before it was wiped away. "Does that mean she's a bum now too?"

  Chase hadn't thought about that and for the first time he did. Porter had a point. Sylvie was probably doing pretty well. Her problem had been him. When she realized Chase wasn't going to get his act together, she had solved her problem. Chase was sure she missed him a little; he hoped maybe, but not enough to backtrack. He missed her a lot. First, it was just the sex. Then it was the talking. Now it was just her.

  Porter was right, Chase knew. He was a big walking wound and he didn't know how to heal himself. Instead, he was picking at his scab until it became terminal. Shit, he thought. Life sucks then you die. That was a bad thought because his mind did a one-eighty and he was back to thinking about Rachel. "She was a person who just wanted more. She didn't deserve what she got."

  Porter looked more confused than drunk and Chase realized that he had once again got his partner mixed up over Rachel and Sylvie, so he amplified his comment.

  "I wonder how much Rachel's lifestyle is going to affect the way the system handles Jim York? I got the feeling at the meeting with the DA last night that there wasn't a whole lot of sympathy for her there. And the way they treated Doctor Stevens wasn't much better. Sort of the old 'you should have kept a better leash on your wife' thing."

  Chase tried to remember what Jeffrey Stevens had said that first time Chase talked to him in his office. Something about giving Rachel enough freedom to get hurt. That was the impression Chase got from the men who knew about this case. Somewhere in the back of their mind, they found fault with a man who couldn't control his wife any better. The fact that Doctor Stevens hadn't known what she was up to didn't seem to affect the lowly opinion many held for Rachel's cuckolded husband.

  Of course, most didn't know about Lisa Plunkett. Chase wondered how much that had factored with Rachel making the decision to go back to school and to accept Linda Watkins' offer to go t
o the swingers club. That had been stupid on Rachel's part. Something that Chase didn't completely understand given all the other things she was doing in her life, especially how well and how hard she was working at school. Why did she jeopardize all that to go have sex with strangers? Chase wondered. It didn't make much sense. He guessed Sylvie's sex addiction theory might account for that. However, he shied away from contemplating the subject too heavily. Chase also had no doubt the defense would dig and find out about Lisa Plunkett and offer that as motive for Dr. Stevens to have arranged his wife’s murder in some manner. Anything to muddy the water and grasp for reasonable doubt. It was going to be a mess in Chase’s limited legal experience.

  The other thing that still really bugged Chase was that they still hadn't been able to figure out the money in Rachel's bank account. He guessed it was her bankroll to get her out the door after she graduated, but they didn't know how she'd gotten the money. Jeffrey Stevens had been surprised when they'd shown him the account and professed ignorance. It was a loose end and Chase didn't like it.

  The next logical step in Chase’s drunken thinking was how would he have reacted if Rachel had been his wife and he had discovered her secret life. He'd already put himself in Rachel's position and sort of understood why she'd done what she did. For the first time Chase put himself in Jeffrey Stevens’ position and tried to crawl around a little bit.

  Chase tapped Porter on the shoulder. "What if Jeffrey Stevens had known about Rachel's swinging before she died? Maybe even known about her bank account and that she was planning on leaving him?"

  Porter wasn't too surprised by Chase’s line of thinking. "Then I guess Jim York did him a favor."

  "Maybe he loved her anyway?" That's what Linda Watkins had said. But could Chase trust anything Linda said?