Especially since she’s dead, I thought. And wasn’t that convenient?
Frank said, “We know you were there, Karlo, and we know the girl was killed around the same time.” He looked down at the file in his hand. “Says here ‘aggravated assault.’ ‘Assault with a deadly weapon.’ ‘Assault and battery.’ Looks like you have a temper, Karlo.”
“I am a passionate man. So what does that matter? I was never convicted of these things.”
“Because the victims were afraid of you. This here is what we call a pattern, a pattern of losing control. So maybe this woman did something that ticked you off, made you lose control. We’ve all been there with our women, right?”
Frank’s voice was solid, but one eyelid twitched, and I knew he was thinking of Patrice and the forty years of marriage in which he’d never raised—or wanted to raise—a hand to her.
Karlo said, “I never lose control.”
“The guy who killed her put his forearm around her throat, like this.” Frank pantomimed the action with an invisible victim. “Picked her up off the ground so she couldn’t breathe and squeezed so hard the bone in her neck broke. You were in control when you did that?”
“I did not kill this woman.”
“If you didn’t kill her, maybe you saw something that could help us find the guy who did.”
“I mind my own business. Why should I care who kill this girl?”
“You don’t think a woman’s life is worth a few minutes of your time?”
Karlo shrugged again. “World is full of women. Always more where that one came from.”
“You realize that’s not exactly the viewpoint of a morally evolved human being. Or even just a human being.”
“I see news report. This girl is nobody. Is not like somebody kill doctor making cure for cancer.” Savitch leaned back, tipping up the front legs of the chair. “You take DNA now. You see. Then I want lawyer.”
And just like that, it was over.
24
Back in the observation room, Frank said, “What do you think?”
“You were right. He’s too calm.”
“You think he’s the guy?”
I looked at Savitch, who sprawled in the uncomfortable chair, humming something that might have been a Ukrainian folk song. Smug smile, butcher’s hands, the tattoo Lupita had described cutting across his face.
World is full of women. Always more where that one came from.
“Yeah, I think he’s the guy.”
“I think so too. We got a search warrant based on the picture and his past history. It was iffy, but we got a sympathetic judge, and Malone pushed hard on the way the victim had been tortured and the possibility that he might have another girl stashed somewhere.”
“Malone? You’re kidding.”
“She’s a pain in the ass, but she takes kidnapping and torturing women as seriously as the rest of us.”
“Point taken. Find anything?”
“Couple of beers in the fridge, a few skin magazines lying around. Mostly run-of-the-mill stuff, with one Bondage & Domination rag thrown into the mix. Nothing to link him to our victim or your missing girl. But he had a veritable arsenal. Guns and knives in every room, and I’m not talking your grandma’s BB gun.”
“Does he live in a house or an apartment?”
“Apartment.”
“He isn’t going to stash the girl there.”
“So if he’s the guy, he’s got another place. But we couldn’t find any record of one.”
“The guy who took Tuyet is part Asian, so there are at least two of them. Maybe they use the other guy’s place. And maybe the DNA belongs to him.”
“If it does, you’d better come up with that witness. Because without that DNA, we’ve got nothing.”
While I was trying to figure out how to convince Lupita to come back from Mexico and testify, the observation room door banged open and Malone burst in. When she saw me, she stopped short and jerked a thumb toward the center of my chest and said to Frank, “I don’t remember saying you should sell tickets.”
“I’m bouncing a few ideas off him, that’s all. He has good insights. And he knows how to keep his mouth shut.”
“He got fired for not keeping his mouth shut.” That was both untrue and unfair, but now didn’t seem to be the time to say so. She stalked over to the glass. Scowled at Savitch even though he couldn’t see her. “But as long as he’s here . . . how about it, McKean? Is this the guy who tried to kill you?”
“It’s the guy, 99 percent.”
“Ninety-nine percent won’t hold up in court. You’ve got to be 100 percent.”
“It was dark. He wore a mask. I could swear it on a stack of Bibles, and any prosecutor worth his salt would tear me to shreds.”
She blew out a disgusted breath. “So basically, you’re no help at all.”
My face burned, and I felt my nostrils flare. “What do you want me to say? The build is right. The accent sounds right. But even if he hadn’t been whispering, he didn’t say enough to get a good handle on the voice.”
“I wish to hell you hadn’t lost that witness.”
Frank said, “A scared illegal sees a guy for half a minute in the dark? She’d crumble like tissue on the stand.”
Malone shot him a glare that could have melted glass. “So if this DNA thing comes up bad, we’ve got nothing, and he walks.”
“So we sit on him awhile, until he leads us to the girl.”
“Only we tipped our hand early. He’ll be more careful now.”
“It was a gamble,” Frank said. “We knew that when we brought him in.”
Malone slapped the wall in frustration. “Yeah, well, we lost.”
The door to the observation room burst open, and a young cop in uniform blurted, “We got a call from Channel Three, they got a message from the For Justice guy and are filming live from the crime scene.”
“Hold on,” Malone said. “There’s been another bombing?”
The officer looked sick. “Not this time.”
THE ADDRESS Channel Three had left was in another district, well out of Malone’s jurisdiction, so we crowded around the TV in the break room while the blonde who’d shadowed Ashleigh at my office stood in front of a modest suburban ranch house and described the unfolding events in a breathless, solemn tone. A ribbon of text scrolled across the bottom of the screen, identifying her as Portia Ross.
The screen split, and Ashleigh, perched behind the anchors’ desk, said in a brittle voice, “So, Portia, what can you tell us about the series of events that led you to this gruesome discovery?”
She looked flawless, as always, but the stiffness in her shoulders said she was upset. Probably felt she should be the one on the scene, where all the action was.
Portia was saying, “. . . a call received by this reporter just twenty minutes ago. A man claiming responsibility for the For Justice bombings said there had been another killing.”
She’d rushed to the address he gave her, expecting to find the smoldering husk of a dope factory. Instead, she found a well-kept home in a well-kept neighborhood, front door unlocked with an envelope taped to it. Inside, she found the victims shot at close range and laid out in the living room like railroad ties. This time, they weren’t disenfranchised dope dealers. They were a Metro police officer and his family. Wife, three kids. The oldest was fourteen. The usual message had been scrawled across the officer’s forehead: For Justice.
Malone said, “Just when I think I know how bad things can get, somebody goes and does something worse.”
“He’s changed his M.O.,” Frank said. “Bombs for the meth heads, bullets for the cops?”
The name of the murdered officer—Kevin Bannister—scrolled across the bottom of the screen, and my stomach did a little flip. “Jesus.”
Malone’s eyebrows lifted. “You know him?”
“We met.” I shook my head, trying to dispel the images that flashed across my mind. “Once on a case and once at a precinct picnic. We
were both still uniforms. Played a couple rounds of Frisbee golf.”
He’d won both rounds, a stocky guy who jumped like a pit bull, overcoming gravity by sheer determination.
I closed my eyes, tried to imagine how it could have happened. How For Justice had managed to overpower an entire family, including an athletic young cop.
Portia Ross went on. “Inside the envelope was a manifesto accusing Metro Nashville’s police department and court system of corruption and vowing to bring the wrongdoers to justice. The document included a list of names . . .”
We stared at the screen as the list scrolled down it. Portia must have snapped a photo with her phone and sent it to the station before dialing 911.
It was a long list. Two or three more dope dealers. A couple of defense attorneys. A couple of prosecutors. And cops. Lots of cops.
“She’s finished,” Malone said. “Obstruction of justice at the very least. Tampering with evidence.”
Frank scrubbed his palms across his face. “She’ll say she had to check it out before she called. She’ll say she opened the envelope because it was addressed to her, or she thought it might be a prank, or . . . Who knows what she’ll say, except that she’ll be full of shit.”
“Shit,” Malone repeated, sourly. “It’s what’s for dinner.”
I reached over and tapped Frank’s bicep with the back of my hand. Pointed to the screen.
Two names below the murdered cop’s was Harry Kominsky’s, and right beneath it: Frank Campanella.
25
Frank went pale. “I gotta get home.”
Malone gave a sharp nod. “Your wife. Of course.”
I tried not to picture Patrice and Frank lying on their living room floor, small round holes in their foreheads, arms crossed over their chests or maybe pressed along their sides.
I said, “You want me to go with you?”
He forced a smile and shook his head. “You just find that girl of yours. I need you, I’ll call.”
He left at a trot, and when he’d gone, Malone said, “Who the hell is this guy?”
“It’s in the names,” I said. “Find the connection, you’ll find him.”
She rolled her eyes. “Thank you, Obi-Wan.”
“Sarcasm is the sign of a weak mind,” I said. She held up her middle finger, but there was no real anger in it. I returned the gesture and left, already envisioning the chaos the manifesto would cause. The scope of the thing ensured that the police, already spread thin, would be spread even thinner as they tried to protect their own.
I stepped out of the precinct into a strong breeze. By the time I got home, the dark clouds had rolled in again, and rain was in the air. I pulled my antenna out of my pocket and gave my arm a satisfying scratch, then fed the horses and went inside, where Khanh sat in the recliner reading one of Jay’s books: The Shining, Shining Path, about a young roadie who goes on tour with a busload of Buddhist monks.
She looked up and nodded toward the couch, where Paul was sprawled, still dressed in jeans and an Avengers T-shirt. His cheeks were streaked with tears, and a line of drool trickled from the corner of his mouth. My heart twisted. I shouldn’t have gone. Nothing had come of it anyway, which meant I’d disappointed him for nothing.
Khanh said, “He want wait for you.”
I nodded, scooped him up. His eyes fluttered open, then closed again, and I carried him up to bed. His breathing was labored, and I didn’t like the sound of it. Not life-threatening, but still it worried me. He woke up long enough to take some Benadryl and let me slather his chest with Vick’s, then sank back into a fitful sleep, arms and legs splayed like a starfish.
When I came back downstairs, Khanh said, “You good father. Many men not want imperfect child.”
“There’s nothing imperfect about Paulie.” My voice was brittle.
“My country, some people think child like Paul bad luck.”
“Some people are assholes. What do you think?”
“Think like you.”
The heat on the back of my neck receded.
“Besides . . .” She held up her stump. “I bad luck child too. What you learn from police?”
“Savitch isn’t cooperating, but if the DNA matches, Frank can squeeze him about Tuyet, offer him a deal if he tells us where she is.”
“It match, right? Lu-pee-ta say he kill girl.”
“It should match, but . . . I don’t know. He’s acting hinky.”
“Hinky mean strange?”
I nodded.
Her eyes welled. “You say find Tuyet. But every day, not find.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Every day, less chance we find. More chance you give up.”
“If we’re going to be related, there’s something you need to know about me,” I said. “I might get sidetracked sometimes, but I don’t give up.”
She let out a small breath, as if she’d been holding it, waiting for my answer. “I not give up either,” she said. “You, me, same same.”
THE NEXT morning, Paul and I went to the woods to search for native leaves, seeds, and flowers. His breathing was a little better, but he tired quickly, and I carried him most of the way, pausing occasionally to pluck a sarsaparilla leaf or a promising wildflower. We shared a cheese pizza with Jay and Khanh. Then I left him with Jay while Khanh and I went out to find our Good Samaritan.
I boosted Khanh into the passenger seat, then went around to the other side. She held up the list, thumb pointing to the owner’s name. “This woman. We look for man.”
“We can’t rule out the women. Our Good Samaritan might have been driving his wife’s car.”
“What mean Good Sama-ri-tan?”
“Good Samaritan. It’s from the Bible. Rich guy goes out walking, gets robbed and beaten up by a bunch of bandits. So there he is, lying half-dead by the side of the road, and all these people pass him by and don’t help him. People like his neighbors and the wise men of the church. They all pass by on the other side and act like they don’t see.”
“Know people like that. Most world, maybe.”
“Then this Samaritan comes along. The Samaritans were people from another religious group, and they were considered the scum of the earth. But this Samaritan saw the man lying there and picked him up and took care of him.”
“Man in car. You call him this, why?”
“He gave her a ride to my place. Lot of people wouldn’t have picked her up, wouldn’t have wanted to get involved.”
“Why he not take to doctor?”
“Maybe she didn’t want to go.”
I held out my hand, and she put the list into it. Beatrice had been thorough, including names, addresses, phone numbers, and makes and models of vehicles. Jay and Eric had already marked out the pickup trucks, a couple of SUVs and a VW Bug. They’d checked out the first few pages without luck. That left us three. The bumper sticker we were looking for wasn’t one-of-akind, but in conjunction with the partial plate and the general type of car, it narrowed the field. I used my phone to search online for the slogan Lupita had referenced. It said, Be nice to nerds. Chances are, you’ll end up working for one.
As we worked our way through the list, we found a lot of bumper stickers—4 out of 3 people have trouble with fractions; I childproofed my house, but they still get in; What if the Hokey Pokey really IS what it’s all about?— but not the one we were looking for.
At five o’clock, on the last page of the list, we found an architectural wonder owned by a guy named James Decker. He lived a few miles from downtown, between West End and swanky Belle Meade, in a stacked-stone mansion inspired by a French country manor. Peaked gables, copper gutters, board-and-batten shutters, antique-style lanterns.
The circular drive was empty, no sign of anyone outside. I drove up to the garage, where a quick peek through the window confirmed that no one—at least no one with a vehicle—was home, so I parked half a block away and waited for Decker to come back. While we waited, I pulled my Nikon out of the camera bag
behind my seat, put on the zoom lens, and snapped in a new video card.
At five thirty, a woman in a powder blue Miata pulled into the driveway. A little after six, a man in a silver Mercedes pulled in. The rear of the car was toward me, and I aimed the camera. Pressed zoom. The rear bumper expanded in the lens, and the bumper sticker came into view.
Be nice to nerds. Chances are, you’ll end up working for one.
Bingo.
I showed Khanh the close-up of the bumper sticker. “It’s him.”
“You go talk him?”
“Let me check with Frank first.”
He was number four on my speed dial, just behind Maria, Jay, and my brother. I punched it in and asked after Patrice, asked how they were holding up. Doing fine, he said, but chafing at being under guard.
“I want to be at work,” he said. “Or, barring that, at Myrtle Beach with my wife.”
“That might not be a bad idea. Take yourself out of the equation.”
“I don’t know. Running . . . it’s not really my style.”
“What does Patrice think?”
After a long silence, he said, “She has some business here to attend to. I guess we’re in it ’til the end.”
He had enough on his plate. I hung up without asking him about Decker, called Malone instead. “That partial plate I gave you. You run it yet?”
“I’m a little busy, here, McKean. Why do you want to know?”
“ ’Cause I’m looking at the guy’s driveway, and I don’t want to tip him off if you haven’t talked to him yet.”
“That’s considerate of you.”
“Common courtesy. I don’t want to walk all over your homicide case if I don’t have to.”
“And if we haven’t talked to him?”
“Then I give you twenty-four hours before I go knock on his door.”
“Generous.”
“I thought so, considering Tuyet’s life’s at stake. His name’s Decker. James Decker.”
“As it happens, we have talked to him. Bumper sticker notwithstanding, he’s not the one.”
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