Parallel Lies

by Ridley Pearson

  Tyler thanked the man, asking him to draw him a map with mileage. “How much of what you just gave me—the warning—did you give her?” he asked.

  Shast shook his head. “She’s a talker, not a listener. She wants it her way. You know the type.”

  Tyler left at a run, trying to stop her, to warn her.

  He saw Nell Priest’s taillights receding into the dark and a white plume of exhaust mixing with the cold night air. She was hoping to beat him to a suspect or a witness. He had a feeling she was going to get more than she bargained for. Considering how pretty she was, things might well get ugly.

  CHAPTER 6

  Tyler’s Ford caught up with Priest’s Suburban six miles west on a state “highway,” a two-lane road that had a three-digit number for a name: 376. The moonlit countryside was cut into geometric blocks—snow-covered fields that in the growing season were devoted to feed corn. The dead stalks stuck out of the snow in regimented rows, like beard stubble.

  Tyler switched on the car’s interior light, so he could be seen, and pulled out into the empty oncoming lane as if passing. He drew alongside Nell Priest’s huge Suburban, signaling her to pull over. She finally obliged.

  Tyler climbed out and came up to her window, his breath white fog, his temper hot. “What the hell are you doing?” he blurted out, releasing some of the anxiety he’d felt in trying to catch up to her.

  “Pursuing leads, same as you,” she said a little too casually.

  “You’re going to drive into these homeless camps and just say hello, are you?” He shook his head, frustrated. “Do you think anyone will stick around if they see a pair of headlights approaching?” He met eyes with her. Hers were luminous. “And if you go sneaking in there, a woman, alone …this time of night—”

  “Oh, please! Don’t give me that crap!”

  “—the keys to a thirty-thousand-dollar car in your purse.” That seemed to register. “What the hell are you thinking?”

  “I need you, do I?”

  “You need backup, yes. You need a plan, certainly.”

  “And you think I don’t have one?”

  The temperature was somewhere in the thirties, but it felt below zero to Tyler. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “You’re aware that state troopers clear these camps on a regular basis?” She nodded. “That animosities may exist over that?” She shrugged, seeming not to care. “We—yes, we—both need either a witness or someone in custody. That’s what we’re here for.” He glanced around, feeling as if he were on the dark side of the moon. “We blow this, maybe we don’t get a second chance. Maybe whatever happened in that boxcar goes unexplained. That hurts both of us, especially once the press gets it. And they may have it already, courtesy of our friend Banner, or Madders, or someone looking for a free meal or a future favor. The men in these camps are not the most stable.” He banged his feet onto the icy pavement. “I suggest we team up. I suggest we get a good solid plan and do this once and do it right.”

  “Are you done cheerleading?” she asked.

  “You know, I don’t care if you botch this up for yourself,” he said. “You have a nice, steady job. Cushy even. But my situation is a little more precarious. I need this one in the win column, okay?”

  “Chester Washington,” she said, revealing that she knew all about Peter Tyler and his unfortunate past. Mention of that name hit Tyler hard. He hated that she’d run a background on him. When? During the drive from St. Louis? And why hadn’t he thought to do the same for her?

  She added, “Don’t you find it amazing that a black woman such as myself would even exchange words with you, much less contemplate working a raid, at night, with possible weapons involved?”

  “It wasn’t like that,” he blurted out. The media had painted it all one way, had painted him as a racist, a bad cop, and a man with a violent temper. None of it true, but he would live with it forever. Her comments were proof.

  He stepped back from the Suburban, wounded. He motioned for her to drive on, but he never took his eyes off her. He was struggling for his dignity.

  “It’s warmer in here,” she said, indicating her passenger seat.

  “You do whatever it is you planned on doing,” he said. “Just tell me which of the two camps you’re hitting. I’ll stay well away, believe me. And I’ll take the other one.”

  “Hurt your feelings, did I?” she asked in a teasing tone that infuriated him. She maintained eye contact. “Chester Washington was a pig,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “What happened to you was reverse discrimination. It was unfair and inappropriate. I bet you’ve heard this before, but if you’d killed the son-of-a-bitch, none of this would have happened.”

  “I’ve heard it before,” he confirmed.

  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she said.

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  She turned up the car’s heater, the cold air from the window beginning to bother her. “Get in the car,” she said again. Tyler circled, lit silver by the headlights, and climbed in.

  “Talk,” she said.

  “No, thanks.”

  “I’m a good listener.” She added, “How many chances have you had to explain this to an African American?” “Another time, maybe.”

  “These camps,” she said, seeming disappointed. “How would you do them, exactly?”

  “Get either the local law or the staties to help us with a roundup. They’ve done it before; they know what to expect.”

  “At eleven o’clock at night?”

  “We at least tell them we’re going in there. If they want to provide backup, fine. If not, at least they’ll come looking for our bodies tomorrow morning.”

  “Very funny.”

  To his embarrassment, Tyler’s authority as a federal agent failed to rally the Illinois State Police. The desk sergeant, answering his call, proved unwilling to wake up anyone in a position to do any good, and the one lieutenant Tyler reached informed him that the homeless camps were “pretty much deserted” in the winter and that, in any case, the staties seldom raided a camp with fewer than four uniforms and a supervising officer, which he didn’t have to spare.

  “Probably all parked under bridges with their heaters running, waiting to give out speeding tickets,” Tyler complained. He was inside the Suburban now, welcoming the warmth.

  “No doubt.”

  “And if we wait ‘til morning,” he added.

  She interrupted him, “Another half dozen trains will have passed through. Another half dozen chances that anyone who knows anything about that boxcar will be long gone.”

  “Yes.” Feeling frustrated, he decided to challenge her. “I take it that we’re both in agreement that what happened in that boxcar was more than a fistfight.”

  “Two of the Railroad Killer’s nine victims died at the knife. Are you aware of that?” she asked.

  “Painfully.”

  “We never gave that to the press.”

  “No. But the NTSB has it.”

  “So we can cut the crap,” she said. “We both know why we’re here.”

  “They’ve got the right guy in lockup,” Tyler said, attempting to sound certain.

  “But a copycat couldn’t possibly know about those two who were knifed. So there could have been two guys out there all along, and the Bureau has only arrested one of them.”

  “The point is, the focus of what we’re doing—that was way too much blood in that boxcar. Given that no hospitals are reporting similar wounds, someone either died there or has bled out since.” He added, “So what we’re really looking for in these camps is a body.”

  “And someone who can tell us who did it.”

  “That would be nice,” he agreed.

  “Bleeders draw attention,” she said.

  “Or they wander into a cornfield with a pint and they freeze to death,” he said.

  “The victim does. The killer climbs back into a freight car, climbs back into his own bottle, and that’s the end of it.
”

  “In which case we’ve got a killer riding the rails,” he pointed out, “and a body that’s freezing solid, if it hasn’t already.”

  She informed him, “The question you failed to ask back there at the yard was whether or not car eleven-thirty-six had been inspected there or not. If it had been, and it was found clean and empty of riders, then we know whoever boarded did so between the depot and the St. Louis yard. That increases the chances of discovering a potential witness at one of these camps.”

  “You give seminars, do you?” he asked a little bitterly, because she was right, he had in fact failed to ask. She had rushed him, which had been her intention—and he hated the fact that she might have thrown him off his game.

  “A little upset, are we?”

  “What you failed to take into account, Ms. Priest, was the weather,” he advised. “Ahead of that storm, temperatures across the Midwest were in the forties. According to the forensics team, that blood froze on contact. The storm hit this area the night before—ergo, the fight, or whatever happened in that boxcar, also happened the night before, after the temperatures had dropped. The storm is a real slow mover—that’s why the big dump. So, whether I asked that question or not, I figure we’re in the general area of where whatever happened, happened: four to six hours by slow freight train out of St. Louis.”

  She looked impressed. The way she fiddled with the car’s heater, he thought she was trying to think of a comeback. She asked, “Would you have killed him if your partner hadn’t stopped you?”

  The car’s interior suddenly felt the size of a Volkswagen bug. Once again he saw she’d done her homework. He fished for the door handle. He’d had enough. He heard the pop of the automatic door locks. She wanted an answer.

  “Leave it alone,” he said. He popped the locks back open. She popped them shut.

  “I’ve got a little problem with enclosed spaces,” he confessed. He popped the door open and climbed out of the Suburban. The cold cut through his clothes.

  She put down the window and spoke loudly, “I’d like to know about your temper before I enter those camps with you.”

  “The man was slamming a seven-month-old baby girl against a wall, turning her skull into sponge cake. He’d done it before, and we knew it—the doctors, us, even the girl’s mother—but no one could prove it. The mother was too afraid of him to bring charges. And there I was—on surveillance. The mother had agreed to let us wire the house. My partner and I heard that sound—her head, those cries.” He felt breathless, a little dizzy.

  He couldn’t see Priest; he saw only those long dark arms clutching that little girl and driving her against the wall. The stream of blood running from her ear, her eyes so filled with tears he couldn’t see them. The child’s sweaty head. He looked up and saw the stars. All he ever needed was a little space. He recovered and stepped farther away from the car.

  She climbed out, came around the front, arms crossed in the headlights against the cold. “You okay?” she asked him.

  “Guilt,” he answered. “Or at least that’s what the staff psychologist says.”

  “If you’re putting me on …”

  “I lost my shield, my car, I’m about to lose my house. You did your homework. You probably know all that. So you might think twice about reminding me of my situation. I think I’m pretty much aware of it.”

  She asked, “Are you going to puke, or can we get back in the car?”

  “We go into the camp without headlights. We use the Suburban because of the snow. We hike the last quarter mile or so. We roust whoever we find. Are you carrying?”

  She nodded, the shadows and light playing across her features like fire.

  “You have a permit for Illinois, or only Missouri?”

  She told him, “We have agreements with everyone but Louisiana. I’m licensed.”

  “So if one of these bozos runs, I’ll pursue. You’ll get your back against a tree and your weapon out.”

  “And if two run, I’ll pursue the other one,” she clarified.

  “Fresh snow,” he reminded her. “We can track them. We don’t need to turn this into more than it is.”

  “If that statie you talked to is right, then there’s no one out there anyway.”

  “He’s not right,” said the ex-policeman. “When are the cops ever right?”

  It won a grin. She asked, “They gave you how many days—on the taxpayers’ payroll—to make a determination on this?”

  “Three.”

  “Typical government excess. If we strike out here, there isn’t much to follow.”

  “More time, if needed,” he informed her. He felt better now. He didn’t know if it was the air or this woman.

  “Park that thing somewhere it won’t get stuck,” she stated.

  Tyler headed back toward the convertible, wondering what he’d gotten himself into. With the state police as backup, he would have felt a lot safer.

  They walked down a farm road through a cold slice of a midnight moon and the spindly silhouettes of trees, leaving the Suburban far behind. The car’s ignition key was hidden inside Tyler’s sock, placed there on the off chance they lost whatever confrontation was ahead and that Tyler’s pockets were searched. The key lay alongside his ankle, cool and scratchy, where it was unlikely to be discovered. If things went wrong, they didn’t want the Suburban stolen. It was cold going on colder, and Tyler’s Ford was two miles away.

  The tree-covered terrain rose to their right, and it was here that the long-haul freight trains slowed, giving riders a chance to jump them. Tyler expected the camp to be close to the tracks but on level ground. Nell picked up the smell of the burning wood first. Tyler switched off his flashlight—they would navigate by moonlight; they didn’t want to be seen.

  Priest was also the first to pick up the yellow light of the distant campfire—an oil drum stuffed with broken limbs and flaming like a smokestack fire. They approached in silence, the air so still that the crackling of the fire sounded incredibly near. They began to detect voices through the woods and then, finally, less than a hundred yards off, the faint silhouettes of four figures standing close to the upright barrel. Tyler pointed at her and to the right; he pointed to himself and indicated the left.

  Far off in the distance, he heard a train approaching. Tyler pointed to his ear, and Priest nodded. He gave her a thumbs-up, and he took off at a run. He glanced back to see Priest running as well. They would use the sound of the train for cover.

  The clatter of the train grew. Tyler again glanced over at Priest and ran faster to synchronize their arrivals.

  The close cry of the train charged his system. These four hobos could be harmless, or they could be wanted men. His lungs stung with the cold.

  The train roared past.

  One of the homeless looked up toward the train. His head tracked left, and he spotted Tyler. The man said something sharply to the others, turned, and ran, his attention on Tyler and not on the woman in the trees who stood nearly directly in his path.

  Tyler shouted, “Federal agent!” his voice lost to the roar of the train.

  Priest stepped out of the shadows, her gun raised, and the one attempting to escape dove into the snow, face down, his hands already on the back of his head.

  The others turned, looked around, and in drunken contemplation took in Priest and Tyler. They seemed to be callused to such raids, shaking their heads and chatting among themselves.

  Tyler spotted four discarded cans of Colt 45. None of the recent snow had collected on them. “Federal agent,” he repeated. The haggard men wore multiple layers of ragged clothing. All three had teeth missing and streams of mucus frozen beneath their noses. A matched set, Tyler thought. He’d seen plenty of similar homeless on the streets of D.C. and in Metro’s lockup.

  “You lock us up, you’d be doing us a favor,” their spokesman said.

  “Some questions is all,” Tyler answered. He lowered his weapon and approached the three. Her gun aimed at the man’s head, Pries
t patted down her captive, removed a pocketknife, stood him up, and led him over to the fire. One by one, Tyler singled out one of the three and patted him down for weapons. All three carried knives. None were bloody.

  “We’re going to divide you up into pairs,” Tyler announced. “A couple questions, and we’re all done.” None of the men showed signs of a fight, nor did he see even trace amounts of blood on their clothing—and there was no doubting that any of this clothing had been worn for a long time. They smelled ripe.

  Priest pushed her guy up to the fire barrel. Tyler studied the nearby shelters—some of cardboard, some plastic sheeting. “How many others?” he asked the spokesman.

  “One. Not doing so great.”

  “Passed out?” Tyler asked.

  “Going on dead,” answered the toothless man.

  That won both Tyler’s and Priest’s attention. “Hurt?” Tyler asked.

  “You could say that,” answered the shortest of the three. “A nigger,” he said, eyeing Priest. “In that first lean-to over there.”

  All four were white. They looked to be between forty and sixty.

  “I’ve got them,” Priest said. “Go have a look.”

  Tyler headed over to an arrangement of fogged plastic sheets, some twine, and at least one large truck tire. There was a lump inside, vaguely the shape and size of a human being. It was buried beneath jackets, a dark tarpaulin, and a torn orange flotation vest that was stenciled in silver with USCG—Coast Guard. Tyler kicked the lump, trying to wake it. He kicked again, and the lump moved and groaned. “Fuck off,” came a weakened, sickly voice.

  Erring on the side of precaution, and not trusting his source, Tyler inspected the three other makeshift structures and found them empty. No surprises. Five men, in a camp that in the summer might have held three times that.

  He heard Priest begin to question the other three. Tyler rousted the lump—he smelled of urine and something much, much worse. “Get up!” Tyler ordered. The lump groaned. He didn’t want to search this one, didn’t want to touch him.