Parallel Lies

by Ridley Pearson

  The two stood on a plowed road outside a gray farmhouse, a mile from the tiny town of Jewett. This was where the break-in had been reported. Tyler had caught up to Priest following his phone discussion with the pathologist, who had no intention of touching the frozen victim until he had thawed. Tyler drank a lukewarm coffee bought from a vending machine at a gas station down the road. Two state police cruisers were parked with their engines running, their tailpipes belching plumes of gray exhaust. One was occupied by a uniform behind the wheel; one was not, the engine left running to keep the car warm.

  Jewett was deep in Midwestern farm country—stark and barren in winter’s grip.

  Tyler answered, “What we do know about the dead guy is that he was a smoker—he carried a pack of Marlboros—he was a former Marine, judging by the mock tag he wore around his neck, and, more important, he apparently carried a piece because he had an empty belt holster strapped to his back. The weapon’s missing—a nine millimeter. The geniuses are guessing that it was probably stolen by whoever opened up his face.” Tyler affected an ignorant-sounding accent. “He weren’t no hobo.” He returned to his normal voice. “So, who was he? And what was he doing on that freight train, and what got him killed?” He lowered his voice conspiratorially, despite the fact that no one was around. He said, “Have you people had reports of an axe-wielding maniac traveling your lines? Is that why they sent you out here in such a hurry, Ms. Priest?”

  “Why Paris? Why not—” Priest changed the subject, clearly not wanting to answer his question.

  “I argued for Champaign but lost—they just love federal agents around here,” he quipped. “They’ll get some heaters going. This pathologist gets a poke at him, and maybe then I can get him moved.”

  Pointing to the farmhouse, she spoke in a professional, almost clinical tone, and he wondered what she was up to. Something had changed. Perhaps nothing more than that she didn’t like playing second fiddle. “I talked to the resident, a Mary Ann Gomme. She’s positive about the missing jeans. She thinks maybe a flannel shirt was also taken. Maybe some canned goods. The window frame had been winterized with some kind of putty, and the husband noticed the putty was busted up. I asked the forensics guys to work that laundry room as a crime scene.” She added, “And don’t get mad at me about those tracks in the snow, because it was the husband that followed them out into the woods, not me. Not at first. I called you, as per our agreement.”

  “And?”

  “And when you told me to get out there ahead of the staties, I did.”

  “And?”

  “I found a fresh burn. A hole in the snow, deep in the woods. Probably clothes, by the look of what’s left. Fabric, at any rate, not paper, not wood ash. It’s south of here, toward a stream called Muddy Creek. The husband called the sheriff. The sheriff called the staties.”

  “Our corpse fell off that rail rolling east to west,” Tyler recalled.

  “That’s right.”

  “We’re west of there, meaning the dead guy didn’t steal these clothes.”

  “Okay. Agreed.”

  “So I already don’t like whoever this is,” Tyler said. “Breaking and entering an occupied home. Burning evidence. Nerves and brains—bad combo.”

  “Ms. Gomme has two children. And this guy was inside her house. And that’s got her pretty shook up.”

  “You have kids?” Tyler asked her.

  “None of your business.” She softened then, as if she heard her own tone of voice too late. “No. You?”

  “No. And I’m not married.”

  “Me neither,” Priest said.

  Tyler asked, “And where exactly are we in all of this? Other than out in the cold, yet again?”

  “Waiting for these guys,” she pointed to some arriving vehicles.

  Four bloodhounds arrived in a minivan that had a child’s seat in the middle row and a pair of sunglasses hanging from the rearview mirror. The local vet was a man named Acker. He wore a full beard, a down jacket, and big rubber boots with felt liners. They were his dogs. He knew the troopers on a first-name basis and they talked for a few minutes until one of them signaled Tyler, and then the search was on, dogs in the lead.

  “Have you noticed how much time we spend walking around in the snow?” Tyler asked Priest. But her humor had still not returned. He asked, “What color flannel shirt?”

  “If they have it right, it’s a rose and gray plaid. Husband wore it a couple days ago, and now they can’t locate it.”

  Tyler flipped open the phone. The battery was indicating low. “If the cold kills this thing,” he said, “I’m screwed. Can’t live without it.”

  “We’re screwed anyway, Tyler,” Priest said sharply. “You think Davy Crockett and company are going to find this guy? Forget it. He’s gone.”

  “I know that,” he said. “A guy like this with a decent lead and a fresh change of clothes?” He dialed a number as they followed the bloodhounds and the local vet. “But as long as he gives us pieces to follow—like this clothing—we’d be stupid not to run with them.”

  They followed, well behind the dogs and the staties. The suspect’s tracks had been partly disturbed by only one other set—the husband as he had followed earlier. Thankfully, he’d returned to the house staying well clear of the trail, just as the dogs and everyone else did now in an effort to preserve possible evidence.

  Priest pointed. “Judging by the gait, the long strides, this guy was running. In a hurry, not taking his time. He knew we’d be on him soon enough. You’re right: he’s a thinker.”

  The cell phone call connected. Tyler continued walking at the same pace. He asked for Commander Marshall. After a brief reintroduction, Tyler requested, “We’re going to want any and every video security camera for twenty square miles. Our guy’s wearing a plaid shirt and jeans. Convenience stores, grocery stores, banks, ATMs in particular, department stores, train stations, bus stations, airports, rental cars. I know it’s asking a lot—maybe too much—but this bozo is leaving crumbs, and we’d be wrong not to pick them up and follow ‘em.” He paused and listened. “I know that…. I understand that…. Yes, it’s a hell of a lot of phone calls. Absolutely. Maybe cadets, trainees, doesn’t matter how professional these requests are. The important thing is that some, if not all, of these surveillance tapes are loops; they re-record over themselves, and we’ve got to catch them, stop them, before they do that.” He listened. “Uh-huh…. “He thanked the commander.

  Still walking, Priest said, “You’re good at this.” She thought a moment. “Is that why you won this assignment? You’re a man hunter?”

  “The cold’s getting to you,” Tyler said dismissively.

  “But you actually must think we’re going to catch this guy,” Priest called over her shoulder to him, “or you wouldn’t be doing all this.”

  Tyler answered calmly, “If he isn’t dead or dying, if he isn’t bleeding out, then of course we’ll catch him. We’ve got the boxcar, the body. In terms of a crime scene, it was sloppy as all hell. The thing that worries me?” he asked rhetorically. “He knows we’re going to catch up with him. Someday, sometime. Just ask Ted Kaczynski. So what does that pressure do to him? In his head, I mean.”

  “I’m with you.”

  “More important: what’s his next move?” The dogs started barking excitedly. They had found the fire hole in the snow.

  CHAPTER 10

  Alvarez awakened in a state of arousal, at first believing it to be a dream, but then realizing Jillian was responsible. He reached down under the sheets and tugged on her, drawing her up and on top of him. She knew exactly what she wanted. He remembered this from their encounters of the night before. He appreciated a woman who went after her own pleasure first, knowing his would follow. She didn’t want him getting ahead of her. Maybe it was a dream, he thought. “Good morning,” she said in a hoarse, smoky voice.

  From the moment he had entered the club at two in the morning, Jillian had treated him with obvious interest, no longer the pro
per waitress he had met in the restaurant. At first, he attributed the change in her to the drinking, or perhaps a pill or two. But as the late night wore on, Jillian and her roommate continued dancing together, always within sight of him, and he saw a young twentysomething aware and in control of herself. Boundless energy and a simmering sexual urgency drew him to her. For her part, whether a holdover of a crush begun a decade earlier or an attempt to make a statement about her age and maturity, there had been no secret about her physical attraction to him. When they reached her apartment, hours later, she had shared herself without reservation or conditions.

  Youth! Juanita and he had taken their time to get physical, despite the immediate attraction. They’d met at a Cinco de Mayo festival, both in their mid-twenties. Despite the beer and the dancing, he’d not dared to kiss her that first night, realizing he had stumbled upon a gem of a girl and not wanting to scare her away as he had others before her. Following that chance encounter there had been family dinners at her aunt’s place, the occasional film or bar date, and only a rare make-out session, awkwardly in the front seat or quickly on the front steps to an apartment house she shared with three other nurses. She’d been the only woman, in a long string of many, who had openly held him at bay, sticking firmly to her Roman Catholicism and not wanting to go too fast. But she’d also been the only one to open him up about the loss of his parents as a teenager—his mother to alcohol, his father to points unknown—his parenting of a brother, Miguel, who had been born with fetal alcohol syndrome, and Alvarez’s struggle through college juggling his two lives of student and older-brother-turned-guardian. As a nurse, she had wanted to meet Miguel, and upon doing so had advised Alvarez to move his brother out of the state institution, despite the cost. She had completed endless paperwork to win Miguel financial assistance in a private care facility through the age of eighteen. They had formed a sense of family before they’d even gone to bed together, by which time he had known there would never be any woman but Juanita. He had dated for the last time.

  But circumstances had changed all that. Northern Union Railroad had changed all that. A few precious seconds, a faulty crossing gate, and a freight train had changed all that. A long string of lies had changed all that. He pulled himself up and out of his memories and tried to enjoy the moment, but his involvement with Jillian, his first of any kind since the accident, proved as distracting as it was exciting.

  Breakfast arrived an hour and a half later, in the Star Café on Bleeker. He picked the restaurant because of its proximity to the Lexington subway line, and he walked his bike at her side while a city of eight million people attempted to sort itself out. In a surreal, dreamy way that he put off to a complete lack of sleep, it felt incredibly natural to be with her—this woman whose last name he knew only because he’d known her brother ten years before. Jillian Barstow. To her credit, she asked nothing of him—even breakfast together had been his idea, not hers.

  He ate Eggs Mexicana but was disappointed by the cheese’s lack of flavor and a need to smother his plate in Tabasco sauce to find any punch. Juanita’s aunt made her scrambled eggs with garlic, shredded chicken, fresh tomato, and diced jalapeno. It took the roof of your mouth off and landed in your stomach with intense satisfaction.

  “What kind of work is it you do?”

  Alvarez thought about this long and hard. “Demolition,” he replied, not knowing exactly why he said it. His usual response was “sales.” Uninteresting enough that no one ever asked a follow-up question.

  He explained, “I work freelance. Mostly for the film industry. They shoot a lot of shows here in the city. I’m working on one in the Midwest right now.”

  “Who’s in it?” she asked. “Any actors I’d know?”

  “Sure,” he answered. “But we sign nondisclosure agreements—you can’t believe how paranoid some directors are.” He waited for her to say something, but she didn’t. He said, “Antonio Banderas and Harrison Ford.”

  “Not really!”

  “It’s a train picture. Railroads. But you didn’t hear it from me.” He smirked, proud of himself for this invention.

  She held tightly to his arm. “Is this okay?” she asked.

  “No problems here,” he answered.

  Throwing that body off the train had changed things forever. No matter that the man had come looking for him—had intended to kill him—the blood, the battle, the man’s face lacerated and gushing as Alvarez blindly wielded the hot stove like a mace. These images did not leave. He’d seriously injured a man—perhaps killed him—whether in self-defense or not.

  But the lies had started too long ago to stop now. He had to keep up the pretense, to continue to be the kind of person he had come to hate.

  “Are you going to tell me about the woman last night?” Jillian inquired.

  “I told you: she owes me something.”

  “Money?”

  “More like a favor. I’d rather not discuss it.”

  He felt tired, nearly crippled with fatigue. Their night together, added on to the brutal night in the boxcar, had taken its toll.

  “I may not see you again,” he told her.

  “I know that,” she answered. “No strings, no complications—it’s how I want it, too.” She smiled confidently, and said, “But I have a feeling you’ll be back.”

  “You may be right.”

  She liked that. “Maybe by then you’ll feel comfortable enough to tell me the truth about what you do.” Her voice never wavered. “Harrison Ford’s on a shoot in Vancouver,” was all she said.

  Breakfast between them was quiet. Alvarez had met his match.

  CHAPTER 11

  The discovery of a bloodied frozen corpse along the Midwest corridor rallied southern Illinois law enforcement, whipped up a media feeding frenzy, and set hundreds, if not thousands, of residents along Midwestern rail lines on edge, as the public envisioned the second coming of the Railroad Killer. When FBI investigators in Champaign stepped in, it created a heightened sense of urgency.

  While Nell Priest sat in on FBI briefings, representing her corporation’s interests, Tyler found himself in Charleston, Illinois, working with a masters criminology class at Eastern Illinois University, to where all the various security camera videos from nearly two dozen retail establishments had been messengered. For the time being, the existence of these tapes escaped the notice of the FBI and others bent on hammering out jurisdictions, which was just fine with Tyler.

  “We’ve received a total of twenty-two tapes,” Professor Ted McCaffery explained to Tyler. McCaffery wore his graying beard trimmed close, a pair of half glasses perched on the end of his nose. The tips of his button-down collar were frayed, and one of the small buttons was missing. Those videos had been sent in from convenience stores, groceries, and bus and train stations, all within a fifty-mile radius of the farmhouse. “We’re expecting a like number from the banks—the ATM tapes you requested. We put two students per tape,” he explained, “on the theory that two heads are better than one.”

  “A plaid shirt—”

  “And blue jeans. Yes,” McCaffery said. “I wouldn’t have bothered Don Marshall unless I was pretty damn sure of what we’ve got. I put in twenty-four years with state police,” he added proudly. “Then the university scooped me up on retirement, probably because I’m one of the few with twin masters—criminology and forensic sciences.” He was bragging now. “Had never even considered teaching before this. Look at me now!”

  The large audiovisual lab smelled of institutional disinfectant and bore the groan and hum of dozens of VCRs and television monitors, where students sat fast-forwarding through grainy black-and-white images, alert for men wearing plaid shirts and jeans. The randomness of chance was not lost on Tyler.

  “Let me show you why I called you.” McCaffery pointed to a freeze-frame on one of the monitors, where a man stood at a ticket counter, his face obscured in shadow. He wore a large-pattern plaid shirt, blue jeans, and work boots. Tyler stepped closer, his heart doi
ng a dance in the center of his chest.

  It was their boxcar killer. He felt certain of it.

  “I need to borrow your plane,” Tyler told Nell Priest through a pay phone, his cell phone batteries having died an hour earlier. His thumb rested on a Yellow Pages listing for an electronics superstore on the fringes of Charleston. He hoped to find an automobile charger for the cell phone on the way out of town.

  “I beg your pardon,” Priest said.

  “Thumbnail sketch: we’ve got a guy on a security video in Effingham: plaid shirt, jeans, work boots. The individual is scruffy, thin, early thirties maybe—no clean look at his face. Granted, he could be anybody, including our suspect. It’s not much to base a decision on, but those jeans have the legs rolled up into cuffs and they look a little big on him. Maybe they aren’t his jeans.”

  “Where’s Effingham?” she asked.

  “We drove through it. Twelve miles from Jewett. Hell, he could have walked it, not to mention hitchhike, jack a car, steal a snowmobile. The bus station is a McDonald’s. The restaurant’s security video is time-coded. He bought a Happy Meal and waited for the bus, which is how come we’ve got him on tape. That bus, that time of day, is an express to Chicago.”

  “And?”

  “Greyhound has pulled the Chicago terminal’s videos for us. They’re reviewing them using the scheduled arrival time, awaiting our arrival up there. It’s a four-hour drive. Less than an hour in your plane.” He hesitated, “Listen, I know it’s a lot to ask.”

  She said, a little breathless, “Does the FBI know about this?”

  “My cell phone’s dead. I’m not wasting anybody’s time until I know we’re onto something here.”

  “You’re withholding from the FBI?”

  “I’m following a possible lead. We’ll report it if and when it looks good. The plane, Nell. It’s available or not? If not, I’ll put the pedal to the metal and hope for the best.”

  “If you get the plane, you’ve got me for company.”