Carter handed the pictures back, confused by what he’d just seen, and by why they were showing them to him. “I can’t explain that.”
“It gets better,” said Aspinall and nodded to Harrelson.
The next picture showed the car’s passenger door open. A man in a dark overcoat and a hat was leaning in. There was something shiny on the passenger seat. It took Carter a moment to realize it was a shoe, one of Belasco’s shod feet. “That’s how we found Belasco, lying across the seats,” said Harrelson. The time code read 13:06.
So did the code on the next one, taken some thirty seconds later from the video. The man standing by the car, Belasco lying still in the car, presumably dead. The man had a phone to his ear.
13:06.
“Holy shit,” said Carter.
The officers thought he was reacting to the realization that Belasco was not the one who had called him. True, that was part of it, but what concerned Carter most was he recognized the man in the hat and coat.
He had been sitting on Carter’s bed that morning.
* * *
After he left the Providence PD precinct building, far more confused than when he entered, Carter went for a long, meandering walk to clear his head.
He wanted to think he was reading something into nothing. All he had of the man he had dreamed of was two momentary glimpses, once in silhouette, and once turned away. One man in an overcoat and hat looked pretty much like another. There was just something about it, though. There wasn’t a single view of the man’s face, and—despite it looking like he had bare hands in the recording—there were no unaccounted-for fingerprints on the door handle, glass, or the phone itself. He must have been wearing latex gloves, or even painted out his fingerprints with latex solution.
The timing was irrefutable, however. Whoever the stranger was, he had undeniably watched Belasco die (die somehow—the ME was taking her time over it), walked over, calmly taken Belasco’s phone from his corpse in broad daylight, called Carter to bring him to the scene, and walked away. Whoever he was, he knew full well where every camera in the vicinity was. He was only on the parking lot camera, and he’d kept his back to that. Every other camera in the vicinity had been checked, and he wasn’t on any of them. There were gaps in the coverage so it certainly wasn’t impossible to walk away undetected, but it was unlikely, unless those gaps had already been discovered and a safe path plotted.
All of which meant that whatever had happened (Carter couldn’t quite bring himself to accept that it was a homicide, not while the cause of death remained unsettled) had been exhaustively planned and the area reconnoitered. Carter was sure he had never met or heard of Belasco, and the evidence was that the ignorance was mutual. Carter’s number was only found in the call log of Belasco’s phone, not the contact list. In the recording, the man plainly tapped in the number with the thumb of his right hand, his left hanging empty by his side. There was no notebook, card, or scrap of paper to consult. So, the man in the overcoat and hat had entered Carter’s number from memory. It was a small, unusual detail in what was becoming a large, unusual case.
The biggest question in Carter’s mind was not why Belasco had died, how Belasco had died, or who had been complicit in that death. It was, why Carter? Why drag him into it? If the timing had been very different, he could have believed it was an attempt to frame him, but the timing almost seemed to go out of its way to exonerate him from collusion immediately. Harrelson didn’t strike Carter as the sharpest detective he’d ever met, but he was no chump, either. It was simple and quick to eliminate Carter as a suspect, and so it had proved.
Carter entertained paranoid ideas of it being an unnecessarily complicated double plot to frame him for murder after having first framed him for coming up with a perfect alibi, the second stage of the plan not yet having gone into operation. His paranoia never persisted for long, however; there was enough shit happening in the world already without having to imagine more.
Specifically, there was somebody out there who would want to bring him right into the middle of a police investigation, and knew just how to do it. That much was indisputable, and demonstrated that he really didn’t need to be paranoid. Somebody clever was out to get him, although what “get” meant in this case was beyond Carter. In his experience, motives were simple. There was greed, there was jealousy, he’d seen plenty of revenge played out in gang-related crimes, there was even sadism, and sometimes there was flat-out stupidity, which was a pretty powerful motivator in itself.
For the first time in his careers as a cop and as an investigator, he could see opportunity, and the shadow of a method, but the motive was just missing. No, he admitted to himself, there was one other case in which he could find no motive he could understand. Martin Suydam.
* * *
Carter phoned Detective Harrelson.
“Mr. Carter,” said Harrelson. He sounded surprised. “How can I help you? Have you remembered something?”
“Can you talk?”
There was silence on the line. Carter had the distinct impression he was making Harrelson nervous.
“How d’you mean?”
“I mean,” said Carter carefully, “the Belasco thing is freaking me out a little. I want to talk to you about it without your lieutenant and captain standing there.”
“Look, Carter.” Carter noted the drop of the honorific and was glad of it. “This is police business now. I know you’re going to feel involved—”
“I am involved.”
“—but you’re just going to get in the way. You know how this works. We don’t need you playing Sam Spade in the middle.”
“What kind of resources are they giving you?” There was silence on the line. “Yeah, that was what I thought. The ME will come back with an inconclusive report, maybe even try and farm it out for a second opinion, because he doesn’t—”
“She.”
“—because she doesn’t want a mystery death on her record, especially not somebody middle class and maybe notable in his field. Your lieutenant will decide that, yes, the man who made the phone call was a little weird, but there’s no actual evidence of wrongdoing. It’ll sit as an open case for a while, then go cold and slide out of sight. Maybe it will be closed because somebody decides there’s no case at all. Maybe not.” Carter looked up at the sign on the bar behind him. “There’s a bar around the corner from you called McLaren’s.”
“Christ, no,” said Harrelson, “that’s a cop bar. Find the Dantzic Brew Vault. It’s a couple of blocks from McLaren’s. I’ll see you there in twenty minutes.”
He hung up.
* * *
It was closer to thirty when Harrelson turned up, looking harassed. Carter had chosen a beer for him. Harrelson struck him as a dark brew sort of man. Harrelson looked at the glass when Carter slid it toward him, muttered, “I’m on duty,” and drank from it anyway.
“You’ve got me as a resource,” said Carter.
“I’ve got the whole fucking department.”
“No, you don’t. I know how this goes, Harrelson. The Child-Catcher thing went weird, too. You never met a man less likely to eat his gun than Charlie Hammond.”
Harrelson was looking at him warily, as if suspecting some sort of entrapment.
“I’m not talking about a whitewash or anything like that. People just stopped talking about it, pretended it had never happened.” He shook his head. “It’s a strange fucking thing to see the biggest case in the city just fade away out of people’s minds like that. It’s going to happen to the Belasco death, too. It already is. It’s like seeing the world rewritten before your very eyes until it’s just a fading memory for most.” He tapped the tabletop. “If you’re directly affected, you can’t do that, though. I can’t because hat-and-coat dragged me into it. You can’t because it’s your case.”
“Maybe there’s no case.”
Carter winced. “Bullshit. It’s a homicide.”
There was silence for a minute.
Then Carter s
aid, “The ME’s report’s already in, isn’t it?”
Harrelson said nothing.
“What’s in it? What killed Belasco?”
“The report is provisional,” said Harrelson. He took a quick drink from his glass. “It’s inconclusive.”
“Wow.” Carter nodded slowly, impressed. “That much of a career threat, huh? Your ME must be regretting ever opening that body bag.”
“I saw her. Asked about the foam on his lips. Said I’d seen something similar in drownings.” He shook his head, reliving disbelief. “She looked like I’d just asked her to go down on me. Couldn’t get me out of there fast enough. I think…” He said it reluctantly. “I think they’re going to put it down to some kind of seizure and close the case.”
“So, you’ve got the ‘whole fucking department as a resource,’ huh?”
“I got fuck all.” He glared at Carter. “I got a guy who looks like he drowned in a dry car, an ME who ain’t answering her e-mails, a lieutenant who is real keen to unload a gangbanger case on me, and I got you.” He took another quick drink. “And you’re an asshole.”
“How long before you get closed down?”
“As soon as the ME gets the balls to sign off on a final report. That’ll be early next week now. She’s gonna spend the weekend agonizing over it.”
“What will it say?”
Harreslon barked a humorless laugh. “What’s it gonna say? What can it say? Natural causes. She’ll find some Latin name for a whole family of conditions, and say that did him. He fitted and he died. What else can it say?” He looked in his glass, but it was empty now. “That Voldemort offed him? That it’s an X-Files episode? Call the fucking Scooby Gang? Jesus.”
“Okay.” Carter finished his own drink. “Okay. I’m going to ask around. If I find anything out, I tell you. If you find anything out, you tell me. We keep it off the Net.”
“I ain’t got time for a new hobby.”
“I know. This is mainly going to be on me. I got questions. I just want you to hear the answers.”
“They’re gonna be toxic.”
“I know.”
“This is going to bite me, I know it.” Harrelson got to his feet. “Okay, Carter. Keep me in the loop.”
“Two-way street, man.”
Harrelson was walking away. “You’re still an asshole.”
* * *
The first firing range Carter found insisted on his joining the NRA as a condition of membership. He passed on that, and found a gun store with an indoor range. He showed his ID and his concealed carry, and bought an hour on a twenty-five-yard lane, a box of ammunition, a pair of eye protectors for $2.99, and disposable earplugs for 50 cents.
He hadn’t held his gun for any reason other than to clean it since the day Hammond died. He used to be fastidious about booking time on the range until then. After, it hadn’t seemed so important.
The Glock didn’t feel good in his hands anymore. It was awkward, and he spent a minute experimenting with his grip to get it to rest snuggled into the web of his thumb. Even then it felt heavy and alien.
One of the store workers was overseeing the range and stopped by Carter’s lane. Carter didn’t notice him until he said, “You’ve fired before, yeah?”
He sounded unconvinced by his own question. Carter had carried out a safety test to the worker’s satisfaction before he was allowed on the lane, and had done so easily and intuitively.
“Out of practice,” said Carter. “I’ve let myself get out of practice.” He forced a comradely smile. He wished the man would go. The man didn’t.
“Try letting off a clip. Don’t worry about your grouping. Just get the feel of it.”
“Thanks,” said Carter. His smile was feeling painful. The store worker still didn’t go.
Cursing inwardly, Carter turned his attention back to the lane. At least the target was a simple silhouette body mass sheet, and not one of the bullshit novelty targets he’d seen sometimes. Generic “Taliban,” zombies, clowns, dinosaurs, zombie clowns. They pissed him off bad. It wasn’t a fucking game.
Almost unbidden, he released the safety, and his index finger slid inside the guard.
The first shot surprised him, but old reflexes were shaking off the rust. He fired rapidly in a series of controlled double taps, just like Charlie swore by, just like Charlie didn’t use on the day of his death.
Five, six, seven duos of slugs went out from the Glock, grouping well in the innermost body mass zone.
Then there was just one bullet left in the gun and, as he fired it without hesitation, he saw Suydam standing there, the stunted shape of the Taurus PLY in his hand. He was smiling as Carter gutshot him.
Carter lowered his pistol quickly, unconsciously reengaging the safety and moving his index to lie against the frame. He puffed out a breath in shock, but it was just a card target. It had never been anything but a card target.
The store worker had mistaken the sharp exhalation for exhilaration. “There you go! Good shooting, my man! Like riding a bike, right? Last one’s a mite low, but it would have done the job okay.” He laughed. “Just not quick.”
Chapter 10
THE SORCERY OF STATISTICS
“You look like shit,” said Lovecraft.
“It’s been a problematical kind of day,” he admitted.
He’d arrived at the store an hour before closing, feeling wrung out and reeking of propellant fumes. He’d ended up emptying the box of ammo at the range and buying another. He’d left behind several bullet-riddled card targets and an impressed gun store employee. Lovecraft had greeted him by telling him he stank like Custer’s Last Stand.
There was nothing wrong with his marksmanship, but he had discovered that he no longer enjoyed shooting. The lack of pleasure in it depressed him. He’d never subscribed to the whole Second Amendment fetish, and the NRA could go fuck themselves, but he’d always enjoyed shooting in and of itself, even when it became a necessary part of his job. Even that hadn’t taken the joy out of it. He’d never, ever fired in anger, though, and now he wondered if he could. The pistol in the paddle holster at his waist, the gun he could feel weighing there right that minute, had stopped being a tool and become a liability in the balance sheet of his sensibilities. Watching Charlie snuff himself had done that.
“Have you eaten?”
Carter perked up at the question. He’d enjoyed eating with her the previous evening. “No. Haven’t felt hungry until now.”
“Well, eat.” Belatedly she realized he’d misunderstood her. “Sorry. I’m seeing Ken tonight. Look, use the kitchen upstairs. Make yourself something, watch some reruns.” Before he could respond, she slapped him gently in the chest. “You’re adorable. Just like a lost puppy. Go and get some groceries while I close up the shop, and I’ll cook for you.”
“I can cook,” said Carter, unsure whether to be grateful or irritated by the offer.
“Nobody said you couldn’t. Get the groceries, and take your damn gun smoke with you. You’re upsetting the books.”
* * *
She was as good as her word, if underwhelmed by the choice of ingredients he brought back. She made him a Spanish omelet while they talked.
“I guess you can’t talk about your cases,” she said. “Client confidentiality, and all.”
“No. Not usually. I’m kind of my own client on this one, though, so I’m giving myself permission to talk about it.”
“What an understanding client you have.”
“Maybe,” said Carter, “but he pays badly.”
Carter spent the remaining cooking time and about half the eating telling her about the Belasco investigation while Lovecraft listened, eating an apple. He noticed she lost interest in the apple as the story progressed.
When he finished, her first question surprised him.
“What was Belasco a professor of?”
“I said. Math.”
She gave him an I’m talking to an idiot look. “There’s math and there’s math. Which particu
lar discipline?”
Sighing vexedly, Carter fetched his jacket and checked the notebook he kept in the breast pocket. “Topology. What is that, anyway? Maps?”
“Surfaces. The math of surfaces.”
“I was kind of right, then.”
“And kind of very wrong.” She went to take a bite from her apple, and changed her mind. “Clave has a good academic reputation. Small college, but high-powered. If Belasco had tenure there, he must have been quite something.”
“You think somebody at the college engineered his death?”
“Okay, two things. First, yeah. If he was murdered, however it was done has baffled an experienced medical examiner. Takes either really obscure knowledge or a really clever head to do a thing like that. Second”—she looked seriously at Carter—“I think you should walk away from this.”
The forkful of omelet halted at his mouth.
“Seriously. This has nothing to do with you. You said yourself, you’re not getting paid for this and you hate your client.”
“I can’t do that.”
“You’re not a cop anymore, Dan. Yes, you can do that. If only from a position of self-preservation. If there is a killer behind all this, it’s someone who killed Belasco for reasons that are probably beyond normal human comprehension. Belasco scoffed at one of the perp’s equations—”
Perp? mouthed Carter, raising his eyebrows at her.
“—or crossed his sevens and somebody hated that, or stole somebody’s favorite pencil. If they’ve killed once and got away with it, they might want to try again if somebody pisses them off even slightly. Investigations piss people off. You start doing the gumshoe in the wrong venue, and you might end up the one with foam on your lips.”
Carter finished the last scraps of his omelet in silence.
“I never knew you cared,” he said. He let his fork fall with a clatter on the plate.
“I don’t. You haven’t signed the legal papers yet. Hand me half the store and then you can go off and get yourself killed with my blessing.” She checked her watch. “Ah, crap. I always cut these things too close. Got to run.”
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