The Third Rail

by Michael Harvey

  “Hubert Russell?” I said, my heart suddenly popping in the hollow of my throat.

  Lawson widened her eyes and tapped her pen against a clipboard. “What about him?”

  “Where is he?”

  CHAPTER 46

  They had already cut Hubert down by the time we got there. I stood on the sidewalk and watched as they carried him out of his building in a coroner’s bag. His memory played across the inside of my skull. I reached out, wanting to feel the weight. But he walked away from my touch and took his spot in the gallery of dead faces, waiting, apparently, to witness my grief.

  “I’m sorry, Michael.” Lawson stood at my shoulder, her words tight in my ear. “I don’t know what happened to the team I sent in.”

  “It wasn’t you.” I stepped back from the ambulance and took a seat on the curb. “I was the one who waited. I was the one who decided he wasn’t a target. And I was wrong.”

  “I’m sorry.” Lawson crouched down and seemed to lose her train of thought, if not her composure, for a moment. “We were too late and I’m sorry.”

  I felt her hand on mine, her face shining white in the night.

  “Michael Kelly.”

  I looked up. A middle-aged black woman was standing over me, removing a pair of latex gloves. Marge Connelly spent her life in the company of death, her features full of the hard grace necessary to the job. I had known her for more than a decade and seen the look before. This time I was on the receiving end.

  “Hi, Marge.” I stood up, Lawson with me. “This is Katherine Lawson, from the Bureau. Marge Connelly, Cook County ME.”

  The two women shook hands.

  “You two involved in this?” Marge said.

  “Hubert was a friend of mine,” I said.

  Marge raised her eyes a fraction and looked to the FBI agent, waiting for more.

  “We might have an interest in the case,” Lawson said.

  “This wasn’t a suicide,” I said.

  “Who claimed it was?” Marge opened the back door to the ambulance. The black body bag rested inside.

  “What did you find?” Lawson said.

  “Off the record? Death by asphyxiation. He was hung by a length of rope from his ceiling fan. How he got there?” Marge shrugged. “Just don’t know right now. Young man, though. And that’s an awful shame.”

  I moved closer to the bag. Marge slid down the zipper without a word. I took a last look, but my friend was gone, his features already cast by death’s heavy hand.

  “I should have something tomorrow,” Marge said and closed up the bag. Lawson nodded and thanked her. Marge climbed into the front of the ambulance. Then Lawson and I watched as they took Hubert Russell to the morgue.

  THE BLUE LINE

  CHAPTER 47

  Katherine Lawson sank into her seat and watched the wooden ties of the tracks flash beneath the window. The Blue Line train picked up speed as it left the station and leaned into a curve. Lawson laid her head against the glass, allowing the car’s motion to carry her back. The first image she saw was Hubert Russell, neck stretched, spinning slowly over his desk. Then came Kelly, eyes like open coffins, holding her hand as the lid slammed shut on his friend and dirt thumped all around.

  Lawson started and opened her eyes. Her train was pulling into the station at UIC–Halsted. It was just midafternoon, and the car was thankfully empty, save for a woman with tired eyes who was heading to work in her Target uniform. Lawson slipped off her black gloves and flexed her fingers. Then she laid the gloves in her lap and folded her hands over them. They were diving under the city now, into the subway, barreling toward the Loop. She looked out the window, at the banks of lights clipping past as they raced along the tunnel. The papers Lawson had copied were in her bag. She pulled them out and read through the material once again. Then she felt the key in her pocket. It opened the CTA access door near Clinton, the spot where they had found Maria Jackson’s body a week ago. Lawson checked her watch. Her meeting was set for five. Plenty of time. She stood up, put on her gloves and pulled them tight. The woman in the Target uniform smiled as the train glided to a halt. Lawson smiled back. Then the doors slid open, and she stepped onto the dim platform.

  LAWSON SCRAPED HER SHOES through the dirt, looking up at layers of dust floating above her in various levels of light. Jackson’s body had been discovered less than a mile from where she was walking, but that wasn’t the federal agent’s concern. Her eyes followed a string of lights, running along the subway tracks and into the darkness. This wasn’t the sealed fluorescent lighting she’d seen on her ride into the city. These were lightbulbs, old-school, just as she remembered from the Jackson crime scene. And that bothered her.

  Somewhere, a rumble volleyed and echoed. Lawson instinctively stepped back and touched the grip on her gun. She could feel the vibration through her feet, hear it in the steel. The rumble grew until the train seemed like it was right on top of her. Then she saw it through a gap, a leap of fury and light, three tracks over, blowing around the corner and down the tunnel. Lawson cast her eyes overhead and watched the bulbs sway, throwing shadows on the walls around her. Then the train was past. The bulbs continued to rock in a subtle, declining arc, and soon the only sound was again the shuffle of her feet.

  Lawson walked for another ten minutes, then turned back toward the door she’d come in. She’d spend the rest of her day thinking about the subway, the lightbulbs, and her meeting, all of which was good—mostly, because it kept her from thinking about the rest.

  CHAPTER 48

  I remembered the smell of burned wax and perfume, a door opening and cool air sucking me down a dark hallway. I stepped into a narrow room with a single overhead light and a plain wooden table. The suit motioned me to sit. He passed some paper across the table. I signed. He read what I signed and nodded. Then he left the room and returned with a vessel made of plain black stone and sealed with white wax. I pulled the vessel toward me. It felt cold and heavy in my hands. I could smell the crush of dead leaves and saw a pair of thin, bloodless lips, set in a cruel line and stitched together with dead man’s silk. A shovel turned over in my mind, and the world went black. I looked up. The suit grinned and offered me the stubs of his teeth, sunken into yellow, swollen gums. I pushed the vessel back across the table and left.

  Voices chased me down the hall. I could feel their eyes as I grasped the handle on the front door and nearly took it off its spindle. Then I was outside again, into the sun’s blister, the blast furnace of South Central L.A., the storefront undertaker on his stoop, yelling now, telling me I needed to come back. There were more bills to pay. More credit cards to run. I shucked my coat over my shoulder and hit it. Walked along Florence Avenue for the better part of the day, feet melting into the pavement, sun bursting inside my head. I sat on a bench at a bus stop and closed my eyes. A couple of locals hit me up for money, but I shrugged them off. Buses came, buses went. Their exhaust fused with the heat and settled into a sludge that I breathed. Finally, the sun went down and a blessed cool came into the valley of the city. I opened my eyes to headlights from the traffic and the sun dissolving orange against a blue-black sky. I took a cab to LAX. The early flights to Chicago were booked, so I caught the red-eye. I leaned back in my seat as the plane lifted off beneath me, thinking I had left my father behind. How wrong I was.

  MY EYES SNAPPED OPEN to a ceiling fan cutting lazy strokes through the late afternoon sun. My heart thundered in my chest, and my mouth felt parched.

  The phone rang. I checked caller ID, lifted the phone, and dropped it back onto its cradle. Then I went into the kitchen and found the Macallan. Or what was left of it. The phone rang again. This time I picked up.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Rodriguez said.

  I looked at the water glass of scotch in front of me. “Getting drunk. How about you?”

  “No one’s heard from you for a day and a half.”

  Actually, that wasn’t true. Four days ago, I watched as they put Hubert Russell in a hole I�
��d dug for him. I spent the next three days at Northwestern Memorial. They let me in to see Rachel once. She cried until I left.

  “What do you want, Rodriguez?”

  “How is she?”

  “Nothing’s changed.”

  “You gonna try and see her again?”

  “They said they’d call.”

  “You want to get a drink?”

  “I’ll let you know if I run out.”

  Rodriguez grunted and hung up. I found an old pack of cigarettes and lit one up. The pup didn’t like that and went back into the bedroom. From the bottom drawer of my desk I pulled out a folder tabbed L.A. and opened it. On top was a police shot of my father, cold and stiff in a one-room SRO in South Central. Underneath, more of the same.

  I turned the picture facedown and picked up the phone. She answered on the first ring.

  “Yes, Michael.”

  “Anything new?”

  “From an hour ago? No, Michael, nothing’s new.”

  The woman’s name was Hazel Wisdom. She worked the day shift on Rachel’s floor. My contact at night was a nurse named Marilyn Bunck.

  “Did she eat lunch?” I said.

  “I don’t know, Michael, but I’m betting yes.”

  “Did the doctors see her?”

  “I told you. They see her every day.”

  “Did she talk to them?”

  “I wasn’t there when they examined her, but I know she’s getting stronger. It’s just going to take a while.”

  “Meanwhile, I need to keep my distance.”

  “It’s not distance. It’s space. Just a little space so she can heal.”

  “Doing nothing doesn’t work for me, Hazel.”

  “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

  “Don’t blow things out of proportion.”

  “You hung around here for three days, living on coffee and Snickers bars, sleeping on the floor when you weren’t staring at her door and haunting every nurse and doctor that came in and out of her room.”

  “Until your hospital booted me out.”

  “It wasn’t helping her, and that’s what’s important. Listen, if I could make it happen for you, I would. We all would. But it’s just not the way these things work. You’re in the business, Michael. You know.”

  She was right. I’d sat with plenty of them: fathers and husbands, boyfriends and brothers—victims once removed. Most would nod and gasp for air, hands clenching and unclenching, faces moving in broken pieces, lips mouthing questions for which there was never a good enough answer. And now I was one of them, asking a nurse to play God, wishing I could turn tomorrow into yesterday, wishing I could make Rachel whole. Hazel’s voice brought me back to the moment.

  “The truth is you just have to sit tight. Chances are she’ll be asking for you. Another day or two at most.”

  I nodded to an empty room. “Thanks for putting up with me, Hazel.”

  She laughed. “For what it’s worth, if I’m ever sick or hurt, I hope you’re on my side.”

  “Be careful what you wish for. You’ll call me if—”

  “If she asks? What do you think?”

  “Bye, Hazel.”

  “Talk to you in an hour, Michael.”

  I hung up the phone and felt the silence, heavy around me. I took my smokes and drink into the living room, and put on some music. Bruce’s harmonica chased Roy Bittan up the keyboard as “Thunder Road” unwound. I took another sip of scotch, smaller this time, sat down at my desk, and clicked on my Mac. Hubert Russell’s face popped up. It was the last video he made before he was murdered. His thoughts on the case I’d asked him to investigate—the case that got him killed.

  “I’ve already sent you the police file on your pal Jim Doherty.” Hubert dropped his eyes to his notes. “It’s probably nothing, but you said he worked the ’80 crash as a cop. As you can see, he didn’t get out of the Academy until 1982.”

  No, he didn’t, Hubert.

  “Anyway,” Hubert continued, “probably nothing, but whatever. I sent his Academy picture to your phone along with the file. The other thing I’m sending is about your old train crash and the company I’d mentioned, Transco.”

  I leaned forward and studied the digitized image of my friend. The kid was excited, knew he’d found a couple of pieces that clicked.

  “Your hunch was right, Mr. Kelly. Transco and Wabash Railway were owned by the same group, a corporation called CMT Holding.”

  I pulled out a pad and pen and wrote CMT HOLDING at the top and TRANSCO just below it. Then I drew a line between the two. On-screen, Hubert kept talking.

  “CMT appears to have had its fingers in a whole bunch of things back in the day. Railroads, related properties, manufacturing companies. All held through various subsidiaries. All very discreet. I don’t have a line yet on who actually controlled CMT, but I’m working on it. The company’s registered agent was an attorney named Sol Bernstein. He’s dead, but I think his son might know something. So, we’ll see. By the way, I also found CMT’s logo.” Hubert hit a few more keys. “Just sent it to your phone. A dead ringer for the one someone left on your doorstep. Cool, right?”

  Hubert paused on-screen and looked to his left. “Just heard something outside. Maybe the good guys are here to take me into protective custody.” He flashed a sly grin at the absurdity of it all. “Don’t worry, Mr. Kelly. If all else fails, I’ve got my steak knife to protect me. Talk to you later.”

  And then Hubert was gone. I shut down my Mac and turned up the music. Eddie Vedder had replaced the Boss and was telling me about a kid in Texas named Jeremy. I put my feet up on my desk and watched the day’s light flicker and fade against the walls. By the time I finished the scotch it was mostly dark. I left my gun at home and walked down the street to find a cab. Rachel would come back, or not. But Hubert Russell was dead. And I needed to do something about it.

  CHAPTER 49

  Lawson’s meeting was in a Loop bar and grill called the Exchequer. She got there early. He was in a back booth, sipping at a glass of water and reading the New York Times.

  “Danielson?”

  The man from Homeland Security raised his eyes from the paper and hollowed out a smile. “Agent Lawson.”

  Danielson made a move to get up, but Lawson waved him back down and slid in across from him.

  “Thanks for seeing me on such short notice,” Danielson said.

  “Not a problem. What can I do for you?”

  “You can start by telling me why you were wandering around in a CTA subway tunnel this afternoon.”

  Lawson’s needle never moved off center; her response was right out of the Bureau playbook. “I work a number of cases, Mr. Danielson. All of them major crimes. So where I go and what I do is my business. Above-and belowground.”

  Danielson held up a pair of manicured hands. “Easy. Same side here.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. One of our people happened to be in the area, doing some follow-up on the Doherty thing. They saw you go in the access door at Clinton this afternoon and snapped a picture.”

  Danielson threw a photo across the table. Lawson picked up the picture of herself and pretended to study it. Then she scuttled it back across the table and into Danielson’s lap.

  “The ‘Doherty thing,’ as you call it, was my case, a Bureau case.”

  Danielson shook his head and folded up his newspaper until it was a neat rectangle. “We don’t have to do this, Agent Lawson.”

  “No?”

  “No. I’m assuming you took a look at the binder James Doherty had with him when he died.”

  “I collected it at the scene. Of course I looked at it.”

  “And you saw the notes he made?”

  Lawson shrugged, but didn’t respond.

  “And I’m suspecting,” Danielson continued, “that was why you were down in the subway today?”

  Homeland Security waited, a hint of smugness tattooed across his lips.

  “I’m not sure this conversation is goi
ng anywhere, Mr. Danielson.”

  “Weaponized anthrax, Agent Lawson. Loaded into lightbulbs and planted in Chicago’s subway system. Is that what you’re concerned about? What you think Mr. Doherty might have been up to?”

  “From what I know—”

  “What you know, Agent Lawson, is nothing. We’ve explored the possibilities raised by Mr. Doherty and the ‘Terror 2000’ binder. That’s our job. We’ve discussed them with your higher-ups. And we have no concerns about any possible threat.”

  “Have you taken a look at Doherty’s accomplice?”

  “Robles, Robert R. General discharge from the United States Army in 1998. Prior to that, stationed for two years at Fort Detrick, home to this country’s major bioweapons lab. Yes, we know about Mr. Robles and we’ve talked to the lab. He was never authorized access to any weapons materials.”

  “And that’s it?”

  Danielson fanned his hands, palms up, on the table. “As far as you’re concerned, yes.”

  Lawson pulled out a news clipping. It was from the Baltimore Sun, dated February 10, 2009. The headline read:

  BIODEFENSE LAB COUNTS ITS KILLERS. INVENTORY ERROR PROMPTS FORT DETRICK TO CATALOG VIRUSES, BACTERIA, OTHER MATERIALS.

  “I’m sure you’ve seen this, Mr. Danielson. The lab director at Detrick spins it as more of a housekeeping issue—until you get to about paragraph five. That’s when he tells us the probability of a ‘discrepancy’ regarding the lab’s bioweapons inventory is ‘high.’ Then we learn the lab at Detrick didn’t even use computers to track its inventory until 2005. Prior to that, it was all pen and paper.”

  “What’s your point, Agent Lawson?”

  “My point is this. If a guy like Robles did take a chemical agent such as mustard gas, or, here’s an idea, a couple of lightbulbs filled with anthrax, would the lab at Detrick even know it?”