Imposter

by Davis Bunn

  “Do you see him now?”

  “No.”

  She waved at Judy hovering inside the townhome’s front door. “You both are doing great. Okay, reach inside and get my case. Now let me take your arm and go slow on the stairs.”

  Connie wore gray lumpish hair, baggy sweater, ankle dress, and fifteen inches of padding around her middle. The disguise was Lucas’s idea. Headquarters had a slew of bad wigs and clothes one step up from Goodwill. Once the door was shut, Connie stripped down to reveal black biking tights and running shoes. “Mrs. Leigh? Connie Morales, Baltimore Police.”

  The journalist was as worried as she was pregnant. “Can I see your badge, please?”

  “Absolutely.” Judy’s husband was a small man with a true Irish complexion, right down to the emerald green eyes. Connie thought he looked vaguely elfish, the way he did his two-step in and out of the living room doorway. “Mr. Leigh, maybe you should move farther away from the living room window.”

  “Oh. Right.” He shifted his dance back into the hall shadows.

  “We don’t want the stalker to observe you being anything but happy over your great-aunt’s visit.”

  “Sure, sure.” It was unlikely he heard Connie at all. The only steady thing about him was his eyes. They never left his wife.

  Judy Leigh asked, “Where is Matt Kelly?”

  “One street over and waiting for my signal.” Talking like she’d done this a million times before. Hoping they wouldn’t notice the stuttering heart in her own voice. Connie squatted on the floor by her suitcase. “Tell me what you know, Mrs. Leigh.”

  “I noticed him on the way home. He followed me from the paper down into the Metro. I thought I saw him on the walk up our street, but I wasn’t sure. I stayed with other people the whole way home. Then I saw him crossing in front of our house on the other side of the street. I called Matt from our van so I could scout our street. The guy was still there, sitting inside a car.”

  “Which one?”

  “A black SUV. He doesn’t stay in it all the time. He was walking the sidewalk the last time I looked.”

  Connie opened the suitcase and pulled out a Taser, collapsible baton, Kevlar vest, Maglite, Beretta, and ankle holster. Mr. Leigh’s eyes grew increasingly wide as she kitted out. “Describe him, please.”

  “He never approached. Never got very close. Never stayed still. Never looked straight at me.” Judy Leigh rested one comforting hand on her baby. “Tall, certainly over six feet. Narrow face. But very strong-looking. Brownish gray hair, military cut. Incredibly fit. He looked about fifty, maybe ten years more; I have no idea.”

  Her husband said, “I should have confronted him.”

  “Harry, please.”

  “Your wife’s right, Mr. Leigh. This man sounds like a pro.”

  Judy Leigh asked, “Did Matt tell you about my problem at work?”

  “Yes. Is there a back way out?”

  “Through the kitchen.” Judy led her down the hall.

  “No, keep the light off.”

  “Yes. All right.” She fumbled with the door lock. “The yard is ringed with a safety fence. The gate is rusted shut.”

  Connie glanced into the night. The fence looked only shoulder high, with a doghouse next door. “Can you keep your neighbor’s dog quiet?”

  “They’re away and the dog is at a kennel.”

  “Okay. You both stay inside. Move around the front room where he can see you. If you hear me yell ’Police!’ dial 911 and say, ‘Officer needs assistance.’” Connie flipped open her phone with Matt’s number set into her speed dial.

  Matt answered immediately. Connie said, “I’m going out the back.”

  “I see your silhouette.”

  “Our guy still in position?”

  “Half a block away from the Leighs’ front door. He was standing for a while. Now he’s seated inside a black Tahoe.”

  “Hold on.” She cradled the phone, said to the journalist, “You know what to do.”

  “Dial 911 if you call out ‘Police.’ She continued to hold her baby. “Is that Mr. Kelly?”

  “Yes. Everything’s going to be okay, Mrs. Leigh.” Connie shut the door, stepped into the garden, and started for the fence. “Maybe he drove over, parked the car, then went back downtown to follow her. Which means he was after more than just watching your journalist friend, right?”

  “I’m too new at this game to guess.”

  “I’m moving now.” She shut her phone and started over the fence. Still smiling.

  She spotted Matt as soon as she stepped through the neighbor’s shrubs and hit the sidewalk. He was crouched three cars behind the Tahoe. The SUV was not hard to spot. It sat as far as possible between two streetlights, a dark pavement mole. The side windows were tinted.

  Connie waited until Matt slipped up on the SUV’s other side. Then she came out of her crouch and trotted across the street, moving fast and hard. She took her badge in one hand and the Maglite in the other.

  She hit the beam and raised her badge to tap on the driver’s window. “Police. Step—”

  The door came at her with the force of a battering ram. No click, no internal light, no warning. The door crashed into her chest and shoulder, sending her sprawling. The Maglite clattered on the pavement and rolled.

  The man was a very fast shadow. Connie grabbed for the ankle that bounded across her and missed. “Police! Stop!”

  Matt dived around the vehicle. He caught the same leg she’d missed, not well, but enough to cause the guy to stumble.

  Connie rolled over and pulled the collapsible baton from her pocket. And stopped cold.

  The two men were dark spinning blurs. She had never seen anyone move that fast. Their speed and ferocity made a farce of films. The fact that they were utterly silent, save for soft grunts, made it even more chilling.

  The guy leaped and launched a double flying kick at Matt’s head. Matt blocked with both arms, trying to grip the man’s ankle and bring him down. But the man’s two kicks were just a feint. The man landed and kicked a third time, this one connecting with Matt’s wounded leg.

  Matt grunted but did not go down. He punched through the pain; Connie could see the agony on his features. The blow became two, three, four, five, a kick, Matt launching the next before the last was finished, moving so fast it appeared he was not connected to earth at all, all four of his limbs flailing simultaneously. The guy blocked and parried and backed. Until Matt struck him just above the sternum with the flat of his hand. The guy fell and rolled and came up running.

  Connie dropped her baton and pulled out her gun. “Freeze!”

  But she was shouting at an empty night. There was nothing. Not even the sound of footsteps.

  The guy was just gone.

  Connie chased him a half block but knew it was futile before she took the first step. She ran because she felt so foolish. Just lying there being a total rookie while Matt took a dozen strikes. More.

  She walked back as he came limping over, carrying her badge and baton. “You okay?”

  “Sure. Your light’s busted.”

  “Matt, I’m sorry, I should—”

  “You couldn’t have done anything.”

  “Sure I could have. I should have pulled my gun faster.”

  “Who would you have shot?”

  “You kidding? The guy trading blows with you faster than I could count.”

  “Exactly. If you’d fired, you’d probably have hit me.”

  Doors were opening up and down the street. Judy Leigh and her husband were huddled together in their doorway. Sirens were wailing in the distance. But all she could focus on was, “I’ve never seen . . . How did you do that?”

  “I’ve been training all my life.” He was studying the unseen trail laid down by the fleeing man. “And so has he.”

  She realized Matt was leaning slightly to one side. “He hurt you.”

  “Bruised, not broken.” He pointed at the Leighs. “Go talk to them. Tell them everything’s a
ll right.”

  On Monday, as usual, the nightmares hauled him from sleep an hour or so before his body was ready. Matt dressed and put on coffee and stretched. He drank his first cup watching early dawn gradually conquer the sky. He picked up the phone and made two calls, apologizing twice for the hour, glad to find both men already awake and willing to see him.

  The morning was colder than the previous day, but just as beautiful. The sky held a winter’s dusty hue. Autumn trees shone in the crisp air as though imitating the sun that had not yet risen. Matt tried hard to ignore the whispers that ran alongside his car, gnawing at the day with tiny rabid teeth.

  The church rectory was located a couple of blocks off Mount Vernon Square. Matt had taken his mother there any number of times, but never been inside. Ian Reeves answered in shirtsleeves and gray suit pants. He showed no surprise whatsoever at Matt’s appearance.

  “I should have asked to come by later.”

  “Nonsense. I always make a full pot of coffee in the hopes that someone will help solve a bachelor’s worst dilemma.” He waited until they were back in the kitchen to add, “How to fill the empty spaces between friends.”

  Matt took a seat. He knew quite a lot about the pastor. He knew Ian had loved a woman, but she had married another man. He knew Ian’s sister had been widowed a couple of years back. They had turned the top two floors of Ian’s stone town house into an apartment for her. Matt knew these things because his mother had often spoken of the big ugly man, and done so with an open fondness she reserved for very few. Megan Kelly had deeply regretted Matt’s silent disinterest in her church. My men, she used to say. My daily reminders of everything I can’t change in this old world.

  Matt accepted the mug, declined the offer of milk and sugar, and said, “I need to ask you about my mother.”

  Ian Reeves was narrow in the shoulders and massive about the waist. His hands were too big for his body and his feet were elephantine. Yet he moved about the kitchen with subtle grace. “No you don’t.”

  He watched Ian set out toast and juice and plates for two. “I don’t know where else to turn.”

  “I hear that one a lot.” Ian seated himself. “Matt, listen to me. There is nothing I need to tell you about your mother.”

  “She was the intended victim all along. This means there had to be some—”

  “Let me save you the agony of asking because there is nothing to be found. I knew your mother as well as anyone outside the family. She loved your father. She was faithful to him in every way. She loved you. She was a wonderful woman. There. I’ve just saved us both a world of unnecessary discomfort.”

  Matt lowered his gaze to the steaming mug and wished he could feel better about all he had just heard.

  “Now, why don’t you tell me why you’re here.”

  “I just tried to.”

  “You’re sure there’s no other reason?”

  The man’s voice held a calm almost strong enough to draw a few fragments from his internal vault. “Yes.”

  “Are you resting well?”

  Matt sipped from his mug.

  “Stupid question. You’re investigating your own mother’s murder. Matt, I admire your motives, but I question your actions.”

  “I have to do this.” Matt rose from his seat. “Thanks for the coffee.”

  Ian did not try to stop him. Nor did he rise. “Far be it from me to stand between a man and his chosen duty. Just remember this, will you? An investigation is only as good as the questions you ask.”

  Matt headed straight from the rectory to Vic’s dojo in the Tenth Ward. When Matt had started attending the dojo at age twelve, Vic had treated Matt as just another uptown kid. Vic ran them in teams. Like with like. The vanilla cupcakes paid Vic’s rent. Vic didn’t want some mill-town punk from Hamden or Tenth Ward knocking loose a couple thousand dollars’ worth of braces. Early on Matt had realized that, if he’d asked Vic to put him with the Hamden kids, Vic would have shown him the door. So Matt had studied the books he could find at whatever library was closest, practiced hard, and waited.

  Then his dad had sent them back to their Bolton Hill home for almost two months. Megan Kelly hadn’t liked being away from her husband that long, but Paul Kelly’s latest deal had him constantly on the road. Finally things settled down, and Paul Kelly called for them to join him. Matt approached Vic the day he learned they were moving to Grand Rapids and asked what he could do to work out at home.

  “Do the katas,” Vic replied, not glancing away from the mill-town kids going at it hard. Katas were stylistic fighting dances, intended to develop grace and strength. Vic had started the cupcakes with four katas, all less than a dozen moves.

  “I’m already doing them.”

  “So do them again.” When Vic realized that Matt had not moved, he said, “You’re not in here often enough for me to work with you, kid.”

  “My dad moves us around a lot.”

  Vic turned back to the senior class, his silence saying better than words that this was Matt’s problem.

  “I’m doing the four katas and some other stuff for two hours every night,” Matt persisted. “I want more.”

  Vic ignored him until the senior class worked through the routine a second time. He turned back then and looked at Matt, really looked, for the first time. “Two hours?”

  “At least.”

  “Show me.”

  Matt ran through the katas together, joining them into one so that they actually formed enough of a workout to kick up his heartbeat. But his breathing was still calm when he was done. Vic noticed this. He noticed everything. “What’s your name, kid?”

  “Matt.”

  “Matt what?”

  “Matt Kelly.”

  “Okay, Matt. Widen your stance before the kicks. And stop hesitating. You need to have more confidence in your stance. Loosen up. Stop rushing. You control the time here, not the kata. When you’re ready, you strike.” Vic uncoiled then. One moment he was leaning against the wall. The next, his leg was a rotating blur. Then back to the wall. “See?”

  Matt’s lungs were pumping now from what he had just seen. “Yes.”

  “If you’re going to do it, if you have to strike, you do it full on. You hold nothing back. You hesitate, you die. Got me?”

  “Yes.”

  “So what’s the word, Matt?”

  “Full on.”

  “That’s right.”

  When Vic started to turn away, Matt halted him with, “Can I show you something else?”

  “Go for it.”

  Matt moved into his fighting stance and started another kata. When he finished, Vic asked, “Where’d you learn that?”

  “Watching you teach the black belts.”

  “You know any others?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many?”

  “Seven.”

  “You taught yourself seven katas watching me train the others?”

  “And studying some books.”

  Vic laughed at that, a soft punch of breath. “Sure. I can teach you something else.”

  Vic started him on the exercise pole, a bare trunk with stubby branches polished by the hands and feet and sweat of Vic’s advanced students. The exercise pole taught speed and a tolerance of pain. It toughened sinew and callused skin. Matt learned to hate and love the pole.

  Matt left for Grand Rapids with six new katas, three books, and a rigorous new exercise regimen. Calisthenics and running and isometrics. Vic wanted to see how far Matt could be pushed before he ran back to Mama. Vic never said it. But Matt saw it in his pockmarked features and flat gaze. Vic figured it was only a matter of time.

  When Matt returned five months later, he ditched the white karate uniform that all the uptown guys wore. They also took pride in the belt ceremonies. Vic kept the front counter full of belts and uniforms and books and DVDs and made a ton off the stuff. The uniforms also made for easy separation of the two crews.

  Matt adopted the mill-town garb of cutoffs and tank to
ps. The milltown kids who could afford proper gear saved it for contests where uniforms were required. When Matt walked in wearing stuff he had washed with stones until they were suitably ragged, Vic welcomed him back by sticking him into the mill-town crew, who proceeded to deck him with brutal relish.

  Matt hid his bruises the best he could. He accepted the pain and the beatings as just another lesson. But he kept getting handed his head. The family moved again. When he came back three months later, the beatings just got worse.

  Finally Vic pulled him aside and asked, “When are you finally going to lock and load?”

  The last bout had left Matt unable to put weight on his left leg. “I’m trying.”

  “I’m not talking about trying.” He took in the dojo with a quick motion of his hand. “What’s this place you’re in?”

  “Full-contact Sho-Rey dojo.”

  “Emphasis on full, which is what I’m not getting from you. Do you come in here to lose?”

  “No.”

  “Because I don’t have time for losers, Matt.”

  “I’m not a loser.”

  “So why is it you let those kids use you for a doormat? You’ve got the strength. You got speed. You’re smart enough to watch and react. You know more katas than any of them.” Vic leaned in close enough for Matt to smell the cinnamon on his breath. “You’re afraid, aren’t you?”

  “No, I’m not—”

  “Yeah, you are. You’re terrified.”

  “They don’t scare me.”

  “I’m not talking about them. Forget them. I’m talking about you. Yeah. I can see it in your eyes. You’re scared to death of what you got tanked up inside you. Afraid if you let go for once, it’ll just eat you up. Isn’t that right.”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “Get outta here. And don’t come back ’til you’re ready to show me.” Vic saw Matt’s stricken look, and it only turned him mean. “You know what? Don’t bother coming back at all. I don’t ever want to see your shiny little cupcake face around here again.”

  Matt stayed where he was because he had nowhere else to go. Certainly not home. There was nothing for him there but more of what he kept tightly clenched up inside. What he had always assumed was hidden from the world. Until now.