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A Visible Darkness mf-2

Page 16

by Jonathon King


  She still recognized me, and when I would bring her hand up to my cheek she would say, "Maxey, forgive me."

  And I would repeat that there was nothing for me to forgive.

  When she died the rest of the family was aghast when they found out that I was honoring my mother's wishes and having her cremated. She had fought through her duty to lay next to my father for too many years and did not want to do so for eternity.

  It was only after she passed that my uncle Keith took me aside and told me about the arsenic poisoning. The liver failure that my father had suffered could easily have been attributed to cirrhosis, even though the medical examiner had come up with an unnatural level of arsenic in his system. Being the nature of the police club, whose circle of influence included the M.E.'s and prosecutors and neighborhood politicos, that information had been quietly buried or simply ignored. It was the first time I had to admit to the benefits of the code of silence.

  "Nobody knows," said my father's only brother. "And nobody blames her for the bastard he was, God rest his soul."

  Mrs. Manchester came to the funeral service, causing a whispering among the relatives and family friends who attended at the Methodist church. The old black woman sat in a back pew long after everyone else had gone. As I left, she rose and came up to me and held both of my hands and said, "God forgives."

  It was well after midnight when Diaz called it quits.

  "We ain't going to even see this junk man in the dark," he said, turning down another alley. "I say we get Bravo shift to make sure they stop by the kitchen dumpsters in the morning, try to nab the guy diving for something to eat. The guy has to eat, no?"

  I talked him into taking another swing through the alley behind the Thompson house, on a gut feeling.

  "You're talking about a psycho returning to the scene of the crime, Freeman, and we don't even know for sure if this guy did the crime."

  We were coming out of Ms. Thompson's alley when Diaz flipped on his headlights and the beams caught the off-limits crew huddled on the opposite corner.

  "Fuck is this group of homeboys up late on a school night?" Diaz said.

  "Pull up," I said.

  We stopped with my window facing the crew. The leader recognized me through the open window and took a step forward. Diaz was smart enough to keep his silence.

  "You teamin' up wit the five-oh eh, G?" he said, looking past me to Diaz. "I thought you guys didn't get along, you know, all that big- footin' shit you see on the movies."

  "I'll assume you haven't got anything," I said, ignoring his act in front of Diaz.

  "We got our word out. I'll call you, like I said. But you best answer quick."

  I nodded and we moved on.

  "That your connection, Freeman? Crew of wannabes working way outside the action zone?"

  I didn't turn my head.

  "Let's call it a night, Detective. You're probably right, you should turn that kitchen suggestion over to the daysiders."

  29

  Eddie was under the I-95 overpass, tucked up as high on the concrete slope as he could get. His coat was wrapped tight around him and he was shivering.

  After Mr. Harold had given him two more hundred-dollar bills and promised he would meet him at the liquor store in three days, Eddie went to buy more drugs. He knew Mr. Harold would keep his promise. He hadn't seemed mad at all that Ms. Thompson wasn't dead, if that was true. Eddie had asked him if he should go again to her place on Thirty-second Avenue and Mr. Harold said no, he'd have to talk to someone else and find out what they should do. He had given him the money and even let Eddie get out of the parking lot before he started the Caprice and drove away.

  Eddie had started feeling better, was getting back to his routine, pushing his cart at night when he saw the blue-and-red lights flashing down the street near his momma's house. He was coming down off a high and couldn't figure out why the police cars were pointing at each other.

  From behind a hedge he watched them waving cars on when they slowed down to look. People that he recognized, neighbors of his mother, were standing near the cars, walking back and forth, asking the cops questions and then turning away in frustration. Ms. Emily was out there with her old robe and slippers on, her hair all standing up straight and stiff-like, her voice like his momma's, all high and preachy.

  "Ain't nobody in that house, I'm tellin' y'all. Ms. Baines done left to go back up to Carolina to be with her people," she was singing to one of the cops. "Y'all got us standin' out here for nothin', an' I'm gonna miss my Survivor."

  Eddie left after he heard his mother's name used. He took the alleys and the back ways and stopped once behind the auto glass place to mix his last package of heroin. Before the sun came up he was here, under the bridge.

  Nearby, three homeless men were taking turns with a WILL WORK FOR FOOD, GOD BLESS YOU sign. Two would stay down under the bridge, sharing a bottle, while the third climbed up for handouts on the off ramp. When one man's allotted time was done, they would switch. When they first saw Eddie curled up, they watched him carefully, eyeing his cart down below. But when they got brave and came close, Eddie unfolded himself and stared into their faces and they backed off and went on with their routine.

  Now, with the traffic humming and burring across the concrete above him and the full sun hot just a few feet away, he was cold.

  Maybe if he waited for the dark, he thought, maybe then he could be invisible again.

  After Diaz dropped me at the sheriff's office, I spent the rest of the night sleeping in my truck, parked in a spot along the ocean- front. It was windless but I could still hear the surf sliding up on the wet sand. I was awake when the sky went from dark to gray to a green-blue blush, and then the sun rose like a bubble of wax. When it cleared the horizon it threw a trail of light crystals across the flat water.

  My cell phone rang at 7:00 A.M.

  "Sorry if I woke you at an inopportune time," Billy said. "But I did manage to get some information and I wanted to pass it on while you were in the thick of things."

  "You saw the news?"

  "The demise of Dr. Marshack seems particularly coincidental, and I know how much you despise that standard."

  "So spill already," I said, trying to rub my eyes into focus before realizing that there was a film of salt spread across my front window.

  "Dr. Marshack did indeed work at the prison at the same time as McCane. He left a year after McCane was bounced."

  "Have you talked with our partner recently?" Billy asked.

  "I paged him," I said. "Nothing."

  "I'll call his main office in Savannah, find out if he is still supposed to be on the job," Billy said.

  When I filled him in on the way Eddie Baines was fleshing out, Billy went silent for an uncomfortable stretch.

  "Nothing to tie him to the deaths of our women?"

  "Nothing but a feeling, Billy. But we haven't been able to talk with him yet. I'll call you," I said and punched the set off.

  The sun had gone white and the air in the cab was already thick and hot. I rolled up the window, kicked on the A.C. and went to find coffee.

  I was sitting at a sidewalk table at a beachfront cafe watching the early sunbathers make their trek to the sand when McCane called.

  "Hey, Freeman. I didn't catch you loungin' around in someone's bed this morning getting' a little on-the-job perk, did I?"

  I took a long drink of hot coffee, counted five cars rolling by on the avenue and waited until my jaw unclenched.

  "Freeman? You there, bud?"

  "You lose your beeper, McCane?" I finally answered.

  "Nope. Got it right here with, uh, three of your pages on it."

  "You been on vacation?"

  "Matter of fact I was down to Miami," he said, putting a southern "ah" on the end of the city's name. "You ever been on that Miami Beach, Freeman? There is some kind of modelin' show goin' on down that way, bud. Girls out on the sidewalk with legs right up to their…"

  "Spare me, McCane," I interrup
ted him. "You bother checking out the news up here?"

  "Well now, I did see where our Mr. Marshack bought his. Didn't pick up quite how in the papers, though. Kind of thing they tend to keep out, so's they can narrow down the suspect field," he said with a matter-of-fact tone in his voice. "But I suppose you got the inside story since you and your detective friend was there."

  "You were watching?" I asked.

  "I was just rollin' in. Was figurin' on setting up a little morning surveillance, follow the guy to work since the night tail wasn't getting me much."

  "So you weren't there overnight?"

  "Unfortunate," he said. "Your friends got any suspects?"

  I didn't answer, wondering who it was that McCane might be tailing now since the doctor was no longer available.

  "It might be a good idea if you and I get together and put some of these pieces together, McCane. If you're not too busy, I'm thinking Mr. Manchester's office this afternoon?"

  "All right, bud. I got a few errands to run. But why don't ya'll set it up and page me with a time."

  After McCane hung up I sat finishing my coffee, and watched a girl across the street on rollerblades take an ugly tumble on the sidewalk. A few other morning walkers stopped to help her up and even from here I could see a bright pink oval of blood on the side of her knee that had been sandpapered off by the concrete. While the small commotion attracted attention I put my money under my empty cup and slipped away, watching carefully for any parked cars nearby, looking for a single man sitting in the driver's seat.

  I was back in my truck, just easing into traffic when the phone rang again.

  "Freeman."

  "Good morning. Heard you and Diaz had a wonderful time last night," Richards said.

  "Yeah, a true conversationalist, that partner of yours," I said.

  "If you haven't had breakfast yet, can you meet me over at Lester's?"

  I'd spent the night in my car and looked like hell. In the rearview mirror it was even worse.

  "Yeah, sure," I said. "What have you got?"

  While I was stopped on the causeway waiting for the Intracoastal drawbridge to let a high-masted sailboat through, she told me of her excursion into Dr. Marshack's computer files at the jail.

  It had taken some time to convince a judge to allow them access.

  The city attorney argued that it was vital to a homicide investigation and that the hardware and software was already under the sheriff's control in their own facility. The judge countered that many of the files were psychiatric records that held a certain doctor and patient confidentiality.

  "They finally agreed to have a court-appointed attorney look over our shoulder so that the patient files wouldn't be perused."

  "Even Baines's?"

  "Especially Baines's."

  "So we got nothing?"

  "On Baines we got nothing, but there was an interesting file in the hard drive that our tech guys had to hack into to get open. It's some kind of financial accounting of transactions between Marshack and someone or something called Milo."

  She waited for some kind of response.

  "Max?"

  I was staring at a blinking yellow light on the bridge tower when the irritated punch of a horn snapped me back. The gates were up, cars were moving.

  "Does that mean anything to you? Milo?"

  "Catch-22," I said.

  "Huh?"

  "Did you print that out?"

  "Sure. I've got it right here," she said.

  "I'll meet you at Lester's."

  When I walked into the diner, she was already in the back booth.

  "Freeman, you look like sin."

  "Thank you," I replied.

  I could feel the beard bristles on my face. My non-wrinkle canvas pants were wrinkled. And I could feel a sheen of salted moisture on my skin.

  I sat down heavily in the booth opposite her and coffee seemed to appear beside my elbow.

  "You're not so fresh yourself," I said. The whites of her eyes had taken on a pink glow in the corners where several veins had gone red. She wasn't wearing any makeup and her hair was pulled up and knotted in a loose ponytail.

  "It took most of the night for the techs to pull all of this stuff out of Marshack's hard drive," she said, pushing a folder of computer printouts across the table. "They figured that since this file was so well-protected it must have some meaning to it. What the hell did you mean by Catch-22?"

  She had already ordered me pancakes, and they came while I started sorting through the columns of dates and rows of figures. The smell caused me to start absentmindedly cutting them with a fork and eating.

  "Old Joseph Heller book," I said. "It's where they got the phrase. This bomber crewman is trying to prove he's crazy by flying these dangerous missions in WWII. But the fact that he keeps going up proves he's not crazy because he can still do his job. But if he refuses to go up, it proves that he realizes how crazy it is, so again he's not crazy."

  "Never read it," Richards said. "And what's it got to do with Milo?"

  I washed another mouthful down with coffee.

  "Milo was a character in the book. A G.I. who was making a killing swapping out government supplies for illicit civilian goods. Billy tracked down McCane's work history and found out he worked in a Georgia prison and lost his job for running scams inside on the population."

  "Yeah," Richards said. "Keep going."

  "McCane and Dr. Marshack worked in the same prison at the same time. A prosecutor friend of Billy's said McCane was like the operator inside. You needed it, McCane was the bull to get it through. I took a chance on a guy I knew who'd been sent to the place and he used McCane's nickname, Milo. Said McCane was proud of it."

  I let her digest the information while I was matching up the dates that Marshack had recorded apparent payouts with the time of death dates for Billy's women. They were close.

  "If you fill in the blanks, Marshack was paying somebody three hundred dollars a few days before each death and two hundred dollars afterwards," I said, pointing out the figures. "Then within two weeks, he was getting eight thousand dollars from Milo."

  "Tight little business," she said. "But if McCane is Milo, how much was he getting? And from where?"

  "The investment group," I said. "With at least three people between them and the killer. And each of them set apart on a need-to- know basis. If McCane set this up, he wouldn't know who the hit man was, and Marshack wouldn't know who the investors were."

  I reached for my coffee but Richards was just finishing the last of it.

  "So you're figuring the psychotic patient, Baines, for the killer," she said. "But the last one didn't work the way they wanted it to, and your friend Billy had already stirred up the nest by looking into the other deaths."

  I stood up and snapped the cell phone off my belt.

  "I've got to let Billy know," I said. "We're supposed to meet with McCane this afternoon."

  I got Billy at his office and ran through the ledger file and the Milo connection and told him to stall McCane if he called.

  "Not a problem," Billy said and then went silent. I knew my friend, knew those silences meant he was trying to collect a thought, pare it down before putting it into words.

  "What? All this doesn't surprise you, counselor?"

  "I've been trying to track Marshack's stolen hard drive," he said, finally letting it go.

  "Yeah. So's every cop with a pawn shop connection."

  "Might not be in a pawn shop. If the killer needed to find out what was inside, he'd take it to a hacker who could get into it. A hacker who wouldn't tell what he found or who he found it for."

  "Ideas?" I said.

  "I've been thinking maybe someone who was very good with computers who'd stretched themselves in an insurance fraud and might have come into contact with an insurance investigator."

  "Jesus, Billy. You found someone who McCane's company nailed for hacking?"

  "Not yet. I'm working on it, but Sherry might be able to help us if
they've got a computer crime investigator with a good memory."

  I handed the phone to Richards and sat staring out into the sunlight flashing off the chrome and glass in the parking lot, letting them talk, my head gone to another place.

  Richards closed the phone and slid out of her side of the booth.

  "So what did he say?"

  "He thinks if he can track our dead doctors computer to McCane, then it's a lock that McCane took out Marshack to cover any link to your women," she said. "He's got access to the insurance company files and we've got access downtown to all the known hackers who've been snagged in the past few years. It'll be faster if we work together."

  I got out of the booth and took a fold of money out of my pocket, looking at the denominations.

  "Max. If you guys are right on this McCane guy, and I'm not so sure you are, then it's a race for Baines."

  I was still looking at my money.

  "And if you're wrong and this guy is legit, then…"

  "Then it's still a race," I interrupted.

  30

  I drove back into the off-limits zone. My posse had been good to me once. They knew the streets. Their chances of digging out the junk man were better than anyone's. I was looking for them when I pulled onto Ms. Thompson's street. Their shady spot on the corner was empty. But when I passed the Thompson house, a rental car was parked in the swale instead of up in the empty driveway. I realized that in my earlier meetings with McCane I had never seen the kind of car he was driving and wondered if it had been intentional. The easier to tail you with, bud.

  I pulled up in front of the rental, nose to nose, and got out. I was shifting into cop mode, tasting a bubble of adrenaline in my throat. Thrill of the chase, a thrill I once wanted to believe I could leave in the past.

 

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