by Caleb Carr
“Which covers one part of the story,” I answered, tapping my cane lightly against the various case files that were posted on the JU-52’s fuselage. “But what about the rest of their behavior? Gracie said that even our possible involvement in the case was making local law enforcement panic—”
“Causing them to ‘have kittens,’ ” Mike recalled quietly, staring at the papers on his desk.
“Yes, exactly,” I replied. “So was that the moment they began to do things that were professionally risky: when Steve and Pete first began to talk to us? I mean, consider the whole thing: Donovan brought us to Fraser so that the bunch of them could lecture us during an ongoing crisis in an active case, knowing full well we’d only get further involved; then they made sure that the witness I brought out never spoke. After that, they tailed one of their own. Isn’t that enough? Would they really try to scare us so recklessly on the mountaintop? And when Gracie didn’t scare, would they take a step on their own that they must have known might be fatal, just to give us—if we were in any way sane—pause? More things that don’t fit, Mike—it’s far too risky. On the other hand, somebody higher up wants this thing quashed, and quashed now—that’s clear.”
Glancing up at me almost reluctantly, my partner murmured, “I know what you’re saying, L.T: it’s the governor. Or somebody in his office.”
“Well, you heard Gracie talk about what’s happening with those people in reaction to the throwaway scandal,” I answered. “And just follow your own lead for one second: if this thing does point to New York, and to people with dough down there—who better to defend them, if it all comes apart, than their chosen lackey in Albany?”
Mike grunted out a humorless laugh. “And I thought it might all be about getting the funding to put remote DNA sequencers in police cruisers…”
“And that might be part of it,” I told him quickly, not wanting his enthusiasm to wane. “That might’ve been the payoff for the DA and the State Police commanders. But we’ve got a bigger tiger by the tail here, kid. Hell, we’re already riding the damned thing, whether we want to or not. And you know what your people say about riding tigers.”
“Goddamn it, L.T., they are not my people,” Mike declared, some of his real fight finally returning. “And yeah, I know the deal, you either keep riding the fucker or jump off and get eaten.” Mike stared at the papers on his desk once again. “And they’ve provided us with some pretty nice examples of what ‘getting eaten’ looks like…”
I thought about manufacturing some sort of rousing speech; but Mike would have seen right through it. So instead, I began to roam the JU-52 restlessly, staring afresh at our notes and records and charts concerning the case on my own. And eventually, this had the desired effect: Mike stood and began to do likewise, silently moving away from the emotional ledge he’d been on. “I will tell you this, Michael,” I said. “Whoever they are, we’ve got to try to figure out exactly when and why this madness started. Because one thing is for sure—” I stared at the image of Shelby Capamagio lying on a slab, somehow even more dead, it seemed to me, than the doe that I’d left to the bears atop the mountain. “They aren’t going to stop. So it’s up to us to find the connection—before somebody like Gracie actually ends up in the morgue, alongside these poor kids…”
{vii.}
Mike bore careful watching as we worked through most of that night, not because he and Gracie had been close for very long—indeed, they had been little more than objects to each other, over the years, the one of amusement, the other of fantasy (although on this fateful night, I will confess, it had sometimes been hard to tell who had been which to whom)—but because he had been caught by her tragedy at just that moment when infatuation with the exotic becomes preoccupation with the real: that shatteringly perfect instant when illusion and clear-headed vision unite, whether in a touch, a kiss, or even a look—and Mike, I knew, had received all three. I was able to surmise that it had not gone any farther (had not taken the course that, say, Lucas had imagined), but its romantic effect had been all the more potent for this physical limitation; and I therefore had to be understanding when he occasionally withdrew from the JU-52 and the hangar on the pretext of needing a cigarette or to clear his head or both, and did not return for occasionally long intervals.
Having made doubly sure that we were in fact ready for the following day’s classes—and having called Pete Steinbrecher to warn him that he was going to get a phony alert concerning Jimmy and Jeanette Patrick of Heinsdale sometime in the next twenty-four hours, and that as soon as he could get us quietly into their house we’d be there—my partner and I divided the work we could immediately do along familiar lines: I would prepare something of an auxiliary profile of just who might have been responsible for orchestrating the sudden breaking off of our conference on the mountaintop, as well as Gracie’s “accident,” while Mike would use whatever bits of harder information he could assemble to form a sort of timeline or flow sheet to determine just when Gracie’s trip to see us had taken its irreversible turn toward the deadly. It remained possible that it had been doomed from the moment she had set out for Death’s Head Hollow with the BCI boys on her tail; but even Mike came to think this improbable. Frank Mangold simply did not possess the necessary rogue streak for such a plan: he was fine at intimidating suspects in interrogation rooms and running down fugitives with particular viciousness, but ordering his men to force a fellow state employee into a car accident that might well have resulted in her death was simply not an act that fit his career or his character, much as we would have liked it to.
Then there was the vehicle itself, the one that had clipped Gracie’s Ford Focus and sent it spinning into a tree. Once Gracie had been freed from the wreck, a couple of hours after Mike and I began our work, Mitch McCarron called again on his way to the hospital, to say that his witnesses had refined their identification to describe a rusted-out red Dodge Ram 1500 pickup: with a white cap on its bed dating from the late 1990s. Assuming Nancy Grimes’ people could be relied on to do their jobs in this particular regard, either red or white paint chips would stand out against the blue metallic finish of Gracie’s Focus, and thereby confirm what the witnesses had said. It would take quite a while (far longer than television makes most people think) to definitively match those chips to any model of truck, but one thing was certain: BCI men, unless they were doing some fairly serious undercover work, did not drive around in such hulks as had now been fairly reliably identified.
Who, then? My own preliminary profile became informed by the work that Mike and I had already done, the details of which Mike had revealed to Gracie during their interlude in one of the taverns in Surrender—a fact that at first had seemed insignificant, but that now, given the identification of the truck, seemed to open any other patron of the tavern to suspicion. This early profile, in essence, grew out of the far more definite profiles we’d been able to draw of the victims themselves, based on their belongings and actions, and, most importantly, the fact that none of the children we’d studied so far (although a clear picture of the boy Donnie in Fraser remained to be drawn) would have been the type to simply accept a ride in a truck like the one described. Each of them seemed far too worldly and discriminating; in addition to which, such a vehicle would have stuck out like a sore thumb, in the world of wealth and insulation into which we’d posited the victims as having been either drawn or delivered. Our theory was that Shelby had been taken to her family’s trailer by someone she knew and trusted: and a rusted-out old Ram was the world she was running from, not toward, while the same could likely be said of Kyle Howard and Kelsey Kozersky. Finally, there was the fact that Latrell had made mention of “their truck”; had the already-dead bodies, then, simply been delivered to their places of discovery in the Dodge, a vehicle that would have drawn very little attention in Burgoyne County? And was that only one part of the operation?
Everything about the truck, placed within the context of the profiles of the victims we’d been able to draw,
Latrell’s behavior and statements, our theory that the nexus of the several deaths was located in New York City, and finally the past twenty-four hours of our own activities, confirmed as much: pointed, that is, toward the truck being a vehicle of expedience for someone who was not him- or herself the author of the larger scheme of exploiting the throwaway children of the county, but was rather a hireling: someone given a specific assignment who was aware only of that job, someone who, given the incomplete nature of the work he had done that night regarding Gracie, stood a very good chance of being eliminated by his employers—indeed, it was possible he had already met that fate.
“Okay, genius,” Mike said, once he’d filled up a marker board that was mounted to the right side of the cockpit bulkhead with his mad scribblings, all of which I could read, but only just. “You explain to me what it means. Because to my eyes, right now, it’s a fucking convoluted mess.”
My next words did not exactly comfort him: “Al Qaeda,” I murmured.
Mike glanced my way, with an expression that said I’d finally lost it. “Al Qaeda? You’re telling me this is the work of terrorists? Some fucking sorcerer you are, that’s what I’d expect from the law…”
“No, Mike,” I answered with a frown. “Of course that’s not what I’m saying. I’m just giving you an organizational precedent. And that’s the key word, here: ‘organization.’ There’s a cellular nature to this whole thing. Especially when you consider Latrell’s words—” I pointed to Latrell’s name on the board and to the point at which, on the timeline of Mike’s chart, the dead youth appeared in the case. “—along with his confusion about what to do after the FIC people appeared. Then take it through all the events of tonight—which we’ve proposed involve a sniper, but could just as easily, and maybe even more effectively, have been carried out by a very good hunter with a decent rifle, scope, and suppressor. That would be more in line with the knife and the truck. Or, go the other direction, Mike: the first two deaths, Kyle and Kelsey. Nothing much was heard about them, in the press, except that they were a couple of isolated hangings. Cathy Donovan and Mangold had the case firmly in hand, then: nothing to see, folks, a couple of sad stories, move along…And then Shelby happens. And even more to the point, Steve Spinetti calls us. No one group or agent on the other side seems to be aware of what the others are doing. And then Pete shows up here, and all of a sudden things start bleeding over. That’s what freaked Latrell out. It freaked Gracie out. Who knows who’s next?”
“Yeah, I get it,” Mike said softly, nodding. “And there’s another thing, L.T.—” He circled a large space he’d left blank between our entrance into the case and the disaster at Fraser. “One that would confirm a cellular aspect to it. I don’t think that anybody we’ve described as being involved in the deaths—whether tangential people like Latrell, who knew and cared about the victims they positioned in phony spots, or people like this driver, who was probably hired just for the trouble on the mountaintop and then to go after Gracie—I don’t think any of those people, much less the people in the central, controlling cell, ever foresaw one factor. And it is that factor, not our entrance into the case, much as this may be a blow to our egos, that really started to make everybody on what you call the other side lose their shit. Although you’re not going to like it.”
“It’s just that, like I said, you’re not going to like it.” And with that, he penned the words inside the empty space; and he was quite right, I didn’t much like it, especially in view of the heightened sense of responsibility for the boy that I had begun to feel after our trip up the mountain. Rationally, of course, I already knew that he might well be right; but I was going to make him prove it. “Let me get this straight: you’re saying that nobody behind this thing got particularly freaked out when we appeared—making Gracie’s analysis wrong—but rather when they found out we had Lucas working for us?”
“That’s how it reads,” Mike answered, setting his marker down. “Somebody realized that we had just what you said we had—an inside track on the victims and what’s going on with the kids in this county generally. And it scared them. Bad.”
“But—” I stumbled. “But—we’ve kept it a damned secret…”
Mike shrugged. “Maybe we have, maybe we haven’t. We’re not always as smart as we think we are, you know. And then, there’s always the other possibility, though I’m reluctant to bring it up: we could have been as careful as we liked about the kid. But as for Lucas himself—maybe not.”
“No way,” I snapped back at him. “You’re saying he blew his cover in school?”
“Or hanging out with friends outside of it,” Mike answered. “We have to entertain the possibility.”
“No,” I insisted again. “I know it’s only been a little while, Mike, but—I know this kid, and so do you. That’s not his profile at all—the braggart in the schoolyard? No way.”
“Come on, Trajan,” Mike shot back carefully. “Even given your power to read people—and I’m not being sarcastic, strangely, when I say that—you’ve known him, what, a week? But you’ve accepted his story completely at face value. The vanished parents, the blind sister, the half-wit they’ve taken in—he could have created all of that.”
“Not this kid,” I retorted. “He’s careful, yeah, and he’s sharp—but with me, he’s been straight. You’re just going to have to accept that.”
“Up to now I have,” Mike said, in a much more conciliatory tone. “Because I’ve been given no reason to question it. But you have to admit, there now exists the distinct if small possibility—”
And with my partner’s last words, I experienced a rather sharp shudder. “Ah, fuck!”
“What?” Mike asked eagerly. “Somebody else come to mind?”
I nodded slowly, making a move for Mike’s marker, and then drawing another circle next to the one he’d designated for Lucas. “God damn it…” I said. “Somebody you haven’t met, yet. But you’re going to. We have an appointment to visit their house Tuesday evening…” And with that, I scrawled the name onto the board, with a pronounced question mark after it.
“The retarded kid?” Mike asked.
“Mike…” I said, my warning inspired by my own childhood memories of words like crip and gimp. “I think Surrender is starting to rub off on you. But yeah…” I stared at the name, very unhappy with myself for having overlooked something so obvious. “Derek. They’re like brothers, the two of them. Hell, legally, I guess they are brothers. And I doubt there’s much Lucas wouldn’t trust him with. Even though I warned him about it.”
“You actually think that a—whatever, a mentally challenged kid is in on this whole operation?”
“Maybe—maybe not,” I said, shaking my head. “You just said it yourself: all he has to be is careless about what he says to whom.” And then the full stupidity of it hit me: “Aw, fuck, Mike—it’s even worse than that! Goddamn it.” I hurled the marker down on a nearby desk. “It all fits together exactly: Lucas hasn’t had to tell Derek much of anything—because he was here. He knew what Lucas was staying for—I told them both, or at least, I told them enough so that even a kid with his brains could work it out.” Moving away from the board, I recalled that first encounter with the two boys: “I thought Derek was too dim to be a problem—but I did mention the first three victims. I asked if they knew the kids, and even asked if they could help us—I didn’t give them specifics, but they had a general idea of what I do for a living. He must have put it together, because he got very scared, very suddenly: the kind of scared you get, maybe, when you’ve been found out. And after that day, with Lucas spending all his spare time up here, Derek would have felt resentful, even abandoned. So Lucas didn’t have to tell him any details: Derek could’ve started talking to the right, meaning the wrong, people, if only out of bitterness. Either way, innocent or involved, there’s no counting on Derek’s discretion, no matter what Lucas says. I’m not even sure that he really knows what discretion is.” I slammed my cane into the deck of the cabin. “I
am such a fucking idiot…”
“Yeah, well, you’re the ‘idiot’ who got us this far,” Mike said decently. “And relax, we’re going there Tuesday, you said—so we can grill the kid then, and find out if he’s been talking, and to who.”
I looked at my partner dubiously. “You going to bring your .38 and pistol-whip him if he doesn’t cooperate? No, Mike. We’ve got to find another way.”
“Wait a minute—you said Tuesday?” Mike’s face screwed up in momentary puzzlement. “Didn’t you tell me we’re supposed to be having our explanatory dinner with Miss Clarissa on Tuesday? So that she can grill us?”
I nodded, looking at the board again. “Yeah. And our dance card is going to be very full, for that evening, because Pete may call about the Patricks’ house, too, and the planting of the body.” Then an idea hit me: “Although—you know, you may have hit on it, Mike. We don’t grill Derek at all.” I waved my cane at the board, suddenly feeling like maybe there was a way out of the blunder. “No, we do not do it at all…We leave that to an expert.”
“Like who? Frank Mangold?”
“Nope. Somebody closer to home.” I began to move toward the plane’s hatchway. “And while you figure that out, I’m going to feed Marcianna. Oh, holy shit, what an evening this is going to be…”
I was halfway down the steel steps outside the hatch before I heard Mike suddenly realize, with a horror that was only partially affected: “Wait—no way. No way, Trajan! You can’t subject a mentally-whatever kid to that!”
But I had reached the freezer, by then, and pulled out a package of beef that I placed in the microwave; and the loud hum of its mechanism drowned out Mike’s further protests.
{i.}
Tuesday could not come fast enough for me, although Mike’s enthusiasm was far more muted. He had had little enough experience of serious illness and injury, in his life, to altogether trust my assurance that it was just as well that Gracie Chang was in a coma, one that her doctors, according to both Mitch McCarron and Pete Steinbrecher, did not consider life- or brain-threatening, but rather curative. I told my partner again and again that he would not want her conscious, in pain, and alert to all that was taking place around her: for, excellent facility that the Albany Medical Center was and is, it could not protect her from the vying interests of the various official investigative agencies, to say nothing of the local press, which had gotten wind of the accident and of the air of suspicion that surrounded it. And so, to Mike’s continued expressions of his desire to visit Gracie, I continued to offer only discouragement, reminding him that he would only further confuse and endanger our position within the investigation, while at the same time (and just as importantly) upsetting and bewildering Gracie’s family. When she attained consciousness, I told him, there would be plenty of time for visits; for now, we needed to develop, insofar as we could, our theory of the direction in which the profiles and the evidence we had assembled concerning the case thus far pointed.