by Caleb Carr
Pete took off his Stetson to wipe at his head once more. “I hope we’re doing the right thing, on this one.”
“We are,” Mike said, not wanting to go any further down the moral road. For he knew, as did I, that the entire experience had been and was going to be a tough one, on that score, for Pete as for us all; and he was anxious that we just get on with it. To that end, he started toward the front door. “Come on, L.T. We need to go, I think we’ve had just about enough of the BCI’s hijinks, for tonight.”
I nodded, and did no more than step toward him before I felt a piercing pain in my hip, one that caused my left side to begin to buckle—indeed, the sudden movement was enough for Pete to rush over and stand by to make sure that I didn’t give way. Once I was back upright and had taken a few steps with my cane, the pain began to ease enough for me to indicate that it had been no major thing; but in truth, it was a discomfort and a weakness that I hadn’t felt in a very long time.
“You sure you’re all right, Doc?” Pete asked gravely.
I tried my best to give him a smile. “Sure, Pete. Lack of sleep, mostly. Plus, I’m still clinical shrink enough to know that we all hold tension in our bodies. And it’s been a hell of a few days, even without this night. But we do need to get moving—you going to be okay on your own?”
“Yeah, absolutely,” the deputy said. “Once Bill Johnson gets here, we’ll handle it fine, don’t you worry. Just give that hip some rest.”
I nodded once to him in appreciation, then Mike and I headed out to the Empress. He pulled the passenger door open for me, got a pillow out of the back seat and shoved it up against the center console, knowing where it would offer the most support. Then he went around to the driver’s side, opened his own door, and sat waiting to prevent any serious calamity if my attempt to lower myself into the car turned into a tumble. He also knew, however, that although I was still in some discomfort, I wouldn’t want any help unless it was necessary; which, thankfully, it turned out not to be. Once we were both in and he had started the car up, however, he looked at me sternly.
“You’re not fooling me,” he said. “That had nothing to do with sleep deprivation. What the hell happened, L.T.?”
I tried with only moderate success to laugh a little, saying, “I’m not sure, Michael—although I think a visit to the old oncologist will be in order, when this case is over.”
“When the case is over?” Mike echoed, with some astonishment. “You want to go to his hospital right now? I’m ready, and there’s nothing else that can’t wait.”
“No,” I answered, as firmly as I could without being rude. “When this case is over, Mike—and not a minute before. Now let’s get home. Marcianna must be going nuts.”
“Hunh,” Mike noised, throwing the car into reverse and backing away from Pete’s cruiser. “That’ll be a short trip. For the pair of you.”
“Very funny,” I grunted, adjusting the pillow on my hip and then leaning my face up against my partly opened window. “Just get us home, Mike. I’m begging you…”
{viii.}
Upon reaching Shiloh, I had a few stiff drinks to dull the strange pain that had struck my leg, then made my way up to Marcianna’s enclosure, where I found her in the state of agitation I had expected, having been gone so late into the night. I got her calmed down before I opened the gate—it was always wise to make sure that she wasn’t having some severe flashback to her youth that might make her fail to recognize me—and then, when her nervousness turned to relief and finally happiness, I went in, and we horsed around for a bit, as much as I could tolerate, before heading to her den. It wound up being one of those rare nights when I spent the night in that far remove, and I was only woken by the sound of my cell phone, and Mike telling me to get down to the hangar. This I did, after feeding the now-placated Marcianna and leaving her content to find amusement on her own until the afternoon.
The gathering wind and clouds of the night before had not yet turned to rain, telling me that it must be early; and when I checked my watch, I saw that it had yet to reach ten. I now understood, or thought I understood, Mike’s urgency: we ought to have heard from Bill Johnson and Pete by then, and I worried that our plan had been interrupted and perhaps discovered by Frank Mangold and the BCI. The tardiness of our co-conspirators’ message, however, turned out to be only part of the reason for Mike’s alarm: Lucas had shown up early—which was no surprise, his eagerness and impatience to work and learn having grown day by day—but he’d also brought Ambyr with him, after she’d explained to him that she was now fully part of our little team. I was thereby put on even further notice than I had been the day before to expect the unexpected from this remarkable young woman; but we quickly assimilated her presence into our work, and spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon teaching her the rudiments of our method and what had transpired during the case, information that she was (I now knew) going to get anyway, so she might as well have it firsthand. Lucas, of course, was fascinated and even excited by the tale of the as-yet-unnamed mummified boy, although Ambyr seemed more realistically horrified and appalled, both by the prostitution of the unfortunate boy’s corpse to the BCI’s purposes, and, of course, by his fate.
By one o’clock, Mike had grown nervous, and sent off a text message to Pete asking what was going on; in reply, he received a rather cryptic statement saying that there’d been a delay, but we could expect a green light to head to Hoosick Falls soon. As always, the deputy was true to his word, and by two, we got the go-ahead, and made ready to head over and spy on what transpired when the as-yet-unnamed dead boy was discovered somewhere far from the spot where he’d been planted. I guided Ambyr out of the JU-52 and down to the hangar floor, while Mike pried Lucas—“I can stay! I can mind the store, I know where the guns are!”—from his post. We made it to the car without further incident, and then to the Kurtz house, where I once again got out to escort Ambyr to the kitchen door.
“Such a gentleman,” she laughed lightly. “But seriously, Trajan, you don’t need to get in and out—I know where my own door is, by now.”
“No trouble,” I lied.
“You sure?” she said, turning to me at the doorway. “I mean, are you sure you’re all right?”
I was as much curious as surprised. “I’m fine, Ambyr. Why do you ask?”
“Your steps,” she said. “When you were pacing in the plane, then walking just now, they were different—as if you were limping a little.”
I tried to laugh. “It’s nothing. Just a bit of overexertion last night, that’s all.”
She smiled and turned her face up to mine, in that eerie way that said that, for all her blindness, she saw right through me. “You sure you’re just not getting the wrong kind of exertion?”
“Meaning?”
She took my arm, then reached up to give me another very tender kiss, this one just brushing the corner of my mouth. “Figure it out,” she whispered.
And then Lucas rushed by us and into the house: “Ahhh! My eyes, I can’t watch this, for fuck’s sake, whatever it is!”
But Ambyr, without ever letting go of my arm or turning around, just swatted the doorframe with her cane hard, creating a cracking sound loud enough to still Lucas’ outburst, although he kept mumbling to himself. “Like I said,” Ambyr continued, putting her other hand to my cheek. “Think about it. And get home safe.”
“I’ll—try” was all I could mumble in assent; and then I instantly switched roles, and took a small step away from her. “Okay, listen, you two—there’s a chance that you may get a call from Major McCarron, while we’re gone, looking for us.” I turned to her again. “I have a call in to him, and if we’re out of cell range between here and Hoosick Falls, which happens, and he does think to try you when we don’t answer at Shiloh, tell him that I know what he’s calling about, and that we need him to send your cousin Caitlin to the scene. Nobody else, unless he wants to go himself.”
“Got it,” Ambyr replied, that devious curl coming into
the corner of her mouth. “But it’s all just a tiny bit mysterious, don’t you think?”
“No time to explain more,” I said. “But I promise to when I get back.” And then, God alone knows why, I moved back toward the doorway, paused an instant, and finally turned to ever-so-briefly kiss Ambyr’s cheek. This brought another firm squeeze of my cane arm from her and another low but insistent groan from Lucas, which I could still hear as she closed the door and I turned around to find Mike waiting about ten feet down toward the short driveway, grinning from ear to ear. “How’s the hip?” he asked me as we headed toward the Crown Vic, seeing that I had begun to once more lean more heavily on my cane.
“Fine—better, anyway,” I said, hoping to change the subject.
Which was, of course, a vain hope indeed: Mike laughed out loud, then said, “Well, ordinarily I’d say that spending the night up in that fucking cave was about the worst thing you could have done for it. But it looks like you found a cure, all right. And you’ll need it. Because, between what we’re doing now, the fact that that girl in there has obviously got almost as much of an instant thing for you as you do for her, and teaching, I’ve got a feeling you’re going to need all the strength you can find. We have a hell of a time ahead of us—or you do, anyway…”
Sighing, I tried to sound sterner than I felt as we reached the Crown Vic: “Shut up and drive, will you, Mike? Like I told Bill, let’s try to keep the banter to a minimum.”
But he only laughed again as we got in the car. “Whoa, yeah. Let’s just try. You are so dead, L.T….”
Mike was right: we were faced with a hell of a time. Our first move was to hit Hoosick Falls and gauge the progress of our plan, which, we discovered upon arriving, could not have been going better. We crossed the railroad tracks in the center of town and slowly crept through streets made slick and deserted by the now-rainy and still very windy weather, then turned onto High Street and made our way up toward the massive brick and limestone structure known as Old St. Mary’s Academy (as opposed to the far more modest new St. Mary’s, a Catholic elementary school just steps away), eventually pulling the Empress up past the public library on Classic Street, down a hill on which sat the school. It was a spot that afforded us an excellent view—aided by a small pair of binoculars with antireflective coating on their lenses that Mike had remembered to bring—of what was happening up above.
Indian Bill had, as I’d supposed he would, made it as obvious a case as he could: the body now lay just to the side of the main entrance to the school, a spot to which it could easily have slid without much damage, after being blown out of the enormous, open bell tower above and falling along a gentle eave. One can only imagine what uses that tower had once had, besides ringing the call to students; certainly, it had bell space enough for a giant bourdon from Notre Dame. However, it now stood empty, and a good thing, too, for it made it all the more believable that the boy, in his last moments—probably brought on by massive asbestos poisoning—had climbed to the spot, and there expired, becoming mummified by the strong winds that howled through the unprotected space.
Indian Bill’s pathology team had erected a tarp pavilion to protect the scene from the rain, and at present there was only one state trooper car in attendance (Pete having made himself scarce once they’d deposited the body, since Rensselaer County was outside his jurisdiction). The imposing woman wearing a trooper’s uniform I took to be Ambyr’s cousin Caitlin: though her Academy training was obvious, she was nicely proportioned, and her general good looks made a genetic link to Ambyr clear, even if she was a little broader and tougher.
“Shame you couldn’t have fallen for her,” Mike said, peering through the glasses. “We’d have eyes and ears inside the Staties. Of course, she can see, which kinda rules you out right there; and then, from the look of her, she’d break you in half if you ever managed to talk her into—”
“Hey, hey, hey,” I said, slapping his shoulder. “I thought this car was going to be a banter-free zone today.”
“I didn’t agree to that,” Mike replied, still studying the scene up the hill. “In fact, I think my opposition to that proposal was pretty—hang on. The party has new guests…” Mike focused the glasses on two vehicles that were making their way up the hill: an unmarked cruiser and an FIC van. “Looks like…well, I don’t know the two guys in the cruiser, but I’d say they were Bureau guys. And in the van? Fuck, missed him, we’ll have to wait till he gets out.”
Which we did, watching the two vehicles pull up onto the sidewalk by the old school. The car released a pair of men who did, indeed, look like BCI types, but when I took the glasses from Mike, I found that I had no better idea than he did as to their identities. The driver of the FIC van was similarly unknown to me; but I wasn’t at all reassured by the very professional demeanor he gave off. With crime scene techs, what you see is usually what you get, and most, in one way or another, have the air of either clowns, people in over their heads, or, at most, geeks. But this guy didn’t, and I handed the glasses back to Mike for confirmation.
“Oh-ho,” he said, a little amused and a little impressed. “Yeah. Looks like word got back to our friends that somebody found a mummified boy’s body in Hoosick Falls. That’s the big gun, Johnny Cheong. Senior FIC tech, and maybe the only guy over there who knows what he’s doing. Man, we’ve never seen him before, on any case that we’ve worked up here.”
“So how come you know him?” I said; and then the irresistible, “Because he’s Chinese, and all Chinese people know each other?”
For which I received the back of Mike’s hand across my forehead, without his ever taking his eyes from the glasses. “Weren’t you the one,” he mumbled, “who just said no more banter?”
“Hey. Fire with fire, asshole.”
Mike considered that one for a moment, then battled back: “Anyway, no, shithead, not because he’s fucking Chinese, which I am not either. He’s Korean. And I know about him from seeing his picture and by his reputation. Yeah, they’re good and mad, I’ll bet, about our spoiling their little operation—they want to make absolutely sure they’re talking about the same kid, by matching the basic information they already have to whatever Johnny Boy finds. Oh, yeah, this is getting fun…”
“All right,” I said, straightening up in my seat. “Enough with the peeping-tom stuff. Let’s get up there and ask Indian Bill how it’s going.”
“What the hell…?” Mike answered, putting the binoculars down and starting the car. “We’re going to show ourselves, and fuck it all up?”
“Just drive, and I’ll explain,” I said. “Take a left on Abbott, up there, then another left on Parsons, and another back onto High Street. Then make a quick entry into the school driveway, which is actually on the far side of the building. And no, we’re not going to show ourselves, because in the first place nobody up there’s ever met us, except for Bill, so they wouldn’t know us, anyway; but second, and more importantly, if we sneak around the back of the building nobody will see us. Just look at them: in this rain, they’re not focused on anything but what’s under that tarp.”
“Well,” Mike sighed. “Okay, L.T., you’re the fucking genius…”
My hastily concocted plan went shockingly smoothly, and we were indeed able to get the Empress behind the far side of the school unnoticed, after which, huddling under two umbrellas Mike kept in the car, we moved around to the back of the place. I pulled out my phone, dialed Bill Johnson’s number, and replied to his “Where the fuck are you?” by urging him to keep his voice down, and to come around to our position. I heard him mumble some quick tale about it being a private call, and before long his tall, lanky form appeared, a soaked COUNTY PATHOLOGIST windbreaker the only thing protecting both his upper body and his head, with the hood of the garment now doing a particularly bad job, in the ever more unrelenting rain. I raised my umbrella high enough for him to stand under, and when he requested a cigarette, Mike gave him one and lit it.
“I thought you quit,” I said, as Bi
ll took a deep, relieving drag.
“I did—and I’ve got you two bastards to thank for getting me restarted.” He flicked his thumb in the direction of the action around the corner. “This is some heavy shit, guys.”
“Yeah, I kind of figured when I saw Johnny Cheong,” Mike answered with a nod.
“And we saw the BCI guys,” I said, “which means that Mangold and Donovan—”
“No, no, no,” Bill answered with a short, humorless, and rather fateful chuckle. “This is not some regular county jockeying shit. You have stirred up a serious shitstorm. Those two suits? One’s BCI, all right, but one’s FBI, my friends. He claims he’s just observing, but I heard him saying something like ‘Nobody wants to see a case like this break nationally, especially this year.’ ”
“I don’t get it,” Mike said, smoking, himself, now. “What does this year matter?”
I considered it, then clapped my cane hand to my forehead so fast that its handle knocked into my skull. “Shit!” I went for my own cigarettes. “I didn’t even think of that.”
“What, what, what?” Mike asked, his words punctuated by bursts of smoke. “Come on, fellas.”
“Holy crap,” Bill said, looking at him and frowning. “Mike—it’s an election year.”
“Hence the FBI man,” I elaborated, making sure Mike got the point. “Even though the FBI has been told they’re not needed on this case. But if it keeps going on, well—you know how much trouble the whole issue’s been for our sainted governor already. And the powers that be need him reelected.”
“Whoa.” Then, in a sudden movement, Mike ducked inside a nearby doorway, huddling up against the brick casement of the locked back entrance.
“What the hell are you doing now?” Bill asked.
“I’m hiding, fuckstick,” Mike answered. “From the Predator drone that’s about to launch a Hellfire missile at us, that’s what I’m doing!”