She looked past him and counted three twenty-foot boats bobbing on the water—one belonging to the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office, one owned by the St. Paul Fire Department, and the third from the St. Paul Police Department. “Damn,” she said. “Every copper in this town’s got a boat. What about us? Do we have a boat?”
“We could get one if we needed it, but we don’t need it.”
Bernadette stuffed her notebook in her jacket. “Gonna check out the scene on dry land, then. Get a look at Archer while you finish up with the Vangs.”
“Already done interviewing the kids. Cops interviewed them. Nothing much to tell. Didn’t see spit or hear spit. Just reeled in some dead guy’s hand. The thing rattled the hell out of them. I told them to chill for a while, calm down, and then go home.”
“Between you and the cops and their flotilla, what have I got left to do?” She knew what she had left to do, why she’d been called. She wanted to hear him say it. She wished just once anyone in authority would officially ask for it. Of course, she knew it would never happen. To ask for it would be an admission, an acknowledgment of an ability they didn’t understand and a power that frightened them. She couldn’t blame them. At times, it scared her.
The wind picked up and blew the drizzle against their backs. Garcia turned up the collar of his coat. “Let’s go have a look-see at the dead guy before this turns into a monsoon.”
They didn’t speak during the brief hike through the woods. The ground beneath their feet was uneven and covered with fallen branches, dead vines, and low-growing vegetation. Above them, rain pattered the leaves on the trees. Garcia led her to a triangle of police tape wrapped around tree trunks. The yellow stood out like an exotic flower planted in the middle of the brown-and-green forest. At each point of the triangle stood a uniformed officer. All three of the cops were grinning.
“Guys,” said Garcia.
Two of them nodded and wiped the smiles off. “Hey,” said the third, continuing to grin.
Bernadette eyed the area around the triangle. The corpse wasn’t far from the riverfront or the park’s paved trail, but it was well hidden by the density of the trees and bushes. She stepped over the tape, hunkered down next to the body, and examined the right arm resting on top of the muddy ground. “He was alive when his hand was taken off.”
Garcia hopped over the tape and crouched down next to her. “What makes you so sure?”
She pointed at the stump. “Look at the way the dirt is sort of packed into the end of it. I think he tried to use it for leverage. Push himself up with it.”
“Ouch.”
Bernadette took her notebook out of her jacket, flipped it open, and wrote while she ran her eyes up and down the body. She’d seen Archer in the newspapers and on television. He’d been a short, obese man with an Alfred Hitchcock belly. Now, facedown in the mud, he looked flat and spread out—a jellyfish washed ashore. He was in khaki slacks and a short-sleeved polo shirt. “I assume there are no other parts missing, but let’s check out the B side.” She stood up and went around to the body’s left side and hunkered down. The left arm and hand were bound behind Archer’s back by the rope. She studied the knot resting on top of the body’s left shoulder blade. “Well, that’s interesting as hell.”
“What?” asked Garcia.
She stood up and stepped over to Archer’s feet. She crouched down and studied the rope coiled around his lower legs. “Very interesting.” She flipped to a clean notebook page and scribbled furiously.
“What?”
She pointed to Archer’s bound legs with the pen. “See how nice and neat the rope is coiled. It’s a pretty good imitation of a method called ‘sheer lashing.’ Sailors use it to tie poles together side by side. This loop here—the one by his ankles with the end of the rope threaded through it—see that?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s a clove hitch.”
“Clove hitch,” Garcia repeated. “I heard of that.”
She thumbed toward the knot tied over the shoulder blade. “And that’s a double fisherman’s knot. Another sailing deal.”
“How do you know all that?”
“My husband was into sailing.”
“He quit?”
“Died.”
“Sorry. Didn’t know. New Orleans didn’t fill me in on that personal stuff.”
Liar, she thought. You’re my boss. They told you everything. You know more about me than I do. That’s the bureau’s job—knowing. “That’s okay,” she said evenly.
Garcia stood up. “So you think the killer’s a man of the high seas.”
“Or thinks he’s one.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“These aren’t perfect renditions. And, really, there’re quicker and more efficient ways to restrain a person. The sheer lashing in particular—talk about overkill. Whoever did this was showing off or really into his cordage.”
“But he seems to know something about sailing.”
“Or fishing. Rock climbing. Michael used to climb, too. They have to know a lot about line. Who else? Magicians. They know about ropes. Or could be it’s just a guy who likes to tie knots. Knot guys have their own clubs and magazines and newsletters.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“I met this one guy in New Orleans. A river guy. Worked on a barge. What was the name of his group?” She paused. “The International Guild of Knot Tyers. Something like that. They practice tying knots and investigate new knots and have meetings about knots.”
“Whatever floats your boat.”
“Was the guy up north tied the same way?”
“Don’t know.”
“We’ll have to find out. His hand turn up?”
“A kid’s hunting dog brought it home.”
“Lovely,” she said.
“At least the pooch didn’t eat it.” Garcia shoved his own hands in his coat pockets. “We’ll have to see if they got shoe prints around that body. Check for a match. See if we’re dealing with the same guy.”
“It’d be nice if we got matching shoe casts. Nice, too, if the rope job is the same. Regardless…”
Garcia finished her sentence: “It’s gotta be the same guy.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“We keep implying the perp’s a he, by the way.”
“An assumption, but not a wild one. The judge wasn’t a small person. Can’t see a female overpowering him. This slicing-and-dicing business, can’t remember the last time a woman got that creative with a tool. Takes a lot of strength. Stamina.” She stood up and wrote in her notebook while she talked. “How often do you see a gal behind the counter of a butcher shop? It’s a guy thing. Cutting parts off. Hacking meat and bone.”
Garcia hunched his shoulders against the cold. The drizzle had stopped, but it was still windy. “Hacking with what? A knife?”
She went back around to his side of the body and stared at the stump. “Whatever the instrument, had to be sharper than hell. That’s a mean, clean chop.”
He coughed and paused. Didn’t say anything for several seconds. Then: “Need me to clear the scene for you?”
How many times had she heard those words or something close to them? Need me to clear the scene for you? Want some time alone? Want to hold it? Get a feel for it? What they really want to say is: Do that thing you do. The parlor trick. That spooky, ESP, bogeyman mumbo-jumbo. The things-that-go-bump-in-the-night thing that you do. Don’t give us the details on how you do it or why you can do it. Just do it, and do it right this time. Solve the case and go away. Don’t embarrass us.
“Need me to clear the scene?” he repeated.
“Not necessary.” Bernadette stuffed her notebook in one jacket pocket, and from the other fished out her gloves. She snapped them on. She took out her keys; she kept a pocket knife on the chain.
Garcia eyed the tool. “Doing a field autopsy?”
Bernadette went over to the dead man’s ankles and crouched down to study the rop
e wound around his legs. The killer had to touch the ends to do the clove hitch, she thought. She reached over and grabbed the end of rope threaded through the loop and sliced off a few threads. She cupped the threads in her right palm and scrutinized them. They wouldn’t be much to hang on to, but she didn’t want to take more and compromise evidence. The strands would have to work until she found something more substantial. She closed her knife against her knee and dropped her keys back in her jacket. “Anyone got a bag?”
Garcia patted his pockets. “Not on me.” He looked over at the cops. They shook their heads.
“Forget it.” With her free hand, she pulled out another glove, shook it open, and dropped the threads inside it. She balled up the glove and shoved it in her right jacket pocket. She stood up, peeled off her gloves, and tucked them in the front pocket of her jeans.
“What else?” he asked.
“The severed hand. I’d like to see it.”
“ME’s guys have got it.”
“Let’s check it out,” she said.
He looked at the mangled arm and back at her, as if he expected something more. “You’re done here?”
“Done,” she said flatly.
“Let’s take the long way back. Easier going.” He stepped outside the triangle.
“You two through, then?” asked one of the uniforms. “ME wants to pack him up and roll him outta here.”
Garcia looked at Bernadette, standing inside the triangle. “You good, Agent Saint Clare?”
She ran her eyes around the body one last time. “I’m good.” She stepped over the tape. “Thanks,” she said to the closest cop.
“Anytime.” He thumbed over his shoulder at the corpse. “This made my week.”
Garcia led Bernadette through the woods and onto the paved path. She had to walk fast to keep up with him: his legs were long, and so was his stride. “How do you like your new office?”
“Lonely,” she said, a step behind him. “Quiet in the basement.”
“That’ll change come the week after next.”
A gust of wind made her shiver. She’d forgotten how cold early May could be in Minnesota. “What happens the week after next?”
“The rest of the St. Paul crew gets back from vacation.”
“Crew?”
“Okay. Not a crew exactly. One agent. You’ll like him. Good, but a little odd.”
She pulled a tube of ChapStick out of her pocket, ran a bead along her lips, and dropped the tube back in her jacket. “What’s his name, my oddball crewmate?”
“Creed. Ruben Creed.”
“Who’d he piss off to end up in the basement in St. Paul?”
Garcia stopped in his tracks. “What?”
Four
She’d already put her foot in it, and it wasn’t even her first official day on the job. “Sorry,” Bernadette said quickly, stepping next to her boss.
Garcia pivoted around to face her. “Do me a favor. Take those shades off when I’m talking to you, Cat. That’s what they call you, right?”
She slipped off her sunglasses. “Cat’s good.”
He looked at her eyes and blinked. “Why Cat? Like a kitty?”
“Like a dog.” She folded the sunglasses and hooked them over the neck of her sweatshirt. “The guys in New Orleans gave me the name. Catahoula. Cattle-and-hunting breed that’s popular down south.”
He frowned. “I don’t get it.”
“Catahoula leopard dogs. They’re known for having eyes of two different colors.”
“Is ‘Cat’ okay with you?”
“Beats that formal stuff.”
“Formal stuff?”
“Agent This. Agent That. Hate it.”
He folded his arms over his chest. “I know you’ve been through some personal crap.”
“Thought they didn’t fill you in on all that.”
He ignored her crack and kept going. “And I know you’ve had some professional issues as well.”
“Issues. A good word for it.”
He sighed, unfolded his arms, and didn’t say anything for several seconds. The sound of a speedboat tearing downriver filled the void. He ran both his hands through his hair, folded his arms again, and looked at her. “You’ve got some special talents. I respect those talents.”
She’d already torpedoed herself with her big mouth and figured she might as well go for broke. “Then why am I isolated in a bunker in St. Paul? Why can’t I play with the other kids in Minneapolis? Afraid that I’m gonna infect the rest of the class? That I’m gonna scare them? Or maybe I’ll give them ideas. Ideas that don’t fit into Quantico’s textbooks. Is that why Creed is in St. Paul? He scare you, too? What’s his special talent?”
“Jesus Christ. It isn’t about you, okay? We have space problems—as does every other federal agency in every other city in the country. The newest agent in the office always gets St. Paul. As soon as we get a couple of empty desks through transfers or retirements or whatever, you can head across the river. Join the rest of the inmates in the asylum on Washington Avenue. Then I’ll send the next newbie to the cellar. But I gotta tell you something. Some of my best folks would rather be tucked away at the Resident Agency in St. Paul. Creed’s one of them. He’s been in St. Paul forever. Loves it here.”
Her eyebrows arched with skepticism. “Loves the basement?”
“He gets to be away from the SAC,” he said, referring to the special agent in charge. “Then there’s the asshole ASACs like me.”
She raised her palms in surrender. “The basement is wonderful. St. Paul is good. It’s all good. I’m sorry I opened my mouth.”
“This is not some punishment. I asked for you, lady.”
Not even attempting to hide her disbelief, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Why?”
“That al-Qaeda cell you ferreted out in St. Louis. Your work on that RICO bust in Baton Rouge. Serial bank robber in New Orleans.”
“That last one was my partner’s doing.”
“Bullshit,” he said. “I checked around. It was yours, all the way. You don’t like to take the credit, do you?”
“Some of my colleagues would say too much of my work relies on…” She searched for the right word. “Hunches.”
“Professional jealousy.”
“My bosses haven’t approved of my methods, either.”
“Proof’s in the results, and you’ve had stellar results.” He skipped a beat before he added: “Most of the time.”
Those last four words made her cringe. Most of the time. He’d added that qualifier so she knew how cognizant he was of her previous missteps, the episodes when she’d come up with blanks in trying to use her sight, or sabotaged cases by misinterpreting what she’d observed. “Appreciate the kind words,” she said dryly. “Really. The basement in St. Paul is great. Hell. Minneapolis Division does cover the Dakotas. Could have ended up in a root cellar in Minot.”
“That’s the spirit,” he said flatly.
Around a bend in the path rattled a gurney flanked by four men. “Can we take it?” asked one of the ME crew.
“All yours,” said Garcia. He and Bernadette stepped off the trail and let them by. The pair stepped back on the path and continued walking. “Did you find a decent place to live?”
“Bought a condo. Loft in Lowertown.”
“You can roll out of bed and walk to work.”
“In five minutes,” she said.
“You run? There’re some great paths along the river.”
“What have they got for dirt trails close to the city? I’ve got a bike.”
“I’ve seen bicycles along the river downtown. On the trails right here in the park, for that matter. Lots of bikes.”
“Not my kind of bike.” She grinned. “That’s okay. I’ll figure it out. Reorient myself. Figure out what’s where.” She paused and then asked: “Still got some churches downtown?”
“Three Catholic churches. Some other denominations, too.”
“Catholic works.”
The walking path emptied out into the picnic area. The pair cut through it and headed for the parking lot. Half of the uniforms and all of the boats had cleared out. The paramedics were gone. The Vang brothers had left for home. The cops’ crime-scene van was still there, but there was no activity around the vehicle. The ME’s hearse had a guy leaning against the driver’s side. A news helicopter hovered overhead. “There they are,” said Garcia, his eyes to the sky.
“We’ve got a public-information guy?”
“Didn’t bother pulling him into this. Let the cops’ PIO handle it.”
“What about our ERT?” she asked, meaning the Evidence Response Team.
“St. Paul’s crime-scene guys are all over it. They want help on that end, they’ll ask for it.”
She stopped several yards from the hearse. “Did they ask for me?”
Garcia stopped ahead of her and turned around. “They didn’t have to. You’re what they need.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? What are they expecting out of me?”
“Don’t worry about what they’re expecting. Worry about what I’m expecting.” He jammed his index finger into his chest. “I’m the only one you’ve got to please.” He turned back around and continued to the hearse, parked in a corner of the lot. She waited a few seconds and went after him.
Along the front passenger’s side of the hearse stood a knot of uniformed cops. As she drew closer, she could feel their eyes on her. She slipped her sunglasses off her sweatshirt, unfolded them, and put them back on. Their voices were low, but she caught fragments of their conversation: “…dragging the feds into this…little blonde chasing after Garcia…crystal-ball crap…” Great, she thought. She’d get her usual welcome from the local police. Stares and whispers and shaking heads. The uniforms stopped talking as she came up on the ME’s wagon, but they kept staring. She went around to the driver’s side of the hearse. As she did, she heard muffled laughter. Then a male voice, one of the cops: “Keep it down, ladies. She’s gonna bring out the dead. Send them after us to eat our brains.” Fuck you, she thought. The dead would starve if they had to feed on your brains. She stood next to her boss. He was talking to one of the ME investigators—a big guy with a shaved head.
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