For Your Eyes Only

by Sandra Antonelli

  Several things could be done in an expedient fashion—photographing the body and fingerprinting, for instance—but determining a cause of death took more time. After the external exam there was an internal autopsy, the actual internal examination. Blood work, examining stomach contents, and toxicology tests went on for weeks, sometimes months. When a decedent, like this John Doe, lacked identification, the lab ran fingerprints through the FBI’s IAFIS—the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System—and checked state dental records. If this John Doe were an employee of the Lab he’d generate a response from IAFIS. If his identity still remained an issue, the case would be entered into NamUS, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. If luck was on their side with this case, and they got a hit on IAFIS, they’d hear back within a couple of days. If not, they’d know something in six, maybe eight weeks. If the case went to NamUS, six weeks could stretch to six years, more—or never.

  Whatever the result, John knew waiting meant he and Ishimaru were going to do some good old-fashioned detective work, the boring stuff TV shows cut down to three or four minutes of screen time. They’d be re-examining the site where the body was found, canvassing the area close by, doing things that involved paper, pens, and face-to-face time with people—stuff that, rather than keep him driving back and forth to Albuquerque, would anchor him in Los Alamos and…

  A smile bloomed on John’s lips when he realized what all that waiting around meant.

  Queenie.

  More time in town meant more time to court Queenie. He was going to be spending a great deal of time in town, doing old-fashioned police work and old-fashioned courting, the kind that involved flowers, candy, and trinkets. He’d seen her in the lobby of the police station this morning, looking a little … rumpled. He’d caught sight of her as he’d been trailing behind Cuthbert with the paperwork for transporting the dead man to Albuquerque. Queenie had been coming out of the LAPD records division with a tall guy and some pimply kid in an expensive-looking suit. She hadn’t seen him, and he hadn’t had the time to stop and ask her how she was feeling, or suggest they get together again over something other than coffee.

  The morning’s disgusting buzz-killing bodily effluence wasn’t exactly the stuff memories were made of, but boy howdy, the time just before that had been leap-off-the-edge exhilarating, and … Jesus, wasn’t that analogy inappropriate. John felt an instant pang of guilt.

  Then he changed his mind.

  This wasn’t precisely schadenfreude; he wasn’t taking pleasure in the misery of a dead man, so how could it be awful of him to be happy this work would keep him close to Queenie?

  He’d dialed his phone before he’d answered the question. Lesley picked up after the third ring.

  “Hi, Mrs Mighty Colossus. I’m thinking carnations, but what’s a good non-threatening flower that says ‘I like you and want to see you more’?”

  If Mitchell ate like Adams did, he’d have a forty-six inch waist. The kid had a real fondness for what his mother always called ‘gas station food’. Mitchell thought all the Hostess Ho-Hos and nacho cheese Doritos, Corn Nuts and beef jerky were the prime reason for his partner’s acne.

  It was hard to decide what was more annoying—Adams’ occasional pimple-stroking or the fact the young guy could eat whatever the hell he wanted and not gain a damned ounce. It was astounding. They’d been on the clock for just over ninety minutes, and in that time, Adams had gone through a bagel, two bags of Fritos, a packet of Cheetos, and had emptied a liter bottle of diet Coke.

  Mitchell knew it could have been worse; his last partner had been a farter, and the guy before that was a little too in love with his sidearm.

  Shit. Why couldn’t he be partnered with someone normal, someone closer to his age, someone he had more in common with—like Agent Heston.

  Well, gee, Tom, maybe it’s because you’re distracted by her breasts when she’s talking to you.

  Mitchell half-sighed and told himself that, despite his gaze lingering a little too long on her, and the fact that he was sitting here thinking about her again, he did not have ‘a thing’ for Agent Heston.

  So why did his palms sweat when his cell phone rang and he found she was on the other end?

  “Mitchell,” he said.

  Her voice was soft in his ear. “When you get a minute, Tom, I’m going to need you find me an address for an intern who had a summer fling with Ms Grafton.”

  Keep it professional numbnuts. Mitchell reached into the console, flicked away a stray Cheeto, and snagged his note pad. “Go ahead, Agent Heston.”

  “Alexandre, David—a-l-e-x-a-n-d-r-e. That’s Romeo-Echo on the end. June to September, ninety-nine. You got that?”

  “Alexandre, David. Intern, June, September, ninety-nine. Anything else?”

  “Have you been through my notes from yesterday and this morning?”

  ”Yes. And before you ask, Truly Scrumptious is being looked after by a neighbor.”

  “Did Truly Scrumptious’ neighbor say anything about Ms Grafton?”

  “Officer Binney reports Grafton had been there for about six months. Her car had been parked in the driveway; she’d been taking out the trash, and hanging laundry on the clothesline out back. Kinsale’s checked out Park’s whereabouts. The neighbors say the nephew, JS Carl, Grafton’s boyfriend, heads to Florida about this time every year to collect his aunt. So it seems Grafton’s story is on the level.”

  She exhaled. Mitchell felt the breathy sound tickle his ear, as if she’d been right beside him blowing into it. His blood began to buzz. “What are you thinking?”

  “We need to talk to the boyfriend when the boyfriend gets back from Florida—if he comes back—because I’m thinking a quarter million’s a big ask, and the guy may have washed his hands of her. So why don’t we contact the local PD down there to find him,” she said. “Alexandre’s probably nothing more than a name I remember, yet, you know, cover every base just to be safe. But Grafton…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Despite how it looks for her, I believe her. My gut says she’s not involved in this or the meth. The brother Rory and his buddy Elvin Buck will be charged with drug trafficking and a Class D felony for possession of stolen goods, but I’m not buying that Jackie played a part in this. We’re looking for patterns. There’s a pattern here, or something that doesn’t fit what we’ve got already. I just haven’t found it yet.” She exhaled again, sounding like she could do with a nice snifter of brandy.

  Mitchell tried to modulate his tone into something mellow and slightly sweet. “It’s only been two days. Give yourself a little more time.”

  “Time’s a luxury we don’t have. Where are you?”

  Mitchell glanced at the house. “We just spoke to Chandra.”

  “Oh. How was he?”

  “There’s something off about him. He seems a little smug.”

  “Yeah, he’s rather self-assured. I’m going to drop by and see him tomorrow.”

  That lucky bastard. “Give him my regards. He drives a champagne-colored Lexus. You want the tag number?”

  “No, I have it here. If you’re busy with follow-up right now, have Agent Kinsale look into Alexandre and the boyfriend, Sunny Carl.” She paused for a long moment. “Tom…” she paused again, “I don’t feel right about this.”

  “About Grafton or Chandra?”

  “No. I mean playing both sides. Yes, I’ve done it before, but I know these people. I’m friends with some of them, and I don’t like the … coating of slime. It’s one thing to watch, it’s another to act. I may be in a better position to be covert, but I’m an analyst, not a field agent. We both know that. Oscar knows that. I’m happier behind a desk. You’re the man for the job.”

  Mitchell barely caught himself before he called her ‘honey’ and told her what a great job she was doing. “You know,” he said, “I think you just set feminism back about sixty years. The sisterhood would not be impressed.”

  She chuckled. “You burn the br
a, Tom. I just want to wrap this up fast and have a bath.”

  He laughed. “I’ll call you if Jerry and I turn up anything that’ll get you into the tub.”

  “I’ve always liked working with you, Tom,” she said before she hung up.

  Careful to hide his shit-eating grin from Adams, Mitchell turned and gazed out the window, heart tha-thumping with nerdish schoolboy excitement and equally nerdish schoolboy fantasies.

  The rattling of another bag and crunch of potato chips-mouth drew him back to reality. He tucked the cell back into the console beside the note pad and wiped his damp palms on his trousers.

  Adams crunched another chip. The tang of salt and vinegar filled the car’s interior when he proffered the pack.

  Mitchell waved the junk food away. Annoyed with himself for feeling so giddy, for having ideas that involved hooking up with his colleague, he shifted in his seat. His knee knocked against the pearled ash center console and the whole sedan shook. They all drove around in the same sort of boring car, a silver or slate Chrysler sedan. Everything around him was pewter. He was surrounded by shades of gray. Like his graying hair, other hues had begun to fade from his life until things looked drab, flat, overcast. Thanks to all the grayness dulling his mind, a single spark of light and he was poised to embark upon a mid-life crisis.

  Yes, a mid-life crisis—a mid-life crisis was the only logical way to explain why his thoughts about Willa were so preposterous.

  He re-focused his attention on the front of Himesh Chandra’s ranch-style house. They sat parked there after thirty-minutes with Chandra, a pleasant, yet smug Oxford-educated Pakistani in his early fifties.

  Chandra had offered them tea and honest-to-God crumpets. Mitchell had no idea where the molecular physicist got oh-so-British crumpets in New Mexico, but Adams had eaten three.

  The physicist’s smugness and crumpets were an odd reason to still be outside the Chandra domicile, but something about the UK treat and the way Dr Chandra talked about his only son—while barely mentioning his four daughters—sat in Mitchell’s stomach like Adams’ gas-station food. His intestinal reaction wasn’t something he’d felt necessary to relay to Agent Heston. As she’d said, cover every base and, to him, a gut feeling was a base.

  A black Lexus pulled into the driveway. The garage door went up, and the sedan pulled inside. A plump woman got out. She wore an evergreen down vest over a ruby-red sari. Gold, chandelier-like earrings nearly touched her shoulders. She looked like a Christmas tree.

  Adams sifted through photographs. “Trusha Chandra,” he said holding up a snapshot. “Fifty-six, mother of the four girls and boy, all in high school here in Los Alamos.”

  Mitchell glanced at Adams as he handed over the photo. The Cheetos the kid had stuffed into his mouth, before he’d moved on to the potato chips, had given him a vivid orange pencil-moustache. At least he’d wiped his fingers. There was no danger of getting fluorescent Cheeto dust on official government photos—unless he kissed them.

  Unconsciously licking his lip, Mitchell gazed at the picture for a moment and then turned to watch Mrs Chandra open the trunk of the Lexus. She lifted out a bag of groceries and took them into her house through an internal door. It took her four trips to get everything inside.

  Mitchell didn’t know why it took him so long to notice the other car parked in the garage. “Do you see that?” he asked.

  “Yeah. The Chandras buy their toilet paper in bulk.”

  “No. I mean do you see that green car in the garage?”

  “Yeah?”

  ”It’s a Tucker 48.”

  “So?”

  “So?”

  “Yeah. So.”

  “It’s a Tucker. There were fifty-one of them built.”

  Adams shrugged.

  “I thought you were a movie buff. Haven’t you ever see the movie Tucker: The Man and his Dreams, with Jeff Bridges?”

  “Jeff Bridges? Jeff Bridges … uh … oh yeah, he played Obadiah Stane in Iron Man. Dude, that movie was killa! It was off the hizzle! Did you see it?”

  “Off the hizzle? Oh, for God’s sake.” Mitchell shook his head. “Yo, homeslice, do you like cars?

  “I prefer my scooter. It’s more economical and environm— Sorry.”

  Mitchell exhaled. “Two years ago, a car like the one in there sold for half of a million.”

  “Half a million for that?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Maybe it’s a replica.”

  “Maybe. And maybe not. I don’t remember seeing it listed as an asset on his tax return yesterday. Do you?”

  “No. No, I don’t. We’re going to the Batcave to do more research, huh?”

  Mitchell nodded and grinned like a fool. News like this meant he’d have an excuse to see Agent Heston.

  It took a full minute before he realized his palms were sweaty again.

  At dusk, Willa sat in the bustling parking lot of the Mari Mac shopping village, in front of the AutoZone auto parts store. Traffic was heaviest down at the north side, where Smith’s supermarket kept up a steady flow of customers. The Cherry-Lime she’d bought from the Sonic Drive-In up the street had listed to one side, and hot-pink drink threatened to ooze out the edge of the lid, so she adjusted the Styrofoam cup, centering it better in the Volkswagen’s drink holder. Then she sat back in her seat and scanned the lot’s array of already-parked cars, keeping an eye out for a white Jeep Cherokee.

  Snow was falling outside. Willa watched it come down. Thick flakes like minuscule lace doilies landed on the windshield. She’d seen them land that way the other day, when snowflakes had settled upon John’s woolly mass of pre-haircut curls.

  John.

  She’d managed to forget about him for an entire day. She’d kept busy, welded her mind onto work, but a few snowflakes were all it took to wipe out that focus. Now she couldn’t stop thinking about him. What a shemozzle. What a complete disaster. That night, that morning, had been a blockbuster debacle. He’d kissed her and she’d…

  Willa touched a finger to her mouth.

  He’d kissed her.

  She’d assumed a kiss from him would be as nice as he was, but nice was an understatement.

  He’d kissed her.

  The instant his mouth was on hers and his fingers slid into her hair, she’d dissolved then regenerated as if the beam-me-up-Scotty science fiction of Star Trek had become reality. Unbalanced, lightheaded, long unaccustomed to the feeling of a man’s hands touching her, it had shocked her empty system. John had kissed the shit out of her and kissed life into her half-dead body until she was dizzy with it. In a rush, passion had burst from her skin, desire pooled in her belly. Exhilarated, frightened, she’d wrapped her hands around his tie, pressed against him, and held on as the Earth spun underfoot and revolved around a sun about to go supernova. The more life, the more heat John put into his kiss, the dizzier she got. As she kissed him back, her insides twirled, her head reeled and circled round and round until the feverish vertigo transported her to another dimension…

  Then she...

  Willa groaned.

  Conventional thought classified her as too mature for this kind of idiotic, college-binge-drinking-make-out-with-a-guy-frat-party behavior. Clearly that wasn’t the case.

  This was bad. This was worse than when she’d fallen off a horse straight into a pile of fresh horse turds the time she’d gone riding with Ray Beto in high school, worse than the night she’d spent with the other distraught agent she’d met just three months after Miles had died. This knocked all those situations out of the park. Puking all over John, all over his house, had to make the Guinness Book top ten for ‘Shittiest Date Ever’.

  Off-the-planet kissing had turned into a black hole of embarrassment, and she wanted to hide there, in that hole. She wanted to take a page from Alicia, who was a master of avoidance techniques far better than the FBI’s, and conceal herself from the man who lived across the street. It would involve moving into her office and staying there until she needed to showe
r. Sure, she’d stink, but she’d get a lot of work done, and doing this job right was the reason she was here. Los Alamos was not about getting funky with some nice guy she barely knew.

  As if he’d want to get funky with her anyway.

  John would never look at her and think about wanting to get into her pants because he’d be too blinded by the memory of being vomit-covered.

  Vomit wasn’t sexy.

  Swearing, Willa glanced at her watch and let her left temple sink against the window. She sat that way for few seconds, dejected, head pressed to the cold glass, and she wallowed in the miserable fact that she’d never get to feel a kiss like John’s again.

  Her despondent posture gave her a clear view of the white Cherokee pulling into a space up near Bealls department store, adjacent to the AutoZone. Willa exhaled, fear slithered down her gullet, forcing away all thoughts of John.

  She put her hand in her jacket’s right pocket, and her fingers closed around what was inside. It was only about an inch and a half long and weighed less than a quarter of an ounce, yet the tiny flash drive she clutched suddenly felt as heavy as a cinderblock.

  Dominic’s periodic consulting with the Lab meant he maintained a high security clearance. The documents stolen were within his level of authorization. In an investigation, allowing a suspect to examine items he may have stolen was a little unorthodox, but not illegal. However, allowing a suspect to examine items he may have stolen, in order to thwart his arrest, was categorically illegal. What she was doing with her copy of the information was an over-the-top dead-drop in the ilk of crappy spy novels, but she was doing it anyway because his clearance and association with Jackie Grafton made Dominic a suspect. If there were any consequences of this action she’d deal with it later.