The Forgotten Man

by Robert Crais

  Several pairs of feet were so translucent I could see a dim smudge of bones within the flesh. Beckett explained that some of the bodies had been on the racks so long the fluids had drained from the tissue; they had been waiting for years.

  Beckett brought us past the racks to a gurney at the far end of the room.

  "Okay, here we go. You'll need gloves if you want to touch something."

  We gloved up, then Beckett peeled open the plastic. John Doe #05-1642 was naked, with a brown paper bag between his knees and a case file clipped to the gurney. The bag contained his bloodied clothes, which would be placed in a drying room before they were examined. Beckett removed the bag, then stood back.

  Diaz said, "Jesus, Pardy was right. This guy thought he was the Illustrated Man."

  Beckett grunted at the body like it was a lab specimen.

  "Weird, huh? I've never seen one like this, the way he did it. All the tats are upside down."

  Crucifixes of differing sizes and designs dotted his forearms and thighs and belly, all of them upside down. The tattoos were upside down because they were self-inflicted. They would have been right-side up as he looked at them when he pushed ink into his skin. Some of the crosses were brittle thin lines, but others were blocky structures with shading and shadows. Weeping Jesuses and upside-down words were spread between the crosses: PAIN, MERCY, GOD, FORGIVE ME. They looked like they had been drawn by a child. I felt queasy. These marks were not religious; he had desecrated himself.

  When I glanced at Diaz, she was watching me again. I felt a bubble of irritation.

  "What is it? You think I look like him?"

  "You don't look anything like him. Do the tattoos ring a bell?"

  "Of course not. It's nothing but crosses."

  Diaz glanced at Beckett.

  "Does he have more on his back?"

  "Uh-uh. It's all in front where he could reach. None of his ink is identifying—like the name of a ship, or a gang sign, or something like that—it's just what you see."

  Diaz frowned at the body, then shook her head.

  "Okay, I want you to check him for sex. If you get a smear, log it for DNA."

  "Pardy already told me."

  "Fine. Dope, too. He was in that alley for something."

  Beckett shifted the bag to make a note, and the bag gave me an idea.

  "Did you see if his name was in his clothes?"

  Beckett grinned.

  "Always, and inside his shoes, too. I got burned like that on my first case—here's this dude, flattened with no ID and no prints in the file, turns out his mama wrote his name inside his belt, and that's how we made the ID."

  I nodded, and looked back at Diaz.

  "And you didn't find any rings, watches, a wallet—"

  "He was stripped, Cole. Just the clippings and seven cents."

  I studied the body again, feeling remote and detached. His chest was smooth and thin beneath the tattoos, with a farmer's tan showing pale flesh against dark arms. Other than a thin scrape at the base of his neck, no other marks were apparent. The lower half of his body showed a mottled lividity where his blood settled; the bloodless tissue above had taken on a waxy sheen that seemed to highlight the tattoos. The pucker of the entry hole was purple and blue with a pepper of gunpowder particulate surrounding it. He had been shot close, the muzzle not more than two feet away. His fingers showed no evidence of rings, but his left wrist carried the pale outline of a missing watch. A faint dimple crossed the outside of his hip below his left pelvis, so slight it might have been a fold or a crease.

  I said, "What's that?"

  Beckett reached under the gurney for the case file, and tipped out a large X-ray.

  "A surgical scar. There's another on his opposite leg just like it. Here, we already got the plates."

  He held the X-ray up to the overhead light. The shadows and smudges of the pelvic ball joint were offset by perfect white bars that ran along the outside of each femur. Beckett pointed them out.

  "It looks corrective, so he probably had the surgery when he was a kid. These white bands are some kind of appliance. Appliances like this will sometimes have a manufacturer and serial number. If these do, we should be able to trace the manufacturer to the hospital, and pick up his ID."

  Diaz said, "When will he hit the table?"

  Beckett checked his clipboard.

  "Tomorrow afternoon, looks like. Might wash over to the day after, but I think we'll cut him tomorrow."

  I stared at the body again. Its face had hardened with rigor into a distorted mask. One eye was closed, but the other drooped open. The skin was stretched tight over bony cheeks and the hollows of his eyes were pronounced. His mouth hung open as if he were sleeping and might wake. I wanted to close it.

  Something touched me. I lurched. Diaz was watching me.

  "Cole? You okay?"

  "Sure. What happens next?"

  Diaz stared at me another moment, then glanced at Beckett.

  "Okay, Dino, we're done. I need close-ups of the body tats and his face. Something that doesn't make him look like Night of the Living Dead, okay?"

  "No prob. I'll meet you at the elevator."

  Beckett pushed the body away as Diaz and I peeled off our gloves, and I followed her back to the hall. When we were away from the bodies, she considered me again.

  "Here is what happens: I'm going to drop the pictures back with Pardy so he can make copies, then I'm going to bed. Pardy will hand out the pictures to the patrol commander so we can try to find someone who knew this guy."

  "Has Pardy ever worked a case before?"

  "This is a big chance for him, Cole. Pardy came up from Metro. He's hungry, and he wants to make a name for himself. He'll be fine."

  I looked back at the swinging door with the walls of bodies behind it, some that had been there for years.

  "You mind if I work it?"

  "Meaning what? Pardy isn't good enough, so the World's Greatest has to pitch in?"

  "I want to know why he thought he was my father. Wouldn't you want to know why someone said that about you?"

  "We haven't even cleared you yet."

  "You'll clear me. C'mon, Diaz, think about it. I might even find the shooter."

  Her eyes hardened with something I could not read deep in their dark pools. She smiled at me, but her smile held no humor, and was also unreadable. She shook her head.

  "I hope you're being straight with me."

  "About what?"

  "I hope you're not keeping something from me, Cole."

  "Like what?"

  "You don't recognize him?"

  "All I know is a man who told you he was my father is lying on ice."

  She stared with the hard eyes, then she turned away down the hall.

  "Sure, Cole. You want to look, look. You're the World's Greatest Detective. It says so in the papers."

  Beckett met us at the elevator a few minutes later, and gave Diaz the pictures. She pulled off her mask, considered the picture of the dead man's face, then gave me one of the prints.

  "Here. You might need this."

  "Thanks."

  "You can take off the mask."

  I left it on. I didn't take off the mask until the elevator opened and we stepped into cool fresh air. We walked out together, then parted to go to our cars. When I reached my car I looked back at her. She was standing beside a dark blue Passat, studying his picture. She glanced up to look at me, and saw I was watching. She tried to pretend she wasn't comparing us, but I sensed that she was. She got into her car, and drove quickly away.

  6

  Hidden

  Payne Keller owned sixteen acres of elm thicket, brush, and pine trees, bought for squat in a probate because the cabin was falling apart. He had dug a new septic tank, a new well, replumbed the place, put in new gas lines, had a natural-gas tank set, put on a new roof, and paid to run new phone and power lines from the main road. Frederick had encouraged Payne to get a trailer like him, but Payne wanted his privacy. Fred
erick had to admit that Payne's privacy had come in handy, time to time.

  Frederick bumped along the long private drive over potholes and erosion cuts until he reached Payne's cabin. The dusty white house was still. Frederick slipped the shotgun from under the seat, then climbed out of his truck. Payne used to have a real nice place, but now the eaves were heavy with cobwebs, and the house was streaked with dirt like mascara when a woman cried. "Payne! Hey, buddy, you home?"

  Frederick stood absolutely still, listening. He sensed the house was deserted, but stepped up onto the covered porch, keeping an eye on the windows. He unlocked the dead bolt, and pushed open the door. Inside, twelve Christs stared down at him from twelve crucifixes nailed to the walls. More Christs stood on the TV. Christ bore witness from the entertainment center, the bookcase, and the end tables. Frederick knew that even more Christs waited in the bathroom and kitchen and bedroom.

  "PAYNE??"

  Calling, just for show. If Payne had betrayed him, a policeman or reporter might be anywhere.

  Frederick felt the Jesuses watching him, and closed his eyes. A buzzing started in his head, and if he didn't make it go away the buzzing would grow into voices.

  "Make them stop, Payne. Make them go away."

  The buzzing gradually faded, and Frederick pulled himself together. He hurried into the kitchen to check the message machine, and found two new messages, but one was from Elroy and he had left the other. Frederick had checked the house twice a day every day since Payne disappeared, hoping to find a message that would give some clue about Payne's fate, but all he ever found were the messages he left expressing concern for Payne's well-being (also for show), and the messages from Elroy.

  Frederick deleted the messages, then scrounged a box of trash bags from the cupboard, relocked the house, and returned to his truck for the shovel. He hurried around the side of the house into the woods, then followed a dry creek bed until he was at the base of a large rock. Frederick considered the trees both ways along the gulley, but wasn't sure if he was in the right spot or not. He felt confused and fuzzy, but also excited.

  Frederick moved with increasing strength.

  He climbed uphill behind the rock, then suddenly recognized his surroundings with a precision that made every leaf as familiar as old friends. He felt a rush of confidence.

  "Yes, it is," he said, smiling. "Yes, it is."

  He put his weight into the shovel, and levered up the earth. Frederick Conrad, which was the name he now used, worked with great purpose. The shovel struck something hard. He clawed away the dirt, and uncovered the first skull.

  7

  Six hours earlier, the streets had been empty, but now pedestrians churned the sidewalks, bike messengers whipped between cars like tweaked-out hummingbirds, and the shops along Grand and Hill had become an open bazaar. The police were gone. The yellow tape, area lamps, criminalists, and patrol cars had vanished, erasing all evidence that a murder had occurred. To the untrained eye, it was another flawless day in the City of Angels.

  I drove back to the crime scene, pulled to the curb outside the flower mart, and studied the mouth of the alley. I couldn't do any more than the police, and wasn't sure why I wanted to try. I never once—not then at the beginning—believed that John Doe #05-1642 was or could be the father I had never known. He was more like a client who had hired me, and the person I had been hired to find. Maybe I was bored after so many weeks not working; maybe I didn't want to go back to a house that felt pointless without Lucy and Ben. It was easier to lose myself in murder; it was merciful to focus my anger at someone else.

  The Big Empty was a moldering area east of the convention center and south of the business district, unclaimed by the homeless, who tended to gather several blocks north at the parks and missions of Skid Row. The streets were lined with wholesale outlets, cut-rate office space, garment resellers, and businesses that closed at dusk; the bars, hotels, apartments, and missions were ten blocks or more to the north, and not an easy walk from the alley. John Doe #05-1642 either lived in the area or had been seeking a destination, though there wasn't much in the area to seek. I studied my Thomas Brothers map. I wanted to talk to the people who worked at the flower mart, then search the area for businesses that might have been open.

  I turned across traffic into the alley, and parked. When I got out of my car, a thin man in a form-fit pink shirt came out a service door. His arms were filled with cardboard boxes that had been flattened, and his face pinched into a pruned knot when he saw me.

  "You can't park there. They'll tow it."

  "Police business. A murder occurred here at two forty-five this morning. The police will be around to talk to you."

  "Someone was already here. A tall man. He was brusque and rude, and that doesn't look like a police car."

  I drive a 1966 Sting Ray convertible, which would probably look more like a police car if I washed it. It's yellow.

  "It's not, and I'm not, but I'm looking into the case. Were you here at your shop around three this morning?"

  He looked irritated at having been asked. I guess the rudeness had put him off.

  "I've already talked to the police. Of course I wasn't here. I don't sleep here. I wasn't here when it happened, and I don't know anything about it."

  I gave him what I hoped was a friendly smile, trying to ease his irritation.

  "All right. Maybe you can help me out with something. I'm trying to figure out why the victim was in this area at that hour. I was going to look around for businesses that might have been open at that hour. You know of anything?"

  His faced tightened and he seemed even more irritated.

  "No, I don't, and you can't leave your car. Delivery trucks can't get through with your car."

  Thirty feet away, a man had bled to death from a bullet to the chest, but here was this guy, pissy. I studied the space between my car and the far side of the alley. There was plenty of room.

  "There's no place else to park, and I won't be long."

  "See the sign on the wall, 'No Parking? If you don't move your car, I'll call the police."

  I stopped trying to be friendly, and told him to call. People like him give me hives.

  I took longer than I needed just to spite him. I spent two hours walking the surrounding twelve square blocks, but counted only six restaurants and two Starbucks, none of which would have been open at two forty-five in the morning. There was no reason for the John Doe to have been in the area unless he was on his way to somewhere else.

  After a while I went back to the alley. My car had not been towed, but a mountain of garbage bags was piled behind it. I guess the man in the pink shirt figured if he couldn't have me towed, he would block me in. Pissy.

  I went to the Dumpster. The alley had been washed clean after the police released the scene. The blood was gone, and disinfectant had been sprayed. No chalk marked the body's outline and no evidence buttons marked a telltale trail of forensics, but veins in the tarmac remained damp with the disinfectant.

  I looked up and down the alley, trying to imagine it at two forty-five that morning. It would not have been an inviting place to walk, but fear is relative. The cross streets were well lit, but John Doe #05-1642 chose darkness. Maybe the darkness meant safe harbor, or maybe he had been chased. The shooter might have already been in the alley when the victim entered, resulting in a crime of opportunity, but most homicides are committed by family, friends, or acquaintances; the odds promised that the victim and the shooter knew each other. If they entered together, the alley would not have seemed so foreboding. The victim and his killer might have sought out the darkness together, but to what end? I thought over what Diaz described: She heard the shot, found him no more than three minutes later, and asked what had happened. Instead of telling her who shot him or how it happened, he told her he was trying to find me. Identifying me as his son, and saying he wanted to make up for the lost years were his dying words. I didn't like knowing that. Had he entered this particular alley to find me? Di
d he believe he was going to someplace where I would be? Had the shooter claimed to know me and promised an introduction?

  I stared down at the place where his body had been and imagined them facing each other against the Dumpsters. The gun came out, the victim resisted—

  —bang—

  I closed my eyes and saw it, the withered dead man suddenly alive and on his feet, facing an assailant hidden by shadows—

  —bang—

  —one shot pounded home low to the right of his sternum, missing his heart but ripping his arteries and lungs. The kinetic energy dumped into his body staggered him. A hydrostatic shock wave pulsed through his tissues along the wound channel, rupturing the cells nearest the wound and surfing the blood in his arteries straight to his brain. The spike of pressure blew out capillaries and shorted his senses; he went blind, deaf, and unconscious in a heartbeat, and he dropped in his tracks like a boxer stepping into a powerhouse hook. A larger gun—a .45 or .44—would have killed him instantly by rupturing the vessels in his brain with a hundred simultaneous strokes, but with the smaller gun, his consciousness slowly returned as Diaz found the alley. Pain and fear would have boiled up with his returning senses, and he had screamed and thrashed as she described. His vision and hearing returned. He was able to think again, and speak, even though he was dying. Someone had shot him, and then he was dying, but he hadn't told her who, or why—the most important thing in the world to him was to tell her he was my father and that he was trying to find me. To make up the lost years.

  I bent to touch the ground.

  Why me?

  I searched the ground around the Dumpsters. The cops had been over it, but I looked again, searching a few feet in one direction, then the other, then along the far wall, trying to remember if the police had recovered a shell casing. I searched the sills of the delivery doors opposite the Dumpsters, found nothing, then worked my way back across the alley, looking into the cracks and pocks in the tarmac. The detectives and the criminalist had searched these same areas, but I looked anyway. Chipped tarmac, jagged brown glass that had once been a beer bottle, and weathered paper were spread evenly where the criminalist had left them. I let myself down into a push-up position to look under the first Dumpster, and saw a bright rectangle partially wedged between the Dumpster's left rear wheel and the wall. It seemed too obvious a thing for the police to have missed, but maybe the cleaning crews had dislodged it from a less obvious place when they sprayed down the area.