Dead Men's Dust

by Matt Hilton

  “Are you telling me that you’ve been aware of him for four years? That nothing’s been done to catch the crazy son of a bitch? Makes me wonder if he’s still on the payroll.”

  “He’s only recently come to our notice,” Walter said. “FBI have been investigating a number of random killings spread the length and breadth of the country. It hasn’t been an easy task, simply because most of the bodies have never been found. People were reported missing, presumed dead. Others, well, you know the headlines, they’ve turned up missing body parts. Other than the MO nothing could tie the murders together.”

  “What? No forensics? I find that a little hard to believe.” Frustration made me get up and stomp the length of the bedroom. I leaned on a dressing table that wouldn’t have looked anachronistic in the 1970s. Hands on the cabinet, I stared at my reflection in the mirror. It wasn’t a face I recognized. Or liked. “This is all bullshit, Walter!”

  Walter eyed me with not a little annoyance. “It’s the truth, Hunter.”

  I turned around so I could hold his gaze. “Walter, you wouldn’t know the truth if it sneaked up and bit you on the ass.”

  “I’m telling you the truth.”

  Returning to the bed, I again sat down next to him. “So what alerted you to the Harvestman’s identity? I mean, considering that you haven’t found any forensics? Did he start sending you taunting letters challenging you to catch him?”

  Walter made a noise in his throat. “There’s no need for sarcasm. And anyway, I didn’t say there were no forensics. You said that,” he said.

  This time I didn’t bite.

  “The thing is, the forensics have only just recently come to our notice,” Walter went on. “The FBI didn’t have access to the USSS DNA records. We did. We only became aware of the Harvestman’s identity following the murders of the couple at the motel out in the desert.”

  “You mean the murders that my brother’s been blamed for?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Yeah, but you know it wasn’t John,” I said.

  “I know. But it served our purpose to put that story out.”

  “Served your damn purpose? Walter, you know I love you, but sometimes you’re a complete asshole!” I was challenging him to disagree with me. In reply, he could only shrug.

  “Comes with the job,” he said.

  Yes, I suppose it did. “So you tipped the media about John? What for? To draw out the real killer? You thought his ego would get the better of him and he’d show himself in order to take back the glory? Or was it a ploy to conceal the Harvestman’s true identity?”

  “A bit of both, I suppose,” Walter said.

  “Christ, Walter! Even when you’re being truthful I can’t get a straight answer out of you.”

  “Okay, I’ll explain. That way you’ll have everything I have.” With a grunt he rose and walked away from me, fumbling the cigar to his lips. “Are you familiar with the book of Genesis?”

  “I’ve read it, don’t necessarily believe it,” I answered.

  “It’s not necessary that you believe it, only that you have some idea of its content.”

  “I remember there are a lot of people with odd names begetting one another. Everything else I know I learned from Charlton Heston movies.”

  Walter shook off my sarcasm. “You’ve heard the story of Cain and Abel?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s nothing new for some demented bastard to take on the name of Cain,” Walter said. “In fact, the psyche of a murderer is often referred to as the Cain Complex. Murderers often look up to the great grandpappy of all murderers as to some sort of godhead in his own right. They think they’re carrying out his work on earth and all that bullshit.”

  “And your sicko is no exception?” I asked.

  “No, no, no. Not the Cain.”

  “Who then?”

  “I’ll come to that in a minute. First a little background on our man,” Walter said. “His name is Martin Maxwell.”

  “Doesn’t ring any bells.”

  “It won’t. He didn’t use that name when he was on active duty. Called himself Dean Crow. Thought it sounded tougher than Marty Maxwell. More befitting a U.S. Secret Service agent.”

  “Sounds like a complete peckerhead,” I offered. “But I must admit I do recall something about him. Some low-level scandal involving a presidential candidate’s wife, wasn’t it?”

  “He was relieved of duty after he was found supposedly looting the good lady’s wardrobe for what he called in an interview ‘a token of his skill.’”

  “He’s a damn panty sniffer?” I asked.

  Walter shook his head. “Nothing so gross. He cut a patch from one of her blouses is all.”

  I recalled the missing piece of cloth from the old woman’s blouse after she’d been held hostage next door. I was about to say this when Walter added, “I say supposedly. The truth is the good lady was wearing her blouse at the time. Marty said he took the token to show her how vulnerable she was, how much she relied on him at all times.”

  “Crazy,” I said.

  “Yeah. Supremely crazy.”

  “So how’d he get through the net? Surely the psych tests should’ve singled him out before he achieved agent status?”

  “Some psychos are good at covering their true identities. Up to that point Marty Maxwell was well respected and had seniority. It was a surprise to find that one of their most able men was crazy as a fox.”

  I grunted. “And all that happened was that he was discharged from service? Why didn’t anyone keep an eye on him? Surely the signs were there, that he was capable of spiraling out of control?”

  “Secret Service kept an eye on him as best they could. Only thing was—crazy or not—he was no fool. He knew that he’d be under surveillance for the foreseeable future. He wasn’t prepared to let that happen.”

  “He went underground?”

  “More than that. He faked his death. Supposedly, in an act of shame, he killed himself. And the other members of his family. Wife and two kids.”

  “Oh, God…”

  “Shot them dead in their beds, turned the gun on himself, stuck it under his chin, and blasted off his head. He’d set up an incendiary device to burn the lot of them. Left only charred corpses in the burned-out ruin of their home.” Walter hung his head in shame, but I guessed it wasn’t in memory of Maxwell’s wife and children. “Their identity wasn’t in dispute. That was an end to it. They messed up.”

  “You’re telling me. Obviously the DNA wasn’t matched or they’d have known before now that he was still on the loose.”

  “I don’t fully understand the science. They were happy it was Marty Maxwell. Considering he’d blown away half his head, they had no teeth for a dental comparison. His fingerprints had been burned off down to the bone. With the odds-on favorite that it was him, where would you have put your money?”

  “Considering the training he’d had, what he’d have known, I’d have looked at the possibility that there was more to his death than met the eye. Who was the fourth body? If not Marty Maxwell? His father? A brother?”

  “According to Marty’s file he was a single child. Both parents died years before. Mother died following complications during childbirth, father from congenital heart disease. Let’s not forget that until then, he hadn’t committed any crimes. It was put down as a murder-suicide. They believed Maxwell was dead and that was that. Case closed.”

  “But obviously he did have a brother?” I asked.

  “Turns out he had a half brother called Robert Swan. Daddy Maxwell had been a naughty boy on his stag night, got an old sweetheart of his pregnant. It was Daddy Maxwell’s best-kept secret. We only found this out afterward. The brother’s mother noticed he was missing when her money stopped coming in. She’s a lush, lives alone in a tenement up in the Bronx; seems like the son was sending her money whenever he could. A good boy. Looked after his ma, like any good boy should.”

  “But Maxwell found out about his brother? I though
t you said it was a secret.”

  Walter grimaced. “Daddy Maxwell must’ve come clean in the end. Maybe he confessed his transgression on his deathbed. His wife was already on the other side; I guess he could’ve been seeking absolution. From what we’ve been able to put together, Maxwell sought out his half brother, but still kept his identity secret from everyone else. Makes you wonder if he had the brother in mind for this very purpose all along, doesn’t it?”

  I thought about Walter’s story; wondered what level of insanity it took to not only murder your family but plan it for God knows how long before doing it.

  “If Maxwell had had the foresight to kill his brother’s mother, we would probably be sitting here right now wondering how the hell a dead man had risen from the grave,” Walter said.

  I asked, “So what has the Cain reference got to do with it? Other than that the psycho likes assumed names?”

  “His half brother was a musician,” Walter said as if that would explain everything to me. I looked at him blankly. “Genesis. Like you said, everyone begetting one another.”

  “I’m still not with you.”

  Walter raised a stubby finger again. Sermon part two. “Well, if you’ve read your Bible you’ll know that there was an old blind guy named Lamech.”

  “I must have missed that bit.”

  “Lamech had two sons. Jubal and Tubal.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “I remember now. Jubal and Tubal Cain.”

  “Jubal was the inventor of music,” Walter began.

  “Tubal was the forger of knives and swords,” I completed. “I see the connection now. If the brother, a musician, is synonymous with Jubal, that makes the Harvestman Tubal Cain.”

  “Took a load of FBI profilers to come up with that one.”

  “Hence Maxwell’s love of knives?”

  “Yup.”

  “And the bones?”

  “Some of these profilers have got it in mind that he’s set himself some kind of mission, that he’s taking the bones from his victims for some express purpose.”

  “What?” I asked. “Other than that he’s demented?”

  “Believe it or not, they believe he’s feeling remorse for the killing of his brother, that somehow he’s attempting to make amends.”

  “Why his brother? Why not his wife and kids?”

  Walter gave a body shrug. “It’s just a theory.”

  “It’d make sense, I suppose. If he has this notion that they’re Jubal and Tubal Cain reborn, it’d only be right that he’d attempt to make amends. You think the killings are symbolic? Y’know, Bible-related?”

  “Nothing in the Good Book that extols the virtues of offering up body parts,” Walter said.

  I was puzzled. “So what do you think he’s doing?”

  “Don’t know. Could be making soup stock for all I know.”

  “John said that they had an arrangement, that he would see it through to the end. That he’d sacrifice himself for the old woman. You don’t think he was literally talking about sacrifice?”

  “Hmm,” Walter said. “Sacrifice is something that appears in the Old Testament. Maybe it’s something that would appeal to Maxwell.”

  Until now I’d been relaxed enough about going after John. But with this new understanding of Tubal Cain’s intentions, I was off the bed in an instant.

  “We can’t stand around here any longer,” I said. “Where’s Rink?”

  “Cooling his heels next door,” Walter said. As I started for the door, he said, “Hold it, Hunter.”

  “You aren’t in a position to stop me, Walter.”

  “I don’t intend stopping you. That’s not why I was brought in. I want to give you my blessing. And to ask you a favor.”

  I stirred restlessly. “A favor?”

  “A favor. When you kill the son of a bitch, you don’t breathe his name to anyone. Ever.”

  I scowled at him. Then nodded slowly.

  “Help me, Walter. Give me the resources I need to find the bastard, and I promise you that Marty Maxwell—or Tubal Cain, or whatever the hell his name is—will be buried without a trace.”

  “I knew I could count on you.”

  36

  BACK ON THE ROAD AGAIN.

  I knew then, even as we sped away in a commandeered government SUV, that the outcome was bound to be bloodshed. The only thing that gave me heart was that I wouldn’t be the only man doing the bleeding. By the grim set of Rink’s features, he knew it, too. Cain had made two implacable enemies in us, and I could almost pity the fool. Almost.

  Rink drove. I held the Global Positioning Satellite receiver supplied by Walter. On the display screen a red cursor blipped on a map of the Los Angeles area. Periodically the cursor shifted on the map, meaning not only that Cain was still on the move but that he hadn’t yet realized that John was in possession of the cell phone.

  It could only be a matter of time before Cain discovered John’s duplicity, or the makeshift tracking device became obsolete when John was buried in a Dumpster or sunk to the bottom of a river.

  Going for us was the fact that Cain was using diversionary tactics to shake off pursuit. Guessing that he might be followed by more conventional methods, he was taking surface streets and alleyways to navigate the sprawling city. Though he had more than an hour’s lead on us, we’d been able to gain back much of that time by following a direct route. Another thing that very quickly became obvious—even though he often backtracked or ran parallel to his intended target—Cain was making for Interstate 10, the main eastward route out of Los Angeles.

  Initially picking up the 405, we hurtled north past Redondo Beach toward LAX, struck eastward on the 105, then again headed north on the 110, hoping to cut Cain off where the two major routes converged near the downtown L.A. Convention Center. It was apparent that it wouldn’t be as easy as that when Cain jinked northeastward, skirting the center of the city on its northern border, while we continued east again toward Interstate 5 and became snarled in traffic.

  I watched the cursor skip across the map, pick up Interstate 10, and continue past the Rose Bowl as Rink cursed and pressed on the horn, attempting to force our way through the traffic.

  After twenty minutes of very little forward progress, the traffic began to open out ahead of us, and Rink pressed the throttle with disregard for the speed limit. Slaloming in and out of lanes, he gained open road and booted the SUV.

  Picking up Interstate 5, we made the short trip northward before meeting Interstate 10 again and swinging in pursuit of our quarry, now more than thirty minutes ahead of us.

  “We can still make it,” I told Rink. “The prick’s certain he’s in the clear. He doesn’t seem to be traveling much over sixty.” I glanced over at the odometer. Rink was pushing the SUV to 120 miles an hour. “If you can keep this up, we’ll catch him in no time.”

  “Darn tootin’ I can keep it up. If all these goddamn Sunday drivers would get the hell outta my way.” To add weight to his promise, Rink laid his hand on the horn, causing vehicles ahead to swerve out of our way.

  It was an exhilarating ride. If it weren’t for the fear of arriving too late to save John, I’d have whooped and howled like a kid on a roller coaster. Instead I stayed grimly silent, my gaze on the GPS screen. I didn’t have to be so observant. Cain was already out of the urban sprawl and headed toward the vast American southwest.

  Even at breakneck speed, it was almost an hour before we caught sight of the Dodge hijacked from the house at Long Beach. We were tempted to continue at top speed, attempt to catch and then force the Dodge off the road. Though I didn’t want to believe that John was dead, now, at least, we could stop the Harvestman’s reign. Of course, stopping him here would bring further complications.

  Conclusion? It would be more prudent to follow at a safe distance and act when there was no likelihood of an innocent passerby being caught up in the gunfire.

  Cain wasn’t a fool. He was a crazy, murderous bastard, but he was also shrewd. Along with that, he’d bee
n trained as a government agent, and it was a given that he was an expert driver, versed in all manner of countersurveillance measures and reactive driving. We fell into line, allowing more than a quarter of a mile, and at least four vehicles, to separate us. Though that was a meaningless exercise.

  “He knows we’re here,” Rink said.

  I looked across at him. There he was again, reading my thoughts.

  “He knows we’re here and he’s taunting us,” Rink embellished.

  I nodded. “Probably.”

  “Back at the house, it was almost like he was challenging you to find him. Makes me think that’s why he spent so long in the city; to let you catch up.”

  When I thought about it, I realized Rink was right. “Yeah, he was taking a big chance driving through the center of L.A. when there could’ve been an APB out for him. He could’ve easily switched vehicles, too. Looks like he wants us to follow him.”

  “You want me to get up a little closer? Put a little pressure on the squirmy little punk?”

  “No. Just hang back where we are. Let’s see where he wants to take us.”

  “My guess is it’s going to be somewhere remote. He’s looking for a showdown. Doesn’t want anyone else getting in the way.”

  “If it’s a showdown he wants, it’s what he’s gonna get.”

  Rink and I exchanged glances.

  “He’s certainly made this personal, ain’t he?” Rink asked.

  “He made it personal when he took John prisoner,” I pointed out.

  “Maybe so,” Rink said. “But I’m referring to him and you. When he found out who you were, I could see it in his face—it was almost as if he was excited. As if he’d found a worthy adversary, y’know? You think he’s lookin’ to die, Hunter? Some of these sickos like to go out in a blaze of glory. Think he’s lookin’ for you to kill him?”

  “Whether he is or he isn’t, that’s what’s going to happen,” I promised.

  “Yeah,” Rink grumbled. “But be wary, man. If he has a death wish, he intends to take you with him. If he’s looking to bolster his reputation, who better to have on his dead list than you?” Rink looked across at me again. “Apart from me, of course.”