by Karen Rose
If Albert finds out I’m leaving the country, I just might.
Tuesday, September 21, 10:30 a.m.
Steven Oaks, principal of the school for the deaf, had a fatherly face that was currently creased with worry lines. He gestured to a table where another man waited.
“I’m stunned, Detectives,” Oaks signed and Val voiced. “To think that one of our students could be involved in the death of that young woman. But I’ll help in whatever way possible. This is Dr. Haig. He’s our staff psychologist and knows all the high school students. I invited him to be part of this meeting. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” Olivia said and Val signed. “I want to be clear from the start, we don’t know that the young man we’re looking for has done anything wrong. We think he escaped from the building that burned. He might be able to help us.”
That seemed to set the two men a bit more at ease.
Olivia handed Oaks a photo of Tracey Mullen. “This is the girl who died in the fire. Her name was Tracey Mullen and she lived in Florida with her mother. Do you know her?”
Oaks studied the photo, then passed it to Haig and both shook their heads.
“She’s never been a student at our school,” Oaks signed. “I can’t help you.”
“We think Tracey came here because of the male she was with in the condo,” Olivia said. “Our best guess is that he’s got dark hair, Caucasian, and wears a size ten shoe.”
“We have a lot of young men who could fit that description,” Haig said aloud, signing at the same time. He was hearing, Olivia realized. “Can you give us more?”
“He wears a hearing aid, but I guess that doesn’t narrow it down much either,” Kane said. “He may have attended a Camp Longfellow this past summer.”
Both men raised their brows. “Some of our students do attend that camp,” Oaks signed, Val’s voice quietly following. “I know a few who did last summer, but I wouldn’t know them all. If their parents made the arrangements, we wouldn’t know about it.”
“Did you contact the camp for their roster?” Haig asked.
“That’s in process,” Kane said. “It’s off season.”
Haig sighed. “A few went on scholarship, so I had to write a recommendation for them. I have a list of those students. We can bring them up for you to talk with first.”
“That would be great,” Olivia said. “The boy we’re talking about had a relationship with the victim. If he escaped the fire, he might be very emotional. Can you think of any of your male students who seem overly upset recently?”
Oaks gave them an incredulous look. “This is a high school, Detective,” he signed. “They’re all overly upset, every single day. They’re teenagers.”
“Right,” Olivia said ruefully. “This boy would be familiar with boats—rowboats, that is. And he was in the condo at about midnight on Sunday.”
Haig considered. “Nothing’s triggering for me with the boats. But if he was in the condo on Sunday night, he’s a day student. Versus living in the dorms,” he explained. “Residential students return from the weekend with their families on Sunday afternoon and the dorms are locked down at ten each night. Staff do room checks. If he was in the condo at midnight, he would have been missed.”
“Can we borrow copies of your yearbooks for the past few years?” Olivia asked.
“Of course,” Oaks signed as the two men stood. “I’ll have my secretary get the yearbooks and I’ll get a day-student roster.”
“And the residential roster?” Olivia asked and Oaks frowned. “Please.”
When they were gone, Olivia turned to Kane. “He could be right, but kids are going to get out if they want to badly enough. This kid was meeting a girl he’d have sex with.”
“He’d find a way,” Kane agreed. “Val, are you ready for a bunch of defensive teenagers who aren’t likely going to want to talk to us?”
The interpreter shrugged. “I’ve got two at home. I’m used to that.”
Tuesday, September 21, 10:50 a.m.
He needed a break, but he was alone behind the counter. Buster was late. Again. It was hard to get help that would be on time. Damn college kids. No responsibility.
He checked his customers, found them all absorbed in their own business, so he opened his laptop. First, Eric’s bank account. It was all still there. With a few clicks, he wiped Eric’s rather sizeable account, transferring the money to his own holding account. He left eleven hundred behind, so that if Eric stopped to get his customary thousand-dollar withdrawal, he wouldn’t be turned away.
Wouldn’t want him to suspect. That would spoil Albert’s little surprise.
On his cell phone, he typed in Albert’s number, which he’d harvested from Eric’s cell phone. One could learn a lot from an individual’s address book. Phone numbers of contacts, addresses, even personal info like birthdays, passwords, and bank PINs.
your birdie is about to fly the coop, he typed. au revoir. 5:30, lindberg terminal.
He closed his phone. That was that. He wondered what Albert would do. Would he beat Eric up? Force him to stay? Kill him? Mercy, this was more exciting than TV.
Next on the agenda was the embezzling accountant, Mr. Dorian Blunt. Dorian owed him two months’ payment. He’d been duly warned. He logged in to Dorian’s account and saw that only half of one month’s payment had been rendered.
He frowned. The man honestly thought that would be enough. He is a fool.
He wiped Dorian’s account, sending it to his offshore holding account. Now, what to do about Dorian? He had no issue with Dorian’s wife and child, so torching the family home just wouldn’t do at all. Dorian didn’t have a convenient warehouse like Tomlinson’s where he could be dealt with alone. He’d have to think on that one for a while. These things had to be handled delicately.
The bell on the door jingled and part-time help Buster hurried in. “Man, I’m sorry.”
“You’re late.”
“I know. I should have called.”
“Yes, you should have.” He closed his laptop. “I have to do some errands. Darren is coming in at noon. You think you two will be okay to handle the lunch rush?”
“Is Manuel caught up on the sandwiches?”
He’d been lauded by the community for providing immigrants with jobs. Truth was, he was happy to have people around who didn’t speak English. Made for a much smoother operation that way. “Yeah, he’s ready.” He stepped aside so that Buster could man the register. “I should be back before dinner.”
“I could use the hours. I can work the evening, even close up if you want.”
“No, I won’t be gone that long. I’ll close.” God forbid if Buster actually cleaned anything. He might find his microphones. But so far, they were safe. The mikes were hidden very well indeed. Factor in that Buster, Darren, and his other counter help were as lackluster as Manuel and the kitchen help were hardworking, and he had no concerns about leaving his shop. Together they all worked like a song.
Kane and Sutherland had been at the deaf school for hours. He wondered if they’d found who they were looking for. He wondered what if anything that person had seen. He wondered if he could be identified. That would be bad.
So he’d have to somehow figure out what Kane and Sutherland knew. Luckily, he had a plan. Laptop under his arm, he left, the little bell on the door jingling behind him.
Tuesday, September 21, 12:15 p.m.
Eric hung up the pay phone, glad he’d made the effort. Pay phones were difficult to find these days, but he hadn’t wanted to use his own phone to call the synagogue. He’d been angsting over whether he should go to Joel’s funeral. If the cops were on to them, they might be waiting for him there.
But if no one suspected, it would be suspicious for him not to go. They’d been friends since kindergarten. But his quandary had been solved. Joel’s funeral would not happen today, which he suspected had thrown the Orthodox Fischers into a real tizzy. He remembered Joel telling him once how important it was for th
em to bury their dead within twenty-four hours. But Joel’s body would not be ready for burial until tomorrow.
And I’ll be in France by then. Au revoir, Joel.
He’d already mailed the package of his keepsakes to his uncle. Now the only thing to do would be to go back to his apartment and wait until it was time to leave for the airport. His flight was at 5:30 out of Lindberg Terminal. He didn’t plan to be late.
It wasn’t until he’d turned the key in his front door that he realized something was very wrong. There was a fire roaring in the fireplace. Someone’s here.
The door was yanked open, but all he saw was a hand. Holding his own gun. “I found your gun, Eric. I also found your bag. One really should pack more clean underwear when fleeing to France.”
Chapter Fourteen
Tuesday, September 21, 1:15 p.m.
David woke abruptly, but didn’t move a muscle. Tensed, he listened, then heard it again. The rustling of papers out in the living room of Glenn’s cabin.
Someone is here. The sun was high in the sky outside his bedroom window. He’d only been asleep a few hours. Rolling soundlessly to his feet, he crept to the door and looked out. From here he could see nothing, but he could hear the opening of drawers.
Call 911. But Glenn had only one land line, in the kitchen. And my cell’s sitting next to it, charging. Stupid. Glenn had a rifle, but it was out in the living room. Where it does me no good at all. He stood in nothing but his boxers, no weapon and no phone.
A robber? Then his mind finally fully woke. That glass ball. Goddamn reporters. One of them must have found out where he was. He tilted his head to better hear. More drawers were opened, more papers rustled. Whoever it was, was looking for something. But what?
He slipped through the door, grateful that the carpet on the floor muffled his footsteps. His heart was racing as his mind pictured what could be waiting.
The living room came into view and he stopped, assessed, barely breathing.
A man stood at Glenn’s desk, rifling through papers. He was at least as tall as David, lean and wiry. It was hard to tell his age, but he wasn’t very young, nor old. Most importantly, there was a gun tucked into the man’s waistband. Shit.
David’s laptop sat on top of a stack of mail he’d forgotten to take back to Glenn last night. Shit. The realization was like a swift kick in the gut. The laptop had been on the table next to his bed. The man had been in his room while he slept.
Intent in his search, the man hadn’t heard him yet, which was a good sign. Watching the man going through Glenn’s things, David visualized what he would do, then moved, closing the distance between them in two swift leaps.
The man reached for his gun at David’s first footfall. But David got there first, taking him down, his hand capturing the man’s in a wristlock. The man flailed, but David tightened his hold. It was a painful hold, as he well knew, from all those times Paige’s self-defense students had practiced it on him.
“If you move, I will break your hand and then your fucking neck,” David hissed, his heart pounding to beat all hell. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”
The man’s eyes were wild. Crazy wild. “Get off me. You bastard.”
“No fucking way.” He took the gun, appalled that his hand shook, while the man bucked wildly. David reversed the wrist hold, bending the guy’s arm behind him. A string of vile curses spewed and David held the lock.
He was breathing more evenly now, the initial terror over. “Who are you?”
“Go to hell,” the man gasped, quivering now. This close David could see he was in his thirties. “You bastard.”
David leaned in farther and a howl burst from the man’s throat. “Stop!” he cried.
“Who are you?”
“Lincoln.”
“Lincoln who? Dammit. I don’t want to break your shoulder. Who the hell are you?”
“Lincoln Jefferson.”
Lincoln Jefferson? David almost laughed. The name was almost definitely fake, but it was something. He held the pressure firm. “Why are you here?”
“You’re lying bastards,” Lincoln sobbed. “You lied. You lied. You lied.”
“I don’t lie.” Not in a very long time anyway. “Who sent you?” Lincoln said nothing, and David tightened the hold with a jerk that made the man moan. “Who sent you?”
“The earth is our mother. Valla Eam,” Lincoln whispered, then started to chant it, again and again. “Valla Eam.”
David had read those words, recently. Valla Eam. “Defend her,” as in defend Mother Earth. “Valla Eam” was the way Preston Moss ended every speech. It had been the rallying cry of his followers.
Relaxing his hold a hair, David studied the man, wondering if he was looking at the person who’d created the Web site on which he’d found Moss’s speeches. Could Lincoln have helped Moss set his fires? Twelve years ago, Lincoln would have been in college.
“You followed Preston Moss,” David said quietly. “Why are you in my house? Did Moss send you?”
Lincoln’s laugh was muted, strangely disturbing. “No.”
David bent closer, careful not to increase the pressure. “How did I lie? Tell me.”
“You said you caught the ball.”
“I did. I caught the ball.”
“You didn’t. You couldn’t.”
“But I did. I don’t lie.” He thought of the girl, Tracey Mullen, of the gel on her hands. Of the dead guard and the faceless Tomlinson. “I was there,” he murmured. “At both fires. I saw the bodies.” He saw Lincoln flinch. “I caught the ball, Lincoln.”
“No. You didn’t. Not his. You put it there. You planted it there. You bastards.”
David blinked, surprised. “Why would you think I planted it, Lincoln?”
Lincoln shook his head hard. “I’m not talking to you.”
Yes, you will. David put more pressure on Lincoln’s arm. “I think you should reconsider that. Look, I’m a good guy. I pay my taxes and I put out fires. I even save old ladies’ cats from trees. Why would I lie about your damn ball?”
“It wasn’t his ball! You want to bring him down, again. But I won’t let you.”
“You think that I, a tax-paying, cat-saving firefighter, planted a glass ball in a burning building to make your crazy leader look bad? You’re more insane than he was.”
Lincoln’s laugh was brittle. “Oh yes. Crazy I am. Crazy I am,” he said in a singsong. “Doctor says it, mother says it, brother says it. Lincoln’s crazy. What happened to Lincoln? Why don’t you smile, Lincoln? Lincoln, why are you so fucking crazy?” Lincoln yelled the last three words and lunged, but David subdued him.
“Why are you crazy, Lincoln?” he asked softly.
“She was black,” Lincoln murmured. “Black. All black.”
Oh God. David remembered what Glenn had told him about the victim of SPOT’s blaze, how the woman had been burned. “You were there, twelve years ago. You killed that woman in the insurance building. You came back. Saw her body.”
“Burned up. All burned up. Took her away, but she’s always there. Always there.” He shuddered and went still. “Always there,” he whispered.
A shiver raced down David’s spine. Seeing a dead body could push someone to insanity. He studied the man, an unwelcome thought intruding into his mind. There, but for the grace of God, go I.
“Why did you come here, Lincoln?” he asked, his voice rough with a compassion he didn’t want to feel. It was a betrayal of the real victims. “What were you trying to find?”
“The letter with the lies. From the bosses. All made up.”
“You think my bosses told me to lie? You think they wanted Moss’s name dragged into this? To accuse him?”
Lincoln just sighed. David wanted to do the same. He’d get no further.
David gripped Lincoln’s gun. “I have your gun pointed at you. If you try to run, I’ll just take you down again. I don’t want to hurt you anymore. Do you understand me?”
Lincoln made no re
sponse. David released him, stepping several feet back in the same movement, relieved when Lincoln stayed put. He needed to restrain Lincoln until the police could arrive. David looked around for something to tie him with, finally cutting the pull cord from the blinds at the window.
Quickly he tied Lincoln’s hands and feet, then called 911.
Then he called Olivia. It went to her voice mail. “Olivia, it’s David. I’ve caught an intruder you’re going to want to meet.” He hung up and crouched next to Lincoln, who lay with his eyes closed. The man looked a little green.
“You okay?” he asked Lincoln.
“Go to hell,” Lincoln said wearily.
“I hope not,” he said honestly. “You need to understand something, if you can. I really did find a ball Sunday night. I saw another last night. Nobody’s lying to you.”
“No.” He said it simply, like a child. “Preston Moss can’t kill.”
But he had. Even if he hadn’t meant to, Moss caused the death of an innocent woman. So did you. St. David, the killer. Megan was an innocent and now she’s dead.
No. It wasn’t the same. It was not the same. You go on believing that if it makes you feel better. David sat on the floor, Lincoln’s gun in hand, and prepared to wait.
Tuesday, September 21, 1:15 p.m.
In two and a half hours, they’d talked to twenty teenaged boys and so far not one knew anything. Or so they claimed. Olivia watched turbulent teen number twenty saunter out of Oaks’s office. “How many more?” she asked.
“Legions,” Kane said morosely. “Or six. Seems like the same thing.”
From across the table Val, the interpreter, chuckled, but said nothing. Olivia liked her. Val had done her job reliably and without a single complaint.
Principal Oaks appeared with the next boy. “This is Kenny Lathem,” he signed, Val voicing. Oaks had been present for every interview and Olivia was sure that had hampered their results. But the kids were minors, so there wasn’t much choice.
