The Broken Souls (Carson Ryder, Book 3)

by J. A. Kerley

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Hembree was alone with the kayak when Nautilus arrived, the skinny Forensics expert standing with his hand on its surface. Hembree looked up, saw Nautilus.

  “We spoke with the kayak’s manufacturers, Harry, WaveDesign out in San Diego. They’re big on engineering, their niche in the market. They do impact tests, strength tests. Drop the things from cars going sixty miles an hour, slam them with big boats, little boats, jet skis. They float them in front of oil tankers to see what pops up in the wake. They’ve even devised a torsion test where they –”

  “Bree …”

  “Sorry. We e-mailed WaveDesign photos of the kayak, close-ups, full-lengths, micros. They called back with more questions, wanting additional photos from other angles. MacCready talked their lingo, made it easier. The WaveDesign folks were fascinated by the problem.”

  “And?”

  Hembree looked side to side. All the other staffers were gone for the day or in other parts of the building. He lowered his voice.

  “Were you guys working on anything dangerous?”

  “It’s possible. Why?”

  “From everything the folks at WaveDesign could ascertain, the kayak’s been run over by a vehicle. Several times.”

  “Tire marks?”

  “None, but all someone had to do was drop a heavy-duty tarp over the surface. Damage without tracks.”

  Nautilus scratched his fingernail over the gouges in the surface of the boat.

  “Faked, you’re saying?”

  “Someone may have wanted this thing to look like it’d been plowed under by a big-ass ship. Nothing’s washed ashore?”

  “Let me get an update.” Harry dialed the Coast Guard, asked for Sanchez, held his breath.

  Sanchez came on. “It’s not quite what I expected. We’ve had a wind shift. Wind’s been running with the current for ten hours. When the wind and current are at cross purposes, so to speak, a, uh, floating object might lay motionless in the water, pushed toward shore by current and waves, pushed out by wind. With the conditions as they stand, I expected we’d see something by now.”

  “It’s rare to not see something?”

  “I still wouldn’t be hopeful, Detective Nautilus. Not after this much time. It pains me to say that.”

  “Thank you.” Nautilus clicked off, dropped the phone in his pocket.

  “Not so much as a scrap of cloth, Bree.”

  Hembree thought a long moment. “What should I do with this information, Harry? There’s no investigation number for the kayak on the books. It’s not official.”

  “Let’s keep it that way for a while.”

  Hours passed. The door opened. Miss Gracie stepped inside.

  “The only people watching are outside waiting for someone who ain’t coming yet.”

  She kicked off the brakes on the bed and grabbed the push bar, wheeling me out into the common area. The lights were lowered and the room was suffused with amber light, like candlelight. The shades over the windows were drawn tight.

  Low music drifted from hidden speakers, an old Motown piece I couldn’t identify. A radio station, WTSJ, I assumed. Miss Gracie spun the bed to angle me down a wide and dark hall jutting from the large room. She stopped at the door. I saw Freddy asleep on a large bed, the broad, flat face, button nose. Beside Freddy, on the pillow, was the dog puppet.

  “That boy won’t sleep right unless he can touch the puppet,” she said. “It’s real to him.”

  “Freddy has Down syndrome?”

  “He don’t know what he’s got, what he don’t got. Of everything, Freddy got the best.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “He’s got the run of the place in here. That’s the rule. He’s allowed outside.”

  “I saw him outside last week. With security.”

  “Freddy gets what he wants. He just asks. That’s what’s supposed to happen; people get what they want.”

  “Heaven.”

  She looked away.

  “He’s a Kincannon child, isn’t he?” I asked. “Freddy?”

  She stared the ancient eyes at me, like weighing my soul for a journey.

  “He Miss Maylene’s third boy, born between Mr Racine and Mr Nelson.”

  I looked at Miss Gracie, let my eyes ask the question.

  “He got born,” she said. “Not long after, he died. Leastwise, that’s what people got told.”

  She pushed me to the next doorway. I saw a gray-skinned, goggle-eyed apparition with a head like a pumpkin. The bars of the bed had been wrapped with foam to protect the head. The mattress was thick, as if puffed with air. The man’s eyes turned to mine and I took an impression of inestimable sadness.

  “Who is that, Miss Gracie?”

  “Mr Johnny.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He come out with the water on his brain and some other ’flictions.”

  “Hydrocephaly.”

  “He ain’t much work. Miz Kincannon always gets the best medical things, just got new beds to fight the sores. We had a problem with sores for years. It’s fixed now.”

  “How old is Mr Johnny?”

  “Thirty-nine.”

  We passed another door. Inside, curled in a tight ball, was a man with mocha skin. I noted his mouth had been repaired, a cleft palate, I assumed. Stunted fingers jutted from flipperlike hands. The floor was padded, soft. There were toys in the corner, simple ones, a ball, inflatable blocks, an elementary jigsaw puzzle.

  “Who’s that?” I asked.

  “Tyler.”

  “He looks young.”

  “Tyler’s just turned twenty-two.”

  Tyler’s eyes opened and he made wet sounds that seemed to express happiness. His nose was running. Miss Gracie stepped into the room and pulled a tissue from a box at the bedside, gently wiped his nose. She stroked his dark hair and cooed in his ear for several minutes and his eyes softened back into sleep. I saw her fingers brush his arm before she turned back my direction.

  We rolled onward for a few feet and stopped. She turned her face away, shame in her voice. “They ain’t nothing I can do to help you. It will come back to hurt others. I can’t do it. I thought you should know.”

  “Thank you for telling me.”

  She took the bedrails and wheeled me onward.

  “How many people are here, Miss Gracie?”

  “Five lives here. Four, I mean, with Lucas gone.”

  “Freddy, Johnny, Tyler …three. That leaves one.”

  The ancient eyes studied me again. “We’ll get there soon enough.”

  I went fishing for information. “I met Lucas briefly. I hear he’s very bright. Is that true?”

  She walked slow and her stockings hissed with every step. It put a soft rhythm behind her words as we moved through the halls of the building.

  “You could see the smart pour off Lucas like heat. He was real different that way. The Kincannons, well, most of them are good-looking people.”

  “But not real bright?”

  “Ain’t much in them but vanilla pudding. Not dumb, but not smart, neither. Except for Miz Maylene, but her smarts are for jerkin’ people the way she needs. The boys know about making money, but ever’body knows money pulls money, so it’s no big deal. They all got a meanness they try and hide ‘cept when no one’s looking. But a person always ends up what they are.”

  “They come here? The brothers?”

  “Mr Buck comes the most. He lives across the way. Miz Kincannon lives near, too. Mr Buck only comes ever’ now and then. I think Miz Kincannon makes him.”

  Buck lives across the way. I was in one of the houses on the sprawling Kincannon estate. At least I now knew that much.

  We came to an elevator. She inserted a key and pressed a button. I heard the whirr of a descending elevator. Miss Gracie waited with her arms crossed, watching the closed door. The years fell away in the subdued light, and I saw what a beautiful woman she must have been in her youth, the Egyptian features tim
e had highlighted, not diminished.

  The door hissed open. We ascended to the next floor, a soft bing announcing our arrival. I was rolled into a ballroom-size open space, a surprise, given the classic external architecture of the house.

  The space was masculine, with slatwood floors, heavy wood and leather furnishings, oak wainscoting rising half the distance to fourteen-foot-high ceilings. The windows were large, with flowing scarlet drapes. There were plush carpets and brass lamps. There was a massive stone fireplace at the far end of the room. The air was cool and comfortable and smelled of bay rum and wood polish. The lights were dim, but the space seemed suffused with its own internal illumination.

  The area facing the elevator was an office setting. A massive burled-wood desk centered an oriental carpet of red and gold. A green banker’s lamp cast a soft glow across the desk.

  Behind the imposing desk, in a high-backed chair, sat a white-haired old man. He was small, lean and compact, with shoulders unbent by time. His face was pink and calm and neatly shaven, his eyebrows full, his hair unshorn for years, flowing like a snowy mane. He wore a red velvet robe. Beneath the desk I saw blue pajama pants, leather slippers over bare feet.

  The old gentleman was writing in a tablet with a fountain pen. His hands seemed delicate, the nails manicured. He worked with diligence, writing a few words, pursing his lips over what he’d written, continuing. He seemed oblivious to our presence.

  “What you working on, Mr Buck?” Miss Gracie asked.

  The old man looked up. It took several seconds for our presence to register.

  “The answer to everything,” he said, his voice dry and faint. He returned to his work.

  “May we see?”

  His hands shook when he wasn’t writing. He licked his lips and hoisted the page for us to view. Meaningless scribbles. He giggled, a strand of drool falling from the side of his mouth. Miss Gracie made comforting childlike noises in his direction, returned me to the elevator. The doors hissed shut.

  “Buck Kincannon Senior, right?” I said. “He looks healthy. Glowing.”

  “Mr Buck wear a diaper. He sleep fifteen hours a day. Half the time, I spoon food in him. Car’s all shiny, but the motor’s burned up.”

  The whole second floor was a sham, I saw, a theatrical set to give Daddy Kincannon a sense of place after all his years in business. The elevator door opened on the first floor.

  “Why did you show me Mr Buck?” I asked.

  A long pause. “He wanders, like Freddy. If you see him moving around, it’s best you know he ain’t tryin’ to hurt you. You understand?”

  I found her tone discordant, almost imploring. I said, “I understand.” But I didn’t.

  Miss Gracie wheeled me down the hall, again passing the occupied rooms.

  “Lucas is kept in the red room?” I asked. “The padded room?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “When he’s bad? When his madness presents?”

  Another pause. “Mr Lucas go in there when his mama come. She can look at him through the door. It’s how she’s been told.”

  “To keep her safe from him?”

  “To keep something safe for someone.”

  A sleepy voice came from behind us. “Carson? Is that you?”

  Miss Gracie spun the bed. Freddy was at his doorway, watching. The puppet hung from his hand.

  “What you doing up, Mr Freddy?” Miss Gracie asked. “You supposed to be sleeping.”

  “I saw Carson. Puppy and I want to play.”

  “You get right back in that bed. I’m takin’ this fella on a look-see an’ we don’t need any company.”

  “No fair.”

  “Get yourself in bed now, mister. You can play when it’s morning.”

  Freddy grumbled and pouted back to his bed. He jumped in, pretended to fall asleep, growling out fake snores. He half-opened one eye and winked at me, like he’d put a big one over on Miss Gracie.

  She sighed as she pushed me past the room. “That boy think he’s so cool.”

  “Boy? He must be nearing his forties.”

  “He still a child, always be one.” She looked at her watch. “I got to make checks, change diapers, make sure Freddy got his butt in bed. If that boy don’t get a full eight, he’s cranky all day. I’ll be back once more ’fore I turn off the lights.” She started to the door, stopped. Turned her head to me, her eyes dark with mystery.

  “You don’t say nothin’ to no one about that little ride you took, that’s the way, right?”

  “What ride, Miss Gracie?”

  CHAPTER 42

  I stared at the slatted door and replayed what I’d learned during Miss Gracie’s tour. I now knew my location. I knew who was in here with me, and perhaps a bit of why.

  I tried to mesh the information with what Crandell’s questions had suggested. I’d repeatedly told him Taneesha and Dani’s relationship was no more than brief mentoring on Dani’s part. But his insistence and the direction of his questions led me to a conclusion: Crandell was sure that whatever Taneesha had uncovered or been looking into had been shared with Dani.

  “Buck Kincannon is Danbury’s boyfriend,” I remembered screaming, the pain a blazing rope stretched from my groin to my brain. “Have that bastard verify it.”

  “Buck got the bitch off the street,” Crandell had replied. “That’s his end of it for now.”

  Off the street?

  I repeated the phrase in my mind. Had Dani’s promotion from investigative reporter to anchor been a scheme to pull her inside, keep her busy with new tasks to learn? Kept under watch? The methodology fit: move the potentially troublesome piece to a new board, as with Pettigrew.

  Dani’s insistence that someone had been in her house now seemed likely. Buck Kincannon had taken her out that night so Crandell or some lock-picking subcontractor could get inside, search for notes, for some tie between Dani and Taneesha.

  But the suspicions of Dani’s potential involvement demonstrated a lack of knowledge about journalists, their ferocity in protecting stories. The rush-hot pinnacle of the craft was breaking a fresh story, the celebrated exclusive. Even a fledgling like Taneesha Franklin would have kept her cards tight to her bosom.

  Crandell had not believed me: I could have been screaming that the earth was flat.

  The door pushed open. I held my breath. Miss Gracie clattered the cart into the room, snapped open a diaper. She dropped it into the wastebasket beside my bed. I raised an eyebrow and she tapped the bag slung on the IV holder.

  “The bottle got muscle-relaxing dope in it. Keep you too loose-kneed to walk if you manage to get up. I messed with the tubes a bit, got it dripping onto a diaper in the waste can. Unless you want me to keep the IV in for the pain?”

  “No!”

  She snapped her finger to her lips, frowned. “Shhhh. I never know when he gonna walk in, checking.”

  “Crandell?”

  She closed her eyes, her face a mask of sorrow.

  “Craziness. Jus’ like it was four years back. Last year, too. Ever’ time that nasty man’s here, the world fall into hell.”

  She reached for a second diaper, snapped it open. I arched my back and let her perform her tasks.

  “Tell me more about Lucas,” I said. “His youth. Did you know him back then?”

  “Mr Lucas was a crazy type, wild notions. It was like everyone else was running on little batteries and Lucas got plugged into the full two-twenty volts. He’d take angry fits: yellin’ at parties, saying what a bunch of fakes they all were, stomping away wishing he lived with a normal family. One time he started a big fire. Lift yo’ butt.”

  “Fire?”

  “There was a family gathering. It was like usual. Ever’one came to Mr Buck’s. Someone said something and Mr Nelson ran outside and began beating on Mr Racine’s new car with a lamp. Them folks never stop fighting. There was a big howling set-to until the fire started. You can set your butt down now.”

  “Lucas set a fire in the house?”

&n
bsp; “He splashed charcoal lighter on his mama’s flowers, tossed a match. Then he put on another of his big screaming shows, calling ever’one names, saying what a bunch of hypocrites they all were.”

  An earlier mention of Lucas and fire made me suspect pyromania, one of the major markers of a serial killer’s pathology. But the pyromaniac is generally elusive and secretive: setting fires in abandoned buildings, off-hours construction sites, parked cars. The setter often retreats a short distance and watches in anonymity as clamor ensues.

  Behold my power.

  “Lucas didn’t run off?” I asked.

  “He stood there watchin’, jumping up and down, screaming what a bunch of idiots they all were, how he wished they were all dead. Miz Kincannon was bad upset, I heard. Crying. An’ that woman never cries.”

  It stopped me: Maylene Kincannon crying?

  I figured it took incredible emotional turmoil to evoke tears in someone devoted to absolute control. I wondered if Lucas’s behavior had plunged Maylene Kincannon into her past? Made her terrified that her shrieking, fire-setting son was transmogrifying into a maniacal killer, like the sad and savage brother in her dysfunctional family.

  What could someone do with that kind of fear? I wondered.

  A motion through his window caught Harry Nautilus’s eye, headlights moving slow down the street, one light dimmer than the other, ready to fail. A minute later, the same car passed again.

  Nautilus went outside to sit on the porch.

  The car made a third pass. The brake lights flashed and the car slid to the curb. Pace Logan got out. He shot a nod at Nautilus, started up the walk, hands in his pockets. Logan stopped at the steps to the gallery. He looked uneasy, blew out a breath.

  “Listen, Nautilus, I wanted to say I’m sorry. About Ryder. I, uh …”

  “It’s all right, Logan. Thanks.”

  Logan looked into the street and cracked his knuckles one by one, then toyed with his watchband. He wants to say something, Nautilus thought.

  “Can I get you a drink, Pace?”

  Logan looked surprised at the offer, or the use of his first name, or both.

  “That’d be nice …Harry. Bourbon and water, if you got it. Thanks.”