A Ballad of Wayward Spectres: Day 1

by William B Hill

CHAPTER V

  Martin and Michel Rojas rode in silence to IAH. They drove in Martin’s own car, rather than a marked police cruiser. He mouthed a curse when he eyed his gas gauge. He’d accepted that he wasn’t being reimbursed for the gas he paid for, and left without complaining, internally cursing the chief for being so damned cheap.

  He switched on the radio. Martin sang along with the Blue Oyster Cult song that cut the silence.

  “Could you turn that off?” Michel asked.

  Martin pretended not to hear him, rattling off another lyric about Lucifer and light that he knew from years before.

  Michel turned the volume down. “I need to know if anyone calls me, so…just…”

  “Your mobile doesn’t vibrate? The piece of shit I carry just buzzes my pocket. I still ignore it, but at least I know that I’ve missed something,” Martin chuckled, his fingers keeping time on the steering wheel.

  “My superiors would prefer that I don’t miss a call, detective. How much further?”

  “About a mile,” Martin said. He continued to sing.

  “Do you have a plan for how you want to approach the suspect?”

  “No,” Martin shrugged. “As bad as traffic is, I’m pretty sure we’ve missed her.”

  “Your offices didn’t red flag her ID?”

  “Nope,” Martin admitted.

  “Why not?”

  “Because if she really did kill her husband, there’s a reason, and she sure as hell wouldn’t get on a flight.”

  “She would be able to put distance between herself and you, which means that she would have time to get somewhere safe from sight,” Michel said.

  Martin nodded. “Well, yes, considering that we would have to work with another department in Atlanta to get her arrested when she lands, and arrange a mountain of paperwork just to have her detained for the two days, and so on and so forth, she would be able to put distance between us. But consider this; why the fuck would she leave the city if we could track her? We know she has a flight planned, why board it?”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Okay, think about it this way; if she leaves town, she rings her ID, and leaves digital fingerprints on every checkpoint. It’d be a lot easier to hit an ATM for a few grand, and hole up in a cheap motel while the whole mess cleans itself up.”

  Michel nodded. “That is possible.”

  “Damn right it is. If she’s got the nerve to stick a knife in her husband’s back and run off with her husband’s money, I’d like to believe she isn’t stupid enough to lead us right to her.”

  “Who said she ran off with any money?”

  Martin glanced at Michel, who stared straight ahead into the corridor of traffic, unflinching. “Guy’s gotta be loaded, right?”

  “We don’t discuss our employee salaries. Nor do we complain about them.”

  Martin chuckled. “Well of course you don’t.”

  They arrived at the airport twenty minutes later, and parked in short-term parking. Martin opened his door, and braced Michel against his seat. “Stay here, keep the car running. If I’m not back in thirty minutes, pull out, get a fresh parking pass. I’m not looking to pay fifty bucks in parking fees.”

  He slammed the door behind him, and walked into the terminal. He took the time to count the exits, the taxis waiting at the entrance, and note the location of every TSA officer sniffing out bombs and oversized bottles of hand lotion.

  Martin explained the situation to security, and was escorted through security after being checked for the usual explosive chemicals and weapons. They took his gun, despite his complaints, along with a pair of ammunition magazines, and kept them in a lock box at the security office.

  E Terminal was rife with transient souls, carrying or pulling luggage through the wide white and blue tiled corridor. Martin checked the United Airlines flight monitors, and saw that the last flight to Atlanta was long gone.

  Still, he pressed on, searching for some sign of the striking woman he saw in the ID photo. He knew it was possible that she could have changed her destination before departure. Either that or she’d gone ahead to Atlanta with the ignorance that Martin assigned to most people, or she was back in the city, deciding how to empty her dead husband’s expense account while sipping on champagne with a new lover.

  Martin approached the United Airlines ticket office, and waited for the middle age brunette sitting behind the desk to greet him.

  He flashed his badge as she turned to him, smiling. “I need an ID checked, think you can help me with that?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t have the security clearance to check that kind of information. I can get someone from security if you’d like,” she said in quiet kindness. Martin wondered how anyone in this hellhole could hear her.

  “Sure.”

  Martin stepped away to wait at “Bite and Fly” in the middle of the concourse, chuckling at the awkward name and hilarious clash of fluorescent lights and onyx pillars at its entry. He ordered a double cheeseburger with ketchup and a large basket of fries. He’d eaten half of the plate when a short muscular bald man sat down beside him.

  “Detective Clarke?”

  “That’d be me,” Martin managed to say, choking down a bite of the burger.

  “Jacob LaSalle, head of security. Could you come with me?”

  Martin nodded. Jacob led the way out of the restaurant. Martin fell behind, wrapping the other half of his burger with wax paper, and abandoning the remainder of salty fries.

  “Which precinct are you with?” Jacob asked.

  “121st.”

  “Very nice; I’d wanted to enlist a while ago, but then I got my first promotion here and then things just kept happening. I get paid too much to leave now,” he laughed.

  “Yeah,” Martin sighed. They were only a few feet from the entrance to security. Martin took a bite of his burger, wishing he still had a drink to wash it down with.

  Jacob scanned his security pass. “You’re going to have to throw that away, Detective. No food or drink inside the command center.”

  Martin took one last bite, and chucked it in a refuse bin, counting the amount of money that someone owed him.

  They passed into the security center through a sequence of locked doors and rooms with armed guards and serious quiet discussion, up two flights of stairs and into a command center covered with wide displays and personal workstations, dark and glowing deep blues. Narrow strips of light hung over the round desks, and tiny yellow bulbs cast their pale glimmer over the walkway behind the madness.

  “The United employee said that you needed to see if an ID had been checked in today, correct?” Jacob asked.

  “Yeah, and I need to know if they’ve arrived at another destination,” Martin explained.

  Jacob excused one of the men minding a station in the right corner of the room, sat down, and began hammering at the light-board. “What information do you have for me?”

  Martin pulled a folded up sheet of paper from his pocket, and handed it to him. “That’s her current ID number, and two previous codes that are still in the system with the USIPA.”

  Jacob entered the information, striking every key with a heavy clang for precision. The screen flickered, and flashed dozens of smaller blocks of information. “Dammit,” Jacob exclaimed. “Well, she checked in today.”

  “Then what’s the problem?” Martin asked with sincere confusion.

  “She’s got ghosts; a fucking…lot of ghosts.”

  Martin searched for a chair, and slid it over to Jacob’s computer. “Okay…pretend that I have no idea what you’re talking about, and say that again.”

  “Ghosts come from false ID check-ins, at airports or anywhere else with a security checkpoint. She left here on twelve different planes, landed in four cities so far, and is on her way from every damned one of them to another major metropolitan hub.”

  “So she’s been screwing with your security system?” Martin asked.

  “She hasn’t even touched our system. This isn�
�t garden variety network interference; this is a deep, involved manipulation of the USIPA.”

  “Okay,” Martin said. He stood up and scratched the back of his head. “Can you get me a record of all of the locations that her ID is in use at? I’m going to have to call USIPA and get her identity profiles locked for travel.”

  “Of course,” Jacob said. “Where should I send it, mobile, office e-mail?”

  “Can’t you just print it out?” Martin asked.

  Jacob typed on the light-board again. “You can pick it up from the security desk in the departure queue. Is there anything else I can do for you, detective?”

  “Yeah; get me to the exit.”

  Martin followed Jacob back through the labyrinth of rooms and locked doors of the security offices, and out to the main concourse. Ten minutes later, he took the sheet of information about Marina Dekare’s whereabouts, and arrived back at the car.

  Michel was reading the case folder that Rich had given Martin at the station. He said nothing when Martin sat down, and pulled out of the parking space.

  “Where’s the parking pass?” Martin asked as they approached the tollbooth.

  “It should be right where you left it.” Michel snapped. “Didn’t you drop it in the cup holder?”

  “Are you telling me you didn’t pull the car around to avoid the fee?” Martin asked while retrieving the tiny piece of paper from the center console.

  “Of course I didn’t. I never agreed to do something as petty as skimping out on a few dollars of parking fees.”

  “You fuck, I’m going to be out twenty bucks, as long as I was in there,” Martin shouted. “I don’t even know what the hell you’re doing here.”

  Michel remained silent as Martin pulled up to the tollbooth window. He handed his pass to a spiky haired kid who couldn’t have been more than nineteen with a sleeve of tattoos sticking out from the sleeve of his uniform. “Thirty-seven dollars even, sir,” he announced from his seat in the cabin.

  Martin paid, and pulled away, still bearing the scornful expression on his face.

  “I guess you were right about her flight having left already.”

  Martin glanced at Michel for a moment before returning his attention to the road. “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “Do you have something new to go on? You were in the terminal for quite some time.”

  “No.”

  “I see. So we are returning to your office for further instructions?”

  “You are.”

  “And you?”

  “I’m going to drop you off, leave a note on Rich’s desk, and I’m going to get something else to eat.”

  Michel nodded. “I will request that you be taken off of the case, Mr. Clark. Is that what you want?”

  Martin shrugged, resting his head against his palm with his elbow braced against the window. He kept one hand on top off the steering wheel. “I’m not sure why I should care. I figured that my part was already done. You get to go watch Peters and Wood chat up your coworkers.”

  “I don’t believe it is necessary for me to return to your office. Take me back to the Four Nations offices. Our business is finished.”

  Martin chuckled, and drove towards the station. “You’ll go where I’m taking you.”

  “Either take me back to my office, or just let me out here, I don’t care which. I have no use for the police at this stage,” Michel said. Martin could sense that his patience was thinning, but he couldn’t resist. He wanted to see what this little bastard was like when he got mad. Not to mention, he was still sulking over the growing hole in his wallet.

  “Look here, asshole; I don’t report to you,” Martin barked. “I’m taking you where my real boss asked me to, and that’s that.”

  The station was only a mile ahead now. A block from the station, the light changed, and brought their car to a stop. Michel unbuckled his seat belt, and unlocked the doors. Martin watched the traffic as it crossed before them. He needed another twenty seconds for the road to be clear again.

  Martin threw an arm against Michel’s chest, and braced him against the seat. “We’re almost there. Calm down.”

  Michel grabbed Martin by the wrist, twisted his arm away, and slammed it against the dashboard, holding it in place.

  The light changed, the car remained still. “What is wrong with you?” Pain tore through his forearm, but it wasn’t close to breaking. “You’ve got a problem with patience,” he said through gritted teeth.

  Michel peered into Martin’s soul, his face veiled in rage. Martin grinned, letting the little bastard have his fun. The light returned to red. “Now, you need to let me go,” Martin said.

  Michel released his grasp on Martin’s wrist.

  They returned to the station with only the radio to divide them.

  “Good, now go tell Rich what a damn fine job I did while you manned the passenger seat.”

  Michel slammed the door to the car, walked into the precinct. Martin pulled a notebook and pen from his breast pocket, and opened to a blank page.

  Get this guy out of my hair. I have a lead, and I’m going to start the leg work. Meet me at Vince’s in two hours. I’ll even buy you a scotch.

  Martin folded the piece of paper, left the car, and walked down the ramp into the garage. He found Rich’s car, and stuck the little note under the windshield wiper.

  Alyson emerged from her cab and onto the stage; the vast stained cream tile entrance to the Broadway Walk Hotel. She left herself in the car, and approached the door as Marina Dekare.

  Her luggage was taken from a rack on the left side of the door, unattended as two bellhops rushed to help an elderly gentleman from the backseat of a limousine. The small brown leather rolling bag with golden latches and painted steel handles weighed more than Alyson expected, but she advanced to the check-in counter with a pronounced stride despite the aching pain in her feet from Marina’s short prism heels.

  She ran down the list of changes she had to remember if her identity was questioned; the pigment augmentation, the switch to short mousy auburn hair, an upcoming dinner appointment and the car coming around six to take her.

  Every story was close to the same, Alyson figured. There was little practice to the performance if the script had limited changes.

  The ratty backpack strapped to her back was the only relic of Alyson’s personality. The frayed mesh pockets on each side could be a dead giveaway. The front pocket was crooked, and only closed if she kept the entire bag organized as she preferred. The battery pack made half of the bag warm to the touch, and caused Alyson more discomfort than it was worth.

  Still, she carried that burden no matter the role.

  But Marina has plenty, she thought, considering her costume. The bag clashed against the black skirt and jacket with matching cross woven cream colored details from Nicola’s on 21st street, who had plenty of trouble transmitting the credit transaction. They allowed Marina to leave with the outfit, because she’d been a fine customer for so long.

  Corporate kindness from a designer of overpriced clothes aside, Marina had more than Alyson dared dream of; she and her husband, Tomas, lived in a suburb twenty miles outside of Houston city limits. Tomas worked for Four Nations as an executive of some kind.

  Alyson knew that they wouldn’t miss a few thousand dollars; not immediately anyway.

  Alyson had stayed in the Broadway Walk a few times, and it was among her favorite places to spend a night. She’d once arranged a weeklong stay, never stepped out of the room. However much she enjoyed her time there, she didn’t want to run the risk of the staff becoming familiar with her, and recognizing her on every following stay.

  But after three months and far too many cheap motels, Alyson felt she deserved it.

  The low ceiling lobby of the Broadway Walk understated the size of the forty-two story tower, inviting visitors into the hotel with a warm amber glow, and brown marble pillars in pairs on each side of the caramel and white tiled walkway. Plush leather couches with antique coffe
e tables, some damaged by years of spilled martinis and condensation from water bottles, were arranged so as to allow everyone who stopped in the lobby rooms to watch a net stream broadcast starring ten-cent journalists and the latest biased views of current political events.

  Alyson walked up to the desk, and dropped her mobile into her hand from her wristband as she neared. It’s getting loose, she thought.

  Alyson slid her fingers across the screen, and opened the Marina Dekare ID file, and gripped the mobile in her hand.

  “Good evening. Welcome to the Broadway Walk. How can I assist you today?” the young woman at the desk asked in chipper sing-song.

  “I’m just checking in. I have a reservation,” Alyson said.

  “Great, I’ll just need to scan your ID page. Do you have your confirmation number?”

  Alyson handed her mobile to the clerk, and watched her every move.

  According to her name badge, the clerk’s name was Rachael. Alyson figured she couldn’t be much older than twenty-five. She wore her hair down. The thinned out blond locks draped over her back, and were held out of her face by a silk wrapped headband with a trio of tiny green plastic jewels gleaming from the right side of her head. Her uniform concealed whatever remained of her figure. The desk job wasn’t doing her well, but she’d appeared to try to fight the immobility of typing and waiting with exercise. Shallow blue eyes sat above dark blue black circles beneath her eyes. The collar of her coffee colored jacket was crooked, and the top button of her shirt was broken off.

  “You’re staying through Friday night, Ms. Dekare?”

  “Mrs. Dekare, and that’s correct,” Alyson said.

  Rachael continued typing, her nails making an irritating rattle on the plastic counter top as she hammered on the light-board.

  “Can you check to see if I have any messages? I’m waiting on an important document from a client that I am meeting tonight,” Alyson said, heaving a sigh.

  “It doesn’t look like I have anything for you at the moment,” Rachael said, not looking away from the screen. She quit typing, and passed Alyson’s mobile back to her. “Just sign the pad, and I’ll program your room key.”

  Alyson hesitated as she picked up the pen. She’d practiced the loopy strokes that Marina Dekare scribbled to make out an illegible M DEKARE several dozen times when she was dressing for her performance. She was thankful that Marina didn’t have a longer name, but cursed her poor penmanship.

  Alyson dragged the pen through an elaborate scrawl, and dropped the pen on the counter.

  “Thank you,” Rachael said. A message beeped on her mobile. Alyson masked her sigh of relief with a roll of her eyes. She started for the elevators.

  “Mrs. Dekare?” Rachael called from the desk.

  Alyson turned, and gave her a silent, inquisitive gaze.

  “Would you like for someone to carry your bags up to your room?”

  “I can manage,” Alyson said with a smile. “Thank you.”