Skin Puppet

by Jeffery Craig

  “Tempting, but no. As much as I enjoy needling Kelly with my mere existence, I’ll stick to my original plan. That man has a lot of bottled-up resentment inside, just waiting to explode. I was pretty sure you hit the detonator when you told him you brought Melba and Toby on as consultants. I’ve never seen anyone’s face actually turn purple before. And the look in his eyes was just plain mean.”

  “Luckily, I don’t have to worry about Chief Ernest Kelly.”

  “You’re right, Edmondson,” she agreed. “But we’re not going to be around forever. Melba and Toby, on the other hand, will be here long after we’re gone.”

  He tried to ignore the churning in his gut as her words sank in. “You’re right. There’s bad blood between them already, and I’ve probably made it worse. I’d better see if I can pour a little oil on the troubled waters.”

  “Good luck with that,” she said, cynicism dripping from her voice. “I better go find my ride. Time’s a wasting and I have a stop to make along the way.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’m going to buy a huge bag of candy. I have a feeling meal times are going to be irregular over the next few days.”

  ***

  Nathan Fields gripped the steering wheel tightly with both hands, in an effort to control their shaking. Things had gone just as he’d planned and now, all he had to do was retrieve his stash of cash and lay low for a while. He should have thought of that before now, but he’d been preoccupied with other things. Maybe he was losing his touch and had hurried things along too fast. Giving up Jessica must have upset him more than he realized. It was time to get out of this game. A bead of sweat made it’s was down his temple as he realized that before too much longer, the cops would put the pieces together and be crawling around his office. Having them find him there would be very awkward. He just had to stay under the radar for a couple more days. Once the shipment was on its way, he could find some other place to start over.

  His phone buzzed, and he picked it up from the dash console. Recognizing the number, he answered, trying to ignore the sweat breaking out underneath his arms.

  “Hello?”

  “The fact you answered confirms it was not your body found in that unfortunate house fire,” the voice on the other end commented with icy calmness. “You jumped the gun, Nathan.”

  “This was the best approach.”

  “Yes, but we hadn’t agreed on the timing. You rushed things and may have just added an unnecessary complication. That makes me angry, Nathan, and very disappointed. You know I like to keep things quiet and I can’t abide misbehavior of any sort.”

  Nathan wisely chose to keep his mouth shut, knowing any argument or attempt to defend his actions might set his caller off.

  “Where are you now, Nathan?”

  He swallowed down the lump in his throat and tried to keep his voice steady. “I’m headed to the office to pick up a few things.”

  “That’s a bad idea. If they’re not there already, the police will be showing up shortly. You need to stay away from there, at least until tonight. I doubt they’ll set up any surveillance, unless they have some reason to suspect the body in the house isn’t you. You did at least make sure of that detail, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. They won’t be able to make a positive ID.”

  The voice was silent for a few moments. “You used the same methods as last time?”

  “Yes.”

  Nathan could clearly hear the disappointment contained in the sigh which followed his confirmation. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. If they connect this fire with a similar case in Georgia two years ago, they’re going to be very curious. That would be a problem we don’t need. What if they connect you to your missing daughter?”

  “They won’t,” he snapped. “I’m sure they won’t,” he continued in a more conciliatory tone, remembering how touchy his caller could be. “The local police aren’t equipped to connect the pieces, at least not right away. This will all be over by time they even think of looking outside the area.”

  “I hope you’re correct, Nathan. Still, precautions are needed and I think corrective action is in order.”

  He shivered, hearing the icy warning within the words.

  “Stay away from the office until tomorrow night!” the voice instructed, harshly. “I’ll send someone to meet you there around nine o’clock. Park in the back, out of sight.” There was another contemplative silence before the tone of voice changed, becoming gentler and consoling. “They’ll have something for you to express my ongoing appreciation and to alleviate any immediate concerns. Just do as I say and everything will unfold smoothly. Can you do that for me, Nathan?”

  Yes, I can,” he answered. When he realized the voice was waiting for the most important words, he added, “Thank you, Puppet.”

  ***

  Melba stood next to her car, watching from a distance as the firefighters continued to spray jets of water on to the pile of smoldering rubble. Lindsi stood a few feet away, arms crossed tightly against her chest, gaze directed to the nearby coroner’s van.

  A few minutes earlier, a single body had been wheeled from the interior of the house, and it was obvious from the size of the zipped black bag that the body was that of an adult. So far, a second, smaller body had not joined the first.

  They’d been kept well away from the scene, and it was only because Melba was recognized by members of the response team that they’d been allowed to keep their place about forty yards away from where the team was busy working. A glimpse of a bright yellow jacket crossing what remained of the home’s threshold caught her eye, and a second later, she clearly heard his shouted ‘all clear,’ signaling there were no other bodies in the house. Three other figures followed the first, shouldering various tools used to shift through the burned detritus and aid in the search.

  “What did that mean?” Lindsi asked, shifting her intent gaze away from the van.

  “It means there’s no one else inside,” Melba answered, meeting the young woman’s eyes. “Now the rest of the team will finish up here, making sure the fire can’t start up again or jump to another house.”

  “But…where’s Jessica?”

  The confused worry and shock of the softly asked question was heartbreaking, and Melba quickly closed the gap between them, reaching out to pull Lindsi close in a one armed hug and hoping to head off the threat of tears she saw in the girls eyes. “I don’t know,” she admitted softly. “But she’s not here, and that’s good news.” She sensed, rather than felt, Lindsi’s internal tension beginning to build, so she tightened her arm slightly. “Don’t worry. She’ll turn up. Maybe she’s staying with family or something.”

  Lindsi pulled away from the hug, shaking her head in denial. “No. There’s not any family. Mr. Fields told me his parents passed away several years ago, and he didn’t have any brothers or sisters.”

  “How about Jessica’s mom? Maybe she went to stay with her.”

  Lindsi brows knitted at the question, and Melba gave her a minute to try to work through the possibility. “I don’t know. I’ve never heard anything about her mother. When I asked, Mr. Fields said they didn’t ever talk about Jessica’s mother. Since Jessica never asked any questions or brought it up when I was around, I figured maybe it was a messy divorce or something.” She looked back at the smoking house and shrugged. “Maybe her mom did show up or something.”

  Melba heard the thread of hope in Lindsi’s voice, and decided to let it stand for the moment. “Maybe so. Now, I think it’s time we headed back downtown. There’s nothing else for us to see or do here.”

  Lindsi gave both the house and the coroner’s van another quick glance and then squared her shoulders and nodded agreement.

  They’d just buckled up their seat belts, when a dark blue sedan pulled up. Recognizing the three figures exiting the vehicle, she turned toward her passenger. “Lindsi, I’m just going to have a quick word with them. I’ll be right back.”

  “Looks like the excitement’s over,” Agent Garfield co
mmented when Melba got within speaking distance. She cocked her head toward the coroner’s van, indicating the body being loaded. “Just the one body?”

  “Yes,” Melba confirmed. “They just gave the all clear a few minutes ago. There’s no sign of the girl.”

  “That’s something, at least. Have you talked with the response team yet?”

  “No. Since I’m on the private side now, they’re not likely to give me much information. I was lucky they even let me hang around.”

  Garfield nodded her understanding. “I forgot about that. Looks like you were about to leave when we showed up.”

  “Yes, that’s right. I thought I’d get Lindsi back to the office and see if Toby’s managed to find out anything more about Nathan Fields. There’s a connection here I don’t like at all.”

  “I know. He called Edmondson about forty-five minutes ago, which is why we’re here.“ Garfield quickly shared what she knew, and then turned to her wing men. “Okay, why don’t you both see what you can find out from the neighbors? They may have seen or heard something and one of them might even know something about the missing girl. I’m always surprised what the folks next door pick up on. I’ll mosey on over and have a chat with the fire chief to see what he has to say about this mess.”

  The two detectives started toward the small clump of neighbors gathered across the street, and Garfield turned back to Melba.

  “When you get back to the office, give Edmondson a call. We’ve requested some more information from our Atlanta office. If they’ve managed to get their asses in gear, he might have some interesting reading for you.”

  “Care to give me any other hint?”

  Garfield smiled, her white teeth contrasting nicely with her dark skin, but lacking anything approaching humor. “Just two little words—Vassily Grokov.”

  Melba groaned. “These days, it seems everything’s about the Russians.”

  ***

  Jocasta Anthony turned off the television and regarded her brother’s stoic face, trying in vain to glimpse any hint of emotion or worry.

  “This is not good,” she finally offered.

  “It is indeed unfortunate that an employee of Gro-Transport has lost his life in a horrible accident,” he agreed, looking up briefly from the blueprints on his desk. “I will, of course, issue a statement expressing my condolences.”

  She waited for him to add to his comment, only to be disappointed.

  “You aren’t worried?”

  “About what, Jocasta?

  “The police will soon be nosing around, asking questions.”

  “And I will be pleased to aid them.”

  “And if their investigation leads them to ask other questions, Vassily? What then?”

  “Jocasta, you worry for no reason. The locals aren’t equipped to connect me with anything, other than my position as Nathan Fields’ grieving employer. They don’t have the manpower, nor do they have the incentive. However, if it will make you feel better, I will place a few calls to my contacts within the city hierarchy and suggest any additional questioning be extremely limited in scope. If things begin to wander off course, I’ll have plenty of warning to make the appropriate arrangements. Trust me.”

  He’d never let her down before, so she held her peace. “You’re right, Vassily. Old habits of worry are hard to break, even after all these years.” She kissed his cheek and murmured her goodbyes before strolling out of his office to the elevators. Yes, she trusted him. However, she resolved to keep her attention on the situation, just in case she needed to make arrangements for an extended vacation in the very near future. As she’d reminded him, the hard lessons of her youth had taught her to always keep her eyes open for early signs of possible trouble.

  ***

  “How’s Lindsi?” Toby asked when Melba plopped her purse down on her desk.

  “Pretty shaken up by the whole thing, which is to be expected,” she answered. “I dropped her off at her car and told her not to worry about opening Green Dragon. She handled it all fairly well, at least until it became clear there was only one body in the house. She was both relieved Jessica wasn’t there, and worried about where she could be. There isn’t any other family that she knows of.”

  “I think she’s right. In fact, I’d be very surprised if there was.”

  “Why?”

  He held up a stack of print-outs and held them out to her. “I think you better sit down while you read. I dug some more and found a lot more holes in Nathan Fields’ background. In fact, it kind of looks like he didn’t even exist until about two years ago. Take a look and tell me if I’m right.”

  She took a seat and carefully reviewed the information. “The minute you called me, I had a terrible feeling about all of this and this extra info just makes it worse. You’re right. It’s all very sketchy.”

  “That’s not the only thing. No matter what I try, I can’t seem to find anything about Jessica, other than a few school records. No record of her birth, or social security number or anything.”

  “There has to be something. I don’t think it’s even possible to enroll a child in school these days without at least some basic information.”

  “Oh, the school was provided with the basics. I called and checked. They sent me everything they had about an hour ago.”

  “I’m surprised they released anything. How’d you manage that?”

  “Agent Edmondson helped. They didn’t want to talk to me until he called and explained the situation. I guess the news about the fire and its possible tie-in to the case we’re working on convinced them. It wasn’t more than twenty minutes after he talked to them when the files showed up. The problem is, the paper documents they sent me don’t match anything in the system.”

  “That can’t be right. You think they’re bogus?”

  “Maybe. Nothing else makes any sense. I was hoping you could change my mind.”

  “Let me see what they provided.”

  Toby passed another stack of print-outs to her and stood behind her, looking over her shoulder while she logged into the system and entered the information. He felt oddly comforted by her moan of frustration when her first set of inquiries turned up similar results. She navigated through to a new set of screens and tried again.

  “You’re right,” she admitted after one final search attempt. “As far as the national database is concerned, Jessica Fields doesn’t exist.”

  The phone on her desk rang. She frowned at the caller ID, then let out a short string of colorful words when she recognized the number. “Damn! I was supposed to call him,” she explained, reaching to pick up the phone.

  Toby quickly put two and two together and waited patiently while she spoke with Edmondson. “What’s up?” he asked when she finished.

  “Edmondson is sending some more information over for us to review. Apparently, our snooping into Grokov’s background raised a few questions in his mind, and he asked his folks in Atlanta to dig around to see what they could find. He wants us to meet down at headquarters about seven this evening with the rest of the team.”

  “Okay,” he acknowledged. “Hey, have you heard from Jon? Madame Zhou should be released shortly, if she hasn’t been already.”

  “Damn! I forgot about that. No, I haven’t heard a thing, but I’m surprised you haven’t. I figured you two had each other on speed dial.”

  “He only uses the bat phone to text me other sorts of messages,” he teased. “I’ll give him a call now and see what I can find out.”

  He dialed the number, while Melba refreshed her email and located the attachment from Edmondson. She sent the file to the printer, and leaned back to listen while Toby wrapped up his call.

  “He says they’re completing the paperwork now and should be headed this way in another fifteen minutes or so. I told him to call when they got here.”

  “Good. That gives us thirty or forty minutes to review this.” She divided out the printed stack of paper and handed him his copy. “Make notes of anything interesti
ng, and I’ll do the same.”

  “Hey, these say classified. Are we supposed to even have this stuff?”

  She shrugged in response. “I don’t know, but I’m not going to worry about that minor detail right now. Just focus on the content.”

  They both read quickly, making notes as they went. Toby pulled out their original files on Grokov and compared the two. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but the new file has a lot more information in it.”

  She looked up and nodded. “Figures. Some of this is pretty interesting.”

  “Some of it scares the shit out of me. It’s like some kind of Russian spy movie.”

  “Sort of,” she agreed. “Although, some of it’s just speculation on the part of Edmondson’s analysts. There’s a lot of CYA language.”

  “CYA language?”

  “Yeah, you know, comments used to cover your ass. See this here?” She directed him to the short phrase she’d highlighted. “Whoever wrote this used the words ‘believed to be’ when they outline possible sources of Grokov’s original cash. And here’s another one. ‘This information leads us to conclude’ is classic CYA language.”

  “Oh. That’s pretty tricky.”

  “They’re just making sure everyone knows there’s a margin of error in their conclusions. From what Edmondson said, they pulled this together quickly.”

  “Okay, that makes sense. But if they knew all of this, why haven’t they been watching him more closely?”

  “Well, for one thing, they have limited resources and some of this information is pretty old—from thirty or forty years ago, in most cases. There’s not much in here about his activities over the last fifteen or twenty years, and most of it we already knew.”

  “I noticed that,” he acknowledged. “Maybe he cleaned up his act.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “You don’t agree?”

  “I don’t agree or disagree. I’m reminded of one of Zhou Li’s famous saying though; A leopard never changes it’s spots, it just changes the tree it sleeps in.”

  “In that case…”

  “Vassily Grokov is a very dangerous man.”

  “Melba, what do you think he said to Zhou Li the other night?”