First to Find

by Mark Gessner

  The nurse looked up the room number and pointed the way. The cops just stood and talked to themselves, occasionally laughing. One of them gave her the quick once-over while talking; she recognized it as a man-look rather than a cop-look, and then went back to looking at his partner. Most men wouldn't give her a second look, having been conditioned by the popular media to believe that only emaciated women were attractive, but there were a few who appreciated her build.

  She found the room down the hall on the second floor. The hospital was the most modern facility in Austin. Kurt must be on some kind of health insurance extension from his old job to afford this place.

  "Hey, pal, how are you?" Judi asked, pulling up a metal chair next to Kurt's bed.

  "I feel okay, got a hell of a headache though," said Kurt, his head bandaged on one side. Transparent air hoses clipped to his nostrils ran along the sheets to a small oxygen port in the wall behind the bed. A color computer monitor on a rack above the bed displayed his vital signs. Some kind of plastic machine on a wheeled rack fed a slow stream of clear liquid from a hanging bag into a tube on his arm.

  "Yeah, you look terrible," said Judi, stroking his arm.

  "Thanks," he said, squeezing her hand. His eyes teared and he wiped them with his free hand. "I'm happy to see you too." He was wearing a flower-print hospital gown. Tiny blue and yellow flowers from neck to knees. Who designed this stuff anyway?

  "I sent you some flowers," she said, looking around.

  "Yeah, that's them over there," he said, pointing to a vase full of assorted flowers on the night stand by the television. "Thanks, no one ever lavished me with flowers before," he said, "except whoever designed this fashionable gown, that is."

  "They gonna let you outta here anytime soon?" she asked.

  "Doc says maybe tomorrow if the swelling goes down," he said, "They're watching for any sign of internal bleeding."

  "Well you're going to be fine. You've got to get out of here because we have a little unfinished business, sweetie," she whispered, cupping the side of his face in her right hand.

  "I'm glad you're okay," he said, "The nurses told me that you weren't hurt. They said you got off a shot?"

  "Yeah, but it went wild. Scared the shit out of the guy though. He didn't hang around for the second shot. You got a nice little hole in your wall though where they dug out the slug," she said.

  "Did they find out who he is?" asked Kurt.

  "Not yet, but the sheriff is on the case. I'm sure they'll catch him soon. They took your baseball bat," she said.

  "Hmm. That was a classic slugger from when I was in the eighth grade. How about my house?" asked Kurt.

  "I locked it up after they hauled you off in the ambulance; it's okay. The guy didn't break in or anything, they said he must have walked in through an unlocked door. Did you know you don't have a phone?" she asked.

  "Yeah, I just have the mobile. I must have left the back door unlocked. Sorry," he said. "How's Pokey?"

  "She's okay, I made sure she had a couple days' worth of food and water set out, and Nipper's keeping her company. The important thing is that you're all right," she said.

  "Yeah I'll be fine," he said. "They got me on some good drugs. If I have any left over, I could make a fortune selling this stuff on the streets."

  They sat quietly for a few minutes as Judi continued to stroke his arm and they held hands while listening to the beeping and whirring of the various monitors. A compressor kicked in as the automated blood pressure cuff began to inflate and take its measurement.

  "That thing go off all by itself?" she asked.

  "Yep, every couple hours or so, day or night. I don't get much sleep here," he said.

  "You can sleep at my place when you get out," she teased.

  "We don't have to do it you know," he said, "If you don't want to."

  "Do what?" she asked.

  "The 'Nasty,'" he teased.

  "Uh, yes we do," she said, squeezing his leg just above the knee.

  The blood pressure cuff inflated, held, took its measurement, then deflated with a long hissing.

  After awhile, Kurt said, "Can you take me to the range with you, once I get out of here? --I want to get a gun."

  Chapter 58

  March 11

  "SHIT, WILL YOU LOOK at this?" said Rachel, tossing the newspaper on the table in front of Judi. Judi had been helping Rachel close the store. After they'd wiped the kitchen area clean, they were gathering up the day's scattered newspapers and discarded cups. David had quit halfway through his shift that morning, leaving them shorthanded. If this had been a huge corporate coffee chain like Starbucks, she could have just called on one of the other stores to help pick up the slack. But the owner of a small business was responsible for everything. If that meant you mopped the floor, that's what you did. It was hard to find reliable help.

  Austin American Statesman, March 11 Page D-4

  CEO FOUND NEAR DEATH ON PENNYBACKER

  AUSTIN (AP) - In one of the most gruesome crime scenes on record in Austin history, a local man was found near death Wednesday evening under the Highway 360 bridge. Police report that the victim, Trenton J. Stalnaker III, 38, of Lakeway, was found hanging from the structure of the bridge, placed there by an unknown assailant. Stalnaker is the president and CEO of Digital Fabrication Systems Inc., a local high-tech firm with headquarters just up the hill from the 360 bridge.

  Sources close to the investigation say that Stalnaker was working in his office late Tuesday night, finishing up some loose ends on a recent merger with an un-named San Jose firm. His badly crushed body was found tied to the understructure, bound with rope.

  Police have no leads in the case. Anyone with information about the attack is requested to please contact the Austin Police Department. Mr. Stalnaker's firm has posted a $250,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of the perpetrator.

  According to the police report, the victim had been wedged into an expansion joint under the bridge, and was crushed slowly as the heat of the day expanded the bridge to fill the gap. "The body had been hanging there for at least twenty-four hours, suspended by the feet and chest," the report stated.

  Stalnaker, formerly of Motorola Semiconductor, assumed the CEO role at DFS last November. His company employs 50 people in the Austin office.

  "That's terrible," said Judi. "Didn't this guy used to come in here for latte?" She pointed to the file photo head shot of Stalnaker printed next to the story.

  "Yeah, the face looks familiar," said Rachel. "He was one of the regulars, let's see: Extra large lowfat caramel latte, vanilla hazelnut syrup, and a pineapple scone. Some days he'd get a garlic bagel instead of the scone, but he never wanted it sliced or toasted. Guy was a real asshole, always hitting on me and the other girls, hard."

  "Stalnaker... Stalnaker. That name's familiar. Seems like I just saw that name recently," said Judi.

  "Well I don't know how that could be, you've been here all day" said Rachel.

  "I remember now, it was on that scrap of printout I pulled from behind the espresso machine," she said. "Did you take out the trash?"

  "Nope," said Rachel. "It's after dark." The staff weren't permitted to open the back service door after dark. There had been cases of rapists hiding out in the alley behind strip malls, preying on retail clerks and kitchen staff just doing their jobs. The service door was to remain bolted after dusk. Company policy.

  "I'm going to see if his name's on that paper," said Judi. "Help me find it."

  Gary Maxwell Navarre

  12823 Bomber Road

  Fort Worth Texas 76116

  (817) 555-2315

  Education

  University of Texas at Austin

  Bachelor of Science, Computer Engineering 1990, GPA 3.95

  Employment History:

  1984-1985 Harrison Valley Country Club, Harrison Valley PA.

  Grounds Crew Worker. Manual labor on staff of 36 hole Championship Country Club.

  Super
visor: James McChasney

  Final Wage: $5.50/hr.

  1989-1990 Motorola Corp. Schaumburg IL

  Engineering Summer Intern. Computer Programming.

  Supervisor: Chuck Andrews.

  Salary: $28,000/yr.

  1990-1994 Lockheed Martin, Fort Worth TX

  Computer Specialist, Flight Simulation Engineering section.

  Supervisor: Ramona Lexton.

  Final Salary: $45,000/yr.

  1994-2000 Motorola Semiconductor, Austin TX

  Wafer Fab Computer Engineer.

  Supervisor: Trenton Stalnaker.

  Final Salary: $79,000/yr.

  2001-Present Locklin Defense Aerospace, Fort Worth TX

  "Oh my god Rachel, this is the guy, this is his resume or work history or something," said Judi, spreading the crumpled paper out on the table.

  "Which guy?" asked Rachel. "The asshole?"

  "Oh never mind. I'll explain later. Listen, can you finish up the closing? I've got to run this over to a friend," said Judi.

  Chapter 59

  "HEY MISTER, HOW YOU doing?" she asked. She'd snuck in just before visiting hours were over. She only had a few minutes.

  "Doc says tomorrow for sure. The swelling has started to go down," Kurt said, "and there's no internal bleeding."

  "That's great. How's the headache?" she asked.

  "Like a sledgehammer," he said, "but it's drugged down pretty good. Makes me sleepy."

  "Listen Kurt, I don't have much time before they boot me out of here but I wanted to show you this. You up to talking about the stuff we found on the net?" she asked.

  "Yeah, anything to catch the asshole who clubbed me," he said.

  "This was in the paper today," she said, handing him the page from the Statesman about Stalnaker. He held it up with his free arm, quickly scanned through it, then handed it back to her. "So?"

  "And this was printed off on the laser in our Jester store a few days ago," she said, handing him the coffee-stained printout.

  "What did you do, wipe the counters with it?" he asked.

  "We found it jammed behind the espresso machine. Rachel cleared this page out of a paper jam and then forgot to throw it out, and it got messed up on the counter," she said. "It was back there a couple days at least. Read the names, Kurt."

  "Holy shit. Look at these. This is the guy. Gary Navarre."

  "He was in our Jester store a couple days ago. I bet he tried to kill this Stalnaker guy too. It looks like he's killing off some of his old bosses," said Judi.

  "Shit. Judi, you've got to stay away from there. He knows who you are, and he knows what we know. This has to be the guy who attacked me. Take this information to the police right now; take the chart we compiled too. Now they have to listen," he said.

  "I will. Call me tomorrow when you know you're getting out, I'll come drive you home."

  Judi stopped at her Jester store on the way to the police station. She called her computer guy, had him pull the network logs from the previous few days, and had her security service pull the store security video tapes for the last few days out of the rotation. She wanted to see if they could correlate the time the guy printed this file with the video record to try to get the police a picture of the guy.

  Part IV

  Not Found

  Chapter 60

  March 12.

  DETECTIVE JAY GARNER OF the Fort Worth P.D. was a twenty-year veteran of the force. He thought he'd seen it all. Race riots, murders, rapes, mutilation, gang shootings, auto accidents, addicts, psychos, child molesters, the works. He was no wimp. Still, he was not prepared for what he encountered this morning.

  The house on Bomber Road was a small single-story cottage crouched back in the woods off the south shore of Lake Worth. It was built--literally--in the shadow of the old Consolidated Aircraft Company plant in west Fort Worth as part of a cheap tract of aircraft worker housing in the mid-1940's. It had weathered both the passage of the decades and the passing of the mammoth facility next door from corporation to corporation. It had seen Consolidated pass to Convair, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, and then finally to Locklin Defense Aerospace. This plant and its Fort Worth machinists and engineers had built everything from the legendary B-24 Liberator, the Vietnam-era F-111 swept wing fighter-bomber, the cold war F-16 Falcon, the stealthy F-22 Raptor, and now no one knew what space-age weaponry was being built behind those barbed wire fences and elevated guard towers for the dawn of battles yet to come.

  Every so often the still spring air would be ripped apart by the thunder and roar of multiple jet engines lighting up with full afterburners on a test stand or flight line somewhere. Then just as suddenly the noise would stop. The air would be still again and the birds would resume their chirping as if nothing had happened at all.

  Through it all the house sat, patiently, waiting while the oaks and maples planted by the children of Convair machinists grew up thick and tall around it. Many of the old homes were torn down after years of decay. The workers had an eight-lane interstate loop to carry them away from the plant at the end of the day now. They had fast Japanese cars and nice big brick homes outside the loop. A few old-timers, long since retired, remained in the original tract housing. Many of the lots reverted to trees and fields, stands of rusted automobile parts, and abandoned and gutted appliances. Where once Rosie the riveter's children played on swings and pools, now engines and hoods, tires, dryers, refrigerators, stoves, and washers rotted. From the direction of the plant wafted the acrid smell of burning oil and JP4 jet fuel and a hundred other chemicals and solvents that no one without a security clearance could ever name.

  Gary Maxwell Navarre kept his old house in good repair. The exterior paint was good, the shingles were sound, and the siding replaced when it showed even the first sign of rot. He'd bought the house for a pittance back when he started work at the Bomber Plant. The former owners had been pried from their home; dumped into a retirement center across town. Their empty house was hastily put on the market by their impatient yuppie offspring. They were anxious to warehouse their doddering old parents, and to get on with the important and hasty business of life, stress, kids, career, money, and pissing blood.

  The outside of the house was immaculate, but the inside of the house had been ripped screaming from the pages of a Stephen King novel.

  Detective Garner was trained not to contaminate a possible crime scene. He wheeled back out of the doorway, spun around, grabbed his knees, ducked his face over a hedge, and heaved his breakfast into the mulch. The stench that bullied its way out of the front door was unbearable. He hadn't smelled anything that bad since the seventies, when he was a rookie and had to fish a hastily disposed baggie of dope out of a porta-potty on a drug bust at a crowded downtown summer music festival.

  Garner sent in a rookie detective from his team who bragged that he couldn't smell. The guy claimed he was anosmic. Garner was pretty sure that was a religious term, not a disease, though he'd known long-time smokers who couldn't smell a skunk fart. This kid was still wet behind the ears, and a non-smoker. What the fuck, send him in if he thought he could stand it. He sent him in wearing latex gloves, clutching a plastic bag to puke in, just in case, and cautioned him not to touch anything. They had to get a window open and get some ventilation in there or no one was going to be investigating anything.

  Once inside, the kid held his breath. He was truly anosmic, couldn't smell wet dog shit, but he could taste the air. It had a salty ammonia taste, a wet taste. Outside the air was dry as a bone. West Fort Worth in spring, when it wasn't pitching a tornado or hailstorm, was so dry your skin would crack. Inside this house was wet, steamy, stale, sickly. The metallic ammonia taste clawed its way up the sides and jabbed at the back of his tongue, but he gritted his teeth and held back his gorge. He made his way carefully to the back door behind the kitchen. He unlocked and opened the back door, leapt out, blew out a breath, spit a big wet mouthful of saliva in the grass, drew in a big breath of fresh dry air, then carefully
propped the door open with a rock. He flashed a thumbs up sign to Detective Garner in the doorway.