Rachael hesitated, catching her breath, waiting for her drumming heartbeat to slow down. She felt as if she and Sarah were kids who'd been sitting at a camp fire, telling ghost stories, trying to spook each other and succeeding all too well. For an instant, crazily, she had been certain that the tapping at the window was the hard, bony click-click-click of a skeletal finger.
12
SHARP
From the moment Julio met Anson Sharp, he disliked the man. Minute by minute, his dislike intensified.
Sharp came into Rachael Leben's house in Placentia in more of a swagger than a walk, flashing his Defense Security Agency credentials as if ordinary policemen were expected to fall to their knees and venerate a federal agent of such high position. He looked at Becky Klienstad crucified on the wall, shook his head, and said, “Too bad. She was a nice-looking piece, wasn't she?” With an authoritarian briskness that seemed calculated to offend, he told them that the murders of the Hernandez and Klienstad women were now part of an extremely sensitive federal case, removed from the jurisdiction of local police agencies, for reasons that he could not — or would not — divulge. He asked questions and demanded answers, but he would give no answers of his own. He was a big man, even bigger than Reese, with chest and shoulders and arms that looked as if they had been hewn from immense timbers, and his neck was almost as thick as his head. Unlike Reese, he enjoyed using his size to intimidate others and had a habit of standing too close, intentionally violating your space, looming over you when he talked to you, looking down with a vague, barely perceptible, yet nevertheless infuriating smirk. He had a handsome face and seemed vain about his looks, and he had thick blond hair expensively razor-cut, and his jewel-bright green eyes said, I'm better than you, smarter than you, more clever than you, and I always will be.
Sharp told Orin Mulveck and the other Placentia police officers that they were to vacate the premises and immediately desist in their investigation. “All of the evidence you've collected, photographs you've taken, and paperwork you've generated will be turned over to my own team at once. You will leave one patrol car and two officers at the curb and assign them to assist us in any way we see fit.”
Clearly, Orin Mulveck was no happier with Sharp than Julio and Reese were. Mulveck and his people had been reduced to the role of the federal agent's glorified messenger boys, and none of them liked it, though they would have been considerably less offended if Sharp had handled them with more tact — hell, with any tact at all.
“I'll have to check your orders with my chief,” Mulveck said.
“By all means,” Sharp said. “Meanwhile, please get all your people out of this house. And you are all under orders not to speak of anything you've seen here. Is that understood?”
“I'll check with my chief,” Mulveck said. His face was red and the arteries were pounding in his temples when he stalked out.
Two men in dark suits had come with Sharp, neither as large as he, neither as imposing, but both of them cool and smug. They stood just inside the bedroom, one on each side of the door, like temple guards, watching Julio and Reese with unconcealed suspicion.
Julio had never encountered Defense Security Agency men before. They were far different from the FBI agents that he had sometimes worked with, less like policemen than FBI men were. They wore elitism as if it were a pungent cologne.
To Julio and Reese, Sharp said, “I know who you are, and I know a little bit about your reputations — two hound dogs. You bite into a case and you just never let go. Usually that's admirable. This time, however, you've got to unclench your teeth and let go. I can't make it clear enough. Understand me?”
“It's basically our case,” Julio said tightly. “It started in our jurisdiction, and we caught the first call.”
Sharp frowned. “I'm telling you it's over and you're out. As far as your department's concerned, there is no case for you to work on here. The files on Hernandez, Klienstad, and Leben have all been pulled from your records, as if they never existed, and from now on we handle everything. I've got my own forensics team driving in from L.A. right now. We don't need or want anything you can provide. Comprende, amigo? Listen, Lieutenant Verdad, you're gone. Check with your superiors if you don't believe me.”
“I don't like it,” Julio said.
“You don't have to like it,” Sharp said.
* * *
Julio drove only two blocks from Rachael Leben's house before he had to pull over to the curb and stop. He threw the car into park with a violent swipe at the gearshift and said, “Damn! Sharp's so sold on himself he probably thinks someone ought to bottle his piss and sell it as perfume.”
During the ten years Reese had worked with Julio, he. had never seen his partner this angry. Furious. His eyes looked hard and hot. A tic in his right cheek made half his face twitch. The muscles in his jaws clenched and unclenched, and the cords in his neck were taut. He looked like he wanted to break something in half. Reese was struck by the weird thought that if Julio had been a cartoon character, steam would have been pouring from his ears.
Reese said, “He's an asshole, sure, but he's an asshole with a lot of authority and connections.”
“Acts like a damn storm trooper.”
“I suppose he's got his job to do.”
“Yeah, but it's our job he's doing.”
“Let it go,” Reese said.
“I can't.”
“Let it go.”
Julio shook his head. “No. This is a special case. I feel a special obligation to that Hernandez girl. Don't ask me to explain it. You'd think I was getting sentimental in my old age. Anyway, if it was just an ordinary case, just the usual homicide, I'd let it go in a minute, I would, I really would, but this one is special.”
Reese sighed.
To Julio, nearly every case was special. He was a small man, especially for a detective, but he was committed, damned if he wasn't, and one way or another he found an excuse for persevering in a case when any other cop would have given up, when common sense said there was no point in continuing, and when the law of diminishing returns made it perfectly clear that the time had come to move on to something else. Sometimes he said, “Reese, I feel a special commitment to this victim 'cause he was so young, never had a chance to know life, and it isn't fair, it eats at me.” And sometimes he said, “Reese, this case is personal and special to me because the victim was so old, so old and defenseless, and if we don't go an extra mile to protect our elderly citizens, then we're a very sick society; this eats at me, Reese.” Sometimes the case was special to Julio because the victim was pretty, and it seemed such a tragedy for any beauty to be lost to the world that it just ate at him. But he could be equally eaten because the victim was ugly, therefore already disadvantaged in life, which made the additional curse of death too unfair to be borne. This time, Reese suspected that Julio had formed a special attachment to Ernestina because her name was similar to that of his long-dead little brother. It didn't take much to elicit a fierce commitment from Julio Verdad. Almost any little thing would do. The problem was that Julio had such a deep reservoir of compassion and empathy that he was always in danger of drowning in it.
Sitting rigidly behind the steering wheel, lightly but repeatedly thumping one fist against his thigh, Julio said, “Obviously, the snatching of Eric Leben's corpse and the murders of these two women are connected. But how? Did the people who stole his body kill Ernestina and Becky? And why? And why nail her to the wall in Mrs. Leben's bedroom? That's so grotesque!”
Reese said, “Let it go.”
“And where's Mrs. Leben? What's she know about this? Something. When I questioned her, I sensed she was holding something back.”
“Let it go.”
“And why would this be a national security matter requiring Anson Sharp and his damn Defense Security Agency?”
“Let it go,” Reese said, sounding like a broken record, aware that it was useless to attempt to divert Julio, but making the effort anyway. It was their usual lita
ny; he would have felt incomplete if he had not upheld his end of it.
Less angry now than thoughtful, Julio said, “It must have something to do with work Leben's company is doing for the government. A defense contract of some kind.”
“You're going to keep poking around, aren't you?”
“I told you, Reese, I feel a special connection with that poor Hernandez girl.”
“Don't worry; they'll find her killer.”
“Sharp? We're supposed to rely on him? He's a jackass. You see the way he dresses?” Julio, of course, was always impeccably dressed. “The sleeves on his suit jacket were about an inch too short, and it needed to be let out along the back seam. And he doesn't polish his shoes often enough; they looked like he'd just been hiking in them. How can he find Ernestina's killer if he can't even keep his shoes properly polished?”
“I have a feeling of my own about this one, Julio. I think they'll have our scalps if we don't just let it go.”
“I can't walk away,” Julio said adamantly. “I'm still in. I'm in for the duration. You can opt out if you want.”
“I'll stay.”
“I'm putting no pressure on you.”
“I'm in,” Reese said.
“You don't have to do anything you don't want to do.”
“I said I was in, and I'm in.”
Five years ago, in an act of unparalleled bravery, Julio Verdad had saved the life of Esther Susanne Hagerstrom, Reese's daughter and only child, who had then been just four years old and achingly small and very helpless. In the world according to Reese Hagerstrom, the seasons changed and the sun rose and the sun set and the sea rose and the sea fell all for one reason: to please Esther Susanne. She was the center, the middle, the ends, and the circumference of his life, and he had almost lost her, but Julio had saved her, had killed one man and nearly killed two others in order to rescue her, so now Reese would have walked away from a million-dollar inheritance sooner than he would have walked away from his partner.
“I can handle everything on my own,” Julio said. “Really.”
“Didn't you hear me say I was in?”
“We're liable to screw ourselves into disciplinary suspensions.”
“I'm in.”
“Could be kissing good-bye to any more promotions.”
“I'm in.”
“You're in, then?”
“I'm in.”
“You're sure?”
“I'm sure.”
Julio put the car in gear, pulled away from the curb, and headed out of Placentia. “All right, we're both a little whacked out, need some rest. I'll drop you off at your place, let you get a few hours in the sack, and pick you up at ten in the morning.”
“And where will you be going while I'm sleeping?”
“Might try to get a few winks myself,” Julio said.
Reese and his sister, Agnes, lived with Esther Susanne on East Adams Avenue in the town of Orange, in a pleasant house that Reese had rather substantially remodeled himself during his days off. Julio had an apartment in an attractive Spanish-style complex just a block off Fourth Street, way out at the east end of Santa Ana.
Both of them would be going home to cold and lonely beds. Julio's wife had died of cancer seven years ago. Reese's wife, Esther's mother, had been shot and killed during the same incident in which he had almost lost his little girl, so he had been a widower five years, only two less than Julio.
On the 57 Freeway, shooting south toward Orange and Santa Ana, Reese said, “And if you can't sleep?”
“I'll go into the office, nose around, try to see if anyone knows anything about this Sharp and why he's so damned hot to run the show. Maybe ask around here and there about Dr. Eric Leben, too.”
“What're we going to do exactly when you pick me up at ten in the morning?”
“I don't know yet,” Julio said. “But I'll have figured out something by then.”
13
REVELATIONS
They took Sarah Kiel to the hospital in the stolen gray Subaru. Rachael arranged to pay the hospital bills, left a ten-thousand-dollar check with Sarah, called the girl's parents in Kansas, then left the hospital with Ben and went looking for a suitable place to hole up for the rest of the night.
By 3:35 Tuesday morning, grainy-eyed and exhausted, they found a large motel on Palm Canyon Drive with an all-night desk clerk. Their room had orange and white drapes that almost made Ben's eyes bleed, and Rachael said the bedspread pattern looked like yak puke, but the shower and air-conditioning worked, and the two queen-size beds had firm mattresses, and the unit was at the back of the complex, away from the street, where they could expect quiet even after the town came alive in the morning, so it wasn't exactly hell on earth.
Leaving Rachael alone for ten minutes, Ben drove the stolen Subaru out the motel's rear exit, left it in a supermarket parking lot several blocks away, and returned on foot. Both going and coming, he avoided passing the windows of the motel office and therefore did not stir the curiosity of the night clerk. Tomorrow, with the need for wheels less urgent, they could take time to rent a car.
In his absence, Rachael had visited the ice-maker and the soda-vending machine. A plastic bucket brimming with ice cubes stood on the small table by the window, plus cans of Diet Coke and regular Coke and A&W Root Beer and Orange Crush.
She said, “I thought you might be thirsty.”
He was suddenly aware that they were smack in the middle of the desert and that they had been moving in a sweat for hours. Standing, he drank an Orange Crush in two swallows, finished a root beer nearly as fast, then sat down and popped the tab on a Diet Coke. “Even with the hump, how do camels do it?”
As if dropping under an immense weight, she sat down on the other side of the table, opened a Coke, and said, “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Aren't you going to ask?”
He yawned, not out of perversity, and not because he wanted to irritate her, but because at that moment the prospect of sleep was more appealing than finally learning the truth of her circumstances. He said, “Ask what?”
“The same questions you've been asking all night.”
“You made it clear you wouldn't give answers.”
“Well, now I will. Now there's no keeping you out of it.”
She looked so sad that Ben felt a cold premonition of death in his bones and wondered if he had, indeed, been foolish to involve himself even to help the woman he loved. She was looking at him as if he were already dead — as if they were both dead.
“So if you're ready to tell me,” he said, “then I don't need to ask questions.”
“You're going to have to keep an open mind. What I'm about to tell you might seem unbelievable… damn strange.”
He sipped the Diet Coke and said, “You mean about Eric dying and coming back from the dead?”
She jerked in surprise and gaped at him. She tried to speak but couldn't get any words out.
He had never in his life elicited such a rewarding reaction from anyone else, and he took enormous pleasure in it.
At last she said, “But… but, how… when… what…”
He said, “How do I know what I know? When did I figure it out? What clued me in?”
She nodded.
He said, “Hell, if someone had stolen Eric's body, they'd surely have come with a car of their own to haul it away. They wouldn't have had to kill a woman and steal her car. And there were those discarded hospital whites in the garage in Villa Park. Besides, you were scared witless from the moment I showed up at your door last evening, and you aren't easily spooked. You're a very competent and self-sufficient woman, not the type to get the willies. In fact, I've never seen you scared of anything except maybe… Eric.”
“He really was killed by that truck, you know. It isn't just that they misdiagnosed his condition.”
The desire for sleep retreated a bit, and Ben said, “His business — and genius — was genetic engineering. And the man was obsessed with staying y
oung. So I figure he found a way to edit out the genes linked to aging and death. Or maybe he edited in an artificially constructed gene for swift healing, tissue stasis… immortality.”
“You endlessly amaze me,” she said.
“I'm quite a guy.”
Her own weariness gave way to nervous energy. She could not keep still. She got up and paced.
He remained seated, sipping his Diet Coke. He had been badly rattled all night; now it was her turn.
Her bleak voice was tinted by dread, resignation. “When Geneplan patented its first highly profitable artificial microorganisms, Eric could've taken the company public, could've sold thirty percent of his stock and made a hundred million overnight.”
“A hundred? Jesus!”
“His two partners and three of the research associates, who also had pieces of the company, half wanted him to do just that because they'd have made a killing, too. Everyone else but Vincent Baresco was leaning toward going for the gold. Eric refused.”
“Baresco,” Ben said. “The guy who pulled the Magnum on us, the guy I trashed in Eric's office tonight — is he a partner?”
“It's Dr. Vincent Baresco. He's on Eric's handpicked research staff — one of the few who know about the Wildcard Project. In fact, only the six of them knew everything. Six plus me. Eric loved to brag to me. Anyway, Baresco sided with Eric, didn't want Geneplan to go public, and he convinced the others. If it remained a privately held company, they didn't have to please stockholders. They could spend money on unlikely projects without defending their decisions.”
“Such as a search for immortality or its equivalent.”
“They didn't expect to achieve full immortality — but longevity, regeneration. It took a lot of funds, money that stockholders would've wanted to see paid out in dividends. Eric and the others were getting rich, anyway, from the modest percentage of corporate profits they distributed to themselves, so they didn't desperately need the capital they'd get by going public.”
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