Brass in Pocket

by Jeff Mariotte

  She wasn’t here now, however, and she had left her wheels behind. If she had another ride, she might have left the keys behind. So maybe she hadn’t gone far.

  Catherine left the paper towels on top of the trash, intending to come back and collect them shortly. First she wanted a look at the neighborhood.

  Eastern was a busy street, with traffic day and night. If Antoinette had crossed it on foot or walked down its length, she would have been an easy target. Not something Catherine would risk, in her position—not with someone chasing her. Even if she had lost her immediate pursuer, she wouldn’t want to show herself that way.

  She turned away from the street and then saw it.

  Set back from the avenue, behind a wide parking lot, was a Select Stop Mart twenty-four-hour discount department store. That’s where Catherine would go if she were in Antoinette’s shoes. She would need new clothes. Maybe she was carrying a credit card or some cash. Maybe as part of whatever escape plan they had arranged, Deke had left those in his glove compartment for her.

  And perhaps he had left a gun.

  “Did your partner go into that store?” she asked Officer Tavrin.

  “He might have.”

  “Radio him.”

  Tavrin tried to raise him on her radio, but he didn’t answer. She squinted into the morning sun, shaking her head. “I don’t know what’s wrong.”

  “I’m going to call for backup,” Catherine told the uniformed officer. “And then you and I are going shopping.”

  * * *

  “Officer Morston?”

  “That’s right.”

  “This is CSI Greg Sanders. You’re still at the airport, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  Greg was silent for a moment as he darted between two trucks that hadn’t quite made room for him, despite the flashing lights announcing the urgency of his mission. This was why it was better to have two people in the vehicle, one to drive while the other handled details like communication with the outside world. There hadn’t been anyone else available at the lab to join him, but he would meet other cops at the airport.

  “Listen, Officer Morston, I need you to do something for me.”

  “Okay.”

  “Make sure that janitor, Benny Kracsinski, is still there.”

  “That’s the crippled guy?”

  “Let’s go with ‘differently abled.’”

  “Whatever.”

  “Find him and don’t let him go anywhere.”

  “Should I arrest him?”

  “Only if he tries to leave. I’m almost there, and there are some other officers meeting me.”

  “Got it. Anything else?”

  “That’s it. I’ll see you soon. And thanks.”

  Greg had nothing against rookie cops. He wasn’t even certain that Morston was a rookie. But he was either new on the job or he’d been in trouble for something—in any event, he could be spared for a night to nursemaid an empty airplane, so he couldn’t be that important.

  Which meant Greg didn’t trust him to handle the arrest of his murder suspect by himself. He hadn’t even been around to keep people away while the plane was processed. Greg had spent hours doing that himself and cutting plastic tubes. He didn’t want to let Benny possibly walk on a technicality after all his effort. He wanted to make sure any potential arrest was by the book, start to finish.

  With the roadway finally clear ahead of him, he jammed his foot down on the accelerator and raced through the dawn’s first light.

  27

  NICK AND RILEY DIDN’T worry about fingerprints. The room was full of them; they could see them in the dust. Most undoubtedly belonged to Dawson Upson. They had found no indication that he brought Melinda Spence, or anyone else, into the house. And at this point they weren’t trying to identify anyone—they were trying to find people. That changed their search parameters. Nick rifled the desk and closet, looking for a map, a photo, a sketch, anything that might tell them where he took animals to kill them.

  “This guy’s got to keep souvenirs,” Nick said. “He’s a textbook case.”

  “Maybe he’s not that far along yet,” Riley replied. “He obviously doesn’t think much of animals. Could be he wouldn’t think to take souvenirs until he’s had a human victim. Just keep looking.” She was on her knees, shining a flashlight under his bed, illuminating cobwebs and dust bunnies almost big enough to conceal corpses. “Then again, maybe he’s one of the smart ones. It always strikes me as insane that people intentionally keep evidence of their crimes around.”

  “But then it’s insane to go around murdering people, too. I don’t think this one’s too smart.”

  “Well, we’re here, so he’s not as smart as he might be. Then again he’s not here, so maybe he’s no dummy after all.”

  Riley turned around. Nothing under the bed but dust. If she flipped the mattress she might find some porn magazines—at least traditionally that was where she thought people kept them. Porn often figured into the psyches of serial killers, as part of the whole process of objectifying human beings. But Upson was obviously computer literate, so maybe he didn’t bother with magazines.

  Her light fell on a sneaker. It looked huge, but then guys’ shoes usually did to Riley. She sometimes wondered if it was evolution or global warming or something, but most young men these days seemed to wear size eleven or twelve shoes, while her father had worn an eight and a half. She didn’t see the evolutionary advantage of clown feet, but maybe there was some aspect of it she was overlooking.

  Its mate was behind it, along with some other casual shoes, in a nook across from the bed, between the desk and a bookcase. They were piled up in no particular order. She visualized Upson sitting on the edge of the bed, prying the first shoe off with his other foot and kicking it off into the pile, then doing the same with the next one. She used her light to scan the space between the bed and the pile of shoes, hoping for some sort of soil or other trace evidence that might signify Upson’s whereabouts. The carpet was dirty but nothing in particular stood out.

  She moved the shoes out of the nook, setting them neatly beside the desk, and ran her light across the carpet there.

  On the carpet, as if it had fallen from a shoe’s treads, was a tiny pink something. Riley took forceps from her kit and picked it up, bringing it into the light. It was a flower petal, or part of one, that had been folded and crushed in the grooves of a shoe or boot’s tread.

  “Nick, help me out with this,” she said. “I haven’t been in town long enough to know every flower in Las Vegas.”

  “No human on earth has,” Nick said. “The natives aren’t that hard to learn, but if there’s any plant under the sun that hasn’t been imported or grown here in some greenhouse or nursery, I don’t know what it would be. Some arctic lichens, maybe.”

  “I don’t know much about Upson, but I doubt if he’s the kind of guy who hangs out around greenhouses.” She showed him the bit of flower petal.

  “That one’s easy,” he said with a smile. “I thought you were gonna test me.”

  “What is it?”

  “Desert willow.”

  “I think it fell out of one of his shoes.”

  “That doesn’t help us much. Those suckers are everywhere.”

  “Except the desert isn’t everywhere, Nick. Not anymore. While you were driving over here, I was watching out the windows. There are a lot more housing developments in this area than there is open desert.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Is this a kind of scraggly-looking tree with a ton of blossoms?”

  “Pretty much, yeah.”

  “I thought so. I saw a bunch of them, about midway between the Empire Casino site and here.”

  “But like I said, these aren’t rare.”

  “Maybe not. But everything’s getting rarer except grass and palm trees that don’t belong here. And we know where he lives, and where he dumps his prey, so if there are desert willows between the two, I think it’s worth a look.”
/>   “Yeah, you could be right, Riley.”

  “You see anything better? Find his souvenirs? Maybe a map with ‘X marks the spot’ written on it?”

  Nick shrugged. “Nothing yet. But there’s got to be something.”

  “Maybe this is it. Maybe this flower is our best shot. We could vacuum up the soil in the carpet and send it to the trace lab for analysis, but by the time we get any results, Melinda Spence could be dead.”

  “Okay, you’re right. We’re drawing a blank here. Unless Sam’s gotten something better out of Mrs. Upson, let’s go for a hike in the desert.”

  28

  GREG DIDN’T SEE Officer Morston anywhere. He parked outside the hangar in which Jesse Dunwood’s plane was stored, which was the last place he had seen the cop. In the morning light, the airport lost what little glamour it had owned the night before, when blue runway lights had glowed through the darkness and the illuminated tower had floated above the field like a glowing mirage. Today it just looked dusty, dingy and functional—not at all romantic. No wonder Dunwood took his dates flying at night.

  Where the hell was Morston? If he had gone to sleep in the past five minutes, or had taken another break, he would lose his badge. Greg would make sure of it. He didn’t want to lose Benny Kracsinski now. He thought with what he had on the guy, he could squeeze a confession out of him. But not if he’d managed to slip away from Officer Morston.

  He got out of the Yukon and went into the shadowy hangar. It was empty, silent. “Officer Morston!” Greg called. His voice seemed to reverberate off the corrugated steel walls and bounce back at him. “Are you in here?”

  He was about to walk away when he heard a low groan. “Who’s there?” Greg demanded.

  Another groan, followed by the awkward scuff of shoes on pavement, came from behind the airplane.

  Greg drew his duty weapon.

  He didn’t even like carrying a gun, much less the possibility of having to use it. But alone here, not knowing who was in the shadows behind that plane, he would use it if he had to. “Come on out,” he said. “Let me see your hands.”

  Slowly, Officer Morston staggered into view. He was holding one hand out before him, and had the other clapped to the back of his head. His collar was red, soaked with blood. “It’s… it’s me. Sanders?”

  “Officer Morston? What happened?”

  The cop looked at Greg with bleary, haunted eyes. “I don’t… I’m not sure. I was on the phone with you, and I thought I heard something in here. I came in to look. The lights were out, but… I heard a noise behind the plane. I went back there, and… then I… I guess someone hit me. Hell of a blow on the back of my skull.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Just a few minutes. I think I… blacked out for a little while, but not for long.”

  “Do you know where Benny is?”

  “No… no clue. He’s probably the… the bastard who hit me.”

  “He might be. Do you need a doctor?”

  Officer Morston tried to stand upright, but he swayed on his feet and reached out to the airplane for support. Greg hurried to his side. “Sit down,” he said. “I’m going out to see if I can find him. I’ll call the paramedics for you.”

  Greg made the 911 call as he stalked the airport grounds. Sirens wailed in the near distance. His backup, no doubt, on the way. He would be glad to see them, but he hadn’t known when he made the call that medical assistance would be required.

  The sun was higher in the sky now, gleaming down on the runway and blasting off the east-facing windows of the office building. He didn’t see Benny Kracsinski anywhere. The morning was quiet, the only noise except for the approaching sirens coming from a small plane revving up as it started across the tarmac from another hangar. It was white with red striping, and its wings ran across the top of the fuselage instead of coming out from underneath it. Greg thought it was a Cessna, but he really didn’t pay a lot of attention to the private aircraft industry. His theory was that it was good to have a wide base of knowledge, and even better to know how to look things up when he had to. Airplanes fell into the latter category.

  The clatter of running footsteps caught his attention. They came from the direction of the office building. He looked that way, shielded his eyes against the glare coming off the windows, and saw Patti Van Dyke sprinting toward him. Her eyes were huge.

  “That’s Benny!” she cried. “Stop him!”

  “What? Where?” Greg asked.

  “In the one-fifty! He can’t fly that airplane—he’s not licensed! It isn’t safe!”

  Greg looked at the white plane with red stripes, picking up speed as it rolled down the runway. “Benny’s in there?”

  “Yes!” Patti reached him and latched on to his arm. Her face was blotched red from effort, and tears glimmered in her eyes. “He can’t fly a plane, not unless it’s been specially configured for him!”

  Greg jerked his arm free of her grip and ran for the department Yukon. He couldn’t outrun a taxiing airplane, but if he could outdrive it and block the runway, perhaps he could still stop it. He yanked the door open, slid into the seat, started the big SUV, and slammed it into gear.

  Earlier he had marveled at driving on an airport tarmac, however lowly an airport it was. Now he was chasing a runaway plane over the pavement, surprised that it wasn’t smoother. The speedometer needle crept up as he floored the accelerator, powering through the smell of exhaust coming from the plane. ROP or LOP? Greg wondered with a grim chuckle. He was gaining on the plane. Its wings bobbed as it bounced over the runway’s bumps, its flaps making tentative up and down motions. Greg didn’t know how long it had been since Benny had flown, so maybe he was trying to get used to the controls before taking off.

  Which gave Greg some small hope of success.

  He knew that blocking the runway could turn out to be suicidal, if Benny failed to stop or veer away in time. He just didn’t feel like he had a lot of choice. He was nowhere near a good enough shot to take out a tire, or to hit Benny through the plane’s small windows. And even if he did that, what would stop the plane from swerving into him anyway? His best bet was to count on Benny’s survival instincts, on his realization that even a long stretch in prison would be preferable to dying in a fiery runway collision.

  He started to pass the plane. Glancing over for as long as he dared, Greg saw Benny in the pilot’s seat, his bent spine hunching him over the wheel. Benny was staring straight ahead, with a determined set to his jaw and a ferocious gleam in his eyes. He looked utterly intent on his goal, as if nothing would dissuade him from this mad escape plan.

  For an instant, Greg’s hope wavered.

  He wanted to stop this guy. This killer. Wanted to be able to prove in court that he had found the motive, and discovered the evidence that put the murder weapon in his hands. It wasn’t just that he had spent all that time cutting plastic—it was what he had chosen this career for. He wanted to use science as a tool for solving crimes, because solving crimes meant putting bad people away, honoring their victims, and protecting those who might otherwise have been next.

  But did he want it enough to risk dying for it?

  Greg had unconsciously let up on the gas, just the slightest bit. Realizing his mistake, he pressed down again. Of course I do, he thought. I risk death every time I go out into the field. Hasn’t stopped me yet. The SUV lunged forward. His ears were full of the roar of engines, his Yukon’s and the airplane’s, battling for supremacy on the narrow runway.

  Greg gained ground, starting to pass the plane again. He was running out of runway, so he was going to have to make his move fast. He edged past the plane’s nose and kept going, pulling ahead. Then he saw the plane in his rearview, falling back. Was Benny giving up? Slowing down? Greg squeezed a little more speed from the SUV, then braked and cranked the wheel at the same time.

  The Yukon fishtailed, skidding across the runway in a cloud of smoke and the stink of burnt rubber. The engine died. The abrupt stop jolted Greg, and w
hen he caught his balance again, he looked out toward the airplane.

  It came on fast. Benny hadn’t slowed or stopped; Greg had simply outraced him.

  And now Benny was going to ram him.

  Greg pawed at the door handle. He had to get out, now—there wasn’t time to start the engine again.

  He just managed to get the door open when the airplane’s wheels left the ground.

  Greg threw himself to the tarmac and covered his head with his hands, anticipating the worst.

  The airplane lifted off the runway, gaining altitude. It didn’t veer from its course. Greg’s last glimpse of Benny before the plane’s nose blocked his view showed a man utterly intent on his flying, as if he didn’t even understand what a close call he’d had. Greg glanced up to see the plane zoom over him, raising a fog of dust and debris, its landing gear barely clearing the Yukon’s roof.

  He stood up in the airplane’s draft, wind whipping his hair and clothes.

  Benny urged the plane higher, continuing the steep path that had carried him over the SUV. Greg watched him go. Twenty feet high. Thirty. Climbing fast. He figured he would have to call the FAA, to make sure that wherever Benny touched down he was arrested on the spot. Fifty feet.

  At sixty or thereabouts, Benny tried to level the plane out. He had shot up at such a steep angle that it seemed to Greg as if it would arc over backward, perform a somersault in midair.

  But he didn’t have room for any fancy aerobatics—he wasn’t high enough yet.

  Seventy-five feet, and still climbing fast.

  And then the engine noise changed abruptly.

  Greg had been hearing its roar for so long that the sudden shift was as startling as a slap in the face.

  He didn’t know a lot about flying, but he knew what a stall was. Push the airplane up too steep a curve and you stall. Stunt flyers did it for kicks.