Blood Brother

by Jack Kerley

  “Is that a reference to the problem with his eyes?” I said. “He called out motes in others, disregarded the plank in his?”

  “When I tell this to the world, I will be castigated by the few, uplifted by the many. When the world understands, we will know peace. Here is the knowledge as it unfolds today…There came a child and its name was All of Us. The tribes of God assemble in this child. What an incredible message of love.”

  A harsh noise from somewhere intruded and Scaler’s head snapped to the sound. His face tightened and his voice dropped to a whisper as he leaned toward the computer’s microphone.

  “A danger to my greatest project, another terrible lesson I have learned: to believe with your eyes closed means others can lead you where they wish. I close now, and again file my words deep in the Tower of Babel. Stay safe, my world-wide kinsmen all, God bless you as He has finally blessed me.”

  We heard another grating blurt of sound. Saw Scaler’s fear as he reached for a computer keyboard and the picture disappeared.

  “Scaler never made it to the next video,” I said, “which should have been ‘Light’. Do you think he planned it to be the video that shines light on things?”

  “Makes sense. But it’s never gonna happen. Did you make anything of that sound in there?”

  I shook my head. “Just a sonic blur.”

  “Lemme crank it up.”

  Harry pushed the volume to distortion. We listened to the burble of sound that seemed to scare Scaler, but the mic on the computer lacked sensitivity.

  “How about we run over to forensics, see if the audio folks can do anything?”

  We were heading out the door when Riley, the newly arrived desk sergeant, looked up. “I didn’t know you guys were here. You got a delivery a few minutes back, Carson,” he said. “A package.”

  “Where’d it come from?”

  “Some redneck-looking guy brought it in. Big guy, hard-looking. He dropped it off, turned and booked.”

  Riley handed me an eight-by-ten mailing envelope. No return address. I held it in front of the lamp on Riley’s desk, saw nothing threatening inside. I slid a thumbnail under the loose glue, opened it and pulled out a single sheet.

  I stared mutely at a photograph of Noelle. She was on a blanket. In the foreground was a Mobile Register. It was today’s paper.

  Harry saw my open mouth. I handed him the photo.

  “Someone’s telling us she’s all right,” I said, my heart racing at the back of my throat. “You think a ransom demand is about to arrive?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Harry whispered, his voice wind over dry leaves. “She’s alive.”

  We continued to forensics, the photo between us on the dashboard. Something seemed off-key. I said, “You’re the one who’s been pushing Noelle’s case, bro. But someone sent the package to me. Why?”

  “You got me.”

  He stole another look at the picture, as if drawing sustenance from the image, and pushed the accelerator to the floor.

  Arlis Hinton was the audio tech at the Alabama Bureau of Forensics. He was sixty years old and had run a recording studio for thirty-eight of them. Arlis was a wizard who could probably wire an iPod to an orange and make the fruit play music as you ate it. He ran the tape through a DVD, listened carefully to the sonic muddle.

  “I’ll use voice-recognition software, the latest gen. That’ll give us a statistical probability of the words, insert them. While that’s going on, I’ll run a copy through this baby here.” He tapped a black box fronted with dials.

  “Which is…?”

  “The same thing, in a way, except it analyzes tonal aspects of the sound. It will recognize and filter out the sounds in the guy’s office – outside ambience, the computer’s motor, his breathing – then use the remaining sounds to reconstruct a vocal model.”

  Arlis sat, put on a headset and began playing. After a few minutes he nodded. “Here’s the word reconstruction. It’ll sound robotic. We’ll fix that on round two. Coming atcha…”

  We leaned forward toward the speakers as if that would do something.

  “Rich-ard,” the flat, mechanical voice said, “where…the…fuck…are…you?”

  “Sounds like Tutweiler,” Harry said.

  “Only because he seemed like such a machine,” I said.

  Arlis diddled with more knobs, talking to himself in audio-engineerese. I saw a series of wave forms on the monitor. They seemed to mean a great deal to Arlis. Finally, he said, “Got it as close as technology can make things. Ready?”

  We nodded and leaned closer to the speakers on Arlis’s long desk.

  “Richard!” a hard, shrill voice demanded. “Where the fuck are you?”

  “It sounds kind of like Patricia Scaler,” I frowned, not matching the timid convalescent with the bark of cold command coming from the speakers. “Sort of. Not quite. Maybe.”

  “You’re not sure it’s her?” Harry asked.

  I paced the room. “Patricia Scaler wilts when you speak above a whisper. Computers scare her. Everything seems to scare her.”

  “Acting?”

  I frowned. “No one fools me like that. I can always see through an act.”

  Harry put his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth, looking at the ceiling. Something hit and he spun to Hinton.

  “What if two related people were analyzed? Like sisters?”

  The audio tech tapped his chin, thinking. “If their voices were similar in tone and timbre, they’d sound closer through the computer than in real life, where the ear distinguishes more subtlety.”

  “You said Mrs Scaler has a sister? A beautiful woman?” Harry said to me. “Does she stay at the house? Live in the area?”

  “I’ve never seen anything but a picture from a portrait joint. A place called Blackburn Studios.”

  “Portrait studio?” Harry mused. “You’ve got to figure a place like that keeps address info on clients, right?”

  Chapter 43

  The photography studio was in one of the hoitytoity neighborhoods on the west side, which seemed odd. I recalled the photo of Patricia Scaler’s sister as being emotionless, as if taken by the camera and not a human behind it. Maybe cold and mechanical portraits were the new rage among the wealthy.

  Harry had a call from the DA on the court case and had to sit in the car and detail his upcoming testimony. I think he preferred staying in the cruiser anyway, keeping close to the pic of Noelle.

  I walked in the door, found myself in a plush anteroom with art on the walls, potted ferns, furniture upholstered in creamy leather. A woman in a nurse-type uniform sat behind a window, reading Vogue. It hit me that I was in an upscale dentist office, or something similar.

  “Good morning,” the young woman said, showing perfect teeth as white as snow. “May I help you?”

  “Is there another Blackburn Studios?” I said. “I’m looking for a photography studio.”

  She puzzled about it, pretty little chin perched atop her pink finger. “There’s a Blackburn Motors. Sometimes people dial us instead of them.”

  A man in his mid forties stepped from a back hall into the office. He was attractive to the point of pretty, walking in choppy steps as if on a model runway. He wore a starched white lab coat and was holding a stack of files in a pink hand with manicured fingernails. He looked like a guy who had to be dragged out of the mirror section of department stores.

  “Trisha, I need you to please put these back in…” He looked up, saw me. “Hello…can I help you?”

  “I’m beginning to wonder.”

  “I’m Dr Lawrence Blackburn. Step back here, please.”

  Puzzled, I followed him into a small office with several mirrors and a large desk. There were posters of noses and chins on the wall, hundreds of noses and chins. He stepped close and studied my face like Michelangelo inspecting a chunk of marble.

  “Great angles, masculine thrust. But everyone can use a little help. You’re mid thirties, right?”
r />   “True.”

  “Your nose has been broken.”

  “Twice,” I affirmed. “Once in the line of duty and once in defense of a lady.”

  “I can make it straight as an arrow; think of Pierce Brosnan’s nose. And I can take five years off those eyes. You spend too much time in the sun. It’s taken a toll. How about giving me profile?”

  I did my best uprising profile, modeled after Tutweiler. “You know Patricia Scaler’s sister, don’t you, Doc?” I asked as I posed. “I don’t recall her name.”

  He did puzzled. “I didn’t know Patricia had a sister. She’s never mentioned one.”

  “You took a picture of the woman, Doctor. Strikingly attractive. Her portrait said Blackburn Studios in the lower-right-hand corner.”

  “That wasn’t a portrait like a picture portrait. It’s a picture of the future, a computer-generated image of what our procedures will create. Patricia’s having a total reconstruction…a good way to start with a plain-Jane face like the poor girl’s been wearing all these years.”

  “Wait a minute…I was looking at Patricia Scaler?”

  “After rhinoplasty, blepheroplasty, cheek uplifts, chin implants, collagen. Along with our facial work, she’s having cosmetic dentistry by Dr Mellmen over in Daphne, implants, caps. The best in the region. Plus breast implants. She’ll look twelve years younger and drop-dead gorgeous. The damage to her face is the best thing to ever happen to her, from an aesthetic standpoint, of course. We can start from scratch.” Blackburn seemed to realize he’d gone on without mentioning a critical moment in the past couple weeks, did an obligatory frown.

  “Terrible thing about her husband, of course.”

  “Maybe a new face will cheer her up,” I suggested.

  “Better than new shoes,” the doc said, chipper again.

  “We heard it right,” I said after explaining to Harry I’d been in a cosmetic surgery clinic. “That was Patti Scaler on the video. Get this: the woman’s having herself re-done, cosmetic surgery from tits to topknot. Maybe that’s what she’s always wanted.”

  “She sounded angry in the video. And tough.”

  I folded my arms and thought through three traffic lights, lost in my head. “Tough probably isn’t the word,” I muttered.

  “What?”

  “Try this one for a hoot, bro: Lady Scaler’s in on the action. When the boyos come to hijack Scaler, spirit him off to camp, she tells one of them to work her over. Knock out those rabbit teeth and bust a few things bad. It gives her an excuse to get everything rebuilt from the beginning. Symbolizes a new start.”

  “Jesus, Carson, that’s freaky.” Harry thought about it. “But it also lets her claim…”

  “That daddy Scaler was a wife-beater, adding to his negative legacy. And sweet Patti gets to have a sexy new face installed after forty-eight years.”

  Harry scowled. “That’s insane, you know. Something a psychopath would do.”

  “Time to turn the camera on Patricia Scaler,” I nodded, feeling foolish. “Like I should have done a week ago.”

  Chapter 44

  There were two cars in the drive, the blue Toyota that belonged to Mrs Herdez, the Scalers’ housekeeper, and a red pickup with a Mexican flag on the bumper.

  I knocked. Seconds later Mrs Herdez’s face appeared at the door. It took her a second to recognize Harry and me. She didn’t look happy to see us.

  “I’d like to speak with you, ma’am,” I said. “About your employers.”

  “No speak Ingles.” The door started to close.

  Harry’s hand caught the door and eased it open.

  “You spoke it well enough to work for the Scalers. Or did the Scalers comprende Espanol?”

  A trapped look from Mrs Herdez. We used her moment of confusion to slip into the room and close the door, as if invited into the home. Despite the second vehicle, I didn’t see anyone else. The place was bright and clean and orderly, a couch and chairs covered with woven blankets, a tube-style television in the corner. One white wall was covered with photos going back years; family, I expected, far more black-and-white photos than color. Some were faded and yellowed, dark-skinned people leaning on rattletrap cars or sitting beneath mesquite trees or gathered in a room, the walls obviously adobe.

  “You’re not in any trouble, ma’am,” Harry said. “We just need to ask you some questions about the Scalers. Mrs Scaler, in particular.”

  Mrs Herdez’s face seemed overtaken with sudden joy. Her hands clapped.

  “Mrs Scaler is a lovely woman. An angel. Kind and generous. She shares her things with me, gives me clothes, food. One time there was a party and she gave me twenty pounds of camarones to take home to my family.”

  “How did she and her husband get along?”

  “They were like children in love. Kisses, the snuggles.”

  “We heard they didn’t still sleep in the same room,” Harry said. “Or talk a lot.”

  “I don’t know who would speak such things. They were happy like two doves.”

  From the other room I heard, “That’s a load of sandeces, Maria Herdez. It’s bullshit.”

  I looked toward the door to the kitchen. A slender woman with angry eyes strode into the room. She was in her forties, probably very pretty when her face wasn’t tight with anger. Her hair was in a braid and outsized loop earrings dangled from her lobes. She put her fists on her hips and glared at Mrs Herdez.

  “Tell them the truth, Tia. Now.”

  “I am telling the truth,” Mrs Herdez said, not meeting the other woman’s eyes. “The Scalers were like children in love.”

  “Who might you be, ma’am?” Harry asked our surprise addition.

  “I’m Luna Martinez, and this is my aunt. Tia Maria won’t tell you the truth because she’s afraid she’ll get a bad mark on her work history.” She looked to her aunt. “Everyone you’ve ever worked for will give you excellent marks, Tia. Forget the Scalers and tell the truth.”

  They lapsed into Spanish, firing sentences back and forth. It was like watching a tennis match. Harry and I turned our heads to Mrs Herdez for the serve, to Mrs Martinez for the return, back to Mrs Herdez. Boink. Boink. Boink.

  Finally, a nervous Mrs Herdez picked up a square of lace from the table beside her, smoothed it with her hands, set it back down.

  “It was a house like no other have I ever worked for.”

  “How angry did Reverend Scaler get?” Harry asked. “Was he a danger to you?”

  Ms Martinez jumped in. “Not the Reverend! It was that miserable wife of his! Tell them what she made you do, Tia.”

  “Shhhh,” Harry said. “Please let your aunt speak.”

  Mrs Herdez said, “Mrs Scaler…was not bad. She was just touchy.”

  “Touchy? You call a hair-trigger touchy?”

  “Ms Martinez, please,” Harry said.

  Mrs Herdez said, “Mrs Scaler wanted things done a certain way. Breakfast at eight forty-five in the morning, lunch at twelve thirty-eight, the dinner between twelve and sixteen minutes past six. Ees a good way to be, so I always know what she wants.”

  Ms Martinez had put her energy into tapping her foot. “And if you missed by a minute, Tia? Tell them what happened then.”

  “I sit in a chair and look at the wall until I am needed. It was good in a way. My feet felt good to sit.”

  “Were Mr and Mrs Scaler happy?” I asked.

  “The Reverend spend his time in his office, working. He slept on his bed in there or one of the other bedrooms – there are five. They did not speak unless she wanted to talk. Mostly she would yell and he would do the things she asked, until it was time to walk outside the door. It was like she had the…cojones in the house.”

  Ms Martinez said, “By cojones, my aunt means –”

  “Yes,” Harry said. “We’re acquainted with the word.”

  “Tell what else she makes you do, Maria.” She looked at us. “I didn’t find out about this until last week. I work from my home, writing computer code.
At noon I heard a knock and Tia Maria was there, not able to look in my eyes. Maria almost never drinks, but she had two cervezas y tequila and her shame wiggled out on a loose tongue. Tell them what you did for that woman,” Mrs Martinez said. “Every morning at nine forty-five.”

  “I wiped her,” Mrs Herdez mumbled.

  “Pardon?” Harry said.

  “After she made the…bathroom from behind her. I wiped her. I had to do it just right. The paper couldn’t be wadded, it had to be folded and ironed.”

  “Ironed?” Harry echoed.

  “With the steam. To press the paper flat without losing the softness. Eight folds, then iron. When she was done I had to show her the…” she couldn’t say the words.

  “The results?” I asked.

  “It was very important to her. When I had done all that I could do, I had to clean her with mouthwash – it could only be the Listerine with mint.”

  I shot Harry a glance that said, mouthwash? and turned back to Mrs Herdez.

  “This was daily at nine forty-five?”

  “She was very much a prompt woman.”

  Harry leaned forward. “You don’t work on Sundays. Uh…”

  “No problem, señor,” Mrs Herdez said. “She saved until Monday.”

  “Patti Scaler is an absolute control freak,” I said as we drove away. “My mistake was not realizing her timidity was an act. She controlled me every time I talked to her.”

  “She dished out what you wanted to see. And feel.”

  I nodded. “Anger at Scaler and pity for her.”

  “We’re making forward motion by looking into the lady’s present,” Harry said. “You want to check out her past?”

  We went to the department. Harry planted himself at the computer in the conference room, hung his purple tie over a chair, unbuttoned his yellow shirt and, using a keyboard like a shovel, began digging into Patricia Scaler’s history, trying to see past the press releases and gloss, find what had been hidden in the shadows.