by Robin Spano
George followed the guard down the concrete hall. He dialed Mickey and waited for him to accept the charges.
“Georgie!” Mickey sounded happy to hear from him. “They let you out? Thank god. What a fuck-up. How’d you finally convince the fuzz to listen to reason?”
“I’m still in jail. That’s why I’m calling collect. But listen, Mickey, I’m pretty sure the Dealer’s Nate. And he’s a good bet for the Choker, too. Is Tiffany still hanging out with him? Someone should warn her.”
“I tried,” Mickey said. “I got a note. Did you get one, too? It said Introducing Nate Wilkes as your Dealer. I wondered if it was from you at first, but then I heard you got arrested.”
“I got the same note; but that’s not what tipped the scales. Look, Mickey, I know it’s Nate. You think Tiffany will accept a collect call from me?”
“Sure. She’s a good kid.”
“Can you give me her number?”
Mickey took a minute or so to retrieve the information from his phone. “And hang on tight in there. I’m doing what I can to find the real killer before they lock you away somewhere worse than a holding cell.”
“Thanks.” George hung up and dialed Tiffany’s number.
NINETY-EIGHT
CLARE
Clare’s phone rang on the desk, and she jumped. She looked at the call display but didn’t recognize the number. Could the caller be the same person who’d just knocked on the door?
No sense ignoring it; if they were still outside, they’d heard the ring.
“Hello?”
“You have a collect call from George Bigelow. You can press one now to accept the charges.”
Clare pressed one now. “Hello?”
“Tiffany. It’s George Bigelow. I know we don’t know each other well. But I’ve just spoken with Mickey, and —”
“Are you out of jail?”
“No. I have five minutes for this call. Mickey said he tried to warn you about Nate. That he thinks Nate’s the Dealer.”
“Yeah,” Clare said. “I don’t know who to trust.”
“Mickey’s right.”
“Is that why you’re calling me?”
“You should spend tonight alone.”
“Mickey said the same thing. But why?”
“I saw someone outside Fiona’s motel. Maybe the dreadlocks were a wig. He was Nate’s size and shape. He —”
“A lot of guys are that size,” Clare said. “Joe’s that size. Oliver’s around the same height. Hell, Elizabeth’s tall — stick a costume on her and who knows what she’d look like? Why aren’t you accusing them?”
“Are you with Nate now?”
“No.”
“Can you sleep alone?”
“Of course I can. But like I said to Mickey, I think I’m safer sleeping with someone than alone.”
George was silent.
“I appreciate the call. I’m sure you had a hassle to get through to me from jail. And for what it’s worth, I think you’re innocent.”
“You do? Why?”
“Because you’re calling me? I don’t know,” Clare said. “You sound innocent.”
“Thanks.”
Clare heard Noah’s card in the door. At least she hoped it was Noah’s. Should she keep George on the phone, to be safe?
Noah walked through the door. He had a piece of paper in his hand. “Any idea who left this outside?”
Clare stared. She said to George, “I should go. Nate just got back.”
“Back?”
“I’m in his room.” Why had she just given up free information? George was still a suspect. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
“Make up an excuse,” George said. “You have no reason to trust me, but I’m telling you: go back to your hotel. Or another hotel, where he doesn’t know you’ll be. Just get the hell out of there.”
“Thanks,” Clare said. “And, um, sorry about your predicament.” She clicked her phone off and said to Nate, “My handler.”
Noah repeated his question. “Did you see who left this note?”
“I heard a knock about an hour ago. I didn’t open the door.”
“Good move,” Noah said. “I think it was the Choker.”
“Why?”
He handed Clare the page.
Nice camera in the ice room. I guess an amateur cop is used to dealing with an amateur killer. No such luck this time, bozo — or bozette.
— The Real Dealer
Clare set down the page. “Bozette?”
“I guess it’s the female equivalent of bozo.”
“Right. Got it. But why would he let on he’s onto us?”
Noah shrugged. “Either our plan threw him off and he’s making mistakes, or he has delusions of his own grandeur and he thinks we’ll never catch him.”
“Delusions of grandeur . . .” Clare scanned her mind for the notes she’d taken in the police academy class about pathology. “Is that psychopathology? Manic depression? Paranoia? I forget.”
“It goes with a lot of mental illnesses. Fuck, I had a shrink tell me I was a megalomaniac when I was seventeen.” He sank into a chair and stared straight ahead, as if back in time at a memory.
“You did?” Clare prompted.
“Yeah. Then he found out my IQ and he changed his diagnosis.”
“What’s your IQ?” Clare wouldn’t know what the number meant.
“IQ’s a load of crap.”
“So yours is low.”
“No.” He broke his trance to look sharply at Clare.
“Then why won’t you tell me?” She tried to laugh as she asked him.
Noah wiped his palms on his jeans, leaving sweat stains. “Because it’s a crack science. I tell you mine, you tell me yours, and one of us feels inferior for no fucking reason.”
Clare grinned, though inside she was wondering why Noah was acting like he was due for a refresher in the loony bin. “I have no idea what my IQ is. Or what they mean.”
“Good. Then we can get along.” Noah relaxed his arms and stared straight ahead again.
“So, um, tell me about your shrink. What was his new diagnosis after he found out how smart you are?” Clare was wondering if she should take George and Mickey’s advice. What did she really know about Noah? Even if he was FBI, an agent could go rogue.
Noah rolled his eyes, but it was like he was rolling them at someone far away. “So this shrink — let’s call him Dr. Asshole — spends a winter full of weekly sessions telling me I’m unrealistically high on myself. Then one day he asks me my IQ. I tell him. Then out of nowhere, the guy starts in on some diatribe about how it doesn’t matter how smart someone is, it’s what you do with it that counts, and I have a fucking responsibility to use my mind and not waste it like some lazy self-absorbed fool.”
Noah paused, but Clare didn’t think he wanted a reaction from her, so she stayed quiet.
“And at the end of the meeting, Dr. Fuckhead — sorry, that was Dr. Asshole, right? — says he doesn’t think he’s the right person to help me going forward. Which is fucking wonderful when you’re seventeen and down on yourself and you find out even your shrink doesn’t like you.” He looked up at Clare.
Clare didn’t know what to say. “That must have been awful.”
“Sorry to go down Pathetic Memory Lane,” Noah said, appearing to snap back into the real world. “But long story short, this megalomaniac killer could have any number of illnesses. I’m homing in on psychopath, because I’m guessing the guy has no conscience.”
“Do most killers have consciences?” Clare asked. “Hey, there’s someone else in the ice room.”
They sat by Noah’s computer and watched Elizabeth go into the small room. She filled a bucket with ice, and left.
“What do you think she’s doing?” Clare asked.
“Gettin
g ice for the boat?”
“Why this room, though? Why not the second floor or fourth floor? You think she’s looking for Mickey’s note?”
“Mickey?”
Clare hesitated, then filled Noah in on what she’d seen.
They watched Elizabeth leave the room. She hadn’t left anything behind.
Clare’s phone beeped. It was an email from Amanda — the footage Clare had agreed to look at. She didn’t know if she could trust Noah to watch it with her. What if the guy on tape was Noah, disguised as T-Bone in a ponytail and hat? Clare would recognize his movements in a second, but could she hide her recognition from him?
Shit, but her laptop was back at the hotel, and the screen on her phone would be too small — she couldn’t home in and enlarge the parts she wanted a closer look at.
She looked at Noah and decided she had to trust him. “I have footage from the Fallsview security cameras. Mind if I forward it so we can open it on your laptop?”
NINETY-NINE
NOAH
“It’s T-Bone, right?” Clare squinted at the grainy image on the screen.
“Duh,” Noah said. “You know anyone else who wears a black cowboy hat and gray ponytail?”
“We can only see him from behind. You sure it’s him, or is someone wearing his hat?”
“And his ponytail?”
Clare shrugged. “That’s what Amanda wants me to look at.”
“Shit,” Noah said. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
“I think so.”
“Any idea who might be in the disguise?”
Clare laughed, but she seemed to be hiding another emotion behind that. Fear? “I have to spell it out? Come on.”
“Oh my god. Arrogant much? What makes you so sure your theory is right?”
“Because,” Clare said. “You have Snow White playing poker all night, right?”
“Sure,” Noah said. “That’s Joe and his costumes.”
“Is it?” Clare said. “Or are we assuming it was Joe inside the costume?”
“Didn’t you two leave the boat together after he fucked your brains out so skilfully?”
“Yeah,” Clare said. “And he was dressed as Snow White. I was cracking up the whole time he was putting on the costume — I didn’t think he was actually going to wear it to the poker table.”
“But he did,” Noah said. “So that rules him out as the killer. We also don’t have him crossing the border by land, and we don’t have his boat leaving the dock.”
“There are other ways to get to the States.”
“But George was actually in the States. At the right time. At Fiona’s motel room. That’s open and shut in my books.”
“Good thing no one’s reading your books,” Clare said. “Don’t tell me you want to be a writer like George.”
“Please. Like anyone would care what I have to say. So I’m still not following you. You’re saying it’s not George. You think it’s Joe, and he had someone swap costumes with him? You think it’s T-Bone, and he had someone dress up like him to walk around the River Rock catching him from behind in the security cameras as an alibi?”
Clare laughed. “Come on. It’s so obvious.”
“Elizabeth? Shit — she was away all night when Fiona got killed. Supposedly at her parents’ place, but no one even thought to check her alibi. Joe was sleeping with Fiona — Elizabeth was pregnant — it makes sense Elizabeth would want Fiona dead.”
Clare rolled her eyes.
“What are we missing?” Noah said. “Just proof?”
“I think we can get proof from the cab cameras. On either side of the border.”
“Do cabs even have cameras in Canada or in backwater Washington State?”
“You are such a snob. The world outside New York City has access to technology, too.” Clare spun away from Noah’s computer to face him. “Anyway, what do you care about proof, or all this leading to an arrest? You’re only here to learn the tricks of the hole card scam.”
Noah decided to wait before telling Clare that her job offer with the FBI was confirmed, pending successful completion of this case and a ludicrously invasive background check. He still wasn’t even sure he wanted to extend the offer. If Clare came, she’d no doubt move to New York with her beloved boyfriend. He said, “So how do you propose your man — or woman — crossed the border?”
“You still don’t know who I mean?” Clare looked like she was having fun. “All right, while you’ve been gone and scaring the hell out of me, I’ve been browsing the web for border crossing loopholes.”
“And let me guess: you found one.” Noah looped a finger in the air.
“Yup. I think our killer took a cab to Tsawassen — there’s a squash club they could have been dropped off at which would look normal enough, even late at night.”
“You won’t even give me a gender?”
Clare grinned. “It’s going to feel so obvious when you figure it out. Anyway, they can walk across the border there to Point Roberts — it’s this little part of the U.S. that’s only attached to Canada, so the border isn’t heavily guarded. From there, our person could have stolen a boat, driven it to Bellingham or Blaine, and grabbed a cab up the mountain to Fiona’s motel room.”
Noah laughed now. “That’s even more ludicrous than just wearing a disguise and renting a car to drive across. Or driving a boat all the way from the casino. So Last Tango was in the dock all night. What about all the other boats? Could someone have ‘borrowed’ one from the River Rock marina?”
“Not unless they checked in with the U.S. Coast Guard when they crossed,” Clare said. “Security’s tighter with boats than it is with cars — failure to check in would result in a military ambush. Anyway, you want to check the cab cameras before their footage is erased? I think they only have to keep it for twenty four hours, so we’re already pushing our luck. And your rental car/disguise theory isn’t bad either. Except the facial recognition scan should have caught that.”
Noah tapped a finger against his lip as he considered this. “A fake chin or nose might throw off the facial scan. You can buy stuff like that in any drugstore.”
“Shit,” Clare said. “You’re right. We might have to slog through footage manually. But you know who the killer is now, right?”
Noah nodded as he watched the ice machine footage one more time. “I’m starting to think so.”
“Kind of scary, isn’t it?”
Clare took his hand. “Are you okay?”
“Of course I’m okay. What are you talking about?” Noah snatched his hand back. He felt bad for the abruptness of the motion, but he didn’t want her holding it and making him feel things he couldn’t act on.
“Sorry.” Clare’s voice held justified annoyance. “What’s wrong with you?”
In the absence of a ready lie, Noah opted for honesty. “I’m going to miss you. I want to solve this case — of course I do. But when it’s over, so are we.”
“We can stay in touch. At least we know each other’s real names.”
“I’m not going to stay in touch with you, Clare. I might be perverse, but I don’t enjoy torturing myself.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I like you. But whatever. You have a boyfriend. I’m not going to pretend to be your friend until lo and behold, a wedding invitation arrives in the mail, and I have to decide: do I go and smile and silently curse the guy who gets to keep you forever, or do I rip the invitation into little shreds and spend the next several weeks with a bottle of vodka?”
“I’ve never seen you drink vodka.”
“Jesus, you can miss the point.”
“I’m not missing the point,” Clare said quietly. “I’m trying to push those same thoughts out of my own head. I like you, too.”
“No you don’t. You made it clear that you were d
ating me for the case.”
“Just because Tiffany was dating you doesn’t mean Clare wasn’t having fun.”
“Jesus.”
“What?”
“Stop separating your two selves like that. And don’t talk about yourself in the third person. It’s irritating as hell.”
Clare laughed. “Noah, I want to jump on you and pin you to the bed and fuck you until this stupid case solves itself on its own.”
“Easy to say when you’re not fucking going to.”
“Yes, it’s easy to say. And it would be even easier to do. But I won’t cheat on Kevin.”
“So break up with him.”
Clare shook her head. “Not from here.”
“What if I could get you a job in New York?”
“You’ve said that before. It’s such a long shot.”
“It would be,” Noah said. “Except that I’ve spoken with my handler, and he looked into your career history . . .”
“My one case.”
“He was impressed. He says if we crack this thing together, he’ll consider making you an offer.”
“What does that mean?”
“Since we’re about to crack the case, I’m pretty sure it means you’re in. After a ridiculously complex and invasive security check, that is.”
Clare cocked her head and met Noah’s eye for a few seconds before saying, “So do you think we’d be able to slog through border footage ourselves? We’ve been living with these guys; I think we’d spot a fake chin on the right face before some clerk at the border office could.”
“Sounds good.” Noah wondered why Clare had given him zero response on the New York move. Was she even considering it? “And if that doesn’t pan out, we can go with your cab camera idea.”
“I think we should do both. So how do we get these files from the border? Should we go through my side or yours?”
Noah thought about it. “Mine, I think. I’ll call my boss and get him to meet us at the border. He’ll clear us for access to their computers and sort out any other red tape we need help with.” Noah could probably have Bert courier the image files to the hotel, but he wanted Bert to see Clare’s intensity firsthand, to watch her mind at work, so he’d know she would be a good hire. “You wearing that?”
