Void Moon (1999)

by Michael Connelly

  Karch winced. The pieces of that night were coming together. He thought he understood everything now - six years too late. He turned and stepped away from the bed as if turning from a bad memory. In the mirror over the bureau he saw Kibble's posture stiffen as though she were going to make a move. Then she saw him watching her in the mirror.

  "Don't do anything stupid, Agent Kibble. Remember those two kids of yours. What did Cassie Black say about Max trying to fly that night?"

  "She wouldn't talk about it, especially with me. There was just this one time that she talked a little bit about it. And she said Max had to have had some help going through that window. That's all."

  "Yeah, well, she was right. But the help came from her, nobody else."

  "What, you were there?"

  Karch looked at her a long moment and he could see fear rise in her eyes.

  "I'm asking the questions now, remember?"

  He paused to allow her to answer but she didn't. Karch raised the aim of the Sig up her wide body, over her face and to the wall behind her until he was pointing at the woman walking on the beach in the poster.

  "Tell me about Tahiti."

  "Tahiti?" She looked backward at the poster on the wall. "Tahiti was a dream."

  "Was?"

  "She went there with Max once. Blew the take on one of the jobs and went there for a week."

  Karch looked over at the wastebasket next to the bed table. The photo of Cassie Black and Max and the umbrella drink could be seen over the lip of the can. He knew without a doubt then that it had been taken in Tahiti.

  "She thought that was where the baby got . . . you know, conceived," Kibble said. "And the plan was for them to go back. After the baby was born. You know, retire from the hot prowl and live on an island or something in Tahiti. Live happily ever after and raise the child."

  "But all that went out the window with Max."

  Kibble nodded.

  "They never made it," she said. "So Tahiti isn't a place anymore. Not for Cassie. It's a dream. It's all her plans. It's everything she never got with Max."

  Karch paused for a moment before responding. He looked down at the investigation report from Renaissance that was on the floor by Kibble's feet.

  "It's almost everything," he finally said, his eyes still on the report. "But our Cassie Black has a plan, Agent Kibble. Something tells me she's the type who always has a plan."

  He was totally into his own thoughts. He quickly scanned through his theories and suddenly looked up at Kibble.

  "Last question," he said. "What do I do with you now?"

  36

  CASSIE pulled to the curb a block from the house on Selma and studied it for any indication that Karch might be there waiting for her. There was nothing obvious; no cars in the driveway, the front door wasn't kicked in. She watched for ten minutes but never picked up a warning vibe. Finally, she drove off to the street running parallel to Selma and one block over. She parked again, then got out and cut between two houses and climbed a fence into her backyard. She left the money locked in the front trunk of the Boxster. Her plan was to not leave the car for very long. She was only going in to get a single photograph, maybe some spare clothing if she wanted to push it. She dug the spare key out of the flowerpot on the back porch and quietly entered the house through the kitchen door.

  Karch had been there. The place had not been searched and destroyed like Leo's house. But he had been there. The vibe was there. She could tell. There was something disturbed, something amiss. She stepped into the living room without making a sound and confirmed her instinct when she saw the hanger and seven locks lying on the coffee table. She hadn't worked the locks since before going to Las Vegas. She had not left them out in the open like that. He had.

  She stood perfectly still and concentrated on the sounds of the house for almost two minutes. When she heard nothing else she retreated to the kitchen and took the largest knife she had out of a drawer. She carried it at her side as she entered the front hallway and slowly walked into her bedroom.

  The first thing she saw was the poster. It hung askew on the wall and slashed across it was a large X that looked to her to have been painted with blood. It was a long moment before she could pull her eyes away from it to take in the rest of the bedroom. This room had been searched. Cassie did not have enough belongings to make the debris all over the floor seem to be much more than a minor mess. But she quickly dropped to the floor and grabbed her two photo albums. The idea that Karch might have handled them and looked in them repulsed her. She put the albums on the bed for taking even though she knew she didn't need them anymore. She then quickly began scanning the floor for the one photo that she did need, that was irreplaceable.

  Finally, she saw it in the trash can, the glass over the photo shattered. She grabbed it out of the can and shook the glass out of the frame. The photo appeared to be undamaged and she let out a sigh of relief. It was the only photo ever taken of Max and her together. For five years it had been taped to the wall next to her bed at High Desert. She pulled it from the frame and placed it on top of the two albums on the bed. She looked at her watch and saw it was almost three. She needed to hurry. She grabbed a pillow off the bed and stripped off the case. She then put the albums and the photo of Max into it.

  She went to the bureau next and shoved handfuls of underwear and socks into the pillowcase. She had no jewelry other than her Timex and one pair of earrings that she almost never wore - the silver hoops that Max had actually paid for and given her on a birthday.

  She next went to the closet to grab extra pairs of jeans and a few shirts. She opened the door with her eyes already angled up toward the string pull of the overhead light. So she didn't see Thelma Kibble until the light was on and she glanced down to see what her foot had just bumped into.

  Her parole agent was lying on the floor of the walk-in closet with her back propped against the rear wall, her legs spread wide. Her head was tilted at an odd angle, her mouth was wide open and the front of the large, flowing dress she wore was a crimson mess. A hand came up and stifled a scream in Cassie's mouth. She jerked backward from it and then realized it was her own. The pillowcase dropped from her other hand and thumped on the floor.

  The noise prompted Kibble to slowly open her eyes. It almost seemed that in all of that huge body the action of opening her eyes exhausted all her stores of strength. Cassie dropped to her knees between Kibble's outstretched legs.

  "Thelma! Thelma, what happened?"

  Without waiting for an answer she already knew, Cassie reached up and jerked one of the two dresses she owned off a hanger. She bunched it in her hands and moved in close to Kibble to use it as a compress. She saw a single bullet wound high on Kibble's chest. A tremendous amount of blood had leaked from the wound. So much that Cassie was stunned that Kibble was still alive. She pressed the dress over the wound and looked at Kibble's lips. They were soundlessly working as Kibble attempted to say something.

  "Thelma, don't talk, don't talk. Was it Karch? A man named Karch?"

  The mouth stopped working for a moment and there was a slight nod.

  "Thelma, I am so sorry."

  "-ot me wi' my own gun . . ."

  Her voice was no more than a rasp.

  "Thelma, don't talk. I'm going to get help. You hang in there and I'll get help. Can you hold this?"

  Cassie lifted the woman's left hand and put it over the bunched dress. When she released her hold the hand started to fall away. Cassie reached over to a plastic laundry basket and dragged it over. She overturned it and pulled it in tight against Kibble's side. She raised Kibble's left arm again and propped the elbow on the overturned basket. She then put the left hand back onto the makeshift compress. The weight of Kibble's huge arm kept her hand and the compress in place.

  "Hang in there, Thelma," Cassie ordered. "There's no phone in the house. I have to go to my car. I'll call for help and be right back. Okay?"

  She waited and saw Kibble's jaw start to tremble as she tri
ed to say something.

  "Don't answer! Just save your strength. Help will be here soon."

  Cassie started to get up but saw Kibble's mouth still working. She was determined to say something. Cassie leaned in close and turned so her left ear was close.

  "He knows . . ."

  Cassie waited but there was nothing else. She turned and looked at Kibble.

  "He knows? He knows what?"

  Kibble's eyes came up to hers and Cassie knew that what she was trying to say was important.

  "Karch? He knows what, Thelma?"

  She turned and leaned in again.

  "Your daughter. He . . . has her picture."

  Cassie sprang back as if punched. She looked at Kibble with fearful and alert eyes. She then looked down at the pillowcase next to her as if it might contain a bomb set to go off at any moment. She grabbed the bag and turned it over, dumping its contents. She grabbed up one of the albums - the one she called the school album - and opened it. The first photo was missing from the clear plastic window. Written across the window in a black marker was a message that froze her heart.

  NO COPS 702-881-8787

  Without a doubt she knew what the message meant.

  "Go . . ."

  Cassie looked up from the photo album to Kibble.

  "Go now . . . go get her . . ."

  Cassie looked at her a long moment and then nodded. She jumped up and ran from the closet, taking the photo album with the phone number in it and leaving everything else behind.

  37

  FROM a steady distance of three blocks Karch's Towncar trailed the white Volvo wagon as it left the Wonderland School. As Karch expected, the Volvo didn't go far. It stayed on Lookout Mountain Road until it almost crested the hill and then turned down a driveway next to a 1920 's-style home set well back from the road. Karch slowed and by the time he was abreast of the house he saw the woman and the little girl with the happy-face backpack heading toward the front door of the house. He went on by and turned around in a driveway a block farther up the street. He went back down the street and parked at the curb across the street from the driveway with the Volvo wagon parked in it. The woman and child were inside now.

  Karch noticed the real estate sign on the property and the smaller hook-on sign announcing the property was in escrow. He thought another piece of the story was falling into place. He believed that if he ever got the chance to ask Cassidy Black, she would tell him that everything started with that sign. She saw that sign and put things into motion.

  "And here we are," he said out loud.

  He had been doing that a lot lately - the audio commentary when no one was around to hear it but himself. But he wasn't worried about it. It ran in the family. He used to sit in the bedroom and listen to his father in the next room talking to himself in the mirror. He'd do it while running quarters over his knuckles - both hands at once - and practicing coin and card gags. He always said the patter was as important in the art of the sleight as anything you did with your hands. Words could be part of the misdirection as well.

  He heard a shout and looked over at the house. The girl had come outside. She had changed and was now wearing denim overalls over a long-sleeved T-shirt. She was kicking a ball with a ladybug design on it around the yard and finding something in the activity to yell about. Karch saw the woman standing just inside the open front door and watching over her. He waited and watched and eventually the woman stepped back into the house and out of sight. She apparently felt confident in the safety and sanctity of the yard.

  Karch checked his watch and waited for her to come back to check on the girl. He wanted to get an idea of the time intervals and then he would know how much time he had. While he waited he thought some more about Cassidy Black. He believed he would soon have the high card in the game they were playing. And the last deal would be on his table, not hers.

  The woman came back to the door to check on the girl after six minutes. Karch had also been counting the cars during that time. Only three had gone by. Traffic was beyond prediction but he figured, to be safe, he had between two and three minutes from getting out to getting back in.

  He picked the Renaissance Investigations report off the seat next to him and checked the name once more. He then got out of the car and crossed the street, checking the surrounding houses for witnesses as he went. There were none that he could see. As far as he was concerned he had the green light. The plan was a go.

  The girl looked up from her ball when he got to within a few feet of the picket fence at the front of the property. The fence was a design flourish, not a safety measure. It was barely higher than Karch's knees. If needed he'd be able to reach over and grab her.

  The girl didn't say anything. She just stopped her playing and looked at him.

  "How do you do?" Karch said. "You're Jodie Shaw, aren't you?"

  The girl looked back at her house and didn't see her mother at the door. She looked back at Karch.

  "You are, aren't you?"

  She nodded and Karch took the last few steps to the fence. He had his hands in his pockets, a subliminally nonthreatening pose.

  "I was hoping so. See, your daddy sent me over from the office to pick you up for the surprise party."

  "What su'prise party?"

  Karch took his hands out of his pockets and stepped up to the little fence. He dropped into a baseball catcher's stance so he would be closer to her level. His face was still above the top of the fence. He looked over the girl's head at the front door. No sign of the woman but he knew he was on a clock. He turned his head and looked over both shoulders. No neighbors anywhere. No cars coming. He still had the green.

  "The party he's having for your mommy. He doesn't want her to know about it. But it's going to be a lot of fun. With a lot of your friends there and there's even going to be a magic show."

  He reached over the fence to her right ear and seemed to grab a quarter out of thin air. When he had removed his hand from his pocket the quarter had been clipped between his third and fourth finger in the classic Goshman Pinch sleight. The girl looked at the coin and her mouth opened into a surprised smile.

  "Hey!"

  "And what about this side?"

  He pulled another quarter out of her other ear with his other hand. The girl was grinning broadly now.

  "How'd you do that?"

  "If I told you I'd have to . . . uh, well, you know if you come with me now to see your dad, then I promise he and I will teach you how to do it. What do you say, Jodie? Okay? He's waiting for us, baby."

  "I'm not a baby. And I'm not supposed to go with strangers."

  Karch silently cursed to himself and checked the front door again. Still clear.

  "I know you're not a baby. It's just a figure of speech I use, that's all. And the other thing is, I'm not really a stranger. I mean, you and I just met for the first time but I know your daddy and he knows me. Enough for him to pick me to come get you for the party. "

  He checked the front door one last time. He knew he was going too long with this. He was way over time. The green light was now red.

  "Anyway, your daddy really wants you there at the office so - "

  He straightened up and reached over the fence.

  "-you can yell 'Surprise!' when your mommy gets there."

  He reached under her arms and lifted her up. He knew the key thing was to keep her quiet for thirty feet - from the fence to the car. That was all. After that, it didn't matter. He turned and walked quickly across the street toward the Lincoln.

  "Mommy?" the girl said in a timid voice.

  "Shhhh, shhhh," he responded quickly. "We don't want her to know about this, sweetheart. That would spoil the surprise."

  He got to the car, opened the back door and loaded her in. He then closed it and jumped into the front seat. He had done it, he realized. Grabbed her without incident or detection. He dropped the car into drive and started down Lookout Mountain.

  "Is there going to be dancing at this surprise party?"
Jodie said from the backseat.

  Karch adjusted the rearview mirror so he would be able to watch the girl. The moment he did it he heard a scream in the distance. The windows were up in the Lincoln so the origin of the sound could not be pinpointed. Karch readjusted the rearview mirror and immediately saw the woman from the house run into the street fifty yards behind. Her hands were balled into fists and pressed against her temples as she stared at the retreating Lincoln. He quickly hit the button that turned on the stereo.

  He checked the mirror again. The woman was still in the middle of the street screaming but the stereo was covering it in the car. It was Frank Sinatra singing "That's Life."

  Karch started thinking about the license plates on the Lincoln. He doubted the woman had gotten a read off the back plate but he knew he needed to find a safe place to switch back to the originals. And he wasn't worried about having been seen himself. The windows were tinted too dark for that. He felt good. He was clear.