by J. A. Kerley
“Yeah, that.”
I shrugged. “Land and sea may refer to my living a hundred feet from the Gulf. I may have mentioned one of my cases where I got rammed by a boat while in my kayak, but made it ashore alive and solved the case. I expect the hero reference is sarcastic.”
“Ain’t it cute?” Bullard said. “Ryder tells police stories to his crazy buddies. Part of their beddy-bye reading, maybe.”
Folger said, “You think he’ll make contact again?”
I held up my hands, No idea.
“Then I want you people to start thinking about how to throw a net over this psycho. You got any ideas on how to do that, Ryder? This is your good buddy out there.”
“I’ve been thinking about it.”
“He’s thinking?” Bullard mock-whispered. “We’re fucked like five-buck whores.”
One of the dicks in the rear of the room glanced up from his note-taking. “Instead of throwing a net over Ridgecliff, how about we do the world a favor and put this son of a bitch in the ground instead?”
Three detectives reached over and slapped the guy high fives. I understood how they felt, had thought the same about other killers on the loose. It troubled me. But not as much as my next thought:
If Jeremy dies, I’m the one that’s finally free.
TEN
Harry Nautilus pulled up the long gravel drive to Dr Evangeline Prowse’s two-story frame house. It was tucked against a wood, a pair of ancient live oaks in the front yard, their branches like tentacles exploring the hot air. Nautilus stopped in the drive. He walked through dappled sunlight to the nearest oak, its trunk a good twenty feet in circumference, and laid his palm against the bark.
The tree had lived there since antebellum times and Nautilus always felt thrilled to touch a survivor. He patted the tree as if congratulating it on a good journey, then returned to his car and continued to the house. It was smaller than he had imagined, knowing Dr Prowse must have made a nice living from her books as well as a decent salary and a consultation fee now and then. He climbed the steps to the shaded gallery, waited.
Two minutes later a gray unmarked vehicle entered the drive, tires crunching over the gravel. A second man was in the passenger seat. The car stopped and a six-six black man in a blue suit stepped out, Sergeant Nathaniel Allen of the Alabama State Police, Western Montgomery post. Allen was two inches taller than Nautilus, but at a hundred-eighty pounds to Nautilus’s two-fifty, he was a carrot beside a yam.
“Hey, Nate, s’up?”
“Hey, Harry. This is Bill Turnbow, best lock man in five counties.”
Nautilus shook hands with the locksmith, sixtyish, who pulled a toolbox from the back seat, glanced at the lock on the door, shook his head, said, “Twenty seconds.”
“So no one from your side’s been in?” Nautilus asked Allen.
“The killing happened in New York. No need.” Allen looked at the locksmith as he opened his case, and drew Nautilus a few feet down the porch, speaking softly. “A patient wandered?”
Nautilus nodded. “He’s in New York.”
“You’re certain?”
“I’m positive. Carson’s up there now, looking into it.”
“We’re keeping the lid on the box right now, don’t want to freak out the entire county. But …” He raised an eyebrow at Nautilus.
“If he even looks south, Nate, we’ll tell you.” Nautilus shifted gears. “You said there’d been a police call here, right?”
“Three weeks back. I was working late, heading home, when the call came in.”
“It’s done,” the locksmith said, pushing the door open with his pinky. “Eighteen seconds.”
Nautilus and Allen walked back to the door. “You’re good,” Nautilus said to the locksmith.
“The lock’s bad. Piece of crap. It cost a shitload, so the homeowner thought it was good, but if the maker spent as much on the lock as on fancy sales brochures, it might even protect someone.”
The cops went inside while the locksmith returned his tools to the car. The air conditioner had been left running and cool air poured through the portal. Nautilus breathed a sigh of relief, few things worse than searching through a furnace.
Nautilus was taken by the simplicity of the décor, two massive couches and three matching chairs, the cushions of soft red leather. There was a bright Oriental carpet, abstract art on the walls reminiscent of Kandinsky. Nautilus shot a look through the window. The locksmith was leaning against the car and smoking a cigar. Judging by the length of the cigar, he’d be outside a while.
“Go on, Nate,” Nautilus said to Allen. “The police call?”
“It looked like a standard B&E: Stuff scattered about, drawers open, the place tossed. Someone came through the front door, probably. Got past the lock.”
“The upshot?”
Allen frowned. “To hear her tell it, nothing was missing.”
“After all that work and scrabbling through the Doc’s belongings?”
“She said nothing was missing. Not a penny. There was something going on, Harry. I could feel it.”
“Tell me.”
“She’d worked late – she leaves for the Institute at seven, never gets home before seven, twelve-hour days were short for her. She arrives at ten p.m., sees stuff scattered around, calls us. She’s waiting on the porch when I arrive. I ask her to check on missing items while I look around. She jumps for the chance to do something. And then a change of attitude.”
“How so?”
“She checked in the bedroom, looking through the closet, a woman on a mission. The next time I see her she’s got a smiley face on, saying, ‘It looks like nothing’s missing. No problem. Goodnight. Thanks for stopping by.’ She did about everything but push me out the door. Something had her rattled, Harry.”
“Something in the bedroom?”
“She went in loud and irritated, came out quiet. If I had to guess, Harry, I’d say she found something important had been taken. Something no one was supposed to know about, maybe.”
Nautilus went upstairs to the master bedroom, Allen on his heels. He checked the walk-in closet. There were the ubiquitous dusty boxes on back shelves, the boxes heavy with yellowing photos and various keepsakes, typical. He saw a file cabinet in the back corner. He opened it and went through the sparse offerings.
“Looks like pieces of the past: financial stuff, mortgage records, old bank accounts, property transfers, bills. All neatly catalogued, like I’d expect from the Doc. I’ve got every hang-file occupied except one, the description card on it saying nothing. It’s simply blank.”
“Probably wasn’t anything there. But if there was, someone got it. Either the Doc or her visitor.”
“Listen, Nate, I’m gonna look around a while. Thanks for your help.”
Allen departed and Nautilus continued his search. The bathroom had the usual fixtures, the closets filled with bright towels and concoctions to scent, soothe, and soften. There was the hair-support system: blower, brushes, combs. The strongest chemical in the medicine chest was a bottle of ibuprofen. There were lotions and a bottle of perfume on a stand beside the sink.
Nautilus saved a small desk in an alcove off the kitchen for last; obviously the place Dr Prowse handled the domestic finances. He saw the standard stack of incoming bills for gas and electric, phone service, broadband, auto and so forth. There were credit-card statements. A bill from her wireless provider. Another bill for utility payments on an address in Gulf Shores, a resort-oriented seaside community on the eastern side of Mobile Bay.
The bills were a handful to plow through and he put the stack in a folder, tucked it into his briefcase for later. He’d been through the entire house. There was no office setting, or the kind of place he expected one saw patients. It seemed a bit off, given that several folks mentioned Prowse’s occasional private patients.
He sighed. His next stop was Gulf Shores. It was an hour southeast of Mobile, the last place to check for evidence of a private patient. If he could di
g some time free on his schedule, he’d go there tomorrow.
Senhor Cesar Caldiera stood before a set of mirrors in the tailor shop in Chelsea, a store selling custom-tailored and expensive off-the-rack suits. Caldiera spun one way, then the other, admiring the dark and silky garment as the mirrors presented it from all angles. He frowned, patted his belly.
“The pants feel a little snug in the waist. The tiniest bit.”
Giuseppe Palmado, tailor, slipped a finger into the waistband of the trousers, wiggled the digit. “No problem, Signor Caldiera. Give me ten minutes with a needle, I’ll give you ten years with a beautiful suit.”
Caldiera beamed as he stepped into the changing booth, knowing he’d wear the gorgeous suit out the door, perhaps with the coral shirt. He was gaining quite a nice wardrobe.
Palmado took the pants to his work table, humming operatically.
Caldiera slipped back into his khakis and checked his watch as he walked to the storefront window. Yesterday she’d arrived about this time, left a half-hour later; back to work, probably. Was she a creature of habit?
Motion from across the street. Caldiera watched a dark-haired, oval-faced woman in her early thirties cross in his direction, wearing blue running garb and wearing a daypack that most likely held her work clothes. Caldiera glanced back at Palmado. The tailor was sewing at a distant table.
A rip appeared in Caldiera’s face. Fingers pushed through the flesh and Jeremy Ridgecliff squirmed free of the false body. He took a deep breath and gazed upon the street, reveling in the clamor and motion of his new world. The length, width, depth and breadth of his new world. When he walked the streets he felt like raw wind charged with lighting, a force that was part physical, part pure magic. Women were everywhere he looked. Sometimes it took all his strength to keep from screaming with joy.
Jeremy Ridgecliff watched Alice Folger pass a corner bistro – a hundred feet distant; he heard her footfalls over the traffic as she strode toward a tidy brick brownstone, bright flowers in boxes beneath its windows. Folger stopped at the door of the brownstone, slipped a key from her purse, went inside.
Ridgecliff heard floorboards squeak behind him and slipped back inside Cesar Caldiera. Giuseppe Palmado approached, holding up the slacks.
“They’re ready, Signor Caldiera.”
“As am I,” Caldiera said. He stepped into the changing booth, slipped on the pants. He jumped back out a minute later, his smile a white crescent.
“Perfeito. Perfect.”
Palmado studied his customer – black hair, dark eyes, olive skin. “Caldiera? Is that not Spanish, signor?”
“Não. Meu nome é Portuguêse.”
“My apologies. Portuguese, of course. I was wondering, is not Caldiera from the word for kettle, or cauldron? Like in the Italian, Calderone?”
Caldiera-Ridgecliff smiled into the mirror, seeing the suit fitting like a second skin. Again, it took all his strength to keep from screaming with joy.
“Sim, Senhor Palmado, yes,” Ridgecliff said. “I am most certainly a cauldron.”
I’d banged around ideas with Waltz for a bit, went nowhere, my mind a lump of wet clay. Then he’d had to handle more dealings with the upcoming convention, so I’d returned to the hotel, taken an hour’s nap, risen and showered. I was drying my hair when the phone rang, a grating sound that made my stomach sag. I believe in premonitions, the mind sensing threat through secondary channels and telegraphing warning via the body. I hesitated before lifting the receiver.
“Hello?”
Folger’s voice. “I’m standing knee-deep in blood, Ryder. Guess what?”
“No,” I whispered.
“Oh yes. It looks like your buddy struck again.” Behind Folger’s voice I heard male voices overstepping one another, feet on wooden steps, a wailing siren. “Get your ass to the station. We’ll be back there in an hour or so. Be waiting.”
“You’re at the crime scene?” I asked.
“To repeat myself, Ryder, I want you to haul your countrified ass to the station. Take a shower, use soap, and get your butt to –”
Every time I interacted with Folger I felt like a puppet on steel wires. I was mentally worn, physically weary, tired of playing at the edge of the game. I hung the phone up.
It rang immediately. Folger said, “I hope we got cut off by accident.”
“You want something from me, you stop treating me like mule dung. I’m included in all meetings, get copies of all reports. Not just Waltz, me.”
“No way, Bubba. It’s NYPD’s show, not yours. That means I deci—”
I hung up and studied my watch. The phone rang fourteen seconds later. Folger affected a honey-drenched Southern accent, probably to keep from screaming.
“Howdy there, Swee’pea. Ah’m sending a radio cah. You prob’bly know Koslowski by now.”
Not bad, I thought, grabbing my jacket from the closet.
I figured the doorman was getting tired of Koslowski parking half up on the sidewalk outside the front door, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. I jumped in the cruiser, slammed the door. Koslowski checked the rearview, stomped the gas, and we spun a perfect 180 into the street. He cranked on the music and light show and I watched our flashers bounce from glass-fronted buildings as the speedometer climbed. Koslowski cut between a bread truck and a cab. If there’d been another coat of paint on the cruiser, we wouldn’t have made it.
Koslowski sniffed the air and seemed happier than last time. He raised an eyebrow. “Three times I pick you up. Three times a woman’s dead. Anything you want to tell me, Dixie?”
“That’s one unlucky woman.”
He paused, caught it, laughed. It knocked a bit off the wall between us.
I said, “Listen, Koslowski, the other day when I wondered what you thought of Shelly Waltz, you told me –”
He cut the wheel and we swooped around a Con Ed truck, orange traffic cones racked on its bumper. “Yeah, yeah, about Shelly and flying and unicorns and whatnot. I was just kidding with you. Kind of.”
“How so?”
He thought and dodged vehicles at the same time. I dared not look out the window.
“What I was trying to say is there’s people that work stuck to the ground, which is about everybody, and a few people that don’t. They’re not as connected to the regular stuff.”
“Folks like Shelly.”
“Yeah. It’s like he’s so far up in his head, thinking, weighing things, that he’s in a place gravity doesn’t reach.” He paused. “I’m not making sense. I ain’t good with words.”
“You’re doing great, keep going.”
“Because Shelly’s alone up there with no distractions, he can look down and see how things really are. How they fit together. It makes him a real good detective, the best. But it also makes him alone. I guess that what I meant by Shelly flying through the sky.”
“He flew at night, you said.”
“Night’s a more alone place to be.” Koslowski braked, accelerated, braked again as if gathering momentum, then charged past a horse and carriage, getting wide-eyed looks from the passengers.
“What about the unicorn?” I asked. “What did that mean?”
He settled into the center lane, shot me a wink.
“Hell, Dixie, I just threw that in for a mythical reference.”
We arrived minutes later. There was a cluster of onlookers outside the scene and Koslowski pulled to the curb. I nodded, started to open the door.
“Thanks for filling me in on things, Koslowski. When I get back South I’m gonna tell NASCAR about you.”
He tapped my arm to stop me. “One more thing about Shelly. I think you’d like to know.”
“What’s that?”
“You know his face – sad, like he’s always coming from a friend’s funeral?”
“Hard to miss.”
“I knew him thirty years back. He’d walk into the cop bar, O’Hearns, where it was dark as a friggin’ tomb, and it was like someone let the sun in. Waltz
was always smiling, laughing. He had a laugh so bright it was like dimes raining into a punchbowl.”
“What changed?”
“No one knows. One day he showed up with the face he wears now, and it never went away.”
The ageing apartment building had four doors facing the street, two ups, two downs. There was enough of a crowd that three uniforms had to keep people back while a fourth strung yellow scene tape. Several women were crying and hugging one another. I didn’t necessarily take it that they knew the victim; sometimes people just cry and need comfort because they can’t believe the horror in their midst.
I jumped from the car at the back of the crowd, pushed through as politely as possible, ducked under the tape and started up the walk.
“Whoa, sport,” a burly uniform said, bringing his baton up to my chest. “Back it up.”
“I’ve got to get in there, I’m –”
“Get behind the line.”
A whistle pierced the air. We both turned and saw Waltz on the porch, fingers in his lips. “He’s good, Bailey,” Waltz yelled, pointing at me and shooting a thumbs-up before going back inside the apartment.
“Sorry,” Bailey said. I headed up the walk, stepping inside just as the ME’s people exited what I took to be the kitchen. Folger was in there, out of the way, leaning against a wall beside a print technician checking a latent. Waltz appeared at my side, wiping his face with a handkerchief.
“What is it, Shelly? What happened?”
“The kind of thing that makes me think about early retirement.”
I saw the body on the floor just as the medical personnel were moving it to the compressed gurney. The face jammed in the belly was bright with blood. Gaping wounds rent her flesh, fierce dark slashes in stark contrast to her skin. The scent of blood and excrement was overwhelming.
“Watch the goddamn blood, it’s everywhere,” one of the med techs said, bending to grasp the corpse. Dead bodies aren’t a tenth as maneuverable as they are in movies. They also fart, belch, gurgle, and slip from your hands at inopportune moments.
