Blood Brother

by J. A. Kerley

  It’s strange the allowances I make to retain a semblance of integrity. I didn’t lie, I suggested. I never led down the primrose path, I let someone make assumptions. I never dodged, I distracted.

  “Aw crap,” I yelped, looking at my watch, a method actor.

  “What?”

  “I just looked at my watch. Late for a meeting. I gotta go.”

  “I heard about them New York minutes. You take care and don’t let ’em run you ragged. Oh, Carson?”

  “Yeah, Tom?”

  His voice dropped into serious. My mind’s eye saw concern furrowing his brow. “You’re gonna nail that sumbitch, right? That Ridgecliff fella?”

  “Ridgecliff’s all I think about, Tom. Day and night.”

  “Get him, boy. Take him down.”

  We hung up. Though the room was cool, sweat peppered my forehead, drew my shirt tight to my sides. Shelly’s questioning Tom Mason about my history was in all likelihood totally innocent, two cops talking about the only thing they had in common: me. But any questions involving my past sent my heart rate soaring, and now was no exception.

  I hit the street at a run, making it to the precinct house at nine fifteen. The crew was in what had been dubbed “the Ridgecliff Room”, the conference room displaying the timelines and photos. Bullard and Cluff were drinking coffee and pushing sleep from their faces. I shot a look at Alice Folger, got a smile back, a split-second wink. Waltz was sifting through the night’s reports. He looked up.

  “You took over yesterday, Detective. You felt strongly about Ridgecliff, obviously.”

  “Things started to come together, Shelly.”

  “You’re fully convinced Ridgecliff’s looking upscale? Everyone else had him pegged for low end.”

  “He thinks he’s being slick, but he’s also programmed in several ways.”

  “Like wanting GQ clothes and shoes after years of uniforms and slippers?”

  “Not wanting, needing. He needs to be the opposite of what he was in the Institute.”

  Bullard said, “I don’t see how Ridgecliff has a choice in the situation.” He shot a glance at Folger to make sure his tone was suitably professional.

  I waved it away, no. “We have to stop thinking of Ridgecliff’s situation as controlling him. We have to figure he’s controlling the situation.”

  Bullard grunted dissent. “He can’t control the situation when we’re on his ass.”

  “You kept the surveillance in place at the homeless camp, right?”

  “I wasn’t going to take your word that –”

  “He didn’t show, did he?”

  Bullard reddened and looked away. Cluff stepped into the circle. “You’re saying …”

  “We have to picture Jeremy Ridgecliff as a rich man on vacation in New York. That’s the life he’s living.”

  Bullard shook his head. “Except now and then something makes him want to cut a woman apart?”

  “Yes.”

  Bullard was reaching his limit again. “I don’t give a fuck how smart Ridgecliff is, he’s still a loony. Where’s he getting money? We checked Prowse’s accounts, no major withdrawals in the past six months. Ryder says Ridgecliff’s scamming the money, but won’t say how.” He jutted his chin at me like a challenge.

  I said, “You’ve never known anyone like Ridgecliff, Detective. He’s a different order of magnitude.”

  “What? He pulls gold coins out his ass? How’s he paying for all these fancy suits and Park Avenue apartments and whatever else you think he’s doing?”

  I froze. Gold coins? A conversation from days ago played in my head, the two dicks in Property Crimes discussing a paranoid schizophrenic.

  “Seems Gerald came home last night, snuck in the husband’s office safe and grabbed forty-seven grand’s worth of Krugerrands the investment guy had stashed …Said he was buying his freedom from the CIA.”

  “Don’t move,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

  I sprinted to Property Crimes, eyes following like I’d frazzled my wires. Two minutes later I was back, a puzzled cop on my heels, Sergeant Brian Hedley.

  “Tell them, Sergeant. About the investment guy who got ripped off by his paranoid brother-in-law.”

  A bemused Hedley reprised his tale of the paranoid conspiracy theorist who had been convinced to steal tens of thousands of dollars in Krugerrands and cash by a man posing as a fellow object of governmental harassment.

  Waltz said, “You’re saying Ridgecliff is the perp here?”

  Bullard grinned and clapped his hands. “We can check this one out, Ryder. The limb’s gonna bust off under you, and I’m gonna laugh the loudest.”

  “It won’t take long to verify,” Waltz said, grabbing his hat.

  TWENTY-TWO

  A rolled photo under his arm, Harry Nautilus strode into the morgue, more correctly the pathology department of the Alabama Forensics Bureau, south-western region. He waved at Vera Braden, the creamy-voiced receptionist, saluted Fred Tomlinson, the elderly security guard. Tomlinson returned the salute and went back to reading the newspaper.

  Nautilus found Doctor Clair Peltier behind her massive wood desk, a crystal vase on her desk overflowing with flowers from her garden. Given the competing scents in the morgue, Nautilus was happy the Doc was a gardener.

  “So what is it, Harry?” Peltier asked. “Your call wasn’t exactly a font of information.”

  Nautilus leaned back to look out Peltier’s door; no one in the hall. Still, he closed the door. “I wanted to show you something, Doc. Just between us.”

  Puzzlement clouded Peltier’s arctic blue eyes. “Sure.”

  Nautilus unrolled the photo. He stood across from Peltier’s desk and held it up. She studied the shot.

  “He’s a damn good-looking …wait, is that? My God, Harry, is that …?”

  “Yep. Jeremy Ridgecliff dressed only in his own skin. A recent photo.”

  Peltier pulled her lanyarded reading glasses to her face, studied the photograph. “I’ve only seen photos from Ridgecliff’s arrest. He looked like a kid, though he was twenty-six. He still could pass for early thirties.” She dropped the glasses back to her waist. “Any specific reason you wanted me to see this?”

  “Because you’re one of the few who know the secret about Carson and Jeremy Ridgecliff. And you know Carson. Put your glasses on again. Look at Ridgecliff’s expression.”

  She pulled the half-glasses to her face. “And?”

  “The look on Ridgecliff’s face …isn’t that almost the exact expression Carson gets when he’s …” Nautilus let the words hang, wanting to be no further influence.

  Peltier’s mouth fell open. Her hand flew to cover it.

  “When he’s about to confess something he’s been hiding. Half-frown, half sad-ass smile. Teeth tight together. Jeez, Harry, now that you mention it, that’s Carson’s Ready or Not, Here it Comes look. I once told him I could hear that look in the dark.”

  “The boy’ll never be a poker player. I’m glad you agree. I thought maybe I was going nuts.”

  “You’re not. Who the hell took the picture?”

  Nautilus re-rolled the photograph. “Uh, it looks like the photographer was Evangeline Prowse. It would have been taken at the Institute.”

  Peltier raised a dark and slender eyebrow. “Carson’s trip to New York. It’s bad? He’s been real close-lipped.”

  “He’s walking a fine line. I get the feeling the less we know, the better. I think he’s trying to keep me insulated for a couple reasons.”

  Peltier prodded a small clear bag on her desk. “I just received my own piece of New York. A sample of hair and fiber evidence collected at two Manhattan crime scenes, heavy on the hair follicles. You heard? Gathered from New York salons and barber shops, mixed with a ragpicker’s sampling of fibers. The NYPD forensics folks think it’s useless, especially since they’re convinced it was gathered by Ridgecliff, and he’s already the prime suspect …”

  “Gotcha. So why is it here?”

&nb
sp; “Carson wanted me to see if there was anything I could discern from the material.”

  Nautilus sighed. “Carson being Carson. What’re you planning to do? Wait until he forgets about it and fixates on something else?”

  “I’m going to load it all in the gas chromatograph. I’ll burn it, then the toxicologist and I will read the combined results of the hairs from several hundred heads.”

  “Isn’t that stuff usually run a hair or two at a time?”

  “It’s all I can do. It’s like dropping a net over a thousand horses.”

  “Won’t the result be a net full of horses?”

  Peltier folded her arms and stared at the bag of hair like it had challenged her to a duel.

  “Unless I somehow see a zebra.”

  Nautilus held his confusion in check. He tucked the photo under his arm. “I’m out of here. I’ve actually got a Mobile case or two to deal with. Then I have to call Carson and fill him in on what I’ve been digging up.”

  “Anything big?”

  “A mish-mash of weirdness with no common denominator. There was the photo, of course. Plus an invisible client of Prowse’s, and from nowhere a mention of the DC Snipers. What happened to the good old days of drive-bys and domestic shootings?”

  “Thanks for showing me the photograph, Harry. That look on Ridgecliff’s face is amazing and kind of scary. It truly is Carson’s confession look.”

  “They’re brothers,” Nautilus said. “Same blood, same genes. Carson said that when they were kids, one could start a sentence and the other would finish it without missing a word.”

  “Like twins, born six years apart.”

  “A few differences, thankfully,” Nautilus said. He flicked a wave and walked out the door.

  Peltier suppressed a shudder that came from nowhere. She stared at the bag of evidence from the NYPD, then filled out the request for a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer test, underscoring the word immediate.

  Rebecca Weinglass stood beside her Krugerrand-appropriating brother, Gerald Orman, a mousy-gray, fortyish man in a faded cardigan, gray slacks, leather slippers. Orman hunched low in a plush chair in the center of the condo’s expansive living room. The furniture, Oriental carpets and objets d’art said we were in a place where large amounts of gold were at home. So did Ms Weinglass’s dress, a designer something-or-other that did a good job of disguising her stout frame. Since we hadn’t called ahead, I figured she wore the diamonds every morning at breakfast.

  Ms Weinglass’s stubby and bejeweled fingers squeezed Gerald’s thin shoulder. He winced at the touch. Gerald looked as if he would have been more comfortable at the Spanish Inquisition, the effect of a half-dozen cops staring at him.

  “Gerald has been taking his medications,” Ms Weinglass crooned. “It’s brought him back to us. He’s promised to keep taking his meddies. Isn’t that right, hon?”

  Gerald didn’t look so sure. A fair amount of those with delusions and hallucinations think the meds make them dull and robotic, and they prefer the rush of internal voices and colors that sing.

  Waltz stepped closer to Gerald. “We think we may have a lead on the man, Mr Orman. We’d like you to look at a photograph. You recall him, don’t you? The man who made you take the money and gold?”

  Orman squinted and blinked rapidly. If he’d had whiskers I’d have tossed him a chunk of cheddar.

  “Not …very well. It was dark. And I was terrified. At first I thought he was going to kill me. He was very frightening.”

  “Poor dear,” Ms Weinglass recited, patting Gerald’s shoulder. He winced and sank lower in the chair.

  Waltz slipped the trifolded photo from his jacket pocket, unfolded it. Everyone leaned a little closer. Waltz held the photo a foot from Gerald’s nose.

  “Ever seen this man before?” Waltz said.

  Gerald closed his eyes and began twitching all over.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” Waltz said.

  When we got back to the station I was The Man. Even Bullard stayed quiet. The whole Ridgecliff team, main and peripheral, followed me into the conference room. Cargyle was pulled in by the hubbub, carrying a broken monitor, yammering into a phone, tools slapping at his side. Even two janitors got caught in our forward motion, grinning in the corner and watching the show.

  Folger took the lectern, clapped her hands to get attention.

  “Listen up, people. I want everyone to start showing Ridgecliff’s photo at toney eateries. Other suggestions, Ryder? Your gut’s got the floor.”

  “Ridgecliff has dark hair. Black probably. I’d bet on a mustache, too. He’ll be disguised as a …a …”

  It wasn’t my gut talking. It was years of life with my brother. A brother who had always lamented his pale yellow hair – my father’s hair – calling it the color of phlegm, always wishing he could trade it for my head upholstery, brown almost to black.

  I froze and saw my brother in my mind. Listened to his words over the years. Heard him speaking a few phrases in a foreign language.

  “Aloiso is a good man, Carson …um homem bom. Tem problemas, mas nós todos temos problemas.”

  I went to the window and looked out, yet saw nothing but the movies in my head. I made mental tallies of data, subtracting what didn’t fit. I felt my pulse quicken and sweat prickle on my forehead.

  Everyone stood back and gave me room to pace, afraid of breaking the spell. I painted a picture of my brother in my head, added a shift in eye color via tinted contacts – simple with money – tossed in three bucks’ worth of hair color, and perhaps a couple of visits to a tanning salon or using a skin toner to ameliorate his pale skin.

  “Come on, Ryder,” Cluff prompted. “What?”

  Images whirled, facts aligned. The answer fell into place as perfectly as if whispered in my ear.

  “He’s a Portuguese businessman,” I said.

  “No way,” Bullard spat.

  I said, “One of the patients at the Institute is Aloiso Silviera. He and Ridgecliff were buddies.”

  Aloiso Silviera was a rapist-murderer of Portuguese descent who terrorized Boston for seven years. Jeremy had always spoken of Silviera with a sort of condescending camaraderie.

  “Aloiso’s unhappy in love, Carson. But he has a primitive charm, a love of beauty, um amor da beleza.”

  Cluff winced. “Friends? Silviera?”

  “Less a friendship than an alliance. Ridgecliff forms alliances with people he can take something from. I’ve heard him speak Portuguese. Small phrases.”

  Cluff said, “That’s hardly enough to pass as a –”

  “You don’t understand, Detective. Ridgecliff wouldn’t have used any Portuguese phrases unless he felt fluent in the language.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “He’d consider it presumptuous.”

  Cluff’s pencil hit the desk. “I’m not buying into –”

  “Shhh,” Folger said. “Keep going, Ryder. If Ridgecliff speaks Portuguese, it makes sense he’d use it in his disguise. Your gut tell you why he’s here?”

  “To kill,” Cluff said. “That’s obvious.”

  “Maybe. Ridgecliff would see the prospect of killing in Manhattan as a supreme challenge. The ultimate high-wire act.”

  Folger gave me a look teetering between belief and doubt. “Bottom line: Jeremy Ridgecliff is a dark-haired, well-dressed Portuguese businessman living in an upscale neighborhood? That’s the way you’re seeing him?”

  “I think it’s a strong assumption.”

  A call came for Cluff and he slipped away to take it. I fended off Devil’s Advocate questions about my conclusion, strengthening my own belief along the way.

  Cluff returned, held up a page of fresh notes. Cleared his throat. “Maybe we should keep looking other directions as well.”

  “Why’s that?” Folger asked.

  Cluff flicked a page. “I finally got some background on the Bernal vic, the one without a history? Looks like she worked at Bridges.”

  “Son of a
bitch,” Waltz said. “Bridges.”

  “Bridges?” Cargyle said, looking startled. “She, uh, worked on bridges?”

  “At Bridges, kid,” Cluff said. “Bridges Juvenile Center. Over in the Bronx, medium to high security, tough cases. Bernal was a housekeeper at Bridges for four or five years. It stopped five years back when Bernal got citizenship, started climbing the ladder to better jobs.”

  Waltz looked at me. “Juvie detention. With Dora Anderson working in Child Welfare in Newark back then, there was some overlap. We’ve got a possible connection between Anderson and Bernal. Troubled kids.”

  They were running down the wrong path again. I shook my head, no, no no.

  “Pure coincidence,” I said. “Ridgecliff was in the Institute when the two women worked in the juvie system.”

  Cluff raised an eyebrow at Folger, “Your call, Lieutenant. Should I keep digging on Bernal?”

  Folger shook her head. “Not now, but I reserve the right to change my mind.”

  “Woman’s prerogative,” Bullard said. He could have said it funny or shaded it toward sarcastic. He leaned it the second way. Folger’s eyes narrowed in his direction.

  “What’d I say?” he wheedled. “Jeez, sorry for fucking living.”

  Folger clapped her hands for attention. “Here’s the drill: Suspend background checking of Anderson and Bernal, we don’t have the time. Get Ridgecliff’s pic doctored like Ryder says and start pushing it past maître-ds and rental agents and the like.”

  Everything I suggested was done. The detectives hit the streets with updated photos and new avenues to find their quarry. Waltz had testimony on a case, went out the door practicing his lines. It was past lunch and I hit a Thai restaurant a few blocks down the street.

  When I returned an hour later, Waltz was back at his desk. “How’d the testimony go?” I asked.

  He put his hand high above his head, snapped it down. “Slam dunk.” He was in a good mood like everyone else on the case, the effect of seeing light at the end of the tunnel. It wasn’t much, a half a lumen maybe, but it was supernova bright compared to all the dark we’d seen.