Blood and Bone

by V. M. Giambanco

  Ryan Clifford paused as if trying to remember. “A lumberjack hooded jacket, I think.”

  “You’re doing great, Ryan. How long ago did he leave the shop?”

  “’Bout three minutes ago.”

  “Hood up or down?”

  “Up. He walked off in the direction of the ferries. I wanted to make sure he wasn’t coming back before I called you guys.”

  “We’re on our way. Patrol officers will be with you very shortly.”

  Madison replaced the receiver and grabbed her jacket. “Can you believe this?” she said to Brown.

  “We’ll see,” he replied.

  The pawn shop was only minutes away by car. The radio crackled with the communications from the uniformed officers who had arrived there and were searching for the suspect.

  “If he’s got transport, we’ve already lost him,” Madison said.

  “We’re not going to lose him,” Brown muttered with grim determination.

  Blue jeans and a red-and-black lumberjack jacket didn’t exactly make him stand out from the crowd, but it was what they had.

  The traffic was moving too slowly. Brown and Madison were three blocks from the pawn shop and their eyes scanned the sidewalks. Men in suits, men in jeans with leather jackets, men in heavy sweaters and fleeces.

  The radio came back: “Possible suspect on foot on Pine Street, crossing First Avenue, headed southwest. Approach with caution.”

  Brown and Madison were stuck behind a school bus. Every driver in the downtown area seemed to have decelerated to a painful crawl.

  “Suspect has seen us and is running. Be advised the suspect is running southwest on Pine.”

  “He’s going for the market crowd,” Brown said.

  At the end of Pine Street, the Pike Place Market would be busy with tourists. There were fresh-food stalls at street level and a multilevel warren of shops and restaurants inside that led down toward the water. They could not afford to let him get anywhere near it.

  “I see him,” Madison said and she opened the door and was gone, darting quickly between the slow cars.

  “Shit,” Brown cursed under his breath.

  Madison had been faster than the patrol cars. She was about two hundred feet behind the suspect and pounding the concrete. Sirens howled somewhere nearby. She ran with all she had. Was he armed? Would he take somebody hostage? She should have had a plan, but she didn’t have one—except to get to the man and stop him where he was.

  The man took a sharp left and continued on Pike Place, avoiding shoppers and tourists and never looking back. He dashed under the market’s roof and down a stairway.

  Damn, he’s inside. He’s gone in. Madison followed him twenty seconds later, aware that a couple of uniformed officers were also in pursuit behind her. Madison took the steps two at a time. The stairway was empty and as they reached the first level, crumpled at the bottom, she recognized the red and black lumberjack jacket. Out of the stairway the landing opened into a wide avenue of shops.

  Madison turned to one of the patrol officers. “We need to know what he was wearing under his coat, if the clerk saw it. Suspect’s not wearing a coat now.”

  The officer, a woman Madison had never met—her tag said M. Richards—started on her radio. Madison looked around; all she could see were placid shoppers going about their business. The hallways were teeming: a holiday group from England—their guide narrating the history of the market—seemed to have filled every available space. She reminded herself of the description. Dark hair, blue eyes, about one hundred and fifty pounds. How many men wore blue jeans? How many were shopping alone? She looked at the red and black jacket. She looked at the crowd of tourists. Within a few steps of the stairway there was a handful of shops: collectibles, magic tricks, prints and stamps, a barber. More uniformed officers had arrived and were making their way through the throng. Madison let them go past. What she had seen when she first arrived was stillness, people looking at the shop windows. It didn’t look as if a man had just come tearing through, running for his life.

  “He could be close,” Brown said, suddenly by her side.

  “Look at the man in the barber’s chair,” she replied.

  A dark-haired man kept his eyes on the cops, coming and going, in the mirror while the barber was chatting away. The man had a wide black gown that covered his clothing and Madison could not see what kind of trousers he was wearing. The man’s eyes shifted back and forth.

  The British group was beginning to move to another area, dutifully following their guide.

  Officer Richards was back. “The clerk says a white T-shirt. Maybe. Couldn’t swear on it. And we’ve got officers on all the exits now.”

  “Thank you,” Madison said. Her eyes were focused on heads and shirts.

  The man had had enough of an advantage on them to be able to reach the first level, get rid of his jacket—nothing in the pockets, Madison had checked—and mix with the tourists without the smallest ripple of unease in the crowd. He wasn’t going to stick around if he could help it; he would want to get out of there as quickly and smoothly as he could. And there were cops waiting for him at each exit. Madison didn’t want him to get that far: she wanted him isolated and alone. He can see us, wherever he is, he can see us. If he hadn’t visited the Duncans with a firearm in his pocket maybe he wouldn’t be carrying one now—or a knife.

  Brown and Madison followed the British group at a distance; their chatter bounced around the shops and the wide hallways. As she passed, Madison looked at the guy in the barber’s chair—he wore white sneakers and the strip of trousers visible under the gown was pale gray.

  “He knows we’re close enough to touch him,” Brown whispered. “My bet is he won’t be able to keep himself from checking us out.”

  Madison nodded.

  A handful of teenage boys—loud, giggly, and loaded with bags from the collectibles shop—came running past and Madison was startled.

  “There,” Brown said.

  The British group had parted as the boys ran through, revealing a couple who had been in the middle of it: a slim brunette with a deep red mountain jacket and a backpack, and a man. He was speaking to her and she laughed. He had dark hair, blue jeans, and a long-sleeved white T-shirt, and on that sunny November day he was most definitely not wearing a coat.

  He saw them observing him and stopped talking; his eyes traveled around the hall and Madison knew he was weighing his chances with that many cops around. Their eyes met. She shook her head. A tiny movement that said: Don’t do it, whatever you’re thinking of doing. Don’t. He seemed to be thinking about it. He could have easily grasped the woman by the arm and things would have gone sideways very rapidly from there. The memory of Matthew Duncan lying in his own blood came and went, but a cold, clammy feeling nestled in Madison’s gut.

  Brown was next to her; Madison felt his proximity like steady ground when you’ve been swimming hard. He was utterly still.

  The man’s features were plain, with a straight nose and high cheekbones. His smile to the woman had been pleasant and now she was looking at him curiously.

  His decision was a heartbeat away. Madison sensed it and feared it and was about to move, and yet Brown’s stillness was like gravity and it kept her where she was.

  “Wait,” he said softly.

  The man’s pale blue eyes did another circle around the market. Maybe he was seeing all the futures that he might be allowed, all the possibilities that twisted away from this single moment: if he ran and made it outside, if he stayed and seized the woman by the neck, if he gave himself up.

  He blinked. His face went blank and, very slowly, keeping his hands away from his pockets, he raised his arms, laced his fingers over his head, and dropped to his knees.

  They were on him, cuffed him, read him his rights, and marched him out so quickly that most of the tourists didn’t even realize what was happening. The woman who had been chatting with him was left slightly bewildered as a uniformed officer took her to one sid
e and explained.

  By the time the British group spilled out of the market onto the bright waterfront, the man was in the back of a patrol car on his way to the precinct.

  The man’s name was Mark Tyler Jefferies and one hour later he sat in the empty interrogation room; his legs were stretched long under the table and one arm was draped behind the back of the chair. He had been there before; maybe not in that particular room, but certainly in a similar one, with a lock on the door and people with badges asking questions. Madison watched him from behind the mirrored glass. He was calm and he hadn’t asked for a lawyer yet. He had dealt with his arrest as if it were a question of bad luck on an already crappy day—inevitable, sure, but nothing to get too worked up about.

  Madison had called Sorensen and left a message on her voice mail: she had a suspect in the box and no evidence except for the ring. She felt underprepared. If this man was a ruthless killer she was the one who had to put him away with almost nothing—any lawyer would be able to talk away the ring. He could have found it, a friend of a friend could have given it to him in payment for something, a UFO could have landed in the middle of Pioneer Square and a little green man could have given it to him before flying off. And yet, if he was the man who had done what the killer had done to the victim . . .

  The door opened and Brown came in; his face was a mask of disbelief. “It’s not the ring,” he said.

  “What?”

  “It is a ring, obviously. Just not our ring.”

  Brown held up a small plastic bag; a small gold band caught the light. “This has a ruby with two diamonds on each side. Ours has three. Three diamonds. This is not our ring.”

  Madison turned her gaze back on the man in the box.

  His eyes were closed and his head leaned back against the chair.

  Mark Tyler Jefferies had run when he saw the uniformed officers were following him because there was an Idaho arrest warrant on his head for assault in the second degree and larceny. He knew he was running a risk with the ring he had stolen from his girlfriend’s mother, but he had run out of money.

  It was Brown’s pleasure to tell him that in all probability no one would have noticed the ring if he had pawned it three days earlier.

  He would be remanded to the King County jail until the marshals had the time and the inclination to pick him up and ferry him home to Boise.

  Chapter 9

  Madison was as disappointed as she was relieved, and felt guilty about both. Andy Dunne had teased her once that she would make a great Catholic. Just let guilt run pretty much everything you do, he’d said, and after six days of agonizing soul searching and self-doubt you’ll be ready for church on Sunday.

  Brown brought her a cup of coffee from the rec room.

  “Do I look that bad?” Madison said.

  “You look like you need a cup of coffee.”

  “That I do.”

  They both knew that it tasted like thin mud. But it’s the thought that counts.

  “Did you get through to Kamen?” Madison asked. As Brown was about to answer her cell started vibrating. “Madison,” she said.

  “This is Annie Collins, Kate Duncan’s friend.”

  “Yes, of course.” Madison remembered the hug between the two women.

  “We were followed,” the woman said.

  The words had rushed out in a panicked flow.

  “What do you—?”

  “I took Kate for a short walk around the Botanic Gardens and we were followed. A man followed us.”

  “Was he from the press? Did he take pictures?”

  “No, no pictures.”

  “Look, we’ll be right over. How’s Mrs. Duncan?”

  “She’s terrified. Wouldn’t you be?”

  Annie Collins was pale when she opened the door, but otherwise she looked composed and her voice had lost the edge of fear that Madison had heard on the phone. The house was in Montlake, which, Madison automatically estimated, fell in the Seattle PD East Precinct territory; she briefly considered who she knew in the East Precinct patrol who could keep an eye on the house as they went about their shift.

  Annie Collins led Brown and Madison into the living room and went to get Kate Duncan. It was a large, comfortable room with a matching set of flowery sofas and armchairs. Nothing in it was more than three years old and the kitchen, glimpsed as they walked past, was a shining expanse of white.

  Kate Duncan came through. Her blond hair had been tied back and there were livid shadows under her eyes. She sat on an armchair and pulled her legs under her like a young girl. Her friend stood by with a protective hand on her shoulder.

  “Thank you for coming,” she said, her voice shaking. “I haven’t been sleeping, we haven’t been sleeping.” She gave her friend a wan smile. “And today it was all too much.”

  “Please tell us what happened,” Madison said.

  The woman gathered herself and her friend squeezed her shoulder. “We decided to take a little walk because the gardens are close by and the sun was shining and everything in the last two days has been so . . .” She couldn’t find a word to describe the enormity of what had happened so she continued. “We had been walking our usual paths and I noticed that a man who had been behind us when we first walked into the gardens was walking behind us again. I didn’t think too much of it, but as we went on he followed exactly . . . I mean he was always there . . . he took the same . . . he was watching us.”

  Her eyes were wide.

  Madison turned to Annie Collins.

  “I saw him too,” the woman nodded.

  “What happened then?” Madison said.

  “I was sure that he was following us so I turned and looked at him. I thought he might have been a photographer . . .” The word hung in the air; photographers had chased her out of the house that first horrendous night. Kate Duncan shook her head. “But he just stood there. He stopped and he stood there and he stared at me.”

  “How far away from you was he?”

  “About twenty yards,” Kate Duncan said.

  “What did he look like?” Madison said.

  “Tall, thin, I don’t know . . . he was wearing dark clothes. A black windbreaker with a hood. The light was behind him and I couldn’t see his face clearly.”

  “How tall?”

  “Over six feet tall.”

  “Did he do anything, say anything?”

  “No, he just stared for a really long time and then turned around and left.”

  “Did he try to speak with you at any time?” Madison asked her.

  “No.”

  “And are you sure this is someone you have never met before?”

  “I’ve never seen him before in my life.”

  “And you?” Madison asked her friend.

  “No, I’ve never seen him before.”

  “Were there other people around?”

  “A few, not many. He stood out,” Kate Duncan said, and she forced a small laugh. “You’re going to tell us this has nothing to do with what happened, right? That this was some weirdo in a park?”

  “We’re going to look into it, Mrs. Duncan. Chances are that, yes, that’s exactly what it was. You’ve been in the papers and there are many people out there who are curious and inappropriate.”

  “Did you get a sense of whether he was looking at either one of you in particular?” Brown said. “Or perhaps he was looking at both of you?”

  “He was looking at me,” Kate Duncan said. “He was looking straight at me.”

  The traffic was slow as they made their way back downtown. They had jotted down their notes and after a few more questions they had left the two women sitting next to each other on the plush sofa. Mrs. Collins’s husband would be home soon from work and her young children were expected back any minute.

  Kate Duncan had asked Madison whether they had any leads or maybe a suspect for her husband’s murder and Madison had to tell her that, no, they didn’t, they were still working on it.

  “She looked petrified,�
�� Brown said, almost to himself.

  Madison had noticed that he had hardly spoken—nevertheless, his focus had been absolute.

  “We can’t rush in and assume that this stalker-type person is linked to the murder,” he said. “But we can’t rule it out either.”

  “What we have is a tall, thin guy in dark clothes driving a car they didn’t see and not attempting to make any contact with them—that is, with her,” Madison said. She was trying very hard not to look for zebras where there might only be horses.

  “He did exactly what he was supposed to do and then he left.”

  Madison shifted in her seat and turned to Brown. “What was he supposed to do?”

  “He wanted her to see him,” Brown said simply. “He wanted to make sure that she saw him and that she knew he had seen her.”

  “To what purpose?”

  “We’ll ask him when we get to meet him.”

  “I see.”

  “Well, either he’s your garden-variety creep who saw Kate Duncan, recognized her, and wanted a closer look. Or he’s something else altogether but didn’t want to harm her, in which case he might turn up again and we’ll get to ask him.”

  “You don’t sound too worried.”

  “The only thing that matters is that he could have gotten a hell of a lot closer and he chose not to.”

  “True. Then again, what if he didn’t spot them for the first time in the parking lot? What if he followed them from the house to the gardens and then decided to let himself be seen?”

  Brown did not answer. Whether he had gone back to the flow of his own thoughts as a preferable way to pass the time, or the act of driving through the early-evening rush hour was absorbing all of his attention, Madison couldn’t say. Nevertheless, she was glad that, on leaving the Collins house, she had reached out to a colleague in the East Precinct and let her know that Mrs. Duncan was staying there and that she might have a stalker. The colleague had commented that at present they had seventeen stalking-type situations they were aware of in the precinct and one more wouldn’t break the bank.