Blood Games

by Lee Killough

  Not a problem.

  While filling with gas at a convenience store in Kirwin, he took control of the clerk inside long enough to borrow the young man’s phone for a call to the Phillips County Sheriff’s Office. Anonymous call, untraceable to him.

  “A buddy told me something this morning that sounds suspicious,” he told woman who answered. “He was out fishing on Kirwin Tuesday morning and spotted this tall, skinny, white-haired guy and a couple of girls on the boat ramp on the southern shore pushing a blue pickup with a topper into the lake. He didn’t tell anyone but me because he’d called in sick to go fishing, but I thought you ought to know about it.”

  “And what’s your name, sir?”

  Garreth disconnected.

  Hopefully the albino and pickup’s descriptions would ring a bell. Assuming the Phillips SO notified the Bellamy SO, he ought to hear about it soon enough. He headed back on the albino’s trail.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Driving and drinking breakfast, Garreth focused on the suspects. He felt them ahead, but...how far? The bakery signs and bad muffler made the Aerostar conspicuous. Was the albino confident enough about his vehicle switch going undiscovered to keep going in the Aero...or would he take no chances and do something about the bad muffler and bakery signs to make the van less identifiable? If so, where and how. They were likely to be remembered at a muffler shop, assuming one of the little towns along the way had a shop that could replace the muffler right away. Patching it themselves was safer. They could not have acquired the materials in Cyrus, though. The stores there would have still been closed when the albino took possession of the Aerostar. They would be open in Eunice by the time the albino reached there, however. According to his map, Eunice had a state lake nearby, which would provide a secluded place to work on the muffler and spray paint over the bakery signs. Spray paint could not stand up to close scrutiny but would pass until they reached somewhere with a good variety of auto services and size enough for strangers to go unnoticed. Such as Kearney or Grand Island.

  The sun shone merciless and oppressive by the time he reached Eunice. Should he check in with the local police and accompany them to the local Wal-Mart and Orscheln to see if one of the bb’s showed up on a security tape buying white paint and Fiberglass patches? Would that further the investigation other than verifying alteration of the van’s appearance and, maybe provide him with an actual photo image of the girls? Was it worth spending time here when he knew the three had left? He felt the pull tugging north.

  Forget Eunice.

  Across the state line in Nebraska he called the PD office. “Have we had any reply to my query to Spokane or Billings?”

  “Both of them replied,” Wendy Bessler said. “Neither have record of a dead female matching the description we sent. You need to call the SO. That pickup may have been located.”

  Garreth filled his voice with astonishment. “Terrific! Where?”

  “Kirwin Reservoir.”

  “Well I’ll be damned. I passed right by there. Right now I’m in Eunice checking muffler shops. I’ll give Reichert a call.” But he called Cheyenne instead and traced down Bradshaw.

  Bemusement edged Bradshaw’s voice. “The Clearinghouse sent us a number of possible matches on those females. I had no idea before how many small blonde females of twelve and thirteen disappear each year. They gave us a dozen from the northwest region alone. Only about four possibles for Valerie, though. I’ll run those by Greenstreet a little later. Where do you want me to fax everything?”

  Just ahead lay the Republican River and the town of Pony Ford. “Let me call you back.”

  The locked door of the town marshal’s office bore a notice that he had gone to court and law enforcement complaints should be directed to the sheriff’s office. But the local Dillon’s had a fax machine.

  “It’s ninety-nine cents a page,” the clerk said.

  “No problem.” He called Bradshaw back and gave him the fax number.

  The photos wrenched at him. They all looked so very young...just babies. He hated to think of the sweet faces gone street hard and innocent eyes turned old, and how many were probably dead or dying...from malnutrition and abuse, from drugs, from AIDS or venereal disease or hepatitis. But none of the blonde females’ photos looked more than generally familiar, in the way that many pre-pubescent children resembled each other, and he recognized none of the four dark-haired possibles. Two of the photos, obviously school photos, Deborah Adkinson of a fixed Beauty Queen smile or sullen Rebecca Newman with the skinned back hair, might have come close if they had not been so stiff that Garreth doubted they bore any resemblance to the living children.

  He gathered the photos and information sheets, thanked the clerk, and resumed the drive toward Kearney.

  On the way he finally called Reichert. “I hear the pickup’s been located. You know, I kept looking at farm ponds but dismissing them because they didn’t look deep enough. It looks like the suspects found a better solution.”

  “Yeah. And I need you to stand by representing our department while Philllips County processes the vehicle.”

  Damn! Somehow that order had to be evaded, without seeming to. He must not lose his authorization to work the case. “You want me to backtrack all that way?”

  “All...” From Reichert’s tone, Garreth visualized the sheriff frowning. “Where are you?”

  “Kearney.” Close. He would be there in an hour.

  A long silence came from the other end, then: “Mikaelian, turn around and head back to Kirwin. You were pushing our agreement when you wanted to go to Cheyenne. I’m not sure why I let you...maybe because it wasn’t active pursuit. But you certainly edged on the line by taking off north, though that has resulted in learning what vehicle the suspects are driving now. Now if you keep going, you are in actual pursuit. You know I can’t allow that.”

  If only he were face to face with Reichert, staring the sheriff in the eyes. He felt so helpless this far away on the phone!

  Reichert must have sensed his resistance. His voice hardened. “Go to Kirwin. Don’t make me put out an ATL on you and have you dragged back here. Because I will!”

  Garreth had no doubt. Setting his jaw, he made his voice submissive. “Yes, sir. I’m on my way back.”

  “Oh, one more thing...leave your phone on.”

  He tried telling himself that the delay was little enough price enough to pay for staying on the hunt. Maybe fortune would smile and let them find prints the albino had not bothered wiping off and the water not washed off. If only the image of the blindfolded man quit playing in his head, raising a storm of impatience and protest.

  Daylight crushed him. He passed through Pony Ford, anger driving his foot down on the accelerator. Crossed into Kansas, passed Eunice.

  Five miles south of Eunice, the phone warbled.

  “Okay, forget Kirwin,” Reichert said when he answered. “I’m sending you to Lincoln. Our suspects have been there. Only this time they didn’t leave a bloody glass and towel in their hotel room; they left a bloody man.”

  Ice ran down Garreth’s spine. “Alive or dead?” It had to be the blindfolded man. Once more he heard the albino say: Drink it while it’s still warm. As though the man and his blood would soon be cold.

  “Alive, fortunately,” Reichert said.

  Garreth let his breath. “When was he assaulted?”

  “Last night. He was found tied up in his hotel room about an hour ago. You’re there to shadow the officers on the case, no more...understand...and if they located the suspect, to identify him.”

  Found just an hour ago? “How did they link this incident to our suspects so fast?”

  “Because, according to the detective I talked to, the victim’s assailant was a man over six feet tall dressed as a woman and calling himself Margaret Lebekov.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The scene could be Cheyenne all over again...parking the car, slogging across the street through the press of daylight to a police building
, showing his ID at the desk inside and asking for an officer, this time a Sergeant Kreutzer. Though as opposed to the early morning quiet in Cheyenne, driving through the bustle of Lincoln’s noon hour with the Bellamy County emblems on the Porsche's doors earned him a whole succession of double takes.

  One thing had changed dramatically from Cheyenne. There he studied an old, cold trail to learn the shape of the suspects’ tracks. Here he breathed down their necks. If he had any doubt of their involvement in this, it vanished as soon as he arrived in the city. He felt them. Closing his eyes, he tried to sense direction. East...and north...

  A voice pierced his concentration. “Mikaelian? Emil Kreutzer.” A-mill Kroit-zer.

  Opening his eyes, he found the voice’s owner bearing down the corridor toward him....a rich chestnut complexion and the slim elegance of a dancer contrasting sharply with the Teutonic name. And with every step Garreth felt himself growing scruffier by comparison. Kreutzer possessed that sartorial gene that let him wear an off-the-rack suit like an Armani.

  “The car’s this way.” Kreutzer swept Garreth up in passing, like movie footage Garreth had seen of trains snagging mailbags from poles, dragging him back into the oppression of midday light. “I don’t know which you’re most interest in, the crime scene or the victim.”

  We don’t need either, Garreth wanted to say. All we need to do is head northeast.

  Kreutzer never paused for an answer. “The truth is, we’ll just be underfoot at the hotel--fortunately we connected these perps with your suspects in time to secure the room for processing--so I’m headed to Lincoln General for another interview with the vict--” He stopped in mid stride and swung to peer at Garreth over the top of dark glasses. “Mikaelian? The same Mikaelian this turkey tried to kill? And you’re working the case?”

  Garreth made himself smile as he lied. “Not working it.” He could hardly go around trying to exert mental control over everyone in the world. “Sheriff Reichert sent me because if you catch the suspects, I can identify them.”

  Kreutzer pushed the sun glasses up his nose. “Oh yeah? If you don’t mind me asking, exactly what went down? There’s my car.”

  When they turned north out of the parking lot, then east, for a minute Garreth hoped the hospital lay the direction the suspects had gone, but Kreutzer was only heading for a street to take south. Sighing inwardly, Garreth filled Kreutzer in on his encounters with the albino and crew and their victims.

  The detective grimaced. “This guy’s some piece of work. Let me give you the latest chapter. Victim’s name is Lowell Becker. He’s one of the exhibitors at the New Security Technologies exhibition that opened at Pershing Arena yesterday...hawking a pepper foam and security version of silly string, I gather. A housekeeper found him in his room at the Cornhusker Hotel this morning. The door had a Do Not Disturb sign on it but she said that since he’d left early the last three days and no one answered when she knocked, she went on in to make up the room. She thought at first she’d caught him asleep, since he was covered with the blanket. Then he moaned and she saw his head wrapped up in duct tape. She called hotel security. They called us. Our responding officer and the paramedics arrived about the same time. A hotel security officer had already freed Becker’s wrists and ankles and pulled off the gag and blindfold.”

  “Laying the tape out flat, I hope.”

  “You’re thinking about latent prints on the back side?” Kreutzer grimaced. “Unfortunately he balled it up as he pulled it off. But he hadn’t touched some duct tape around the victim’s left arm, and our officer made sure the paramedic cut it off carefully.”

  “Why was the arm wrapped?”

  “The tape and a folded pair of jockey shorts under it made a pressure bandage for a gash on the victim’s arm. The paramedic told Officer Reece that without it Becker would probably have bled to death.”

  Garreth blinked. The albino left Maggie and him to die but not Becker? “What does the victim say about what happened?”

  Kreutzer grunted. “Next to nothing, just that a tranny calling himself Margaret Lebekov stuck a Desert Eagle in his face--Mr. Becker knows enough about firearms to be able to identify them even staring into the muzzle--forced him back to his room and made him strip naked, then wrapped him up in duct tape and cut his arm with a knife. After a bit he also stated that the assailant licked his arm and might have been drinking his blood. But the name Margaret Lebekov and mention of the weapon your ATL gave as stolen from her alerted Reece to the possibility of Becker’s attacker being the same as yours.”

  Waiting at a red light, Kreutzer drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “I don’t know what Becker’s holding back, but it’s something. He’s not injured enough for hospitalization but we’re stalling, holding him in the ER for ‘observation’ until we can pry more details out of him.”

  If the albino knew Becker was involved in security technology, no doubt he enjoyed the irony, Garreth reflected. Perhaps he picked Becker for just that reason.

  A car ahead swerved into their lane, almost into their bumper. Kreutzer’s hand shot toward the siren switch, hovered, then fell away as he shrugged. “Even without Becker’s cooperation, we’ve learned a few facts. At one point he suggested Officer Reece quit wasting time with him and ‘go catch the bastards before they check out.’ Reece doesn’t think Becker realized he used the plurals, and doesn’t know why Becker was sure they were staying at the hotel, but Reece called the desk. Good move. They told him that a Margaret Lebekov and her son and daughter had been registered there since Tuesday evening and checked out just a few hours earlier.”

  Garreth frowned. Passing as female...turning one of the bb’s into a boy? The albino had as many twists as a corkscrew.

  “Luckily the housekeeper on that floor hadn’t cleaned the room yet.”

  “Good luck processing it. They clean up very carefully behind them.” He could always hope not this time. “How did they list their vehicle and tags on the registration?”

  “No vehicle. They left by cab and were dropped at the bus station..”

  Garreth stared at him. Cab? Bus station? What happened to the Aerostar?

  Ahead a sign on a driveway marked the entrance of the Lincoln General ER. Kreutzer turned in.

  “Where is the bus station from your headquarters?”

  Kreutzer raised his brows, clearly surprised by the question. “North about three blocks. Why?”

  Garreth grimaced. Wrong direction. They must not have stayed there long.

  “What do you mean, wrong direction?” Kreutzer parked in the doctor’s section.

  To his horror, Garreth realized he had spoken his thought aloud. No reasonable lie came to mind. The best he could do was shrug. “I don’t know. A stray thought. Did they buy bus tickets?”

  Kreutzer set his Kojak light prominently in the middle of the dash. “No, and no cab has picked up an adult of either sex accompanied by two juveniles. They could walk somewhere, of course, but they had several large pieces of luggage, according to the hotel doorman, so even with wheels, I’m thinking they wouldn’t have wanted to go far.”

  Just far enough to pick up the Aerostar...which they left somewhere for alterations? They spent three nights at the hotel. Did the albino feel safe enough to take time for that? Nothing major could be done in just three days, but they could remove the bakery signs and add decals. “What car shops in the area do auto painting and decals?”

  Climbing out of the car, Kreutzer straightened and stared across the top at Garreth. “I have a buddy in the police garage who’ll know the places to check. Otherwise we’re in for a lot of phone time. There are probably two dozen auto repair shops within fifteen blocks of the hotel alone.”

  But they could ignore everything not northeast. This time Garreth made sure he kept the words in his head.

  As they approached the ER doors he braced himself. The outer and inner doors hissed open...and the flood of blood scents poured out to engulf him. He waded in through them, drinking in the s
ymphony, separating its elements. Raw blood there and there, fresh and still flowing...from bodies or down tubing into bodies...sharply metallic, salty, mouth-watering. Setting his throat and teeth aching in hunger. Coagulating blood over here, soaking clothing...blood jelly. He licked his lips. Rancid blood there...dead blood in a dead body. Bloods variously soured by disease wafting at him from lines of chairs over there.

  “Hey, man, are you all right?”

  Garreth started at the interruption. “I’m fine.” He tucked his Stetson under his arm. “Why?”

  Kreutzer shoved his dark glasses up on his head. “You’re looking, I don’t know, like my dog does when we start our evening walk. He stops at the top of the steps and sniffs like that before we heads out.”

  Reading the neighborhood. Sorting through the countless scent stories. Garreth could identify with that. An analogy he preferred to thinking of himself standing at the door of a candy store. “Where’s Becker?”

  Kreutzer hailed the security officer, and stopped at the desk to show his ID, then strolled on back through the ER. Moving with him, Garreth peered into the rooms hunting the face in his vision.

  And quickly spotted it. He started to push open the door.

  Kreutzer caught his shoulder. “Mikaelian, Becker’s this way. Oh...that is him. They moved him. How’d you know?”

  Garreth thought fast. Damn...he should have let Kreutzer lead the way. “He looks like the albino’s scam victims.”

  Becker did resemble Greenstreet, Garreth realized. Prematurely thinning hair and a well-nourished sleekness created an air of middle age, and with the grey of fear gone from his face, his expression had become one of complacent self-importance. His bandaged arm was the only outward sign of trauma.

  He looked around as the two of them pushed into the room. Complacency turned to petulance. He scowled. “Why am I still here? Some officer who came in and took my fingerprints wouldn’t tell me anything. The doctor says I didn’t lose enough blood to worry about but he won’t release me. I have an exhibit to supervise, you know!”