Dead Men's Dust jh-1

by Matt Hilton

  Cain made a noise in the back of his throat. Scorn given timbre. He cast his eyes around the room. A TV rested on a table next to the recliner, but there was nothing of the thief's sitting on top of it. He turned instead to the built-in wardrobes that made up the wall next to the entrance door.

  He stared at the double doors. If the thief had fled the apartment, then he would surely have taken his clothing with him. If the cupboard contained his coat and other belongings, then it was apparent that he'd be returning sometime soon.

  Cain approached the wardrobe with a new idea in mind. It was the ideal hiding place. Concealed inside it, he could wait for the thief to return and then spring out when he was least expecting it. Smiling at his wisdom, he pulled open the doors.

  "Ah," he said.

  The thief's coat was still there. But something else assured Cain that the thief hadn't fled as he'd first feared.

  The barrel of the gun pointed directly at his face.

  22

  "you okay, hunter?" No. I was numb. The face on the screen was unquestionably my brother's. His hair was shorter than I remembered, and there were a couple of new lines at the corners of his eyes. But it was definitely John.

  "This can't be right," I said.

  Reading the accompanying story wasn't helping. I couldn't concentrate for glancing at the photograph to remind me that I wasn't reading an unconnected piece of hack journalism. My heart drummed in my chest like a volley of cannon fire. Even the adrenaline rush of battle didn't affect me in this way.

  "I don't believe it," I said for what must have been the umpteenth time. "There must be some kind of mistake."

  Rink wasn't so certain. He didn't know John the way I did. Okay, John was a self-centered, lying, cheating thief who'd run out on his wife and kids. But there was one thing I was certain of: my brother wasn't a depraved psychopathic killer collecting the bones of his victims as trophies. Rink was taking things at face value. He tapped the screen to prove his point. "You can't argue with the forensics, Hunter."

  I shook my head like there was a wasp in my ear.

  "No, I can't accept it. Something's wrong here."

  "How do you explain it, then?"

  "I don't know, but I'm sure as hell going to try."

  Reading the news release once again didn't calm my racing heart. The FBI had been searching for the perpetrator of a number of brutal murders that spanned the country from coast to coast. The deaths had reputedly occurred over a three-year period. The FBI was unwilling to divulge the quantity dead at this man's hands, but would confirm that the killer's signature was the removal of skeletal parts. The killer had finally been named as John Telfer, a British subject living in the Little Rock area.

  "It's all a load of bull," I told the screen. Rink threw up his hands.

  Fair enough, John had been in the country during the three-year period and had, by Louise Blake's admission, been employed as a delivery driver some of that time. This gave him the opportunity to have visited the places listed. But according to Louise, John had gone missing less than a month ago. Surely if he'd been involved in these random killings, he'd have left town much sooner than he had.

  Experience indicates that a serial killer starts slowly, the time span between his kills narrowing with each attack as he craves more and more depraved satisfaction, until he reaches a point where he can no longer restrain the urge to kill. I suppose, with that in mind, John could have been doing the killings, and it was only now that he'd spiraled out of control and gone off on a final rampage.

  Not that I was about to admit that for a second.

  I read about a man and woman found murdered in a motel at the fringes of the Mojave Desert, how they'd both had fingers removed as trophies by the maniac the press had dubbed the Harvestman.

  A witness related how the murdered couple had been seen picking up a stranded motorist the previous morning. The police examination of a vehicle found abandoned a short distance from where the motorist had been picked up showed it was registered to one Sigmund Petoskey of Little Rock, Arkansas. Mr. Petoskey had only this evening informed police that a former employee, John Telfer, had stolen the vehicle. Tests of fingerprints inside the car confirmed that the driver had indeed been John Telfer.

  Police and FBI agents were now searching for the location of a yellow Volkswagen Beetle stolen by the killer after murdering the young couple found dead at the motel. There was no corroborating forensic evidence at the murder scene to tie Telfer to the motel, but due to the balance of probabilities, the FBI felt that naming him as the chief suspect was justifiable under the circumstances.

  "Justifiable under the circumstances?"

  "It's a logical assumption when you think about it," Rink argued. "John breaks down, he's picked up by these motorists, then they go to a motel together. John then kills the couple, steals their car, and goes on his way, headed God knows where."

  I wasn't having any of it. "No way. They say here that the car contained John's fingerprints. Why wouldn't he wipe down the car the way he's supposedly done at the motel?"

  Rink shrugged.

  "Maybe he didn't think about wiping down the car before he was picked up," Harvey offered.

  "According to the FBI, they've been searching for this Harvestman character for the past three years. Never once have they found any evidence of fingerprints before. Isn't it a stretch to think he'd forget to wipe down a vehicle he was driving if he was on a killing spree?"

  "Maybe," Rink offered. "You know how these crazies are. They get to a point where they don't give a damn anymore. They believe they're indestructible, that the police can't catch them. They start taking chances, dropping the feds the odd clue. Makes it all the more exciting for them."

  "So why be so meticulous at the motel? If you want to drop the feds a clue, why not leave your prints at the scene of the crime?" I sat back, crossed my arms over my chest.

  "That'd probably be too blatant," Harvey offered.

  "And leaving a car full of evidence isn't?" I asked.

  "Not if you never suspect that the car and the killings are going to be connected," Harvey said.

  "Yeah," said Rink. "It was only by chance that John was seen getting picked up by the couple. Maybe he didn't think the abandoned car would be tied to what happened at the motel."

  Okay, it was a fair assumption. Not one that I shared. John was no killer. I'd have staked my right hand on it, if the wager weren't inappropriate under the circumstances. I rubbed my hands over my face, groaning with a mixture of frustration and fatigue.

  "What time is it?" I finally asked.

  "Late," Harvey replied.

  "Does that mean it'll be morning in England?"

  Both Rink and Harvey glanced at each other and made faces. Rink finally turned to me and said, "It'll be early morning. Who are you thinking of calling? Jennifer?"

  "I'll have to ring her at some point. But that's not who I was thinking about."

  "Who then?" Rink asked.

  "Raymond Molloy," I said.

  "Detective Inspector Molloy?" Rink asked. "The cop you did that job for? What do you want to call him for?"

  "I need to check up on any similar murders back home. See if there's a pattern. To show if John's involved or not."

  "What if he won't speak to you? It's not as if you're still on the government payroll, Hunter."

  "He'll speak to me. He owes me a favor."

  DI Molloy did indeed owe me a favor. I'd sorted a little problem for him concerning a pimp who'd tried to extort money from him after Molloy dallied too often with some of the pimp's girls. It wasn't a problem his own resources could handle without his indiscretion becoming public knowledge. It took only one visit to the pimp for him to see sense—and to hand over the incriminating evidence of Molloy getting very creative and athletic on a waterbed.

  That didn't mean Molloy was pleased to hear from me. I'd saved his professional reputation, but I'd also made it very clear that rough treatment of a woman—paid or not—
might just make me forget about helping him next time. He answered my queries curtly. Little more than yes, no, and kiss my ass.

  "Thanks for nothing," I said as I placed the phone back in its cradle.

  "Well?" Rink asked.

  "As ever, Mr. Molloy was his charming self."

  "But did he give you what you wanted to know?"

  "Yeah," I said. "There are no cold investigations into murder victims subject to postmortem mutilation. Rules out the chance that John was killing before he came here."

  Rink hiked his shoulders. "Doesn't mean that he's innocent. Just that he didn't start killing until he arrived in the U.S."

  I shook my head as I got up and paced the length of Harvey's office.

  "You don't go from being totally inexperienced to hacking up bodies and taking skeletal remains as trophies. You build up to something like that. There's nothing in John's background that hints that he was even violent. Christ, he was a number one asshole toward the end, but that was because of the problems he was having. In all that time, though, he never lifted his hand to anyone. Not Jennifer, not his kids. He wouldn't even stick up for himself when Shank threatened him. Does that sound like someone who's capable of murdering people?"

  "Most murderers are nothing but low-down cowards," Rink reminded me. "It doesn't take a brave man to take a woman hostage at knifepoint."

  "I agree," I said. "But it takes some balls to take out a man and a woman at the same time."

  "Unless he took out the man first," Harvey said. He peered up at me from his swivel chair. "Sneaked up behind him and slit his throat or whatever. Then he could have done the woman."

  Rink said, "Regardless if John's their man or not, the FBI is searching for him. Kind of complicates matters a bit, don't it?"

  "Yes and no," I countered. "They've more resources than we have. They might be able to find him for us. When he's cleared of their suspicions, it could be as simple as going and picking him up."

  "You think they're just gonna let you walk in and take him home?"

  "If he's innocent, yes."

  "And if he's not? If he does turn out to be this punk Harvestman?"

  "Then they're welcome to him," I said. The words felt cold in my mouth.

  "You think Jennifer's going to be happy with that?"

  "Jennifer isn't going to be happy whatever the outcome," I told him.

  "And what about you, Hunter? What if you don't take him home? How will you feel?"

  "How d'you think I'll feel?" I pondered for a moment. "What about my family? How d'you think they'll feel when I have to tell them my brother's locked up in an American prison?"

  "Won't be good."

  "No, Rink, it won't."

  Harvey swung his chair side to side. The machinations of thought whirred away behind his furrowed brow. In the end, he looked up at the two of us and said, "Neither of you boys thought about it yet?"

  "Thought about what?" Rink asked.

  "The obvious," Harvey said.

  "Obviously we haven't or we'd have mentioned it already."

  Christ, it was like working with Abbott and Costello.

  "Thought about what?" I asked.

  "When you spoke with Petoskey earlier, why didn't he mention that the FBI had been in contact with him? That they'd already talked to him about his car? That John was a suspect in the biggest hunt since the Unabomber?"

  "Son of a bitch was lying to us," Rink said. "Unless he got mixed up when he said the CIA had been on his back."

  "Bit of a difference between the Feebies and the Spooks," Harvey said.

  "It doesn't make any sense," Rink said.

  "No, it doesn't," I said. "And John as a serial killer doesn't make any sense, either."

  "I'm beginning to think that nothin' about this case makes sense," Rink said.

  "Me, too," I admitted. "Petoskey knows more than he's saying, that's for sure."

  "What about Louise Blake?" Harvey offered. "Should we talk to her again?"

  "Yes," I said. "Let's see her first thing in the morning."

  "We'll have to be careful, Hunter," Rink cautioned. "With the heat on John over this Harvestman thing, you can bet your ass that the FBI is staking out her home."

  I nodded.

  "Harvey, you said someone was watching Louise's place. You think they were feds?"

  Harvey shook his large head. "No. They've been watching her since before Telfer became a suspect in these killings."

  "Any ideas?"

  "All I can say is they're not from around here. They look Mexican or Puerto Rican, could even be Cuban," he said. "I spotted two of them, but there could be more; looked like backing singers for the Kings of Mambo. Slick-dressed muthas."

  Whatever involvement these two had, it wasn't good.

  "We have to find these guys," I said.

  "Shouldn't be too difficult," Rink said. "Ain't too many homeboys hanging around Louise's hood."

  "Unless," Harvey reminded us, "the FBI are already there and they've beat a hasty retreat."

  Rink sniffed. "You want to have a run over and see if we can round them up now?"

  I glanced around, looking for a clock. Other than that it was late, I hadn't a clue what time it was. Finally I said, "We'll wait for morning. I don't know about you boys, but I need a couple hours' sleep. Jet lag's got to me, I think."

  Rink shook his head sadly.

  "Jet lag, my ass. Admit it—old age is finally catching up with you."

  I gave him a weary smile. "No, I just think it'd be better if we speak to them at a more civilized time."

  "And," Rink asked, "in a more civilized manner this time?"

  Only thing is, there's no such thing as dealing with scum in a civilized manner.

  23

  "son of a bitch."

  Cain sighed as the gun barrel pressed to his hooded forehead. Even cultured killers let a little profanity slip now and again.

  "You've got that right," said the thief as he stepped out of the wardrobe. Pressure from the gun made Cain step backward. "Now drop the knife or I'll shoot you where you stand."

  Cain dropped the knife. It landed with a faint thud on the carpet.

  "Kick it away," the thief ordered.

  Cain glanced at his bagged feet.

  "I might cut myself."

  "I don't give a rat's ass if you cut yourself. Kick it away now."

  Cain used the edge of his foot to prod the knife away.

  "Satisfied?"

  The thief grunted.

  "Sit on the bed."

  Argument was pointless. He sat down.

  "Sit on your hands," the thief said.

  "What for? You have a gun. You think I'm crazy enough to come at you?"

  "Humor me."

  Cain sighed expansively. Could things get any worse? Of course they could, the thief could shoot him. He was no killer, but a nervous finger could slip. Cain pushed his hands beneath his thighs.

  "If you take your hands out I'll shoot you."

  "Fair enough."

  "You think I won't?"

  Cain shrugged. "I have to give you credit. You got the drop on me."

  "Good. It's best you remember that. Now . . . tell me. Who the hell are you?"

  "You could call me a concerned member of the public."

  "Bull."

  "Honestly. I'm simply a member of the public attempting to right a wrong."

  "So you say. Who the hell do you think you are? Dressed up like friggin' Batman?"

  Cain tilted his head. "You don't like my costume?" he asked.

  "You look like a reject from a beekeepers' convention. What's the deal? Your employers can't afford to buy you a ski mask or decent gloves?"

  Cain frowned. My employers? Now what's that about?

  The thief continued. "Who's with you?"

  "No one."

  "Bullshit! You assholes always hunt in packs. You're like a bunch of damn hyenas."

  "I'm telling you," Cain said slowly. "I'm alone, so you needn't worry. You ca
n stop waving that gun around if you like. I won't move. I only want what is rightfully mine. Then I'll walk out of here and leave you alone."

  The thief made a sound of scorn deep in his chest.