Chronic Fear

by Nicholson, Scott

  He drifted into that semi-alert state of surveillance and was startled when someone knocked on the driver’s-side window.

  Holy fucking guacamole on a crispy corn fritter.

  He glanced over to see a young woman, college-aged, wearing a bright orange vest and holding a little booklet. He was getting soft. What if that had been a punk with a gun?

  He rolled down the window. She was cute, but he didn’t like cute. He smiled anyway. “Good morning, miss. Nice day, huh?”

  She glanced around as if noticing it was daylight for the first time. “You’re in a handicapped spot, sir.”

  Scagnelli nodded and pointed at the sign. “Fine of two hundred and fifty dollars. That’s a lot, considering half the people with handicapped stickers are faking it.”

  She fanned herself with her ticket book, a little perspiration on her flushed skin. She was a brunette with television hair and a body that would go to cheese in about five years, right after she married some dumb frat boy with a business degree. “The spot’s for people with stickers,” she said.

  “We’ve established that.”

  “You don’t have no sticker.”

  “We’ve also established that.”

  “Are you picking somebody up?”

  “You might say that.” Scagnelli’s eyebrow twitched. He’d only taken one hit of speed this morning. He didn’t like to get too wired while he was on a stakeout, but he also didn’t want to drowse off, either.

  “There are metered spaces over by the parking deck,” the young woman said, the first sign of exasperation entering her tone. She had a little two-way radio on her belt that squawked and fell silent.

  “If I wanted to be in a metered space, I’d be in a metered space. I want to be here.”

  “Sir, university parking regulations requires a civil penalty of—”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  She looked into his aviation sunglasses as if trying to read his hidden eyes. “I’m afraid I have to write you a ticket if you don’t leave.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. That’s your job, right? You should always do your job to the best of your abilities. That’s what they teach you here, right?”

  You and the other fucking corporate slaves.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What do they pay you to be a Parking Nazi? Minimum wage plus a quarter, but you turn around and give it all right back to the Man.”

  She glanced around as if deciding whether it was easier to fill her quota elsewhere, or maybe she was debating hitting her little radio and calling in the university rent-a-cops. Scagnelli didn’t want the hassle of showing his federal badges and playing the one-up game.

  “Go ahead and write your ticket,” Scagnelli said.

  She was nearly in tears now, and relief washed over her face as she walked to the rear of the rental sedan. Scagnelli monitored the building’s exit again, glancing once in the rearview mirror to make sure she was writing it all down. The pedestrian traffic had picked up, and Scagnelli wondered if he should change his plans.

  The traffic monitor came back to the window and ripped a copy of the ticket free, then stuck it out toward him. He brushed his lips—speed made his skin itch—and then popped open the briefcase on the seat beside him. His guns were stuck inside padded mailing envelopes, and a few papers were clipped together on top to make it all look legit. He reached into a fold and pulled out a handicapped sticker. “Sorry, miss. I forgot I had this.”

  She stood there with the ticket held out to him, still a foot away from the window, as if afraid he’d grab her wrist and pull her into the car.

  Good instincts. You’ll make a great soccer mom. I see lots of Jennifer Aniston movies in your future.

  “I can’t void a ticket in the field,” she said. “Once it’s written, you have to go through the appeals process.”

  “I don’t have time for an appeals process.” He smiled.

  “I’m sorry, sir. It’s in the regulations.”

  “That’s always the answer, isn’t it?”

  She forgot she was an official representative of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Department of Public Safety and became just another ex-teen. “Huh?”

  “It is what it is,” he said. “Rules of the road. The way the game is played. Love it or leave it.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, I’m just doing my job.”

  “Hitler was just doing his job. Osama bin Laden was just doing his job. Ted Bundy was just doing his job. That’s the problem with this fucking world. Everybody’s just doing their jobs.”

  She stepped forward and thrust the ticket inside the window, letting it flutter into his lap. “The appeals process is on the ticket,” she said, hurrying away, hunched as if expecting a bullet in the back, or at least a shouted insult.

  Scagnelli smiled. All she had was a fake license-plate number on a rental car.

  Have fun explaining that one to the boss. Because, guess what? I’m just doing my fucking job.

  The encounter had entertained him past noon. Dr. Morgan was late. Young students were streaming in and out of the building, and he struggled to track each face. The dossier had contained photographs of an attractive woman with nice shoulders. He didn’t go for cute, but attractive was a different matter, and she was worth looking for.

  The federal files on Morgan listed her as a person of interest, making references to a Dr. Sebastian Briggs who had died in a chemical explosion. Briggs was implicated in the illegal manufacture of drugs, with the FBI drawn in because of suspected trafficking across state lines. Morgan had been his graduate assistant at one time.

  Scagnelli knew the FBI files were bullshit. It was the kind of information available to all clearance levels, and nothing important was ever made widely available. Within the security departments, knowledge was the currency through which the power games were waged, careers made or broken on the ability to gain access.

  The real Briggs files were Sensitive Compartmentalized Information, a wonderful murky phrase that kept the info on a “need to know” basis, an ever-shifting clusterfuck of smoke and mirrors that guaranteed nobody would possess the whole truth.

  But truth is just another layer of smoke, like the smoke Forsyth is blowing up my ass. If he says this Seethe and Halcyon stuff are threats to national security, what he really means is they’re a threat to Danny-Boy’s bid for the nomination.

  Scagnelli had hacked the e-mails the two CIA agents had shared after “discovering” the laptop in Morgan’s lab. He’d gone through all the research files and hadn’t found anything suspicious, but what did they expect? He was a goddamned fixer, not a brain surgeon.

  A bearded man started to enter the building, then stepped back and held the door open. A woman exited and nodded thanks at the courteous gentleman, who “You’re welcomed” her by glancing at her ass as she walked away. It was Dr. Morgan, he was sure, her figure rolling smoothly inside her skirt suit as her heels clattered on the sidewalk.

  She was carrying a briefcase. After her encounter with the two undercover agents the day before, she wouldn’t be stupid enough to have incriminating records with her, much less the Seethe or Halcyon compounds.

  Scagnelli started the rental sedan and eased out of the handicapped spot. The game plan was to follow Dr. Morgan and see if she made any slips or had any interesting appointments. If she wasn’t synthesizing the compounds in the university labs, she was working with someone off-site. Scagnelli had wanted to break into the Morgans’ house, but Forsyth said Mark Morgan was armed and possibly unhinged. Violence was the course of last resort because bodies always led to questions and more dummied-up dossiers.

  Unless they could be handled like he’d handled Anita Molkesky. In a case like that, you were performing a public service and giving the people what they wanted. It was a job that brought a little pride and satisfaction.

  The parking lot was crowded but the congestion gave Scagnelli an excuse to drive slowly. He could have followed her on foot, but he’d have been t
oo easy to spot. Nobody expected a stalker to use a car. That wasn’t how it worked in the movies, and people could no longer tell movies from real life.

  Dr. Morgan was wearing sunglasses and her suit was navy blue. Scagnelli liked the sleek curves of her calves, which were encased in dark hose. He was glad she didn’t have thick ankles. He hated stalking women with thick ankles.

  She’d parked her late-model Lexus in the satellite faculty lot that morning, and Scagnelli expected her to walk straight to it and drive away. Scagnelli passed the cute traffic monitor, who was busy writing a ticket and didn’t see him.

  Dr. Morgan turned her head suddenly in his direction, and Scagnelli wondered if she had somehow sensed him. He fought an urge to speed up. While she would be on her guard after yesterday’s encounter, she would be looking out for two dark-skinned men, not a swarthy, smiling white guy.

  Scagnelli silently applauded Forsyth’s little shell game, which would have her suspecting the lab raid had been connected to terrorists or international espionage instead of federal investigators.

  But you only sold me a bowl of smoke, didn’t you? Just doing your job as Danny-Boy’s advance scout.

  Scagnelli planned to circle the lot as if unable to find a parking space, and then loop behind her when she hit the highway. He was easing forward, checking her in the rearview, when a black-and-white police cruiser wheeled in front of him, skidding and swerving.

  “Fucking townie!” Scagnelli shouted, braking and cutting hard right, narrowly missing the cruiser’s fender. The cruiser didn’t slow at all.

  Weird. No siren, no lights.

  Town police were usually the most by-the-book because they were often the newest to law enforcement, the lowest on the totem pole in any cross-jurisdictional investigation, and the most likely to be reprimanded or fired. One citizen report of reckless behavior could be enough to send the mayor crawling up the chief’s ass.

  Scagnelli watched in the mirror as the cruiser spun into the satellite lot toward Alexis Morgan a hundred feet away. The cruiser slowed and the cop apparently said something to her, because she stopped walking and stared in surprise.

  Hold the guacamole. That damned cruiser doesn’t have any insignia.

  Town departments often employed one of two looks for their fleet, usually reflecting the current chief’s personality and philosophy. The first was the two-toned, old-school, black-and-white look if the chief believed in visibility and crime prevention. The second was tinted windows and sleek, unmarked cars designed for stealth and intimidation. That was the theory. In practice, limited funding often meant departments had a mix of each.

  But Scagnelli had never heard of a department whose marked cars didn’t sport departmental emblems on the doors. The cruiser was almost like a movie prop. He eased his own car forward, keeping one eye on the mock cruiser as a pickup truck pulled in behind him. The ticket girl had also noticed the cruiser and was watching with her beady little tattletale eyes.

  Alexis Morgan walked toward the cruiser, her confident gait now stilted and unsure.

  If Forsyth cut another agent in on this deal, I’m going to yank his rubbery old ears down around his neck, strangle him, and shove a Bible up his ass. Except he’d probably enjoy it.

  By the time Scagnelli had negotiated a three-point turn, Alexis Morgan had climbed into the passenger side of the cruiser. The ticket girl scrawled a little note on her pad, probably the cruiser’s license plate number. Scagnelli’s anger cooled a little as he realized his job had just gotten a whole lot easier.

  I’ll let that clown cop do all the heavy lifting, and I’ll just walk in and pick up the winning lottery ticket. A guy acting all erratic like that, the suspicion will fall on him when she turns up dead.

  He popped one of Forsyth’s gift amphetamines to celebrate.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Every four hours,” Roland said.

  “What’s that, honey?” Wendy said. She sat curled on the window seat, between the maidenhair fern and the wax begonias, sketching in the midday sun. Her T-shirt was a Jackson Pollock mess of spilled paint and stains.

  “Does that mean anything to you? Every four hours?”

  “Sounds like a TV commercial.”

  The cabin didn’t have a television. If they wanted to watch something, they had to rent a Redbox movie and huddle around the laptop. Not that Roland cared. That made movies a good excuse for snuggling and popcorn and then some dangerous erotic play.

  What he did care about was Wendy’s memory of the Monkey House. As a long-time alcoholic, he understood obliterating chunks of consciousness. And he’d done it by choice, at least as far as drunks had any control in their own self-destruction.

  Wendy, however, had been an innocent victim of Briggs’s drug experiments. Seethe had scrambled her senses and driven her into a confused, hedonistic hurricane. She hadn’t been herself when she’d fallen for Briggs’s sick seduction.

  Yeah. Keep telling yourself that. Just like you only killed Briggs in self-defense, not because he was fucking your wife. So much for a twelve-step program built on honesty.

  Roland tried to tell himself the Seethe had driven him to murder, but he remembered the pleasure he’d felt in pulling the trigger and watching Briggs leak. Sure, Seethe was designed to evoke such a reaction. But just like a drunk on a blackout was still acting from a core impulse, no drug could totally alter personality.

  All Seethe had done was make him more like himself.

  Wendy paused in her sketching, noticing he’d dropped the conversation. “Why are you talking about ‘every four hours’?”

  “One of my clients is using it for a book title,” Roland said. “I have to wrap the words around a picture of a scantily clad woman.”

  “Tough duty, huh?”

  “Beats selling billboards.” He opened his e-mail program and looked again at the message he’d received that morning. Just like the first one, it had the subject line “Every four hrs or else” and was from the same National Clandestine Service address.

  This one also had a message in the body of the e-mail. It said, “Surely you didn’t think we could let you live, after what happened.”

  “Is she cuter than me?” Wendy said.

  “Who?”

  “The scantily clad woman.”

  “It’s a cartoon. Old pulp-fiction style. Boobs the size of watermelons and a waist like Gandhi.”

  “Blonde?”

  “If I paint it that way.”

  “Make her blonde so I don’t get jealous.”

  “You never get jealous.” Only me.

  “Yeah, out here I guess there’s not much competition.” She tucked a leg under her rear in a motion of feline grace and continued with her work.

  Roland studied the e-mail for clues, but he couldn’t read anything between the lines. First the “David Underwood” trick and now this new threat.

  On a whim, he hit “Reply,” and when the message window opened, he typed, “Maybe we can help each other.” He paused, then typed “David Underwood” as a signature beneath the message and hit “Send.”

  “What’s it about?” Wendy asked.

  Roland jerked upright. “What?”

  “The book. Every Four Hours. That sounds familiar.”

  “It’s by a new mystery writer.” He waited. “David Underwood. You haven’t heard of him.”

  “There are too many writers in the world. Who can keep track of them all?”

  “Not like you artists. Supply perfectly matches demand.”

  “Hey, smarty-pants.” Wendy perched her sketchbook on the ledge of the bay window. “Come over here and kiss me.”

  “I’m working,” Roland said, watching his e-mail to see if a response was forthcoming. The message hadn’t bounced, so it must have been routed to someone’s inbox, although he doubted it went to the CIA.

  Wendy curled up on the window seat and gave a fake pout. He grinned at her and went back to his laptop screen.

  “Ro?” she whispered.<
br />
  He ignored her. Work was work, and even pretending to work was work.

  “Honey?” she said, louder.

  He logged out of his e-mail program, annoyed. If somebody was playing cat and mouse, he wanted to be the cat. “What?”

  “Something’s moving out there.”

  “Is the fox back?” Roland had reloaded the pistol and returned it to the bedside table because he hadn’t expected the fox to return. The creatures were most active at dawn and dusk, and it was rare to see one in full daylight. That’s why he’d suspected the one he’d shot at that morning had been rabid.

  He’d hated to kill it, because it was just trying to survive, and it might even have a pack of kits in a den somewhere. But he and Wendy had grown fond of their chickens, treating them like pets and also enjoying the fresh brown eggs. It was part of their new game of playing hillbilly homesteaders.

  “I don’t think it’s the fox,” Wendy said. “It’s bigger.”

  What could be bigger than a fox? A stray dog? A deer? A bear?

  Roland set his laptop on the sofa and went to the window. He peered into the woods, scowling. Wendy leapt up and grabbed him around the neck, pulling him down.

  “Gotcha!” she squealed with a laugh. They wrestled as she giggled, and Roland finally pinned her against the window seat and kissed her.

  “Who got who?” he whispered, running his hands over her hips.

  He glanced out the window again, glad they were out in the country and didn’t have to worry about Peeping Toms and—

  Shit. Was that a reflection?

  The light flashed again in the woods, its distance difficult to gauge. Hunting season was long past, but hikers might be exploring the Blue Ridge trails, wandering away from the nearby national park.

  “Come on, zookeeper,” Wendy said, unaware of his unease. “Tame your tiger.”

  “Shh,” he said, still on top of her but no longer pressing his weight against her.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He moved toward the glass, peering out. “Something’s out there.”