Flight ik-8

by Jan Burke

  Who was that, looking back at him from that silver surface?

  The Looking Glass Man.

  He switched off the bathroom light.

  He gathered the bag and the briefcase, stepped out onto the landing, and locked the apartment door. Over the next few days, the apartment would be painted, the carpets cleaned. The new tenants would move in by the tenth.

  He should not allow such trifles to disturb him, he decided. He had greater problems to consider. Crime and punishment. He thought of the photograph in his wallet, but he did not take it out. Thinking of the photograph always made him think of the judge — Judge Lewis Kerr. Kerr must be watched.

  He allowed himself a small, soft sigh, then walked downstairs to the large metal trash bin. At last able to remove the annoying gloves, he added them and the roll of paper towels to the white bag, which he placed in the bin. The bin was quite full.

  Trash day, he thought. Just another trash day.

  3

  Monday, June 4, 2:15 A.M.

  Las Piernas Marina South

  “Maybe your snitch was wrong,” Elena Rosario said.

  Philip Lefebvre did not reply. He continued to watch a yacht moored to a dock near a bait shop.

  “Lefebvre?”

  He turned, then followed her gaze toward her partner, Bob Hitchcock, who was walking toward them. The narcotics detective’s hands were in his pockets as he approached them, his head down. Hitch was a big man who was beginning to go soft around the belly and beneath his chin — and Lefebvre thought he was going soft on the job as well, coasting whenever he could. Any extra effort would have put Hitch in a shitty mood, and the fact that this surveillance call hadn’t panned out had ticked him off.

  Rosario, Hitch’s partner, was easier to work with but harder to read, more reserved. And unlike Hitch, she wasn’t a burnout case. When Hitch had argued against coming down here, she had said, “You want to tell the captain why we didn’t follow up on a lead concerning Whitey Dane?”

  Hitch had caved — they all knew this was exactly why he was being forced to work with Lefebvre in the first place. As much as Hitch resented having someone from Homicide assigned to the task force on Dane, there was nothing he could do about it.

  Whitey Dane, long suspected of being behind a number of local criminal activities, including drug dealing, had proven slippery — although the police department had occasionally crippled his operations in the city, their efforts to bring charges against him were futile.

  Every attempt to make progress in investigating his activities had met with a reversal. Informants were murdered or disappeared, undercover officers were unable to get anywhere near Dane himself. Rosario had told Lefebvre that most of her two years as a narcotics detective had been spent on a team that had tried to gather enough evidence against Dane to put him out of business. Instead, over that time, he had branched out from drug dealing and vice into other types of crime — and increased his influence on local politics and businesses.

  Following a recent outbreak of violence in an area controlled by Dane, the task force was expanded — Lefebvre, a veteran homicide detective, had been assigned to work with it.

  “So they’ve given us the golden boy,” Hitch had said. “You sure you can stop giving interviews long enough to work with us?”

  “He’s already more aware of Dane’s little oddball habits than you are,” Rosario had said. “And you’re just jealous because you think he’s getting into that reporter’s pants.”

  “Irene Kelly is a good-looking broad. So tell me, Lefebvre, what’s she like in bed?”

  Lefebvre had regarded him coldly but said nothing, and after a moment of uncomfortable silence, Rosario had said, “You were asking who makes the silk vests Dane likes to wear…” and had gone on to discuss Dane’s affected way of dressing.

  As she watched Hitch coming toward them now, she sighed. “Tonight had seemed so promising.”

  Lefebvre thought of the call that had brought them here. Just before midnight he had received a tip from an informant, an electronically disguised voice saying that Whitey Dane would be paying for a hit tonight aboard his fishing boat, the Cygnet. Whitey and the shooter were due back to the marina at any moment. The informant seemed to know what he was talking about — he knew Whitey’s slip number, 305.

  Lefebvre had paged Rosario and Hitch, who already knew exactly where Whitey kept his boat, and the three of them hurried to that section of the marina. Sure enough, the slip was empty. And so, for the past two hours, they had awaited the Cygnet’s return.

  The slip had stayed empty.

  “We’re at the wrong marina,” Hitch said now, addressing Rosario and avoiding eye contact with Lefebvre. “The whole time, the damned boat’s been in the other marina.”

  “The Downtown Marina?” Lefebvre asked.

  “Yep.”

  “But this is where he usually keeps the boat?”

  “Yes. We’ve been watching this guy for three years, and I’ve never seen him do so much as gas the thing up at the Downtown Marina.”

  “Was Dane—?”

  “Didn’t see him at all. And Mr. Eye-Patch isn’t exactly difficult to spot in a crowd.”

  “Anyone still watching the boat?”

  “Yes, but until we get a warrant…” Hitchcock shrugged.

  “You know we’d be turned down again,” Lefebvre said. “Not enough to go on yet.”

  “You sure your snitch said here?”

  “Yes.” Lefebvre looked back toward the yacht, as if this conversation no longer interested him. Hitch bristled over the dismissal.

  “Call came in anonymously?” he asked.

  “He already told us it did,” Rosario said, impatient with Hitch’s mood. Hitch gave her a dark look, but she ignored it.

  Lefebvre’s attention remained with the yacht. “Is that yacht moored legally?”

  “What, you want to leave Homicide and join the Harbor Patrol?” Hitch asked.

  Lefebvre turned to Rosario. “Is that yacht—”

  “How the hell should we know?” Hitch interrupted.

  “No,” she said. She turned to Hitch. “I like to sail,” she said, “but in case you’re wondering, no, I don’t want to join the Harbor Patrol, either.”

  Lefebvre quickly hid a smile, but Hitch noticed his amusement. “You might end up working there anyway,” he snapped at his partner.

  Lefebvre started walking down the dock, toward the yacht. Leaving Hitch behind, Rosario hurried to catch up with him. “Why are you so interested in it?” she asked.

  “Rats with wings,” Lefebvre said.

  “What?”

  “Seagulls,” he said, walking a little faster. “They usually stay put for the evening, right?”

  She then saw what he saw, that birds were gathering around the yacht. “Maybe the bait shop—”

  “That’s what I noticed. The birds are ignoring the bait shop and going for something on the boat deck. And whoever’s belowdecks hasn’t come out to see what they’re interested in.”

  “Amanda,” she said, reading the neat lettering on the stern. “Somebody has bucks. She’s a beauty.”

  She said that before they came close enough to see what was aboard.

  First Lefebvre saw the blood and then the man lying not far from the hatch. “Call for backup,” he said. “Wait here on the dock.” He stepped aboard amid noisy birds and flies, shooing them off as he moved cautiously toward the body.

  Hitch had the only radio. He was still sauntering along.

  Rosario shouted to him to make the call.

  Lefebvre quickly checked the victim — the body was cold. As he headed for the companionway, he saw Rosario stepping aboard. He sighed with exasperation. “Put your hands in your pockets and don’t step on any of the obvious pathways — or in the blood.”

  “I know enough not to mess up a crime scene,” she said testily, but obediently put her hands in the pockets of her slacks. She stared at the dark, open gash on the victim’s throat and
turned pale.

  Lefebvre watched her, then said, “If you’re going to be sick—”

  “I won’t be.”

  He said nothing else to her; he had already turned to look down the companionway. He swore when he saw the girl’s body, then drew his gun and moved awkwardly down the steps, doing his best not to disturb the bloodstain patterns. Rosario took her own weapon out and came closer.

  “Oh, no,” he heard her say. “Oh, no. Oh, no.”

  More faintly, from the docks, Hitch’s voice. “Christ almighty!”

  Rosario shouted, “Get on that radio, you fucking asshole! We’ve got at least two dead — one’s a kid.”

  Lefebvre kept moving toward the battered door to the head. He pushed on it — it opened only a few inches; something heavy was on the other side. Through a narrow, splintered slit that had been hacked into the door, he saw more blood — and then the boy. Lefebvre quickly holstered his weapon, got down near the floor, then reached inside. He pushed in a little farther and touched skin — cool, but not the cold of the bodies behind him.

  For one brief instant, the memory of the cooling skin of another young man flickered across his thoughts, but he closed his mind to it.

  Not this time, he swore to himself. Not this time!

  And in that moment felt a faint pulse.

  He turned to Rosario and shouted, “Still alive! Get an ambulance here!”

  Even as she began relaying this to Hitch, Lefebvre saw the ax. He grabbed it, and heedless of Rosario’s shout about prints, swung it hard but with precision, striking the wood near the upper hinges. With the fourth swing, the door began to give — he dropped the ax and turned, catching the door’s weight, slowing its outward fall. He gently lowered it, and with it, the boy.

  Lefebvre gathered the unconscious young man in his arms, keeping pressure on the bloodstained towel at the boy’s throat, holding him close to warm him, speaking to him in a low voice, a desperate litany of “Stay with me, keep fighting, come on!”

  Rosario found a sleeping bag among some camping gear near the companionway and brought it over. She covered the boy with it, helping Lefebvre bundle him within it, but when she touched the boy’s skin, Lefebvre heard her sharp intake of breath.

  “Lefebvre,” she said gently, placing a hand on his shoulder.

  He shrugged it off. “Stay with me!” he repeated to the boy, bending closer to him, as if shielding him from her lack of faith.

  “Lefebvre,” she tried again, but when he would not relent, moved closer, holding on to a boy he knew she believed to be dead, silently adding her own warmth to his.

  4

  Thursday, June 7, 10:30 P.M.

  Las Piernas General Hospital

  The boy was awake, and watching him.

  Two days earlier, the first time Seth had awakened, it was as if from a nightmare. He had looked wildly about the room, his face contorted in terror and pain; he batted his swathed hands in the air as if warding off blows. One of the doctors and his mother had tried to calm him, but their efforts seemed to further upset him.

  Lefebvre had said one word: “Easy.” Seth turned toward the sound of his voice, ceased struggling, and quickly went back to sleep.

  The doctor, after subjecting Lefebvre to a long and considering look, gave orders that the detective should be allowed to stay by the boy as long as he liked, any time he liked — provided Mrs. Randolph had no objections? Lefebvre thought she hid the smallest trace of resentment before answering, “No, of course not. Detective Lefebvre saved my son’s life.”

  Now Lefebvre sat at the side of Seth Randolph’s hospital bed, hoping for another miracle — that the boy would be able to identify his attacker. Seth had lived. That, he told himself, was miracle enough. The boy’s vocal cords had been damaged, but a slightly deeper cut would have severed a major artery and killed him. A laceration on one shoulder had required stitches. His hands were covered in bandages, but the doctors thought he would eventually recover most of the use of his fingers. He had lost a lot of blood; this would undoubtedly cause him to suffer weakness and fatigue. Those, of course, were only the physical injuries.

  He was the son, Lefebvre had learned, of Trent Randolph — the first of the victims they had found on the Amanda — a wealthy local industrialist, divorced, and recently named a member of the police commission. The case had been making headlines all week, resulting in more interference than progress toward its resolution. Other than bloody footprints, and a report that someone had heard a powerboat with big engines near the area, the police had little to go on.

  Lefebvre surprised his boss and most of his coworkers by taking a less active investigative role than expected, insisting on staying at Seth’s side. Elena Rosario came by every day. She thought she understood why he kept watch over the boy. Lefebvre knew she didn’t, but never corrected her notion that he had formed some sort of bond with Seth during the rescue. It was, after all, not entirely untrue. It simply wasn’t the whole truth. Yesterday she had come by a little later than he expected, and he found himself checking his watch and looking at the door every few moments until her arrival.

  Seth’s mother, Tory Randolph, also came by every day. Today she had stayed until about half an hour ago. While Lefebvre knew she would have wanted to be here for this occasion — the first time since his surgery that Seth had awakened for more than a brief moment — he was not sorry she had left. Once she learned that she couldn’t hint Lefebvre out of the room, they fell into a pattern of strained civility and long silences.

  She was, he thought dispassionately, a beautiful woman. Her hair was auburn, and its thick, loose curls perfectly framed her pale, heart-shaped face. Her brows were dark, thin lines above long-lashed blue eyes. She wore stylish clothes that flattered her shapely figure. Yet her manner gave him an almost instant dislike of her — her lack of quiet irked him, and all his instincts told him that her need for attention was insatiable.

  He thought he should probably feel more sympathy for her, but he was not convinced that she was good for Seth. Although Seth did not seem to be aware of his surroundings during the last few days, he was restless when she was near, as if responding to her anxiousness.

  Lefebvre thought there was a fine line between her concern for the boy and her own fear of suffering another loss. He did not blame her for clinging to Seth — the funerals of her ex-husband, Trent Randolph, and daughter, Amanda, had been held just today — he simply believed that her strained emotions were having an adverse effect on her son.

  Lefebvre alone had the opposite effect on Seth. Perhaps, Lefebvre thought, Seth remembered his voice from those seemingly endless moments on the boat while he held him, or in the ambulance, or after the surgery. Lefebvre was not a talker, but he talked to Seth. He did not tell him stories or talk of himself, but in the hours when they were alone in the room, Lefebvre spoke to him, his voice soft and low, urging Seth to live.

  Until now, the moments of waking had always been the same — brief and panic-filled until Lefebvre spoke to him. Once, when Lefebvre had been away from the boy’s bedside for a few hours, he had come back to find Seth’s arms restrained. He released them and called Rosario. He gave her what he had never given anyone else — the key to his condo — and asked what he seldom asked of anyone else — a favor. Would she please pack a few things for him in an overnight case? She had responded immediately, and without asking questions.

  And he had not left Seth’s room since. A friend from the newspaper had brought him a couple of “outside meals,” but Irene Kelly knew him well enough not to pester him for the story. The guard at the door had apparently reported these visits, though, because after the first one, his boss, Lieutenant Willis, complained about the time Lefebvre was spending at the hospital.

  “You’ve been trying to get me to take time off, right?” Lefebvre asked.

  “Yes, why don’t you take that little plane of yours and get out of town for a while — maybe fly somewhere like Vegas — you know, someplace where you
can relax for a few days?”

  Lefebvre could think of nothing he would find less relaxing than a trip to Las Vegas. “So you’re saying I can have the time off?”

  “Of course.”

  “Fine, I’m on vacation then.”

  So far — to Willis’s irritation — he had spent the first few days of it in Seth’s room.

  And now Seth was awake — calm, and truly awake. Lefebvre considered calling a doctor or a nurse to the boy’s bedside, but he found he could not walk away from that steady regard.

  “Hello, Seth. Don’t try to talk, okay? Your vocal cords have been damaged, so it will hurt if you try to speak.”

  Seth reached toward his throat, then held out his hands, staring at the bandages.

  “Do you remember how you got hurt?”

  Unable to move his head much, he shook it slightly, a puzzled expression on his face.

  “Don’t be worried about that. It’s not unusual for an injured person to—”

  But suddenly Seth’s eyes widened, and he tried to speak. He winced, but still Lefebvre thought he knew the one word the boy had tried to say.

  Lefebvre’s hands tightened on the bed rails. “You want to know about Amanda?”

  Seth mouthed the word “yes.”

  “I’m sorry, Seth. Amanda and your father—”

  But even before Lefebvre spoke, Seth had read his look. Tears began rolling down the boy’s face.

  “I — maybe I should get the nurse.” Lefebvre started to move away, but felt a bandaged hand on top of his own and hesitated.

  Seth gestured toward him, brows raised in question.

  “Who am I?”

  He tried to nod and winced — the damage to his throat had made the motion painful.