3 Great Thrillers

by Churton, Alex; Churton, Toby; Locke, John; Lustbader, Eric van; van Lustbader, Eric

  Alli tried to smile back, but all she could do was nod numbly.

  They were just sitting down to breakfast when Jack heard a car pull up outside. Assuming it was the Secret Service detail, he crossed to the front door, stepped outside to tell them not to come into the house. Instead, he saw Egon Schiltz’s maroon classic station wagon, a superlative 1950 Buick Super Model 59 Estate Woodie Wagon, with its unique Niagara Falls bumper, real birchwood side panels, the original straight-eight-cylinder engine with 124 horsepower and GM’s then-innovative Dyna-flow automatic transmission. In truth, it should have been in a showroom or bombing down Victory Boulevard in L.A., but it was Egon’s second child, and he drove it everywhere.

  He raised an arm as he got out of the woodie. “Finally. I tried all yesterday to reach you, but you weren’t answering your cell phone, and Chief Bennett gave me a number for the task force that’s no longer in service.”

  Jack came down off the porch. The mild air was still in place; there was only the hint of a chill in the air, low sunlight already melting silver hoarfrost.

  “How are you, Egon?”

  “Ask me in a month.” Schiltz gave a wry smile. “I came clean with Candy. I think she would’ve moved out, except for Molly. Molly must never know, that’s something the two of us absolutely agreed on.”

  “If you agree on one thing, more will follow. You two should see someone.”

  Egon nodded. “I want to. I’m sure Candy does, too. She just needs some time.” He scratched the back of his head. “You’re a good friend, Jack, thank you. I feel …” He sighed heavily. “It turns out you know me better than I know myself. Living a lie isn’t for me, which is why I’ve stopped going to church for the time being.” He leaned back against the mottled trunk of a tree. “It’s not so bad. Truthfully, I don’t think Molly misses it at all. I tried to make her see the light, but it’s no good, you see. It doesn’t work. You want for your child everything you yourself didn’t have, only to discover she wants only what she wants. And in the end, you’re meaningless, really. It’s her life.” He rubbed his hands briskly. “She never really got God. Either you believe or you don’t. There’s no point going through the motions.”

  “I hope you haven’t stopped believing, Egon.”

  The ME produced a rueful smile. “That would make my entire life a mockery. No, no, I still believe in God, but what you made me realize is that there are many paths to redemption. I’ve got to find mine. The Church can’t help me.”

  Jack clapped his friend on the shoulder. “Everyone needs the freedom to make up their own mind.” He gestured with his head. “D’you want to come in? I can fix you some breakfast.”

  Egon glanced around. “Not if you have guests.”

  “In that case,” Jack said, “let’s take a walk.”

  They went around the north side of the house. It was colder here; the green Bilco doors were still rimed with a thin layer of ice, the fallen leaves stuck together with the glue of winter.

  “Something mighty queer is going on,” Egon said.

  Jack was automatically on alert. “In what way?”

  “You heard about that girl, Calla Myers, being stabbed to death on the Spanish Steps the other day. The District ME is an old bridge buddy of mine. He called yesterday morning, and I met with him. He told me that the stab wound was in the same place as the ones on the two agents guarding Alli Carson. I showed him the photos of the wounds, and he confirmed the one that killed Calla Myers was identical.”

  “Did you confirm it on her body?”

  “Well, that’s the thing,” Egon said. “The body wasn’t in his morgue. The feds whisked it out of there along with his preliminary findings.”

  Jack was hardly surprised, since it was clear that Calla Myers was Ian Brady’s latest victim. But the very fact that he’d targeted her set Jack’s synapses to firing overtime. Another Rubik’s Cube was forming in his head, and he didn’t like the shape of it one bit. He’d heard the president’s address. Direct evidence linked Calla Myers, a member of the FASR, to the murders of the SS agents. That was part of the rationale used to close down the Kansas Avenue office and take its members into custody. What did it mean that Brady—a federally protected person—had murdered Calla Myers? Brady had killed the Secret Service detail. In the initial briefing, Hugh Garner had told him that the detail’s cell phones hadn’t been found. In an instant, the Rubik’s Cube in Jack’s mind slid into focus. Of course the phones hadn’t been found; Brady had taken them. And now he’d planted one with Calla Myers to implicate her and, by extension, the FASR.

  Egon broke into his thoughts. “Jack, are you still with me?”

  Jack nodded. “I was just thinking about Calla Myers’s murderer. I think I know who it is, but I have no idea what his real name is or where to find him.”

  “I just might be able to help you there.” Egon took out a small pad, flipped it open. “As I said, my friend hadn’t finished his autopsy on Calla Myers when the feds took her away, but he did note something interesting. He hadn’t yet put it in his prelim, because he needed to check it out, so the feds don’t have it.”

  Schiltz consulted his pad. “As per the MO, there were no fingerprints whatsoever except for the vic’s, which leads us to the inescapable conclusion that the perp wore gloves of some sort. My friend found traces of a superfine powder on Calla Myers’s coat, in the place under her left arm consistent with where someone who had his arm around her would place his hand.

  “It took him some time to figure out what this powder actually was.” Egon glanced up. “You’ll like this, Jack. What was on Calla Myers’s coat was logwood powder. Logwood is a heartwood extract from Haematoxylon campechianum, found in Central America and the West Indies. When mixed with a carrier, such as ethyl alcohol, glycerine, or Listerine, it becomes a black pigment used for tattooing.” He snapped the pad closed. “And, by the way, Calla Myers had no tattoos.”

  Jack’s heart leapt. “So the logwood powder came from the perp.”

  Schiltz nodded. “Whatever else this sonovabitch is, he’s also a tattoo artist. But here’s the best part. Almost all tattoo artists buy pre-mixed pigments. None of those use logwood as an ingredient. Your man mixes his pigments by hand.”

  “I liked the white Continental better,” Alli said as she slid into Jack’s car.

  He laughed as he put the car in gear. A moment later, he picked up the Secret Service detail in his rearview mirror. It was 11:20. The minutes were counting down to when he’d lose his access to her. It was now or never.

  “Alli, there’s something I’ve been wondering,” he said. “Did the man who abducted you have a tattoo?”

  Alli went rigid. She stared straight ahead.

  “Alli, honey, it’s all right for you to tell me.”

  “I only saw his arms.” Alli slowly shook her head from side to side. “He didn’t have any tattoos.”

  Jack, heading for the Carsons’ house in Chevy Chase, did his best to keep to the minimum speed. He didn’t want this drive to end yet.

  “Alli, I know Ronnie Kray frightened you terribly, but it would be helpful if you could tell me something more about what you saw. Anything at all.”

  Alli, still sitting rigidly, said nothing.

  “I want to catch him, Alli. You want that, don’t you?”

  She bit her lip, nodded.

  “You’re the only one who can help me.”

  Tears began to run down her cheeks. “I wish Emma was here. She could tell you what you want to know.”

  “You can, too.”

  Her eyes squeezed shut. “I’m not brave like she was.”

  Despite his best efforts, they’d entered Chevy Chase. This was it, then. The end. Jack relented. “Alli, your father has agreed to let me pick the detail guarding you.”

  “I want you,” she said at once.

  He nodded. “I’ll be there, just not the whole time. But you can absolutely trust Nina and Sam. I know them, I’ve worked with them. They won’t let you
down.”

  He turned onto the Carsons’ street, a cul-de-sac, saw more Secret Service agents in cars and on the sidewalk. They all watched him as he drove toward the large federal-style brick house at the end of the cul-de-sac.

  “Home,” he said.

  “It doesn’t feel like it.” Alli shifted in her seat. “Nothing feels right.”

  “As soon as you get back to your routine, it’ll all feel as familiar as it did before.”

  “But I don’t want to get back to my old routine!” She sounded like a spoiled child.

  Jack pulled into the driveway where Edward and Lyn Carson were waiting. He shut off the engine, opened his door, but Alli made no move to open hers.

  “Alli …”

  She turned to him. There was desperation in her eyes. “I don’t want to leave you!”

  “You have a responsibility to your parents. Tomorrow you’ll be the First Daughter. From now on, you have to act like the First Daughter. The whole country will be watching.”

  “Please don’t make me.”

  “Honey, it’s what has to happen.”

  “But I’m afraid.”

  Jack frowned. “Afraid of what?”

  “To leave you, to be here, I don’t know.”

  By this time, the Carsons, concerned, had come up to the car. Lyn Carson opened the passenger’s-side door, leaned in.

  “Alli? Baby?”

  Alli, still turned toward Jack, silently mouthed, Please help me.

  Jack felt torn into a thousand shreds. He had failed Emma, he didn’t want to fail Alli as well. But what could he do? The president-elect had given him an order that he was powerless to ignore. Alli wasn’t his child. So he did the only thing he could do. He leaned over, whispered in her ear, “I’ll see you later, I promise. Okay?”

  As he pulled back, he saw her nod. Then she turned, got out of the car and into her mother’s arms.

  “Jack.”

  Edward Carson was at his side as he got out of the car. The president-elect pumped his hand then impulsively embraced him.

  “There are no words.” His voice was clotted with emotion. “You’ve brought our girl back to us safe and sound, just as you promised.”

  Jack watched Alli. Her mother, arm around her waist, walked her up the brick steps to the open front door.

  “That’s right,” Lyn Carson said. “Random House wants you to write a memoir about growing up to be the First Daughter.”

  “She’s a special young woman,” Jack said. “I want Nina Miller and Sam Scott assigned to her permanent detail. Nina and I were partners in finding Alli. I worked with Sam at ATF until he transferred to the Secret Service three years ago.”

  Carson nodded. “I’ll make the necessary calls right away.” He looked at his wife and daughter for a moment, before turning back. “Jack, Lyn and I would like you at the inauguration, up on the dais with us. You’re like a member of our family now.”

  “It would be an honor, sir.”

  In the doorway, Alli turned, gave him a tentative smile, and with a sweep of her mother’s arm, vanished into her world of privilege and power.

  45

  Who was Ian Brady? In other, more normal circumstances, Jack would have been preoccupied with finding that out. However, this case was anything but normal. What concerned him now was not who Ian Brady was but why he had chosen that name. Clearly, his other aliases—Ronnie Kray and Charles Whitman—followed on in a straight line from the first.

  It was Jack’s experience—the experience of any knowledgeable lawman—that criminals, even the highly intelligent ones, chose their aliases for a reason. An FBI profiler who had been brought into the ATF office on a case some years ago had said that giving meaning to an alias was a subconscious urge criminals found irresistible. In other words, they couldn’t help themselves. Of one thing Jack was certain: The name Ian Brady held special meaning for this man. The trick was to find out what that meaning was.

  With his paranoia at full mast, Jack bypassed the computers hooked up to the federal network, which included his own at the ATF office in Falls Church. What was required, he thought now as he made his way out of Chevy Chase, was a public cybercafé. Twenty minutes of hunting from behind the wheel of his car unearthed one on Chase Avenue, in Bethesda. He sat down at a terminal, typed the name Ian Brady, but all he got was a bare-bones recap from Wikipedia and About.com. On the other hand, after some false leads, he found a distributor of logwood, the substance Brady had inadvertently left on Calla Myers’s coat. Taking down the address and phone number, he walked outside, checked the environment for tags. In the shadow of a storefront, he got out his cell burner, punched in the number of the distributor. He got nothing, no automated message, no voice mail. He wasn’t all that surprised. The distributor was so small and obscure, it had a rudimentary Web site. Customers could order its product online, but other than that, the site looked as if it hadn’t been updated in months.

  S&W Distribution was on the outskirts of the curiously named Mexico, Pennsylvania, 160 miles north of Chevy Chase Village. It took Jack just under three hours bombing down I-83N and US-22W to get there. By the time he exited PA-75S, it was already late in the afternoon. The sun, low in the sky, was bedded on thick clouds into which it expanded and slowly sank. Shadows lengthened with the beginning of winter’s long twilight.

  S&W occupied a ramshackle building a stone’s throw from the railroad tracks that brought Mexico all the business it was going to get. It was impossible to tell what color the structure had originally been painted or even what color it was now. Jack’s heart sank because at first sight, the place looked abandoned, but then he saw a young woman come out the front door. She wore cowboy boots, jeans, a fleece-lined denim jacket over a ribbed turtleneck sweater. As he pulled up, she settled herself on the clapboard steps, shook out a cigarette, lit up. She watched him with gimlet eyes as he got out of his car, walked toward her. She had an interesting, angular face. Its slight asymmetry made her appear beautiful. She was slim and small. She appeared to be in her late twenties.

  As he approached, he heard a train whistle. The tremor in the tracks built as the train thundered toward them. The unsettled air of its bow wave crashed over them like a hail of gunshots. The young woman, her long hair flying across her face, sat as calmly as if the only sound to be heard was the crunch of Jack’s shoes on the pebbly blacktop. Smoke dribbled from the corner of her mouth, and now that he was closer, he could see the tattoos on the backs of her hands, either side of her neck: the four main phases of the moon. She must have dyed her hair black to match her eyes, but the tips were golden. She wore a silver skull ring on the third finger of her right hand. The skull seemed to be laughing.

  In the aftermath of the cinder swirl, Jack flashed his ID, watched as her eyes tracked uninterestedly to the information. He began to wonder whether it was tobacco she was smoking.

  “Do you work at S-and-W?” he asked.

  “Used to.”

  “They fired you?”

  “The world fired them. S-and-W is history.” She jerked a thumb. “I’m just cleaning out the place.”

  Jack sat down beside her. “What’s your name?”

  “Hayley. Can you believe it? Ugh! Everyone calls me Leelee.”

  “How long did you work here?”

  “Seven to life.” She took a drag on her cigarette. “A fucking jail term.”

  Jack laughed. “You’re a hard piece of work.”

  “It’s self-preservation, so you can be sure I try my damnedest.” She watched him out of the corners of her black eyes. “You don’t look like a cop.”

  “Thank you.”

  It was her turn to laugh.

  “How far along are you with the—” He jerked his thumb. “—you know?”

  She sighed. “Not nearly far enough.”

  “I’m trying to track down a customer of S-and-W’s,” Jack said. “He’s a tattoo artist who mixes his own pigments. I’m hoping he ordered logwood from you.”

  �
��Not too many of those,” Leelee observed. “It’s why S-and-W was overtaken by history. That and the fact that the owner never came around. The fucker stopped paying his bills altogether—including my salary. If I wasn’t hired by the mail-order company taking over the building, I wouldn’t even be here now.” She shrugged. “But who cares? Odds are the new company’ll go belly-up, too.”

  “Do you know something your new bosses don’t?”

  “That’s the way the world works, isn’t it?” She stared at the glowing tip of her cigarette. “I mean, we’re all sheep, aren’t we, persuading ourselves that we’re different, that we’re beautiful or smart or cool. But we all end up the same way—as a little pile of ashes.”

  “That’s a pretty bleak outlook.”

  She shrugged. “Par for the course for a nihilist.”

  “You need a boyfriend,” Jack said.

  “Someone to tell me what to do and how to do it, someone to leave me at night to go out with the guys, someone to roll over in bed and snore his way to morning? You’re right. I need that.”

  “How about someone to love you, protect you, take care of you?”

  She tossed her head. “I do that myself.”

  “I see how that’s working out for you.”

  Through her armor, she gave him a wry smile.

  “Come on, Leelee, you need to believe in something,” Jack said.

  “Oh, I do. I believe in courage and discipline.”

  “Admirable.” Jack nodded. “But I mean something outside of yourself. We’re all connected to a universe more mysterious than what we see around us.”

  “Think so? Here’s the truest thing I know: Don’t for a moment let religion or art or patriotism persuade you that you mean more than you do.” She took another deep drag, gave him a challenging, alpha-dog look. “That comes from a play called Secret Life. I bet you never heard of it.”

  “It was written by Harley Granville-Barker.”

  Leelee’s eyes opened wide. “Shit, yeah. Now I’m impressed.”

  “Then give me a hand here.”

  “I could bust your hump, but you’ve taken all the fun out of that.” She swept her hair behind one ear. “Does your tattoo artist have a name?”