J. Daniel Sawyer - Clarke Lantham 01

by And Then She Was Gone

  It fit. Crazy as French militiaman, and it fit every step of the way. “What else have you got?”

  “That’s most of it. Just to be thorough I did deep background on everyone else in your notes. Sternwood, the other parents. Your client did the clinical psych internship for her masters running support groups for incest survivors. I think she suspects her husband is screwing her daughter.”

  I hadn’t put it together myself, but it tracked. Like Rawles said, shrinks develop a nose for that kind of stuff, see it everywhere even when it’s not there. The kid wasn’t all boners and bongs. “She was probably hoping I’d prove her wrong.”

  “Good bet. Other than that…”

  “What about Gravity?”

  “The man who wasn’t there. Doesn’t exist. I’d need a name, or a family connection, or something. He could be anybody.”

  “What about face matching?”

  “Statistical dead-average white guy like that’ll get you a date with two hundred of the most boring twinks you ever laid eyes on—and that’s just from the FBI. If you want ‘em, though, I can do it for you in probably two days.”

  “How much?”

  “Just cause you’re so cute with your hair mussed like that…let’s say another five K. Six K if I can narrow the search to under fifty names.”

  Mrs. Thales was gonna hate me for the expenses bill, but that’s what it takes. This fucker was the linchpin, I was sure of it, and I wanted him like a fly wants warm cow shit.

  “Done. Back-date your report to yesterday night?” Just to keep my alibi consistent.

  “Sure.” His keyboard chattered for a moment. “Just dropped you the reports, plus deep background on Sternwood.”

  He pushed my laptop at me and I verified they were there, then put it to sleep. He was looking at me with one eye on the door.

  “Well, I guess I better get moving.”

  “Good. They’ve got your office on the news.”

  “Oh, joy.”

  6:00 PM, Monday

  Neanderthals?

  Up until twenty minutes ago, I knew as much about them as I do about quantum physics.

  Cavemen. Lumbering hairy hulks with skin that looked like they’d borrowed it from a rhinoceros in all those PBS documentaries from the nineteen eighties.

  Throwbacks. Apes.

  Monkeys.

  They’re monkeys. We can fuck ‘em like monkeys.

  That was what Gravity had said to Phil in the shed.

  Monkeys? Nya was more human than most regular people. A wild human, maybe, who couldn’t tame easily to suit her home culture, but very human.

  Far too human.

  So why was she screwing her own father—or the man she thought was her father?

  Nya was all into it, man.

  What if Rawles was telling the truth? Was incest just a cultural taboo? If it wasn’t, would a Neanderthal have the same taboo? She liked her conquests…but something about that didn’t feel right.

  They all just fell over for Phil…Like he was some kind of god…Same way they played up to G.

  So maybe it wasn’t about sex for her—or, at least, not recreation. What if it was about power? On that snow video, Nya had acted like the other girls were her responsibility. She was the alpha female—was Gravity the alpha male? And Phil too?

  But why would Phil and Gravity qualify for that kind of position if Rawles didn’t? And why were the men running the show? Wasn’t caveman society supposed to be matriarchal?

  You’re swatting at shadows in a dark room, Lantham. Go back to what you know.

  Sternwood was involved with a group of men who were molesting and drugging up what were essentially his own children—particularly when they were his daughters, created around the time he lost his own.

  Molesting? Your thinking on this case is fucked up man…these aren’t girls, they’re women.

  It was fucking me up. Every time I closed my eyes I saw Stephanie lashed to the bed in my office like a shipwreck. She did look like the fifteen year old street whores who started showing up dead twelve years ago, except Stephanie wasn’t knifed. First murder I ever saw. Doesn’t take much to bring it back.

  But if I changed the assumption of responsibility, maybe for a minute, what did that do to the puzzle?

  Rawles said they bloomed early. Nya’s video journal confirmed it. Smart, self-possessed, not approval seeking, not looking for Daddy—hell, Daddy didn’t even show up in her innermost thoughts. Interested in having fun—what college student wasn’t?—but more than that. She got meaning out of it. Archery, skiing, sex, hiking, like they were all the same thing. They totally absorbed her in a way the drugs didn’t. It wasn’t that she had something to live for, it was that she had life to live for.

  From what little I understood about such things, it wasn’t the profile of someone who suddenly started having sex with a parent. Most people in the world look outside the family for lovers…

  …when you’re watching people out the window, you’re not focused on what’s going on in the restaurant.

  Doctor Tam had told me, dammit. She’d told me that I was looking in the wrong place. She’d tried to tell me I needed to watch what was going on in Nya’s family, as close as she could, and I thought she was giving vague advice about my perspective being screwy, and commenting on the food.

  Well, my perspective had been screwy. But she’d known about Phil—and she couldn’t tell me, because there was no coercion, no abuse, no “danger to self or others,” and everyone was over eighteen. Didn’t fall under required reporting standards.

  So she was drawn to Phil and Gravity…why? Maybe an Oedipal thing—or whatever the female version was? It didn’t start until a few months ago, though. What changed?

  But I already knew what changed. It had been sitting in front of me all along.

  Permission.

  From the black hole that still sat in the middle of my puzzle, and every time someone talked about him the shape got weirder.

  Gravity. It all kept coming back to Gravity.

  He spoke their language.

  He did speak their language. I’d seen it. On that snow video.

  Nya really settled down when he came around.

  Gravity had met the gir…women and Rawles in France. Why was he there? How was it he lived in the same area, so that he could continue the relationship when he came back? Sure, it was a big world full of unlikely things, but that was an awfully convenient coincidence.

  The man had no history I knew about. I hadn’t gotten his license plate when I was chasing him—I’d been too worried about keeping up.

  Which brought me back around to another question—why had he been at Stanford?

  He spoke their language.

  It kept reverberating through my head, like it should be enough to tell me the answer to life, the universe, and everything all on its own.

  There was one thing it might mean: Gravity went to France for the purpose of meeting the girls. But why would he do that?

  He spoke their language.

  But he didn’t speak their language. It was more like he had a psychic power. Without so much as a word he’d turned an enemy into a friend…

  No. Not psychic. Subtler.

  Nonverbal.

  I’d seen that body language before. When I got interrogation training on the force. He’d been using bonding gestures. He’d been counting on how powerful that kind of thing would be with…

  He knew what they are. He knew they were Neanderthals, and he went all the way to France to meet them.

  Just to meet them.

  This guy was connected to Sternwood. He knew that Sternwood wasn’t just interested in species revivification, he’d already accomplished it.

  And he was taking advantage of it for…sex?

  Awfully expensive way to get laid. And why bring Phil Thales in on it?

  Phil Thales was connected to Sternwood too. He worked for Sternwood’s company. Got his fertility treatments that way, even though he w
asn’t supposed to. But he didn’t sue Sternwood for wrongful birth or malpractice. Did that mean he knew what was going on?

  Seemed doubtful. Loyalty to an employer could be enough to keep him out of the suit. It would take some digging to verify it, but I’d lay good odds that Phil got some dramatic pay raises around the time of that lawsuit.

  Besides, the Neanderthal babies would count as genetic experimentation on humans, something people tended to go to jail for. Would a man like Sternwood risk a whistle-blower?

  Maybe. But he was the world authority on “Antony’s Syndrome.” He’d gone to the trouble of creating a disorder to cover up his research. Would he actually have let anyone—particularly a business manager like Phil Thales—know enough to sink him?

  I didn’t buy it. And that left one very obvious angle:

  Revenge.

  What if Thales didn’t know? What if he’d had trouble with his daughter who didn’t seem to respect normal conventions of restraint? Dora said he was distant—I’d seen fathers of attractive daughters go distant just to keep temptation at arm’s length. What if he’d been a good father? Maybe worked hard at it in the midst of an obviously unhappy marriage, where his wife was sleeping with her patients.

  What would that kind of man do if a competent social engineer—which Gravity most definitely was—not only convinced him that his daughter wasn’t his, but that she wasn’t even human?

  They’re monkeys.

  And if Phil wanted revenge? If Phil wanted to ruin the life of the man who’d ruined his? The boss who betrayed him?

  We can fuck ‘em like monkeys.

  He’d start by dehumanizing them. And then he’d take from the doctor what the doctor took from him.

  We can put ‘em down like monkeys.

  Stephanie’s death was no last-minute expedient. Dumping her at my place was just convenient—insurance. Delay me while they finished with the other three.

  Three?

  Or were there only two left?

  Or only one?

  My stomach dropped down through the floor. Chances were very good that, by now, they were all dead.

  And that was the ultimate revenge. Kill all four of them, then frame the doctor for the murders. Subtract one to keep me busy.

  Fuck. I had to call that piece in. No cell coverage up here.

  I pushed the car to its limits zipping down that mountain road. The girls were all on the chopping block.

  Which meant Sternwood didn’t have anything to do with this—the plot was directed at him. Maybe.

  And Gravity was behind it. The man who didn’t exist.

  Go with it, Lantham. It’s the only guess that fits.

  I hit the flats at the bottom of the mountain. Much as I didn’t want the delay, I needed food to keep thinking straight. When I hit the East Bay, I wouldn’t have any time to screw around.

  I also had cell phone coverage for the first time.

  Quickie dial to Stockton PD.. I didn’t really want to add a felony to my day, but sometimes you’ve got no choice.

  “I need to report a theft.” I spun a completely plausible tale about getting mugged at California and Miner last night about two—a time when that neighborhood is pretty much abandoned. No, I didn’t know who did it, but the piece’s serial number was attached to my license on file with the state.

  I finished about when I pulled into a drive-thru. Waiting in line, I looked up Sternwood’s number in my notes. If I was anywhere near right, he needed to be warned, and fast.

  “Embryology, Doctor Sternwood’s office.”

  “Is the doctor in?”

  “I’m sorry, Doctor Sternwood is out of the office today. If you’d like to leave a…”

  “The doctor’s wife has just had a stroke and is asking for him at the hospital.”

  “Oh my God…”

  “How can I get a hold of him? He’s not answering his home phone.”

  “Do you have his cell number?”

  “No, it’s not on the wife’s card.”

  “Oh, here, let me get it for you,” the receptionist read the number out, “He usually answers unless he’s in class.”

  “Thank you.”

  “We’ll be praying for her.”

  “I’ll tell her. Thanks.”

  I hung up.

  I got my food, pulled out of the drive-thru, and was forced to pay attention to traffic for the handful of minutes it took me to find the ramp onto northbound 680.

  I hadn’t actually tried the home phone yet. I found it at the top of Earl’s Sternwood report.

  But the home number just rang through to voice mail.

  Nothing.

  Cell.

  Nothing.

  Dammit.

  I had no way to know where they’d have taken him. Or if they even left him alive.

  And the entrance ramp to 680 North was jammed.

  One more play. At the rate I was using this prepaid, it might as well be a homing beacon.

  Danville PD actually had a desk sergeant on duty.

  No, Officer Randolph wasn’t due in for another ten minutes.

  Yes, he was scheduled to work in the office this evening before his patrol shift.

  Yes, if I called back I could speak to him.

  I hit the end of the entrance ramp ten minutes later. Another ten minutes and I’d moved almost a quarter of a mile down the road. Good time as any to dial.

  The desk sergeant put me through to the cop I was looking for.

  “Randolph.”

  “Randolph, this is Clarke Lantham from last night.”

  “The snoop?”

  “That’s me. Look, I need a favor.”

  “What kind of favor?”

  “That house you picked me up at last night—4365 Ackerman—I need you to go by and check it out.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m hoping you can stop a murder.”

  “What?” I heard him set something down on his desk and stand up straighter.

  “The owner of the house, Richard Sternwood, is being set up for multiple murders. I can’t go into why now, it’ll take too long. Just take my word for it—there are three girls who are either dead or going to be dead really soon. Maybe Sternwood too. I need you to stop it—I’m stuck in rush hour and can’t get there in time.”

  “No bullshit?”

  “I got ten years with Oakland PD. Five of them as a homicide detective. You don’t get out there, now, and I can promise you at least three stiffs.”

  “Who’s the perp?”

  “Perps. Phil Thales,” I gave the address, “And a guy who calls himself Gravity.”

  “I’ll get right on it.”

  “Thanks, I owe you one.”

  I hung up.

  The speedometer insisted I was still only doing four miles an hour.

  When King Pelias wanted to get rid of a pretender to his throne, he sent Jason (who was far better at being a “Jason” than Rawles) on a Trial by Ordeal to steal the Golden Fleece. Jason wasn’t expected to survive, but he did. Pelias lost his throne.

  If he’d lived today, the king could have gotten much better results by sending Jason to the East Bay through Silicon Valley’s rush hour traffic. Driving in that is a bit like trying to swim in wet cement.

  A PI has other, better outlets for his ingrained masochism. I never join the teeming masses running home from the chip design and stream server rooms. Never. It’s policy.

  Which is why I didn’t feel guilty about driving in the ten-mile-per-hour traffic while munching on the abomination-of-the-week from Jack in the Box and reading the file on Sternwood that Earl had given me.

  It was better than waiting on the edge of my gas pedal to hear back from Randolph.

  The doctor was not a happy guy, by the profile. Legally separated from his wife in ‘95 after the death of their daughter, before he ran away to England. Wife got the son but never filed for divorce. Son dropped out of Harvard during his senior year after a dust-up with the ROTC Sergeant and dro
pped off the map.

  The only family photo Earl could turn up showed the two kids as toddlers. It came from a lobby group newsletter calling the Sternwoods “The family of the future,”—family values agitprop from the mid nineties, back when the internet was the enemy and good down-home research and industry were going to save the American soul.

  Sternwood, a working-class Jew who made good and helped kickstart an industry that helped struggling couples have babies, was the poster boy of how the American family was supposed to be. Except for the whole secular Jew thing, but scientists were allowed to be family friendly without being religious.

  What the hell had this guy done to piss off Gravity? Maybe he had a relative who was one of the Neanderthals? He didn’t have that face himself. And he was too old. Mid-twenties, easy.

  Well, the formal split explained the living trust on the house. But why no divorce? Maybe it would be too expensive for both of them? The good doctor couldn’t be hurting for cash with the kind of research he was doing. If the wife knew about half of it, maybe she was as horrified as Thales, and a slice of the patent royalties was the price of her silence.

  Or maybe she was in on the frame. Could she be the one who had Tased me last night?

  Interesting trip into yesteryear, and it didn’t tell me a damned thing about why Sternwood’s house was the epicenter of this grisly little kidnapping operation. If anything, it muddied the waters again.

  Seven o’clock ticked by. I wouldn’t have noticed, except for the guy laying on his horn behind me. Traffic was loosening up. Time for eyes on the road. I put the papers down and slunk up past Mission and over the Sunol grade.

  No word back from Randolph. He’d have the prepaid’s number on caller ID.

  Then again, I hadn’t asked him to call me back and he wasn’t obligated to. Still, you’d think with professional courtesy…

  Whatever the case, I was just about ready to come unglued creeping up toward the south edge of Pleasanton.

  Maybe Rawles knew more about Gravity, or could tell me why they’d all chosen Sternwood’s house to party at the other night.