Roadrunner

by Michael Lilly

  Despite the late hour, he picks up on the second ring with the tireless pep for which he had a reputation.

  “’Ello, B3 here, Eunice speaking.”

  “Eunice, hi, it’s Remy Thorn.”

  “Remy! How are you, my boy?”

  “Well, I’ve been better, but maybe you could help me out with something.”

  “I can sure as hell try!” He laughs in a full, hearty manner.

  “Excellent. Hey, did you have anyone come to visit recently?”

  “Uh, let’s see … I had one couple stay here about a month ago, for six nights. Sweet things they were. Other than that, we’ve been vacant for most of the summer.”

  “Perfect, thanks, Eunice,” I say, and we terminate the call.

  The men look at me with anticipation.

  “Nothing,” I say.

  He must have done his operating from afar—possibly as far as Riverdell—but I suspect he’s close, and maybe sharing city boundaries with us right now. Indeed, if Andre has been locked up here all day, someone else has to have kidnapped and nearly butchered Stanley.

  I call Beth. She usually goes to bed fairly early, but by the grace of the differing time zones, she picks up.

  “Hey, do you remember Peter Perkins?” I ask.

  “Perkins. Brown-noser tagalong with an inflated sense of self-importance?”

  “Probably, yeah. He was on the force during my dad’s investigation, then dropped off the face of the planet.”

  “That’s the one, yep,” says Beth. “What about him?”

  “This will probably sound weird, but he’s become a suspect in the case I’m working down here. Do you know whether he still calls Riverdell home?”

  “Oh shit. Huh. Quite possibly. I think I might have seen him a couple of months ago. Should I look into him?”

  “As much as you possibly can. If you need probable cause, consider this an anonymous tip that he may have hostages.”

  “Hostages?”

  “Not really. Not there, at least. But do what you can, please.”

  “Hypothetically, should I storm his home, would it be considered prudent to bring backup?”

  “Bring some,” I say. “Unless he’s there now, which I suspect he’s not, I’m assuming he operates alone. That or with one guy down here, who’s in holding.”

  “Jesus. What’s going on?”

  “Revenge of Keroth.”

  “Ah, shit. I was afraid of this.”

  “Me, too. Anyway, I gotta go. Let me know what you can find out, yeah?”

  “You got it. Take care of yourself.”

  “You, too.” And that call joins Eunice’s in the past.

  The last call I need to make for now is to Wometzia’s station.

  “Husk,” says the gruff voice.

  “Chief, it’s Thorn.”

  “Thorn. What in the hell is going on?”

  “I’ll explain soon. Do we have anyone around who could get eyes on the Romeros’ house?”

  “I’ll go. You in trouble?”

  “Not anymore, sir. Or yet. We’re on a lead and things may get messy, though. Just wanted to take precautions.”

  “Make us look good out there, kid.” I guess being suspected for murder probably wasn’t a good start.

  “Aye aye, Cap.” He hangs up.

  Something itches in my brain. There’s a piece of the puzzle that hasn’t been fairly examined yet, a bit of food in my mouth yet unchewed.

  And now I feel halted. I’ve checked my six as well as my three and my nine. I’ve gotten the ball rolling on a man hunt in Albuquerque and an informal investigation of Perkins in Riverdell. I’ve got Husk surveilling the Romeros’ house, and now I don’t know what to do with myself. Realistically, there’s not much I can do until I hear from either Beth or the New Mexico State Police. Or, god forbid, Husk.

  My body insists on maintenance—sleep, food, just not tearing myself apart in general. The fog of fatigue has won the battle against caffeine, as it often does, but this time the battle was over fast. I can feel myself becoming weaker, dumber, slower. I am fully aware that my judgment is incomplete and flawed, and that a well-rested Remy might already have Perkins in custody.

  “Food and coffee?” Todd says.

  “Food and sleep,” I say. I can almost feel my exhaustion affecting the others, as if my body, in desperation, is sucking energy from the room like a sponge.

  Gratuitously, the arresting officers allowed me to drive Todd’s car rather than be stranded here in Albuquerque. I toss the keys at him and he catches them in a hand outstretched like a catcher’s mitt.

  I don’t quite recall how long it takes or how we get there, but we roll into a McDonald’s, and I am hungry enough for that.

  After two Big Macs, I feel less weak and fogged out, but still impaired. I need a nap.

  Todd suggests driving home, but I suspect that this is where things will unfold, and I don’t want to be ninety minutes away when it does so. To that end, we just drive back to the station, and I fall into a mercifully deep slumber there in the car, one which even the heat fails to stifle. My last glimpse of the stereo’s digital readout is just before midnight. Lightning strikes and I’m out.

  My ascent through the stages of sleep is slow at first, but then an earsplitting thunderclap yanks me the rest of the way. I find a blanket on me; despite the temperatures cresting eighty even into the depths of the night, I prefer to sleep with something covering me. Todd knows this. He must have grabbed the blanket that he keeps in his trunk in case of emergencies.

  It’s still dark out, so I can’t have slept for too long. Or I slept really long. Todd is in the driver’s seat, eyes half open, watching me and blinking slowly. When he notices me stirring, he smiles.

  “Morning,” I say.

  “More or less,” says Todd.

  “Anything interesting happen while I was out? What time is it?”

  “It’s four o’clock, and zero interesting things happened while you were sleeping, unless you count that you had a fart that sounded like Mickey Mouse laughing.”

  Twelve

  I try to be embarrassed, indignant, but I end up laughing. Maybe the indignation centers of my brain haven’t quite booted up yet.

  I pull out my phone and find that it is indeed just after four o’clock. Four whole hours of glorious, sweaty car sleep, and … no news from Beth? I have no missed calls or texts. Just an e-mail from Barnes and Noble urging me to use my fifteen percent off coupon.

  And as though prompted by my thoughts, my phone starts to ring, and the screen displays Beth’s name and number.

  “Talk to me,” I say.

  “Holy fucking shit,” says Beth. I miss her vocabulary.

  “What? What is it?”

  “This guy’s been stalking you for months. Ever since November, it looks like. He has notes about your schedule, where you and Todd like to go on walks, eat, your favorite outfits, everything. There’s bits about me, too, but mostly about you and Todd. Also, we found a series of notes between him and Keroth from before. Most likely they were using a dropbox system to pass notes, as they knew that it carried the least risk. The notes use a lot of code words, so we’re still trying to figure out if there’s anything else there. Anyway, he also has some stuff from the uh … Keroth brand of products. Fucking pervert. And there’s a file here that we think he was either using or going to use for blackmail, target’s initials A.R.”—son of a bitch—“and a brief outline of his plan of how to use it. I guess the A.R. guy is involved in some kind of business that Perkins wanted to use to frame you, but the notes don’t really say. How’s that? Did I do good?”

  “Ya done good, Connors. I could kiss you. Figuratively, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’m gonna get on that. I’ll let you know how things go. I owe you so hard.”

  “Shit yeah you do, I was already halfway into my pajamas.”

  “Halfway?”

  “My popcorn got done faster than I thou
ght it would.”

  “Ah, of course. Zombie night?”

  “Zombie night. Anyway, take care of yourself, Thorn.”

  “You too.”

  Every once in a while, Beth and I used to be hit with an inexplicable, intense urge to watch a throng of zombie films. But we exhausted the list of decent stuff pretty quickly, so we were left with terrible, not-even-B-list movies that made up for in pure, accidental comedic value what they lacked in production value or directing skill. This tradition persisted right up until my departure, and I’m sure that, were I to return, the tradition would continue.

  Now I need to explore the relationship between Perkins and Romero. Something there is crucial, essential. Perhaps not the engine of the operation, but maybe a belt or the steering wheel.

  I need to speak with Andre Romero. But it’s lights out and he’s asleep.

  After stretching for a minute, I head back inside to find Officer Lund asleep on one of the chairs in the lobby, his feet crossed and resting on another.

  “Lund, where did you say Andre works again?” Apparently it was a light doze, as he snaps to consciousness and answers my question right away.

  “Some 3D printing company. We have more information somewhere …”

  After a moment of shuffling through papers, Officer Lund produces a pamphlet for A3D, a small but rapidly growing company that apparently develops both hardware and software used for 3D printing.

  A URL is provided at the bottom of the pamphlet’s inner page. I tap it into my phone and it takes me to a trendy homepage, one that looks like it was designed by a second-year web development intern who got paid in ‘exposure and portfolio addition,’ the royal middle finger of startup companies to aspiring graphic designers.

  There’s a tab at the top marked ‘The Crew.’ I click it and it brings up a list of current employees, casually dressed for the most part and coerced into phony, fun smiles and poses.

  Andre Romero cleans up well. While he didn’t diverge from his usual wardrobe, he looks to have an elevated level of charm in this photo, as though every other version of him I’ve seen simply hadn’t had enough sleep, and now I’m looking at the well-rested version.

  Underneath his name sits the less visible title, ‘Software Engineer.’ I navigate the website and find a section dedicated to current projects, dismissing a couple of hardware endeavors before finding an interesting software one: a program that can be tuned to make 3D models of 2D images, based on customizable parameters or manually on a case-by-case basis.

  And then, Detectives’ Euphoria hits: the final piece, the coalescence of the previously unbound, aimless bits of information without shape or destination.

  My realization is thus: they, Andre and Perkins, are working together much more closely than I thought.

  As law enforcement back in Riverdell, Perkins would have had access to scans of my fingerprints. A 2D image, one might say. With access to those in tandem with someone capable of producing a 3D version, all they would have had to do is apply a thin layer of oil to a 3D-printed replica, maybe even from their own hands, and they would be able to plant anyone’s fingerprints anywhere they want. The concept amazes me as much as frightens me. Aside from DNA testing, the development of the technology for the acquisition, scanning, inspection, and matching of fingerprints was arguably the most influential in modern forensics. Sure that can be bypassed by wearing gloves, but most people don’t have that level of foresight.

  And Perkins and Romero didn’t just bypass that facet of forensics—they manipulated it. They made it their bitch. It reminds me of movies and video games in which droids and robots must be re-programmed to perform on behalf of the protagonist.

  But this is a dire matter, and Perkins is the droid I am looking for. However, given that he has an accomplice, there’s not much we can do in order to track him, if we’re solely going on isolated events, as has been our strategy thus far. If our target is The Killer, we’ve been more or less tracking two different people, and now we need to determine which tracks belong to whom. Of course, good old fashioned police work is an option, but being that Perkins worked in police, he has rudimentary knowledge, at the least, of how that would be carried out, and thus also knows how to evade detection by traditional means. He knew that he would need to plant fingerprints on the photographs in order for the evidence to be believable at all. We need to approach this assuming that he knew we would catch on to certain things. We can look up credit card transactions, hotel check-ins, vehicle rentals—the usual—but, especially after Keroth’s fatal mistake of letting himself get caught on credit card transactions, that is not a mistake Perkins is likely to make.

  Our attack plan, then, must involve information he doesn’t know we have. Some factor he thought guarded without possibility of failure. His connection to Romero is a start, but surely he didn’t trust that to remain under wraps.

  One irksome disadvantage I have is that I am not certain of the caliber of mind my adversary has. With Keroth, I was able to operate under the supposition that he was every bit as meticulous and methodical as I am.

  A person might expect that, in a game of strategy, the more knowledgeable, skilled player will win every time. While this is true for the most part, there are situations in which this is definitely not the case. For example, in a game of chess, a veteran player might make a move anticipating a certain move in response; the move a fellow veteran might make. However, this plan can be overthrown in spectacular fashion if his or her opponent makes what, in all other situations, would be the wrong move. Of course, the veteran may think that the wrong move was simply a well-calculated and preemptive maneuver, and the veteran’s assessment of his opponent’s playing ability goes up, further skewing it from reality.

  This is a phenomenon I can’t afford to perpetuate. If I miscalculate even slightly I could hand him a path to victory. For now, I can only make the safest of moves; no great plan here will risk anything important. I must keep my resources well managed and my cards close to my chest.

  “Chief Husk has eyes on the Romeros’ home,” I say. “I’m assuming that nothing has come up for his credit cards or anything?”

  “Nothing so far,” says Lund.

  “And we don’t know what he’s actually driving, as the burgundy van was left at the farmhouse.”

  “Do we even know if he’s nearby?” asks Lund.

  “Yes, unless there is a third accomplice. Or more. Someone, probably Perkins, has to have called the police with the anonymous tip.”

  “And we confirmed that it was called in? Not some other kind of message? E-mail, text, carrier pigeon?”

  “Not a one,” I say. Indeed, Chief Husk operates largely on the telephone and scarcely uses any other form of communication. Wometzia’s law enforcement doesn’t have any presence on social media and the tip line’s e-mail counterpart is seldom checked.

  “Captain!” Another officer, yet another whom I don’t recognize, walks into the station via the front entrance. “Stanley is awake!”

  Brooks instantly looks more alert. “And? Will they let us talk to him?”

  “Not for a while, but if we have the numbers, we could have someone sit on it until we can.”

  “I’ll go,” I say. The three Albuquerque citizens regard me with surprise.

  “Don’t you think you should sleep?” asks Brooks.

  “Yes, I probably should. I’ll find the most comfortable bench I can at the hospital and doze off until they give us the green light.”

  Todd and I both know that sleep will not likely be on my menu tonight, but if this white lie helps to get Brooks off my case, so be it. There’s no arguing that my few hours of rest in the car were insufficient to make up for the shit I’m putting my body and mind through, but I can make up for that when this is all resolved. My heart aches a little when I see that Todd is also fighting off exhaustion, but we’ve been through worse together. Which is simultaneously comforting and disconcerting.

  The less impaired of the
two of us, Todd drives us to the hospital.

  My experiences with hospitals have, thus far, been fairly limited. My most recent one was after Todd was hit by a car that had lost control on its way into Riverdell, amidst the aftermath of my father’s murder. He had been in unbelievably high spirits and, if one were to ask when it was that I fell for him, it would have been when he gave me a small, distinct smile as I was leaving one night. I had been swept out of the room by the tempestuous Gale Quispitt, a tiny nurse who carried a gust of wind with her as if by namesake.

  Before that, my last time in a hospital had been when one of our more seasoned officers took a gunshot wound to the shoulder. It was just a flesh would, as the saying goes, but after some time of not caring for it properly, the exit wound became infected, a festering blight that eventually reached his heart. Officer Bran passed away from complications thereof shortly afterward.

  Prior to that, my visits to Riverdell’s hospital had been exclusively with victims or witnesses, and only on detective business, not unlike this visit. So, to me, hospitals typically mean just that: business.

  Now, though, it’s charged with a conviction, one fueled by justice. Or, rather, a retributive fury fed by injustice.

  Sure, I’ve met with victims in hospitals. But this case, more than any other I’ve worked, is personal. Whether or not it’s directed at me is irrelevant; the killer (or killers, as the case is starting to seem) will have reasons, a vendetta, a mind trained on punishment. I don’t yet know exactly how Perkins got Romero to cooperate, but Andre doesn’t seem like he would’ve taken much convincing. He’s too calm. Too empty. Even I know that a normal person would be filled with emotion were he in Romero’s shoes—anger, despair, grief, a degree of confusion—but Andre’s words didn’t match his demeanor.

  Indeed, Beth found a treasure trove of material that Perkins could use to blackmail Romero (printed screenshots of text messages and incriminating photos, for the most part), but the more I think about it, the more I’m sure that that was only a precaution, in case Romero needed some convincing.