Buried (Hush collection)

by Jeffery Deaver

  “National Media’s part of ICON.”

  Fitz had no clue, as he was sure his blank expression revealed.

  “You know, the Integrated Content Outlet Network.”

  “No, I don’t know.”

  “Think of it as reverse RSS and information aggregation,” Dottie said.

  Blank just got blanker.

  “How’s this? Imagine a really, really big mailing list to media—all kinds of media: traditional, alternative, blogs, websites, social media feeds, Twitbook, the whole shebang.”

  “Okay.”

  He watched her pull up his sidebar, copy it and load it onto a website. She hit a button.

  “What happens now?” he asked.

  “That’s it.”

  “You’ve sent it to . . . whatever you’ve said before?”

  A nod.

  That was easy. “How many people’ll see it?”

  She replied. “Impossible to say.” Fitz’s face must have registered disappointment. She added, “But potentially forty, fifty million.”

  He blinked. “What?”

  She cautioned, “That’s monthly traffic, of course.”

  Fitz had hoped for another fifty thousand views.

  “Appreciate it.”

  He read what was up on her screen, a piece about a rap singer’s “fashion statement.” The man—he believed it was a man—seemed to favor very high heels.

  “You said ‘above the fold.’ You go to journalism school?”

  “Northwestern.”

  It was a good school.

  “I read some of your blogs. You know your chops. You can write.”

  She shrugged.

  “You know the difference between ‘that’ and ‘which.’”

  Without an instant’s hesitation: “‘That’ is restrictive and necessary for the sentence to achieve the writer’s meaning. ‘Which’ is nonrestrictive and adds parenthetical information to the sentence.”

  “It’s like music, your writing. Your phrasing, your syntax are beautiful.”

  Dottie said, “Star Wars Yoda, a butcher of syntax is.” Drawing a rare smile from his bearded face.

  He scanned the monitor again. A dozen windows were open. Made him dizzy.

  She said, “I heard you’re retiring?”

  A tip of his head.

  “To do what?”

  He thought:

  Not writing a damn memoir, which would be like swimming in quicksand.

  And not teaching students, because students irritated him.

  And definitely not fishing, which was both barbaric and boring.

  “Don’t know.”

  His eyes were on the screen. “Is this satisfying?”

  “What?”

  “Writing this stuff.”

  “Stuff.”

  “Oomec. Or whatever you call it.”

  “Me? I call them articles or pieces or stories or blog posts. I’m big enough to step over corporate crap.”

  But not too old to kiss the ass of algorithms.

  “One of your pieces? It was almost poetic. Really. It was about animal videos on YouTube. Monkeys in costumes. Baby goats in pajamas.” He’d tried to rein in his tone. He guessed he wasn’t successful.

  Her eyes were cold. “You ought to check them out. They’re cute. Oh, and that piece had three hundred thousand views.”

  He decided not to back down. Fitz noted other ExaminerOnline staffers nearby. The oldest appeared to be twenty-five. He leaned down so no one else would hear. “Don’t you want to do real reporting?” he whispered. “You don’t need this.”

  “Oh, don’t know why I would, Fitz. After that YouTube piece ran? I got a gold star pasted on my forehead by my boss and an extra helping of kibble at dinner. The only thing I don’t need is your condescension.” She spun her glitzy chrome chair toward the monitor and began to keyboard at the speed of light.

  II

  JULY14

  9

  He awoke, trading pure dark for lesser dark.

  Trading peaceful oblivion for despair.

  Jasper Coyle recalled where he was.

  Shivering, he crawled to the hole he’d pounded in the brick and peered into the other room. All he could see was another brick wall about fifteen feet away. But there would have to be a door or window, because of the light.

  Get back to work.

  Six bricks were done.

  The more bricks Jasper Coyle removed, the more easily the surrounding ones could be pounded out.

  He had air but the thirst was growing worse.

  Though the chamber was cold, he was sweating from his effort. Dry-mouthed, he found his muscles cramping and he grew disoriented even with the air streaming in from the next room. That had to be the thirst.

  What if he found standing water there? Would it be safe to drink? The smell, though. The fumes. Any puddles would be contaminated with oil, or diesel. But they’d rise to the top, wouldn’t they? Maybe he could swipe the surface and suck up a fast sip or two before the toxic scum flowed back.

  Or would the water itself be tainted? Would he poison himself and die, screaming in agony?

  What the hell’re these crazy thoughts?

  Forget water. Dig.

  Another brick down, then another.

  Almost big enough.

  Coyle, slim by nature and slim from exercise, thought: Go for it. Hands and arms first through the hole, then the head. If you could get your shoulders through an opening, he’d heard, you could squeeze your body through too. A little squirming, pushing.

  But what if you got stuck?

  The worst way to die.

  Panic rose.

  No . . .

  He managed to tamp down his horror.

  Concentrate . . . Push, push.

  Then finally he tumbled into the next room, and collapsed on the floor, breathing hard. He rolled onto his back and looked toward the light, a horizontal slit high in the brick wall—like a narrow cellar window. Now he just needed to find a door . . .

  He rolled to his feet and looked around.

  Oh, Jesus Christ! No, no!

  Jasper Coyle had just escaped into a fucking jail cell.

  The chamber was small, about fifteen by fifteen. Brick on three walls, thick iron bars on the fourth. The window? It measured eighteen inches across and six inches high.

  He staggered to the door and found what he knew he would: a rusted lock, frozen tight.

  Dropping to his knees, Coyle uttered a low howl.

  He rose and stumbled back to the wall he’d broken through, reached in and retrieved his caveman ax. He’d remove more bricks; light would flow into the first room and maybe he could see a way of working open the wooden door he’d found yesterday.

  He began pounding.

  One brick out, then another.

  A third.

  Which is when the entire wall collapsed, bricks the color of dried blood cascading down upon Coyle, compressing his lungs, breaking bones. He struggled for breath.

  He gave a futile scream, soft as a whisper. Complete darkness returned.

  10

  Pounding pavement.

  Trying to find the anonymous witness Trask had mentioned.

  Hard work. Pain radiated through Fitz’s feet and legs. His breathing was labored, and the damn coughing gripped his chest from time to time.

  Journalism is a young man’s game.

  He laughed. A young person’s game, picturing Dottie Wyandotte’s tattoos and piercings.

  Baby goats in pajamas . . .

  Then he forgot his body’s complaints. The hard work paid off.

  He found a contractor working on a building directly across from where Coyle’s car had been parked. The tradesman was on the job the day of the kidnapping but hadn’t been back to the site since, so the investigators hadn’t spoken to him. He hadn’t seen the Gravedigger or Coyle but he had seen a man sitting outside a café for an hour or so around lunchtime. He pointed out the table; the man lunching would have had a good vie
w of Coyle’s car.

  Had this contractor seen the witness who’d called 911? Maybe, maybe not. But something definitely worth following up on.

  Fitz asked, “Did he look like anyone famous, an actor, a politician, musician?”

  This was Fitz’s form of the Identi-Kit—the device used by police to render images of suspects based on witnesses’ observations.

  “Oh, I’m not sure . . .” Then he was frowning. “Well, there’s an actor . . . Yes, you know . . . Training Day. The movie?”

  Fitz had never seen it.

  “I can’t think of his name . . . The young guy.”

  Fitz looked up the movie on his iPhone.

  Ethan Hawke.

  The worker looked at the screen. “Yeah, yeah, that’s him.”

  He downloaded the picture, thanked the man, and suggested he contact Special Agent Trask.

  Back to pavement pounding. A cough. Lozenge. They didn’t do much good. But they tasted nice.

  Up and down the street, showing his press credentials and flashing the picture of the actor. No sightings.

  Around noon, though, Fitz got a lead: a hot dog vendor glanced at the red carpet photo and said that he’d seen him going into a nearby hotel—and just a half hour ago.

  Which meant it was time for coffee.

  Fitz knew desk clerks wouldn’t give him any information; they might even call the police, reporting that a fat, balding old man in a dusty, wrinkled suit was asking about guests—which had happened several times during his career. So he’d simply surveil. He bought a large Starbucks, black, and wandered into the lobby, sipping coffee and browsing the gift shop and pretending to talk into his cell phone, looking for the Hawke look-alike.

  When he had no luck, he sat on a couch that overlooked the lobby. And waited.

  Years ago, Fitz had been told he resembled a spy. He was doing a story on a former CIA officer who had become a thriller writer. The man had said that the best assets—the name for undercover agents in the field—were nondescript, never flashy, dull, actually. They blended into the woodwork. Fitz would be a good one, the former secret agent had said.

  He wasn’t sure whether he should consider that a compliment or not.

  Time passed. The coffee grew cold, as Fitz would eye the lobby and check on his phone for updates on the case, of which there were none.

  At around two p.m., the elevator door opened and Hawke—as he thought of him now—passed through the lobby. Fitz took a last sip of coffee and rose, never looking the fellow’s way. The man was focused and walked in a determined manner. He radiated the confidence of a successful salesman or public relations man. His suit was expensive and cut perfectly (amusing Fitz, who had to debate long and hard about splurging on a suit at Macy’s).

  Fitz didn’t approach the man now; he needed more information: his name, a license plate, the identities of other people he might meet. If Fitz approached him, he might bolt, check out of the hotel and be gone forever.

  He was hoping the man didn’t take a cab or car service. Long gone were the days when you jumped in a yellow taxi and shouted, “Follow that car!” If those days ever existed at all.

  But Hawke just kept striding down the street, as if on the way to close a big sale. He kept looking at his phone. His body language suggested he wasn’t reading texts but was following a pedestrian route on Google Maps.

  Breathless, Fitz struggled to keep up.

  Fifteen minutes from the hotel the man glanced up and noted a dive of a bar. He stopped.

  Please let this be where he’s headed. I can’t take much more.

  And, yes, Hawke turned inside.

  Fitz rested for three minutes or so, extracted a fisherman’s cap from his inside jacket pocket and pulled it on—every inch the spy. He stepped inside and, eyes on the floor, made his way to a table directly behind where the man sat at the bar. Fitz ordered a bourbon from the server, a slim gray-haired woman. Hawke ordered a cola.

  Next steps? Try to steal the name from his credit card receipt? Listen carefully when the person he was meeting arrived?

  Just a name, all I want is a name . . .

  The man made a call on his mobile. He tilted his head, as one does when the callee picks up.

  “Is he available, please? . . . Well, tell him it’s Peter Tile.”

  Ah, striking gold . . .

  After a brief conversation about some travel plans to Ohio, Tile disconnected. Fitz picked up his drink and joined him.

  “Peter Tile?”

  The man blinked, frowning.

  Fitz showed his press credentials and explained who he was. “I know you were the witness who told the Violent Crimes Task Force about the Gravedigger’s second victim.”

  This was a bluff, of course.

  But when the man blurted, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the performance fell flat.

  Tile knew this himself, it seemed, and appeared dismayed. “How?”

  “Talked to some people who saw you at the site of the kidnapping around the time it happened. I followed you here and heard you on the phone just now.”

  The man’s lips tightened. “Look, mister, I have a family. That psycho’s still out there.”

  Fitz lifted a hand. “I don’t want to cause you any trouble. I haven’t told the police or anyone else.”

  “I’m not saying anything to the press. I told the cops everything I know. It was all over in ten seconds. This guy’s getting in his car and somebody comes up and hits him over the head and drags him into the bushes, then leaves a note on the windshield. There’s nothing else.”

  “You’re in a hotel. You’re not from here.”

  “No. I’m . . . I’m here on business.”

  Fitz smiled at the evasion. “You know, Mr. Tile, I’ve been interviewing people for close to forty-five years. And one thing I’ve found is that there’s always something else, some little fact, a tidbit that people can remember about an incident.”

  “Well, there is nothing.”

  “Tell me again what happened. You’re obviously a Good Samaritan. You wanted this guy caught.”

  “Yeah, right, you have my name,” he said bitterly. “You going to threaten to release it publicly if I don’t help?”

  Fitz responded immediately. “I have never once revealed the name of a source who wanted to stay anonymous.”

  This was true and Tile apparently sensed the sincerity. He sipped the soda and wiped his hand on a bar napkin. He seemed calmer. “God, I’m claustrophobic. I don’t even want to think what that guy’s going through. Underground. What’s his name again?”

  “Jasper Coyle.” Fitz did the silence trick again.

  “He was white, tall, blond hair. Jeans and a dark shirt. Sunglasses.”

  “What kind?”

  “Sunglasses? I don’t remember the brand or anything. Who knows anyway?”

  “What did he do, exactly?”

  “Coyle was walking to his car and this man steps out of the bushes and hits him over the head.”

  “With what?”

  Tile paused a moment. “It’s funny, you know. I didn’t think about what he used before. But I can kind of picture it now. It was dark, maybe cloth, almost like a sock. There was something in it.”

  Fitz had once written about guards abusing prisoners. One of their tricks was to fill a sock with bolts or washers or coins and use that as a cudgel. It hurt like hell, but left no marks. Maybe the Gravedigger had done jail time.

  Tile’s eyes were focused on a stain on the table. Then he blurted, “Oh, wait. He’s left-handed.”

  Memory is such an odd creature.

  “Definitely left-handed.”

  Fitz took his notebook out slowly, as if approaching a dog he didn’t want to spook. He opened it and jotted down the two new facts. “Go on.”

  “Then he took something out of his pocket, a plastic tube. It’d be the needle, the syringe, you know. I read he injected them with a drug.”

  “That’s right. Which pocke
t?”

  “What?”

  “Of the jacket?”

  “Oh. Inside.”

  “What color was it?”

  “The jacket? Light blue.” Then he laughed as if surprised that he hadn’t remembered earlier.

  More jottings.

  “Did it seem that they knew each other?”

  “No.”

  “Did he struggle pulling Coyle into the bushes?”

  “No, not at all. Didn’t think about that either. He was really strong. Probably works out. Or has some job that keeps him in good shape.”

  Another note.

  Tile closed his eyes, as if he were witnessing the incident once more. Then he said, “Really that’s about it.”

  “You did fine.”

  Tile asked, “Why do you think he’s doing this?”

  “Always the key question. Motive.” Fitz finished the bourbon. “I’ve done a few serial killer stories. I’ve never seen anybody like this one. Men kill for sex. Women for money. He doesn’t want either.”

  This individual does not fall into any of the generally recognized categories of serial perpetrator . . .

  Fitz continued: “I’ve got a theory he’s doing it for the publicity.”

  “Publicity? You mean like he gets off being on the news?”

  “Maybe. A kidnapping’s going to get a lot of attention in the first place. But he wants more, so he leaves clues that get the whole country focused on him. I’m going to check with some criminal psychologists, some cops. See what they think.” He closed the notebook. “I’d encourage you to talk to the police.”

  “No way. You’ll tell them what I told you, that’s enough.”

  “Your choice.” Fitz paid. He rose to leave and handed Tile one of his business cards.

  “They might subpoena you for my name,” Tile muttered darkly.

  “Then I’ll refuse.”

  “You’ll be in contempt. You could go to jail.”

  “Then I go to jail.”

  11

  On the way to the Examiner, Fitz called the FBI and was patched through to Special Agent Trask. He gave her the new information.

  “You found the witness?” Her voice was higher than he remembered. Maybe she was surprised. She didn’t seem like a woman who reacted to the unexpected. “How?”