Enigma

by Catherine Coulter

  A pause, then, “No, I really can’t, Agent Sherlock.”

  “Okay, how about anything that needed medical care, that required she take drugs?”

  “No, sorry. Wait, I do remember that a few weeks before the party Kara showed up to lunch with a huge, ugly bruise on her arm. She told me she’d gotten a call from a local university, I don’t remember which one, asking her to give them a sample of her blood for a study they were doing. They paid her for it, a one-time blood draw; that was it. Obviously whoever drew her blood messed up. Does that mean anything?”

  “It’s possible. I’ll ask Kara about it.”

  “I’m flying home tomorrow, Agent Sherlock. I don’t have to be back to work until next week. Do you think I could come down to Washington and be with Kara? I haven’t seen her in a couple of months. Do you think it would help?”

  “Yes,” Sherlock said, “I think it would, but call Kara, see what she thinks.” Sherlock left Brenda Love to her latte.

  She called Agent Butler, filled her in.

  When she’d finished, Butler said, “This depresses me, Sherlock. I thought Vaughn was funny, straightforward. Maybe Brenda Love was jealous, made it up, maybe exaggerated?”

  “No, I don’t think so. But the fact is, Connie, even though I was suspicious of her, I liked Vaughn, too.”

  “But still you put that GPS tracker on her car.”

  “Yes.” Sherlock added, “A couple of weeks ago I interviewed a talented up-and-coming sculptor, and I really liked her, too, believed her.”

  “It turned out she wasn’t what she seemed?”

  “No, not at all what she seemed. I made a vow I’d always err on the side of caution after that.”

  “Bolt—Agent Haller—was sure Alex Moody was taken for ransom until he heard John Doe was the baby’s father, and someone tried to murder him last night. He’s coming around to the idea that unlike most of our kidnapping cases, this one isn’t about money, or custody, it’s about something else entirely. None of us on the CARD team has ever dealt with anything so crazy convoluted as this.”

  Sherlock paused a moment. “Connie, this is my gut talking, but not entirely. Somehow I can’t help but feel Kara could also be in danger. It’s possible the hospital will try to discharge her soon. If they do, maybe the person or people behind the kidnapping will make some kind of contact with her. I’m not sure, but I’d feel better if Agent Haller stays with her at her house. Brenda Love could stay with her, too.”

  “Sounds right to me. Bolt and I will discuss it with our supervisor, see what he thinks, and we’ll get back to you.”

  “Where has Sylvie Vaughn been since we left her yesterday?”

  “Pretty regular stuff, nothing strange—the grocery store, a small studio on Cline Street where she films her YouTube show Cycling Madness, her yoga class at Bay Watch Fitness Center, and last, she met her husband for dinner at Papa Leoni’s in the Inner Harbor.”

  “Nothing suspicious in the Vaughns’ financial records so far, or their phone records. Not as useful now that anyone can buy a burner phone to use. We’ll both keep checking, okay?”

  Sherlock got up from her desk to update Dillon, saw through the big glass window that he was working on MAX, probably researching the mystery drug Dr. Wordsworth said they found in John Doe’s blood, seeing what MAX could find in one of the compound libraries.

  She knew Kara’s number by heart and punched it in. She caught Kara sitting with John Doe, talking to him again, Kara told her.

  “Has Brenda called you back, Kara?”

  “Yes. She’s changed her flight to Dulles. I want to see her, but I’m a mess. I hope she’ll understand.”

  “She will. She’s very upset about the whole thing. Keep her close, Kara. Can you tell me about the big bruise Brenda said you had on your arm a few weeks before you got pregnant? You gave some blood for a study of some kind?”

  “She remembered that? Yes, a woman called me from the University of Maryland, told me their genetics department was conducting a study in population genetics, something about how various athletes are distributed in different ethnic groups around the country. I was picked at random and offered two hundred dollars to give a sample of my blood. It was only for one time, and so I agreed. I swear, though, it was the first time the guy had ever drawn blood. It was brutal. I ended up with a big bruise for a week. Why?”

  “Filling in blanks, that’s all. Kara, can you describe the man who drew your blood?”

  “Goodness, why, for heaven’s sake?”

  “Indulge me.”

  “Well, I remember he was a big guy, in his thirties, and as I said, he wasn’t good at it. He suggested he come by the gallery where I worked at quitting time and if I liked, he could draw my blood there. I agreed, seemed easier than going to a lab somewhere. He introduced himself, but I don’t remember his name. He gave me two one-hundred-dollar bills and left. And that was it, I never heard another word from anyone at the university.”

  “Do you think you could give an artist a good description of the man?”

  “Yes, but why not let me draw him?”

  “Excellent. Kara, stay strong. How are you feeling?”

  “Still trying to come to grips with the fact that the man whose hand I’m holding right this moment, this stranger I’m telling my life story to, is Alex’s father. I asked Dr. Wordsworth if she believed he could hear me. She said she spoke nonstop to her own mother when she was still unconscious after surgery and when her mother woke up, she smiled and remarked on what a talker she was.” Kara laughed. “Dr. Wordsworth also says he’s still getting better and to keep talking; he’ll be waking up soon. It’s all so crazy, isn’t it?”

  Sherlock said, “It’s only crazy until it makes sense.” She decided she wouldn’t tell Kara about Sylvie Vaughn, either, not yet. It wouldn’t serve any purpose. Brenda Love would be there the next day, someone Kara was close to, to help keep her spirits up, maybe help her sort through all of this.

  39

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  WEDNESDAY MORNING

  Jack climbed into Cam’s Mazda outside the Satterleigh Condominium complex, fastened his seat belt. “I’d call this a bust. The manager told me Ms. Cortina Alvarez is traveling, always traveling. This time, it’s Milan and Florence for the Latin princess, where, he said, she owns houses. She isn’t due back for three weeks.” He asked without much hope, “Did you have any better luck?”

  Cam fastened her own seat belt, opened all the windows, slipped on her dark sunglasses, and turned to face him. “Her next-door neighbor told me the same thing. ‘Always on the go, that’s Cortina,’ ” she said. “She recognized her passport photo, though, even with the spiked hair and Goth makeup.”

  “At least she does live here, sometimes,” Jack said. “I already called Savich. He wants us to meet Ruth and Ollie at that Alexandria warehouse where they captured Manta Ray. The FBI field office has already been all over it looking for the stash he robbed from the bank, but Savich wants us to go in with a fresh eye, turn it over again ourselves. He believes something’s still got to be there. Wherever that Robinson choppered Manta Ray and the woman with him yesterday afternoon can’t be all that far away. And Manta Ray and whoever that helicopter took him to probably wants it back. Otherwise why go to all the trouble of breaking him out? Hey, why aren’t you wearing your sling?”

  Cam pressed the start button and the Mazda roared to life. “I’m good to go, Jack, don’t worry. Let’s say Dillon is right; let’s say the reason they broke Manta Ray out was to get whatever he stashed from the bank robbery. If he doesn’t want to give it up, someone might be pulling his tonsils out through his nose right now.”

  “Maybe, but Manta Ray is a pretty smart man. I’d put my money on his thinking of a way to come out of this alive. With Jacobson out of the picture, he might. In any case, there’s a chance someone’s going to be headed back there looking to find that stash.”

  Cam banged her fist on the steering wheel, and winced. “
With our luck today, he’s probably already come and gone.”

  “So how long to get us there, Cam? I see your arm still hurts, you want me to drive?”

  Cam had already turned the corner. She stuck her flasher on the roof of her Mazda, gave him a huge grin. “Nah, this is nothing. I wanted to be a race car driver until I was nearly twelve.” She gunned the Miata, swerving around cars that didn’t melt away in front of her. Even traffic on the Francis Scott Key Bridge hugged the sides as she roared past them, screeching into a hard right turn onto Franklin Boulevard.

  Jack was grinning like a maniac and he wasn’t even in the driver’s seat. He loved speed, loved the adrenaline rush, could feel the roaring of the blood through his veins and wondered if Cam felt the same way. Her wavy blond hair was whipping about her head, and he saw she was whistling. He felt very good at that moment; he felt energized. He sat back and enjoyed it. Seven minutes later, Cam pulled the Mazda up on a curb half a block from the abandoned warehouse district where they’d first found Manta Ray lying with a dirty torn sheet pressed to his bleeding side.

  “That was well done, Wittier; I’m impressed. You want to race with me sometime?”

  Cam’s adrenaline level was still soaring upward. “I’ll have you know that was official business. If Savich was right about Manta Ray coming back here, we had to get here fast.”

  “Sure, believe what you need to believe.” He gave her a big grin as he climbed out of the Miata and looked around. He saw a desolate hardscrabble landscape with abandoned parking lots fronting a dozen dilapidated warehouses and loading docks, their windows broken out, probably for decades. Nests made of cardboard boxes were huddled around the warehouses, to give shelter from the wind. He saw half a dozen homeless people sitting on warehouse stoops, their backs against building walls, paying them no attention.

  “It’s this one,” Cam said, pointing to a warehouse that looked on the edge of collapsing in on itself. Cam pulled off her sunglasses as they made their way into the dim interior of a large empty single-story space. The air smelled like dead rodents and rotted food. They both snapped on nitrile gloves and started going through every corner of the ramshackle space where Manta Ray had picked to hide. They banged on floorboards that hadn’t already been ripped up, checked every crevice behind the busted-up wallboard. They didn’t find Manta Ray’s stash, or any trace he’d ever been there. They stood in the middle of the vast space and tried to look at it with fresh eyes. But their fresh eyes didn’t see anything, either.

  As they walked out of the warehouse, none of the homeless people paid them any mind, most kept their heads down, not wanting to draw attention to themselves. But one man was singing “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” He looked at them and smiled. Jack and Cam trotted over to him, both ignoring the other eyes suddenly watching their every move. The man was leaning back against some broken-down cardboard boxes propped against the side of a warehouse. He had an old filthy towel draped over his head, wore a ragged hula shirt open to a dirty T-shirt. They couldn’t tell if he was fifty or eighty. Jack went down on his haunches beside him, got a whiff of something very ripe. He took a hundred-dollar bill out of his wallet. “This is yours if you can tell me anything about this man.” He called up Manta Ray’s photo on his cell.

  “It’s not enough,” came a phlegmy old voice. “Double or nothing.”

  “What? You from Las Vegas? All right.” Jack pulled out a second hundred, his last. “You’ve emptied the bank. Tell me.”

  His bloodshot eyes focused on Cam. “You sure are pretty. I had a girl once who was pretty as you. I wonder sometimes what happened to her. I guess she isn’t so young anymore. I sure ain’t.”

  “Thank you. Sir, this is really important. Have you seen him? He’s a seriously bad man, a criminal. We believe he might be coming back here.”

  “I know who he is, missy. It’s that Manta Ray character. Sally over there”—he flapped a veiny hand toward a head of matted red hair hunkered down in a ragged bundle of blankets inside a cardboard box some twelve feet away—“I call her Dancin’ Sally. She used to be a stripper. She saw him first, told me while we were sharing a nice half bottle of bourbon that this here Manta Ray was about the cutest boy she’d ever seen. She said he was so bad hurt, he’d probably bite the big one.”

  He waved a gnarled hand. “Then I saw him. He was dragging himself around, moaning and carrying on.” He looked at the photo again, turned his head and spit. “Don’t see it myself. He looked like another vicious mongrel to me. I haven’t seen him back here since all the cops took him away. I don’t remember when that was, a long time ago, maybe. Last year?”

  “A long time ago,” Cam said. “So, you haven’t seen him? Maybe this morning?”

  “Nary a glimpse. So he survived. I wondered, so did Sally. He get away from you guys? You’re cops, right?”

  “Yes, we’re cops,” Jack said. “You haven’t seen anyone you don’t know drive up here this morning? Or maybe late last night?”

  “Nope, just my usual neighbors, and the dealers meetin’ up with their fancy buyers, the putzes. All of ’em belong in jail, you ask me.” He turned his head away and coughed.

  Cam felt a hand on her shoulder, looked up to see Agent Ruth Noble. She hadn’t heard Ruth; she’d come up so quietly. “Let me, Cam.” Ruth fell to her knees beside the old man. “Hello, Dougie,” she said, and gave him a Kleenex, waited until he’d wiped his mouth.

  40

  “Wow, that you, Ruth? You’re looking happy. What? Haven’t seen you in a couple of weeks. Or maybe longer. I can’t remember. How’s Dix and the boys?”

  “They’re well, thank you.” She placed her fingers against the pulse in his dirty neck, counted, then nodded. “You told me you were going to stop the booze, Dougie.”

  “Yeah, well, a man’s weak, ain’t he? That’s what Sally always says.”

  “All of us are weak, Dougie. I heard you tell my friend you haven’t seen Manta Ray come around either last night or this morning?”

  “That’s right.”

  Ruth thought a moment. “Okay, then, have you seen anything odd, anything unexpected, since the police took Manta Ray away? Something that made you pay attention? Something that surprised you?”

  “Well, yes, Ruth, all of us had a really big surprise, ended up with dirt in my hair until I pulled my towel over my head.”

  “What did you see?” Jack was bending down close. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Dougie cocked his head, said to Ruth, “Don’t know why he’s so pissed off, neither of these two kid cops asked me about nothin’ else but Manta Ray.”

  Ruth pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. “Spill it, Dougie. No, no more, you’ve already fleeced us enough.”

  He gave her a cunning look, but Ruth shook her head, stared at him and waited. He said in his scratchy smoker’s voice, “Well, all right, if you’re going to be a hard-ass. A fancy white helicopter came right down here early this morning, at first light. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The sucker landed right over there.” When he shifted to point, the towel fell away from his dirty grizzled gray hair. “It ain’t all that big a place for a helicopter, but it set itself down nice and smooth, right there in front of that warehouse. Didn’t bother to turn off those noisy blades, either; they kept whirling and kicking up dirt.

  “I couldn’t believe it, Ruth, I mean I hadn’t seen no helicopter ever land around here. The noise woke everybody up, scattered dust something fierce, like I said. Is that strange enough for you?” Dougie rearranged the threadbare dingy gray towel with a faded Marriott printed on it over his head. “If it was bigger, I could tie it under my chin, you know, if that chopper comes back and stirs up the dirt.”

  Ruth smiled at him, her hand still on his arm. “You’re doing good. Tell me more, Dougie.”

  “No one got out of the helicopter, but then I heard this guy shout, he was using a bullhorn, I guess, ’cause it was loud—he shouted for Humbug to get over there, quick. And sure enough, I look up and
see Humbug staring down at the helicopter from out of his third-floor window, and he shouts back that he’s coming and waves. I don’t know how they could have heard him, what with those blades whirling around so fast, sounded like a war down here they was so loud, and enough dirt was kicking up to blind you. Got in my hair, right? Humbug had to bend over, cover his face with his hands and run, the dirt was so thick, like one of those African siroccos, got all over all of us. He trotted over to that helicopter and I couldn’t believe what he did—he climbed right in, and after a while he climbed back out again and the helicopter lifted right straight up. That’s why I’m wearing a towel, in case it comes back, I don’t want no more sand on my head.” And again, he patted the towel on his head.

  “That’s smart, Dougie,” Ruth said, her voice patient. “But you didn’t see Manta Ray?”

  “No siree, Ruth, only heard that bullhorn voice.” He looked up at Jack. “Can I keep the bucks?”

  “Sure,” Jack said, and stuck out his hand. “Dougie, I’m Jack and this is Cam. Was Humbug carrying anything when he ran to the helicopter?”

  “Yeah, it was one of them leather carryalls, brown I think. Don’t know where he got it, why he had it, and why he took it to that helicopter. Don’t know nothing more, Ruth, not a blessed thing.”

  Cam said, “Is Humbug in that warehouse right now?”

  “Nope, not yet, but Hummer’ll be back. He always comes back.”

  “What can you tell us about him?”

  Dougie looked from Jack to Cam. “You guys cop partners?”

  “We are right now,” Cam said.

  “If you weren’t so pretty, missy, I’d say you drive the bus, but I don’t know. This guy, he’s all tough-looking, hard—” He shook his head, as if getting his brain back on track, and gave them a smile, showing surprisingly white teeth.

  “Come on, Dougie,” Cam said, “tell us about Humbug.”

  “Yeah, well his name’s really Hummer, calls himself Major Hummer, doesn’t like us calling him Humbug. He sometimes lives here, sometimes goes back to that other world out there, but four, six months later, he’s back again, babbling about all the jerks and cheats out there trying to kill him. Then he needs a drink and disappears into his room in the warehouse.”