She glared at him. “Is this something that reporter told you?”
“No,” said Benjamin. “But it’s true, isn’t it? Something happened to him when he was younger.”
“What does this have to do with your daughter?”
Benjamin paused, unsure how much to say. He let go of Margaret’s arm. “I think whatever happened to him, he wasn’t the only one. It happened to others as well. Other children. I think Jessica found out about it, and that’s why they killed her.”
“You sound just like Estefan,” Margaret said. She may have intended it as an insult, but it came out more like an expression of remorse. Benjamin waited, and she went on, “He wouldn’t talk about his childhood. At all. I met his mother once, and asked her about it. She said I was lucky I could get him to talk at all. I guess there was a period where he didn’t talk for nearly two years.”
“Two years? Did they take him to a doctor?”
“His mother didn’t speak much English, so I had a hard time understanding exactly what she was saying. Far as I could tell, they already took him to a bunch of doctors. When he stopped talking, they decided the doctors were doing more harm than good. They kept him home after that. After a while he started talking again, but something about him was different.”
“Well, he’d aged two years,” said Benjamin.
“She made it sound like it was more than that,” Margaret said. “She said when he first started talking again, it scared them more than him not talking. Like he was a completely different person.”
“They never figured out what was wrong with him?”
“Not that I know of. I don’t think Estefan ever saw another doctor. Whatever it was, he dealt with it on his own. I always figured he just had some kind of stroke or something. I saw a show once about how strokes can change your personality.”
Benjamin nodded.
“You don’t think it was a stroke though, huh?”
“I honestly don’t know,” said Benjamin. “But I intend to find out.”
Chapter Fifteen
Benjamin drove back to the Sand Hill Creek neighborhood and parked at the end of one of the streets that dead-ended near the creek, not far from where Jessica’s body was found. It was the middle of the day, so the neighborhood was mostly deserted. He made his way between two houses and clambered down the shallow ravine toward the creek.
He had come here on a hunch more than anything; he needed concrete evidence tying Glazier to Jessica’s death, and he had a vague sense that his subconscious had been trying to tell him something about this place. He had had the dream enough times now that he thought he could recognize that particular bend in the creek when he saw it. He had an inexplicable sense that the place where he had chased the little boy—the young Felipe—was also the place where Jessica had been cornered before she was killed. She had fled some distance down the creek bed before being subdued, but he hoped to find some evidence of a trail down to the creek—evidence that had thus far evaded the police. Benjamin would leave the police work to the police; at this point, he was going on sheer intuition.
Most of the time there was no water in Sand Hill Creek, but it was spring, and there had been heavy snowfall in the mountains. Even so, it wasn’t much of a creek: just a narrow rivulet of water cutting through a shallow ravine that ran between two housing developments. The whole area was overrun with scraggly weeds.
Sitting down on a small boulder, Benjamin removed his shoes and socks and rolled up his pant legs, then stepped into the cold water. He trudged down the creek until he came to a line of police tape strung between two trees. A large area surrounding the creek had been taped off, and foreboding warning signs hung from trees in two languages and facing every possible direction, giving no semi-literate individual any excuse for failing to comprehend that this was a crime scene, and that trespassers would be dealt with harshly. Benjamin thought of lifting the tape and trudging inside to get a better look, but thought better of it. Lentz was already pissed at him, and violating the man’s crime scene was not going to further endear Benjamin to him. Besides; it was unnecessary. Lentz and his men had scoured this area already, and would have found anything there was to find. If they had missed something, it was well outside of the taped area. Benjamin stood perusing the scene for a moment. Long metal stakes with flags tied to them had been placed in several places in the creek; as he got closer, Benjamin noticed small numbered tags had also been affixed to the stakes. Presumably these corresponded to a note in Lentz’s files. There was one near a muddy footprint. Another where Jessica had struck her head on a rock. Another where she had died.
Benjamin turned and made his way back upstream. He didn’t know for sure which way Jessica had been running, upstream or down, but his gut told him to head back the way he’d come. He passed the rock where he’d left his shoes and socks and kept going. The water was shallow enough that if he paid some heed to the rocky creek bed, he could traverse it without much trouble. Jessica could have run quite a distance in such shallow water before slipping and falling, allowing her killer to catch her.
When he’d walked a good hundred yards from the tape barrier, he began to wonder if he was deluding himself. There was no good reason to believe the bend in the creek he’d seen in his dream even existed. With Sabbia’s talk of precognition, and all the weirdness he’d experienced of late, he’d somehow convinced himself that his dreams were evidence of some sort of supernatural perspective on Jessica’s death. But the clarity of the creek in the dream was probably evidence of nothing more than a lot of wasted days playing in this creek as a child. In fact, his dreams depicted the creek not of today, but of his youth: unspoiled and surrounded by apricot orchards. The path taken by the young boy no longer existed; today it would take Benjamin through living rooms, carports and above-ground pools.
And then he saw it. There was no doubt: it was the very spot Benjamin had first fallen, and then leaped over, while chasing the boy. It existed. It was real. And it was identical to his dream. Was it possible that the creek had changed so little over the past fifty years? It seemed inconceivable, but then, erosion was a very slow-moving force. The real question, though, was: what did it mean? Was this just an arbitrary memory, or was his subconscious—or something else—trying to tell him something?
Benjamin climbed onto the edge of the creek and up the shallow ravine, tracing the path he had taken in the dream, but in reverse. He followed the remembered path fifty feet or so through the scrubby weeds to a redwood fence that ran along the back of someone’s yard. He wasn’t sure what to do next. The dream had given him a sense of this place’s importance, but that was about it. He didn’t know what he was looking for.
As he turned and began back toward the creek, he noticed something metallic behind a clump of brush. He leaned over and picked it up, using the edge of his shirt sleeve to gingerly lift it without smearing any fingerprints—or leaving any of his own. It was an aluminum water bottle. On the bottom, in permanent marker, were the letters JS.
Sloppy of Lentz’s people to have missed it, but then he was nearly a hundred yards from the crime scene, and he’d walked right past the bottle at first himself. The bottle appeared to be empty; he unscrewed the top and confirmed that it was bone dry. Jessica hadn’t brought water to drink—she’d brought an empty bottle to take a sample of the creek water. She was trying to determine whether Glazier Semiconductor was still dumping chemicals into the creek. Presumably her plan was to take a sample and bring it to a lab for analysis. Had she decided to go to the authorities after all? Or had she simply been looking for more leverage against Glazier?
It seemed unlikely to Benjamin that Glazier Semiconductor was still dumping illegally; the EPA was pretty strict about that sort of thing these days. You couldn’t just pour hundreds of gallons of solvents into a creek anymore. But somehow Jessica had gotten the idea that the dumping was still going on. And someone had either been very interested in stopping her, or had been following her and seized upon the op
portunity to kill her. Benjamin tended toward the latter theory.
He cradled the bottle in his shirt as he made his way back down the creek, stopped to put his shoes and socks back on, then returned the way he came. Behind his car was parked a late model black Lincoln. Two suited men stood near it. One of them pulled a badge from his jacket as Benjamin approached. Even from thirty feet away, Benjamin could read the big blue letters at the top: FBI.
“Benjamin Stone?” said the man.
“Yep,” replied Benjamin.
“I’m Agent Hill. This is Agent Kassel. We’d like you to come with us, please.”
“And if I’d rather not?” asked Benjamin.
Agent Hill eyed the water bottle Benjamin was holding. “Then we arrest you for removing evidence from a crime scene.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Care to tell me what you were doing at my crime scene?” asked Agent Hill. He sat across from Benjamin in the conference room of the Sunnyview administrative center. Agent Kassel sat on one side of Hill, and Detective Lentz was on the other. Lentz didn’t look happy.
“Care to tell me why it’s suddenly your crime scene?” asked Benjamin. “This is a local murder case.”
“We’ve taken over, as of an hour ago,” replied Hill. “This is now a federal investigation.”
“Really,” said Benjamin, looking at Lentz. Lentz averted his eyes. “Why is that?”
“That’s not something I need to tell you,” said Hill. “Why were you at my crime scene?”
“I wasn’t at your crime scene,” said Benjamin. “I was near your crime scene. And I found something the cops missed. You’re welcome.”
“Convenient,” said Lentz. “A water bottle belonging to the deceased. And you knew right where to look.”
Benjamin snorted. “So, what? I went back to the crime scene three days later to pick up a piece of evidence I forgot about? Why would I do that? How would the water bottle tie me to Jessica’s murder, if I had killed her?”
“Maybe you thought your prints were on it.”
“And were they?”
“I’m not going to—”
“Of course not,” Benjamin continued. I bet you found one set of prints on that bottle, and they belonged to Jessica. Tell me, Agent Hill, if I’m the criminal mastermind you think I am, why wouldn’t I have wiped the bottle down the second I picked it up? I’ll tell you why I didn’t: I was trying to preserve any prints that might be on the bottle, in case it would help the police figure out who killed Jessica.”
“Just helping out,” said Hill.
“She’s my daughter,” Benjamin seethed. “So, yeah, I’m doing what I can.”
“How did you know where to look for the water bottle?”
“I didn’t. I got lucky.”
Hill regarded him skeptically. “We followed you to the crime scene,” he said. “You were there less than half an hour. You’re expecting us to believe you just walked right to the spot where Jessica dropped the bottle by accident?”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” said Benjamin. “That’s what happened. I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me why you’ve been following me.”
“No,” said Hill. “We’re not. Did you know that your daughter owned thirty million shares of XKredits?”
“No,” said Benjamin. “I just found out that she had an interest in the company two days ago. If you say it was thirty million shares, I have no reason to doubt you.”
“You’re sure you didn’t know about the shares before Jessica was killed?”
“Pretty sure, yes.”
“And did you know that you’re Jessica’s only known living blood relative?”
“Can we just cut to the part where you accuse me of killing my own daughter for her money?”
“Why, Mr. Stone?” asked Agent Hill. “Is that what happened?”
“You know goddamned well it isn’t,” said Benjamin.
Agent Hill shrugged. “Let’s just say it doesn’t look good. You’ve got a solid motive, and now we find you snooping around the crime scene.”
Benjamin didn’t reply. If the FBI were going to arrest him, they would have done it by now. They were trying to scare him. The question was: why?
Agent Hill got up from the table, and Agent Kassel followed suit. “I think we’re done here, Detective Lentz. Mr. Stone, try to stay out of trouble.” They left the room without another word.
“What the hell was that about?” asked Benjamin. “How long have they been following me?”
“No idea,” said Lentz. “I’ve been completely shut out. First they took Jessica’s body, and then they showed up here, saying they were taking over the investigation. Oh, and they’ve taken Cameron Payne into custody.”
“What are they charging him with?”
“Hell if I know. I don’t even know where they’re holding him.”
Benjamin found himself scanning the room for cameras and microphones.
“Room’s clean,” said Lentz, reading his mind. “We don’t have a real interrogation room. This is the only listening device.” He picked up the phone that sat in the center of the table and unplugged the cord. “Better?”
Benjamin nodded. “Maybe I’m paranoid, but I don’t trust those guys one bit. This is a murder case. How are they claiming jurisdiction?”
“Interstate fraud. They think Jessica’s murder is linked to the funding of XKredits, like you said.”
“Isn’t that an SEC thing? Why is the FBI involved?”
“Exactly,” said Lentz. “It smells like bullshit to me. A half-assed cover story.”
“So what are they really after?”
“You tell me,” said Lentz.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I think you know more than you’re telling me. How did you know where to find that water bottle?”
“Jesus,” said Benjamin. “Not you too. I didn’t kill my daughter. I’m trying to help you find out who did.”
“I know that, Stone. Give me some fucking credit. But you’re holding out on me. I never would have told you as much as I did if I had known you were going to lie to me and run around playing detective behind my back. Hell, I’ve got the FBI for that.”
Lentz was right. He was getting nowhere on his own. The only way he was going to find out what had happened to his daughter was to level with Lentz.
“It is funny, the way they’re handling this,” Benjamin said.
“What do you mean?”
“Did they even ask for a briefing about Jessica’s murder?”
“No,” said Lentz. “Took all the case records, but didn’t ask me a damn thing.”
“It’s like they already know what happened,” said Benjamin. “They know why Jessica was killed, and who killed her. They aren’t trying to solve her murder.”
“What are you saying?” asked Lentz. “The FBI is covering up something?”
“That agent mentioned the possibility of me inheriting XKredits stock from Jessica,” said Benjamin. “That’s the second time somebody has brought that up. The first time, it was Glazier.”
“You think Glazier tipped them off? Trying to divert suspicion from him?”
Benjamin shook his head. “They have no case against me. They’d have to prove I knew about the stock, which of course I didn’t. And in any case, that stock is going to be worthless in a few days. Not much of a motive. All they have is a water bottle conspicuously lacking my fingerprints. This wasn’t a serious attempt to frame me. They’re just trying to scare me off. Keep me from poking around anymore.”
“So how is Glazier involved?”
“He’s feeding them information. Glazier isn’t a suspect. He’s working with the FBI.”
“In exchange for what? Immunity from prosecution?”
“Maybe,” said Benjamin. “But I’m betting it goes deeper than that. Glazier has been working with the feds for a long time. I suspect they have shared interests.”
Lentz sighed. “This is wher
e you lose me. Glazier’s company got away with dumping some chemical in the creek fifty years ago, and the government is so embarrassed about letting him get away with it that they’re willing to cover up a murder to keep word from getting out? That dog won’t hunt, Stone.”
“There’s more to it,” said Benjamin. He was hesitant to tell Lentz his suspicions about Glazier, because he was pretty sure it would make him sound like a lunatic. But what choice did he have? He had to at least try to convince Lentz of the soundness of his theory.
“I’m listening,” said Lentz.
“Okay,” said Benjamin. “You wanted me to level with you, so I’m going to level with you. But some of this is going to be a little tough to swallow.”
“You’ve got the floor,” said Lentz. “But I reserve the right to call bullshit.”
“You know who Dominick Spiegel was?”
“Sure,” said Lentz. “Glazier’s old partner. Died in a car accident.”
“Right,” said Benjamin. “Except I don’t think it was an accident. I think Glazier had Spiegel killed because Spiegel threatened to go public about what they were doing.”
“You mean the dumping?”
“It was more than dumping,” said Benjamin. “The impression I got from Spiegel’s letter was that the chemicals in the water had caused some sort of… biological anomaly in some of the people exposed to it.”
“Like what? Cancer? Birth defects? You’re saying they knew the water was making people sick and they didn’t do anything about it?”
“That was part of it, probably. But I think there was something else. Spiegel’s letter mentioned ‘subjects,’ like people were being exposed to these chemicals on purpose. The letter said the ‘initial exposure’ was an accident, but it implied that later exposures were intentional. I think they accidentally produced a desirable effect of some kind, and then decided to capitalize on the accident by replicating it. Or increasing it.”
“What effect?”
“Honestly,” said Benjamin, “I don’t know. It has something to do with a government-funded project called GLARE that was started during World War II. Some kind of counterintelligence program that was initially developed to stop the Nazis, but was redirected after the war to focus on the Communist threat. You’re too young to remember, but the paranoia about Communism back then was insane. The government would do just about anything if they thought it would help defeat the Communists. Hell, you’ve heard of Operation Paperclip, right? They basically brought hundreds of Nazi scientists to the U.S. to keep them out of Soviet hands. And then there was Project MKUltra, the mind control project. Those guys did all sorts of twisted things to people. Torture, brainwashing, giving people LSD without their consent….”
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