Mike had yet to speak, and I hoped the tone of my question would indicate to him the importance of his backing me up. This, it evidently did: “Absolutely right,” my partner said, with none of the hesitation I’d feared. “It’s the wise move to make, Mr. Hagen—if they stay here, the state agencies will try to keep them under absolute control. But we can avoid that, and get them out of here smoothly. It’s something we’ve, uh”—and he coughed once at my head— “prepared for.”
Bass smiled, ever so slightly and knowingly. “You’re taking a lot of chances, for a couple of guys who’ve got just about everybody in law enforcement pissed off at them. Been through that before?”
“You…might say so,” Mike answered, thankfully failing to elaborate.
“Okay, then.” Bass finally released the struggling Lucas. “Now you can go pack, squirt. You too, Ambyr. God only knows how long this circus is gonna go on…” Looking at me once again, this lone rock of familial stability in Ambyr and Lucas’ life nodded. “And I’m grateful. Doctors…”
With Lucas’ withdrawal upstairs to get his things together, Bass took over the job of preventing the investigating officers from doing any real harm to the house; and that gave me a chance to withdraw into the kitchen with Mike and Ambyr.
“Trajan, are you sure about this?” Ambyr asked. “It’s a lot to ask, and you did not plan on it.”
“No, we didn’t,” Mike said, giving me a shake of his head. “But—much as I hate to admit it, Ambyr, L.T.’s right: it’s the smart thing to do. I just hope Miss Clarissa sees it that way.”
“She will, trust me,” I said. “So for now—you get your stuff together, too, Ambyr, while Mike and I see if we can’t take the heat off of you and Lucas out front. Plus—I want to talk to Curtis, Mike. He knows more than he’s telling, and we need to make him spill.”
“Check,” Mike said, moving ahead through the troopers toward the front door, knowing that Ambyr and I would need a minute. I was grateful for his tact, though it left me uncertain about what to do next; but that decision was quickly taken from me. Ambyr began to pull me, at a careful rate that would cause no notice, into a small pantry that I had not noticed was just off the kitchen, behind the big new steel refrigerator. There she threw her arms around my neck in a rush and once again kissed me, causing still another new (or renewed) reaction within my spirit. Then, after offering some final words of encouragement and brushing a few of her foremost strands of long hair behind her ears, I tried to leave her there in that little room and follow Mike out the kitchen door.
But she would not be left; not quite so soon. She pulled me back once again, kissed me more deeply than before, and whispered, “Just tell me this is all going to work…”
I wasn’t certain just what she was referring to, the immediate situation or our own; so I decided to answer the practical question first: “I can square it with Clarissa, trust me. But you’ve got to let me handle the first wave of the media. When it goes out that this is the fifth case in what certain sources think is a string of disappearances and serial murders, it’s going to go national—and you haven’t known hell until you’ve known that. So let’s get you two out of here before it happens. Hell, Lucas practically lives at Shiloh already, and Clarissa really will not allow reporters anywhere near the place—and as for the cops, they’re afraid of her. And you’ll have your own room, don’t worry about that, so will Lucas, there’s nothing but room—”
She pulled close again. “And if I don’t want my own room?” she murmured into my ear.
It was all going way too fast, now, for my rusty inner self. “Oh, Ambyr,” I sighed, trepidation in every syllable. “Let’s take it one step at a time, okay? First, we move you up there.”
She kissed me again, quite suddenly and firmly, as if to seal the deal. “You got it. But do square it with Clarissa—she’ll probably want to make sure for herself that it’s all legit.”
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that,” I said, starting to pull away again. “Clarissa is very fond of you both. So now”—we finally released our holds on each other—“let me do what I’ve got to do. We’ll be back in a little bit, and right outside if there’s an emergency.”
“You’re the boss,” Ambyr said; but just when I had actually come close to leaving the pantry, she called to me in a murmur one last time: “Oh—and Trajan? As soon as we get there, we go feed Marcianna, right? She must be going a little crazy.”
“Absolutely,” I said, taking a step back into the shadows—far enough for her to grab me and let me have another very deep kiss. By the time I was finally able to force myself from the little space, my head was absolutely spinning; but I had to try to pull it together before I joined Mike outside the front door, even if my heart was thundering with very confused delight.
“Took you long enough,” Mike said, eyeing me with a grin. “And you might want to tuck your fucking shirt in, you crippled old dog, you…”
“Shaddap” was all I could say, as I straightened my clothes out.
“Come on, it’s perfect!” Mike’s grin grew wider. “You two will be in the same place, away from everything…Just do me one favor, will you? When the big night comes, lemme know.” He tried to contain a sharp laugh. “Remember, my room’s right under yours, and I don’t much like the idea of getting buried alive in century-and-a-half-old beams and plaster when you finally—”
“That’s enough,” I declared, in a voice that convinced him to silence his stream of torment. “You’re a pig, Li, do you know that?”
“Oh, no I’m not,” Mike said, still grinning merrily. “You know what I am.”
“Shaddap,” I repeated, trying not to laugh; but my expression straightened when a new group of vehicles appeared on County Route 34. “Oh, holy fucking hell…”
Mike’s gaze followed mine, and then he braced himself. “Shit. There they are. And unless I miss my guess…” He gave the vehicles a few minutes to get closer, and then said, quietly but firmly, “But I don’t. That’s an MSNBC truck. Leading the way.”
“And you know what that means,” I said.
“Fuck yes, I do,” Mike answered, getting his own attire straightened out as another grin inevitably crept across his face. “It means we’re bad, dude—and we’re nationwide…”
And with Mike humming and singing that ZZ Top tune quietly, we awaited the next round of confrontation.
{iv.}
Almost as soon as the media cars and vans pulled up, Mike’s humming turned to laughter, as an obvious model/actress who had decided, like many before her, to give the news a shot was disgorged from the lead vehicle. “Will you look at that?” he said. “These mooks that they send out from Albany to cover local news, I will never get over it…”
“Pull yourself together, Chuckles,” I answered. “The national CBS truck, and the NBC, the ABC, the cable networks—especially MSNBC: they’re the ones we need to be worried about.”
Sure enough, when the reporters pooled, it was one of the nitwits who was then covering lurid crime stories all over the country for ABC who spotted us at the front door. “Hey,” he called out. “Hey, wait a minute, aren’t you those guys from New York? You know—those guys,” he said dimly, as if we might have forgotten who the hell we were. We didn’t answer, but then still another dope, a CBS reporter who covered crimes with “national appeal”—school shootings, serial killings, celebrity violence—made us right away:
“Oh, yeah,” she said, “those guys who got fired after the hotel prostitution scandal! Jones and Li—excuse me, Doctors, but what are you doing up here? And why are you at this scene, in particular?” Mike and I still did not reply, prompting the woman to take it up a notch: “Is it true that this is the latest in a series of child murders extending beyond this region? And that the governor is personally overseeing the investigation?”
“Shit,” Mike breathed. “Doesn’t take them long, does it?”
I shook my head, took one or two steps forward, and raised my voice: ??
?Ladies and gentlemen, we have a brief statement to make, after which we will not be taking questions, and you will not be allowed access to this house. Dr. Li and I are acting as the authorized representatives of the Kurtz family in this investigation. Nothing concrete is known about the disappearance of Derek Franco, legal ward of Ambyr Kurtz, at this time. And that’s it.” I turned around to see Mike staring at me.
“You really think that it’s going to end just like that?” he asked.
“No,” I answered. “In fact, I’m counting on it not ending just like that…”
And in just a few seconds, I heard an expected voice: “Dr. Jones, do you really feel fit, or even qualified, to represent this family, or to investigate this case for them, given your record?”
I knew just who was speaking, having suspected she’d be in the MSNBC truck. “Ah,” I said, staring at the peeling grey paint of the porch floor. “Melissa Ward…”
“That’s right,” she replied; and I finally turned, raised my eyes, and cast a cold stare on her as she stood on the rear bumper of her network’s van. “What I meant was,” she went on, arranging something that resembled a smile on her overpainted face, “given the fact that you and your partner, Dr. Li, were repudiated by both the New York City Police Department and its crime lab—”
“Largely thanks to you,” I said, stepping down and moving slowly through the mob toward her. “And your propagation of what you knew to be blatant falsehoods.”
“Hey,” she said, trying to laugh my statement off, “I don’t think you can say—”
“You know something, Melissa?” The sea of reporters kept parting for me, like kids anticipating a schoolyard fight. “There are easier ways to get in good with cops and politicians in this country than by blindly repeating what they tell you. Maybe you’ve tried those methods already, though. But to answer your question, yes, Dr. Li and I both feel fit to handle this case. And the fact that we were only ‘released’ from our positions in New York, and never brought up on any charges of, oh, say, contriving evidence, as you told the world we would be, I think speaks for itself. As does the fact that three of the five officials we implicated in covering up those crimes were eventually prosecuted, although you didn’t waste a lot of time covering that. Anything else?”
Ward looked at the faces around her for support and, receiving none, mumbled, “Not—not at this time.”
I moved back through the press pool, returning to the porch. “Well,” Mike said, as we walked back through the front door and closed it behind us, “you handled that suavely, L.T.”
“But,” I answered, trying not to let anyone see me smile, “I took the spotlight off our guests, didn’t I? Now let’s find Curtis. I’ve got a few things I want to ask him, away from the others…”
Heading inside, we found Lucas on the living room couch, a large, overstuffed knapsack at his feet. The delight of bossing cops around had clearly begun to lose its luster: he had the television on, keeping one eye glued to a rerun of That Metal Show on VH1 Classic and the other on the milling officers, whom he occasionally barked at, although Bass Hagen was now doing most of that work. Most of the men and women from law enforcement had by now plainly realized that they were serving no purpose by being where they were: the scene had rendered unto Curtis Kolmback all that it was going to, in terms of trace evidence, and nobody, not even Frank Mangold, was going to take on the task of interrogating a fifteen-year-old boy and his blind sister/guardian right there in their house.
“Hey, kid,” Mike said. “You seen that guy in the blue CSI suit wandering around?”
“In the kitchen,” Lucas replied. “He’s dusting Derek’s note for prints—or some such shit.”
“You ready to go, when we give the word?” I asked.
He kicked his knapsack. “Ready as fuck all. We gotta move, Derek’s been missing for hours.”
Nodding, I made my way with Mike through the cops and into the kitchen, where we found Curtis alone and leaning over Derek’s note, trying to raise a latent print with various types of dust.
“Oh—hey, guys,” he said as we entered. “Nothing much to see in the house, no trace samples or jimmying signs on the windows, so I’m trying this. But I think the Franco boy must have been wearing gloves, if he wrote it—and that would be pretty unusual, right? Why does a runaway—”
“Curtis,” I said. “Forget that, for now. We need a word—in the garage out back.”
The tech began to sweat just at the request; and the stern tone of my voice was only making things worse. “A word with me? Well, what about, I mean, I don’t know anything—”
“Easy, Curtis,” Mike said, playing the good (or at least the better) cop without knowing what, specifically, I had in mind. “We already know all about it—but we’d like to get your side, that’s all.”
“My side of what?” Curtis said, as Mike and I took hold of each of his elbows and pretty much picked him up out of his chair, although he didn’t really resist.
“You know what, Curtis,” I said, moving him toward the kitchen door. “You don’t really want to go on with this charade, do you? No, I didn’t think so…”
The poor guy whimpered a few more halfhearted protests as we crossed the backyard and entered the little red garage. “You’re not a bad guy, Curtis,” Mike said. “We know that.”
“The only problem being,” I added, switching on the place’s bare bulb, “we’ve now established that you were the only tech at all five crime scenes—and that’s not exactly regular practice, is it?”
“No,” Curtis finally whined submissively. “But, guys, you have to understand, it wasn’t my idea!”
“We know that, Curtis,” Mike said soothingly. “We just want to know whose idea it was. Who’s been giving you your orders, and how high up does all this actually go?”
“Oh, come on, not you guys, too!” Kolmback looked from one to the other of us in terror. “Look, I can’t tell you that, fellas—I’d like to, really I would. But that’d be the end of my career, and maybe even my damned life.” He took in a deep breath. “You still don’t know exactly who you’re messing with, here, do you? I mean, when you moved that kid’s body—at least, I’m assuming it was you who moved it—”
“Body?” Mike asked. “We didn’t move any body.”
“And you’re ducking the question—if there’s some kind of conspiracy to cover this thing up, how the hell high does it go? And who else has been asking you about it?” I finally abandoned my halfhearted attempt to strong-arm the guy: “Curtis, at some point you have to think about yourself, here, and not just about whoever’s been threatening you: this gets to the licensing board, and it will end your career. Whatever they’re promising you, they’ve made you break the rules, already: you’ve been the only tech on five scenes. You’re supposed to have—”
“But I did!” he defended, still turning from Mike to me desperately, somehow thinking that perhaps we might be able to get him out of the jam into which his natural vulnerability, combined with that evil streak of ambition that ran through nearly all crime scene techs, had gotten him. “I wasn’t the only one there from our department: Nancy—Director Grimes—she was there, too, you should be taking this up with her!”
“We will, but right now we’re talking to you,” I said. “I’m trying to help you, here, Curtis!”
“We both are,” Mike added. “But we’ve got to know who’s involved.”
“I—I—” Curtis’ fear was becoming panic, which I initially thought might be good for our cause; but I had underestimated how much the tension and pressure had gotten to him. “Listen, maybe you guys could get my license revoked, but they might kill me—I’m serious!”
“Well, then—” I laid hold of one of his shoulders. “Abandon ship, Curtis: come back down to the house, we’ll take you aside with Major McCarron and he’ll guarantee your safety.”
“McCarron?” Curtis said, with tears plainly in his eyes. “And what’s McCarron going to do when the governor calls? O
r worse, what’s he going to do when the—shit, you guys, I cannot talk about this! I’m getting out of here, I can’t do it anymore!”
And with a short, muffled wail, Curtis suddenly tore his no-longer-sterile blue suit from his body and, dressed only in his pants and a white T-shirt, ran through the back door of the garage and up the hill onto the Morgan Central athletic field where I’d strolled with Ambyr. Mike and I followed as quickly as we could, just in time to see the deranged tech vanish into the tree line on the far side of the field.
“What in the hell…?” Mike murmured in somber amazement.
“God damn it,” I said, glancing around quickly. “God damn it all.” I indicated the hills beyond the field with my hand. “I truly hate to say it, Mike—but there’s at least an even chance that Curtis will never come out of those woods alive. Fuck…”
Mike got my point: “The sniper on the mountain—you figure he’s around here now?”
“Yeah, that’s what I figure,” I said. “And if he saw Curtis with us, or anybody else did…” A guilty wave crashed over me; but it passed as I realized one key fact: “Well…we may have triggered his crack-up, but we certainly didn’t start the whole thing. One thing’s for sure, though,—now, we’ve really got to get the fuck out of here.” I spun round on my cane, and began walking as fast as my hip would allow back down to the Kurtzes’ house.
“You’re just freaking out, L.T.,” Mike said, trying very hard to believe it. “It’s been a fuck of a morning, and it’s understandable, but I think you’re imagining things.” He glanced around at the sky. “Doesn’t help that a storm’s blowing in, I’ll admit, but—it can’t be as serious as all that.”
“No? Remember what he said, Mike.” I tried to recall it precisely as we reached the backyard of the house. “ ‘What’s McCarron going to do when the governor calls? Or worse, what’s he going to do when the…’ Fill in the blank.”
“Jesus,” Mike said, looking over his shoulder. “Curtis, you poor, dumb schmuck…Still—I hope he’ll come out of it okay.”