Blackbird

  I didn’t reply.

  He sat thinking for a minute, then picked up his cup and took a last sip of tea, grimacing slightly at its coolness. ‘The motive and the act just don’t go together,’ he said. ‘Drama and overkill on the one hand and cold efficiency on the other.’ He scratched his chin. ‘Do they still publish journals for mercenaries?’

  ‘Yeah, but the ads are written in a way that doesn’t tell you much, and then it’s almost impossible to get back to the guy who placed the ad and connect him with whoever answered it.’

  ‘Are the feds getting into it?’

  ‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘If somebody yelled “hate crime” loud enough they’d probably show up, but it’s hard to see how a bunch of black-boots kicking down doors is going to help.’

  Max nodded.

  ‘What about Mark Pendergrass?’ I said. ‘Is he the kind of guy who could do something like this?’

  ‘Mark? I don’t know anything directly, but there’s always been talk about him, so I suppose anything’s possible – ’

  ‘What kind of talk?’

  ‘That he was whisked out of town to an all-male military school after some kind of rape allegation when he was in high school.’ Max shrugged. ‘I can’t vouch for that, though.’

  ‘Any legal consequences for him?’

  ‘None that I heard of,’ Max said.

  ‘How much violence was involved?’

  ‘No idea. Evidently he’s stayed out of trouble ever since – but there again, don’t quote me.’

  ‘Is he any good professionally?’

  ‘Not bad, from what I’ve heard – no superstar, but at least competent.’

  ‘How much do you know about his showdown with Deborah Gold?’

  ‘Almost nothing, really, other than the secondhand talk that went around,’ he said. ‘The two were pretty close at one time, but I don’t think he had any higher regard for her than the rest of us in the last few years. Still, it’s hard to imagine him out in the middle of the night doing something like this.’

  ‘You’re not saying everything you think,’ I said.

  ‘Well, I’m thinking – just between you, me and the wallpaper – that Mark is a sex addict. And the heart and soul of addiction, besides insatiability, is generally escalation – always chasing newer and better thrills. Any addict gravitates toward the kind of people who reinforce each other’s drive to notch it up, generate more excitement. With sadomasochism, where’s the limit?’

  ‘You’re saying – ’

  ‘I’m saying in the minds of some, the ultimate thrill would be death for the submissive participant. It’s a more common fantasy than you might imagine.’

  I thought of what LA had told me about Rachel, and about snuff films worth a million dollars. Things like that seemed to belong anywhere in the galaxy except here in Max’s office, but now I pictured him walking me through it like a tour guide, pointing out the significant sights. I looked at my right hand, the third finger more crooked than the rest, and said nothing.

  Max watched me. He said, ‘Do you ever wonder about yourself?’

  I flexed the hand. To me it looked too scarred and inelegant, but at the same time too commonplace, to be called a deadly weapon. I said, ‘Yeah, Max, I guess I do. I mean, the reason I hated the guy my mother hooked up with was that he solved things with his fists. He was violent toward her. And me. When he got beaten to the point he couldn’t get violent with a wet Kleenex any more, I was walking on air.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So I wonder how different I really am from him.’

  ‘Kids who are abused don’t have a hell of a lot of options. One is to pass it on, become an abuser yourself. Another is to try to lower your profile so much you fall off the radar, give no offence to anybody, try to avoid ever becoming a target. And then we have your solution.’

  I looked at him. ‘My solution?’ I said.

  ‘You learned to channel your aggressions in mostly constructive ways, and made up your mind never to let yourself, or anybody else for that matter, be a victim again,’ he said. ‘Whatever the cost.’

  ‘You think I’m cold-blooded?’

  ‘Anything but. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Jana once accused me of it,’ I said. ‘She asked me if I was scared the night I got shot in Roosevelt Courts. I said no, and it was the truth. I just don’t know if that’s good or bad.’

  ‘“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not,”’ Max said. ‘“And often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.”’

  ‘What’s that, Shakespeare?’

  ‘Longfellow.’ Max studied me for a minute. ‘I can tell you that a man who’s incapable of violence isn’t worth the wind he sucks,’ he said. ‘I’m just hoping that stays hypothetical in this case.’

  ‘Hypothetical?’

  ‘Maybe I’m jumping at shadows,’ he said. ‘But I’d hate to see this thing get upside-down on you.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I’m saying you’re used to being the hunter, not the hunted,’ he said. ‘I think you need to watch your back, Jim.’

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Jana confronted me at the threshold when I dropped by the A-frame with a handful of mail for her. It was just after school and the girls’ backpacks still lay against the wall by the door.

  ‘I found one of those damn reporters behind the gallery this morning!’ Fresh from the wheel in her clay-spattered T-shirt, Wranglers and chukkas, she was almost vibrating with anger. ‘Some snotty kid with a gold ring in his eyebrow, going through the magazines in the recycle bin!’ She glared at me, jaw set. The girls appeared from somewhere in the house.

  ‘Why don’t we all sit down and talk about it?’ I said. I laid the mail on the counter, loosened my tie, undid the top button of my shirt. ‘Case, I’m getting a little dehydrated. Think you could maybe find us something to drink?’

  As Casey brought root beers for everybody, Jana seemed to be cooling off a little. She said, ‘I think they actually camp out there in front of the gallery. They’re already there when I open the doors, standing around eating Egg McMuffins, cracking jokes and drinking coffee.’ She kicked at a microscopic kink in the corner of the throw rug in front of her chair. ‘You’d think they were waiting for the space shuttle to lift off or something.’

  ‘I bet having fleas feels a lot like this,’ said Casey, wrinkling her nose.

  ‘I swear, if I get another microphone shoved in my face, I’m shoving it back,’ said Jana. ‘And it’s not going to be in the guy’s face either.’

  Jordan rolled her eyes.

  ‘I mean, our home isn’t our home any more, it’s a scene, for God’s sake! I can just imagine what the customers think of all this.’

  ‘We’ve seen reporters before,’ I said. ‘This’ll blow over, Jay. It always does.’

  ‘The guys aren’t even cute,’ griped Casey. ‘They look like computer-lab nerds. Or social studies teachers.’

  ‘Some of them,’ said Jordan.

  ‘One of them even asked me if you and I had plans of getting back together any time soon,’ Jana said hotly.

  ‘What did you tell him?’ I asked.

  ‘It was a her. I said, “Excuse me, may I get through please?”’

  ‘That’s not what it sounded like to me,’ noted Jordan.

  We all looked at her.

  ‘You said, “Make a hole, Miz Britches.”’

  ‘Well, just what are you supposed to say to someone who wears green cargo pants and patchouli?’

  ‘They’re mostly just doing their job – try not to take it personally,’ I said, sipping root beer. ‘They’re probably nice people when they’re at home.’

  ‘They weren’t all reporters,’ said Jordan.

  Again all eyes went to her.

  ‘What do you mean, honey?’ I said.

  She shrugged. ‘One of the guys watching the house wasn’t a reporter.’

  ‘Why do you say that, Jordan?’

&nbsp
; ‘He didn’t have a telephone or a camera or anything, and he never talked to the others. All he did was drink coffee and stare at us.’

  There was a silence during which I became aware of the pulsing of blood in my neck and hands and the weight of the Glock on my belt. Jana looked at me. ‘Jim,’ she said, her voice tight.

  I set my root beer on the coffee table. ‘Is he out there now?’ I said, standing up.

  ‘I don’t know, but I saw him yesterday.’

  ‘What does he look like?’ I scanned the lawn and shrubs through the blinds. For the moment no one was visible, but I couldn’t see the front of the gallery or the street from here.

  ‘He was big and he had bad teeth. His hair was brown and he had it tied back in a pony tail. He was wearing a jacket with one of those motorcycle eagles on the back.’

  ‘Harley-Davidson,’ said Casey.

  ‘How old was he?’

  ‘I guess about as old as you, Daddy,’ she said. ‘Maybe older. I’m not sure.’

  ‘Any tattoos, scars, anything like that?’

  ‘I didn’t see any.’

  ‘Did he come near you? Say anything to you?’

  ‘No, he just looked.’

  I stepped outside and began to work my way around the perimeter of the A-frame, kiln and gallery. When I rounded the hedge that bordered the sidewalk I saw a van marked with the Channel Three logo parked across the street. In it sat two bored-looking guys in their twenties, one clean cut, the other with an uneven goatee and long, ratty hair, watching the front of the gallery. I crossed to the driver’s window and flashed my badge. ‘Hi, guys,’ I said. ‘You got any ID you can show me?’

  I thought I recognised the passenger, the one with short hair, as a junior Channel Three anchor, one of the faces you saw filling in late Saturday or Sunday night, and he clearly knew me. The driver was probably his cameraman. They both produced driver’s licences and press cards. ‘Is everything okay, Lieutenant Bonham?’ asked the reporter, whose name tag said he was Geoffrey Dean.

  ‘So far,’ I said, handing back the licences and cards. I described the Harley-Davidson man. ‘Either of you guys seen him, or anyone else who wasn’t media, hanging around out here?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said the cameraman. ‘The guy you’re talking about was here for a while yesterday. We made him for a neighbour or maybe just a looky-lou.’

  ‘Can you tell us how he figures into the case, sir?’ asked the reporter.

  I gave him a look, wondering how far he could be trusted. ‘Here’s how I’d like to work it, Geoff,’ I said. ‘There may or may not be a connection, but I’m very interested in this guy just the same. And it’d be a big help to me not to catch anything on the late news about a “mystery stalker” or “potential suspect”. If you can keep your eyes open for this guy or anyone like him and hold off on the kind of coverage I’m talking about, the minute I get anything I can release I’ll give you an exclusive – on-camera, real answers, and I won’t say “no-comment” unless I absolutely have to. Does that sound like a deal you could get interested in?’

  ‘Not just on this guy?’ said Geoff. ‘On the whole case?’

  I nodded, handed him one of my cards. ‘This is my private number. Got a card for me?’

  He brought out a bright, cleverly designed business card with his name and number printed along one of the short edges, and just like that I was in bed with another reporter.

  I finished my tour of the perimeter and went back inside. ‘Okay, guys,’ I said. ‘It’s probably nothing, but here’s what I think we should do. Let’s be really careful about keeping the doors locked and the blinds pulled, and move the chairs around a little, just enough so you aren’t sitting in the same places you usually do. Try to stay away from the windows as much as you can.’

  From their expressions I got the feeling I might have crossed the line between not enough information and too much by a step or two. Trying to cut my losses, I summed up: ‘If you see this character again call me right away, whatever time of day or night it is. I’ll talk to Patrol and get some extra drive-bys – ’

  ‘Police protection,’ said Jana.

  ‘It’s only a precaution, Jay.’

  ‘Brushing our teeth under armed guard – ’

  A snort from Jordan, who was never an easy laugh, or an easy scare. But Casey seemed to be warming up to the drama.

  ‘Will actual cops come here to protect us?’ she said. ‘I mean, maybe some young guys? Can we have them in for coffee or something? Let them loosen their ties and hang their guns on the backs of the chairs and make bad jokes and all that stuff?’

  Jordan said, ‘What about the doughnuts?’

  ‘Now we’re feeding them,’ said Jana through her teeth.

  ‘The guy was probably nothing but a bystander,’ I said. ‘But just to be on the safe side let’s take it a little bit seriously, okay? In fact, I’ll drive you girls to school and pick you up for the time being, or get somebody from downtown to do it.’

  ‘Oh, sure,’ said Jana. ‘Holing-up like Mafia witnesses. What’s next, a bomb in the pizza box?’ She was genuinely pissed, but I knew her anger was the kind that functions as an insulation against fear.

  ‘Relax, Jay, this’ll all be history before you know it.’ Contradicting my own words, I got up to check the rear deadbolt, windows and outside lights, telling myself I’d damn well better know what the hell I was talking about. But now I had no choice – I had to think not only in terms of catching Deborah Gold’s murderers but of them, whoever they were, becoming the hunters, as Max had said. Bringing the fight to me and my family. Which suddenly made all my objections to Jana’s idea of leaving this life behind seem unbelievably brainless.

  On my way back across town I saw somebody at a construction site that I recognised. His name was Harold something-or-other, the husband of one of Jana’s regular customers, and a couple of times we’d stood around shooting the breeze while his wife was shopping. I pulled over, parked and walked over to where he stood giving orders to a couple of guys applying something to a finished foundation slab.

  ‘Hey, how you doing?’ he said when he caught sight of me, sticking out his hand to shake.

  After we’d exchanged some small talk I asked him about the smell of the stuff his guys were laying down.

  ‘We use a couple different things for sealing these slabs,’ he said. ‘What you smell is mainly acrylic and epoxy. The odour gets in your clothes and hair sometimes. Why?’

  ‘I’m hoping it’ll help with a case I’m working on.’

  As I pulled back onto the street, having now answered at least one of the questions that had been plaguing me, I was thinking about the admissibility and credibility issues involved in the Gold case, and trying to remember if I’d ever heard of anybody identifying a suspect by smell.

  TWENTY-NINE

  OZ was big on fish fries, and every year since taking over as chief he’d sponsored one for the entire department at the lake. He sometimes picked the day as much as six months in advance, without worrying about the weather, and whatever his system was it worked infallibly for him. The day always turned out to be a perfect example of Indian summer at its best, windless and mellow and golden. The saying was that not even the sky would try to buck OZ, and there was nothing about today that made me doubt it.

  A dozen men had shown up early this morning with fryers the size of oil drums, barrels of peanut oil and tubs of catfish fillets. Huge quantities of potato salad, baked beans and coleslaw appeared, and giant coolers of iced beer and soft drinks multiplied like wire coat hangers. By early afternoon the party was up to speed, with pickup softball games and football scrimmages, three-beer conferences about oil temperature and cooking times and expert exchanges about breast sizes, the Series, the Middle East and the NFL playoff picture. A steady stream of on-duty troops from all the divisions and firehouses, along with a few poachers from the Arkansas and Louisiana departments and the various sheriffs’ offices, came by to check out the brisket and rib
s. Kids chased each other, squealed and rolled in the grass, and the women, with no cooking responsibilities, gossiped, laughed, put on sunblock, listened to music or read paperbacks.

  I looked around at the scene, feeling good about it, breathing easy, a weight off my chest, but not able at first to put my finger on the reason. Then I got it: it was because I knew Jana, Casey and Jordan were as safe here as they could be anywhere.

  The three of them and LA took over a picnic table under an old lightning-struck pine, Jana sipping a beer as she sat on the table, LA and the girls fishing out Cokes and Sprites from a sea-chest-sized cooler we’d filled with drinks and ice at the E-Z Mart just after breakfast.

  LA and I took a walk. ‘Not a bad way to decompress,’ she said as we wandered past a pair of cookers attended by a half-dozen guys hooting over old cop stories and watching the younger studs, one of them being Ridout, run pass plays on the nearby grassy flat. Mouncey and a couple of the other women had wandered off along the shore, but her husband Demond and their nine-year-old son Jarad were kicking a soccer ball around with a flock of other boys about Jarad’s age.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘The job really tightens you down if you let it. I doubt it’s what OZ had in mind, but this is probably good therapy.’

  ‘Mmm,’ she said, taking a sip of Sprite.

  Knowing the Harley-Davidson man would never show up here, I still couldn’t help scanning the crowd for any sign of a pony tail, a biker’s jacket or a face I didn’t know. A couple of the undercover drug guys came close appearance-wise, but the bad-guy feel just wasn’t there. What I did see was a man in boots, jeans, faded denim jacket and a white Stetson, leaning against a tall sycamore a hundred yards away on the far side of the gathering, eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses but apparently looking in my direction. He was lean, and even at this distance looked as hard as saddle leather. I put him at forty-something, definitely not a local but a guy with a cop look.

  LA, standing with me, saw him too. ‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘A guy like you.’

  A nasty little tickle ran like a cold-footed lizard up my spine. ‘Why do you say that?’ I asked. ‘He doesn’t look anything like me.’