A Garden of Vipers (29 page)

“You're a liar, Crandell! Kincannon wouldn't let you kill his girlfriend!”

Crandell's hand fell over my mouth. His smile was a mockery of humor, a twisted sneer, poisonous. He put his lips to my ear, whispered, “It was Buck's idea, Ryder. Buck's got a dark side like you wouldn't believe. It'll make Mama think old Luke's taken a turn for the worst.”

Crandell removed his hand from my mouth.

“Turn for the worst?” I said. “Maylene thinks Lucas killed two women. That's not bad enough?”

Crandell chuckled, a hollow sound. “A spinster schoolteacher and a black junior reporter? To Maylene, that's deer on the highway. By this time tomorrow, Lucas will appear to have killed Buck's high-profile girlfriend in Buck's house, way too up close and personal for Maylene. She'll beg for that Mex doctor, get Lucas's head roto-rooted so this nastiness never happens again.”

“When is this supposed to go down?”

“Tonight, Ryder. Lucas strikes again.”

The door closed and I fought my restraints to no avail. I cursed myself aloud and repeatedly. I remembered Rudolnick's hidden records describing a madman, a concealed sociopath on a downward spiral.

It is like walking beside a normal and respected person who has decided to become a suicide bomber, never knowing when he will grasp the plunger.

I'd figured Rudolnick was surreptitiously observing Lucas.

He was observing Buck.

 

“You want what, Harry?” Claypool said. He was wearing a tie-dyed ball cap, purple jeans, tire-tread sandals, and a black shirt with bold white lettering:
ELECTRONS GIVE ME A CHARGE
.

Nautilus explained his needs.

“That doesn't take any thinking,” Claypool said, “but it sounds like fun. Lemme grab a soldering iron.”

“Maybe some of the bubble wrapper stuff, too,” Nautilus added, “like it just came out of a box. You folks got any of that?”

Claypool looked about to swoon with delight and promised to send the package over within an hour. Nautilus made his office by nine. He wrote a few lines on a scrap of paper, then called Glen James from Tech Services.

“That's strange, Harry,” James said, studying the lines. “But I'll be glad to help.”

Nautilus went to the windowed conference room off the detectives' room and unhooked the monitor and pushed it to the side, like it was being replaced. He saw an intern from Forensics wandering the floor with a brown package in his hand, waved him over. He set the package from Claypool on the table, then dialed Shuttles at his desk.

“Hey, Tyree, this is Harry. I'm in conference room A. Got a minute?”

“Sure, Har,” Shuttles said, excitement in his voice. “Be right there.”

Har,
Nautilus thought. He recalled the movie
All That Jazz,
Roy Scheider popping a couple pills to kick off his day, smiling in the mirror, saying, “It's show time.”

“Show time,” Nautilus whispered.

Shuttles bounced in the door and took a seat. Nautilus figured Shuttles had to be thinking the two would be paired as a team.
It's a terrible thing about Carson, Tyree, but I need a new partner, and I think we'd work well together…

“What's up, Har?” Shuttles was trying hard to hold in the grin.

Nautilus kept the smile. But shifted his eyes to the ones he used for interrogations. Black rockets, someone once called them. Nautilus aimed the rockets through Tyree Shuttles's pupils and into his brain.

“Did you really think you'd get away with it, Tyree?”

“Uh, what are you talking about, Harry?”

Nautilus picked up the package prepared by Claypool. He pulled out an object protected by bubble wrap.

“What's that, Harry?” Shuttles asked.

“You'll know when you see it.”

Nautilus removed the tape securing the wrap. A small slip of paper fell out,
INSPECTED BY NUMBER
57, underscored by a line of bar code.

Beautiful,
Nautilus thought. He owed the multitalented Claypool a big dinner. Nautilus revealed a small assemblage of metal, plastic, and circuitry surrounding a tube like the front barrel of a rifle sight, a large optic glinting from the center. There was a mounting bracket and a cigarette-pack-size control panel with buttons and LEDs. The ad hoc contraption looked like a sidearm from a
Star Wars
movie.

“Now do you understand, Tyree?”

“I don't know what that thing is, Harry.” Shuttles couldn't keep the scared out of his voice.

“One of the new cameras for the detective cars.”

“
What
cameras?”

“Like the ones in the patrol cars, but the next generation. Pace never told you?”

“Told me
what
?”

“Pace and me met with the chief a few weeks back. We discussed who'd get the first one, the test camera. Brand-new super-high-resolution cameras, fifteen grand per. It was scheduled for your car, Pace having the most seniority. But Pace didn't want the camera. So Carson and me got it installed in our car.”

Sweat beaded on Shuttles's forehead. He had the dry-mouth swallow.

“Pace doesn't tell me anything. He probably forgot. The asshole doesn't care about this kind of stuff. He won't even use a computer.”

Nautilus went to the door, opened it, yelled, “Where the hell's the monitor I asked for?”

Glen James was standing across the room talking to Lieutenant Tom Mason, the head of the department. James glanced down at his cupped palm, reading from the script Nautilus had prepared.

“On its way, Harry. Settle down. We can't use a regular TV, it's got to have the special screen. Like HDTV, where you see the pores on people's faces. They'll have it here in a few minutes.”

“Hurry the fuck up.”

“You gonna watch a porn flick, Harry? You'll be able to count twat hairs, that much I can tell you.”

Glen James, improvising.

Nautilus slammed the door, sat back down. He rarely swore or slammed doors, making it that much more effective.

“I don't give a fuck about cameras, Tyree. What would I want with a picture of Taneesha Franklin's car as we pull in? No one even looked at the tape until this morning. Hell, I didn't even want to test the camera that night, all the damn rain, but you know Carson. He was playing with the thing like a toy.”

“Franklin?” A tinder-dry whisper.

“I want you to explain something to me, Tyree. Something that doesn't make a damn bit of sense. The camera's on, it's switched to extreme night vision, something to do with lux rating or whatever. A regular camera wouldn't show jack shit, all that rain, distance. But this new camera is taking in everything.”

Nautilus glared through the window into the detectives' room, like he was angry the monitor wasn't there yet.

“It's maybe fifty feet from our cruiser to you in the shadows behind the Mazda. What does supercamera show when we slow the playback, Tyree?”

The kid was too scared to speak.
Roll the dice,
Nautilus thought, about to make the jump suggested by Logan's observation.
Here's where I win or lose….

“It shows you pulling a plastic bag from under your rain gear, Tyree. You open it, take out a knife, drop the bag into the gutter. Then you start yelling, ‘Knife.'”

Shuttles's mouth made shapes, but no words came out. Nautilus said, “Why'd you bring the murder weapon to the scene in a plastic bag, Tyree?”

“It wasn't my idea, I swear…”

“You never cruised more than eight blocks from the murder scene. How long were you supposed to wait for the Franklin car to be found? All night?”

Shuttles pressed his hands to his eyes, as if blotting out reality. Tears fell from beneath his fingers.

“Harry, I…”

“Then you tried to convince Carson that Logan was messing up the Carole Ann Hibney investigation. But it was really you throwing wrenches into the works. That idea come from Crandell? Or setting Logan up as paranoid, so if he voiced suspicions about you, it'd seem part of his paranoia. Right, Tyree? Have I got your sorry ass nailed?”

Shuttles pitched forward on the table, buried his face in his arms.

“They gave me so much, Harry, but then they wanted so much back.”

“Good morning, brother,” Lucas said into the phone. “Did you get my fax? My equations? Did you have a professional read it?”

Lucas listened for a minute, shook his head.

“You showed it to who, Buck? Of course he didn't know what it was, he's a pissant banker, a schmoozer. It's the Black-Scholes equation for modeling stock-option prices. Economics 101, for crying out loud. I simply took the '76 Ingerson adjustment regarding assumption of zero taxes and transaction fees, removed CIRs per Merton, then added my own twist regarding…”

Shit. It was like talking business to a fish. Lucas shook his head, then relaxed. Remembered his mission.

“Forget the fax, Buck. Listen, in the long run…does it matter?”

Lucas watched a dark-haired young woman walk past the phone, tight pink jeans, her hips moving like a polka,
one
-two,
one
-two. He'd be there soon enough, he thought, a bed full of metronomic buttocks he would pluck like fruit from a yard-high tree.

“What do I want to do, Buck?” Lucas said. “Shit, you know that. It all comes down to what your gut instinct tells you is the profitable course.”

A smile crossed Lucas's face, but he didn't allow it to enter his voice, his business voice.

“That's what I thought you'd say, Buck.”

Lucas hung up and returned to his insecurities firm—never more aptly named than today. He ran up the stairs, arriving in his office panting, part from exertion, part from the rush of adrenaline. Lucas swiveled the spotter scope to the KEI offices. Buck Kincannon was in his office, door closed, feet on desk, thumbs twirling around one another as he mulled over the phone conversation.

He hadn't shared the call with the others. Buck was sitting there thinking
I, Me, Mine.

Every brother was thinking
I, Me, Mine.

Perfect.

 

Nautilus watched Shuttles walk out, a uniformed cop on each side. In his first burst of fear, Shuttles had answered questions, but once he realized how deep the water was getting, he'd started mewling about a lawyer. Shuttles even had the temerity to ask if he could make his exit without the bracelets. Nautilus told the little shit to be happy he wasn't cuffed to a kayak and floated in front of a supertanker.

Nautilus headed to Forensics, stopping at the morgue first. He'd debated whether to tell Clair Peltier anything at this stage, but she'd been in since the beginning and deserved to know.

He stepped into her office, closed the door. The woman looked used up, eyes red, face drawn and sleepless. The fresh flowers normally changed every third day were limp as dead birds. A tear rolled down her cheek and she blotted it with the back of her hand.

“I left Carson's. I didn't want to, but I had work to finish.”

“Listen, Doc,” Harry said. “Some things have come to light. There's a chance—slim—that Carson might be alive.”

Her mouth dropped. Nautilus held his hands up, cautionary.

“I have no idea where he is if he's being held. If I make noise, get cops running everywhere, I think he'll fall down a hole forever.”

“Oh Jesus…”

“I just uncovered a rotten apple cop owned by the Kincannons, except the family will never be implicated. They've got too many layers between them and the act, especially one named Crandell. I'd love a search warrant for the Kincannons' homes, offices. But that takes probable cause. I have nothing but circumstances and hearsay.”

“How about Carson's old girlfriend, Harry? She's going with Buck Kincannon now, correct? Do you think she could help with anything?”

Nautilus felt guilt sweep through his gut. After Carson's disappearance, Danbury had called him a dozen times, left distraught and tearful messages, begging him to call her back, help her understand.

It had bothered Nautilus that his partner had gone through such bullshit with Danbury. She'd behaved poorly. But people stumble, make bad decisions. Get conned by professional liars.

He recalled a call Danbury had left on his phone:

“I convinced myself that I was so important I deserved the kind of man who was followed by cameras and reporters and had politicians hanging on his every word. I betrayed myself by betraying Carson, and I lost something I can never get back.”

She wasn't talking about Carson, Nautilus knew.

He pulled his cell phone from his jacket and called the station first. The operator said Danbury wasn't scheduled for work for four days. He tried her home, got the answering machine.

“I'm out for a few days,” Danbury said, “but will answer your call when I return.”

Her voice was flat and abrupt. Used to be Danbury's messages sounded chirpy as a bird, all how-de-do, and call you right back, and always a funny little joke.

Strange. Like maybe life wasn't all she'd been expecting.

“Danbury's not around,” Nautilus said. He told Dr. Peltier to cross her fingers, pray, and burn candles, incense, whatever it took. He headed to Forensics wondering if Claypool knew anything about e-mail.

 

Thaddeus Claypool looked up from a keyboard, a glass of orange juice at his elbow. He wore a white shirt with twin banjos on the front, the instruments made of sequins.

Nautilus said, “We nailed the son of a bitch, Thad. But I need a touch more magic. Know anything about tracing e-mail?”

Claypool blew out a long breath. “Depends on how much misdirection the sender put into staying hidden. It's not like following a thread to someone's house.”

Nautilus set the computer retrieved from Shuttles's apartment on the counter in front of Claypool. He had it running in under thirty seconds, the e-mail program open.

“Start about a month back,” Nautilus said. “A few days before Taneesha Franklin was killed.”

Claypool popped the e-mails on the screen in chronological progression. The sender—Crandell?—was not given to excess verbiage.

Nautilus noted the message jibed with what Shuttles had told him about the night of Taneesha's death. He was to take the prepared knife to the scene, making sure Lucas's prints remained intact. Once there, he was to “discover” the supposedly cast-off weapon in the shadows. It was a brilliant, double-duty action: assuring that the knife wouldn't be found by any of the hookers normally cruising the area, and tying Shuttles to a murder scene—giving Crandell future leverage over his mole in the department.

The “50G ME,” Nautilus figured, was a “Fifty-Grand Merit Endowment.” Also noted: The main details would come via phone. Shuttles had a list of six pay-phone locations, A–F. That night's calls would be at location C from five to seven p.m., the calls repeated every twenty minutes if Shuttles had a problem getting to the phone. Everything seemed to be considered. The next in the series was self-explanatory:

Keeping tabs, Nautilus thought. Whatever was going on, the folks behind it wanted to see how the investigation was progressing.

Basically an update and street contacts talking about the drawing. Verbal orders would follow via phone.

Nautilus noted it approximated the time of the activity with Vince Raines at Vehicle Theft, probably a checkup to assure the phony story about the cars having been sold was believed, no further action taken.

If a photo of the murder weapon was needed, why wasn't one taken before it was planted? Unless a police version was preferred. That fit with the request for official reports on the case.

Nautilus opened the most recent e-mail, sent last Sunday just past noon.

They'd been lying in wait for Carson since a bit after six. If he hadn't kayaked, they were going to abduct him from home. Another fifty grand for Shuttles; the scum-ball business was booming. Nautilus read to the last line, and his heart jammed in his throat.

There was only one reason for that line: Carson would never get the opportunity to make an identification.

“How's the tracing possibility look, Thad?” Nautilus asked, his voice quiet.

“Not good,” Claypool said, shaking his head at the routing codes. “There's more misdirection than at a magicians' convention. Maybe if I had a Cray I could brute-force the phony information, but…”

“It's OK,” Nautilus said. “I got a backup plan. Is the machine hooked up? Like to the Internet?”

Claypool nodded. “It thinks it's at Shuttles's apartment.”

Nautilus perched his hands over the keys.

“What are you going to say, Detective?” Claypool asked, holding his breath.

“When in doubt, tell the truth,” Nautilus said. “Parts of it, anyhow.”

He started typing.

Nautilus hit send.

He studied the message, realized he'd put Logan in Crandell's sights, picked up his phone. Ten rings later, Logan answered.

“Pace, this is Harry Nautilus. You were right about Shuttles. He's rotten. I got him to admit he planted the knife.”

“Son of a bitch,” Logan grunted.

“But Shuttles got a shyster and clammed up tight. Listen, Pace, I'm trying to work a scam on the guy pulling Shuttles's strings, a guy goes by the name of Crandell, big hard guy, square built, curly blond hair. You ever see him, like Shuttles was driving, maybe stopped to talk to a guy like that, said he was a friend?”

“I'm sorry, Harry.”

Nautilus pulled his handkerchief, patted sweat from his forehead.

“Why I'm calling, Pace. I just sent a fake message from Shuttles telling this guy you dug up all the ugliness, are pressing for a cut.”

“You knew where to send the message?”

“E-mail, Pace.”

“Oh shit, of course. Listen, Harry, it makes me feel stupid that all this shit went down and I never saw anything.”

“You saw the bag floating in the gutter. That opened the door. But Crandell thinks you're messing with his plans. He may want to take you off the board, and he can do it. You're at home, right?”

“Watching the tube.”

“Get out now. Go somewhere. A motel, Pace. I'll pay. Go there and hang out until tomorrow.”

“Harry, what can I do to help? I'll do anything. Tell me how to help you track down this Cran—”

“There's nothing to do but get out of there, Pace. Now.”

“What are you trying to accomplish, Harry? Clue me in.”

Nautilus sighed, time wasting.

“Someone's life may depend on me finding Crandell. I figure this Crandell's got a place away from things. But close enough to town to keep his hand in his action. Pace, get off the phone and git.”

“What are you going to do, Harry?”

“I don't know, Pace. Listen, I got to hang up.”

“Shuttles is slick, Harry, the little bastard is one—”

“Get out!” Nautilus yelled and slammed down the phone.