Blood on the Tracks (15 page)

Gently he took her arms again. “Sherri. Be quiet, okay? This is important. I need you to go back upstairs and wait with Haley. I’ll take care of this.”

“No.”

“It’s about the war, honey. Okay? Marine stuff. Agent Parnell doesn’t really think I did anything. It’s about Tucks, okay? So, please, go upstairs. Everything’s going to be fine.”

Sherri shook him off again, took a step back. Her face flushed and she seemed about to argue, but then abruptly she turned and hurried back up the stairs, her hands holding her pregnant belly.

Kane watched her go. “She knows stuff happened over there. And she wants to support me. She really does. But to be honest, she’d rather not hear about it.” He turned back to me. “She likes things to be nice. To be . . . orderly. It’s why she doesn’t like Elise. Elise couldn’t let stuff go. Sometimes I was almost jealous of Tucks. He shouldn’t have told her things, but Elise wanted to know. She wanted to
understand
.”

“You haven’t answered my question. Where were you?”

He knelt on the ground, started gathering the books and magazines. “I was at work. I’m a stocker at Costco. I was there all night.”

“I’ll check that.”

“Go ahead.”

“What did you mean, ‘another one’?”

“Guy from our squad was just arrested for taking a baseball bat to his wife. But I didn’t mean it that way. Tucks isn’t like that. No way he could have—have hurt Elise.”

I helped him right the table. “Why not?”

“Tucks had enough killing in the war. He came home, he couldn’t go hunting with his dad anymore. Hell, he can’t squash a spider. He might freak out a little sometimes. Anyone would, they went through what he did. But, he’d hurt himself before he’d hurt her.”

“They’ve got a lot of evidence against him.”

“I don’t care what they think they have. I’ll bet everything I own on Tucks.”

We returned the books and magazines to the coffee table. Kane carried the empty coffee mugs to the kitchen and came back. He stared blankly at the coffee stain on the carpet.

“What’s this got to do with Habbaniyah?” he asked.

“Maybe nothing. Who else did Elise talk to, Kane? Who might have felt threatened by what she knew?”

“If Elise talked to anyone else, she didn’t tell me about it. What does Tucks say?”

“He doesn’t know, either.”

“The only other guys who know what happened over there, besides you and your CO, are Crowe and Sarge.” He sank back to the couch. “Shit. We took an oath not to tell anyone. Not
anyone
. Why did Tucks have to go and tell Elise?”

“Your sergeant didn’t ride with you guys. Who was the fourth member of your team?”

“Dave Tignor. He was back home with his folks in Omaha. Killed himself a couple of months ago. What about your CO?”

“You didn’t know?”

“Know what?”

“He’s dead.” The words, so rarely spoken, made me wince. “Do you know who gave the original order?”

“None of us knew that. Except your CO. And maybe Sarge.” He looked up at me, panic on his face. “Do you really think Elise was killed because of Habbaniyah?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“If Rhodes goes to trial, the whole story will come out, won’t it?”

“Probably.”

“Things won’t be nice for Sherri then, will they?”

“No.” I looked around at the clean, tidy house, the carpet now splotched with coffee. I remembered what Bandoni had said about having seen the best liars the world has to offer. Maybe Kane was one of them.

But I was starting to warm up to him. To trust him, even. Could be I was more like Bandoni than I wished, going with my gut and watching the eyes.

“You guys look like you’re doing okay,” I said.

“You think?” He snorted. “We’re barely hanging on. Sherri’s stayed with me, but it’s been a bitch of a ride. She thought she’d be a doctor’s wife by now.”

“She loves you.”

“Yeah.” He gave a rueful headshake. “I had two ambitions for my twenties. I mean, outside of marrying Sherri and raising a family.”

“Yeah?”

“I wanted to become a surgeon, like my dad. And run some marathons. That’s it. Two things that I could work hard for and actually do. I wasn’t asking for the moon. Wasn’t asking for any favors or any help. But instead I got all patriotic. Dropped out of school and signed up. Came home with a pin in my leg and a traumatic brain injury that has done fuck-all with my memory. That and the joy of seeing Tucks burn all over again, every goddamn time I close my eyes at night.” He glared at me. “That sound like I’m doing okay?”

“I’m sorry.”

“They tell me I’m a hero and thank me for my service. You ever try taking that to the bank?”

“Every day.”

“How’s it working for you?”

I laughed, then we fell quiet, lost in thoughts of loss.

“You didn’t go back to school because of your memory problems?” I asked after a time.

“Oh, I’m going back. It’ll be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but Sherri and I are together on this. We’re just trying to save enough money so that I only have to work part-time once I finish my undergrad degree.” A bleakness settled over his face like the arrival of winter. “The stuff about Habbaniyah comes out, it’ll be all over. They could court-martial us, right? Because of—”

“Are you in the reserves?”

“No.”

“Then, no,” I said. “They can’t court-martial you. Tell me how to find Sarge and Crowe.”

“Crowe, it’ll take a while. Last time I saw him was after Tucks’s fourth surgery. He calls every blue moon. Travels a lot. He’s from Detroit, but says living there is worse than being in Iraq. I don’t have a number for him, or an address. Best I can do is give you his sister’s number.”

“You ever give that number to Elise?”

“Nah. She never asked.”

So chances were good that Elise couldn’t have tracked him down, either. “What about Sarge?”

Jeremy glanced at the watch on his wrist. “You want to talk to him right now?”

“He lives around here?”

“Moved to Denver maybe three months ago. Met a girl in California, and she dragged him here. See him every couple of weeks.”

“And he’s never said anything about Elise?”

“No. But Sarge is pretty closemouthed, even with me. He’s never uttered one word about Habbaniyah.”

“So he wouldn’t have appreciated Elise’s efforts to get everyone to confess.”

Kane shot me a glance. “No. But he wouldn’t have killed her, either.”

“Okay. No time like the present, then.”

Kane grabbed a cordless phone from the kitchen, punched in a number, and pressed the speakerphone button. I heard a man’s voice, then realized it was a recording. Kane disconnected.

“Sometimes after Saturday night he’s pretty hung over. I go over and make him coffee, throw him in the shower. He has to be at work by noon.”

“You. Not his girlfriend.”

“Sarge and Amy break up and make up every couple of weeks. When she’s around, she usually needs waking up, too.” He stood. “You up for driving over there? He’s only fifteen minutes away.”

“You lead,” I said. “I’ll follow.”

Sherri met us at the front door, her eyes wet and red. Kane kissed her and told her he was going to Sarge’s, that he’d be back in an hour.

“Is she going with you?”

“She needs to talk to him.” He touched her cheek with a gentle finger. “You about done with those beads for Tucker?”

She turned her face into his touch. “Almost.”

Kane spread his open hand across her belly as if for good luck then pushed out the front door, heading toward his truck. I moved to follow him, but Sherri stepped into my path.

“If you’re looking for dirt Elise might have dug up,” she said, “there’s a lot of places to look besides my husband.”

“What do you mean?”

She glanced over her shoulder. Kane was unlocking his truck.

“Elise was nosy,” Sherri said, turning back. “Poking around, stirring up a hornet’s nest of trouble. She didn’t worry who might get stung.”

“Sounds like you know something.”

She looked down. When her eyes came back up, fear sparked the defiance in her green eyes. “Look, my husband’s a good man. And Elise was nothing but trouble. You think you’re some hotshot investigator? Maybe you ought to look at whoever she upset and not bother those who tried to help her.”

“A name or two would get me started.”

“I don’t know names. Just those people Elise hung out with. Those tramps.”

“She made trouble for them?”

“She made trouble for everyone.”

“Okay.” I pulled out my car keys. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You do that.”

I gave her my card. “Call me if any names come to you.”

Sherri Kane’s eyes stayed on me as I opened the door and walked down the driveway. From behind his sign, Ogre cranked up his bark.

This time, Sherri didn’t tell him to stop.

C
HAPTER
14

Ask most people in America what “normal” is, and they’ll tell you it’s a roof and three squares a day. It’s a decent job and good health and a marriage that’s going along just fine, thanks. It’s the middle-class version of the American Dream.

What no one wants to admit is that this idea of normal isn’t really normal at all. It’s a fantasy.

Normal is whatever we’ve gotten used to in our own private universe. It’s war or cancer or poverty. Hopelessness or pain or fear. It’s the cigarette burns on the coffee table and bone-deep exhaustion and the stink of booze and the black eye from—you tell everyone who asks—running into a door.

Normal is the devil-ridden quiet of three a.m. when you’re eyeball-to-eyeball with God, and you know you won’t win because the deck is stacked.

Best you can do is fold.

—Sydney Parnell. Personal journal.

Sarge and his on-again, off-again lady friend lived a few miles north in what could generously be called the un-gentrified part of town. As I followed Kane’s truck, the lower-middle-class residential area gave way to dispirited strip malls and fast-food joints, which, in turn, surrendered to a zone of apartment complexes designed with the lower ten percent in mind.

Hartstone Village sat on the very outskirts of Littleton across the highway from a small, winter-brown field. Maybe the field had been intended as a park, but now all it held were weeds, a broken-down jungle gym, and a clutch of trash blown in from the fast-food places. I veered around a pothole the size of Delaware and pulled into Hartstone, parking next to Kane. He sat in his cab chatting on his cell phone; when I looked over, he held up his index finger, telling me to give him a minute.

I killed the engine and stared out through the dirt-streaked windshield.

Hartstone had never been the Taj Mahal, but it had seen better days. The chipped and peeling paint, cracked asphalt, and narrow balconies cluttered with cast-off furniture and rusting barbeque grills—all of it gave the place the feel of a refugee camp. A dreary stopover for people on their way up to something better. Or maybe on their way back down.

I had a pretty good idea in which direction Sarge was headed.

Despite the cold, the complex was Sunday stay-at-home busy. Cars pulled in and out of the parking lot in a steady stream. A man worked at repairing a motorcycle on a front sidewalk while, nearby, a pair of bored-looking women huddled together on a wooden bench, watching him. Kids underdressed for the cold played on a set of swings to the west of the L-shaped block of buildings. Two teens ran past my truck and darted across the road, horns blowing in their wake. They leapt over the curb, laughing, then stood in the weeds with their backs to the wind and smoked.

Nothing but normal. So why was my gut sending up a five-alarm warning?

Clyde, either feeling his own anxiety or picking up on mine, pressed next to me and gave a whine that sounded exactly like a dog’s version of
what the hell?

“I hear you,” I said.

Kane had finished his phone call and was locking up his truck. I stepped out, and Clyde hopped down after me. A cold wind rattled the chains on the swing set and flapped a plastic US flag hanging next to a second-floor apartment. I snapped the leash onto Clyde’s collar, and we followed Kane, who was already heading up the stairs toward the second floor.

On the drive over, I had called the Costco and verified that Kane had been on-shift the night Elise was killed. Each shift had two fifteen-minute breaks and half an hour in the middle for a late-night snack. Unless a witness said Kane had taken a long, unscheduled break, it looked like he was in the clear.

One suspect down. A lot more to go, if Sherri was right.

Unless Sarge told us something I really didn’t want to hear.

Clyde and I caught up with Kane at the door next to the flag; he was searching through keys hanging from a tiny plastic replica of an AK-47.

“I’ve been trying to call him all the way over here,” Kane said. “Nothing. He gets into a real bender, he doesn’t hear the alarm, the phone, not anything.”

I cocked my head at the sound of voices and music coming faintly through the scuffed door. “You already knocked?”

He gave me the eye. “I graduated salutatorian from Thomas Edison High School.”

So yes.

“What about the TV? You’re saying he’d sleep through that?”

Kane sucked in a breath, huffed it out.

“Sarge doesn’t watch TV. He bought it for Amy. But she’s supposed to be in Lubbock this weekend, visiting her mom.”

He found the key and undid the deadbolt, then slid a different key into the main lock. Before he could turn the knob, I pulled him back.

“Clyde and I’ll take the lead,” I said and drew my gun, holding it with the barrel down.

Kane stared at the gun then cast an astonished glance at me. “It’s probably just Amy, changed her mind about the family thing. Passed out while she was watching TV.”

“Maybe.”

Kane’s face went stubborn.

“It’s Amy,” he said. “What else could it be?”

“Elise is dead,” I reminded him. “Someone made her that way while her landlady was sitting in the room right below.”

“But here? Shit, there’s a million people around.”

I waited.

“Shit.” But Kane finally nodded his agreement, turned the knob to unlatch the door then stepped behind Clyde and me.

I nudged the door open with my foot.

“Max Udell? Amy?”

The door swung open to a dumpy front room with a sagging sofa, a rickety-looking coffee table covered with beer cans, and a top-of-the-line television set. The TV was tuned to a show about land mines in Serbia; as we walked in, the tone lightened from somber to merely serious, and a celebrity appeared, urging anyone watching to get life insurance while there was still time.

Not a flesh-and-blood person in sight. But there was something here. I could feel it like ice against my skin.

Kane closed the front door behind us and turned off the TV. In the sudden silence, the wind smacked the building. Down in the parking lot a horn honked, and someone hollered for their kid.

“Sarge?” Kane called. “You here, man?”

Nothing.

Kane opened a tiny closet next to the front door and glanced inside. “His rifle’s gone.”

“He one to get trigger-happy?”

“Never known him to.”

We made our way through the living room to the kitchen, calling Udell’s name. The kitchenette was in a worse state of disarray than the front room, with overflowing trash and a counter covered with empty pizza boxes stained with grease. More beer cans rounded out the bachelor décor. The place stank like a Dumpster.

“Is it always like this?”

“Maybe not quite this bad.”

A cockroach skittered across the floor and disappeared beneath a cabinet. “Has he ever talked about ending it all?”

Kane had started stacking the empty pizza boxes as if he meant to tidy up out of sheer habit. Now he froze.

“You mean kill himself?” He dropped his hands. “Do you know anyone who’s seen combat who hasn’t talked that way sometimes?”

“Sure,” I said. “A lot of guys. Which side of the fence would you put Sarge on?”

“On the never side.”

“Okay.”

But I watched him mentally hitch himself up. Preparing.

We moved into the hallway. A bathroom on our right was empty. The hall was a scant ten feet long and ended in two closed doors.

“Door on the left is his bedroom,” Kane said. “He uses the room on the right as a study.”

“Doors usually closed?”

“The study, yeah. He doesn’t let anyone in there. His bedroom, I don’t know. I think so.”

I raised my voice. “Max Udell, this is Special Agent Parnell with the DPC railroad. I’m here with Jeremy Kane. My dog and I are coming to talk to you. That sound okay?”

The wind drew a breath, and in the sudden quiet we heard a creaking sound.

I edged forward. “Udell?”

Behind me, Kane said, “Sarge, it’s me, man. You there?”

“Keep an eye on the door on the right,” I told Kane. “I’m going in the left.”

At his nod, Clyde and I glided down the rest of the hallway. Just outside the door, Clyde’s ears came up and his tail lifted like a flag. We pressed against the wall to the left of the door, and I reached over, turned the knob, then kicked the door open, going in with my gun arm raised.

A man, tall and tanned and bearded, stood at the window, staring out at the bleak February day. His white button-down shirt and black slacks were rumpled and dusty. In his hand he held a manila file.

Winter light filtered softly through him.

My gun hand trembled as he turned to look at me. The light glimmered in his blue eyes. He gave me a nod.

“Udell?” I whispered.

Clyde whimpered.

I raised my voice. “Kane? What’s your sergeant look like?”

Kane’s reply came from the second bedroom.

“Shit, is he in there?” Panic in his voice and the creak of the floor as he moved.

“No. It’s all clear.”

Kane appeared in the doorway, glanced around, then gave me a bewildered look.

“Why are you asking what he looks like?”

“Humor me.”

“Black man. Not too tall. Built like a tank. There are photos of him in the other room if you want to see.”

The man at the window, fair-skinned and well over six foot, turned his back to me, stepped toward the window, and vanished.

“Shit,” I whispered.

“What is it?” Kane moved closer. “Geez, Parnell, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I waved Kane away and holstered my gun. Where the hell had this guy come from? If I’d processed his body in Iraq, he must have been missing key parts. Like a face. So how had I conjured him out of incomplete memories?

Maybe it was time to go back into counseling. Before I started building entire armies of the dead.

While Kane started in on the study, I set Clyde to guard the front door then took my time searching Udell’s bedroom for any indication he’d been in touch with Elise or threatened by the mysterious Alpha. I looked in drawers, between the mattress and box springs, then under the bed frame. I wasn’t sure what, exactly, I was looking for, but I figured I’d know it if I saw it. A letter or a scrawled note. A token from Habbaniyah, something like the embroidered name tape from Resenko’s uniform or maybe a photo. With meticulous care I went through the clothes hanging in the closet—expensive-looking jackets and brand-name sweaters—and rifled through the piles of papers and books on the shelf. I played back the recorder on his phone, but any messages had been erased. I finished in his bedroom by looking for a place where the carpet might have been pulled up.

Nothing.

I checked out the kitchen, the bathroom and linen closet, the living room, and the tiny entry closet. I found a high-quality camera and a pair of binoculars that looked like they’d cost more than I earned in a year. But nothing else. I went back down the hallway to the second bedroom. Kane stood in front of a four-drawer metal filing cabinet, reading through the folders in the top drawer.

“Anything?” I asked.

“Sarge has got some weird shit in here. Studies on neurology and psychosis. Self-help articles. Articles about spies. Old
National Geographic
s. And a ton of maps. But I’ve been through every file, and there’s nothing about Habbaniyah. I even pulled out every map Sarge has of Iraq, looking for writing or marks of some kind. Nothing.”

“And nothing about whoever might have ordered the cover-up? Newspaper articles about senior officers, say?”

“Nada.”

“How about something weird like a bomb fragment or a war-trophy? Something someone might have mailed to him as a threat.”

The corner of his mouth ticked. “Like an ear, you mean?”

“Exactly like that.”

“Those were confiscated when we mustered out,” he said, deadpan.

Unsure whether I felt relieved or disappointed at the lack of any apparent links to Habbaniyah, I leaned against the doorjamb and took in the room.

Max Udell’s study was a shrine to his time in the Marines and especially Iraq. In contrast to the rest of the apartment, this room was clean and organized. Floor-to-ceiling shelves on three walls held novels and nonfiction books about the Middle East, about Sunni and Shia cultures, about Islam and Mohammed. Neatly displayed around the books were Bedouin daggers and clay pots, alabaster cups and broken cuneiform tablets. A woolen prayer rug hung on the wall next to the window; beneath it, a stone cheetah snarled at me in eternal silence. A table covered in a red cloth held a filthy tactical vest, Udell’s helmet, and an NCO ceremonial sword in a black sheath.

I gaped. “Do you know where he got all this stuff?”

“Off eBay, mostly. Bought some shit from other guys. Stuff’s fake. You know, replicas. Or a lot of it is.”

“You sure of that? It’s damn freaky.”

Kane turned to look at the shelves as if seeing everything for the first time. But after a moment he shook his head. “Sarge doesn’t have the money to be a collector. And he isn’t a thief. The rug is real. Some of the pots and the dagger. But mostly it’s fakes. And it’s not freaky. It’s just Sarge. Most of us try not to think about Iraq. But for Sarge, it was the biggest part of his life.”