Red Tide (14 page)

26

H
e’d told her to hold all his calls, so the incessant buzzing emanating from his phone was even more annoying than usual. He stifled a growl as he picked it up.

“It’s Sheriff Reinhart, Chief,” Margy said.

Harry Dobson swallowed his anger, pushed the blinking red button and spoke into the mouthpiece.

“Dan,” was all he said.

“We got those bodies you were looking for, Harry.”

“Really.”

“Big guy with a bad attitude.”

“He got a name?”

“Not on the warrant. Strictly a John Doe.”

“And he’s not talking.”

“I hear he’s mostly yelling.”

“About what?”

“The usual. His constitutional rights. Nazi mother-fuckers. What the country’s coming to. Wants to call Abrams and Stone, so, whoever the hell he is, he must have access to some serious money. Those guys won’t piss on you for under ten grand.”

“What about the woman?”

“She wouldn’t talk to the feds, and she’s not talking to us.”

“That so?”

“I was about to transfer her over to the city lockup. I’ve got people sleeping on the floor. Besides…her paperwork says she was in your custody when the feds borrowed her.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Dobson said.

“What’s that?”

“Why don’t you transfer both of them over to the city lockup?”

Before Reinhart could answer, he went on. “Strictly a matter of space. You were full. We weren’t. As simple as that.”

Another airy pause. “Not a good idea to screw with those people, Harry.”

“Let me worry about that. Space transfers are strictly business as usual. We do it every day of the year.” An exaggeration, but not by much.

Reinhart thought it over. “When did you have in mind?”

“Right now.”

“It’ll look better that way.”

“Yes, it will.”

“This gonna get all sticky?”

“Not on you.”

“It’s an election year.”

“I know.”

Long pause. “They’re on the way.”

Dobson replaced the phone only to have it buzz again.

“Sorry, Chief.” Margy’s voice again, not sounding in the least bit sorry. “I’ve got two detectives from the East Precinct out here. They say they were ordered to show up here posthaste.”

“Send ’em in,” he said. “And Margy…”

“Yes, Chief.”

He used his nicest voice. “Hold all my calls, please.”

“As always, Chief.”

They came through the door walking sideways. Neither had ever been here before. Hadda figure they were in deep shit over something. Guy gets called to the police chief’s office, it’s usually the last call he responds to.

Dobson got to his feet. Nodded at each of them but didn’t offer his hand.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “have a seat.”

He remained standing as they sorted out a pair of black leather chairs and sat down. He looked from one to the other. “At the risk of being accused of racial profiling, which I’m sure you detectives know is a rather sore issue around here these days…”—he nodded first at Reuben the Cuban and then at Charly Hart—“I’m assuming you’re Gutierrez and you’re Hart.” Pause. “Right?” He waited for a reply and got one.

Harry Dobson eased himself into his chair. “Relax,” he said out over the polished expanse of his desk. “I’ve got no beef with either of you.”

He watched air pressure drain from the men as if somebody’d pulled the plug. “It’s about the young woman who phoned in that homicide last night.”

“What about it?” Charly Hart asked. He leaned forward, resting his bony elbows on his equally bony knees. The guy was all angles. Tall and skinny as a coat hanger, his long-limbed joints seemed to operate independently of one another, allowing him to fold himself into awkward-looking positions, seemingly with little or no effort. He used a big round pair of black glasses to add some width to his razor face. His thinning white hair was cut short and combed forward. Around the station house, it had occasionally been noted that he looked a lot like a boiled owl.

Gutierrez was another matter. Whatever hair he had left was buzzed all the way down to the bone. When he moved his head, the muscles in his neck looked like knotted rope. The guy was burly. A thousand crimped and twisted muscle fibers hiding under a nice Italian suit. And the two gold front teeth. They were like…halogen.

“You have your notes? From when you questioned her?”

Charly Hart did what all good cops do at a moment like that. He looked to his partner. Nobody was going to embarrass anybody else here. Gutierrez picked up on whatever message his partner was sending. “Charly took the notes.”

As if by magic, a shiny black notebook appeared in Charly Hart’s hand. He started to leaf through the pages.

Dobson stopped him. “Before we get specific here, I want to get your impressions.” He looked from one detective to the other. “How’d you guys read it? You make her for the perp?”

“No way,” Reuben said.

“Me neither,” chimed Charly.

Harry Dobson processed the information behind hooded eyes. “Gimme an alternate scenario,” he said after a minute.

“Somebody real strong,” Gutierrez said immediately.

“Real sure,” Charly added. “No other lacerations of any kind on the vic.”

“Cuts the kid’s throat.” Reuben used his forefinger to demonstrate. “Bleeds him out right there on the floor.”

“Then picks him up, forces the body into the kneeling position and flops his head over onto his back so that whoever walks in gets the fifty-cent show,” Charly added.

“Good technique. Bad sense of humor,” Gutierrez said.

“What’s the autopsy report say?” Charly Hart asked.

When Dobson was not forthcoming with an answer of any kind, the detectives passed a quick look and then, as the silence lengthened, began to fidget.

The chief pinned them in place with a broken glass glare. “What I’m about to tell you two is for your ears only.” They nodded in unison. “It doesn’t leave this room.” Another round of steel-jawed assurances.

“The vic…” he began, “I’ve got reason to believe he may in some way be directly connected to whoever committed the crime at the bus station.” He paused. Both detectives started to come out of their chairs. Dobson waved them back down. “Or…” He seemed to debate with himself. “Or…more likely…he may be the actual perpetrator of the crime.”

“We got something hard that points that way?” Reuben asked.

Dobson told them everything he knew. They listened without comment. Halfway through, Charly Hart began to take notes. Chief Dobson shook his head and kept on talking. Charly dropped the pencil into his side pocket and sat back in the chair.

“The feds know this?” Reuben asked about three seconds after Chief Dobson finished talking.

“Not yet,” Dobson answered.

“But they’re gonna,” Charly filled.

“Chances are,” the chief said.

“But…in the meantime…” Reuben looked over at Charly Hart. “The girl’s story about how she followed him all over all night might bear a little checking.”

“Exactly,” said the chief.

“We’re gonna need to interview her again,” Charly said. He waggled the black leather notebook. “Stuff we got is pretty vague.”

The chief nodded. “I’ve managed to pry her away from the feds.”

Charly Hart cocked an eyebrow. “Feds know she’s gone?”

“Not yet,” Harry Dobson said again.

Detective Gutierrez whistled through his teeth.

“Is there a problem, Detective?”

Gutierrez shook his head. “No sir,” he said emphatically. “Just a concern.” He looked over at his partner. “You know…this whole terror thing…it’s uncharted territory…I’m just worried…you know…not playing it altogether straight with the feds…” He spread his hands. “I mean…what if?”

“What we need to know is whether anything Mr. Bohannon did in the hours that Miss…”

“Dougherty,” Charly Hart supplied.

“…whether anything he did in those hours could possibly lead us to the people who murdered those poor souls in the bus tunnel.” He dropped his hands on the desk. “You think the feds are better prepared to follow up on Mr. Bohannon’s activities than we are?”

“No way,” said Reuben Gutierrez.

“Then we better get to work.”

Jim Sexton stepped into the toilet stall and pulled the door closed behind him. Three stalls down somebody was puking into the commode, retching up breakfast in a series of grunts and hawks that seemed to ooze from the very walls. Jim pulled the cell phone from his pocket. Dialed the station.

“Gimme Tilden,” he whispered.

Waited. “Robert Tilden. Associate—”

“It’s Jim,” he said quickly. “We’ve got a pathologist and her assistant dead in one of the autopsy galleries. Blood all over the place. The whole area of the coroner’s office has been sealed off. Nobody comes in, nobody goes out. They’ve called for a haz-mat team. They’ve—”

“You’ve got film?” Tilden interrupted.

“Not yet.” He could feel the blood rising to his cheeks. “I’m not even supposed to be here, man. Are you listening to me? I’ve got a—”

“Call me when you’ve got some film, Jimbo. In case you haven’t noticed, this is a TV station.”

The line went dead. The retching went on.

27

H
e gave them ten minutes to swap stories. Gutierrez and Hart stood nearby as Harry Dobson studied the pair through the one-way viewing panel of Interrogation Room Number Four. He’d hoped that seeing Corso might loosen her tongue, create some discrepancies in the story she’d told his detectives last night. No such luck. When he looked over at Gutierrez and Hart, they merely shrugged.

“Same story,” Charly Hart said.

“Let’s go,” Dobson said finally. Charly Hart held the door as the chief of police strode into the interrogation room and walked over to the phone on the far end of the table. “Get me a couple jail personnel,” he said. “Number four.”

The chief replaced the receiver, then walked over and stood in front of Dougherty. Gutierrez and Hart circled the room, taking up positions along the far wall, behind Corso and Dougherty, arms folded across their respective chests.

“I need your help,” Harry Dobson announced.

“My help?” Dougherty repeated.

Before Dobson could respond, a pair of burly jailers in two-tone brown uniforms pushed into the room. “Take Mr. Corso here back to his cell,” the chief said.

The nearest jailer was reaching for a pair of handcuffs when Dougherty stepped forward, close enough to the chief to nearly put her nose on his. “You need my help, maybe we better keep Frank around.”

“Mr. Corso has several charges pending,” Dobson said.

“I really don’t give a damn,” she said.

They stood for a moment, gazes locked on one another, until the chief broke it off. He turned to the jailers. “Wait in the hall,” he said.

Harry Dobson watched the pair leave the room, then stepped around Dougherty. He walked over to Corso and stood looking up at Corso’s face.

“I’ve got an officer down.” He waited a moment, checking out Corso’s reaction. “In the alley closest to the bus tunnel,” he went on. “Somebody stuck a needle in him. Whatever it was…it’s nothing the doctors up at Harborview have ever seen before. They’re having a hell of a time bringing him around.”

“What’s that got to do with me?”

“That’s the question.”

“You asking me if I did it?”

“Yes…I am.”

Corso met his gaze. “I didn’t,” he said.

“Know nothing about it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“If you have knowledge—”

“I don’t know anything for sure,” Corso interrupted. “I didn’t see it happen, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“But?”

Corso chose his words carefully. “But…I was probably somewhere in the immediate vicinity when it came down.”

“Which means what?”

“Which means I answered your question.”

Dobson flattened his lips and rocked on the balls of his feet. “You want to tell me how you knew it was safe to take off your breathing device down there in the tunnel?”

“Not particularly.”

Dobson tilted his head toward the door. “You of all people, Mr. Corso, are aware of what’s going on out there. We’ve got slightly less than a hundred twenty dead citizens. Murdered by a genetically altered hemorrhagic fever virus.” He fixed Dougherty with a stare. “Ask your friend Mr. Corso here. It’s not a pretty sight. He’s seen it firsthand.”

She flicked her eyes Corso’s way. His face was hard as stone. She watched as he gathered himself to speak only to be cut off by the chief.

“We’ve got another threat. Worse. Bigger.”

“They say when?” Corso asked.

“Sunday. Sunday is supposed to be
the end.”
He emphasized the final words. “That’s what the message said.”

“Why Sunday?” Corso asked.

“What do you mean, ‘Why Sunday’?”

“If I was going to pull off some sort of terrorist act, I’d want the city full of people. I’d want to do as much damage as I could. Hurt as many people as possible. I sure as hell wouldn’t pick the day when the city is the least populated.”

“Unless the target is something that only happens on a Sunday,” Dougherty said. “Like football or something.”

Dobson shook his head. “We’ve been over this with the feds. Both the Huskies and the Seahawks are playing out of town. The only weekend events going on are the biotechnology symposium at the Westin and a quilting show at Seattle Center.”

“The symposium would be the obvious target.”

“That’s what the feds think,” said Corso.

“What if it’s not?”

“Then we haven’t got a clue.”

A strained silence settled over the room.

“There was a woman,” Corso said suddenly. “She came out of the alley.” He looked over at the chief. “Same alley you say you had a man down in.”

“When was this?”

“Right before they sent the robot inside.”

“The alley closest to the entrance?”

“Right behind the Smith Tower,” Corso said.

“Describe her.”

Corso did so. In detail. Caucasian. Late thirties. Five seven or eight. Even features. No distinguishing marks. Short blonde hair. Athletic build.

“What then?” the chief asked quickly.

“She came out of the mouth of the alley, walked up to the entrance, pulled aside the plastic and went inside.”

“Wearing no protection of any kind?”

“No mask, no nothing.”

“Which you took to mean…”

“Which I took to mean she knew something I didn’t.”

“Would you recognize this person if you were to see her again?”

“I
have
seen her again.”

Dobson recoiled slightly. “You have?”

“Twice.”

The chief waited. Corso kept on.

“First time was down in the tunnel last night. When I was in there with the firemen. She was standing up on the mezzanine. Watching us.”

“And then?”

“On television this morning.” Corso waved a hand. “They had all those scientists from the symposium on there…explaining hemorrhagic fever and all of that. She was standing at the back of the crowd.”

“Do you recall what channel?”

“Five.”

“You think maybe she’s the one who killed those people in the tunnel?” Dougherty asked.

“No,” the chief said. “As a matter of fact, we don’t.” He paused. “What would you say if I told you that we have reason to believe the bus tunnel incident was perpetrated by the man you knew as Brian Bohannon?”

“Reason to believe?” Corso repeated.

“Solid reason to believe,” Dobson amended.

“I—I—don’t…” Meg Dougherty stammered. Dobson laid it out for her. The dead pathologist and her assistant. The vial. All of it. She listened in silence as he told her everything he knew.

“So…you don’t think I…I’m not a…”

“Suspect. No. You’re not.” He waited for it to sink in. “Our current assumption is that Mr. Bohannon’s death was connected in some way to his terrorist activities and not in any way with you.”

“Where would somebody like Brian Bohannon lay hands on a genetically altered strain of hemorrhagic fever?”

“That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, now isn’t it?”

“The feds are looking for Arabs,” Corso said.

“Yes…they are.” Dobson’s voice was flat…emotionless.

“They know about your suspicions regarding Mr. Bohannon?”

“Not at this time.” He sounded like a machine. The machine anticipated Corso’s next question. “An army of federal agents is already stomping all over town, doing what they do best,” he said. “Every phone call, every e-mail, every airplane and train reservation is being screened and monitored. They’re talking about calling out the National Guard.” He shrugged. “A couple cops one way or the other isn’t going to make any damn difference.” He gestured with his head, indicating the detectives leaning against the far wall. “I’m thinking…if there was anything in Mr. Bohannon’s movements last night…anything that might lead us to the people threatening our safety…I figure my men are better prepared for the job. They know the neighborhoods. They know the people.”

“And you want me to…” Dougherty let it hang.

“We want you to retrace your steps of the previous evening. We want you to take Detectives Hart and Gutierrez here to the exact places where you followed Mr. Bohannon. We want to start where you started and end where you ended.” He shrugged. “Who knows…maybe we’ll turn something.” He moved his eyes to Charly Hart. “You get through to Canadian Immigration?”

Charly straightened up. “Yes sir. Blaine’s going over their records for the past week. Same MO as Magnusen-slash-Bohannon. Canadian passport. Traveling alone. Somebody whose present whereabouts we can’t verify.”

“They give us any ideas on a time line?”

“Midafternoon.”

The chief sighed. “All right then…Let’s get Miss Dougherty—”

Meg interrupted. “I’ll be needing Frank.” She gave the chief a faraway smile. “For emotional support.”

The chief shrugged in resignation. “Take them both,” he said, before striding quickly across the room. Then he stopped and walked back to the table, reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a pair of identical cell phones, which he slid onto the tabletop. “I want to be kept strictly in the loop,” he said. “Use the walkie-talkie button on these things. They’re connected directly to mine. Don’t use the radio. Maybe we can keep the newshounds from breathing down our necks this way. God knows they’re going to be all over the airwaves.”

Gutierrez and Hart pocketed the phones and assured their boss that he’d be informed of the slightest development.

“My ass is on the line here,” he reminded them and then headed for the door. The phone rang. The chief stopped. Charly Hart picked it up. He listened briefly and then held the phone against his bony chest.

“For you, Chief,” he said.

The chief winced. His secretary was the only person on earth who knew where he was, and, after seventeen years on the job, she knew better than to interrupt an interrogation for anything short of nuclear war. Whatever this was, wasn’t good. He handled the receiver gingerly, as if it were radioactive, using only his thumb and forefinger to hold the phone an inch away from his ear.

For thirty seconds, the chief of police listened without comment. Only his eyes moved, twitching here and there as he concentrated on what was being said. “Send them down here,” he said finally. “Interrogation Room Number Four.”

He replaced the receiver and turned his attention to Hart and Gutierrez. “Take these two next door,” he said. “Make sure the door’s locked.”

When nobody moved, the chief jerked his thumb toward the door. “Hurry up,” he said. “We’re about to get some company.”

Charly Hart started for the door. Dougherty and Corso were close behind, with Gutierrez bringing up the rear as they hurried down the hall, took a left past the Coke machine, then another left right after the ladies’ restroom.

The room was narrow. More like an enclosed hall really. No chairs. No nothing. Just the lingering odor of long-ago cigarettes and fresh sweat. A five-foot-wide viewing area where whoever was on this side of the window could look out across the proceedings in Interrogation Room Number Four. The chief was on the phone again. His voice crackled through a pair of speakers in the ceiling. “Have him call me on my cell phone,” he said.

“Can they hear us in there?” Dougherty asked from the other side of the black glass.

“Not unless you start banging on the window,” Detective Gutierrez said.

“All you gotta do is keep your hands in your pockets and stand still. You get to movin’ around a lot and they can sometimes sense movement.”

Charly Hart had his owl eyes locked on Corso. “You were down there,” he said. Failing to elicit a response, he clarified. “In the tunnel.”

Corso looked at the speakers in the ceiling. “Yeah.”

“It’s like they say?” Gutierrez asked. “Some kinda virus thing in the air? Just knocks you down and kills your ass right in your tracks?”

“Your blood vessels explode. You bleed out, right there on the spot,” Corso said. What he didn’t mention was the look of recognition on most of the victims’ faces. The horror of suddenly knowing, with absolute certainty, that the end was near. Must be what swimmers felt in those last instants before a shark bite, he thought to himself. That nanosecond when the word
shark
etches itself in neon on the mind and the world is, once and for all, reduced to nothing more than the scrape of tooth on gristle.

“Jesus,” Charly Hart muttered. “What if they sprayed that stuff from a plane?” he mused. “They could kill everybody.”

“I gotta call my wife,” Gutierrez said. He looked over at his partner. “Duty is one thing, man…but this kind of shit…I don’t know. Get offed by something you can’t even see.” He shook his head. “I don’t know, man.”

On the other side of the viewing panel, the door to Interrogation Room Number Four burst open. The chief folded up his phone and stowed it in his jacket pocket.

“FBI,” Meg Dougherty muttered. “Same guys they sent after me.” They watched a strained round of introductions and ID ogling.

“The one in charge calls himself Payton. Special Agent Payton,” she said.

Payton wasted no time. He reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a thick envelope. The jagged edges along the top attested to the fact that the package had already been opened at least once. Payton proffered the pages. “We’ll be requiring some assistance,” he said.

The chief kept his face as bland and emotionless as a cabbage as he looked the other man up and down, before reaching out and taking possession of the envelope. He removed the contents, dropped the torn envelope onto the tabletop. Looked to be about five pages. Single-spaced names and addresses. He gave the printed matter a quick perusal and then focused on Agent Payton.

“What kind of assistance would that be?” he inquired.

“We need you to pick up these people,” Payton said.

“Pick them up?”

“Take them into custody.”

“For what?”

“For questioning.”

“On what charges?”

“Under the provisions of the Patriot Act…” Payton began.

“These people are citizens of the State of Washington. Residents of the City of Seattle. I’ve sworn to protect and serve these people.”

“As I said…the Patriot Act allows us to—”