The Boyfriend (24 page)

Moreland moved the flashlight up to the equipment on the row of tables against the wall. There was an open box of prepaid cell phones. There was a pair of old-fashioned landline telephones duct-taped together, mouthpiece to earpiece, so the man could receive a call on one, dial the other, and make his own untraceable connection to a third person. He had computers he probably used as phones, because the built-in cameras had been taped over. It was hard to doubt that this man had been the Broker.

Moreland looked around. There could be information about him in any of these computers, or in the memory of any of the phones. There could be paper records around, bank records, even an address book. He looked down at the Broker and tried to fit the name Daniel Cowper to him. He wasn’t even sure how to pronounce that. The Broker had bruises and abrasions on his face. Moreland shone the light on him and stood beside him, keeping his feet out of the blood that had pooled and turned sticky on the floorboards. He had been tortured—burned, beaten, cut, and finally killed. They had wanted something from him. Information. He should have given them what they wanted right away, and they might have just shot him. Maybe he had known that, but had not been able to relinquish another hour of life, even an hour of pain. Moreland banished the idea from his mind. It didn’t matter.

Moreland thought for a moment. They couldn’t have done this for money. The Broker was a money man. The Broker could have given them money right away and not missed it. This hadn’t been a robbery. Maybe it was somebody who wanted to know about the man who had killed Luis Salazar.

Moreland didn’t touch anything in the room. In here with the air-conditioning system going wild, the air was frigid. Every time the air conditioner stopped running, it started up again in about twenty seconds, so the Broker’s body was like fresh meat in a refrigerator. The blood smell was strong, but soon all the blood would have dried, and the other smells would take over. But the Broker’s visitors had bought themselves some extra time before anyone came by and smelled the body.

Moreland considered the computers and telephones. He had no prayer of erasing the equipment, let alone any hidden papers or disks. The experts were always pulling information off disks somebody thought were safe. Maybe the Broker had been more careful than that. There was nobody who put less faith in the safety of technology than the technologists. They all knew how easy it was to hack into anything digital.

Moreland kept trying to think of a way forward. He was pretty sure that if he burned the house down, the firemen and cops would be here before everything burned. He would have to pile all the electronics in one spot, pour gasoline on them and around them, and burn them quickly. The authorities would think the fire was to hide the murder, but he couldn’t care less about the murder. First he would have to gather all the electronic devices in here.

He stepped toward the hallway just as two men emerged from it. The first man said, “Hey, Joey. You Joey?” Both men were in their late thirties, and the heavy accent was Hispanic. They were already sidestepping apart.

Moreland didn’t hesitate; he simply pulled out his gun and fired, first at the man who had spoken. He was hit in the chest, so More-land’s aim moved to the other one, who was reaching under his jacket. Moreland fired four shots rapidly, and the man fell to the floor and remained motionless. Moreland knelt, flipped open the jacket, plucked a Glock 19 compact pistol out of the shoulder holster, and then approached the one who had spoken.

He kept his gun aimed at the man’s face while he moved the man’s jacket to find his gun. It was a Glock 19 too. He tossed it a few feet away, then studied the man. His chest was rising and falling with difficulty. Moreland drew back the gun in his right hand and hit him across the cheekbone with it. The man grunted and opened his eyes.

“Who are you?” Moreland asked.

“Somebody looking for you.”

“Why? I did what you wanted.”

“Not what I wanted. We’re not
narcotrafficantes.
We’re SSP.
Policía Federal.
You killed an important prosecutor. A brave, honest man.”

“How do I know you’re police?”

“You’ll find my wallet. It doesn’t matter. I’m dead. But I think you are too. If other Federales don’t get you, the drug men will.”

“Why kill him?”

He smiled. “Resisting arrest.”

“What did he tell you?”

“He told us who you were.”

“Then why kill him?”

“He knew a lot of things. That’s a disadvantage in an interrogation. There’s always more.” He grunted.

“Do the drug dealers know about me?”

“They’ll know what we know. The world is full of informers.” He coughed, and Moreland knew the blood was bubbling in his lungs. They were filling up. He said, not really to Moreland, “We stayed too long.”

Moreland stood up, took two steps back, shot him through the head, and then shot the other man through the head to be sure he was dead too. He searched the dead men for their wallets, which he put into his inner pockets. He went to the door, put an eye to the corner of the small cut-glass window at eye level, and looked outside. The shots didn’t seem to have been heard.

He guessed that if there were cops, or more Federales, they would have come in. He walked through the house looking at the ceilings, trying to find the smoke detectors. He found three, and disconnected them. Then he rolled newspapers and magazines into tubes and stuck them in various places among the computers and telephones. Finally, he went out to the garage with his flashlight. He found charcoal starter, turpentine, and paint thinner. He returned to the living room, doused all of the equipment, and then realized he had no matches. He went to the body of the second policeman, searched his pockets, and found a cigarette lighter.

He started the fire and saw it flash along from table to table, then rise and grow. He went out the front door, set the lock in place, walked to his car, and drove.

“Hi, Jack. It’s Alan Rafferty.”

“To what do I owe this pleasure? Does Mullaney want me back in Boston?”

“Not yet. I just called because there have been some odd developments. Vice has had a peripheral involvement in the case, and so I’ve been in on these things.”

“What happened?”

“A couple of the Federales—the cops who came with Luis Salazar’s group from Mexico—have been shot to death in San Mateo. They turned up yesterday.”

“What the hell were they doing in California?”

“We’re not sure. They were found in a house owned by a man named Daniel Cowper. He had been tortured and killed. The two Federales had been shot in the chest and then the head. They were both wearing shoulder rigs that had no guns or ammo in them. And the house was set on fire.”

“Who was Daniel Cowper?”

“I think he was involved in the Salazar assassination somehow. Mexican cops aren’t supposed to be operating in this country except as observers or consultants attached to local police units. But it’s safe to assume that when their boss got turned to hash in Boston, it didn’t sit well with them. I think they wanted the guy who pulled the trigger, the guy who hired him, and whoever the client was.”

“Sounds likely,” said Till. “The Federales must have sources in the United States, just the way the FBI does in other countries. Maybe Cowper was one of them.”

“I don’t know, Jack. Cowper lived there alone, and the place was full of communication equipment that seemed to the investigators to be intended to make his calls hard to trace—prepaid cell phones, computers, a couple of old-fashioned landline phone receivers taped together like they used to do when bosses in prison wanted to call out. When you were here you seemed to think there was a middleman giving the Boyfriend his jobs. Maybe Cowper was him.”

“You said there was a fire. Is there enough left of the computers and things to find out what was on them?”

“Nobody knows yet, but let’s say we’re optimistic. There had been reports of gunshots, so the cops were on the way when the fire started.” He paused. “It really seems odd that foreign cops could find the middleman before we did.”

Till said, “Not necessarily. If they guessed who paid for the hit, they must have ways of finding out who he paid—wiretaps, cell phone records, informers, whatever. Can you give me Cowper’s address?”

“Sure.” Rafferty read the address for him, and Till copied it. “Are you going up there?”

“It’s practically in the neighborhood,” said Till. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”

“I’ll e-mail you the crime scene stuff right away. Bring your computer with you.”

“Thanks.”

As soon as he hung up, his cell phone rang again. “Jack Till.”

“Hi, Dad,” she said. “I almost called on the other line so you would say, ‘Till Investigations.’”

“Hi, Holly,” Till automatically looked at his watch. It was nearly noon. “Is everything okay?” He knew his question was a reflex, the thing that all parents really wondered every time the telephone rang. The conversation could not proceed until that worry was satisfied.

“Everything’s fine. I’m at work. I figured you might be home from Boston by now. Are you?”

“Yes,” he said. “I haven’t been back in town long. And actually, I’m going out of town again today. But it’s just up to San Francisco, and I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“You’re so busy,” said Holly.

“Not too busy for you. What’s on your mind?”

“I got Mrs. Carmody thinking about you. She’s definitely hoping you’ll ask her out.”

“Did I miss something?” he asked. “Didn’t I say I didn’t want to jeopardize your relationship with your boss or take a chance on souring your job?”

“You did say something like that, but who am I to stand in the way of her social life? She thinks you’re hot.” Come on.

“She does. She wants you. You know she does.”

“Don’t say things like that on the phone. If somebody overheard you they might not realize you’re just teasing me. Mrs. Carmody might hear you and think you’re making fun of her.”

“Okay. Just remember, though. She’s not going to wait forever.”

“All right. I’d better say good-bye now, because I’ve got to get my plane reservation and you’ve got to get to work. I’ll call you when I’m home.” Love you.

“Love you. Bye.”

She hung up. He opened his computer and bought his plane ticket, then closed the office and went home to pack a suitcase.

Till was at Burbank airport two hours later, flew to San Francisco, and rented a car to drive to San Mateo, which was only a couple of miles from the terminal. As he drove, he couldn’t help thinking about Jeanne Carmody He had always thought of her as attractive, but with Holly playing matchmaker his feelings were more complicated. Holly had tried to fix him up with various divorced women or widows from time to time since she was little. She was always cute about it, and she had a bawdy sense of humor, so even though it was heartbreaking it was funny at the same time. It had always made him sad. She had been trying to supply herself with a mother. The other kids had all had one, but she never had. Now it seemed to him that it was part of her belief that since she had moved out he must be lonely.

He drove to San Mateo and checked into his hotel. He opened his e-mail and studied the crime scene information that Alan Rafferty had sent him, then went out. He left the car in a parking structure attached to a movie theater that was within easy walking distance of Daniel Cowper’s house.

The house was exactly what Till had expected. It was the least obtrusive house on a quiet city block. The lawn was mowed, but it wasn’t any greener than the others. The house was exquisitely disguised, a marble in a jar of marbles. It was a place that was forgotten even as the eye moved past it.

The way to learn about a scene of violence was to let the eyes and ears and muscles feel what had gone on. Till had studied the charts and photographs Rafferty had sent him, and now he was ready to rely on his senses.

It was the time of night when the Boyfriend would have come. The streets near the house were empty. The last pedestrian had probably walked his dog around ten. The last car had driven up its driveway around midnight. The night belonged to Till now.

The Boyfriend was a killer, and Till had noticed that some killers came to like the night after a while. They liked invisibility, and after they came to know the night they moved easily in it. They cruised through it, able to interpret the sounds they heard to ensure their safety, and use the silences to reassure themselves that other human beings were far away.

Till was a night walker too. He had started out hunting predators at night because that was when they were likely to be out, but in time he had come to relish the darkness. Late at night, when nearly all of the ordinary people were asleep, and most of the people out were cops or suspects, there was a kind of clarity to the world. Tonight he hunted as one of the predators, reliving what this one must have felt a few nights ago in this place.

He stopped in front of the house and studied it, looking for the ways in and the ways that merely looked safe to enter but weren’t. The Boyfriend would have made this examination and then made a choice.

He opened the gate in the spearhead fence and walked close to the house. The Boyfriend would have heard the noise of the air-conditioning system as he approached. That had been in the police report—the air conditioner running at full strength, turning the place into a refrigerator. It would have puzzled the Boyfriend, at first. Till guessed the Boyfriend would have gone to the back.

As Till walked around the house he saw that the back door was covered in black dust from a police fingerprint kit. He tried the door, found it locked, and then took out his pocketknife to jimmy the latch. He opened the door and entered. He stood in the entrance with his back to the wall so he had no silhouette and threw no shadow. The Boyfriend would have stood here listening for any sounds below the whir of the air-conditioning. It was here and now that the Boyfriend would have known that something was wrong. Nobody would keep a house that cold. Till shone his small pocket flashlight to be sure he hadn’t missed something he should see, then moved.