The Definitive Albert J. Sterne (20 page)

“Yes,” Albert said, before taking his leave. None of this mattered to him personally - even if he’d had any respect for Jefferson, he doubted it would really matter - but when Fletcher needed him for this case, it would obviously have to be an unofficial use of Albert’s own time. So be it.

Fletcher knocked on his office door at two in the afternoon. “My flight leaves in an hour. I  thought I’d give you the chance to say good riddance.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Albert advised, standing up behind his desk.

“I’ll call you when I get in tomorrow. Caroline agreed to me staying overnight in Georgia, then back to Colorado in the morning.”

“I prepared this for Roberts.” It was a report Albert had written over lunch, summarizing the forensic evidence in the Colorado case. Roberts didn’t want to be lost in extraneous detail but it was in their interests to ensure she had the salient facts.

Fletcher leafed through the pages. “That’s great, I  appreciate it.”

Now that it came to the crunch, Albert was mostly inclined to be sorry the man was going. He surprised himself by asking, “Do you need a lift to the airport?”

“No, I  -” Fletcher was staring at him, quizzical. “Mac’s driving me, actually. But thanks for offering.” A pause. “I’ll miss helping with the painting.”

Albert snorted. “If you time it right, I’ll have all the hard work done by your next visit.”

“And it will look magnificent.”

Silence. They had had some disjointed conversations in the past but this would have to be among the most pointless. “You should go.”

“Yes. Thanks for everything.”

Fletcher held out his right hand, and after a moment Albert shook it. A good firm grip, maybe a little extra pressure, which Albert assumed was supposed to be reassurance. Long fingers, cool fine skin. But surely they had dispensed with these formal gestures some while ago.

“Good riddance,” Albert said.

“Yeah, until next time.” And, with a smile, Fletcher was gone.

Albert reached out to close the office door, and sat down again. It was a few minutes before he regained the momentum of that morning.

He stood alone in the twilight, staring back at the blue flowers of the rogue groundcover that had infiltrated his garden. He’d fought it long enough. It was time to accept an inevitability. Albert muttered, “Let the damned thing grow.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

OREGON

SEPTEMBER 1984

Only seven days to go, and John Garrett was running high on anticipation. Two years since the last deaths, two years of exhilaration sliding to patience descending to terrible frustration. But he never questioned the few rules he’d imposed on himself and one of those was that he had to wait, he had to space the beats of his heart.

This coming Saturday, the game between the Seahawks and the Denver Broncos was being broadcast and Garrett couldn’t decide who to invite over to watch it. There was Tony, one of the construction workers, who had a strong tanned body and long dark hair that fell over his face if he didn’t wear it in a ponytail. Garrett suspected he had more than a drop of native blood pumping through his heart. He’d caught Garrett watching him months ago, as he worked in frayed jeans and leather boots and little else. At first, Tony had been annoyed but now he thought it was funny and he treated Garrett as slightly ridiculous, harmless, even someone he could be fond of.

The alternative to Tony was a hooker Garrett had sex with a fortnight before. A latecomer to the streets, the young man hadn’t had the spunk kicked out of him yet - but if Garrett left him for next time, over a month away, it might be too late, the boy might have already lost his attractions. A tough decision.

If he were honest with himself, what Garrett really wanted to do was take Tony but that brought risks as well as joy. There was the link of employment between them, and the chance that the young man had joked with someone about the queer at work who couldn’t keep his eyes off him.

All these temptations every day. It wasn’t so long ago that Garrett had to drive halfway round the state to find someone suitable. The miles he’d covered in Colorado, for instance, had been incredible. This place was too convenient. It almost seemed a pity to move on.

But, no, that was another rule he wouldn’t break - create a plausible if vague reason to move to another state once the two years were done, and mislead anyone who asked where he was heading. It was by far the smartest thing to do. As for his reason this time, the glass facade was going up on the beautiful monstrosity he was building, he was about to hand the interior over to the decorators, his job would soon be finished, and of course he would be off looking for other work, despite a few offers to manage other construction projects in Portland.

There was a knock at the door, and Garrett frowned. He wasn’t expecting anyone and the football was about to start. Beer in hand, he walked through to the hall, opened the door.

“Hello, Mr Garrett,” said the young guy standing on the step.

He had to think for a moment but once he’d mentally added overalls, grease in the light brown hair and an engaging grin, the guy fell into context. “Sam. What are you doing here?”

“You said - don’t you remember? Last time you filled the car up, you said I should come watch the game with you.”

“So I did.” What had he been thinking of, for God’s sake? Garrett hesitated, wondering whether this was really as bad an idea as he suspected it was. But then the guy smiled, and Garrett immediately itched to wipe the expression off the impertinent face. “Come on in,” he invited, stepping back to allow Sam through. “You’ve missed the first few minutes.”

“Sorry. Mom
still
won’t let me out of the house until I tell her where I’ll be. Ridiculous. Think I’ll have to move out. Big argument like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Yes, I would believe.” Garrett paused. “And you told her?”

Sam turned back to face him, shrugged. “I lied to her.”

“Good. Mothers are suspicious creatures. And you’re a man now.”

“Hey, tell me something I don’t know.”

They shared a laugh as Garrett locked the door. He ushered Sam through to the living room where the television cast its flickering light into the darkness. “Do you want a beer?” Garrett asked.

This was what he should have been doing years ago, Garrett figured, back when he was a teenager: necking on the sofa with some guy as eager as he was, the football mostly forgotten, a few beers warming him. Maybe his whole life would have been different, maybe he could have found someone who’d treat him better than his parents had, maybe he could have done the normal thing and gone to college, maybe there wouldn’t be this terrible resentment burning within him  -

Was this how it should have been? Crazy kissing until his lips were numb but still aching with hunger, hands blindly roving over every part of this body beneath his, Sam’s arms around Garrett’s back rarely venturing below his waist, sensation oddly unfocused and hazy, chasing something he didn’t even know the shape of - that’s what prompted Garrett to make believe they were both teenagers. It seemed this confused pleasure would just go on and on, with no thought of resolution, until Sam maybe decided he’d better go home to stop his mother worrying, and they drew reluctantly apart as if it weren’t even possible to go to Garrett’s bed or make each other come.

“Hey,” Sam was murmuring, but Garrett kept kissing him because the easiest thing to do right now was feed this vague but insistent need, and he really didn’t want the boy to go home yet. When Sam turned his head away, Garrett simply began mouthing his neck. It was nice, these dull sensations, in an innocent sort of way. “Hey!”

“What?” Garrett mumbled, not wanting to be bothered.

“You’re squashing me.”

He murmured an agreement, sought the boy’s mouth.

Sam allowed the endless kiss to begin again but brought his hands to Garrett’s shoulders, began pushing ineffectually. Eventually he turned his face away, whispered on a breath, “You’re too big for me.”

Garrett lifted his head, blearily looked down at the guy. The eyes were hooded, from embarrassment or need, and the lips were as swollen as Garrett’s felt. He was panting.

“Sorry,” Sam offered. “Too heavy. Can we move  -?”

They were both panting after breath. Garrett’s heart flared, and he bent to meet the boy’s open mouth, the dazed lust abruptly focusing into beauty. Within moments Sam was struggling, though he had no chance against Garrett’s strong and generous frame. For a while, Garrett simply let the boy feel his weight, gently rocking so his penis pushed hard into the boy’s softening genitals, sensation sharp even though they were both fully clothed. Kissing him as if Garrett would eat him alive, one hand holding the boy’s head still, Sam breathing through his nose in panicked rushes, clearly not getting enough air.

The kid’s hands beat at Garrett’s back, then his head, grabbed at his hair, but Sam wasn’t desperate enough, or thinking clearly enough, to really hurt Garrett. Or maybe he was incapable. Couldn’t hurt a fly, couldn’t even hurt his murderer.

God, so close to climax, and so easy, so childishly easy to take his pleasure this way. Garrett shuddered, moaned into the kid’s mouth - and finally Sam was smart enough to go for Garrett’s eyes. But even then it was simply a matter of gathering both the boy’s hands in one of his, forcing them over the kid’s head and painfully down against the wooden arm of the sofa. Garrett suddenly raised up, and the kid tried for a lungful of air, but Garrett’s other hand was on his face, palm over his mouth, thumb and fingers pinching the nostrils closed. Sam’s eyes widened in an essential terror, he tried to twist away his head or his body, but Garrett had him secure. Thrusting as the kid heaved uselessly, bearing down on him as he fought, coming as the darkness took the child away. It was so incredibly good.

Good, yes, but uncontrolled and very unwise. Garrett sat in the armchair, gazing at the body stretched along his sofa, the arms dangling back as if broken. He smoked, one cigarette after another, trying to find the reason why he hadn’t been able to wait for another seven days. And this wasn’t even how he’d planned it to happen this time around: this was greedy and meaningless and opportunistic and Garrett knew better than that. Inviting the kid over in the first place had been unwise enough, let alone taking his life with no malice aforethought. And it had all been so  … intimate, the sex and the dying so personal and simple, with no props and no planning. Sweet. Damned sweet, but that was no excuse for something so dangerously self-indulgent. What in hell was the matter with him?

He lit a fresh cigarette, and noticed his hands were shaking. Unbelievable. Well, he figured, he was in no fit state to deal with the disposal of a body right now. He couldn’t afford to make this many mistakes as it was, let alone compounding the problem. Tomorrow, when he was thinking clearly, he’d decide on the safest thing to do. Tomorrow.

For now, he’d have to hide the body in the cellar, just in case. Yes, that was smart. Get it out of the way. You never knew what might happen, who might knock on the door.

Garrett stubbed out the last half of a cigarette, and stood to haul the body up over one shoulder. Walked unsteadily through to the kitchen, then bent to unlatch the half-sized door at the end of one of the benches. The damp musty smell hit him at once and he frowned.

Unable to deal with this in any sort of sensible way, Garrett hit the light switch then let the body tumble down the concrete stairs, watched it land in an ungainly sprawl.

He was going to shut the door and leave it all until the morning, but something made him decide to check the place. To get down there, it was easiest to sit on the top step, and start walking from where his legs reached, one hand on the ceiling to steady himself and avoid hitting his head.

The sight that greeted him as he stepped over the fresh body was old blood, dark dry stains everywhere. He looked around in disbelief: caught the dull glint of a knife abandoned in a corner, saw leather straps hooked on the shelving.

That was what prompted the memory. A fantasy, that’s what he thought it’d been, to slash a cross into a boy’s arm and wrist in the same way he’d misguidedly cut himself all those years ago, to watch what might have happened to him. A  fantasy, surely. But it seemed he’d acted it out. Had it been that tramp with the apple pie freckles and the thick mop of hair? Garrett couldn’t even remember the boy’s name. This was crazy.

And what in God’s name had he done with the body?

Garrett groaned a protest, let the groan become a sickened growl - the noise grew out of his chest, opened his throat in a yell of bewildered rage. What in hell was happening to him?

CHAPTER TWELVE

WASHINGTON DC and CONNECTICUT