Текст книги "Solitude Creek"

Автор книги: Jeffery Daeaver

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

CHAPTER 57

The Kathryn Dance Situation.

That’s how Jon Boling had come to think of it. The phrase could have a negative connotation but he didn’t mean it like that. Boling, a product of academia who made his living in the world of computers, was analytical by nature.

This drab, gray Sunday he was bicycling down Ocean Avenue in Carmel, the main shopping drag, while his partner at the college, Lily, chipped away at Stanley Prescott’s and his killer’s passcode. There was nothing more for him to do until she finished, so he’d taken a ride. Besides, he had an errand that needed attending to.

He was not paying much attention to the pretty scenery but was, instead, reflecting on the nature of the KD Situation.

Yes, he loved her. No question about that. The tug in his gut whenever he saw her. He could, always, call up the smell of her hair as they lay together. He could see the sparkle in her green eyes, hear her breezy laugh. They gave to each other, didn’t hesitate to speak about their vulnerabilities. He remembered feeling her pain when the worst – to her – happened: she’d fail to catch a perp. He’d wrap his arms around her at moments like that and she’d yield to the comfort. Not completely. But to a degree. This was love.

He continued downhill. Don’t fail me here, he thought to the brakes. It was a long, fast stretch straight down to the rocks and traffic at the beach. He eased to a stop at an intersection, then continued.

And the children, he loved them too. Wes and Maggie … He’d always wanted to be a father, but that hadn’t worked out. No dark angst there but it was a gap he was determined to fill and fill soon. Boling admitted he wasn’t a natural parent but he worked hard. And he could see that the effort had paid off. When he’d first met Kathryn, the children were moody, depressed from time to time, Wes more but Maggie too. After all, they hadn’t been without their father for all that long. They still grew morose or attitudinal at times.

But wasn’t that just life? Adolescents and adults.

So, a lyrical comfort with Kathryn, a rapport with the children … and even the formidable Edie Dance liked him – enough. Stuart, of course, and Boling had become solid friends.

But something wasn’t quite right. Hence, the ‘situation’.

Suggesting issues requiring consideration. Formulation. Adjustment. Solution.

Jon Boling hardly knew kinesics but he’d learned enough from Kathryn to be aware of tension. And when was it most in evidence? Not when she was entangled in a case. Not when one of the kids was sick. But when she and Boling and Michael O’Neil were in the same room together.

Computer code, the language Jon Boling spoke most fluently, is written according to the laws of logic. The parameters are clear and allow for not a single mis-spaced character. He wished he could write out a program on the Kathryn Dance Situation, compile it and have his answer pulsing on a monitor in front of him.

The Kathryn Dance Situation

Love her.

Love the children.

It works, many, many ways.

Jon Boling liked Michael O’Neil a great deal. He was a solid, decent man. A good father, who’d kept his path during a divorce from a faithless and frivolous wife. And to hear Kathryn tell it, he was one hell of a law enforcer. But there was another factor in the code Boling was now writing.

Michael O’Neil loves Kathryn.

A stretch of flat surface, and Boling pulled off to the sidewalk. He texted the college’s computer-science department, where Lily was hard at work on cracking Stan Prescott’s computer and the unsub’s phone.

Lily, quite a beauty she was. Smart as could be.

There was no progress. But Boling had confidence she’d find the passwords.

Back to the Situation. And the big question: did Kathryn love Michael?

He’d lain awake a number of nights wondering, tagging her words and looks and gestures with meaning, wondering, wondering … and replaying certain images and words over the past year. The radiance of her eyes, the lift of her lips when she smiled, characterized by faint, charming wrinkles.

What are Kathryn’s true feelings?

Boling recalled overhearing the fight she and O’Neil had had last night. Raw. Sharp words, back and forth. Then he pictured her returning to the house and her face changing, melting, relaxing, growing comfortable once more. Boling and Dance had laughed, had some turkey reinvented into something innovative, salad, wine. And the hard day in Orange County, the hard words fired by Michael O’Neil fell away.

Do Kathryn and Jon have a future?

He now eased to a stop outside the store he’d bicycled ten miles to come to. It was, like most stores and houses in Carmel, on the borderline between quaint and precious. The décor was Bavarian ski resort, not uncommon here, though Boling suspected the downtown saw snow once a decade at most.

He unstrapped his almond-shaped helmet and slung it over the handlebars. He leaned the bike up against a nearby fence. Didn’t bother with the lock. Nobody was going to steal a bike in daylight in downtown Carmel. That would be like trying to run a gun show in Berkeley.

Jon Boling had done some research on By the Sea Jewelry, the store he was walking toward now. It was just what he needed. Glancing at the beautiful antique engagement and wedding rings in the window, he pushed inside. The door opened with a jingle from a cowbell, both incongruous and perfectly apt.

Five minutes later he was outside once again.

Do Kathryn and Jon have a future?

Boling opened the By the Sea Jewelry bag and peered into the box inside. Good. He slipped it into his jacket pocket. He found himself smiling.

Helmet on. Time to head back to her house.

There were several ways to get there. The shorter was to go back up Ocean Avenue. But that was a steep hill, made for the thighs of a twenty-year-old. The other option, longer, was to bike downhill toward the beach, then meander along Seventeen Mile Drive back to Pacific Grove.

Pretty and, yes, far easier.

A glance at his watch. He’d be back to Dance’s in thirty minutes this way. He turned the bike down the steep hill and caught a glimpse of the ocean, beach, rocks, shrouded in mist.

What a view.

He pushed off, keeping tension on the rear brake mostly – the incline was so severe that hitting the front one alone would catapult him head over heels if he had to stop fast. It seemed to him that the rear responded slowly, wobbling with some vibration. It felt different from when he’d biked there, just minutes ago. But the sensation was simply a rough patch of asphalt, he guessed. Or maybe even his imagination. Now, no traffic in front, he let up on the brake handles. The speed increased and Boling enjoyed the wind streaming against his face, enjoyed the hum it made in his helmet. Thinking of the bag inside his pocket.

The Kathryn Dance Situation has been resolved.

CHAPTER 58

Dance and her father were on the Deck that warm Sunday afternoon, pleasant, though under gray skies – overcast for a change, no fog. Natives knew the difference. As often on the Peninsula, the sky promised rain but deceived. The drought grew worse every year. Solitude Creek, for instance, had at one point been eight, nine feet deep, she’d learned. Now it was a quarter that. Less in some places.

She thought again about the reeds and grass, the decaying buildings behind the parking lot on the shores of the creek.

Annette, the sobbing witness.

Trish, the motherless child.

The bodies in the roadhouse, the blood. The stain in the shape of a heart.

She was talented …

Picturing Solitude Creek itself, the gray expanse of water, bordered by reeds and grasses.

It was then that she had a thought. ‘Excuse me a sec,’ she said to Stuart.

‘Sure, honey.’

She pulled out her phone and texted Rey Carreneo with yet another assignment.

He responded as crisply as his shirts were starched.

K, Kathryn. On it right now.

She put her phone away.

‘When’s brunch?’ Maggie asked, poking her head out of the door.

‘Jon’ll be home anytime.’ She looked at her Timex. He was ten minutes late. It wasn’t like him not to call.

‘K.’ The girl vanished.

Her phone hummed.

Maybe that’s him. But no.

‘TJ.’

He and several MCSO deputies had been systematically contacting venues with public performances or large social events and asking them to cancel.

‘I think we’ve got most of the big ones. Concerts, church services, plays, sports events – praise the Lord it’s not March Madness or we’d have riots on our hands. By the way, boss, I am not the most popular man on the Peninsula – in the eyes of the Chamber of Commerce and assorted wedding parties, persona non grata. The Robertsons are not inviting me to the rescheduled reception.’

Dance thanked him and they disconnected.

Stuart asked, ‘How’s it going?’

She shrugged. ‘Ruining people’s Sunday.’

‘So, Maggie’s not singing in the talent show?’

‘No, she didn’t want to. I was going to push it but …’ A shrug.

Stuart smiled. ‘Sometimes you let it go.’ He knew he’d made a pun on the song his granddaughter was going to have sung. Dance laughed, reflecting that the song title had become a theme of hers over the past few days.

‘When’s brunch?’ Wes called from the doorway, echoing his sister.

Dance glanced at her phone. Still no word from Boling. ‘We’ll get things started.’

She and Stuart walked into the kitchen. She Keuriged some coffee for them both and prowled through the fridge.

She glanced toward her son.

‘No texting at the table.’

‘We’re not eating yet.’

A look from Mom. The mobile disappeared into his back pocket.

‘So, what’s on the wish list for brunch?’

Maggie: ‘Waf—’

‘—cakes,’ her brother chimed in.

‘Wafcakes. Good.’

Maggie poured an orange juice and sipped. ‘When are you going to get married?’ she asked, like a father to a pregnant daughter.

Stuart chuckled.

Dance froze. Then: ‘I’m too busy to be thinking about getting married.’

‘Excuses, excuses, excuses … Are you marrying Jon or Michael?’

‘What? Maggie!’

Then the phone was ringing. Wes was closest and he answered. ‘Hello?’

They weren’t supposed to answer with their name or ‘Dance residence’. Security starts early in a law-enforcement household.

‘Sure.’ He looked at his sister. ‘For you. Bethany.’

Maggie took the cordless phone and wandered off. Dance checked her own cell for updates. Nothing from Jon. She called him and the line went right to voice mail.

‘Hey, it’s me. You on your way? Just checking.’

Dance disconnected and happened to glance toward her daughter on the phone. Bethany Meyer, the future secretary of state, was a precocious eleven-year-old, polite enough, though Dance thought of her as over-assembled. She believed kids that age should wear jeans or shorts and T-shirts most of the time, not dress up as if they were going for movie auditions every day. Her parents were well off, true, but they sank way too much money into the girl’s clothes. And such fastidious makeup? On a girl her age? In a word, no.

Suddenly she noticed Maggie’s body language change abruptly. Her shoulders rose and her head drooped. One knee went forward – a sign of a subconscious, if not physical, desire to flee or fight. She was getting troubling news. Her daughter continued to talk a bit more, then disconnected. She returned to the kitchen.

‘Mags, everything all right?’

‘Yeah, it’s fine. Why not?’ Jittery.

Dance looked at her sternly.

‘Everything’s, like, fine.’

‘Watch the “like”. What did Bethany have to say?’

‘Nothing. Just stuff.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Uh-uh.’

Dance gave her a probing look, which was conspicuously ignored, and began to assemble the ingredients for the meal. ‘Blueberries?’

Maggie didn’t answer.

Dance repeated the question.

‘Yeah, sure.’

Dance tried the proven tactic of diversion. ‘Hey, you all looking forward to the concert? Neil Hartman?’

The new Dylan …

‘I guess,’ Maggie said, less than enthusiastic.

A glance at Wes, who was, in turn, sneaking a look at his phone. He put it away fast. ‘Yeah, yeah … can’t wait.’ More enthusiastic but more distracted, as well. Dance at least was looking forward to seeing Hartman. She reminded herself to check the tickets to see where the seats were. She’d left Kayleigh’s envelope in the glove compartment of the Pathfinder.

A moment later, Wes: ‘Hey, Mom,’ Wes said. ‘Can I go meet Donnie?’

‘What about brunch?’

‘Can I do Starbucks instead? Please, please?’ He was cheerful, almost silly. She debated, extracted a five from her purse and handed it over.

‘Thanks.’

‘Can I go too?’ Maggie asked.

‘No,’ Wes said.

‘Mom!’

‘Come on, honey,’ Stuart said. ‘I want to have brunch with you.’

Maggie glanced at her brother darkly, then said, ‘Okay, Grandpa.’

‘Bye, Mom,’ Wes said.

‘Wait!’

He stopped and looked at her with small alarm in his face.

‘Helmet.’ She pointed.

‘Oh.’ He stared at it. ‘Well, we’re walking. I’ve still got that flat.’

‘All the way downtown?’

‘Yeah.’

‘All right.’

‘Yeah. Bye, Grandpa.’

Stuart said, ‘Don’t get a double shot of espresso. Remember what happened last time.’

Dance hadn’t heard about that incident. And didn’t want to know.

The door closed. Dance started to call Boling again when she noted that Maggie’s face was still troubled. ‘You wouldn’t’ve had any fun with them.’

‘I know.’

Dance began to say something to her, make a joke, when her cell rang again. She answered. ‘Michael.’

‘Listen. May have our Solitude Creek unsub. A PG patrolman spotted a silver Honda Accord at the Del Monte View Inn.’

Dance knew it, a big luxury non-chain hotel not far from where she lived.

‘It’s parked right behind the building. The driver was tall. Sunglasses. Hat but maybe he has a shaved head. Worker’s jacket. He’s inside now.’

‘Tag?’

‘Delaware. But how’s this? It’s registered to layers of shell corporations, including an offshore.’

‘Really? Interesting.’

‘I’ve got teams on the way there. Rolling up silent.’

‘You know the place? There’re two lots. Have the teams stage in the bottom one.’

‘Already ordered it,’ he said.

‘I’m ten minutes, Michael. I’m moving.’

She turned to her father and daughter, to see Stuart already on his feet, reading the recipe on the back of the Bisquick box.

She laughed. He looked as serious as an engineer about to power up a nuclear reactor. ‘Thanks, Dad. Love you both.’

CHAPTER 59

As he walked to Starbucks to meet Wes, Donnie Verso was thinking about their friendship.

The kid wasn’t like Nathan or Lann or Vince or Peter. Not that stand-up. And wasn’t quite thinking right, the way he ought to if he wanted to hang with the Defend and Respond crew. Not muting his phone and alerting the bitch cop just as Donnie was about to crack her skull open and get her gun. Your phone, dude? Seriously? (Though, afterward, he thought maybe that had worked out for the best.)

Yeah, yeah, he was good backup, a good lookout – he’d saved Donnie’s ass a couple of times, warning him that somebody was about to see him tagging a church or stealing a watch from Rite Aid.

But Donnie just couldn’t get Wes to go the extra step.

Oh, he wanted to. That was obvious. Because Wes was mad. Oh, yeah. Totally mad. Wes was as pissed off at his father for being dead as Donnie was at his for being alive. That kind of anger usually pushed you dark really fast. But the dude was hanging back.

He was sure the kid could do it, if he wanted to, even though they’d known each other only a month. Donnie had seen the twelve-year-old Wes around middle school from time to time, and hadn’t thought anything of him. A church humper? Probably. Science club? Probably. Another time, Donnie might’ve wailed on him. (Or Donnie and Nathan together, since Wes wasn’t small.) But there were other, easier, targets at school.

He was thinking of the first time they’d really spoken. One day after school Donnie and Nathan had gotten this pussy grade-schooler down by Asilomar and fucked him up a little, nothing bad. While they were doing it Donnie had looked up and seen Wes standing there. Like he was curious was all.

Wes had watched then pedalled off, not fast, not scared, like no worries.

The next day at school, Donnie’d cornered him and said, ‘The fuck you were looking at yesterday?’

And Wes said, ‘Nobody special.’

‘Fuck you,’ Donnie’d said. Not being able to think of anything better. ‘You tell anybody what you saw and you’re fucked.’

Wes said, ‘I coulda told somebody but I didn’t. ’Cause, duh, you’re here and not behind bars.’

‘Fuck off.’

Wes just walked away slow, like he’d biked away the day before.

No cares …

Then a couple days later Wes came up to Donnie in the hall and gave him a copy of Hitman, the video game where you could go around fucking people up, killing them for assignments and even strangling girls. He said, ‘My mom won’t let me play. But it’s a good game. You want it?’

Then a week later Wes was sitting outside and Donnie came by and said, ‘I couldn’t play it, I don’t have Xbox, but I got Call of Duty. I traded it at Games Plus. You want to play sometime?’

‘My mom won’t let me play that either. At your house, yeah.’

It took a couple weeks of games and pizza and just hanging out before Wes said, ‘My father’s dead.’

Donnie, who’d heard, said, ‘Yeah, I heard. Sucks.’

Nothing more for another week. Then Donnie sat down at the lunch table and they talked about shit for a while and asked, ‘I heard your dad was FBI. Somebody killed him?’

‘Accident.’

‘Like a car?’

‘A truck.’

Wes sounded as calm as Donnie’s mother after she took her little white pills.

‘You want to fuck up the driver?’

‘Yeah, but he’s gone. Didn’t even live here.’

‘Wish somebody’d run into my father. Don’t you want to fuck things up sometimes?’

‘Explode, yeah,’ Wes had said. ‘And my mom’s going out with this guy. A computer guy. He’s okay. He hacks code real good. But it’s like my dad never even existed, you know. And I can’t say anything.’

‘’Cause you’ll get the crap beat out of you.’

Wes had just repeated, ‘Explode.’

They hung out some more and finally Donnie let him into the Defend and Respond Expedition Service game. He needed a partner because Lann, fuck him, had moved.

Donnie, who spent hours a day at video games, had made up the game himself. Defend and Respond Expedition Service. But they thought of it as what it really was: DARES. Well, dares.

Donnie and now Wes were on one side, Vincent and Nathan on the second. One team dared the other to do something totally fucked up: steal something, shoot pictures up a girl’s skirt, piss on a teacher’s lesson plan. You got a point if you met the challenge – and came back with proof. At the end of the month, whoever had the most points won. They wrote it up like a board game with fake countries and codes and names – Darth and Wolverine – so that any parents looking the game over would just think it was like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter or whatever.

Wes hadn’t been sure about joining at first. Donnie’s crew wasn’t Wes’s flavor. But Donnie could see he was interested and, after the first couple dares, even though he only watched Donnie’s back, it was way clear that he got a high out of it. Like he’d almost smiled in Asilomar that time, watching Donnie and Nathan beat the crap out of the whiny little Lat.

But would he really come around? Donnie Verso wondered again.

He walked into Starbucks, got a coffee and sat down next to Wes, who was texting. He glanced up, nodded and put his phone away.

‘Hey.’

They bumped fists.

For the next ten minutes they talked, in whispers, about how best to get into Goldshit’s garage and steal their bikes back. Wes thought it was smart not to do it just the two of them but get Nathan and Vincent too.

Donnie thought that wasn’t a bad idea.

After a few minutes, Wes said, ‘I heard Kerry and Gayle’ll be at Foster’s. Want to go up there?’

‘Is Tiff with them?’

‘I don’t know. I just heard Kerry and Gayle.’

‘K. Let’s go.’

They headed out and turned north, making for the old department store, now a restaurant – at least on the first floor.

They got about one block and Donnie laughed and slapped Wes’s arm. ‘Look who it is.’

It was that prick Rashiv. Mrs Dance had mentioned him the other night. Donnie and his DARES crew had wailed on him about six weeks or so ago. Donnie didn’t quite know why, maybe because Rashiv wasn’t even a democratic US citizen and he should go back to where he came from, Syria or India or wherever. But mostly they’d pounded on him and pulled his pants down and launched his book bag into the water off Lovers’ Point because it was something to do.

And here he was now.

Rashiv glanced up and, terror in his eyes, saw Donnie and Wes walking right toward him. They were on Lighthouse, the main commercial street in Pacific Grove, and plenty of people were around so the kid didn’t think he was going to get lashed but he still looked plenty scared.

‘Yo, bitch,’ Donnie said.

Rashiv nodded. He was a way skinny little guy.

‘Whatchu up to, bitch?’

A shrug. ‘Nothing.’ Looking for a place to run, just in case Donnie decided to lash on him even with people around.

Wes just looking at him with this blank expression.

‘Hey, Wes.’

No response from Wolverine.

Rashiv said, ‘Haven’t seen you for a while. I called.’

‘Busy.’

Donnie said, ‘You been busy too, Rashit?’ It was funny how a question could be both friendly and threatening.

‘Sorta. Yeah. You know, school.’

Wes said, ‘What’s that?’ Squinting at a book the boy was carrying.

‘Just some manga.’

‘Let me see.’

‘I don’t—’

Wes lifted it away. He laughed in shock. ‘Japanese edition of Death Note – it’s signed by Ohba.’

Shit, Donnie thought. Holy shit. One of the best, kick-ass manga comics of all time. And signed by the author? Donnie said, ‘I figured you’d beat off to Sailor Moon.’

Death Note was about a high-school student who has a secret notebook that gives him the power to kill anyone just by knowing their name and face. Fuck, this was pure solid, the most righteous of any manga or anime in the world.

Wes flipped through it. ‘I’m going to borrow it.’

‘Wait!’ Rashiv said, eyes wide.

‘I’m just going to read it.’

‘No, you’re not! You’re never going to give it back. My parents brought it to me from Japan!’ Rashiv reached forward and gripped Wes’s arm. ‘No! Please!’

Wes turned to him with a look that sent some ice even down Donnie’s back. ‘Get your hand off me. Or you know what?’ He nodded toward Donnie. ‘We’ll totally fuck you up.’

The boy dropped his hand and stared in pure misery as Donnie and Wes walked leisurely away, sipping their coffee.

And with that – totally fuck you up – Donnie knew that, at last, Wes was one of them.