Текст книги "Fair Game "

Автор книги: Josh lanyon

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Chapter Ten

Leslie Mrachek was indeed a crier.

She listened in stricken silence to Elliot’s comments—he thought he’d found a reasonably tactful way to say now put it in your own words—and promptly burst into tears. Bewildered and uncomfortable, Elliot opened desk drawer after desk drawer searching for a box of tissues. At last he found one and handed it to Leslie. She sobbed into the tissue, blew her nose and proceeded to tell him all about her problems with her stepmother, her roommate and her boyfriend, John Sandusky. What any of it had to do with the films of John Ford, Elliot failed to see, but Leslie seemed to be drawing a soggy connection.

After she left, he checked his phone messages and discovered he’d missed a call from Zahra Lyle. Her terse voice informed him that if he didn’t return her call before 10 a.m. they would have to wait to speak until she got home from work at seven.

Elliot glanced at his watch and swore. Ten-thirty. From down the hall he could hear the familiar clatter of Ray’s maintenance cart and, more distantly, Andrew Corian bellowing the usual spiel about art and fascism. “We see the manipulation of emotion in the fascist art of our own government. Consider the books and films glorifying such repressive organizations as the police, the FBI, the CIA…”

The day went downhill from there. Elliot had just dismissed his History of the Civil War students when he felt that familiar warning prickle down his spine. He glanced over his shoulder.

Tucker stood inside the lecture hall doorway, arms folded. He wore one of his custom-tailored dark suits and tie, his smooth, copper hair in vivid contrast. Students filed past with curious looks. He could have been standing there in his skivvies and his aura would still have screamed cop.

“Would it be okay if I took off early today?” Kyle asked.

Elliot glanced his way. “Sure.”

“Thanks, Dr. Mills.” Kyle, normally upbeat and energetic, looked tired. There were dark circles under his eyes. Even his eyebrow rings seemed to droop.

“Everything okay?”

“Oh yeah.” Kyle shrugged. He too threw one of those doubtful looks Tucker’s way. No wonder. Tucker’s expression was noticeably stony, and reading it, Elliot knew how very bad the news was. He felt a pang as he thought of Pauline Baker. It didn’t get any easier, that was for sure.

Kyle was the last to leave. Tucker detached himself from the wall and walked over to Elliot who was automatically shoving papers in his briefcase.

“You’ve found Terry Baker’s body,” Elliot stated as Tucker reached him.

“Yes. We think so. We’re going to need a formal identification to be positive, but his belongings were found at the scene. Phone, ID, laptop.” Tucker added briefly, “I’m sorry.”

Elliot nodded. “Where?”

“In the lake behind the school.” At Elliot’s surprise, Tucker added, “It’s looking a lot like suicide.”

How the hell had Tacoma PD failed to check that lake? Elliot shook his head, but it was not really denial. There had only been so many possibilities. “How did he do it?”

“Used a rope to tie an anvil around his waist, walked out into the lake and shot himself.”

In the silence between them Elliot could hear students laughing and calling to each other in the hallway outside the room. “You’ve found the gun then?”

“Not yet. It’ll be there.” Tucker sounded very sure.

He was probably right, but Elliot said reluctantly, “I didn’t see it playing out like this.”

“I know. It was the most likely scenario, though.”

Was it? Yeah, probably.

He slid his laptop in his briefcase and clicked it shut. “Do you want me to break it to the Bakers?”

Tucker’s blue eyes met his. Of course Tucker wanted him to break it to the parents. Who wouldn’t want to get out of that job if it was humanly possible? But maybe Tucker read Elliot’s expression as clearly as Elliot read his, because after a hesitation, he said, “Why don’t we do it together?”

Elliot nodded. “Can I get a look at the crime scene?”

Tucker sucked in a harsh breath. “Why?”

“What do you mean why?”

Like that, the tentative truce between them evaporated. “The kid killed himself. Case closed. And if the ERT and local crime scene boys find evidence otherwise, then you’re still out of the picture.”

“Since when?”

“You were brought in as a civilian consultant, Elliot. You’re not FBI anymore, remember?”

“How could I forget?” It came out more bitterly than he’d intended. It was hard to believe that this flint-faced Tucker was the same guy who’d flirted with him on the phone Friday night. Maybe he’d had more to drink than Elliot realized. Maybe they both had.

“Hey, that was your choice.”

“My choice?” The fury that washed through Elliot caught him by surprise. Granted, where Tucker was concerned, the anger was never far away.

“You know what I mean. I’m not going to argue with you. As of right now, your involvement in this case is over. Is that clear?”

Elliot looked straight into Tucker’s eyes and laughed. “If you say so, Special Agent Lance.”

That was pretty much guaranteed to piss anyone off, and watching Tucker’s pale eyes narrow and his face turn the color of his freckles, Elliot knew he’d scored.

“I do say so.”

Elliot headed for the door, briefcase in hand.

Tucker followed him out into the hall, waiting while Elliot locked the lecture hall.

“You want to take my car over to the Bakers’?”

Elliot said, “Don’t you have a crime scene to attend to?”

“There are more than enough crime scene technicians crawling around there right now.”

Elliot’s nod was constrained. He didn’t particularly want to drive with Tucker, but it would be childish to refuse. Besides, he wanted more information. Not that either of them was in a chatty mood as they left the building.

Tucker had parked his silver G-ride, slang for government owned vehicle, in the chapel parking lot next to Elliot’s Nissan. Behind the fence and across the meadow, Elliot could hear ducks quacking frantically. He spotted crime scene vehicles and personnel moving back and forth beside the lake. A news chopper circled slowly in the sky overhead.

They got in the sedan, Tucker talking on his cell phone. “Yes, ma’am. I’ve already established my crime scene debriefing team…”

That brought back memories. Elliot smiled sardonically. Montgomery did have a tendency to micromanage. He listened absently, his attention focused on the activity across the meadow. In addition to the initial responding officers, Tucker’s debriefing team would consist of local investigators and the evidence collection technicians: the photographers, latent print personnel and other specialized personnel. It would be Tucker’s job to determine what evidence was collected, discuss preliminary scene findings with team members, discuss potential technical forensic testing and the sequence of tests to be performed, and finally initiate any actions required to complete the crime scene investigation.

When Tucker finally hung up and started the car engine, Elliot had a question for him. “You said Terry tied an anvil around his waist?”

“That’s right.”

“A real anvil or an anvil-shaped object?”

“I’m no expert. It looked like a real anvil to me. Why?”

“Where would he get one?”

Tucker didn’t reply.

“It’s not the kind of thing you find littering the ground.”

“So he planned ahead. That’s already obvious. He planned to kill himself and conceal the body in the lake.”

“Who found the body?” Elliot asked.

“A wingshooter was out spreading decoys around the lake to train his retriever. The Baker kid hadn’t walked too far from shore when he blew his brains out.”

“Yeah, well no kidding. Do you know how heavy an anvil is?”

“I’m assuming that’s rhetorical. About as heavy as a sailboat anchor?”

Elliot was still thinking. “What’s the estimate on how long Terry was in the water?”

Tucker said slowly, “The ME isn’t saying.”

Something in his tone cued Elliot. He turned. Tucker’s profile was unreadable. “What?”

“What do you mean what?” Tucker made a left onto North Union Avenue.

“What is it you’re not telling me? Something about the crime scene isn’t right, is it?”

“There’s nothing wrong with the crime scene.”

“But?”

Reluctantly, Tucker admitted, “But the ME has some doubts about how long the body was in the water.”

After a shocked moment, Elliot asked, “How long does he think it was in the water?”

“He’s not willing to speculate, but he doesn’t believe Baker was in that lake for more than a week.”

*  *  *

You could tell a lot about people from their kitchens, in Elliot’s opinion.

The Bakers’ kitchen was pristine. It had every gadget known to the Food Network, but if those gleaming copper kettles hanging from the ceiling rack over the granite island were any indication, no one in this house had so much as boiled an egg in years.

Frankly, it didn’t look like anyone ever ate in here, let alone cooked.

“I wish I could say it was a surprise,” Tom Baker was saying.

“How’s that, sir?” Tucker asked. Elliot watched him taking note of Baker’s jerky movements.

There was nothing about Tom Baker—unlike his long time friend, Roland Mills—to remind anyone that he had once been a leftwing radical. In fact, everything about Baker, from his buffed fingernails to his four-hundred-dollar haircut, announced Establishment. Money, class, privilege: that was the message Tom Baker projected to the world, although Elliot knew Baker’s background was as working class as his own family’s. He looked like a French aristocrat. Tall, lean, austere, with dark, hooded eyes and a hawkish profile.

“It’s all part of the lifestyle, isn’t it?” Baker was subdued as he dunked his swollen hand in a bowl of ice. He had not been subdued twenty minutes earlier when Elliot and Tucker had delivered the bad news about Terry. In fact, he had been far more vocal than Pauline, who had heard them out in white-faced and mute agony and then dosed herself with tranquilizers and retired.

It was after Pauline’s retreat that Tom had punched his fist through the white saloon-style swinging doors that led off the kitchen. Tried, anyway. One of the battered doors now sagged from its hinges like a broken wing.

“What lifestyle is that, Mr. Baker?” Tucker persisted too politely.

Elliot opened his mouth, and then let it go. He knew Tucker in this frame of mind and he knew he would be wasting his breath.

“The gay lifestyle,” Baker spat. He suddenly glared at Elliot as though Elliot were the one challenging him.

That seemed to annoy Tucker still further. He said coolly, “To my understanding suicide isn’t part of any lifestyle. It is, unfortunately, on the rise with persons under the age of twenty-five, and gay teens are about six times more likely to kill themselves than straight peers. A lot of that can probably be tracked back to depression over familial and societal attitudes.”

“Lance,” Elliot muttered.

Baker’s face mottled with rage. “How the hell dare you?” He sounded winded. “My son is dead.”

“And any help you can give us that might shed light on the circumstances surrounding his death will be greatly appreciated.” Tucker’s tone was as flatly unemotional as a recording.

Elliot threw him a disbelieving look. He said, “Do you own a handgun, Mr. Baker?”

Baker’s brown eyes swiveled his way. “No. Absolutely not. I am vehemently anti-firearms.”

“Do you have any idea where Terry might have obtained a handgun?”

“Anywhere in this goddamned city in this goddamned state in this goddamned country. It isn’t hard given the lack of any meaningful gun control.”

It was almost like spending an evening at home with Roland. Elliot said, “Had Terry ever threatened suicide?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

A lot of absolutes for a child of the New Generation.

“Did Terry suffer from depression?”

“Not until your people got their hands on him.”

“My people?” Elliot was aware of Tucker straightening. He could almost feel the menace emanating from those powerful squared shoulders and jutting jaw. He shot him a warning look, but Tucker’s attention was all on Baker.

“Queers, faggots,” Baker snarled.

Clearly Baker wasn’t a bleeding heart liberal on all issues.

Tucker said, “Let’s talk about you, Tom. Let’s talk about the night your son disappeared. According to you, you were working late at your office.”

“What about it?”

“Can anyone verify that?”

“You sonofabitch.” Baker snatched his hand out of the bowl of ice and charged.

On instinct, Elliot moved to get between him and Tucker. It was a bad idea. Baker crashed into him and as they wrestled, Elliot trying to maneuver the older man into a restraining hold, Elliot slammed his knee against the kitchen island. The pain was instant and electrifying. Everything else faded to gray in its wake. He let go of Baker and grabbed for the granite countertop to keep from crumpling to the floor, clenching his teeth against the raw sound threatening to tear out of his throat.

From the other side of the nova he could hear Baker ranting. His voice sounded peculiarly muffled. Tucker was speaking over him, and what he was saying was, “Mills? Are you all right?”

The white hot distance shrank, receded along with the desire to faint or—worse—burst into tears, and Elliot was once again in the Bakers’ pristine kitchen, trying not to throw up on their sparkling granite countertop.

“Elliot?”

“Fine,” Elliot got out. He pushed off the counter. Blearily, he saw that Tucker had Tom Baker down on the floor and was engaged in handcuffing him. Pauline, apparently woken by the fracas, was standing by the broken swinging door, weaving slightly. Her mouth moved as though she were reading aloud, but no sound came out.

“Tucker, hold off.”

Tucker spared him a look. He had what Elliot always thought of as his pit bull face. Blunt and unyielding as a bullet. That was the thing about Tucker. He reacted fast and aggressively. And he didn’t tend to second guess himself.

Elliot shook his head.

“The hell.”

“Think.” Elliot nodded at Pauline who was still swaying, even as she clutched the doorframe.

“I…don’t understand,” she murmured like someone talking in her sleep.

“He assaulted a federal officer.”

If they wanted to get technical about it, no, Baker had not. He’d assaulted a civilian dumb enough to get in between him and his federal officer target, but no way was Elliot going to debate it in front of the Bakers. He was not going to question Tucker’s authority with an audience. He shook his head trying to communicate silently what a really bad idea he thought it was to arrest Tom. For a lot of reasons, not least of which was it would leave Pauline to have to make the formal ID of Terry’s body.

He could see Tucker’s reluctance, see him struggling with it. That was a revelation. When had he lost his compassion? Maybe he’d never had any. Elliot had told himself that more than once, but he’d never really believed it.

Tucker’s mouth tightened. He seemed to consult some inward counsel, and then he said shortly, “Your call.” He removed the handcuffs and got to his feet.

They watched as Baker made it stiffly to his hands and knees and then dragged himself up, using a barstool and then the island. Baker was the same age as Elliot’s father, late sixties, and the fact that he was in good shape didn’t change the fact that he was an old man.

Tucker said, “You’ve got a violent temper, Tom.”

Baker combed his no-longer-coiffed hair out of his eyes. His voice shook but he spoke with an unexpected dignity. “My son—my only child—is dead. Have you any idea—” His voice cracked.

Pauline went to him and they clung together.

Tucker expelled a long breath. He turned to Elliot who jerked his head toward the door.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Tucker said to the Bakers. They made no sign they heard him. “We’ll be in touch.”

*  *  *

On the sidewalk outside the house, Tucker preempted Elliot with a harsh, “I don’t want to hear it. Personally, if someone did pop the kid, I like Daddy-o for it.”

“I’m not saying you’re wrong.”

“The guy is a bona fide homophobe—with a violent streak to boot. Have you had a look at his record? Assault charges were filed against him three times back when he and your pop were buying their tie-dyed tickets to Woodstock.”

Tie-dyed tickets? Despite the fact that there was little to find funny in any of this, Elliot’s mouth twitched. “What happened to the assault charges?”

“Maybe the same thing that happened today. Someone convinced someone else against his better judgment to drop them.”

Elliot met Tucker’s flinty gaze. He shook his head. “The guy’s a lawyer, Lance. A very successful lawyer. And he’s a grieving father. Where do you think a court’s sympathy is going to lie? With a model citizen like him or a hard-ass like you?”

Tucker’s gaze grew adamantine. He opened his mouth, but Elliot said, “It’s a rhetorical question. I know the answer if you don’t. Can you give me a lift back to the college?”

After a moment, Tucker nodded curtly.

The drive back to campus was accomplished in record time and dead silence. As the tires bit into the chapel parking lot, Tucker glanced Elliot’s way and growled, “You okay?”

Elliot gave him a narrowed look. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“What happened back there?” Tucker glanced at Elliot’s knee, which Elliot had been unconsciously rubbing.

“Nothing.” That was obviously not true. Elliot qualified, “I rammed my knee into the counter.”

Tucker opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of it. He shrugged.

“I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.” He was not fine, of course. He felt drained, depressed, and his knee was pulsing to a steady, painful beat, flares of anguish surfacing through damaged nerves and muscles and tendons when and where he least expected. He was sorry he’d ever agreed to look into Terry Baker’s disappearance. What the hell use had it been?

“Good,” Tucker clamped out, pulling up beside Elliot’s Nissan. “Great.”

“I’ll talk to you later.” Was there some reason he would be talking to Tucker later? Elliot wasn’t sure, but he knew that he couldn’t say a final goodbye to Tucker here and now. He didn’t dare examine that conviction, but it persisted all the same. This was not the time or the place to face never seeing Tucker again.

He reached for the door handle, and Tucker said suddenly, urgently, “Elliot?”

He turned his head and Tucker’s big hand landed ungracefully on his shoulder, drawing him back as his warm mouth landed on Elliot’s.

For an astonished moment Elliot was aware of nothing but the feel of Tucker’s hard, insistent lips on his, the almost desperate pressure, the taste, the scent, the disturbing reality of Tucker’s desire.

“Elliot,” Tucker whispered, breaking contact for a moment. The heat of his breath was against Elliot’s face, hypnotizing, bewildering. His mouth touched Elliot’s again, and Elliot could feel his name—and a question—formed against his skin. Just that. Just Elliot?

There was a terrible familiarity to it. A reminder that he had not forgotten nearly enough, nearly what he had reassured himself was far, far behind him. It was all there, buried deep but still flickering, like a short in his wiring, like an imprint on cell memory. Genetic code and the secret message was Tucker. The sudden unbearable sweetness of it made his breath catch and his eyes sting. Turned his guts to liquid with furious longing for that touch—that touch and no other.

The unfairness of it, the outrage of it, gave him the necessary strength to pull away. Tucker stared back at him, pupils dilated, breath uneven.

“What the fuck?”

Tucker’s chest rose and fell.

“Where did that come from?”

Still nothing from Tucker, and Elliot’s anger soared.

“Are you out of your fucking mind? You think after two years you’re just going to—to pick up where we left off? What the hell’s the matter with you?” Elliot pushed Tucker. Shoved him back into his corner behind the steering wheel. Tucker made no move to defend himself.

“You’re what’s the matter with me,” he cried. “Why did you have to come back?”

“I’m not back.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“I’m working for the Bakers.”

“Bullshit. Bullshit, Elliot.”

“You think I got involved because you’re on this case?”

“No. I know better than that. Maybe you’ve developed selective amnesia, but I haven’t. I remember the way it went down. I’m not the only one who made mistakes.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re so goddamned stubborn. And you always have been.”

At some point it would be funny, the fact that the two of them were sitting there glaring at each other, panting and nearly inarticulate with anger and lust and complete, utter confusion. But it was not funny now. Now it was merely one more painful, pointless instant in a day of painful, pointless incidents.

“Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that, Tucker,” Elliot threw back. He yanked open the car door, jumped out. “Eventually you’ll convince yourself I walked away.” He slammed the door shut with all the energy and anger he could summon.

He stood there rubbing his knee impatiently, absently, as Tucker’s car sped from the parking lot.