Текст книги "Winter Kill "

Автор книги: Josh lanyon

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

Russell had been paying closer attention than Adam realized.

He said, “I don’t know what gone native means.”

“I notice that you’re not denying that you and Haskell have a relationship outside of your professional one.”

As Adam stared into Kennedy’s eyes he realized something totally unexpected. Unexpected, but possibly encouraging. Kennedy was gay. And he suspected that part of Russell’s antipathy for Adam was due to Adam’s orientation. It was the one sole point on which Adam had Kennedy’s sympathy—but it was a big one.

“Haskell and I did not have a relationship before I came up here. And I don’t know that our friendship will last beyond this assignment. That’s not why I discouraged Russell from dumping this case and returning to L.A. I thought from the first that the case was more complicated than it appeared. I’m now convinced that’s true.”

Kennedy was back to looking bored and impatient. “Yeah, yeah. You think you’ve discovered a serial killer. Two murders, an attempted staging of the body, and everybody thinks they’ve got a serial killer on their hands.”

Adam said politely, “Actually, sir, I think we may have two serial killers on our hands.”

Kennedy’s eyes narrowed. He studied Adam.

“All right,” he said finally. “Let’s hear it. Start to finish. And make it good.”

Chapter Thirteen

“You’re a shit,” Rob told Russell.

Russell turned red and started blustering. Frankie said in warning, “Robbie.”

Rob ignored her. “Get out of my chair,” he said.

Russell complied, huffily, and Rob took his chair. He stretched his legs, leaned back, and eyed Agent Gould. “Back from your early retirement, I see?”

“Hey,” said Gould. “I’m on Adam’s side.”

“Oh, that’s nice!” Russell said.

Gould looked unimpressed. “Nobody likes a backstabber, J.J.”

“So we’re clear, I’m not taking sides,” Frankie said to Russell, “but you haven’t been a whole hell of a lotta help. They can send you home with my blessing.”

Russell made a disbelieving sound, somewhere between a splutter and a hmpf. “Fine. I didn’t realize I was sitting with Darling’s fan club. I’ll wait outside.”

“Do,” Rob said. “In fact, try the middle of the street.”

Gould snorted. Frankie’s look was disapproving. Rob didn’t care either way. He was worried about Adam—when he had left the office, he’d looked like he’d received a death sentence—and he was sick at the thought that Adam might be on his way home this afternoon. It was too soon. Way too soon. They still needed his help. They needed him.

Rob needed him.

He sat there unmoving, angry, stricken, while Frankie and Gould talked. He had no idea about what.

Finally he tuned back in to hear Gould ask, “The girl is still sedated?”

“I spoke to the doctor right before you folks arrived. He said she may not be much help even when she is up and moving again. She might not remember anything.”

“Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,” Gould said knowledgably. “That’s too bad. She’s your best witness.”

“Yeah. Poor kid.”

“Does she have any other family?”

“There’s an aunt on her father’s side.”

The door to the interrogation room was still closed. Rob glanced at his watch. Fifteen minutes and counting.

Frankie and Gould continued to converse. Rob continued to listen to the silence from the room where Adam was. Not completely silent. He could hear the murmur of voices. They weren’t raised, so that was something.

“We’ll start at nine o’clock tomorrow,” Frankie said. “We’ve just about finished notifying all our residents. So far everyone has been very cooperative. At least on the phone. We’ll see who shows up when the exam begins.”

“If this was L.A., you’d be slapped with a civil rights suit before the first T-shirt dropped,” Gould said.

“But it’s not L.A.” Frankie’s smile was smug. “And anybody who refuses to play ball is going to have some explaining to do.”

“You can’t force people to take part in this,” Rob warned her.

“No, I can’t.” Her smile faded at the approach of footsteps. “Zeke. How did it go?”

Zeke stopped in the doorway. He looked haggard, his eyes red as though he hadn’t slept in days, his normally coiffed hair, rumpled. He looked at Gould without interest or curiosity. Rob suspected he didn’t really even see her.

“Like you’d think. I couldn’t even tell them when we’ll be able to release her body so they can bury her.”

“I know,” Frankie said sympathetically. “It’s a terrible thing. Terrible.”

Zeke said, “I’m going to take the rest of the day off, if that’s okay, Frankie. I’m not going to be any use to anyone today. I’m beat. I haven’t slept since…” He stopped.

“Sure, sure,” Frankie said. “You go home and get some rest. We’ll see you tomorrow morning. Let’s say nine o’clock?”

“Yeah. Whatever.” Zeke shoved away from the door frame as though he needed that extra momentum to keep on his feet. He departed without speaking to Aggie, who called a sympathetic goodnight after him—despite the fact that it was only two-thirty in the afternoon.

“Now don’t go glaring at me,” Frankie told Rob.

“Nine o’clock?” Rob repeated. “So he won’t know ahead of time you’re planning to strip-search every man in town?”

“What kind of a sheriff would I be if I played favorites with my own department?”

“You want me to take my shirt off?” Rob asked. “I’ll be happy to. Hell, no need to wait. I’ll strip now.”

Frankie was unabashed. “Wouldn’t that be a nice treat for Agent Gould and me? But no, I know you haven’t killed anybody, Robbie. So far. Which means I guess I do play favorites sometimes.” She winked.

Rob shook his head, and rose. He was too restless to sit there any longer waiting to hear what was going to happen to Adam. It wasn’t like he wouldn’t know soon enough.

He went to his office, sat down at his desk, and began sorting through his mail. Not that he usually got a lot of mail. What he did get had started to stack up over the past few days.

There were a couple of brochures for training courses, a gun catalog, an “anonymous” complaint about a barking dog from someone who’d forgotten he was being anonymous and used his own return address sticker, and a large brown envelope like those used for mailing legal documents. The wobbly address in the upper left hand corner read M. Koletar.

Rob’s spirits jumped, and he tore open the parcel. A couple of photos fell to the desktop. Nothing else. He shook the envelope, checked inside. There was no note.

He picked up the first photo. It was of a boy of about eighteen or nineteen. He was rail thin and wore one of those flat, moppet type haircuts. Sort of cute in a scruffy way. He seemed to be modeling the tattoo on his scrawny chest. To Rob’s eye, the tattoo looked amateurish, homemade. It consisted of two figures. The figure on the right looked like a triangle at the end of a stick. Maybe it was supposed to be a flower? The figure on the left looked like a cross with triangles attached to the three upper bars. So maybe a religious symbol? Or a tree?

Or just the effort of someone who couldn’t draw very well?

The boy—presumably Dove—smiled with a chipped and cheeky defiance at the camera. It was the face of someone life had kicked in the teeth more than once—but who still hoped this boot would be different.

Studying that boyish and misplaced confidence, Rob felt a pang of sadness. He picked up the second photo. Two boys, arms looped around each other’s necks in casual, goofy camaraderie. One boy was Dove. The other…

Was he familiar?

Rob frowned and turned the photo over.

Dove and Buck. August 1983.

Rob whistled silently. Buck? Now that was a shocker. He’d never picked up any inkling that Buck Constantine was anything other than a hundred percent obnoxiously heterosexual.

And of course one hug didn’t mean these two had been anything besides pals.

Except… Rob turned the photo back over studying Buck’s face. There was something in their expressions. A brave and tentative happiness?

Rob frowned, holding the photograph toward the light. Thirty years was a long time and Buck looked nothing like the boy he’d once been. He still wore his hair about the same length. Back then it had been darker and thicker. The face in the photo was rounder, softer. The body was surprisingly stocky. Muscular.

Someone tapped on the door frame. Rob looked up to see Adam standing in his office.

“Hey.” He dropped the photo, rose, and then wondered what he planned on doing. What he wanted to do was hug Adam, but Adam was…Adam. And they were not really on a hugging-in-the-workplace basis. Rob was unhappily conscious of that stupid argument on the way back from the Constantine place. What had he been so mad about? He’d even called Adam a robot.

Adam wasn’t a robot, and he looked worryingly tired, drained. Flattened. Like someone or something had leeched all the life and energy out of him.

“Are you…?” Rob was afraid to finish the question.

Adam gave a crooked smile. “No. I’m still employed.”

“Well, hell. Of course!” Rob said, as though they all hadn’t been thinking Adam’s head was on the chopping block.

“I think I may even have got a backhanded attaboy from Kennedy for putting the pieces together on Gaura.”

“No pun intended?”

Why had he said that? Why did he always have to make a dumbass joke? And it was worse with Adam. He was always playing the fool around Adam.

Adam looked startled, and then gave a weak laugh. “Anyway, Russell and I are flying back to L.A. tomorrow morning. So I wanted to say goodbye.”

“Goodbye?” Rob repeated, like he’d never heard the word before. Not like he hadn’t known it was coming. But it still felt like a shock, the horrible surprise of reaching into the dark and touching a live wire.

And Adam didn’t say anything. As though he didn’t know what to make of it either.

“So that’s it?” Rob said.

Adam drew a breath. “No. I also wanted to apologize again. I know I probably…did cross a couple of lines. I’m sorry if I seemed insensitive.”

“You were fine,” Rob said quickly. “I was just…I don’t know. Feeling out of sorts.”

Adam gave another of those halfhearted laughs. “Yeah, probably not. But BAU has offered their full help and resources to Frankie. Kennedy is a legend at the Bureau, the situation here has his interest, so you’re going to get serious support now.”

“Great.” Happy happy joy joy. More feds.  Only this time none of them would be Adam.

“So. Anyway.” Adam stuck out his hand as though he’d suddenly remembered that was part of the fare-thee-well ritual.

They shook. Rob was startled to realize Adam’s fingers were ice cold.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Rob said, still gripping Adam’s hand.

Adam waited, his expression almost wary.

“What about dinner?”

“What about it?”

“Are you stuck with them all night, or are you free for dinner?”

Adam freed his hand. “Dinner was not discussed,” he said, “I think it’s safe to assume we’re not all squeezing into the Marina Grill.”

“Good. Then have dinner with me. It’s your last night here, let’s spend it together.”

Adam’s expression lightened. Then his pleasure faded. “I’d have liked that, but I believe you’re working tonight,” he told Rob. “That’s the way it sounded to me.”

“I’ve got some things to finish up, yes,” Rob said, “but Frankie is betting the house on tomorrow’s show-and-tell session. If Kennedy thinks she’s paying us overtime to sit around and brainstorm cold cases, he’s in for a shock. Anyway, I’m whipped. My shift started at four thirty-five this morning. I’m having an early night.” He added boldly, “With you.”

Adam did that fluttery, disconcerting thing with his eyelashes before meeting Rob’s gaze directly. His smile was rueful. “If you think you can swing it, then yes. I’d like to have dinner.”

Rob smiled. “I can swing it. I’ll pick you up at the campground and we can spend the night at my place. What time’s your flight?”

Adam looked apologetic. “Eight.”

Rob wouldn’t have cared if it had been six. Or four. He felt cheerful again and full of optimism. “Don’t worry, I’ll have you back at the campground in plenty of time.” He was tempted to lean forward and kiss Adam. That was probably pushing things. He could tell Adam was still partially attuned to the sound of Kennedy and Gould speaking down the hall in Frankie’s office.

“I’ll see you at five,” Rob promised. “Don’t be late.”

“Er, you’re picking me up. Remember?”

“True.” Rob grinned. “It’s a date, Darling.”

At ten after four, Rob realized Bill Constantine had never shown up at the station or phoned. Knowing what he did now about Buck—or at least what he suspected he knew—he felt it all the more urgent that he talk to Bill.

For the last couple of hours he’d been reading over his notes on the case. Mostly he’d focused on Zeke’s possible role, because he found Frankie’s suspicions disturbing. But the more he looked over the homicide reports on Cynthia and Azure, the more positive he was that Frankie was off base.

Zeke was a jerk and probably what they used to call a chauvinistic pig, but Rob had never seen any indication that he was violent toward women. In fact, it was irritating the way his numerous ex-girlfriends continued to hang around in hopes of winning him back. The only girl who’d ever had the upper hand with him was Azure, and they’d been off and on for years. It was hard to believe that after all this time Zeke would suddenly go off the deep end and kill her.

There was certainly no motive for him to kill Cynthia Joseph, let alone in such a gruesome way. And the notion of a museum robbery gone wrong didn’t fit because Zeke wasn’t particularly hard up for money, and even if he had been, he’d have more likely sold one of his motorcycles, which was something he was always talking about doing.

Initially, Rob had been suspicious of the fact that Zeke had once worked at the museum. Until he’d realized that back then there would have been more tourists visiting Nearby, and Zeke would have viewed it as a good way to meet girls. Meeting girls would have always been—and continued to be—a priority for Zeke.

The one thing that niggled at Rob was the idea planted by Adam that maybe there had been more to Terry Watterson’s death. But he’d hunted up the old accident report on Terry Watterson, and there was no mystery about it. Watterson had jumped off the rock, hit his head, and unfortunately no one had realized he was in trouble until it was too late.

It might even be the reason Zeke didn’t drink. And considering how obnoxious he was cold sober, that was probably a good thing.

As for the idea of Zeke dressing up like a giant raven—or whatever the hell that costume was supposed to have been—no. Hell no. Zeke would consider that totally embarrassing. Never in a million years would Zeke dress up like Big Bird’s evil twin—and as creepy as that moment had been when Rob had looked up and seen that…thing looking down at him—that’s how Zeke would view it. Big Bird’s evil twin. He could practically hear him now. Zeke would think that was ludicrous.

So no. Frankie could host her naked chest soiree tomorrow. Zeke would not be falling into her net.

Whoever had done this possessed a completely different kind of brain.

And not just from Zeke. From pretty much everyone. This was a seriously disturbed individual, and there would have to be other signs. There would be a history. A pattern.

Which is why he had problems with Adam’s theory on Bert Berkle.

Berkle was another one he couldn’t picture dressing up in a feathered costume and skipping around the woods.

As far as he could see, the only real grounds for suspecting Berkle were that he had opportunity and he didn’t like the FBI.

Okay, and eyewitness testimony.

But eyewitness testimony from a highly unreliable source.

Adam had been so sure though.

That certainty was convincing. But that was probably due more to the force of Adam’s personality than solid evidence against Berkle.

Berkle had never shown enough interest in his fellow humans for it to seem likely he’d bother killing them.

Rob picked up the photo of Dove Koletar and Buck Constantine, studying it idly. People changed a lot in thirty years…

This was another piece of the puzzle that didn’t make sense. Not that he couldn’t use it to put together a workable scenario for murder.

The only gay kid in town turned out to not be the only gay kid. Buck had killed him to keep his double life secret.

Except why kill Dove once he’d decided to leave Nearby? Wouldn’t his leaving mean the problem was solved?

Ah. But what if Dove wasn’t leaving? What if Buck had murdered him and written the note to make it look like… No. That was getting way too complicated. That was the territory of those TV shows about murder in cute little cottages where the flower boxes were watered with the blood of the local inhabitants.

No. Dove had been leaving. So why kill him? Why kill him then?

Because the killer didn’t want him to go?

Rob considered Dove’s murder from this new angle.

Okay. Maybe. Except it was difficult to imagine Buck Constantine so passionate, so desperate he’d commit murder. He’d never struck Rob as particularly emotional.

He’d also never struck him as particularly gay.

Not that Rob was a big believer in gaydar. Yes, sometimes sexuality was obvious, and sometimes not so obvious, but you still knew. And sometimes you had no clue. But Buck…Rob would have been willing to bet money that there was not a gay bone—or boner—in Buck’s body.

And yet here was written proof.

Frankie rapped on his half open door. “Get your coat. We’re taking the FBI to dinner. They think we’ve got two serial killers on our hands, and they want to talk over the cases.”

“Not me,” Rob said. “I’ve got plans.”

“Robbie, you’re my second-in-command. I want you there tonight. These feebs already think we’re a bunch of dumb hicks. We need to impress—”

Rob looked past her shoulder and called, “Night, Agent Kennedy!”

Frankie jumped, whirled to see the empty hallway, and turned back to Rob. Her expression was sour. “Damn it, Haskell.”

Rob grinned. He wasn’t kidding though when he said, “I’ve been up since four thirty-five on sheriff’s business. I’m going to talk to Bill Constantine and then I’m taking the rest of the night off. So put that in your pipe and smoke it, Frankie.”

She glowered at him. He met her look calmly.

“I suppose you think I won’t know what you’re going to get up to this evening?”

“Now you’re making me blush,” Rob said. “My mother used to knock first.”

As Frankie began to splutter, he offered her the photo of Dove and Buck. “Does this look like Buck Constantine to you?”

Frankie took the photo. Frowning, she examined it. Her eyes widened. “Where did you get this?”

“Dove Koletar’s mother sent it to me.”

“Where would she get it?”

Rob shrugged. “No idea. Is it Constantine?”

“Hell no.” Frankie met his eyes. She looked flabbergasted. “This is Buck Berkle.”

“Buck Berkle? You mean Bert Berkle?”

Frankie nodded. She was staring at the photo again. “My God,” she murmured. “So I guess it was true.”

“Bert Berkle who tracks missing hikers for us? That Bert Berkle?”

Another absent nod from Frankie.

“Then why the hell does it say Buck on the back of that photo?” Rob demanded.

“That’s what we called him. That was his nickname in school. Buck Berkle. He was captain of the football team.”

“Berkle was? Well, why doesn’t anybody call him Buck now?” Rob questioned. He felt aggrieved that this vital piece of information had been withheld.

“Why doesn’t anybody call me Peaches?” Frankie retorted. “Nobody keeps their high school nickname.”

“Uh…true. Still. I can’t believe this is Berkle.” Although, as Rob took the photo back from Frankie, he had to admit the boy with Dove looked more like Berkle than Constantine. He’d never seen Berkle without a beard before. That was what had initially thrown him. “You’re saying he was captain of the football team? That doesn’t sound like Berkle.”

“He was different back then. Well, sort of. He was always kind of a loner, but not like he is now. There was a kid whose parents did beat the hell out of him at every opportunity. That mother of his was a fishwife.”

Whatever that meant. “So Berkle was—is—gay?” That was a shocker. Although, come to think of it, he could more easily believe it of Berkle than Constantine.

“I—there were rumors about him,” Frankie said. “Nobody believed them. But I can’t believe—why, he used to bully Dove. He used to push him around. I saw him shove him once.”

When she looked up, her eyes were frightened. “All this time,” she whispered.