Текст книги "The Gift of Death"

Автор книги: Sam Ripley

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

54

‘Josh – where are you? I’ve been trying to get through to you.’

‘Kate – sorry – I can’t talk now.’

‘Why? What’s happened?’

‘I thing we may have a breakthrough. I can’t go into it now, but –‘

‘But shit, Josh. I know I’m not on your team, but I want to follow this through.’

‘No way. I should never have let you get so involved.’

‘But I am involved, or have your forgotten?’

‘You’re a victim in this case, remember, not an investigator.’

‘Oh come on, Josh. Let me in on this.’

‘No.’

Josh could almost hear the anger in her silence.

‘Okay. If that’s the way you want to play it. I’ve got a couple of leads of my own I thought I’d follow through.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? Ryan Gleason obviously faked his own death and stole the identity of another man. I’ve got a list of few names I might just check out.’

Was she bluffing? Had she been sent information regarding Carl Reckard?

‘What’ve you got?’

‘I’m not telling.’

Jesus, she could be fucking annoying.

‘Kate, I’m in no mood for these games.’

‘I’m not playing a game. I’m just trying to find out who wants to fuck with my head and possibly try to kill me and me unborn child. I wouldn’t say that was much of a game, would you?’

‘Okay. Calm down.’ He knew what she was capable of. That little episode when she had nearly got herself killed by that maniac albino who’d been so obsessed by Gleason he had taken his name. He couldn’t risk her going off by herself. Not now.

‘This is what we’ll do,’ he said. ‘Meet me at the Parker in ten. Can you do that?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And you can come in the car with me and Curtis. How does that suit?’

‘Perfect. And Josh?’

‘What?’

‘Thank you.’

55

He was doing it again. That shifty I’m-not-going-to-meet-your-eye thing. The last time he’d done that was at the beach house, when he had confessed about his relationship with Jules. What did he have to hide now?

‘How are you?’ she asked, as he got out of the car.

‘Fine,’ he said, taking his sunglasses off and pretending to clean them. He could tell that she was scrutinising him. Shit. He hated it when she did that.

‘So where are we off to?’ she asked.

‘You don’t know?’

Kate had not got a clue about Josh’s lead. She knew nothing about the letter or the identity of the man that Ryan Gleason may have stolen. But she couldn’t lower her guard now.

He laughed. ‘Get in, you bullshitter.’ He turned to Curtis, who was in the back seat, tapping away furiously into a laptop. ‘You know, Curtis. Curtis, you’ve met Kate Cramer.’

‘Hi there – how are you?’ said Curtis.

‘Fine, thanks. So I take it you’ve found the name Ryan stole?’

‘Yes, we think so,’ said Curtis. ‘I’m just doing some more background searches now.’ She shot a look towards Harper, a tacit request whether she should reveal any more information. He nodded. ‘We have reason to believe that Ryan Gleason, after faking his death in a car accident, assumed the identity of a Carl Reckard, a paranoid schizophrenic. He had lost touch with his family and friends back home in Russell County, Kansas, and had never made any kind of network of friends here in LA. No-one reported him missing, he never registered with any medical practice in the city – my guess is he couldn’t afford it – and he kind of existed under the radar.’

‘Sounds like the perfect prey for someone like Gleason,’ said Kate, conscious of the fact that now she was referring to the son rather than his monstrous father.

‘Exactly,’ said Curtis.

As they drove towards Chatsworth, Josh told her about the contents of Paul Taylor’s letter. But still he wouldn’t meet her eye. What was he keeping from her? If Curtis – beautiful, smart, efficient Curtis – had not been sitting in the back seat she would have been able to ask him straight out. And she knew that he knew. The clever bastard.

‘But what makes you think that this is for real?’ Kate asked. ‘You know the kind of psychos out there who get off on claiming guilt for crimes they never committed?’

‘Like Gideon Walsh? You don’t need to remind me what a fuck-up that was.’

‘I wasn’t referring to Walsh, but well – yes.’

Kate felt her face stinging. It was, after all, her pathetic attempt at amateur detective work that had led Harper to Walsh. That had turned out to be nothing but a false lead, and a time-consuming one at that. Now it was obvious to everyone involved in the investigation that he had had nothing to do with the crimes. And it seemed as though his fantasy world – his worship at the altar of Gleason – had finally taken its toll. A future in a secure psychiatric ward, rather than a prison, looked increasingly likely for him. A vision of Walsh’s ghostly face flashed through her mind. If it hadn’t have been for Josh she was sure that, even though he wasn’t the particular psycho they were looking for, he would have killed her anyway.

Curtis’ cell rang, interrupting her thoughts.

‘Okay, okay,’ she heard her say. ‘Do you want to relay that?’ Curtis pressed a button on her phone. ‘Harper, it’s Lansing.’ She spoke into her cell again. ‘Right. Go ahead.’

‘Any news?’ asked Josh.

‘I’ve just finished talking to the father of Carl Reckard.’ The voice of Lansing echoed through the car.

‘And?’

‘He’s had no contact with his son since he left home at 1988. He described Carl as difficult almost from birth – what were his words? ‘Colicky as a baby, cruel as a child and plain evil as a teenager’. Said he never liked him and had no desire to seek him out when he ran away. But this is the interesting thing. Three years ago, he had a robbery at his farm. The thief or thieves took a weird mix of things – some farm tools, a bit of spare cash, a few mementoes, and a stash of documents from the family bureau. He hadn’t a clue about what was in the papers. Hadn’t looked at them for years. But when I asked if he could lay his hands on his son’s birth certificate, he said he would go and have a look. I rang him back and said he couldn’t find it. Figured that it must have gone with the rest of the papers from that bureau. And with the birth certificate – together with his social security number –‘

‘Ryan Gleason could easily take over his identity,’ said Harper. ‘And could Reckard senior remember the date of the robbery?’

‘He had made a note of it,’ said Lansing. ‘It was – 26 March 2004.’

‘The week before the car crash in which Ryan was supposed to have died.’

‘Too much of a coincidence,’ said Kate.

‘Great. We’ll be at Carl Reckard’s house in – what? – ten minutes,’ said Harper. ‘Do you want to meet us there?’

‘Will do.’

Curtis cut the connection.

‘So it sounds like Carl Reckard was a perfect victim,’ said Kate. ‘No ties. No friends or family. And a paranoid schizophrenic. He made so little difference to the world that nobody noticed after he’d gone.’

They continued to travel in silence along the 405 north towards Chatsworth. As she watched the traffic pass her by Kate imagined what it must have been like for Cassie to make the same journey in the taxi. At what point had she realised that she wasn’t on the way to Beverly Hills for a nice dinner? That the guy at the wheel was not a taxi driver, but the son of the man who had tried to snuff out her life. Even though Cassie’s physical injuries would heal in a matter of weeks, Kate wondered about the effect on her character. She hoped that Cassie would be strong enough to survive this second attack.

But then would she? How would she cope coming face to face with the monster who had killed that child and delivered it to her as a present. A man who had murdered a young woman just so he could cut off her fingertips and send them to Cassie. A man who had ripped out a tongue and gouged out the eyes and …. She touched her stomach and felt her baby move. What else was he capable of?

‘Right, it should be just round the next corner,’ said Curtis, looking at the GPS system on her laptop.

‘Okay, are we all within range?’ asked Harper, talking into his cell that linked him with the other officers. ‘I want both houses searched at the same time. The officers over at Ironside Avenue should act with the same caution as the team working with me. We all know what to do. Proceed calmly. But remember. This guy is dangerous. We don’t know quite how dangerous. He may surprises in store for us – be mindful of explosive devices or hidden wires. Before doing anything – and I mean anything – think. And we want him alive. If possible.’

The car pulled up at the curb. ‘Right, let’s go,’ he said. He waited for Curtis to get out of the car, before turning to Kate. ‘I’d like you to stay here. In the car.’

‘You’re kidding, right?’ said Kate, her ice blue eyes flashing with anger.

‘No, I’m not. You’re not trained for this kind of thing. It’s way out of your field. And if anything –‘

‘But I want to see the bastard who is behind all of this.’

‘Kate, I understand your need to confront this guy. But you can have your chance later. Once we’ve secured him.’

His eyes moved from side to side, as he was physically incapable of meeting hers.

‘What is it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’ve been like it all day. On edge. Unable to look at me. What is it? Josh, I can take whatever it is you want to say to me. I’ve been there before, remember?’

He sighed. Curtis, Lansing, and a back-up team were waiting for him. ‘I’ve got to go. But we’ll talk later. And stay in the car. It’s too dangerous. Okay?’

She didn’t answer. She watched as he climbed out of the car and spoke to his team. Within a matter of seconds the officers had split up, Curtis and a uniformed cop running to the back of the single storey house in order to secure the building, while Josh, Lansing and another cop, who looked vaguely familiar, moved stealthily towards a red-painted door to the right of the carport. She heard a muffled explosion as the cop blew open the lock on the door. Josh was the first to go in.

56

He stepped into a dark, narrow corridor at the end of which were two doors. One, he guessed, led into the carport, the other into the house. He moved towards the one that opened into the garage, gesturing for Lansing to take the other one. Peterson held back in case he had to come to the assistance of either one of them.

The door to the carport opened easily with one kick. He looked around the room, quickly moving his gun as if it were an extension of himself. He scanned every inch of the space in just a few seconds.

There was no-one. Fuck. Fuck again. How many times could this happen to him? But he had a feeling that the place was significant. He was on the trail of Ryan Gleason, the man who had been fucking him around.

What lay before him was a scene of chaos and disarray. Amidst the mass of distorted car parts, bottles of oil, tyres, hammers, spanners, he spotted a vice. As he walked towards it Lansing and Peterson entered the back of the room. The entire internal space of the house had been converted into a gigantic carport.

‘Who is this guy?’ whispered Peterson. ‘Some kind of mechanic?’

Harper ignored him. ‘What’s that smell? Anyone else smell that?’

He had smelt it many times before. It was the aroma that haunted his dreams. The stench of death.

‘I don’t have to remind you not to touch anything,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a feeling we’ll be needing forensics.’

He walked over towards the vice clamped to a table in the centre of the room. Around the table lay a number of tools, a pair of pliers and a serrated knife, its blade a sienna brown. Under the table, on the bare cement floor, was a stain, something as dark as oil. Quite recently something had pooled under here. Harper bent down and examined the sticky mass. It was blood. Old blood.

Cassie had lost a little blood during the course of her attack, mostly from surface wounds sustained to her fingers. Could it have come from her? It seemed certain that her description of the place where she had been held matched this godawful place. But there seemed to be too much blood here to make it hers. Far too much.

And that smell – where was that coming from? He stood up and walked around the room. In the left hand corner, the one nearest the street, was a single, iron-frame bed, covered with an old sheet and a couple of cheap blankets. On the bedside table was a pile of car magazines, an overflowing ashtray and a half-empty beer bottle. It wasn’t a salutary sight by any means, but the origin of the smell was not here. It was more – more towards the back of the space, nearer the side of the house that bordered the yard.

He moved slowly towards a bank of cupboards at the back of the house. Through a low window, fitted with frosted glass, he could see the feet of Curtis and the other cop stationed outside. He took out his cell and dialled Curtis.

‘Whoever was here has gone,’ he said. ‘Anything interesting at the back?’

‘No, just some junk and a few slashed tyres,’ she said.

‘There’s no point you coming in here. It would be stupid to contaminate the scene any more. But if you could call Reeves and get him over here, I’ve a feeling we’re going to need him.’

Josh stared at the cupboard, which once had been white; now, its surface was soiled by grime and what looked like old streaks of blood. The rank smell was emanating from behind its doors, he was sure. He reached out, his hand moving towards the handle. He watched his fingers tremble.

He dragged the sleeve of his sweater down to cover his right hand. He stretched his arm out, took hold of the knob and turned it. With each minute movement of the handle the smell seemed to intensify, almost as if the gesture was speeding up the process of putrefaction. As he pulled the door open he started to gag. He swallowed hard and tried to clamp his nostrils shut, a response he had tried to perfect over the years.

‘Get me a torch,’ he said, trying not to retch. ‘There’s something in here.’

Lansing moved quickly towards him, producing a torch from his pocket.

‘What is it?’ he said.

‘God only knows, but whatever it is it sure -‘

The words died in his mouth. As the beam illuminated the deep cupboard space – most of which was filled with old clothes on hangers – it settled on a mass of blonde hair. There was something familiar about the colour. Gently, careful not to disturb any evidence, he eased the head backwards so he could see the face. He reared back in shock as the swollen head of Cynthia Ross looked up at him from the dark. Her eyes bulged out of reddened flesh and around her neck was a loop of blue rope, a necklace of death.

There was something wrong here. The stench was overwhelming, but this corpse was fresh; it looked like she had been dead less than twenty hours old.

He shone the torch deeper into the recess. There was something else there, something he couldn’t make out. He ran the beam of light over the vague outline. What was the shapeless mass on the floor. A pile of old clothes? The soiled contents of a laundry basket? So distorted was its shape that it took a while before Harper realised what it was.

‘Give me more light,’ he shouted, taking hold of another torch.

He shone the beam of light onto a body – a man or a woman he couldn’t say – in a ripe stage of decomposition. The jaw was stretched wide as if fixed in a final scream, and maggots spilled out of the dark space that had once been the mouth.

Harper had seen many corpses in the course of his career, but nothing like this. Although flesh, sagging and rotten, still clung to the bones of the face, in the space where the eyes should have been there was nothing but two black holes.

57

Kate ran out of the car as soon as she saw Josh stumble from the house. By the time she was at his side he was on his knees, vomiting. She stroked his hair as he retched, caressed the back of his neck as his body shook. Lansing was next out of the house, also obviously in shock.

‘What is it?’ asked Kate, looking at Lansing. ‘Did you find him? I didn’t hear any shots.’

‘No, he’s not there,’ said Lansing.

‘He’s gone,’ said Josh, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Fucking gone.’

‘And -?’

‘What did we find?’ said Josh, sardonically. ‘Cynthia Ross – strangled – and the rotting corpse in a cupboard with no eyes, that’s what we found.’

‘What?’ She immediately felt guilty for what she had said to Ross. ‘How?’

‘Perhaps she got a tip-off and went to investigate, thinking that –‘

‘And what about the other body? Is it – ‘

‘The one we’ve been looking for. The one whose eyes were sent to Hoban. Kept him – or her – as some kind of goddamn souvenir.’

Josh stood up, his eyes blazing with anger. He looked at the nondescript house, with its flaking paintwork, its patchy lawn, its shabby surroundings. Who would have guessed that the person who lived here was capable of such crimes? How many other houses like this existed in LA? In America? In the world? He murmured something to himself.

‘What did you say?’ asked Kate.

‘Nothing.’ He couldn’t afford to lose his way now. He had to get on with his job. ‘Where’s Reeves?’ he shouted. ‘Curtis. Is he on his way?’

‘Should be here in twenty minutes.’

‘So you think this is where he – Ryan– lived?’ said Kate, softly.

‘Looks like it. Unless it’s Carl Reckard we’re looking for, which I seriously doubt.’ He turned away from her and walked towards Curtis. ‘Curtis – what’s the latest on the other team? Did they find anything?’

‘I’ve just spoken to them, sir,’ she said. ‘Apparently the house is lived in by a couple of female friends, who knew nothing of either Reckard or Gleason. Occasionally they get a piece of junk mail addressed to Reckard, but apart from that, nothing.’

‘And Roberta Gleason? She’s still secure?’

‘Yep.’

‘Okay. Let’s see if she can tell us anything. Maybe she’s hiding him. Maybe she knew he was alive all along.’

58

Kate watched through the glass as Josh interrogated Roberta. Tears streamed down her face, which was now all red and blotchy. Her eyes looked pained, alive with memories she had tried to bury in the past. Although she knew there was no other way – Josh had to be sure that Roberta was telling the truth – with each question Kate felt like running into the room and shouting at him to stop. She hated to see him behave like this, acting the tough cop, the big man, the adjudicator of right and wrong. She loathed the way he swaggered around the room, the way his eyes hardened, the way his face became fixed and mask-like. In the past there had been a couple of occasions – once in an upscale restaurant in the Hollywood hills, another time at a friend’s gallery opening – when she had had to remind him to stop behaving so bullishly. It was almost like he was conforming to some stereotype, some cliché of how a cop should act. She had told him then that she hated the macho way in which he behaved; but, in truth, it was one of the things that had attracted her to him in the first place.

‘So you’re telling me that you really believe your brother died on the night of April 4 2004?’

‘Yes, how many times have I told you,’ said Roberta, her voice small and weak.

‘So take me through it again. Tell me how it happened. How you heard the news.’

‘I can’t believe this. I feel like I’ve done something wrong. I haven’t. I haven’t. I told you Ryan is dead. He’s dead.’

‘Ms Gleason,’ said Curtis. ‘If you’ll just answer the question please.’

‘My client has already stated her position,’ interrupted her lawyer, a thin, wiry man with skin the colour of straw.

‘Yes, but if she would be kind enough to just repeat the story one more time,’ said Curtis.

The lawyer nodded at Roberta, who took a deep breath and started to speak.

‘On the night of April 4 2004 I came home from work after a long shift at the hospital. I had a shower, made myself a snack and started to watch a bit of late night TV. At about eleven thirty or so, I think it was, the phone rang. It was the police. They asked me to confirm my name and asked whether I had a brother named Ryan. I told them that I had, but that I hadn’t seen him in a couple of years. We had kind of lost touch after what happened with – well, you know. They said they were sending a couple of officers around to the apartment. When I asked them what was going on they said they had some bad news. Ryan had had an accident. A bad one. Apparently he had driven his truck over the edge of a canyon somewhere up near Moreno Valley. They didn’t tell me everything over the phone, but when the cops arrived I knew he was dead. I can’t say I was surprised. I kind of knew something bad would happen to him. I suppose you could say he sort of took after my dad.’

‘And you didn’t go to his funeral, I understand?’ said Curtis.

‘That’s right, I didn’t. I didn’t feel the need to -’

‘So you’re saying that you think he was capable of committing a crime?’ Harper interrupted. ‘The kind of crime your father committed?’

‘I don’t see what that has got to do with anything,’ she said.

‘I’m not at liberty to say at the moment,’ he said. ‘But you are confident that you’ve had no contact with Ryan Gleason since 4 April 2004.’

‘For God’s sake, what are you trying to do? Torture me?’ She looked at her lawyer for help. ‘Of course I haven’t had any contact with Ryan. He’s dead, remember?’

Nobody spoke.

‘Ryan is dead, right?’

Again silence.

In that instant, Roberta understood. The realisation was almost too painful to observe. Kate watched as her face contorted with a new level of suffering. She opened her mouth to speak, but could not utter a word. Then an awful cry, the scream of an animal in pain, filled the room. There was no doubt that what she was feeling was real. Roberta battled to control the waves of pain inside her. She struggled for air like person drowning at sea.

‘Do you want to take a break?’ asked Curtis, in a soothing voice. ‘I think it’s best if we resume the interview a little later.’

Roberta tried to take a series of deep breaths. She was determined to tell the truth. She had survived what her father had done to her. She could get through this.

‘No – I’ll be fine. Just a little water, please.’

Curtis stood up and fetched her a plastic beaker full of water.

‘Thank you,’ she said, taking a sip. ‘There’s something I need to tell you.’

She wiped the tears from her eyes and took another deep breath.

‘Roberta – you don’t need to do this now,’ said her lawyer. ‘If it’s something you haven’t talked through with me then I think –‘

‘No, I want to. I have to say it.’

‘If you feel ready,’ said Curtis. ‘But anything you might be able to tell us about Ryan would help the investigation.’

‘Okay,’ said Roberta. ‘You asked me whether I thought Ryan was capable of committing a crime – a crime like my – my father. It’s something I’ve never told anyone. I suppose I still wanted to protect him in a stupid kind of way, like I once wanted to try and protect my father. And I thought it was best to put all that pain behind me. You know, everything that had happened with my dad. I thought it was for the best, I really did. And especially after Ryan’s death. I felt finally free from it.’

‘Free from?’ asked Harper.

‘From the two men I feared most in my life.’

‘So you’re saying that –‘ asked Curtis.

‘That Ryan abused me just as my father did, yes. They did it together.’

‘And you didn’t feel you could report it to the authorities?’ asked Curtis.

‘I was scared,’ said Roberta, her face melting once again. She bit her lip to try and control herself. Another deep breath. ‘I didn’t know what Ryan would do to me if I ever spoke out. Nobody knew apart from Bill – Bill Vaughan. He’s passed away now, hasn’t he? But he gave me his word that I would never have to go on record with what my father – and what my brother – did to me. He assured me that the state prosecutor would have enough to guarantee – well, I never need worry about my dad again. I knew that if I ever spoke about the abuse I would have to tell them about Ryan. And – I just couldn’t.’

Her eyes stretched wide with fear.

‘And – now. What happens? If you’re telling me that Ryan is not dead, what then? I may as well end it all here. You don’t know what he’s like.’

Her breathing was getting shallower and faster and her whole body started to shake.

‘You’re safe now, Roberta,’ said Harper. ‘Nothing is going to happen to you. We’ll take you to a place where no harm can come to you.’

That’s what he had promised before, thought Kate to herself. What he had said to her. What he had said to Cassie.

‘But I don’t understand,’ said Roberta. ‘How? How can Ryan be still alive? Who was –‘

‘We believe that your brother may have deliberately faked his own death,’ said Harper. ‘It seems like he stole the identity of a Carl Reckard, a paranoid schizophrenic. We believe that the two of them were friends. Ryan set up the whole thing. Probably persuaded Reckard to take a ride with him in his pickup truck towards Moreno Valley. He may have drugged his friend, got him drunk or perhaps he knocked him unconscious. But somehow he swapped possessions, ID documents, clothes. Then he could have positioned Reckard at the wheel, let the hand break off, and threw in a can of petrol for good measure. He would have watched as the car veered over the edge of the cliff into the canyon. By the time it reached the bottom of the 300-foot drop the car was a burning wreck. The cops found Ryan’s car, together with a body and pronounced your brother dead.’

‘So Ryan’s still alive.’

‘We believe so, yes.’

‘And nobody noticed?’

‘Reckard had no friends to speak of and had had cut ties with his family way back.’

‘And where is he now?’

Harper went silent. He didn’t want to tell her about the digital image. That he had been caught on camera handing a package into the investigations team containing a couple of his fingertips.

‘I said where is he now?’

‘We’re working on that.’

‘What?’

‘We’re investigating his whereabouts.’

‘You mean you’ve got no idea.’

‘Roberta, I don’t want to bullshit you. It seems he’s disappeared.’

‘I can’t believe that –‘

They started talking over one another.

‘We’ll protect you from –‘

‘If he knows I’ve spoken to you about him – about what he did – he’ll come after –‘

‘Like I said –‘

‘Forget it,’ she whispered. ‘I’m as good as dead.’