Signatures Read online

  I walked through that miserable drizzle, not raining and not not-raining, soggy musty heavy cold air as depressing as a night can get. I thought. I didn’t come up with any bright ideas. I stood in the middle of a bridge and stared down at the cold black salt water flowing, river at half tide rising, and wondered what secrets it hid. A lot of things got dumped in that river, and water, salt water, shields magic about as well as copper screening. I could be looking at twenty graves, right there in the acre or so of murk visible in the streetlights, “sleeping with the fishes,” classic concrete overshoes and all. Most killers don’t want their victims to be found, not like Kratz.

  So I walked for three or four hours and didn’t get anywhere, either on the ground or in my head. Finally, my stomach talked to my feet, bypassing that useless thing I call a brain, and delivered me to a breakfast shop down by the fish market where the work day started about the time most people got to bed. Some of those places make ptomaine look attractive, but Angie’s was a different kettle of fish. Or pancakes.

  Angie recognized me the minute I stepped into the haze of coffee fumes and breakfast grease, even though I hadn’t dropped by for over a year. “Sausage, ham, or bacon?”

  That was my only variable. At most, I’d gone in there once a month or less, even when I worked the night roster. Still, she knew me and remembered my order. That was only part of what made her place special. The other part, she’d mentioned sausage first.

  “What’s your sausage?”

  “Drucker’s.”

  “Sausage, then.”

  She yelled some incomprehensible shorthand back to her husband at the big Vulcan range and that was that. I found an empty stool with elbow room at the counter, balanced my weight on it, and she slid a mug of strong black coffee under my nose by the time I settled. Five minutes later, a stack of pancakes three inches high joined the coffee, steaming big pancakes just enough smaller than the plate to allow room for the syrup to run off, fresh creamery butter, real maple syrup, and six fat brown links of sausage on a separate plate.

  I like good food.

  IV

  I sat in my office in smog of my own making, straight Virginia burley this time, no flavorings or other muck, puffing on my third pipe of the afternoon. Two more in the morning. If I kept up at this rate, I’d run through my entire rack of six and have to start in again at the first before it had time to cool and rest.

  Kratz. The bastard had no right to break out of my nightmares to haunt my days as well.

  I shuffled paper on my desk, staring at photos, staring at lists, staring at opaque air and even more opaque clues. A week had vanished in smoke — smoke thick enough that the office walls and windows and doors turned gray around me to match the November weather, smoke thick enough that I stood a fair chance of setting off the fire alarms.

  But hey, a wizard is supposed to smoke a pipe. It’s all about the image.

  Cash had dropped off the reports that morning. She’d ditched the super-trooper uniform this time, had been wearing a puffy green jacket over a shoulder holster over some black bodysuit thing and skin-tight knee-high black suede boots. The whole getup looked like she’d jumped naked into a vat of Spandex. That woman sure knew how to distract male eyes from the fact that she was a cop and carrying.

  I’d wondered where she hid her badge and backup and cell phone in that rig. Then I’d decided there were some things man was never meant to know.

  Anyway, I’d spent the day reading technical cop and pathologist gobbledygook, learning everything and nothing. The city force had digested the crime scene and spat out, shat out, this. The state MEs had done their thing. Yeah, toxicology reports would take a month or three to wend their way back from the labs, but I could guess they’d come up clean. I’d bet long odds against a diplomatic courier drinking or doing drugs when on a mission, and Kratz wouldn’t need a tranquilizer dart to drop his prey.

  One detail I could have done without — the autopsy showed that John Doe had lived through most of the . . . process. “Victim probably died between the loss of his second lung and removal of his heart.” It fit our old Al Kratz profile, all right. He gave new meaning to the diagnosis of psychotic scum.

  Still, I stared down at my desk and shook my head. Nada. Bupkis. Null program. Cash still couldn’t tell me what the courier had been carrying, what his real name might have been, even what country would pension his widow and orphans. If he left any.

  The whole stack of paper told me nothing I didn’t already know, nothing that pointed anywhere except to a man who had been dead for more than a decade.

  I stared down at the photos again, spread out in a line on my desk, disgusting in their cold clinical detail. Bits of person lay in precise array like an illustration in Gray’s Anatomy, you expected to see captions and notes and little lines and arrows leading from the left kidney to its proper place under the sunken undamaged skin of the man’s empty abdomen. I remembered that exact scene from a killing fifteen years ago.

  And the precision bothered me. Kratz had considered himself an artist in his sick little heart of hearts. An artist never repeats. He’d done similar scenes, like a Rembrandt or Cezanne would maybe do several still-life compositions of a bowl and fruit and a vase of flowers, but each would be arranged differently, lit differently, use a different palette. Only hacks who painted Elvis on black velvet did the same picture twice . . .

  Kratz wouldn’t do that. That had bothered me from the start. But I’d tasted his signature.

  On the other hand, we’d gone seven or eight rounds that last time, enough to wear both of us down and do some damage, before the fire scorched my butt and chased me down the stairs. One reason he never got out, I’d just landed a solid left hook and a good straight right or two in the boxing metaphor, set him back on his heels and then dropped him to his knees.

  I’d scored a knockdown, would have had a knockout and the heavyweight belt with another minute in the ring. Enough metaphor-stretching. I’d hurt the bastard, maybe scrambled his brain. That kind of fight can cause permanent damage. I’d been lucky, no long-term effects. Or maybe not — I’m a bad choice to judge.

  The image of a brain-damaged Al Kratz didn’t comfort me much. It was too easy to see him turning into a berserk copy machine, endlessly printing out identical crime scenes like that water-toting broom in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

  Okay, I’ll stop now.

  I stopped the endless useless loop then, too, because I felt someone coming down the hall outside my office. Felt him in spite of the shields, although I couldn’t read more than the simple fact that he was there and he was a skilled and powerful wizard. It wasn’t Kratz, no such luck, I could tell that much through the copper screen.

  The stranger paused at my door and I heard a metallic clicking that had my hand diving for my left armpit and the SIG before I even realized what I’d heard. I’d already started to drop behind my cop-surplus desk and those comforting ballistic panels when the door swung open enough for me to see a pair of metal crutches held in one hand so he could open the door with the other, source of the clicking that had sounded so much like a pistol slide and someone chambering a round.

  I relaxed enough to look almost normal by the time his face showed. His grim bureaucrat-mode face.

  “Your office isn’t handicap-accessible. Federal law, you run a business, it has to be accessible.”

  That was a hell of a way to start a conversation. Old habits moved my shoe to the foot-switch, triggering my recorders — more cop-surplus equipment I keep handy because of the sad fact that sometimes folks deny things they’ve said and done. “My business is accessible. Call me, I’ll meet you any time and place you name. Nothing in this office is essential to my business.”

  “Bycheck. FBI.” He pulled out a black leather badge-case and flipped it at me, open and closed, and then tucked it back into his suit coat.

  I sat there and studied him, keeping my mouth shut until I could get out a civil word or two. He looked FBI, w
ith the gray suit and the crew-cut light brown hair and those cold arrogant eyes the surgeons must install at Quantico. Every FBI agent I’ve ever met looks like he has a steel rod up his ass. In case you haven’t heard, a lot of city and state cops don’t get along that well with the Feds. Power games. They don’t give, they only take.

  This one carried some fat here and there, probably classed as obese in Bureau terms, but I’d still guess I outweighed him by a hundred pounds.

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like a look at your ID. Anyone can buy a badge-case and wave it around.”

  He did mind, judging by his face, but he pulled his ID out and hung it in front of my face. That arrogance thing again. The photo matched him, and all that jazz.

  “I’ve seen forgeries that looked better.” I flipped through the old Rolodex, bringing up my listing for the local Bureau office, and started to punch numbers into the phone. The guy looked like he was chewing on broken glass, but he shrugged and pulled his ID out of the case and actually handed it to me.

  I set my phone back down and held the card under my desk lamp, turning, examining edges, checking reflections, the whole nine yards. The card looked legit, lamination seals and watermarks and fancy plastic and all, no evidence of tampering. It also felt right. Special Agent Janos Terrance Bycheck knew what I was doing, and nodded when I handed the card back. The man probably had some personal identity issues, with a hodge-podge of names like that.

  I settled back in my chair and waved at one of the other seats. “What can I do for you?”

  “You can start by opening a window and then throwing that damned stinkpot through it.”

  My answer was to take a good drag on my pipe and then puff that smoke into the pollution already hanging around. I don’t carry a badge anymore. I don’t have to act nice.

  “What can I do for you professionally?”

  He glared at me. Then he shrugged, pulled one of the office chairs over to face me across the desk, leaned his crutches against it, and sat. Awkwardly. It looked like he had a cast on his left leg, not a permanent thing, maybe knee surgery or a broken bone.

  I didn’t ask. That might have implied I cared.

  He gestured at the paperwork, with those . . . distinctive . . . crime scene photos. “Good timing. If that’s the whole file, I can take it with me and you can just forget about the whole thing.”

  I lifted one eyebrow and tilted my head. “You’re making the same offer to the State Police and the city force? Can I see a court order?”

  That earned me another glare. But hell, I wasn’t having any fun, why should he?

  Okay, I lied. I was having fun. The last time I’d had a run-in with the Bureau, my boss stomped on me and we’d both kneeled and kissed the royal federal ass. Now I didn’t have to.

  “If you want to take that file, I won’t stop you. But without you laying gag orders on three levels of jurisdiction, I’ll have another copy by tomorrow morning. They want me working on this case. Why don’t you?”

  Actually, I was exaggerating when I said three. Probably the sheriff’s boys were happy to let state and local cops handle this one. No glory and no headlines equals no voters. Nobody ever got far claiming that police work stayed clean of politics.

  If anything, he turned up the glare. Now he was chewing on rusty nails. His pinched face looked like they didn’t taste all that good. “Mister Patterson, this is a National Security Case.” Yeah, I could hear the capitalized title. “You’ve already seen more than you should. If you don’t want your license pulled and the IRS studying your tax returns for the last ten years, you’re going to cooperate with me. I understand you used to be a cop. That means you know what I can do under the current laws. Do you want to end up incommunicado in a Navy brig for the next three years?”

  That smelled fishy. Not that the FBI didn’t have that power — he could pull me in and make me vanish, and I wouldn’t even think about going for my SIG, not against Bureau training — but the way he jumbled things together, the way he looked and smelled, the speed . . . I turned and stared up at the camera in the corner. I could feel him notice that, follow my gaze, and heard the sudden catch in his breath.

  “The video and audio go off-site, before you get any bright ideas.”

  I didn’t bother to mention the other safeguards involved. I’ve been doing this sort of thing for a long time. A team of electronics PhDs and lawyers designed those systems for evidence-grade recordings of interrogations or legal depositions. Then the city upgraded, and I bought a chunk of the old equipment at junkyard prices. I’d made sure the shielding, seals, and protocols still met court standards, which meant Bycheck couldn’t fool it or fry it. I couldn’t either, for that matter.

  I turned back to him. I could smell nervous sweat now, a sweet perfume under the circumstances.

  “About that court order?”

  Bycheck hated me. I could smell that, too, but it didn’t bother me much. You’re known by the quality of your enemies. And I’d gotten a strong sense he was running loose on this, maybe “plausible deniability” for the Bureau. I may be a fool sometimes, but I’m an older and wiser fool than I used to be. Bycheck was FBI, but he hadn’t wanted me to call the local office.

  I considered placing that call anyway, and decided against it. Stirring up internal trouble in the Bureau would be a good way to end up living on that quiet island I’d managed to avoid before, living with a gardener or housekeeper spliced onto my fat ass like a Siamese twin.

  Or I could end up wasting space in the local landfill.

  You don’t think people “disappear” in this sweet land of liberty? Hey, I’ve got this bridge for sale, cream puff deal. Or some land in Florida, guaranteed to sit above high tide.

  Anyway, Bycheck sat there and fumed. I’m sure the experience was good for him. Adversity builds character.

  “Let’s start over from the top. What can I do for you?” But I left the recorders running.

  He took a deep breath and then let it out. “As I said, this is a National Security Issue.” Capitals again. “I want you to report to me only — anything you find out, any leads to that courier’s . . . package, any leads to this Albert Kratz, even any relevant dreams your subconscious sees fit to poke into your head in the middle of the night.” He pulled out a card case from a different suit pocket and handed me a bit of pasteboard. “Call me, not the local office. That’s my cell phone number. If I don’t answer, do not leave a message. Not even a ‘call back.’ Understand?”

  I tilted my head to one side. “Court order?”

  Bycheck glanced at the camera again and shook his head maybe a quarter inch. His lips were turning purple and white with the strain of holding words inside. Wizards shouldn’t let their blood pressure get that high. Stroke or heart attack risk, like I said.

  I nodded to myself. If he couldn’t even take this to a pliant judge, that old phrase “plausible deniability” kept echoing down the courthouse corridors. This stank like maybe the deepest, fullest outhouse pit I’d ever run across. Which would be pretty damn deep and full.

  I’d pushed about as far as I wanted to go. Anything more, and I might become deniable. I didn’t like that prospect. I made a mental note to send out certified copies of those tapes to five different secure locations. With contingency orders that involved hearing from me every week, no ifs, ands, or buts.

  “I’ll put you on the distribution list.”

  He drew breath for a rant, and I waved him off. “If I stop working with the local force and the state unit, that’s going to raise more questions than you want running loose. They’re not stupid. You’ve met Detective Sergeant Cash, or you wouldn’t be here. You know what I’m talking about.”

  I watched him thinking, watched him see his whole cover-up unravel from one loose tag of yarn. He didn’t like it, I could see that in the set of his jaw, but he came to the same conclusion. He nodded. He gathered up his crutches and used them to heave himself out of that chair. He glared at me.

  He d
idn’t offer any more threats, not with the camera and mike. He didn’t offer to shake my hand, either. I returned the favor.

  “Report every day.”

  “I’ll report whenever I have something. Right now, I don’t have a single word that isn’t matched on paper here.” I waved at the file, still spread across my desk.

  And that was God’s own truth. Like I said earlier, I didn’t have a clue.

  He shook his head again, turned to the door, and then turned back, awkward on the crutches. “This time, don’t burn up all the evidence.”

  Then he finally left. He didn’t even slam the door behind him. The man did have at least a little self-control.

  I sat there for several minutes, staring at the door. Not that I expected him to come busting back through it, Bureau SWAT team at his heels. I just needed to sort through everything that had happened in the maybe ten minutes since I’d felt him coming down the hall. He’d left me with more jigsaw pieces, for sure, but I thought they didn’t all belong to the same puzzle.

  First, he’d mentioned John Doe’s “package” before he’d mentioned nailing Kratz. I’d been watching his face when he said it. That told me Bycheck’s priorities. They weren’t mine.

  That bit at the door, I didn’t think it was just a pathological need to take the parting shot. He wanted that package, to the point where I thought if he had to choose between getting his hands on whatever John Doe was carrying or getting his hands on Kratz, Bycheck would choose the package.

  I couldn’t tell if those were the Bureau’s priorities as well. I had to think they were. Me, I wanted Kratz.

  Another thing, I’d kept sniffing Bychek’s signature. It had seemed a bit . . . odd. Powerful, disciplined — traces that I could probably use to identify his training. But there’d been something else. I shifted my brain a few degrees sideways to another angle and got it.