Blind Spot Page 20

  A long silence before he said, from the other side of the screen: “He’s dead.”

  His two words sent a rush of excitement through her body. She opened the cupboard and took down a second tumbler. She fished another fistful of ice out of the freezer and plopped the cubes into the fresh glass. She picked up the whiskey bottle and held it in front of her face. Getting a bit low. She filled his glass halfway. She weaved around the screen with a drink in each hand. Passing one to him, she said: “Bet you could use this.”

  He went over to her bed and set his glass on her nightstand. “We need to talk.”

  “You already said that.” While she took a long drink, she inspected his clothes. Dark spots on his jacket and jeans. Red dots on his sneakers. Scuffs on his gloved hands. Signs he’d been in a battle. Another emotion started invading her body. Guilt. She fought the feeling. Rattling the ice in her glass, she said evenly: “He put up a fight.”

  He clasped his hands behind his back. “It’s late. Where’s your daughter?”

  Setting down her own glass and reaching to pick up his, she kept talking as if she hadn’t heard his question. “If you don’t like the hard stuff, I’ve got some wine. Red or white?”

  “Your daughter.”

  She took a sip of whiskey and attempted to feign confusion. “What daughter? What’re you…?”

  “What daughter? That’s exactly the question your husband asked—as I was executing him.” He leaned against her mattress. “Tell me,” he said. “The truth this time.”

  Screw it, she thought. He’d find out eventually, and there was nothing he could do about it. The deed was done. “Threw the daughter in as an extra. For a little sympathy.”

  “Clever.”

  She worked to make her voice sound light. Carefree. “A toast. To sympathy for the devil.” She raised her glass and spilled on the carpet. A stain on the white; she’d clean it up in the morning. She put the glass to her lips and drained it.

  “What part of your story was true, then?”

  Chris felt her belt start to loosen, but she didn’t move to tighten it. Maybe he’d get a peek at something under her robe and get distracted. Stop asking so many questions. She threw her shoulders back. “What do you mean?”

  “What part of your story was true?”

  “The part where Noah’s a self-centered pig.”

  “Your husband watering down the meds was…”

  “Fiction.”

  “It sounded so real. Detailed.”

  He sounded and looked calm, so she kept going. “Oh, it happened all right. In another state. With another medicine man. Not with my guy. My honest, boring golf guy. He’d never have the imagination.”

  “The bruises?”

  “My girlfriend. We like it rough.”

  “The Cindy on the phone.”

  “You got it.” She reached to set the glass on the nightstand and missed. The tumbler hit the floor with a thud.

  “You lied.” He added as an afterthought: “And you’re…a lesbian.”

  “Bisexual. Get it right, Padre.” She turned her back on him and headed to the kitchen, swaying as she went. Her shoulder bumped the edge of the screen before she disappeared behind it. She opened the cupboard and took down a third glass. She’d skip the ice this time. She emptied the remains of the bottle into the glass.

  “Was Anna in on this? Was Anna one of your…conquests?”

  The glass in her hand, she walked around the divider. “I liked Anna. I really did. I told you. She opened up to me. She was sick, and she opened up to me.”

  “So you befriended a dying patient and she told you about me, about my mission. You concocted this story and fed it to her—all so you could get to me.”

  She was spilling out of her robe, but her visitor was showing no interest. She was starting to get pissed off about it. She told herself he was obviously put off by her sexual orientation. You’re…a lesbian. He’d hardly been able to say the word. Was Anna one of your…conquests? Sanctimonious asshole. She’d rub it in a little. “My lover cooked up the big lie, actually. She used to rep for a drug company. Very smart woman, my lover.”

  “Two smart women taking advantage of a naïve dying woman.”

  Chris put the glass to her lips and tipped it back, swallowed hard, and shuddered. When she came up for air: “We had our reasons. They were good reasons, Padre.”

  “Stop calling me that.” He got up off the edge of her bed and stood straight and stiff.

  “Fine.” She went over to the windows and looked outside while sipping. My late husband, she thought. I have to start using that phrase now. He deserved it. Noah deserved it. We had our reasons. They were good reasons.

  “God doesn’t like liars,” hissed the man behind her.

  She wanted to tell him to get the hell out, but she resisted. “Yeah, well…”

  “No man who practices deceit shall dwell in my house; no man who utters lies shall continue in my presence.”

  “Give it a rest. Beating the drum for the death penalty, the holy-mission crap—that’s just an excuse. You like killing assholes. Blowing off steam. What a hypocrite you are, Padre.” She emptied her drink in one last gulp and turned to face him. She suddenly noticed how hardened his face had become. Attempting to soften her words, she threw herself in his camp. “But, then, we’re all hypocrites, aren’t we?”

  “The words of their mouths are mischief and deceit; they have ceased to act wisely and do good. They plot mischief while on their beds; they are set on a way that is not good; they do not reject evil.”

  She didn’t know what he was saying, and it frightened her. He took a step in her direction. Her eyes darted from his face to his leather-clad hands and back to his face. “You’d better leave now.”

  He took another step in her direction. “Why?”

  She backed away from him. “Cindy’s going to be showing up any minute.”

  Another step. “Good. She’s in for a big surprise. Big surprise for the big liar. The big lover.”

  Her back bumped the wall. “I’ll scream.”

  He kept coming. “And alert the police? Is that what you want? Maybe they’ll let you and your lesbian share a cell.”

  She hurled the glass at him. He dodged, and the tumbler hit the floor, shattering. He stepped up to her, stood inches from her. She could see the tears streaming down his face, and that terrified her more than anything else he’d done or said. “Why are you crying? Stop crying.” She raised both her palms to try to keep him away. Fend him off.

  He brushed her hands away with a sweep of his arm. “Stop talking.” His right hand shot up, and the vise clamped around her throat. “I don’t want to hear you talk.”

  Weeping, he dragged her to the center of the room, away from the windows.

  Thirty-five

  When Garcia and Bernadette couldn’t rouse Quaid by ringing his apartment from the lobby, they used the phone to call the caretaker.

  “What?” rasped a male voice.

  Bernadette noted the name over the buzzer: “Mr. Lyle. We’re with the FBI. We need to get into a tenant’s place.”

  Lyle: “Lemme see some identification.”

  She took out her ID wallet and held it up to the surveillance camera. Garcia followed suit. “Okay?” she asked into the phone.

  “I can’t see nothin’ with this damn equipment,” Lyle said. “Come back when it’s light out.”

  Bernadette: “We need to get in now.”

  “It’s the middle of the night.”

  Bernadette: “Sir. You could be charged with—”

  Before hearing what he could be charged with, Lyle interrupted: “Meet me topside.” He hung up and buzzed them in.

  Bernadette’s nose wrinkled as she and Garcia hiked up the stairs to the third floor. The place smelled musty and perfumed at the same time. The inside of an old lady’s purse. The stink fit the building’s frumpy look. The stucco exterior of the cube was painted a dated aquamarine, as were the hallway walls and c
eilings and radiators.

  Lyle was waiting for them, standing barefoot in the middle of the corridor outside his apartment. His bathrobe barely fit around his barrel middle. His gray hair hung in two braids, a red bandana was wrapped around his forehead, and a gold stud dotted his left earlobe. He looked like a fat Willie Nelson. At his side, his fist was wrapped around a baseball bat. The tip was down, but the guy looked prepared to bring it up quick. The two agents stopped short of swinging distance and held up their wallets again. Lyle studied their badges and photos while scratching his stubbly face with his free hand. “Good enough,” he declared. He relaxed his grip and rested the business end of the bat on top of his foot. “So whose tits are caught in Uncle Sam’s wringer?”

  Garcia: “We need to check out Damian Quaid.”

  “Why?” Lyle asked.

  Garcia: “Can’t say.”

  The caretaker’s eyes widened. “Is it bad enough that I should be throwing him out on the street come morning?”

  Garcia: “Can’t comment on that.”

  The guy said to no one in particular: “I knew that geek was up to no good.”

  Bernadette: “Sir, we’d like to get in.”

  Lyle tucked a stray strand of hair behind his ear. “I suppose I should be asking you for a search warrant or some such thing. Being the feds, I’m sure you’ve got all your ducks in a row on that rigmarole.”

  The agents didn’t say anything.

  “Not that I’m pals with that individual downstairs. Wouldn’t mind getting rid of him and putting something normal in there.”

  Garcia lifted his wrist and checked his watch.

  Lyle: “You guys can’t tell me what he did, huh?”

  Bernadette shook her head.

  “Don’t move,” said the caretaker. He padded into his apartment, closing the door behind him. A minute later, he opened the door and handed Bernadette a key. “Basement efficiency, across the hall from the laundry room.”

  “Anyone else living down there?” she asked.

  Lyle shook his head. “Just the hermit and the Maytags. His door’s the one with the cross on it. I caught him slapping one of them things on the laundry-room door and I told him to take it down. My washing machines are nondenominational.”

  Garcia: “Don’t suppose you know if he’s home.”

  The guy shrugged. “Saw him take off earlier. Didn’t notice him come back in, but who knows? Like I said, me and the geek ain’t exactly tight.”

  Bernadette: “Could be a while. What should we do with the key when we’re through?”

  The caretaker covered his mouth and yawned. “Lock up. Slide the thing under my door.”

  “By the way—keep this visit of ours under wraps,” said Garcia. “It’s a matter of…national security.”

  “Sure it is,” Lyle said dryly. With his thumb and index finger, he made the zipper sign across his lips. “Mum’s the word.”

  Lyle shut the door. The agents heard him dead-bolt it and slide the security chain into place.

  Bernadette looked at her boss as the two agents went down the stairs. “I think people are getting jaded. Bored with that particular excuse.”

  “National security?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Overused.”

  “Come up with another one if you want.”

  Their feet touched down in the basement hallway. Bernadette drew her weapon and said in a low voice: “I’m starting to favor that pen slogan of yours.”

  “Because we’re the fucking FBI.” Garcia unsnapped his holster and took out his Glock. They headed down the corridor, sticking close to the wall. Their way was dimly lit by a lone lightbulb dangling from a broken ceiling fixture in the middle of the hallway. The air was warm and moist and reeked of fabric softener. The old lady’s purse had morphed into an old lady’s clothes basket. They got to the laundry room. Light peeked out from the bottom of the closed door. Bernadette squatted with her back against the wall on one side of the door, and Garcia did the same on the other side. They listened, heard nothing. Garcia nodded. She pivoted around, put her gloved hand on the knob, and turned. Pushed the door open. The brightly lit room was filled with machines, but empty of people. She gently pulled the door shut.

  They moved across the hall and took their places, one on each side of the crucifix door. They saw only a dark band along the threshold. Hunkered down, Bernadette put her ear to the wood but heard no movement on the other side of the door. She knocked twice and held her breath. Silence. She slipped the key in the hole and turned. The click of the dead bolt seemed loud enough to alert the entire building. The agents froze, waiting for a reaction from someone inside the apartment. When no one came to the door, she wrapped her hand around the knob, gently turned, and pushed the door open.

  The apartment was a black, lifeless cave—with the exception of one light, one bit of movement coming from a computer monitor tucked into a corner. Three words repeatedly crawled across. Damian Quaid’s screen saver: Life for life.

  While Garcia navigated across the floor by the glow of the hallway light, Bernadette felt the wall alongside the door. She touched a light switch and flipped it up.

  Behind her, Garcia gasped. “Take a look at his wallpaper.”

  Thirty-six

  Bernadette went to Garcia’s side and stood at his shoulder, taking in the newspaper and magazine clippings. She put away her weapon. “Why did I expect to see something like this?”

  Garcia holstered his gun. “Let’s do some speed-reading.”

  She stepped to one end of the wall, and he went to the other. The two stretched and bent and shuffled their feet, moving toward the middle while they read. “People who paper their walls like this tend to end up on those cable-TV crime shows,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Never mind. Just repeating something a neighbor said the other day.”

  After several minutes, Garcia stood straight and stepped back. “As far as I can tell, these charming felonies have nothing to do with our man—or with each other, for that matter. They’re all unrelated.”

  She got on her hands and knees to read a clip that brushed the floor. “They’re all horrible crimes.”

  “Beyond that, I don’t see any common denominators. They aren’t even local. They’re from all over the place.”

  Bernadette got to her feet and dusted off her knees. She stepped back to take in the whole thing again. A couple of recent high-profile murders were excluded from Quaid’s wallpaper job. Absent were the kidnapping and butchering of a pregnant woman in Texas by her ex-husband, the rape-murder of a teenage girl in Florida by a neighbor, and the California killing of twin toddlers at the hands of their mother. Stories from other states were missing as well. Why collect news from some locales and not from others? What trait did the states on the wall share? It suddenly occurred to her. She pointed to individual clippings in the collage. “Minnesota and Wisconsin. That one tacked way up there, near the ceiling, is from Iowa. The two below it are from Michigan. Alaska. One out of Hawaii. Michigan again. More out of Wisconsin. The states in his collection have one big thing in common.”

  “What?”

  Bernadette: “They don’t have the death penalty. Nearly every state without capital punishment is represented.”

  “I don’t see Vermont. And what about—”

  She interrupted him: “The missing ones probably haven’t had a juicy murder recently.”

  Garcia lifted up the corner of a Detroit triple murder to read what was behind it. “You’re right. Here’s an abduction and murder out of Rhode Island.” He let go of the scrap. “Think he’s got plans to branch out to these other states?”

  “Not if we have something to say about it.”

  “Right about that.” Garcia peeked under another clip and another. Some were four layers thick. Four murders deep. He kept talking while he read. “On the other hand, you have to wonder if Quaid’s right. These scum should get drawn and quartered. Personally, I’m a big fan of the death penalty
.”

  “So we should let him go about his business. Play judge and jury and executioner and God and whatever else he wants to play.”

  “I didn’t say that. I can see why Quaid thinks they should get what they deserve. That’s all. Why should some piece of garbage walk around—live and breathe and eat and take a dump at taxpayer expense—while his victims are six feet under? Hell. Some of them don’t even get time. Look at the judge. Don’t you tire of the bad guys getting off so light?”

  “I see what you’re saying.” She was tired of looking at the newspaper wall. Too depressing. She turned around and stared at the other walls, decorated with a motley collection of crosses and icons. The crucifixes were plastic, and the tapestries were the sort of rags sold by street vendors. The velvet painting of the Last Supper would have been right at home next to a velvet Elvis portrait. Quaid’s basement efficiency reminded her of the bargain basement of a religious bookstore. She blurted something she’d normally contain in her head: “All this Catholic paraphernalia. My mother would have loved it, God rest her soul.”

  Garcia pulled his eyes off the collage and snapped his head around to stare at her. She stared right back and asked him: “What?”

  He returned his attention to the clippings. “A spiritual utterance out of your mouth. You don’t seem particularly religious.”

  She was offended. “I was raised Catholic, you know.”

  He turned away from the wall and pointed to the computer. “Think you can do anything with that? You know how those boxes work better than I do.”

  She ran her eyes over the monitor. It looked tempting—a treasure chest waiting to be cracked open. Memories of her past rash decisions at crime scenes—and the discipline that resulted—reeled her back in. “I’d hate to accidentally mess up some evidence.”

  “Your call,” he said.

  She thought Garcia sounded disappointed. “I don’t know spit about computer forensics,” she added.

  “Don’t worry about it. Let’s snoop around the Vatican the old-fashioned way.” He pulled some gloves out of his jacket and snapped then on. He started with the furniture, getting down on his knees and checking under the couch. “Pretty clean for a bachelor pad.”