Blind Spot (32 page)

They circled the business center and found nothing. All the entrances were locked; the guy had closed up shop before Quaid took him.

The two agents hunkered against the side of the building. “Now what?” asked Bernadette.

Garcia pointed toward the parking area. As the two of them jogged toward the lot, sirens could be heard in the distance. “Here comes the gang,” said Garcia. As he and Bernadette stepped onto the tar, he ran his eyes up and down the highway, searching for flashing lights.

“Which gang? Whose case is this, boss man?”

“You shouldn’t have to ask. With all the weirdness in this case? The way it crosses jurisdictions all over the place. Dead judges and dead businesspeople. It’s yours, lady.”

She pointed to a car sitting alone in front of the building, under a lot light. “Victim’s vehicle.”

“Mercedes. Nice.”

They went up to the sedan, locked as tight as the building. On the ground next to the driver’s side were a set of car keys and a scattering of paperwork. Garcia and Bernadette crouched next to the papers for a closer look. “Bank statements,” she said. “Stannard’s name is all over them.”

“Think the killing’s connected to money?”

“Only marginally—if at all. This rampage ain’t about getting rich. It’s about getting even the Old Testament way.”

Garcia stood up and put away his gun. “An eye for an eye.”

She stood up and holstered her Glock. The sirens were closing in. She glanced in the direction of the woods. “Let’s get back to our pharmacist before the Marines land. I want to show you something strange in the eye-for-an-eye department.”

She knelt by Stannard again. “Check out the hiccup in Father Quaid’s MO.”

Garcia went down next to her, took out his flashlight, and trained the beam on the stump. “Wrong hand.”

“Yup.”

Garcia shrugged. “Maybe it’s because he’s left-handed.”

“Could be.”

He clicked off his flashlight and shoved it in his jacket pocket. “Another unpleasant question for the guy’s wife.
Was
he left-handed?”

“Stannard’s definitely married?”

Garcia nodded. “He had a band on his finger.”

“Wonder if they’ve got kids,” she said.

“If they’ve got kids, they’re minus one parent.”

Her jaw tightened. If Quaid were in front of her at that moment, she would have cut his head off. “I’d like to pick up the scumbag now, but on what grounds do we hold him? The evidence I’ve collected is…um…usually inadmissable in court. Otherwise, all we’ve got is a shoe print. I suppose we could interview the husband of that Fontaine woman and—”

Garcia interrupted her. “Let’s drive over to Quaid’s place right now and see if he’s got anything we can use.”

She got up off her knees. “We know where he lives?”

“After I left your place this afternoon, I went back to the office and dug into the driver’s-license database. Tapped some of our massive federal resources.” Garcia pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket.

Bernadette watched him tipping the square this way and that so he could read it by the shine of the cemetery- and streetlights. While she’d been searching for Quaid her way, Garcia had been doing some digging using his own tools. They’d make a good team, if only he could learn to take her seriously
before
the bodies started turning up.

“It’s a St. Paul address,” he announced. “Cathedral Hill neighborhood, I think. Could be a bogus address. Old address. Father Pete said he’d heard the guy had moved back to the sticks after he left the priesthood. But who knows? We could get lucky. There are those rare occasions when you ring the doorbell and the one you’re looking for is the person who answers.”

“Happens every day on television,” she said.

They heard what sounded like a bull barreling through the woods. Overhead, a helicopter hovered. “Our crew’s here,” Garcia said. He stuffed the address back in his jacket and took out his car keys. “Let’s brief the gang and then hit the road.”

“What if he doesn’t come to the door when we ring? We don’t have a—”

He raised his hand and interrupted her. “Don’t worry about it.”

Bernadette: “Because we’re the fucking FBI.”

Thirty-four

Startled by the tap on her apartment door, Chris Stannard almost dropped her drink. Had Cindy forgotten her key again? She checked the clock on the microwave oven. The numbers were out of focus. She squinted and concentrated on the glowing digits until she could read them. Too early for Cindy to be showing up.

The voice on the other side of the door: “Reg Neva. Open up before I wake the neighbors.”

“Okay, okay.” She took a fortifying gulp of liquor, set her glass down on the kitchen counter, and tightened the belt around her robe. Opening the door, she peered through the gap. “What do you want?”

“We agreed to meet here tonight.”

“Gimme a minute.” She closed the door, went over to her nightstand, and reached inside her purse. Taking out her perfume, she dabbed a dot on her throat and rubbed a line of scent between her breasts. She went back to the door, moving her hand to unlatch the security chain. She hesitated. Had she agreed to get together with him tonight? Could be. She couldn’t remember. She took down the chain and let him inside. She closed the door after him, quickly combed her hair with her fingers, and turned around to face him. Resting her back against the door, Chris took in his figure. Through her dizzy, whiskey eyes, he looked even better than before. He smelled good, too. Sweat and the outdoors. Too bad he didn’t want her. She wished she still had that whiskey in her hand.

He folded his arms in front of him. “I just came from your castle in Sunfish Lake.”

She didn’t like hearing that. “What the hell were you doing there?”

“Looking for you.”

Two questions swam through the alcohol and floated to the top of her head.
If we’d agreed on meeting here tonight, why had he tried the house first? How did he find the house?
She blurted the second question out loud: “How’d you find my house?”

“The address was all over your husband’s business papers. Sunfish Lake’s down the highway from Mendota Heights.” He smiled. “Easy to find.”

“Excuse me a second,” she said numbly. She really wanted that drink. She went back into the kitchen and retrieved her tumbler. The ice was melted. She opened the freezer, pulled a handful of cubes out of the plastic bag, and dropped them into her glass.

“We need to talk,” he said.

“So talk.” She eyed her glass. Too much ice; now she needed more whiskey. Chris snatched the bottle off the counter and poured.

“Come out here and look at me.”

“Did you do it?” Resting one hand against the edge of the counter, she waited motionless in the kitchen for the answer.

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.”