Body Guard (12 page)

It was true and he knew it. The man nodded and tried to hide the greedy triumph in his eyes. “All right. What’s the deal?”

Devlin filled him in on where to apply for the job and the people he’d need to keep an eye on. “They’ll advertise tomorrow morning. Be at the employment window before seven so you’re first in line. You apply for the warehouse job.” They worked out a cover identity: Vincent Landscomb. Vinny wasn’t all that imaginative, which, given Devlin’s memory of Chris’s body, was probably a good thing. And Kirk set up the communications schedule as well as a couple of basic emergency routines. The latter brought a frown.

“You and jumbo turd Homer gonna cover me, right? I mean none of this out-to-lunch shit if I push the panic button, right?”

“You’re a valuable property now.” Devlin smiled. “For once you’re worth more alive than dead.”

“Yeah? Well, you remember that, hear? And remember this, too: You’re my contact. I mean, if that two-ton blivet is my only backup, I don’t care how much you pay. You can shove this up your nose.”

“I’m your contact,” Devlin said, and gave Vinny a quick quiz on the information they’d gone over. After Devlin listened to the white patent shoes trip lightly down the iron stairs, he turned his chair to the window and gazed across the flat roofs of the neighboring warehouses toward the mountains. A couple hundred miles beyond that silhouette of the Front Range were the San Juan Mountains and, in a high valley whose surrounding peaks dwarfed the problems and purposes of those who lived there, the ranch where Chris grew up.

K
IRK CALLED THE
office answering machine when he pried himself out of bed late the next morning. Bunch’s voice told the recorder he was on his way up to Broomfield to answer a company’s inquiry about debugging their offices and telephone lines to qualify for bidding on secret government work. Sergeant Kiefer told it he had a copy of the forensics report on Chris Newman, and a muffled voice said cryptically, “I got the job. I start today.” Kirk and Associates’ newest agent was in place.

As Devlin headed for his garage, Mrs. Ottoboni, who owned the other half of the Victorian duplex, waved good morning over the low fence that separated the two backyards. Hers was a series of billowing colors—the result of a long summer’s feeding and watering and the flowers’ last efforts to draw life before the late-September sun dropped any lower. Devlin’s patch of yard was easy-care weed that merely needed an occasional trim to retain a touch of respectability. A few bare patches of dirt were the remnants of last spring’s planting fever. Only the petunias that had been a gift from his neighbor flooded a sunny corner of the small yard near the garage. Devlin thought Mrs. Ottoboni sneaked over to care for her orphaned seedlings.

“There was a man around yesterday asking about you, Mr. Kirk.”

“Oh?” Since a couple years ago, when Mrs. Ottoboni had witnessed a small fracas in his backyard and probably saved his life by calling the cops, she’d had a kind of proprietary interest in his health and welfare. Anything out of the ordinary—the milkman coming late, a new mailman on the route, someone asking questions—might be a clue for one of her neighbor’s cases. So Devlin received a constant nattering of Neighborhood Watch reports and newspaper clippings that she judged might be of help in his work. Exactly what she thought was his work, he never could be certain. When he tried to explain that it was usually tedious detail wrapped in boring repetition, she only smiled knowingly and nodded agreement with a detective’s need for circumspection in discussing such topics.

“He said he was doing a background check on you for security reasons. Asked all sorts of things about you.”

That was possible. One of the many types of jobs Kirk and Associates bid was to upgrade the mechanical security devices of companies that did classified work for the government. In fact, that’s what Bunch was doing in Broomfield this morning. “Did he show any identification?”

“Oh my, yes! A whole string of cards down to here! But they didn’t mean a thing to me—I wouldn’t know a real one from a counterfeit. He asked about your habits and if you had loud parties or if a lot of strangers went in and out. What your routine was like. If you’d ever been arrested or owed money.”

“Did he ask whether you would trust me with national secrets?”

“He did! And I told him I certainly would! Not that I know any national secrets. In fact, the whole idea of a national secret seems to me a contradiction in terms, and I told him that. He didn’t think it was very funny. A very serious young man—as tall as you are, but no sense of humor.”

“Did he say he’d be back?”

“No. I watched him, though. He went down this side of the street asking questions and then back up the other. I’m not sure what the Fettapaldis told him.” The gray head bobbed at the frame house across a narrow walk from her fence. “They’re likely to say anything if it can cause harm to somebody.”

“Sounds like a routine clearance check, Mrs. Ottoboni. Thanks for telling me.” And for indirectly letting him know that Kirk and Associates was still in the running for at least one of the bids they’d placed.

It was always hard to find a parking place near the police administration building during working hours. Devlin finally had to settle for a pay lot a couple blocks away. By the time he reached the homicide offices, most of the detectives were on their way to lunch. Kiefer, shrugging into his neatly pressed sport coat, paused long enough to toss a brown envelope Kirk’s way before heading for the elevators.

“I thought you were in a hurry for this, Dev.”

“I got held up.” He glanced at the Xeroxed pages. “Anything unexpected here?”

“Unexpected? No. But you might be interested in the cause of death.”

“Why’s that?”

“Doc says he bled to death. I kind of guessed that when there wasn’t much lividity.”

“You’re saying he was alive when they cut off his hands.”

“That’s what I’m saying. He could watch the whole thing. Maybe he passed out first. I like to think he passed out.”

Two uniformed officers entered the elevator on the second floor, and Kiefer and Devlin were silent until they were in the lobby. Kirk handed his visitor’s badge to the desk sergeant. He didn’t think Chris had passed out. His eyes were open and staring when he was found, and they still held the remnants of his knowledge of a new and unimaginable agony.

“You got anything to tell me yet?” Kiefer’s voice broke into Devlin’s thoughts.

“No. If I find out anything, I’ll let you know.”

Kiefer got back on the elevator for a ride down to the underground parking garage. “Ah. Well, I hope you do that, Dev. I sincerely hope you do. See, I really want the son of a bitch who would do something like that. My guess is, it’s not the bastard’s first time. And my guess is, if I don’t get him, it won’t be his last. So you be sure you tell me anything you find out. Hear?”

Nodding, Kirk watched the elevator slide across the detective’s stiff face. Even if Kiefer didn’t get him, it was going to be the killer’s last time.

He finished reading through the pages of the forensics report on Chris and tried to frame words into a letter to his parents— words that would give some idea of their son’s death, yet hide the worst and offer what sympathy could be offered. Every sentence he put down seemed like a cliché, and none of the words said what he really wanted them to. “Dear Mr. and Mrs. Newman—Your son was working for me in a dangerous job and a killer tortured him and cut off his hands and threw him in a sack to bleed to death. I’m sorry.” Sometimes you had to go around the edges of things instead of speaking clearly. That’s what, Uncle Wyn occasionally reminded Devlin, a college education was all about. And a man who had a year of law school shouldn’t have any trouble at all bending words. Uncle Wyn said that, too.

Finally he wrestled something into a rough draft and read it over a couple times to change a word here or rearrange a sentence there. He had a pretty good idea what would happen to this letter—the Newmans would place it in some paper mausoleum along with the other documents relating to their son’s death. Devlin still had the telegram notifying him of his father’s death. That, and the police reports and news articles. Why, he didn’t know, except that somehow all that stuff was a thread, admittedly tenuous, that kept the dead in memory and gave if not meaning at least an understandable cause for their destruction. So he knew that his words would be kept and read again and again. That knowledge made him prod them gingerly and with care. And copy the letter in longhand off the computer screen instead of printing it out.

The latter part of the day was spent peering at Jean Truman’s house. Her curtains were pulled open this time, and occasionally a dim figure moved past the windows with that busyness which foreshadows some kind of social activity. But there was no concealed avenue of approach to the condo’s window. The landscaping was designed to foil prowlers, and it kept him from moving closer with the camera. He hoped she was getting ready to come out, but she didn’t. Instead, a silver Chrysler convertible pulled to the curb and the blond man strode up the sidewalk that arced past the entries of Truman’s unit. In his late twenties, heavyset and with glistening hair that curled down behind his ears, the man rapped briefly and stood gazing around the neighborhood as he waited for an answer. Kirk had the camera ready when the door opened. But the woman stayed back in the shadows and the door closed quickly, and the click of the shutter was wasted film.

In about an hour, Kirk saw the pale blue smoke of a barbecue rise above the patio fence. If he listened hard enough, he could make out the tinkle of piano music from a stereo. But neither Devlin nor the camera’s telephoto lens could see a thing. As the evening drew toward that time when streetlights began to grow bright, a string of colored lights glowed softly under the arbor that covered part of the small patio. Later, the lights still glowing, curtains were pulled quickly over a dark window upstairs and a light shone briefly and then went out. Kirk gave it some more time, but the window remained dark and the tinkle of the piano continued. When he left, the Chrysler was still at the curb. It looked like Ms. Truman had found a cure for her migraines.

O
N HIS WAY
back from the Broomfield interview, Bunch had been called to Humphries’ home. The man’s tense voice had rattled the car phone as he demanded protection.

“We had another prowler last night.”

“Did you see anyone?”

“No. But I heard one. I did what Kirk told us to do—turned on lights, let him know we were awake. It must have scared him off. But I want additional protection—I want additional sensors and I want them now!”

Bunch drove slowly up the dirt lane that led to the ranch-style home at the crest of the gentle hill. Below, the shallow valley formed against the Front Range by Plum Creek was filled with sunlight and wind. Here and there groves of flickering cottonwoods or Lombardies marked clusters of buildings where executives played at ranching.

It wasn’t Mrs. Lucero but Mitsuko who waited for him at the door. “I heard your car.”

Bunch nodded hello to the smiling woman. She was braless, as usual, and the tight cloth of her slacks showed no furrow of underwear. He sighed. His rule was absolute: no involvement with the clients. “Your husband told me there was a prowler last night.”

“We think so.” She explained with exaggerated gestures that after they had turned off the television set and gotten ready for bed, Roland thought he heard noises behind the house. He turned on the back light and looked, but they saw nothing. Then he turned on the perimeter lights, as Mr. Kirk had instructed them to do, and crept around the windows trying to see if anyone was out there. “Roland was very brave. He told me where to hide and he went by himself to look through the windows.”

“Nothing?”

“He didn’t see anything. Actually, I didn’t hear anything, either, but Roland was certain he did.” She lit a cigarette which looked incongruous against the young smoothness of her face. “At about three in the morning, he jumped out of bed again, saying he heard more noises.” She shrugged. “I still heard nothing.”

“The perimeter lights were still on?”

“Of course. I’m sure the electricity bill will be very high.”

“If anyone tried to get in,” Bunch told her, “the alarms would go off. There’s no sign anyone tampered with the alarm feed.”

“As I said, I heard nothing. Roland hears things, but I usually sleep too well.”

“He said something about installing more sensors?”

“Yes. At the property line. He doesn’t like the idea of anyone walking all the way up to the house before an alarm goes off.”

Bunch looked out the window at the wooded acres surrounding the rambling building. “That’s a pretty expensive job, Mrs. Humphries.” He glanced at her. “That is your name, isn’t it? Mrs. Humphries?”

The cigarette paused. “Why?”

“I understand you’re also known as Miss Watanabe.”

“You’ve been detecting!” She clapped her hands and laughed. Bunch could almost count the silver notes that rose to the ceiling. “I am Miss Watanabe!”

“Not Mrs. Humphries?”

“Not officially.” She drew a last puff on the long cigarette and stubbed it out. “Perhaps not ever.” She held the door open for him to slide past her outthrust body. “Now, about those sensors … .”

Bunch could take a hint. He started a tour around the house, eyeing the windowsills and doorframes for tool marks, the soft earth at the house foundation for fresh footprints. The woman followed him, her glossy black hair cascading smoothly down her back to end just above the taut swell of rounded flesh.

“Is Mr. Lucero here today?”

“No. Just his wife. Do you need to talk to her?”

Bunch shook his head. Lucero would be the one to notice if anything around the grounds was disturbed.

“Do you know I’m only a little taller than your elbow?” She posed beside him to show the level of her head. The softness of hip and shoulder pressed against his side in two warm spots.

“How did you and Mr. Humphries meet?”