Chasing Ghosts (9 page)

Dagger scanned the cardinal’s prints into the
computer and zipped them off to Skizzy to check through AFIS to
verify the cardinal’s identity. Padre had taken pictures of every
inch of the suite and planned to show them to the cardinal tomorrow
to attest to the contents and confirm that nothing had been
stolen.

Sara hadn’t said one word to him since he
returned home. He could feel eyes drilling a hole in his back. The
bruise on her neck had vanished completely, a testament to her
rapid healing abilities. His ribs still ached and his bruises
looked like he had gone six rounds with Ali. He turned from the
computer to find Sara sitting on the couch, bare feet propped on
the coffee table. She was flipping through pages of a magazine
barely looking at the pictures, her tanned legs clad in floral
capri pants. One of his jobs was to keep her safe and she was
almost killed tonight. Maybe involving her wasn’t the right thing
to do.

“
I said I was sorry, Sara. If I had
known it was going to be dangerous, I would never have sent you.”
Other than drilling him with those laser blue eyes, she said
nothing.

After several additional seconds of chill,
Sara tossed the magazine on the coffee table and announced, “I want
my own car.”

Dagger blinked. “What?”

“
I want my own car. You drove the
Beemer and left me with that rattle trap you call a classic. The
truck isn’t something I care to drive in heels nor is my
motorcycle, although the truck no longer exists since that’s the
vehicle Demko Number Two fell on. The Navigator is as long as a
limo and too cumbersome for me to handle and I’m not familiar with
the Taurus. I want something that’s mine.”

“
So, that’s all it takes.” Dagger moved
her feet and plopped down on the coffee table in front of her.
“Bodies fall on you, you fall out of a window, almost get blown up,
but all you want is a car. A woman after my own heart.” He grabbed
her hands and held on tight, thankful that her fear of people no
longer applied to him. His patience had paid off and seeing the
smile radiating on her face filled him with a thrill that could
only be equaled by the purchase of a new weapon. Sara never asked
for much. Not like most women. Sheila used to drag him off to
jewelry stores for the latest bauble that caught her eye. He felt
it was a waste of money. Not to be denied, Sheila would buy it for
herself and tell her friends that it was a present from
Dagger.

“
What kind of car do you
want?”

“
A PT Cruiser convertible.”

“
Done.”

Sara cocked her head, not sure she heard him
right. “Really?

“
Really.”

She threw her arms around his neck and kissed
his cheek. “Thank you.” She jumped from the couch and ran up the
stairs to her bedroom.

Dagger started to second guess his motives.
Was he trying to compete in some way with Nick Tyler? Would Nick
turn around and buy her a Jaguar to show him up? Sheila would have
asked for a Mercedes or Lexus but all Sara wanted was a PT Cruiser.
Just to see that dazzling smile of Sara’s was enough for him. Then
he frowned.

“
HEY! What about my truck?”

CHAPTER 11

Luther pulled his mask off and motioned for
Padre to follow. They each had endured three hours of restless
sleep last night knowing this was going to be an unusually gruesome
autopsy. But they hadn’t realized how shockingly gruesome.

Luther’s assistant, Gretchen, had completed
the autopsy on Hank Hanover, the security guard found dead in the
cardinal’s bedroom. No surprises there. He had been asphyxiated and
his neck broken by a very powerful force.

It was the remains in the hotel parking lot
that Luther chose to handle. He loved challenges. When Padre had
surveyed the crime scene, there had been something eerily familiar
about the victim. Of course the body would be reduced to pieces
that could fit in a cigar box. But it was the shoes they had found,
the shoes with socks and feet. How many similar deaths had they
found in their combined lifetimes? Zip. Nada.

Luther settled behind a gray metal desk that
looked like a holdover from his grade school days. If they ever had
another earthquake or tornado in the Northwest Indiana area, he
knew hiding under this desk would save his life. “Maybe my wife has
been serving me a dose of psychedelic mushrooms, but this is just
too bizarre.” Luther snapped up a piece of paper and flung it
across the desk followed by a second piece of paper.

“
What am I looking at?” Padre asked.
“These are fingerprints. You found fingers?”

“
The hands did their own walking, or
flying in this case,” Luther said, eliciting a complete lack of
humor from the detective. Luther cleared his throat. “They are
identical.”

Padre stared at the prints then waited,
flapped his hand repeatedly for more information.

“
The prints on the left are from our
guy in the quarry. The prints on the right are from our parking lot
victim.”

“
No, no, no. Don’t do this to me again.
My old heart can only take so much in one lifetime.”

The high back leather chair squeaked as
Luther rocked. His eyes took on a familiar gleam which told Padre
the M.E. anticipated a stimulating case. “Same blood type, same
prints, same socks, same damn shoes, and I bet once we get it back
it will be the same DNA.”

Padre held his head and leaned back to stare
at the ceiling. “Why me, Lord? What’s wrong with Gary or South
Bend? What have I ever done? Are you pissed I quit the seminary? Is
that it?”

“
If you are expecting an answer, you’ve
got a long wait.” Luther rattled more papers. “I’ve got
more.”

Padre straightened and glared across the
table. “Can my heart take it?”

“
Don’t know. Those red hairs we found
in the suite? Synthetic.”

“
Wig. So maybe the maid was wearing a
wig.”

Luther smiled. It was a devilish smile that
told Padre he was enjoying this way more than he should.

“
Some of the clothing not completely
burned looked like a uniform. And there were women’s athletic shoes
near the wreckage.”

Padre pulled out a stick of gum and shoved it
in his mouth. He wanted a cigarette so bad that as soon as he left
Luther’s office he planned to smoke ten in a row. Maybe he would
just crumble them up and graze on them. “You’ve got that
shit-eatin’ grin on your face. Let me have it.”

“
No other remains.”

Padre paused a beat. “Gotta be. How can you
tell with what little was left of the victim?”

“
Shoes were empty. Only one blood type
on the remains.”

“
Were the shoes right by the car?
Probably unrelated. It’s the employee entrance, someone probably
dropped her work shoes accidentally. Same with her
uniform.”

Luther shrugged. “How many red-haired women
on the housekeeping staff?”

Padre shook his head. “Only one and she’s
home nursing a newborn.” He could see Luther about to ask another
question. After working so many years together he could just about
anticipate how Luther’s mind worked. “We’ve gone over the camera
footage from the hotel lobby. The employee entrance doesn’t have a
camera, nor does the Presidential Suites floor. They want the rich
and famous to have their privacy.”

“
What about your crime techs?” Luther
asked. “Did they find any fuses? Remains of incendiary devices,
something to point to how one body falling can result in such a
large explosion?”

“
They had to wait for the cars to cool
down before transporting them to the lab. They’ll let me know what
they find.” Padre rose from the chair saying, “That it?”

Luther placed what looked like a pen on the
desk. Both ends looked melted from the heat. “This was still
clutched in one of his hands.”

Dagger inhaled the coffee and felt more like
mainlining it. They had come up empty-handed when examining Esrey’s
briefcase. There hadn’t been one questionable document. Only
speeches, a daily calendar, travel itinerary, and correspondence.
Fingerprint analysis also confirmed that Cardinal Esrey was
Cardinal Esrey, age fifty-seven, born in Atlanta, Georgia, although
he had lost his accent years ago, as far as Dagger could tell. His
itinerary over the past five years had him crisscrossing the globe,
visiting Rome several times a year, and he had been one of the few
cardinals allowed to visit Cuba.

Dagger read Esrey’s bio again, tried to piece
together why and how he knew him. How could he be so sure he had
killed Esrey five years ago when Dagger couldn’t remember where and
exactly when it had happened? And the proof had been right across
the dinner table from him. He had watched the cardinal’s eyes for
some sign of recognition but if he had ever seen Dagger before, he
hadn’t let on. And who exactly was Demko and his twin brother? Were
they associated with radical groups or was someone else targeting
the cardinal? Did Demko Number Two die the same way as Demko Number
One?

Sara walked into the kitchen wearing shorts
and a floral top tied at her waist. As she reached for the coffee
pot, her tanned midriff was exposed. Her sandals wrapped around her
ankles like a Roman chariot driver. At the young age of nineteen,
she hadn’t succumbed to the popularity of tattoos and body
piercing. It was easy to understand why she would shy away from
such fads. When she shifted, her jewelry, whether it be earrings or
a necklace, would look out of place on a hawk or wolf. She didn’t
even polish her nails. The only jewelry she did wear was one
diamond stud earring which was a tracker so if she were ever
injured in her shifted form, Dagger would be able to locate her.
Her stud earring was a match to the one Dagger wore.

“
You are going car shopping dressed
like that?”

Sara looked down at her shorts. “What’s wrong
with it?”

“
Car salesmen take advantage of drab
married women with three kids in tow. They get one look at you and
they will jack the price up and convince you that you need every
option they have to offer. You look like you don’t know a thing
about cars.”

“
I don’t know anything about cars other
than what’s cute.”

“
Which is why I’m going.”

“
No guns.”

“
No problemo.”

“
I was hoping to drive it home
today.”

Dagger parked the Navigator at the side lot
of the Ritz. He had wanted to see the back lot where Demko had
taken a dive. “Let them get the pin striping done and add the alarm
and better sound system. Then we’ll take it over to Skizzy and have
him remove the GPS tracking system. Patience. At least I didn’t
shoot the guy.”

And he hadn’t. He had walked into the
showroom, Sara had picked out the car she wanted, a shiny candy
apple red, and Dagger had told the salesman he wanted to see the
factory receipt. The salesman had taken one look at the tall man
dressed in black, his dark gaze that was unsettling, the slight
bulge at his hip, and nodded in agreement. Dagger opened a suitcase
of cash to pay in full. It seemed the salesman couldn’t write up
the contract fast enough just to get Dagger out of his
showroom.

Crime scene tape circled the back lot. Owners
of the remaining cars in the lot had been irate that they couldn’t
claim their cars until Padre had cleared the area. The charred
vehicles had been removed. The lot looked as though it had been
swept clean. Dagger stood back and stared up at the twelfth floor
where one large panel of glass was completely missing. Crime techs
had obviously removed the entire panel and taken it back to the
lab. Workmen were busy inserting plywood, a temporary fix until a
new window could be delivered.

Dagger scanned the outer perimeter of the
yellow tape, then took a slow stroll. “Keep your eyes out for a
piece of metal,” he told Sara.

“
Has Skizzy identified it yet?” Sara
asked, referring to the metal piece that almost hit Skizzy in the
head at the quarry.

“
Other than being certain it’s a
government implant, no. Hasn’t found anything in the government
databases on it.”

Sara stood back and concentrated on the
surrounding area. If one were to get close, they would see that her
eyes’ irises had become more elliptical in shape. She had called on
the enhanced eyesight of the hawk to search the area. She focused
on the lot itself, what might have landed under cars, against the
curbs, near garbage cans. Then she focused on grass outside the
taped area. The police would have no way of knowing how far away
the evidence would have landed.

“
Looking for this?” Padre had crept up
on them. He held out his hand, a round piece of charred metal in
the palm.

Dagger tried not to flinch as he saw the
familiar piece of metal. “What is it?”

“
You tell me.” In Padre’s other hand
was a lit cigarette. He took a long, satisfying drag, blowing the
smoke out slowly.

“
I knew you’d fold, Padre,” Dagger said
with a nod toward the cigarette.

“
Well, I live to quit another day.” He
motioned toward the large area within the yellow tape. “Lot of
debris over a pretty big area. Five burned out vehicles. Luckily
only one fatality, except for the guy upstairs, of
course.”

Sara asked, “Have you identified him?”

“
The diver? Not yet. He was kind enough
to leave some fingers behind. Other than that, not much of him
left.” He held up the metal object for them to see more closely.
“Except this.”