Cuts Through Bone (12 page)

“How long did the deliveryman stay the second time?” Guthrie asked.

“Not long that time. He finished quickly.”

“Do you remember what he looked like?”

“He had a blue uniform with a cap. He wore dark glasses, like these kids do nowadays, but he wasn't really a boy, though he was a younger man. I could say the same of her boy—he wasn't really that young. He had dark hair and a clean chin. He had a smooth stride, very easy. Phil used to walk that way.” She smiled at her husband, and he pretended to study his cards. “Oh, and he had a light green van. I thought he might get a ticket the first time, because he shouldn't have left it like that.”

They sat quietly for a minute after she said that. The living room was dim with old wood. The light outside the window was very bright. “I didn't help very much, did I, Clayton?” she asked. “That's a shame. I wish I had invited her up here for cards, at least once.” Her gaze fell gently upon her husband. “Bad things happen in life, and regret can't make up for them.”

“No, ma'am,” Guthrie said.

Jeannette Overton nodded. “If you're going to stay for cards, maybe Phil will get you some lemonade.”

 

CHAPTER NINE

Guthrie ordered pizza once they were back at the office. Vasquez opened the laptops, discovering that they contained schoolwork and the traces of daily lives. Olsen used his cell phone for calls, but the laptops held the address books, mailing lists, and accounts. Only a few files asked for passwords. Guthrie wired the hard drive to his computer and drew a blank. After the pizza arrived, the little detective ate one slice, then let out a disgusted sigh.

“You finally realized that pizza's crap?” Vasquez asked.

“Huh?” Guthrie scowled at her. “So? My uncles flew most of that family over here in the seventies. They're family. And they don't have pizza on their menu—they make that because I ask for it. Anyway, I'm thinking about Olsen.” He studied the directory on the hard drive. “Those are some huge files,” he muttered, then stood and walked around the backs of the couches to look from the office windows.

“Watching people can make you chase your own shadow,” he said. “You carry your suspicions around with you, and then you can end up seeing them everywhere—sometimes instead of what's actually there. That's why we can't tell Olsen anything, not even part of it.”

The little detective studied Vasquez's blank expression and realized he wasn't making sense. While they finished the pizza, he tried to spell it out. If they told Olsen about the things they'd discovered—the eyewitness and the deliveryman—the big man wouldn't be able to think about anything else. He would start climbing the walls of his cell, and that would be as bad as his being shocked into silence. Olsen could know the killer. Left alone with his thoughts, he might realize it.

“
You
told the lawyer about Ghost Eddy,” Vasquez said. “And you told Tommy.”

“Maybe I'll come to regret that,” Guthrie said. “Jeannette Overton stays in my pocket, though.” He sat down again and picked up the phone. Vasquez went back to combing the laptops while Guthrie called downtown and talked a guard lieutenant into making sure Olsen contacted him. Then he began muttering about the size of the files on Bowman's hard drive. Ordinarily, casual users didn't fill drives with anything except for commercial software. Scratch files and databases took a small fraction of their space. Bowman's drive was loaded. The file names looked like gibberish.

Greg Olsen called from the Manhattan House, and Guthrie put him on speakerphone. After enough breath to say hello, the little detective said, “Mr. Olsen, we kinda need some background. Is it gonna be all right if we get some things from Grove Street?”

“Sure, if you need something,” he replied.

“Rachel's gonna ask you about some people, then,” the little detective said, ignoring her startled look and gesturing for her to get started.

While Vasquez quizzed Olsen about the names in the address books, noting down people from Columbia, Guthrie opened the paper files from the back bedroom at Grove Street. He flipped quickly through the financial records but slowed when scanning Olsen's military record. The big man had been discharged as a lieutenant colonel, wearing a chestful of decorations. His last was a Purple Heart. Olsen was stop-lossed for the final three of eight consecutive years in Afghanistan, without ever rotating for staff service. Guthrie extracted a single page from the file and smoothed it on his desktop.

The little detective waited for a pause to stretch after Olsen ran himself out describing to Vasquez what he knew about the people in Bowman's address book. “Mr. Olsen,” he said, “you've had a few days to sit and think. Have you had any ideas about who killed your fiancée?” The pause continued, and the detective filled it. “Maybe I should phrase that a different way.
We
have some ideas about who might've wanted to kill Camille Bowman. That didn't need much digging. What's interesting here is that they decided to frame you for doing it. Do you see what I mean? After that, it occurs to me that I'm less curious about Bowman, and more curious about you. You've had an interesting life. Have you got any ideas about who would want to frame you for murder?”

Quiet drifted, faintly counterpointed by distant horns and the thrum of traffic. “So you think this could be on me, then?” Olsen asked. “I suppose the seat isn't hot enough unless it's melting through the ice at one and the same time. That's different. Then you might not be too far off, and a pretty good detective with it. I don't doubt plenty of people would want to kill me, and line up for a chance if the carnival sold tickets, but I don't suppose they could get to New York.” He laughed briefly. “Then again, if they gave my name to Homeland, they might get a visa, with cab fare and directions to reach me. Is that who you mean, then?”

“That's better than what you were giving me, but you could start closer to the city.”

Guthrie's question foundered on the rock of Olsen's determination that no one would've killed Camille Bowman for any reason. The argument was a whirlpool. After a few circles, Guthrie realized the big man was simply defending his memory. He needed to be led more carefully. The detective started over by asking how he came to choose New York City to finish school, instead of returning to Wisconsin. Olsen claimed his primary reason was always at hand—with a bit of emphasis on
hand
—and pointed to Hillary Clinton as his model. She came to New York to enter the Senate. The state was forgiving of outsiders. He meant for Columbia Law School to be his springboard into politics.

Olsen volunteered for the army after 9/11. After serving, he felt the war was unnecessary. He decided Al-Qaeda was an idea that wasn't damaged by waging war against it. He knew that speaking up against the war wasn't popular. More Americans worried about lines at an airline counter than worried about soldiers fighting overseas. Coming back to discover the apathy was a rude awakening, but he had a constant reminder. That was enough for him. Then he met Camille Bowman. She was murdered, and now he was in jail.

“That's it?” Guthrie asked after Olsen came to an abrupt stop.

“Yes,” the big man snapped. “That's it. Six months and seven days ago, I realized I had my arms wrapped around her. That was like getting cross-checked into the boards—you just hold on, skate hard, and pray you're still on your feet. I didn't know that could happen. Then just as suddenly it stopped, twelve days ago.
End of report.
”

“If it was that simple, you wouldn't be there,” Guthrie said.

“Am I missing something?” Olsen demanded.

“Maybe that I ain't wasting breath on the obvious,” Guthrie replied. “Bowman was snatched outside LMA—pretty sure you know the place. I can find all that out without asking you—”

“She was at LMA?”

“Sure.”

Olsen sighed. “So maybe this is on me, then,” he muttered.

“What's that?” Guthrie demanded.

“I was a busy man,” Olsen said bitterly. “An important man. I left her alone. With time on her hands, she drifted back to what she did beforehand, now and then. I wasn't ever able to find fault with her for that.”

“You're saying that wasn't something you did together.”

“One time I went with her to that club, a long night I spent fending away drunken girls and prying hands loose from Cammie. Those youngsters are pretty forward, maybe to the point of already putting their clothes back on when you're finally coming to the point of taking your own off.”

The little man laughed. “I had a look,” he said. “But who knew about the gun? You did, and Bowman did. Who else?”

“Gettysburg! She practiced at Gettysburg, and Michelle always went with her. Maybe Michelle noticed something there. Talk to her—”

“Slow down there, Mr. Olsen. Michelle Tompkins knew about your gun. Michelle Tompkins came and went at Bowman's apartment. She had access to the gun—”

“Why would she do that?”

“Maybe she had some interest in you.”

“She didn't like me. She tolerated me. She was Cammie's friend. So maybe she's my friend
now.
I guess we had a truce, a few months ago then. When Cammie decided to be serious about her schoolwork, maybe that's when Michelle's attitude changed. That's it, because she harped on that. She was real studious, a supernerd. She was the tagalong at the party.”

“Cammie's party at LMA, you mean?”

“So now you need the obvious, then?”

“I'm not finding it so obvious. This could use some spelling out. Tompkins was along for the ride—in the party at LMA, and then at your party with Bowman, it seems. The three of you were together? I guess you can't call that a couple—”

“She was Cammie's friend,” Olsen interjected.

“A friend who sat on the bed with you? Or did you notice when they switched out?”

“That's not true!”

The little detective let a long moment pass to see if Olsen would say more. “I admit I didn't find any pictures of it at Grove Street, but the suggestion came to me. Now would be a good time to get in front of it. What occurs to me most is that Tompkins knew about the gun, and she spent plenty of time at Grove Street. That gives me something to think about.”

“After a few more years,” Olsen said, “I might not be caught quite so off guard by the abruptness in this city, but I hope that won't mean I've come to match it.” A moment's silence intervened. “Michelle didn't kill Cammie. She was the only one who was really her friend. She was the only one who didn't desert her.”

“I hear you,” the detective said.

The moment Guthrie cradled the phone, Vasquez said, “I don't think she did it. Why'd she send us looking if—”

“Does it matter what we think?” Guthrie asked tiredly. He stood, went to the coffeemaker, and poured a cup for himself. “Maybe Olsen was framed. But if we clear him, the next suspect is Tompkins. Then is she framed? Or maybe she did it, and now she's making it look good. Or maybe
he
did it. He should be as mad as a hatter after eight years in Afghanistan.” He took the piece of paper from his desktop and handed it to her. “Read it.”

Vasquez scanned the paper. “This's a job offer—a million a year for consultation,” she said. “He don't need to be a lawyer.”

“See the address—North Carolina. That's a private security firm. Really, they should be called mercenaries. The date there, Olsen was still in the hospital after having his hand sewed back onto his arm.” The little detective nodded. “They want him bad—see where it says call for a follow-up offer? They don't want him because he does a good job of tying his shoes. Greg Olsen's covered in blood. Our question is this: How fresh is the
last
drop?”

*   *   *

That afternoon, they drove uptown to hunt for Ghost Eddy. The sun played hide-and-seek in some thin banks of clouds beyond the Hudson River, but the streets of Washington Heights and Morningside were still glowing hot. Vasquez drove. She cruised up and down the blocks while Guthrie cranked the old Ford's window up and down to hang out and fire words at the street people. He emptied a large cooler of drinks and sandwiches, and reused some tired jokes until they finally found the cemetery. Vasquez quickly lost count of the names the little detective shouted. Some of the vagrants threw annoyed looks and drifted away without talking, but most came to the old blue Ford and propped a hand on the top of the window frame while they drank a soda and bantered with Guthrie. The afternoon slid toward evening.

The little man's search revealed the same information again and again. Ghost Eddy had gone to ground. The gray-bearded drifter was as canny as a fox. No one knew where he came from or where he went to, but they saw him haunting the streets. The summertime sidewalks had a heavy burden of loiterers and passersby for Guthrie to sift, and eventually his voice faded to a croak. The street women claimed Ghost Eddy wasn't eating as much, but Guthrie figured that for wishful thinking. Others pointed out his cans in the 150's, and a liquor store he visited on 149th Street, east of Jackie Robinson Park. Guthrie jotted down a list of corners where Ghost Eddy was spotted, alleys he passed through, and stoops he sat on, but the long afternoon didn't get them a single glimpse of the gray drifter.

The sun got lost in the clouds late in the day, when dusk was hustling toward the city. Vasquez guided the old Ford south on Broadway like a slow bomb. Guthrie had already mentioned a break for supper, but he was tapping his pen softly on the dashboard while he scanned his notes.

“Okay, Rachel, what do we know?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Ghost is the right name for this guy.”

“Sure, but he's leaving tracks.”