J. Daniel Sawyer - Clarke Lantham 01 (15 page)

He was sweating now. I caught a quiver.

“I used to be a cop, kid. I know the ins and outs. I know where your bodies are buried, and I know how to turn your parents and all the privileges you’re used to against you. Might even get their house seized if you go down for dealing. You think they’ll defend you then? Or will they be smart and listen to their lawyer and sell you for scrap?”

His eyelids now. Wiggling like a bridge in an earthquake.

“You don’t play ball with me, and I mean right now, and I swear to God I’ll make sure you do time for everything you’ve ever done. By the time you’re thirty you’ll be wishing I’d shot you last night.” I leaned in and whispered into his ear, “You hear me kid? I will beat you to death with the system.”

That did it. The tears broke away and splashed all over the table.

“Where’s Nya?”

“I don’t know…”

I pounded the table in front of him and shouted “Where is Nya?”

“I swear to god, man, I don’t know. I fucking swear. Last I saw her was last night, okay? Gravity had her into some fucked up shit, man. I swear it wasn’t my fault!”

“What wasn’t your fault?”

“He started cutting her, man. He had her on some shit I ain’t never seen, and she wanted it. Begged for us to hurt her. I swear I don’t know what it was, okay! That’s why I left! I swear, man, sooner or later they’re gonna kill her…”

“Who?”

“Gravity.”

“Who else?”

“Aww, man, you’re not gonna believe me…”

“Who else is in on it?”

“Her pops, man. Okay? Fuckin’ Phil. He’s been fucking her too, since Gravity came around. G thought it would be a lark, like we could do some real fucked up shit. Told her she should come on to him. She was all into it, like it was a vampire pact, right? Fuck…” He sucked a couple breaths in, but there wasn’t enough oxygen in the world to give him back control now. He kept shaking his head and muttering to himself.

“What?” What he was giving me, I didn’t need. I clamped my jaw down against the throbbing in my left temple.

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“It was Gravity’s thing, man. I just wanted to keep ‘em, ya know? He walked in and he played them like a tune. Knew just how to talk. They always had this thing, like a secret language, right? Like they were kids together or something. Sisters separated at birth, like. Or like their mom died and they were adopted out. They all got that face…you don’t get that face when you’re normal…” He trailed off into muttering again. I put my hand down on the table in his field of view. He jumped. “It was G, man. Fuckin’ prick. He spoke that language from day one. We meet him in Paris on that group tour last June, then it turns out he lives in town…I don’t know. Fuckin’ creepy.”

“What is?”

“I…I don’t know, man. Just all of it. G. Fuckin’ Phil. They all just fell over for Phil like I never seen. Sudden, like. Out of nowhere.”

“When? How?”

“Easter. I don’t know…not like he was some guy they wanted to play with. Like he was some kind of god or something. Same way they played up to G.” Little choking sobs squished out around his words.

“What are they planning? Phil and Gravity?”

“Planning? Nothing. They’re just doing what they can to have some fun.”

“Fun? Statutory rape…”

“Oh, man, come on, it wasn’t rape. They wanted it. They’re dumb bitches, all four of ‘em. Dumb as dogs.”

“And murder’s all in good fun too?”

“Hah!” He laughed, but he shifted in his seat, “Who said anything about murder?”

“You said it was getting violent.”

“Yeah, but you know how it is. A little dust, a little crank…”

“And you get carried away?”

“Huh?”

“They killed Steph.” Hail Mary pass. No other choice.

Rawles’s head snapped up. “Bullshit.”

“Heard it on the scanner this morning. They found Steph dead in Oakland. Strangled. Maybe raped.”

“No, man. No…” He started shaking all over. “Fuckin’ said it was a joke man. Said he was just yanking my chain. Fucking PRICK!”

He jumped up from the table and I caught his shoulder and slammed him right back down again.

“He said it was a joke, man. Show Phil who was boss. Goddamn fucking prick.”

“Gravity.”

“Fucking Gravity.”

“Why would they do it?”

He looked up at me—for the first time all morning he met my eyes. He didn’t say anything.

“Was Phil getting back at Nya, maybe?”

“Phil’s fucked up, man. That’s all there is.”

“So why did you say Gravity was joking?”

“Heard him say to Phil not to worry—it wasn’t like it was wrong. The girls were all monkeys, so we could fuck ‘em like monkeys. And we could put ‘em down like monkeys, just to see what it would feel like. Shit, man,” he was trying like hell not to sob his eyes out, “he told me he was just fucking with Phil because Phil was a pussy and getting all guilty.” He looked at me another long moment. “Steph’s really dead?”

“Yeah.”

A new volley of tears started falling.

“What else can you tell me?” Like I was his priest.

“Ain’t nothing else to tell.”

“You sure?”

“Fuck, man, they just axed my fucking girlfriend, okay?” He screamed himself hoarse, “You think I wouldn’t tell you?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. At least you’ll always have those pictures.”

Rawles was empty. I walked to the door and called for Kim’s favorite henchman, then I left.

11:30 AM, Monday

“You know I can’t hold on to him for long.” Kim slid me the .45 first. I checked the chamber, thumbed on the safety, and holstered it.

“I know. How much paperwork can you drown him in?” I propped my right foot up on the counter and took the .38 from her.

She sucked on a wad of chewing tobacco like it had all the answers. “If I pull out all the stops, I could maybe drag it out for three hours.”

I checked the cylinder, slid the snub into the ankle holster, and fastened the Velcro strap. “He’s nineteen, rattled, and clueless. If you could keep him till close of business, I’d owe you a big one.”

“No promises.”

“Call me when he’s back in the wild? Oh, and don’t let him see a clock.” I swung my leg back down to the ground.

“Clock?” She squinted at me like I was peddling hot watches and drummed all three of her remaining left-hand fingers on the countertop. “What’s going down?”

“Just keep him in the dark.”

She shrugged like she thought I was a moron. “If you say so.”

“Thanks.” I slipped her an envelope with five c-notes. “Forget I was here?”

“You got it.”

So, Rawles was a whiny brat underneath the bravado. I spent fifteen minutes driving out here, two hours cooling my heels, and twenty minutes leaning on the weasel to learn that shining fact—I could have told you that for a quarter two days ago.

The rapid-clearing sky overhead furnished me with a further useless epiphany: there’s a terrible gap in the US sunglasses market. Between people addicted to cable news and morons who get themselves kicked in the head in the wee hours of the morning, the guy who markets ninety-percent-darks to migraine sufferers is gonna make a billion.

And Phil was fucking Nya. Aside from a touch extra nausea, it didn’t give me anything I needed.

Pulling down all zeroes again, Lantham. This gets to be a habit, you’re gonna have to take a job at the landfill.

I went next door to get something small for lunch—little hole-in-the-wall falafel place. Got one with extra sprouts on the notion that the meaningless bulk would help settle my stomach, and chased it with a Coke. I grabbed a seat under the A/C—nice thing about Contra Costa, it’s the one place in the Bay Area outside Silicon Valley you can reliably find air conditioning, which is God’s best cure for migraines outside of a good snort of cocaine.

Not that I’d know anything about that.

Rachael was going to be into the office in a half hour. Wasn’t that gonna be the world’s most fabulous kettle of fish.

I dialed her—my foggy ice-picked brain had some notion that something needed saying.

“Hello, this is Rachael Oldman, identify yourself or face immediate reprisals.”

“Hey, it’s Clarke.”

“Oh. Hi. Something wrong?”

“Nah, I’m fine. Up on the road to Redding to meet a new client, probably won’t be in today.”

“Okay.”

“My phone’s dead. Forgot my charger. I’m on this backup if you need to get a hold of me.”

“Anything I need to know to hold the place down?”

“Nah, just some paperwork for the bill on the Thales case. I’ll probably have time to finish up the report and email it to you this afternoon.”

“You found her?”

“I wish. No, she called home. False alarm. Jittery mom.”

“Hmph, her mom should talk to my mom. They’d get along like Harold and Kumar.”

“Gotta go. Call if you need anything.”

“If I remember.” She hung up.

I forced the last of the falafel down, chased it with the last of the Coke, and got on the road.

For the sheer hell of it, I pointed the Malibu roughly south, on the notion that if Rachael found the body I’d want to be in the opposite direction from where they expected me.

Think, Lantham, think.
What was left dangling that I could pull on and get a juicy treat? What the hell was I missing—other than the good sense to check myself into an emergency room and get my head wound examined?

Probably everything. Judging by the way I was weaving, I was getting ready to miss the highway.

I shouldn’t have been on the road in the first place, but by the time I figured that out I was already down in San Ramon. Best I could do was limp off the road and drag my ass onto the side streets.

Hitting the end of the exit ramp at Crow Canyon meant not having the dependable whine of the road around me.

Ever walk up to the edge of the Grand Canyon and peer in? That feeling you get when the whole world seems to slide sideways like it’s on badly-greased skids? When you’ve got a migraine, changing any constant is like that. I just managed to avoid having to stick my head out the window by turning on the car’s fan full blast and shoving my face in front of the vent.

My neighbor behind me didn’t seem to care much for my attempt to turn the exit ramp into my personal recovery room. The horn bounced me back upright in my seat and I laid the gas on a little thick going around the corner.

What I needed was a place to lay back and nap for maybe another hour. I’d been doing fine with the recovery business until the solar system’s favorite fusion bomb decided it wanted my personal attention. A little shade, some more painkillers, and an hour with my eyes closed would do me up just fine.

I wound up in some of the newer construction near Bollinger—nice shade trees there, quiet neighborhood, free parking. Nobody would bug me as long as I didn’t make a scene.

A lot of the newer construction was condos—perfect wardriving terrain. Everyone wedged in close, everyone with a WiFi repeater. Chance of unsecured networks: High.

I popped the laptop open on the passenger seat—in the Civic I actually have a little desk that bolts to the dashboard. Enterprise tends to frown on physically modifying rental cars.

Nothing wrong with a little multitasking, either.

I caught a traffic cop in my rear-view about half a mile back.

Y
eah, officer, I know you’re not supposed to surf the web while you’re driving. But you can’t see me from back there, and I’m not speeding or weaving, so don’t bother me.

You can never be too sure with local cops, particularly in the suburbs. You get two kinds—the ones without the stomach to work in a proper department, and the ones without the academy marks to.

They pay an obscene amount for cut-rate material, and then the cops go bored to tears being stuck on traffic duty, chasing down kids who spin donuts on school lawns, and answering some of the dumbest domestic disputes in the world.

The laptop beeped. I pulled over at the top of a berm overlooking a condo complex. No shade here, goddammit, but there were six open networks. The cop was approaching from the rear, slowing down to get a good look at me. I closed the laptop lid and grabbed the case and stepped out of the car. Not a red zone, so no reason to hassle me other than he didn’t normally see people parked up here.

Now that I had a little adrenaline going my head didn’t mind so much. I circled around the car and headed downhill, behind my car, and followed the road as it curved back to Crow Canyon.

Once he saw me on foot, the cop lost interest and moved on. Me? I found a parking lot surrounded by trees a hundred yards down the hill, with enough shade to use the computer without having to strain my already-overextended-eyes.

The concrete of an unused-on-Mondays staircase gave just that extra measure of cool that let me relax and concentrate without working at it, for a few minutes anyway.

Email. I hadn’t checked email today. I had one from the title company.

“Clarke—

The property at 4365 Ackerman has been owned for the last twenty years by one Dr. Richard Sternwood. A full report on the title history is attached. A debit request for the title search fee has been issued to your PayPal account.

Let me know if you need anything else.

-Anders”

Sternwood. Doctor Richard Sternwood. Same guy I’d seen at Stanford? The same guy who was an expert on the birth defect all four girls shared?

Gravity had been at that house. So had Phil Thales, Jason Rawles, Nya Thales, and maybe Gina. A coincidence of that magnitude is the kind of thing that happens solely for the benefit of reporters for the National Enquirer.

So who the hell was this guy? And why was he suddenly at the center of the whole puzzle?

The good doctor wasn’t hard to find on the net. Turned out he was hoity-toity enough to have his own Wikipedia page with about t
wo
hundred links at the end of it.

Sixty-five years old.

Started at Stanford in the seventies doing fertility research and distinguished himself early with several IVF innovations. Lab scientist for a while, did a stint at Genentech as a consultant, went into private practice in the nineties doing experimental treatments for childless couples who’d had multiple IVF failures.