Nathan's Run (1996) (39 page)

"That's his car:' Harry offered. "In the same spot as yesterday." "Does the place look odd to you?" Jed asked.

Harry studied the front of the house for a moment. "No," he said. "Looks like a house. What are you thinking?"

"I don't know," Jed mused. "Looks odd to me for some reason. Like nobody's home. All the blinds are shut."

"Well, his car's still in the driveway," Harry reminded him. "My guess is he's just trying to keep the place cool."

Jed said nothing else. He opened the car door and walked silently up the sloping front yard toward the porch. Harry followed, three steps behind. The younger man was startled when Jed withdrew his big nine-millimeter Glock from the high-hip holster under his sportcoat.

"What's up?" Harry asked as he drew his own weapon.

"Don't know," Jed replied, whispering now. "Just doesn't feel right."

Standing off to the hinge side of the door, out of harm's way in case someone blasted bullets through the door, Jed knocked loudly enough to draw a look from the neighbor across the street. There was no response. Harry took a mirror position to Jed, on the knob side. Seeing the guns, the neighbor moved quickly inside, gathering her five-year-old daughter in her arms.

Jed knocked louder. "Mark Bailey!" he shouted. "This is the police. Open the door!" In the humid air of the still neighborhood, his voice echoed off the houses. Despite the noise, nothing moved from within Mark Bailey's house.

Jed eyed the doorknob, then nodded to Harry, who reached down and tried to turn it. When it didn't budge, he returned his eyes to Jed and shook his head.

Jed swung away from his defensive position and took a shooter's stance, two-handing his aim at the door, while Harry swung around to jam the sole of his boot into the door just adjacent to and a little above the knob. As though blasted open with dynamite, the steel door exploded inward with a crash and rebounded closed, just as Harry dove sideways to catch the door with his shoulder. From his awkward position on his left side, Harry could cover the front hallway to the right. In three quick steps, Jed darted into position to cover the left.

"Mark Bailey!" Jed yelled again. "Police officers!" Harry scrambled to his feet, staying crouched down low, ready for action. Still, nothing moved.

"Check out this level:' Jed instructed. "I'll go upstairs."

They split up, and even as they parted, Jed knew what they would find. There is a smell to death, a thick sweet odor. Over the years, he'd learned to detect even the faintest traces of the stench. Mark Bailey's house reeked of it. Jed had just reached the top of the stairs when Harry called out from the living room.

"Oh, shit!" shouted Harry, clearly unnerved. "Oh, Christ, Sergeant, I found him! He's in the living room! He's dead."

I knew it, Jed thought as he headed back downstairs.

Harry was finishing a frantic primary search of the first floor while Jed entered the living room, holstering his weapon. "Bad guy gone?" he asked, inwardly amused by the fear on the young cop's face.

Harry nodded. "Yeah," he said, "the place is clean. Look at him, though. That's disgusting:'

"Yeah," Jed agreed as he surveyed the body, instinctively reaching for his little notebook. "He sure as hell pissed somebody off."

Mark Bailey's body was tied rigidly into a dining room chair, his head cast backwards over the chair back. His mouth was open wide, a yawning cavern rimmed with crimson smears. His graying blond hair dangled heavily, matted and violet. In the middle of it all, a long finger of extruded brain tissue extended like a ponytail from a ragged hole in the crown of his skull. Both arms dangled limply at his sides. Harry was the first to notice that the cast had been removed from Mark's right arm, and that his purple, swollen fingers were twisted at horrifying angles.

Using a handkerchief to hold the receiver and a pencil eraser to push the buttons, Jed used the phone on the end table next to the sofa to call for the criminal investigative unit and the coroner. While he waited on the line to pass along the critical information, he surveyed the interior of the tiny house, taking particular interest in the broken television set with the empty booze bottle resting where the picture tube should have been. Three days' worth of newspapers had been stacked next to the sofa, each issue opened to a story about Nathan. Jed remembered his briefing on the details that had sent Nathan to the Juvenile Detention Center, and he wondered what the boy's Uncle Mark had thought about the events of the past three days. Was he remorseful? Titillated? Amused?

"C'mon," Jed urged impatiently, waiting for somebody in the coroner's office to pick up the phone. He shifted the receiver from his hand to his shoulder, where he held it in place with a sustained shrug. His eyes wandered to a sheaf of papers; legal documents, he recognized from the numbered lines and exaggerated indentions. There it was, on the front: The Last Will and Testament of somebody named William Steven Bailey. Having nothing better to do, he casually thumbed through the stapled pages.

Something underlined on page fourteen of the will caught his attention, and his mind shifted from scanning mode to reading mode. Halfway through the second paragraph, his backbone straightened and he sat down on the edge of the sofa cushion.

"I'll be damned," he said aloud.

"What have you got?" Harry asked, taking advantage of the opportunity to examine something other than the body.

"Our motive," Jed said sharply.

"Medical Examiner's office, this is Julie," a voice said in his ear. Jed told her to hold on for a minute.

Chapter
36

So let me get this straight," Sheriff Murphy summarized after listening to Warren's presentation. "You want me to go before the voters of this county and tell them that on the advice of a police detective from Virginia, I should ignore all the physical evidence gathered thus far-not the least of which is an admission of guilt from the kid himself-and shift our efforts to find a phantom hit man. Is that what you're telling me, Lieutenant Michaels?"

Warren scanned the faces of the sheriff and Petrelli, who sat perched like a parrot next to his fellow politician. A deep, abiding belief in the criminal justice system was the only thing that kept Warren from popping them both. This was a useless exercise, he realized. To these two, police work was about votes. Nothing more.

When Warren didn't answer, Petrelli filled the silence. "Warren, I'm worried about you," he said, shaking his head, his voice dripping with condescension. "We all know how hard the loss of your son was on you last year. I think maybe you've lost perspective on this case. Perhaps you should volunteer to step down from it. That way, I don't have to ask Chief Sherwood to remove you from it."

Petrelli's words hit him in the chest like a hammer. Bang! Warren had known going into this meeting that his arguments were not yet well formed, and that they directly contradicted much of the physical evidence. He knew that he would have to change their entire approach to the facts, and he had, in fact, done the sales job of his life.

To anyone else, the arguments would have been persuasive, but he had underestimated the depth of political ambition jammed into this tiny little office. By refusing to be persuaded, they had made Warren look like a fool. It had been an opportunity for which Petrelli had been waiting for years, and there it was. Find the most vulnerable weakness in your opponent, and concentrate all your forces on that spot. It was every bit as reliable a rule in politics as it was on the battleground.

Worst of all, Petrelli was right. He had no business remaining a part of this case. Warren had known it ever since he'd seen the still picture from the JDC video. His heart was every bit as involved in this case as his mind, but he believed nonetheless that he could keep them separate; he believed he could be professional and objective when he had to be.

But objectivity was not the issue here. Fact was, he was right! And these assholes knew it! For Petrelli, though, the opportunity to make his historical adversary squirm was a far more important prize than justice. By discrediting Warren-the flatfoot in charge of the investigation-Petrelli would be able to recover a portion of the political damage done by Nathan's celebrity.

"So, what do you say, Warren?" Petrelli pressed. "Why don't you step down?"

Warren smiled politely. "Why don't you kiss my ass, J.?" He knew when he'd lost. He also knew that Chief Sherwood was the only human being on earth who hated Petrelli more than Warren did. Petrelli's threats were as hollow as his spine.

"That'll be enough!" Sheriff Murphy intervened. "Lieutenant Michaels, I think this meeting is over."

Warren turned away from Petrelli and faced Murphy. "Look, Sheriff, all I ask is for you to tell your men to take it easy. They're looking for a murderer named Nathan, not a victim named Nathan. That makes a huge difference in how they take him down. You authorized a green shooter's light, for Chrissake!"

"Do I need to arrange an escort for you to leave, Lieutenant?" Murphy offered. The phone rang. "I can arrange that, if you want."

Warren stood still for a moment longer. There was nothing left for him to do. As he turned to leave, he heard Murphy answer his phone and pass it to Petrelli.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Petrelli exploded. "I did no such thing!"

Warren stopped short of the door to eavesdrop. Seeing Petrelli blow his cool always lightened his day. Now the prosecutor-cumsenator seemed as confused as he did angry.

"Look, Stephanie," he said after a long spate of listening, "I'm telling you I didn't call. Do you think I have a death wish? Judge Verone would have my butt in jail before nightfall."

The pieces fell together for Warren. "Stephanie" would be Stephanie Buckman, who had represented Petrelli's ridiculous petition before Judge Verone the day before. When it all focused in his mind, Warren's heart started racing. Somebody was trying to trace Nathan's call.

As much as he wanted to suspect Petrelli of foul play, he knew that the slimebag would let his mother be lynched before he'd violate a court order. After all, the lynching would earn him tons of voter sympathy; the bad press from violating the court order would kill him. He realized in an instant that Nathan's would-be killer was making his next move.

Warren moved quickly back across the office and snatched the telephone away from Petrelli, pushing him aside with a forearm. J. Daniel looked shocked at the lieutenant's strength.

"Stephanie, this is Warren Michaels," he said hurriedly. "I understand that somebody was trying to trace Nathan Bailey's telephone call?"

Stephanie's voice showed surprise at the sudden change in characters. "Well, y-yes," she stammered.

"Did he get it?"

"Y-yes. But why . . . "

"How long ago?" Warren interrupted. His voice was abrupt and insistent.

"Look, Lieutenant . . . "

"Goddammit, how long ago, Stephanie?" Warren was shouting now.

"I-I don't know for sure. Twenty minutes, maybe." Stephanie seemed hesitant to speak to him about the details.

Warren checked his watch without seeing the time. "Shit. What's the number?" he asked.

"Lieutenant, what happened to Mr. Petrelli?" she stalled.

"No one knows for sure," Warren said without missing a beat.

"We think he was born an asshole." He looked directly at Petrelli as he spoke, lest there be any doubt. "Look, Stephanie, I need that number. The guy who was asking for it is our killer. Please. Tell me what it is."

Petrelli made a move to wrestle the phone back, but retreated immediately from Warren's threatening glare.

"You know if you use this, any evidence will be tainted," Stephanie warned, a broad smile in her voice from Warren's comments about her boss.

"I don't care:' Warren promised. "I just need that number."

With more than a little hesitation, she gave him the number. As soon as the seventh digit passed Stephanie's lips, Warren dropped the phone onto its cradle.

Without a word, Warren left Murphy's office, dialing his cellular as he walked.

Denise marveled at the margin by which the afternoon callers were favoring Nathan's side. Having been so terribly unnerved at first, Nathan seemed to have calmed down a lot, though he was a mere shadow of the jovial personality she'd had on the air yesterday. For the most part, he was sparing of the details surrounding his capture and escape. All she really knew for sure after nearly two hours on the phone with him was that he was convinced that he was the target of a police conspiracy to kill him, and that he had had nothing to do with those police officers' deaths the night before.

When Denise pointed out that law enforcement people had an uncanny way of turning up dead in Nathan's presence, he had no rehearsed response. He only reiterated that he was victim just like all the others-or a potential victim, anyway. And if cops were trying to kill you, what better place to do it than at a prison?

Much as she hated to admit it, today's phone call with Nathan was getting repetitive and boring. Pretty soon she was going to have to cut him off and move on to other things. The thought tugged at her heart, though. It seemed as if he needed to talk on the radio today.

Carter from Tuscaloosa was on the phone asking Nathan about life with his Uncle Mark when a stranger joined them on the line. "Excuse me," the voice said, "this is the telephone operator, with an emergency break-in call from Lieutenant Michaels from the police department. Go ahead, sir."