Peak Oil (30 page)

They walked to the manor along a pebbled pathway beneath a pergola covered by vines. The building had a porch around the entire house, with various doors opening onto it. A wooden deck led from the front porch down to the river.

Alexa stood in front of the house, looking up as she admired the building. She had no desire to live in such a big house, and she always wondered why someone would want to spend the time, money, and energy to build, maintain, and clean something that they hardly ever made use of. A ten-column colonnade rose three stories high, supporting a large overhanging roof. She shook her head at the pretentiousness of it all.
 
Honestly, why?

They ducked beneath some yellow crime-scene tape and entered the place through a large oak door. Alexa paused, marveling at the interior. The expansive space continued indoors; a massive sitting room led to a modern, open-plan kitchen. Large sliding glass doors led out onto a wooden deck, even larger than inside. She had to admit that the view from the deck was breathtaking, looking out onto the river and lush green forest behind.

The place was sparsely furnished, the bare necessities only. A couch and recliner stood tucked away in the corner facing a small television set that had been propped on top of a coffee table.
 

Harvey huffed and led them upstairs. They walked along an empty passageway, passed a couple of doors, and then entered the room at the farthest end. Alexa remembered how the Tasmanian Devil from the Looney Tunes cartoons used to leave a trail of destruction in its wake. This was similar; someone had deliberately smashed and broken most of the objects in the room, venting his or their frustrations on the dead woman’s personal belongings.
 

Three large holes were smashed into the wall above the bed, and blood splatters covered the wall. A large pool of coagulated blood was visible on the mattress. The vanity was lying on its side on the floor, and clothes and makeup lay scattered haphazardly, like someone had hurriedly searched through the room. Alexa closed her eyes and then prepared herself for the horrific sight she had tried to ignore in the periphery of her vision.

A large cross stood propped up on the bloodied mattress. The woman who had served them at the diner was nailed to it, her head sagging on her chest, a large bullet hole between her eyes. Her breasts were missing, two large oval cavities on either side of her chest the only evidence that she had once been a woman.
 

She had seen this before in the Congo: inhumane acts performed by crazed guerilla soldiers high on drugs, butchering whomever happened to cross their paths and then performing their final, cruel
coup de grâce
by denying the women their femininity in death.
 

The parabola of male chauvinism.

She ambled closer, inspecting the corpse. Her stomach had been cut open from the breastbone to above her pubic mound with a Y-incision, a flap of skin hanging above the groin, her entrails spilling out.

Alexa swallowed and then glanced sideways at Harvey, who was studying her intently. “Any leads?” she asked.

Harvey shrugged. “The neighbor heard a gunshot. We arrived a couple of minutes later. We guess he was busy with her for less than twenty minutes.”
 

“Forced entry?” Bruce asked.

Harvey shook his head. “Nope. Front door was unlocked.”

“So she could have known the guy?”

Harvey shrugged.
 

Alexa sauntered across the room. Framed paintings lay scattered on the floor. She picked up a certificate. It indicated that Patricia McBride had been awarded a doctorate in electrical engineering from Yale.

Harvey cleared his throat. “We used to joke about it, called her Doc. She worked up at the plant before. Said she hated it, wanted to do something simpler with less stress.”

“What did she do?” Bruce asked. He looked like he had eaten something rotten, a disgusted look on his face.
 

“She manufactured some stuff that they used up there.” He scratched his chin. “Way over my head, but she headed some research project twenty years ago.”

Bruce nodded toward Alexa. “Get Voelkner to check this out.”

Alexa put the certificate on a dressing table and then wiped her hands on her chest. She dialed Voelkner and requested him to have fingerprints taken at the crime scene. She moved closer to the dead woman, looking at the dozen silver bangles hanging around a limp arm. They were warped and bent out of shape. She pulled them from her arm and lined them up; they all had a neat circular indentation.

Alexa lifted the dead woman’s arm. She had a bruise on her forearm, probably from defending herself from a downward blow. Probably from a walking stick or a cane. She crouched and looked beneath the bed and then dropped to her stomach and wriggled underneath. She retrieved a bolo tie that had snapped, the same design that she had seen around Andy Fitch’s neck in the
Texan Daily
.

Harvey’s eyes widened and he pulled his collar from his throat, swallowing loudly. “Oh shit, not again.”

Alexa turned around. “What do you mean?”

Harvey mopped his brow. “Talking out loud, that’s all.”

She glanced at Bruce, who frowned angrily. He strode to Harvey, grabbed his neck below the chin, and pushed him up against the wall beside the macabre corpse. “What did you mean, you piece of shit?” Bruce yelled.
 

A vein throbbed in the deputy's temple as he stuck out his tongue, trying to lick his lips. He made choking sounds as Bruce’s grip tightened, and his eyes started bulging from his sockets.
 

Alexa touched Bruce’s arm. “Dad,” she said softly.
 

He let Harvey go, and the man slid straight down to the ground and landed on his ass.

Alexa crouched in front of the deputy and leaned in closer. “We’re waiting.”

Harvey gasped and rubbed his neck. “I’ve seen this all before,” he said, his eyes darting around the room. “Five years ago.”

“What happened?” Bruce asked, towering over the man.

Harvey swallowed, his jowls moving up and down. “The day that Chris ran away.”

“What do you mean?”

He looked around, his mouth agape. “I had forgotten, probably because it had upset me so much.”

“What?” Alexa asked impatiently, grabbing Harvey’s shoulder.

“It’s almost the same way that Lily Coulson was killed.” He swallowed again and then closed his eyes. “The cross, the wounds, the bolo tie.”

Alexa stood up and turned to Bruce. “Shit, do you think Chris killed his own mother?”

Bruce shook his head. “No, I knew Latorre. He would never do anything like—”

“C’mon, Dad, don’t be naive!”

Bruce’s eyes narrowed. “You’re naive, Alexa.”

She snorted. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because I’ve served with him.”

“So did I, Dad. What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He killed a man in front of me, saved my life. He never extracted any enjoyment from the act, was upset for days.” He took Alexa’s shoulders, giving her a light shake. “Look at the body, Alexa. Someone went to work on her, a sadistic killer.”

Alexa frowned.

“Bis Latorre may have been many things, but he sure as hell wasn’t a sadist.”

Yesterday

Neil jogged along the pathway into the forest, heading back to the refinery, hell-bent on finding Alexa. The sun was low on the horizon, casting long shadows among the trees as he peered through the foliage, trying to discern any movement between the buildings. Fitch’s brown Lincoln had been hastily parked at an angle in front of the refinery, the passenger door still open. Neil scanned the open fairway of the golf course and beyond, then the rooftops and the guard towers. The place was deserted, except for a solitary guard in one of the towers to his left. He heard no other sounds, the forest eerily quiet.

Neil shifted uncomfortably on his haunches. This could be a trap. He pursed his lips and made up his mind.

He would wait for the cover of darkness. He would be of no use to Alexa if he was shot or killed now. He leaned back against a tree and removed an energy bar and a bottle of water from his pack. He sat chewing and chasing the insoluble pieces of gunk with sips of water. Then he noticed a puff of smoke billow from the guard tower as the man inside lit a cigarette. A fine mist was steadily rolling in from the river, clinging to his hair and eyebrows, and then trickling down his face in rivulets as he waited in silence. Twice he had to stop himself from making a wild dash for the refinery to embark on a frantic search for Alexa. He shook his head, trying to allay the drowsiness that was seeping into his body. He had to stay alive, for her sake, think clearly and stay focused.
 

Two hours later, he slipped on his backpack and decided to make his move. The mist now hung like a thick blanket above the green grass of the golf course, and a hazy moon had risen to a quarter of its ultimate trajectory in the starless evening sky. He wiped his face dry with his hand and then stealthily made his way across the fairway toward the opening in the fence. He now realized why the golf course had been so strategically placed in front of the complex; it allowed the guards a bird’s-eye view of the surrounding area.

Neil heard the soft hiss of a two-way radio close by and then the clipped tones of a muted voice. A guard had been placed by the hole in the fence. He prayed that the man didn’t have a dog with him. He probably didn’t; the animal would have caught Neil’s scent long ago.
 

Neil crept quietly to where he thought the voice had come from and then saw the man a couple of yards ahead, shrouded in mist, his back to Neil. Neil bolted forward, and the guard struggled as Neil clamped a hand over his mouth and slipped the knife between his ribs, thrusting the blade and turning it as he jerked the guard’s head to the side until he heard the familiar crack of cartilage. He stood quiet for a second or two, listening, and then gently lowered the dead man to the ground.
 

He squatted next to the body for a minute, trying to discern any shapes or sounds in the fog around him. Satisfied, he pushed through both fences and sneaked into the refinery. He ran to the back of the metal stairwell and then sprinted to the opposite side of the room, finding cover in a dark corner, trying to catch his breath.

Unsteady footsteps clanged down the metal rungs of the stairwell, and he almost called out when he saw Alexa limp down the stairs and head toward the exit, followed closely by Dr. Ryan, pushing her from behind, glancing nervously over his shoulder as they ran.
 

She looked like crap. He stood up, ready to jog up to them, but he heard the soft squish of sneakered footsteps on the smooth floor to his left. A tall, uniformed man had taken position behind a fifty gallon oil drum in front of him, clutching a pistol to his chest, oblivious to Neil’s presence.

As the guard raised his weapon at Alexa, Neil bolted toward him, closing the space between them in less than a second. The guard barely had time to register that he had heard a noise from behind him before Neil sunk the blade of his knife deep into his neck, rendering him immobile and mute. The man dropped to the ground, twitched a couple of times, and then went limp, his eyes staring up at the ceiling as a drop of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. Neil grabbed the pistol from the guard’s hand and fumbled through the man’s pockets and along his belt. He found a two-way radio, set to silent, and three magazines of nine millimeter rounds on his belt, which he stashed into his backpack.

He bolted toward the door and peered outside. A man shouted gruffly as Alexa sprinted toward the fence and took him down, leaving him sprawling on the ground, clutching his neck. Three more men rushed around the corner, and Neil’s pistol spat as he planted three neat holes between their eyes. His eyes shot up as rifle fire sputtered from one of the guard towers, stitching holes in the ground around Alexa and the doctor as they ran for cover. He took careful aim and then emptied his magazine on the tower. A guard screamed and tumbled from the tower, landing on the damp soil with a sickening thud. Neil crouched low, listening attentively for any threats.

He spun around as two more guards appeared around the corner and released a guard dog. He barely had time to slap another cartridge into the chamber before the dog leaped toward him. He fired four times as he stumbled backward, and then he swung toward the guards, killing both men as he emptied the second cartridge.

Shit. He had one cartridge left. Eleven bullets. He would have to make them count.
 

He spun around and dashed after Alexa. They were moving slowly, limping along, Alexa running with a wobbly gait. She looked seriously injured. Whoever had got hold of Alexa had worked her over pretty badly, and Neil couldn’t help chastising himself for not going in sooner. But she was still alive, and she was making her escape. The radio in his pocket hissed, and he turned the volume control up a notch.
 

“Block her off at the road. Pete and Vick, head north and we’ll herd them through the forest toward you guys,” a metallic voice ordered, and two voices answered “Affirmative” in unison.

Neil skidded to a halt, deciding on a course of action. Doors slammed nearby, and a red truck similar to the one they had seen at the accident scene in town sped away, heading toward the boom gates. Neil dashed to the Lincoln and found the keys still in the ignition. Small mercies.