Rogue Justice (27 page)

It was large, with an A-frame roof, queen-size bed, and private bath. Zora walked across the room to a set of French doors that opened onto a large balcony. She unlatched the door and stepped outside, careful to stay hidden from the patrol officers. Unit six was one of ten artisan cottages facing each other in two neat rows, each with a square of front yard separated by a rustic fence. She breathed deeply of the crisp night air, then retraced her steps back to Katrina's desk. Sifting through the files, she found a compendium of research reports on everything from environmental studies to marine pollution to hydrocarbons found in sperm whales. Nothing about Samson, at least that she could see.

Mickey startled her as he came bounding up the stairs, running shoes in hand.

"What's going on?" Zora asked.

"I just spoke to the DA."

"Jesus, he knows we're here?"

"No, he thinks we're at a bar downtown. I asked him to check the shoes Kat had on. He did, said they were Nike's."

Zora threw him a curious look. "Okay."

"Kat was a competitive runner, a cardio-junkie. And the Nike's gave her blisters. She only wore them once, that's it."

"How do you know?"

"I gave them to her last month, for her birthday. When she told me they didn't fit right, I wrote her a check to buy these Sauconys. Never got around to taking the other pair back."

"So her killer grabbed the wrong shoes."

"Exactly. C'mon, let's see if we can find anything on her computer that might help. I like to think I learned a trick or two from those ex-Mossad agents. We got into some really sophisticated shit. I swear those two could crack the nuclear launch codes in no time flat."

Mickey pulled up another chair, sat down, and booted up the machine. The screen jumped to life. "Okay, Kat, what is it? What's your password?" An instant later there was a password prompt. Mickey punched in several different names, all the usual suspects, but nothing took. The computer then displayed a "Password Hint."

Zora leaned in close, read the question out loud. "What was the name of your first dog?"

Mickey bolted upright. "That's it! Dad bought Kat a big black Alaskan malamute for Christmas one year. She was crazy about that animal, took him running every day." He typed in the word "wolfen." The screen jumped to life.

"You're in, Mickey. Good job."

He clicked on "My Computer." For the next several minutes they scanned the folders—videos, photos, research reports, scientific essays, and the like. The largest folder contained several files labeled, "Sea Change in Attitude."

"Looks like Kat's kind of thing," Mickey said. "What do you think?"

Zora nodded.

"Let's check the hard drive then." Mickey clicked on an icon, leaned back in the chair, shaking his head. "Look," he said. "Right here, under 'Details.' Kat's computer has 40 gigabytes of storage, but the numbers don't add up. There are at least 8 gigs unaccounted for, which is really strange."

"Any idea why?" Zora asked, not really tracking with any of this.

Mickey stared at the monitor for a long moment. "There, in the bottom left corner." He pointed to an icon with a pixilated white key on a blue background.

Zora still didn't get it.

"Something called TrueCrypt," Mickey said. "It's encryption software for establishing and maintaining an on-the-fly-encrypted disk. The program is super sophisticated, uses something like eleven algorithms, but basically it translates data into secret code which is stored as encrypted files. To read the files you need a secret password."

"So whatever's on that disk no one else is supposed to see."

"That's the plan."

"But you just said it takes a secret password to gain access?"

Mickey stood, tried to clear his head. "Right. And if the computer gods are smiling on us, Kat used the same one. It's a bad idea but a lot of people do it. I'm guilty myself sometimes."

He sat back down, typed in the word "wolfen" again. And again the machine responded. The program immediately began to whirr, scanning gigabytes, loading the encrypted section of the drive. He looked at "My Computer" a second time, noticed that another drive had also been mounted on the system. He clicked on the icon. There were just two folders in the drive, one labeled "DARK TIDES," the other "KOS." He double-clicked on the first folder. It contained several files with ominous sounding names—"Alien Species," "Venomous Weed," "Red Tides," and "Threatened & Endangered Species."

"Scary sounding stuff," Zora said.

Mickey nodded then clicked on "KOS." There were several files inside, all labeled "Samson," each with a subtitle and date attached.

Zora felt an icy shiver shoot up her spine.

The first document was a feature story from
The Journal of Comparative Pathology
titled "Hodgkin's Disease in Killer Whales," written by a veterinarian with the Wakayama Medical School in Japan. Mickey tried reading the opening paragraph, "
Generalized lymphadenopathy and splenomegaly were noted at necropsy and the histopathological examination revealed...
blah, blah, blah. Shit! I can't even pronounce the words, let alone tell you what they mean."

"Dammit," Zora said. "Me neither. See if there's anything else?"

Mickey scrolled through a few more passages of medical mumbo jumbo. None of it made any sense to either of them. He closed the document and clicked on one labeled "Samson: Treatment Beginning 3/21." There were a number of notations over a period of several days. He stopped on the final entry, checked the date and time it was input—8:10 p.m., on 3/30, just hours before Katrina had been killed.

Zora and Mickey stared long and hard at the final chilling words.

Samson death imminent... Freeman evasive... COVER-UP!!!

Chapter 29

1 April, 6:15 AM PDT

Port Townsend, Washington

Zora woke in Mickey's guest room following a tortured, fitful sleep. She lay for a short while listening to the birds chatter in the tall cedars. The sun beat a blazing track through the bedroom window, making the room feel bright and airy, but the burst of light did little to help her dark mood. She felt sad and tired and angry and every one of those emotions was there in her face. She finally dragged herself out of bed and stepped into the shower.

As the steaming hot water cascaded over her body, she closed her eyes and ran through the previous night's events in her head. After printing out the last page of Katrina's disturbing computer report, she and Mickey had quietly retraced their steps back to his truck and driven here. But before turning in they'd gone online to research KOS-Seattle. There was no mention of a sick whale. A series of press releases cited progress on Samson Stadium which, according to the park's GM, was closed for construction. He claimed it was scheduled to reopen in the near future although no specific date had been mentioned.

The park, they'd discovered, was part of a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate owned by one Mitchell Chandler. A Google search generated thousands of hits. It was impossible to get their heads around the size and scope of Chandler's empire, but he was clearly a man accustomed to getting what he wanted. And there was no doubt about his political leanings. He was in the habit of writing big checks to his favorite politicians, including Governor Spencer Ryan of Washington. And it was all legal as far as they could tell. In fact, the world headquarters of Chandler Global Enterprises was located in Olympia, a few blocks from the state capitol.

A second search, this one on Detective Cloyd Steiger, turned up a recent story in the
Seattle Times
. He was described as
"a cop's cop of almost mythic proportions—old school, former "SWAT dog," with an iron will, titanium fists, and a nose for sniffing out trouble... a little rough around the edges, maybe, but capable of cajoling the most belligerent suspect into singing like the proverbial canary
.
"

Zora was still thinking about that as she stepped out of the shower. As she toweled off, her phone rang. The call from the DA lasted less than sixty seconds. Rosekrans said he'd spoken with the detective in Seattle and had arranged the lunch meeting as promised. She thanked him and hung up. Five minutes later, dressed in a pair of tailored black jeans and white turtleneck sweater, she strolled through Mickey's modest ranch house. It was a collection of good taste in every sense: Santa Fe motif, minimalist theme, black and white photos on the wall. Zora opened the screen door and wandered across the back porch, stopping long enough to feel the cool breeze on her face.

The home sat on an uneven bluff above the bend in a swift-moving creek that emptied into a large pond. A centuries-old alder tree draped in moss angled over the water like a giant bird of prey. Near the rear of the property, a whitewashed barn backed up to a thick grove of firs, beyond which she could make out a dirt road that angled up a steep hill.

There was no sign of Mickey and, except for the birds, only silence.

Zora took a moment to enjoy the peaceful setting, then headed down a winding path toward the barn. She was running on empty. It was an effort just to put one foot in front of the other. As she came around the side of the building, she noticed the door was open, heard rustling sounds. She stepped inside. The two-story structure had been completely remodeled and converted into a large work space. Hammers, saws, nail punches, putty knives, levels, and an assortment of other carpenter's tools hung neatly along one wall. Two oval windows at each end and a large skylight in the roof provided plenty of illumination. The floor was spotless, the air heavy with smells of cedar and varnish.

Zora didn't see Mickey at first. He was partially hidden by a support beam and leaning over a makeshift table, a large sheet of plywood stretched between two saw horses. A stack of blueprints lay on top. As she watched him work, she took in his strong shoulders and handsome face, his lean body accented in blue jeans and gray sweatshirt. She cleared her throat. "Hi there, I hope I'm not disturbing you."

Mickey looked up, smiled. "Oh, hey Zora, come on in."

"You're up early," she said.

"Couldn't sleep. Decided to go over the plans for a remodel I'm working on down in Gig Harbor. Doing something normal helps take my mind off things. It's surreal, you know? Never in a million years did I think I'd be arranging for Kat's..." His voice trailed off.

"I know, it's awful, I'm sorry. Didn't get much shut-eye myself."

"Yeah, well, you've got your own problems to deal with. Listen, how about some coffee? Good stuff, straight from the farmer's market here in town."

"Perfect."

Mickey poured two mugs. "No cream or sugar, sorry."

"This is fine," Zora said, taking a sip. The coffee smelled wonderful and tasted even better. It had a rich, earthy flavor. She told him about the call from the DA and her scheduled lunch meeting with the detective, then said, "Any luck reaching your folks?"

"Not yet. I tried again right after I woke up. They signed on with a local Kenyan guide, not one of those luxury operations, so there's no telling where they are right now." Mickey's lower lip began to tremble. "They're the salt of the earth, those two, the only parents I've ever known. This is
really
going to hit them hard."

"Yeah, no doubt," Zora said. "They adopted you when you were, what, five years old?"

"Four," Mickey said, setting down his pencil and slide ruler. "My biological father owned a successful tool and die shop near Detroit, but he smoked two packs of Camels a day and worked way too many hours. He had a stroke driving home late one night, died a week later. Ma did the best she could after that, but she had some demons of her own. One night neighbors found her wandering the street barefoot in a prom dress. She was carrying a knife and looking for John the Baptist. She said some guy named Jamie had sent her. He claimed that killing the Baptist would delay Armageddon and save humanity. A shrink put her in a mental hospital, pumped her full of pills. She never left. I was adopted the next year. Chosen, not abandoned, that's what Al and Dorothy Kincaid said to me, over and over, until it sunk in. I've never forgotten those words."

Zora said, "Special people, for sure."

"Yeah, and I learned everything I know about carpentry from dad. 'Big Al,' that's what his friends call him. The man's part artist, part Zen master. Ornery as an alley cat sometimes, but he'll build you anything you want as long as you're not in a hurry for it. He hates to be rushed." Mickey flipped over the blueprints, a not-so-subtle signal that he wanted to change the subject. "Hey, listen, enough about me. Your turn now. Kat told me a bit about your high-seas antics. I gotta say they make some of my adventures look awfully damn tame."