Sigma Curse - 04 (16 page)

“Yeah,” the tech said. “Bet my left nut on it.”

They found a few more similar traces. Otherwise, there was nothing obvious. No convenient shreds of cloth. No even more conveniently dropped receipts.

Still, thought Venn. They had what was most likely the scene of the crime. And they had a description, however incomplete, of the killer. Or maybe the killer’s accomplice. A tall woman, young enough to be able to run. Caucasian. All of that so far matched the picture the soldiers had given of the woman who lured Dale Fincher away in the bar.

“Except the hair color,” he said to Teller and Rickenbacker, as they walked back toward the entrance of the park. “But that means nothing. Could be a dye job, or a wig. Or else Harold Van Buren was mistaken about what he saw.”

Teller stopped. He turned slightly toward Venn.

“What does your gut tell you about this, Joe? Are we dealing with one killer or two?”

Venn paused for a moment. “My gut says two,” he said. “But all of the evidence, such as there is, suggests just one.”

“You, Fran?”

Rickenbacker didn’t hesitate. “One.” To Venn, she said, “You’re letting assumptions get in your way. You think a woman wouldn’t be strong enough to do this to Fincher, especially, but probably also to Peters. Peters may have been a reformed character, but she had street smarts. She wouldn’t have been a pushover.”

Venn thought back to a woman named Gudrun Schroeder. Back in the fall of last year, she’d very nearly killed Venn. She’d been slender. But she’d been strong, and ruthless. And she enjoyed killing.

“You’re wrong,” he said. “I believe a woman would be physically capable of it. Like I said, it’s my gut reaction that there’s somebody else involved. My head tells me she’s acting alone.”

They continued walking out to their cars on the street in front of the park gates. Venn said, “What about you, Mort? You haven’t said what you think.”

“I don’t know
what
I think,” said Teller.

––––––––

H
armony left the Crown Vic in the public parking lot outside Revere Hospital and went up the now-familiar route to the third floor. She hadn’t brought anything along this time. There were only so many bunches of flowers and bottles of soda a person needed. Her father’s eyesight was so poor he couldn’t read newsprint any longer, so magazines were no good.

The head nurse intercepted her at the entrance to the ward.

“Oh, Harmony, I’m real sorry.”

For a moment Harmony thought this was it. The news she’d been expecting.

But the nurse went on: “He’s just gotten to sleep, ten minutes ago. Barely had a wink all night, and his breathing was so bad this morning he couldn’t drop off. It’s best to leave him be.”

Secretly, Harmony was relieved. Because she had other things on her mind, and her father would pick up on that, and snark at her about it until they ended up having another argument.

She said, “May I see him anyhow? I won’t disturb him.”

“Sure.” The nurse stood aside for her and she made her way though to the bay where her father had his bed.

Clarence Jones lay at an angle thirty degrees from the vertical, sitting more than lying, with a mound of pillows supporting his back. A hissing tube fed oxygen through his nose, and the breath stuttered from his slightly parted lips like a rattlesnake’s tail. An IV line wound from his arm, and beneath the bed she saw the catheter bottle, half-filled with murky dark pee.

Harmony wasn’t a believer in the supernatural, or in ESP, or anything like that. But she knew, suddenly, somehow, that she’d never see her father alive again after this.

She stepped to the side of the bed, gazed down at him. He hadn’t always been so cantankerous, so determined to rub everybody up the wrong way. Once upon a time, he’d been kind, if always a little gruff. He’d never suffered fools. Which was the thing Harmony couldn’t understand. He was being the biggest fool of all, refusing to take care of himself properly.

There must have been some pollutant in the airconditioning system, because Harmony felt her eyes sting. She bent forward and brushed her father’s forehead with her lips.

“Goodbye, Clarence,” she said.

*

I
nstead of returning to her car in the parking lot, Harmony walked through the pedestrian entrance and out onto the street.

She found a car rental place using her phone, six blocks away off Second Avenue. It took her ten minutes to select a car: a small dark-blue Fiat. She paid for three days’ rental, though she didn’t think she’d need it that long.

It took her fifteen minutes to reach the FBI offices on the river. She didn’t head for the ramp down into the underground parking lot – her privileges there had probably already been revoked, anyway – but found a spot to pull in down a side road, at an angle from the entrance to both the ramp and the doors of the building’s lobby but with both clearly within her line of sight.

The dashboard clock said it was three twenty-five in the afternoon. She expected a long wait.

Pulling an MP3 player from her pocket, she thumbed the
play
key. Listened to the voices once more: Teller’s and Venn’s, mostly, with the occasional contribution from Rickenbacker. And the two old people’s more reedy tones.

Venn had gotten back to the Division’s office an hour earlier. He updated Harmony and Fil on what had happened with the Van Burens, and the blood the CSI guys had found in the park. And he handed Harmony a memory card with the recording of the Van Burens’ interview.

“Take a listen to it,” he said. “See if you have any thoughts.”

Harmony had listened.

And the realization had hit her like a thunderclap.

She almost –
almost
– said something to Venn. But she bit her tongue at the last moment. Despite her volatility, Harmony knew she was skilled at concealing her reactions when she needed to. It made her good at undercover work.

She’d shaken her head. “Nope. Nothing there you haven’t picked up already.” She paused, thinking rapidly. “Listen, Venn. I know this goes against everything I’ve been saying. But I could use a little time out. The hospital called, and my father’s not so good. And I don’t think I’ll be much use to you today, anyhow.”

He studied her curiously. “Anything else happen?”

“No.” she resisted the urge to give a brave smile. It would’ve been out of character, and he’d have gotten suspicious. “Just... a few hours. Okay?”

“Go.” Venn waved toward the door. “Take the rest of the day. I’ll call you if we get any new breakthroughs.”

And she left, the guilt she felt at deceiving him threatening to drown her.

Now, sitting in the rental car, Harmony ran the recording on the MP3 player forward until she reached the part she wanted to focus on again.

She listened. Rewound and cued it up. Listened again.

The old man’s voice:
“But there was some hair poking out. I saw it. Shirl says she didn’t. It was dark, her hair.”

Then Rickenbacker’s:
“Dark? Like, black?”

“No. Kind of like yours, I guess. Dark brown.”

Kind of like yours...

The woman in the bar who’d approached Fincher was described as tall. So was the one the couple had seen in the park.

So was Rickenbacker.

Yesterday – Monday – Harmony had spent the afternoon with Rickenbacker, questioning the staff at the Rococo bar in Greenwich Village. They’d set off for there around two o’clock, Harmony recalled. Before that, Harmony and Venn had been at the FBI office in the morning, with Teller and Rickenbacker, until around ten o’clock.

Then, when Teller and Venn had gone to Chelsea to look around the hotel where Fincher’s body was found, Rickenbacker had told Harmony she’d meet her at two o’clock, here at the FBI office. She hadn’t given any explanation why she was leaving, and Harmony hadn’t thought to ask.

A four hour-window. And from the account given by the Van Burens, Alice had been taken at a little after noon.

Harmony leaned her head back against the seat, her eyes closed, her heart racing.

Rickenbacker was the killer.

And Harmony was going to take her down.

––––––––

S
he waited almost four hours before Rickenbacker appeared.

Harmony didn’t mind. She’d done more stakeouts in her time on the force than she could recall. There was nobody waiting at home to wonder where she was, and Venn had already given her the day off and wouldn’t be expecting to hear from her.

Her only worry was that Rickenbacker either wasn’t in the office at all – in which case, Harmony had been wasting her time – or that she was planning to stay there overnight. An all-night stakeout wasn’t feasible. After all, Harmony needed to be in at least some kind of physical condition when she confronted the woman.

The
killer
.

But at ten minutes after seven, a pair of headlights emerged at the top of the ramp and the car stopped, waiting for the cross-traffic to pass. Harmony recognized the car, a three-year-old Camaro SS convertible, as Rickenbacker’s, because the two women had ridden in it to the Greenwich Village bar yesterday.

“Got you,” Harmony breathed.

She pulled out behind the Camaro, leaving it as late as she dared. Rickenbacker headed south along the river. She was alone in the car, Harmony noted from the single silhouette through the rear window.

Several blocks down, in the Twenties, the Camaro took a right turn away from the river.

She didn’t know where the woman lived, or even if she was going home. But Harmony would stay on her, if it took all night, until she got her on her own.

Her regulation Glock rested in its holster under her arm beneath her jacket. She knew Rickenbacker would be carrying, too.

The traffic started to become more dense as Rickenbacker headed west. Harmony kept pace, coming close to running red lights when she needed to catch up, slowing to a crawl when her rental Fiat threatened to get too close to the Camaro. As always when tailing somebody, she both welcomed the Manhattan traffic and cursed it. It provided excellent cover, but it could also stick it to you at the most inconvenient moments.

The Camaro crossed Second Avenue and then Third. It slowed briefly, signaling a left turn but then thinking better of it and moving on to the next junction. Harmony got the impression Rickenbacker was looking for some location, and was unsure exactly where it was.

Harmony followed her round a corner to the left and saw the Camaro’s taillights flaring. Instead of braking herself, she drove on, eyeing the other car in her rearview mirror after she’d passed. She watched the headlamps flick off.

The Camaro had been parked.

Harmony drove on down the street. It was a narrow residential road, with almost every parking space occupied. She spied an empty stretch with two yellow lines. She’d have to risk it. Pulling up to the curb, she killed the engine.

In the mirror, fifty yards back, the Camaro sat in the shadows thrown by the streetlight on the sidewalk behind it.

After two minutes, by Harmony’s dashboard clock, Rickenbacker got out of the Camaro.

She stood for a moment by the car and gazed around. Harmony was pretty sure by now that the woman was in an unfamiliar place. But she recognized the posture, the attitude. It was a cop look. The look of somebody scoping the immediate vicinity for surprises.

The street wasn’t empty, quite. Cars passed down its narrow length every couple of minutes, sometimes waiting at one end to allow another one to get by in the opposite direction. There were people wandering along the pavement from time to time, either taking a shortcut or heading to or from their homes in the street. So it didn’t feel like some isolated, deserted place.

Maybe she sensed me following her, thought Harmony. Maybe that’s why she’s being cautious.

Rickenbacker was gazing across the street at one particular building, a nondescript brownstone. Harmony herself glanced at it. It looked like it had been converted into apartments, with lights on in the upper floors but not the lower.

Rickenbacker started across the street. Her hand was close to the opening of her coat in front. Close to where she could easily reach her gun.

Harmony turned her head to look out the window as Rickenbacker disappeared from the mirror. For a moment she thought the woman looked over right at her, and harmony quickly shut her eyes to reduce the risk of anything of her being visible in the darkness of her car. But no: Rickenbacker moved on.

She reached the steps leading up to the front door of the brownstone, to Harmony’s right and a little behind her. Harmony watched as she climbed the steps and peered at the panel of buzzers beside the door.

After a few seconds’ pause, she pressed one of them.

Rickenbacker lingered for a minute or so, poking the button again. After a further minute she backed down the steps and stared up at the windows of the brownstone, scanning left to right. She fished something out of her pocket – a cell phone – and looked at it, then put it away again.

She’s meeting somebody
, Harmony thought.
They don’t appear to be home, and she’s checking to see if they’ve called or texted her.

Rickenbacker walked along the pavement a few yards in both directions, still staring up at the house. Then she stood, apparently looking at nothing, lost in thought.

She turned and walked back across the street, still with a wary demeanor.

Harmony thought quickly. Either she resumed the pursuit, following Rickenbacker wherever she went in the city, but running the risk of losing her. What would she have then? The address Rickenbacker had just visited, or tried to visit – Harmony noted the building number and the street name – but that was about all.

Or, alternatively, she confronted the woman now.

It wasn’t the most satisfactory option. The ideal situation would be to catch Rickenbacker redhanded. Surprise her while she was stowing away some evidence that linked her to the killings, whatever that might be. But Harmony knew she was clutching at straws.