Snake Skin (38 page)

"What makes you so certain Fletcher would
fall for it anyway?" John Greally had argued when he'd called to
break the bad news. "He isn't stupid. He'll know it's a trap."

"Didn't I ever teach you the rules of
fishing?"

"Find out what they want and don't give it
to 'em."

"Exactly. Fletcher wants to be a hero like
he imagines his father was. That's why he called to warn us about
the bomb at his house—he doesn't want us to think of him like he's
a badguy. He wants to be a knight in shining armor."

"I really, really hate it when they turn out
to be looney tunes. Makes it hard to predict—and the outcome if we
make it trial is never guaranteed. Especially as Fletcher has done
a good job of erasing his tracks."

"He's already rescued Ashley, so he's going
to feel confident that we can't stop him, that he's outwitted us.
If we look like we're targeting his dear ole mum, we'll look that
much more incompetent and desperate."

"So he's the hero and he needs us to be the
bad guys?"

"Exactly."

"Still just a theory. Not enough to
jeopardize the integrity of the Bureau or risk any harm coming to
civilians. Sorry, Lucy. You'll think of something else."

"Right." It was useless to keep arguing. The
suits didn't care about a young girl's life. All they thought about
was how it would play on the evening news or in front of a jury.
She hung up just as she pulled into the nursing home's parking
lot.

Good thing she wasn't a suit. She knew what
was priority here and playing by the rules sure as hell wasn't
going to save Ashley Yeager.

Lucy was probably tossing her career down
the toilet, flushing a cherry bomb in after, but hell, what else
was she gonna do with a girl's life at stake?

She climbed out of the car, slamming the
door with enough force to rock the SUV. Across the parking lot,
haloed by a bright spotlight, Cindy Ames stood in front of her news
van, filming with Burroughs.

"Detective Burroughs, explain to me why this
seventy-eight year old woman with severe health problems faces
arrest?"

"First of all, Cindy," Burroughs said,
turning his wide smile onto the camera, "it's not the Pittsburgh
Bureau of Police who have issued a warrant for Ms. Fletcher's
arrest. That order came from the FBI, not us."

"Who at the FBI?"

"Supervisory Special Agent Lucia Guardino.
She's in charge of the Ashley Yeager case and she feels that Mrs.
Fletcher was not forthcoming with vital information regarding her
son's whereabouts. In Special Agent Guardino's mind, this
information may be the key to finding Ashley Yeager alive."

"But at what cost? Alicia Fletcher is blind,
diabetic, in kidney failure. How could she possibly survive an
arrest?"

"Agent Guardino has arranged for Mrs.
Fletcher to be admitted to the prison hospital ward where she'll be
under guard and able to receive any medical care she requires."

Ames wrinkled her pert and perfect nose in
distaste. "It seems to me that the federal government is
retaliating because their main suspect in the Ashley Yeager
disappearance is one of their own employees. Do you agree,
Detective Burroughs?"

"I try not to second guess the FBI, but I'm
sure that's a consideration."

They exchanged knowing nods as if they both
could say more, if only given the chance. A pause, then Ames
signaled to her cameraman.

"All right, cut. That's good for now, we can
add more depending on how it goes with Alicia." She turned to
Burroughs, wrapping her hand around his arm. "You're a natural at
this, Burroughs."

Lucy stepped forward. "Are we all set?"

"Ready." Burroughs disengaged himself from
Ames. "Cindy says we should just make it for the ten o'clock news.
She's arranged for the other stations to pick it up for their later
broadcasts."

"Good. Then there's just one more thing."
Lucy held out her hand, palm up. "Ms. Ames, all footage of myself
and my family."

Cindy's too-white smile looked ghoulish in
stark lights. "Certainly. I keep my word." She reached into the
van's front seat and slapped a computer disk into Lucy's hand.

"I told you before the consequences of
involving me or my family in a news story. They haven't changed. I
will have you arrested if you ever come near us again."

"Ahh...but Nicky was so sweet. He told me to
come back anytime I wanted."

Lucy gripped the disk so tightly the edge
threatened to slice through her skin. "Just make this work. A
girl's life depends on it."

"What? No thanks?"

"For what? You're getting an exclusive
story, you'll get your ratings. It's not like you care about Ashley
or what happens to her—as long as you're the one reporting it."

Ames shrugged, her expression conveying
contempt for Lucy's idealism. "Way of the world. If it bleeds, it
leads." She crooked a finger at her cameraman. "Come on, Felix.
Let's go granny-bashing."

Cindy didn't trust Guardino. No way in hell
the uptight pols in Homeland Security approved this charade. This
was the real world, not some made for TV movie. In this world upper
echelon federal law enforcement officers were political appointees
and depended on Congress for their budget and future. The life of
one Pittsburgh kid barely registered on their radar.

No skin off her butt, she was going to get a
fantastic story no matter what, but it made her wonder what
Guardino would stop at to find this kid.

Never get emotionally involved—you'd think
an FBI agent would know that.

"No matter what, don't stop filming," she
told Felix. He nodded, shifting his handheld as he followed her
into Golden Years. No one roamed the halls, the nursing home
residents all been tucked in for the night, sleeping the sleep of
the well-medicated and restrained. A nursing type escorted them to
Alicia Fletcher's room.

"Alicia dear? Here are the people I told you
about. The ones who want to talk about Jimmy, hear his side of
things."

The woman seated in a vinyl chair beside the
bed stirred with a dry, scratchy noise like rustling autumn leaves.
Her hair was long spider silk white strands. Her skin appeared
transparent, stretched too thin over her bony face and plumped up
and doughy over her hands and lower legs. But it was the eyes that
made Cindy take notice. Despite their sightlessness, they homed in
on Cindy like an eagle spotting its prey.

Milky blue-grey, white all around the
colored parts, the pupils all but invisible, they were the eyes of
a ghost.

Then Alicia Fletcher smiled, lips stretching
wide, dentures clicking into place, head craned forward eagerly,
and Cindy revised her opinion. Not the eyes of a ghost. The eyes of
a demon.

"You getting all this?" she nudged Felix who
was scanning the room, his own eyes wide and mouth pursed in
distaste. She strode forward, her heels clacking on linoleum floor,
Alicia following her progress around the bed, her gaze never
releasing Cindy from its talon grip. "Mrs. Fletcher? I'm Cindy Ames
with WDDE TV. Thank you for agreeing to speak with me."

"You working with the bitch trying to hunt
down my boy?" Alicia asked, her voice surprisingly soft, melodic
even. "That FBI agent, Guardino is her name. Eye-talian, probably
doesn't even belong in this country, slept with someone to get her
job. She's trying to make my Jimmy out to be some kind of
criminal."

"I've met Agent Guardino," Cindy admitted,
seating herself on a vinyl chair opposite Alicia. "She seems very
determined. And confident of your son's guilt in the abduction of
Ashley Yeager as well as the murders of several other women."

"Pfui," the word was accompanied by a stream
of spittle that just missed Cindy. "Only thing Jimmy is guilty of
is following his heart. He's got a soft spot for women who need
help, like his father that way."

"You realize that if you're withholding
information on Jimmy's whereabouts, Agent Guardino can have you
arrested?"

Alicia held both palms up, arms trembling,
as if waiting to be cuffed. "Let her. She wants an old woman's
death on her conscience, fine with me. I have nothing to fear. My
boy's done nothing wrong. It's that Guardino woman, she should be
out looking for that poor lost girl instead of persecuting me and
my family."

She lowered her hands and leaned forward.
"If I die today, it will be her fault. She was here earlier and I
swear," she slumped back in her chair, one hand fanning her face,
"she almost did me in then. Nurses said my blood pressure shot up
so high they thought I'd have a stroke."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Cindy said. She
couldn't believe her luck. It was like Alicia was reading the
script she and Burroughs had prepped. All she had to do was lead
her. The old woman seemed smarter than that, this had to be a scam,
but as long as Cindy got her story, she wasn't about to argue. "Is
there anything you'd like to say to your son if he's watching?"

Alicia smiled again. Cindy hoped it wouldn't
scare off too many in the audience; she'd seen friendlier grins
from corpses. "Just that I love him no matter what. I know he's
trying to live up to his father's memory and there's nothing that
would make me prouder."

That was perfect. And basically the end of
her script. No reason she couldn't keep rolling though, might come
in handy. "Anything you'd like to tell Agent Guardino?"

Alicia's eyes narrowed to two reptilian
slits, her head jutting forward. "People like her get theirs sooner
or later. She ought to remember that. She ought to remember family
always comes first—"

She froze, one hand clawing at her throat as
if she was choking. Suddenly her face flushed first red, then
purple as she struggled to breathe. The nurse rushed forward,
pushing Cindy out of the way. Alicia collapsed in her arms.

"Keep shooting," Cindy whispered to the
cameraman as the nurse hit a button. Several more medical types ran
into the room followed by Burroughs and Guardino. The nurses slid
Alicia onto her bed, took her pulse and blood pressure, put oxygen
on her face and sprayed medicine under her tongue.

"What's wrong with her?" Guardino asked,
assuming a position near the head of the bed.

"Probably a massive stroke," a nurse taking
Alicia's blood pressure muttered. "She's bottoming out. Do you want
me to start a line?"

"No need. She's DNR," Alicia's nurse said.
"No CPR, no extra-ordinary measures."

"Then that's all we can do," another
replied, stepping back from the bed.

"Lost her pulse."

"Do something," Guardino told them. "You
can't let her die."

"There's nothing we can do. The patient's
directives—"

"This woman is a material witness. A girl's
life may depend on what she knows. That over-rides any advanced
directives."

Two of the nurses looked to the third. "I'm
sorry, Agent Guardino. There's nothing we can do. She's gone."

Cindy made sure Felix got a good shot of
Alicia's crumpled body, her house-dress bunched up, eyes staring
without blinking, hands clenched into useless claws. They backed
out of the room before they could be kicked out.

"Man, oh man, that sucked," Felix said.

Cindy smirked, shot him a glare, wondering
if he had the stomach for this job. "Are you kidding? That footage
just bought me network time!"

"You can't use that. It's totally unethical,
immoral, it's, it's—"

"It's ratings, baby. Pure, diamond studded
ratings."

A scream of frustration clawed its way up
Lucy's throat, howling to escape, but she clamped it down
tight.

"Everyone step away from the body," she
ordered. "This is a crime scene."

"You can't do that," the nurse who refused
to resuscitate Alicia told her.

"Already done," Lucy replied, pulling out
her cell phone. "Detective Burroughs, escort these women to a room
where they can be interviewed and secure Ms. Ames and her cameraman
along with their footage."

Burroughs didn't give her any flak.
Revealing his good instincts for self-preservation, because if he
had she was all too ready to unload. "Please come with me,
ladies."

He ushered the bemused nurses from the room.
Lydia called the Medical Examiner's office. The tech was the same
one who had worked Noreen's death at the Tastee Treet earlier.

"Sure, I'll be right out," he assured her.
"You going for a hat trick today, Agent Guardino?"

He obviously hadn't heard about the other
three bodies Lucy had discovered. She hung up and headed across the
hall to where Ames waited, wondering if she might end up adding to
the death count. After all, the ME guy was on his way, maybe he
could do two for the price of one?

She sent Burroughs to guard the body and
turned to face the reporter.

"You can't keep us here," Ames protested.
"It's a violation of our civil rights. We have a deadline."

"Show me the footage," Lucy asked the
cameraman, ignoring Ames until she could quench the impulse to
throttle her. "I want to see everything."

"You don't think we had anything to do with
that! You were listening the entire time—"

"Just show me everything."

The camera guy pushed a few buttons and
motioned for Lucy to sit beside him so that she could watch the
replay on his small LCD screen. The entire interview took less than
ten minutes.

"Go back to when you first entered the
room," Lucy directed. The cameraman was flustered, took him two
tries of hitting the buttons. "Can you slow that?"

She watched the camera bob around the room
as Ames first entered. Alicia was sitting in her chair, turned
away, her hands out of sight, fumbling with something. "There.
Freeze it." Alicia was reaching as if she'd dropped something in
her chair. "Wait here."