The FBI Thrillers Collection (36 page)

“No problem. You gotta watch yourself with these people. You might want your hand checked out, you never know what diseases she might be carrying around.”

“Yeah, thanks, I will.”

He barely understood Nick say “bastard” she had her jaw locked so tight.

“I’m not a bastard. I’ve got a pedigree. Now, what are we going to do with you?”

“Let me leave. I’ll come back, I swear it.”

“Nope. Let it go, Ms. Jones. You’re with me now. Think
of me as your own personal bodyguard. Just let it go. Can you do that?”

As he spoke he turned her around to face him. There was a line of freckles across her nose he hadn’t noticed before, quite visible since she was so pale. But what he really saw, and hated, was defeat. She looked crushed, flattened.

He clasped her upper arms and shook her slightly. “Listen to me. I won’t let anyone hurt you, I promise.”

“You look so much like him.”

“Yes, I know, but my brother and I were very different people. Very different. Well, not in all things, but in many.”

“Maybe not,” she said. “Maybe not. He promised he wouldn’t let anyone hurt me either.” She bit her lip. “But he’s dead. Please, I wasn’t responsible for his death, was I?”

She stood there, her arms pulled behind her, her wrists handcuffed, tears streaking down her cheeks.

“No,” Dane said. “You weren’t responsible. I do know one thing for certain—Michael’s murder had nothing at all to do with you. Believe it.”

“Oh shit,” Delion said, coming to a dead stop about three feet from them. “I don’t need this.”

“What
size do you wear?”

“I don’t want any new clothes. Listen to me, Agent Carver, I just want to stay the way I am now. I have to, don’t you understand?”

“You’re going to be safer if you look like a reasonably dressed woman rather than a bag lady. This is a very ordinary, inexpensive store, Inspector Bates told me. She said we could get you a couple of things here that look like what everyone else is wearing. Don’t give me any more trouble, Ms. Jones. I’m so tired I could sleep leaning against that taxi sign, and I know all the way to my wing tips that I need your help. Don’t think of it as a favor to the cops. Think of it as a favor to my brother, you know, the man you really liked and admired. I need you to help me catch his killer.”

He knew then that, finally, he’d touched her. He’d made her feel guilty, made her feel beyond selfish if she ran
away. She wanted to catch the monster who murdered his brother. Good, whatever worked. It had taken him long enough. Maybe it would help her get over the idea that she was responsible.

What made it even better was that it was only the truth. He did need her.

“All right. Let’s get some inexpensive things, then.”

“And then some better things.”

“I thought you said you were really tired.”

“I am. But I’m staying at a good hotel, the Bennington, just off Union Square. I’d like to remain low profile. Having a bag lady on my arm would make everyone think I was some sort of pervert.”

“They’d think you didn’t have much money, that’s for sure.”

Dane didn’t know where it came from, but he smiled.

Thirty minutes later, they walked out of The Rag Bag, a woman’s retread clothes store just off Taylor and Post, not far from the Bennington Hotel. Of course in San Francisco, nothing was very far from anything else. She was wearing a decent pair of jeans, a white blouse, and a dark blue pullover V-necked sweater. The cap was gone from her head, her hair ruthlessly brushed back and clipped at the back of her neck.

They didn’t get a single look from any of the tourists or staff at the Bennington. Once they were in Dane’s room on the fourth floor, he said, “You still don’t look like you’re quite up to snuff. But better, much better. Would you like to shower and wash your hair or have an early dinner first?”

No big surprise. She opted for dinner. When it arrived twenty minutes later, he waved her to the small circular table with its two chairs and the room-service dinner he’d ordered up for them.

She said, “I look fine, really. No one noticed me at all. I’ll just wear these clothes until you can catch this guy.”

“Oh? And then you’re going to trot back to the shelter? Or maybe panhandle on Union Square?”

“Yes. Whatever.”

“I threw away your homeless clothes.”

She gave him a long, emotionless look. “I wish you hadn’t done that. They were all I had.”

“When this is all over, you’re not going back to a homeless shelter.” He took a bite of his BLT, sat back, looked at her thoughtfully, and said, “No, you weren’t going to do that in any case, were you? You’re planning to hotfoot it out of town once this is over, aren’t you?”

She didn’t raise her head, just slowly and steadily ate her way through the pile of french fries on her plate. They were well done, brown and crispy, just the way she liked them.

She said, “You’re right, yes. When this is over, I’m gone. I’m thinking about the Southwest. It’s really warm there during the winter months.”

“At least you’re telling me some of the truth now. Hey, you like french fries.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve had any. They’re wonderful.”

“Michael loved french fries, too, claimed they helped him concentrate better on the football field and made girls think he was wearing a really nice aftershave lotion. Who knows?”

She raised her head. “Do you mind if I use your bathroom now?”

He nodded, took another bite of his sandwich, watched her eat one more fry, sigh, and push the plate away. She looked like she wanted to cry. “They’re so good, but I just don’t have any more room. I didn’t know Father Michael Joseph liked french fries. It never came up.”

“No, it probably wouldn’t have. Do you want to go back to the shelter? Do you have anything there you need?”

“No, thank you. The fact is, if someone does have anything of value, they learn to strap it to their bodies or it’s gone in five minutes.”

“Sort of like car parts in a bad part of town?”

He wondered what she had strapped to her middle.
Papers that would tell him who she was? What or who she was running from?

He listened to the sound of the shower running. He rose and walked to the phone. He’d nearly dialed his sister’s number when he slowly laid the receiver back down. No, he couldn’t imagine Eloise dealing with Ms. Jones. It would be unfair to both of them. Too much grief on Eloise’s part, too much fear on Ms. Jones’s. Not a good mix, too much, certainly, to ask of his sister. He’d have to trust her to stay there in the hotel while he was out with Delion. He carefully wrapped her water glass in a handkerchief. There was, at the very least, a nice clear thumbprint.

When she walked out of the bathroom nearly an hour later, Dane nearly dropped his coffee cup. The bag lady was gone. She was scrubbed, her hair clean and blow-dried, and the recycled clothes looked just fine on her.

She looked like a college kid with that fresh face of hers. He hadn’t realized it, but her hair was more blond than brown now that it was clean, but there were lots of different shades, and it was on the curly side. She had it clipped again at the back of her neck. Her eyes, clear and sharp with intelligence, were a mix of gray and green. She was, he saw, quite nice-looking.

“You look fine now,” he said, satisfied that he sounded only mildly pleased. The last thing he needed was for her to fear that he’d jump her. “I’ve got to go back to Homicide. I want you to stay here, in this room. Watch TV, or, if you want, go downstairs and buy some paperbacks, whatever. Just don’t leave the hotel. Okay?”

He gave her fifty bucks even though she just kept shaking her head until he stuffed it in her jeans pocket. He realized then that she hadn’t answered him.

He said again, “Listen to me. Promise you won’t leave the hotel.”

Finally she said, “Oh, all right. I promise.”

He really hoped she wasn’t a liar.

He called his sister on his cell phone on his way back to
Bryant Street, listened to her arrangements for their brother’s funeral.

Michael was dead. They were actually talking about burying him. Dane couldn’t stand it. Instead of going to the Hall of Justice, he drove back to St. Bartholomew’s, at his sister’s request, to see that everything was being handled. Father Binney, red-eyed, a slight tremor in his veiny white hands, had spoken to Bishop Koshlap and Archbishop Lugano. Everything had been arranged, everyone notified. Father Michael Joseph’s funeral would take place at St. Bartholomew’s on Friday afternoon, since there was another funeral already scheduled for the morning, and the wake Wednesday evening. “I am so sorry,” he said over and over. “If only I hadn’t talked him into seeing that man, that monster. I’m so very sorry.”

Dane wished he could tell Father Binney again that he wasn’t at fault here, that it was the monster who had murdered four people here in San Francisco, but the words just wouldn’t come out of his mouth.

He drove too quickly to the Hall of Justice and was pulled over just south of Market by a motorcycle cop.

When he handed over his FBI shield, the officer just stared down at it, laughed, then said, “Hey, you on a big case?”

Dane just nodded.

“No ticket this time, Special Agent. Just watch the speed.”

Dane thanked the officer and continued to speed to the Hall of Justice, despite the choking traffic.

He was shown into the task force room, which was actually the conference room next to the chief’s office. Kreider’s assistant, Maggie, told him the chief wanted lots of say on this one, wanted to be the first one to know if anything broke.

There were fifteen people crowded in the room. Dane stood leaning against the back wall and listened to Delion finish up.

“. . . Okay, everyone knows the drill. The guy who just came in, over by the door, is Special Agent Dane Carver, FBI. His brother was Father Michael Joseph. He’s not here as a Fed, just as a cop, and so he’s a part of this hunt. Anybody got anything to say? No? Okay, that’s it.”

Dane looked up at the time line thumbtacked to the wall, at the photos of the four people murdered. Chief Kreider squeezed Dane’s shoulder on his way out.

Delion said to Dane, “I’ll bet our guys even have their moms working on this thing, Dane. We’ll nail the guy, you’ll see. Now, we’re scheduled to see the medical examiner. Dr. Boyd promised he’d do Valerie Striker first thing. How’s Ms. Jones?”

“She’s fine. She swore to me she wouldn’t leave the hotel.”

An eyebrow went up. “You believed her?”

“Short of locking her up, I really didn’t have a choice, but yeah, I do.”

“You get her cleaned up?”

“Oh yes. She looks like a grad student.”

“A grad student? You know, maybe that’s a possibility. She looks brainy, speaks real well.”

Dane shook his head. “She’s smart, she’s too scared to hide that. Graduate student? She seems a bit old for that, but who knows?”

Delion said, “I’m told by my sister—she’s a professor of anthropology over at UC Davis—that there’s a lot of cutthroat stuff in academia, more vicious, she says, than the business world. Of course, she doesn’t really know what she’s talking about but do you think our girl could be running from a badass professor?”

“Could be,” Dane said, and burst out laughing, just couldn’t help himself. “A killer professor. I like that, Delion. Let’s stop by and see whose fingerprints are on this glass.”

“Ms. Jones?”

“Yes, a beautiful clear thumb. If she won’t tell us who
she is, just maybe her prints are on file. You never know. And, Delion, thanks for making me laugh.”

“No problemo.”

Dr. Boyd met them at the morgue counter. “Valerie Striker was garrotted,” he said. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

Dane said, “Can you give us a time, sir?”

“It’s difficult, but I’d say it was toward the middle of the night, Sunday night.”

“Good enough.”

Dr. Boyd said, “Same man who killed Father Michael Joseph?”

Delion nodded. “Yeah, if that’s when she died, then it was probably him. She was a loose end.”

“Now for my good news, gentlemen. Ms. Striker didn’t go easily. She may have got some of him under her fingernails, probably skin from his neck.”

“DNA,” Delion said, and did a little dance.

“Get me a match and we’ll fry the guy, Inspector Delion.”

They watched Dr. Stephen Boyd walk away, pause to speak to one of his investigators, then continue toward his office.

“Hot damn,” Delion said. “You know, no one ever even makes a joke about that man? No Sawbones, no Doctor Death, nothing like that. He’s a straight arrow, smart, does what he says he’ll do. When the pressure builds, the brass are really heating things up, Dr. Boyd never panics, just lowers his head and keeps marching.”

“Good for him,” Dane said. “On the other hand, if he did panic, the person on the slab wouldn’t be able to tell anyone about it.”

“True enough. Now, if that sample’s got DNA in it, it’s our first real break.”