The Stars Shine Bright (45 page)

“Two and a half years ago,” she said, snapping open the briefcase, “a guy smashed a truck into a pet store. One of the big chain stores. The alarm went off. But he didn't want the money. He ran through the store opening cages. Dogs, cats, parrots, gerbils. He released them all. Except the fish.” She removed manila folders from the briefcase. “By the time Yakima PD showed up, he was gone. The truck was in the front window, and with all those animals running around, their first priority was to round them up. Snakes, he released snakes. They never found the guy.”

She opened the top folder.

“They ran prints on the truck and the animal cages, but came up empty. They called us because the expensive breeds added up to grand larceny. I ran the prints through our database and got a match.” She tapped the folder. Her nails were short and straight, no polish. “Same prints left behind at the UW bombing. ELF.”

“But you didn't tell the local PD.”

“Trust a guy like Joiner? He wears a uniform because he wants power, not because he cares about right and wrong. No, I called the Seattle office. They connected me to the Portland office because our guys down there had just picked up a woman who broke into the zoo. Tried to set the animals free. She coughed up six names.”

“Just like that.”

“Revenge.” Ortiz gave a big smile. “Her boyfriend dumped her.” She picked up the photograph. “Here's the guy. Thor.”

The image was grainy. “What kind of name is Thor?”

“Nickname. Nobody uses real names in ELF. They live like squatters and only work for cash. No records.”

I squinted at the photo. Like most images lifted from video surveillance, it was mostly smudges. But I could see glasses. Dreadlocks. A beard. And a pole-thin body that, with all that hair, made him look like a mop wearing granny glasses. “Not my idea of a ladies' man.”

“I told you, they're nuts.”

“What happened to the source in Portland?”

Ortiz sneered. “Her parents lawyered her up. She got off with community service. But before she stopped talking, she said Thor built the bombs. He's some kind of mechanical genius, majored in engineering at UW. But without a real name or even his age, we couldn't get school records.”

Ortiz handed me another photograph. “The girl in Portland. Brain of a beetle.”

Her dark hair was tucked messily behind large ears. Her blue eyes were dull and sloped down at the outer corners in an expression of perpetual melancholy. The lost soul.

I handed the photo back to her. She adjusted her posture, rolling her shoulders. Army, I decided.

“And somehow you tied Thor to Handler's ranch?” I asked.

“Not ‘somehow.' I went to a lot of trouble.”

I nodded. Certain of it. “How did you do it?”

She gave her first indication of melting. “I ran that picture from the security camera in the Yakima
Herald-Press
. It said there was a five-hundred-dollar reward for information leading to his arrest. Two days later a hay distributor called me. Claimed he saw this same guy working at a place called the Dark Horse Ranch.”

“He identified him from that photo?”

“He was positive. But when I ran the usual six-man lineup, our so-called witness got squishy. Basically he saw a white kid with glasses and dreadlocks. No judge is giving me a search warrant based on that.” She almost sighed, but I doubted she knew how. “So I've been watching that place. Waiting. I know they're there.”

There were more grainy shots of Thor. Blurs, mostly, as he raced to the cages.

“Do you mind?” I touched a second folder, underneath.

She shook her head.

Case notes from Portland. I glanced over them, flipping through the pages. There was a scanned copy of a color photo. Not as grainy as the surveillance images. I saw young people standing in a field. Some kind of picnic. Posing for the camera like a team photo. I felt some sympathy for the “squishy” witness. All those dreadlocks made them difficult to distinguish. But one girl had short hair. The ends were uneven, like she'd hacked it off with a pair of kindergarten scissors. Coppery hair. Her thick arm dangled around a friend's shoulders. Face covered with freckles. I lifted the photo, reading the data sheet stapled to it. Sketchy information.
Sally Jamison?
was one guess for the short-haired girl. Beneath that, other guesses.
Univ. of Wash.? Social work?
I flipped the photo back over, staring at her face. I followed her arm. To the wrist.

“I saw her at Handler's ranch.”

“Really?” Ortiz sounded almost happy.

“Just about positive.”

She straightened. “Oh. I get it. You think a positive ID's going to make up for what happened tonight.”

I felt a temptation half spawned by sleep deprivation. I wanted to tap my thigh and sic Madame on her. But Ortiz would probably shoot the dog. Or me.

“Actually,” I said slowly, “that never crossed my mind. It was this mark on her wrist.” I tapped the photo. The mark was just a dark smudge in the picture but in the same spot. “I saw it. It said
Elf
. But she's got dreadlocks now.”

Ortiz snatched the photo from my hand. “Five-seven?”

“Around there.”

“Her nickname is Rain. Rainy?”

I shook my head.

“Rainbow?”

“Wait,” I said. “I heard a guy call her Bo. Short for Rainbow?”

Ortiz had picked up a data sheet, searching for more information. I glanced at my watch. My eyes were dry and struggling to focus.

“I know this is important,” I said. “But I've also got to find that horse. Forty-eight hours is almost gone.”

Ortiz shook her head. “You still don't get it.”

“Get what?”

“Animal rights.”

“I got it.”

“No, you don't,” she said.

I was so wrung out, so tired, that my mind was on time delay. I could feel a thought pressing forward through the fog. But it was taking too long. And Ortiz wasn't the patient type.

“The horse is fine,” she said. “Wherever he is. They won't hurt him. People. That's what you need to worry about. People. Because ELF actually likes killing people.”

Chapter Forty-Nine

O
rtiz drove us to the police impound lot where I picked up the Ghost.

I filled the gas tank and bought coffee for myself and a breakfast sandwich for Madame. The dry russet land passed in a blur, and when we climbed Snoqualmie Pass, the wind was swirling among the white-capped peaks, sliding into the car, whistling like a real ghost. My eyes kept shifting to the glove box.

The small door was still locked. But the three-inch tube inside pointed at me like an accusing finger. It was evidence, yes. But of what? Maybe Handler's tie to the race fixing. Maybe an act of terrorism against the track. But definitely evidence of how far I'd drifted, despite all my vows to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
So help me, God
.

I lied to my mother. Aunt Charlotte. My fiancé. The cops. The shrink. My case agent. The only person I hadn't lied to was Eleanor, a professional actress. Trained for deception.

I was braking the Ghost down the steep western side of the pass when the doo-dahs rang from my purse. Madame raised her head on the second round. She was using my purse as a pillow. We waited for voice mail to pick up the call. Twenty minutes later I pulled into North Bend and parked outside Twede's Café.

Jack's message was deceptively simple: “We're meeting in the SAC's office. Wear your armor.”

I looked over at Madame. She quirked her head, wondering.

“Me too,” I said.

The wind had whipped Puget Sound into an angry cauldron, bubbling at the bottom of James Street. I turned right on Second Avenue, then took another right on Spring Street and hung a left midway up the hill, pulling into the short bay at the FBI's parking garage. My phone rang again. Jack, following my cell phone via the GPS. Making sure I showed up. I didn't even bother looking at the caller ID.

“Quit worrying,” I said. “I'm downstairs.”

“Good. Because I want out of this place.”

I pulled the phone from my ear.
Harborview Hospital
was on the caller ID. “Sorry,” I said, “you have the wrong number.”

“Nice try, Raleigh. I know it's you.”

It took me two seconds. “Felicia?”

“Yeah, Felicia. Who needs a ride.”

My mother's favorite orderly. The woman Jack hired to work at Western State. But I felt a moment of utter confusion. No sleep, too much stress. And Felicia, flying in from left field. All I could think of was, “How did you get this number?”

“Jack. Now come get me. I'm sick of hospitals.”

The Ghost faced the hinged metal door, the bland entrance that offered no clues to who occupied the building or what went on inside. I squinted my eyes, trying to focus. Something about Felicia's voice. The problem. “Felicia, what are you doing at Harborview?”

“Those crazy people made me sick.”

“Who—?”

“Not your mom,” she added. “She's fine. Well, you know, she's—”

“I know.”

“But Harborview says I have to leave. Now. And I lost my apartment, just so you know. I need a place to live.”

Her tone implied that this entire mess was somebody else's fault. In particular, mine. Felicia's apartment was part of her drug rehab program, a halfway house rental.

“What happened with the apartment, Felicia?”

“Oh, they're having a cow because the rent's late.”

“How late?”

“Just three months.”

“Just?”

“I can't exactly pay it now. I don't have a job.”

I closed my eyes. Dry, burning. “You quit.”

“Hey, if you think that job's so great, you go work with those crazies.”

“Nice.”

“Not your mom. I'm talking about the guys eating paint so their pee glows. And you need to come get me. Now.”

I looked to my right. Two women were coming down the steep sidewalk, hands splayed on their thighs to keep the wind from lifting their skirts. They walked around my front bumper, glaring at me through the windshield. Madame replied with a growl.

“Felicia, now is not a good time. I'm heading into a meeting—”

“And I'm, what, on vacation? Raleigh, the hospital's kicking me out. Where am I supposed to go?”

“Ask Jack. You want to blame somebody, he's your man.”

“I'm not speaking to him.”

I hadn't slept in more than twenty-four hours. It felt like sand was embedded under my eyelids. And now Felicia's whine needled into my ear. My sigh had no restraint. “What happened?”

“I told him this was all his fault. You know what he said? He said I should ask the doctors if they knew how to do a personality transplant.”

“I'd like to help you, Felicia, but I'm swamped. Isn't there anyone else you can call?”

“Like Booker?”

Booker Landrow. Her drug-dealer boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. Jack put him behind bars, but with overcrowding and leniency, he was probably out again. I gazed out the driver's side window. The electronic card slot inches away waited for my FBI identification. Which was upstairs. In a folder. Waiting for the meeting to begin.

“Felicia, I'm sure there's somebody you can call.”

“Here we go again. All nicey-nice when you need something from me, but when I ask for one small favor, suddenly everyone's too busy. You know what? I'm heading straight for a pipe. At least it makes me feel better.”

She hung up. And I growled, actually growled. Madame quirked her head at me.

“There are no words,” I said.

Felicia Kunkel would get an extra boost from smoking cocaine
and
blaming the relapse on me. Or Jack. I dialed his number.