The Touch Of Ghosts: Writer's Cut (Alex Rourke) (14 page)

The first had read:
You'd better be ready to deal with the big boys, or you'll have to deal with the consequences. Don't think you can hide from us.

Gemma had remarked that the note had had two puncture marks in it, similar to staple holes. There was nothing on him to match these, but my first guess was that if you wanted to threaten someone with 'consequences', how better to do it than with a photo of someone who hadn’t played ball in the past?

The second note read:
Corner of Grant and Dougan, 10PM. Delaney
.

I spent the rest of the day laying on the couch, watching TV and imagining I could hear Gemma talking to me, chunks of memory recut into fresh conversation that I found I couldn’t recall once I’d snapped out of it. I left it until long after nightfall before hiking back to North Bleakwater.

Saric’s car was there alone now, concealed not terribly well beside the shell of a collapsed brick building thirty yards from the hotel. I thought I could see a couple of people in it, but most of the windows were fogged solid. Not wanting to scare the hell out of a couple of cops on stakeout I walked along to where I’d be in full view and gave them a wave. The passenger door came open fast and a uniformed patrol officer was up over the top of it real quick, gun ready. Before he could say anything, though, I heard Saric’s voice inside. “Relax, Costain. I know this guy.”

He glanced back, then lowered the gun and I approached. “Help you, sir?” the officer said.

“Out for a walk,” I said. “Nice night for it.”

“Just get in the car, Mr Rourke,” Saric said with a sigh. Once I’d complied and the door was shut again, she added, “You realize I could charge you with obstructing an investigation?”

“Well now, if you’d mentioned you were going to be staking the place out earlier maybe I’d have known to stay away. Can’t be blamed for being curious.”

“We could still arrest you for being a dick,” Costain said. Saric chuckled.

“Case for the defense?” I said and passed a flask of coffee forward.

Saric opened it and nodded. “Not guilty, Your Honor. So long as you explain exactly what it is you’re doing out here.”

“I wanted to see how seriously this was being taken by Flint, what was being done. I don’t know that he likes me much, and I don’t know that I trust him to find Gemma’s killer. And I can’t sleep, so what the hell.”

“Heh.” She glanced at her partner and said, “You might as well take that leak you’ve wanted for the past hour, Costain. You’re not going to get a better time.”

“Sure. Thanks. Don’t drink all that yourself.”

Once the other cop was gone, Saric went back to staring through the dark towards the hotel. She said, “This goes no further, but Detective Sergeant Karl Flint is a prick and I’m sorry for your sake it’s his case.”

I raised my eyebrows. “For real?”

"Five years ago he was nearly kicked off the force. Went off the rails for a while. Drink, more if you believed some of the wilder rumors.” She glanced at me. Her gaze was curiously flat. “I don't. I like to think I'm a good judge of people, and while I'd say Karl Flint is an idiot and at times only a mediocre cop, I don't think he'd be stupid enough to get his kicks from anything illegal. If he does, he’s got friends in the testing chain covering for him. He brings the stories on himself. Hangs out with some rough types in some rough places. Likes to act the big man.”

“Why’d he get in trouble?”

“You ever heard of the Damien Ackroyd case?”

I shook my head. “If this was five years ago, I'd have been working out of Quantico. Unless he was a major violent criminal, I'd have missed it.”

“I don't know about violent, but he was certainly a big-time scumbag. He was like a criminal version of one of those big Japanese conglomerates — he did a little bit of everything. His main thing was selling runaways and impressionable girls who thought they were going to be models into the sex trade in New York, then bringing heroin back in return.”

“Doesn't ring any bells, sorry."

“I’d just finished in narcotics. My older brother overdosed on heroin when I was a kid, so I took — still take — that kind of thing seriously. A hang up more about people who use than those who deal, maybe, but that’s just the way it goes. I still wanted Ackroyd taken down. He wasn't even smart enough to hide the fact that he was a crook. He had a big house in Burlington's Hill Section, three sports cars, the works. IRS would’ve got him eventually for sure. People were getting suspicious of his business dealings when one of his girls escaped from a brothel in New York and told her parents everything. Big media coverage, and we got involved. We went after Ackroyd. The girl identified her handler and NYPD picked him up. He led us to the next rung on the ladder, and
she
gave us the name of Isaac Fairley, Ackroyd's number two. Without him, we could’ve busted some minor crooks, but we only had circumstantial evidence on Ackroyd. Certainly nothing that would've made for a conviction.”
 

“Flint failed to bring in Fairley?”

“No, he found him wherever he was hiding out, subdued him, and brought him in for interrogation. Fairley gave us a full statement implicating Ackroyd, all the details, held nothing back. We made the arrest. When the case came to trial, Ackroyd's lawyers — the same firm who coincidentally also represented Fairley after his initial interview — produced photos of Fairley's chest, covered in welts and bruises. On the stand he said Karl beat the confession out of him. The statement he gave us became worthless and the case collapsed. Ackroyd was busted on some minor possession-with-intent charges and escaped without punishment for the whole prostitution ring. He kept his big house and all his cars, although he moved away not long after his release.”

“I bet your superiors weren't happy about that.”
 

“No one was happy about that. Karl denied everything, but he was suspended, investigated, and might have been fired. As it was, the only proof was the photos of Fairley's injuries, and Ackroyd could've had him beaten after the interview, both to get the pictures and to threaten him into retracting his statement. Karl was reinstated, but for a few months he was out on the ragged edge. I remember one night I went for a drink with him in Burlington, a couple of weeks after the Fourth of July, end of party season, just to see how things were — I didn't know him then as well as I do now, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered. I don't think he drank much, but he was in a mean mood all the same. He got kicked out of the Bar None for getting in a fight with a couple of guys. I had to drag him away before he put one of them in the ICU. It could’ve been bad.”
 

“Do you think he did beat Fairley?”

“Who knows?” Meaning, I thought, yes. “Anyway, he kept his nose clean afterwards. Calmed down, rebuilt his ego. Cases he thinks he can score a quick win or doesn’t give much of a crap about, he tends to play his hunches and hope for the best. If he hits, he gets to look great to all concerned, and if he misses, it doesn’t bother him much.”

“What category does Gemma’s case fall into?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it? Either way, don’t hold your breath for a happy outcome. He was reluctant even to have us stake this place out for a couple of days. Too busy chasing wackos who’d make for an easy conviction if they looked a good fit for the shooter. He pulled the same move on the murder of a hooker in Burlington a few years ago and got nowhere. He’s got form.” The door opened and Costain climbed back into the car, smelling thickly of cigarette smoke. “You should probably head back home now, Mr Rourke. Thanks for the coffee, and remember what I said.”

I wondered, as I left, exactly which part of what she’d said she meant by that. And why.

Some time in the dead hours of morning, I dreamed of the lake. Clouds roiled overhead as two figures in police uniform escorted my casket and the gun carriage on which it sat down the gravel drive. I sat up and watched as a hooded man performed a military-style funeral salute with his rifle, firing three rounds over my head. Both cops kept their eyes on the floor. At the garage they stopped and unloaded my coffin, hauling it between them like a bag of cement, occasionally bumping and scraping against the ground. Dr Altmann watched us from one of the windows, Adam Webb standing by his side.

The cops carried me down to the water's edge and carefully lowered the casket until it bobbed on the surface, rising and falling with the waves as they lapped against the stones and mud beneath. Without looking at me, they gave the coffin a stern push and I went floating out over the lake. The shore receded rapidly behind me into the gloom.

I glanced over the side and saw that the surface swam with loose sheets of paper. The clippings I’d been given by Elijah Charman, printouts of files from the OCME network. Stephanie Markham. The Haleys. Gemma. One sheet of newsprint was playing looped back and white video footage. Elijah shouting for the attention of a couple of cops as they walked up a trail blocked by a patrol car, following a string of state troopers. “Detective, Detective! Are you expecting to find her today?”
 

The two cops stopped and turned around. “We’re hoping she'll turn up alive and well. We always hope we'll find her,” Flint yelled back.

“Ask us about it again this evening,” Detective Saric shouted. “We think she might be up on the Long Trail.”

Lamoille County. Orleans County. Maps. Photos.

Crime scene reports. Diagrams. Position of body at scene of death. A photo of Gemma slumped over the steering column, a trickle of drying blood running down her back, underneath her coat. Eyes open. One hand limp at her side, the other still caught up in the wheel.

Adele Laine, unattended death. Arthur Styles, unattended death. Lester Hoffman and Kate Wylie. Rosemary Saunders. Eric Burns.

Gemma’s voice on a bad recording. “I might have to do an autopsy on a kid killed in a hit-and-run when I go back on Monday. The State Police think it way have been something to do with the heroin trade...”

And then, beneath them all, movement in the water. A woman I didn’t know, dark hair drifting around her head like a black halo, raising both hands up towards me like a reflection trying to claw its way through a mirror. I didn’t know if she wanted to reach the surface or if she wanted me to join her below it. I leaned closer, felt the coffin tilt, tip and spin. Gravity took over and the water rushed up to meet me.
 

I cracked awake as I hit the floor next to the couch. The room was freezing and it wasn’t even dawn outside.

Rob called me from Boston while I was on my third cup of coffee after waking. If a voice could ever have worn a frown, his was. “Haven't heard from you in quite a while, Alex,” he said. “Not since the funeral. How’re you holding up? Are you OK?”

“Yeah, more or less.”

“Would I be right if I took a wild swing in the dark and said you're in Vermont right now?”

“I’ve been staying at Gemma's place the past few days.”

“Are you planning on staying much longer?”

“You want me to send you a postcard?”

“If they’re not still using the Pony Express up there. Seriously, Al, I know how tough this must be for you, and I’m happy to cut you a lot of slack, but I also know what you’re like and I
know
you’re not there to box up her personal effects.”
 

“Yeah,” I said. I didn’t elaborate.

“If you’re grieving, depressed, not feeling capable of work, then I quite understand and you take all the time you need. But if you’re pursuing Gemma’s murder — in however screwy a fashion — then you
are
feeling capable. Don’t give me a line about being miserable and then go back to hunting in the dark for your own reasons. If you’re well enough to do that, you’re well enough to do your job as well, even just a little. And I hope for your sake you
are
, because I know you, Al, and I know that you’ll let your head get full of Gemma being gone and then one day you’ll starting thinking about eating a bullet because your life’s as good as over.”

“You’re going to tell me it’s not.”

“Damn straight it’s not. You’ve got people counting on you and if you need a kick up the ass to keep yourself together, it’s down to me to give it because I’m your oldest friend. Colleen Webb called yesterday asking how we were doing finding her son. I told her there’d been a personal tragedy affecting you, but that line won’t hold forever. If you’re in Vermont and you’re up and about and not collapsed, moping on the couch, then I need you to do what you were going to do to find him. You need it as well. You might not see it now, but you do, trust me.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I said nothing.

“I know you’re hurting over Gemma, more than anyone, but you’ve got a client who’s hurting too, worrying about her son. She doesn’t know what’s become of him; you at least know what happened to Gemma. You can make that right for her, one way or the other.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Don’t ask me that question right now, Al. Do it. You don’t live in a bubble. The rest of the world hasn’t stopped because your life has been put through the mill. You engage with it, you pick yourself up, and it’ll be the first step in recovering,” he said. “I shouldn’t need to tell you this crap because you’ve been through it all before and come out in one piece. OK?”

“Sure,” I said with an effort. He was, I had to admit, right. The same as Ed Markham, it wasn’t fair to leave Webb’s mom in the dark if I could help. “I’ll try.”

“Good man. You call me when you find anything, or if you need another pep talk. I charge by the hour, though,” he said. “So what’ve you got so far? How’re the cops doing?”

I told him everything that had happened, skipping some of the crazier-sounding ‘Alex, take your pills’ stuff. “Cops are pretty lousy, in my estimation. But someone took a crack at me the other night,” I said. “So we’ve got to be close. Find out soon enough.”

“OK Alex. Be careful; the heroin business isn't known for its soft touch.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed.”

With the hotel under stakeout and no other leads to chase right then, I figured I might as well discharge my professional duty while I had the chance. Fresh snow whirled from the sky all the way into Burlington, fat, greasy, flakes of the stuff peppering the windshield and blanketing the sawtooth countryside around in a white fog. I had to keep my eyes on the road, at least when they weren’t watching the tan sedan, visible a hundred yards back in breaks between flurries, that had been tailing me all the way from Bleakwater Ridge.