Blood Runs Cold (18 page)

Ren drove to Main Street and parked across the street from the Gold Pan. She arrived just as Salem Swade was getting up to leave.

‘Hey, Salem,’ said Ren.

‘Hello,’ said Salem.

‘How do you think Misty would feel about me taking her for a little walk?’ said Ren.

Salem glanced down at Misty. ‘It might be how
I
feel about you taking Misty for a walk. I doubt she’d have much of a problem. Isn’t that right, girl?’

Misty gave him a lazy, loving look. He rubbed her head.

‘OK, then,’ he said to Ren. ‘Where are you going to take her?’

‘Well, how about I drop you off at the Filly. I’ll take her from there and drop her back to you.’

‘You have to take very good care of her. That’s all.’

‘I can promise you that,’ said Ren.

* * *

Ren left Salem at the Brockton Filly. Misty sat on the back seat of the Jeep as Ren drove a short distance down the road. She pulled into a rest-stop and parked. When she opened the back door, Misty threw herself at her.

‘Hey,’ said Ren, ‘you can’t fool me. I know this is not your first time going for a walk.’ She laughed. She secured Misty’s leash and they walked for twenty minutes and back again along a winding cycle path that ran in and out of the trees alongside the highway. Few cars and no people passed them by. They got on well. But Salem was very happy to have Misty back.

As Ren was walking, she thought about Caroline Quaintance, Jean Transom’s friend from the animal shelter. There was something about her she couldn’t put her finger on. Tonight, she decided to put herself through some torture to find out more.

Ren could never get the balance right between the clothes she wore, the outside temperature and the heating in the car. Sub-zero surveillance: compared to the same temperature the evening before, the roads would feel icier, the snow heavier, the seats of the car, harder. And there was something about it all that felt pointless. It is harder to blend into the darkness when your exhaust is pumping white fumes into the air. But at least she
had
heating; half-way down the block
behind her, Todd Austerval was sitting in a car with none. He was dressed in a massive black Puffa jacket that made it look as if his airbag had blown.

Ren circled the block, saw nothing and pulled back into her original position. She radioed Todd.

‘Hey – let’s swap cars.’

Silence.

‘I’m serious,’ said Ren. ‘This isn’t fair – you freezing your butt off.’

‘Are you for real?’ said Todd.

‘Yes. I’ll walk back to you now.’

‘No way,’ said Todd. ‘I can’t let you do that.’

‘Is it because I’m such a lady?’ said Ren.

Todd snorted.

‘Laughing a little too hard,’ said Ren. ‘Come on, just let me do this.’

‘Look,’ said Todd, ‘we’ve been here three hours and seen nothing. Stay where you are; another ten minutes and we’ll both go.’

‘OK. Then we can go track down your mechanic and kick the crap out of him.’

Todd snorted again. ‘Sure, if you want to. But I’m going home to bed.’

You are so straight
. ‘Yeah, I wasn’t actually serious?’ said Ren.

‘It’s hard to tell with you,’ said Todd.

But Ren had drifted out of Todd’s bland world and was watching headlights approach in her rearview mirror. She sank lower in her seat and sat
in silence watching the familiar car as it passed. It circled the block three times.

Todd radioed her. ‘Hey, did you see that?’

‘That car circling?’ said Ren. ‘Yeah, I was right up close. He had a map, he was just lost … this place has a lot of streets and avenues with similar names.’

‘OK – you got a better view.’

‘Yep,’ said Ren.
A perfect view
.

But was Billy Waites tailing me or Caroline
Quaintance?

The Brockton Filly was almost closed, the crowd was thin. Ren had given Billy Waites two hours to get back. She came in, smiled at him across the room and sat up at the bar.

‘Hey,’ she said.

‘Hey,’ he said, smiling wide. ‘I didn’t think you’d ever be coming back to see me.’

She laughed as her heart pounded. ‘As if I wouldn’t …’

‘Well, you weren’t too keen on my company this morning. And Salem said you did a drive-by to drop him off.’

‘Did you get through all that breakfast?’

‘I did not,’ said Billy. ‘You should have seen it – there was enough for ten people. I am not exaggerating. I wrapped it all up in some napkins and brought it back for Salem.’

‘Did you check out OK?’

Billy nodded. ‘I wasn’t thinking about that when I took the food. In fact, I dropped some of my stash.’

‘You wouldn’t make a great crim—’ She almost blushed. ‘Oops.’

‘I’ve lost my touch,’ said Billy. ‘The FBI is messin’ with my mojo.’

The Brockton Filly quickly emptied. She saw the creepy guy whose prints she had taken. He almost winked at her as he left.
Ugh
. She watched Billy make his way around the bar, closing the shutters. Every time she met him, he was wearing a black T-shirt with a graphic on the front and perfectly sized Diesel jeans.

He looked over his shoulder at her. ‘I have three pairs of the same jeans,’ he said. ‘In case you were wondering.’

Ren laughed. ‘Well, what else am I going to be looking at in here?’

‘I’m just an object to you …’

A subject, actually. ‘Yup,’ she said
.

He kept going and every now and then he would look over and smile. It felt good. She watched him, afraid to rely on what she was feeling right now. He had to know that checking his phone numbers, checking anything out about him now
could lead her colleagues directly her way. He had cut off that channel.
Deliberately?
He smiled at her again. If she was to be fair, she had cut off that channel too. But she wasn’t feeling fair. She was feeling suspicious. She was sitting with a man linked to a homicide investigation who had been following either her or a young woman who was linked to the homicide victim.
And I am the agent
in the middle
.

‘Can I fix myself a drink?’ said Ren.

‘Sure – go ahead,’ said Billy. ‘I need to bring bottles in from out back.’

By the time she got behind the bar, her heart was beating so hard, it was beginning to turn her stomach.
I can’t do this, it’s so wrong. If he knew
…’

Her hand never shook on the job. She had held a gun steady on people she feared she would have to shoot. She had done terrible things in terrible situations that should have rendered every usable part of her body useless, but it never happened. She did steady better than most. Until tonight. She had crossed over. One sensible-shoed foot was rooted on the professional side. The other was in the personal zone with a trampy stiletto on the chest of a criminal.

Jesus … and stop fucking shaking
.

She stared down at her hand. It calmed a little. She took a breath and navigated quickly through the unfamiliar menu of Billy Waites’ cellphone. Most of the texts were from her, which gave her
an unwanted thrill. As she scrolled down, she realized the Inbox was filled entirely with her texts.

I am the stalker
.

The Sent box was different; probably the same amount of texts to her, but more to numbers and names she knew she wouldn’t recognize anyway. She started opening them. They were typical men’s texts – direct and written without l8-, w8-, gr8-style abbreviations. These texts said Y or N, or had times or… Looking for coded messages seemed ridiculous. With single-letter responses, the same letters over and over, what was she going to work out? That yes meant no and no meant yes? She almost laughed. As she backed her way out of the menus she had violated, the phone vibrated in her hand with a text message. She jumped and almost fucked herself into dropping it and alerting Billy. He called out from the back room.

‘Shit, Ren? Is my phone out there?’

She half-looked at it, half-tried to put it down and wholly wanted to press Yes to open the text. She wanted to find out if Billy was about to bring in a shipment of coke, arrange a hit, tell his friends what he did to her, or ask a girl called Cindy to meet him in a seedy bar.
Is this the seedy bar? And
what are the chances of a sinister text arriving while an
FBI agent is holding his phone? Jesus
.

‘I think it’s here somewhere,’ she shouted back. ‘I heard the buzz.’

‘You can leave it,’ said Billy. ‘I’ll be out in a minute.’

With a gun to pressed to the back of my neck.

She walked quietly around the front of the bar, leaving the phone where it was. She sat very still, then pretended to look through her bag for a pen. Her heart slowed, but there was a small tremble left in her hand. Billy came up behind her, laid a hand on her shoulder and kissed the top of her head. She reached up and rested her hand on his.

‘Hey,’ he said.

‘Hey.’

He walked over to his phone and checked the message. Ren watched his face. There was no story in it to read.

‘Where’s your drink?’

‘I changed my mind,’ she said. ‘I need to get back to Breck.’

‘What?’

She nodded.

‘Oh,’ said Billy. ‘I was going to fix us something to eat.’

Whoa. Too domestic
. ‘I can’t, I’ve … got to meet up with my bosses.’

‘Code for “I can’t possibly eat with you because that would be weird.”’

And you know all about code … And I feel terrible
for even thinking that
.

She stood up and kissed him briefly on the lips. ‘I’ll talk to you later.’

‘You always say “I’ll talk to you later,” and you never do.’

She smiled back. ‘It’s just a saying. You know, like “How are you doing?” or “I love you.”’

‘What?’

Ren laughed. ‘I think Homer said that.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh, not him – Homer Simpson. Gotta go.’

When Ren finally got away from the Brockton Filly, it was three a.m. A miserable, beautiful, hopeless song played on her iPod to back up her mood. Her hand would never have shook, her heart would not have sped up if Billy Waites had been just who he was and not who he had become. She had been in situations worse than that, she had risked more, but never did she have to ask herself a similar question to the one that was running through her mind right now.

Was I looking for reassurance that Billy Waites was
bad… or reassurance that he was good?

Ren woke with aching shoulders and stiff legs. She took a bath instead of a shower to try to relax her muscles.

Bob had an audience of several detectives when she got to his office.

‘I was just telling the guys,’ he said, ‘there was some late-night action at the hospital. Some guy was dumped out of a car and collapsed in the sliding doors.’

‘What was wrong with him?’ said Ren.

‘The Frisco guys could barely keep a straight face. He said some guy jumped on him, poked him in the neck and the face, did some weird shit to his stomach and his – “privates” is what he called them – and left him in agony. Then bundled him into a car and dumped him at the hospital.’

‘Kind of them,’ said Ren. ‘Where did he say it happened?’

‘He didn’t. He was understandably reluctant to provide anyone with more information because, of course, there were some outstanding warrants for his arrest.’

‘On what charges?’

‘Child support.’

‘That’s it?’

Bob nodded. ‘Yup …’ He turned to her, his expression grave. ‘Something smells bad with this guy.’

‘Really?’

‘No, I mean seriously. We found his truck – he had been transporting manure.’

Ren laughed. ‘Ew. Why?’

‘Some bullshit reason …’

‘OK, we could be here all night … talking shit.’

The detectives were laughing as they moved past her and went back to their offices.

‘Where’s this guy now?’ said Ren.

‘In my little jailhouse,’ said Bob.

‘What’s his name?’

‘Erubiel Diaz.’

‘Exotic.’

‘There was one car driving through the parking lot of the Medical Center around the time Diaz was dropped off,’ said Bob.

‘What, are you actually following up on this?’ said Ren. ‘Some dirtbag gets taken off the streets, and you’re going to go find the people who did us that favor?’

‘The guy hasn’t paid his child support – is dirtbag maybe going a little too far?’

Ren paused. ‘Um, maybe … Did you get the registration?’

‘Nope. The driver did quite a cool shimmy around the cameras, by the looks of it. It was like that naked Austin Power thing.’

‘Here, let me save you some time on this,’ said Ren. ‘Could I go talk to him? He may know some of our masked men.’

‘Why would you think that?’

‘I just would.’

‘Knock yourself out,’ said Bob. ‘He’s in a cell right now. You speak Spanish?’

‘I have ways of communicating …’

Bob led Ren through reception, down a series of hallways and through the steel door into the jail.

‘Hey,’ said Bob to the female guards behind the desk. ‘The reception area,’ he said to Ren. ‘The inmates need anything sent to their room, they call here: fluffy towels, robes, scented candles …’

‘Yeah, and today’s Champagne-and-Hooker Tuesday,’ said one of the guards.

They all laughed.

‘Agent Bryce here is going to talk to our new guest, Mr Erubiel Diaz.’

‘Enjoy,’ said one of the guards.

‘They’ll whistle and cat-call,’ said Bob. ‘You know what to do.’

‘Get a few phone numbers,’ said Ren.

‘Nah, just call me, I’ll patch you through.’

The Summit County Jail was clean and modern with reinforced glass in all the common areas. In a cell to her right, a brick-shithouse inmate stood freakishly still, his legs slightly spread, his arms folded, his dark eyes dead ahead, his black wavy mullet carefully tended.

‘Jesus,’ said Ren. ‘What’s his story?’

‘Yeah,’ said Bob. ‘He hates … people.’

A group therapy session was winding down in a glass-walled room on the left. The therapist raised a hand to Bob and nodded.

‘We’ll wait for these guys to leave,’ said Bob. ‘I’ll bring Diaz to you. You want me to sit in?’

‘No, thank you,’ said Ren.

‘OK. But I’ll be right outside, watching through the glass.’

‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘I’ll be fine.’

Ren eyeballed some of the inmates as they left. She went into the empty room and sat at the table with the glass door to her right. Bob came back with Diaz, then disappeared. He walked to the control booth at the center of the jail, a small hexagonal glass room that looked out over everything.

‘Hey,’ said Bob to the guy at the controls, ‘show me the group therapy room, so I don’t have a dead Fed to explain.’

The guy turned to the bank of monitors and flicked a switch. The screen was black. The guy shrugged. ‘Hold on. Let me try this.’ He hit some more buttons, but the screen didn’t come back on.

‘Shit,’ said Bob. ‘Is that busted?’

‘Shouldn’t be.’

‘Shit,’ said Bob. He ran back down the steps and along the hallway to the therapy room.

Ren was standing right in front of the glass door with her arms stiffly by her side. Bob jumped. He pulled open the door. She made fava bean and Chianti sounds.

He smiled. ‘Phew.’ He looked past her.

Diaz was slumped in his chair, his head turned toward the back wall. His left pants leg was wet and there was a small pool under his foot.

Bob glanced at Ren. ‘If you’ve eaten his face …’

She looked back at Diaz, then leaned into Bob’s ear. ‘Much worse than that … Just call me Theseus.’

‘Who the fuck is Theseus?’

Ren smiled. ‘The guy who slayed the Minotaur.’

Bob frowned, then called into the prisoner, ‘Diaz, you ready?’

‘Get me a towel or something,’ said Diaz in Spanish. ‘Let me clean myself up.’

‘Let him clean himself up first,’ said Ren.

‘I’ll call maintenance.’ Bob walked back down
to the control room. ‘Hey, you need me to send someone in to look at that camera?’ He knew the answer.

‘No. It came back just as you got here.’