Diagnosis Murder: The Death Merchant (26 page)

He had to clear his head and relax. Let his unconscious mind sort through the thousands of bits of information he'd accumulated in his investigation. Mark closed his eyes, reclined his economy-class seat, and mentally returned to Hawaii, to the beginning, and walked through it all again, following the path that had led him to Las Vegas, Keystone, and Albuquerque.

The flight was thirty minutes outside Los Angeles when Mark opened his eyes again. He wasn't sure if he'd actually been thinking or dozing, but it didn't matter. He understood more now than he did before. The recipe card was his Rosetta stone, and he knew how to use it.

Mark removed the in-flight phone from the seat back in front of him, swiped his Visa through the credit card reader in the handset, and made a call.

Steve rushed back home, summoned by an urgent phone call from his father. He'd already heard about the debacle in Albuquerque from Terry Riordan, who, without Mark Sloan to yell at, had taken his fury out on Steve instead. He'd also heard from Norman Begay, who said he felt responsible for what had happened because he wasn't able to provide the surveillance Mark had asked for. As far as Begay was concerned, he still owed a debt to Steve, and now Mark, as well.

When Steve got home, he found his father at the kitchen table, the Royal Hawaiian recipe cards spread out in front of him, the floor littered with balled-up pieces of yellow legal paper covered in handwritten scrawl.

His father looked terrible, wearing the same wrinkled clothes he'd left in the day before, his white hair askew and dark circles underscoring his bloodshot eyes.

"Maybe you should have called the paramedics instead of me," Steve said. "You look like hell. When was the last time you slept?"

"I've had a few minutes here and there," Mark said. "But that's not important."

"It is to me," Steve said. "I don't want you killing your self to save a couple of murderers."

"They're still human beings," Mark said.

"That's debatable," Steve said.

"Tell that to Diane Love's husband and kids," Mark said. "I know how to find Jason Brennan."

Steve raised his eyebrows in surprise. "The way you look, I'm surprised you're even able to speak."

"Maybe I had to be a bit deranged to see the solution to the puzzle," Mark said, holding up the recipe card he'd made to replicate the one they'd found in Appleby's safe-deposit box. "Stuart Appleby saved this recipe card because it told him where to find the others who helped him kidnap Connie Standiford. He hid the information in anagrams."

"We knew that already," Steve said. "We just couldn't figure out how it pointed to Jason Brennan."

"This recipe card points to a lot more than that," Mark said. "It's a Rosetta stone, not only to the location of Jason Brennan, but the accounts where the ransom money is hidden. The recipe on this card is actually the key that unlocks the true meaning of the recipes on the other cards."

"How does it work?"

"It's too complicated to explain now and we don't have the time," Mark said. "It's easier for me just to show you."

He handed Steve a legal pad, the pages thick with Mark's hurried, and very sloppy, handwritten notations. Steve quickly scanned it, his eyes widening in shock.

"My God, it's so obvious," Steve said. "Why didn't I see it before?"

"The same reason I didn't," Mark said. "It was so obvious, it was invisible."

Steve stared at the pages for a long time before speaking. "Are you sure about this?"

Mark nodded. "Jason Brennan is Ian Ludlow, the mystery writer. He came out of nowhere five years ago with his first bestseller."

"The timing is certainly right," Steve said.

"He's notoriously press shy," Mark said, "No one knows anything about him."

"Hopefully," Steve said, "that includes Standiford's hired gun."

"Do you think we can move fast enough?"

"Do we have a choice?" Steve asked.

While Steve Sloan tried frantically to reach Ian Ludlow's publishers and agents on a Saturday in New York, Raymond Wyatt lurked in the back alleys and secret passages of the Internet, where passwords and databases were bartered like flesh.

First, he scoured the public record for information about the reclusive author. There were no photographs of Ludlow, who was reportedly single and lived in Los Angeles. The hard-boiled author never attended book-signing events; instead he had his publisher or the bookstore drop ship books to his home for him to inscribe and return. It was widely believed that Ludlow was a pseudonym, perhaps for some already famous writer who wanted to dabble in a different genre.

Wyatt searched the Department of Motor Vehicles, the major credit reporting agencies, and Southern California utility company accounts and couldn't find any record of Ian Ludlow in the Los Angeles area. It seemed that Ian Ludlow was a pseudonym on top of a fake identity. So Wyatt hacked into the computers at Ludlow's publisher, found out which package shipping service they used, then tracked down the address where Ludlow's books were sent for him to autograph. There were two addresses, one in Santa Monica and another in Palm Springs. Both homes were owned by Ian Ludlow's loan-out corporation, so Wyatt wasn't able to determine the author's so-called real name. But he was able to dig up a phone number for each residence and then snoop in the Pacific Bell database to find out which number was the most active over the last forty-eight hours. Nothing was happening on the Santa Monica line, but the Palm Springs number was used as recently as ten minutes ago to call a Chinese restaurant.

Jason Brennan was in Palm Springs.

Wyatt checked out Mark Sloan's location using his lap top, which was tracking feedback from all the electronic surveillance devices. The doctor was at home and surfing the Internet for information on Ludlow while his son worked the phones. From what Wyatt could determine from the digitized records from the wiretaps, Steve Sloan still hadn't been able to reach Ludlow's editor or agent.

The hit man packed up, left the hotel, and headed for Palm Springs. In three to four hours, Jason Brennan would be dead, the Standiford assignment would be over, and Raymond Wyatt would disappear for good.

And in a few months time, a new man with a new face would emerge to carry on Wyatt's legacy of retribution and absolute justice.

* * *

Palm Springs, California, was the last place on earth where Cadillacs and Lincolns were still considered the classiest cars money could buy. Of course, most of the drivers of those cars were old enough to remember a time when everybody thought that was true.

This once glamorous resort was, like most of its inhabitants, a mere shadow of its former self, withering away and waiting to die.

There were some people who weren't yet collecting social security who saw a certain retro charm to the place, buying up homes built in the 1950s and '60s and restoring them to their original mediocrity

One of those people, it seemed, was best-selling author Ian Ludlow, better known to law enforcement and hired hit men as wanted fugitive Jason Brennan. Ludlow lived on an unfenced plot of desert just outside town in a modernistic, flat-topped house that was all glass and stone and light.

It was the light, in fact, that Wyatt saw first that night, gleaming against the impenetrable darkness of the shale mountainside behind the house. It was an isolated retreat, the nearest neighbor more than a hundred yards away, separated by a bleak expanse of dry gravel, gnarled cactus, and lifeless clumps of scrub grass.

Wyatt turned off his headlights, pulled off the road and into the dry desert. He checked his laptop. Mark Sloan was still at home and, according to the captured screen shots from the doctor's computer and the digitized recordings of his phone calls, he had only just discovered Ian Ludlow's addresses. It would be at least an hour or two before anybody would show up here looking for Brennan, and by then it would be too late. All they would find was a corpse.

He took his gun out of the glove box and screwed on a silencer. This kill would be fast and efficient. He removed the bulbs from the interior light of his rental car, opened the door, and got out.

Wyatt was dressed in black and blended seamlessly into the night as he made his way to the house. The property was landscaped with cactus and boulders around a kidney- shaped swimming pool, it's light radiating an unearthly blue glow that reflected off windows and walls of the house. He skirted the circle of light, staying in the shadows until the last possible moment.

The front door was unlocked. He eased the door open, slipped inside the house and into the 1970s: loud patterned wallpaper, thick shag carpet, brightly colored vinyl furniture, and globe-shaped lamps and hanging light fixtures. With the bright light and unshaded windows, Wyatt felt uncomfortably exposed. There were no shadows to hide in. It was as if he was naked. He wanted to end this and get out as fast as possible.

Wyatt heard the soft clickety-clack of fingers on a computer keyboard and followed the sound to a back bedroom that had been converted into an office. The drapes were closed. It made Wyatt feel a bit more comfortable.

A youthful looking man in his thirties, wearing a ratty sweatshirt and faded jeans, sat at his desk with his back to the doorway, all his concentration on the last words he'd ever write for a novel he'd never finish.

The hit man crept silently into the center of the room, his footsteps muffled by the deep shag carpet. He raised his gun and pointed it at the back of Brennan's head.

"Are you sure you want to do that, Ray?"

Wyatt was startled, but his aim didn't waver. The only part of him that moved were his eyes, shifting their cold gaze briefly in the direction of the voice.

Dr. Mark Sloan stood in the adjacent bathroom, leaning casually against the door frame, his arms crossed loosely under his chest.

"Because that isn't Ian Ludlow," Mark said. "Or Jason Brennan."

Wyatt glanced back to the desk, where the man at the keyboard slowly raised his hands and swiveled around to face him, a sheepish grin on his face.

"Hey, you must be Wyatt," Dr. Jesse Travis said. "I've heard a lot about you. Cool gun."

The hit man took a few steps back, angling himself slightly so he could keep Mark, Jesse, and the doorway behind him in view at the same time. But he kept his gun aimed at the young doctor's head.

"How did you know you were wired?" Wyatt asked Mark.

"I didn't," Mark said. "Either you were eavesdropping on me electronically or you were way ahead of me to start with and I was always two steps behind you. This was the only way I could think of to find out which explanation was correct."

"The notepad you showed your son didn't explain how you solved the anagram," Wyatt said. "You warned him that the house, phones, and computers were bugged and you outlined your plan."

Mark nodded. "Ian Ludlow is actually the literary pseudonym of an LAPD detective I know. I'm his medical consultant on the books. I called him from the plane on the flight back from Albuquerque. He was only too glad to help out."

"Because he's got writer's block," Jesse explained. "I think we're all gonna end up in his next book."

"You haven't cracked the code," Wyatt said to Mark, ignoring Jesse's comment. "You still have no idea where Jason Brennan is."

"I wish I did," Mark said.

Wyatt said nothing. He thought he could hear the sound of a helicopter in the distance and the crunch of footsteps on gravel outside. He took two steps back, positioning himself out of view of the open doorway and the line of sight of any marksman.

"By now, the house is surrounded by the SWAT team that was hiding on the hillside," Mark said, as if reading his thoughts. "And that's a police chopper you hear closing in. You're trapped in a house in middle of the open desert. You might as well drop your weapon and surrender."

Wyatt knew instinctively where each officer was, the weapons they were carrying, even the expressions on their faces. He'd been one of them once. The tactics and training were ingrained in him. He was outnumbered and cornered but not without options.

"You're forgetting that I have hostages," Wyatt said.

"I'm afraid you don't," Mark replied, almost sympathetically. "Jesse and I are leaving in just a minute."

"Take one step and I'll shoot you both."

Mark shook his head. "I don't think you will, Raymond. You've never killed an innocent bystander."

"You aren't innocent," Wyatt said.

"I haven't committed a crime," Mark said. "I haven't evaded prosecution. That's why you became the man you are, isn't it? To get the criminals the law couldn't reach?"

"Right now it's about saving myself," Wyatt said.

"Killing us would make you the same as your prey," Mark said. "What part of yourself do you think you'd be saving?"

The helicopter was over them now, the walls shaking from the rumbling of its blades, the harsh glare of its spot light illuminating the desert around the house.

It was obvious to Wyatt now that he'd gravely underestimated the doctor from the start. Mark Sloan was far more calculating and perceptive than he'd ever imagined.

Unfortunately for Wyatt, Mark Sloan wasn't guilty of the same devastating miscalculation. Mark had estimated his character, his strengths and weaknesses, with uncanny precision and amazing speed.

The hit man glanced at Jesse. "You can go."

Jesse rose slowly from his seat, his hands still raised. "Not without Mark."

Wyatt looked at Mark and studied him for a moment. "You won't stop until you find Jason Brennan." It was a statement, not a question.

"I'll find him," Mark said. "It's just a question of when."

"That's good to know," Wyatt said. "I wouldn't want one of them to get away with it." He motioned to the door with his gun. "You can go now, too."

The two doctors walked out of the room, Mark pausing in the doorway to look back at Wyatt, who now held the gun down at his side.

"Are you sure this is how you want it to end?" Mark said.

Wyatt allowed himself a tight smile. "It's not what I want, Dr. Sloan. It's just the way it has to be."