Fair Game (2 page)

Andrew Corian’s deep voice was echoing down the corridor as Elliot left his office later that afternoon to meet with Terry Baker’s mother.

“What I’m talking about, you cretins, is a realistic monism. A philosophy of
life.
Not realism in the trite, hackneyed sense of the traditional repertoire of literary schools. I’m talking about the blood and guts methods and processes emerging from the raw, untainted past. What I’m
not
talking about is artistic eclecticism…”

Christ. Only in academia did people talk such bullshit and expect to be taken seriously.

Elliot grimaced as he locked his office door. Corian was an arrogant ass, but he was undeniably gifted and, surprisingly, one of the most popular instructors at PSU. His political views, in particular his opinion of “totalitarian” organizations like the CIA and FBI, inevitably irritated Elliot, but that was easy to do these days.

Apparently his once healthy sense of humor had withered and died over the last year and a half. Too bad, because he’d never needed it more. Even he couldn’t help seeing the paradox: after determinedly rejecting his father’s plans for him—stubbornly charting his own course in law enforcement—he’d ended right back where he’d started. And with a bum leg. That was now aching like a sonofabitch.

He started down the long polished hallway and nearly collided with Corian, who swept out of the seminar room followed by three of his acolytes. The great man wasn’t in the middle of a lecture, just pontificating for the amusement of the three denim-clad Graces hanging on his every word.

“The unity of art is actualized in a functioning world-attitude—And speaking of a world-attitude lit by
ignis fatuus.
Mills.”

Asshole.

Elliot nodded in greeting. “Corian.”

Andrew Corian was in his late fifties. A big, handsome man, starting to soften at the edges, but still fit. He was bald, having ruthlessly dealt with prematurely thinning hair by shaving his head, but it looked good on him. His eyes were a striking whisky color. He sported a meticulously trimmed black Vandyke and wore a gold earring in one ear, but it was artistic affectation. He was not gay. Not remotely. Thank you, Jesus.

“How’s your father?” Corian inquired, seeking the one neutral topic they shared.

“He’s good. He’s great. He’s working on his book.”

Corian chuckled.
Memoirs of a Militant
was kind of a PSU legend. Roland had, in theory, been working on it for the last ten years, but he had an agent now, so Elliot suspected the thing might actually become a reality in the not too distant future.

“Give Rollie my regards.”

“You bet.”

Corian swept away, nubile, grungy handmaidens in tow, and Elliot bit back a sour smile.

He continued out of the building and across the grounds of the arboretum. The glistening canopy of trees sheltered him from the drizzle and muffled the noise from the main campus. An occasional plop of raindrop was the only sound that reached his ears as he cut his way across the soft terrain. The scent of wet earth, cedar and the lemony mint of the gum trees hung in the cold air.

He had parked behind Cambridge Memorial Chapel as he always did, now that his leg was up to the hike over uneven ground. The small lot was usually empty and it saved him the inevitable chitchat with students and colleagues that parking in the faculty lot entailed.

Sure enough, the rain-streaked silver Nissan 350Z was the only car waiting on the shining blacktop. He unlocked it, slipped behind the wheel and sighed. Weary gray eyes met his gaze in the rearview mirror. “What are you doing?” he asked himself. “Why are you getting involved in this?”

Because it was a taste of the life he’d left behind? Or because it was easier than arguing with his dad? Or maybe both.

Elliot shook his head at his reflection, turned the key in the ignition and switched on the stereo. The sweet, mournful strains of “Ashokan Farewell” from Ken Burns’s Civil War series filled the silence as he jetted out of the parking lot.

*  *  *

“Tell me about Terry,” Elliot asked as Pauline Baker handed him coffee in a gold-rimmed china cup.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think. Would you like a cookie with your coffee?” Mid-motion of sitting on the brocade sofa across from him, Pauline hopped to her feet again. She was a petite forty-something with perfectly made-up porcelain features and gilt hair that coordinated becomingly with the Lennox cups and saucers. She was the second Mrs. Baker, that much Elliot remembered. Tom was his dad’s age, and the kid, Terry, was an only child. Maybe one of those surprise bundles of joy?

“Thanks, no. Tell me about Terry,” Elliot invited again. He was familiar with stall tactics. As long as she was in good hostess mode, Pauline didn’t have to confront reality. Once she sat down and started talking about Terry, she would have to deal with the fact that her son was missing. He didn’t blame her for wanting to postpone that moment, but it wasn’t helping anyone.

Gingerly, Pauline reseated herself—clearly ready to take flight the minute an empty teacup appeared. She nervously combed a perfectly placed strand of hair behind her ear and reluctantly met Elliot’s eyes.

“I don’t care what anyone says. Terry didn’t run away. He wouldn’t.”

Elliot nodded. “I understand. Tell me why the police and the FBI think otherwise.”

Wrong question. She was on her feet again, headed for the kitchen. “You probably haven’t had time to eat all day. I’ll just…”

He missed the rest of it as she vanished behind white saloon-style swinging doors. Elliot sighed and leaned back on the uncomfortable sofa.

Tom Baker was a pal from Roland Mills’s radical years—back in the day when guys were “cats” and women were “chicks.” Now Baker was a respected lawyer, although he still did pro bono work for various, mostly liberal, causes. He’d obviously settled down into comfortable capitalism. The house was located in the hills of Bellevue overlooking the Puget Sound. It had been decorated in a monochromatic minimalist style, bare wood floors and walls of ivory, ochre, and cream. The furniture was modern and uncomfortable. There were a few op art pieces on the wall and a couple of primitive-looking sculptures on the built-in bookshelves. A dramatic marble statue of a female nude stood near the windows. The room looked…cold.

Elliot had learned in his time at the Bureau not to draw conclusions about people based on their interior designers.

The kitchen doors swung open again and Pauline was back with a cheese plate and assorted crackers. She alighted once more across from Elliot, and said, risking a quick look at his face, “Roland said that you were
shot
last year.”

He could hear the shock in her voice at the idea. Even with her child missing, the idea of violence was still far removed from this well-to-do zip code.

“In the line of duty. Seventeen months ago.” But who was counting, right? Elliot said patiently, “How are Terry’s grades?”

“
Fine.
He’s on the honor roll.”

“What’s he studying?”

“He’s pre-law. He’s following in his father’s footsteps.” She swallowed on the last word.

“That must keep him busy. What about friends? What’s his social life like?” He set his coffee cup in its saucer on the table.

Pauline carefully repositioned the cheese plate on the iron and marble coffee table. “Terry is not a partier. He has friends. He gets on well with everyone. But he’s a quiet boy. A serious boy.”

A lonely boy. Elliot asked, “Does he have a girlfriend?”

Pauline shook her head, still trying to get that cheese plate exactly aligned. “No one steady,” she said vaguely.

“Okay, well it would be helpful if you could jot down any names of friends, male or female, you can remember. Has he had any recent run-ins with anyone? Even something minor could be useful.”

“No.” She sounded positive. “Terry doesn’t have run-ins with people.”

“All right. When was the last time you saw him?”

Almost imperceptibly, she relaxed. This was familiar ground, comfortable. “Two and a half weeks ago. On the twenty-seventh. He came by for dinner. He lives on campus but drops by a couple of times a month to have dinner with us.” She smiled ruefully. “And to have his laundry done.”

Elliot nodded encouragingly. “And how did he seem that night?”

“Fine.
Fine.
”

Riiiiiight.

“And Terry disappeared on the first of October?”

A tight bob of her head.

“And there’s been no contact of any kind since?”

“No. That’s why the police and that FBI agent think Terry left voluntarily. They say kidnappers would have made their demands by now.”

“That’s true.” Elliot tried to gentle his tone, but she was shaking her head.

“They might have reasons for waiting. It makes as much sense as the idea that Terry would deliberately walk away from his home and his family—from his
life.
” Her gaze met Elliot’s and he could see how close to tears she was. “He wouldn’t do that. He knows what that would do to me. How worried I—his father and I—would be. He’s not cruel like that.”

“I believe you.” Funny how powerful those three little words were. He’d seen them work their magic again and again, and they worked now. Pauline calmed almost instantly. “So no ransom note and no—”

“Suicide note.”

“No suicide note?” Elliot repeated. Not that it wasn’t always a possibility, but Pauline popped out with it as though it had been somebody’s favorite theory. Whose? And why?

Pauline’s voice shook as she said, “According to the FBI, even if a kidnapping had gone wrong, we should have heard something.”

“Yes.” Elliot met her eyes. He hated this part—always had. “I’m sure you’ve faced the possibility that Terry met with some accident or misadventure and his b—”

“No.” Pauline rose to her feet, instinctively wanting, he knew, to run from what he was suggesting. “He’s not dead. That I know. I would feel it here.” Her hand went to her chest in a tight fist. “I would
know.
”

If she only knew how many times he had heard that. Maybe it was better she didn’t know yet. With each passing day the chances of Terry coming home safe and sound dwindled, but it was three weeks, not three years. He had never known any parent who gave up hope in three weeks.

He said, still calm, still keeping it low key, “We have to keep in mind all the possibilities, that’s all.”

She shook her head, but she sat again. “I know. But…I’ve heard enough of that from the police and the agent in charge of Terry’s case. We need someone on our side. On
Terry’s
side. I realize that you’re not with the FBI anymore, Roland told me what happened, but you have insider experience with this kind of thing. Tom and I will pay you to help us. We can call it a consulting fee. We can call it anything you like.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“I want to.
We
want to.”

Did she mean her and Tom or her and Terry? Did it matter? He didn’t want money from them. The idea made him queasy.

“I will help you,” Elliot reassured her, “but you have to understand that I can’t promise anything. And the other thing you have to realize is, I don’t have the resources of the police or the FBI. I know how hard it is when you’re watching from the sidelines, but they really are doing their best for you and Terry—and they’re very good at what they do.”

“I know,” Pauline said, clearly brushing that aside. “But your help will give us one thing more in our favor. And we need—” Her voice cracked. She stared down at her tightly knotted hands.

It was a mistake to get involved in this. Elliot knew it. He was still trying to glue his own life together. The last thing he needed was to start stumbling through the shattered wreckage of someone else’s. He knew it, and yet he heard himself say, “All right. I’ll do what I can. Who’s the special agent in charge of Terry’s case?”

“Special Agent Lance.”

In the silence that followed Pauline’s words, Elliot could hear the steady, remorseless tick-tock of the clock on the mantel.

Tick.

Tock.

Tick.

Tock.

Good thing something was keeping time. His heart seemed to have stopped. He asked carefully, “Tucker Lance?”

“I’m not sure. Big.” Pauline positioned her hands plank-width from her own slender shoulders. “Red hair. Blue eyes?”

“That’s him.” Elliot’s mouth was bone dry. His heart seemed to twist before it started to thud again. One of these days he was going to learn to listen to his instincts. He’d known getting involved in this would be a mistake, and here was the proof right on schedule.

“Is he any good?” Pauline asked anxiously.

Elliot could answer honestly. “He’s very good.”

At his job, anyway. When it came to Tucker’s people skills, well, when he was good, he was very good. When he was bad…he was hell on earth.

Just ask his ex-lover.

The doorbell rang while Elliot was on the phone using up good will points with his former boss at the Seattle Division. He’d always gotten along well with Special Agent in Charge Theresa Montgomery, but respect and regret for the way Elliot’s career had ended aside, he was no longer FBI, and the Bureau did not welcome outside interference. Even from one of its own. Ex-own.

Oddly enough, it was Elliot’s former relationship with Tucker that seemed to sway Montgomery in his favor. Not that Elliot was trading on that. In fact, he was horrified when Montgomery said with uncharacteristic awkwardness, “I suppose, given your prior relationship, Lance will be less resistant to the idea of an investigator liaison to the family if he doesn’t know ahead of time what to expect.”

That was the second bad jolt of Elliot’s day. The first had been the realization he was going to have to face Tucker again. Now he was struggling to absorb the fact that at some point Tucker appeared to have revealed the true extent of their relationship to SAC Montgomery. He couldn’t imagine what the circumstances would have been for that to happen and was literally at a loss for words.

Montgomery didn’t seem to notice. “I suppose it could be worse. At least you understand what we’re up against here. As I’m sure you’re aware, the family has been unhappy with our performance from the beginning. Tom Baker is a high-profile former radical and activist who seems to believe that his history has somehow influenced our commitment to the investigation of his son’s disappearance.”

Translation: Montgomery had been taking heat from above over her team’s lack of results in the Baker case.

“I know we’re fighting the clock on this one,” Elliot said.

Montgomery sighed. “Okay. I’m going to set up a meet between you and Lance at the Tacoma resident agency. I’ll neglect to mention that the experienced investigator the family hired is you.”

“Thanks.”

“Lance is not going to be happy with either of us. You’re going to owe me, Mills.”

“I know. I appreciate this.” Elliot heard the doorbell go again, and automatically glanced over his shoulder. He could tell from the shadow across the large stained glass oval in the center of the front door that someone was still standing on his front porch. Not UPS then.

There was a rare note of amusement in Montgomery’s tone as she said, “We’ll see if you still feel the same after hearing what Special Agent Lance has to say on the matter.”

Yeah, no kidding.

Elliot thanked her again, rang off and went to answer the door. Steven Roche, his nearest neighbor on Goose Island, was blowing on his hands and stamping his feet while he waited.

“
There
you are,” he exclaimed as Elliot pulled open the door.

“No need for the rain dance,” Elliot said. “We’ve got all we need.”

“And everyone says you have no sense of humor.” Roche crowded in, and Elliot gave it up and led the way to the kitchen. “It’s freezing out there.”

He was a year or two older than Elliot. Medium height, well-built. He looked like a surfer: tanned and blond, but he was a true crime writer. Currently he was working on a book about the unsolved 1936 kidnapping and murder of ten-year-old Charles Mattson.

“It’s fifty-two degrees,” Elliot pointed out.

“But it’s a wet heat,” Roche said, and Elliot laughed.

Roche was a mooch and a pain in the ass, but he had been a friend to Elliot over the past few months when Elliot needed to talk. He was an interesting guy and he could be good company. He was also a little bit of a cop groupie and, Elliot suspected, a possible closet case, but hey. Beggars couldn’t be choosers. After his shooting, Elliot had deliberately distanced himself from his old friends and colleagues; it had been too painful to be around them. Steven was the closest thing he had to a buddy these days.

“Did you want a glass of wine?” He headed for the latticed wine rack built into the cabinet over the granite counter. The kitchen windows looked out over the tops of pine trees and a couple of cabin roofs down the hillside. The long pine needles seemed to catch and reflect the blue-black dusk.

“Is the Pope Catholic?”

“Depends on the conspiracy theory of the moment.” Elliot selected a bottle of merlot from Lopez Island, a local vineyard and winery. He uncorked it while Roche made himself at home at the old country farmhouse table. “How’s the book coming?”

“Don’t ask.” Roche proceeded to launch into a long complaint about exactly how the book was coming.

Elliot handed him a glass of wine. Roche talked on.

Listening with half an ear, Elliot sipped his wine and rinsed a pound of peeled shrimp and patted it dry. He was vaguely familiar with the cold case. The FBI had been actively trying to solve young Mattson’s murder fifty years after, but to no avail.

“God, it smells good in here. What’s for dinner?” Roche finally finished detailing his woes and sniffed the air like a hungry bloodhound.

“Stir fry. Greek shrimp and leeks.”

“How do you know the shrimp are
really
Greek?”

“Funny.”

The phone rang and Elliot put aside the mixing bowl with the couscous and herbs, and went to answer it.

“Mills,” he said curtly. Seventeen months later he was still answering like he was on call. He needed to work on that. Like maybe try
hello
for starters.

“Elliot? This is Pauline Baker. I hope it’s all right that I called you at home?”

She sounded nervous and he softened his tone. “Hi, Pauline. What’s up?” He understood how stressed she was, but surely she wasn’t expecting him to have found out anything within a few hours?

“I-I’m afraid I wasn’t totally honest with you earlier today, and I want to be because I know…it might hamper your investigation if I’m not.”

Unexpected. “Go on.” Elliot picked up his wine glass up and finished the dregs of wine. Roche rose, held the wine bottle up. Elliot shook his head. He still needed pain meds some nights, and pills and booze was a bad mix. Roche refilled his own glass.

Pauline said, “You asked about Terry’s friends. Whether he has a girlfriend.”

She stopped again. Elliot prodded, “And he does?”

“No. No, he doesn’t. Terry is gay.”

“Gay,” Elliot repeated as though he’d never heard of such a thing.

“Yes. He came out to us, to his father and me last summer. I’m afraid it was…” her voice failed, but she recovered, “…a shock. I’m afraid it was a shock to both of us. Tom especially had a hard time with it. It’s not what you want for your child, you know?”

He had no idea. He neither had, nor wanted, children, and his own parents had been completely accepting of his sexuality. Choosing a career in law enforcement was the thing that had driven his father to threaten disowning him.

Roland must have filled Pauline in on a few other things about Elliot because she added hastily, “Please don’t be offended. I’m only trying to make you see that there was tension there, but it wasn’t…That is…”

Tom Baker was not to be considered a potential suspect in his son’s disappearance, Elliot cynically filled in the blanks. “I understand. Was Terry seeing someone?”

“Yes. I don’t think it was serious, but he was seeing someone. A boy named Jim Feder. He’s also a student at the college.”

“Did you share this information with the police or the FBI?”

“No. Tom felt it wasn’t relevant. That it was personal family business.”

Shit.
An entire line of enquiry closed off because Tom Baker didn’t want anyone to know his son was queer. Unbelievable. Except it was only too common. Elliot had run into this kind of thing plenty of times. Of course, knowing Tucker, he’d probably seen through the smokescreen bullshit. Maybe that was why he believed Baker had offed himself. Nothing like parental expectation to drive a kid to suicide.

“You’ve done the right thing by telling me, Pauline. It opens another avenue of investigation for us.”

“I knew that. That’s why I wanted you to know…” She began to cry, and then to apologize.

“It’s okay,” Elliot reassured her automatically.

After a few seconds, she got control, apologized again, thanked him and hung up.

“What was that about?” Roche asked, green eyes watching Elliot over the rim of his wine glass.

Elliot had forgotten all about Roche. “Nothing. Friends of my dad are having some trouble with their kid.”

“When did you become a guidance counselor? And what does the FBI have to do with it?” That was the nosey writer looking for a scoop. Roche was always after Elliot to discuss his old cases. The more lurid, the better. And Elliot was always after Roche to mind his own business.

He ignored the question and turned on the oven to heat the skillet. “I guess you’re staying for dinner?”

Roche said cheerfully, “I thought you’d never ask.”

*  *  *

Back when he’d been a hot shot special agent for the Bureau, Elliot had operated out of Seattle. He was familiar with the Tacoma RA, though, and even if he hadn’t worked with the team there a few times, there wasn’t that much of a difference from satellite office to satellite office. Not really.

He arrived in plenty of time for his meeting with Tucker. Unless Tucker had changed a lot, he’d be striding into the building about four minutes before the hour. Tucker was rarely late, but he cut it close plenty of times. Elliot preferred to arrive early and well-prepped—today in particular he felt he needed the advantage of surprise.

He was annoyed to recognize the signs of nervousness in himself: damp underarms, elevated heart rate, and his tie felt like it was choking him. He fought the desire to pace, forcing himself to sit at the battered table in the plain meeting room. Expelling a long, calming breath, he stared up at the millions of tiny black holes in the soundproofed ceiling.

The last time he’d seen Tucker—

But no. Not a good idea to rehash those memories. Certainly not at this moment, when he was about to beard the lion in his den.

Anyway, what was the big deal here? Maybe things hadn’t worked out for them, but had either of them ever really expected them to? It would have helped if they’d been friends before they fell in the sack, but…the fact was, they hadn’t. Their working styles were very different and they really hadn’t had a lot in common off the job either. Tucker liked sailing and poker nights with the guys. Elliot liked rock climbing and miniature war-gaming. Not much in the way of shared interests. Except sex.

The sex had been fantastic.

Elliot had a sudden vivid memory of Tucker’s unexpectedly soft lips tracing a moist path from the nape of Elliot’s neck down, all the way down, to his tailbone…Tucker’s big, freckled hand wrapping around Elliot’s cock.

What do you want, Elliot? Say it out loud. Tell me…

As though feeling that ghostly tug, the cock in question gave a hopeful twitch.

The door to the meeting room swung open and Elliot snapped to his feet, ignoring the wrench of his wrecked knee.

Tucker strode in, bigger than life. That’s how Tucker always seemed: bigger than life. Just walking into a room he seemed to fill it, while at the same time emptying it of half the oxygen. Elliot had never known anyone who took up more metaphysical real estate than Special Agent Tucker Lance.

Uncomfortably aware of where his thoughts had been seconds prior, Elliot’s voice was stiff. “Hello, Tucker.”

Tucker froze mid-step. His knuckles whitened on the file he held. His eyes—a color known in painting miniatures as Prussian blue—went arctic.

“Is this a joke?” He sounded almost conversational.

“Good to see you too.”

Tucker glanced around and then behind him as though looking for
The FBI Files
film crew. He turned back at Elliot. By then he had himself under control.

He said evenly, “You’re looking fit, Elliot.”

Well, Elliot had known the advantage of surprise wouldn’t last long. “Thanks. You’re looking hale and hearty yourself.”
Hale and hearty?
He sounded like he was reading from a bad script. He made himself stretch out a hand in greeting.

Instead of shaking hands, Tucker thrust the file folder into Elliot’s fingers. “So you’re the consultant the Bakers brought in.” It wasn’t a question.

“That’s right.”

Tucker’s lip curled.

Elliot curbed his temper but it wasn’t easy. He refrained from asking the questions that would open the line of discussion that was sure to end in one of them decking the other. Instead, he slapped the folder on the table. “Great. Shall we get started?”

“Let’s.” Tucker yanked out the chair on his side of the table.

Elliot sat again and opened the file. That was for show. No way could he sit here calmly reading while Tucker did his best to raze him to ashes with those blue laser beams.

He made a pretense of turning pages, though, not least because he knew it was pissing Tucker off.

The ironic part was that Tucker seemed to believe he had cause for anger. As though
he
were somehow the wronged party.

After about forty seconds of scraping pages, Tucker said in that same too-even tone, “So Montgomery set this up?”

“‘Set this up?’” Elliot repeated, some of his own hostility slipping through despite his efforts. “You’re the special agent in charge of the case and I’m the consultant the family has brought in. Is there some reason you’d decline to cooperate with me?”

Like he didn’t know.

“I don’t like working with outsiders.”

The brutality of that caught Elliot on the raw, but he managed to say pleasantly, “Still the same loveable asshole, I see.”

There might have been a faint tinge of red in Tucker’s face, though it was hard to tell beneath the freckles. He repositioned his chair and without further ado brought Elliot up to speed on the case. It was a brisk and concise accounting.

Elliot listened without interrupting.

The facts of the case boiled down to depressingly little. On the night of October 1, Terry Baker had been studying in Kingman Library on the PSU campus. He had checked out a book on Renaissance philosophy at eleven-thirty, left the library and hadn’t been seen since. Somewhere between the library and his dorm, Baker had vanished. His car had never left the student parking lot. There was no sign of foul play. No one, other than the librarian who had checked his book out, even remembered seeing him. According to his roommate, Baker had seemed “like always.”