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Authors: Josh Lanyon

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BOOK: Fair Game
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“But it’s irresponsible!”

Elliot had no reply to that. He didn’t actually think Ms. Lyle’s actions were irresponsible. If Gordie had taken off of his own free will, the TV interview was one way to remind him that people were waiting and worried.

Charlotte said slowly, “I’m wondering exactly what Ms. Lyle’s story is.”

“What do you mean?”

“In my opinion her reaction doesn’t ring quite true.”

“I’m still not following.”

“Maybe she’s determined to place responsibility for Gordie’s running away on the university because
she
feels guilty. She admitted to me that they argued the morning before he disappeared.”

“What did they argue about?”

“She didn’t say.”

Elliot considered it. After tragedy struck, very often people did feel guilt over silly arguments or the failure to pay attention to, at the time, insignificant details. If hindsight was 20/20, the expectation of guilt was x-ray vision.

“We
have
to get this resolved,” Charlotte fretted.

“I’ll tackle the aunt again on Monday. If I push too hard right now, she’s going to view it as harassment. She’s already accused me of being the university mouthpiece.”

Charlotte fumed and fussed a few minutes longer. Elliot reassured her the best he could, but in all likelihood things were liable to get worse before they got better. Certainly from the standpoint of the university. At last she gave up, wishing him a good evening and a pleasant rest of his weekend.

Elliot replaced the phone thoughtfully.

Sunday played out very much like Saturday, minus the orcas in the harbor and breakfast with Steven. Elliot went for a couple of walks, chopped firewood, read the latest issue of
CHARGE!,
the quarterly newsletter for the Johnny Reb Gaming Society, and worked on filling in the open space in his diorama with more handmade terrain features.

No one visited. No one called. If Tucker had gotten Elliot’s message, he wasn’t responding. It was a quiet, peaceful day. Exactly the kind of day he’d told himself he needed. A fire burned cheerfully in the stone fireplace and the
Cold Mountain
soundtrack played on the downstairs audio system. He made chicken and dumpling soup (cheating with store bought dumplings) and watched football on TV.

In the late afternoon it began to sprinkle, and then rain thundered down on the roof and washed the windows in silver. Surrounded by glistening pine trees, enveloped by rain and fog, for the first time it occurred to Elliot that his extended period of solitude just might be turning into loneliness.

Chapter Ten

Leslie Mrachek was indeed a crier.

She listened in stricken silence to Elliot’s comments—he thought he’d found a reasonably tactful way to say
now put it in your own words
—and promptly burst into tears. Bewildered and uncomfortable, Elliot opened desk drawer after desk drawer searching for a box of tissues. At last he found one and handed it to Leslie. She sobbed into the tissue, blew her nose and proceeded to tell him all about her problems with her stepmother, her roommate and her boyfriend, John Sandusky. What any of it had to do with the films of John Ford, Elliot failed to see, but Leslie seemed to be drawing a soggy connection.

After she left, he checked his phone messages and discovered he’d missed a call from Zahra Lyle. Her terse voice informed him that if he didn’t return her call before 10 a.m. they would have to wait to speak until she got home from work at seven.

Elliot glanced at his watch and swore. Ten-thirty. From down the hall he could hear the familiar clatter of Ray’s maintenance cart and, more distantly, Andrew Corian bellowing the usual spiel about art and fascism. “We see the manipulation of emotion in the fascist art of our own government. Consider the books and films glorifying such repressive organizations as the police, the FBI, the CIA…”

The day went downhill from there. Elliot had just dismissed his History of the Civil War students when he felt that familiar warning prickle down his spine. He glanced over his shoulder.

Tucker stood inside the lecture hall doorway, arms folded. He wore one of his custom-tailored dark suits and tie, his smooth, copper hair in vivid contrast. Students filed past with curious looks. He could have been standing there in his skivvies and his aura would still have screamed cop.

“Would it be okay if I took off early today?” Kyle asked.

Elliot glanced his way. “Sure.”

“Thanks, Dr. Mills.” Kyle, normally upbeat and energetic, looked tired. There were dark circles under his eyes. Even his eyebrow rings seemed to droop.

“Everything okay?”

“Oh yeah.” Kyle shrugged. He too threw one of those doubtful looks Tucker’s way. No wonder. Tucker’s expression was noticeably stony, and reading it, Elliot knew how very bad the news was. He felt a pang as he thought of Pauline Baker. It didn’t get any easier, that was for sure.

Kyle was the last to leave. Tucker detached himself from the wall and walked over to Elliot who was automatically shoving papers in his briefcase.

“You’ve found Terry Baker’s body,” Elliot stated as Tucker reached him.

“Yes. We think so. We’re going to need a formal identification to be positive, but his belongings were found at the scene. Phone, ID, laptop.” Tucker added briefly, “I’m sorry.”

Elliot nodded. “Where?”

“In the lake behind the school.” At Elliot’s surprise, Tucker added, “It’s looking a lot like suicide.”

How the hell had Tacoma PD failed to check that lake? Elliot shook his head, but it was not really denial. There had only been so many possibilities. “How did he do it?”

“Used a rope to tie an anvil around his waist, walked out into the lake and shot himself.”

In the silence between them Elliot could hear students laughing and calling to each other in the hallway outside the room. “You’ve found the gun then?”

“Not yet. It’ll be there.” Tucker sounded very sure.

He was probably right, but Elliot said reluctantly, “I didn’t see it playing out like this.”

“I know. It was the most likely scenario, though.”

Was it? Yeah, probably.

He slid his laptop in his briefcase and clicked it shut. “Do you want me to break it to the Bakers?”

Tucker’s blue eyes met his. Of course Tucker wanted him to break it to the parents. Who wouldn’t want to get out of that job if it was humanly possible? But maybe Tucker read Elliot’s expression as clearly as Elliot read his, because after a hesitation, he said, “Why don’t we do it together?”

Elliot nodded. “Can I get a look at the crime scene?”

Tucker sucked in a harsh breath. “Why?”

“What do you mean
why?

Like that, the tentative truce between them evaporated. “The kid killed himself. Case closed. And if the ERT and local crime scene boys find evidence otherwise, then you’re still out of the picture.”

“Since when?”

“You were brought in as a civilian consultant, Elliot. You’re not FBI anymore, remember?”

“How could I forget?” It came out more bitterly than he’d intended. It was hard to believe that this flint-faced Tucker was the same guy who’d flirted with him on the phone Friday night. Maybe he’d had more to drink than Elliot realized. Maybe they both had.

“Hey, that was your choice.”

“My
choice?
” The fury that washed through Elliot caught him by surprise. Granted, where Tucker was concerned, the anger was never far away.

“You know what I mean. I’m not going to argue with you. As of right now, your involvement in this case is over. Is that clear?”

Elliot looked straight into Tucker’s eyes and laughed. “If you say so, Special Agent Lance.”

That was pretty much guaranteed to piss anyone off, and watching Tucker’s pale eyes narrow and his face turn the color of his freckles, Elliot knew he’d scored.

“I do say so.”

Elliot headed for the door, briefcase in hand.

Tucker followed him out into the hall, waiting while Elliot locked the lecture hall.

“You want to take my car over to the Bakers’?”

Elliot said, “Don’t you have a crime scene to attend to?”

“There are more than enough crime scene technicians crawling around there right now.”

Elliot’s nod was constrained. He didn’t particularly want to drive with Tucker, but it would be childish to refuse. Besides, he wanted more information. Not that either of them was in a chatty mood as they left the building.

Tucker had parked his silver G-ride, slang for government owned vehicle, in the chapel parking lot next to Elliot’s Nissan. Behind the fence and across the meadow, Elliot could hear ducks quacking frantically. He spotted crime scene vehicles and personnel moving back and forth beside the lake. A news chopper circled slowly in the sky overhead.

They got in the sedan, Tucker talking on his cell phone. “Yes, ma’am. I’ve already established my crime scene debriefing team…”

That brought back memories. Elliot smiled sardonically. Montgomery did have a tendency to micromanage. He listened absently, his attention focused on the activity across the meadow. In addition to the initial responding officers, Tucker’s debriefing team would consist of local investigators and the evidence collection technicians: the photographers, latent print personnel and other specialized personnel. It would be Tucker’s job to determine what evidence was collected, discuss preliminary scene findings with team members, discuss potential technical forensic testing and the sequence of tests to be performed, and finally initiate any actions required to complete the crime scene investigation.

When Tucker finally hung up and started the car engine, Elliot had a question for him. “You said Terry tied an anvil around his waist?”

“That’s right.”

“A real anvil or an anvil-shaped object?”

“I’m no expert. It looked like a real anvil to me. Why?”

“Where would he get one?”

Tucker didn’t reply.

“It’s not the kind of thing you find littering the ground.”

“So he planned ahead. That’s already obvious. He planned to kill himself and conceal the body in the lake.”

“Who found the body?” Elliot asked.

“A wingshooter was out spreading decoys around the lake to train his retriever. The Baker kid hadn’t walked too far from shore when he blew his brains out.”

“Yeah, well no kidding. Do you know how heavy an anvil is?”

“I’m assuming that’s rhetorical. About as heavy as a sailboat anchor?”

Elliot was still thinking. “What’s the estimate on how long Terry was in the water?”

Tucker said slowly, “The ME isn’t saying.”

Something in his tone cued Elliot. He turned. Tucker’s profile was unreadable. “What?”

“What do you mean
what?
” Tucker made a left onto North Union Avenue.

“What is it you’re not telling me? Something about the crime scene isn’t right, is it?”

“There’s nothing wrong with the crime scene.”

“But?”

Reluctantly, Tucker admitted, “But the ME has some doubts about how long the body was in the water.”

After a shocked moment, Elliot asked, “How long does he think it was in the water?”

“He’s not willing to speculate, but he doesn’t believe Baker was in that lake for more than a week.”

*  *  *

You could tell a lot about people from their kitchens, in Elliot’s opinion.

The Bakers’ kitchen was pristine. It had every gadget known to the Food Network, but if those gleaming copper kettles hanging from the ceiling rack over the granite island were any indication, no one in this house had so much as boiled an egg in years.

Frankly, it didn’t look like anyone ever ate in here, let alone cooked.

“I wish I could say it was a surprise,” Tom Baker was saying.

“How’s that, sir?” Tucker asked. Elliot watched him taking note of Baker’s jerky movements.

There was nothing about Tom Baker—unlike his long time friend, Roland Mills—to remind anyone that he had once been a leftwing radical. In fact, everything about Baker, from his buffed fingernails to his four-hundred-dollar haircut, announced Establishment. Money, class, privilege: that was the message Tom Baker projected to the world, although Elliot knew Baker’s background was as working class as his own family’s. He looked like a French aristocrat. Tall, lean, austere, with dark, hooded eyes and a hawkish profile.

“It’s all part of the lifestyle, isn’t it?” Baker was subdued as he dunked his swollen hand in a bowl of ice. He had not been subdued twenty minutes earlier when Elliot and Tucker had delivered the bad news about Terry. In fact, he had been far more vocal than Pauline, who had heard them out in white-faced and mute agony and then dosed herself with tranquilizers and retired.

It was after Pauline’s retreat that Tom had punched his fist through the white saloon-style swinging doors that led off the kitchen. Tried, anyway. One of the battered doors now sagged from its hinges like a broken wing.

“What lifestyle is that, Mr. Baker?” Tucker persisted too politely.

Elliot opened his mouth, and then let it go. He knew Tucker in this frame of mind and he knew he would be wasting his breath.

“The
gay
lifestyle,” Baker spat. He suddenly glared at Elliot as though Elliot were the one challenging him.

That seemed to annoy Tucker still further. He said coolly, “To my understanding suicide isn’t part of any lifestyle. It is, unfortunately, on the rise with persons under the age of twenty-five, and gay teens are about six times more likely to kill themselves than straight peers. A lot of that can probably be tracked back to depression over familial and societal attitudes.”

“Lance,” Elliot muttered.

Baker’s face mottled with rage. “How the hell dare you?” He sounded winded. “My son is
dead.

“And any help you can give us that might shed light on the circumstances surrounding his death will be greatly appreciated.” Tucker’s tone was as flatly unemotional as a recording.

Elliot threw him a disbelieving look. He said, “Do you own a handgun, Mr. Baker?”

Baker’s brown eyes swiveled his way. “No. Absolutely not. I am vehemently anti-firearms.”

“Do you have any idea where Terry might have obtained a handgun?”

“Anywhere in this goddamned city in this goddamned state in this goddamned country. It isn’t hard given the lack of any meaningful gun control.”

It was almost like spending an evening at home with Roland. Elliot said, “Had Terry ever threatened suicide?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

A lot of absolutes for a child of the New Generation.

“Did Terry suffer from depression?”

“Not until your people got their hands on him.”


My
people?” Elliot was aware of Tucker straightening. He could almost feel the menace emanating from those powerful squared shoulders and jutting jaw. He shot him a warning look, but Tucker’s attention was all on Baker.

“Queers, faggots,” Baker snarled.

Clearly Baker wasn’t a bleeding heart liberal on all issues.

Tucker said, “Let’s talk about you, Tom. Let’s talk about the night your son disappeared. According to you, you were working late at your office.”

“What about it?”

“Can anyone verify that?”

“You
sonofabitch.
” Baker snatched his hand out of the bowl of ice and charged.

On instinct, Elliot moved to get between him and Tucker. It was a bad idea. Baker crashed into him and as they wrestled, Elliot trying to maneuver the older man into a restraining hold, Elliot slammed his knee against the kitchen island. The pain was instant and electrifying. Everything else faded to gray in its wake. He let go of Baker and grabbed for the granite countertop to keep from crumpling to the floor, clenching his teeth against the raw sound threatening to tear out of his throat.

From the other side of the nova he could hear Baker ranting. His voice sounded peculiarly muffled. Tucker was speaking over him, and what he was saying was, “Mills? Are you all right?”

The white hot distance shrank, receded along with the desire to faint or—worse—burst into tears, and Elliot was once again in the Bakers’ pristine kitchen, trying not to throw up on their sparkling granite countertop.

“Elliot?”

“Fine,” Elliot got out. He pushed off the counter. Blearily, he saw that Tucker had Tom Baker down on the floor and was engaged in handcuffing him. Pauline, apparently woken by the fracas, was standing by the broken swinging door, weaving slightly. Her mouth moved as though she were reading aloud, but no sound came out.

“Tucker, hold off.”

Tucker spared him a look. He had what Elliot always thought of as his pit bull face. Blunt and unyielding as a bullet. That was the thing about Tucker. He reacted fast and aggressively. And he didn’t tend to second guess himself.

BOOK: Fair Game
11.21Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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