Nocturnal (26 page)

Pookie nodded.

“They weren’t. Accidentally, I mean.”

“Someone deleted info on purpose? You’re sure?”

“Yeah. It was really methodical.”

That was a game-changer. The symbols had been
intentionally
removed from the system. It seemed Bryan’s strange dreams were a part of something much bigger.

“Impressive, BMB,” Pookie said. “But I’m guessing you don’t know who did the deleting, or you would have told me already.”

John nodded. “Unfortunately, you’re right. I can’t tell who did it. What little info I have came from old indexes, and those didn’t log user names.”

“What’s an index?”

“It’s like a computer map that points to different locations on storage drives. Sometimes if you delete the files, the
pointers
to those files remain, and those pointers have certain information.”

“Okay, so why didn’t they also delete the pointers?”

John smiled and raised his eyebrows. “Because they didn’t know the pointers were there. Whoever deleted the files has high-level access, but they don’t know shit about computers. The fact that the index files remain means they didn’t even talk to the IT guys about it, and they sure as hell didn’t hire some hacker. A hacker would have wiped out everything.”

“So it’s not a programmer,” Pookie said. “A cop did this?”

“At least someone working in the department, yeah.”

Pookie thought back to the meeting in Zou’s office, to the way Zou, Robertson and Sharrow had stared at the symbol pictures.

“You mentioned high-level access,” Pookie said. “How many people in the department have that kind of access?”

John thought about that for a second. “I’m not sure. I know a lot about the system, but I’m just a mid-level user. People like me wouldn’t have the access privileges. We can count out the IT guys, they would have done it right. So between administrators, their support staff … I’d guess thirty or forty.”

A waitress brought menus. Pookie ordered coffee. John just asked for water.

The waitress walked away. Pookie grabbed a handful of sugar packets from a little bin at the back of the table and started stacking them into little piles. He couldn’t exactly investigate thirty or forty cops. John’s work gave him some great info, but nothing he could act on.

“What about the Oscar Woody crime-scene photos?” Pookie said. “Sammy Berzon took about a hundred shots of those symbols. Those are still in the system, right?”

John shook his head. “Not anymore. They were deleted shortly after
they were entered. I saw links to them in the index files, but the actual images are gone.”

Pookie flashed back to that blue tarp at the Father Paul Maloney scene, to Verde being in such a hurry to get Pookie and Bryan off that roof. Had that tarp been covering another blood symbol? Baldwin Metz had been there, the first time anyone had seen him outside of the morgue in going on five years. Then Metz had a heart attack. He wasn’t available when Oscar died. Maybe that was the connection — Metz hadn’t been there to run things, to stop Sammy and Jimmy from processing the Oscar Woody scene. Sammy and Jimmy had followed protocol and entered the photos of the symbols into the system. Then someone found out about the photos and deleted them.

But Zou had seen those photos. So had Sean Robertson and Captain Sharrow. Zou would have also seen the photos from the Maloney murder. If there
had
been a blood symbol under that tarp, than Zou
knew
the two cases were related.

She’d have known there was a possible serial killer out there. Known, and taken her two best guys off the case. She should have already
formed a task force
and moved on to
assigning more resources
. Instead, she’d given it all to Rich Verde.

“Don’t look so glum, chum,” John said. “I also brought you some good news.”

“You can make my penis grow two inches in a week or less?”

John laughed, a soundless thing that made his bony shoulders bob up and down. “Stop believing your spam emails. Remember that local request for information on the symbols, the one that was twenty-nine years old? In the archives I found these old database printouts. They were all in binders, the kind of thing that’s been sitting around forgotten long enough that no one knows if they should throw them out or not, you know? I spent about twelve hours in a truly Herculean effort of page-by-page data hunting, and I found the name and address of the guy who made that request. He’s still alive, working out of the same place he was then. He’s a fortune-teller in North Beach.”

A name and an address. Goddamn. An actual lead.

“John, that’s amazing,” Pookie said. “You still got it, brother.”

John’s smile faded. He looked out the window onto Mason Street. “Still got it? I can barely leave my apartment, Pooks. I almost had a panic attack coming here to see you. I mean … it’s still
dark
out, you know?”

Pookie didn’t know. He could only imagine what it felt like to go from
being a cop on the streets to — for lack of a better word — to
cowering
behind a desk and not being able to do anything to change it.

“You do what you can,” Pookie said. He instantly felt like a dick for trying to put any kind of positive spin on it.

John kept staring out the window. No amount of words was going to help.

“Let’s eat,” Pookie said. “Had the chocolate-chip pancakes here? I swear they are made of crack dipped in gold.”

“Aren’t you and the Terminator going to go talk to the fortune-teller?”

“Priorities,” Pookie said. “Without coal, the choo-choo train just sits on the tracks. And I doubt a fortune-teller is up at six
A.M
. What’s this guy’s name, anyway?”

“The name on the FOI was Thomas Reed, but he goes by a different name for his fortune-telling crap.”

“Which is?”

“Mister Biz-Nass.”

“Interesting,” Pookie said. “Come on, order something. Hey, is it racist if I suggest you get the fried chicken and waffles?”

“Incredibly racist,” John said. “And it sounds delicious. I’ll get that.”

They ordered. Pookie tore open one of his sugar-packet piles and dumped the contents into his coffee.

“One more thing, Mister Burns. Considering the deleted files, I think it goes without saying, but—”

“Keep this to myself?”

Pookie nodded. “I think things could get dangerous.”

John shrank in on himself a little, his head again lowering as his shoulders again rose up. “I’m not stupid. We’re digging up what someone wants to keep buried. If they find out, they might try to bury us, too. I know the risks. I might not be your partner anymore, but I still have your back.”

Pookie wished he could go back in time, to six years ago, to that night in the Tenderloin when he’d had the drop on Blake Johansson. Pookie could have taken Johansson out, but he’d hesitated. Because of that hesitation, John Smith wound up with a bullet in his belly, a bullet that took a great cop off the streets.

“Order up, BMB,” Pookie said. “Breakfast is on me.”

B
ryan sliced into the second kielbasa link. A little jet of fat shot out and landed on the back of his thumb. It was hot, but not enough to burn. He grabbed a slice of rye bread, dabbed up the fat with it and shoved it into his mouth.

“Glad to see your manners haven’t changed much, Son.”

Bryan smiled despite a mouth full of food. Considering his dad had a bottle of Bud Light in one hand, a Marlboro in the other, and was sitting at the table in a threadbare T-shirt, white boxers and black socks, he wasn’t exactly the poster boy for social protocol.

Bryan didn’t care that his throbbing body and sour stomach told him this meal was coming up later. The food tasted amazing. It tasted like
home
. He scooped up a forkful of sauerkraut. “Dad, when you write your book on etiquette? I’ll be first in line to buy it.”

His dad laughed.
That
was what Bryan needed, some normalcy — Mike Clauser in a T-shirt and boxers, drinking beer and feeding Bryan kielbasa and sauerkraut at 7:00
A.M
. because that was the only thing Mike knew how to cook. When Bryan had been a little kid, he’d sat with his father at this same chipped Formica table. Breakfast with his dad was a giant step away from the insanity of psycho dreams, burning kids and dealing with butchered bodies.

“So, my boy, want to tell me what’s going on? You’re wound up pretty tight. I know the job is hard and all, but … well … you kind of look like shit. You feeling okay?”

“Been a little sick,” Bryan said. He couldn’t tell his father any of it. Mike wasn’t a cop and he just wouldn’t understand. “And some stuff at work is getting to me, stuff I don’t really want to talk about.”

Another kielbasa quarter went under the knife and into his mouth.

“Work,” Mike said. “Sure it’s not girl troubles?”

Oh, man, were they going to go over this for the umpteenth time? “Leave it alone, Dad.”

“When are you bringing Robin over for dinner again? I’ll order Chinese.”

“You know damn well I moved out of her place.”

Mike Clauser waved the Marlboro-holding hand in front of him as if his son had just cut a nasty fart. “Son, I love you to death, but no way you can do better than that girl.”

“Gee, thanks for the compliment.”

“You’re welcome.”

“What am I supposed to do? She told me to move out.”

“Why? Did you cheat on her?”

Bryan tossed his fork and knife onto the plate. He wasn’t going to talk about this, either. Why had she told him to move out? Because she’d wanted to hear the words
I love you, Robin
, and Bryan hadn’t been able to say them.

“Son, I grew up with your mother. I asked her out in grade school and she said no. I asked her out in junior high and she said no. I asked her out in high school and she said no. That’s when I started calling her Stubborn Starla Hutchon.” Mike jabbed out his cigarette in an overfull ashtray, then slid his hand under his shirt to scratch his hairy belly. “I bet she turned me down ten times, at least, but I didn’t care. I asked her to our senior prom, and she said yes. The rest is history.”

Bryan nodded at his father’s gut. “How could she possibly resist the physical specimen I see before me?”

Mike laughed. “Exactly!” he said, then lit another smoke. “Just remember, Son, women are basically retarded. It’s not their fault. It’s genetic. They have no idea what they want when Madison Avenue spins their little heads around.”

“A more rousing endorsement of women’s rights I’ve never heard.”

“What can I say? You can listen to Doctor Phil or those stupid broads that tell women to
be strong
and
be independent
and all that crap, or you can listen to a man who’s been happily married for forty years.”

“
Thirty
, Dad. Mom’s been gone ten years now.”

Mike waved away another imaginary fart, then pointed to his chest. “I’m still married right here. She loved me like nobody’s business. I know you’re a skeptic, or whatever you Godless heathens call yourselves these days, but when I kick off and leave this splendor behind, I know I’ll be with her. Someday you will, too — she loved you so much.”

When Mike talked about his wife, that ever-present light in his eyes faded, dulled. It was hard to see him so sad. Her death had left a deep hole in the man.

“I miss her too, Dad.”

Mike stared off for a few moments, then the shit-eating grin returned. “Robin reminds me of your mother. She’s got that spark, one of those broads that laughs before she stops to think about if she
should
laugh or not, you know?”

Troubles with his love life weren’t high on Bryan’s current list of priorities. The more he avoided Robin, the better. He felt like he was already dooming Pookie, somehow — he didn’t need to spread his poison to her.

“I know, Dad, Robin is great. But let it go. It’s over.”

“So what now? You going to go find someone else?”

Bryan sagged back in his chair. He wasn’t going to find someone else, because he didn’t
want
to find someone else. If it couldn’t work with Robin, it wasn’t going to work with anyone.

Mike leaned across the table. For just a second, Bryan had a flashback to the look his dad gave him back in the day, when Bryan came home from yet another fistfight.

“You’re not
hearing
me, Son. So she booted your ass to the curb. Get over it. Forget your pride. You only have so many days to spend with a woman like your Robin or my Starla, and no matter how many days you get, they aren’t enough. So you’re going to promise me, right now, that you’ll start up with Robin again.”

“Dad, I’m a grown—”

Mike slapped the table, making Bryan jump.

“Don’t
Dad
me, boy. You’re too focused on your work, and what horrible work it is. You need something else in your life before this crap eats you alive. You promise me,
now
.”

The look on his father’s face made it clear they’d talk about this, and nothing else, until Bryan conceded.

Bryan was dealing with a probable serial killer, psychic dreams of murder that made his dick hard, strange symbols drawn in human blood, and it was all he could do to coax his agony-filled body through the day — yet despite these things, he still had room to feel
guilty
because his dad was mad at him?

Maybe thirty-five years old wasn’t really all that far from thirteen.

“Okay, Dad. I’ll talk to her.”

Mike’s face relaxed. He nodded. “Fine. Now that I’ve won that battle, you want to tell me what’s going on at work? No offense, Son, but I know twenty-four-hour hookers that look like they get more beauty rest than you.”

Bryan picked up his fork. He stabbed a piece of kielbasa, then absently moved it around the plate in a slow circle.

“Bryan, I know I’m not a cop, but I can still listen.”

His father had always been able to read his mind a little bit. It was spooky.

“The stuff I’m seeing now, it’s …” Bryan’s voice trailed off. Maybe he couldn’t tell his dad everything, at least not yet, but it would feel good to share some of this burden. “It’s pretty bad. I kind of have some … thoughts.”