River of Glass (20 page)

25

F
rank went pale. “I gotta get home.”

Malone gave a sharp nod. “Your wife. Of course.”

I tried not to picture Patrice and Frank lying on their living room floor, small round holes in their foreheads, arms crossed over their chests or maybe pressed along their sides.

I said, “You want me to go with you?”

He forced a smile and shook his head. “You just find that girl of yours. I need you, I’ll call.”

He left at a trot, and when he’d gone, Malone said, “Who the hell is this guy?”

“It’s in the names,” I said. “Find the connection, you’ll find him.”

She rolled her eyes. “Thank you, Obi-Wan.”

“Sarcasm is the sign of a weak mind,” I said. She held up her middle finger, but there was no real anger in it. I returned the gesture and left, already envisioning the chaos the manifesto would cause. The scope of the thing ensured that the police, already spread thin, would be spread even thinner as they tried to protect their own.

I stepped out of the precinct into a strong breeze. By the time I got home, the dark clouds had rolled in again, and rain was in the air. I pulled my antenna out of my pocket and gave my arm a satisfying scratch, then fed the horses and went inside, where Khanh sat in the recliner reading one of Jay’s books:
The Shining, Shining Path
, about a young roadie who goes on tour with a busload of Buddhist monks.

She looked up and nodded toward the couch, where Paul was sprawled, still dressed in jeans and an Avengers T-shirt. His cheeks were streaked with tears, and a line of drool trickled from the corner of his mouth. My heart twisted. I shouldn’t have gone. Nothing had come of it anyway, which meant I’d disappointed him for nothing.

Khanh said, “He want wait for you.”

I nodded, scooped him up. His eyes fluttered open, then closed again, and I carried him up to bed. His breathing was labored, and I didn’t like the sound of it. Not life-threatening, but still it worried me. He woke up long enough to take some Benadryl and let me slather his chest with Vick’s, then sank back into a fitful sleep, arms and legs splayed like a starfish.

When I came back downstairs, Khanh said, “You good father. Many men not want imperfect child.”

“There’s nothing imperfect about Paulie.” My voice was brittle.

“My country, some people think child like Paul bad luck.”

“Some people are assholes. What do you think?”

“Think like you.”

The heat on the back of my neck receded.

“Besides . . .” She held up her stump. “I bad luck child too. What you learn from police?”

“Savitch isn’t cooperating, but if the DNA matches, Frank can squeeze him about Tuyet, offer him a deal if he tells us where she is.”

“It match, right? Lu-pee-ta say he kill girl.”

“It should match, but . . . I don’t know. He’s acting hinky.”

“Hinky mean strange?”

I nodded.

Her eyes welled. “You say find Tuyet. But every day, not find.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Every day, less chance we find. More chance you give up.”

“If we’re going to be related, there’s something you need to know about me,” I said. “I might get sidetracked sometimes, but I don’t give up.”

She let out a small breath, as if she’d been holding it, waiting for my answer. “I not give up either,” she said. “You, me, same same.”

T
HE NEXT
morning, Paul and I went to the woods to search for native leaves, seeds, and flowers. His breathing was a little better, but he tired quickly, and I carried him most of the way, pausing occasionally to pluck a sarsaparilla leaf or a promising wildflower. We shared a cheese pizza with Jay and Khanh. Then I left him with Jay while Khanh and I went out to find our Good Samaritan.

I boosted Khanh into the passenger seat, then went around to the other side. She held up the list, thumb pointing to the owner’s name. “This woman. We look for man.”

“We can’t rule out the women. Our Good Samaritan might have been driving his wife’s car.”

“What mean Good Sama-ri-tan?”

“Good Samaritan. It’s from the Bible. Rich guy goes out walking, gets robbed and beaten up by a bunch of bandits. So there he is, lying half-dead by the side of the road, and all these people pass him by and don’t help him. People like his neighbors and the wise men of the church. They all pass by on the other side and act like they don’t see.”

“Know people like that. Most world, maybe.”

“Then this Samaritan comes along. The Samaritans were people from another religious group, and they were considered the scum of the earth. But this Samaritan saw the man lying there and picked him up and took care of him.”

“Man in car. You call him this, why?”

“He gave her a ride to my place. Lot of people wouldn’t have picked her up, wouldn’t have wanted to get involved.”

“Why he not take to doctor?”

“Maybe she didn’t want to go.”

I held out my hand, and she put the list into it. Beatrice had been thorough, including names, addresses, phone numbers, and makes and models of vehicles. Jay and Eric had already marked out the pickup trucks, a couple of SUVs and a VW Bug. They’d checked out the first few pages without luck. That left us three. The bumper sticker we were looking for wasn’t one-of-akind, but in conjunction with the partial plate and the general type of car, it narrowed the field. I used my phone to search online for the slogan Lupita had referenced. It said,
Be nice to nerds. Chances are, you’ll end up working for one
.

As we worked our way through the list, we found a lot of bumper stickers—
4 out of 3 people have trouble with fractions
;
I childproofed my house, but they still get in
;
What if the Hokey Pokey really IS what it’s all about?—
but not the one we were looking for.

At five o’clock, on the last page of the list, we found an architectural wonder owned by a guy named James Decker. He lived a few miles from downtown, between West End and swanky Belle Meade, in a stacked-stone mansion inspired by a French country manor. Peaked gables, copper gutters, board-and-batten shutters, antique-style lanterns.

The circular drive was empty, no sign of anyone outside. I drove up to the garage, where a quick peek through the window confirmed that no one—at least no one with a vehicle—was home, so I parked half a block away and waited for Decker to come back. While we waited, I pulled my Nikon out of the camera bag behind my seat, put on the zoom lens, and snapped in a new video card.

At five thirty, a woman in a powder blue Miata pulled into the driveway. A little after six, a man in a silver Mercedes pulled in. The rear of the car was toward me, and I aimed the camera. Pressed zoom. The rear bumper expanded in the lens, and the bumper sticker came into view.

Be nice to nerds. Chances are, you’ll end up working for one
.

Bingo.

I showed Khanh the close-up of the bumper sticker. “It’s him.”

“You go talk him?”

“Let me check with Frank first.”

He was number four on my speed dial, just behind Maria, Jay, and my brother. I punched it in and asked after Patrice, asked how they were holding up. Doing fine, he said, but chafing at being under guard.

“I want to be at work,” he said. “Or, barring that, at Myrtle Beach with my wife.”

“That might not be a bad idea. Take yourself out of the equation.”

“I don’t know. Running . . . it’s not really my style.”

“What does Patrice think?”

After a long silence, he said, “She has some business here to attend to. I guess we’re in it ’til the end.”

He had enough on his plate. I hung up without asking him about Decker, called Malone instead. “That partial plate I gave you. You run it yet?”

“I’m a little busy, here, McKean. Why do you want to know?”

“ ’Cause I’m looking at the guy’s driveway, and I don’t want to tip him off if you haven’t talked to him yet.”

“That’s considerate of you.”

“Common courtesy. I don’t want to walk all over your homicide case if I don’t have to.”

“And if we haven’t talked to him?”

“Then I give you twenty-four hours before I go knock on his door.”

“Generous.”

“I thought so, considering Tuyet’s life’s at stake. His name’s Decker. James Decker.”

“As it happens, we have talked to him. Bumper sticker notwithstanding, he’s not the one.”

“Who talked to him?”

She blew out a frustrated breath. “I know where you’re going with this, but you’re wrong. He was on the road the night it happened, gave us the name and number of the coworker he was traveling with—a coworker who, you might want to know, vouched for him 100 percent. He even let the detectives take samples from his car. No blood, no hairs that might have matched the victim’s. It was as clean as my grandmother’s soap dish.”

“Too clean?”

“Nothing that tripped anybody’s radar. Your witness, either she didn’t see what she thought she saw, or she remembered it wrong.”

“She could have missed the color of the car. Maybe misread a number. Probably got the bumper sticker right, though.”

“Odds are. But that’s a dead end. There’s no way to track how many people might have that same sticker or who they might be.”

“Did you Luminol the car?”

“Jesus, McKean. We have a witness placing Decker someplace else. We have a passenger side floor mat with no trace of blood. And according to your own witness, even if he was the guy, the victim was alive when he left her. He didn’t even see the suspect. Why would we Luminol the car?”

I laid my forehead against the steering wheel. “What about the flight manifests and the video footage at the airport?”

“If she was on that flight—or any flight that week—he brought her in under a fake ID. The video is worthless. We can see a girl who
might
be your girl, but the man she was with is a cipher. He’s either the luckiest man on the planet, or he knew where the cameras would be.”

“He’s a pro, then.”

“Stating the obvious is sort of a hobby of yours, isn’t it?”

“Just keeping things clear.”

“Besides, she looked willing enough. Kind of gooey-eyed and smiling.”

“Yeah, that’s how it is until they tie you up and sell you to the highest bidder.”

“Is that all? Because we really have our hands full right now. There was another one this morning.”

“Shit. Bomb or bullet?”

“Bullet.”

“Oh no.”

“Another cop on the list and two more in the blue-and-white out front. You didn’t see it on the news?”

“I haven’t turned the TV on today.”

“Only the die-hard antiestablishment types are still calling this guy Mr. Clean.”

“What’s everybody else calling him now?”

“The Executioner.”

He would have liked that. “Sexier than Mr. Clean,” I said.

“Yeah, I bet he got a hard-on when he heard it.”

I thanked her and signed off. Told Khanh what Malone had said and watched the hope drain out of her face. “Mr. Decker not man in car?”

“Sounds like no.”

“Say have alibi. Mean what?”

“Somebody says he was somewhere else at the time.”

“She say no blood. You say cut feet, plenty blood.”

“I know, but . . . I’m still gonna talk to him.”

J
AMES DECKER
answered the door with his tie loosened and the top button of his collar undone. He was in his mid-to-late thirties, with dark hair beginning to thin and a tan that looked like it had come out of a bottle. His handshake was firm, his build athletic. From the way he moved on the balls of his feet, I’d have guessed tennis, but a row of trophies on the wall behind him said his sport of choice was fencing.

In one hand, he held a light beer. It seemed an unnecessary sacrifice, in light of his physique, but maybe it wasn’t a sacrifice. Maybe he liked a little beer with his water.

“We’re following up on a statement you made to the police,” I said.

“Ah. About the dead girl.” He took a swallow of his faux beer, as if for reinforcement, and said, “I can’t add anything to what I said. I wasn’t there. I didn’t pick anybody up, certainly not a bloody young woman in her underwear.”