Simple Simon (9 page)

“And you’re?”

“Art Jefferson, Assistant Special Agent in Charge.”

“Right, you just—”

“Where is Simon!?” Anne demanded loudly.

Miklovich was quiet for a second. “He’s all right, but he seems to be in shock or some—”

“He’s autistic,” Anne said.

Miklovich nodded slowly, knowingly. “Is that like retarded.”

Anne didn’t have the time to educate the lawman. “Something like that. Where is he?”

“He’s in the basement. We can’t coax him out. Like I told you on the phone, the father had this business card with your number on the back. We called…uh, German name…”

“Ohlmeyer,” Anne said.
Take me to him. Hurry
.

“Right, and he wasn’t in. His office gave us your name and number and, well, it was on the back of the card, too, so we got in touch with you.” Miklovich spit to the side of the porch. Two of his lab people walked past into the house. “So you’re this kid’s doctor.”

“One of them. Can I please see him?”

“If you can get him out of the basement, great. This kid may have seen what happened in there. I didn’t want to mess him up any more than he already looks.”

Anne bent dumbly forward. “Are you finished?”

Miklovich looked to Art. “It’s a mess in there.” Then back to Anne. “Lots of blood.”

“I won’t touch anything,” Anne said.

“Nah, I just don’t want you to get sick,” Miklovich admitted.

“She won’t,” Art said, his hand on Anne’s shoulder.

Miklovich chewed at something in his mouth and spit off the porch again. “All right. Follow right behind me.”

Art brought up the rear, keeping one hand on his wife’s back. He was old hat at messy crime scenes. She wasn’t. He kept his thumb moving in circles between her shoulder blades, reassuring her as the tactless lieutenant led them through the living room, right at the stairs—
one man down, shot in the back
, Art noted —left into a den—
a body there, on its side, at least one obvious wound, a medium frame Smith on the rug
—and toward the kitchen—
one female down there, head shot, fully clothed, broken glass on the floor
—and right down a hall to an open door. One patrolman guarded it. Darkness descended from the opening.

Miklovich turned toward the lady. Her face quivered briefly. “You okay?”

Anne nodded.

“He’s down there. I’ve got someone down there just keeping an eye on him.”

Anne nodded again and forced the grisly images she’d just walked past from her thoughts…for now.

“Do you want me to go down with you?” Art asked.

Another nod. Art eased her forward with a guiding hand and followed her down the stairs. The dimmest light shined from a yellowed fixture over a collection of boxes. Books poked into view from the top ones.

The cop at the bottom made way for them, and then retreated upstairs at a wave from the lieutenant.

In the far corner of the small basement, in shadows that fell from towers of brown, bellied cardboard boxes, Simon Lynch stood silently swaying. His arms were held tight to his body against the chill. Something was tucked under his arm.

The preceding moments faded away when Anne saw her young patient. He was the most alone being in the universe at the moment, she knew. “Simon. It’s Dr. Anne.”

The sway leaned into a step forward. Jaundiced light painted one side of his form.

“It’s Dr. Anne.” She slid out of her coat and eased one stride toward him. “Dr. Anne. Remember?”

Simon touched his cards through the sweatshirt. “Dr. Anne is my friend.”

Anne nodded, her eyes wet, a smile beneath them. “Yes, I’m your friend.”
You have no one, Simon. No one. No relatives. No one. You’re only sixteen. Social Services might help you. Some court somewhere, maybe. But what kind of help is that?

Simon took another metronomic step forward before halting. His head rose in a flash, eyes flitting over the man behind Dr. Anne.

“It’s okay, Simon.” Anne reached back and brought Art next to her. She immediately noticed that the young man didn’t wet himself.
So far, so good
. Then she saw the rising bruise on the left side of his fair face. It sickened her, but a mark such as that would fade. Would ones less noticeable, she wondered, and knew that
that
had to be her primary concern.

“Hello, Simon,” Art said, feeling out of sorts offering a greeting to someone whose parents had just been brutally killed. He felt Anne’s grip on his hand increase. It was her ‘
You’re doing fine
’ touch. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet Simon.” He did not close the scant distance to Dr. Anne.

“Simon, Art is my…very good friend.” Anne waited for a reaction, hoped that he would make the connection himself. A few seconds passed before he pulled his cards out and turned to the one marked FRIENDS. Then he waited, pen in hand.

“What’s he doing?” Art asked.

“Tell him your name,” Anne prompted.

Art hesitated for an awkward few seconds then said, “My name is Art, Simon.”

“Dr. Anne is my friend.” The pen clicked and hovered over the card. “There was a loud noise.”

“I know,” Art said. He felt himself drawn to Simon, and took a step closer.

Simon’s eyes flashed over him, then, with the pen gripped intensely in his right hand he wrote
ART
in the space below
DOKTR AN
.

“What does that mean?” Art asked, looking back to Anne. She was smiling over tears.

“It means he trusts you.”

The Bell Curve

G. Nicholas Kudrow usually paused only long enough at his secretary’s desk to grab the morning’s briefs, but her look this day stopped him cold.

“Mr. Folger is in there,” Sharon said, her expression hinting at the futile battle that had been fought and lost not long before.

“So he is,” Kudrow said, seeming not very surprised as he took the briefs in hand and entered his office.

Brad Folger, in an uncharacteristic three-piece gray number, sat in a chair facing Kudrow’s neat desk, his back to the door, the Lichtenstein staring down at him. “What time did they wake you up?”

Kudrow let the door close of its own accord and walked around his assistant. He placed his briefs where he would remember them in a few minutes and set his briefcase aside his desk. He did not sit. “At four this morning. And you?”

“I’ve been fucking awake since two!” Folger swore, his crossed legs and folded hands incongruous with the rage on his tired face.

Kudrow adjusted his glasses and moved his chair close before sitting. “You managed a shave.”

“A shave…” Folger’s posture loosened now, and he slid close to the desk, leaning toward Kudrow. “Are you fucking brain dead?”

“Watch it,” Kudrow snapped.

Folger fell back in mock apology. “Oh, pardon
moi.
I forgot—I wasn’t the one who brought Mike Bell in.”

“This wasn’t the plan.”

“You bring
Bell
in and you expected a plan to be followed?” Folger challenged.

“He fit the requirements. I didn’t know his weaknesses like you did.”

“Exactly why I was called in at two!”

“Ease up, Bradley,” Kudrow suggested with a coolness that hinted at waning patience.

“You knew he’d be linked to me,” Folger said.

“They came to my house,” Kudrow informed his deputy.

“Poor fucking Nick,” Folger said, standing angrily and showing Kudrow his back as he seethed.

Kudrow sensed the tantrum was over and let his deputy’s emotion simmer away while he began perusing the morning briefs.

Folger turned back to the sound of shuffling paper. “Nick, why didn’t you ask me about Bell? You knew I was the one that had him booted when I was in O.”

Nothing interesting from the stations in the Caribbean. “You answered your own question, Brad. What would you have told me?”

“Just what you think.”

“Next question.” Some tidbits, interestingly enough, from Chile. Traffic from the Russian Antarctic station to home. Ozone measurements.
Surprise, the hole isn’t that big on their instruments either.

“Wonderful,” Folger commented through a dry throat. He felt parched, and like he’d stepped from the real world to some horrid parallel universe created a few days earlier by one stupid phone call. “So what did they ask you?”

“They asked me about you,” Kudrow said, hiding the pleasure, and power, he felt in doing so. He saved Europe for later. No one could figure that continent out before noon.

“Wonderful,” Folger repeated. He began pacing in the path worn by Kudrow.

“At least he died with his screw up,” Kudrow said. “And I can assure you things will be quite different now.”

Folger slowed, his feet taking a second to catch up with his brain, which had been frozen mid-thought by the statement. “Things? What things? You’re not going on with this?”

“If you will recall, Brad, as a Deputy Director I have authority to initiate investigations as needed to ensure the security of our product.” Kudrow noted the incredulous, gaping stare directed at him. “Or are you too frazzled to remember that? Do you need the day to recompose yourself?”

“You’re going to do it.”

“
We
are going to find out what we can about this kid who made the call. Right now we don’t know much, not even if your old O buddy learned anything before he died.”

My old O buddy.
Folger looked away.

“All we know for sure is that the kid is staying with his doctor.”

“Why does he need a doctor?” Folger asked, the timbre sucked from his voice, replaced by a tired hollowness.

“He’s autistic.” Kudrow nodded when his assistant looked his way. “An interesting spin, wouldn’t you say.”

Folger chuckled weakly and rubbed his eyes. “An interesting spin. Yeah, that’s the way to look at it.”

Kudrow folded his hands slowly on his desk. “Maybe you need more than a day, Brad.”

Folger felt the threat slide by. His concern was elsewhere. “You know, Nick, if they know who Bell is, or was, this will go beyond the local police.”

“It already has.”

“I’m not talking about our security.”

Kudrow let his assistant’s worry die slowly without response. “The beauty of a rogue is that it explains itself eventually.”

“You hope,” Folger said.

Kudrow said nothing and returned to the morning briefs. Somewhere during the silence Folger left his office. When the door clicked shut, G. Nicholas Kudrow’s eyes came up and fixed on it for a long time.

*  *  *

Friday, noon, and Art Jefferson was already exhausted. He pressed his hands against his face and yawned hard. When he pulled them away, Lomax was standing in the doorway, mild smile twisted by the prominent scar on his cheek.

“You could scare children, you know.”

Lomax nodded and came in. “Only when I need to.” He plopped into the small couch across the office. “You look as whipped as I feel.”

“The nights have been rough.”

“How’s he doing?”

Art shrugged. “I don’t know. You ask him and he just repeats the question. All I know for sure is that he hardly sleeps. He stands and rocks most of the night until he’s so tired he drops off.”

“That’s a hell of a thing to deal with,” Lomax observed. “Sometimes I wonder if God dreamed these things up on a bad day.”

“That would explain it.”

Lomax moved from the couch to a chair near the desk. “How’s Anne holding up?”

Art breathed deeply. “She’s doing it somehow. The University gave her some time so she could deal with Simon. That helps.”

Lomax agreed with a slow nod that had preface written all over it.

“What?” Art asked.

“I have to give you a case. It could get fairly involved.”

Art eased back and did a few neck rolls. “All right.”

“This is quiet. You only use resources if absolutely necessary.”

Interested now, Art straightened in his chair. “Resources.”

“Other personnel in the office. You don’t go outside under any circumstances.”

“A one man show, is what you’re saying.”

“Yes. The file’s in your vault on the system. The reference name is ROMA.”

“You want to give me a quick synopsis?” Art probed.

“It has to do with your houseguest.”

“Simon?”

Lomax nodded. “NCIC got a DoD hit on the fingerprints of the guy who killed Simon’s parents. Not even a category hit. The prints were a hospital set taken when the guy was wounded in Grenada.” The National Crime Information Center had links to fingerprint files of other government entities, and in this instance at least, the system worked perfectly.

“Who was he?”

“The name was Mike Bell. He was Marine Recon, and apparently did work for about a dozen government agencies after that.”

“Work?” Art questioned. “We’re not talking nine to five.”

“We’re talking nine millimeter,” Lomax confirmed.

“I doubt that’s in his records.”

“Look at the holes,” Lomax suggested. “Holes are where things happen.”

“Was he working for anyone when this happened?”

Lomax shook his head. “It doesn’t look like it. He was excused from his last position over a year ago.”

“What position?”

“He was doing ‘training activities’ at Fort Meade,” Lomax answered doubtfully.

“A Marine training at an Army base?” Art wondered with equal doubt.

“Meade is a big place,” Lomax said as a reminder. From the look on the A-SAC’s face he saw that he got it.

“I’ll take a look at that hole.”

Lomax pushed himself up from the chair and arched a crick from his back. “Chicago PD is backing off until we have a chance to look at it.”

“There’s no family to demand answers,” Art said. He felt the sadness of that fact.

Lomax thought quietly for a moment, then asked, “Do you think he might talk about it?”

“I don’t know.”

Lomax nodded without pressing the point. “Let me know what you find.”

“Will do,” Art assured the SAC, and called up his personal ‘vault’ on the computer system as Lomax left. After entering his password, graphical icon folders dotted the screen. He noticed the new one right away and double clicked on it.