The Definitive Albert J. Sterne (14 page)

Fletcher looked at him. “No, I  forgot all about it. And the suite the Bureau usually uses is taken.” He considered for a moment, expression speculative. “Stay with me.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Come on  … It’s only an apartment, but there’s plenty of room for two of us. The sofa pulls out into a bed - I  slept on it myself for years.” But something about the tone indicated Fletcher expected to have his offer refused.

Albert obliged by saying, “No,” and turned to head back inside.

“Wait.” As Albert paused, Ash continued, “I’m sorry about before. I  shouldn’t have taken it out on you - it wasn’t you I was angry with.”

“Everyone gets frustrated, Ash. You know how counterproductive it is to react emotionally, yet you allow yourself to do exactly that.”

“Yeah, I know.”

The man seemed more amused than chagrined. Albert suspected he’d sounded prissily moralistic. Why did Ash of all people always have him at such a disadvantage?

“So, stay with me? It will be more convenient to get to the airport tomorrow - the plane leaves at quarter past six. Apart from which, you’ve already had a long day, what with the time difference.”

“It’s only a difference of two hours,” Albert snapped, while trying to balance the conflicting urges to be with Ash as often and as closely as possible - and to save himself from situations with such intimate possibilities. Impossibilities, he corrected himself. Even so, it would be too easy to make a complete fool of himself over this. “If you insist,” he told Fletcher, and was rewarded by a relieved grin.

“Okay. I am sorry, you know. Even Caroline doesn’t suffer through my self-indulgent moments quite as often as you do.”

“Am I supposed to feel honored?”

“How much longer will you be? I’ll take you out to dinner when you’re done.”

“Something to look forward to.”

“You’d agree any of the restaurants would be preferable to my cooking.”

Albert nodded. “I’ll be ninety minutes.” He turned away, and closed the door between them.

Under the circumstances, it was inevitable that Albert wouldn’t sleep well. As it happened, he didn’t sleep at all. At first, as he lay awake in the darkness of Ash’s apartment, Albert went over the autopsy and tests he’d just performed, re-considering each detail. He’d been thorough at the time but with the benefit of hindsight, he jotted a few extra notes on the pad he kept in his case.

After that, he thought through the little he knew about the first Georgia case, and compared it to the three bodies Ash had found in Colorado. There were enough similarities to make investigation worthwhile, if the few early items of information were facts. It was amazing how many errors and assumptions and embellishments were passed on as fact, especially this early in a case, with everyone taking an interest and expressing an opinion, with the community crying for quick and easy answers, and the press baying for sensation.

Then Albert considered Fletcher’s apartment, which was everything he had expected: adequate but not well-designed. It consisted of one large room, with an inconvenient kitchen tucked away up one end, and only the bedroom and bathroom separate to the main living area. Fletcher wouldn’t be comfortable without plenty of space around him, such as this large, open-plan room. In fact, Albert suspected he’d find a view of the mountains from the main windows once the sun rose. The few possessions Fletcher had collected over time were scattered randomly throughout the place, as if Fletcher forever had his mind on higher matters. No doubt he’d slept on the sofa bed for years because he’d simply not wanted the bother of buying himself a proper bed. The overall impression was messy, though not unclean and hardly cluttered; certainly as shabby, though not as disarmingly charming, as Fletcher himself.

That brought Albert to the other current vital issue. Fletcher Ash was a room away, lying asleep and vulnerable in his own bed, no doubt untidily sprawled in rumpled sheets, just as he’d used to sleep where Albert now lay. Ridiculous, how provocative that image was, when Albert had accepted from the start that Ash was not and would never be available to him.

He had decided on restraint almost ten years ago, in a New York hotel room, following an unexpectedly honest and tawdry encounter with a beautiful woman. But that resolve was being sorely tested by this unexpected turn of events. Albert hadn’t thought he would fall in love, as witless teenagers were prone to do, and suffer all the mundane and petty defeats it brought. Hadn’t thought there would be someone who could have such a glorious, frightening effect on him both physically and emotionally, who could threaten the order of his life. Who could so easily read him, and yet who must remain oblivious to this disaster. Surely it wouldn’t be long before the intensity of his reactions faded and this problem resolved itself. It couldn’t be much longer; he’d already survived the first weeks of it.

The phone rang at two-thirty in the morning, interrupting the pointless speculation. Albert let it ring a second time, heard Ash groan from the other room. The rustle of bed clothes, uncoordinated footsteps, the door being opened. A  third and fourth ring, while Fletcher blearily muttered, “Where is the damned thing? Hello.” Then, “Caroline. What’s the time?”

Albert sat up, swung his legs off the bed, stared fixedly at the opposite wall.

“All right  … Yeah?” Silence for a while. “Yeah, that’s good  … Do we have to? Okay, okay, I’ll see you soon.” Fletcher groaned again as he hung up. “You awake, Albert?”

“I could hardly have slept through that.”

“The police have made the arrests already.”

“What arrests?”

Ash was stumbling into the kitchen. “I  need coffee. Caroline wants me at the office - you, too. We’ll have to go straight to the airport from there.”

Albert repeated impatiently, “What arrests, Ash?”

“The woman’s ex-boyfriend, and a mate of his.”

“Based on what?” Albert stood, reached for his clothes. On second thoughts, he put them aside, and began folding up the bed linen instead.

“Your transcript. Seems a cop had questioned the ex and your description fitted perfectly. Uncanny, he called it. So the cop goes down and sees the carpet you’d identified in the back of the guy’s van, and tells him an expert from Washington has fingered him long distance, and it was all over bar the sobbing confessions.” Ash was busy rubbing his temples, but spared Albert a humorless grin. “He and the mate are each saying it was the other’s idea, mind you.”

“You needed me to solve this common little crime?”

“I guess so. Let’s have some light in here.”

As the darkness fled, Albert looked across at the man before he could stop himself. He’d never seen Fletcher in less than his weekend uniform of a baggy T-shirt, jeans and sneakers before - now he was bare-chested and bare-footed. The torso was slim but with well-defined muscles and broad across the shoulders. Pale creamy skin. A dusting of dark hair, with a concentration of it above his breastbone shaped like a stylized flame. And below all that was a pair of old, washed-out, poorly-darned flannel pajama bottoms.

“What elegant night attire,” Albert commented.

“These terrible things.” Fletcher peered down as if he hadn’t examined them closely for years. “Sort of like a security blanket. I can’t throw them away.”

“You’re pathetic, Ash.”

“I know.” But the grin this time was far brighter than the dazzling kitchen lights. “And you haven’t even seen my teddy bear yet.”

Albert shook his head, overtly in despair of Fletcher, but privately at the craziness of his situation. Surely there was someone else in the world with whom it would have been sensible to fall in love.

“You don’t want coffee, I suppose. Wouldn’t want to waste a good brew on you.”

“Quite. But if you’ve been organized enough to buy some eggs and butter, I’ll cook breakfast while you shower.”

“Great. It’s all in the fridge.” Ash headed for the bathroom, turned back with his hand on the doorknob, about to say something.

Albert was caught taking in the sight of a fine pair of shoulder-blades. He stared at Fletcher, stony.

“Sorry,” Ash murmured.

“For what?” Albert bit.

But Fletcher slipped behind the door, shut it firmly.

Albert pushed the whole awful thing aside, angry at too many things to even begin to name, and started preparing the food. But even that, a formerly simple and enjoyable process, was now tainted and complex - because Albert could only be aware that soon Ash would eat this food, would derive comfort and satisfaction from it. He whisked the eggs, furious.

“You get credits for this one,” Caroline Thornton said. Ash, with Albert in tow, had finally tracked Thornton down in the corridor outside the office of the Special Agent in Charge, so they were speaking in whispers, hurried because they were running late for the plane.

“Why?” Ash returned. “Albert did the hard work, pointed them in the right direction.”

Albert shrugged as Fletcher glanced back at him. What did he care?

“You got him here,” Thornton was saying. “I  never said any of this was fair. Now, go to Georgia, if that’s what you want - but you remember those credits get used up damn quickly in the Bureau. You’ve got two days, and the weekend’s all yours, but you’ve got no jurisdiction, all right?”

“It’s not all right, Caroline. That man is getting away with  -”

“I know. But you know you’re out on a limb with this. I’ll do what I can, but it won’t be much.”

Ash appeared unable to decide whether to rage or cry. His hands bunched into useless fists, then were shoved into his trouser pockets.

“Come on, Ash,” Albert said, not bothering to lower his voice. “Either prove them wrong, or quit sulking about it.”

Thornton grimaced. “You go do what you can with what you’ve got.”

“I tell you, I’ve never been so angry.”

“I know, okay? Now, get going or you’ll miss your plane.”

“Yeah.” He walked off.

Albert slid on his dark glasses and followed him. He was spending far too much time chasing after this man; literally, if not figuratively. “I’ll drive,” he said once he’d caught up.

Fletcher was striding through the foyer. “Whatever. You realize you were just insulted?”

“Kind of you to notice,” Albert replied. He didn’t care for other people’s opinions, hadn’t for years. With one exception that he made every effort to minimize.

The air outside was bitterly cold and the sky, paling towards dawn, looked dirty.

“I don’t suppose you’d want an apology. I  could shame it out of her easily enough, especially after all the help you just gave us.”

“Forget it.”

Sitting back in the passenger seat, resting his head and closing his eyes, Ash directed, “First right, second left, it’s all signposted from there.”

“Yes.” Silence. Then Albert said, “Get a grip on yourself before we reach Georgia. You’re behaving like a child.”

“Oh, don’t you start in on me again.”

“You’ve got one chance at this, Ash, and you’re set to ruin it. To use a particularly picturesque expression, you’re going off half-cocked. You don’t know enough yet, neither of us do, to be sure this is the same man. If it isn’t, you’ve put yourself back in the red when it comes to credits.”

“When I was a kid, I thought the FBI would be, I  don’t know, nobler and braver than this.”

“So Hoover was good at public relations. But it was a well-constructed lie. The Bureau isn’t like the movies and agents aren’t all James Stewart.”

“If it’s such a persuasive lie, it has to have some basis in truth.”

“He had good people working for him, and he accomplished good things amongst all the dross. But he wouldn’t have recruited you.”

“No, my suits don’t fit well enough.” Fletcher offered him a smile, then, “Thanks for getting this other case solved so quickly.”

“Any half decent medical examiner could have done the same.”

“Modesty, Albert?” Ash laughed. “How unexpected.”

“If I valued the currency I’d take credits for the difficult cases.”

“Look, I’m sorry. Again. I hate feeling so  … impotent.”

“This is getting tiresome, Ash.”

“Okay.” The man sighed. “You know, you’re the last person I can afford to alienate.”

Albert stared ahead at the road, hoping the pre-dawn light and the dark glasses hid enough of his reaction. He used to admire Fletcher’s perceptions. Now he was inclined to hate them.