The Short Drop (19 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Gibson slipped inside the storage unit and pulled the rollaway door down behind him. The smell of stale sweat and vomit greeted him in the blistering heat. He heard movement from behind a chain-link fence that stretched across part of the room, and cautiously approached in the gloom.

Kirby Tate was curled into a fetal position on a pile of straw. Despite the oppressive heat, he was shivering. Through narrowed eyes he watched Gibson with a feral wariness. Gibson forced a smile onto his face and held up a bottle of water that perspired in the heat.

Tate licked his cracked lips.

“Take it.”

Tate shrunk back toward the wall as though Gibson were threatening him with a gun, not offering him a drink.

“Take it,” he repeated. “It’s all right.”

Gibson opened the bottle and placed it inside the chain-link fence. It fell over and rolled in a lazy circle, spilling water on the concrete floor. Tate followed the bottle with his eyes, calculating the risk. Hunting for the trap that must be there. He scurried forward without standing up, snatched the bottle, and squatted on his haunches to gulp it down. When the water was gone, he retreated back to his straw nest.

Gibson set another bottle of water where Tate could see it.

“Still thirsty?”

Tate nodded.

“I need to ask you some questions.”

Tate became still.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I won’t even come in there. Just come closer so I can see you. I’ll give you the water, and we’ll talk a little.”

Tate shifted but didn’t move. Gibson tried again. Coaxing, reassuring. He put the second bottle of water inside the cell and sat on the ground outside the makeshift cell, hoping to seem less threatening.

Gradually Tate crept to the front of the cell. Gibson needed to be able to see the man’s eyes. Tate took the bottle and sat cross-legged on the ground facing Gibson.

“So don’t good cops get masks?” Tate said.

“Who are you working with?” Gibson asked without preamble.

“What?”

“Who’s your partner?”

“I ain’t got no partner, man. I ain’t got no partner ’cause I ain’t doing nothing. Like I told them other two motherfuckers.”

“So you’ve been a little angel since they found that girl in your trunk?”

A strange expression crossed Tate’s face. Part shame, part pride, and something else that made Gibson’s skin crawl.

“Yeah, man, I’m on the up and up and up. Learned my lesson. Scared straight, you know?” Tate smiled his off-kilter version of an upstanding citizen’s smile.

“And the kiddie porn on your laptop?”

Tate’s smile faltered. “Man, that’s nothing. Come on. Just pictures, you know? For in my head. Keeps me outta trouble.”

“Just something to take the edge off, huh?”

“Yeah, man, yeah. The edge. You know . . . So my trunk stays empty.” Tate winked.

Gibson choked back the urge to throw up.

“Y’all right there, man?” Tate was grinning now. Messing with him a little.

Gibson forced himself to smile. “I’m good. No, I get that. Keeping the edge off is the responsible thing to do.”

“Responsible. Right. Responsible,” Tate agreed.

“You’re just doing it for them. To protect them.”

Tate nodded vigorously. “Exactly. That’s exactly what I’m doing. I don’t wanna hurt nobody no more.”

In Tate’s mind, he was the good guy. He only looked at child pornography to prevent his bad impulses from taking over. He did it for the children.

Right.

An eternal truth of the human condition was that no one ever thought they were evil. No matter how reprehensible their actions, people always convinced themselves they were justified.

“Was that why you were at the library?”

“Yeah. He said that Fridays was the day the library wiped its servers so it was safe. No one would ever know.”

“Wiped its servers?” That didn’t even mean anything. No one wiped servers weekly, and certainly not a public library.

“Yeah. He’s a pro.”

“He?” Gibson asked. “He who?”

“Dunno, man. The guy. He, him. I got this letter a year ago. Well, it wasn’t a letter. It was just like taped to my front door. Said he was an ‘enthusiast’ just like me. That he’d found me on the Internet on some database where you can find ex-cons that done like me. Had my picture and address. He said he was reaching out to everyone in the area to see if, maybe, we could create a little ring of ‘like-minded individuals,’ that’s how he put it. All fancy and shit.
Like-minded individuals.
”

“For what?”

“To pool our . . . you know . . . resources.”

“Trade pictures?”

“Pictures. Videos. Uh-huh.”

Gibson saw it. Someone had turned the National Sex Offender Registry into a social networking site for pedophiles. The start-up from hell.

“And he told you about the library wiping its servers?”

“Yeah, he said on Fridays during the wipe that it was all anonymous, and I could download as much as I wanted and no one would ever notice.”

“But only on Fridays.”

“Only on Fridays. Guy had it all worked out.”

“So who is this guy, Kirby?”

“Dunno, man. Never met him.”

“Come on.”

“No, for real. That was like rule numero uno—that everyone should be anonymous so we couldn’t flip on each other if shit went south.”

“But he knew who
you
were.”

“What?”

“Well, he approached you. So he knows who you are.”

That evidently hadn’t occurred to Tate.

“Yeah, but I didn’t know who he was, so . . .”

He watched Tate’s stupidity collapse on itself.

“Kirby, it’s only anonymous if everyone’s identity is secret.”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess so. But, you know, he was real cool.” Tate’s wheels were spinning now. “He helped me out. He wouldn’t give me up.”

“And yet here you are.”

Tate stared at him for a long minute. Gibson made it a point not to look away. He watched the tumblers slowly fall into place in Tate’s mind.

“Motherfuck,” Tate spat.

The big man stood and stalked in circles around his cell, cursing. Gibson allowed Tate to blow himself out and slump back to the ground in front of him.

“What did he tell you I done? I mean, we didn’t even trade all that much.”

“You didn’t?”

“No, man. I sent him some stuff at first, but he never had anything for me, so I quit sending.”

“What about the other members of the group?”

“Weren’t no other members. He kept trying to recruit some but couldn’t get them to go for it. Too scared, he said. Said we was the only ones with vision. I offered to help recruit, but he said it was safer if it was just him.”

“How’d you communicate with him?”

“Notes at first, like on my door. Then after I got me a computer we’d talk on there.” Tate had a thought. “He told you I done the Lombard girl, didn’t he? That’s why you motherfuckers flew me to this hellhole. ’Cause he said I done her.”

Flew?
In the gloom, he hoped Tate didn’t catch his flicker of puzzlement. He’d worry about a mystery flight if it came to it. In the meantime, he just rolled with it.

“That’s what he told us.”

“Well, it’s bullshit.”

“Do you have Internet at your house?”

“My house? Nah. I ain’t got nothing at that shitbox.”

“Why not?”

“Can’t afford it, man. You know how much an ex-con child molester makes these days? Not much. People ain’t exactly falling over themselves to hire me. I do odd jobs for my uncle. Day work when I can get it, but the fuckin’ Mexicans like to hire their own, you know? Ain’t no way I’m affording no satellite. Besides, what I need the Internet for? I mean, all I gotta do is go to the library for that, so what’s the point?”

“The Internet does other things, Kirby.”

“No, man. Too much reading. Fuck that. Hurts my head.”

“So why are you protecting this guy?”

“I ain’t protecting him. I don’t know who he is. I ain’t got shit to do with him.”

“You hacked into ACG for him. Or did you just do that on your own?”

“Them other two was going on about that too. Man, I didn’t hack shit.”

“Come on, Kirby. I’m trying to help you here, but you have to give me something. At the library on Friday, you downloaded about ten megabytes of data from ACG.”

“No, man, no. I was just downloading, you know, pictures and shit.”

“Don’t lie to me. We watched you. It was on your computer.”

“Look, the only reason I bought the computer off him was to get my pictures. That’s it.”

Gibson stopped. “He sold you the computer?”

“Yeah, I was gonna buy a used one, but he said no, he could build me a new one. Make some tweaks to help keep me safe.”

Gibson shut his eyes. Tate didn’t have a mysterious benefactor, and he didn’t have a partner. He had a puppet master. It was brilliant. Recruit a pedophile to a nonexistent kiddie-porn ring, custom build him a computer, and sell him some crap about Friday afternoons.

“What? What is it?” Tate asked.

Gibson ignored him. WR8TH had built himself a back door into Tate’s computer and had been flying it remotely like a drone. WR8TH had downloaded data from ACG through Tate’s computer, left a copy on the hard drive for them to find, and walked away clean. The real WR8TH could have been a thousand miles away, or he could have been at the next park table.

It was smooth. But Gibson still couldn’t see what WR8TH’s game was. It was a big chance to take ten years after you’d gotten away with it. What was so valuable that he was willing to risk capture?

What he did know was that WR8TH hadn’t found it yet. Triggering Gibson’s virus today proved that. It wasn’t an accident, and he hadn’t done it to protect Tate. Tate was a pawn. Triggering the virus meant that WR8TH still wanted to play. Gibson just needed to figure out how to play back.

He stood to go.

“Come on, man, I know you figured something out.”

Gibson passed his remaining provisions through to Tate. A bottle of water, a granola bar, and an apple.

“I didn’t do nothing. You know it.”

Gibson turned to leave.

“
Nothing
is an awful big word.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Officer Patricia M. Daniels was not particularly happy to see them. She looked Jenn and Hendricks up and down and went back to hunting and pecking at her keyboard.

“Usually we handle this sort of thing by written request. Do you know that? We take the Right-to-Know Law very seriously. Very seriously,” Patricia explained without looking up. “We have an Internet portal so that the general public, that would be you, can submit your request online.”

“We understand that.”

“There’s a system, see? I get to people in order,” Patricia said. “I have a stack of requests right here. And I told your Mr. Abe that. I did. But your Mr. Abe, he has to have it today. ASAP. He’s so important, what does it matter if there’s a g-d system or not? And I told him as much. But then he gets on with Frank,” she said, gesturing back toward the sheriff’s office. “And in five minutes, Frank is out here telling me I’ve got to drop everything and accommodate you people.”

“We really do appreciate it,” Jenn said.

Hendricks looked out the window.

“To serve and protect,” said Patricia.

The records room was in the basement, but her desk was on the second floor. “They tried to put me down there with the records, but it’s biblical dusty down there. Ain’t fit for a dog,” she said. “I told Frank as much. Told him he should try it and see how his asthma likes it.”

Patricia fished her keys out of a drawer and eased herself out of her chair. She was no more than five feet tall and built like a Russian nesting doll, starting from a wide base and narrowing to a point. Patricia adjusted her belt and ambled toward the basement with a slow, bowlegged gait.

The basement records room was divided into rows by metallic shelving units that were stacked with labeled boxes. Patricia wasn’t lying about the dust. It coated every surface. It was dark, and the fluorescent track lights, themselves coated in dust, did little to pierce the gloom.

Everything within the last five years was stored electronically, Patricia explained. There were plans to convert the remaining paper records, but the county hadn’t freed up funds to hire a clerical team to do all the data entry. She unlocked the metal gate and led them down an aisle. She had a slip of paper with the record information and used it like a treasure map to find her way. Patricia ran a tight operation. Everything was boxed, labeled, and organized professionally, and she found the case file quickly.

“I worked LAPD for twenty years. This is the best records room I’ve ever seen,” Hendricks said.

“Thank you,” she said, brightening up. “Why didn’t you tell me you was police?”

“Just me. She was CIA,” he said by way of explanation.

“CIA? Oh. Well, we won’t hold it against her,” Patricia said, elbowing Hendricks in the side.

“We just appreciate all your help,” Hendricks said.

“Well, I am happy to help. I had my dander up because when your Mr. Abe first called, and I heard ‘suicide,’ I just assumed he was talking about the Furst case. And you know I won’t have such a recent case until next year sometime.”

“Furst?” Hendricks asked.

“Evelyn Furst,” Patricia said, and when that still didn’t clear up the matter,“Doctor Evelyn Furst.”

“Sorry, we’re not from up here,” Jenn said.

“Evelyn Furst? The dean of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh?” Patricia prodded them unsuccessfully. “Well, it’s been in the news a lot. She lived up this way and commuted. Real tragedy. She was a nice lady. Did a lot of good. So when I heard ‘suicide,’ I just figured you were reporters looking to embarrass her. Not that you asked me, but in my opinion, it’s a free country and that ought to include your life. Not that I ever would, but it’s the principle.”

“You said it,” Hendricks said.

“Nope, just here for that one,” Jenn said.

“Say, Patricia, you think I could get a copy of the Musgrove file?” Hendricks asked.

“The whole thing?”

“It would sure help me out.”

Patricia looked uncertain. “I don’t know. I shouldn’t.”

Hendricks put a hand on her arm reassuringly. “I understand,” he said. “But you have my word, we’ll be discreet. I’d owe you one. It would get the boss off my back. Truth be told, he can be kind of difficult.”

This seemed to strike a chord with Patricia, and she grudgingly agreed but only after extracting several redundant promises from them. She led them back upstairs to make a copy of the file. She handed it over with a request.

“You need something else, you just call me direct. All right?” She handed Hendricks her card. “You’re right about your boss. That Mr. Abe put Frank in a funny sort of mood.”

They promised they would and said their good-byes.

“Going to call her?” Jenn asked once they were outside. “She took a shine to you.”

“Sure I am. Right after you call Vaughn.”

That stopped her dead in her tracks.

“What?”

“You heard me.” He winked at her.

“Hey, do me a favor and stand right there. I need to get my gun out of the car.”

“Yeah, I’ll be sure to do that, Annie Oakley.” He waved the Musgrove file at her. “So, wanna eat and read?”

Anywhere but a diner was Jenn’s only caveat. A week of Vaughn’s obsession with diner food had made her internal organs feel like they’d been sautéed in grease. She needed something fresh and green.

As they walked to a restaurant down the block, she imagined Vaughn sitting at that diner of his, the Nighthawk. Cash in his pocket and free and clear of this mess. It made her smile. He wouldn’t have sat still for what she’d done. Big a screwup as he was, he had a stubborn morality that she admired. Especially when he saw someone was getting the short end of the stick, as maybe, just maybe, Kirby Tate was getting now. There was a time it would have bothered her too. But now she just saw Tate as the debris that inevitably surrounded this type of operation. It didn’t even bother her that it didn’t bother her.

At the restaurant, they spread the file out on the table and sifted through it while they ate. The story of Terrance Musgrove was a sad one. By all accounts Musgrove was a beloved member of the community—a local boy who put himself through college and then veterinary school. Jenn scanned a stack of written accounts that all told variations on Musgrove’s willingness to go above and beyond the call of duty for a sick animal. His dedication had enabled him to expand his practice over the years to include four locations. There had been talk of franchising nationwide, but it hadn’t gotten beyond the planning stages. Nonetheless, he’d done well for himself, and he and his wife, Paula, had lived on Orange Road for eighteen years with their daughter, April.

The long and the short of Terrance Musgrove’s life was that he was a good man. His wife was the author of two children’s books and was heavily involved in local charities. His daughter went to private schools and was a competitive swimmer who had first swum at the Junior Nationals when she was eleven years old. The family took an annual ski vacation to Wyoming and had a summer place a couple hours away on Lake Erie.

Jenn put down the stack of papers and picked at her salad.

“Jesus, this is rough,” Hendricks said.

“What you got?”

“So, the daughter, April. Fourteen years old. She and the mom were up at their summer place. Just the two of them.”

“On Lake Erie.”

“Yeah. So the kid and the mom are sitting on their dock, and the kid decides to go for a swim. So the police speculate that the kid swam straight out.”

“And?”

“And got clipped by a motorboat. Bashed her head pretty good.”

“Enough to kill her?”

“Enough to knock her out. She drowned. But it gets worse. Mom panics, jumps in, and swims out to save her kid but isn’t the swimmer her daughter is. Drowns trying to save her.”

“Musgrove have an alibi?”

“Says something about us that that was my first question too. Yeah, the doctor was in the office the entire day. About a hundred witnesses. Police sniffed around but never had any reason to pursue him as a suspect.”

“And his suicide? How soon after did he do it?”

“Not for another two years. But people close to him said he struggled with depression and drinking in the aftermath. Said he got pretty bad by the end. Mood swings, personality change, his business suffered.”

Jenn sat back and mulled it over in her mind.

“This is a sad story, but I still think we’re on a wild goose chase here. What does a dead vet have to do with us?”

“Look at the date,” Jenn said, tapping the autopsy report.

Hendricks glanced at it and shook his head. “What? That he killed himself a couple months after Suzanne disappeared? That’s kind of a stretch, don’t you think?”

“It would be if someone hadn’t led us to his old house and typed his name into a computer.”

“So what’s your theory? That Musgrove becomes despondent? Loses his mind and starts talking to Suzanne on the Internet in some delusional attempt to replace his daughter; meets, seduces, and kidnaps Suzanne; and God knows what else? Realizes what he’s done after it’s too late and kills himself out of guilt?”

“Actually that’s better than what I had.”

Hendricks rolled his eyes. “Come on.”

“Both girls were fourteen. Why not?”

“Well, for one, if Terrance Musgrove took Suzanne, and Terrance Musgrove is dead, then who is Kirby Tate in all this? And for two, who broke into the McKeoghs’ house today?”

“Yeah, I don’t know,” Jenn admitted. “I feel like I’m playing poker with only three cards.”

Hendricks was nodding. “Kind of hard to make a hand.”

“What are we missing?” she asked no one in particular.

They paid the check and gathered up the Musgrove file. A photograph caught Jenn’s eye. It was a crime-scene photograph of Musgrove’s suicide. Terrance Musgrove had hanged himself. She felt a chill pass between her shoulder blades. Hendricks saw her expression change and looked at the photo questioningly.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. I need to get back to Grafton. I need my laptop. And . . .”

They looked at each other. Neither wanted to say the name Kirby Tate.

“You got it. Do you want to call George or shall I?”

“He’s going to love this, isn’t he?” she said.

“Not the word I would use.”