Act of Betrayal (26 page)

In front of her was the brown door from the case file photos. She turned her head, scanning the houses on either side. They were generic-looking, and repeated in patterns of three, because she had not scanned in images of them or developed them individually. The computer had inserted the three basic house images that were available in its database. Actually, the effect wasn’t dissimilar from new subdivisions that had a limited choice of home styles.

PJ moved forward in the scene by tapping her palm, each tap equivalent to a step. She pushed on the door by extending her hand out into the air in front of her. The data glove picked up the motion and translated it appropriately in the scene. She also tried turning the doorknob, but the door was locked. She reached into her pocket for the key, and that’s when she noticed one of her hands was encumbered. She looked down at her hands and saw that she was carrying a baseball bat in her left hand.

Of course. The bat.

Jeremiah had claimed in his early confession that the murder weapon was a bat, and that he’d brought it from home. He couldn’t exactly have put it in his pocket, so he had to carry it openly. And hadn’t his statement said he was riding around on a moped since his car was wrecked? How had he transported the bat? He couldn’t just toss it into the trunk. He would have had to tie the thing on the moped somehow. She couldn’t recall anything on the subject from the case file. Had Schultz deliberately overlooked an incongruent piece of evidence to get a conviction in the case? She tossed that question on the mounting stack of doubts she had about Schultz’s past and his integrity. Would he allow an innocent man to be sentenced to death to restore his own image in the department? She reminded herself that the conviction was reinforced by physical evidence—the blood on Eleanor’s hands that matched Jeremiah’s.

Instead of opening the door with a key, PJ knocked on the door with the bat. Jeremiah was supposed to be angry about the wreck of his car, so it seemed like a natural thing to do. She had to get into character.

Eleanor opened the door almost immediately. The girl was done with scanimation—the process of animating a scanned-in image. Her features and body language were brought to life by the computer, so that her face moved when she talked and her body had motor functions. At the moment she was standing with her hands balled on her hips, an arrogant posture. Eleanor was several inches shorter than PJ, which startled PJ until she realized she was looking down on the girl from Jeremiah’s simulated height.

Jeremiah reached out with his right hand and shoved Eleanor back into the foyer. She glared at him, her computer-generated eyes narrowing to slits, and slipped around him to close the door. She stood with her back to the door.

“What do you want?” Eleanor said. It came out flatly, as what-do-you-want. PJ would have to work on her voice intonation.

“You wrecked my car,” Jeremiah responded. PJ kept her “Jeremiah” voice low. She didn’t want to wake Thomas. There was no record of the exact conversation between Eleanor and Jeremiah in the court transcript, so she and the computer were improvising an angry confrontation.

“It was a rotten piece of shit, anyway,” came the retort. PJ briefly wondered where her computer had learned bad language.

Must have picked it up from Schultz.

Eleanor turned her back and strode into the kitchen. Jeremiah followed. PJ noticed that rooms leading off the hallway, rooms that she hadn’t defined yet in the simulation, appeared as black gaps in the wall. It was a little disorienting, but she had been expecting it.

“I expect you to pay for it,” Jeremiah said when he reached the kitchen.

“Yeah, sure. I figure it was worth about five bucks.” She reached into a purse on the counter and produced a five-dollar bill.

Jeremiah shoved her hard against the kitchen counter. The case photos indicated that there may have been a struggle in the kitchen. He advanced on her and raised the baseball bat threateningly. She side-stepped, but swiped her hand along the counter, spilling papers, plastic cups, pill bottles, and the telephone to the floor.

“I want my money and I want it now. If you don’t have it, I’ll take it out of your hide!” Jeremiah brandished the bat again.

Eleanor ran past him, heading for the front door. Jeremiah put his foot out and tripped her. She went sprawling on the kitchen floor, knocking her chin hard and turning over a chair with her legs. The kitchen then matched the crime scene photos: overturned chair, items scattered on the floor. Jeremiah went out of the kitchen and locked the front door with a security chain so she couldn’t make a quick exit. By the time he returned to the kitchen, she was gone. He heard her slam the door to her bedroom upstairs.

Jeremiah went up the stairs. PJ was breathing fast by the time her character got to the upstairs hall. She was caught up in the chase.

Jeremiah knocked roughly on the door. “Come out of there. You can’t get away with wrecking my car this easily.”

Eleanor kept him waiting in the hall, getting angrier at being shut out. When she did open the door partway, she had a portable phone in her hand, the one that had been found smashed on the floor at the crime scene.

“I’m calling the cops. You better get out of here, if you know what’s good for you.”

Jeremiah slammed his body against the door, sending Eleanor flying backward. The phone was knocked out of her hand and went spinning across the floor. He went over to it and stomped it. There was a satisfying crunch, although it sounded a little like popcorn popping. The simulation had a long way to go.

“Hey!” Eleanor said. “I bought that phone out of my allowance! You’re going to pay for that.” She rushed toward him.

Caught unprepared, Jeremiah took quite a beating. Eleanor came at him with her fists clenched, meaning to do harm. She pounded his left shoulder repeatedly, trying to get him to drop the baseball bat. Angrily, Jeremiah pushed her away and swung the bat with both hands, just as he’d swing at a pitch. It caught her in the ribs, and there was a sickening crack.

PJ, breathing hard and with her heart racing, reached out to stop the simulation at that point. She knew what happened next. Jeremiah struck Eleanor repeatedly with the bat, sending her blood flying in patterns that were telling to those who studied that sort of thing. Then he fled from the house, leaving the front door unlocked behind him.

Playing the role of killer through to the bitter end was repulsive to her, although she’d do it if she thought there was something fresh and important to be learned. Whenever possible, she left that to Schultz and others who weren’t fazed by it. Not that it didn’t affect them—she’d seen Schultz’s face after simulations—but they absorbed it better than she did.

When PJ lifted the HMD off her head, she found herself across the room from the computer, nearly at the limit of the cables that connected the device. Her feet had responded to the VR motion by moving her around.

Something nagged her about what she had just seen, some inconsistency, but she couldn’t pin it down.

Thomas was watching her, eyes bright. She knew her face reflected the emotions she’d just experienced in the simulation, and she wondered how much of Jeremiah’s part of the argument Thomas had heard.

“Can I try that?”

“No,” she said. Her tone allowed no room for discussion.

“You got a fax while you were dancing around.”

“I did?” PJ had gotten exactly three faxes since her machine was installed. Not many people had reason to send directly to her. She had been hoping that no one would notice that fact and reassign the machine. She went over, lifted out the single sheet, and read it.

Lucky Penny,

Merlin says you need something. Be at the White Castle off Interstate 44 at Bowles Avenue at 2:00 P.M. And bring something to trade. Information doesn’t come free.

Cracker

She sucked in her breath and held it. Her hands shook slightly. It sank in on her what she’d done, and who was on the other end of the fax. She looked for a return phone number or other identification, and found none.

“What is it, Mom?”

She started to say it was nothing, then remembered her decision to treat Thomas like a grown-up, at least most of the time.

“I’ve gotten in touch with a person who might be able to track down more information about the killer,” she said. “About who shot Dave, too. The problem is, he’s a scary guy himself.”

“You’ve got to talk to him,” he said. “You don’t want Schultz hurt too, do you?”

She folded the fax in half and stuck it in her purse. It seemed less threatening when it was out of sight. “No, of course not. I have to be somewhere at two, and this time I don’t want you to go with me.” She had no idea what the meeting would be like. In the unlikely event that Cracker was there in person, she certainly didn’t want to introduce him to her son.

Talk about a bad influence.

“Okay. No problem. Do you have time to drop me off at home?”

The argument she’d expected didn’t materialize. She checked her watch. It was ten after one.

“Just barely,” she said. “Let’s go.”

Later, traveling west on Interstate 44 toward Fenton, she remembered a portion of Cracker’s message.
Bring something to trade.
What on earth did she have that he could possibly want?

“IT’S SCHULTZ.”

“About time you called,” Anita said. “A lot’s been going on here.”

Schultz didn’t bother to say that a lot had been going on with him, too. He was back in St. Louis, although not at his home. He was staying in a flophouse downtown where questions evaporated at the sight of cash. It wasn’t one of the nicer places he’d stayed in, but at least the sheets and towels he paid extra for had actually been laundered since their last use. That alone elevated the place to the top rank in its category.

“First let me tell you that Julia is okay,” Anita said. “She’s in Florida with her friend, and nothing threatening has happened there. It took a few phone calls, but I even talked with her on the phone. By the way, Cassie says hello to Burpy.”

“That’s a load off my mind. Thanks.”

“You know about Rheinhardt, don’t you?”

“I do now.” He didn’t mention that he’d learned about it while holding someone at gunpoint.

“Have you heard about the bombing last night?”

“Bombing? Shit. Who got hit?”

“Judge Canton.”

“Jesus Christ, I hate to hear that. Didn’t like the guy personally, but he was fair in court.”

Wheels were spinning in Schultz’s head. He’d been traveling again, hadn’t caught the story, although he was sure it would have made the news broadcasts in Arizona. The latest death lent credibility to his theory, and sent shivers up his spine.

“You had quite a few cases in his court, didn’t you?”

“Sure. Wharton must be crawling up Wall’s butt on this. A prosecutor and a judge. You sound tired.” The fatigue in Anita’s voice had finally registered on Schultz.

“I’ve been busy. Another thing. Something you’re not going to want to hear.”

“I’m listening.” He figured she must have told someone about their behind-the-scenes collaboration.

“Dave’s in the hospital. He was outside the judge’s house, doing surveillance. He got shot in the chest and neck.”

Schultz took the phone away from his ear and held it against his chest. He was standing at a pay phone a couple of blocks from his hotel, and for a few moments he let the street noise wash over him. Then he put the phone back to his ear.

“Dead?”

“No. The surgery went well, but he didn’t wake up afterward for a long time. We all thought he was in a coma. He’s alert now, and responding. Whatever strange place he was in, he’s back from it, as of a couple of hours ago. Looks like he’s going to be fine, except maybe for his voice. Too early to tell on that.”

“Thank God. What a relief.” Schultz sighed deeply. Dave’s loss would have affected him almost as strongly as his own son’s. He was fiercely protective of the young detective, but he just didn’t express it. It wasn’t something he could tell a male coworker:
Hey, guy, I really care about you, you big teddy bear.

“One last thing,” Anita said. “You were right about the woman across the street. Good pickup on that.”

“I knew she was a snoop. I kept my drapes closed, but I always thought she had X-ray vision. She saw my car stolen?”

“Yeah. Loretta Trent saw you come home, park the car, and leave on foot. Your car was stolen by a man wearing a hat and then returned about an hour later, complete with broken headlight. The time frame fits for the hit-and-run. She didn’t get a good look at the guy’s face, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. The hat he was wearing blocked her view, since she was looking down on him from the second floor. Lean, moves like a cat. That’s all she got.”

“Is old Loretta reliable, or has she got too many screws loose?” Schultz had seen the woman several times, in the second-floor window of the house across the street. She liked to spy on others in the neighborhood. Schultz didn’t like it, so his habit of keeping the drapes closed on the front windows of his house all the time probably frustrated the woman.

“Oh, she’s reliable, all right. She’s got excellent eyesight and get this—she uses a spotting scope. And she keeps a journal of the comings and goings of her neighbors. I’ve already verified some of her other journal entries with people who live on the block. They’re dead on.”

“How’d you get her to ’fess up?” Schultz had encountered the type before. Loretta Trent had a “little vice” of spying, around which her whole life revolved. Telling the police about it would be the last thing on her mind.

“You don’t want to know.”

Schultz laughed, a short ironic bark. “You’re probably right. I hope you didn’t hurt her.”

“Not physically.”

He could see he wasn’t going to get anything else out of Anita on that subject. He knew she had a hard edge to her, and basically he liked her that way. He saw himself in her more than in Dave, who talked tough but had a marshmallow center.

“Have you told Wall about Miss Loretta yet?”