Beyond belief (3 page)

“Now I'm
sure
you don't know what you're doing. You're actually spouting the bullshit that McCarey and Stevens teach at the academy.”

“McCarey and Stevens?” Joe smiled faintly. “They must have been before my time.”

“Screw you.”

“This isn't their bullshit. It's mine, and it's what made your boss call me at one in the morning when you couldn't even begin to figure out what was going on here.”

“I can handle this.”

“I'm sure you can, and after tonight, I'm sure you will. I'm just here to scope things out and help where I can.”

“Which doesn't appear to be much.”

“We'll see.”

Howe relaxed slightly. “Hmm. Were McCarey and Stevens really before your time?”

“Yep.”

“Damn, that's depressing.” Howe turned toward the door. “I'm gonna roust Ms. Chandler and see if she needs a lift anyplace. I'll check back with you.”

“Fine.”

Joe pulled out a tape measure and extended it to the base of the sculpture, which was angled up at a forty-five-degree angle. Eleven feet four inches from the floor.

He measured the entire room, noting the height and width of the one door and two windows. The measurements could come in handy later, when comparing various heavy lifting methods typically employed by magicians and psychic scam artists. He
could immediately eliminate the Harrison winch due to the rig's large size and lack of portability, and others, like most pulley systems, would not work due to the high center of gravity necessary to drive the sculpture so forcefully into the wall. And he knew of no rig that could explain Nelson's elevated position.

A sharp crack sounded in the room.

Joe spun around.

It was Nelson's other shoe. It had finally slipped off his foot and fallen on the floor, spattering blood against the wall.

As Joe walked out the door, no one was making cute comments about Nelson or anything else. It was obvious they just wanted to get the hell out of there.

He headed downstairs, trying to make sense of what he had just seen. Even if he could figure out how it happened, who would kill Nelson in such a bizarre manner? And why?

He stood in the foyer, jotting down a few last impressions of the crime scene, when Howe came through a doorway with Eve.

“Any ideas?” Howe asked.

Joe put his notebook away. “Not yet. I need to do some checking around.”

Howe nodded. “I'm going to take Ms. Chandler home. We'll touch base tomorrow.”

Howe said it more like an order than a simple statement. Joe let it pass.

Eve walked toward him until her face was only inches away.

“Just what
do
you believe in, Mr. Bailey?”

He stared back, unsure how to respond.

*   *   *   

It was almost four by the time Joe arrived at his converted loft apartment in Decatur. The building was a former elementary school that he had, in fact, attended during the fourth and fifth grades. The redbrick three-story building had given him some of his worst childhood memories, but it had offered plenty of space to build and rehearse his elaborate illusions. Its charm kept him there long after he had abandoned his magic career, and it amused him to think that he slept on the same spot where the evil Miss Ly-decker had lorded over generations of terrified students.

Joe bypassed the noisy freight elevator out of consideration for his sleeping neighbors. Wanda Patterson, a sculptor who lived down the hall, had taken in Nikki after he was summoned, and his daughter barely stirred as he picked her up and carried her back to their apartment. He tucked her in and glanced around the room. Posters of Yo-Yo Ma and Sarah Chang decorated one wall, and
Teen Beat
pages of Leonardo Di-Caprio covered another. So different from other girls her age, yet so much like them.

He stood up and leaned against the doorframe, watching Nikki sleep.

What
do
you believe in, Mr. Bailey?

Eve Chandler's parting words had been bothering him ever since he left Nelson's house. He wasn't a religious man, and he didn't believe in the afterlife. But he did believe in himself and in the little girl who slept on the other side of the room.

He'd also believed in his wife, Angela.

God, he missed her. Had she really been gone two
years? In some ways it seemed like decades, in other ways just a few weeks. Angela's battle with ovarian cancer had taught him more about courage and strength than he ever thought possible, but there had been nothing noble about her final days. They had been cruel and ugly, torturous and sad. She had literally wasted away, her body racked with pain, her mind dulled by medication.

When Angela had finally let out her last long breath, he had wiped the tears from her face and held her close until the sun rose on a world much more wretched and lonely than he had ever known.

His eyes still stung to think about it. He instinctively turned from Nikki even though she wasn't awake to see him crying.

He must be strong for Nikki.

His daughter had given him so much joy. He loved seeing the world through her eyes as she made fantastic discoveries in the mundane, finding beauty where he'd thought none existed.

She hadn't seen her mother during that terrible final week, but Nikki was convinced that her mom was in a better place now and that one day they would all be reunited.

If only he could believe that.

Even now, sleeping, Nikki seemed to be smiling. She had told him that her mother was in her dreams almost every night. Was she dreaming about her? Was Nikki laughing with her mother, eating peanut butter and banana sandwiches and working in the rooftop garden, just like in the old days?

He hoped so. He wished he were there too.

He could never remember his dreams.

*   *   *   

Jesus, he was a scary man.

Natalie Simone leaned against her Range Rover 4.6HSE while Garrett Lyles stared disapprovingly at the automatic weapons spread out on the back floorboard. They were standing on a dark side street in Atlanta's south side, chosen by Natalie for its isolation.

She was used to dealing with tough characters, but there was something about Lyles that terrified her. It wasn't his looks; he was a tall, good-looking man in his mid-thirties, and he had broad shoulders and long brown hair. His striking blue eyes softened his chiseled features. Maybe she was reacting to the stories she'd heard.

He glanced up. “Is this all you have?”

Natalie tried to pretend that his sharp tone didn't rattle her. She was thin and twenty-eight, and many of her customers thought they could intimidate her. She lit a cigarette. “It's not like I had a lot of notice. You're lucky I'm even here, soldier boy.”

“Did I disturb your beauty sleep?”

“No, but you're making me miss one hell of a rave party.”

“I'll make it worth your while.”

“Then stop whinin’ about the selection.”

Lyles picked up the Lanchester. He palmed the grip a few times and softly rubbed the grooved trigger with his index finger.

Natalie smiled, blowing smoke through her pursed lips. “This is where the sickos get a hard-on. Glad to see you're not one of those.”

“The night is young.”

She thought he was joking, but she wasn't positive. “What brings you to town?
Soldier of Fortune
annual convention?”

“No.”

“I heard about that little maneuver you pulled in the Balkans. Your employers were very happy. Pretty smart, soldier boy.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Uh-huh.”

“How much for the Lanchester?”

“Eleven hundred.”

“Too much. You're taking advantage of me.”

Natalie took another puff from her cigarette. She'd put on a strong front, but she was afraid he could see her trembling hand. “I don't negotiate.”

He looked at her as if he wanted to snap her neck, but he finally nodded. “Fine.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a thick roll of cash, and counted out eleven one-hundred-dollar bills.

Natalie handed him the Lanchester.

“You should wear a thicker jacket,” Lyles said. “It's pretty obvious you have cannons up your sleeves. What do you have, a pair of Rugers?”

She dropped the cigarette, flicked her wrists, and two snub-nosed revolvers suddenly appeared in her hands.

Lyles nodded. “Berettas. My mistake.”

“You still didn't tell me what brings you to town.”

“In your business, you should know better than to ask questions.”

She did know better. If he hadn't made her so
nervous, she never would have made that mistake. “Sorry.”

He smiled and tucked the gun into his jacket. “But I don't mind telling you.” He didn't look back as he walked away from her. “Let's just say I'm here to get in touch with my spiritual self.”

I
s it for real, Dad?” Joe woke up to find the morning newspaper on his chest. Nikki was standing over him. Joe tilted the paper up to see a large color photograph of Dr. Nelson impaled on the wall of his study.

“Jesus!” He jerked upright in bed.

“Did that really happen?”

Who could have taken that picture? As he studied it, he realized that it had been shot from outside Nelson's house, through the upstairs window. A photographer with a long zoom lens could have taken it from the house across the street. Or a scanner geek might have shot it from a tree outside. “Yes, honey. It's real. I can't believe they printed this.”

“I've seen worse.”

“That doesn't mean I want you looking at it. I'd expect this from a New York tabloid but not splattered across the front page of
our
paper.”

Nikki made a face. “Splattered? That's not even funny.”

“It wasn't meant to be. And where have you seen worse?”

“Monica and I watched a video where, like, ten people got slaughtered by a guy in a mask.”

“Remind me to talk to her parents about that. Anyway, this is different.”

She pulled her strawberry-blond hair away from her face. “I know. This is real.”

Joe drew her close. She
did
know the difference. Her mother's death had been a crash course. For months afterward she had tried to ignore the pain, but she had gradually opened up about her feelings.

He pushed her back and rolled up the newspaper. “This is why I had to drag you over to Wanda's last night.”

Nikki's eyes widened. “No way! You were there?”

He climbed out of bed and headed for the kitchen. “I'm afraid so.”

She followed him. “Why didn't you wake me up and tell me about it?”

“Oh,
that
would have been a nice bedtime story.”

“It would have been a lot less scary than listening to Wanda scream cuss words on the phone to her ex-boyfriend.”

“Remind me to talk to her about that.”

“Don't talk to her, just get Vince next time.”

Vince was her favorite baby-sitter, an aspiring young magician who often watched her when Joe worked late.

“Vince had a late-night gig, and there's no way I would've given you the gory details that our local paper did.”

“Why were you there? You don't do murders.”

“I don't
investigate
murders. Until now. They wanted me to come down and see if I had any idea how it happened.”

“Do you?”

“Aren't you late for school or something?”

“Nope. Do you know how it happened?”

“No.”

“Awww, what good are you?”

“The people I work with are probably asking themselves the same question. But don't worry, I'll figure it out.”

“Oh.” She fell silent.

“You okay?”

“You're gonna work on a murder case?”

“It looks like it. At least until I can figure out what happened.”

“Can't somebody else do it?”

“Why?”

She looked down. “It's a
murder
case. Won't it be dangerous?”

Joe turned toward her, but she wouldn't meet his gaze. She'd grown much more protective of him since losing her mother. “I'll be all right, baby. They only need me to advise them.”

“Uh-huh.”

He lifted up her chin. “There's nothing to worry about.”

She managed a smile. “Okay.”

Joe stared into her eyes. It wasn't okay. He hoped like hell they could wrap this up quickly.

“You'll see.” He motioned toward the kitchen. “Now, is it my turn to make breakfast, or yours?”

*   *   *   

Joe arrived at work at the windowless ten-story police headquarters building located on the periphery of the Georgia State University campus. “GSU's biggest dorm,” the students joked, as the building also housed the Atlanta city jail.

He entered the squad room, where tacky green felt acoustic panels did little to quiet the bustle of activity from fourteen cops at their desks. The receptionist, Karen Nevois, stopped him.

“Joe, you'd better get over to Lieutenant Gerald's office in Homicide.”

“Now?”

“Unless you'd like to keep the chief of police waiting.”

“You're kidding, right?”

No smile. She wasn't kidding.

He rapped on the door of Gerald's office and stepped inside. Gerald, Howe, and the police chief, Paul Davis, were standing around the desk, looking at the morning newspaper.