Buried Secrets (20 page)

“Right. I much prefer being underestimated.”

If he could have smiled, he would have. But I heard it in his voice. “You know something, Heller?” he said. “I think
I’ve
underestimated you. You’re really quite an impressive guy.”

“Do me a favor,” I said, “and keep it to yourself.”

As I returned to the Defender, my BlackBerry was ringing.

“I thought I’d have heard from you by now,” Diana said.

“My BlackBerry was temporarily offline.”

“You didn’t see what I sent you?”

“What did you send me?”

“A photograph of our kidnapper,” she said.

49.

The town of Pine Ridge, New Hampshire, (population 1,260) had a police force that consisted of two full-time officers, two part-time officers, and one police chief.

Walter Nowitzki had been the police chief in Pine Ridge for twelve years. He’d been on the force in Concord before that and grabbed the chief’s job when it opened up. He and Delia wanted to move to a small town, and he wanted more time to hunt. The work here was routine and uneventful, and when it wasn’t hunting season, it was downright slow.

Jason Kent, the rookie, entered his office hesitantly. His cheeks and his jug ears were red, as they always got when he was nervous.

“Chief?” Jason said.

“Sam Dupuis keeps calling,” Chief Nowitzki said. “Got a bug up his ass about the Alderson property.”

“What’s the deal? No one lives there.”

Nowitzki shook his head. “Something about how his dog ran off, I didn’t quite get it. But now he says he thinks they’re doing work without a permit and who knows what else.”

“You want me to drive out and talk to Mr. Dupuis?”

“Just head on over to the Alderson property, would you? Go out there and introduce yourself and see what’s up.”

“I didn’t know any of the Aldersons even came here anymore. I thought the old man was just, like, an absentee owner.”

“Sam says it’s a caretaker or a contractor or something, works for the family.”

“Okay.” Jason rose and was out the door when Chief Nowitzki said, “But keep it polite, would you? Don’t go ruffling any feathers.”

50.

I clicked on Diana’s e-mail and waited impatiently as the attachment opened.

A photograph, muddy and low-contrast. The back of a man’s head and shoulders. The picture looked like it had been taken at night. A surveillance photo, maybe?

So why was Diana so sure this was the guy?

I studied it more closely, though on the BlackBerry’s screen it wasn’t easy. I saw what might have been the headrest of a car. The photo had been taken from the back seat.

The man’s shoulders rose well above the headrest. He was tall. His head appeared to be shaved. But something was obscuring a large area of his head and neck: a shirt with a high collar? No, maybe it was just a dark blotch, a flaw in the photo. As I looked closer, it seemed like the entire back of his head and neck was covered with some sort of hideous birthmark.

But then, as I continued to study it, I realized it wasn’t a birthmark at all. It was a design, an illustration. It looked like a tattoo, but no one got tattoos on their scalp, did they?

Wrong.

It was a tattoo of the head of a large bird, maybe an eagle or a vulture. A line drawing in black or dark blue, highly detailed if crudely executed. Stylized feathers, a sharp beak, erect ears.

An owl, maybe, with large, fierce staring eyes. Huge blank circles with much smaller circles at their center, representing the irises.

They stared at you. They stared at whoever had taken the picture.

The guy got eyes on the back of his head.

When Mauricio Perreira had babbled that to me, I’d paid it no attention. It was a figure of speech, part of a long desperate rant by a terrified man, nothing more. I assumed he meant to say, in his broken English,
He’s got eyes in the back of his head
. Meaning: This man hears and sees everything, has sources everywhere, I can’t give you his name, I’m scared of him.

He
was
scared. But it wasn’t a metaphor. He meant it literally, almost. There were eyes on the back of the man’s head.

DIANA ANSWERED on the first ring.

“Who took the picture?” I said.

“Alexandra Marcus. This came from her iPhone, taken the night she disappeared.”

“When?”

“At 2:36 A.M. Apparently all iPhone photos are encoded with metadata that tell you the date and time. And something called a geotag, which gives you the GPS coordinates of the phone at the time the picture was taken.”

“Leominster?”

“Straight down the road about a mile from where you found it.”

“That’s an owl.”

“Right. I wasn’t sure whether you’d be able to make it out on your BlackBerry. But if you enlarge the photo it appears that the tattoo covers his head and neck and probably a good portion of his upper back as well.”

“You already searched NCIC?”

“Sure. One of the fields in the database is for scars and marks and tattoos. No hits.”

“Did you send it to your Gang Intelligence Center?”

“Sure. But no luck.”

“Isn’t there some central database of criminal tattoos?”

“There should be, but there isn’t.”

I thought a moment. “Ever see the Latin Kings tattoos?” The Latin Kings were the biggest Hispanic street gang in the country.

“It’s a five-pointed crown or something?”

“That’s one of them. There’s also a tattoo of a lion wearing a crown. Sharp teeth, big eyes. Some gang members get it tattooed on their backs. It’s huge.”

“You think he’s part of a Latino gang?”

“Some kind of gang, anyway.”

“I’ve sent the photo to our seventy-five legal attachés around the world. Asking them to run it by local law enforcement. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I said dubiously. “You’d think a guy with an owl on his head and neck would be fairly memorable. People aren’t likely to forget a sight like that.”

“That’s not smart. Owls are supposed to be smart.”

“Your average street pigeon is ten times smarter than the smartest owl. It’s not about smart. It’s about scary. In some cultures, an owl is a symbol of death,” I said. “A bad omen. A prophecy of death.”

“Where? Which countries?”

I thought for a moment. “Mexico. Japan. Romania, I think. Maybe Russia. Ever see an owl hunt?” I said.

“Oddly enough, I haven’t.”

“It moves its head side to side and up and down, looking and listening, triangulating on its prey. You really can’t find a more perfect, more ruthless killer.”

51.

“Hi, Mr. Heller,” Jillian Alperin said as I entered the office. “Dorothy’s looking for you.”

“You’re allowed to call me Nick,” I said, for what must have been the twentieth time since she’d started working for me.

“Thank you, Mr. Heller, but I’m not comfortable with that.”

“Right,” I said. “Then just call me El Jefe.”

“Excuse me?”

I noticed the butterfly tattoo on her right shoulder. She was wearing some kind of lacy tank top that bared a few inches of her midriff. Her navel was pierced. “What does that mean, the butterfly?” I asked.

“It’s a symbol of freedom and metamorphosis. I got it when I stopped eating flesh.”

“You used to be a cannibal? I didn’t see that on your job application.”

“
What?
I mean, I used to eat meat. I have a ‘meat is murder’ tattoo on my lower back, want to see it?” She stood up and turned around.

Dorothy’s voice rang out as she approached. “Jillian, you can show your tramp stamps after work and on your own time. Also, you and I need to have a talk about appropriate office attire.”

“You said I didn’t have to wear high heels.”

Dorothy shook her head. “I got that picture you sent,” she said to me. “I’ve been Googling tattoos, but no luck so far.”

“My brother worked in a tattoo parlor in Saugus,” Jillian said.

“How about you replace the toner cartridge like I asked,” Dorothy said.

IN MY office, I said, “Remind me why you hired Jillian again.”

“She’s a very, very smart young woman.”

“That escaped me.”

“I admit she’s taking a little longer to catch on to the clerical stuff than I expected—”

“Isn’t her job all
about
the clerical stuff?”

“Give her a chance,” she told me sternly, “or you can hire her replacement. Now, if we can please move on. I found spyware on our network.”

“What kind of spyware?”

“Well, a molar virus. It burrowed into our intranet, injected code, and opened a back door. For a couple of days now it’s been scanning all volumes for protected files and then sending them out.”

“That’s how they got my security system codes,” I said. “Where did it send to?” She shook her head. “Proxy servers so many times removed that it’s just about impossible to find. But I rooted it out. It should be gone.”

“How did it get onto our system in the first place?”

“I’m working on that. I—”

My intercom buzzed, and Jillian said, “You have a visitor.” I looked at Dorothy, who shrugged. “Name?” I said.

“Belinda Marcus,” Jillian said.

52.

“I’m worried
sick
about Marshall,” Belinda said. “I think he’s going to have a heart attack.” She was wearing a light brown scoop-neck linen top with sequins around the neckline. It sort of belled out at the midriff. She threw out her thin arms and embraced me. Her perfume smelled like bathroom deodorizer.

“I’m sorry, Belinda, did we have an appointment?”

She sat and folded her legs. “No, we did not, Nick, but we need to talk.”

“Give me one quick second.” I turned my chair and typed out an instant message to Dorothy:

Need bkgd on Belinda Marcus ASAP.

How soon?

Immediately. Whatever you can get.

“I’m all yours,” I said. “Can I get you a Coke?”

“The only soda I drink is Diet Pepsi, but I don’t need the caffeine. Nick, I know I should have called first, but Marshall had to go in to the office, and I got a ride with him. I told him I wanted to meet a girlfriend for coffee in the Back Bay.”

“Why did he have to go to the office?”

She shook her head. “I’m sure it’s about Alexa. It has to be. Nick, I’ve been wanting to talk to y’all privately, without Marshall, since this whole nightmare began.” I nodded.

“I feel like I’m being disloyal, and he’d probably kill me if he knew I was telling y’all this. But I—I’m just at my wit’s end, and
someone
needs to say something. I know Marshall’s your old and dear friend, and you barely know me, I understand that, but can you
please
promise me Marshall will never find out we spoke?” She bit her lower lip and held her breath and waited for my response.

I paused a moment. “Okay.”

She let out a sigh. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. Nick, you need to know that Marshall is … he’s under a great deal of pressure. All he wants is to get his beloved daughter back, but they … they won’t let him hand over what they want, and it’s tearing him up inside.”

“Who won’t let him?”

She looked at me anxiously. “David Schechter.”

“How do you know this? Does he talk to you about it?”

“Never. I’ve … just heard them arguing. I’ve heard Marshall pleading with him, it would break your heart.”

“So you must know what Mercury is?”

She shook her head violently. “I don’t. I really don’t. I mean, it’s a file of some sort, but I have no idea what it’s about. I don’t care if it’s the answers to next Sunday’s
New York Times
crossword puzzle or the nuclear codes. We’ve got to give it to them. We’ve got to get that girl free.”

“So why are you telling me?”

She studied her fingernails. It looked like a brand-new manicure. The polish matched her blouse. “Marshall is so deep in some kind of trouble, and I don’t know who to turn to.” I looked at my computer screen. An instant message had popped up from Dorothy. A few lines of text.

“I’m sure he trusts you,” I said. “You’ve been married for, what, three years, right?” She nodded.

“You were a flight attendant when you met Marshall?”

She nodded, smiled. Her smile was abashed and ruefully embarrassed and pleased, all at once. “He saved me,” she said. “I’ve always hated flying.”

“That’s got to be a Georgia accent.”

“Very good,” she said. “A little town called Barnesville.”

“Are you serious? Barnesville, Georgia? I love Barnesville!”

“Have you been there? Really?”

“Are you kidding, I dated a girl from Barnesville. Went down there a bunch, met her parents and her brothers and sisters.”

Belinda didn’t look terribly interested. “What’s her name? Everyone knows everyone down there.”

“Purcell. Cindy Purcell?”

Belinda shook her head. “She must be a lot younger.”

“But I’m sure you’ve eaten at her parents’ restaurant, Brownie’s.”

“Oh, sure. But Nick—”

“I’ve never had anything like their low-country boil.”

“Never had that dish, but I’m sure it’s good. Southern cooking is the best, isn’t it? I miss it so.”

“Well,” I said, standing. “I’m glad you came in. I’m sure it wasn’t easy, but it sure was helpful.”

She remained seated. “I know what people call me. I know some people think I’m a gold digger because I happened to marry a wealthy man. But I didn’t marry Marshall for his money. I just want what’s best for him. And I want that girl back, Nick. Whatever it takes.”

AFTER SHE’D left, I called Dorothy in.

“You ever meet a Georgian who preferred Pepsi to Coke?” I said.

“I’m sure they exist. But no, I haven’t. And I’ve certainly never met a Georgian who uses the word ‘soda.’ Every soft drink is always ‘Coke.’ You didn’t really date a woman from Barnesville, did you?”

“No. And there’s no Brownie’s.”

“A good one about the low-country boil, Nick. If you’ve never had that, you’re not from Georgia. What tipped you off in the first place?”

“Her accent’s wrong. Words like ‘square’ and ‘here,’ she drops her
R
’s. Georgians don’t talk like that. And then there’s the way she keeps calling me ‘y’all.’”

“Good point. ‘Y’all’ is always plural. She’s not from Georgia, is she?”