Cross Cut (13 page)

“None at all. But given this absurd intrusion, I doubt I would give you any information whatsoever.”

Hacket moved forward and pointed at her. “Don’t play dumb. She confessed to you and you told her to flee.”

“Confessed?” Ryder said. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you want from me.” She turned to face Gibbs. “You may well have a warrant to search my home, but I am not obliged to talk to these addle brains.”

Hacket looked like he was about to object, but Gibbs stopped him, and told both the BI agents to leave, which they did, reluctantly.

“Okay,” Gibbs said in a defeated sigh, “you win. Now let’s be reasonable. I’d suggest you help find Miss Hart, otherwise there will be consequences.”

Ryder sat at her desk. It was a rare sight to see her with bare arms and legs in that chair. Her skin glistened with the sunscreen, and she had removed her fishing hat. It took two attempts for her to brush back her hair with her hands.

“Consequences are an all too familiar hazard in my occupation, Miss—”

“Agent Gibbs.”

“Forgive me, Agent Gibbs. That aside, if you think you can appeal to my better nature, then I can only disappoint you, as I have none. If Melissa has to answer for any crime she may or may not have committed, she can do so herself. Naturally, I will do anything in my power to help her, providing it is lawful.”

“You can do that, and I wouldn’t blame you. But it makes no sense to hinder us.”

“I have absolutely no idea what gives you that impression, Agent Gibbs, considering I learned of this some five minutes ago.”

Gibbs pointed at me. “Your assistant here ignored our request for entry for a full five minutes. We also know your schedule. According to the BI, Melissa is always home when you leave for the pier in the afternoon. You can see why I’m suspicious.”

Ryder looked at me, and tapped her desk subtly with her middle finger, which was code. She wanted a covert answer. “Ader, do you know where Melissa is?”

I scratched my right eyebrow, which was code for
yes.
I followed it up with a shrug for Gibbs’ benefit.

“Is she in this house?” Ryder asked. I scratched my right eyebrow again, followed by another shrug.

Ryder tried to hide her frown and pretended to persist in the matter. “Did you help Melissa flee the premises?”

“Nope,” I said.

“Well,” Ryder said to Gibbs. “I can tell when Ader is lying, and he is not. I suggest you look elsewhere.”

Gibbs grunted. “Hmph. Well, if you want to play it this way, fine. Of course, any footing you have with us is suspended regarding the Cross Cutter investigation. You can’t ask for any information from us and you must hand over that information we gave you.”

“By all means,” Ryder said. “Ader, give Agent Gibbs the boxes back.”

I complied, but the one Kacie gave me was still in my Lexus. She was inside now. I was still expecting her to say something, but she didn’t.

Gibbs ordered Kacie to take the boxes out and she did. Finally, Gibbs looked at me before leaving and asked, “Where is she, really?”

I shrugged. “My crystal ball would say in mid-air somewhere.”

She glared at me and bit her lip while giving it some thought. “She’s—going for a plane. God damn—” She wagged her finger but gave it up. She knew very well that she couldn’t do anything.

After a minute of silence, hearing the cars outside depart, Ryder rose from her desk. “What the devil is going on, Ader? Why is Melissa wanted for murdering Guy Lynch?”

I gave it to her, word for word. She shook her head and pushed back her seat.

“What a mess,” she snarled. “Where is Melissa?”

“Follow me,” I said. I took Ryder into the garage and saw that the pickup was still there, halfway between the garage.

“You can come out now, Mel,” I said.

Melissa’s head appeared above the garage door, her figure sandwiched between the ceiling and the parallel door. She groaned a little, most likely from the awkward position of the ledge above the garage door. “I can’t move my body round to get down,” she said.

I turned to Ryder and opened my arms out and smiled, like a magician’s final illusion. “Da-Da!” I grinned. “I did say she was in mid-air.”

Ryder was hardly impressed. She grunted. “Good God,” she said. “Get her down at once.”

I did so. By the time I’d removed the pickup and helped Melissa down, Ryder had retreated to her room to change. We waited for her in the office. I made sure the curtains in the house were shut, and the front door was locked. While looking out the door’s window pane, I noticed a car parked across the road. A tall man in a suit sat on the hood of his car and glassed over our house. He had a small, unremarkable tattoo on his neck. He smoked a cigarette without using his hand.

It was then it hit me. We were being watched. I stepped into the study and turned the surveillance camera outside the front door toward him and took a few screen captures. He must have seen the camera move, because soon after he drove off.

Melissa and I were sitting on the sofa when Ryder came down. She was in a different state of mind, because she had no blazer. Just her white blouse, fully buttoned up to the neck.

She sat and clenched her hands together, but not below her chin this time.

“You realize, Ader, you took a great risk? What on earth do we do with Melissa now?”

I answered, “I know a place. Sully has a cabin by Irvine Lake. Doubt the FBI will look for her there.”

She seemed to be considering it, when Melissa spoke up.

“But I didn’t do anything, I—”

“Don’t, Melissa, that isn’t necessary,” Ryder said. “When did you last see that bracelet of yours?”

“I lost it—or it was stolen. When I went swimming over the weekend. I keep it in my bag in a locker. When I got back from my swim, it was gone.”

“From a locker, you say? So it was stolen. Had the locker been tampered with?”

“No—it hadn’t been forced into.”

Ryder looked at me. “Would a common thief pick through random lockers in a changing room?”

I said, “Depends on the environment. Are we talking separate male and female changing rooms?”

“No,” Melissa said. “It’s more of a family swim park. I—it’s nostalgic. There’s a long line of changing cubicles. When you’ve changed, you come out the other side and there’s a huge amount of lockers following the cubicles.”

“Ader?” Ryder looked at me inquisitively.

“If they’re looking to make cash, no. Much easier to lift in that kind of environment. Very risky picking in such an open space.”

She turned back to Melissa. “Were there many people about?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“I imagine someone was targeting you, and seized the opportunity when they could.” Ryder put her hands beneath her chin and decided to do some thinking. It took three minutes, and then she leaned back and sighed. “Ader, I am at a loss. I invite suggestions.”

I always hated this. It wasn’t because she was stuck. At least, usually it wasn’t. It was because she didn’t want to be the one to initiate ideas.

“Obviously the bracelet was planted,” I said.

“For what purpose?” Ryder said, leaning forward.

“Well, I know you hate speculation, but I think it’s Cristescu’s gang. Ten minutes ago I saw a guy outside in a car watching the house. I don’t know for sure, but he looked the part. He was probably watching us on behalf of Cristescu.”

Ryder sighed. “On its own, I would accept that as logical. But it conflicts with everything else. Would Cristescu or his gang merely imitate a serial killing to implicate Melissa? Why not myself?”

“Maybe he’s hurting everyone around you. If you think about it, you took down others in his gang. As for imitation, who’s to say the Cutter isn’t one of his gang?”

“Pah. Nonsense.”

“Then who else?” I said. “Ever since that phony Lynch stumbled in here, everything has come back to this office—to you. Someone out there is making a play, and it seems personal.”

Ryder didn’t like the thought or my tone, but there was nothing she could say to counter argue. The hell of it was, she knew it to be the truth.

“If that is the case,” she said, “then we are backed into a corner. Fighting two different parties, with very little ammunition.”

I stood and began to walk up and down the room. I stood by the middle aquarium that held, among other species, a large tiger tail; black with white stripes and a coiled tail. One of Ryder’s prized possessions.

“Maybe now would be a good time to vacate,” I said.

“Pah,” Ryder snarled. “With a fugitive and a client relying on us? Pah.”

“Nerks to the client. They only wanted in because you guilted them. If you want other suggestions, then short of arming our bedroom doors with proximity mines, I’m out of ideas.”

She shook her head. “Forget the Cristescu gang for a minute, and focus on the more pressing matter, Melissa.”

I shrugged. “That could sort itself out in time. The FBI aren’t dumb. We get Gregg and Flores to back up our story with Cristescu and they’ll have to figure it was planted. They’re just hotheaded because it’s the first lead in, what, three years?”

Ryder rose from her chair and let out a sigh. “So you say. You know, we are in a circus of coincidence and we need to escape. The only way to proceed, as far as I’m concerned, is to discover who killed Guy Lynch.”

I folded my arms and leaned back slightly, then realized I was pushing the aquarium back. Something she said caught me off guard. The way she said it insinuated that she had already separated Guy Lynch’s murder and the other victims.

“How did you—did the FBI tell you they were considering Lynch’s murder wasn’t the Cutter?”

“I have a brain,” she said. “The assumption was mine alone. Coincidence or not, as the facts present themselves, it would be absurd to assume the person carrying out serial killings is also the same person with a grudge against me. Of course, the facts may change.” She paused and looked at the aquarium beside me, at the patagonians. “You say the FBI suspect only one murder is out of place?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Then they are no better off than we are.” She moved over to my sofa and sat beside Melissa. She put her hand on hers and tried to comfort her. I looked away and considered what she meant by her last comment. Did she mean there was something fishy about one of the other murders? Just as I was thinking, Ryder called out to me.

“Will you take Melissa now?”

“Better to wait till dark. She could do with some rest.”

They both nodded and Melissa walked out of the room and upstairs.

I reclaimed my sofa but Ryder didn’t move. There was barely any light in the room because of the closed curtains and she had no blazer, so it felt like a decent time to ignore normal procedure.

“Report what happened today,” she said.

“There’s a box in my car with the stuff on Lynch, but I’ll give you what I know first.”

It took a while, and the stuff involving psychology was a little ticklish and it got the response I expected. By the end she was slouched back against the head of the sofa, hands firmly underneath her chin, eyes closed. When she opened them she said, “It is interesting that they are willing to ignore the fact it would take strength to hang someone as heavy as Lynch.”

“I dunno, Melissa is pretty strong. So you think that’s a good defense?”

Ryder shook her head. “On the contrary. If anything, what you described in that restroom suggests the complete opposite.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. Everything else can be ignored. Psychology indeed.”

“Surely everything you do is psychology,” I said smugly.

“Perhaps. But I’d like to think anything I do is based on pure logic. Psychology is based on the logic directly relating to decades of studies, where opinion is often divided. Hypothesis filtered through already conceived ideas.”

“Yeah, well, as much as you hate it, we might need her. Doctor Bishop, that is. You see, the FBI may have shoved us, but maybe I can get information from her.”

“Pah, any excuse.”

I ignored that and went to retrieve a glass of orange juice from the kitchen. I offered to get Ryder something, but she gave no reply. Back in the office, I had a few sips and said, “May I ask a question?”

She nodded slowly.

“I’m not sure how they got to Melissa—whether it was DNA or prints. But either way it means she has a record. Did you know that?”

She nodded again. “Yes.”

“What for?” I asked.

“That is her business, ask her.”

“Okay.”

“Regarding that point,” she said, looking up at me. “If the bracelet was indeed planted, as you put it, it serves to reason the person who left it in that restroom knew about Melissa’s record. That is to say, they knew the authorities would be able to locate her with such methods.”

“That would make sense.”

She closed her eyes and nodded, but not at me. I get the feeling she sometimes nods at herself when she achieves a moment of clarity. She followed it up with a squint. “I have a headache,” she said. “Is there anything you wish to add?”