Read Destroyer Angel: An Anna Pigeon Novel (Anna Pigeon Mysteries) Online
Authors: Nevada Barr
Destroyer Angel: An Anna Pigeon Novel (Anna Pigeon Mysteries)
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For Sherry, Dianne, and Barb, who provided me with all the ingredients for this book, then threw in their friendship to boot
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to BlueSky Designs in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for their technical expertise, Dominick for his durable sanity, Julie for her insight, Mr. Paxton for his constancy, Scot for his practical courage, and India for, year after year, quietly making me look much smarter than I actually am.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
Paul Davidson was stopped on the overpass outside of Denver International Airport, amused as always by the statue of the great blue Gumby horse rearing against the white peaks of the terminal roof in the background. The peaks were meant, he assumed, to look like the Rocky Mountains. They always reminded him of a momma sow lying on her back.
His wife’s plane was scheduled to leave at 11:15
A.M.
, nonstop to Minneapolis. This was the first vacation Anna had taken since their honeymoon. After a summer fighting wildfires, she needed a long weekend with the girls.
He’d been glad when Heath Jarrod invited her on this float trip. Some years back, Heath had saved Anna’s life. Anna wasn’t the sort to forget that kind of thing, and they’d become fast friends. Anna was godmother to Heath’s daughter, Elizabeth, though if the church knew the kind of spiritual guidance Anna would provide, the minister might have balked.
Paul smiled. He loved his wife’s irreverence. Even after three years of marriage, he never rested easy when she was away. He kept his fears to himself. A man might put Anna on a pedestal, but she would only leap down, snatch up a chain saw, and cut it up for firewood.
Three jets that might have been Anna’s left in quick succession.
The great Gumby horse’s eyes glowed an infernal red. Paul was glad he was an Episcopalian. A less rational belief system might have seen that as a bad omen.
“Vaya con Dios,” he whispered, then got in the Nissan for the drive back to Boulder.
ONE
Hands thrust deep in the pockets of the absurd checkered hunter’s coat—protective coloration in northern Minnesota—Charles stared at the campground. Gray ash, blown into ripples, exposed an old campfire ring. On the edges of the clearing the ash melded into gray hills, low and still in death. Black spikes, the last rebellion of living trees, thrust up through the misery of destruction.
Giving God the finger, Charles thought. Never a good idea. Like most Catholics, Charles prayed to Jesus and Mother Mary when he bothered to pray. Jesus was in the redemption business. Not God; God was in the smiting business.
“What’re we gonna do, Dude?”
Charles slid his eyes toward the Fox River. The fire had been stopped by the water. Its final act of destruction was the campground. On the far bank, vegetation was a lush mockery; verdant greens, rich golds, and loud reds thrust out over the water like so many jeering faces.
“What’re we gonna do, Dude?” repeated the goon, slouching between Charles and the river.
Known facts automatically played in Charles’s mind: Sean Ferris, small-time muscle. Philadelphia, Chicago, then Detroit. Served three years for rape. Obedient, loyal. Attack dog. Ferris was old for this work, and fat. The black leather coat and pointed-toe boots stuck him in the sixties, too overdone even to pass for retro.
Charles took his cell phone from the pocket of the blanket coat and pushed the number three.
“Calling Mr. Big?” asked another of the goons Bernie had stuck him with.
James R. Spinks, forty-one years of age, out of Detroit, Michigan, connected to what passed for Mafia. Scum for hire. IQ of 84. Went by the name Jimmy. Grown men who liked to be called by little boys’ names needed to be hung by their tiny dicks, Charles thought.
Bernie picked up on the second ring. The fool must be hunched over the phone, waiting for news of his cunning foray into crime.
“Campground is burned,” Charles said. “Nothing to acquire.” The job was supposed to be a clean smash-and-grab. Bernie,
Mr. Big,
hadn’t done his homework. The fool actually believed Charles had no idea who was the so-called brains behind this caper. Bernard Iverson, forty-six, Edmondson, Canada, marine equipment, massively overextended, net worth five million dollars and still not worth the bullet it would take to kill him.
“One second, please,” Bernie said.
Unblinking, Charles waited, listening to a clatter that suggested Bernie was using his cell phone as a hockey puck. He gritted his teeth, his jaw muscles bunched into hard knots. This was the only outward show of emotion he allowed himself. Humans were masters at reading faces. A second’s hesitation, a flick of the eyes, a smile at the wrong time telegraphed weakness. Even people who didn’t understand what they were seeing retained enough feral instinct to home in on any chink in the armor. From that day forth they hammered at it until the chink became a crack and the crack a break. Once the soft flesh was exposed they went for the entrails with talons and tongues as sharp as harpies’.
The only earth the meek inherited was six feet down and capped by a stone.
A final scrimmage and Bernie was back. “There’s a second campsite about four miles north on the same side of the river. It looks like it didn’t burn. They probably stopped there.”
Charles kept waiting. Four miles, no trail, probably: not good enough. The whole setup was Mickey Mouse. Bernie didn’t know Charles, but Charles knew him. Michael had once said the so-called
Mr. Big
was nickel and dime, undermining unions, cutting corners, slighting on materials. That was why they’d bought him out. When it came to fundamental criminal activities, Charles doubted if he could steal a peek at a nudist camp. Given half a day, Charles could have come up with a better crew than Bernie’s bottom-feeders.
“I’ll get a bird’s-eye’s and call you back,” Bernie said finally.
Charles punched the disconnect. Jimmy, dressed in a coat identical to the one Charles wore, but with a matching hat and earflaps, spit a stream of tobacco juice into the ash. Mostly into the ash; a drop or two of spittle remained in the Ted Kaczynski–style beard he sported.
“What’s the deal?” Jimmy asked. His teeth were stained brown.
Charles looked away. “The target may be four miles upriver. The pilot’s doing a flyby. We wait here until we have a positive ID.”
“Then what?” This from Reg.
Reginald Waters, African American, thirty-one, Detroit. Ex-gangbanger, low-end drug dealer, con man. Into bookies for a hundred and seventy-three grand. Last call for repayment before the bad boys came for him.
“If the target is located, we move to acquire it,” Charles said without looking at Waters. Eye contact was an invitation to intimacy. Flee, fight, fornicate, or, Charles’s least favorite, ask stupid questions. Open honest intercourse was not a paradigm for leadership that appealed to him.
“Even with others he works alone.”
Charles’s brother had said that. A photograph of Michael clicked onto the screen in Charles’s mind, the black-and-white glossy taken for his senior yearbook. Next to it appeared the picture of the target lifted from the Internet.
Payback is going to be a bitch, Charles promised his little brother.
TWO
One hand buried in Wily’s ragged fur, Heath gazed into the fire, marveling at the concept of camping out, canoeing a river, building a fire, and eating and sleeping in the wilderness. This was a fine and wonderful thing. Boy Scouts did it, park rangers and hunters and hikers did it, photographers and dishwashers and presidents did it.
And now cripples did it, she thought. Hooray for our side.
Their camp was on a bluff above the river. Dishes and hands were washed well inland. No human effluvia would dirty the waters on Anna Pigeon’s watch. Excretions were buried, the soiled toilet tissue put in ziplocked plastic bags to be packed out. This Heath was exempt from. She was testing a chamber-pot-sized camping toilet, super lightweight, watertight, and ergonomically designed to improve the aim of even the most inept user. Come morning the fire would be doused and stirred. Ashes and burned stick ends would be scattered, the burn mark raked, and the area rehabbed with forest duff.
Anna had lived by the law of “take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints” for so long she no longer even carried a camera; she took nothing but memories. Tonight she was storing them up on a solitary float on the Fox. Heath would have enjoyed a ride with her old friend, but Anna needed solitude. Like a dolphin in the ocean, Anna could submerge herself in the sea of humanity for long periods of time, but if she didn’t surface into her private universe every so often, she would suffocate.
“You look like the Cheshire cat who ate the canary in the catbird seat,” Leah said in her usual scratchy murmur. Leah always carried an internal echo, as if she were talking to herself. Too many hours alone in labs breathing toxic fumes, was Heath’s guess. Leah had two doctorates, one in chemistry and one in electronic engineering. She was the research and development genius behind Hendricks & Hendricks, a high-end sports gear and clothing manufacturer based out of Boulder.
Heath met her when Leah was looking for paraplegics willing to play guinea pig to test gear she’d designed to make wilderness access easier for the disabled. This trip was a shakedown cruise for a chair, a canoe, a lifting device, and selvane, a chemical compound that was lightweight and strong, and dramatically decreased friction.
At the moment Heath was lounging in a camp chair designed for wheelchair users. Twelve and a half inches from the ground, and as stable as if nailed to the earth, it allowed Heath to move easily from chair to wheelchair and back. The arms were sturdy enough to do handstands on—Elizabeth had done several just to prove it, though, since she weighed about the same as the average golden retriever, it wasn’t the best of tests.
H&H was already successful, but if selvane was all Leah hoped it would be, it would revolutionize the industry. It would revolutionize a lot of industries. God forbid the sinister uses the military would find for it.