Dying for Her: A Companion Novel (Dying for a Living Book 3) (16 page)

Wednesday, April 2, 2003

I
took one step inside the door and Charlie yanked me into his office. “How the fuck did a bullet from your Beretta end up in Captain Jackson’s shoulder?”

I froze. The room began to spread out in front of me, elongating, and Charlie himself warping out of proportion.

“What?” I asked.

Charlie heaved a sigh of relief. “Oh thank God. I didn’t think you’d be so stupid, but I wanted to be sure.”

“
What
?” I demanded again.

“The bullet dug out of Jackson’s shoulder is a match for your Beretta. Well,
a
Beretta. I don’t think you shot her but—”

“I
shot
her,” I repeated.

Charlie waved his arms. “Keep your voice down. I’m saying I don’t think you shot her, but the bullet is a match. Pair that with the fact that both of you claim you saw a girl who is supposed to be dead, and the wound was nonfatal, it is starting to look suspicious. And don’t get me started about your service record.”

I considered his words. I’d asked him if he was part of something big, and believed him when he said otherwise. Here he was doing the same for me. “What do you want me to do?”

“First of all, find your fucking gun. We don’t need someone running around shooting people with your firearm, do we?”

“No, sir,” I said.

He cut his eyes up to me as if to warn me not to be cute.

“Secondly, find Sullivan. We will all breathe better if you do. The crows will stop pecking at my eyeballs and I can quit pissing on your head.”

“The girl,” I began but Charlie was prepared for me.

“The girl,” he countered, “is probably safe. For now at least. If she really is pink-cheeked, fed, and swaddled in princess blankets with teddy bear companions, then no one is using her little skull for a jerk-off tool. We on the other hand are being fucked three ways ‘til Sunday. You need to find your gun, find Sullivan, and then find me a drink. The girl can wait.”

She can’t
, I thought. But I wasn’t dumb enough to start that conversation up again. Charlie’s desk phone rang and he frowned at the number on the screen before answering it.

“Swanson. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah I think I know him. Really? He’s right here.” Charlie lowered the receiver. “It’s for you.”

I reached out and accepted it.

“Hello, sir. Agent Benjamin here. We have a body down at the riverfront. We’d like you to come down and ID it.”

“I’m no coroner,” I said. I switched the receiver to my other ear. Charlie’s eyes never left mine. “What can I do for the body?”

“Yes, it is unorthodox sir, but we feel like you may be connected to the crime.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“Because the body we dug out of the river, sir, it has your name carved on its chest.”

Wednesday, April 2, 2003

I
parked on the street near the St. Louis riverfront. An engraved granite stone sat between two concrete pillars. The pillars stood like guards. Chains from each side were locked to the granite sign and meant to create a barrier.

I stepped over the chains and descended to the walkway below, heading left. With my back to the bridge, I moved toward the swarm of uniforms in the distance.

When I got close enough for someone to stop me, I held up my FBRD badge and was allowed to pass beneath the tape that roped off that segment of beach. It wasn’t a beach exactly, not the kind I knew growing up in North Carolina anyway. It was a sandy bank beside a body of water though, and I stopped before I even got to the bloated body.

It was the smell. The stench of dead bodies was never something I’d gotten used to, no matter how many years I’d been in this business, but I particularly hated the stench of bodies pulled from water, or left out in the heat to fester and rot. In the case of water bodies, something about the fishy odor of the river mixed with the corpse was particularly unpleasant.

I smeared the menthol offered by the tech under my nose and didn’t feel embarrassed by it. I know some guys who’d insist it’s a sign of weakness to accept the
help
. I found it more embarrassing to puke on the corpse.

The body was naked, mostly unidentifiable because of the bloat and bizarre bluish color. The genitalia had been mutilated, rather savagely. My name was carved on his chest all right, and not artistically. The
B
,
r
,
n
and
e
, were jagged scrawls rather than soft, round letters. I accepted a pair of gloves offered by one of the techs.

“Whatever he used,” I said, fingering the edge of the wound with my gloved hand. “It wasn’t sharp enough.”

“Do you know him?” the man who escorted me to the body asked.

Instead of replying, I went on. “The blood under his fingernails could be his attackers.”

I remembered what Fizz said about Chaplain then, about his ability to make a man shove a screwdriver into his own eye.

“Or he could have been forced to mutilate himself,” I offered. “It would explain the jaggedness and uneven approach. He wouldn’t have been able to be precise through the pain.”

“I know it might be hard to identify him,” the man said.

I turned then. I looked up and measured him for the first time. His face blanched and he took a step back.

“I know him,” I said. “But I don’t know you or why you deserve the pertinent details for this case.”

“I’m Detective Smith, from Boston,” he said.

That explained the attitude and the accent.

“I’ve been tracking a killer for a long time and believe he’s taken up in St. Louis. It’s been a decade since I started this task force. Most guys last three years. I’ve been riding this for ten years,” Smith said.

I arched an eyebrow. “Why are you telling me?”

“I want you to understand that I’m dedicated to this. I want to close it, and here I have a body with your name carved on it, and the body fits my killer’s M.O. perfectly. Throw me a bone here, Agent Brinkley. Please.”

I nodded. I knew what it meant to go hard on a case for that long.

In retrospect, I know even better now than I did then.

“His name is Harry Fitzgerald,” I said. “I busted him with narcotics, an insignificant amount, and let him go in exchange for his collaboration.”

“He was your informant.”

“Fizz, as I liked to call him, was good. He gave me what I needed, and clearly someone found out.”

“What were you working on now?”

I looked up at the other man. While I disregarded him at first, a work habit unfortunately, I took him in more fully now. He was maybe 5’10”, chestnut brown hair and a pointy jaw. His hook nose was crooked and the acne pock marks on the side of his face weren’t as bad as they could’ve been.

“Who was he following? Who was he narking on?” he pressed.

My mind blurred and warped. I looked for the answer and couldn’t find it. A strange, feverish chill slid down my back. “I can’t remember.”

“What?” he said.

I stood up. I hoped I didn’t look as incompetent as I felt. “I can’t fucking remember.”

“That’s real convenient.”

I pointed at the blue hair, wet and sticking to the unrecognizable face. “I ID’d your man and I told you what I know. Call me if you need anything else.”

Smith yelled after me but I did not turn back. I kept walking at a slow and steady clip to the Impala.

Wednesday, April 2, 2003

S
ince Jackson was still out of commission at least another day, I hit the bar. I admit I was hoping to run into the guy again, the man who seemed to know something about the internment camps. But I showed up real early. I played darts with the young Bobby George wannabe until I grew bored. Then I challenged his friends to pool.

I had a considerable buzz by the time someone slid onto the bar stool beside mine.

“Just the man I was looking for,” I blurted, not entirely on top of my game. I was just this side of drunk, which was dangerous.

“Really?” he said and smiled.

“What’s your name?” I asked. “I never got a name.”

He turned and considered me for a moment. Then as if realizing just how far gone I was, he grinned. “Aaron Reeves,” he said. “But you can call me Reeves. That is what agents, cops, and all those types do right? Last name only?”

I thought about Charlie. “Reeves it is.”

“Are we celebrating something?” Reeves asked and accepted the pint that Peaches readily put in his hand.

“My partner was shot and my best nark was found in the river with his balls cut off,” I said. I lifted my glass. “Cheers.”

Reeves looked horrified and so did Peaches.

“Water for you,” Peaches said. “A dead body in my bar isn’t good for business.”

Reeves had forgotten about his beer. “Someone is trying to kill you.”

I shrugged. “Someone is always trying to kill me.”

Reeves stared harder as if he was unsure how to proceed. After a long pause he finally said. “Someone is actively hunting you. Why else shoot your partner and kill your informant?”

I shrugged and the stool slid from beneath me. Reeves reached out and caught me by the arm.

“Uneven floor,” I muttered.

“Earthquakes,” Peaches offered with a grunt.

“This isn’t San Fran,” I said, aware that he was making fun of me.

“You pissed someone off,” Reeves said again.

“I’m always pissing someone off,” I slurred. Peaches laughed companionably. “What else is new?”

Reeves was perturbed. More perturbed by the news that I was on someone’s hit list than I was—at least after all the booze I’d put in me.

“You need to be careful,” he said. His cheeks were red even in the low light. “Your work is important.”

“The missing girl?” I couldn’t remember what case he was referring to.

“The camps,” Reeves insisted. His eyes were wide, urgent and it was as if he’d forgotten himself in the moment. “You have to uncover the truth about the camps. If a good man like you tells the world about them, people will believe you.”

I snorted at the good man comment, but even so a light went on in my head. “Right. Right. You’re right. Tell me about the camps.”

“They were horrible,” he said. His mouth hung open as if he was still astonished himself. “Absolute torture mills.”

“How did you get out?” I asked.

His response was quick, automatic. “My facility was shut down. Only then was I freed.”

It was a strange response and the voice that accompanied it was flat. I didn’t realize the significance of this conversation at the time, but God how different things might have been if I had.

“They kept us,” he said. “Tortured us physically, mentally, and emotionally. They wanted to know if we could be controlled, used, and if not, duplicated. They cut us open, studied us. When that didn’t produce results, they created a breeding program.”

“Are you telling me kids were locked up in that place?”

“Yes,” he said. “The woman I loved—love—” He stopped.

I was a drunk bastard, so I didn’t have the good sense to watch what I said. “Please don’t tell me they raped her. I fucking hate rape stories. They’re sad as fuck.”

“No,” he said. “Not raped in the sense you mean anyway. It was mostly the scientists that dealt with us. But a scientist’s objectivity can be cruel. Believe me.”

“So what happened to her?”

“She had a baby. We had a baby.”

I turned and looked at him. After about two glasses of water from Peaches, my drunk edge was softening. My good sense was coming back to me. “What happened to her?”

“I paid someone,” he said. “To take her away.”

“Where is she now?” I asked.

“Somewhere safe,” he said. “I hope.”

“The camps are still open?” I asked but it wasn’t a real question. It was just acceptance of a sad fucking realization.

“At least one that I know of,” he said. “That is why I think it is so important for you to get to the bottom of this. Crack it open and expose them. Not get yourself killed.”

I snorted. “What do you expect me to do?”

Reeves sighed like he’d been waiting forever for me to ask that question. “I’ll give you everything you need to bring them down.”

Two Weeks

I
see Jesse coming up the path long before she sees me. I watch her shuffle along, kicking at the dirt as she comes. She is so young. Sure, part of it is the NRD. She’ll probably look seventeen forever if she keeps up with the death replacing. Part of it is the childish way she eats a banana with abandon, shoving huge bites into her mouth as if no one has taught her how to eat like a lady. I try to imagine her as an old woman. All grown up with kids maybe, probably still cranky as hell and maybe plump, but alive.

Alive.

The last time I met her in these woods, I’d been with Charlie. I’d called him in to help me figure out why we were being targeted.
Charlie, were you acting on Caldwell’s orders even then? Had he already gotten up in your head and messed you around?
God I hoped not. I hope at least in the beginning, he’d come to my aid as my friend.

“Right here,” I say. I step forward so she can see me.

“What the hell happened to you?” she says. “Are you sick?”

I shrug and think of Jackson’s warning. You should tell her. How would it sound?
I’m going to die in a couple of weeks. What do you think about that, kid?

No.

She needs to worry about herself, not me.

“Not all of us heal in a heartbeat,” I say. If I pull at her guilt strings, she might shut up. It usually works.

“Where have you been?” she asks and I have my opening.

I am looking for a way to give her information on Caldwell. This secret is not the kind to take to the grave. But I also don’t want to get her hopes up and make her think I have answers that I don’t.

“Arizona,” I lie. “At the old base where Eric Sullivan was last seen. I got this.” I open my jacket and pull out the piece of paper I printed neatly for her this morning. I’ve listened to her bitch about my handwriting enough to know that if I want her to read it carefully, I can’t just scribble it down.

She gives me the hard drive I’d sent her to the Lovett’s for.

“He’s going to know it’s gone,” she says.

“Of course he’ll notice. A computer won’t work without a hard drive.”

“Oh he’ll know long before that,” she says. Her cheeks tinge with red.

“Jesse—” I start, my heart speeding up at the idea that she’s done something to bring attention to herself.

She wails. “It was the best I could do just to get the drive into Ally’s hand and jump in front of that tree.”

I try to soothe the hammering in my chest. I am getting too old for this, yet I expected to last longer, didn’t I?

“Tree attacks child. That replacement must have made headlines.” I hope my voice doesn’t betray my unease.

Her eyes widen and she looks up from the paper I gave her. “Is this a medical record? Eric Sullivan, 34,” she says. “But he’s got to be at least fifty now.”

“This is from his file when he was detained in the camps.”

“But Caldwell could pass for much younger,” she argues. “Almost twenty years younger.”

“So he’s been dying,” I say, testing her with another bit of information.
Tell her everything
a part of me begs.
Tell her everything you can. She’s going to have to pick up where you left off.

“I just don’t understand why Caldwell would infiltrate the Church and secure a high position. And how can he do death replacements with all the media attention that’s on him? He’s watched constantly.”

“He could be working off the radar. They might not be replacements, just dying—for other reasons,” I say, but I have a very good idea why Caldwell thought securing the topmost position within a powerful organization was the perfect disguise.

I think of all his propaganda, how he is remaking himself as the messiah of this age. I have no doubt that dying and coming back to life is part of that scam.

She puts the picture away. “Caldwell is my father.”

“Jesse—” I want to stop her. Don’t look at him that way, I think.
Seeing him that way will get you killed, kid.

“No,” she argues. “I need to accept the fact that the guy who wants to kill me is also my dad. If I don’t get it through my head he’s going to catch me off guard again.”

“A father and a dad are not the same thing,” I say. Christ, what could I say? I was never meant to have children. Every kid that crossed my path was damned for it. Aziz, Gideon, Jesse. No matter what I do for them, it is never enough.

“This is encrypted,” I say, my heart still thrumming in my chest.

“Suckfest,” she says, looking up at me from her sneakers. The overwhelming urge to hug her tight washes over me.

“In the meantime, I want you to go see Gloria, all right?” I say before I lose control of myself. “She knows what our next move should be. I’ll check back with you once I get the hard drive open.” The kid hesitates, looking at the photograph of her father one more time.

“Go on,” I tell her. “Go on.”
Before I screw up and tell you.

When she gives me a little salute and turns on her heels, she looks like the perfect child soldier.

I watch her grow smaller as she gets farther and farther away from me. In one desperate moment, I call out after her.

“Jesse!” I say.

She stops and turns. “What?”

I think of all the things I could tell her. All the apologies for my impending death and subsequent abandonment, of my history with her father—any and all of it which is owed to her more than anyone. At the very least, I should tell her about her sister, who Jackson and I are fairly sure is dead.

With an impatient shrug, she asks again. “
What
?”

I raise the hard drive like a coward. “You did good, kid.”

Her face breaks open into a beautiful, heart-breaking smile.