Final Sins (13 page)

At eleven a.m. Abby called Faust on his landline. He answered on the second ring, sounding unusually cheery. “And how may I be of service?”

“We need to work out your plans for tonight.”

“I am afraid I already have plans. I am making a public appearance at a bookshop in Santa Monica. The event is long scheduled and cannot be changed.”

“That’s okay. What time are you supposed to be there?”

“Seven o’clock.”

“Is Elise going, too?”

“Why, of course,” he said, as if his girlfriend’s presence was inevitable at any of his events.

“What I need you to do is text-message Elise, reminding her of when to be there and where to go. Be sure you mention the name of the store.”

“All this is for my stalker’s benefit, I presume?”

“Exactly.”

“And you still will not share his name or address with me?”

“I’m funny that way. Get used to it.”

“It appears I have no choice. Your assumption is that the man will be present at the bookshop?”

“He’ll show.”

There was an uncomfortable pause as Abby realized she had run out of things to say. To fill the silence, she asked if he expected a big turnout.

“A select crowd. Those of refined sensibilities. Those who embrace the full implications of the postmodern.”

“Terrific. What are you going to do, read from your book?”

“That would serve no purpose. Everyone in attendance will have read it already. No, I will deliver some extemporaneous remarks and answer questions. Perhaps,” he added, “
you
have some questions you wish to have answered.”

“Why would I?”

“In our last conversation you seemed most interested in my modus operandi.”

“I don’t have any questions.”

“Pity. I do enjoy talking about myself. I am quite shameless in that respect. Most people, of course, are too courteous—or too intimidated—to ask about Emily Wallace. Ordinarily they select some safer topic.
Geschwur
, for instance.”

“
Geschwur
?”

“Surely you’ve heard of them. They are one of the most commercially successful musical groups in Germany. They have been awarded two Echoes, the German equivalent of your Grammy Awards. Not to mention the Comet, another prestigious prize.”

“The Comet, huh? How about the Ajax? Or the Formula 409?”

“You make light of them. You should not. Their most recent album sold more than four million copies. It was titled
Flammen
.”

“Meaning?”

“Flames. The fires of hell, perhaps.”

“Lovely. Why would anybody be asking you about this band?”

“Because I toured with them. Oh, yes. For more than four months.”

“You don’t strike me as a rocker.”

“I have no musical talent. I spoke to the audience from the spotlight while the band played and appropriate images were projected on the screen above the stage.”

“Appropriate images. Such as Emily Wallace’s morgue photos?”

“Among other things. The audience adored my performance. I made many new fans.”

“Well, I’m not interested in
Gesundheit
.”

“
Geschwur
,” he corrected. “The word means
ulcer
.”

“Somehow I don’t think they’d appeal to me.”

“I believe they would. They speak to the jungle animal within us all. Some listeners are too civilized to hear their siren call. But not you, I think.”

“You’re not one to be passing judgment on who’s civilized.”

“No judgment. Merely an observation. I know you, Miss Sinclair. Perhaps better than you know yourself.”

Abby wasn’t too happy with that thought. She did her best to get it out of her mind when the call was over, throwing herself into the task of researching Mark Brody.

She accessed several online databases and ran the name and address on his driver’s license. The address—an apartment in Reseda—was legitimate, but out-of-date. He had moved out six months ago, having lived there for less than a year. Before that time, there was no record of his whereabouts. She searched news stones on the Iraq War. There was a Mark Brody who was involved in action at Karbala Gap that took the life of his CO. Without a photo she couldn’t be sure that it was the same man; conceivably her Mark Brody had stolen the other guy’s identity. Still, she thought he probably had been telling the truth.

He said he’d left the military after the incident, which meant he had become a
civihan
sometime in the late spring of 2003. From that time forward, until he established residence in Reseda, his history was a blank. Well, he’d told her that he had remained in Iraq. Whatever he’d been up to over there, he’d stayed off the grid.

She checked other databases. He had a few credit cards, but they were all registered to the defunct address. Presumably his mail was being forwarded, but to where?

She returned to the news articles on the Iraq incident. One of Brody’s fellow A-team members was quoted. His name was Carter Holloway, and according to the story he hailed from the small town of Creston, Idaho. If he’d left the service by now, he might have gone back there. She looked him up in a database of Creston residents and found his name and number. She called. When a man answered, she asked to speak to Carter Holloway.

“That’s me.”

“Sir, did you serve in the army with Mark Brody?”

His wary pause told her the answer. “Who’s asking, if I may?”

“Oh. Sorry. My name is Sally Mayhew. I knew Mark in Iraq, but I’ve kind of lost touch with him, and I’m trying to track him down.”

“I was with him in Iraq. I don’t recall meeting you.”

“This was after he left the military. As I guess you know—or maybe you don’t—he stayed on in Iraq for some time afterward.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” Holloway said, but his guarded tone made her pretty sure he was lying. Whatever Brody had been up to in Iraq, it hadn’t been the sort of thing his friends wanted to discuss with strangers.

“I was just wondering if you had a way for me to reach him. Telephone number or address, e-mail, anything at all.”

He thought it over. “I can give you his number. Hold on.”

She waited while he got it, then wrote down a number with an 818 area code. That made it a San Fernando Valley location, but it didn’t match the number associated with his old apartment.

She thanked Holloway and was about to hang up when he asked, “How exactly did you know Brody, anyway?”

“Well, you know ...” She was good at sounding shy and flustered when she had to.

“Yeah, I think I get it. Look, miss, don’t go messing things up for him, will you?”

She wasn’t sure what this meant. “I just want to say hi to him, that’s all.”

A grunt of skepticism. “I hope that
is
all. He’s been through a lot. He doesn’t need any more ... complications in his life.”

“I’ll remember that,” Abby promised.

She had a feeling Mark Brody’s life was already a good deal more complicated than Holloway knew.

At the computer again, she ran the number on a reverse directory. The address that came up was in Van Nuys. No unit number, so it was apparently not an apartment but a house.

She took the Miata, speeding north on the 405 into the Valley. His place was a modest ranch-style house on a tree-lined street. The lawn and hedges were neatly trimmed. She parked at the curb a few doors down, wondering if she should risk a little B and E. The house might contain secrets she couldn’t learn anywhere else. But breaking in was chancy, especially in broad daylight. Even so, she just might go for it.

First she rang the doorbell, simply to confirm that the place was empty. If Mark Brody happened to be here, she would have a lot of explaining to do. But she was sure he would still be staking out Faust in Los
Feliz
. He had to be there to pick up the cell phone messages. He—

The door opened. She missed a couple of heartbeats before realizing that the figure standing before her was not Brody, but a woman in a blue housecoat. A pregnant woman, who appeared to be in her third trimester. If Abby could judge from the nonstop yelling of a tyke in another room, it wasn’t her first child.

Abby was good at a lot of things, and one of them was improvising when circumstances took her by surprise.

“Why, hello,” she said smoothly in a Southern accent that had come from nowhere. “I’m looking for a Mr. Mark Brody.”

The woman frowned, unaccustomed to visitors. “I’m afraid he’s not at home right now.”

“That’s too bad. I wanted to see him, and I won’t be in town long.”

“I can leave a message. Who should I say dropped by?”

“Sarah Joiner.” Instinctively she used a different name from the one she’d given Holloway. “I knew Mark when he was in the army. Friend of mine told me his address.”

“You knew him from the military?”

“From Fort Bragg.” This was where the Green Berets trained. All of a sudden she understood the reason for her Southern accent. Fort Bragg was in North Carolina. “I was on the civilian support staff.”

“You an old girlfriend of his?” the woman asked, pretending to smile.

“No,” Abby reassured her with a dismissive flutter of her hand, “no, it was nothing like that.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Don’t really want the competition.”

“I take it you’re ... with him now?”

“I’m his wife,” she said coolly. “Patricia.”

Wife. Hell. And she had one kid, and another in the oven. This was not what Abby had expected from Mark Brody. Suddenly their close encounter between the sheets was looking a lot less romantic. But at least now she knew what Holloway had meant about not making Brody’s life more complicated.

“Nice to meet you,” Abby said, turning on the Southern charm. “Well, if you could just tell him I came calling. Like I said, I’m in town for only a couple days. I can give you my number at the hotel—”

Patricia cut her off. “Mark won’t be back that soon. He’s away on business.”

“Still the traveling man, huh? He always wanted to see the world. Action and adventure, that was his thing. I guess it still is.”

“Seems so,” Patricia said curtly. Her smile had frozen in place.

“What part of the planet is he off to this time?”

“South America. Now if you don’t mind, I was just in the middle of something.”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to be standing here running my mouth off. My apologies for intruding. You say hi to Mark for me when he gets back.”

“Will do.” That smile never wavered, even as the door slowly closed.

Abby walked back to her car. So Mark Brody had a house and a pregnant wife and a kid. The wife might be covering for her husband with the South America story, or maybe she just hadn’t felt too sociable with someone who, despite her denials, could be one of his old flames.

But Abby suspected that Patricia really believed her hubby was south of the border. It seemed doubtful that Brody would have told her what he was actually up to. Special Forces guys, like cops, tended to be reticent with their family members, even their wives. Brody, of course, wasn’t Special Forces anymore, but old habits died hard.

The bottom line was that she wasn’t going to learn anything in Van Nuys. The guest cottage was the place to look. Seven o’clock couldn’t come soon enough.

On her way home Abby stopped at a music shop in Westwood Village and hunted down a copy of
Flammen
in the International section.
Geschwur’s
four band members glowered up at her from the CD package, youngish men in severe black ensembles, their hair close-cropped, their faces clean shaven. The color scheme was red, black, and white—the colors of the Nazi flag. The photo looked like a recruiting poster for the Hitler Youth.

The clerk ringing up the sale looked at her with a hint of interest. “You into these guys?”

“Someone recommended them.”

“They’re great,” he said, the words sounding less like an endorsement than like a dare.

She played the CD when she got home.

The first track opened with a rush of electric guitar chords and the shrieks of a soprano choir, which gave way to loud, pounding drums. The music abruptly dropped in volume as the lead singer began growling into the microphone. He had a harsh, raspy voice that reminded her of the devil in
The Exorcist
, only deeper and more seductive. Seductive but sickening—he spit some of the words with such amplified force that he sounded like a man retching. His every utterance was laced with contempt, the guttural quality of his German intentionally exaggerated to suggest the grunts and barks of an animal. It was the voice of a psychopath.

Abby liked good
headbanging
, balls-to-the-wall music as much as the next person, but there was something unmistakably creepy about this stuff. It was the audio equivalent of weird old German movies like
The Cabinet of Dr.
Caligari
—the vocals distorted, the sounds grating and unpleasant, the tone unremittingly dark. And all of it was dominated by the lead singer, rasping in her ear like a pervert making an obscene phone call, his voice conveying the message that life is ugly, bleak, dark, and meaningless, and there is no escape, no hope except surrender to violence and craziness. She wasn’t sure that a nation with Germany’s history was doing itself any favors by listening to that voice. Four million copies sold, Faust had said ...