In the Blood (23 page)

The HGP had generated so much information that biologists and geneticist would be analyzing
it for years, drawing conclusions, building theories, making major leaps in the understanding of biology, medicine, evolution, human genetic diversity and its manipulation, accidental and otherwise…could the word eugenics be used any more? No, but perhaps something useful would replace it, a term that carried no baggage. Eugenics, as he had discovered, was politically incorrect.

Matthias started to close down his computer, but paused. He saw an end to this leg of his research, and there was much to do back in Mobile. Drawing threads together. Checking on Anak and Rebecca and finding them better lodgings than out in the hinterlands. Reporting his latest findings to his employer. Wouldn’t that be interesting.

Matthias opened his Bookmarks list, tapped an entry. The British Airways site opened. That would do just fine. A flight to Atlanta, then the connection to Mobile. All he needed was to assemble his final report. The prices for flights were insane, he thought as he studied the schedules. But he wasn’t paying, so First Class it was.

He filled in a few boxes. Reserved his seat for the return flight.

When we got back to the department, word of the ambush had spread and we had to relive the moment for the other cops, trying to keep it brief. Since there had been no eyewitnesses, the description had been minimized, morphing into what appeared to be a robbery attempt by some bad
boys on motorcycles, foiled when the innocent travelers they had chosen at random turned out to be cops. There had been enough weirdness in the press of late, what with a baby found on a beach – more minimization – and an attempt to steal the baby from the hospital. We didn’t want the public spooked any more than necessary, plus, unfortunately, such stories weren’t all that unusual any more.

Harry decided to see if forensics had picked up anything useful from the scene, and I went along to kill time. The lab was a flurry of activity as techs analyzed shell casings, glass from a broken motorcycle headlamp, photos of tire marks on the roadway.

“Hey, there they are,” called a voice at our backs. “I was just about to call you.”

We turned at the voice, saw Ed “Pieboy” Blaney, the forensics guy who handled the automotive division. He took the nickname from his lunch habits, which were the same every day: a piece of pie and a cup of coffee from a bakery off Old Shell Road. Didn’t matter what kind of pie it was, as long as it was fresh made. Cherry, pecan, mud, peach, coconut cream, grasshopper…all were fuel for Pieboy’s singular passion, the study of cars.

“Hey, Pieboy,” Harry said. “S’up?”

Pieboy ran a pink hand through thinning blond hair. He was pear-shaped, probably an effect of all the pie. Or maybe the spare tire was showing empathy for cars.

“You guys are tough on vehicles. What, you moonlight in demolition derbies?”

“You sell it for scrap yet?” Harry asked.

“About to. We’re done with it.” He dug in his pocket. “Here’s why I was calling. I got something to show you.”

He picked up a metal disc, tossed it to me. It was the size of a fifty-cent piece, black anodized case, a small wire embedded in a worm of clear glue on one side. On the other was a rough patch of rubber cement.

Harry stared at the disc. “A bug, right?”

“A GPS locator. And a fine one at that. Expensive.”

“Where was it?”

“Stuck to the rear undercarriage. I almost didn’t see it. It’s basically a sophisticated version of tracking systems folks put on their dogs’ collars to let them know where Fido is at any given moment. Didn’t find any prints, unfortunately. This version probably cost a couple grand with the satellite receiver. They knew your location down to about a ten-foot circle.”

“We’re two dead dogs,” Harry said.

“Arf,” I added, lolling my tongue like Mr Mix-up.

When we got back to the department, Tom Mason ordered me to go home.

“Get some rest,” he said. “You’ve had enough.”

“Him, too,” I said, pointing at Harry.

“I was talking to both of you.”

Harry said, “Can I speak to you for a minute, Tom? I want to run through some details on a court case I gotta testify at in a couple days.”

“Then you’re heading straight home, right?”

“Scout’s honor.” Harry held his fingers in the scout salute, headed into Tom’s office.

The door closed.

I went to my truck and sat there for ten minutes, rubbing my face and neck. The day was a blur, as if I’d watched a video on fast-forward, randomly freezing scenes for a few seconds before zooming ahead again. I scrabbled my fingers under my seat and came up with a bottle of ginseng tea and a few ounces of bourbon left over from my post-prison stop at the roadhouse. I swigged a bit of
ginseng – the concoction tasted like boiled denim, truth be told – and replaced the tea with bourbon.

I drained off half the mix, and waited for the warmth in my belly to loosen the kinks in my back and neck. I headed out into the street, the light surreally bright and painful. Slipping on my shades, I saw a little red BMW blow by in the opposite direction, like it was heading for the department. I watched it disappear in the rear-view.

Clair drove a sporty red Beamer.

It couldn’t possibly be Clair,
my mind said. What would Clair be doing at the MPD in the middle of the day?

I turned for home, intending to stop at the store for a tofu burger and lentil salad, but suddenly wanted food I could feel inside me, ending up with a bucket of fried chicken, gravy and biscuits. Once home, I turned on the television, set the tub on my kitchen counter and pulled out a drum, dipped it in the gravy, brought it to my mouth.

I snapped at it, missed. Tried again. The drum dodged my mouth. Gravy splattered the floor.

My hands were shaking again.

And then my knees were shaking. Followed by my shoulders. And then everything else was shaking and I found myself tight in a ball on the floor.

It passed after twenty minutes and I took a shower and lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to lose myself in the white until I heard crunching of sand and shells under tires and an
engine shut off. Seconds later I heard a knock on my door. A realtor, I figured; they were always gliding through the neighborhood, trying to get their names out among residents who hoped to sell. I closed my eyes and willed them away.

The knocking persisted. I went to the door, yanked it open. “I have no intention of –”

Harry.

“What are you doing here?” I said. “Tom told us to –”

Behind him, I saw Clair, her eyes nervous. She rushed by and sat on the couch so fast I figured she needed to get anchored. I saw her shoot a glance at a pile of clothes in the corner of the living room, topped by my briefcase and a tipped-over bucket of half-eaten chicken. Harry sat beside her. He leaned back and stitched fingers behind his head, a poor attempt at casual.

“We want you to talk about what’s bothering you. It’s overdue.”

“There’s nothing bothering me. Unless it’s you showing up here when I’m trying to…trying to…eat chicken. You want
bothering me
? That’s bothering me.”

“Things are getting worse, brother,” Harry said.

I wrinkled my brow in puzzlement. “How can things get worse if things aren’t bad?”

He nodded at the tube, a game show where people dressed as items they wanted to win. They were made up like cars, boats, and huge televisions, jumping up and down and screaming for attention.

“You used to fish, swim, kayak, run, and so forth, a dozen hours a week. Now you run home and watch television. How much do you watch?”

“I’ll have to check with Nielsen.”

“You’re doing things out of character,” Harry continued. “Taking chances that are not just risky, they’re illegal. If you’d gotten caught forging the warden’s signature, you could have wound up in the cell beside Kirkson. I don’t know what the hell you did at Teasdale’s place, but –”

“She asked if her kid still had that goofy lopsided face,” I snapped. “Her own kid.”

“I have no doubt it was sad, bro. But in the past you would have blown the ugliness off, walked away.”

“I’m tired of the past.”

Harry studied on that for a moment. He looked at Clair, turned back to me. “Today was the worst yet, Carson. Walking into those gunslingers like it was the OK Corral. I don’t know why you’re not dead.”

“They were lousy shots.”

Clair cleared her throat. “Carson, you’re acting erratically at times. It’s getting worse.”

I walked to the door shaking my head in disappointment, put my hand on the knob. “I think you both should go home and try self-analysis. Find out why you’re projecting your problems on to me.”

I yanked open the door. Tom Mason was leaning against the railing, fanning himself with his white Stetson.

“Howdy, Carson, mind if I step inside? Hot out here.”

Without waiting for the courtesy of an answer, he walked in. I glared at Harry, mouthed
snitch.
Tom leaned against the wall beside Clair and Harry, hands in the pockets of his jeans.

“I’m pretty sure Harry wanted me to wait outside so I wouldn’t hear anything to, uh, compromise my position. What this all comes down to is I’m taking you off duty and putting you on desk work unless you see the departmental shrink.”

“What? YOU CAN’T!”

Tom said, “I scheduled your first session for tomorrow at nine in the morning.”

“No way in hell…” I countered, “am I seeing a shrink.”

Tom looked down at his hat, brushed something from the felt. “Sure you are,” he said gently. “Because you ain’t got but one choice in the matter, Carson, and that’s mine.”

I turned away and walked out to my deck, where the air was free from the stink of betrayal. I heard the front door pull shut, the cars in the drive retreat. Watching the gulls flash above the waves, I decided it had been a pissant intervention and, though my interrogators were mistaken about whatever was concerning them, I deserved better. That pathetic display was supposed to save me?

But I figured if I went to the shrink’s office, sat my ass in a chair for a few fifty-minute sessions
to satisfy the obsessions of my former friends, I’d pass whatever test they were imposing, and be free once again.

But what a senseless waste of time.

The MPD shrink wasn’t the property of the Department, but rather a private-practice type who worked on retainer. The guy – a Dr Alec Kavanaugh – had his offices in Spring Hill, not far from the college, in an office attached to a private residence. The house had been built in the fifties, I figured, under the influence of Frank Lloyd Wright. An anomalous style for Mobile, the home was of dark brick, with a long single-story section at one end, a two-story section at the other. Given the land-scaping and overhanging trees, the house less sat the lot than embraced it.

The office area was an add-on in the same architectural style, just on the far end of the garage. A small sign on the door said,
A. Kavanaugh, PhD, Psychology.
I took a deep breath and popped a few mints. Despite the provocations of the preceding evening, I had slept solidly and taken my vites and such. I had decided to drink a little coffee now and then, since tea – despite its many
organic benefits – showed little ability to open my eyes in the morning.

I was preparing to ring Kavanaugh’s bell when the door opened. I saw a woman in her fifties with…

No, check that. In her early forties or so, the first impression coming from white hair pulled back and bundled away. Slim, average height, a bit more nose than standard, slender lips. Her eyes were deep brown and behind large round glasses with tortoiseshell frames. She wore a dark jacket over a white silk blouse; her slacks matched the jacket.

“You must be Detective Ryder,” the lips said as the woman opened the door wide and gestured me inside. “It’s good to meet you. I’m Alec Kavanaugh. Come in, make yourself comfortable.”

Businesslike
, I noted. Voice in professional mode, friend-like overtones with we’ve-got-fifty-minutes underpinnings. The room was large, a few planted palms breaking the space into regions: the desk region, the overstuffed analyst’s chair region, the Freud-inspired couch region. The colors were corals playing against cool gray. I smelled air freshener, pine-bodied, something with a name like Winter Forest. Kavanaugh gestured between the couch – spare and futon-inspired, one end up-angled – and the big fluffy chair.

“Do you have a preference?” she asked.

“I’m a traditionalist. I’ll take the couch.”

I thought it would be amusing to lay the wrong
way, with my feet elevated. Doc Kavanaugh didn’t seem to notice, or maybe most of her patients were dyslexic.

She took the chair, turning it to face me through five feet of winter-pine air. She crossed long legs. Her smile was clinically perfect.

“I’d like to ask a few generic questions, Detective Ryder. Or may I call you Carson?”

“No.”

She nodded. “That’s absolutely fine. What brings you here, Detective Ryder?”

“I watch a lot of TV, Doctor. Or so I am told by others.”

“How much television do others find to be too much?”

“The average American watches something like five hours of tube a day, Doctor. I average about two.”

“What do you think that means?”

“Someone owes me three hours.”

She just looked over her eyeglasses. A humorless woman. This might actually be fun, batting around words with a humorless chick shrinkadoodler.

She said, “What did you used to do before you started watching television?”

“Masturbate.”

She said nothing for so long that I had to fill the silence.

“Fish, swim, kayak,” I said. “Run in circles. That was my favorite. Running in tiny little circles until I could bite my tail.”

She was either writing down my answers on a pad, or pretending to. She looked up.

“When did you last do one of those activities?”

“I went fishing with Harry one week ago.”