Phantom Limb (28 page)

Chapter Thirty-eight

Max Griffin uttered a short, startled howl of pain and clutched his left shoulder. Blood oozed from his fingers. His body jolted by the bullet's impact, the revolver flew from his other hand. Skittered across the oil-stained floor.

“Freeze, Griffin! FBI!”

Sykes and I were both caught off guard. Too stunned to move. Even after I'd recognized the voice. Young. Female.

Then, at almost the same time, we each saw Griffin's revolver on the floor and dove for it. Sykes was closer than I and quickly scooped it up. But before he could bring it to bear, I was on him.

My arms outstretched, I tackled him at the waist and brought us both crashing down to the floor. I landed on top and managed to grab his hand holding the gun. With a fierce cry, I slammed his thin wrist against the grimy floorboards, knocking the gun free. I heard the bones of his wrist snap. Break.

I didn't know what was happening behind me. All I heard was Griffin cursing, and Gloria's footsteps coming into the room.

But my eyes were riveted on Sykes. My fists clutching the loose folds of his shirt collar, I was aware of the freakish insubstantiality of the body beneath mine. Shifting position to steady myself, I heard the brittle bones of his ribs splinter under me. It was as if I'd wrestled a skeleton to the ground.

Instinctively, I rolled off his splayed, emaciated body. Keeping one hand firmly clasped at his throat, I felt revulsion as he smiled up at me. His teeth small and unnaturally white beneath that crease of a mustache.

I turned and looked up. Gloria Reese, armed with a Glock, had Griffin backed up against a bulkhead. The big man glowered at her, his huge hands held up, shoulder high, palms out.

Gloria kept her feet wide apart to maintain her balance against the sway of the boat. Her service weapon was gripped in both hands, arms out straight. Her breath coming in quick bursts. Every instinct I had told me that Griffin was going to make some kind of move. The moment he saw one.

Without taking her eyes off him, Gloria called over to me.

“You okay, Danny?”

My fingers still gripping Sykes' collar, I didn't answer, nodded instead across the room at Skip Hines. Straining against his ropes, he stared at us in disbelief, as though silently screaming for one of us to untie him.

“They've rigged Skip with C-4,” I said. “We've got to—”

I almost missed it. With the barest whisper of movement, Sykes' hand snaked down to his pants pocket. Slipped inside.

I knew what he was reaching for. What had been in that pocket the whole time. The trigger. To detonate the explosives strapped to Skip's chest. To finish his victim, and himself, and everyone else.

Without thinking, I grabbed his hand through the pocket's fabric and squeezed with all my might. He cried out, a harsh, guttural scream, as the bones in his hand cracked. But I didn't care. Savagely, I yanked his hand out of the pocket, his gnarled fingers still clutching the transmitter.

It was no bigger than a penknife, with a recessed plunger at the top. His thumb rested on the button, and he was straining mightily to press it. To will his fingers to obey his mind's command. But his fingers were now only so much crushed bone and cartilage. Useless.

Eyes wide, sweat sheening his narrow brow, Sykes could only watch in horror as I peeled back his thumb and snatched the transmitter from his grasp. A hoarse gasp rose from his throat. A sputtering, inarticulate keening of frustration and rage.

“Jesus Christ,” Gloria said in a hushed tone, as she glanced involuntarily at Sykes. Letting her gaze shift from Max Griffin for only a moment.

But that was all the time he needed. With surprising quickness for a man of his size, he lunged at her. Still on my haunches next to Sykes, I was too far away to stop him.

“Gloria!” I shouted.

Griffin crossed the distance in two long strides. Backlit by one of the racks of lights, his immense shadow literally engulfed her. As he reached for her with those powerful hands—

Startled, Gloria stumbled backwards, but kept her two-handed grip on her gun. And started firing.

I watched as she pumped the entire clip into Griffin's chest. At first, his forward momentum—or maybe his inchoate rage—kept him on his feet. Staggering, but coming closer and closer…

And then he was falling forward, arms flailing. Dead, but still moving. Collapsing on top of her.

Gloria rolled away as Griffin sprawled face-first onto the floorboards, which groaned in protest. She'd barely managed to get out from under him, though she took some of his considerable weight on her shoulder as he hit the floor.

Still clutching the transmitter, I hauled Sykes to his feet. He almost instantly buckled and doubled over, like a marionette whose strings had been cut. In my hand, he felt like a thin wrapper of flesh over a twisted scaffolding of bone and soft, stringy muscle.

With Gloria's help, I maneuvered Sykes into a second chair by the bulkhead. After popping another clip into her weapon, she pointed it at his head. But it was obvious from his dulled eyes and constant grimace of pain that most of the fight had gone out of him. His fingers curled like desiccated claws on his lap.

I hurried over to the porthole and tossed the transmitter into the river. As I did, I could see in the haze of moonlight the outlines of a compact seaplane, engine idling, propellers lazily spinning. Black water lapped at the plane's pontoons. But I couldn't make out the pilot's face, an indistinguishable blur in the dim light of the cockpit.

I called to Gloria. “The plane's arrived.”

This brought some life into Sykes' drawn features, despite his obvious agony. Gloria smiled down at him.

“Darn, looks like you're going to miss your ride.”

He glared at her, as though too affronted by his present circumstances to lower himself to reply. I felt as if I could actually see his rattled self-regard re-constituting itself. The protective, narcissistic shell forming once again around his fragile ego.

Quickly, I crossed the hold and gently removed the duct tape from Skip's mouth. He let out a throaty sigh of relief.

“Thanks, man. I thought I was fucked sideways.”

“Don't thank
me
, thank Agent Reese.”

I began carefully loosening the straps holding the C-4 packets against his chest.

“There oughta be a receiver wire in there somewhere.” Skip's words were punctuated by a series of deep breaths. “For the signal from the transmitter.”

“Got it.” I slid the wire out of the lead packet. Then I hurriedly untied him. He was hardly free of the ropes before he started shaking the stiffness out of his arms.

I took another look out the porthole. The plane was still idling. Bobbing expectantly in the water.

Gloria said, “Time to bring in the cavalry,” and took out her cell. Following protocol, she called the police first, then her superiors at the Federal Building.

I leaned down to Skip. “And time to get
you
out of here.”

He blanched. “Look, I don't wanna be carried outta here like some goddamn cripple—”

“Don't worry. I brought what you need with me. It's in my car.”

Skip smiled, and held up his hand to clasp mine.

“Like I told Charlene, Danny, you're all right.”

I bent and picked up Griffin's revolver, still laying where Sykes and I had struggled. I handed it to Skip.

“Do me a favor, okay? Keep it pointed at Sykes while Agent Reese is on the phone. If he moves, shoot him.”

“Hell, yeah..!”

Then, with a nod at Gloria, I went out to my car to get Skip his leg.

***

Before the cops and the Feds could arrive at the scene, the seaplane had lifted off. I guess the pilot finally figured out that something had gone wrong, and didn't want to stick around to find out what it was.

Meanwhile, Skip had reattached his prosthetic, using the strip of duct tape as a makeshift replacement for the torn strap. Then he'd insisted on tying Sykes to the same chair to which he'd been bound. Now, grinning, he stood over him, Griffin's revolver still in his hand.

“I got this.” Skip indicated Sykes, who seethed in silence. Refusing to let us see his obvious discomfort. Roughly bound to the chair, his crushed ribs and fingers must have been shot through with pain.

“Go on, you two,” Skip said casually to Gloria and me. “Go out and wait for the good guys.”

I regarded him warily.

“Now that Sykes is safely tied up, can I have your word you're not going to accidentally shoot him?”

“Man, you're a real buzz-kill. But yeah, okay.”

Outside, Gloria and I sat on the edge of the dock. The starred night was cold, clear. A stiff wind buffeted the old tug moored behind us, its hull scraping the dock's rough timbers.

“So.” I looked at her profile in the scant moonlight. “How the hell did you know where I was?”

“Easy. I bugged your car.”

“What? When?”

“When we were both in it earlier, on our way to talk to Payton. I knew you were right. For Sykes, it was intolerable that you'd get away alive after having messed up his plans. Forcing him to flee the country. So I put a GPS tracking device under your dashboard when you weren't looking.”

“Does Wilson know you did that? And that you followed me here, alone and without backup?”

She shrugged. “He'll know soon enough. He and Biegler are probably drag-racing right now to see who gets here first. So, no, he didn't know. Nobody on my team at the Bureau knew.”

“You went rogue, eh?”

“Don't be so dramatic. I figured if Sergeant Polk could work solo, based on a hunch, then so could I. Serves Wilson right, anyway. The way he and the rest of the brass were freezing me out. Treating me like somebody's kid sister.”

I thought about it. “You'll catch shit, Gloria. But you'll also get a medal.”

“Yeah. But probably not in that order.”

She gave me a shy smile.

“In case you're wondering, I started tracking you right after the briefing ended this afternoon. I was just about to pull into the Three Rivers Motel when I saw you driving out.”

“You spotted Skip's room. The broken lock on his door.”

“I put two-and-two together, yeah.”

“Did you happen to ask at the registration office? Skip's sister had tried calling earlier, but kept getting a busy signal. Then, when I showed up looking for Skip, the office seemed like it was closed. In the middle of the day.”

“Yeah, I checked it out. ID'd myself and pounded on the door 'til the desk clerk opened it. Turns out, the curtains were drawn and the phone was off the hook so the guy and the motel's maid wouldn't be disturbed. Apparently, they'd spent most of the afternoon banging each other's brains out. Though it was all very romantic. The girl swore they were in love and begged me not to tell the management.”

“You won't, of course.”

“Hell, no. Who am I to stand in the way of true love? At least until the poor girl finds out there's no such thing.”

I glanced up then at the wail of approaching sirens, the undulating cascade of flashing lights. Squad cars and unmarked sedans barreling down the curved gravel road toward us.

I helped Gloria to her feet and we climbed back aboard the tug. Sykes was pretty much the way we'd left him, bound and trembling silently in pain. Skip was now leaning against the bulkhead, a new fatigue etched on his face. The adrenaline surge of his capture and eventual release having drained away, he was left weary, shaken, and, doubtless, still hungover.

As Gloria took the revolver from him, turning to train it on her prisoner, I peered down at Max Griffin. Pools of blood had formed a lake around the island of his lifeless body.

“Funny,” I said aloud. “Somehow I thought it'd come down to him and me. At the end.”

Gloria's smile was indulgent.

“Only in the movies, Doc. Instead it was a skinny chick with a gun. Disappointed?”

To be honest, I didn't know how I felt.

So I said nothing.

Chapter Thirty-nine

I stood on the gravel next to the dock, in a cordoned-off area broad enough to encompass the sedan parked in the nearby weeds. Presumed to be stolen, and used by Sykes and Griffin to get here, it was being given a cursory inspection by a couple of CSU techs. Soon, I knew, it would be towed to the Department impound for a more thorough, detailed examination.

Ringed by a dozen cars, both the dock and the old tugboat were illuminated by a kaleidoscopic combination of front grille high beams and flashing roof lights. Beyond, out on the water, a Pittsburgh River Patrol boat swept its magnesium searchlight back and forth across the scene, like an all-seeing eye. I felt uncomfortably exposed every time its steady arc brought that blind gaze past me on the river's bank.

Turning away from the water, I watched as police and FBI personnel went through their practiced paces, securing the crime scene, scouring for bullet casings and footprints, gathering whatever evidence could be identified. Then, squinting in the flickering play of dark and light, I suddenly made out Special Agent Anthony Wilson conferring with Gloria Reese. Though that was a polite term for what appeared to be going on. Sequestered near some trees just inside the perimeter, yet too far away to be heard, Wilson's stern face and animated gestures revealed quite clearly that Gloria was being given a severe reprimand.

God, what an asshole
, I thought. Whatever else he was, Wilson was a classic government bureaucrat. Never mind that Gloria had risked her life to save mine, as well as Skip's. Never mind that she helped capture a wanted criminal before he could make his escape. She hadn't followed FBI procedure. Hadn't alerted her superiors, nor gotten the authority to put a GPS tracker in my car. And, as I'd feared, was catching hell for it.

Just then, a rush of movement on the dock competed for my attention. Two coroner's attendants were wheeling Griffin's corpse out of the tugboat, zipped up in the ubiquitous body bag. The medical examiner herself—the same unnamed woman I'd seen earlier in my office—was apparently still inside the tug, attending to Raymond Sykes' injuries.

As I watched Griffin being loaded into the morgue wagon, Sergeant Polk crunched across the gravel, muttering to himself. Before launching into one of his by-now familiar rants.

“Another goddamn crime scene, Rinaldi? How the hell do ya keep windin' up in the middle of stuff like this?”

“Beats me, Harry. All I was trying to do was keep an eye on Skip Hines.
Somebody
had to.”

“Hey, don't blame
me
. That bullshit briefing went on for hours. I couldn't get outta there.”

“Because that's where you were
supposed
to be, Sergeant.”

It was Lieutenant Biegler, stepping gingerly over a patch of weeds sprouting up among the gravel. His petulant features shone starkly in the headlights of a nearby unmarked.

Facing me, he put his fists on his hips. “If you understood chain of command, Rinaldi, you'd know what I mean.”

“Oh, I understand it. I'm just lucky enough not to be one of the links in that chain.”

He grunted unpleasantly. “Which doesn't mean I still can't arrest you for interfering in an official investigation.”

“Been there, done that, Stu. What else you got?”

I was rescued from this sorry banter by the arrival of Detective Jerry Banks, who'd trotted over from the car in the weeds. Wearing a name-brand overcoat and an untroubled smile.

“Just ran a check on the VIN number. Sedan's stolen, Lieutenant, like we figured.”

Biegler nodded. “Now what about this Julian Hines? We'll be needing his statement.”

“Dr. Yang, the ME, has him waiting in the ambulance. She says he looks okay, but wants to check him out anyway when she's through with Sykes.”

Polk nodded in my direction.

“Word is, you busted Sykes up pretty good, Doc.”

“Hell, all I did was fall on him. His chronic illness did the rest.”

“Yeah.” Biegler clucked his tongue. “Agent Wilson told me all about it. According to their intel, Sykes picked up some kind of horrible disease in Afghanistan. Like that flesh-eating stuff. Plus he had something wrong with his bones.”

“Probably
osteogenesis imperfecta
. A very rare, genetic predisposition to brittle bones. I thought as much.”

“Speak o' the devil…”

Harry had turned his back against the wind to light up a Camel unfiltered. Now he pointed with its glowing tip at the entrance to the tug.

With Dr. Yang following behind, Sykes was being carried out on a stretcher by those same two attendants. As the procession arrived at the foot of the dock, and the rear doors of the ambulance opened from inside, I strode over to meet it.

Ignoring Yang's disapproving stare, I leaned down over the stretcher. Not ten inches from Sykes impassive face.

He stared back. “I thought our business had concluded, Dr. Rinaldi. Though, regrettably, not as I'd hoped.”

His words were slurred, his cadence deliberate. The ME had obviously pumped him full of painkillers.

“Save it for your prison memoirs, Sykes. But there's one more thing I need to know.”

He managed an insolent smile. “Only one?”

“What happened to Donna Swanson, Harland's nurse? Why did she have to die? Was she involved, or—”

“That's between me and my lawyer. Who would no doubt advise me to stop talking to you. And I—”

He'd tried to lift his head and suddenly winced in pain. With a groan, he let it fall back.

“That's enough!” Dr. Yang spoke like someone used to being obeyed. And probably feared. She nodded at her assistants. “Put Mr. Sykes in the ambulance.
Now
.” Then her steely eyes found mine. “As for you, Mister…uh…”

“
Doctor
Rinaldi. And I was just going.”

I back-stepped, giving the attendants room to maneuver the stretcher into the back of the ambulance. After lifting Sykes carefully into the medical bay, one of the attendants went around front to climb into the driver's seat. Then, with a quick wave of her hand, Yang motioned for the doors to be closed.

Before they did, I caught a glimpse of Skip Hines, sitting inside on a cushioned wheel hub. Busily adjusting the makeshift strap on his prosthetic leg, he didn't see me.

As the ambulance slowly pulled away, I extended my hand to the ME, giving the slim, officious woman my best smile.

“I'm sorry, Doctor. We haven't been properly introduced.”

Her returning smile was icy.

“That's right, we haven't.”

After which, she turned on her heel and walked off. Then I heard a soft peal of laughter behind me.

It was Gloria Reese, watching Dr. Yang's departing form. She was still chuckling when she came over to me.

“I see you haven't lost your touch with the ladies.”

“I have my moments,” I said. “Unfortunately, this wasn't one of them.”

As if reading each other's thoughts, we drifted away from the chaos of the crime scene. Near a bank of trees.

“You going to be okay?” I asked at last.

“I'm still with the Bureau, if that's what you mean. Wilson was pissed as hell, but there's only so much crap he can dump on me. I
did
collar the bad guy.”

“Damn right.”

“With some help, of course. I'll be sure to mention you in my report, Danny.”

“Do you have to? I get enough grief from the Department. I don't want to be on
another
outfit's shit-list.”

“Okay, but it'll cost you. Dinner, maybe?”

I hesitated. She searched my face, the color quickly fading from her own. As though she'd misstepped.

“I'd like to, Gloria…but I'm kind of with someone.”

A pause. “Kind of?”

“It's complicated. There's a triangle thing going on.”

“Yeah? Who's the other guy, some combination of Muhammad Ali and Freud?”

“Actually, it's a woman.”

She gave a slow, thoughtful nod.

“Well, Danny, if
you're
involved, I guess it
has
to be complicated, right? Though, Christ, for a smart guy, you're really a jerk.”

“It sure seems that way sometimes.”

Suddenly, a loud, authoritative voice boomed.

“Agent Reese!”

Agent Wilson was striding purposefully toward us. Once he'd joined us, he just as purposefully ignored me.

“Leave your car, Agent Reese. I'll have it picked up. You're riding with me.”

“Where to, sir?”

“Downtown. With Raymond Sykes in custody, there's a real possibility one of his under-bosses will make a play. Start something that gets out of control. This could be an opportunity for us to bring down a big chunk of the operation.”

She straightened, as if at attention. “I agree, sir.”

Then she offered me a brief, collegial smile. “I'm sure we'll run into each other again, Dr. Rinaldi.”

Gloria held out her hand. I took it.

“I'm sure we will, Agent Reese.”

Wilson finally deigned to glance once in my direction, offering a brief, meaningless smile of his own before heading over to the parked cars.

Gloria Reese hurried to catch up with him.

***

At Lieutenant Biegler's insistence, I followed Harry Polk's unmarked back to the Old County Building. I parked my Mustang in the lot, nodded at the desk sergeant in the lobby, and went up to the detectives' floor. Once again, I was being required to give a statement about my involvement in a police matter. Or, as Polk put it, to explain what the hell I was doing on a goddamn tugboat with an FBI most-wanted criminal and a one-legged guy with explosives strapped to his chest.

A fair question, I thought.

I found Harry waiting for me in one of the venerable building's windowless interview rooms. Maybe even one I'd been in before. Leaning back in his chair, Polk waved a meaty hand at the tape recorder on the table between us.

“Let's make this quick, okay, Doc? I wouldn't mind gettin' to bed before the sun comes up. For once.”

“Where's your partner, Jerry the Boy Wonder?”

“Biegler poached him to be his go-fer. Run errands, get coffee, that shit. Just 'til they wrap things up at the crime scene. Fine with me.”

“I'm surprised Biegler isn't tucked in bed himself by now.”

“Usually he would be. But he wants to be in on the call when Agent Wilson tells the governor about the Sykes bust. Just like Wilson'll wanna be cheek-to-cheek with Biegler when
he
informs Chief Logan and the mayor.”

“So much for inter-agency cooperation.”

“Whatever.” He switched on the tape recorder. “Okay, you know the drill. Start at the beginning and keep the damn time line straight. And do us both a favor, will ya, Rinaldi? Stick to the facts, leave out the wise-ass remarks, and skip all the therapy mumbo-jumbo.”

I smiled. “Hell, then this won't take long at all.”

It didn't.

***

The steel girders of the Liberty Bridge had a somber, melancholy cast in the pre-dawn gloom. With morning commuter traffic still a couple hours away, the scant number of cars made the drive across the wind-dimpled Monongahela River almost restful. Meditative.

Tired, my joints and muscles aching, and woefully sleep-deprived, I was glad to be heading home. Since I didn't have to return to work until tomorrow, I could allow myself the luxury of a full day's R and R.

Or so I thought.

My cell rang as I was winding slowly up the hill to Mt. Washington. To my surprise, it was Mike Payton. Calling from the Harland residence.

“We just heard the news from Chief Logan, Doc. They got the bastards. Both of 'em.”

“That's right. Griffin is dead and Sykes is in custody.”

He chuckled. “Well, one outta two ain't bad. Man, I'd love to get my hands on that Sykes asshole. He's a disgrace to the military. To the guys who were under his command.”

“Like Skip Hines.”

“Yeah. He's okay, though, right?”

“He's fine. Truth is, we all got lucky. It could've gone the other way.”

“Maybe. You've been in this thing up to your neck since it started, and you really came through. And I appreciate it. But like I've said all along, it shoulda been me.”

“Happy to trade places with you next time, Mike.”

There was a long, strained silence on the phone.

“Listen, Doc,” he said finally. “There's something I've been meaning to talk to you about. Something important. At least I think it is.”

“What is it?”

“Not on the phone. Besides, it'll keep for now. I'd rather talk about it in person, anyway.”

“Well, I promised to pay a call on Charles Harland and Lisa later today. To see how they're both doing.”

“Okay, great. We can grab a few minutes alone then.”

***

Before taking a longed-for hot shower, I'd put enough ground Columbian in the coffee-maker to fill a whole pot. So when I finally came out of the bathroom, dressed in fresh jeans and a Steelers sweatshirt, the welcome aroma of brewed coffee wafted throughout the house.

Taking a steaming mug into the front room, I collapsed on the sofa and clicked on the TV news. And saw what I'd expected—footage of the abandoned tugboat, as well as the surrounding area, accompanied a report about the arrest of Ray Sykes. With no mention of the Harland family or Lisa's ordeal, the story focused on Sykes' alleged criminal activities in the tri-state area. How the police and the FBI had been gathering evidence against him and his associates for years. Then the on-scene reporter, microphone in hand, stepped in front of the camera. With appropriate gravity, she said that during a brief gun-battle with an unnamed FBI agent, another suspect, Max Griffin, had been shot and killed.