The Cleaner (5 page)

Quinn pulled the SUV to the curb and turned to Nate. 'Why?' he asked. 'The wound. That's what killed him. Someone hit him over the head.' 'So the wound tells us conclusively that he was murdered?' 'Well, sure,' Nate said, only now he didn't sound so confident. 'It couldn't have happened the way Dr. Horner said? Taggert panicked and hit his head?'

'Sure, it's possible. But it doesn't seem likely.'

Quinn stared at Nate for a moment, then looked back out the front window and put the Explorer back in gear. 'What?' Nate asked.

Quinn said nothing. Taggert had indeed been murdered, and the evidence had been right there in front of them at the morgue. But it wasn't the blow to the head that had led Quinn to this conclusion.

Quinn had known what happened the moment he'd seen the body. Taking the contractions in the arms and legs caused by the heat into account, the fire had frozen Taggert in the position he'd been in when the flames consumed him. If he'd died of smoke inhalation, the body would have been curled up in an obvious defensive posture. Even if he died from a head trauma, it was unlikely that his body would have landed so neatly laid out.

No, Quinn knew someone had posed him like this. Someone had wanted the Office to know this was a murder.

They drove across town, eventually parking in a lot just off Lake Avenue. Quinn was relieved to see the 'Open' sign hanging in the window.

He looked over at Nate. 'You stay here.' There was no protest. Quinn zipped up his jacket and got out.

The building was an old, one-story house that had been converted into an office. Hanging on the wall near the front door was a sign that read, 'Goose Valley Vacation Rentals & Realty.' There was a covered porch where Quinn dusted the snow off his jacket. He then opened the door and went inside.

The front room had at one time probably made for a comfortable parlor, but now it was crowded with three desks, several bookcases, and a row of black metal filing cabinets. A radio was playing an old Neil Diamond song softly in the background. Against the far wall, a fire burned in a brick fireplace.

Only the desk closest to the fireplace was occupied. Behind it sat a woman Quinn judged to be in her mid-forties. Her blonde, frosted hair fell to just above her shoulders. She was wearing a smart-looking blue business suit. She smiled broadly as Quinn entered.

'Good afternoon,' she said, standing. 'Didn't expect anybody else today.'

Quinn offered a friendly chuckle as he approached her desk. 'Yeah, weather's getting a little crazy out there. Don't worry. I won't keep you long.'

'I heard we're in for almost two feet of snow by tomorrow.' She stuck out a hand. 'I'm Ann Henderson.'

Quinn shook her hand. 'Miss Henderson, I'm Frank Bennett.'

'Please, just Ann.' She indicated the guest chair, and they both sat. 'What can I do for you, Mr. Bennett?'

He pulled out his ID and showed it to her.

'FBI?' She looked perplexed. 'Is something wrong?'

Quinn smiled again and shook his head. 'I was just hoping you could help me with something.'

'Of course. Whatever I can do.'

'I'm looking into the fire at the Farnham house.'

Her face turned somber. 'A tragedy. It's such a shame.' A question formed in her eyes. 'I heard it was an accident.'

'It looks that way.'

'Then why would the FBI be interested?'

'Truthfully, my involvement is totally off the record. Mr. Taggert was a relative of someone in the Bureau. I'm just here checking things out for him.' She relaxed visibly. 'I'm sorry to hear that. Mr. Taggert seemed like a nice guy.'

'Did you know him?'

'Not really. I only spoke with him twice. Once when he called to set up the rental, and then again when he came by to sign the agreement and pick up the key.'

'That's why I stopped by. My colleague was hoping I might be able to get a copy of the rental agreement.'

She eased back. 'Why would he want that?'

'Just trying to be thorough, that's all.'

'Is he planning to sue or something?'

Quinn laughed good-naturedly. 'Not at all. The family just wants to put this behind them. I'm just helping wrap up the details so they can move on. I can guarantee you there will be no lawsuit.'

Once again her relief was visible. 'Well, I guess it's not a problem.'

She got up and walked over to one of the filing cabinets. She pulled open the third drawer from the top and started flipping through the files. After a moment of searching, she removed a thin manila folder. 'Just give me a minute,' she said. 'The copier's in the back.'

'Could I take a look first? To make sure it's worth you making the effort?'

'Sure.'

She handed Quinn the file. There were only two sheets of paper inside. The first was a standard, boilerplate rental agreement. According to the information Taggert provided, he lived in Campobello, Nevada. Quinn had never heard of Campobello, but he was far from familiar with every city in Nevada. It was undoubtedly a false address anyway. Under emergency contact was written 'G. Taggert, sister' and the same phone number Chief Johnson had given Quinn.

'So you were the one who provided Mr. Taggert's sister's number to the police.'

'That's right. Mr. Taggert almost didn't give it to me, though. I had to promise not to call his sister unless it was an absolute emergency.'

Quinn nodded, understanding, then looked back at the file. There was other basic information, but nothing that would be of use. Quinn flipped to the second sheet. It was a photocopy of a Nevada driver's license. Robert William Taggert. Due to expire on November 22 of the following year. The photograph was grainy, but the image was discernible. A man in his late fifties, with short-cropped hair, and a thin, weathered face.

'This is Mr. Taggert?' Quinn asked.

She peeked around the edge of the folder. 'That's him.' 'Can I also get a copy of this?' he asked. 'Don't you have a picture of him?' Quinn shook his head. 'Nobody thought to give

me one,' he said truthfully. Ann shrugged. 'Just take that one. If I make a copy the picture will only be a black smudge.'

'Thanks,' he said. He folded the paper, careful not to crease the photo, and slipped it into his pocket.

Quinn and Nate were able to make it to Denver just in time to catch a 7:00 p.m. flight home to Los Angeles. While Nate was shoehorned into the cattle section in back, Quinn relaxed with a glass of Chablis in the comfort of his first-class seat. After they'd been in the air for an hour, Quinn pulled out his computer and wrote his report.

By the time he finished, it was only a page long. He liked to keep things brief. 'Overload with facts,' Durrie, his mentor, had once told him. 'They can never fault you for that. Leave out all the cream puff stuff and opinions. Nobody wants that shit. And if you find somebody that does, they're not worth working for.'

Good advice, but it had taken a while for it to sink in with Quinn. When he'd first started working clean-and-gathers, he knew his task was to just hand over whatever he found out and move on. Curiosity was discouraged. But it had been frustrating. There were always so many unanswered questions.

'What the fuck do you want to know more for?' Durrie had asked him one time when Quinn wanted to keep probing after a particular assignment was nearly completed.

'It just seems so unfinished,' Quinn said. 'Just once, I'd like to know what it's all about.'

'What it's all about?' Durrie asked. 'Fine. That I can answer. You see this guy here?'

They were in an unpaved alleyway on the south side of Tijuana, Mexico. It was well after midnight. On the ground only a couple feet in front of them was the body of a man in his late twenties. 'I see him,' Quinn said.

'This guy's a runner. You know, a messenger boy? But he could've just as easily been a cleaner.'

'Like us, you mean?'

'Like
me
. You're just an apprentice. You'll be lucky to live through this year the way you're going.' 'I'm careful,' Quinn said defensively. 'You're not. Worse, you don't even realize it.' Quinn's face hardened, but he said nothing. 'You want to know what it's all about, Johnny

boy?' Durrie continued. He pointed at the corpse on the ground.
'That's
what it's all about. The more you know, the more likely you'll end up like him. We come in, gather whatever information's been requested. Maybe do a little cleanup if necessary. Then get out. That's the job.' Durrie's eyes locked with Quinn's. 'Kill your curiosity, kid. For your own sake. Hell, for mine, too. Because until you're working on your own, I'll be responsible for your fuckups.'

It took nearly getting shot six months later before the lesson sank in. Still, Quinn was never able to completely dampen his thirst to know more. He later realized that despite what Durrie said, curiosity was an important part of the job. He just had to learn how to control it. As he reread his report about Taggert, he knew there was a lot that remained unanswered. Who had started the fire? Why had Jills been there? And who the hell was Taggert anyway? Questions that nagged at him, but ones he probably would never know the answers to.

Otherwise, the information Quinn had been able to gather wasn't much more than what he'd already told Peter over the phone. The only omissions were his stops at the coroner's office and Goose Valley Vacation Rentals. And the most those stops had done was to confirm what little Quinn already knew. The exception being the lung tissue sample, which Quinn had added into his report as something Chief Johnson had mentioned.

It wasn't until he'd put away his computer that he remembered there was one other thing he had neglected to include in the report, the silver-colored bracelet Nate had found at the house. At first Quinn thought it had meant nothing, but in light of finding Jills, maybe he'd been wrong.

Chapter 6

Quinn and Nate separated at LAX, Quinn telling his apprentice to meet him at his house in a couple hours to go over everything. Before that, Quinn wanted to have a nice quiet dinner alone.

He picked up his car, a black BMW M3 convertible, from the VIP lot he had parked it in before he'd left on his vacation. The drive across town took a little longer than he'd planned, but soon enough he arrived at the Taste of Siam restaurant on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. It wasn't the most popular Thai restaurant in L.A., nor the biggest, but it was Quinn's favorite. His usual table was open when he arrived, so he took a seat and ordered
pad kee mao
with chicken, choosing as always to wash it down with a Singha beer.

Occasionally, one of the waitresses would stop by to say hello. They would smile and say how good it was to see him again, or ask him why he'd waited so long to come back. And each time he'd thank them and say he'd been out of town, then promise not to be gone so long again.

A couple of years earlier, he'd done a favor for one of the girls who worked there. Somehow she'd picked up an 'admirer' who convinced himself that she felt the same for him. He took to stalking her, day and night. Once she'd come home to find the man in her kitchen making her dinner. When Quinn heard about what was happening, he had a conversation with the guy and convinced him there were better things to do with his time. There had been no more problems after that.

Though the waitress he'd helped had eventually moved back to Thailand, the rest of the staff hadn't forgotten what Quinn had done. Now they were always glad to see him, and he never had to pay for a meal. That was one of Durrie's rules he had consciously broken. 'Never use your training to help someone on the outside.' The 'outside' being anyone not in the business or directly related to a job. Durrie's theory was that if you did, you could expose a weakness an adversary could exploit.

With that in mind, Taste of Siam was a perk Quinn tried not to take advantage of too often. But it was hard to stay away. The food was always good, and the waitresses were very easy on the eyes.

While he waited for his food, Quinn reached into his pocket and pulled out the bracelet Nate had found in Colorado. As he had noted before, it was basically a ring of metal squares joined together by small, thin, wire hoops that gave the bracelet flexibility. Each square had a different pattern etched on its surface. Now that he had time for a closer look, the designs reminded him of family crests. None, though, were familiar to him. The squares were thick, too, maybe an eighth of an inch from top to bottom, maybe more.

At first he thought they were all solid, but on the one next to the hasp he detected a faint line running along the bottom edge.
Plated?
he wondered. Before he could investigate further, his food arrived. He put the bracelet back in his pocket to study later.

As usual, the food was just what he needed. When he asked for the check, he received a smile and the standard 'No charge.' He laid a twenty down on the table as a tip, then left.

Quinn's job afforded him the ability to live anywhere in the world. And after careful consideration, he had chosen Los Angeles. The location was optimal. Via LAX, he could get almost anywhere in a hurry, essential for his professional life. Then there was the weather. Warm, low humidity. Few bugs. And no snow. Essential for his personal life.

He'd been born in Warroad, Minnesota, a small town on the edge of the Lake of the Woods, a stone's throw from the Canadian border. A couple thousand people on a good day, competing with the heat and mosquitoes in the summer and the cold and snow in the winter. And nearly every one of them counting their blessings that they didn't have to live in the big city.

Everyone, that was, except Quinn. As soon as he could get out, he was gone. California was his home now.

His house in the Hollywood Hills was on a quiet, winding street, high above the chaos of the L.A.

basin. It sat on a half acre of downward-sloping land, and was surrounded by a tall stone wall complete with a steel security gate across the driveway entrance. As he drove up, he noticed Nate standing off to the side, waiting.

That was one thing Nate had going for him, he was never late. Overeager, a little raw, but never late.