The Definitive Albert J. Sterne (23 page)

Albert had suffered this interrogation most evenings over the past seven weeks. “Eating dinner, reading an article, listening to Mozart.” Anticipating the next question, Albert continued, “Dinner is a vegetable roulade, made from corn, leeks and ricotta cheese.”

Fletcher groaned. “That’s so unfair. I just fried up some eggs and toast. The former was tough and the latter was burnt.”

“Even you should be able to learn how to cook properly. Eggs and toast is hardly a nutritious meal.”

“But how can I ever aspire to the standards you and Harley set?”

“I should apologize for being a good example?”

“And what’s the article?” Fletcher asked. He rarely seemed to have qualms about diverting the course of a conversation, or ignoring Albert’s barbs.

“Some student’s suggestion that hypostasis can be used to give an accurate time of death, a  theory that no one has taken seriously for decades. There are too many variables, though someone with a great deal of experience can draw a fairly accurate conclusion if the surrounding temperature is known, and the corpse’s  -”

“You’re not kidding, are you?” Fletcher interrupted. “How can you read that stuff over dinner? I’m in danger of losing my appetite just thinking about it.”

“Perhaps I should discuss the Mozart instead,” Albert said, laying the urbanity on thickly. “
Serenade for Winds
, K  361. A beautiful piece.”

“Yes, I can hear it. Sort of slow, isn’t it?”

“It is exquisite and you are a philistine.”

“Why, thank you. Remember that vegetable gumbo you made me? Next time we eat Creole, we’re going to listen to something more appropriate. I  just bought an album of zydeco music.”

“I’m sure it would be safer for all concerned if you left it in Colorado.”

“You don’t scare me.”

“What a pity.”

A full-bodied pause, then the younger man said, “I  miss your  … cooking.”

“I’m sure you can survive on eggs and toast,” Albert replied, annoyed at both the innuendo and his body’s warm reaction to it. “If you’re visiting on the weekend, I’ll make a roulade for you then.”

“Great - and what else is on the menu?”

How best to quash this conversation without overtly acknowledging what Fletcher was implying? “Don’t you have better things to do than badger me?” Albert eventually asked. “I  have a report to write. I  told Jefferson it would be ready first thing in the morning.”

“Since when did you care about Jefferson?” But, even as he protested, Fletcher had caught on. “You’re still paranoid about our phones being tapped, aren’t you? Why would they do that?”

“Because they can.”

“That sort of thing went out with Hoover.”

“I think not.”

“You’re implying our conversations are open to misinterpretation.”

Albert took a moment to swallow his anger at this man, even though Fletcher was more or less playing along with the word game. “Don’t push it, Ash,” Albert advised in what he hoped was a reasonable tone of voice. “You know they will hear exactly what they want to hear.”

“Maybe they’re not imaginative enough to make the assumption.”

“It’s so unlikely an assumption to make, is it?” Albert bitterly retorted. But, yes, who could possibly leap to the conclusion that anyone loved Albert Sterne? That anyone would be prepared to have sex with him, without generous recompense? Fletcher Ash was, for example, using him as a distraction, a way of keeping his sanity from unraveling. Albert had resigned from hope years ago - he was surprised to find these disappointments still rankled.

“Yeah,” Fletcher was saying. “No one with an ounce of intelligence or common sense puts up with me for any length of time, just look at the trail of failed relationships I leave behind me. Yet we’ve been friends for years. Whatever else they think of you, no one denies you’re smart. The question therefore becomes: what do you see in me?”

Silence. Then, “I have to write that report,” Albert said. “I  assume you haven’t any news about your pet serial killer.”

“No, nothing happening today, as far as I know. But it’s only a matter of time.”

“Call me when you hear something.” And Albert hung up the phone, alarmed to find his hands shaking, annoyed that thoughts of Fletcher refused to beat a dignified retreat. Albert should have known better than to surrender himself to this curious, demanding, ebullient man. The costs of transitory sexual satisfaction were high; Albert trusted that Fletcher’s interest in him would prove just as transitory.

The previous weekend amply demonstrated some of those costs. Despite Albert having made it perfectly clear in the early years of their friendship that he was the last person to acknowledge his own or anyone else’s birthday, and despite the fact Fletcher had until now tactfully pretended ignorance of the date, Ash apparently felt that a sexual partner was expected to help celebrate such mundane occasions, even though a friend wasn’t.

To make it all worse, Albert could hardly complain about the gift he was presented with on the Saturday morning after his birthday: a Blaupunkt CD player for the car. In reply to Fletcher’s inquiries, Albert had expressed something about it being quite satisfactory, and then he’d spent ninety minutes installing the machine in the Saab. He’d taken Ash for a drive through the neighboring countryside, an indulgence with no purpose other than to listen to Mozart’s
Mass in C  Minor
and
Requiem
- or, as Ash insisted, Mozart’s
Great Mass
and
Terrific Requiem
. Although Albert didn’t expect Fletcher to appreciate the somber music, the younger man had slowly begun to enjoy himself. They had eaten a late lunch together at an adequate restaurant, over which they’d conducted a moderately intelligent conversation. In all, a pleasant if frivolous day.

Though nothing could compensate for Fletcher asking, “Who’s Elliott Meyer?”

The words, innocent enough on Fletcher’s part, were cold numbing fear to Albert. Fletcher had loitered over coffee on the Friday evening, apparently minding his own business - but of course he was observant enough to notice the unusual occurrence of Albert receiving a personal letter, of Albert skimming through six pages of close handwriting. Forever irrepressibly curious, Fletcher had picked up the envelope in order to read the return address, and asked the inevitable.

It was a pity that some of the qualities Albert most admired in the man - those very qualities that made Fletcher a useful special agent - could be the most inconvenient.

Somehow, though Albert couldn’t now remember the words he’d used, he’d indicated that Fletcher’s interest was not welcome, that the whole topic was off limits. But even though Ash had let the matter go, his curiosity was aroused, and Albert knew exactly how persistent that curiosity could be. Added to which, it was hardly a difficult conclusion for Fletcher to reach, that Elliott was family, indeed the only family member with whom Albert had any contact anymore. And Albert knew very well, without Fletcher saying much, that the younger man would be fascinated to learn more of Albert’s background.

Elliott’s annual letter contained family news and gossip, in which Albert had no interest. As usual, however, Elliott recounted a few stories and images of his long-dead cousin, Albert’s father Miles, and of his mother Rebecca, some of his own and some from other people. Albert knew Elliott only did this to ensure Albert would read the letters; nevertheless, he couldn’t find it in him to resist the man’s manipulation.

Under Fletcher’s gaze, which was watchful though the man pretended nonchalance, Albert committed to memory those few scraps of information about his parents, then returned the letter to its envelope, intending to throw the lot out. But then he was seized with fear that Fletcher would go so far as retrieving it from the trash and reading it without permission.
Standard operating procedure under Hoover
, the man might say, providing a justification that was no justification at all.

Albert had taken the damned thing into his study and locked it away. Then, on the following Monday once Fletcher was safely gone, he’d finally been able to throw the letter away.

Damn Fletcher Ash. And damn Elliott Meyer! Albert had insisted on going his own way when he was accepted at college just before his sixteenth birthday. Elliott, who’d been his guardian for five years, had only agreed on the condition that they exchange letters every October. Twenty-one letters later, and Elliott still hadn’t given up. Why was Albert cursed with such persistent presences in his life?

He put the impossible, unpalatable question aside and, after reading another column of the puerile article on hypostasis, he managed to focus on work again rather than Fletcher Ash or his own dissatisfactions. The rest of his dinner, however, he wrapped securely and placed in the fridge for the next day.

The phone rang on cue the following evening and Albert briefly considered not answering it. That would, however, be an evasion and, as such, should be beneath him. He took a moment to reflect that Fletcher obviously wanted more from this relationship than Albert was in any position to give. Would he have been capable of meeting the man’s expectations if he’d fallen for Ash ten years ago? Fifteen or twenty?

He took a breath and picked up the handset. “Sterne.”

“It’s me. I think I found one.”

“Found one what?” Though Albert knew perfectly well, from Fletcher’s urgency if nothing else. He picked up the pen by the phone, ready to jot down any notes.

“A possible victim,” Fletcher was explaining, exasperated. It seemed he was too focused to even notice this opportunity for the meaningless repartee and teasing that often passed for personal conversation between them. “In the latest bundle from Mac - you know he sends me newspaper clippings and police reports once a week. He received this one yesterday, sent it up with all the latest in the overnight bag. I  only just had a chance to read it.”

“Tell me.” Sometimes, if in Mac’s limited judgment a case was particularly significant, the Irishman even braved the probability of cadavers and insults in the forensic labs to bring Albert a copy as well. For whatever reason, that hadn’t happened this time.

“Young unidentified teenage male, found buried facedown in the forests outside Portland, Oregon, died maybe six weeks ago. They’re not quite sure on the cause of death - it’s definitely asphyxia, though the injuries aren’t related, so it doesn’t look like manual strangulation.”

“Ligature strangulation,” Albert suggested, “with something soft, a scarf for instance, or with padding, so it wouldn’t leave external marks. Or suffocation with a pillow. There are other options, but if this is the man you’re after, those seem most likely.”

“That’s good,” Fletcher said, distractedly. He was apparently writing this down.

For the sake of his professionalism, Albert had to add, “Maybe I should remind you I’m simply suggesting what you might look for that’s consistent with your pet murderer. It doesn’t seem likely, for instance, that he would suffocate the boy by confining him in an airless compartment, such as a cupboard.”

“Couldn’t rape the boy as he died if he did that, could he?”

“Exactly.”

“Speaking of which, it appears there was penetrative sexual activity, and there’s a lot of severe bruising, though the injuries aren’t as comprehensive as the victims in Georgia.”

“But in Georgia, the offender intended that the boys die as a direct result of their injuries. The Colorado victims, and this one if it’s his, he tortured and raped first, before killing them.”

“You think it’s the same man?”

“I hardly have enough information to draw that conclusion yet. You certainly seem to believe so.”

“It feels right, and it’s the right timing. It’s just over two years since Mitchell Brown, Philip Rohan and Stacey Dixon died in Georgia. This man has to have been killing again. I  think the Oregon police are going to find another couple of bodies with similar MO.”

“Given the timing, your expectations might be leading you astray. Your basic assumption is that he’s been killing again, but anything could have happened in the intervening period.”

“Like what?”

“He could be incarcerated for, or under suspicion of, another offence; he could have died by accident, murder, suicide or natural causes; he might be ill or incapacitated; he might have finished whatever it was he thought he was doing, or simply lost his taste for it. Ninety-nine percent of law enforcement officers would assume that one of those things had happened over that length of time, and close the case.”

“I almost did, too, after the Colorado cases. But that’s what makes our guy so damned clever.”