The Definitive Albert J. Sterne (3 page)

It was fully dark now, and the shabby room was lit only by the lamp beside the bed, the light globe of low wattage. It left the shadows so dull that Albert could barely see Rick’s face, even when the boy inhaled and the cigarette glowed bright for a moment.

“You’re killing yourself,” Albert said.

“These things? I’m not going to be around long enough to die from lung cancer.”

“Exactly. You have the intelligence, the resources to do something with your life. Yet you choose to do this.”

“Hey, it wasn’t exactly a choice, princess. But, like I said, it pays the rent.”

“You have choices, Ricardo. You make things happen. You should think about why you’re doing this to yourself.”

“Huh. If it wasn’t for guys like you, I wouldn’t even have this option.”

“That’s something I chose to do that I certainly must think about.”

Rick stared at him for a long moment. “I’ve met some weird people, Albert, and some with crazy kinks to them. But you’re something else again.” He sighed. There was a small bottle of bourbon on the floor beside him that Rick had phoned down for with Albert’s permission. Rick broke the cap open and poured a generous nip into the glass from the bathroom. “Look - I  never was very interested in school and the one thing I figured I was good at, they told me I was crap. Then I could never be bothered holding a job down for more than a week. I ended up in reform school, graduated with very little effort to prison, picked up a nice little drug habit. There’s a million like me out there. So, you tell me the answer.”

“You’re clever enough to work it out for yourself, Ricardo. It wouldn’t mean anything if I simply told you.”

“Leave me alone, then, damn you. Jesus, no need to tell
me
hookers have a short half-life.”

“What’s that? A little graveside humor?”

Rick stood, started gathering up the rest of his clothes. “You owe me a hundred, G-man. For that, you got to use my body, you even got to insult me, but I draw the line at being psychoanalyzed.”

“It’s hardly psychoanalysis, you sad little idiot, I’m simply trying to help you see the truth. If you want to kill yourself inch by inch, day by day - you have to at least see that it’s your choice.”

“No way.” The boy was fully dressed now. “I’ve had this too many times - you’re taking all your problems out on me, just because you hate being queer. Well, I’ve put up with more than a C-note’s worth of crap already.”

Albert hadn’t moved during this tirade. He said evenly, “I’m sure you’ve experienced what you describe a thousand times, but that’s not what you’re seeing now. You’re deliberately misunderstanding me.”

“I don’t reckon anyone could understand you if they tried.”

“Therefore I turn to your cheap charms in desperation.”

“You bastard.”

“You did say that for a hundred I got to insult you.”

“Give me the money, and I’m out of here.”

Albert climbed from the bed, at ease with his nudity, and took the wallet from his jacket pocket. “Here,” he said, handing over the notes. “I’d give you more, but that wouldn’t help you.”

Rick let out an exasperated laugh. “Sure it wouldn’t.”

“Why won’t you see the truth? You take responsibility for your life  -” Albert grabbed the boy’s shoulders, spoke fiercely “-  you do that, and I’ll help you. But not until then.”

“Fine.” Rick pulled away, stalked to the door, stuffing the notes into a hip pocket. “Don’t call me, and I surely won’t call you.”

“Goodbye, whore.”

“Go to hell, princess.” The door slammed. Albert was alone.

McIntyre had insisted on accompanying Albert through check-in, and then all but physically dragged him to the airport bar. Albert, having failed to shake the man off, ignored both him and the offer of a drink.

“I’m in love,” the Irishman declared. “So quit glaring.”

“If humanity would stop using excuses like that for getting its own way, the world would be much improved.”

“What the hell do you care about the world?”

Albert stared at this stupid, sweaty, rumpled man. “If you’re referring to humanity as opposed to the planet, it’s the only thing I care about.”

McIntyre’s whisky was swallowed in two gulps - he called for another. “What a load of garbage,” he said. “If you care about people so much, why is it your mission in life to make as many of them as miserable as possible?”

“You’re incapable of grasping the subtleties and the reasons behind what I am.”

“I honestly have no idea why they recruited you, Albert, or how you got through the assessments.”

“It was simple: they only had to compare me to mediocrities like you.”

“But you’re good, that’s the problem,” McIntyre rambled on, letting the insults slide. He had a second opinion on his own merits now, after all. “We wouldn’t have caught that bastard without the work you did.” And he added in a deceptively quiet tone, “Celia was impressed. She said she never would have thought to  -”

“I can do without endorsements from people who are so pathetic as to return your affections.”

McIntyre grasped his second glass of whisky, and sat in silence for a while. He laughed as he remembered his hidden agenda for this enforced socializing. “I’m heartily sorry to say I owe you one, Albert. After all, there aren’t many people who could make me look good by comparison, but somehow you managed it. Like you said, that’s a turnaround from Quantico - though I don’t know why it surprises me, now I think about it.”

Albert stared at the man. “You can’t possibly be suggesting I would change my behavior simply to assist your romantic interests. That’s ludicrous.”

“I never said you did it deliberately. Celia talked about you all night, you know. She said you were to be pitied, that your anger simply indicates  -”

“Dr Mortimer was the least benighted person I had the misfortune to encounter in New Orleans - despite subjecting me to her pop psychology behind my back. I would hardly have promoted the suggestion that she commence a relationship with you.”

“Yeah,” McIntyre smiled. “She’s one hell of a woman, ain’t she?”

“You’re impossible,” Albert snapped. And he successfully ignored McIntyre until his flight to Washington was called.

CHAPTER ONE

COLORADO

MARCH 1981

“Doesn’t this feel like déjà vu?” Special Agent Fletcher Ash asked, the uneasy laugh in his voice betraying the fact he was shaken. Not that Ash ever tried to hide such vulnerabilities.

Albert Sterne forced himself to turn away from his companion and instead stared out the side window of the four-wheel-drive as trees shrouded in cloud sped by. Ahead, the asphalt road rushed at them, winding out of nowhere, oddly hypnotic. Yet the man’s image remained clear in his mind’s eye. The bare facts did little to describe Fletcher Ash: white male, of Irish descent though born and raised in Idaho; twenty-nine; one-seventy-five; black and blue. The neat features were regular, framed by a strong jaw, not quite handsome. But despite Ash being invariably unkempt, there was a very real presence hinted at by the hot blue eyes, the thick dark mess of hair.

“Or don’t you ever get déjà vu, Albert?”

“No, Idaho Joe, I do not. And it is only a form of paramnesia; the result of a misfiring in the temporal lobe. It has no real meaning.” But eventually Albert sighed and said with what he hoped was a pointed lack of interest, “What is it that I am supposed to be reminded of?”

“Our first case together, five years ago almost to the day. Don’t you remember? I  found that body out here in the mountains, too.”

“I trust you can’t tell me exactly how many of your cases I’ve worked on since then.”

The uneasiness yielded to a genuine chuckle, though Ash’s face remained even paler than usual. “Thirteen, unlucky for some. Not counting my various visits to Washington, of course.”

“Of course,” Albert echoed, hoping he didn’t sound as alarmed as he felt.

But Fletcher was laughing outright, which was somewhat reassuring even though Albert suspected he was the butt of the joke. “Had you worried there, didn’t  I?” the younger man said. “Thirteen is a guess, I don’t know how many it’s been - probably more, don’t you think? I  just wish we could stop meeting like this.”

“And I wish your conversation wasn’t so littered with clichés.”

Fletcher cast him an amused glance. “Do you mind people associating you with death? I  hardly ever see you except when we have a murder case up here - or when I stumble across another corpse.”

“It’s a wonder the local murderers haven’t realized you spend half your life tramping around these forests. They could find more secure places to leave their refuse.”

“I don’t have much luck, do I? I’ll have to find some other way of spending my weekends. Hiking has produced too many nasty surprises.” Silence for a while, then Fletcher said very low, “There are three graves. They’re shallow, maybe only two feet deep, in a patch of dirt by a river. One of them  -” He paused for a moment before continuing, “The spring thaw has washed one of the graves partly open.”

“You’re trying to tell me that one of the bodies is exposed.”

“Yes.” Ash abruptly slowed the vehicle for no reason that was immediately evident, then turned onto a dirt track that appeared to their left. He frowned in concentration, as the track quickly became steep and burdened with rocks and potholes.

“Whoever buried the bodies either brought them hiking - alive - or killed them and drove them here,” Albert postulated.

“Yes. He’s likely to have camping equipment or a four-wheel-drive vehicle or both. Perhaps someone who fishes, or traps, or hikes. Mind you,” Fletcher added, “that doesn’t narrow it down. In Colorado every man, woman and dog owns a four-wheel-drive.”

“Does he know this particular area?”

“Well enough to have found the site - there wouldn’t be many suitable places to bury three bodies around here, it’s very rocky - and to return to it at least twice over a period of weeks. The snow would have hidden the graves in winter, though perhaps he didn’t foresee the river flooding in spring.”

“Or perhaps he didn’t care.”

“Yes. He may have figured that by the time the bodies were discovered or washed downstream they wouldn’t be any use to us.”

“Naïve.”

“He’s gotten away with murder three times at least. He probably thinks he’s too clever to be caught. Actually,” Ash continued, “I’m working on the assumption that he wanted the bodies to be found - because if he didn’t, the easiest thing to do is just drop them down an old mineshaft. There are plenty around here, and the bodies would never be seen again.” Ash pulled over to park behind a line of cars on the side of the track. “We’re here.”

“Obviously.”

“Once again, we have to walk the rest of the way. Told you this feels like déjà vu.”

“Fine,” Albert said, all the more impatiently because the memories were indeed vivid. After five years he still found Ash as compelling as he was annoying. And Fletcher Ash was inevitably
very
annoying.

Albert climbed down, hefted his metal case from the floor of the cabin to the ground, then paused to button his coat. Fletcher, already bundled up in a shabby-looking quilted jacket, headed off into the trees, glancing back once to ensure Albert was following. “If the bodies were carried in,” Albert concluded after a couple of minutes, “he’s strong - or there’s more than one offender.”

“Strong as a bear,” Ash muttered.

“What?”

“I feel that it’s just one man. Built large, strong.”

“I see.” And then there was the familiar bright yellow tape strung between the trees. Albert ducked under it to see the swollen river, which had retreated from the bare dirt surrounding an arm and shoulder. There was torn black plastic around the limb, and the usual flood-debris of leaves and twigs. The flesh was bruised and tainted. If that was the most recent body, then the two bare mounds further from the river would contain little more than skeletons.

Albert could see why Ash had assumed there were weeks-long intervals between the graves. The one closest to the rock wall that sheltered them was only just visible - the dirt was old, the mound sunken. The site itself was well-chosen, tucked away underneath a cliff, with no reason for anyone to visit or even notice it. The other bank was only a few feet away, but the combination of rocks and the spring thaw made it virtually inaccessible. The river had washed mud and silt into the corner formed by the rock wall, so the dirt was damp and easy to dig. The river would also wash away any indication of who’d been there - though if the murderer had realized that, he’d have known the bodies might be uncovered at some stage.