The Third Rail (20 page)

"I'm sorry, Michael." Lawson stood at my shoulder, her words tight in my ear. "I don't know what happened to the team I sent in."

"It wasn't you." I stepped back from the ambulance and took a seat on the curb. "I was the one who waited. I was the one who decided he wasn't a target. And I was wrong."

"I'm sorry." Lawson crouched down and seemed to lose her train of thought, if not her composure, for a moment. "We were too late and I'm sorry."

I felt her hand on mine, her face shining white in the night.

"Michael Kelly."

I looked up. A middle-aged black woman was standing over me, removing a pair of latex gloves. Marge Connelly spent her life in the company of death, her features full of the hard grace
necessary to the job. I had known her for more than a decade and seen the look before. This time I was on the receiving end.

"Hi, Marge." I stood up, Lawson with me. "This is Katherine Lawson, from the Bureau. Marge Connelly, Cook County ME."

The two women shook hands.

"You two involved in this?" Marge said.

"Hubert was a friend of mine," I said.

Marge raised her eyes a fraction and looked to the FBI agent, waiting for more.

"We might have an interest in the case," Lawson said.

"This wasn't a suicide," I said.

"Who claimed it was?" Marge opened the back door to the ambulance. The black body bag rested inside.

"What did you find?" Lawson said.

"Off the record? Death by asphyxiation. He was hung by a length of rope from his ceiling fan. How he got there?" Marge shrugged. "Just don't know right now. Young man, though. And that's an awful shame."

I moved closer to the bag. Marge slid down the zipper without a word. I took a last look, but my friend was gone, his features already cast by death's heavy hand.

"I should have something tomorrow," Marge said and closed up the bag. Lawson nodded and thanked her. Marge climbed into the front of the ambulance. Then Lawson and I watched as they took Hubert Russell to the morgue.

K
atherine Lawson sank into her seat and watched the wooden ties of the tracks flash beneath the window. The Blue Line train picked up speed as it left the station and leaned into a curve. Lawson laid her head against the glass, allowing the car's motion to carry her back. The first image she saw was Hubert Russell, neck stretched, spinning slowly over his desk. Then came Kelly, eyes like open coffins, holding her hand as the lid slammed shut on his friend and dirt thumped all around.

Lawson started and opened her eyes. Her train was pulling into the station at UIC-Halsted. It was just midafternoon, and the car was thankfully empty, save for a woman with tired eyes who was heading to work in her Target uniform. Lawson slipped off her black gloves and flexed her fingers. Then she laid the gloves in her lap and folded her hands over them. They were diving under the city now, into the subway, barreling toward the Loop. She looked out the window, at the banks of lights clipping past as they raced along the tunnel. The papers Lawson had copied were in her bag. She pulled them out and read through the material once again. Then she
felt the key in her pocket. It opened the CTA access door near Clinton, the spot where they had found Maria Jackson's body a week ago. Lawson checked her watch. Her meeting was set for five. Plenty of time. She stood up, put on her gloves and pulled them tight. The woman in the Target uniform smiled as the train glided to a halt. Lawson smiled back. Then the doors slid open, and she stepped onto the dim platform.

LAWSON SCRAPED HER SHOES
through the dirt, looking up at layers of dust floating above her in various levels of light. Jackson's body had been discovered less than a mile from where she was walking, but that wasn't the federal agent's concern. Her eyes followed a string of lights, running along the subway tracks and into the darkness. This wasn't the sealed fluorescent lighting she'd seen on her ride into the city. These were lightbulbs, old-school, just as she remembered from the Jackson crime scene. And that bothered her.

Somewhere, a rumble volleyed and echoed. Lawson instinctively stepped back and touched the grip on her gun. She could feel the vibration through her feet, hear it in the steel. The rumble grew until the train seemed like it was right on top of her. Then she saw it through a gap, a leap of fury and light, three tracks over, blowing around the corner and down the tunnel. Lawson cast her eyes overhead and watched the bulbs sway, throwing shadows on the walls around her. Then the train was past. The bulbs continued to rock in a subtle, declining arc, and soon the only sound was again the shuffle of her feet.

Lawson walked for another ten minutes, then turned back toward the door she'd come in. She'd spend the rest of her day thinking about the subway, the lightbulbs, and her meeting, all of which was good--mostly, because it kept her from thinking about the rest.

I
remembered the smell of burned wax and perfume, a door opening and cool air sucking me down a dark hallway. I stepped into a narrow room with a single overhead light and a plain wooden table. The suit motioned me to sit. He passed some paper across the table. I signed. He read what I signed and nodded. Then he left the room and returned with a vessel made of plain black stone and sealed with white wax. I pulled the vessel toward me. It felt cold and heavy in my hands. I could smell the crush of dead leaves and saw a pair of thin, bloodless lips, set in a cruel line and stitched together with dead man's silk. A shovel turned over in my mind, and the world went black. I looked up. The suit grinned and offered me the stubs of his teeth, sunken into yellow, swollen gums. I pushed the vessel back across the table and left
.

Voices chased me down the hall. I could feel their eyes as I grasped the handle on the front door and nearly took it off its spindle. Then I was outside again, into the sun's blister, the blast furnace of South Central L.A., the storefront undertaker on his stoop, yelling now, telling me I needed to come back. There were more bills to pay. More credit cards to run. I
shucked my coat over my shoulder and hit it. Walked along Florence Avenue for the better part of the day, feet melting into the pavement, sun bursting inside my head. I sat on a bench at a bus stop and closed my eyes. A couple of locals hit me up for money, but I shrugged them off. Buses came, buses went. Their exhaust fused with the heat and settled into a sludge that I breathed. Finally, the sun went down and a blessed cool came into the valley of the city. I opened my eyes to headlights from the traffic and the sun dissolving orange against a blue-black sky. I took a cab to LAX. The early flights to Chicago were booked, so I caught the red-eye. I leaned back in my seat as the plane lifted off beneath me, thinking I had left my father behind. How wrong I was
.

MY EYES SNAPPED OPEN
to a ceiling fan cutting lazy strokes through the late afternoon sun. My heart thundered in my chest, and my mouth felt parched.

The phone rang. I checked caller ID, lifted the phone, and dropped it back onto its cradle. Then I went into the kitchen and found the Macallan. Or what was left of it. The phone rang again. This time I picked up.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Rodriguez said.

I looked at the water glass of scotch in front of me. "Getting drunk. How about you?"

"No one's heard from you for a day and a half."

Actually, that wasn't true. Four days ago, I watched as they put Hubert Russell in a hole I'd dug for him. I spent the next three days at Northwestern Memorial. They let me in to see Rachel once. She cried until I left.

"What do you want, Rodriguez?"

"How is she?"

"Nothing's changed."

"You gonna try and see her again?"

"They said they'd call."

"You want to get a drink?"

"I'll let you know if I run out."

Rodriguez grunted and hung up. I found an old pack of cigarettes and lit one up. The pup didn't like that and went back into the bedroom. From the bottom drawer of my desk I pulled out a folder tabbed
L.A.
and opened it. On top was a police shot of my father, cold and stiff in a one-room SRO in South Central. Underneath, more of the same.

I turned the picture facedown and picked up the phone. She answered on the first ring.

"Yes, Michael."

"Anything new?"

"From an hour ago? No, Michael, nothing's new."

The woman's name was Hazel Wisdom. She worked the day shift on Rachel's floor. My contact at night was a nurse named Marilyn Bunck.

"Did she eat lunch?" I said.

"I don't know, Michael, but I'm betting yes."

"Did the doctors see her?"

"I told you. They see her every day."

"Did she talk to them?"

"I wasn't there when they examined her, but I know she's getting stronger. It's just going to take a while."

"Meanwhile, I need to keep my distance."

"It's not distance. It's space. Just a little space so she can heal."

"Doing nothing doesn't work for me, Hazel."

"Really? I hadn't noticed."

"Don't blow things out of proportion."

"You hung around here for three days, living on coffee and Snickers bars, sleeping on the floor when you weren't staring at her door and haunting every nurse and doctor that came in and out of her room."

"Until your hospital booted me out."

"It wasn't helping her, and that's what's important. Listen, if I could make it happen for you, I would. We all would. But it's just not the way these things work. You're in the business, Michael. You know."

She was right. I'd sat with plenty of them: fathers and husbands, boyfriends and brothers--victims once removed. Most would nod and gasp for air, hands clenching and unclenching, faces moving in broken pieces, lips mouthing questions for which there was never a good enough answer. And now I was one of them, asking a nurse to play God, wishing I could turn tomorrow into yesterday, wishing I could make Rachel whole. Hazel's voice brought me back to the moment.

"The truth is you just have to sit tight. Chances are she'll be asking for you. Another day or two at most."

I nodded to an empty room. "Thanks for putting up with me, Hazel."

She laughed. "For what it's worth, if I'm ever sick or hurt, I hope you're on my side."

"Be careful what you wish for. You'll call me if--"

"If she asks? What do you think?"

"Bye, Hazel."

"Talk to you in an hour, Michael."

I hung up the phone and felt the silence, heavy around me. I took my smokes and drink into the living room, and put on some music. Bruce's harmonica chased Roy Bittan up the keyboard as "Thunder Road" unwound. I took another sip of scotch, smaller this time, sat down at my desk, and clicked on
my Mac. Hubert Russell's face popped up. It was the last video he made before he was murdered. His thoughts on the case I'd asked him to investigate--the case that got him killed.

"I've already sent you the police file on your pal Jim Doherty." Hubert dropped his eyes to his notes. "It's probably nothing, but you said he worked the '80 crash as a cop. As you can see, he didn't get out of the Academy until 1982."

No, he didn't, Hubert.

"Anyway," Hubert continued, "probably nothing, but whatever. I sent his Academy picture to your phone along with the file. The other thing I'm sending is about your old train crash and the company I'd mentioned, Transco."

I leaned forward and studied the digitized image of my friend. The kid was excited, knew he'd found a couple of pieces that clicked.

"Your hunch was right, Mr. Kelly. Transco and Wabash Railway were owned by the same group, a corporation called CMT Holding."

I pulled out a pad and pen and wrote
CMT HOLDING
at the top and
TRANSCO
just below it. Then I drew a line between the two. On-screen, Hubert kept talking.

"CMT appears to have had its fingers in a whole bunch of things back in the day. Railroads, related properties, manufacturing companies. All held through various subsidiaries. All very discreet. I don't have a line yet on who actually controlled CMT, but I'm working on it. The company's registered agent was an attorney named Sol Bernstein. He's dead, but I think his son might know something. So, we'll see. By the way, I also found CMT's logo." Hubert hit a few more keys. "Just sent it to your phone. A dead ringer for the one someone left on your doorstep. Cool, right?"

Hubert paused on-screen and looked to his left. "Just heard
something outside. Maybe the good guys are here to take me into protective custody." He flashed a sly grin at the absurdity of it all. "Don't worry, Mr. Kelly. If all else fails, I've got my steak knife to protect me. Talk to you later."

And then Hubert was gone. I shut down my Mac and turned up the music. Eddie Vedder had replaced the Boss and was telling me about a kid in Texas named Jeremy. I put my feet up on my desk and watched the day's light flicker and fade against the walls. By the time I finished the scotch it was mostly dark. I left my gun at home and walked down the street to find a cab. Rachel would come back, or not. But Hubert Russell was dead. And I needed to do something about it.

L
awson's meeting was in a Loop bar and grill called the Exchequer. She got there early. He was in a back booth, sipping at a glass of water and reading the
New York Times
.

"Danielson?"

The man from Homeland Security raised his eyes from the paper and hollowed out a smile. "Agent Lawson."

Danielson made a move to get up, but Lawson waved him back down and slid in across from him.

"Thanks for seeing me on such short notice," Danielson said.

"Not a problem. What can I do for you?"