Wake the Devil (24 page)

I
t took twenty minutes to make their way through Atlanta’s traffic. The neighborhood was a mixture of small, single-family homes trying to hold the line against the encroaching warehouses and factories that surrounded them on three sides. I-75 bordered the fourth. Most of the houses were clapboard. None had garages. A traffic pole with a sign indicating the street’s name lay on the sidewalk, snapped off at its base.

Dogs prowled the empty lots and alleys, malnourished, ribs showing, and crouching low as they reverted back to a time before the coming of men. What little color existed came from graffiti on the walls of defunct businesses. Everything else was the color of the dogs. A few houses had porches with empty flower baskets hanging from under aluminum awnings. For the most part, the neighborhood felt empty.

The home they were looking for was nearly at the end of the block. Jack pulled up to the side of the house into what was once a gravel parking lot capable of holding twenty cars. It was now filled with large ruts and potholes. A white twelve-year-old Dodge Charger was parked against the side by the rear entrance. Its windshield had a spider crack.

They went to the front and knocked. In the manner of most gothic style churches, the double doors were peaked in the middle. No one responded. Jack knocked again. Same result.

“The photographer’s car is here,” Beth said. “I also noticed a light on when we pulled up.”

“Let’s try the back door.”

After several seconds without a response, they peered through a window. Beth suddenly let out a yelp and jumped backward, startling Jack as a white cat leaped onto the inside ledge.

“Sorry,” she muttered.

“Don’t be. I’d have done the same.”

She doubted that. Through the window, the cat meowed at them.

“We should call for a search warrant,” Beth said.

Jack shook his head slowly and moved to the door.

“Jack, we can lose the case. It won’t take that long to—”

“Look at the cat’s paws.”

Beth did and saw they were covered in irregular brown stains.

“Oh Christ,” she said, drawing her weapon.

Jack tried the door and found it unlocked. Slowly, he pushed it open but didn’t enter. Beth understood why a second later as the smell of death nearly made her gag. After several months in Homicide, she thought she’d become used to it. Hadn’t happened. She placed a hand over her mouth and stepped back, reaching for her phone as the white cat darted past her legs.

“This is Detective Sturgis. I’m at 4205 Ivy Way reporting a possible homicide. I need backup and the medical examiner.”

Her attention returned to Jack, who also had his gun out. For the most part, he was immobile as he studied the scene. They were looking at a kitchen filled with appliances a shade of green Beth hadn’t seen since she was a child. Beyond the kitchen was an open area swarming with black flies.

“God,” she said.

No matter how many times she steeled herself, the sight of those robbed of their lives was jarring. The smell was ubiquitous. Unconsciously, she put a hand on Jack’s shoulder, as though the connection to him would somehow strengthen her.

Jack said, “We go in from opposite sides of the room. At the door, I’ll move left, you right. Once the house is cleared, we’ll need your evidence kit.”

Beth nodded.

“Ready?”

The woman’s body lay in what was serving as her living room. At one time, it had probably been the church’s assembly hall, judging from the stained glass window and marble cistern at the side of the room. Her throat had been cut and her eyes were open. Blood had pooled around her head, leaving her skin a chalky white color. She was tall, slender, and the expression on her face seemed one of surprise rather than pain. Beth stared at the body for a moment. The position looked posed.

She pulled her eyes away and continued to the next room, sweeping her gun in both directions. Jack called out “clear” from the bedroom and moved to the staircase. Beth expected they would find nothing. There’s a certain feel to empty homes and this one had it. The crackle of a police radio outside indicated the first uniforms had arrived. She backed out and went to meet them.

“I need this area sealed off. Then let’s start knocking on doors. I want to know who this woman was and if anyone saw anything.”

“Her name’s Nancy Rosen,” one of the uniforms said.

They turned to look at him.

“She works as a dancer at Plato’s on Cheshire Bridge Road.”

“I thought she was a photographer,” Beth said.

“Part-time. I do security there three nights a week. She has a son in some special school for disabled kids out in Villa Rica. Man, I hate this.”

“I’m sorry,” Beth said. “You okay to be here, or do you want me to call someone else?”

The name on his uniform shirt read “G. Henderson.”

“I’m fine,” Henderson said. “You mind if I see her?”

“Let me get you an extra pair of shoe covers.”

Jack would probably fuss at her for letting anyone in without a full Tyvek suit, but she didn’t have the heart to keep him out. She brought another set for his partner.

Henderson entered the kitchen and made his way to the living room. He stood there staring at Nancy Rosen for a full minute and then reached down to straighten her skirt.

Beth put a hand on his arm to stop him. “Not till I finish, okay?” she said quietly.

Henderson nodded and left the house. His partner shook his head and followed. At the far corner of the room, Jack flipped the lights on. To his right on the wall were a series of unframed black-and-white photographs, each dry-mounted on display. One showed an old-style fedora, forlorn and sitting by itself on a park bench. Behind it, the trees were barren. Another was a photo of an empty playground. Beth studied them and looked back at the woman whose name appeared in the lower right corner of each picture. There had been life in this room once, and conversation, and maybe laughter. A sense of what had happened began to press down on her, not unlike the way she felt when looking at the skeletons at the museum several days ago.

“They feel like winter,” she said, staring at the photographs.

Her statement pulled Jack out of his reverie. He nodded his agreement then shifted away from them, focusing his attention to a platform and a set of three steps at the front of the room. The steps were made of red terra-cotta. Behind them were two columns of the same substance. The pulpit was marble.

Beth began the task of collecting evidence. Working in the kitchen, Jack mirrored her efforts. He noticed two gray plastic slivers on the table and brushed them together with one of his business cards. There was no reason for their presence, which made them significant. An hour ticked by as they gathered bag after bag of samples. At one point, he got down on his stomach and used a pair of tweezers to pick up several tiny bits of a white substance. He sniffed them, nodding to himself as if their presence confirmed a conclusion he’d already reached. A video recording of the scene was made, chain-of-custody cards were filled out, and plastic bags were sealed. That Thomas Courtney had taken yet another innocent life seemed clear now.

“I don’t understand why he killed her,” Beth said. “You told me he’s not a sadist.”

“Janet Newton and the British investigator I spoke with agree he’s an opportunist. That’s not a bad description. Courtney needed a base to construct his bombs. Two at Stone Mountain and one at Mary Quinn’s house, probably two in New York. Ben Furman’ll confirm it, but I suspect some of what I recovered in the kitchen will turn out to
be RDX, the same material he used at the first location. The woman was killed because keeping her alive was inconvenient.”

“Bastard.”

“He is that.”

“What about New York? He couldn’t get a bomb on a commercial airline.”

“I agree. That’s where our friend Sergei Borov may come in. Borov owns two jets. When you fly private, security is almost nonexistent. He probably used his contacts to get the bomb materials to Courtney or his partner.”

Beth looked back at Nancy Rosen and realized Jack’s earlier comment about the Sandman not caring who he killed or what he had to do to reach his goal was true. When you came right down to it, people of Courtney’s ilk were no different from a disease ravaging humanity’s collective body. Whatever redeeming qualities he might once have possessed paled in comparison to the acts he performed. Indifferent to everything but his wants, the Sandman had killed a mother struggling to support a disabled child for no reason. Where did that leave the boy now?

Her job was simple: cauterize the disease.

One Day to the Grand Jury

T
he following morning Beth left Jack at the crime lab to analyze his evidence with Ben and Nelda. She was convinced a weakness in Courtney’s plan lay in the two men he employed to fly the drones. The feds were positive they were dupes, but she had adopted Jack’s theory that there was a reason for everything the Sandman did. And those reasons usually defied an obvious explanation.

At eight o’clock the previous evening, Dan Pappas had called to let her know the body of Peter Shackleford had been recovered from a dumpster in Sandy Springs. At first, the name meant nothing to her until Jack identified him as one of the two drone operators. There was no way she could write this off to coincidence. If Leonard Walpole wasn’t dead already, he soon would be.

*

According to T. J. Cameron, a Narcotics detective, Eddie Marks controlled a good portion of the drug traffic in Atlanta along with its prostitutes, protection rackets, and a loan sharking operation. He also had a tenuous truce in place with the Russian mob. An area of Atlanta had been carved out for them. Marks’s operation, Cameron said, was larger and better organized and could have wiped them out, but he’d taken the position avoiding an ongoing bloodbath was preferable to giving up a little control. In return, the Russians paid him a handsome royalty for the privilege.

As Beth drove to meet him, she reasoned that Marks probably bore no great love for the Russians, of which Sergei Borov was one. Cameron agreed and told her Borov was widely thought to be their
primary source when it came to supplying weapons, a fact that she felt could be used to her advantage.

Janel’s was named after Eddie Marks’s daughter and had gone through several phases as a restaurant before settling into its present incarnation on Peachtree Road. Outside, the architecture was modern, upscale, and matched an interior filled with black leather booths, white tablecloths, granite floors, and a long, mirrored bar that ran the length of the establishment. The name “Janel” appeared across the entrance in glittering silver letters. Their food was distinctly Cajun. T. J. Cameron had arranged the meeting.

Marks was in his early fifties and dressed in a burgundy suit with a yellow silk shirt. His receding hair was sprinkled with gray at the temples. He was heavyset with a neck that appeared soft but wasn’t. When Beth came in, he was sitting at a table near the back of the restaurant having breakfast. He saw her but displayed no reaction to her presence. Marks fit Cameron’s description. She started for his table, but only got a few steps before a tall black man stepped in front of her.

“Hep you, Miss?”

Beth showed her badge and said she was there to speak with Eddie Marks.

“Whatchu want to talk to the boss about?”

“That’s between Mr. Marks and me. Step aside, please.”

“You real polite. I like that in a woman,” he said, looking her up and down. “Why a fine looking girl like you become a police officer?”

“Because I love being around big, strong men. Now move aside.”

The bodyguard was about two inches taller than her and at least fifty pounds heavier. Around his neck was a heavy gold chain. He was dressed completely in black. The aftershave he was wearing hung in the air like a cloud, reaching her from three feet away. He remained standing in front of Beth until Marks said, “Willis.”

The smile never left Willis’s face, though he did step aside. Marks watched Beth come down the aisle and motioned for her to sit when she reached his table.

“Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Marks.”

“Get you something to eat, Detective?”

“A cup of coffee’d be nice and maybe a Danish if you have one. I skipped breakfast earlier.”

“Most important meal of the day.” Marks raised his hand to a waitress who was standing near the kitchen doors. “Would you bring Detective Sturgis a cup of coffee and one of them pastries we got in this morning?”

“Anything else?” she asked.

“No, thank you,” Beth said.

The waitress left.

“I used to have a Danish every morning. The kind with cherry in them. But the doctor told me I need to watch my cholesterol.”

Beth glanced at the plate of bacon and eggs in front of him and said, “That won’t help.”

“I’m starting small and working my way up. What can I do for you today?”

“I’m looking for a junkie named Leonard Walpole. From what I’m told, he used to panhandle around Little Five Points. Sometimes he sleeps at the Salvation Army Shelter in East Point.”

“Always glad to be involved with helping our police. Why do you want this man?”

“Do you remember that fuss we had downtown the other day?”

Marks nodded. A ray of sunlight streaming through the window caught his diamond tie pin. He laced his hands together and rested them on the table. Like the diamond, his fingernails were smooth and polished.

“Walpole was one of two men operating the model aircraft,” Beth said.

“Y’all looked pretty foolish rushing people out of those buildings.”

“Better than not getting them out if we guessed wrong.”

Marks considered that for a moment then asked, “Y’all plan to give this man a ticket for disturbing the peace?”

“It’s a bit more complicated,” Beth said. “We think Walpole’s a shill for a button man named Thomas Courtney, who was hired by Sergei Borov.”

At the mention of Borov’s name, Marks’s eyebrows lifted slightly. Beyond that, his reaction was silence.

“Courtney’s target is a doctor named Rachel Lawrence, who’s supposed to testify in front of a grand jury the day after tomorrow.”

“Like I said, I have a deep commitment to lending a hand to the cops when I can, but I’m wondering how this is my problem.”

“Involved or committed?” Beth asked.

“Say what?”

“A moment ago, you said involved. Now you say committed.”

“What’s the difference?”

“You’re eating bacon and eggs. The chicken was involved. The pig is committed.”

Eddie Marks stared at Beth for a moment before he started chuckling. “Good one, Detective. You got a mouth on you, I’ll say that.”

“Gets me in trouble sometimes.”

Marks leaned back. “No way.”

“I’m afraid so. Didn’t mean any offense by my remark.”

“Didn’t take any.”

“So, will you help?”

“Here’s my problem. My business thrives ’cause I don’t give people up. The folks I deal with know I protect them regardless of the heat. That means not broadcasting their names around.”

“There’s a good chance if Courtney succeeds, Sergei Borov will become stronger than ever. I don’t think that’s in your best interest.”

“No, it isn’t,” Marks agreed. “It’s not like I’m in contact with any street junkies, but say I knew someone who was. It wouldn’t do for this person’s name to be mentioned around the police station, if you get my meaning.”

“Anything you say will stay between us.”

Marks considered Beth for a long moment. “T. J. Cameron says your word is good.”

“I like to think so.”

He nodded. “You and the Georgia Tech professor were the ones who caught that crazy man a few months ago. The one who killed all them people at Underground Atlanta.”

Beth nodded but didn’t reply.

Marks took a moment to arrange his knife and fork on the table. “One of them was a nineteen-year-old girl named Rochelle. She was
in the, ah . . . business, if you know what I mean. I got a daughter who’s eighteen. Rochelle reminded me of her. She was sweet and well mannered, but the girl never had any luck. Daddy left when she was eight years old and her mama ran off with some no-account. I set her up in school and gave her a little money. But she went back to doing what came easy.” Marks shrugged. “Some folks you can save; some you can’t.”

“You’re a good man, Eddie.”

“No, I’m not. In about an hour, if you was to be at the Central City Fountain, there might be a man there that can help you. Large fella named Ramone.”

“I owe you one,” Beth said.

Marks smiled. “Yes, you do, Detective.”

The waitress arrived with Beth’s coffee and Danish. They ate in silence for a few minutes before she commented on how attractive the restaurant was.

“Town needs a place where people of color can get dressed up and enjoy good ol’ fashioned cookin’ without being embarrassed ordering it.” He pointed to Beth’s engagement ring. “Next time you come back, bring your significant whatever with you.”

Beth thanked him and stood. She was nearly at the front door when Willis stepped in front of her again. The man had a mean, arrogant face.

“Got everything you need, missy?”

“And more. If you’ll excuse me,” Beth said and waited for him to move.

Willis’s eyes roamed up and down her body with a look that was hardly less than obvious. “Them high heels sure do lift you up, don’t they?”

Beth said nothing.

Willis brought his face inches from hers. “Why’nt you sit and rest for a bit. Maybe we can get acquainted.”

“Maybe another time.”

“Got to be hard walking around in them shoes. Don’t they hurt?”

“I don’t know. What do you think?” Beth said, bringing her heel down on his instep.

Willis gasped and let out a curse and drew his arm back to hit her. The blow never arrived, because he found himself staring at a 9 mm Beretta pointing directly between his eyes.

Marks observed the exchange as he brought a forkful of eggs up to his mouth.