A Knife Edge

NINETEEN

It was just after 1400 hours by the time I made it back to my quarters. I fixed myself a sandwich with supplies bought from the Hurlburt Field BX, and stoked up the coffee machine. I phoned Agent Lyne and obtained an address for Butler and his team. According to Lyne's information, the men were all renting an apartment in Destin together, which made sense. It was quite near The Funkster, where I'd come across the Brits the previous evening. Lyne was interested in knowing how it was all going. I assured him that it was going quite well, although, unbeknown to him, I was referring to the pastrami and cheese on rye I was halfway through.

I bumped my laptop, which woke it from its slumber, and I saw the e-mail icon jumping. I put the sandwich down and checked my Hotmail mailbox. I had a long list of unread messages — bonus deals on bulk purchases of Viagra and e-mails dripping with virus. I trashed all but one, an electronic notice from the San Francisco Chronicle.

The subject of the e-mail caused a double take. It read, “CEO leaves Moreton Genetics.” I clicked through and skimmed the article that originated in the newspaper's business pages. Basically, in a move that had surprised the market, Dr. Frederique Spears had resigned after less than two years in MG's top job. Her stated reasons for doing so were personal. The article said Spears had thrown in the towel late on the day after Christmas. The stock market had since reacted negatively to the news and MG's stocks were trading sharply down. Yadda yadda. Spears had resigned barely a day and a half after my interview with her. Had the interview been the cause of her resignation? The timing sure was fascinating. I recalled the look on her face when I'd told her that I believed Boyle had murdered Tanaka.

I finished off the sandwich while I contemplated this. Down here in Florida, working a new case, I'd been living in a bit of a news vacuum the past couple of days. I went to the Chronicle's home page to check on the latest events there. Security-camera footage taken in the area of the Transamerica building showed the van packed with explosives several seconds before it blew. It turned out the van had been rented by two Americans “who looked like a couple of Arabs,” according to a woman at the rental company. The story said the ethnic heritage of these “Arabs” was unknown. I was skeptical about that. More than likely, the police knew everything there was to know about the perpetrators by now, only the information was being selectively released to the media. The bombers apparently had no prior record or known contact with terrorists. Hadn't even collected so much as a parking ticket between them. As far as their friends and neighbors were concerned, they were Americans. Had to be — they wore Nike sweatshirts and baseball caps.

To reduce suspicion, the “Arabs” had not used ammonium nitrate, the oxidizing agent of choice in most truck bombs. Instead, they'd purchased potassium nitrate for use in glass-making — glass making being their stated business and occupation. Basically, the bomb makers knew exactly what they were doing. Potassium nitrate is every bit as potent as ammonium nitrate, especially when combined with diesel oil, rubber, and sand in what the FBI's forensics team determined to have been “ideal proportions.” Meanwhile, over at the Four Winds, the gas had burned so fiercely that no items of forensic interest had been recovered from that scene.

The body count at the scene had risen since I was there. Far too many of the critically injured had failed to respond to treatment. I noted that the numbers of people missing as a result of the bombing had shrunk to twelve.

I put in a call to Arlen on his cell. “Hey,” I said when he picked up.

“Vin. How's it going down there.” He was instantly suspicious. “You are still down in Florida, aren't you?”

“Of course.”

He relaxed a little. “So how's the tan coming along?”

“Coming along great. Haven't left the hotel pool since I got here.”

“Really? I looked at the weather channel this morning and I saw it'd been raining.”

“Raining sunshine, buddy.”

“Well, whatever, you're lucky you're down there and not in D.C. Round here, sleep is a dirty word at the moment.”

“It's pretty frantic here, too, you know. You have to remember to flip over on the hour to avoid sunburn.”

“Yeah, yeah. Something I can do for you, Vin?”

“As a matter of fact, no.”

“That's a nice change.”

“Just rang to say hello and ask if the tests on Boyle's wallet have come through, and whether he's still on the missing list.”

“I class that as something — and you're not in the loop on that one anymore, Vin,” Arlen said, after a pause.

“C'mon, Arlen.”

“I'm not in it, either.”

“I know, but you're like the girl in reception. You know everything going on.”

“You really know how to stroke my ego, Vin.”

“I read Freddie Spears resigned shortly after I spoke to her.”

“Really? What did you say to her?”

“To make her resign? I told her I believed Boyle got Tanaka drunk and then threw him to that shark. She liked Tanaka and, from what I could tell, didn't think much of Boyle. Anything on that DVD, by the way?”

“Vin, c'mon. You promised to let this one go, to concentrate on the case you're working down there …”

“I know, and I haven't broken that promise. I just got an automated e-mail from the Chronicle about Spears's resignation. Got me thinking, is all.”

Arlen let this sink in before answering. “I know you're not going to believe me, but I don't know anything. I've heard nothing further about either the DVD or the wallet recovered there, or the case in general. And I'm not asking questions, either.”

He was right; I didn't believe him. “Can you just find out one small thing for me?”

“No.”

“I just want to know whether Boyle's body has been positively identified.”

“No.”

“It hasn't been IDed?”

I heard Arlen sigh. “So how is it going down there?” he asked again.

“You know what Florida's like?”

“Actually, I've never been there.”

“Lots of women in bikinis,” I said.

“Lucky you.”

“Who're mostly pushing seventy.”

“Thanks for that image,” he said. “So, you going to answer my question?”

“You going to answer mine?”

“Vin, Jesus…”

“OK, OK,” I said. “So far, from what I can see, it looks like a homicide.”

“Seems there's a lot of that going around at the moment. I gotta go, Vin. Got a world to save here. Keep fighting the good fight, buddy.”

“Talk later,” I said.

“Yeah, later…”

I heard dial tone. He was right about one thing. The Boyle/Tanaka case was no longer mine, and I was completely out of the loop, but I had my own theory about Boyle and I had my doubts about Chalmers being able to successfully muddle his way to the truth.

I made a supreme effort to do as Arlen requested and put that case out of my head. I opened the refrigerator door and noticed a small triangle of paper poking out from under the appliance. I bent and picked it up. It was a photograph. I flipped it over and saw a picture of Ruben Wright smiling back at me. It had been taken at night. He had a beer in one hand and barbecue tongs in the other, which was draped around the shoulders of a redhead, a real looker. A Chicago Bulls cap was on his head. The guy was happy. This was the Wrong Way I remembered, only why was there a photo of the guy under the fridge in this place, and who was the redhead with eyes as green as an Irish meadow? I bent again and checked under the fridge in case there was a whole family album hiding there, but I couldn't get my eye down close enough to floor level to see. I found a broom, pushed the fridge so it tilted back against the rear wall, and raked under the machine with it. The harvest amounted to the lid from a jar of pickled cocktail onions, a bottle top, six giant balls of greasy dust, three dead cockroaches, and a pale blue pill.

I looked at the dusty collection on the floor, glanced at the picture, and tried to figure this out. There was only one possible answer. The area under the fridge is the home's equivalent of the belly button. I made another call.

“Agent Lyne.”

“Lloyd, Vin Cooper.”

“Hey. How you doin'?”

“Great. This place you've put me in. It was Ruben Wright's wasn't it?”

Silence.

“Hello?” I said.

“Well, um, yeah, briefly.”

“So that's why it had become so available all of a sudden? The tenant died?”

“Um … yeah, I guess.”

“You guess? Why didn't you mention it?”

“I thought you might get a little … I don't know… maybe get a little squeamish.”

“Where's the rest of his stuff?” I asked.

“We boxed it.”

“Was he married?”

“No.”

“Then where's it going?”

“Hang on…”

He put the phone down and I heard him wrestle with a filing cabinet drawer. After a few moments, he came back on the line. “He didn't have much in the way of family. He had an uncle. Lives over in Gainesville. Left the guy a few things — pictures of his folks, not much else. Pretty much willed everything to one Amy McDonough.”

The name didn't mean anything to me. As Lyne had already pointed out that I knew as much as he did, I didn't ask him what her relationship was to Wright. I'd ask her. “You got an address? Contact details?”

“Address only. Lives in Pensacola.”

Now that I thought about it, I vaguely recalled something about Ruben's old man running off when he was a kid. His mom died when we were in the CCTs together — cancer, if I remembered correctly. There'd been a little money left to him, along with a farm somewhere, which Ruben had sold. The service had become his mom, dad, sisters, and brothers, precisely because he didn't have any, except for that uncle, whom he never mentioned, at least not to me. “You said his effects were being sent.”

“Yeah.”

“So they're still here on the base?”

“Yep. You want to see them?”

“If you're taking requests,” I said.

“I'll arrange it.”

“So, put me ahead of the game here. You got an inventory handy?”

“Says here … a little furniture — sofa, table and chairs, gym equipment, home entertainment system…” He rattled off a number of items. “Hey, the guy had some nice stuff!”

Last I heard, consumerism wasn't a crime in this country. And Ruben was unmarried — had to spend his money on something. Why not himself?

“There are a few books, clothes, photos…”

“Any records?”

“As in The Beatles, Elvis …?”

“As in tax, phone company…” I wondered how long Lyne had been in OSI, so I asked.

“Three months. Does it show that bad?”

“No,” I said, both of us knowing it did. But the guy was doing his best. “I'd like to see a copy of Ruben's will, along with those records.”

“No problem. I'll get them brought in, along with a couple of tables so you can spread it all out.”

“I also want the service records of Staff Sergeant Butler and his men.”

“Easy,” said Lyne.

“Can you get them to my quarters now?”

“Done.”

“What about medicines? Did he have anything prescription listed among his personal effects?” I picked the pill off the floor between thumb and forefinger. I cupped it in my hand. It was pale blue and pitted — nibbled? None of the roach carcasses appeared to be dried-out husks. They hadn't been dead long. A week maybe. Perhaps they'd all keeled over at roughly the same time. Maybe it was something they ate.

“Let me check.” I heard paper being flicked over. “No… no, nothing special. The list here says … Tylenols, floss, condoms, antiseptic cream, hemorrhoid cream — the usual. I thought you had all this.”

I told him I didn't. I only had the coroner's report along with Selwyn's and the previous investigator's notes, all of which suggested that if Butler didn't do it then one of his helpers did. So far, I hadn't seen anything that might have led me to disagree with this broader view. But I had a few things to check on and I wanted to keep an open mind.

I followed Highway 98 as it tracked the shoreline, in one side of Destin and out the other. I checked the number on the white stucco wall to make sure it matched the address I'd written down in my notebook. SAS Staff Sergeant Butler, Corporal William Dortmund, Lance Corporal Brian Wignall, and Troopers Damian Mortensen and Brent Norris were shacked up nice and cozy and convenient — for me — in a detached mock-Spanish-style house on the cheap side of the highway, the landward side.

The clouds had rolled away and the sky down toward Cuba was the color of polished copper. The molten sun sat a couple of inches off the horizon as I pulled into the driveway.

One of Butler's men answered the doorbell — I recognized him from the photo attached to his file. Trooper Norris was the shortest of the Brits, stocky, with powerful arms and legs like Christmas hams. He had dirty blond hair and skin flushed a bright red. It was the type of skin that was always that color, like it was reacting badly to something. Maybe it was something in the air, like America. Whatever, he invited me to come in and so I followed him into the small living room, which had been converted into sleeping quarters for three of the men.

Sleeping bags were rolled up out of the way. Gear was stacked neatly everywhere. Their mothers would have been proud. Two of the men were cleaning and servicing various items. The place smelled of male body odor, spray deodorant, and old pizza, boxes for which were piled neatly on the kitchen table. The door opened to what I guessed was a bathroom because Butler walked out with a towel around his waist and another around his shoulders. “Oh, just a sec,” he said, ducking behind another door and appearing a moment later dressed in shorts and a T-shirt that stuck to his skin where it was still wet.

“Sorry, guv'nor,” he said. “Didn't realize the time.”

Butler smelled like he'd bathed in cologne, and his hair was gelled up like a cockscomb. I handed him five of my cards, each with a time written on the flip side.

“What are these for, then?” he asked.

“I want to interview you and your men separately tomorrow morning. I've checked your training schedule and you've got a rest day. The appearance order's up to you, Staff Sergeant, except that I want to see you last,” I said. Butler and his men had been together long enough after the death of Sergeant Wright to have put their stories in order. I figured another twelve hours wouldn't make any difference. And, in fact, there was really only one of the men I wanted to talk to. I just didn't want Butler to know that. “In the meantime, do you know who this is?” I showed Butler the photo I'd found under the fridge.

“Yeah, that's Sergeant Wright.”

“Thanks. The woman. Who's the woman?”

“The light's not good. I think that's Amy. What do you think, Norris? Is that Amy?”

He showed the picture to Norris, who nodded tentatively. “Yeah,” he said. “Could be.”

The light in the photo wasn't great, but the woman's face was clearly visible. “That would be Amy McDonough?” I asked. Poor light or not, there couldn't have been many women around who looked like Amy, let alone women who looked like Amy and who also had the same name.

Norris mumbled something. He glanced at Butler. Butler took over. “Yeah, Amy McDonough. I think Amy and Sergeant Wright were friends.”

“What sort of friends?”

“The sort that's more than friends. Or were.”

“You care to speak American for me, Staff Sergeant?”

“They were shagging, but I believe they split up,” said Butler.

All but one of the men seemed relaxed about making eye contact. The guy who wouldn't look me in the face was the same man I remembered seeming uncomfortable at the crime scene. “Do you know where she works?” I asked.

Butler shook his head. His men played “Sergeant says,” copying him. It was easy to see who was boss, and it wasn't me. They were cautious, like I might be the kind of animal that could turn around and bite them. Butler, on the other hand, was a known quantity to these guys. He would maul them. I'd met guys like Butler before. They made life hell for the people around them and beneath them, while they buried their noses between the ass cheeks of their superiors. They were not good leaders. In battle, they got good people killed. In peacetime, they got good people in trouble.

“Well, if you guys run into Amy, tell her to give me a call. You've all got my number.” It wasn't the only reason I handed out my card to each. I wanted Butler's men to have someone they could contact if anything was preying on their minds. “I'll see one of you tomorrow at OSI, Hurlburt Field, oh-nine-hundred. Sharp.” I walked out without waiting for acknowledgment.

Later that evening, I was beginning to think that maybe I was slipping. It could be that Butler always dolled himself up before hitting the sack, but I doubted it. The Explorer I was sitting in was backed into the shadows provided by a building a little down the road from the house Butler and his men had rented. The local radio station was rotating through the hit parade, just filler for a barrage of inane advertising for local restaurants, tire stores, and the casinos in Biloxi selling cheap rooms to suckers. Three hours of this and my brain was turning to mush.

But then, at just after 2130, a cab arrived. Butler ducked out his front door and jumped in.

I followed the cab for thirty miles down Highway 98 to Laguna Beach. There, it pulled up to a bar with a flashing neon palm tree over the entrance. More flashing neon informed me this was Miss Palm's. It was the sort of out-of-the-way place where Butler was unlikely to run into anyone he knew, unless the meeting was of the arranged variety. Butler got out and went inside. I pulled the SUV under the fronds of a stand of real palm trees and told myself to give it ten minutes. I only had to wait five. A red Chevy Cavalier in need of a wash pulled into the lot. The brake lights went out, and the interior light came on. I watched a woman touch up her lipstick in the rearview mirror. She got out of the vehicle — a looker in jeans, heels, and leather jacket. The light wasn't so good, but Amy's red hair shone. And she was tall, maybe five eleven. Striking, was the word that came instantly to mind. I made a note of her license plate.

There were plenty of cars in Miss Palm's parking lot, indicating a crowd. I took a calculated risk and walked in. The decor was designed to resemble a tropical beach shack — the sort created by expensive architects following local building codes to the letter. The air smelled of barbecue, sautéed garlic, perfume, and wine. U2's “Beautiful Day” was playing through hidden speakers. Amy McDonough and Butler were at the bar, sitting behind a couple of super-sized margaritas. Amy seemed angry. Butler was doing the talking, attempting to mollify her. I couldn't get close enough to hear what the problem was, not without revealing my presence. But whatever he was trying to sell her, McDonough wasn't buying it. They weren't exactly making a scene. Her anger was more the smoldering kind, the sort generated between people who'd shared bodily fluids and were maybe starting to regret it.

I hadn't been there more than ten minutes before I realized the crowd in the place was thinning. I didn't want to be seen. I left as Amy stomped off to the ladies' room while Butler stared at the floor, shaking his head. Maybe he, too, was thinking about the drive back to Hurlburt Field with nothing but the local radio station for company.