Swift Vengeance

12

Joan Taucher started out half a step ahead of me on the Embarcadero, her boots tapping a cadence on the boardwalk. We were southbound in the brisk morning, too early for tourists, under a gray blanket of clouds that looked heavy enough to lie on. A cold Pacific storm from the north was due by noon. I’d had my morning run into the hills, my half-hour alternating the heavy and speed bags in the barn, some sit-ups. Felt clear and ready.

“Thanks for the early call and the pictures,” she said. “I don’t think those images will leave my head anytime soon. Of all the stuff I’ve seen — plane wrecks to crime scenes to autopsies to cartel snuffs — those were the pure worst.”

“They’re stuck in my head, too.”

“Oh, Christ,” said Taucher, stopping and looking at me. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said plane wrecks. I wasn’t thinking.”

Planes and wrecks. My heart beats faster when I hear an older Cessna 182 churning through the sky above. Taucher had no way of knowing that I’d first laid eyes on Justine Timmerman during a cold winter storm like the one about to hit us. At a holiday party in the Grand Hyatt hotel, which was just a few blocks from where we now walked. I looked up at that hotel, a mirrored wedge atop the skyline. Remembered red-haired Justine in her red party dress and the rain lashing the windows of the banquet room.

Taucher reclaimed her half-step lead. “My bedside manner has always sucked,” she said. A gull wheeled and cried and Joan’s boot heels thumped along. “Anyway, I sent your picture of the Bakersfield threat letter to our questioned-documents section. Match. Same writer as Lindsey’s and Voss’s threats. No doubt of that. And speaking of Lindsey’s threat, the original you so heroically salvaged for me — the lab found DMSO on the letter and the envelope.”

“Horse liniment.”

“I thought of Rasha Samara’s Arabians, like you are right now,” she said. “But no DMSO on his thank-you note or envelope. DMSO is also a remedy for aching humans, and you can get it at any feed and tack store. The trace particles left on the paper were clear. And don’t forget, our documents section could not establish that Samara wrote the threat to Lindsey. Based on comparison with a perfect handwriting sample — his thank-you note. To which he signed his own name.”

The cruise-ship terminal was coming up on our right. I could see the impressive Emerald Empress at dock, the gangplanks being moved into place. The cloud blanket had not visibly moved in the heavy pre-storm stillness.

Taucher turned to look at me, then slowed her pace. “Now, the calligraphy pen used to write the letters was likely the same instrument. Note I said pen, not marker. Our writer is a fascinating combination of artist and amateur. His instruments could be considered professional grade, but his execution is fair at best. Self-taught, probably. With a how-to calligraphy book and a good sample of Arabic writing to work from, most people could do what Caliphornia did.”

“Maybe he is Arabic.”

“Back to Rasha? Maybe. But Rasha Samara is native-born and Caliphornia’s phrasing sounds slightly foreign. I want to decapitate you with my knife... to cause you death. The Bakersfield threat was less stilted but stuffed with Islamic references. The writer used a one-millimeter stainless steel nib, with minute flaws that both our stereomicroscope and spectral comparator picked up. The tip is iridium. The lab thinks the nib used on both threats was a Brause Hatat, which the Brause catalog recommends for Hebrew and Arabic writing. More comparison testing to come, but the same flaws showed up on both documents. They’re like tool marks on bullets or cartridge casings. Same writer, same pen. Same ink, also — an acrylic shellac suspending the pigments and dyes. The ink is animal-free, which means likely a high-end maker.”

We continued down the boardwalk. Joggers and walkers and a few moms with strollers. “Why are you telling me this, Joan?”

Which brought us to a stop. And got me a flat stare.

“I’m helping you, dumbass.”

“Why?”

“I respect what you’re trying to do for Lindsey Rakes,” she said. “I respect your loyalty to her. She told me you’re not charging her for protection, investigation, anything related to this.”

I thought of Jason Bayless’s charges against my loyalty, and was momentarily glad to have a differing opinion from Taucher. Deep loyalty has two very sharp edges. In truth, when I resigned from the Sheriff’s Department, I questioned my loyalty, too. It was always Us against Them. And I’d willingly ditched the Us. So what did that say about me?

“More important, Ford — I’ll help anyone who can help me cancel Caliphornia’s ticket here in my Golden State. You are my citizen and I need your help. That terrorist son of a bitch is cutting off American heads on my watch, and I can’t even build a decent suspect profile. He’s out there, and he’s ten steps ahead of us. And, as my father liked to say, that frosts my balls.”

I looked down at Taucher as she regarded the ships on the water. In the cloudy coastal light, her heavily made-up eyes were raptorlike. Light brown in the iris, and unblinking. Startlingly clear. I wondered if she dreamed only of work and of terror and how to banish it from her city. Though I knew that wasn’t likely, I couldn’t guess or even convincingly imagine what she might dream about, other than that. I didn’t care exactly, but for some reason I wanted to know.

She was right about not having enough knowledge of Caliphornia to effectively cast even the widest of nets.

“You know I’m in,” I said.

She nodded.

“Did Bakersfield PD show you the security video?”

“Indeed they did,” said Taucher. “It’s grainy. Isn’t security video always grainy? From liquor stores to international airports. They haven’t improved the common security video camera in what, thirty years?”

“Why are you torturing me, Joan?”

She actually looked surprised. “Well, male — we saw that much. His race is iffy. Maybe Caucasian, but just as easily a light-skinned Semite, Latin or Arab. Rule out black and Asian. When I said grainy I wasn’t kidding. And the angle is terrible. There are six and a half seconds of recording. Two seconds show him in profile, from the side as he comes into the camera, moving toward the apartments. The last four and a half seconds are of his back. He looks somewhere in his twenties or thirties, six-feet-one or — two, one hundred seventy to two hundred pounds. Dressed like a surfer or a boarder — flannel and loose pants, those big clunky board shoes. And a half-zipped U.S. Air Force hoodie, which is maybe why Kenny Bryce opened his door. The hood was up in the video, hiding his hair and most of his face. A cool-dude walk. Light gait. Well balanced. The video was taken from high up and mostly behind. He’d obviously cased the place and knew where the cameras were. On his way back into the carport, he trotted, hood up and head down. That light gait again, like an athlete. The detectives told me it was the only camera that caught him. No one saw such a man come or go that night. Caliphornia arrived at eleven ten and departed at eleven twenty-six, according to the video time and date stamp.”

I remembered the cameras on the carport. “All the front doors would be off-screen,” I said.

“Yes,” said Taucher. “Unfortunate for us, but a valid privacy issue. Because from the blood, it looks like Caliphornia stabbed Bryce in the heart before he even got past the door. Before Bryce could even fire his gun. Imagine the stones it would take to do that with a porch light shining down on you. And the door open. You’re in plain sight.”

“I’m surprised Kenny Bryce opened his door,” I said. “The peephole worked well enough.”

Taucher nodded. “Here’s where the path forks. If you take the right fork to answer why he opened his door, you get the Air Force hoodie logo. Bryce would immediately register a friendly. I saw all that Air Force stuff in his office. Or maybe Caliphornia flashed a convincing law enforcement ID. Such as the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.”

“What if the ID was genuine?” I asked.

Taucher cut me a sharp look. The idea of American agents becoming murderers or terrorists does not sit well with American agents, even those in agencies who refuse to cooperate or even get out of each other’s way. I’d touched her federal nerve.

“For that matter, maybe Bryce knew Caliphornia,” she said. “Saw him through the peep and swung the door right open.”

I had thought the same, and realized that Lindsey might know him, too.

“He seems to know them,” said Taucher. “He used the word personal with Lindsey. He accused Bryce of causing death — most likely a reference to his war experience. The same with the threat to Voss.”

Consequences and calculations came at me in silence then, as we strode south down the Embarcadero. A cold breeze broke the stillness, blurring the smooth water of the bay. I heard the halyards and lanyards ringing from the yachts.

“And if you take the left fork to answer that question?” I asked. “Why Bryce opened his door to Caliphornia?”

Another unhappy glance. “Someone walked past that security camera thirty seconds ahead of Caliphornia. Headed the same way. A woman. Again — terrible video. Young, judging by her movement and posture. Dressed in layers. Like maybe a sweater and shawl for the cold. Or a full-length overcoat. Carrying something up against her left side. A package? A twelve-pack? A bundle of mail? You can’t tell. She was right at the edge of the picture. Four seconds and gone. The manager didn’t recognize her. Neighbors didn’t, either. Was she with Caliphornia? We don’t know. Did she knock on Bryce’s door? We don’t know. We can’t even say where she went once she passed out of the camera’s field of view.”

I said the obvious: “Kenny might be more likely to open his door to a woman.”

“Exactly.”

The breeze rose, rippling the bay.

“Lindsey’s with you, right?” asked Taucher. “Physically on your property? None of this motel-room-in-Las-Vegas bullshit?”

“She’s with me.”

“You think you can protect her?”

“Yes, I do.”

“You see what you’re up against?”

“I see it.”

“I hate amateurs, Roland.”

“I do, too, Joan.”

“My medical examiners say Caliphornia is a good beheader.”

“What is a good beheader?”

“It was relatively fast and clean,” she said. “Done with a long-handled, fixed-blade knife that was very sharp. They can tell by the length and depth of the cuts, and how cleanly the vertebrae were severed. ‘A sashimi-sharp knife wielded by a two-hundred-pound weightlifter’ is how one of them put it. Our MEs have such atrocious senses of humor.”

Very sharp, I thought. As a knife sharpened on a whetstone might be.

“The MEs won’t rule out two attackers, even though the crime scene people say one,” said Joan. “Two different sets of angles on the slashes.”

“Or one man with two knives,” I said.

“A ninja-style beheader?” asked Taucher. “Doubtful.”

“Maybe he’s high,” I said. I was thinking of fenethylline, a powerful amphetamine manufactured in Syria and Iraq, and sold to fighters on both sides. Fighting pills. The popular name is Captagon and it was once manufactured for profit in the United States. Coming from makeshift labs in the Middle East, Captagon is a crude brown tablet. In Fallujah we found bags full of them on insurgents. Captagon is alleged to stimulate unnatural strength, stamina, and cruelty in whoever takes it.

Taucher looked at me unhappily, as if I were adding to her problems. “Captagon?”

“Or something like it.”

“You think this guy is Middle Eastern?” she asked. “Careful what you say. They’ll start calling you phobic and obsessive. A burned-out witch on a mission.”

“Read the threats again,” I said. “The language of them. If you need reminding.”

“I don’t need reminding, and I can’t shake the image of Kenny’s decapitation. The lab said Caliphornia was able to use his victim’s weight — and gravity — to accomplish his mutilation. Really put his back and legs into it. The average human head weighs sixteen pounds.”

A surprising levity in her voice. Gallows humor? One way to deal with horror. Then shoes on the boardwalk, coming fast behind us. Taucher wheeled on the runner huffing past, eyes wide and not a little wild.

“Okay,” she said, her voice possibly one small degree more hopeful. “I’d like to thank you again for the Bryce pictures and the early heads-up. You helped me. You didn’t have to.”

I told her she was welcome and immediately asked her where Rasha Samara had been the night Kenny Bryce died.

She glanced at me, then away. “We’re working on it. We’re good at that kind of thing. But not even the FBI can watch everybody every hour. Think of all those faces on my office walls.”

I did, nodding.

“I’m sure you’ve gathered the basics on Samara,” she said. “What more do you want?”

“I want to know why you’re looking at him. He builds golf courses and rides horses.”

“Because he’s a rich American of Saudi descent who travels frequently to the Middle East, is widely known and connected, and has relationships with Saudi-Arabian political and business players. These people have money, rivers of it, all flowing down to them from oil. Rasha associates with some people whom the Bureau is this close to classifying as sponsors of terrorism.” She turned to me mid-stride and raised one hand to brandish a quarter-inch gap between thumb and forefinger. “This close. And this ends the Rasha Samara discussion we didn’t have.”

“Understood. I thank you for your help.”

“I don’t dislike you and I want you to protect Lindsey.”

“I’m glad you don’t dislike me.”

“I do permit myself certain emotions.”

“Name one, Joan.”

I saw the flicker of humor on her face. Our pace slowed just a little. Taucher tried to get back on task but some of the fight had gone out of her voice. In its place was something new. Resignation? Disappointment?

Then ten steps each in silence, more or less synchronous, taking us farther down the boardwalk. Don’t know why I counted them. The fretful bed of gray clouds had still not seemed to move, even as the breeze came faster.

“I will now share a confidence with you,” said Taucher. “I don’t like being seen outside.”

“Why not?”

“Because of my makeup. You’ve noticed that I wear heavy makeup.”

“Yes. Why?” I asked. I felt like a compass needle unable to settle.

“Well, the makeup on my face is to hide what’s under it,” she said. “But around my eyes, the makeup is to show them off. My eyes are my only good feature.”

“I’ve never suspected you of vanity.”

“Doesn’t it scream out?”

“Your eyes look good, Joan. But what are you hiding?”

“I’ll tell you. I used to get kicked and punched in my face a lot in MMA. Goes with the territory, like with your boxing. One day, in a match, I got kicked really hard. Didn’t see it coming. Knocked me down but I got right back up. Won that fight, too. The downside was this acute hematoma that developed on my cheek. Kind of like a blood blister but deeper. Left cheek, over the bone but spreading down almost to my mouth, and up into my left nostril. And the hematoma never went away. It faded some. And it got a little smaller. But it turned from liver red to this cadaver-gray, raised, pore-dotted splotch that would look like hell on any person’s face. But this is my face, so I use the makeup. Of course, you can’t make up only a part of your face without calling attention to your secret. You have to go all in. That’s me. I’ve gone to dermatologists and cosmetologists and clinics and classes and consultants, all to learn how to put on makeup like a pro. I traveled to Tokyo to study makeup with an actual Geisha. I’ve worked at it. Still, when I’m outside, especially on a cloudy damp day like today? Well, if I’m not perfectly and heavily defended with my makeup, I look like an aging woman who got kicked in the face too many times and too hard. Which is what I am. I wish I didn’t have to make myself up like a whore. I dislike my vanity. But not as much as my hematoma. Does any of that make any sense at all?”

She laughed, brief and dry. Then turned to face the bay. The rain hit hard and suddenly. Slapped heavy on the water, raising mist like steam. We stopped under a metal restaurant awning built to protect waiting customers from the sun, raindrops roaring down.

“How are you going to handle Bakersfield with the media?” I asked.

“Publicly, we’re not involved,” she said. “I’m leaving it all to BPD. Their show.”

“Are they going public with the mutilation?”

“No,” said Joan. “Not with the threat, either. Just that he was found stabbed to death in his home. We weighed the value of telling the whole truth against the terror it might cause. It felt really good to deny this bag of dirt his moment in the sun.”

“He doesn’t seem to want publicity at all,” I said.

“You watch,” she said. “He’ll change, now that he’s followed through with Kenny Bryce. Classic pattern of radicalization. Anger, disillusionment, curiosity, commitment, action, escalation. He’s got confidence now. He’ll seek credit. He’ll be vulnerable to recruiters. We’ll hear some kind of communication from him. I expect it. I dread it.”

She dug her phone from her coat. She held her device up close and it chimed and a cool glow played off her face. I looked for the hematoma but couldn’t make it out. Wondered if it prognosticated dire events, like my own scar did. Her pale raptor’s eyes seemed to draw the light from the screen as her thumbs flew and the glow from the phone changed colors. She stared at the screen for a long moment, then slid the phone back into her pocket.

“Sorry,” she said. “My handlers like a short leash these days. Your turn now. What did you learn about Hector Padilla?”

I told her about my conversation with youth imam Hadi Yousef, and the odd behavior of Padilla at Masjid Al-Rribat Al-Islami. His interest in Islam, and in finding a Muslim woman. His loitering outside the women’s prayer room. When I told her about the large sharpening stone that had fallen from Hector’s upturned backpack and landed on Hadi’s desk, Taucher’s breath caught. “Who carries around a fucking sharpening stone?”

“Hadi said it looked new.”

Taucher’s eyes narrowed, and, heavily made up or not, sparked with anger. “Is he still working at that hospital on Genesee?”

“He works a midnight shift,” I said. “And yes, he worked the night Kenny Bryce was killed.”

She betrayed some small hint of appreciation of my professional reach. “You have a source at First Samaritan?”

I shrugged. One of my old deputy friends was their head of security. For him, a call to the janitorial subcontractor was all it took.

“I need one more thing,” I said.

“You’re the neediest informant I’ve ever run.”

“I have to see the surveillance video from Kenny Bryce’s place.”

An SDPD police cruiser came by, tires swooshing through the quickly rising rainwater. The patrolman gave us a look.

“That’s physical evidence,” she said. “They’d have my head. God, I have to stop saying things like that. Anyway, the surveillance video is a tall order, Ford.”

“I understand.”

“Maybe you don’t,” she said. “The video is FBI property and I can’t let it leave the building. Not physically, not electronically. Either one gets me written up, demoted, or canned.”

“Send me a self-destruct file,” I said. “Then I can’t betray you.”

Exasperation. “They’ll see it the second I send it.”

“Have someone else send it.”

Spy versus spy, I thought. Until now, I’d never thought of Taucher as at risk from her own organization. I’d thought of her as a rock. Now I wondered about her short leash. But as I considered it, I saw that she would have her internal enemies, just like any other ambitious employee. Maybe more. Her fierce attitude. Her blunt humorlessness. Her legendary obsession with 9/11. The fact that she could never quite be a part of the old-boys network.

“And,” she continued, “if I bring you back to JTTF again to show you that video behind closed doors, heads will turn. ‘What’s with Taucher and that PI? What’s the paranoid old hag up to now?’”

I told her I knew what it was like to work in a large organization. What happens if it turns on you. “You might enjoy private work, Joan. Like mine.”

“Is that supposed to be funny?” But before I could answer, she said, “But you should see it — the Bryce video. I’ll think of something.”

“Six and a half seconds,” I reminded her.

“I’ve got an idea,” she said. “But get off my back, Ford. I don’t negotiate.”

I nodded and watched the rain pelting the bay, half amazed that Joan Taucher would put herself at risk to help her neediest informant. I’d been a genuine help to her so far — I’d brought Caliphornia and his threats to her instead of to her superiors — but how much more favor would that earn me?

And I was puzzled, but somehow pleased, that heavily made-up Taucher had chosen to be seen outside by me. I wasn’t sure why I was pleased. Maybe something as simple as not disliking her. Maybe something as simple as being on the same side. “It’s all about risk and trust,” I said.

“What is?”

“Heading into a storm you know is there,” I said.

A glimmer of mirth in her eyes. “It doesn’t rain in San Diego,” she said.