The Mark

23

Mauser took two Advil and popped them in his mouth. Then he thought twice and popped two more. He thanked the young kid who stood over him with the medicine bottle, grinning like a dog who’d just won first prize. Joe’s head throbbed, blood pounding in the knot over his left temple. The Advil couldn’t work fast enough. The kid in the light brown St. Louis County Police Department uniform looked thrilled just to be at the scene. Mauser thanked him again, slowly pushing off the bed where he’d been sitting for the last half hour, trying to shake away the cobwebs.

Denton was out in the hallway. The head of the Bureau of Fugitive Affairs, some guy named Wendell whose face didn’t look a day over thirty, yet whose hair was already going salt-and-pepper, was scolding him, cursing like his schoolmates had just taught him some brand-new four-letter words. Mauser had gotten the first half of Wendell’s riot act before shooing the man away, claiming his headache might trigger involuntary violent reactions to “assholes who think that their mouths are bullhorns.”

Denton had a blueberry-colored bruise on the side of his neck where he’d hit the armoire. He’d been absolutely livid, but Mauser was able to calm the man down, told him the department would give hazard pay for hickeys attained in the line of duty.

They found a knapsack that belonged to Parker. Denton tore it open, had a dismayed look on his face when all they pulled out was a tape recorder and a reporter’s notebook. Nothing on the tape except an interview with Luis Guzman, the man Parker later attacked. A perfect cover, really. Parker interviewed him, pretended to do his job, to make it look like he had a legitimate reason to be there.

Mauser eyed Len Denton. It wasn’t just anger that had gotten to him, but something had struck fear into the young agent. He was surprised Denton had pulled the trigger so easily, hadn’t even bothered to negotiate, had taken a huge chance that the bullet wouldn’t strike Amanda Davies. He wondered if the younger agent’s nervous system had hit its breaking point, like so many agents who weren’t cut out for fieldwork.

He watched them argue in Amanda Davies’s hallway, Denton absently scratching his bruised neck. Wendell turning purple, then blue, then a shade of gray that couldn’t have been healthy. The bedroom still smelled heavily of cordite and mace residue. The shell casing from Denton’s gun had already been removed by forensics, along with blood samples and fingerprints from the black-clad assassin. Despite his hesitations, Mauser would support Denton’s decision to open fire.

He’d seen the look in the man’s eyes, knew it was almost blind luck they’d shown up when they did. The man would have killed both Parker and Davies, without question.

He watched Denton, their eyes connecting and rolling in unison. Wendell was really going to town, enjoying it, too. Finally the bureau chief stopped shouting, more like he’d run out of gas than colorful vocabulary.

A quick search of the surrounding area had turned up nothing but some broken branches and footprints that led to the highway. Blood droplets would be almost undetectable in the mud, so they couldn’t tell if Parker or Davies were wounded. There were no bodies, no sign of Parker, Davies, or the man Denton had shot.

Anger rose inside Joe Mauser as he realized they’d lost their only lead.

Wendell walked into Amanda Davies’s room, his eyebrows quivering as he stopped in front of Mauser. Joe sighed. For his own sake, he hoped Wendell realized how short his fuse was.

“What you and your partner did tonight was thoroughly unprofessional,” Wendell said. “Not informing my department about this fugitive was a breach of protocol that just boggles my mind. And not only did you fail to arrest this man, you put other lives in danger. What if he’d broken into another home? What if he’d-”

“But he didn’t,” Mauser interrupted.

“That’s not the point,” Wendell continued unabated. “This is my county, not yours, agent.”

Spittle hit Mauser in the face. He calmly wiped it off, but felt warmth begin to spread under his collar. Looking for his partner, Mauser saw Denton out in the hall chatting with a pretty blond officer. Figured.

“Chief,” Mauser said. “With all due respect, please shut the fuck up. Right now.”

Wendell folded his arms across his chest, waiting to hear what this brute had to say. Mauser continued.

“The reason we didn’t inform you is because we couldn’t confirm Parker’s location. If we’d put out a statewide APB, he’d have disappeared faster than you can stick your tongue up your supervisor’s ass. We had Parker, in this house, done deal.”

Wendell snorted, gestured to the doorway. “Done deal. Well, where is he then if you don’t mind me asking? Maybe hiding under the bed? That’s a good hiding spot, perhaps we should check there. You and your partner had him cornered, in a house, alone and unarmed. You had weapons, he didn’t. You had the drop on him. Maybe you should have asked Parker to tie himself up, stand out on the porch wrapped in a pretty pink bow.”

“Again, all due respect, chief,” Mauser said. “But you know full well what happened. There’s no way we could have predicted this other man to show up.”

“Yeah, your boy Denton there put a bullet in him and you still managed to lose all three of them.”

“Matter of time,” Mauser said. “The grass is wet outside. You have two trails of footprints. I’ll let you guess which ones belong to Parker and the girl. If you’ll notice, they both lead to the highway. You’ve got roadblocks in place?”

“Being set up as we speak,” Wendell said. Mauser nodded.

“Good. Now there are precious few places they could have gone. You want my advice, chief? Check rest stops, motels, fast-food joints on all interstate roads into Illinois. That’s your best bet.”

Wendell nodded absently, as if unwilling to concede anything. Denton entered, slipping a scrap of paper into his pocket. Mauser immediately knew he’d snagged the blonde’s phone number. Always on the hunt. Denton put his hand on Joe’s shoulder, spoke in a low voice.

“How you holding up, hoss?”

“Don’t call me ‘hoss.’” Denton held up his hands in mock surrender. Mauser rubbed his temple. “Fucking head feels like a bear sat on it.”

“Maybe you should go in for an MRI,” Denton said. “If you have a concussion you might need to sit out a few plays.”

“Fuck that,” Mauser said. “Get me some aspirin and I’ll be fine. Parker has two hours on us. The longer we sit here, the greater chance he and the Davies girl have of getting picked off by that black-clad S and M freak you plugged.”

Denton nodded. Mauser detected a slight twinge in the man’s neck. He couldn’t tell if it was remorse, or something else. “Quick shot you took back there, too,” Mauser said, his eyes softening a bit.

“Yeah, suppose it was.”

“Girl was in the way. You didn’t have a clean line of sight.”

“Cleaner than most. Cleaner than the one you took yesterday up in Harlem.” Joe had to concede that, but for some reason his firing felt justified. “You saw the man’s eyes as well as I did. If we’d gotten here five minutes later Davies would be dead. Besides, I’ve made that shot a dozen times. I aimed for the suprascapular nerve in the shoulder. You hit that, he drops the gun. Worked out pretty well, all things considered.”

“You didn’t come anywhere near to hitting his shoulder.

You were aiming to kill, Leonard, don’t play stupid. Now Parker’s still out there. We need to bring him in or that Davies girl won’t stand a chance.”

Denton nodded absently. Hostage or not, Amanda Davies was now part of the equation. And add to that this new, violent wild card.

Loud voices rang in the hall outside, a commotion brewing. He heard Wendell’s edgy voice. Are you sure? Are you positive? Is that even possible?

Mauser cocked his head, tried to eavesdrop. He caught sporadic words, then turned to Denton, who was doing the same. After a few moments, Wendell marched back into the room, hands firmly on his hips. A balding techie stood next to him, eager, jittery. Wendell looked like a parent ready-and perversely thrilled-to deliver a scolding.

“Well, agents, you’ve officially hit the fucked-up jackpot,” Wendell said, a slight grin on his face. That grin, Mauser recognized, was pure schadenfreude. “Tony? Show ’em.”

Tony the techie handed a few pieces of fax paper to Denton and Mauser. It was a criminal profile, faxed over from the Department of Justice. Without reading it, Mauser said, “What is this?”

“We’ve got an ID on your mysterious assassin, the one with a fresh new bullet hole thanks to Jesse James here and his itchy trigger finger. We lifted full prints from the Davies girl’s desk. Frankly, it’s the only part of the night that’s not a complete disaster. No coincidence it’s my men who saved it from being just that.”

Tony said, “We pulled fresh latents and ran them through IAFIS.”

Joe nodded. IAFIS was short for the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, a searchable database that contained records on over fifty-one million subjects. Until IAFIS became operational in 1999, it could take months to check fingerprints. Nowadays two hours was considered slow.

“They sent back a perfect match. Guy’s got a pretty impressive record. Not, you know, in a good way. No convictions, but he’s been questioned in a laundry list of crimes ranging from ‘sorry officer, won’t happen again’ to ‘I have a special spot reserved in hell.’ Our mysterious friend did time in juvenile hall for grand theft auto, but allegedly graduated to homicide by the ripe age of eighteen.”

“Allegedly,” Denton said. Wendell snorted.

“Yeah, right. Allegedly. Not just one, but four homicides to be exact. Every time he either had an alibi that held up, or the lead witness was found at the bottom of an elevator shaft. You get the idea.”

Mauser looked at the first page. A mug photo. He recognized it as the man Denton had shot, only this photo looked at least ten years old. The man’s hair was a little longer then, features softer. He was smiling, a big toothy grin. Confidence up the ass, like he didn’t have a care in the world, knew he was going to get off with a pat on the ass and a lollipop in his mouth.

The man they fought tonight had the same skin color, eye color, the same bone structure, but Joe could tell the man’s soul had been ravaged in the years since the mug shot was taken. This man was cold, unforgiving, devoid of confidence because confidence didn’t exist in his world. Someone had stuck a steel blade deep into the man’s heart and twisted it.

Mauser read the name on the profile.

Shelton Barnes.

Joe heard Denton emit a small gasp, his head shaking slightly. Wendell continued. “There’s an outstanding warrant for the arrest of Shelton Barnes from the murder of a teamster in Williamsburg. Guy was shot twice in the back of the head, then his eyes and teeth were removed. Fingers chopped off, never found. Poor bastard’s wife identified him from a scar on the inside of his thigh he got from scaling a chain-link fence as a kid.”

Mauser scanned the profile. How was Shelton Barnes connected to Henry Parker? And how did Barnes end up in St. Louis? The man was wanted for murder in an entirely different state, had evaded capture for ten years, then he suddenly turns up in the middle of their manhunt? It didn’t make sense.

“You’re missing the best part.” Wendell handed over another page with a grainy, poorly lit photo. Mauser looked at the gruesome picture, felt his body shiver, his stomach turn over. He took a deep breath. He looked at the photo of the charred, mutilated thing that used to be a man. The body was beyond unrecognizable, the skin having sloughed off, the bones chipped and brittle. It looked less like a skeleton than a piece of meat left too long on a grill. He heard Denton swallow. Mauser looked up, his mouth dry.

“I thought you said the guy Barnes killed in Williamsburg was shot to death,” Mauser said. “This guy looks like he got stuck in a deep fryer.”

Wendell shook his head, and suddenly Mauser understood.

“That’s not the man Shelton Barnes killed,” Wendell said, his voice even. “That is Shelton Barnes. According to the Department of Justice, Shelton Barnes and his pregnant wife died in a fire ten years ago. Looks like the only thing you two turned up tonight is a goddamn walking corpse.”