The nameless dead

Seventeen

The Soul Collector recoiled as the flash filled the lenses of her binoculars and, a moment later, her ears were battered by the explosion’s report. She was on top of a four-story block about four hundred yards away, wearing thermal fleece under her dark-colored heavy-weather jacket and trousers. Flying had meant she brought no weapons of her own apart from the plastic switchblade, but that had never been a problem in the past. As smoke furled from the house and flames appeared at the windows, she watched the people in front of the building move rapidly away.

She had recognized Matt as soon as he had come into the light from the streetlamp. He looked in good shape, but his face was drawn and his shoulders sagged, as if he was carrying a heavy weight. Beside him was another person she knew: the FBI man Peter Sebastian, who had been much in evidence in news broadcasts after the chaos at the cathedral. He was in charge of violent crime across the U.S., which begged the question, what was he doing in Portland, Maine, with Matt by his side?

Sara used the high-precision binoculars to zoom in the other people who were squatting behind vehicles as the fire raged unchecked. There were police personnel in uniform, including a grizzled man wearing a cap festooned by gold braid. Despite his rank, he seemed to be taking orders from Sebastian, with Matt gesturing decisively to him, as well. Her former lover had his arm round a crouching figure in a red sweater. The blond hair was styled in a way that suggested a female. When she turned her head, Sara saw that was the case-she also saw that the woman was terrified, her mouth opening and closing rapidly as she gestured toward the house. Shortly afterward, fire engines arrived and the people behind the cars were moved farther away, out of sight.

She remained in position, trying to make sense of what was going on. She had followed a Maine State Police cruiser from the Portland headquarters to the vicinity of the house, in the hope that Matt would show up. He and Sebastian must have left before the cruiser, so she had been lucky to locate him in this manner. Since Sara didn’t think much of luck, she certainly didn’t want to rely on it again. That meant she had only one course of action-to get off the roof and up close and personal with Matt. She put the binoculars in her rucksack and took out the switchblade. It was time to put the surveillance skills to the test. Maybe there would be a chance to use her other more lethal abilities, too.

The Soul Collector avoided the group of rubber-neckers in the street leading to the burning house and slipped into the cover provided by a line of trees. Even though her eyes moved constantly from side to side, she failed to notice the tall form crouching behind a black Grand Cherokee.

Mary Upson had been given a blanket by a fireman. She still had it round her shoulders in the interview room back at the State Police building. I pushed a cup of coffee toward her.

‘It’ll warm you up,’ I said. The smile I gave was hesitant. She hadn’t yet shown any sign of hostility to me, but she had other things on her mind. ‘Have you any idea where your mother might have gone?’

She kept her eyes off me. ‘I already told the FBI men I didn’t.’

I’d asked for some time alone with her, though I knew Sebastian would be observing us on the other side of the glass.

‘I’m not with the FBI, Mary.’

‘How do I know they’re not listening?’ she demanded, her eyes wide. Suddenly, she wasn’t the smart but naive grade-school teacher who had helped me get out of Maine in the autumn. Then again, she and her mother had been questioned at length after the cathedral debacle-that might have taught her how to stand up for herself.

‘Whisper, if you like.’

She laughed bitterly. ‘Whisper sweet nothings? I’m not an idiot, Matt. I know you’re working with them even though you’re not an agent.’

‘We’re trying to find a killer.’ I was aware the words sounded melodramatic. I needed to personalize things. ‘Your mother’s a suspect.’

‘What? My mother? She’s a retired schoolteacher.’

‘Has she been away from home in the last three weeks?’

She turned away. ‘I’m not gracing that with an answer.’

‘Do you watch the news?’

‘Of course. We’re not hillbillies up here.’

I smiled to pacify her, but got nowhere-she stared at me with undisguised dislike. ‘So you know about the murders in New York, Michigan, Boston and Philadelphia?’

‘Are you seriously suggesting my mother was behind those? You must be out of your mind.’

I knew Nora Jacobsen hadn’t killed those people-for a start, she wasn’t strong enough to have hoisted Jack Notaro to the ceiling in Philadelphia. I wasn’t proud of myself, but pressuring Mary was the only way to find out whether her mother knew where Heinz Rothmann was.

‘Then why did she run? Why did she blow up the house?’

‘I don’t know!’ she screamed. ‘I don’t…’ The words tailed away in a long moan.

‘Look, Mary, there was a knife in the bag she brought back from the Morton place. The technicians will soon know if the blood on it-was human.’

She was weeping silently, her head bowed and her shoulders shaking.

‘There are human remains in the old house.’

The sobs grew louder. This was going nowhere. I leaned forward and took her hands from her face.

‘Just tell me, Mary. Has your mother been away from home?’

She shook her head, her eyes still down. ‘Of…of course not. She…we haven’t got money for traveling.’

‘Okay.’ I lowered her hands to the table and let them go. ‘That’s good.’

She looked up at me hopefully. ‘Is that it? You believe me?’

I nodded. They could verify whatever Nora Jacobsen’s recent movements were said to be easily enough. But she still had a link to Rothmann via the Antichurch, and her behavior suggested she had plenty to hide.

‘You remember you told me about the Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant and your mother’s involvement with it?’ Mary had done so when we were heading out of Maine. I’d never been sure why.

‘The old cult? She didn’t take that seriously.’ Mary was watching me now, her eyes glistening with tears but unwavering. ‘She hasn’t had anything to do with it for years.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, I’m sure. After the FBI dragged us over the coals, she told me she wished she’d never got involved. It was in the sixties, when that kind of thing was popular. The people who ran it were hippies. Most of them are in retirement homes now. They had nothing to do with the Nazis who revived the cult recently.’

That had been Nora Jacobsen’s line during questioning. She had apparently been credible enough-until last night.

‘Look, Mary, this is important. It’s likely that Heinz Rothmann is involved in the murders. There’s no telling how many more innocent people may die. We have to find him.’

‘What’s that got to do with my mother?’ She shook her head. ‘You’re crazy, all of you.’

I looked at her until she returned my gaze. ‘Mary, you have to accept that your mother has been hiding things from you. Jesus, she blew up your home-what does that tell you? She’s become a willing fugitive. Where do you think she is?’

‘I don’t know!’ The scream resounded against the hard wood walls.

‘All right.’ I kept my voice low. ‘Is there anywhere else she might have hidden things?’

Mary shook her head, and then wiped her sleeve across her eyes. Even though her face was lined and tear-stained, she was still an attractive woman. I remembered what had happened to us in the motel near West Point. She had taken me to bed and I had almost gone along with it. I caught her eye and saw immediately that she was thinking of that time, too.

‘Matt,’ she said softly. ‘Why are you doing this?’

I felt revulsion at what I was about to hit her with, but there seemed to be no other way. She didn’t deserve to be burdened by the deaths of Karen and…our son-Christ, his name had gone from me already and I couldn’t bring it back, our son…

‘Matt?’

I heard her voice, but I had gone elsewhere, into a silent world of shadowy figures with their arms outstretched. They were begging, not for forgiveness-they weren’t sinners, they were the pure of heart-but to be remembered…

‘What is it, Matt?’

I felt her touch on my hand and I came back to my vacant self.

‘I…I’m sorry…’ Then I took a deep breath and told her about Karen and our son-and about Rothmann’s responsibility for their deaths.

Mary was crying before I finished. She got up and came round the table to take me in her arms. I felt her tears on my forehead, and my own tears running down my cheeks.

The minutes passed and I shook her off gently. She went back to her chair and wiped her eyes again.

‘You…you really think my mother is in contact with him?’

I nodded.

‘I think you’re maybe right. But I don’t know what I can do to help.’

I gave her time, feeling that I’d betrayed her again. She was a good person at heart and I was taking advantage of that.

And then she remembered.

‘Fred Warren,’ she said, looking up at me. ‘I heard her say that name several times recently. She’s begun talking to herself quite a lot, especially when she’s in the kitchen…’ Mary broke off as the loss of the house hit her. ‘In the kitchen,’ she repeated. ‘I even wondered if she’d got herself a man, after all these years. Fred Warren.’ She shook her head. ‘I never heard of him before. Oh, and something else-there was a year as well, she would say it after the name. “Fred Warren 1943.” I suppose it was the year he was born. That would make him sixty-eight. Five years younger than her, lucky woman.’ She smiled sadly.

The name meant nothing to me, but I was sure that Sebastian and his people would already be working on locating the man who bore it.

Gordy Lister watched as his brother’s coffin disappeared through the beige curtain. There had been three living people to send him off-apart from Gordy, a balding funeral director in a too-tight black suit, and a young Hispanic woman with a spectacular chest. Gordy didn’t know what Hispanics normally wore to funerals, but he was pretty sure tight gold tops with sequins and thigh-hugging shorts weren’t favored. Not that he was complaining. If she was one of Mikey’s friends, then his brother had more going for him than he’d thought. Gordy had chosen the closing music himself. Mikey had always had a thing for underdressed female singers, so Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’ it was. It was only as the song came to an end that he remembered the video that had accompanied it. The male lover had ended up burned to death. Which was appropriate for a cremation, but in even worse taste than the Star Reporter would have dared try.

Outside, the funeral director gave him a sharp-toothed smile and said he hoped he could be of service again in the future. Gordy wiped his brow and watched the asshole head for his corpse-mobile. This was the last time a Lister would be in Florida. It was hot, sultry and full of wrinkled people wearing not enough over their shrunken limbs.

‘You Mikey’s friend?’ the bronze looker asked, blowing smoke past his left ear.

‘Brother. You?’

‘Lucky,’ she said, extending her hand.

He stared at her. ‘Lucky I’m his brother?’

‘No, my name is Lucky,’ she said, with a wide smile. ‘Lucky Sanchez.’

‘Oh, right. So, you a friend of Mikey’s?’

‘Sure.’ The woman tossed her cigarette. ‘Terrible thing he die.’

‘Yeah.’ Gordy moved closer to her. ‘Say, you didn’t happen to be around when he…when he was hit by that car?’

Lucky suddenly looked shifty. ‘No, no. But I talk to his neighbor next day.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ Gordy led her under the shade of a palm tree. ‘What they say?’

‘Saw pickup truck come very fast, drive into Mikey.’

‘See, that’s strange. The police told me there were no witnesses.’

Lucky raised her smooth shoulders. ‘People no talk to police.’ She paused. ‘You pay me for telling this?’

Gordy studied her. He was interested, and not just in her bod, but he wasn’t going to show it. ‘Nah, Mikey should never have been out in the road. It was his own fault.’

The woman glared at him. ‘How you say that about your brother? He need fresh air like anyone else.’

‘Fresh air? It’s winter and it’s like a sweat bath down here.’

Lucky Sanchez looked at him suggestively. ‘I tell you more, you pay?’

‘What more is there?’

‘Hundred, okay?’

He had a stab at looking reluctant.

‘Hundred and blow job?’

Now you’re talking, he thought. He handed her the C-note and led her to the rental Taurus parked by the crematorium wall.

‘Driver was woman,’ Lucky said, as she tugged down her top. ‘Short, blond hair.’

Gordy Lister grabbed hold of her breasts as she went down on him, unsure whether the lead or her mouth was giving him greater pleasure.

Quincy Jerome was sitting at the table with the rest of the guys, but his mind was far away. He hadn’t the first idea how to track down this Fred Warren, so he left it to the law enforcement professionals and Matt, who seemed to be full of ideas. He was replaying what had happened over the last twenty-four hours. Never mind his first trip in a Learjet-he’d almost forgotten that.

He’d seen plenty of dead bodies in Iraq, but none of them was as creepy as the human jawbone in the barn house. The local detectives were trying to locate the rest of the body, but there was nothing in the immediate vicinity. Then there was the explosion at the house and the total destruction of everything inside. The crazy old woman had set it off with some kind of remote timer before slipping away. He had a bad feeling about what else had been in the bag she took with her-the knife she’d left behind was wicked-looking enough. And then there was Matt playing interrogator and pulling it off. The guy had hidden depths, even if he had the advantage of knowing the blonde woman from before.

But all that was nothing as compared with the upturned crosses in the barn house. They had really bothered the shit out of him and he was struggling to understand why. After all, he was Jewish, his mother belonging to a tiny group of Somalis who had ended up in Mobile. His father had been a drifter, a bluesman who showed up every few months to yell at them and drink away his meager earnings from the road. He’d been a Southern Baptist and he wasn’t marrying no Jew woman, not that his mother wanted a ring. She was the mystical type and she’d instilled in her son a high regard for things with symbolic value. He wasn’t the kind of Jew that went to synagogue often, but he stood up for his religion when he had to-often enough when he was a kid and before he got his stripes. He had one big problem. Because he was both black and a Jew, he hated racists twice as much as other people. That made him the perfect person to take part in the hunt for Hitler’s Hitman and the Nazi piece of shit who had messed with Matt’s brain, even if Matt and the cold-eyed FBI man didn’t know it-or maybe Sebastian had read his service file.

Being Jewish also made him careful. His mother had taught him that. He never admitted to his faith unless it was necessary. And he never gave out his real name, which was a lot weirder than Quincy Jerome. He’d cobbled that together from a high-school football player and the maiden name of Winston Churchill’s mother, a woman his mother admired for her spirit. The downside of his background was that he knew more than was healthy about evil-and those upturned crosses had breathed malevolence to him even before the human remains had turned up.

‘How about this?’ Quincy heard Matt Wells say. ‘It’s not a person’s name, it’s a place name.’

That prompted a clatter of fingertips on keyboards.