Carry Me Home (32 page)

A SOFT PLACE

Cal closed her door, went into the kitchen. His parents were both there, his mom still in her robe, starting coffee.

“Sit,” she told him. “I’ll fix you some breakfast, and you can tell us.”

She wasn’t asking, and anyway, he needed them to know what they were dealing with. So he sat across from his dad, accepted the mug of coffee his mom handed him, and took a grateful sip.

They listened without commenting until he’d finished telling them, and by the time he was done, his mom had served up the eggs and toast, and he started to eat and tried not to think about what he’d just said.

“Shotgun by the bed,” his dad said after a minute. “You got it.”

“Sorry,” Cal said. “You and Mom . . . I don’t think he’d try it. But I didn’t even think about that, that it’s risky for you, and I’m sorry. I’d have her with me, but I . . . couldn’t.” He reached for the jam, spooned it onto his plate, started spreading it on his toast. Keeping busy.

“That’s a shame,” his mom said. “I like Zoe.”

He laughed, quick and short. “Yeah. Me, too.” He took a bite of toast, a sip of coffee, and didn’t look at her. “But she’s not sticking around,” he found himself going on, “and I can’t do that again.”

“Huh. I thought she liked it here,” his mom said.

“So did I. But it seems the big guns in her line of work don’t hang out in the sticks. Bright lights, big city. Same old story, same old song.”

His mother shot another look at him, but didn’t say anything more. And neither did his dad, of course. But then, his dad usually didn’t need you to draw him a map.

Cal finished up, stood, and put his dishes into the dishwasher. “Thanks for breakfast. I’ll be back in a few hours to take Zoe into town again. She has to teach today. Would you make her something to eat, Mom? She’s pretty tired.”

“Of course,” his mother said automatically, then shut her mouth on whatever else she would have said.

“I’m not sure when she’ll be back,” Cal said. “You all will have to work that out, I guess.”

“Don’t worry,” his mom said. “We will.”

His dad got up with him, put on his own outdoor gear along with him without saying anything, even though it was still dark out there and would be until nearly eight, and followed him out to his rig.

Cal stood and waited, and his dad sighed, looked at the ground, then looked at him. “Don’t beat yourself up for loving her,” he said.

Which wasn’t what he’d expected at all. “Yeah,” Cal said. “Well.”

His dad smiled, a little twist to it. “Hell, boy. We can’t help it. Every man needs a soft place to put his heart.”

He was going to cry in front of his dad, and that wasn’t happening. He nodded once, opened the door, and swung on up into the cab. Then he hesitated, his hand ready on the door handle, and looked at his father. Standing planted there, steady and strong, the rock he’d always been. Immovable.

“Take care of her,” Cal said over the lump in his throat.

“Don’t you worry,” his dad said. “We’ve got her.”

He went on home, got his morning chores done, took a shower, and went back out to get her.

She was waiting as promised. Of course she was. Wearing the blue sweater dress, because as he knew, she didn’t have much else. Looking pale and tired, but ready to take on the day anyway.

“You might be able to get Rochelle to help you go shopping,” he said on the quiet drive back to town.

She turned her head from where she’d been watching the snow-covered fields go by. She still had her hand on Junior’s head, though. The dog was showing Cal his butt, Cal having clearly been relegated to an also-ran. “What? Sorry,” she said.

He took a hand off the wheel, gestured at her dress. “You know. Since you shot up your clothes.”

“Oh.” She rubbed a hand over her forehead. “I guess. She’s too tall for me to borrow pants. Maybe a couple of skirts. She’s too tall for those, too, but she wears them shorter than I do. Or I could borrow from your mom.”

“Please. No. Anything but that.”

She smiled a little, the first time she had all morning. “You don’t get to say, I guess. I can wear all the turtlenecks I want. Your mom and I think they look nice. Your dad does, too.”

“Still got that sass, haven’t you?” he said. “I’m glad he didn’t take your sass.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “He made a pretty good dent. Him and . . .”

“And me,” he said.

“No.” She sighed. “And us. And me.”

He was in town now, stopped at a light behind four cars on Main. Idaho traffic jam. He couldn’t think of much to say to that, so he didn’t say anything, and there was silence in the truck until he was pulling up outside her place, helping her transfer her things to her car.

He opened the back door, flipped up the blanket on the floor of the backseat to show her what he’d done the night before. “Shotgun right here,” he told her. “Keep it there. Shells in the glove compartment. You see something, you get a bad feeling, you get a tickle? Load first, think second. Long as you don’t rack the slide, you’re all good. And keep the doors locked.”

She was inside, her hand on the door. “Doing it now.”

“I’ll follow you on up there,” he said. “Walk you to the door.”

“All right,” she said. “I have to go now,” she added patiently, because he was still standing there holding that rear door open like he wanted to get in.

He slammed it, followed her as promised into the lot of her building. Only thirty yards from the front door. Not too bad.

“Get somebody to walk you all the same,” he said when she was out of the car again.

“I will,” she said. “Don’t worry.”

“The cops are coming by with that report today, I guess,” he said. “Make me a copy, and you can give it to me tonight when I drop off Junior, and I’ll share it with Jim, too. I’ll let you know if I hear anything, and you do the same.”

“Thanks,” she said soberly. “For everything. I appreciate it. Really.”

She headed inside, and his arms hung there by his sides with nothing to hold. He got back in his truck instead, and Junior wagged that whip of a tail, looked up at him inquiringly.

“You and me again,” he told the dog. “Just you and me, but at night, you hear? You take care of her.”

The dog cocked his blocky head, his eyes intent on Cal’s, and Cal reached a hand out to fondle the soft ears.

“You keep her safe,” Cal told him. “That’s your job. And meanwhile, I ride Jim’s ass hard to find out what’s going on, make sure they’re on it. He’s got a new best friend, and it’s me.”

MUDDYING THE WATERS

The man sat at his desk two weeks later, his hand still on the receiver, and stared out at the mounds of mid-December snow that made up his crappy view. He wasn’t sweating, because he didn’t sweat.

“Just rumors,” he’d just heard from his buddy up at Fairchild. Well, not a buddy. More of a stooge, but then, stooges were useful, too. “But I heard they were asking about you.”

“They?” he’d snapped.

“That’s the thing,” the other man had said, almost whispering. “Not SF. OSI.”

Not the Security Forces. The Office of Special Investigation. The big guns, asking about him. “Huh.” He laughed, made it a joke. “Sure it was me? What the hell would there be for OSI to investigate me about? I’m out, remember?”

“I know,” the other man said. “Total clusterfuck, as usual. It wasn’t just you. They’re asking about a bunch of guys, I heard.”

“Asking about what? Not like you or I had any military secrets to sell.”

“They aren’t asking about me,” the other man said in alarm.

“Sure?” He leaned back a little, making it casual. “If they’re asking about me . . .”

“Shit,” the other man breathed. “I’d better get on that.”

“You got some boxes gone AWOL?” he needled. “Bet you do. You always did. Could be they want to talk to me to find out what I know. But don’t worry,” he went on smoothly, “I’ve got your back.”

“Thanks, man.”

He could hear the relief, almost smell the sweat, and he smiled. It was so easy. All you had to do was shift it to a personal threat, and everybody refocused. So very few people could actually think, there was almost no challenge in it. Which was why he’d taken to getting his kicks in more entertaining ways.

“I’ve got to go,” he said now. “Keep your nose clean, or . . .” He laughed again. “Fake it good.”

Now, he sat and thought. This wasn’t good, but it wasn’t bad, not really. His tracks were covered. If they hadn’t been, something would have happened long before this. Five long years doing this, and not a single suggestion of anything leading back to him. Not a whisper of suspicion.

On the other hand, he was going to have to lie low for a good long time, and that wasn’t optimal at all. He never failed, and this was more than annoying. This was personal.

How about if he redirected the suspicion so it fell on somebody else? He could think of a couple ways right off the top of his head. Time to get on that.

How had they connected the dots, though? Why now, after all this time? The answer to that was staring him in the face.

Zoe. It had all started with that bitch Zoe. He’d tried to finish it with her once, and he’d had to put it off. Anyway, he needed to muddy the waters. A suspect would be good, but a suspect and the loss of a witness would be even better, especially if it seemed unrelated. Two birds with one stone.

He had a pattern. That was his strength, and his weakness. He was organized, but that made it easier to spot his pattern, even though he’d spread the love around, thrown everybody off. Once you crossed a state line, you were halfway home. And now there were four cases out there. Four witnesses. A whole lot more if you counted Iraq, and they were obviously counting Iraq.

But if there wasn’t a pattern, it wasn’t the same guy. He knew how profilers worked. If it wasn’t the same MO, and it wasn’t even the same crime . . . it
really
wasn’t the same guy.

Zoe and Cal had broken up. He was sure of it. He’d followed her leaving work a couple of times, staying well back, and she’d been alone when she’d left. He knew where she was living, and it wasn’t with Cal. Which meant that no matter what else had happened in her life, the cops would be thinking Cal first, because they always thought of the woman’s partner first. Especially her
estranged
partner. For good reason, because there wasn’t a man in the world who hadn’t wanted to kill the woman who’d left him, especially if she was screwing somebody else, and every cop knew it. Dress it up all you wanted, it was evolution. It was biology. All he had to do was let that work for him.

He needed her gone, and he needed Cal under suspicion. And dead was about as gone as you could get.

If he made it look like a lovers’ quarrel, or even a random attack. Coincidence? Yeah, but coincidences happened, too. It meant he wouldn’t be having much fun at all, and that was a real loss, but sacrifices had to be made. Dump the pattern completely. Different place, different MO, no rituals, no calling cards. Just the heat of the moment, and she was gone, and whodunit? Nobody more likely than Cal. Nobody at all.

Or better yet, suicide. What could be more likely than that? She’d been attacked, wasn’t in her right mind. She was falling apart. Her boyfriend had dumped her, because they always dumped them afterward. Nobody wanted damaged goods, and he always made sure they were damaged. Zoe might not have gotten all the attention she deserved, but she was damaged just the same. He could see it in the jerky way she walked. All he had to do was leave the possibility open, and he knew exactly how.

If he was going to do it, he should do it now, and there would be nothing easier. All he had to do was plan some surprise inspections. A five-minute detour beforehand, and if he were seen on the street—nothing more natural, because he would belong on the street.

People in the building, though. But that was easy, too, he realized when he thought about it. He’d do it in the late afternoon, because all these assholes went home at five like they were punching a time clock. All of them but Zoe. Miss Conscientious. It would be dark, and he could come up the far staircase, and then out the same way.

It wasn’t without risk, but then, nothing worth doing ever was. Doing nothing was even riskier, and anyway, doing nothing wasn’t his style. What was life without risk? Boring, that was what.

Time to make his move. He’d waited long enough.

A PIECE OF PIE

“You know I’m not allowed to talk to you about this,” were Jim’s first words as he slid into the booth at the Garden Café.

It was mid-December, more than a month had passed since the investigation had begun, and from everything Cal could tell, the cops were not one bit closer.

“I’m not wearing a wire,” he told his cousin, “and I’m buying the pie. If something slips out by accident while you’re eating, I’ll never tell.”

“This is my job,” Jim reminded him. “Those are the rules, and they’re there for a reason.”

“Come on, man. You’re my cousin. And we’re talking about Zoe’s safety here.”

“Thought she was staying with your folks. And your dog.”

The waitress hustled up to take their order, and conversation ended for a couple minutes.

“She
is
staying with them,” Cal said after she’d left, “and you heard right, I’ve got Junior over there every night. Nobody’s getting into that house that he doesn’t want to let in. But what about when she’s not at home?”

“You know,” Jim said, “somehow I have a feeling you’ve taken care of that, too. And I don’t want to know, because she can’t have gotten that concealed-weapons permit yet.”

“She’s at the university all day long,” Cal pointed out. “Without Junior. Without any protection.”

“And you care about this so much, why?” Jim asked, taking a sip of coffee. “For a smart guy, you aren’t always too smart, are you?”

“Nope,” Cal said, “I’m not. Thanks for pointing that out. I should just wash my hands of her, then? We’re not together anymore, so it’s okay for somebody to rape her? You read those reports. You know what he does. So come on. Tell me what you’ve got. Tell me what I can do.”

“What you can do,” Jim said, “is just exactly nothing. What we’ve got . . .” He stopped again, took a bite of the apple pie the waitress set in front of him, and sighed. “All right. Here you go. The Air Force is cooperating. They’ve wanted this mutt, too, thought he was one of theirs, like I said at the time, and they were real glad to know about the pattern we’re seeing stateside. They’ve got OSI on it, because they think—”

“OSI,” Cal said.

“Office of Special Investigation. Taking it out of the Security Forces’ hands—the MPs.”

“In case he was one.”

“Jumping right to that conclusion again, aren’t you? Which would be why you aren’t a cop. Maybe just because it’s better to have the investigation happen from outside for something this big. They’re pulling the service records of every guy who was in Iraq at the right times and who was stationed at Fairchild afterwards for the past couple years. Which is a whole hell of a lot of guys. Checking into who fits, doing some discreet questioning, when they can find anybody still around to question, and they’ve promised to pass along anything interesting to us if the guys aren’t at Fairchild anymore, if they got out and ended up around here. But it’s all a slog, and it’s going to take time.”

“If the guy wasn’t at Fairchild at all, though,” Cal said.

“They’re looking at that, too,” Jim said. “But that’s even slower. And they’re thinking . . .” He looked at Cal. “I didn’t say this.”

“Nope,” Cal said, sitting up straighter. “Say what?”

“Information. That’s the key. The women, at least the ones here—they thought they’d been followed after classes. Afterwards, they all said what Amy said. That they’d felt like somebody was following them, had been uneasy. Which means he was able to get class schedules, probably living situations, too. You can’t follow somebody day after day to find that out, not on this size of campus, let alone up there at College of Northern Idaho. Not if he isn’t a student, isn’t the right age, because he’d stand out, hanging around after class to follow her, trailing her back to her dorm. They’re looking at somebody with a specialty that would allow for that, some computing background, maybe. Which is why they’re looking at a security specialist, or just a tech weenie. Fits the profile better, actually. This guy isn’t just a basher. He’s a planner.”

“MP,” Cal said slowly.

“Which is why Greg’s off the case,” Jim said. “Even though their profiler says no. He says, wrong kind of guy. Our mutt’s a planner. Organized creep. Greg would be disorganized all the way. You know him as well as I do.”

“He wasn’t told that was why, was he?” Cal asked with alarm.

“No. Far as I know, he got reamed out for how he handled it, which was true, too. Didn’t push it up the chain fast enough, didn’t investigate hard enough. Don’t think he’s long for the job there, no matter what, and you didn’t hear that here, either. He’s had some issues with excessive force.”

“And Kathy’s left him, my mom says,” Cal pointed out. “Gone home to her mom, finally. With the kids. All kinds of anger there, and it’ll only be worse now. Which could make him our guy, no matter what some profiler says.”

“Which could,” Jim said. “And they’re looking at that, which I didn’t say. That’d be hell to pay for Kathy and the kids, whether they’re with him or not. I hope for their sakes it isn’t him.”

“They got any other suspects?”

Jim hesitated. “Yeah,” he said. “And I’m not going to tell you who they are,” he added before Cal could say anything. “Because I know you. You’d go after them. Screw up the whole investigation, for one thing. And for another thing, you’re a civilian. This isn’t a football field, you don’t know what you’re doing, and you’re not in charge. You’re not on the team. You’re not even the water boy. So stay out of it. I know Hollywood would like you to think that law enforcement are all idiots, but we’re going to get there. This has priority, and it’s going to happen. But it all takes time,” he repeated. “You don’t go arresting somebody because he’s an asshole who was an MP in Iraq, and now he lives here. We actually need evidence. That’s the way the system works.”

“The way the system works is too damn slow.”

“Yep,” Jim said. “And that’s the system we’ve got.” He finished wolfing his pie, declined another cup of coffee, and stood to go. “So, you just let us handle it,” he warned again. “Protect her all you want, and man—” He shook his head. “You’re a bigger man than I am, I’ll tell you that right now, because I couldn’t do it. But let us handle this.”

Cal didn’t go with him. Instead, he lingered over another cup of coffee.

Somebody who could track them.
Somebody who knew where they lived, what their schedule was. A cop could find that out. Couldn’t he?

He thought about staying out of it. He really did. For about thirty seconds. And then he thought of a way.

“Well, hey,” he said when he walked into the housing office, offering the woman at the front desk his best lazy cowboy grin. “How you doin’? Cal Jackson, here to talk to the big guy. He in?”

Her hand had gone to the hair, which told him he’d got it right. “Mr. Winston? No, sorry, Mr. Jackson, I’m not sure where he is. He must have just stepped out.”

“Mr. Jackson’s my dad. It’s just Cal. Mind if I wait a sec?”

“Of course.” She indicated the chair on the other side of her desk, trying to keep it cool. “Did you have an appointment with him? I can’t believe he’d be late.”

Another woman walked through carrying a sheaf of papers, saw the two of them, faltered, and Cal gave her a smile for good measure. “How you doin’?” he said again. “You know, you two ladies could probably help me some, too, if you’ve got a minute.” Sometimes, the women who did the actual work knew the most. They’d probably been here the longest, too. And women usually talked to him.

“Sure, if we can,” the woman opposite him said.

Cal read the nameplate in front of him. “Vanessa. That’s a real pretty name. I had a girlfriend named Vanessa once. I have to say—” He sighed. “I’m guessing you’re a whole lot brighter.”

She laughed. Defenses down. Check. “Well, I hope so.”

Cal stood up, addressed the other woman. “I’m sure hoping you’ll sit down, too, because my mama always told me not to sit when a lady was standing, and I’m real tired.”

She looked around a little nervously. Young, pretty, and what did she have to be nervous about? “Mr. Winston doesn’t like us to waste time,” she said.

“Mr. Winston isn’t here,” Vanessa said with a snap to her tone. “And Cal’s not asking us to waste time. He has a housing question. Sit down, Isabel.”

“Isabel.” Cal smiled. “Another good name. Please. Sit down.”

“At least,” Vanessa told Cal when the young woman had perched on the edge of the chair as if she were about to take flight, “I assume it’s a housing question. What can we do for you?”

“Well, you know,” Cal said, scratching the back of his head and leaning back, “I gave this little gift to the university recently. The idea of it is to attract the best students, you know, especially women, make sure there are opportunities for them in-state so they don’t have to leave to get good jobs.”

Except some of them, of course. Some of them left anyway.

“We heard about that,” Vanessa said, glancing at the other woman.

“And a friend of mine was saying,” Cal said, “a female friend, that I’d overlooked something. That I hadn’t thought enough about women being safe on campus. And after I looked into that a little, I thought, well, duh. I guess men don’t always know what women go through.”

“No,” Vanessa said, “they sure don’t. Are you asking about safe housing?”

“Exactly.” Cal beamed at her. “And it just occurred to me that your boss might not be as concerned about that, or as tuned into that, either, as you ladies probably are. I mean things like, how hard does the university make it to know who’s living where? Suppose some guy has a class with a girl, and he’s a little off. Suppose he’s, oh, some technical whiz. Or not even a student at all, somebody working in an office like this. If he’s even a cop, say. In law enforcement somewhere. Just to get all wild, take it to the max,” he apologized as the women exchanged glances. “Could he get her address? Her phone number? Because all those things are on file, right?”

“Well, of course,” Isabel said. “But the records are encrypted. They’re secure, unless there’s a reason for somebody to get into the database. I mean, I guess the police, but other than that . . . no. We’ve never had a data breach that I know of. That’s my job,” she said a little proudly, a little self-consciously, too. “To keep the information safe. So, no. Unless somebody actually worked here or I suppose in IT, or in the registrar’s office, or for the police, like you say. They’d be able to get in, because those guys can get into anything.”

“And just about everyone working in this office or over at the registrar’s is a woman,” Vanessa said. “Anybody doing anything with computers, anyway.”

“Really.” Cal raised his eyebrows. Unfortunately, this was about as far as he could push it with these two, because they wouldn’t know exactly what the police had access to. Winston would, though. And if Cal was right, he was done waiting for any process. It was going to be time to pay Greg a visit. Better safe than sorry. If he was wrong, well, he might have punched out his cousin, who’d earned it over and over.

But he was here and Winston wasn’t, so he sat back and relaxed. Might as well keep them chatting, see if he got anything else. “And yet the director’s a man. Huh. See? What I’m talking about. But he’s probably been here forever.”

“No,” Vanessa said, and she looked like she wasn’t happy about it. “Barely a year.”

“Hmm,” Cal said. “A long year, I take it.”

“Huh.” She snorted. “You could say that.”

“Came in from outside and took the job over somebody who should have had it?” Cal guessed. “And that somebody was a woman?”

“You’ve got it,” Vanessa said. “The good-ol’-boys’ network.”

“It was the military thing, I think,” Isabella put in.

“What military thing?” Cal asked.

“Mr. Winston worked in housing for the military,” Isabel said. “And the vice president of operations is an ex-military guy, too.”

“The vice president of operations is an ex-military guy,” Cal said slowly. Who would have access to absolutely everything, in that job.

“About a hundred years ago,” Isabel said, loosening up a little. “I think he was all impressed with Mr. Winston because he acts like he was in the danger zone, like he was all secret Special Forces or something, when he was in
housing
. Just like us. Same exact thing.”

“Where did Winston come from, then?” Cal asked, the hair on his back of his neck standing up straight. He kept it casual with a major effort.

“Francis Xavier,” Vanessa said. “You know, the Catholic school up in Spokane. He was their housing director, for just a year or so, I think, and then he came down here, I guess because we’re bigger.”

“We thought, good news,” Isabel put in. “Well, me and the other girls. Because our last director was really grouchy, couldn’t wait to be retired, made it really tense in here. He’d yell at you when you made a mistake. And Mr. Winston was young and good-looking. But he’s . . . he’s even worse.”

“Oh?” Cal tried to look encouraging.

“Not outright,” Isabel said, “but underneath. Cold.”

“You think that, too?” Cal asked Vanessa.

“You bet I think it. You can’t exactly miss it. Gone half the time, too,” she said, on a roll now. “Lazy. Comes in whenever he likes, leaves for ‘meetings.’ Not fooling any of us. He shoves everything off on the staff, and what are we supposed to do about it? Who would we complain to? It’s not fair, not when he’s making twice what anybody else here does. He says it’s because of the carpal tunnel, that he can’t type for more than a few minutes. But I’ve known a lot of people with carpal tunnel, and I don’t believe it. I think it’s an excuse.”