Cuts Through Bone (28 page)

Once he was gone, Vasquez frowned and said, “I don't get it,
viejo.
We're off the hook for the other murders, but—”

“I don't like that they changed their minds,” Guthrie said. “All of a sudden, they don't figure it as a serial killer? Why?”

“I got you,” Vasquez said with a smile. “Because I thought of something. Inglewood's pictures showed the legs bunched up. At that bodega on Turnbull yesterday, when the cashier showed how the old woman was killed—I think she would've dropped the same way.”

Guthrie frowned. “So you think the victims were kneeling? We can get pictures from the robbery and take a look.” He looked toward the window. “You think we should do that?”

“Don't play with me,
viejo.
We'd better do that.”

The little detective smiled. “This doesn't change anything, you know. The case is about Olsen—because of the gun. We have to concentrate on Olsen. I'll give it to you that the switch-up looks funny. I'll even go so far as to put it back on the table. Today we're gonna reach out to find what's connecting Olsen and Linney. I'll try the FBI along with that to see if we come up with something connecting them.”

*   *   *

The little detective used the telephone to do the dirty work that afternoon. The office became his war room, and the telephones his subordinates. He used four simultaneously, juggling them to see if he remained on hold in Arlington, Virginia, or Washington, D.C. The local calls went quickly, but on the long-distance ones, he managed a multipartner bureaucratic courtship, complete with layers of flattery and devoted listening.

During pauses, he explained to Vasquez that using people would sometimes be part of the job—a task that could be as filthy as a garbage can. Informants could get hurt or killed. Ghost Eddy was another name that Guthrie had to add to the list of people he had screwed badly, without mentioning lost jobs, broken relationships, and money down the drain. Contacts sometimes ran a risk to answer a question, like Tommy Johnson. Detective work wasn't the shiniest job in the world, even when you had the excuse of pulling a man from jail when you were sure he was innocent.

Guthrie shrugged, making a call downtown to Police Plaza. The detectives didn't want to talk, but other people worked in the big building. Monica e-mailed the crime-scene photos of the bodega robbery. Guthrie stored the pictures in his palmtop behind Fat-Fat's kill switch, which operated like a puzzle box. Whenever the computer came on, or woke from a nap, a sequence of keystrokes was required to access the hidden part of its memory. Snapping it shut put the palmtop to sleep. Althea Linney's knees were bent, but not bunched, in the NYPD photographs.

After studying the pictures, Vasquez said, “Tommy said all of the Barbie dolls weren't identical.”

“He also said there might not
be
any Barbie dolls,” Guthrie said.

Long-distance calls consumed most of the afternoon, and the little detective showed the pressure as the end of the business day crept closer. Administrative assistants in a dozen offices heard corny “aw, shucks” jokes and thick layers of backwoods “Yes, ma'am” or “Yes, sir” as a veil over insistent questions and requests. Guthrie shifted positions behind his desk—propped up his feet, spun his chair, bent over an important doodle, and waved like a semaphore signaler for fresh coffee—and then wandered around the office. Even bathroom breaks didn't stop his chatter. His targets were in the Pentagon and FBI headquarters, but he also called people to help him apply pressure: bankers and lawyers on the southern tip of Manhattan, some hillbillies in West Virginia who made him show off his hog calling before they agreed to help, and a smooth-voiced woman in the nation's capital who sounded like she managed a chorus of dancers. Vasquez watched and listened, moving through her own evolutions of boredom, fascination, and amusement. The little detective was determined. More than that, he had style. By late afternoon, his efforts secured a pair of appointments. The detectives would have to fly to Virginia, because neither man would say anything on the phone.

While Guthrie and Vasquez were arguing about which flight to take to Virginia, someone knocked on the office door. A big shadow loomed beyond the frosted glass. Guthrie frowned, drew a revolver, and held it below his desktop. The door opened, and Detective Inglewood from Major Case limped through.

“Jeez, Mike, you scared the shit out of me,” Guthrie said. “Call next time, will you?” He slid his revolver back into the shoulder holster.

Inglewood laughed and straightened his glasses on his nose. “Ain't no Russians woulda knocked on a second visit,” he said. “Woulda been
rat-a-tat-tat,
and maybe
boom
!”

“That's real funny. Something bring you to midtown besides the smell of cold pizza? Couple of slices left there.” He nodded at the box on the coffee table in front of his desk.

Inglewood settled his bulk down on the oxblood couch and looked the pizza over disdainfully. “I been driving, but I ain't that hungry. Stopped here on my way back downtown.”

“This ain't starting out good,” Guthrie said.

“I feel I gotta save you some shoe leather. A wit in the Olsen case surfaced upstate—Sandra Whitten. She's dead.” The ginger-haired detective wagged a finger. “Before you
even
get started, it's
un
related. That comes from the experts. No motive, see? So don't try to roll it up with Bowman.”

“Are you kidding me?”

Inglewood sighed, and paused like he was counting to himself. “Different MO. Some kind of blade, with a deep stab wound to the chest. Then, what's missing? Her panties. Okay, different MO?”

“Maybe she walked around with the package unwrapped. She's a wit on
another
homocide, with
another
connected body, and almost a few more—”

“Pure coincidence.”

“Ain't a cop on this planet believes in coincidence!”

Inglewood pointed at himself. “Do you see me here? You know me? I'm on the job, right? Bowman's in our jurisdiction. That's closed. Whitten? Okay, she lived in the Bronx, fine. She went upstate for some fun that went bad.
Not
in our jurisdiction. I went and took a look, professional courtesy. Different MO.
Not
in our jurisdiction. The Bowman case is unrelated, and it's closed. Okay?” He pulled a folded piece of paper from inside his suit coat, then opened and smoothed it on his thigh. His face was so red with blood that his hair seemed ashy blond.

“Come on,” Inglewood said, glancing at Vasquez. “You get one look.” He stood and walked around the coffee table to Guthrie's desk and waited for her to come over. Then he laid a color photocopy of a picture on the desktop, keeping two fingers pressed heavily on one corner.

Sand Whitten was only recognizable because of her stainless-steel jewelry and skate-short black hair. Otherwise, her face was a mass of welts, with bright blue irises glowing in bloodred eyes. A precise slash on her throat revealed her spine from the front of the body, but her blouse sported only a few drops of blood, beyond a narrow stab wound between her small breasts. Her blood was spread on the ground like an abandoned apron beyond her legs—one bunched beneath her, the other bent. Her naked thighs glowed sharply white, and a short black skirt clung to her hips without exposing her. Waffle-soled hiking boots seemed out of place, blooming from her slender ankles.

Inglewood pulled the picture from the desk and struck a lighter. He held the flame to a corner of the picture. Several long seconds passed as it caught fire and was consumed.

“I ain't been here,” the ginger-haired detective said. “I ain't talked to you. I ain't showed you no picture.
What
picture? I was on a piss break.” He glanced down at the coffee table as he turned to go. “I ain't ate no pizza.” He took a slice and then limped from the office. The door clattered behind him.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Guthrie booked a late flight to Arlington, Virginia. That left the evening free, and he called Philip Linney. The veteran was off work, killing time in his Westchester flop, and he was available for a supper with a side of conversation. He chose the destination: Albert's Café on East 177th Street, about where it crossed Powell in Westchester. The nighttime crowd was local—a mix of drivers, stockers, and mop jockeys, sprinkled with hopeful students and a few secretaries. The dining room was a square, set off from the bar by a porch with a walk-up order window for street traffic. They ate at a small round table, encircled by the other customers. Guthrie took a long look around after they sat, and perched his fedora on the edge of the table.

“Well, it's cheap,” Linney said. His smile was bright on his dark face.

“I can spring for quiet,” Guthrie said.

“That's something I didn't ask,” Linney said. “Who's paying? I guess I thought Captain had some bread held back, to go with disability. But PIs ain't cheap, are they?”

“Olsen makes friends easy,” Guthrie said.

The veteran's eyes flicked over Vasquez. They ordered a round of grilled chicken on toast, home fries, pie, and coffee. The waitress had a fleecy mop of hair held back by a headband. She was tall, slim, and light-skinned. The café had heavy cream-colored ceramic coffee mugs that rested comfortably in a hand. Guthrie tipped a spoonful of ice into his coffee and stirred slowly, like a cow ringing a bell, before he drank.

“When did you get assigned to Alpha Strike?” Guthrie asked. “Ain't that actually Task Force One one two seven?”

“Yeah. Been talking to Captain, huh?”

Guthrie shook his head. “I'm a detective. I know things.” The information was inside Olsen's military record, some dry but informative reading.

“Right at the end of '06, after the elections. I transferred down from the north, the toughest truck driver Afghanistan ever seen. I grew up fast then.”

“How'd you wind up in Alpha? Your stretch was TDY, right?”

“Yeah. Everybody was TDY in Alpha. CENTCOM does that shit over there, something they supposedly got from the Germans, moving people and attaching them like that. I ain't seen no Euros doing it, though. They're all alike, German or not—soft. They split when something pops off. Hop in the armored car and zoom!” Linney made a flying motion with one hand above the tabletop. “Me, I was a truck driver, fresh from the street. I was a G with a machine gun. Ain't nobody happier than a G with a machine gun and plenty of bullets.” He laughed.

“Then they assigned you to Alpha because you wanted to shoot?”

“Say tricked me, and then you got it. I was a driver. The other guys in convoy wanted to push past roadblocks, or turn aside and let the escorts take it. They wanted to duck and run whenever some stray Pashie sent a ‘To whom it may concern' via AK mail. Me, I'm
strapped.
I want to take a look, get some chop in. Then one time I chased some shooters, I chop, they chop, I chase some more. I pulled a piece of the convoy after me, with the LT screaming on the radio. That was crazy, but I winged one of them and followed the blood. I was lucky. He ditched his AK but failed a residue test. I wore a reprimand for ignoring the LT, but a guy from district went to bat for me. He said I had good instincts, the steadiness required of good infantry—he laid that on thick, before asking me if I wanted to go south.”

“You volunteered,” Guthrie said, and shook his head.

“You know it. Everybody's a volunteer. You got enough gray on your head to know that. You volunteer, and then you don't get to unvolunteer. That's when I got educated on real gangster. Captain is a G, all business, and Alpha was all Gs. That business down south in Afghanistan is what the Euros don't want no part of. There's nothing but Pashies down south. Everybody else is just passing through. Up north, you got Hazaras, Turks, Tajiks, they just want to do their thing. Pashies? Their thing is fighting.”

The waitress came back and loaded the table, sneaking glances at Linney. The sandwiches had the sharp, hot smell of food that would keep Albert's open for fifty years, unless some unlucky bastard choked on a cockroach. Guthrie snagged the catsup and poured a pool beside his fries.

“Good scenery at Albert's, huh?” Guthrie asked after the tall waitress hurried away.

“She's all right,” Linney said. “Kinda bright, but that's okay.” He worked on his sandwich until it was almost ready to say good-bye. “Alpha wasn't a regular unit—it was a task force. That's the name, but most of them come and go. Alpha stayed around so long that CENTCOM ended up treating it like a regular unit. See, mostly a task force goes like this—a convoy is rolling out of Kabul, and it's gotta go through Helmand, and they gotta have escorts—see, they got a task, and now they build a force. They pinch platoons off the units stationed around the depot, they're tasked to the convoy commander, and they ride out and ride back. Down south, that can get ugly. Fifty trucks go out and maybe twenty make it through the ambush—or two.

“We figured they did that because of the Guard units. If they sent a Guard unit, and every fucker in Missouri got his balls blowed off on the same day, that would be a nightmare for CENTCOM. Captain was a genius at convoy, and that's part of what ended up screwing him—and Alpha—into being treated like a regular unit. When Captain rode convoy, the trucks went through, but then if we were sitting around on stand-down, they would pinch us like regulars, probably hoping it would rub off. Not without Captain.

“Mostly we did sweeps, nets, response. Alpha was active. I figured part of it out pretty fast, even if they tricked me in the beginning with that ‘good soldier' shit. They push everybody to pick up Pash. That makes it easier, when you know what they're saying, right? And you can give 'em orders, go here or there, stop, whatever. By the time I went south, I had some handfuls of words and phrases, and an intelligence LT pushing me to learn more. Down south, I saw it for what it was. If you sling good Pash, you get stopped. So I shut up quick.”