Lowball: A Wild Cards Novel (16 page)

“Iced peppermint macchiato,” Franny said in all innocence.

“Yeah.” Kant nodded. “All us detective he-men like us our peppermint macchiatos.”

Franny flushed a deeper shade, and he turned to Gordon. “Thanks, anyway,” he said, and faded in the direction of the men’s room.

Kant’s lipless mouth stretched into a grin as he watched Franny’s retreat, and then he looked at Gordon. “Sometimes the information you dig up is uncanny,” he said. “Sometimes it’s useless.” He picked up the jacket with the weekend’s homicide. “I mean, yeah, I know the guy was shot, thanks anyway. And sometimes…” He shook his head. “Remember when you told me that the perp was six feet six and armed with a club?”

Slim Jim was grinning. “I ain’t heard this story,” he said.

“I was lookin’ for a fucking Neanderthal,” Kant said.

“I didn’t see the crime scene,” Gordon explained. “Nobody told me about the—”

“About the ladder,” Kant said. “The perp was four foot nine and killed the vic by dropping a bowling ball from a ladder.”

Slim Jim guffawed.

“If I had seen the crime scene photos,” Gordon said, “I would have seen the ladder.”

“I spent ten days looking for the Terminator,” Kant said, “and instead I was looking for a munchkin.”

“If I don’t have all the information,” Gordon said, “I can’t—”

He looked up and saw a group of uniformed officers coming into the squad room to report to Kant on a door-to-door survey of the area around the crime scene. Among them he recognized Dina Quattore, the telepathic ace attached to the K-9 unit.

Oh,
he thought.
That would work
.

“You turned investigator now?” asked Dina Quattore. “Maybe I should buy you a freakin’ Sherlock Holmes hat.”

She was in Gordon’s Volvo station wagon, heading toward the dog-breeding facility. Dina was a New York cop out of Fort Freak, a short, buxom woman with curly black hair. Gordon had talked her into joining him on her free afternoon, and she was out of uniform, dressed in jeans and a baggy nylon jacket that covered the pistol she wore on her hip.

“I just got curious about this place,” Gordon said. “They claim they’re a dog-training facility, but I think there may be other things going on in there.”

“What kind of other things?” Dina asked.

“A joker was found dead near there.”

“Uh-huh,” Dina said. “Doc, it’s the Sherlock Holmes hat for you.”

Gordon was clearly stepping outside his sphere. Despite what might be seen on television, real-life forensic pathologists and profilers and crime scene investigators and other specialists did not actually confront suspects, participate in car chases, or get involved in shootouts. Gordon’s job was to perform autopsies. Sometimes he’d be called to the scene, sometimes he’d testify at a trial, sometimes he’d hear about an arrest, and often he never ever found out about the disposition of a case. His focus was normally confined to the morgue.

But he couldn’t help but notice that there were some unaccounted-for anomalies here in Warren County. The dead John Doe was one, and the
IDS
facility was another. Maybe the two belonged together.

He’d done research on
IDS
. They had no web page, no listed telephone number. They had a business license in New Jersey, with the address of the facility.

It wasn’t even clear what
IDS
stood for.

“Also,” Gordon said, “the man at the facility was a Russian or something.”

Dina snickered. “I hope you give me my share of credit when you crack the spy ring.”

“Just look at the place,” Gordon said. “Tell me it’s legit.”

He slowed the Volvo to a crawl as they approached the compound. Dina looked out the window in silence as the buildings moved past. “Pull off the road once we’re out of sight,” she said, her voice suddenly serious.

“What are you getting?”

Dina shook her head. Her eyes were closed in concentration. Gordon drove on till the compound was hidden behind a stand of silver maple, then pulled onto the shoulder and parked. Dina led Gordon across a roadside ditch partly filled with water after the last rain. The humid, cool air was filled with the scent of spring flowers. Gordon and Dina walked slowly through the trees until they had a view of the
IDS
facility, and then Dina bent her head, her face set in an expression of fierce concentration.

Dina, Gordon knew, was a telepath. She could read the thoughts of others at a distance.

But not humans. Dina could only read dogs. That’s why she worked with the K-9 unit.
NYPD
Public Relations called her “K-10.” Everyone else called her Dina.

Water dripped down Gordon’s collar as he waited. Then Dina straightened and shook her head. She tapped her nose. “You know what I’m smelling?” she asked. “Semtex.”

“Plastic explosive.”

Dina nodded toward the compound. “They’re training bomb-sniffer dogs right this minute,” she said. “Other dogs are being trained to find drugs.” She shook her head. “Man, that chronic must be twenty years old, it’s a miracle they’re not training the dogs to find mold.” She began walking back toward the car. “None of the dogs seem unhappy, and none are being mistreated. And if there are explosives and controlled substances used to train the dogs, that explains the high security.” She looked at Gordon and laughed. “Sorry to destroy your detective fantasy.”

Gordon shrugged. “It’s better to know,” he said. He opened the passenger door for her. “Dinner’s on me,” he said.

Dina started to get into the car, then hesitated. “No offense, Doc,” she said, “but does that mean you’re doing the cooking?”

Gordon blinked at her. “Sure.”

Dina gave Gordon an uncomfortable look. “You know,” she said, “my taste in food is pretty conventional, when all’s said and done.”

“Game is organic,” Gordon said, “and it’s lean. Free-range. It’s better for you than anything you’ll find in a supermarket.”

A stubborn expression entered Dina’s eyes. “Doc,” she said, “I’ve eaten your chili.”

Gordon surrendered. “I’ll take you to a restaurant.”

Dina’s smile was brilliant. “Thanks.”

He took her to a place in Belvidere with a view of the Delaware. He didn’t know whether she was on a low-carb diet or whether her tastes in food were more like a dog’s than those of a human; but Gordon watched Dina devour a fourteen-ounce rib eye while taking only a few bites of her salad and baked potato.

The conversation was pleasantly professional, ranging from weird crimes to weird autopsies. An older couple at a nearby table asked to be moved when Dina described a cadaver one of her dogs had found.

Gordon found himself enjoying Dina’s company. She was a very attractive young woman, and he was far from immune to her allure.

Most men, he supposed, would be wondering what Dina looked like naked. Gordon had no such questions, for the simple reason that he already knew the answer. He’d seen more naked women, of every size and age and description, than the most accomplished seducer. There were no mysteries left—not even cause of death, because he always found that out.

That the vast majority of the women he met were dead put him at something of a social disadvantage with living females, but not as much as most people might think.

Beauty did not leave with death. The human body was a marvel of intricate design, the highly crafted product of millions of years of evolution. Contained within its morphology were membranes as delicate as a spider’s web, a muscle as powerful and enduring as the heart, a structure as diffuse and ephemeral as the lymphoid system. The musculoskeletal system was a glory of complexity, the interaction between muscles and bone producing everything from a champion athlete to a shy girl’s smile.

The human body was as varied and wonderful as the surface of a planet.

The wild card added to the wonder: sometimes its improvisations were brilliant, sometimes merely chaotic. It subverted every single cell—or enhanced it. Or both.

Gordon lived a fair percentage of his professional life in a constant state of awe.

After dinner Gordon joined Dina on the train back to New York.

“You know,” she said, “everyone at the precinct thinks you’re a joker.”

He looked at her in surprise. “You think I’m not?”

“You’ve been around some of my dogs,” Dina said. “They can usually smell a wild card—the metabolism’s generally tweaked some way that causes the difference to come out the pores.”

“I’ve noticed that myself,” Gordon said.

“I think you’re just—” She laughed. “Skinny and very tall.”

Gordon nodded. “Good observation, there, Officer.”

“And another thing,” she said, tapping his arm. “You make a terrible Sherlock Holmes.”

I guess
, Gordon thought,
I’ll have to settle for being Wernher von Braun
.

They left the train at Pennsylvania Station and ran into the usual Penn Station crowd: commuters, street people, and pimps waiting for the arrival of runaway teenagers from Minnesota. Gordon saw Dina to a cab. “Dinner again some time?” he said.

She smiled up at him. “I feel like I need a booster seat sitting across the table from you,” she said.

He shrugged. “I’ll have the waitress bring you one.”

Dina nodded. “Okay. Give me a call.”

Well
, he thought as he watched her drive away,
that went well
.

There was a lot of yelling from Interrogation Room Two. A woman kept wailing, “He was a good boy!” and a man’s voice was uttering threats against the city, the department, and probably everybody else.

Gordon looked around for Detective Kant and saw only Detective Van Tranh, the vibrating ace who failed utterly to rejoice in his nickname of “Dr. Dildo.”

“Kant sent for me,” Gordon said.

Tranh waved in the direction of the interrogation room. “Your Jersey John Doe got identified,” he said. “He’s one of the missing on Squid’s list. Franny and the Lou are trying to calm the family down.”

“And I’m supposed to help with that?”

“You’re supposed to explain the medical evidence,” Tranh said. “So far, the family isn’t convinced.”

Gordon stepped toward the door, then hesitated. “I should go back and get my autopsy report.”

“Fran’s got a copy.”

“Okay.” Gordon walked to the door, knocked, and entered the small room where Kant and Franny were being shouted at by the grieving family.

Gordon had met his share of bereaved couples over the years, but he had never encountered quite so much drama stuffed into two people. They were both broad and tall and took up a lot of space, and they made so much noise that they seemed to occupy the whole room. Mrs. Heffer cried, wailed, asked God to punish her, and kept insisting her son was a good boy. Mr. Heffer suspected conspiracy, refused to believe a thing he was told, and banged the table as he uttered threats. “My son did not have a heart attack!” he shouted as he kicked a chair. “He worked out all the time! He studied Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu!”

“It wasn’t a heart attack,” Gordon attempted. “It was sudden cardiac death.”

Mr. Heffer beat himself on the chest with a fleshy fist. “My son did not have a heart attack!” he screamed.

“Aortic valve stenosis is not uncommon in young men—” Gordon began.

“Not uncommon,” Mr. Heffer repeated scornfully. “What the hell does that mean? You’re contradicting yourself already!”

“People were always making trouble for him!” Mrs. Heffer said. “Tommy was a good boy!”

Mr. Heffer waved a fist. “My son was kidnapped!” he said. “Why else would he be way the hell out in Jersey?”

Franny opened his notebook and readied his pen. “Do you know anyone who might want to kidnap Tom Junior?” he asked.

Heffer stared at him in utter scorn. “That’s what you people are supposed to find out!” he said. He beat his chest again. “How the hell would I know who kidnapped him? Do I look like I hang around with kidnappers?”

“Kidnapped!” Mrs. Heffer burst into tears. “He was probably kidnapped by that communist from down the street.”

“Communist?” Confusion swam into Franny’s face. “What communist?”

“He runs the tobacco shop,” Mrs. Heffer said. “He sells poison to the kids!”