Parallel Lies (7 page)

“The victim does. The killer climbs back into a freight car, climbs back into his own bottle, and that’s the end of it.”

“In which case we’ve got a killer riding the rails,” he pointed out, “and a body that’s freezing solid, if it hasn’t already.”

She informed him, “The question you failed to ask back there at the yard was whether or not car eleven-thirty-six had been inspected there or not. If it had been, and it was found clean and empty of riders, then we know whoever boarded did so between the depot and the St. Louis yard. That increases the chances of discovering a potential witness at one of these camps.”

“You give seminars, do you?” he asked a little bitterly, because she was right, he had in fact failed to ask. She had rushed him, which had been her intention—and he hated the fact that she might have thrown him off his game.

“A little upset, are we?”

“What you failed to take into account, Ms. Priest, was the weather,” he advised. “Ahead of that storm, temperatures across the Midwest were in the forties. According to the forensics team, that blood froze on contact. The storm hit this area the night before—ergo, the fight, or whatever happened in that boxcar, also happened the night before,
after
the temperatures had dropped. The storm is a real slow mover—
that’s why the big dump. So, whether I asked that question or not, I figure we’re in the general area of where whatever happened, happened: four to six hours by slow freight train out of St. Louis.”

She looked impressed. The way she fiddled with the car’s heater, he thought she was trying to think of a comeback. She asked, “Would you have killed him if your partner hadn’t stopped you?”

The car’s interior suddenly felt the size of a Volkswagen bug. Once again he saw she’d done her homework. He fished for the door handle. He’d had enough. He heard the pop of the automatic door locks. She wanted an answer.

“Leave it alone,” he said. He popped the locks back open. She popped them shut.

“I’ve got a little problem with enclosed spaces,” he confessed. He popped the door open and climbed out of the Suburban. The cold cut through his clothes.

She put down the window and spoke loudly, “I’d like to know about your temper before I enter those camps with you.”

“The man was slamming a seven-month-old baby girl against a wall, turning her skull into sponge cake. He’d done it before, and we knew it—the doctors, us, even the girl’s mother—but no one could prove it. The mother was too afraid of him to bring charges. And there I was—on surveillance. The mother had agreed to let us wire the house. My partner and I
heard
that sound—her head, those cries.” He felt breathless, a little dizzy.

He couldn’t see Priest; he saw only those long dark arms clutching that little girl and driving her against the wall. The stream of blood running from her ear, her eyes so filled with tears he couldn’t see them. The child’s sweaty head. He looked up and saw the stars. All he ever needed was a little space. He recovered and stepped farther away from the car.

She climbed out, came around the front, arms crossed in the headlights against the cold. “You okay?” she asked him.

“Guilt,” he answered. “Or at least that’s what the staff psychologist says.”

“If you’re putting me on …”

“I lost my shield, my car, I’m about to lose my house. You did your homework. You probably know all that. So you might think twice about reminding me of my situation. I think I’m pretty much aware of it.”

She asked, “Are you going to puke, or can we get back in the car?”

“We go into the camp without headlights. We use the Suburban because of the snow. We hike the last quarter mile or so. We roust whoever we find. Are you carrying?”

She nodded, the shadows and light playing across her features like fire.

“You have a permit for Illinois, or only Missouri?”

She told him, “We have agreements with everyone but Louisiana. I’m licensed.”

“So if one of these bozos runs, I’ll pursue. You’ll get your back against a tree and your weapon out.”

“And if two run, I’ll pursue the other one,” she clarified.

“Fresh snow,” he reminded her. “We can track them. We don’t need to turn this into more than it is.”

“If that statie you talked to is right, then there’s no one out there anyway.”

“He’s not right,” said the ex-policeman. “When are the cops ever right?”

It won a grin. She asked, “They gave you how many days—on the taxpayers’ payroll—to make a determination on this?”

“Three.”

“Typical government excess. If we strike out here, there isn’t much to follow.”

“More time, if needed,” he informed her. He felt better now. He didn’t know if it was the air or this woman.

“Park that thing somewhere it won’t get stuck,” she stated.

Tyler headed back toward the convertible, wondering what he’d gotten himself into. With the state police as backup, he would have felt a lot safer.

They walked down a farm road through a cold slice of a midnight moon and the spindly silhouettes of trees, leaving the Suburban far behind. The car’s ignition key was hidden inside Tyler’s sock, placed there on the off chance they lost whatever confrontation was ahead and that Tyler’s pockets were searched. The key lay alongside his ankle, cool and scratchy, where it was unlikely to be discovered. If things went wrong, they didn’t want the Suburban stolen. It was cold going on colder, and Tyler’s Ford was two miles away.

The tree-covered terrain rose to their right, and it was here that the long-haul freight trains slowed, giving riders a chance to jump them. Tyler expected the camp to be close to the tracks but on level ground. Nell picked up the smell of the burning wood first. Tyler switched off his flashlight—they would navigate by moonlight; they didn’t want to be seen.

Priest was also the first to pick up the yellow light of the distant campfire—an oil drum stuffed with broken limbs and flaming like a smokestack fire. They approached in silence, the air so still that the crackling of the fire sounded incredibly near. They began to detect voices through the woods and then, finally, less than a hundred yards off, the faint silhouettes of four figures standing close to the upright barrel. Tyler pointed at her and to the right; he pointed to himself and indicated the left.

Far off in the distance, he heard a train approaching. Tyler pointed to his ear, and Priest nodded. He gave her a thumbs-up,
and he took off at a run. He glanced back to see Priest running as well. They would use the sound of the train for cover.

The clatter of the train grew. Tyler again glanced over at Priest and ran faster to synchronize their arrivals.

The close cry of the train charged his system. These four hobos could be harmless, or they could be wanted men. His lungs stung with the cold.

The train roared past.

One of the homeless looked up toward the train. His head tracked left, and he spotted Tyler. The man said something sharply to the others, turned, and ran, his attention on Tyler and not on the woman in the trees who stood nearly directly in his path.

Tyler shouted, “Federal agent!” his voice lost to the roar of the train.

Priest stepped out of the shadows, her gun raised, and the one attempting to escape dove into the snow, face down, his hands already on the back of his head.

The others turned, looked around, and in drunken contemplation took in Priest and Tyler. They seemed to be callused to such raids, shaking their heads and chatting among themselves.

Tyler spotted four discarded cans of Colt 45. None of the recent snow had collected on them. “Federal agent,” he repeated. The haggard men wore multiple layers of ragged clothing. All three had teeth missing and streams of mucus frozen beneath their noses.
A matched set,
Tyler thought. He’d seen plenty of similar homeless on the streets of D.C. and in Metro’s lockup.

“You lock us up, you’d be doing us a favor,” their spokesman said.

“Some questions is all,” Tyler answered. He lowered his weapon and approached the three. Her gun aimed at the man’s head, Priest patted down her captive, removed a pocketknife,
stood him up, and led him over to the fire. One by one, Tyler singled out one of the three and patted him down for weapons. All three carried knives. None were bloody.

“We’re going to divide you up into pairs,” Tyler announced. “A couple questions, and we’re all done.” None of the men showed signs of a fight, nor did he see even trace amounts of blood on their clothing—and there was no doubting that
any
of this clothing had been worn for a long time. They smelled ripe.

Priest pushed her guy up to the fire barrel. Tyler studied the nearby shelters—some of cardboard, some plastic sheeting. “How many others?” he asked the spokesman.

“One. Not doing so great.”

“Passed out?” Tyler asked.

“Going on dead,” answered the toothless man.

That won both Tyler’s and Priest’s attention. “Hurt?” Tyler asked.

“You could say that,” answered the shortest of the three. “A nigger,” he said, eyeing Priest. “In that first lean-to over there.”

All four were white. They looked to be between forty and sixty.

“I’ve got them,” Priest said. “Go have a look.”

Tyler headed over to an arrangement of fogged plastic sheets, some twine, and at least one large truck tire. There was a lump inside, vaguely the shape and size of a human being. It was buried beneath jackets, a dark tarpaulin, and a torn orange flotation vest that was stenciled in silver with USCG—Coast Guard. Tyler kicked the lump, trying to wake it. He kicked again, and the lump moved and groaned. “Fuck off,” came a weakened, sickly voice.

Erring on the side of precaution, and not trusting his source, Tyler inspected the three other makeshift structures and found them empty. No surprises. Five men, in a camp that in the summer might have held three times that.

He heard Priest begin to question the other three. Tyler rousted the lump—he smelled of urine and something much, much worse. “Get up!” Tyler ordered. The lump groaned. He didn’t want to search this one, didn’t want to touch him.

“Can’t get up. Bad foot,” the man complained, still face down, straining to see Tyler.

“Bad?” Tyler asked.

“Cut it.”

Cut?
Tyler wondered.
As in knife blade? As in bleeding?
“Cut it how?” was all that came out of him. He tried to get a decent look, but the lump wasn’t cooperating. Tyler’s heart was somewhere in the middle of his throat and straining to get out. He had a feeling he was looking down at one of their two suspects.

Tyler called out loudly to the others. “How’d this guy hurt his foot? Or did he show up here with it that way?”

“Chopping wood,” one of the drunken three called out from the fire.

“Was not!” the shorter man objected. “Someone done it to him!” he shouted.

Any kind of bad cut could explain the excessive blood in the boxcar. Maybe Priest was to get her wish; maybe this was going to be a brief one after all.

Tyler nudged the lump again. “Who did this to you?” He toed the layers of covering and flipped them off the man’s leg. The odor was nauseating. His stomach retched, and he nearly vomited. This, from a homicide cop with a decade of dead bodies under his belt. Dead was sometimes easier than living.

Priest and the others stood in a tight group. She appeared to be shining a penlight on something in her hand. She glanced over her shoulder—had she sensed him?—and turned her back just slightly toward him.
Was she blocking his view?
he wondered.
Or trying to stay warm?
When she
turned again, the penlight and whatever had been in her hand were put away.

The lower extremity of the man’s left leg looked half frozen, swollen and busting out of itself, like an overcooked sausage. The pant leg was torn to accommodate the swelling, but the boot remained on, split down the middle of the toes in a horrid, blackened wedge. If anything matched the carnage they’d found in the boxcar, this foot was it.

Tyler stepped away and took in some fresh air. He approached Priest and signaled her away from the fire drum. She stepped off a few feet so they could speak, but she never took her eyes off the four, even as Tyler spoke.

“Could be our boy,” he announced.

“Not according to our witnesses. They’re claiming his injury happened here.”

“Covering is all.”

“Maybe,” she said.

“What was that,” he asked, “you and the light?”

The fire flickered across her face, and for a moment she seemed frozen—and not by the cold air. She answered, “My ID? Just now? I was trying to convince them that I wasn’t any kind of cop, just a security guard accompanying you out here. That they could tell me stuff without worrying about getting arrested.” She added, “I showed them my corporate creds, but I’m not so convinced they can read anything beyond ‘No Deposit, No Return.’ ”

He liked that.

“Guy’s foot is cleaved in half. Could easily explain the boxcar.”

“They say it happened here,” she repeated. “In camp.”

“Chopping wood, I suppose,” he proposed to her.

“That’s right.”

Raising his voice, Tyler addressed the four. “So where’s the axe?”