River of Glass (26 page)

“Helix wasn’t cooking meth.”

“No, he was, that’s what I’m telling you.”

“And I’m telling you, I was in that house, and there was no meth lab there.”

She glanced behind her, where Portia Ross was cocking her head to listen, then took my right arm and moved farther away. “This is bigger than a dead hooker in a dumpster. Jared, what’s going on?”

“I don’t know yet. Not completely.”

“But you know something.”

“I know I gotta talk to Malone.”

“They aren’t going to let you in there.”

“We’ll see.”

I dialed Malone’s cell, and after a few rings, she picked up. “Damn it, McKean. I’m pretty busy here.”

“I just talked to this guy, Helix, a few days ago. Let me in, maybe I can shed some light.”

“You don’t want to see this. It’s awful.”

“I’ve seen awful before.”

There was a silence while she thought about it. Then, “Hold on. I’ll come and get you. Just you.”

T
HE HOUSE
had been reduced to rubble, ash, and a few charred beams.

I breathed in through my mouth and said, “Did they get out?”

“We recovered four bodies inside, two adult females and an adult male upstairs and another female in the basement. Sent one survivor to the burn unit. She didn’t even make it to the hospital.”

“Got a name?”

“No, but she had a lotus flower tattoo on her stomach.”

“Ah, God. Marlee.”

“What is it?”

“I talked to her at Hands of Mercy a couple of days ago.”

“What about?”

“She was one of Helix’s women. I showed her a picture of Harold Sun. She said she didn’t know him.” I thought back to the way she’d averted her gaze and pushed the photo back across the table at me. “But I think she was lying.”

“Why would she come back here?”

“Maybe to warn Helix we were getting close? Or maybe she thought she could blackmail one or both of them. She said Helix didn’t believe in having partners, but she might have lied about that too.”

She took a pack of cigarettes from her jacket pocket and tapped one out.

“Jesus, there’s not enough smoke in the air?”

“My little puff isn’t going to make a difference. Here, give me a light.” She handed me her lighter, and I lit the cigarette for her. We’d done this dance before, at her first murder scene.

She took a long drag and held it, then blew the smoke out her nose. “You said you were going to shed some light.”

“I am, but I want to ask you a question first.”

“Go ahead.”

“How come you’re such an asshole when other people are around, but almost human when I get you alone with a couple of dead bodies?”

She gave a funny little laugh and said, “You got me. It’s the bodies. Makes me feel all warm and fluffy inside.”

“I think you’re not as tough and angry as you act.”

“You’re wrong. I’m tougher and angrier.” She tipped back her head and blew a perfect smoke ring. “I know guys like you, McKean. Hell, I’ve dated guys like you.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “You saying I’m your type?”

“Not even close. But now it’s your turn. Enlighten me.”

“You still thinking they were cooking meth in there?”

“That’s what it looks like. At first we thought it was the Executioner, but there was no note.”

“But this wasn’t a meth lab.”

I brought her up to date, and she said, “What, you have X-ray vision? We found the chemical residue and what was left of the gear in the basement. They were probably cooking it up there.”

“I don’t think so. The house smelled bad, but not meth bad. The girl on the couch had track marks on her arms, but nobody had meth mouth or bugs under the skin. And Marlee said Helix didn’t let his ladies use meth. Said it made them ugly.”

“Which it does.”

“The timing’s too coincidental. This has to be connected to Sun.”

“If you’re right, I don’t like where this is going. You finger Savitch, and they kill him. You connect Sun with Helix, and they kill Helix too.”

“You think this is my fault?”

“I’m not saying that. Though, you look at it one way, and you kind of painted targets on their backs. I’m just saying, these guys are playing for high stakes. You and your shadow . . . you haven’t exactly been keeping a low profile.”

I nodded toward the smoldering ruin. “They’re already cleaning up. If they act true to type, either Sun is writing the list, or he’s the next one on it.”

She sucked in a lungful of smoke and held it, then slowly blew it out. “You’ve been watching Sun for the better part of a week. You might be wrong about him.”

“Or someone—maybe Helix—tipped him off, and he’s lying low.”

“Could be.” She took a long breath in through her nose. “There’s something you need to see.”

I followed her past the charred frame of the house to the body bags lined up neatly along the front fence. Three adult females, one adult male.

She paused. “You think you could ID these guys?”

I knelt and unzipped the first bag, eyes watering at the stench—the sulfur-and-charcoal stink of burnt hair and seared skin blending with the charred-meat smell of flesh and the sickening sweetness of cooked spinal fluid.

Beneath the blisters and the curling skin, it was easy enough to discern Helix’s features. I zipped the plastic over his face and turned to the next body. It was a woman, a few tufts of Pomeranian-colored hair surrounded by puckered red skin. Simone.

The next was the young woman Simone had said was twentyone. I looked up at Malone. “I don’t know her name, but she was at Helix’s house. These are the only three people I met here.”

“Take a look at the other one anyway,” she said.

I peeled it open and looked down into the face of an Asian woman. The heat of the fire had contracted her facial muscles and pulled her lips into a gruesome grin.

I pulled the zipper open a little more, saw the dragon eye brand on her collarbone.

Malone said, “It’s not Tuyet, is it?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“She’s the one you found in the basement?”

“Shackled to a table. I hope to God the smoke got her before the flames did. We found something else, too.”

I zipped up the last bag and followed her to the van where the forensic evidence was being processed. She gestured for me to wait, then stepped inside and came out a moment later with a cloth-bound ledger.

“We found this in the basement, in a fireproof safe.” She handed it to me, and I glanced down the columns, names on the left, dates and monetary amounts in the center, generic aliases—Mr. Smith, Mr. B, Mr. K—on the right.

On the last page, five lines from the bottom, was Tuyet’s name, followed by last Tuesday’s date, a six-digit amount, and the name Mr. J. There was one name below hers. No date, no sale amount. Probably the woman in the body bag.

I ran my finger down the columns again. “You think this book is the real deal?”

“We found three sets of shackles in the basement. Between that and the book, it looks like they brought the girls in groups of three.”

“Any connection to Sun?”

“Not yet.”

I looked back at the body bags. One man, three women. Four adults. I said, “What about the baby?”

“What baby?”

“Little girl, less than a year old. I saw her when I was here before.”

“Maybe it was someone else’s baby. A guest’s.”

We both looked toward the house, the queasiness on Malone’s face echoing the churning in my gut. The fire had reduced the house to scraps, but some of the scraps were recognizable. A scorched refrigerator, a cracked toilet lid. And in what would have been the back bedroom, the charred slats of a baby’s crib.

Her hands went to her mouth. “Ah, no, McKean. Not that.” And then, “I guess I’d better go and tell the fire chief.”

She was back a few minutes later. “There was no baby,” she said, her face awash with relief. “Thank God for small miracles. No pun intended.”

“Thank God,” I echoed. “But if she isn’t here, where is she?”

I
LEFT
Malone with the crime scene and went back to find Khanh and Ashleigh talking quietly beside the Channel Three van. Portia perched in the back of the van, complaining bitterly to the cameraman about something I couldn’t hear.

“Let’s go,” I said to Khanh, stepping between her and Ashleigh. “I’ll fill you in on the way back.”

Ashleigh cocked an eyebrow. “After I called you here, that’s it? You aren’t even going to tell me anything?”

“I’ll tell you everything when it’s all over.”

“I need something now.”

I thought it over. “I already told you there was no meth lab here. But here’s something else. Helix had a baby. She’s missing.”

Ashleigh smiled. “I like the baby angle. Viewers love babies, and nothing draws people in like babies and tragedy.” She turned to Khanh and pressed another business card into her hand. “Call me if you want to talk.”

35

B
ack at the motel, I checked the Fast Trak. Sun’s car was at his house. I kicked off my shoes and turned on the television, flipped through the channels until I found a documentary on cane toads. Khanh went into the bathroom and came out in her pajamas. She curled into the other bed, reading
The Shining, Shining Path
.

The documentary showed a black-and-white photo of a girl pushing a doll carriage. Inside the carriage was a monstrous toad in a baby bonnet and a christening gown. Cute.

My cell phone buzzed. I looked at the caller ID. Maria.

“I don’t want you to panic,” she said, as soon as I picked up. “But there’s a problem with Paulie. His heart. He’s okay, for now. But can you meet us at Saint Thomas?”

“For now?”

“For the moment. He needs surgery. His body has been handling the murmur for a long time, but the resp—” Her voice caught. “They say the respiratory infection affected his ability to compensate. He’s conscious, but . . . they’re going to operate tonight.”

“I’m on my way.”

She gave me the room number, and we hung up.

Khanh looked up from her book. “On way where?”

I tried to steady my breathing, keep my voice calm. “Kids with Down syndrome are prone to a lot of other disorders. Leukemia. Heart defects. My son has something called a ventricular septal defect. A hole in his heart. It causes a heart murmur, which isn’t life-threatening, but sometimes things happen to make it worse. Like overexertion, or a bad cold.”

“He have bad cold.”

“And it stressed his heart. He needs surgery. I have to go. I’m sorry.”

She reached over, touched the back of my hand. “No need sorry. Of course, you need go.” She turned her head away. “Not able watch Sun forever.”

He’d led us to his house, to the import store, to nearby restaurants. Everywhere but to Tuyet. I wondered if Khanh had let herself realize that if Tuyet was depending on Sun for food and water, she was already dead.

I wrote my cell number on a pad next to the motel phone and promised to call when I knew something. Then I went back to the truck and brought back a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver. Full cylinder, extra box of ammo. Laser site activated by squeezing the grip. The laser was a mixed blessing, since a shooter could follow the beam back to you in the dark, but if you were a novice, it upped your chances of stopping the target.

Khanh listened carefully while I showed her how to use it, and when I left, she had it on the desk beside her, the grip just touching her left hand.

“I’ll call you,” I said again.

“I be here.”

Saint Thomas Hospital was a few miles west of downtown, a twenty-minute drive from our Brentwood motel room. From the outside, it looked more like an office building than a hospital, but it was the best place in the state, maybe in the country, if you had something wrong with your heart.

When I walked into Paul’s room, he opened his arms and grinned. “I have surgery, Daddy.”

“I know, Sport.”

His smile grew wider. “I gonna look like Frankenstein!”

Maria sat in the armchair beside the bed. “I told him he isn’t going to get a big scar up the middle, just a few very tiny ones. He’s too excited to listen to me.”

I lowered the rail on one side of Paul’s bed and scooted onto it. He slid into the curve of my arm and leaned his head against me. He looked good, but it worried me that they’d scheduled a night surgery. It meant they weren’t sure it could wait until morning.