Stagger Bay (17 page)

The Andersen Club was a rambling three-story Victorian, set back from the street behind a manicured lawn. The building was painted green with trim of various colors, topped with towers and cupolas, and covered with so much rococo woodwork that it resembled a giant gingerbread dollhouse or perhaps a Disneyland ride. If the Addams Family Mansion got a high-end makeover the Andersen Club would be it.

A stone wall surrounded the Club’s parking lot, flanked by a line of topiary animals. Next to the lot entrance stood a huge metal Masonic compass and T-square. Through the opening I saw an array of neatly parked luxury cars: a couple of Jaguars, several Porsches, and even what appeared to be a vintage Testerossa.

I’d heard talk about the goings on within the Club. But as none of the Stagger Bay working stiffs ever got a look inside (other than serving staff, who apparently had to sign some kind of non-disclosure agreement), our wild theories were unsubstantiated.

For myself, I’d always envisioned sex parties with shrink tubing and hair-dryers ala Zappa, or possibly even group S&M sessions with leather-clad hookers cracking whips and screaming orders at the Club members as they crawled around in a groveling circular herd, oily and naked. Unlikely stuff but not impossible, right? We low people had to imagine some kind of degrading fantasies about our betters to vent our spleen.

A spacious picture window dominated the wall opposite me, affording the Club’s occupants a fine view of the marina. It also afforded me an equally fine if narrowly delimited view of several pairs of men, sitting opposite each other at dining tables occupying the length of the window.

At one of the tables I recognized Chief Jansen and Mr. Tubbs dining together, but their lunch date seemed to be less than congenial. The way Tubbs emphatically gesticulated at Jansen, the way Tubbs’ mouth rapidly opened and closed, suggested he was not enjoying a relaxing meal. Jansen, on the other hand, wore a bland condescending smile indicating his digestion at least was not disturbed by the current conversation.

Sam’s Lincoln pulled up to the curb and he got out, came over to join me.

“You keep showing up, keep getting in my face,” I said. “You trying to be friends here?”

Sam shook his head. “Don’t dodge the issues. I been on your butt since you walked away from the Gardens. I seen you checking out the bus station.”

“And if I did decide to split, so what? You’ve made it clear I’m on my own and there’s nothing between us. What I do or don’t do is none of your never mind.”

He aimed a look at the Andersen Club’s parking lot, grunted at all that automotive wealth on display. “Uncle Karl told me once that when you run away, you only give them a free shot at your backside. Is that the kind of role model you want to be repping to people, old man?”

I turned the pained look that arose on my face into a sneer of my own. Karl had stolen the ‘free shot at your backside’ line from me, but now didn’t feel like the right time to reclaim the quote for my own. My brother’s ghost could continue taking credit for it.

“I miscalculated,” I said. “I figured the Driver for the kind of coward that’d only come at you from behind. Looks like I was wrong, but I wasn’t the one who paid for it.”

“You’re ashamed,” Sam said in wondering tones. “You’re only human. No one expects more than that. You’re the one with unrealistic expectations of yourself old man.”

He changed tack: “I asked Uncle Karl about you once. He said, ‘All you need to keep in mind to understand your d—.’” Sam stopped, and then began again, his voice a little raised. “’All you gotta know to understand Markus is two things: first off, to him, perfect paranoia is perfect awareness. Second, he’s got a 200 IQ for hate.’”

I smiled. “Well, you know, playing eternal second fiddle to Karl, I had to have some way to vent my angst, right?”

Sam gave me a sour look. This kid had no sense of humor whatsoever.

“Karl never used to be one to tell tales out of school, Sam,” I said. “But yeah, you may have gathered I’m not necessarily the trusting kind.”

Sam grunted. “I’ll admit we’ve given you little enough reason to trust, you and me being family or no. But you’re not being played here, or at least no more than’s necessary for survival. And so what if I did maybe convince Moe we needed you when you first stumbled into the Gardens? A guy can have more than one reason for doing things, right? It’s not always about you, old man. You’re not the center of the universe, and maybe you need to get over being embarrassed.”

“Is it worth it, Sam?” I asked. “Can we even win here?”

Sam appeared surprised and unhappy; he thought for several seconds before he replied. “I know you don't have much reason to like this place. Maybe Stagger bay isn’t much, but it belongs to me. This place is all the home I’ve ever had.”

“Moe and JoJo and Natalie and the others?” Sam said. “I’ve known them all since kindergarten. They’re my people even if they’re nothing in your book. They don’t have to matter to you; it’s okay they don’t. I’m not trying to sing Kumbaya with you here, but they really need you not to turn your back on them. There’s people around here would lose heart if you left.”

“How about you, Sam. You one of them?”

“Quit fishing,” he said, his eyes avoiding mine. “I’m not gonna beg. Fuck you if you think I’m ever gonna.”

I thought about it. Sam was holding some important things back. But that was only natural – hell, so was I. Then the switch clicked in my head and it felt good: It didn’t matter if I could trust Sam or not, he was all I had left – and if he did do me dirty it didn’t matter either, because I had nowhere else to go and no one else to care about.

My son thought this was his home? Maybe he was a fool to back these people’s play, but did I really have any choice but to back his folly in turn? If I didn’t take this on Sam would just try to game all by himself, and die as surely as Karl.

I grimaced as I pulled Karl’s FBI letter out my pocket, opened it up and studied the letterhead for Agent Miller’s contact digits.

“Is there a pay phone around here?” I asked. But Sam just handed me his cellie.

Chapter 40

The FBI switchboard put me directly through to Miller’s extension, and he picked right up. When I identified myself he laughed.

“Talk about synchronicity,” Miller said. “Was just listening to one of those syndicated radio talk shows, girl in the next cubicle had it on. You were the subject of discussion, and all the callers seemed to have strong opinions.”

Next door to the right of the Club, a young girl walked up to stand at the bus stop in front of the Stagger Bay Library.

“Oh?” I said. “What was the upshot?”

“The upshot? Let’s just say you’re getting mixed reviews and leave it at that. So you’re Karl’s brother, right? Small world.”

The girl at the bus stop was on the stroll, judging by her dress and demeanor. Her feet were bare and filthy as if she’d been too busy to find shoes before going to work. From the way she fidgeted, the cement sidewalk was painfully cold against her soles.

She also looked like a girl with a lot on her mind. But that was understandable: this area used to be wall-to-wall working girls, and now here she stood all alone.

“Have to ask,” Miller continued. “What inspired you to become a cop-caller, Markus? Isn’t that against the code or something?”

Chief Jansen exited the Club, wearing his SBPD uniform and looking smug as ever. He got into his cruiser and backed out of his parking space.

“If it was good enough for Karl, its good enough for me,” I said, my attention divided as I focused as much on Jansen’s actions as on Miller’s words.

“So how is Karl?” Miller asked. “He was supposed to get back to me a while ago. How come I’m not speaking to him right now?”

“You’re saying you’re not aware he’s dead?” I grinned to myself despite the subject matter, letting him hear my sneer. “Maybe you junior G-Men aren’t as all-knowing as you’d like us common folk to think you are.”

As Jansen came out the exit his gaze clicked over to as if magnetically attracted to the girl at the bus stop. He stared at her, not even glancing in my direction though I was only twenty feet away across the street.

Agent Miller was silent for several seconds. “How did it happen?” he finally asked, in a quiet voice.

“You sure suck at interrogation,” I said. “It’s hard to be offering me a soda or a smoke over the phone, but shouldn’t you at least be trying to establish rapport or something? Maybe play schizo and give me Good-Cop/Bad-Cop all rolled up in one package?”

“Quit playing around,” Miller said. “I shouldn’t have to work you if your brother’s dead. If I’m wrong about that, just hang up and stop wasting my time. Otherwise, spill what you know and be quick about it.”

I clucked my tongue at his impudence. “It was a justifiable shooting by Stagger Bay law enforcement. Apparently in dealing with my brother you were associating with a major pot dealer, the kind of guy who’d try to shoot the cops serving his warrant. Funny how that works, huh?”

“All right,” Miller said. “All right, let’s both cry uncle here. What do you need from me?”

Chief Jansen turned on his cruiser’s trouble lights so they spun and glowed atop his car. He blurped his siren for a second but turned it off right away, creating a short, choked digital wail as he hung a right and pulled up in front of the young hooker.

“What was Karl doing with you?” I asked. “Was it a two-way street, a team effort between you guys? Or was he just a low life CI you were using up and throwing away?”

“Have you ever heard of a federal judge named Juanita Herrera, out of San Francisco?” Miller asked.

Jansen had the girl assume the position and gave her a cursory frisk before cuffing her, chatting her up all the while. He helped her to climb into the back seat of his cruiser and then drove away, having done his bit to clean up Stagger Bay one working girl at a time.

“Judge Herrera’s daughter was hitchhiking through Stagger Bay a few years ago and went missing, all the way, without a trace,” Miller said. “She hasn’t been seen nor heard from since.

“It’s no secret Stagger Bay is drop dead dirty, there’s bad mojo happening up there in your neck of the woods. Ordinarily when we suspect corruption and malfeasance in a county entity, the State Police would have complete jurisdiction. They’re the next higher level of law enforcement; this should be all theirs.

“But when a federal judge like Ms. Herrera makes it her life’s mission to bust a place wide open, we feds are the first ones invited to play. Markus, I’ve been up to Stagger Bay more than once, trying to find reason to widen the investigation. Your county stinks like day-old puke. I know it. I can feel it.

“Still, believe it or not, we still need a warrant to really dig, even in these turbulent times,” Miller said. “To get a warrant you need probable cause. And in Stagger Bay there are just too many places to bury the bodies. Literally.”

“Isn’t that why you get paid the big bucks? To pull the rabbit out your hat?”

“Rabbit out my hat? Don’t even start,” Miller said. “You of all people should know Stagger Bay’s county covers an area the size of Connecticut, and that it’s almost all old growth redwoods, mountains, rivers, and foggy coastline. Where are we going to search if we don’t know specifically where to bring the cadaver dogs? How are we going to know who to grill if everyone’s either too afraid to talk or has too much to lose? Anyone not familiar with how isolated Stagger Bay is couldn’t possibly understand the handicap we’re working under.”

“How about forensic accounting or something, like you guys did Al Capone with?” I asked.

“Well, we can get away with basic audits and default oversight inspections on anything we have any kind of jurisdiction over. But again, we need a warrant to delve much further than that, especially into the private sector. With even minimally imaginative bookkeeping, they can hide their trail easily.”

“You’ve put a lot of mental effort into this campaign of yours,” I noted.

“What’s my interest, you mean?” Miller asked. “Would it make you feel better if I pointed out just what a shot in the arm it’d be for a special agent’s career, if he broke open a case this big and had a federal judge owing him this kind of favor? A guy could transfer from a field office in, say, San Francisco, right into the Violent Crimes Unit back where the real action is, back in DC. Besides, maybe I’d enjoy putting the Staties in their place by making the bust federal.”

I could probably use this guy without having to be too afraid of his own personal agenda, then. “I got one more thing. Maybe you have some input for me.”

“Shoot.”

“What does it mean when a serial killer drives up to you on the street, says hello and tells you who he is, and then taunts you with his next victim while they’re his prisoner, still alive?”

“What the heck are you talking about?” Miller asked, his voice raised.

I explained, describing my encounter with the Driver, doing my best not to remember the little Hmong girl’s face. Miller was silent for a long while after that, then grunted.

“Markus,” he said. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. Serial killers don’t come right out and show themselves, anymore than a comic book super villain rips their mask off in public. One of the reasons your brother contacted me was because he knew I’m a fairly decent profiler; I’ve been shooting for VCU a long time. The big boys are back East, but I’m probably as good as you’re going to easily find out here on the Left Coast.”

“Markus,” Agent Miller said. “If the Driver is playing it that loose and crazy, he’s obviously on his last legs. He’s at what he sees as his end game.”

I saw the Club’s entrance door open and Mr. Tubbs walk out, Meshback Number One in front of him, Meshback Number Two behind him pulling drag.

“See, we generally differentiate between ‘spree’ killers and ‘serial’ killers, even though they both have multiple victims,” Miller said. “Sprees kill a whole bunch of people in a short time and then, often as not, kill themselves or suicide by cop. Serials may be organized or disorganized, but their murders are generally separated in time, with their technique becoming ever more similar and ritualized as they kill their way up along their learning curve.”