One Through the Heart (23 page)

‘Do you and George keep secrets from each other?’

‘Never.’

‘Then you need to walk outside while Marion and I talk.’

She walked out and Raveneau told Marion that they had recovered a partially burned photo from the bomb shelter and that the photo used in the book might also be the same as the burned one. He tapped the photo in her album. ‘I want to compare it with the burned fragment we have.’

She nodded then said, ‘If you’re going to tell me he doesn’t believe in the things Ann wrote, then I don’t know anything at all about anything.’

‘He may well believe in the things she wrote. I’m talking about something different. I’m talking about a fragment of a burned photo we found in the bomb shelter. I want to compare it to the photo in this book.’

‘Why was it burned?’

‘There were candles in the shelter and it may have been accidental that it was burned. Why it was there I don’t know yet, though we are getting closer.’ He saw her reaction and added, ‘Marion, I’m not saying Brandon Lindsley was her killer and her killer befriended you. I’m not saying that at all and I may be completely wrong about this photo.’

‘You must have one of the books. I can’t lose this picture of Ann.’

‘We do have a book but the photo there is cropped. It doesn’t show as much as this one. I’ll make sure it stays with me.’

She gave him the photo after finding an envelope to put it in. Now she sat straight-backed in her chair, her face ashen as if the conversation had exhausted her. Raveneau left soon after.

When he walked out the sky was bluer and yet the smell of burn was still very strong. He called la Rosa, left a message on her cell, and then crossed back to San Francisco to a copy shop where he knew he could get a jpeg emailed to him before he left the store. Upstairs at his desk in the homicide office he opened the image and then sized it to match the photo found in the bomb shelter. When he did that he saw a match, but it would take someone better than him looking at it. He left another message for la Rosa. This time she called back and said, ‘I’m on my way back to the office. I’ll see you in a few minutes.’

When she walked in he held the photo from the bomb shelter up against the image on his monitor.

‘Mom’s photo?’

‘Yes. An old friend of hers got her to open up a little more. The publisher of the orange book of her writings was given a copy of this photo and most likely they got it from Brandon when he was impersonating Alan Siles. Marion loaned him the photo to make copies about six months after Ann’s remains were identified. He made one or more copies.’

Raveneau read her quizzical look and answered it as best he could.

‘I don’t know if it matters at all, but I think Lindsley gave a copy of the photo to whoever published the orange book. This is the photo that’s at the back of that book, and the charred photo that came out of the bomb shelter may be the same.’

‘OK, but why are we chasing it?’

‘I don’t think Lash was the publisher, and if it was Alan Siles then that deepens the connection with him and Lindsley. Why was it left in the bomb shelter? Was it discarded because it was burned or was that intentional? If it connects Lindsley to Siles at a point when Lindsley swears he only knew Siles in passing, that’s information that might help us later. I just don’t know how yet.’ He paused. ‘But there’s something there and we need to know it. I’m sure of that.’

R
aveneau picked up Jennie Crawford, the Missouri sheriff, after she landed at SFO. That was her idea, though it was the FBI who paid for her to fly out. She said it was the first time she had ever flown business class and that she hadn’t been apart from her daughter a single night in three years. Not only that, she was uncomfortable leaving her daughter with her mom.

‘What’s the matter with your mom?’

‘She’s always got a cigarette.’

‘What about your ex? Where is he?’

‘JB works for a company that supplies goods to the military. If he was here, Julie could stay with him, but he’s not and he never is. He’s probably wherever the next war is being planned, figuring out how much his company can charge the Army for water. Let’s not talk about him. What’s that thing over there that looks like a chopped-off tea cup?’

‘Candlestick Park. It’s a sports stadium.’

‘They should think about knocking it down.’

‘They are.’

‘Is the traffic always like this?’

‘This isn’t bad at all.’

‘I wouldn’t have asked you to pick me up if I knew the traffic would be like this. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be and I’m glad to meet you.’

‘Likewise, though I really don’t know why I’m here. I still don’t understand why I couldn’t get the FBI’s questions answered with a fax and a phone. Where do they get the money for all this anyway?’

‘You know the answer to the second question. Did you bring those files with you?’

‘I did and they’re yours first, but we should go over them together. I want to check into the hotel and shower. Any chance you want to meet at the restaurant your girlfriend has?’

‘It’s more like a bar.’

‘That sounds even better. If she owns a good bar I’d marry her if I were you. Have you ever been married?’

‘I was for a while.’

‘Kids?’

‘A son.’

Raveneau waited for the next question. He didn’t want to answer it or change the mood in the car, and of all things this was still the hardest for him. For some reason his head always went to the lines of a poem. He braced, and it came as human and naturally as breathing.

‘Where is he?’

‘He died in Fallujah, Iraq.’

She nodded. She didn’t say anything for seconds and he saw in her profile the grit that made her sheriff.

‘I have a cousin who died there. I was older and I babysat him a lot and saw him grow up. He was on his way to becoming a really good man. In those long wars so many things happen. A lot is just luck, I think.’ She was quiet then in a softer voice said, ‘Fallujah was special. It’s one we’ll remember. I miss my cousin and I’m sorry I made you talk about your son.’

That was a bond for Raveneau. He was quiet for a mile and then picked up the conversation again, lightened things up and gave her a thumbnail city-tour on the way to the Sheraton, and then told her he’d come get her in a couple of hours and take her to meet Celeste and get a drink. He dropped her off and picked her up two hours later. One drink in she opened the file she brought. In it were photos of every casket that got pilfered. The caskets looked like shipwrecks in the river mud.

‘Sometimes a burial site turns up on a farm or an old cemetery outside of where a town used to be, and it’s been so long their people are gone. There’s no one left to care. But that wasn’t the case here. We knew the river was rising but we hoped the levee would hold. It didn’t.’ She paused a moment. ‘Maybe I said this to you before. I’ve had it in mind that the thief of these skulls was looking for an opportunity like this.’

‘That fits.’

‘Some of them got cleaned.’

‘That’s right. Several got cleaned.’

‘People at home are very offended by that. They want to see whoever did this go to prison and they want to understand why it happened. Whoever stole them took a pretty good risk of getting caught. That’s always puzzled me. A deputy could easily have driven up that road just to make sure it was all still secure.’

Raveneau had no explanation for the man’s lack of fear of being caught, other than the invulnerability delusion can create.

They ate sardines, cleaned, salted, and roasted. They ate a plate of crostini with quail eggs and prosciutto that Celeste brought over. She sat with them, drank a half glass of wine, winked at Raveneau, and left as Sheriff Crawford drank cold white wine and talked about her life and job and living on a bluff over the Mississippi. She was locked in a tight race running for re-election.

‘The election is less than a month away and the fellow I’m running against has made catching who did this his main issue. He claims I haven’t put enough work into it. Think there’s any chance this will get solved before then?’

Raveneau did, and he briefed her on where things were at. They talked more and then as he drove her back to the Sheraton there was a report of yet another new fire. They listened to that report and as she got out of the car she leaned back in.

‘They didn’t fly me out here just to ID a body. They know something else.’

‘That’s what I figure too.’

‘But they haven’t said that to you?’

‘No.’

‘At home I know an FBI agent who refers to the police in Missouri as the locals, even St Louis metro. They’re all tribes to him in a foreign country he’s been stationed in, and he was born in Missouri. I’d show you how he walks and looks at us, but I’ve had too much wine.’

‘Get some sleep.’

‘You’re a good man, Benjamin Raveneau. I’ll call you when they get through with me tomorrow.’

It would turn out she was right. The FBI did know something and had for at least twenty-four hours. Raveneau didn’t like that and liked it even less when he found out what it was.

W
hen Jennifer Crawford looked at the melted right side of the dead man’s face, the stump of ear coated in melted plastic from a helmet, they said, and then the other side, she asked, ‘How did Inspector Raveneau identify him?’

‘You tell us.’

‘I tell you? What’s that mean?’

‘What do you see?’

‘I see myself throwing up in a toilet in about twenty seconds.’

‘Have you ever seen him before?’

‘Maybe, just maybe, and what is it you’re going to tell me about that?’

‘Let’s do this first, Sheriff.’

‘Am I getting radiation right now?’

‘No, and a lot of it was on his body and clothes. He was washed.’

‘This is cleaned up?’

She didn’t listen to what either behind her said next and studied the face more closely. She recognized him and was trying to put a place to it. One of the agents was Newton, the Missouri FBI agent she was telling Raveneau about last night. That said to her she should know this man and she knew now she hadn’t ever spoken with him, never cited him or pulled him over, or questioned him. But there was something in her memory in the background. A car accident? No. Something else and maybe it was the elderly man locked outside his house and lying dead in the cold morning. Was he the one who called it in that the detective later questioned? Thought on that a moment and turned.

‘I think he was interviewed after a neighbor got locked out of his house and froze to death. He called it in and later our detective went back and interviewed him as a possible suspect.’

Newton tried to get the elderly victim’s name from her and the name of the detective, Abe Burtle, now retired. She didn’t give either. She said, ‘Good to see you, Todd.’

‘Yeah, I thought we’d catch up over dinner last night but I couldn’t find you. I left two messages for you.’

‘I got both. I was out with one of the locals.’

‘Raveneau?’

She nodded and then followed Special-Agent Coe to his office. She liked Coe. She saw a little dance of light in his eyes. He needed a few meals and some sleep, but he wasn’t a suit with a gun. Now they sat a table in a much nicer room than anything in the squat, square, poorly air conditioned brick building she worked from. She took in a flat screen TV and then as abruptly as if switching off a light switch she quit being a tourist. ‘What do you need from me, Agent Coe?’

‘All the help you can give us. We think there’s a house in your county where he was living and that house may have radioactive materials stored in it.’

‘Do you have a name?’

‘John Royer.’

They watched her for a reaction and Jennifer thought Royer was right. That might be it.

‘They tell me you may have recognized him. How would you go about finding out where he lived and who he associated with?’

‘Get him out on Facebook. Run an article and put a photo front of the weekly. It won’t take long.’

‘At this point we’d like to avoid going public with this. That’s part of why we flew you out. We wanted to talk with you face-to-face.’

‘Why isn’t Inspector Raveneau here?’

‘We’re devoting significant Bureau resources to a potentially catastrophic terrorist plot. That’s what this is about. The fires may just be one aspect of what’s coming. Inspector Raveneau and I work well together and certainly we’ll bring him up to speed on this, but at this point we need to move as quietly as possible. You recognize our victim as John Royer and we’re prepared to act on that today as you remember more about this elderly man locked out of his house. We need to find that house today if it can be done. For the next few days we’d like to do that by alerting as few people as possible.’

She turned to Agent Newton and visualized Newton’s car driving fast as hell down a county road. Everywhere he went, everything he did was important, even now in his mid fifties. She took in the other agent again, young, trying to mind his manners and sit at the grown-ups’ table.

‘To do this right, I need to go home now.’

‘We’ll get you there. We’ll fly you.’

‘Are you really that worried?’

Coe leaned back. He folded his arms and then unfolded them and she figured he was going to lie to her, but then changed his mind.

‘Jennie, the dead man you looked at was placing incendiary devices that created the biggest fire ever on that mountain. It burned houses. It killed people. It could have killed many more. It was a ruthless act and we have very good reason to believe he planned it in association with the pair we’re still trying to apprehend. He may have committed suicide drinking a radioactive agent or they may have killed him. We don’t know which yet but it’s the second instance of radioactive ingestion and more evidence that they have access to radioactive isotopes. We know that they’ve talked about producing dirty bombs. We know they were waiting for a cyclical weather event and now we know why, but my point is if there’s more to come there’s a good chance it’s coming soon. We feel we’re racing the clock. They probably feel the same. They know the manhunt under way is going to get results eventually. One is dead. Two are at large. We don’t have any choice but to take a radioactive threat seriously.’