The Upright Man (27 page)

“Paul has killed two women,” I said. “Jessica Jones was found dead in a motel five days ago, down in Los Angeles. Katelyn Wallace yesterday morning.”

“Where?”

“Up north. East of Seattle. He murdered them and left erased hard disks in their bodies. This seems to be something about undoing the past, wiping a life clean, maybe even some kind of purification thing.”

“Oh, my God,” the old woman said. Her hands were shaking. Muriel reached across and gently put her hand on top of them.

“Jessica and Katelyn were children in his foster families?” Nina asked. “He killed them just because of that?”

“They were families that tried to take him in for good, actually tried to give him a home. Something about him made it impossible. He evidently needs someone to blame. He’s wiping his disk clean. He’s . . . Mrs. Campbell, do you have any idea where Katelyn Wallace’s parents live now?”

“They’re dead,” Muriel said. “Natural causes, five years ago. Well, kind of natural. Nature, anyhow. They were on a sailboat that sank out in the bay. Nobody seemed to think there was anything weird about it.”

“What about the Joneses?” I asked.

“Don’t know anything about them.”

“LAPD had local cops looking for them down in Monterey,” Nina said. “I told you. They had an address but there was nobody home. The neighbors said they hadn’t seen them in six weeks. The assumption was they were on vacation.”

“Maybe they are,” I said, but I was thinking of two people, of about the right age, whose bodies I had seen on a desolate, isolated plain five hundred miles north of where I was sitting. Whom John had photographed, and might possibly have been able to trace—if he’d subsequently made progress in an investigation he’d chosen to keep secret from Nina and me. I wasn’t sure enough to say anything. It was equally possible that John really had been in Florida, had talked to the old woman’s other friend, and traced the background that way.

Nina was looking at me. “How did you know, Ward?”

“I didn’t,” I said, distracted. “I just wondered why the killer took a picture of Jessica’s parents. If you’re going to take a souvenir, a typical talisman, it’s generally something closer to the victim. A body part, perhaps, a piece of clothing. Instead he took a picture that wasn’t even of the victim. Monroe said there’d been an attempt to locate her months ago; doesn’t that sound more like tracing someone, rather than a serial murder M.O.? And assume the person who killed Jessica
is
different from the man who killed the cop. What’s the cop-killer’s motivation? It can only be to up the ante on Jessica’s killer. You got a dead woman in a dusty motel, the cops can only spare so much time even if she’s pretty and has got a hard disk in her mouth. If you’ve got that
plus
a policeman being capped in broad daylight—then suddenly you’ve got a full-on task force and a homicide lieutenant and a bureau SAC competing for screen time—with a SAC who’s already been called with a tip-off.”

“But what says it’s the Upright Man who killed Jessica?”

“Nina, how much do you need? You’ve just heard Mrs. Campbell confirm the only possible connection between two women killed in the same way. It’s Paul.”

“Yes. But how did you know that before you got here?”

“I didn’t. I was just . . . As soon as the guy tried to kill us in Fresno, and it seemed possible it could be the same man as in L.A. then how else do you put it together?”

“About a million other ways, Ward. Okay, the shooter is working for the Straw Men. Maybe. Okay, he’s trying to draw attention to a murderer. Perhaps. But how did you get from there to your brother being the killer? How was that the only solution?”

I didn’t understand what she was getting at. “Because . . . because I assume that if they’re trying to get someone caught it can only be someone they can’t get to by themselves. It can only be someone who is so out there, who is sufficiently dangerous and autonomous and outside standard human rules, that they need the help of the regular law to try to catch him.”

“But why do they want him caught? He’s
one of them.
He supplied them with people to kill and he helped them blow up buildings and organize shootings. Why . . .”

“Because he also did things—killing my parents, and abducting Zandt’s daughter—that brought four dedicated people with guns looking for them. He got their lawyer killed. He got their multimillion-dollar nest in Montana blown to dust. And who knows what else he’s doing now? If Paul turns on you, or you cast him out, I’ll bet you’re going to fucking know about it.”

Suddenly I realized that the two older women were staring at us, and that we’d been shouting. I tried to speak more calmly. “Nina, I don’t see the problem here. You’ve just heard what—”

“Ward, for God’s sake—
it could be John.
”

I stared at her, suddenly winded. “What do you mean?”

“Who do we
know
the Straw Men want put down? John. Who’s incriminated in the video they supplied? John. Who’s murdered a man who can only be something to do with them? What’s to say it wasn’t
John
who killed these women?”

“Because . . . why on earth would he do that?”

“They were part of the Upright Man’s life. You know
what your brother did to him. He took Karen. He killed her but he didn’t even do it fast. He disappeared with her and only proved she was dead when he arranged her bones as a trail to lead John into a trap where he meant to kill him too. He took John’s life and destroyed it. What do you think John’s going to stop at in trying to get revenge?”

I opened my mouth. Shut it again.

Nina stood. She was furious, as angry as I’d ever seen anyone, ever.

“Fuck you, Ward. I’m going to wait in the car.”

She strode out of the house, slamming the door hard on the way. I turned to the two women, who were looking at me like a pair of interested cats.

“Thank you,” I said. “I have to go.” I heard the sound of a child calling out from upstairs.

“Oh, shoot,” Muriel said. “There goes the night.”

I was at the door before Mrs. Campbell spoke. “You know, you never even asked me what I thought you would want to know.”

I turned. “What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know anything about catching people,” she said, “but I figured you’d want to know where he went last.”

“When?” I said, without a clue what she was talking about, half-expecting to hear the sound of the car as Nina drove away.

“Back then. The family that took,” she said. “My friend in Florida was the case worker. She said the family moved up to Washington because the woman’s mother was getting old and not so good at looking after herself. Last Dianne heard of them was a year after they moved. The husband had taken off with some young girl he met in a bar.”

“Did she remember a name?”

“She did. She remembered it because it was kind of like that dead guitarist who’d been so big a few years before. Di-anne was into all that, back then. Spelled differently, though.”

I shook my head. “Who?”

“The name was Henrickson,” she said. “They lived in a place called Snowcalm, something like that, up near the Cascades.”

NINA
DROVE TO THE AIRPORT IN A SILENCE THAT
was murderous and dark. I tried to talk to her but she was like a ghost driver, caught in some time to the side or in the past. So nobody said anything, and I sat thinking about John Zandt, and what he might or might not be capable of. I remembered too something he’d said when we had our meeting outside the hotel in San Francisco, something that hadn’t made much sense at the time:

Sometimes you have to go back a way to do what you need to get done.

I could see a meaning for that now.

Nina parked in the lot and we got out. She marched straight toward the stairway and I followed, struggling with my bag.

“Nina,” I said, loudly. My voice bounced off dirty concrete and came back flat and dull.

She turned right around and smacked me in the face. I was caught so much by surprise that I staggered backward. She closed in, slapping me, and then again, shouting something I couldn’t make out.

I tried to hold up my left hand to ward her off, but the pain this caused in my shoulder was enough to make the movement awkward and incomplete. I saw her notice this, make to punch me again anyway—to actually hit me right on the shoulder—and then pull back at the last moment.

Instead she glared at me, with eyes so green and bright it was as though I’d never seen them before.

“Don’t you ever do that again!” she shouted. “Don’t you
ever
keep anything from me.”

“Nina, I didn’t know whether—”

“I don’t care. Just don’t. Don’t treat me like whatever you choose to tell me is enough, like I’m some fucking . . .
chick
who just gets what she’s given. John did that
and if I ever see him again I’m going to break his fucking nose.”

“Fine, but don’t take it out on—”

“—On poor you? In two days I’ve been suspended, my ex has started killing people, God knows how many, I’ve lost my oldest friend and seen my boss shot to death in front of my eyes. I’ve still got his blood all over my shirt, as people keep pointing out. So don’t you, don’t you
dare . . .
”

She stopped shouting, blinked twice, rapidly, and I realized her eyes looked brighter not just because I was so close to them, but also because they were full. I took a risk and put a hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off viciously, and suddenly her eyes were dry again.

“Nina, I’m sorry. Look . . . I’m just not used to having to
say
things. I’ve spent three months in a void and was not the world’s best socialized person even before that. My whole life I’ve relied on the comfort of strangers, room service, and barmen. I’m just not used to having someone around to listen or give a damn.”

“I’m not
saying
I give a damn. I’m just saying don’t lie to me. Don’t hide things from me. Ever.”

“Okay,” I said. “I understand.” I did, too, or thought I did. John had cut her deep. Right now I was his surrogate. Given how angry she was, I thought he was lucky to be somewhere else.

She took a step back from me, put her hands on her hips. Looked away and breathed out in one harsh, long exhalation. “Did I hurt your shoulder?”

“Least of my problems,” I said. “My face feels like I ran into a wall. When you slap someone, they stay slapped.”

She looked back up at me, head cocked. “Right. You know that about me now. So don’t make me do it again.”

“I’ll try.”

“Don’t just try. Anyone can try. I need you to be better than that.”

“Okay,” I said, seriously. “Trust me. I won’t do it again.”

“Good,” she said, and cracked a smile that was briefer than a flap of a bird’s wings but still made the hair rise on the back of my neck. “Because remember—I’ve also got a gun.”

She turned briskly and started walking to the stairs.

“Christ,” I said. “You really aren’t like the other girls.”

“Oh, I am,” she said, and now I couldn’t tell whether she was joking or not. “You men just have no idea.”

WE
MADE THE LAST FLIGHT UP TO
S
EATTLE
,
BUT
only just. By the time we were out the other side and in a rental, it was midnight. With a map and a pair of burgers from a Spinner’s in Tacoma we were good to go, though by then neither of us was moving fast.

I drove, trying to keep my arm from seizing up completely, and also leaving Nina free to do what we’d finally agreed on the flight. She still wouldn’t talk to the FBI—for all she knew, the man who’d sat in the boardroom with Monroe might still be in town, and on her case—but there was one person she was prepared to try.

She called Doug Olbrich. They spoke for five minutes. I was sufficiently busy dealing with Seattle-Tacoma’s freeway system to not get much of what was said, though at least some of the conversation sounded positive.

She finished the call, stared into space for a moment, then rapped her hand on the dashboard—tap tap—as she had the day before, but this time not seeming so pissed.

“What’s the score?”

“It could be worse,” she said. “Monroe isn’t dead.”

“You’re joking.”

“Nope. Fucker’s still alive. Astounding. He evidently has
far
more balls than I gave him credit for. He’s got five holes in him and has been in surgery for six straight hours. He’s very sick. They’re saying he’s got a twenty percent chance at best. But he’s not dead yet.”

I felt appallingly guilty for having abandoned Monroe, for having assumed he was as good as gone.

“You did the right thing pulling me out,” Nina said. “Without that I probably wouldn’t be here.”

“There’s more bad news. I can hear it.”

“Doug went up to my place to try to find me. Someone’s taken it apart. Smashed it up and stolen all my files.” She shrugged, and sounded weary rather than sad. “You were right, Ward. It was time to leave.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Whatever,” she said, tightly. “The Gary Johnson thing is getting very heavy. It turns out this lawyer in Louisiana has a
lot
of money behind him, and a powerful following wind.”