SHIVER? ”
“ Si.”
Oh, Taylor was going to hit the roof.
“What does the Mexican government have to do with this?”
“Ah, mi amigo, you know how these things work. You sometimes need to look one way, while you are moving in another.”
“The boat you speak of. Am I safe to assume the connection is sound and has been corroborated?”
“You are safe to assume that. We took nearly four million dollars off that boat. We did not capture the man sailing it, he was able to get away.”
“And you have this man’s name.”
“We do. Winthrop Jackson. The fourth, I believe. That is your woman’s-”
“Father. Yes. She doesn’t know.”
“Well, I wish you the best of luck breaking the news.”
“Thank you. Let’s talk about the chauffeur. What have you found out about his killer?”
“Only that we have a very dead American who was shipped back to the authorities in your country. It seems to be a case of mistaken identity.”
“You don’t believe that, do you?”
“I do not. But that is the most convenient theory for the moment. He is not important to the bigger picture, if you understand my meaning.”
A dead American national not of concern to the security services in Mexico meant they simply didn’t care to investigate.
“There was one piece of information that was relevant. An American flew into Mazatlan on the same flight as our dead friend and caught the evening plane to New York City. His name was unfamiliar to us. Dustin Mosko.”
Dustin Mosko. That was the name of the man Taylor had killed in New York.
“His name is not unfamiliar to me. And for the record, he’s no longer with us. But he worked for Delglisi.”
“Ah. Then your puzzle is complete, yes?”
They talked for a few minutes more, then Baldwin wrapped up the conversation. This was news he’d suspected, but didn’t particularly want to deliver.
His next call was to Garrett Woods.
After getting reamed for not phoning in about Charlotte’s demise sooner, Baldwin went over the details of his call with the mysterious Juan. Woods would take it from here. They had an opportunity, a chance to right so many wrongs. They discussed ways to apply pressure, to stop at least one bad guy from hurting the innocent anymore. But it would cost, and cost dearly. Baldwin didn’t know what Taylor would think, how she would react.
When they finished, Woods relayed the information he’d been trying to give Baldwin over the past few days. Charlotte Douglas’s legacy wasn’t looking bright. Woods was infuriated as he gave the details.
“We’ve been through all of her files. It looks like she wrote a sophisticated program that filtered both obscenely violent crimes and the accompanying DNA to a private site for her perusal. When she found something she liked, she’d assign herself the case.”
“That’s how she found the copycat?”
“Yes. The DNA should have matched with the California files when the Denver cops put it into the system. Instead, the information was sent directly to Charlotte. She’d been watching this maniac’s spree across the country. We don’t know the extent of her relationship with him, only that she was obviously in contact. Whether she was just another one of his victims or was a part of his plan, I guess we won’t know until we catch him.”
“Why did she choose to reveal the information about the multiple murders when she did?”
“She had no choice. She was playing a very dangerous game. The IT department confirmed that she called last week to see if they had accidentally discovered her Trojan horse. They hadn’t. They had rolled out an upgrade, rekeyed the entire system. The new database didn’t have Charlotte’s special codes, so the real information made it through to the proper channels. If she didn’t come forward, people would have gotten suspicious. This could have gone on indefinitely.”
Baldwin felt sick. “How could she do that? And how in the hell did she pass the psych profiles and get into the Bureau in the first place? She was always very enthusiastic about deviant behavior, but I never saw any signs that she could have gone this far over the edge.”
“I can’t tell you that, Baldwin. Believe me, we’re looking for the answers here. We’ve launched a major internal investigation. Oversight of the department has been in Stuart Evanson’s hands. I hate to say it, but he may have to go. He’s the one that brought her to her current position as deputy chief. As I recall, you pointed out that she wasn’t fit for that position when you transferred. You and I are fine. Evanson probably isn’t.”
“That will be a loss.” They shared a moment of sarcastic happiness. “As long as you’re insulated, that’s what’s important to me. Evanson’s a prick.”
The industrial-grade clock on Taylor’s wall clicked loudly, announcing it was nearly five o’clock. He rang off with Woods, promising to answer his phone if he called again.
Charlotte Douglas. He’d known the woman was poison.
Shaking his head, pushing away his own feelings of betrayal, he gathered his coat. It was time to seek Taylor out, run through the afternoon’s bombshells with her.
Forty-Five
The library was a bust. Taylor combed through the records, but didn’t find the face of the man she remembered from her parents’ party. Frustrated, she took a drive in the cold, hard winter air, trying to clear her head. Before she knew what she was doing, she found herself at the apartment buildings where Frank Richardson was killed.
Oh, who was she kidding? She knew exactly what she was doing. Paying penance to the dead. Would anyone feel that for Charlotte? Was there a soul who would watch for her, pray for her, remember her fondly?
She climbed the stairs to the apartment and saw the door was cracked. She drew her weapon and slipped to the wall, left shoulder flat against the doorjamb. She listened hard, then put the gun away. The cleaners were here.
A horrific job they had, too. Following behind crime and avarice, cleaning up the messes made when a life ends, a heart ceases to beat, by choice or by violence. They were the lost ones, the unnoticed and unknown, the creatures who stealthily eradicated the signs of death.
Taylor looked into the apartment. She recognized the cleaner, a stout lady name Stella, who smoked like a chimney. She claimed the constant cloud of cigarette smoke kept the stench of death from her nostrils. Taylor smelled it on her, the unmistakable scent of burnt tobacco, and was hit with a mouth-salivating craving for a smoke. Shaking her head to literally make it go away, she stepped into the room and greeted Stella.
“Hey, LT.” Stella sounded like a truck driver on a bender, but Taylor knew she was a sweet, God-fearing woman who sacrificed her own happiness to help families maintain some sense of closure after their loved one’s death. She stopped scrubbing.
“What are you doing out here? I thought this scene was cleared for me.”
“Oh, it is, Stella, don’t worry. I was just here to say, well, I guess I wanted to say goodbye.”
“Knew the vic, eh?” Stella leaned back from the blood pool she was removing from the apartment’s carpet. “I could use a smoke, anyway. Want to join me?”
“I wish. No, I think I’ll just stay here for a minute.”
“Suit yourself.” She stood, knees popping, and sauntered past Taylor, a sour look on her face. But she squeezed Taylor’s arm in passing, and Taylor knew it was a show of support.
Alone now, she took in the scene. Frank Richardson’s blood was black and shiny, several days old and forever interred into the grain of this room. All the scrubbing and cleaning, the replacement carpet and linoleum floors, the fresh paint, none of that would truly erase the imprint of the man’s soul, brutally taken from this space. A certain dislocation of the very air would stay in this room forever.
