“Why not?”
“These are not nice boys,” Marcus said. “Christopher and Brian, they take drugs and they get violent and they have impressive records for such young men. Christopher and Brian have ties to God’s Army.”
“They’re a band?”
“They’re a militia,” Hoffman said.
“White racists, fighting for God’s People against the Forces of Darkness,” Marcus added. “That would be people like my lesbo partner here, and me, a government patsy, and you, you drug-taking promiscuous rock star, you. Declared war on the false government of the USA when abortion was legalized. Don’t like blacks, Jews, Catholics, the whole rigmarole. And they probably won’t like you very much, at all, come to think of it, since you’ve got miscegenation of the races going on, what with a black man playing drums.”
“They used their time inside to get in good with some of the more passionate racists,” Hoffman said. “Yet another success of the penal system.”
No wonder Anne had been so hostile, I thought.
“So you see why we’re kind of concerned with you going to talk to these guys alone,” Hoffman added.
“Did your father maybe know Chris or Brian while at OSP?” Marcus asked.
“Not that I know of.”
“Pity. See, if he had, we’d call that a lead. And if you could confirm something like that, well, it would make our job easier.”
“I don’t know who Tommy knew in prison.”
“Then why do you want to see these two?”
“That’s none of your business, and I see a pay phone over there, I can call my lawyer.”
“Where’s your father?” Hoffman asked.
“I don’t know.”
“And you’re not looking for him? That’s not what this is?”
“No, it’s not.” I pulled my car door open again, climbed back into the Jeep. “Now, sing along with the chorus, you know the words: If you have any further questions, you can talk to my attorney.”
The Quick brothers lived down a dirt track off Prairie Road, behind an expanse of peppermint field, in a house just outside a line of pine trees.
I say house, but I’m being generous, because what I really thought when I first saw it was shack. There were power lines coming to it through the trees, electricity and telephone, perhaps, and maybe there was running water, too, but none of those things changed my assessment. The road went from paved to dirt on the way in, a long straight line that wasn’t dusty only because there’d been recent rain.
More than the out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere feeling that came from the sprawling fields and the distant hills was making me nervous as I pulled up. If Chris and Brian had both been at OSP, that tied all of us together, them, Tommy, me, maybe even Mikel. While I had no idea what prison was actually like, it didn’t seem impossible that Chris or Brian or both had learned who Tommy Bracca was, that it had come out in some conversation or some interaction that the Miriam Bracca they knew as boys was his famous daughter.
It didn’t take much imagination to see them hatching a plan, then, trying to find a way to use the information to make some money. If they’d gotten out around the time Tommy had, then all either would have needed to do was wait until I came home, and then they could get the whole thing rolling. Pictures and kidnapping and all of it, all wrapped together. Maybe the pictures had been one plan, and Mikel had learned about it somehow, so they’d killed him.
The more I thought about it, the more I thought that I was headed straight into a lot of trouble. If Chris or Brian was the Parka Man, then they’d already proved themselves dangerous, already proved they weren’t afraid to kill. It meant they knew enough to plant cameras in my home, to get past my alarm, to take pictures of me while I slept.
The thoughts lingered, expanding with horror as I realized how bad things could have gotten. Whichever Quick had forced me into his truck at gunpoint, whichever Quick had been in my home, he’d had me alone and defenseless and, once, even completely unaware. Jesus, one of them had finally gotten me out of my clothes. If he’d wanted more than just a scare or a photograph, nothing would have stopped him from getting it.
The Jeep popped and slid along the ruts in the road. At the end of the drive there was a clearing, with a rusted hulk of a tractor and a stack of empty and perforated oil drums vaguely framing the front of the shack. I pulled in and parked and waited a few moments, and there was no motion from the door, no signs of movement beyond the two scum-stained windows.
I didn’t see the Ford anywhere in my mirrors.
There was an odor in the air as I stepped out of the Jeep, foul and heavy and eliminating the scent of the mint all around, and I could see wisps of smoke rising from behind the house, farther in the trees. The only sound came from the Jeep as I shut my door, and then that died away, and there was nothing else.
I took a breath to steel myself, nearly gagged on the stink in the air, and started for the shack. It was bright and the sun was almost directly above me, but it wasn’t doing much to warm me. When a blackbird bolted off a branch in one of the nearby pines, I nearly shrieked, expecting three dozen more to come and suddenly swarm on me. Shades of a Hitchcock movie—cold and still and menacing.
The door was wooden and loose on its hinges, and a red and white plastic sign ordered me to keep out, and another hung below it, warning me not to trespass. I knocked tentatively on the door, anyway.
The door swung open at my touch, then stopped inches into its swing. Through the parting I could see a corner of the shack opposite me, a metal bed frame with a sloppily dressed mattress. Shelves hung to the walls, with books and magazines.
I thought about calling out their names, or maybe identifying myself. Then I thought that I wasn’t keeping out, that I was probably trespassing, and that maybe advertising that fact wasn’t the smartest move I could make.
The door didn’t budge when I gave it a little push, so I pushed it harder. This time it gave an inch, then seemed to push back, so I pushed it a last time and, before it tried to return, slid through the gap and let it fall shut behind me. The change in light was more dramatic than I’d anticipated, and it left me blind for several seconds, blinking away the autumn glare, trying to adjust to the dimness inside.
When my vision returned, the first thing I focused on was the light source, a computer monitor glowing on a workbench. It was a big screen, maybe nineteen inches, and running a screen saver, a parade of naked women, none of them obviously me. The PC was next to it, on the table, and flanking the other side of the monitor was a flatbed scanner. A set of cables ran from the back of the PC to the side of the table, unattached, waiting for attention.
Behind the monitor, on the wall of the shack, were clippings and papers. Most of them I couldn’t make out, but there was a picture of Tailhook that I recognized, torn from some magazine. One of the publicity stills from the press kit that went out when
And there was a copy of Picture Three.
I took a step forward to get a closer look, and nearly tripped, and that’s when I discovered why the door wouldn’t open properly.
The body was on its side, facing the front of the shack, its legs crossed but extended, as if trying to run to the grave. Both hands were extended in the same direction, as if trying to clear the path. When the door had swung in, it had been blocked by the leg. A black puddle had spread out from the middle of the back, down to the boards that served as a floor, filling the seams between each plank. Flies buzzed over the puddle, sluggish and a little bored.
It wasn’t Tommy, and it wasn’t Mikel, but for that first awful instant it was both of them. Then I was certain it was Tommy, and I was sure it was my fault, I’d screwed up again, and I lurched forward and went to my knees, not thinking and not caring. My gorge rose, and it was the only thing that was keeping my voice from rising, too.
