I paused. “The people behind him. That’s your Botswana emailshell-game and where Kratz gets his dirt. The bastard is running as an agentnow. That’s why he’s changed his MO.”
I paused again, intuition still clicking pieces into place asI talked them out at Cash. “Bycheck. Bycheck didn’t answer his phone? I don’tlike the sound of that. This isnational security.”
I waited, and took my turn in the room. And did moreinventory. Fancy woodwork, fancy antique furniture, that bed for example,canopy with spiral-turned mahogany posts and hand-rubbed burl grain on the headand foot boards. Money. Mucho dinero.I felt things, Kratz on that transformer knob, the power still flowing throughthe corpses and I didn’t shut it off. Kratz on the corpses, surface only,locking them into that pose, no trace of him on their minds or muscles.
No trace of Kratz on the bed, the toys, the white crystallinepowder. No trace of Kratz on that blasphemous cross. I could feel the men inall those places, the sort of non-wizard signature I’d traced from Major Ridge.Yes, a bit of magical power in Reverend Fred, part of his charisma as a preacher-man.
I wondered how strong it would have been when he worked acrowd.
All the time, I heard my father’s voice, voices ofSunday-School teachers long dead, whispering in my head that the two mendeserved to die. Abominations. Wrath of God. The sort of thing Reverend Fredwould have thundered from his pulpit, woe to the bloody city, Sodom andGomorrah and pillars of salt.
I hate those voices. Like Sandy, I try to grow beyond them,not let them tell me what to do. But, like Sandy, the voices are still there.Always will be.
Deep down inside me, there’s a slimeball who wants to come outand play.
Anyway, I worked the room from one end to the other, strictlyunder Cash’s rules. I kept my stomach under control and tried to be asobjective about the scene as possible. I think I succeeded. Can’t tell youabout the others, because we never talked about the case. Never.
When I got through, Cash waved the forensic team in after me.I don’t know where they’d been hiding, kitchen maybe — must have come in thehearses or undercover cars.
And then she took a couple of deep breaths and turned to me. “Takeme home. I want out of this fuckingscene. Mac brought me here, and he isn’t finished yet.”
Yeah, he’d have to do the stuff that involved leaving hissignature on the scene, releasing the corpses from whatever spell Kratz hadused and such. Lucky man. I’d had severalreasons for retiring.
XIII
We got out of Reverend Fred’s little love nest just asfast as legs and cop protocol would move us, Cash handing over to Mac as officer-in-charge.I blinked when we got outside. The world had gone full dark and raining — we’dspent hours in there and I’d lost touch. Sometimes a crime scene does that tome, moves me into a different place running on a different clock, even adifferent calendar. It pretty much leaves me jet-lagged when I come back toearth.
I stood there on the front stoop of the place, letting thecold rain drip off the brim of my hat, breathing air that didn’t stink of Kratzand death. Believe me, cat-piss alleys full of rotting garbage would smell likeShalimar in comparison. I had a connection between the murders now. Maybe. Ihad an idea of what sort of thing John Doe had been carrying. Maybe. I had avast secret conspiracy, two of them actually, opposing each other — an oxymoronon the face of it. Maybe.
The whole thing stank, making me long for one of Malcolm Ridge’sbottles of Jack Daniels to wash the taste of it out of my mouth. It took meseveral minutes, but I finally noticed Cash shivering beside me. Silly womandidn’t even have a raincoat, just some kind of thin blue suit coat to hide hershoulder holster. She was soaked.
I stirred my butt and stripped off my Burberry and draped itover her shoulders and we hiked back to the cruiser. I even remembered mymanners far enough to play gentleman by unlocking and opening the passengerdoor for her. We climbed in out of the rain, and I cranked the engine for theheater, but I still wasn’t fit to drive. We sat there with the engine idlingfor maybe fifteen minutes, steaming up the windows. We probably looked like alover’s-lane make-out scene from outside, except that the shadows stayed onopposite sides of the front seat. Lover’s-lane breakup scene?
“How can you stand it?” Cash might have said something elseahead of that, but those are the first words I actually heard.
I shook myself loose from my funk. Sometimes I end up agreeingwith Macbeth, with Shakespeare. Life isa tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and all the rest. Life’s abitch, and then you die.
“I stand it because I have to.”
She reached out and touched my cheek. Her fingers still feltlike ice, and I cranked the heater to full on.
“John, you and Father Joseph and Rabbi Meyers, you’re thethree strongest men I’ve ever met. They have God to cover their backs. What’s your backup? Who keeps you sane and moving?”
I thought about that. A few years back, the answer would havebeen Maggie. No question. She kept me balanced. Functioning.
Since then? Since I put her in jail?
“Inertia. Simple Newtonian physics, the laws of motion. A bodyin motion tends to remain in motion, and all the rest.”
Cash shook her head, a motion vague in the darkness. “Tends toremain in motion until acted upon by an outside force. Seems to me that Kratzand that murder scene count as outside forces. You can’t just plow alongforever. Sooner or later, something’s gonna break.”
“No big loss. Burn me out, you’ve got Mac to take over,Jacobs, Pendleton. We’re interchangeable parts, like light bulbs. Use one up,burn it out, you just toss it into the trash and screw in another.”
Her finger touched my cheek
