Gideon's Corpse

“Oh, bosh,” said Blaine, making a dismissive gesture. “National Book Award, Man Booker—I’ve gotten more awards than I deserve.”

“Did he ever ask you to read anything of his? He was an aspiring writer.”

“I’ve got a question for you,” said Alida, staring at Gideon. “You’re a physicist working for the FBI?”

“Yes, but that’s irrelevant—”

“Do you also work at Los Alamos?”

Gideon was floored at her insight. Not that it mattered; it was no secret. “One of the reasons I was asked to join the investigation,” he said in measured tones, “is that I worked in the same department with him at Los Alamos.”

“I knew it.” She sat back, crossing her arms and smiling triumphantly.

Gideon turned back to Blaine, once again trying to get the conversation off himself. “Do you recall if he ever showed you anything he’d written?”

Blaine thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No, he didn’t. And anyway, I have a firm policy against reading other people’s work. Really, all I remember of him is an eager, fawning sort of young man. But I haven’t seen him in some time. I don’t believe he came to any of my recent signings—did he, MD?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Did he ever mention his conversion to Islam?” Gideon asked.

Blaine looked surprised. “Never. And I would have remembered something like that. No, he must have talked about the usual things. The only thing I really remember about him was that he was persistent and, as I recall, he always held up the line.”

“Daddy is too kind,” Alida said. “He’ll let people talk to him for hours.” With the arrival of her father, her foul mood seemed to have melted away.

Blaine laughed. “That’s why I bring Alida. She’s the heavy, she keeps the line moving, she gets the spellings of everyone’s names for me. I spell as badly as Shakespeare. Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

“Did you ever see Chalker outside a signing?”

“Never. And he’s certainly not the kind of person I’d have to the house.” Gideon felt a strong wave of British snobbery wash over him with this last statement, revealing still another side to Mr. Simon Blaine. And yet he couldn’t blame the man for the sentiment—he himself had assiduously avoided having Chalker to his apartment. He was one of those clinging people you didn’t want to let into your life.

“He never talked about writing with you? I understand he might have been writing a memoir. If we could get our hands on that, it would be important for the investigation.”

“A memoir?” Blaine asked, surprised. “How do you know?”

“He attended a writers’ workshop in Santa Cruz called Writing Your Life.”

“Writing Your Life,” repeated Blaine, shaking his head. “No, he never mentioned any memoir.”

Gideon sat back, wondering what else to ask. He could think of nothing. He took out his cards, gave one to Blaine and then, after a faint hesitation, another to Alida. “If you think of anything else, please give me a call. My partner Special Agent Fordyce and I will be flying to Santa Cruz the day after tomorrow, but you can always reach me on my cell.”

Blaine took the card and slipped it into his shirt pocket without glancing at it. “I’ll see you out.”

At the door, Gideon thought of one final question. “What was it about your books that Chalker liked so much? Any particular characters, perhaps, or plots?”

Blaine screwed up his face. “I wish I could remember… Except that, it seems to me, he once said he thought the most vivid character I’d ever created was that of the abbot in Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog. Which puzzled me, because I consider the abbot to be the most evil character I’ve ever created.” He paused. “Maybe to a man like that, the two were synonymous.”

20

Fordyce entered the hotel bar, strode across the carpet, and took a seat next to Gideon. “What’s your toxin?” he asked.

“Margarita. Patron Silver, Cointreau, salt,” said Gideon.

“I’ll have the same,” Fordyce told the bartender. He turned back to Gideon with an expansive grin. “I said I was going to kick ass—and I did.”

“Tell me about it.”

Fordyce pulled a file out of his briefcase and slapped it on the table. “It’s all right here. We’ve not only got clearance to interview the imam of the mosque—Chalker’s mentor—but also a warrant allowing us to enter the Paiute Creek Ranch with a subpoena for Connie Rust, Chalker’s ex-wife, compelling her cooperation.”

“How’d you do it?”

“I called Dart’s office directly, spoke to his assistant, a guy named Cunningham. He said he’d clear the brush for us and he did. And get this: Chalker’s wife hasn’t been interviewed yet. She’s a virgin.”

“Why not?”

“Typical bureaucratic snafu. The original Title Eighteen Notice of Intent was defective, they had to redo it, get it re-signed by a pissed-off judge.”

“How’d you get them to agree?”

“I called in a chit. A big one. And to tell you the truth, nobody thinks the wife is worth the trouble. They divorced long before his conversion, they haven’t been on speaking terms, and apparently she’s a sad case.” He put away his papers. “We’ll hit the ranch at dawn. Then we’re scheduled for tea with the imam at two o’clock.”

“Tea with the imam. Sounds like a BBC comedy series.”

Fordyce’s drink arrived and he punched it down with scarcely less gusto than a triple espresso. “So. What do you know about this Paiute Creek Ranch?”

“Not all that much,” said Gideon. “It has a dicey reputation. Some say it’s a cult sort of like the Branch Davidian compound, armed patrols and locked gates. A guru named Willis Lockhart runs the show.”

“They’ve got a clean record,” said Fordyce. “I checked. No allegations of child abuse, no bigamy, no weapons violations, taxes paid up.”

“That’s encouraging,” said Gideon. “So what’s your plan?”

“Go in easy, don’t spook them, show the warrant nice and polite, pick up the wife, leave. We have to bring her for interrogation to the Santa Fe command center, but we’ll have a chance to hear what she has to say on the way there.”

“And if the ranch people don’t cooperate?”

“Call for backup.”

Gideon frowned. “That ranch is deep in the mountains. Backup would take an hour or more.”

“In that case, we leave nice, come back mean. With a SWAT team in tow.”

“Hello, Waco.”

Fordyce sat back in irritation. “I’ve been at this for years, believe me, I know how to do this.”

“Yeah, but I have another idea…”

Fordyce held up his hands in a mock-dramatic gesture. “Please. I’ve had enough of your ‘ideas.’”

“The problem is getting in there. Warrant or no warrant, they probably aren’t going to let us in. And even if they do, how are we going to find the wife? You think they’ll just fetch her for us? That ranch covers thousands of acres, and we’ll have to have their cooperation—”

Fordyce swiped one hand across his neatly clipped head. “All right, all right. So what’s your bright idea?”

“We go in undercover. As…well…” Gideon thought for a moment. What kind of person would they let into the ranch?

Fordyce snorted. “Jehovah’s Witnesses?”

Gideon took a sip of his margarita. “No. We’ll go in with a business proposition.”

“Oh yeah?”