A Murder of Crows (28 page)

The outsider got in.

But now it's his choice how his life ends. If he calls for help someone'll hear his cries and they'll come and get him—and probably execute him. Or if he doesn't call for help . . .
 Decker wondered how long it would take to starve to death.

The two men completed their accounts and Yslan dismissed them. Once they were gone she turned on Decker. “So?”

“What?”

“Truth, were they speaking the truth?”

“For sure.”

She looked more closely at him, then spun quickly and took in the place, the way she'd seen Decker do—the exit door, the sinks, the furnace, the ductwork. She was sensing something amiss and a thought was rising in her mind when one of the fingerprint guys said, “It's his prints on the mop handle.”

Yslan thought,
Yeah, that's what happens when you use a mop.

Then she looked back at the room and Decker, and the thought that was rising . . . had vanished and she was once more bewildered.

When she looked at Decker he was smiling.

“What's the smile about?”

“Nothing, Special Agent Hicks, nothing,” he said as he took one last look at the welded seal on the ductwork and the hole without a screw that threw off the place's perfect symmetry.

GARRETH PUT ASIDE THE BRUCE HUNTER NOVEL THAT HAD
momentarily distracted him. He granted the man's knowledge of firearms and the particularly sordid culture that surrounded them. The book, like so much fiction, was about retribution. Revenge.
Funny how the writers of the religious right missed the idea that revenge belonged to Him—it's pretty clear in the Book,
Garreth thought. He remembered a saying about revenge being best served cold but had never really understood what that meant.

It had been Garreth's experience that unless you were willing to involve yourself in real violence there was no revenge in the world. People can do the most awful things to each other but there is no way of getting back at them unless you are willing to go outside the realm of human morality—something that Garreth had done exactly one time, thanks to meeting Decker Roberts on that cold January day. If he'd never met that kid he'd never have taken that money from those Vietnamese drug dealers—and slid to his own personal hell.

He flicked on CNN and was surprised to see the footage of Decker and the diminutive woman entering the church down the hill from Ancaster College.

For a moment he considered leaving his surveillance of the San Francisco Wellness Dream Clinic and heading to Dundas, New York. But he quickly put aside the idea. The town would be loaded with feds. Besides, he was all set up for a capture here, and he was pretty sure that Roberts would eventually come for his son, since
the info he'd gotten from his cop friends on Vancouver Island said that Decker Roberts was out there fourteen months ago and tore the place apart trying to find the boy. He would eventually come after him again—and when he did, Garreth would be waiting for him. For retribution.

He wondered briefly if there could be a connection between Decker in Dundas, New York, and yesterday's early morning departure of the grey-haired freak who ran the dream clinic.

He'd been watching the place for days, and the routine was pretty much standardized. The actors, or whatever they were, arrived between 6:15 and 6:30 in the morning, already in costume—be it orderly, nurse or patient. Three hours later the grey-haired freak, who he now knew was named W. J. Connelly, arrived and stayed until 1:00 or 2:00. Then he got in his fancy car and drove off. The actors left at 10:00 p.m.—like clockwork.

But not yesterday. Yesterday a limo arrived for the grey-haired freak. He was carrying a travel bag and a computer case. And he was clearly angry that the limo was late.

After reaming out the driver he got in the car, and off he went. For a moment this confused Garreth, since he wasn't heading toward the San Francisco Airport. Then he consulted a more detailed map of the Bay Area and saw that the limo had headed in the direction of a private airfield. He made some calls and established that indeed that was where W. J. Connelly was headed—his corporate jet at the ready.

He cracked a new bottle of bourbon and took a long pull.

He tried to remember when he'd had his last drink—and couldn't.

Garreth had seen Decker's kid only twice since he'd set up surveillance on the converted warehouse. There was no sign on the building or any indication what went on inside. But there were barred windows on the second floor through which he'd spotted Seth Roberts—and taken a series of digital photos of the young man with the help of his long zoom lens.

When he first saw him he'd had a shock—the likeness to the five-year-old Decker Roberts, his father, was startling. Granted, this young
man was older, but you didn't need fancy aging software to see how that kid back then could grow into this young man. Well not
that
kid into
this
man. He reminded himself that it was this young man's father whom he'd known as a five-year-old kid—a kid who murdered a six-year-old girl—and sent his life spiralling out of control.

The second time Garreth had seen Seth he was at the side of the tall grey-haired freak. He took more photos.

As he watched the two chatting in the window he found his rage on the rise, and before he'd realised it he'd downed a sizable portion of the fifth of bourbon he always carried. And the alcohol fuelled the rage. Weird Stallone-style scenarios whipped through his head, and only a stumble that sent his bourbon bottle crashing to the pavement below sobered him enough to think straight.

It was not this kid who'd sent his life to hell—it was this kid's father. The father was the sinner, not the son. “I'm only here to find the father,” he said aloud to the empty tenement room.

* * *

Later that day, he watched the broadcast of the president's speech at the memorial service—and wondered what good it did. He doubted the whole concept of closure. He'd certainly had no closure since that cold day in Toronto when he sat in his police car with a very scared five-year-old boy named Decker Roberts.

He watched the Pacific mist roll in and felt it cool down the day.

At ten the actors all left.

He watched, and watched, and finally acted.

Breaking into the place wasn't that difficult, although getting past the locked metal door took some doing. There were no guards, no nurses, and only one patient—Seth Roberts. He unlocked Seth's door and quietly entered the room. The lights were off and the boy was lying on his back, his eyes wide open, but he was clearly asleep. From the rapid eye movement Garreth assumed he was in deep REM sleep, dreaming away.

He took out his camera and took a series of shots. Then he carefully tossed the room. He found nothing of interest except a photo of a dead boy encased in ice in a small river. On the bottom of the
photo in Magic Marker were the words:
This is what happens when you get close to people, Dad. Stay away from me.
He was tempted to take the photo but decided instead to photograph it. As he took the third shot he was surprised to hear the young man call out in his sleep, “No. Please. I'm only twenty-one years old.”

He slipped out of the room, then out of the warehouse and returned to his tenement perch.

The moon set—and a blackness within the darkness of night entered his heart. Hate.

* * *

Three days after the funeral Garreth was running out of patience. He'd been casing the clinic for almost two weeks.

And every day he'd been drinking more and more heavily.

Why?
he asked himself.
Maybe after all these years I'm frightened to close this case.

Maybe Decker Roberts just gave him the excuse he needed to drink.

It was then he saw the first of the moving vans arrive. The actors all seemed to leave at once, some opening pay envelopes as they did. Then the doctor, or whatever the grey-haired freak was, giving orders as to what was to go where. Three hours later the vans were packed and ready to go when the freak wheeled out a gurney with the clinic's sole patient, Seth Roberts, clearly sedated—and manacled hands and feet to the metal sides of the bed.

He took shot after shot until the gurney was inside the van and the van sped away.

DECKER AWOKE WITH A START. SOMETHING WAS WRONG. HE
leapt out of bed and called out, “One, boss, one.” No one answered. He yanked at the door. It opened—no guard.

He threw on his clothes and ran into the hall—no one.

Down the hall and then out onto the campus—everything was different. There were a few students but no army presence, no marines.

He ran to the provost's office and was stopped by an octogenarian secretary he'd never seen before.

“Yes?”

“Who are you?”

“Professor Endicott's secretary. Be polite, young man.”

It'd been a long time since he'd been called a young man, but he managed to respond. “Whose secretary?”

“The provost's.”

“Ah, yeah, right.” He moved past her toward the provost's closed door.

“Do you have an appointment?” she asked brightly. Evidently politeness was compulsory on campus.

He threw open the provost's door. The man looked up from his desk, then changed glasses so he could see his visitor.

“Yes?” he said.

“Where are—”

The provost sighed, then finally said, “Gone. Thank the heavens. Gone. It's time for us all to try to just move on.” He was smiling. It bothered Decker.

Decker raced out of the building then up the hill toward the windowless room where they kept Viola Tripping.

There was no one guarding the door.

Decker pushed it open and stepped into the windowless room—and saw no one. He switched on the light and for the first time saw the depth of the room and that it was L shaped. He ran to the far end and found another long room—but it too was empty. He turned and retraced his steps. When he stepped into the front room, the door opened.

Yslan.

“Where is she?” Decker demanded.

“Clearly not here.”

“I know that, but—”

“She's gone, Mr. Roberts.”

It didn't compute. “Gone?”

She glanced at her watch. “Her plane left a while back.”

“Plane? Plane to where?”

“That's for us to know. But believe this—you can search for a very long time and you'll never find her.”

All Decker could think to say was, “Why?”

Yslan suddenly felt a sharp pain in her chest and knew it was his anguish affecting her physically. This was completely new and unexpected. “She left this for you.” She held out a slender volume.

Decker took it. It was Viola Tripping's copy of Shakespeare's
Pericles
.

He flipped through the pages.

“There are no notes—we checked, Mr. Roberts.”

“Of course. Of course you did.”

“So why that, Mr. Roberts? Why did she leave that play for you?”

Because Pericles gets redeemed by the love of his daughter,
he thought, but what he said was, “That's for me to know.”

The pain in her chest subsided and Yslan shrugged.

“So it's finished here?” Decker asked.

“Yeah, we're finished here.”

“But what about—”

“We'll catch him. The manhunt is on.”

Decker nodded. He was tempted to ask what would happen to Walter Jones when she caught Walter Jones but didn't. What he did ask was, “Can I go? You don't need me here anymore.”

He looked around—still no guards.

“Can I?”

Yslan shrugged again.

“Where's my son?”

Yslan stepped toward him. Her face for the first time since he'd been shanghaied from Namibia was relaxed. For a moment Decker thought she was going to hug him or something. But, although her translucent blue eyes were locked on his, he couldn't read anything there.

“If I didn't know better, Special Agent Yslan Hicks, I'd say you were calm.”

“Not until we have Walter Jones.”

Decker nodded and finally said, “Right.”

“What? You don't think we should hunt him down?”

“No. I think he needs to be caught and incarcerated.”

“But not executed?”

“Will that bring back any of those who died here?”

Yslan didn't answer.

“Do you really think it will stop anyone from imitating this . . .” He waved his hands in the air, not knowing what word he wanted to use to describe what had happened at Ancaster College.

“No. There's no way to stop a madman.”

Decker looked away.

“Now what? You don't think he was a madman?”

Decker shook his head. “Can a madman plan and execute something like this? Can he dupe Professor Frost? Can he manage to escape what I assume is already a massive countrywide search? You don't have to answer any of those questions.”

“So how would you go about stopping men like Walter Jones?”

“The hard way.”

“What are you talking about?”

Decker took a deep breath and was about to forget it, then decided not to. “It's that winner crap again.”

“Excuse me!” Yslan said. It wasn't a question. It was a demand for an explanation.

“Winners. We've made a religion out of winning.”

“You'd prefer losing?”

“I'd prefer a world where there didn't have to be thousands of losers so the few winners can feel that they are special.”

“Come again?”

“Think. Our whole system is set up to reward winners. To get people to work themselves to the bone to be winners. To climb over top of one another to win.”