Cold Winter Rain (21 page)

“No.  But as it happens, I do,” I said.  “I know some good people.  I’ll see what I can put together on short or emergency notice.”

Sally went inside, and I used my iPhone to call Dr. Bev Adams’ office.  It was two in the afternoon, and Bev happened to be between appointments.  I described the situation, and she promised to send a crisis counseling team from the UAB psychiatry department to the Kramer house.  “Promise me, though, one thing, Bev:  no state agencies,” I said.

“I work for a state agency,” she pointed out.

“
Yes, but you’re different.  You know what I’m saying.  No Alabama do-gooder
bureaucrats.  Back when I practiced full time, I did some
pro bono
work in juvenile court.  I’ve seen kids taken away from loving parents who were trying the best they could and not abusing the kids at all.  I saw some appalling things.”

“
I understand,” she said.  “Bad things happen even when good intentions abound.”

“
Especially when some of those good intentions are exercised by state agents with unlimited power in their little worlds.”

“
Slate, I don’t disagree.  But let me be practical for a second.  Aren’t the children now in two locations?  We don’t have the staffing power for that.”

“
I’m about to deal with that,” I said.  “Both will be at the home in Mountain Brook by the time your people arrive.”

I stepped back into Sally's office.  Paul Kramer was finishing his hot chocolate.  “Listen, Paul,” I said.  “Your sister is with some members of law enforcement at your home, and I understand a neighbor with kids your age may be there.  She wanted you to know that she’s okay.  Wouldn’t you like to be with Kris now?”

He looked up at me.  “Yes,” he said.  “I’d like that a lot.  Could someone take me there?”

“
I’ll drive you,” Sally said.

“
We’ll both go,” Miller said.  “Take my school car.  Official visit.”

“
Let’s go,” Sally said to Paul.

Sally, Chief Miller, and Paul Kramer left the office together as I tagged along behind.  Sally locked her office door, and we walked together down to the building’s lobby.

“My car is parked in back,” Miller said.

“
I’ll call you,” Sally said to me.

“
I’ll be around,” I told her.

The three of them headed toward the rear exit of the sports complex, Paul Kramer between Miller and Sally.  Miller had a hand on the boy’s shoulder.  I watched them for a moment, then turned and made my way out.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Outside, the weather had not improved.  Students scurried across soggy school quadrangles, eyes half shut, heads bent against the cold mist, the reds and blues and yellows of their rain gear blurring to gray in the filtered winter light.

My work on the matter of Kris Kramer was done.  More accurately, it was over, since I had done nothing to lead to the girl’s return to her family.  But then, neither had the FBI, or Leon Grubbs, or Bill Woolf, or, indeed, her own father.  What was more, her father’s theory of the reason for her disappearance, a theory that I and every law enforcement agency had adopted as our own, had been disproved by the facts.  In the course of looking into that theory, I’d managed to stir a nest of hornets and set them buzzing into my face, despite the fact that these particular hornets had, as to the matter at hand, been minding their own business.  My client had been killed, execution style, almost certainly by a professional hired by the organized crime interests at the center of the investigation Michael Godchaux had instigated when he’d walked into the office of the United States attorney in New Orleans.  And a young woman with a promising future had died, no doubt for the same reason.

In the car, I started the engine and, idling in my visitor’s space in front of the athletic complex, called Woolf White and asked for Bill Woolf.  Though I was certain the news of Kris Kramer’s reappearance and her mother’s arrest had spread throughout the law firm by now, I thought I had a certain duty to speak with him.

But he wasn’t in.  I left a message with his legal assistant letting him know I wouldn’t be back in the office and that I would return the firm’s files and arrange for the FBI’s return of the thumb drive to someone at the law firm.  I put the car in reverse, drove slowly out of the parking lot, down the access road and through the automatic exit gate, and left the Alabama Southern campus behind.  Having nowhere else to go, I drove back to Sally’s condo, let myself in, and changed into workout clothes.

Shoeless, I dragged my cushions out to the middle of Sally’s living room and just sat for fifteen minutes.  Every meditator from the most advanced practitioner to the beginner experiences monkey mind, but today my mental monkey jabbered and skittered from tree to tree and threw bananas and coconuts at me for ten minutes until I wrestled him to the ground.  For the last five minutes, focusing on the breath, I just watched thoughts arise and allowed them to pass away.

Then I pulled on my running shoes and a hooded rain jacket and jogged twice around the perimeter of the Highland Park golf course.  About halfway around the second time, it occurred to me that I had skipped lunch. 

Back at Sally’s condo I showered and changed.  When I powered up my iPhone, I had a text from Sally:  “On way home.”  I texted back “Here now.  Early supper Bottega?”  After a minute, she answered “Sure.  “It's close.”

Kristina Kramer had turned up safe and sound, but I didn’t feel much like a victory celebration.  Susan Kramer’s mental illness, the unspoken possibility that Sally’s relationship with Don Kramer may have fueled in Susan Kramer an emotional crisis that resulted in -- what to call it?  -- the sequestration of her daughter in order to try to gain attention.

After we ordered, winter lettuces and risotto with veal cheeks and artichokes for Sally, crab cakes and guinea hen with pancetta, cipollini onions, polenta and red wine for me, Sally said, “We’re both quiet, considering.”

“We are,” I agreed.  “Sometimes words fail in the face of human complexity.”  We’d been seated promptly on a slow afternoon in a front corner seat in the  two-story neoclassic building, the glass of the window at our elbows soaring all the way to the twenty-foot ceiling.

“
Something you don’t know,” Sally said.  “After everyone left my office this afternoon, I met with Akilah Ziyenga’s parents.  They were here to claim their daughter’s body and fly back home with it.”  She brushed her hair back behind one ear.  “And I’m thinking about resigning as soccer coach at Southern.”

I considered a response while I watched the commuters go by on the wet pavement of Highland Avenue.  “Well,” I said finally.  “I think the team needs you right now.”

She nodded.  “Thanks for saying that.  But I’m not so sure.  Maybe a new coach, fresh ideas, new approach, would help them put all this behind them.  Not sure they don’t somehow, some of them, blame me for Akilah.”

“
Did the parents say anything?”

“
No.  They could not have been more gracious in the circumstances.  No, but some of the girls, well, I don’t know, they know who found her, maybe think I had some involvement, even if it was peripheral, in the matters you were working on.  It wouldn't surprise me if some of them transferred.  So I thought, maybe I should go back to Chicago, maybe coach high school soccer again.”

“
Hmm.  I never asked, but, did any of them know about you and Don Kramer?”

She frowned.  “Not the time to talk about that.  Thought we wouldn’t.  Ever.  But no.  No one knew.  Not for sure.  I suppose a close group of young women might notice things.”

“Like a jury, collectively, misses nothing.”

She put down her fork and glared at me.  “A jury?  What we did wasn’t a crime.”

“No, of course not.  It’s just a lawyer’s analogy.  Collectively, juries don’t miss anything.  Similarly, maybe a women’s soccer team wouldn’t miss much either.”

She sighed.  “Maybe silence was better.  Let’s just finish dinner.”

In the condo, I made two cups of hot tea, and we sat together on Sally’s couch gazing at the lights on Red Mountain.  After some time, Sally asked, “You remember when you told me about meditation and Buddhism?”

“Yes.”

“
You never asked me about my religious views.”

“
No, but I think I was headed out the door then.”

“
Maybe.  Anyway.  I grew up Catholic.  But I’m a very lapsed Catholic. Not really a believer anymore.  At all.”

I sipped my tea.  “Neither I nor most Buddhists would have a problem with that.  No deity in Buddhism.  Buddhism teaches what to do, not what to think.  It’s a practice.  A mental discipline.”

She nodded slowly.  After a few minutes, I said, “I think we’re both tired from the last couple of days.  I’m getting sleepy.”  I carried my teacup to the sink and rinsed it and returned and sat cross-legged on the floor facing the couch.  “My work here in Birmingham is done,” I said.

“
I know.”  Sally shrugged.  “You did your best.”

We sat in those positions for a few more minutes without speaking, then Sally carried her teacup to the kitchen.  “I’m getting a bath and turning in early,” she said.

While Sally was in the shower, I prepared for the night as well.  I slept fitfully but must have finally drifted into a deeper sleep, early morning, because when I awoke around six, Sally was already gone.  She’d left a note on the counter, saying to leave the key in a kitchen drawer if I was leaving today and to let her know I’d arrived safely back home.  I showered, dressed, packed, left the key where Sally wanted it, and let myself out.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Wednesday February 1

Boats at rest, like automobiles undriven, suffer from the effects of entropy at an accelerated rate.  The only maintenance-free boat is the one you don’t own.  Various inventions slow the decay:  heaters, pumps, dehumidifiers, paint, caulk, epoxy, varnish.  Winter maintenance for a boat that stays in the water requires running the engine once a week or, preferably, taking the boat out for a short cruise.

For me the challenge was nowhere near as daunting as for the weekend or occasional sailor.  The
Anna Grace
was my home, and maintenance on my boat did not also require commuting to the marina, chasing supplies, reinventing relationships with marina employees, and a thousand other time-wasters the part-time sailors had to endure.

Below about thirty-nine degrees, the interior of a boat can frost over, creating even worse moisture problems than boats suffer from without frost.  So when I’m away, I leave a little ceramic heater and dehumidifier running full time in the cabin to keep the temperature above the frost level and keep down the humidity.  Maybe ten years old, the device had come with the boat.  While I was away, the heater had malfunctioned, died, and tripped the ground fault circuit.

I fired up the big propane heater I used for a heat source away from the dock to bring the temperature up quickly and dry some of the condensation.  I packed up all the cabin bedding, damp from the humidity and on the verge of mildewing, in a couple of heavy black trash bags and carried it to the marina’s laundromat.  I left the bedding with the attendant after asking her to run the loads with hot water and a little bleach.  I’d do my own clothing later.

Back at the boat, I spent the better part of an hour wiping down the interior, trying to get rid of all the excess moisture.  Then I drove to Home Depot and bought a tiny ceramic heater and the smallest dehumidifier they had.  I installed them in the cabin, checked out the electrical circuits, and got them running.

Then I locked up and walked over to the marina restaurant for lunch.  Green salad, then gumbo with crackers.  I considered a beer, then iced tea, but defaulted to hot tea.  Too cold for anything refrigerated or iced after a morning spent in a damp, cold boat cabin.

After lunch I picked up the bedding, fresh, dry, and warm, from the Hispanic laundry attendant and left her too big a tip.  I made up the berths in the cabin of the
Anna Grace
, now a balmy sixty-eight degrees and pleasantly dry, lay down in the V-berth and started rereading Michael Dibdin’s
Dead Lagoon
.  I was tired, though, and the warmth of the cabin and the rocking motion of the boat soon put me to sleep.

I was dreaming of jogging along a tropical beach with palm trees that grew almost down to the water, when my iPhone jolted me awake and I struck my head a glancing blow on the slanting bulkhead next to the berth in the boat’s bow.  For a minute I couldn’t locate the iPhone until I remembered I’d left it in my shirt pocket.  I dug out the phone on perhaps the fourth ring.  “Yeah,” I said.

“Slate.”  Both the voice and caller ID told me it was Leon Grubbs.

“
Yep.  You got him.”

“
Slate.  Grubbs.  Listen, uh, Slate, remember I told you the FBI was running the stills from the security video at Park Plaza through their facial recognition software?”

I sat up and swung my feet to the floor.  “Yes.  I remember.”

“Well, I just received the FBI’s report.  They have a match.”

I stood and crab-walked aft.  I had to stoop to avoid the low ceiling.  “That’s good.  Are they sure?”

“Yes.  They’re sure.  And I’m sure.  We have a suspect under surveillance and will probably make an arrest today.  Slate, I need you to come up here so I can go over the report with you.”

“
Why?  What do you need me for?  You haven’t asked for my approval for the thousand and one other arrests you’ve made.  Arrest the guy.”

Grubbs’ voice was flat and even.  “Not the point, Slate.  This is information I need to deliver in person.  You need to come up.  Today.  Now.”

“You’re serious.”  It was both a statement and a question.

“
You know I am.”

I stuck my head out of the companionway.  The sun was out.  “Okay.  I’ll see you this afternoon.”

“Call me when you get here.  I’ll be waiting.”

I arrived at the offices of the Birmingham Homicide Division shortly after three and walked straight into Leon Grubbs’ office.  I knocked and walked in uninvited.  A couple of officers, a lieutenant and a sergeant, were standing in the office.  Grubbs, seated at his desk, spoke to them in a low voice.  He stopped as I entered.  “Slate,” he said.  “I didn’t think you’d be here this soon, but I’m glad you are.  You were at the coast, were you not?”

He turned to the two officers.  “That’s all for now, guys, and thank you,” he said.  “Close the door on your way out.”

Turning to me, Grubbs said, “Sit down, Slate.”  He picked up a folder from his desk.  “Move your chair closer so we can both see this report.”

I pulled up my chair, and he turned the folder sideways and opened it.  “This is my reading copy, not the official file.”  The cover page of the report was printed with the legend “FBI -- Confidential.”  Grubbs turned the cover page.  “I’ll show you the entire report and explain the methodology behind it if you need me to, but I’ll spare the suspense.  Slate, this is not going to be easy, but here it is.  The person in the stills from the video at Park Plaza has been identified by the FBI’s facial recognition program.”

I suppressed a sense of dread.  “Right.”  I shrugged.  “You told me that on the phone.”

Grubbs nodded.  “The person identified is the women’s soccer coach at Alabama Southern.  Sarah Kronenberg.  Also known as Sally.”

I stared down at the report, uncomprehending.  After maybe thirty seconds, I said, “It’s a trial program.  Obviously it makes mistakes.”

“
Believe it or not, that was my first thought as well.  But I was on the phone for an hour with one of the men at the FBI who worked on the development of the NGI program.  He explained that the software is actually now more accurate at recognizing faces than human beings are.

“
Thing is, normally the FBI uses only the mug shot database.  The software reviews that database in a few seconds, they say.  When that came up with no match, I asked them if they could expand the search to other databases, military records, lawyers, other people whose fingerprints and identification photos have been taken.

“
Like you said, it’s a pilot program.  NGI.  Next Generation Identification.  FBI gave the stills to some state agencies that participate in the pilot.  Illinois State Police got a match from an Illinois database of high school coaches.  Sarah Kronenberg.  Coached high school soccer in Oak Park, Illinois, ninety-seven through ninety-nine.”

“
It has to be a mistake.”

Grubbs looked up at me and shook his head.  “I’m sorry, Slate.  We arrested her this afternoon after I called you.  She’s already signed a confession.  It’s not a mistake.  Sally Kronenberg killed Don Kramer.”

I shook my head and flipped through each page of the report.  The print had begun to blur, forcing me to concentrate; the report explained the methodology of the facial recognition software and ended with a printout from the Illinois database that included a photograph.  I looked closely.  Though she was years younger, there was no doubt.  It was Sally.

I looked back at Grubbs. “Okay.  Thanks.  Thanks for doing this in person.  I appreciate it.”

I stood and looked at Grubbs for a moment.  “The body was moved,” I said.

Grubbs nodded.  “I understand what you're thinking.  But she's young, and she's an athlete.  She's strong enough.”  He appeared to want to say something but stopped himself. 

I turned, groped for the doorknob, found it, then turned back.  “The soccer player,” I said.  “Akilah Ziyenga.  What about her?”

Grubbs shook his head.  “We don’t know.  Still working it.  But for what it’s worth, we know it wasn’t Ms. Kronenberg.  She was with other people continuously around the time of death.”

“
So you looked at it that way too?”

Grubbs just turned both palms up and nodded.  I turned to the door and a few seconds later found myself standing on the First Avenue North sidewalk.

I started walking.  Down to Twentieth Street, then south.  South past Morris Avenue and the railroad district not far from where Don Kramer’s body had been found.  Further south toward UAB and the area called Five Points.  Where Sally and I had dinner that first night.  But before I started up the hill toward Five Points, I turned right along Seventh Street and realized where my unconscious mind had been taking me.  Smolian.  The psychiatric clinic.  Bev Adams.

I rode up the old elevator, its cables rocking the car back and forth gently.  A family of three rode along.  The man seemed defiant, the woman resolute, their son, of perhaps fourteen, sullen.  When the doors opened, I walked to the registration desk and told Renee I needed to see Dr. Adams.

“
Mr. Slate, how good to see you,” Renee said.  “But, did you have an appointment today?”

“
No,” I said.  “I need to see her now, please.”

“
Well, she is pretty busy today, so I’m not sure if you can see her. . . .”

“
She’ll see me,” I said.  I walked around the partition that separated the reception area from the waiting room and headed down the hall toward Dr. Adams’ office.  Just as I started, I saw Bev Adams’ door open, and a man in a white coat with a stethoscope around his neck emerged from her office, turning for some last remark as Bev Adams stood leaning against the door jamb.  Dr. Adams saw me out of the corner of her eye and broke off her conversation.  “We’ll have to finish this later,” she said to the other doctor.

She turned to me.  “Slate!” she said.  “Is it about the Kramer family?  We have a couple of crisis counselors working with those children.”

“Sort of,” I said.  “May I come in?  It will just be a minute.”

She caught my expression and frowned.  “Of course.”  She held the door for me.  I sat in one of her client chairs, and she closed the door and went to sit at her desk.  “What is it?” she asked.

I reached down and unstrapped the little Ruger from my ankle, pulled it from the holster, popped out the magazine, ejected the round from the chamber, replaced the magazine, pushed the gun back into the holster, and laid the holster with the gun inside on Bev Adams’ desk.  Then I took off my coat, unsnapped the Bianchi shoulder holster, and went through the same operation with the big Glock.  I put the coat back on before I spoke.

“
You told me not long ago that if I felt suicidal, you would want me to give you my guns.  Here they are.”

“
Slate.”  She shook her head once sharply.  I’ll find a place to keep your guns if you want me to.  But obviously this means you aren’t feeling well.  What’s happened?”

I told her, sparing no details.

When I had finished, she said, “I see.  Will you go to see her?”

I had thought about that a little on my walk.  “At some point, probably yes.  But not right now.”

“You should remember that this relationship was a tentative step back into close relationships.  You should also realize that the way it ended is no reflection on you.  This happened.  But it happened only once.”

I nodded.  “Thanks.”

She gestured toward the guns.  “Is there any likelihood that you could be tempted to harm yourself through some other instrumentality?”

I’d thought about that too.  I shook my head.  “No.  Not a chance.”

“All right.”  She stood.  “I will keep these until you ask for them back.  And I’ll give them back if your reasons for wanting them back are the right ones.  Now I have other patients to see.”  She came around the desk and gave me a quick but firm embrace.  “Call if you need me.”

“
I will,” I told her.

I saw myself out.