Gideon's Corpse (12 page)

“I see.”

“Is this the kind of half-assed investigation you people are running?” she said, all hostility gone now, leaving amusement and scorn in their place. “And you’re up against terrorists with a nuke? That scares the shit out of me.”

“We have to follow up every lead,” said Gideon. He took out Chalker’s picture. “If you could just look at this and see if you recognize it?”

She looked at it, squinted, then looked more closely. Her whole face changed. “What do you know. I do recognize him. He used to come to all my father’s book signings in town. Kind of a groupie, buttonholed him, tried to engage him in conversation with a hundred people in line behind him. My father humored him because that’s his job, really, and he would never be rude to a reader.” She handed the picture back. “But I can tell you my father was
not
this man’s friend.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me about him?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“What did they talk about?”

“I really don’t recall. Probably the usual stuff. Why don’t you ask my father?”

As if on cue, the door slammed and a man walked into the room. For a famous author, Simon Blaine was disarmingly small, with a head of white curls and a smiling, pixie-like face, as smooth and unlined as a boy’s, with a button nose, ruddy cheeks, and friendly, dancing eyes. A large smile broke out when he saw his daughter. He went over, gave her a hug as she rose—she was several inches taller than him—and then turned to Gideon as he rose in turn, extending his hand. “Simon Blaine,” he said, as if Gideon wouldn’t know who he was. He wore an ill-fitting suit a size too large for his slender frame, and it flapped as he shook Gideon’s hand with enthusiasm. “Who is your new friend, MD?” His voice, incongruously, was deep and compelling—although it held traces of a Liverpudlian accent, making the man sound ever so faintly like a baritone Ringo Starr.

“I’m Gideon Crew.” He glanced from father to daughter and back again. “MD? She’s a doctor?”

“No, no, that’s my nickname for her. Miracle Daughter.” And Blaine looked at Alida with evident affection.

“Crew’s not a friend of mine,” said Alida hastily, stubbing out the cigarette. “He’s an investigator for the FBI. Looking into the nuclear terrorist business in New York.”

Blaine’s eyes widened in surprise. They were a deep hazel-brown, flecked with bits of gold: a most unusual color. “Well, well, now. How interesting!” He took Gideon’s ID, examined it, returned it. “How can I be of help?”

“I have a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. Please, sit down.”

They all sat down. Alida spoke first. “Daddy, the nuclear terrorist who died in New York, Reed Chalker, collected your books. He came to all your book signings. You remember him?” She shook another cigarette out of the pack, tapped it on the table, lit up.

Blaine frowned. “Can’t say I do.”

Gideon handed him the picture and Blaine examined it. He looked almost like a leprechaun, his lower lip protruding in concentration, his white curls sticking out in tufts from either side of his head.

“You remember, he was the guy who used to bring a whole bagful of books, came to every signing, always at the front of the line.”

The lower lip suddenly retracted and the bushy eyebrows went up. “Yes, yes, I do! Good Lord, that was Reed Chalker, the terrorist from Los Alamos?” He handed the photo back. “To think he was a reader of mine!” He did not seem displeased.

“What did you talk about with Chalker?” Gideon asked.

“It’s hard to say. I do a book signing every year at Collected Works in Santa Fe, and we often get four, five hundred people. They go by in a sort of blur, really. Mostly they talk about how much they love the books, who their favorite characters are—and sometimes they want me to read a manuscript or they ask questions about how to break into writing.”

“And they often talk about what a shame it was that Daddy didn’t win that Nobel,” said Alida forcefully. “Which I happen to agree with.”

“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

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

“Margarita. Patrón 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?”

“New Mexico just passed a medical marijuana law.” He went on to explain his nascent idea to Fordyce. The FBI agent was silent a long time, staring into his ice cubes, and then raised his head.

“You know, it’s not a bad plan.”

Gideon smirked. “I’m going to enjoy watching you muss up your perfect hair and finally lose that junior executive FBI outfit.”

“I’ll let you do the talking. You already look like a stoner.”

21

T
HEY HIT THE
Salvation Army store early the next morning, the moment it opened. Gideon flipped through the racks, scooping up outfits and handing them to Fordyce, who carried them with ill-concealed grace. Then they swung by a theatrical supply company before returning to Fordyce’s hotel room with their haul. Gideon spread the clothes out on the bed while Fordyce watched with a frown.

“Is this really necessary?” he asked.

“Stand over there.” Gideon spread out a shirt, laid the pants underneath, frowned, switched the shirt for another, then another, then socks, squinting at each combination.

“Jesus,” Fordyce complained, “we’re not going on Broadway here.”

“The difference is that if our little play is a flop, you’ll get a bullet instead of a rotten tomato. Trouble is, you look like you were born a Fed.”

He mixed and matched the outfits again, adding shoes and socks, a baseball cap and a wig, finally assembling something to his liking. “Try these on,” he said.

“Son of a bitch.” Fordyce shed his suit and donned the outfit. He hesitated with the hair. It had been a woman’s wig, with real hair, that Gideon had given a bad haircut to.

“Go ahead,” said Gideon. “Don’t be shy.”

Fordyce put on the wig, adjusted it.

“Now the cap. Put it on backward.”

The cap went on. But that didn’t look right: Fordyce was too old. “Turn it right way around.”

Finally Fordyce stood in front of him, in full costume. Gideon circled him appraisingly. “Too bad you shaved this morning.”

“We’ve got to go.”

“Not yet. I need to see you walk around.”

As Fordyce took a turn around the hotel room, Gideon groaned. “You’ve got to put your heart in it, for God’s sake.”

“I don’t know what more I can do. I already look like a jerk.”

“It’s not just about the look. It’s about the mental attitude. You’ve got to act the part. No, not just act it—
be
it.”

“So who am I supposed to be?”

“A cocky, wiseass, arrogant, cunning, self-satisfied, don’t-give-a-shit, morally bankrupt prick. Think about that while you walk around the room.”

“So how does a morally bankrupt prick walk?”

“I don’t know, you’ve got to
feel
it. Put in some attitude. Throw in a little pimp roll. Give us a curl of the lip. Tilt your chin.”