One Through the Heart (8 page)

‘I saw her remains.’

‘A snake molts and leaves a skin and we’ve come to understand that. I’m not unhinged, Inspector. I’m not insane or deluded. I studied physics. I could have gone on in theoretical physics. I believe in science and mathematics, and I also believe she was ready to be free of her body. She understood her death differently than you do. She saw our true being in that collective unconsciousness. That’s how history is woven and passed forward and where change happens. Everyone at this table believes except you.’

Raveneau turned to Lindsley. ‘Do you believe that?’

‘I believe in aspects,’ Lindsley said.

Attis cut in, saying, ‘That’s him, that’s the way he is, which is to say he doesn’t know who he is and the consequence is he’s two-faced. We deal with that. You will too. I sent Brandon to find you. I called you here. You’re destiny’s witness and you’re perfect, a man sworn to find the truth. Death is an illusion, Inspector.

‘When the bird leaves the nest that first time it has its instincts and what it has seen other birds do. Coryell saw things you don’t. She saw the flow of humanity through time and she knew she was in touch with that. She had the gift to see the Boundary and she went for it. I see that too. I understand it and you look at me and see a threat. That’s the way you’re trained. But you’re also trained to observe. You’re the highly skeptical observer who will record what he sees and that’s why I agreed to meet you.’

‘So now we’re meeting,’ Raveneau said. ‘We’re talking. We’re having a drink and I’m going to ask, do you know who made the threat?’

‘If I said yes, you’d have to detain me and take me down to a police station. The answer is no.’

‘That’s a different answer than a straight no.’

‘Of course, and again, that’s why we’re meeting.’

‘Are you using me to communicate with the San Francisco Police Department?’

‘Here.’ Attis pulled his wallet out and handed Raveneau his driver’s license. He told Ike and John to do the same, but said nothing to Lindsley. ‘You have your phone, Inspector. You can take photos of us, but what you can’t do is stop the flow of history.’

‘OK, then let’s just get some photos.’ Raveneau turned his phone on John the Baptist first. ‘How about a big smile, John?’

Ike smiled. Attis stared. Raveneau wrote down driver’s license numbers, addresses, phone numbers, and emails.

‘What am I going to witness?’

‘Inspector, can I give you anything more than I already have? Do you want to follow us out and get the license plates of the car we came here in?’

‘Sure, I’ll do that.’

‘Then walk out with us. Brandon will stay with the table.’

‘I will walk out with you, but before we do that how are you and I going to communicate after tonight?’

‘With the email address I just gave you.’

He walked out with them. The car was a 2010 Malibu. Its burned out shell was found two days later out at Hunter’s Point.

B
randon Lindsley was still at the table and had ordered himself another drink while Raveneau was out front with Attis and the other two. It was close to midnight and the bar was getting busier. The bar door was open. People spilled out into the courtyard and a techno beat vibrated into the night. Raveneau wanted more from Lindsley before they left here, but it was harder to talk now.

‘He called you two-faced. How do you feel about that?’

‘Really mad. I guess I’ll beat him up after school.’ Lindsley adjusted his glasses, offered a wry smile. ‘I don’t know, Inspector. How should I feel? I don’t feel much of anything right now and it’s not the first time someone has claimed I’m not who I say I am. The police did that when I was sixteen.’

‘Let’s talk about that.’

‘No, we’re not up to that part of the script yet and I’m ready to call it a night.’

‘You sat here. You listened to him. You know him. Explain it to me. He all but said he doesn’t trust you, but you’re part of the group.’

That got to Lindsley. For the first time he stirred. ‘I’m not part of them, and if Attis included me in their group I’d be looking in a mirror wondering what was wrong with me.’

‘John jumped up when Attis told him to go get drinks. You sat and took what he said. He had an arm around Ike. He’s talking like he knows more about the threat we’re investigating than I do. What am I supposed to do with that?’

‘I don’t hang with these people. I talk to them online and we talk about Coryell. You wanted to meet people who chat online about Coryell. You want to get into that community. I set you up. This other stuff Attis was talking about I don’t know what you do with that. I heard him too. It was weird. Maybe you should bring him down to the police station and interview him. You’re the expert. I’m the guy who wants to write books like Professor Lash wrote. That’s my whole deal, following in Professor Lash’s footsteps.’

‘You’ve told me.’

‘I’m just saying I’ve got a goal that’s apart from anything to do with these guys.’

‘Is your inheritance from your parents?’

‘Yes.’

‘When did they die?’

‘When I was sixteen.’

When he didn’t volunteer more Raveneau moved the conversation to Ike Latkos.

‘This is what Attis told me,’ Lindsley said. ‘She’s a hacker and some pretty bad people are after her, but they’re not law enforcement types. She has protectors in some agency in Washington that she helped out. The first time I heard about it the city was Berlin and then it was Leningrad, and after that Prague, and now it’s back to Berlin. She got away with some large chunk of somebody’s money. Transferred it and ran and hid and will be hiding for the rest of her life if they don’t find her first. She was a he when she stole the money and had a sex change in Mexico and not because she wanted to. She needed a female body to hide in, but she doesn’t live in it. She lives online and she’s got about a thousand identities and supposedly secret friends in high places.’

‘What’s all that mean?’

‘That you shouldn’t waste your time with her driver’s license.’ Lindsley smiled a crooked smile.

‘And what about John the Baptist? What church would I find him in?’

Lindsley smiled again. ‘That’s a good one,’ he said. ‘I’ve got another story about Ike that Attis told me. She set up a Spanish language website for doing US tax returns for almost no charge. Then she collected a bunch of names, social security numbers, everything needed, and killed the website. The following January she filed for early returns on something like a thousand names and made up numbers for everything including what they were owed as refund checks. Attis said she collected millions of dollars, and I didn’t believe it, but a couple of days ago I read it’s a big scam out there. The IRS has paid out something like ten billion in phoney claims. No one comes to arrest her. That’s why Attis was stroking her head.’

‘Where’s John from?’

‘Fuck if I know.’

‘But you know about Ike.’

‘From Attis, not from her, and John doesn’t talk much, or maybe you didn’t notice. He might have a job in medical engineering. I don’t think Attis works and I’m pretty sure he and John met in the Coryell chat room.’

‘How would you find Attis tomorrow?’

‘I’d go online.’

‘What about a phone number?’

‘He won’t give it to me. He calls me on those temporary prepaid phones. Ike got all my personal information and he’s got that. He let me know by telling me I should strengthen my passwords.’

‘OK, I’m back to where I started with you. Things are almost believable, but not quite, and you need to really think about that. If they’re planning something, there’s not going to be any gray middle ground later. Attis called me a witness. You’ve got to think about what kind of witness you’d want me to be later in a trial.’

‘Whoa, whoa, slow down there, Inspector. You asked me to connect you and I did, and I’m telling you again, right now and here, that I don’t know about anything they’re planning, and if Attis knows anything about this threat the police told the media about this morning, and it sounds like he does, I don’t know anything. I heard the same things you heard and that’s all I know. But you don’t believe me.’

As he looked at Lindsley he got a bad feeling. Lindsley’s face and features seem to change and shift as he spoke again and for the briefest moment Raveneau wondered if something was slipped into his beer when he was out front.

‘I’m being pretty straight with you, Inspector. I’m protecting myself, sure, but I’m not really part of their group. When Ike hacked into my computer I changed all my accounts, passwords, everything, and cut off any contact with any of them. Somehow Ike figured out how to find me again and he did this whole apology thing, but I don’t trust them. I never will, and like you saw, Attis is the dude. The other two are followers. He read the tea leaves, talks to god, and makes the plans.’

‘What’s he planning now?’

‘You’re back around to that and I don’t have any answers.’

Lindsley took a sip, and they both shifted fast as there was a loud pop down the wall to their left. Sounded like a shot at first to Raveneau, but was one of the floodlight bulbs bursting in a light fixture on the wall. Glass fell on to the concrete and it was darker at the table.

‘I set this meeting up so you could connect with them and maybe they could help you figure out who killed Ann Coryell. It’s something everyone in that chat room has obsessed over. I didn’t know he was going to call you out as a witness or get coy about this threat and suggest he knows about it.’

‘You didn’t know?’

‘Not at all.’

‘You’re certain?’

‘I’m very certain.’

‘I’m going to repeat myself. Investigations gather momentum and you don’t want to be on the wrong side of one looking at a threat like this.’

‘So I shouldn’t have set up the meeting or said anything to you on the mountain? Is that what you’re saying? You’re telling me I should have just stood there and watched you walk past even though I recognized you?’

‘That’s not what I’m saying and I’m not the one who called you on it. Attis did. He wasn’t talking to me about you. He was talking to you and letting me hear. The message was you have to pick a side and now.’

‘Oh, come on, talk about reading between the lines.’

‘That’s what I heard.’

‘But he didn’t say that.’

‘It’s a word game only for so long, Brandon.’

‘I hear you but right now all I’ve got are regrets that I introduced myself to you.’

‘Another way you could do this is say to him you’re in. Call him tonight. Tell him you heard him loud and clear and you’re in. Then work with us. That way you can be two-faced and legit.’

‘Two-faced and legit, did you just say that?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Bizarre.’ Lindsley stared down at the table and then finished his drink before rising and saying, ‘I’m done for the night and I might be done completely because I don’t really like the way you keep turning it back at me like I’m the problem. I see Attis. I get the guy is weird as hell, and I don’t want you tying me to him.’

Raveneau walked out with him and watched Lindsley go around the corner before crossing to his car. Ten minutes later when he picked up a car following him he led the car away from where he lived, and then set the driver up and was out of his car and got a good look at the profile of Brandon Lindsley as he drove past. He thought about that for awhile before driving home.

T
he next morning Raveneau crossed the city in the clear early light. Two Ford pickups, one dark blue, one white, both with black lumber racks were parked nose to end in front of Lash’s house though it was too early to start making noise on a Saturday. A plumber’s truck was in the driveway, and Ferranti, the general contractor, stood drinking coffee enjoying the early cool talking with the plumber before the start of what was forecast to be record-breaking heat.

Ferranti nodded as Raveneau drove slowly past, his expression a question mark about Raveneau’s presence today, though Raveneau had little doubt Ferranti would use the chance to ask about the bomb shelter. He did, intercepting Raveneau as he walked back down the street toward the house.

‘One of the owners of the house called me about half an hour ago. They’re tripping out on the negative energy. They think their house is going to be marked forever.’

‘What do they want to do?’

‘Fill it in, and they’re going to sue Lash, the realtors, and the people who did the inspections. But I know why none of the inspectors went very far into the garden shed. It was full of poisons, old insecticides, and some of it must have been fifty years old. I had to have a hazardous waste company come haul it away.’

The claim the current owners made that the bomb shelter wasn’t disclosed at sale by Lash was true and kind of amazing when Raveneau thought about it. What it said to Raveneau was that Lash didn’t know what to do about what was down there. He may not have known about the skulls, but not disclosing the bomb shelter meant he knew something was in there. Maybe he was going to point to his father or maybe with a death sentence already he just didn’t care.

‘They want me to get it filled with sand and capped off with concrete right away. That’s what the engineer is calling for, and then we’ve got to build a landscape wall over the top of it. I know you’re probably tired of hearing this, but if you can give me a date that would really help. It’s supposed to be hot this week but this might be my last chance before it rains.’

‘I can’t give you a go-ahead today.’

‘Then can you give me some sort of idea, and I’m sorry to bug you, but I’ve got to set everybody up ahead of time.’

A new black SUV rounded the corner at the far end of the street and Raveneau knew that was Mark Coe, the FBI agent he was here to meet. Coe was going to have the same problem finding a place to park. He nodded as he drove past and Raveneau took in the changes in Coe, his face thinner, edging toward gaunt, a streak of gray at his temple. He turned back to Ferranti. ‘It should be within a week, but I can’t guarantee that.’

‘But everything has been cleared out, right? Is it OK if we go down there and figure out what we have to do with the other stuff down there? Aren’t there leaking batteries?’