Steel Breeze (9 page)

He
winked at her and hoped that wasn’t overdoing it. Then he was through the door,
hustling back to the Civic and fishing his phone out of his pocket. Time to pass
the baton to someone Carmichael wouldn’t recognize. Time to call that private
investigator Phil Parsons had on retainer.

* * *

At
the hardware store, all of the parking spaces close to the building were taken.
Now that the ground had thawed, and the last of the nor’easters had passed, it
looked like every man and woman on the Seacoast had spent their morning making
a list of landscaping and repair materials. Desmond hoped the heavy foot
traffic would be enough to keep the car secure. At least the tinted windows in
the back added another layer of concealment to the towel-wrapped sword.

The
place was vast, and it took him a while to find the doorknob and deadbolt sets.
When he did, there were too many to choose from, but he didn’t have the luxury
of indecision—not enough time in the day for that. He picked one of the more
expensive ones that didn’t look like the tag could be attributed to fancy
looks, tossed it in the shopping cart, and then hurried to gather the items he
would need to dispose of the sword.

Desmond
had never been much of a handy man, and it had become something of a sore spot
in his marriage that whenever something needed fixing, Sandy had been quick to
call her father. Desmond always felt he at least deserved a shot at the simpler
projects before she called in the cavalry, but she had seen him injured or
enraged over “quick fixes” enough times to know better. In the end, he was
usually grateful for Phil’s help, but he sure couldn’t call on Phil this time. And
he had looked over the man’s shoulder enough times to get the gist of what was
involved.

When
he loaded the shopping bags into the back of the car, he found the sword
undisturbed. Pulling out of the parking lot, he searched his mirrors for the dark
red car he’d spotted earlier. It wasn’t there. He thought about Laurie’s backyard
and wondered if there were woods beyond the stockade fence that bounded the
property. He didn’t know and now thought that he probably should have checked. The
urge to drive back there now was strong, but he waited for it to pass. He
rolled down the windows and breathed in a cool breeze tinged with the taste of
the ocean. It helped to clear his head. He couldn’t let paranoia dictate his
actions. He’d decided on a course and he was going to stick to it, and when he
tucked Lucas into bed tonight, he would be able to turn out the light knowing
that he had done something to take matters into his own hands.

He
drove past a sign for a gun shop and eased his foot on the gas pedal. The New
Hampshire border was littered with them (the State motto
was ‘
Live Free
or Die’), and his eyes had roamed over signs like this one countless times
provoking little thought beyond an inarticulate discomfort at the idea that
apparently there were a lot of firearms stashed in the homes of some of the children
Lucas would soon be meeting at school. Now he wondered if he should stop and
buy one. But he knew that his skill with a gun would be no better than his
skill with a drill. And if he went through the legal channels, he would
probably have Fournier crawling up his ass. It would only complicate things
further, giving Sandy’s parents more evidence that the apartment was an unsafe
environment and he, a high-risk parent. He accelerated past the sign, reminding
himself that today’s errands were all about ensuring that the one weapon he did
own couldn’t be used against his family ever again.

Back
at the Ocean Road apartment he parked in the driveway and scanned the cars
parked on the street for a human silhouette behind a windshield. They all appeared
empty, but if anyone had followed him, they might be doing a loop around the
block right now. Best to act fast. The towel was too small to conceal the sword
completely, and he considered getting something larger from inside the house,
but twenty seconds of partial exposure while he ran the sword from the car to
the door seemed acceptable.

It
struck him that he might be making a terrible mistake bringing this black thing
into his home. He had sequestered it in a no-man’s-land at the storage
facility, had banished it from their lives along with the memories, so that he
and Lucas could have a new start. Now, by bringing it under the roof where they
slept their restless sleep and dreamed of her, was he inviting death back in? If
whoever had broken in just two days ago got in again despite the new lock, and
found the thing…. But he could think of no better way to hide it.

He
forced his legs into motion and bustled to the front door, holding the sword
vertically in front of his body to conceal it from the street. He crossed the
threshold with the wretched thing buzzing in his hands like an alarm, telling
him that it had no place in the home of a child, telling him that it had been made
for one purpose only and that it would one day find willing hands again,
capable hands.

He
shut the door with his foot and laid the bundle on the desk where he usually
kept the laptop. The computer was still in the car with the supplies he’d
bought—he brought it with him everywhere now, even though he hadn’t written a
word on it since the haiku had appeared. He hadn’t erased those lines, either. One
more trip to the car and he had everything. He locked the front door of the
apartment, carried everything he needed upstairs, and laid it all out on the
dingy hallway rug.

Scenes
from every movie and TV crime drama he’d ever seen flashed through his mind
like shuffled cards. Where did people hide murder weapons? In this case it
wasn’t a matter of hiding one from the police—they had already measured its
every angle, photographed it, and swabbed samples of his wife’s blood from the
cutting edge. It was about making sure it couldn’t be used to kill again.

The
police, the press, and the community all believed that Sandy’s killer was
locked away where he could do no further harm. Desmond no longer believed that.
And he knew that whoever killed her wouldn’t have done it with one of the
kitchen knives in the butcher block if the
katana
hadn’t been hanging on
the wall. Somehow he felt sure that the killer had come to their house
because
of the sword. The poem and the mask were pieces of a puzzle that a killer
adept with a sword wanted Desmond to ponder.

He
reached into one of the shopping bags and removed a roll of paper tape and a
folding razor knife. He set them on the carpet. Kneeling at the end of the
hall, he looked at himself in the full-length mirror beside the door to Lucas’s
room. He looked haggard. His blond beard was speckled with strands of gray that
seemed to be growing at a faster rate than the rest of it. His hair needed a
trim, too. His eyes were sunken in purple shadows, and his body looked flabby
under his Red Sox jersey. Who was he kidding, thinking that he could defend his
son? He knew he should keep the hero fantasies in his books, where they
belonged. He should be moving Lucas out of state right now, not hiding a sword
in a wall.

He
had considered destroying it. What Would Frodo Do, right? There was a scrap
yard for wrecked cars on Samson Street that he supposed could have cut, folded,
and recycled the blade. But he hadn’t liked the idea of talking to whoever
worked there about why he wasn’t just selling it on eBay or Craig’s list. They
might recognize him from the news. Nor did he like the idea of Fournier being
able to dig up a record of him having it destroyed. Of course a man would want
the weapon that had killed his wife destroyed, but he couldn’t shake the
creeping feeling that the act would somehow be used against him. He could throw
it in the ocean, but who would let him take a sword on a boat? Same problem: too
many questions. It wasn’t like a gun that could be hidden in a bag until an
opportunity arose to drop it in the drink unnoticed. And what if it washed up
on a beach? The feeling that getting rid of it would haunt him, that somehow it
would always find its way back, was irrational but strong. He imagined a
muscular man in a bathing suit and a demon mask diving to the ocean floor to
claim it.

Desmond
blinked, forced himself to stop staring at the sword, and removed the other
items from the bag: a small bucket of joint compound, a can of white paint, a
sheet of sandpaper, and a putty knife. He rummaged through the hall closet,
found a Phillips screwdriver, and used it to loosen the mounting brackets that
attached the mirror to the wall. He lifted it carefully, had the vertiginous
sensation of dancing with himself, and then set it down, leaning it against the
wall.

He
picked up his new razor knife and snapped open the blade. The thin wedge of
steel looked feeble compared to the sword, but sharp nonetheless. Slowly, he
pushed it into the wall, and then dragged it downward with a sawing motion. Sheetrock
dust drifted out of the cut and fell, like a gentle snow flurry to the carpet. He
braced his wrists in front of his chest and put his weight into the cut.

Chapter 8

Erin Drelick
lifted her coffee cup, tilted it toward her eye, and examined the contents:
only an inch left and it had been sitting long enough to surely be cold. She
was tempted to toss it back and complete the full dosage of caffeine her body
needed but thought better of it. Cold coffee tasted like shit. The lab report
for Geoff Lamprey’s severed head lay open on her desk, and most of the lines
were never going to translate themselves from Geek into English no matter how
much coffee she drank. She glanced at her watch for the third time since 8:45. It
was now 9:06 AM. The geeks would be at their stations by now. They’d better be.
She picked up the phone.

After
two and a half rings the author of the document in her hand answered,
“Waraska.”

“Hey
Tom, it’s Erin. I have a couple of questions about the lab you just ran for
me.”

“Shoot.”

“What
are these numbers that start with the letter C?”

“Alkoids.
In this case they make up light petroleum. Lamprey’s neck had traces of mineral
oil on it.”

“Were
you able to identify a brand?”

“No,
it’s too basic. These kinds of petroleum alkoids are found in a variety of
generic mineral oils. They’re just gasoline byproducts used in laxatives and
lubricants. The blend we found on Lamprey is fairly heavyweight, indicating a
thicker oil, probably higher quality than most, but with no fragrance component
to indicate a brand.”

“And
if it
did
have a fragrance? What would a scented mineral oil be used
for?”

“That
would be baby oil. Here’s the thing, though: your sample
did
have a
fragrance, but it was organic and doesn’t match anything used in commercial
mineral oil.”

“Let
me guess,” she said, “it’s the other line I needed you to translate:
Syzygium
aromaticum
. What the hell is that?”

“Clove.”

“So
there was clove-scented oil found in the wound?”

“Yeah,
trace amounts. Pure clove oil.”

“Did
you guys check other parts of him for it? Face and fingers?”

“Of
course. There were no other traces. It wasn’t some kind of aftershave or
cologne, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“So
it was left by the murder weapon.”

“Sure
looks that way to me. You know, if you could have waited an hour, you’d have
all of this in my summary. Not like I don’t have other work to do besides
giving you the same info on the phone
and
in writing.”

“I’ll
make it up to you, Tom.”

“How?
You taking me out on a date?”

“I’ll
buy your lunch today and have it delivered. How’s that? What are you eating?”

“I
have a brown bag in the fridge.”

“So
keep it there until tomorrow. What are you having now that it’s on me?”

“General
Cho’s chicken from Uncle Charlie’s.”

“You
got it. Now tell me why a blade would have clove-scented mineral oil on it.”

“Oils
are often used to protect high carbon steel from rust. That might at least
point you toward a metal type for the weapon. Rules out stainless steel,
anyway. The clove part, I don’t know. You should talk to an edged weapons SME.”

“Got
a name and number for me?”

“This
chicken better not be from that dump on Lindbrook Drive.”

“Uncle
Charlie’s. I promise.”

“Gimme
a minute.”

Pasco
was sitting with his feet up on the desk, restlessly tapping a Latin rhythm
with a government-issued pen against the flat of his hand and accenting every
third beat by hitting his wedding ring like a cymbal. When Drelick hung up the
phone he gave her a look.

“What?”

“You’re
really buying that little douche lunch just to get him to do his job?”

“He’s
doing his job anyway, but if he feels good about doing a little extra, it could
mean the difference between us catching an important detail or not.”

“That
kind of motivation shouldn’t have to be bribed. Those guys are paid to be OCD
detail freaks. And you can’t afford to keep buying people lunch.”

“I
don’t recall
you
ever turning it down.” She nodded at his screen, angled
discretely away from her desk. “Is that your fantasy football team you were
slaving over while I was on the phone?”

“Just
killing time until you were done.”

“Uh-huh.”

He
spread his hands and raised his eyebrows. “My desk work is finished, partner.”

“You
find anything?”

“The
BFD lists more sword crimes than you’d expect.”

“BFD?”

“Big
Fuckin Database. You know, whatever DHS is calling that cross-referencing
interdepartmental algorithmic circle jerk that would give Stalin a stiffy
this
week. I can’t keep up with the acronyms anymore, so you and me are gonna go
with BFD from now on. You cool with that?”

“Sure.
BFD. And?”

“After
you rule out the satanic weirdo teens who maybe accidentally stabbed a friend
with a replica from a Hobbit movie, and the nervous college kid with a ninja
fetish who killed an intruder in self-defense, you’re still left with a fair amount
of actual sword murders in the past decade. In most cases the weapon just
happened to be on the scene as a decorative item and somebody grabbed it when
things got tense. That includes one Greg Harwood, a schizoid homeless man in
Massachusetts. Harwood broke into a home where a Japanese sword could be
spotted through a window, hanging on the wall. Seems he tried to steal it and
then used it on the lady of the house when she caught him in the backyard while
letting the dog out shortly before dawn.”

“He
killed her?”

“And
the dog. Decapitation both, which makes it the closest match I could find to
the Lamprey case. But Harwood was put away in March of last year.”

“Huh.
Any other decapitations?”

“A
couple, and not with swords. In both cases the killer was identified right away
and was incarcerated at the time of the Lamprey murder. Seems most
decapitations are done by sawing the head off with a knife, like in those jihad
videos. The only recent instance of a single cut by a long blade is this Sandra
Carmichael—the woman killed by Greg Harwood in Massachusetts.”

“Okay,
we should look into that one even though they apparently got the guy.”

“I
also ran a list of minor offenses like carrying a sword in public. Plenty of
those.”

“How
many in California?”

“A
whopping thirteen, but we
are
the mecca of film fanatics, freaks, and
actor wannabes.”

“True.
Still, our killer could be on that list. Maybe we should make some house calls,
feel people out. If nothing else, we might learn a thing or two about the
culture.”

“Culture?”

“Samurai
sword culture.”

“What
makes you so sure Lamprey was killed with a samurai sword and not some other
long blade?”

“Only
the fact that we found his head at Manzanar. The killer was sending a clear
message, leaving it there.”

“Pretend
I’m stupid. Spell it out for me.”

“The
murder has something to do with retribution for the way Japanese Americans were
treated when they were rounded up and interned in the camps. Maybe the killer’s
ancestors were prisoners there. They may have suffered abuses. Maybe the killer
even spent his early childhood in the camp.”

Pasco’s
fingers twitched with calculation. “Nineteen forty-two, forty-three…if he was a
kid in the camp, a young kid, that still puts him in his seventies now. A
little old to be jumping fences and chopping heads off.”

She
shrugged. “Probably. Or it could be someone younger who has some obsession with
the subject. Channeling psychopathic violence through a cultural filter, a
historical event, to give it meaning so he feels like he’s dealing social
justice instead of just getting his rocks off.”

“Wow,
that’s deep.”

“Just
a guess.”

“But
why Lamprey? He wasn’t even born when Manzanar was operational.”

“Which
brings us to today’s tasks. I need you to research Geoff Lamprey’s family
history. Look beyond the locational. If you find an obvious connection to
Manzanar, great, but it could be something less direct, like political support
for the camps by an ancestor.”

“Yay,
more desk work. And what will you be doing while I’m having all this fun?”

“I’m
going to visit a Subject Matter Expert and pick up Chinese food.”

“What’s
the subject?”

“Edged
weapons. Waraska gave me a number for a martial arts instructor who trains cops
in knife defense.”

“Great.
I’m cramming Genealogy and American History while you watch dudes throw each
other around a dojo? No fair. Let me come with you.”

“Because
the director just loves to pay two people to do the job of one. What do you
want from Uncle Charlie’s?”

“The
usual.”

“One
spicy beef and broccoli, you got it. You know feeding people earns you more
loyalty than paying them?”

“Is
that right?”

“Taps
into the tribal family part of the brain.”

“Did
you always know you’d end up using your psych degree mainly to get favors from
lab rats?”

She
grinned and nodded.

“Well,
here’s a psych tip for you: Want to tap into the primal brain, flash them some
cleavage. You’re an attractive woman. It’s cheaper and just as effective.” Pasco
ducked before he’d finished the sentence, just in time for the flying pen to
miss his face. It wasn’t a government-issued Bic; Drelick favored steel-tipped
rollerballs, and this one stuck in the corkboard behind him, shaking a Post-it
note loose to drift like an autumn leaf to the floor.

* * *

The
dojo was in a bad part of town. Agent Drelick could see right away that it
wasn’t thriving on after-school programs. The entrance was just a metal door in
a graffiti-stricken cinderblock wall. The studio itself occupied the second
floor of a warehouse. A mongrel dog and her litter of pups sniffed human-height
piss stains on the concrete at the end of the alley. To reach the door, Drelick
had to step around a truck tire lying on the ground beside a sledgehammer—the
hammer presumably to be used for beating on the tire to build muscle. To
Drelick it felt like the tire should be on fire and the cinderblocks riddled
with bullet holes. That would have completed the urban blight. A plate bolted
to the door read: JOHN MARSHALL'S KENPO KARATE.

Inside
she climbed a staircase papered several times over with faded tournament
posters and flyers for self-defense seminars. The sound of someone hitting a
heavy bag punctuated the air, and as she ascended the smells of urine and
garbage gradually gave way to the smell of sweat. She ruminated on the fact
that the sledgehammer hadn't been stolen and decided that that was ample
testament to the dojo's reputation in the hood. It was probably common
knowledge that Marshall taught cops how to take down knife-wielding crack
heads.

Afternoon
sunlight flooded the wide-open room from a bank of opaque windows and formed
wedges in the thick, dusty air. A skinny young man dressed in a sleeveless
shirt and sweat pants was pounding on a heavy bag. He shot her a quick glance
without losing rhythm. In the middle of the room, an older man with a receding
hairline and a handlebar moustache knelt in front of a plastic bin from which
he was removing pieces of a black combat suit. At Drelick’s approach, he tossed
an arm guard at her face; she caught it, surprising herself with her own
dexterity.

“Tell
me if that’s too big for you,” he said.

She
almost turned to see if there was someone else he might be addressing, but she
knew there wasn’t. “Mr. Marshall? I’m Agent Drelick. I called about picking
your brain on Japanese swords.”

“I
know. Pleased to meetcha. Will that fit?”

She
glanced at the pad in her hand, slapped it idly into her left palm. “I’m not
here for a lesson. Not a tactical one, anyway.”

“Sure
you are. Your partner Pasco’s paying for it.”

“Oh,
no. Thanks, but…I’m not exactly dressed for training.”

He
looked her over, his eyes lingering on her curves, then looked at the gear in
the box and picked out gloves, a vest, and a set of elbow guards. “Slacks are
fine,” he said. “I’ll get you a t-shirt, and you can lose the shoes.”

“Really,
I only have an hour.”

“Your
partner seems genuinely concerned about you keeping your field skills sharp. We
can talk in between drills and some more after. The lesson’s already paid for. Don’t
worry, you’ll get what you need in under an hour.”