Tailed (5 page)

“No, you're not.” She struggled up out of her chair. I could see by her crooked fingers that her hands were wracked by arthritis. “You don't approve of being skyclad? Well, it's not for you to approve. This is my life. You and Nicholas go off and lead yours, how's that?”

“Gabby, I said I'm sorry.”

“Yes, you are sorry. Insurance! You boys are both pathetic.” She waved a hand at me, turned, and started for the pool cabana.

OK, I did feel guilty, but only a little bit. Nobody likes to disappoint a mother. But when you grow up a constant disappointment, you eventually become desensitized. Well, some people never do—but I had. I'd warned Nicholas that this wasn't going to work.

“Nicholas asked me to come.” I made a last plea to my mother's retreating back. “He wanted me to invite you. He wants you there.”

All I got was another dismissive wave.

What was a son to do?

chapter 6

S
o despite Angie's and Otto's entreaties, I wasn't what you'd call predisposed to return Gabby's call. The hell with her. What I couldn't quite figure out was why Nicholas wanted her at the handfasting…I mean, wedding. I'd tried to get it out of him, but he kept saying that it was the bride-to-be's idea. I suspected, somehow, there was some other motive behind this invitation.

After Colonel Dr. Lanston's brief grilling, I was excused from the FBI's meeting somewhat summarily. Here I thought I'd been brought to Seattle just to offer expert opinion about trophy collections. But no dice. I turned out to be as much a part of the problem as the solution. Head Coach apologized for taking me out of the game, but he hoped I'd understand that they had things to discuss that were confidential.

Needless to say my mood was uneasy. Like an ant in a room full of aardvarks.

I didn't like the way Lanston was focusing on me. She was playing I Have a Secret.

I didn't like the killer killing my clients. Somehow it made it seem like my fault.

I didn't like the killer calling me, having me discover the body. Unless he meant to kill me, there was no apparent reason to whisk me to Upper Crust, Illinois. He could have just not called and I would have sat in my hotel room until the next day and found out Sprunty was dead the way the rest of America did.

Something was going on. I didn't know what it was and I didn't want to know what it was. But something told me I was going to find out sooner or later, whether I liked it or not.

It was in that mood that I checked into my Seattle hotel room, which wasn't too far from the Space Needle. My room was clean but more or less a concrete cell dressed up to look like a hotel room. The headboard, the desk, and the TV were bolted to the walls. Last-minute travel arrangements had resulted in the subpar lodging. No feather bed. No minibar. No fresh flowers, fruit baskets, or home-baked cookies. None of the accoutrements I'd become accustomed to.

Just the sound of the highway outside my window. I was homesick, and called Stella.

“Can I go home?”

“Stay put. We want you to follow this investigation. The meeting: what happened?”

My heart sank, and my stomach cramped. “Look, Stella, I've been on the road for almost two weeks. I want to go home.”

I heard her take a deep drag on a cigarette. “I will not whine. Say it.”

“I'm not whining! Can't I miss my home? My girl?”

“Say it.”

I groaned. “I will not whine.”

“Better.” I heard Stella exhale. “But no groaning, either.”

“So, how long does it look like I'll have to stay in Seattle? I'm best man at Nicholas's wedding next week—I have to be back in New York by then.”

“The meeting?”

I recapped.

When I finished, there was a pause on the other end, and I could hear Stella's cigarette tapping nervously at an ashtray. “Let me call the Feds and see if I can find out what's going on. I'll call you back.”

“How about I call you back? I want to go for a walk and clear my head. This room is like a cell.”

“One hour.” She hung up.

I took off my tie, grabbed my key card, and headed for the elevators.

I set about the futile task of reassuring myself. What was there to worry about? I hadn't done anything. The FBI was all over this. So what if this serial killer knew who I was? I knew he knew, the FBI knew he knew, he probably knew I knew. It wouldn't make sense for him to make any kind of contact with me again. And if he did, he'd surely be caught.

And yet, I always had a sense for when things were about to get worse before they got better. It was sort of like lower back pain. It starts small, just warning twinges. So you stretch, you pop over-the-counter drugs, but you stop short of using a heating pad, or getting a massage, or taking the extra measures to avoid a major spasm. Instead, you try to ignore it, hoping it'll just go away. Then you sit up in bed one morning and it goes
sproing.
Next thing you know you're in a world of pain, a chiropractor is feeling up your back and saying, “You should do yoga.” And as often as this may happen, as often as you see it coming, you seem incapable of heading off the
sproing.

So how was I going to get out of this situation? I could see trouble coming from a mile away, and I was determined to avoid yoga.

Along the way to the elevators, I toured the room service trays lying on the floor next to various rooms. You could divine a great deal about a room's occupant by the remnants of their meals.

One had lipstick on the coffee cup, an uneaten grapefruit, and an empty pastry basket with the napkin carefully tucked in it: a woman who ordered the grapefruit as part of her diet, but with nobody around gulped down the sticky buns instead.

One had a bare greasy plate, numerous empty jelly containers, an empty aspirin pouch, and spilled coffee. The napkin had shave cream on it. Clearly, Watson, here was an overweight businessman who'd drunk his fill last night.

The last one had scrambled eggs with only one corner missing, a sausage with one end gone, two empty boxes of Fruit Loops, and an empty glass of milk: Elementary: your basic sugar-hooked tike.

Would that my situation were as easy to fathom as the mysterious leftovers.

Was it too soon to get a lawyer? I watched the elevator numbers tick by toward the ground floor. I mean, the FBI couldn't keep me in Seattle. They had a branch in New York, for Pete's sake, and they could always reach me if they wanted to interrogate me further. And Stella? I just had to get tough with her. My temerity was mainly the result of not being used to being an employee of anyone other than myself.

At the lobby I snagged a map of Seattle from a display next to the front desk and went out the front doors. A herd of German tourists were milling about a tour van out front, whispering excitedly in their native tongue. There's something about the German language that sounds decidedly conspiratorial when whispered. Or perhaps I've just been subjected to a few too many WWII flicks. They were looking in the direction of an older man in a dark beret, tribal print shirt, and round sunglasses. He was reading the paper on a bench next to the hotel entrance. I guess they were scrutinizing the local fauna,
Americanus funkinae
. I'd seen foreign tourists do the same thing in New York, ogling a homeboy with the crotch of his pants hemmed an inch from the sidewalk and his boxer shorts up to his nipples. Made me homesick, believe it or not.

But there I was, a tourist in Seattle. I didn't have to consult the map to see where the Space Needle was—I just turned the corner and looked uphill.

'Twas yet another fine, sunny, warm day, completely counter to the rain and gloom we Easterners have come to expect from the Northwest. And it was just the kind of weather that's really annoying when the monkey of impending doom is on your back. First person who said “What a marvelous day!” was asking for a punch in the nose.

But I did feel better now that I was outside. After making my way steadily uphill through a patchwork of commercial and residential neighborhoods, the Space Needle towered just ahead, beyond a park. Somehow the massive sixties spire (or was it really a UFO launchpad?) didn't look as big as it had at the bottom of the hill. It was no different than approaching the Empire State Building or Statue of Liberty, I guess. In the park ahead I could see four sculptures that looked like jetsam from the “UFO,” black and orange painted metal space junk, no doubt: warped warp drives, discarded dilithium crystal containment chambers, phase modulators stripped for parts. I crossed Broad Street and treaded the footpath leading through the debris toward the base of the Needle.

I wondered whether I should call Nicholas. He might have a useful perspective on my dilemma. Whether I would take his advice was another matter. Some small part of me wanted to blame him for my predicament. Yet I knew that in the long run he'd done me a good turn by getting me into this line of work. How could he have predicted that a serial killer targeting taxidermy collectors would surface? Another part of me—like any older brother—was reluctant to turn to my little brother for help. He was, after all, my little brother, even if he was vastly more experienced in matters of crime. That aside, I was kind of keen to take another crack at cajoling him about why he wanted Gabby at the wedding.

Of course I still hadn't called Angie back, and was reluctant to do so until I had some idea of when I was coming home. And as usual, I didn't want her to worry. But maybe there was nothing to worry about. Maybe.

What was really irking me the most was the possibility that the killer knew who I was and had wanted me to find Sprunty. Could it have been that I wasn't killed because I wasn't a big-game hunter? Kit Carson, yes—but not me. But then why get me involved at all? Was he intentionally using my client list to line up his victims? If so, then the killer was privy to Wilberforce/Peete's files, or somehow knew my itinerary. But why even use my client list? If this psycho wanted to find trophy hunters for victims, he could just search the Web or thumb through a few hunting magazines.

Near the end of the curving path, I stopped in front of one of the sculptures, a large bronze square with a round portal flanked by a bronze cylinder and oblong, also with portals in them. A plaque informed me that this was something called
MOON GATES
. Hey, warp drives, wormholes, moon gates—I wasn't far off the mark.

That's when, like an alien empath, my sixth sense went off.

New Yorkers, while singularly directed in their movements on home turf, are also keenly aware of any suspicious characters: loafers in doorways, riffraff leaning on cars avoiding eye contact, feckless amblers in one's wake. In my peripheral vision I got a gander of
Americanus funkinae
in his beret and sunglasses, dawdling his way up the path behind me.

I was being followed by an aging beatnik. All the way from the hotel. Maybe not so unusual in New York to have someone walk the dozen or so blocks, but in West Coast terms that was like a trek up Kilimanjaro.

Was he FBI? Police? Or…

I resumed my march toward the base of the Needle close at hand, my eyes scanning for recourse. Ahead, in a plaza area around the base of the Space Needle, a bunch of folks in shorts, T-shirts, and windbreakers were gathered. They stared openmouthed up at the UFO. East or west, tourists look the same.

If Funky had wanted to catch up to me, he could have, but he would have had to pick up his pace at least to a trot. My walking pace is more of a stride, and when I walk with Angie I have to shift from third to second gear. I was pretty confident that our surroundings were too public for the beatnik to try anything nefarious, but just the same I felt more comfy swimming in a school with those tourists at the visitors' center.

By the time I reached the base of the Space Needle, my fellow fishies had already gone inside and were buying tickets for the ride to the top. There were a few rent-a-cops inside, too, but their presence was only marginally reassuring. I'd seen a few too many Hitchcock films to feel comfortable ascending to the Mother Ship with Funky in tow. Next thing you know, I'd be up there dangling from the edge of the saucer, Funky playing Little Piggy Went to Market with my fingers.

With a quick glance over my shoulder I saw Funky approaching in a casual slouch, a poorly disguised grin on his face.

So, I did what I'd do in New York. Confront them before they confront you. Puts them off balance. There was a rack of tourista pamphlets nearby. I took one and wheeled toward Funky.

“Here, take one.”

He chuckled as he came to a stop in front of me. I guessed him to be in his sixties. His face was all rubbery with deep folds bracketing a grin full of the tiniest, whitest teeth I'd ever seen. He turned his sunglasses from side to side, checking our perimeter. A veiny hand with exceptionally long fingers gingerly took the pamphlet from my hand.

“Namaste!”
he hissed, and then waved the pamphlet like he was painting a question mark in the air.

I was this far from kicking him in the shin and taking off across the plaza. Hey, not exactly kung fu, but my method takes a lot less practice than spending all my off hours with a Shaolin priest, trying to snatch pebbles from his hand.

But the beatnik had said
“namaste,”
which, from random encounters with New York hipsters, I recognized as some sort of Hindu greeting. Something akin to saying “peace.”

“What do you want, anyway?”

He dropped his jaw in mock surprise.

“What do I want?” He chortled mirthlessly. “I want what you want, Mr. Carson.”

“Cute.” I flashed him a smile that was mostly grimace. “Just tell me who you are and what you want and then leave me alone.”

A family of forty or so rounded the base of the Needle at that moment, the kids surging ahead and attacking the rack of pamphlets like piranhas on a roast beef. They were swarming all around us. But Funky kept his round black sunglasses trained on me, unfazed by the sudden commotion.

“You don't know who I am?”

I sighed. “If I did, would I ask?”

His lower lip pouted a second, then with an air of conspiracy, he leaned in and intoned: “J. C. Fowler.”

I squinted at him. All at once, he seemed somehow familiar. It wasn't so much his looks as his manner, at once casual and caustic, sweet and sour, kung pao chicken with extra nuts.

Fowler: now why did that ring a bell?

“Nothing?” He frowned.

“Look, J. C. Fowler, whatever it is that's bothering you…” Saying the name out loud connected a circuit in my brain. “Hey! You're the archeology guy, from that public television show…” I snapped my fingers.
“Ancient Times.”

A smile bounced onto his face and he clapped his hands. His head rolled back and he loosed a coyote howl that sent the family of forty scrambling.