The Button Man: A Hugo Marston Novel (20 page)

“You mean contaminate evidence?” He smiled. “Good thinking, but they’ve processed the scene by now. Or should have. We can touch what we want.”

“Which ain’t much,” she muttered.

They left the protection of the church and headed for the blue-and-white tape that was still strung among the gravestones, and for some reason, the combination made Hugo think of dental floss. He led the way between the markers and stopped at the tape to check on Merlyn. She nodded that she was OK, and they ducked beneath the blue-and-white cordon and took three steps forward, Hugo’s eyes sweeping over the earth. He walked in a zigzag route in what he suspected would be a fruitless search. But thoroughness was a habit, a lesson learned after small clues had been missed at crime scenes years ago, thousands of miles away, embarrassment forged into a routine of painstaking care. Once he’d finished scouring the place for physical clues, he could settle in to absorb the feel of the place, let it speak to him in its own weird way. His own weird way, maybe.

“It’s odd, isn’t it?” Merlyn spoke in an almost-whisper, standing on the spot where Harper’s body had lain.

“What is?”

“That a man can die here, just hours ago, and there be no sign other than a few strands of police tape. If you didn’t know it had happened . . .” she shrugged, “you’d never know, would you?”

Hugo didn’t answer, instead putting a hand on her shoulder. She was right, there was nothing here, no clue, no sign, not even a feeling. The only thing he could do was walk, so he pointed to the old wall and walked toward it. They ducked back under the tape, crossing out of the crime scene, and Hugo started his clue hunt all over again, expanding it to the entire graveyard.

They’d walked less than twenty yards when he stopped. Ahead, the ground had been disturbed, leaves and sticks piled on the grass in a rectangular shape. About the size of a human grave. Hugo looked around him, senses on high alert, but the place was silent. He held out a hand, silently telling Merlyn to stay put. He briefly considered calling Upton to get his crime-scene team here, but maybe it was nothing. He moved closer and saw that the leaves and other debris had been scattered over a green tarpaulin that had, in turn, been pegged to the ground. He knelt by a corner of the tarp and tugged at the metal peg, which slid easily from the wet earth. He lifted the canopy six inches, and the gentle smell of wet soil rose up to greet him.

If there’s something dead in here, he thought, it’s not been dead long.

He raised the tarp higher and peered into a coffin-sized hole, two feet deep. He was no expert on grave digging, but this didn’t look like it had been professionally cut. Roots and twigs poked out from its steep sides, which were jagged and uneven, and the bottom was rounded, not flat, as if earth from the sides had tumbled in and been trampled down. He lowered the covering and stood, looking around. No shovel. No other graves within ten feet, either, just an ancient oak tree standing guard over it, a heavy bough as thick as his waist extending into the graveyard, and no more than eight feet above his head. Shelter? Hugo wondered.

“It’s OK, no one inside,” he told Merlyn, and he saw her shoulders sag with relief.

She moved a little closer, eyes on the tarp. “What is it?”

“Looks like the beginnings of a grave,” he said. “Pretty fresh but not finished, I’d guess. On the other hand, could be a hole dug by kids to bury pirate treasure.”

“Wait. Do you think it’s a real grave or not?”

“No idea,” said Hugo, reaching for his phone. “I’ll let Upton and his men figure that out.” He was through in a matter of seconds. “Clive, Hugo here. Did your guys search the graveyard before clearing out?”

“Of course,” Upton said. “Why?”

“They didn’t mention finding a new grave about fifty yards from Harper’s body?”

“No,” Upton said slowly. “Unless there was another body in it, I’m not sure I would expect them to. It’s a graveyard, after all.”

“Yeah, it is. But this one looks unusual.”

“How?”

“For one thing, it’s covered with a tarp, which may be something they do here to keep out the rain. But the tarp itself was covered with grass and leaves, as if to hide it.”

“People don’t like looking at fresh graves, Hugo.”

“They don’t. But this one wasn’t finished. Just a couple of feet deep. It just feels wrong.”

“Well, it’s easy enough to check on. I’ll have someone call Reverend Kinnison and see if the cemetery is expecting any new occupants. She can probably put me in touch with whoever digs graves and I can see if he dug yours. Where is it exactly?”

Hugo explained its location as best he could while Upton grunted on the other end of the phone, presumably taking notes.

“Got it,” said Upton when Hugo had finished. “So what are you doing over there exactly?”

“Nothing in particular. Just trying to figure out what’s next.”

“Well, my boss thinks that what’s next is you heading back to London and leaving this investigation to us.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes. As she put it, the guy you were chasing is dead so there’s no longer anything you can do for him. If this is suicide, which is what she suspects, then we’ll handle the inquest. If it’s murder, then the guy who killed him is, presumably, alive and hiding, and we’re the ones who should be chasing him.”

“So you think suicide?”

“I don’t know what to think, and neither does she. How about you?”

“I didn’t think it likely for Ginny Ferro,” Hugo said. “But Harper, I don’t know. He was pretty devastated by her death and has been acting crazy ever since. I think it’s a possibility.”

“Assuming no jurisdictional disputes, we’ll do the autopsy this morning. That may tell us something.”

“I doubt it,” Hugo said. “We already know the cause of death. Make sure they run a tox panel—he could have been on something to make him act weird.”

“We will. I’ll call you when I hear from the coroner’s office. What are your plans?”

“I’m not sure.” Hugo looked at Merlyn. “I suspect I’m going shopping.”

“Shopping? What for?”

“I have a party to go to,” Hugo said. “And absolutely nothing to wear.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

O
n a sweltering Chicago evening, back in August of 1999, Hugo donned a cropped leather jacket and glittery leather pants, glued a pointy black beard to his chin, and walked out of a motel with a hooker on each arm, swaggering like the pimp he was meant to be.

He’d set up in a nightclub, knocking back fake whisky and thinking very hard about his first wife, Ellie, who wouldn’t have minded the girls gyrating around him, would even have found it funny. He’d never thought of himself as uptight, but as his companions, the youngest and freshest agents out of the academy, strutted their stuff around the club and as the target of the investigation brought him a succession of beautiful, half-naked, and apparently very eager-to-please women, he found himself shocked at the variety of sexual delicacies he was being offered. He was supposed to try them for himself, then broker deals between the Chicago guys and some flesh dealers in Las Vegas, keeping the stream of women constant and ever-changing. To keep the customers happy, the cash flowing, and the girls disoriented. He’d refused to sample the merchandise, though, telling his seller that he wanted something younger, fresher. And when something younger and fresher appeared by his side, he’d tried not to strangle the man who sat across the table, grinning like a chimpanzee, licking his lips as though the teenage girl was a steak to be devoured. No, Hugo had played it cool and touched the little girl’s chin, looked into her heavily painted eyes, and recognized the fear hiding behind her smile.

“She doesn’t speak English,” the man had said. “Which makes it better, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Where from?” Hugo asked him.

“Eastern Europe somewhere, does it matter?”

“No. But you only have one?”

“Shit no. We get them in batches of two and three. How many you want?” The man leaned forward, earnest now. “I gotta tell you, they are expensive. This one’s a virgin, most of the little ones are.” They called them “little ones” instead of “young ones,” Hugo had noticed. He wondered why—it wasn’t as if these men had a conscience. “You want three, four?” the man was asking.

“I don’t care. Whatever I pay you, I charge my clients double,” Hugo told the chimpanzee. “Give me as many as you’ve got.”

“Tomorrow morning,” the ape said. “I can bring you nine. Nine virgins. Sounds almost biblical, doesn’t it?”

Hugo took the twelve-year-old, named Masha, with him that night, making the ape happy and trusting, handing her over to a bureau translator who introduced her to a counselor and a safe bed in the motel in South Chicago where the team had staged. She slept two doors down from Hugo, who felt good having her that close, that protected.

They took down the ape in the morning outside the motel, and Masha watched from inside, nose pressed to the second-floor window, she wept silently as her friends and little sister were led from the van into the care of the federal government.

The trafficker had stopped grinning pretty quickly and had done his best to spill his guts to save his own hide, but Hugo and his colleagues knew whom they were after, and all the snitching in the world hadn’t kept that bastard from the pen. A very long time in the pen, if Hugo remembered correctly.

He thought about this operation, made a point of remembering the ape’s evil face and the wretched feeling those young girls gave him, because it had been his last undercover operation, and because it was so different from this one. And remembering the girls he’d helped rescue back then made this undercover excursion a little less . . . humiliating.

Merlyn took him to Stevenage, a drab and concrete town, leading him to a quiet row of unkempt stores that sold the kinds of books and magazines he’d not sought since he was a teenager. He was relieved, slightly, when she led him into the newest, and largest, halfway down the row. He was less relieved when she showed him the racks of clothing he’d be required to choose from in order to be let into the party.

“They have an eighty percent rule,” she said. “You have to be in eighty percent leather.”

“And you?”

“Same rule. Which means you’ll be buying for me, too.” She winked. “You’ll be able to expense this, right? So no worries.”

“Able to, sure. Whether I’ll dare to is another matter.”

As if choosing wasn’t bad enough, she made him try on everything, though he wouldn’t let her look. He rejected the chaps-and-thong outfit, advocated by Merlyn, and went with the leather pants and a matching vest, though unfortunately they had only the tasseled version in his size.

“Your cowboy boots match perfectly,” she said. “Who’d have thought it?”

She then left him by the “toys” and disappeared into the ladies’ dressing room with an armful of clothes to try. When she reappeared in her own clothes and he asked what she’d be wearing, she gave him a “wait and see” look.

Hugo decided not to return to the pub, instead renting a room at a motel on the southeast side of Letchworth, nearest Weston. They ate at an Indian restaurant in town, a late buffet lunch that was probably quite good an hour or two earlier. There were two other tables still eating, both foursomes of men and women in work clothes, and as they sat opposite each other in a booth, Merlyn thanked him for the meal.

“I’m also curious about your wife,” she said. “We’ve been together a couple of days now and you’ve not phoned her once.”

“That you know of.” Hugo grimaced as he remembered the call he’d ignored in Braxton Hall’s mock graveyard.

“So you have phoned her?”

“That’s none of your business, now is it?” He had, but they’d spoken for no more than a minute, coldness on her end, brusqueness on his.

“Oh, come on. What’s the deal?”

Hugo thought for a moment. He didn’t really know what the deal was himself, so explaining it wouldn’t be easy, but he didn’t mind trying. “She’s in Dallas right now. She’s . . . an interesting person, likes to travel, likes to shop.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what you want to know.”

“We could start with her name.”

“Christine.”

“And how long have you been married?”

“Since May of last year.” He saw her mouth open for more questions, so he gave her the rundown. “We met in Washington, DC, and got married in Dallas, where she’s from. I’m from Austin, which is about three hours south of Dallas. She’s my second wife.”

“A new and shiny trophy wife?”

“Not really, no.” Hugo tried to bend a piece of naan bread, but it snapped. “Kind of old, some of this food.”

“Don’t change the subject. Why did you divorce your first wife?”

“I didn’t.”

“She divorced you.”

“No, she died in a car accident. Four years before I met Christine.”

“Oh.” She looked down at her plate. “I’m sorry, that was insensitive.” She looked up again, her voice softer now. “You have any kids?”

“No,” said Hugo, and he was surprised to feel the regret in his voice. He cleared his throat. “How about you? What’s your story?”

“Born and bred in London. Only surviving child; my mother’s the daughter of a banker in Hong Kong and my father’s a banker from Putney. No idea what I want to be when I grow up. Not a banker.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-five. No kids, no boyfriend, no pets.”

He smiled. “And no car.”

“Thanks for the reminder. Shit, will the police keep it?”

“For a while, I’d guess. Until they’ve processed it for any evidence.”

“They can keep it.” She shuddered, then reached for her Coke. “Do you think I’m pretty?”

She isn’t seeking a compliment
, Hugo thought; she’d asked the way she’d ask him to pass the salt, or if he liked the Beatles.

“Yes, I do.”

“I can never decide. The whole mixed-race thing is kind of a curse sometimes.” She shrugged. “Oh well. We should talk about tonight, so you know what to expect. It could get pretty wild for you in there, Mr. Vanilla.”

“That’s OK, I’m not planning on staying long. And I’m certainly not planning on partying for long.”