Vacant (27 page)

“Garrett Fiske,” I said. She hadn't known his name, but I knew the voice who'd called her. I knew the inflections of the man who'd talked to her on the phone at the location the letters had told her to go. And I knew the twisted sense of humor that would imperil the very boy that she'd used as her getaway card.

“If that's his name. He told me yesterday that he didn't usually involve families.” Her voice shook then; her hands shook. “But since I'd involved the boy first . . .”

She'd played the card that got Tommy involved, I realized. Fiske's stupid sense of honor. My stomach dropped, and I hated her. I hated her in that moment as much as any human being could hate another.

“That's not the worst of it, is it?” I asked. I forced myself to control my feelings against this woman, who had played a power game she'd thought she could control, and escalated things beyond any control.

She'd gambled with
Tommy's
life. If this went badly,
she
would have been the one who'd gotten him killed. Tommy, a smart kid, a patient kid—all he wanted in the world was
to make his mom happy and to be a telepath. “How dare you endanger him?” I spat.

“It was supposed to be for show! It was supposed to be my get-out-of-jail-free card. With that kind of attack, I could have a hiatus on my duties and come back to it with my career intact. With that kind of attack I could figure out how to take down the man for good. And Pappadakis would be somebody else's problem. I had a plan, okay? I had a plan that would have fixed everything.”

I took a breath and forced myself to be the interrogator now. I would get every scrap of information buried in this monster's brain and then I would never speak to her again. “You thought that the next judge would probably give in to their commands,” I said flatly. “You thought that you were handing the next judge over for the same kind of death threats or worse. Maybe they were killed instead of you. Maybe there's a mistrial. Or five. You didn't care. You fucking didn't care.”

“I'm doing the best I can!” she yelled at me.

“Tell me. Tell me what you're hiding,” I said. There was more buried there, like a folding fan still half-closed.

She shook her head, but the images were coming into her head faster than she could push them away.

“The evidence,” I prompted, the baggies coming back up along with the shame and anger and disgust, shame strong enough to drown in it. “The evidence. Tell me or I will take it from your brain.” It was unethical, it was a violation, and I wasn't sure if I crossed that line a second time in two days I would ever be the same person, but right now I almost believed I could. I threatened it; I lied, hoped I was lying. I threatened like hell and hoped I didn't actually have to make the choice.

We waited on the knife's edge, her shame and anger and
contempt and disgust warring with my threat. She held my eyes, considering.

I didn't know what she saw in my face, but she must have believed me.

Parson looked down. “I allowed tampered evidence into a trial. A different trial than this one. It was two years ago.” She met me in the eyes. “He was a pedophile. He liked little girls. He'd gotten off on three technicalities prior to this and the trial was going badly.” Overwhelming shame from her again, along with anger and a painfully strong sense of self-righteousness. “They couldn't make it stick, so . . .”

“The detective in charge of the case wanted to add evidence, and you knew it was falsified, and you let it happen anyway,” I said.

“Yes.”

I closed my eyes to hide my contempt.

“A pedophile went to jail for the rest of his life. I did the right thing,” she said. “But nobody could ever know about it. I don't know how they knew about it.”

“And now they want you to do the same thing for the Pappadakis trial.”

“Yes.”

I opened my eyes again, sat back on my heels. “You knew you'd lose your career if your previous misdeed came out, but you didn't want to work for Fiske. You didn't want to mess with the evidence in the Pappadakis trial. And you couldn't report it, not either way. You were between a rock and a hard place.”

She nodded, hands shaking again, but finally feeling that sense of freedom that comes from telling the truth. I'd seen suspects admit to things totally against their best interests, over and over again, for that cleansing feeling of telling the truth, finally telling the truth to someone who was listening.

She nodded one more time; then she said, “If I wasn't part of the case anymore, if I was in a different state, there was no reason to make the information public. They'd charge me money for blackmail, yes, but I'd pay it. Or they'd ask for something else, maybe something I could find a way to do without helping the criminals. And I had time to take them down. I have friends.”

It was critical to her self-image that she was one of the good guys, against the criminals. Ah, how she'd fallen away from that self-image.

“One last question,” I said. “The picture. Why take Tommy? And then why tell you if you didn't tell the truth they'd kill him?”

She laughed that bitter laugh. “He told me, if I didn't do what he wanted, I'd lose the thing I cared about most. That's why I needed to get out of the state. So this wouldn't happen.”

“Who is he?” I asked. She didn't mean Tommy when she said the thing she cared about the most. She meant her career, as horrible as that was.

“That friend of Pappadakis, the man on the phone. He's a shark, but I didn't think he'd like to play with his food quite so much. I should have just done what he said.” She looked at me with complete vulnerability then. “My career is over. No matter what else happens today, that's the case. But Tommy—I couldn't bear it if he died because I screwed up.”

Her emotions were strong, terribly strong, but she was so controlled, like an iceberg holding all the things inside in a solid frozen mass. When she melted—and she would melt eventually—what she was holding back would damage, or destroy, her. Fiske had won all right. She would never be the same as a human being after this.

She looked up, beyond me, at Jarrod. “You call the news
agencies and you tell them. I don't want to face people. But if he sees it on the news, maybe he lets Tommy go.” She stood up and looked down on me. “I still hate you.”

I stood too. “The feeling is mutual.”

She nodded and went upstairs to her room, hands wrapping her robe around her, mind shaking from intense emotions of every kind roiling around. Overall, a sense of frozen horror, frozen loss, the kind of loss I'd felt before when a couple had lost their small daughter. Her career—her career she did love like a child.

After I'd gotten
absolutely every detail out of the judge that I could think of, I sat down on the back porch steps and smoked. The others were doing police things, things that they could do without me. I was getting an itchy feeling, a bad feeling that wasn't at all impacted by the cigarettes. Something that felt like the precog trying to wake up again.

I reached out to Tommy—and actually connected. But he was asleep, or unconscious, and that connection between us was frail. Jarrod had said that they'd leak the judge's confession to the media and maybe that would be enough, but I didn't think so. Once Fiske started a play like this, he'd carry it through to some larger end. It wasn't just about the judge anymore, I realized with a sinking feeling. It was partially about me. Me. And my connection to Tommy.

Would he kill Tommy just to torture me? I couldn't get the idea out of my head. It would be like Fiske, and he was angry with me.

My hands shaking, I finished the cigarette. I couldn't stay here and do nothing. Sure, I could make more phone calls. But as Jarrod had said, they had people to do that. It was up to me to do the things only I could do. And if Tommy died and I didn't do every fucking thing in my
power to stop it . . . well, even if I did, I wasn't sure I could live with myself.

Even if I had to cross another ethical line I'd never be able to undo. Even if it meant I couldn't be there, wouldn't be there for Cherabino. It hurt me, but that was my choice, I realized. I was sober for this, and I'd do the best damn job I could, no matter what it cost me. I stubbed out the cigarette. It might cost me a lot.

I went back inside to tell Jarrod where I was going, and then got my rented car from the side street next to the judge's house. I had an errand to run.

*   *   *

I parked across from the theater and walked in, scanning the world around me with a tired mind, hands jittery from nerves.

The theater folks had protested long and loud they didn't hurt anybody, and the more I'd thought about it, the more it seemed likely that they were connected with a larger organization. They'd even referenced a couple of key players in what I was betting was a lower level of the organized crime group Fiske at least in name controlled. You weren't that sure you didn't hurt people unless there were people you dealt with who kept the messy parts out of your way. Either that or you were an idiot, and these folks—though odd—didn't seem like idiots.

The morning was bright, a blue sky dotted with clouds barely gray with pollution, the air almost clean enough not to make me cough even at a quick trot. The cars on the ground cruising slowly through parks and streets, a beautiful old Jewish temple dominating the skyline a few blocks away, looking down on the rest of the street, including this ancient theater.

I'd convince those guys to tell me how to get in touch with their contact in the organization, and then convince
him to refer me to his boss, and his boss. Eventually someone would connect me with someone important. Eventually, like Mendez had recommended, I'd be able to ne-
gotiate.

I slowed down near the circular post in front of the theater, the green-and-white stone tile across its bottom glittering in the sunlight. I moved up and knocked on the door. It was locked, and the lights were off.

Crap, what was I going to do now?

Behind me, I felt a mind approach with purpose. I turned, on alert.

A man in a suit and a hat nodded at me, walking slowly, something under his arm.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Are you Adam Ward?”

“Who wants to know?”

He nodded, and slowly—slowly enough that even the most hair-trigger cop wouldn't have pulled a gun—shifted the package under his arm until it was faceup. It was a puzzle box, I saw, as he stopped walking four feet away and gave me a good look at it. It was a puzzle box exactly like the one that Fiske had left in my hotel room, except half the size.

“My employer has a gift for you,” he said.

“Fiske?” I asked.

He smiled. “He pays me well enough that I neither know nor care about his name.”

“What is it?” I asked warily.

He smiled again and said nothing, holding out the box. His hands were bare, so there was no contact poison there, probably. But if Fiske's new gift was anything like his old one, there would be plenty of reason not to take that box.

I sighed and took it.

The man tipped his hat and turned around to leave.

“What? Don't you have anything else to say?” I asked.

“My business here is done,” he called over his shoulder.

The street felt empty, void of minds all around as I held the ominous box in my hands.

I took two deep breaths and opened the box. It opened as simply and smoothly as the other one, its locking mechanism disengaged. Inside was a smaller space lined in red velvet, and a folded piece of paper. I picked up the paper, shook it to unfold it, and read.

There was only a single number written on its surface.

I have the information you seek,
it said.

*   *   *

I found a pay phone in a park a block away, under a magnolia tree that smelled vaguely of powdery rot. A sentry plant glared at me from a few feet away, almost like an old man. The park itself was empty, all too empty.

I took deep breaths, several in a row, trying to get the emotion to damp back down. I'd have to negotiate. I'd have to think to do this correctly.

It started to rain. The rain was light, but it smelled terrible, like baked-in pollution of the most dangerous kind. It wasn't the worst thing I could deal with today, but I winced as a droplet ran off my head and down the back of my neck. Cancer flushes were pricey, and even with the Guild's part insurance, I didn't have the money to be spending indiscriminately.

I dialed slowly, double- and triple-checking the number. I put the box down on the ground and straightened up while the phone rang. And rang. And rang.

Finally he picked up.

“Adam Ward.” Fiske's voice popped the syllables of each letter slowly, taking the maximum enjoyment out of the moment. I knew then that this would be bad.

“Fiske,” I said. “Is this the part where you tell me there's a sniper to take me out already set up here?”

“An excellent question, Mr. Ward. An excellent question indeed. How gratifying that you take me seriously. As it happens, I have other plans for you today.”

I paused, using all my skills as a Minder to identify every mind in the vicinity. A few dog walkers a block away, office workers, and the like. No one near. No one paying attention, and no one with the focus I thought a sniper would need. Assuming they were within my half-mile range. Of course, I'd thought to check only after I'd talked to him. If someone had been there, it was probably already too late.

The only comfort I had against that thought was that Fiske wasn't a straightforward man, at least from what I'd seen and participated in in the task force. Yes, he rewarded loyalty and punished disloyalty. He usually did what he said he was going to do. But he was a chess player, a wheels-within-wheels kind of guy. If he said he had other plans for me today, they would be far worse than a single bullet, but I might, in the end, survive.

“What are we here to talk about?” I asked him.

“Mr. Ward, you should know two very important things. One, that I am the architect of your partner's destruction, and two, that I hold your charge's life in my hands. I imagine you have questions. You may ask them, and then I will offer you a series of choices. I suggest you choose very wisely.”

I took a deep breath, putting my emotions aside with great effort. I had one opportunity to take back some control. Mendez and Jarrod had said, if I could keep him talking, that I might be able to get Tommy back. And I'd been on the street too long to think rolling over got you anywhere
at all. I breathed again, deeply, once, twice, knowing that I wasn't going to get a second chance at this.

“If you remain silent, I will kill your partner,” Fiske said in a matter-of-fact tone that made it all too clear he was serious.

“You will not,” I said finally. “I will play your game, so far as it goes. Just realize I'll have some things to say as well.”

“Ah, wonderful. I do so love an intelligent opponent. Ask your first question.”

“By my partner, you mean Cherabino,” I said, stalling. I felt like I was behind, like I was still processing what had happened up to this point, much less what he was saying now.

“I'd suggest you not try my patience with obvious questions.”

What was his exact wording? “
Why
did you engineer my partner's destruction, and what exactly does that mean?”

“That's two questions, but I'll let it go for now. The why is simple. You came into my house without my permission and killed one of my associates.”

So I had killed him. “That was an accident,” I said. I'd turned on the sleep center of the woman's brain, and she had hit her head on the tile on the way down. “I did not intend to harm her permanently.”

“You exposed a hole in my security system and so I let you go, but the death . . . I do not take the death of my associates lightly,” Fiske said. “You should know by now that I had to answer that.”

By his rules, I suppose he did. “And this is your retaliation? Against me?”

“I had a plan, naturally, to discredit you at the highest levels, but you ended up in Savannah before I had a chance to implement it. Fortunately you were there for your partner's destruction, which was an excellent start.”

Finally it clicked. “You set up the guy outside the concert? You had someone beat him to death, and then you planted the fingerprints and bribed the witnesses to lie?”

“Ah, finally he asks a good question. Yes, that is exactly what I did. And today, my dear friend the Decatur mayor will inform the police commissioner that your partner must lose her job. So much more apropos than a simple execution, don't you agree? She does so love that job, your partner.”

I closed my eyes, feeling vacant, horribly vacant. If I hadn't had that vision of the future, and Cherabino hadn't acted on it . . . “Is there anything I can do to get you to use your influence to reinstate her?” I asked, and then kicked myself. I couldn't deal with this guy. I couldn't.

But negotiation was the only thing that might work, I told myself. That was what Mendez had said.

“Ah, but he wants to jump ahead. Let's finish the question section of the game before you move to the choices. Ask your next question, and make it a good one.”

“Why kidnap Tommy?” I asked. “If the judge set up the attack on her own, and your blackmail wasn't working, wouldn't it have been easier just to release the information to discredit her?”

“I can hear the pain in your voice. How wonderful. I must confess, it was delightful to find you popping up here, in the middle of this judicial matter. Especially after my men lost you in Atlanta, which they already regret. I have a policy that no one takes a job against me or mine, or against anyone I am already targeting myself. This is basic courtesy for the boss, and if I don't enforce the policy strenuously, I don't deserve the title. I had already made it clear I had an interest in the Pappadakis case, and the judge was involved. Her freelancers should never have accepted her money, and they have been appropriately disciplined.”

“They're dead,” I said.

“Yes, Sibley is very efficient, isn't he? The bodies should not have been found for a few weeks yet, but I did force his timeline unnecessarily fast. I have arranged for the critical evidence to be lost and we'll end up in the same place as we started. Plus a mistrial, and an opportunity to deal with you as you deserve. I do so love it when I can kill two birds with one stone.”

“How can you be sure the evidence is lost?” I asked.

“I have allies nearly everywhere. You should know this by now, Mr. Ward.”

“In the judicial system here in Savannah?”

“Ah. Another intelligent question. The judicial system in Savannah has been strangely reluctant to accept my little favors, it is true, especially as compared to your own home territory. But until this little dustup, it seemed well on the way, and the business community is very open.”

“Like your friend Pappadakis.”

“He is not a friend, he is a supplier. Surely you know the difference. I provide him with certain . . . connections in exchange for difficult-to-obtain parts that I need for other business ventures.”

“You don't seriously think you'll get him off the charges? I mean, it's clear he beat his mistress to death.”

“So judgmental. You have your little foibles as well—never, ever forget that, Mr. Ward. In this case I merely have to provide a significant show of resistance. His second-in-command has already been groomed, and if I show myself a strong ally, he'll make the same deals with me as did his predecessor. And to be honest, it's far more fun when they resist. I had had hopes that your dear judge friend might turn into an ally, after an appropriate time. But she did not, sadly.”

“Why attack the judge at all?” I asked.

A small, self-satisfied laugh. “And why should I not? If she agrees to my terms, I have a powerful ally in a relatively new territory. Judges are so useful, you understand. If she resists, she is easily made an example to keep my allies here in Atlanta—or really, anywhere in my territory—inclined to keep their end of our little deals. There is no downside.”

I shook my head, processing all of that. Fiske was playing a chess game, a long chess game for some final goal I didn't understand, and we all were just pieces to him.

“Why Tommy?” I demanded finally. “Why the photograph? Why kidnap Tommy? You already had what you wanted from the judge.” I was unable to keep the desperation out of my voice. It was almost worse, the turmoil going on inside me against the absolute calm in his voice.