Кэти Райх - A Conspiracy of Bones

But why?

I was snapping pics when the jingle of faux silver again caused me to jump. Pivoting, I noted floral patterning filling the gap between the door and the jamb. In one move, I was on my feet and out into the hall.

“You’re spying on me.”

“Don’t you go getting all up in my face,” Tent Woman shot back.

“Talk to me about the occupant of this unit.”

“Got nothin’ to say.” Overridden by a peal of thunder louder than the first.

“Perhaps I should drop a word to ICE.” Unkind, but my patience had run thin.

The woman’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.

“Two years,” I said. “You must have learned something about him? His name? His hometown? His occupation?”

Two bony arms floated high in surrender, revealing that the tent actually had sleeves.

“ Dios mío . I barely saw the guy.”

“Look, Mrs. Ramos. It is Ramos, right? I’m not trying to cause you trouble. I couldn’t care less who lives in this building.”

“ Qué chingados .” Apparently, she liked the expression.

“Seriously,” I said.

The arms dropped, the shoulders. Then, grudgingly, “It’s Ms., not Mrs. Señor Estúpido kicked eight years back. I kept his building and name.”

Unsure if that called for condolences or congratulations, I said nothing.

“We don’t do intros here, you understand what I’m saying? People come, people go, everyone they keep to themselves. I speak with your guy a couple of times. Heard him now and again through the door.”

Meaning she’d eavesdropped. As she had with me. I didn’t say it. “Was he speaking on a phone?”

“Hell if I know. Could be he had someone in there. I don’t provide chaperone service, if you catch my meanin’. What I can say is sometimes he talked foreign.”

“What language?”

“Not English or Spanish.”

“Can you recall anything he said?”

Blank stare.

“When he spoke English.”

“Mostly he’d whine about needing security. Like this place is Guantánamo or something.” A scrawny finger came up. “But wait. One thing stuck with me. Once, he said his life would soon be over.”

“When was that?”

“Six, maybe seven months ago.” The digits spread, palm facing me. “That’s all I know. I didn’t ask no follow-up.”

“Did you ever see him with anyone?”

Ramos shook her head no. “No shocker. The guy was scared shitless.”

“Why?”

The Revlon eyes crimped in disdain. “He believed the government was trying to get him.”

“The U.S. government?”

“Coulda been the Bosnians for all I know.”

“He actually said that?”

“Yeah. In his blubberin’ about privacy. I mostly didn’t listen.”

“He seemed genuinely afraid?”

“Terrified. Look, I got a window needs unjamming before this storm hits. Otherwise, I’ll be spending my night moppin’.”

“Thank you, Ms. Ramos. You’ve been helpful.”

“So, what? I can go ahead and rent out the room?”

“I’d hold off a bit longer.”

“Sonofabitch.”

“I understand the inconvenience. I’m sure the wait list is longer than my arm.”

Ramos flipped me a heartfelt bird.

The storm broke as I was sprinting to my car. The downpour was everything the clouds had promised.

Drenched, I wheeped the locks and threw myself behind the wheel. While palming rain from my face and hair, I glanced through the passenger window at 2307.

Above a Marvel poster featuring Doctor Strange, I could see Ramos backlit in a second-floor window. She was talking on a mobile phone. As I watched, her eyes came around in my direction. She stared. Continued speaking.

Paranoia?

Or was she discussing me?

13

FRIDAY, JULY 6–SATURDAY, JULY 7

The downpour was so fierce I pulled into the Wendy’s at the Eastway Drive intersection. Figured I’d wait for the storm to let up, then grab a Dave’s Double meal before heading to the annex. Others had done the same. The occupants of those vehicles looked like woolly ghosts through the wall of rain and the fog-clouded windows.

With drops pounding the roof and hood like stampeding hooves, I turned on the interior light and reached for the small pile of clothing I’d dumped beside me, still puzzled. Vodyanov had taken everything of a personal nature. Why leave garments in the closet? Had he planned to return? Forgotten them due to a hurried departure? Decided he no longer wanted them?

Once home, I’d do a thorough search, but to pass the time, I dug latex gloves and a compact LED penlight from my shoulder bag. First, I checked the pockets of the shirt and pants, remembering Hawkins’s score at the autopsy. Found nothing. I noted that all labels had been removed.

Next, I stretched the trench coat full length across the passenger seat and onto my lap. I’d used it as a makeshift umbrella during my sprint from 2307, and it now felt heavy and damp.

The fabric was gabardine, styled in the fashion made popular by the British military during World War II—double-breasted with a wide collar, epaulettes, raglan sleeves, a gun flap, and a top-stitched belt outfitted with D-rings. The design looked familiar though somehow foreign. Again, I looked for labels. All were gone.

I ran a palm over the coat. Felt no lumps or bulges. A quick inventory revealed five pockets. Two on each side by the hip, one interior and one exterior. One on the inside at the breast.

Lightning sparked, then darkness snapped back. My eyes flew up.

Beyond my windshield, the world was swallowed in a green-gray opacity as dense as the sea. Across the shiny black pavement, a shimmering rectangle I knew to be the restaurant. A nanosecond, then thunder boomed.

Aided by the penlight’s powerful little beam, I searched the coat’s breast pocket. Seeing zip, I slid a hand inside. Felt nothing.

I moved on to the back-to-back right hip pockets. The one on the outside held only lint and small particles of what might have been gravel or coarse sand. The one on the inside was totally empty.

I shifted to the left pair. Spotted zilch in the outer pocket, was probing its counterpart when, deep down, the bright little oval cast an odd shadow. Peering closer, I detected an irregularity in the base of the pocket, a rip roughly two inches long. In the blackness beyond, a pale flash caught in the beam.

As I stared, the rooftop stampede dropped in intensity. I glanced around. The world was reemerging. Get my burger and fries and head home? Turn the coat over to Slidell for an official police examination?

No way. The wild lightning had nothing on the adrenaline jolting my nerves. I needed to know if something had wriggled through that torn seam.

Barely breathing, I inserted and gently seesawed a finger. Eventually, the gap was large enough to shine my light through.

Three items winked white, caught in the rough fibers of the lining. Using a thumb and a fingertip, I teased them free and laid them on the damp gabardine.

Paper scraps, one wadded, two folded together.

Ever so gingerly, I opened and inspected each.

Slidell finally phoned at ten fifty-five. Before he could launch into his tirade, I described what I’d discovered on one of the folded papers. And during my subsequent cyber-looping. He listened, anger grudgingly yielding to curiosity.

“You’re sure it’s BRES?”

“Yes. And I found info online. Brown and Root Energy Services. There wasn’t much, but one site reported that following the Estonia sinking, the official divers hired to work the ferry were employed by Rockwater. Rockwater is a subsidiary of BRES. The divers had to sign lifetime contracts requiring secrecy about what they did at the wreckage.”