Дэвид Балдаччи - No Man's Land

She hit the gas and they shot out of the parking lot.

“What the hell is going on, Knox?”

“I’ll tell you what I know, but you’re not going to believe a word of it.”

ROGERS HAD KEPT checking the rearview all the way back to where he was staying.

There had been a car back there. It had been at the first dumpsite, and then he’d spotted it at the third and the fourth sites. Then he had driven straight to the interstate.

He cursed himself for going to where the bodies had been. But the thing in his head had made him do it. And the thing in his head, he had found, could make him do anything.

He was now sitting on the bed in his motel room thinking all of this through.

Who could have been back there?

The thing was, the person had been at the first dumpsite before he’d gotten there. Now, that might have been a coincidence, but to be at the third and fourth too? And maybe he was at the second, but Rogers might have left by then.

Was it the police? Were they investigating the murders once more? They had never been solved. It might be one of those cold case investigations.

And I might have stumbled right into the middle of it.

He pulled out his phone and checked the newsfeeds.

What he expected to see wasn’t there.

For all the world knew, Chris Ballard was still alive and well behind his fortress walls. Certainly by now the police would have been called and an investigation commenced. And the news outlets certainly would have been informed.

Rogers had tried to make it look like suicide. Even if Ballard couldn’t walk, he could have crawled to that window and levered himself through it.

But with either murder or suicide there should have been something about it in the news by now.

For the next two hours he kept flipping through all the late breaking news sites.

Zip.

It was fully light now. He changed clothes and went down to the motel diner and had some breakfast while checking his phone constantly.

There was still nothing, which could only mean one thing: They were covering it up. Either the police hadn’t been called or they had been and higher-ups had put a stranglehold on any leaks to the media. Perhaps they were trying to figure out if this really was a suicide or murder.

And if they concluded that it was a murder they might conclude that he was back to deliver his revenge.

And more to the point, she would know of it.

Claire Jericho’s brainpower had been something to behold. But she had a dark side too.

Rogers no longer had compassion. It had been taken away from him, along with many other things. She, on the other hand, apparently never had any compassion at all.

This was the person who had created him. Perhaps in her own image. He lacked the capacity to dig any deeper into the psychology of it.

He went back to his room, lay on the bed, and closed his eyes. But he didn’t sleep.

His mind went back thirty years and then stopped on five women.

He hadn’t chosen them at random. They had something in common.

Me.

It had taken a lot of work on his part, but he had gathered the necessary information and then done what he had set out to do. It was all he had thought about for the longest time.

And right before they died, they knew exactly how I felt about what they had done to me.

And with that thought he fell asleep. He didn’t wake until it was time for him to go to work. He got ready and drove to the Grunt.

Helen Myers greeted him in the back hall of the bar.

“Did you have a good night off?” she asked.

“It was pretty uneventful,” replied Rogers.

“Nothing too exciting, then?”

“No.”

Rogers was telling the truth. There had been absolutely nothing exciting about throwing Chris Ballard out a four-story window and watching his head smash into the cobblestones.

“I wanted to let you know that Josh will be in tonight with a party,” Myers went on.

“Right, thanks for the heads-up. He’ll be going up to his room?”

“So you know about that?”

“I saw him head up there last time. I figured that’s where your VIPs go. They’re not going to be in general pop, are they?”

“General pop?”

“Just a term I’ve heard used. Should I just clear his whole party in without checking IDs? He seemed a little ticked off when I did that the first night.”

“Yes, just let them in. I’ll vouch that they’re all legal,” she added with a smile tacked on.

“Will Karl be in tonight?”

“He’s already here. In the back.”

“I’ll stop in and see him before I go on duty.”

“Good.”

He left her there and continued on to the back to see Karl. The big man was seated at a table and looked better. Rogers saw no cane. And Karl wore no sunglasses.

Karl motioned for Rogers to take a seat. He did so.

“I heard about the ‘incident’ the other night.”

“How?”

“Cop on the beat is an old bud of mine. He told me. These punks are starting to be a real problem.”

“I can handle it.”

“I have no doubt of that. But the thing is, we don’t want that kind of trouble. You kick the shit out of some of these college boys, or maybe even kill one, it’s not good for business. See what I mean?”

“I see. And I won’t do anything to mess it up for the bar.”

“Good man.”

Rogers left him and went back into the bar area in time to see Myers ascend the stairs, unlock the door to the VIP room, and go in. He drew back and watched. A minute later she reemerged and shut the door behind her. In her right hand was the door key. But she had something in her left hand that hadn’t been there before.

He backed up and then came around the corner as though just emerging from the back hall.

They met at the bottom of the stairs.

She said, “How’s Karl?”

“Like a new man,” said Rogers, glancing down. Myers was gripping something in her left hand, but he couldn’t see what it was.

She looked back at him. “Anything else?”

“No. I’m good to go.”

“ARE YOU GOING to tell me, or are you just going to keep driving?”

Puller was staring directly at Knox.

“I’m trying to process it all in my head so I can give you an efficient version,” she replied.

“Where have you been?”

“Finding out things.”

“And did you?”

“Processing, Puller, give me a sec. I was wheels down just an hour ago. It’s still a bit garbled in my head.”

He waited until she pulled off the highway and into the parking lot of a 7-Eleven. She put the car in park, undid her seat belt, and said, “I need coffee. You want some?”

“Okay.”

She got out, went in and bought two large coffees, came back to the car, presented one to him, and took a sip of hers.

“Are you done processing?” he asked.

She nodded and sat back. “There was a lot about this case that didn’t add up. The FBI pulling out of a serial murder case? That’s unheard of. The forensics not being professionally done. Investigators getting stonewalled. No leads at all with four women dead. And the playing field being manipulated by so-called ‘higher-ups,’ which is very convenient because it lets anonymity reign.”

“Agreed on all points,” said Puller. “Just so you know, Ted Hull got reassigned and his phone number was given over to a woman from the Department of Agriculture, so no one could contact him. And I’m supposed to be on a flight to Germany because I got pulled off the case too.”

“So why aren’t you on the plane?”

“Because another higher-up intervened, this time on my behalf.”