Douglas Preston - Gideon's Corpse

With a cold, answering smile, she reached out but, instead of taking the ID, swatted his hand out of her face.

For a moment, Gideon stood surprised. Her face was defiant, her eyes flashing, the pulse of her heart in her slender neck—this was a tiger. As he pulled out his cell phone, he felt almost sorry about having to do this to such a woman. He dialed the police and spoke to a dispatcher he and Fordyce had previously chatted up—or rather “liaised with,” to use Fordyce’s jargon. “This is Gideon Crew. I need backup at Nine Ninety Old Santa Fe Trail. I’m on scene, and I’ve been assaulted by a resident on the premises.”

“I didn’t assault you, jerkoff!”

What a mouth. “Your action, knocking my hand away, meets the definition of assault.” He gave the woman a grin. “The shit just hit the fan. And I don’t even know your name yet.”

She glared back with her fierce brown eyes and—after a long staredown—finally wavered, her face loosening. She wasn’t so tough after all. “You’re really FBI?” Her glance raked his clothes—black jeans, lavender shirt, Keds. “You sure as hell don’t look it.”

“FBI liaison . Investigating the terrorist incident in New York. I’m here on a friendly little call to ask Mr. Simon Blaine some questions.”

“He’s not here.”

“Then I’ll wait.”

Gideon could hear faint sirens. Damn, the police were quick around here. He saw her eyes dart toward the sound.

“You should’ve called,” she said. “You had no right to trespass!”

“My right to enter the premises extends to the door. You’ve got about five seconds to decide whether you want to escalate this into something really ugly or cooperate one hundred percent. Like I said, this was a friendly visit and it doesn’t have to turn into a felony charge.”

“A felony charge?” The sirens got louder as the cars approached the gate. He could tell from the frightened look that she was crumbling fast. “All right. All right, I’ll cooperate. But this is blackmail, pure and simple. I won’t forget it.”

The first squad car came through the open gate, followed by others. Gideon met the lead car in front of the house. He showed ID, leaned in. “Officers? Everything’s under control—total cooperation now from the occupants of the house. Your quick response did the trick. Thank you so much.”

The police were reluctant to leave—they were excited to be involved, even peripherally, in the investigation, and it wasn’t often that they were called to a famous writer’s house—but Gideon coolly persuaded them that it was a misunderstanding. After the cops left, he turned and smiled at the woman, gestured toward the door. “Shall we?”

She stepped into the house, then turned. “This is a no-shoe house. Take ’em off.”

Gideon pulled off the Keds. Quite pointedly she, herself, did not remove her cowboy boots, on which Gideon could spy what looked like dried horseshit. She walked across the entrance hall’s Persian rug into the living room. It was a spectacular space, with white leather sofas, a vast fireplace, and what Gideon recognized as prehistoric Mimbres pots in various display cases.

She sat down, still saying nothing.

Gideon took out a notebook and settled into a chair opposite her. He couldn’t help but notice how pretty she was—downright beautiful, in fact. He was starting to feel bad about bullying her. Nevertheless, he tried to maintain a stern, unforgiving demeanor. “Your name, please?”

“Alida Blaine.” She answered in a flat monotone. “Should I be calling the family lawyer?”

“You promised to cooperate,” he said sternly. There was a long silence and then he softened. “Look, Alida, I just want to ask some simple questions.”

She smirked. “Are Keds the new FBI uniform?”

“It’s a temporary assignment.”

“Temporary? So what do you do normally? Play in a rock band?”

Maybe Fordyce had been right about his dress. “I’m a physicist.”

Her eyebrows shot up. Gideon didn’t like how she kept turning the conversation on him as a subject, and he quickly followed with a question. “Can you tell me what your relationship is to Simon Blaine?”

“Daughter.”

“Age?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“Where’s your father now?”

“At the movie set.”

“Movie set?”

“They’re making a film of one of his books, shooting it at the Circle Y Movie Ranch south of town.”

“When will he be home?”

She looked at her watch. “Any time now. So what’s this about?”

Gideon made an effort to relax, smile. Guilt was starting to creep over him. He just wasn’t cut out to be a cop. “We’re trying to find out more about Reed Chalker, the man involved in the terrorist plot.”

“Oh, so that’s it. Wow. But what in the world does that have to do with us?” He sensed her anger starting to morph into curiosity. She crossed her arms, slid open a drawer in a side table, removed a pack of cigarettes. She lit one, exhaled.

Gideon thought of bumming, decided that would not be a cool move. She really was beautiful, and he was having trouble maintaining the cool demeanor. He forced himself back to the business at hand. “We think your father knew Reed Chalker.”

“I doubt it. I keep my father’s schedule. I’d never heard that man’s name until I read it in the newspaper.”

“Chalker had a complete collection of your father’s books. All signed.”

“So?”

“It was the way they were signed. To Reed, with affectionate regards. Simon. The wording suggested they might know each other.”

At this, Alida leaned back and laughed harshly, exhaling smoke. “Oh man, are you guys barking up the wrong tree! He signs all his books like that. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands.”

“With his first name?”

“It saves time. It’s also why he only uses the first names of the people he’s signing for. When you’ve got five hundred people in line, each with several books in hand, you can’t be signing your full name. This guy Chalker, he worked up at Los Alamos, right? That’s what the papers are saying.”

“That’s right.”

“So it wouldn’t have been a big deal for him to get to my father’s signings.”

Gideon felt a creeping sense of failure. Fordyce had been right: this was a dead end, and he was making a royal fool of himself.

“Do you have evidence of that?” he asked as gamely as he could.

“Go ask down at the bookstore. He does a local signing there every year, they’ll confirm it. He signs all his books Simon or Simon B. and writes either With Affection or Warmest Regards. To every Tom, Dick, and Harry in line. It has nothing to do with friendship.”

“I see.”

“Is this the kind of half-assed investigation you people are running?” she said, all hostility gone now, leaving amusement and scorn in their place. “And you’re up against terrorists with a nuke? That scares the shit out of me.”

“We have to follow up every lead,” said Gideon. He took out Chalker’s picture. “If you could just look at this and see if you recognize it?”

She looked at it, squinted, then looked more closely. Her whole face changed. “What do you know. I do recognize him. He used to come to all my father’s book signings in town. Kind of a groupie, buttonholed him, tried to engage him in conversation with a hundred people in line behind him. My father humored him because that’s his job, really, and he would never be rude to a reader.” She handed the picture back. “But I can tell you my father was not this man’s friend.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me about him?”