Ridley Pearson - Cut and Run

Hampton spoke with a tight voice. “Scrotum thinks both Palo Alto and Duke are worth a follow-up. He says you can have Wash U since you’ve been on the road. All three have supercomputers capable of decrypting Laena , and Markowitz either contacted or visited all three right before his disappearance.”

Larson couldn’t put into words the way he felt. Seeing the cut and naked body of the woman Hope’s age in Minneapolis had poisoned him more than he knew.

Hampton picked up on the silence. “So… you really think it’s him, Razor Face, the guy who did Benny?”

Even doing eighty, Larson wished Hampton would drive faster. He lived in a perpetual state of feeling one step behind. He’d been here before, any fugitive pursuit felt much this same way-playing catch-up, living with the concern a crime would go down before you collared the guy. But this was different, and Hampton knew that now, given Larson’s silence.

“Actually, I got the go-ahead to look for Hope Stevens prior to checking out Wash U. ”

Hampton seemed to buy it, or at least wasn’t going to argue. “And where’s that leave me and Stubby?”

“On the road for the next few days.”

“Interviewing geeks and getting hard-ons over coeds,” Hampton said. “You won’t mind if we wait to file our reports upon our return?”

“But if you find anything,” Larson said, “that’s a different story. Any possible connection to Markowitz, living or dead, I need to know about it ASAP.”

“Got it.” Hampton accepted that there was nothing more to be said.

At Baines Jewish, Larson negotiated his way through the disorganized parade of orderlies and nurses, doctors and housecleaners, maintenance men and visitors, following signs to Administration. He felt his chances of finding Hope alive dwindling, especially if, by now, WITSEC had sent out its national alert. Protected witnesses would have gone into hiding. Would Hope? The notion that the cutter had a head start on him, that one or both of the dead women in Minneapolis had known something about Hope, tortured him.

With a ten-acre footprint, and housed under a dozen roofs, Baines Jewish was more a small city than a large hospital. Consequently it took Larson over twenty minutes to reach the information desk capable of helping him.

Larson displayed his credentials while line-cutting.

“I’m looking for a woman who works here.” He described the former Hope Stevens as, “A little taller than average. Eyes-grayish green. Thin face, a bit of a pointed chin. Nice build. Long legs. Unique laugh, like happy coughing.” Reconsidering, he added, “Could be any hair color really, maybe the chin is rounder or…” He saw the woman’s eyes glaze over. A place like Baines, there had to be thousands of employees. A little more desperately, he said, “I.T. probably. Computers, for sure. Insurance? I don’t know.” He realized how ridiculous this all sounded.

“I’m not sure where to start.” The receptionist, polite and demure, wore a telephone headset over a French braid that vaguely resembled a topknot. “Do you have a name, sir?”

“Try Alice Dunbar,” Larson suggested.

The woman attempted typing. “No one admitted under that name. Sorry.” She looked past him, at the two women behind him.

“Not admitted. She works here,” he said. “This is urgent, government business. Please. Employees. Anyone named Alice.”

Her eyes dulling, she said, “We’ve got over twenty-two hundred people who work here on any one shift. Five, six thousand total. You’re describing a white girl, right? Like the color of her eyes and her having nice legs means something to me. If you’ve got a last name, I’ll put it into the system. Otherwise, you’ve got to step out of line.”

A last name. “She might be in the ER,” he said, thinking back to St. Luke’s. “Try Alice Stevens or Alice Stevenson. Actually, try both Alice and Hope… and try Hope as the last name as well.”

The woman stared across at Larson. “What’s with all that?”

Larson returned his credentials to the countertop. “Please,” he said.

The receptionist lost some of her earlier confidence. The gold federal shield had that effect on some people. She looked warily between Larson and the two waiting women. She started typing. Her eyes widened and narrowed with her efforts. She needed reading glasses but was too vain to wear them. She glanced up sharply, drawing Larson in, then shook her head and mumbled and typed some more.

Recognition registered in her eyes and then, more brightly, roamed from the screen to Larson and back to the screen.

“She’s in there,” Larson said. “Under which name?”

The woman’s attitude had changed. With her success, Larson could feel her wondering if she should involve others in this process. Not wanting any such delay, Larson reached across with his long arms and spun the computer monitor to face him, knocking over a gray plastic magnetic paper clip container in the process.

The woman protested, but it was too late.

Alice Stevenson. An acronym alongside the entry: AEDEA . The space for a home phone number had been left blank. The mailing address, a post office box, not a street. No way to trace her to a residence. It was her. They’d taught her all of this.

A wave of guilty pleasure swept over him. She lived in St. Louis. Five years of wondering boiled down to this. Maybe the laugh at the back of the theater had been her after all. Why? he wondered. Had she been watching him?

Yanking back the monitor to face its original position, the receptionist asked him, “You want me to call her extension?”

Did he? He felt stunned. He answered automatically, “No… thank you. Is she here? On site? Working here today?”

She tried the phone next, angling her index finger to press the phone’s number keys without dislodging a nail. She pressed the headset’s earpiece to her ear.

Larson reached across the counter and punched a different CO button on the phone, disconnecting the call.

“Hey!” She slapped the back of his hand.

“She can’t know…” he told her. “What department?”

“What’s she done?”

“It’s not like that.”

The woman fixed a doubtful, disbelieving look onto him. After a short staring contest, she decoded the acronym for him. “Assistant Executive Director, Emergency Administration.”

“I’ll check into it myself,” Larson said. Then privately: “You are not to alert her, not to tell anyone. You do, and you’ll be interfering with a federal investigation.” He waited for her practiced eyes to register his warning, but saw nothing.

Her face expressionless, she called out past Larson, as if he weren’t there, “Next!”

Paolo didn’t trust hospitals. Like the Bates Motel, people checked in but not out. Nor did he like going after a kid. But both directives had come from Philippe, and if there was one thing a soldier learned to do early it was to follow orders.

Fortunately, looking Latino remained an advantage. No one would take any notice of him. He intended to exploit this invisibility.

Paolo knew that no day care worker in her right mind was going to turn over information about a child under her care. Not to a Hispanic man. Not to a civilian. For this reason, as he had before, Paolo donned his police uniform. It was black, not blue or khaki, the word SWAT written over the pocket, and a SWAT insignia sewn onto the left sleeve. The trained eye might immediately note the lack of a city or jurisdiction within the badge or insignia, might identify this costume as a costume, might question the forged ID badge that hung open from the left breast pocket, slightly smeared-pink, as if blood had been cleaned from it, his own personal touch for which he felt especially proud-making it difficult to read. But who knew what a SWAT uniform was supposed to look like? Civilians encountered cops often enough to develop expected patterns of dress-but special forces units? Also working in his favor was that SWAT held a certain respect, panache even, that impressed people. It made up for any questions-voiced or otherwise-about his ethnicity.