Jan Burke - Nine

Wilder looked up sharply at him, reading his thoughts-or so it seemed to Alex. But the old man said nothing. He went back to studying the files.

“What we’re hoping you’ll tell us…” Ciara began.

“If I’m going to tell you anything,” Wilder said, “I need quiet. As for your hopes, they are no concern of mine.”

“Polite as always,” John said.

Shay Wilder grunted a response that sounded far from polite and went on reading.

After a few minutes, Ciara stood up and began pacing, arms crossed over her chest. Wilder looked over at John.

“I need to stretch a little,” John said. “And besides, I don’t think there’s room enough in here for all of us and Shay’s ego, too.”

Alex looked at Wilder to see if he was offended. He was smiling.

“If I make Shay promise not to yap any conclusions to Alex while we’re gone,” John said to Ciara, “would you mind leaving this stink hole to sit outside with me for a little while?”

She hesitated, then agreed. Alex wondered if she was trying to play well with others.

Wilder said nothing to him, asked no questions during those two hours, except once, when, not feeling he was being of much use, Alex stood to go outside. Wilder, without looking up from the papers, said, “Don’t disappoint me. Sit down.”

So Alex sat silently, listening to the ticking at each swing of the pendulum of the mantel clock, the dry-leaf rustle of a page being turned by the old man’s fingers, the snap of the wheel on the flint of his silver cigarette lighter, the clink of the lighter’s lid as he closed it. The wheezing breath, the hacking cough that sounded as if Wilder’s lungs were being turned inside out and shaken.

“Less than six months, they tell me,” he said once, as if Alex had asked aloud the question that came to mind each time he heard the cough. “Unless I let them start carving. I told them they could test the sharpness of their knives on someone else.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. What in the course of nature could frighten me, after years of looking at this sort of thing?”

They were the only comments he made for a long time. At one point, he sat back and closed his eyes. Alex waited, wondering if he had fallen asleep.

Without opening his eyes, Shay asked, “Tell me-who called in about the first body?”

“At first, we were told it was a neighbor, but later we learned it was a call from a pay phone, so we’re not sure now.”

“Near the location?”

“Yes. The caller said he was reporting a neighbor but didn’t want to be identified as the complainer-excuse me, sir, but I have an obligation to bring Ciara back in if we’re going to start discussing the cases.”

He opened his eyes. “Interesting that you put it that way. You may see to your obligation in a moment. And you may certainly tell her anything I say now, if you choose to.”

Alex didn’t reply.

Wilder smiled. “I appreciate your patience. Now, tell me about rock climbing.”

Alex hesitated. “Some people would say that it’s just you and the rock, and you find out what you’ve got. But that’s not all there is to it. As much as I love rock climbing, I’m not sure I can give you an easy answer.”

“Because you love it, you mean. Let me be more specific, then. How did you feel when you realized that a climbing rope had been used to string up Adrianos?”

“The way the Pope might feel if he saw someone spit on a crucifix.”

“Yes, I think the killers knew that you would feel that way.”

“No, that can’t be right. They had no idea I’d be given the case. In fact, I wasn’t the first detective there.”

“But you were called to the scene as soon as the identity of the victim was known. And there was certainly a great deal of publicity about the fact that you and your partner were after Adrianos when your witness and his family were killed, correct?”

“We weren’t the only ones after him.”

“Rock climbing FBI agents showed up, too?”

“What are you saying?”

“You already know what I’m saying. Now, call your partner in, and your uncle. I’m tired.”

Alex stood, but before he reached the door, Wilder said, “What’s your partner’s problem, do you think?”

“Old men,” Alex said, and walked out, hearing Wilder laugh and cough behind him.

When they came back in, Wilder began by saying, “I want more time,” then seemed to find this a good joke, so that they had to wait for him to stop coughing. When he was able to speak again, he said, “I suppose, Detective Morton, you will want my rough guesses now, because you lack your partner’s patience. All right, I’ll give them to you. You must let me know if the gentlemen with the FBI agree.

“These killers are probably highly intelligent males-plural, because I agree there is probably more than one, but I’m not sure there are only two-you could easily be looking at a close-knit group. Ages-I’ll need more time. Some factors say older, some younger.”

“Twenties? Thirties?” Ciara asked.

He ignored her. “They are intelligent, but they probably didn’t do well in school. They would have exhibited behavior problems. They have difficulty with authority.

“They feel superior to law enforcement and are proving it. ‘Above the law’ is more than a phrase-they are not only not subject to it, they can do better without it. They have had problems in the past with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department-they may have been rejected from the academy, or something of that nature. A little more difficult to know about the FBI, but the same thing may hold true there. Or, it may simply be that they consider the Most Wanted list to be the ultimate way to prove their point-these are the criminals most wanted by all the law enforcement agencies in the U.S., and they are smarter and better at catching them than the FBI is.”

“So far, Shay,” John said, “they seem to be making a good case for that.”

“Yes,” Wilder said slowly. “Curious, isn’t it? It argues tremendous long-range planning-such as putting someone into the staff of that television program as a mole of sorts, finding a victim for the theft of the license, and so on. And I would guess that to drug and transport two individuals to Catalina, to buy pharmaceutical blood-thinning agents-if that’s indeed what they used-to get someone inside Adrianos’s organization to betray him-all of that took some money, don’t you think?”

“The kind of money Christopher Logan has now?” Ciara asked.

Wilder’s brows pulled together as he frowned at her. “Have you located him?”

“Not yet. His lawyers say he’s not currently available to talk to us.”

Wilder was silent for a moment, then said, “I interviewed him, you know. Years ago. After he killed Naughton.”

“And?”

“He was remarkable. Extraordinarily intelligent. IQ off the charts.”

“And used it to kill someone.”

Wilder shrugged. “I think he found a way out of a horribly abusive situation, and it’s just a damned shame he didn’t get a chance to do so earlier than he did.”

“Agreed,” Ciara said, “but he has the capacity for violence-he went way overboard when it came to killing Naughton. I read the reports on that. He went berserk, bashed the hell out of his stepfather’s skull with that shovel.”

“Overkill is not at all unusual in that type of situation,” Wilder said. “Teenagers or children who kill an adult abuser will often not believe their abuser can be killed. Think how much power the abuser has had over them-and yes, pent-up rage is part of it, too. But that doesn’t necessarily argue continued violence.”

“How could a kid like that not end up twisted?”

Wilder gave her a look of impatience. “You don’t believe that Naughton had a contagious disease, do you?”