Brian Freeman - The Night Bird

The phone rang six times, and then a male voice answered. “So what is it now, Frankie? Can’t stay away from me?”

Frost waited. He let the silence draw out without speaking.

“Frankie?” the man went on, his voice colored with suspicion. “Don’t be shy. We both know what you want.”

Finally, when Frost let the dead air continue, the man hung up.

Frost grabbed his own phone to call for a reverse directory on the number, but the listing came back with no identification. Whoever Stein had called was using a pay-as-you-go burner phone.

He didn’t have much, but he had an address near the pier.

Frost stood up to leave, but then he heard another male voice. This one was in the room with him.

“Who the hell are you?”

A man stood in the doorway of Stein’s office, with a gun lodged tightly in his fist, pointed across the room. Frost put his hands in the air slowly and carefully. He studied the man’s face and recognized him. It was Dr. Stein’s husband.

“Take it easy and put the gun down,” Frost said. “I’m with the police. You’re Jason, aren’t you?”

“Let me see your badge.”

Frost peeled back the flap of his coat with his fingertips and removed his badge with his other hand. He held it up so Jason could see. “I’ve been in contact with your wife about the Night Bird case. My name is Frost Easton.”

“What are you doing in here?”

Frost could have lied. He could have used the same story he gave to the guard, but he didn’t bother covering up his intentions. “Your wife is hiding something from me. I need to know what it is.”

“You don’t have a warrant. I could have you fired.”

“Yes, you probably could, but a young woman is missing, and her life is at stake. She’s connected to your wife, just like three other women who are dead now. I think Dr. Stein knows something that could help me find this woman. If you know what’s going on, you need to tell me.”

Jason’s grip on the gun loosened. He dropped it into a pocket. “I only know what Frankie shares with me, which isn’t much.”

“What did she tell you?”

Jason came and stood in front of Frankie’s desk. “A former patient tracked her down this week. He said he was having fugues — losing time — and waking up with memories that didn’t make any sense. He had visions of being in a white room where he saw women being tortured. They were the women who died. Frankie’s patients.”

White room. Where?

Something not right!

“What’s this man’s name?” Frost asked.

Jason shook his head. “She won’t tell me. It’s privileged. This guy is convinced that he’s the Night Bird, but Frankie now thinks it’s possible that he’s being set up by someone else. Framed to take the fall for what’s happening to these women.”

TF. Fall guy.

“Why does she think that?”

“Because of this,” Jason said.

Frankie’s husband went to a flat-screen television on the rear wall of the office. He found a remote control and switched on the screen. He changed the input to the television’s USB port and launched a video, and then he froze the screen on a shot inside a crowded men’s room.

“Do you recognize this man?” Jason asked.

Frost stood next to Jason and studied the face. “That’s Darren Newman. What does he have to do with this?”

“Frankie’s patient took this video. He was paranoid about what was happening to him, so he started recording the people he met. Frankie found Newman in this video. She didn’t think it was a coincidence, and neither do I. Newman’s involved.”

“This address she wrote down near the piers. Is it Newman’s?”

“His office,” Jason said.

“Where is she? Have you heard from her?”

“Yes, she talked to him this evening,” Jason said. “She says he’s planning something tonight. She’s going to follow him and see where he goes.”

Darren Newman finally left the warehouse after dark.

Two blocks away, Frankie spotted the lights of the candy-red Lexus as it backed into the empty street. The car shot toward her, and she ducked down into the passenger seat as its headlights swept across her windshield. When he was gone, she turned on her engine, did a U-turn, and followed him away from the pier.

He made a right turn, heading north. She struggled to keep a fix on his taillights in traffic. He drove for several blocks and then pulled into a Shell station. She parked across the street near an auto parts store and watched him from her window. The MUNI tracks divided the street between them. When he was done filling his gas tank, Darren wandered over to a beat-up Malibu parked on the cross street. The passenger window slid down, and Darren leaned inside. Frankie couldn’t see who was in the car, but Darren grabbed his wallet from a back pocket and peeled off several bills. He passed them to someone in the car and received a package in his palm that he quickly secreted in his pocket. He eyed the street and returned to his Lexus.

Drugs.

Frankie wondered what he’d purchased. Marijuana. Pills. Cocaine. Heroin. Or something that could be injected into a woman in a white room.

She pulled behind him as Darren left the gas station. Several blocks later, without a signal, he turned toward the water again. As she followed, she noticed a bar across the street named the Dogpatch Saloon. This was the downscale industrial neighborhood that was quickly being reborn as a hip arts community with yuppie condos.

It was also the neighborhood where Todd Ferris had twice awakened on the streets after his lost time.

Darren headed for the bay past a deserted construction site. Weeds grew out of the cracked street. Just ahead, the road narrowed and veered sharply to the right beside a ten-foot concrete retaining wall. She switched off her headlights, and her wheels rolled forward slowly. Where the street ended, the land near the bay opened up around her. A ruined factory loomed to her left. She saw broken windows punched out like missing teeth and metal walls dripping with rust. Directly ahead, she saw a field of boxy self-storage units protected by a tall fence.

The gate leading through the fence was open. There were no other vehicles around. Darren had to be inside.

Frankie parked near the old factory. She got out, and cold bay air wormed inside her clothes. Wind rattled the factory’s metal walls and whistled through the broken windows. She shoved her hands in her pockets and marched quickly through the open gate. The storage units inside were green and no larger than trailers, dropped down in long rows. Wisps of fog swirled around her. The wind felt as if someone were breathing on her neck. Listening, she heard a bang of metal not far away as a garage door opened and closed. When she hurried to the corner, she spotted Darren’s Lexus backed up against a storage unit. A crack of light glowed from under the door.

She crept closer, feeling exposed. She waited for him in the cold, but time went by slowly, and she heard no noise from inside. Her fingers grew numb, and her cheeks felt raw. When she checked her watch, fifteen minutes had passed, and she wondered how much longer he planned to stay. Then, without warning, the garage door slid up from the ground. Not all the way. Just a few feet. From inside, Darren’s shadow moved like a monster. The lights went off, and she saw Darren squeeze under the open door and lock it behind him.

Frankie dove into the recessed doorway of another storage unit. Darren climbed into his car and headed toward her, throwing light across the wall inches from where Frankie hid. He passed her, driving fast. She ran to follow him, but his car was already gone by the time she reached the open gate. Behind her, she heard a guard shout from the doorway of a small security shack, but she didn’t stop running. When she got to her car, she backed up into an out-of-control three-point turn. The guard, outside the gate, sprinted toward her, but she swerved around him, her lights off. She swung into the narrow street but didn’t turn fast enough, and the stone wall ripped off her side mirror and gouged her door with a sickening scrape. She accelerated, taking the curve in the dark and switching her lights on. She braked hard, turned the wheel again, and found herself back on the street.