George Chesbro: Second Horseman Out of Eden

McCloskey frowned. "This 'somebody' works for the phone company?"

Garth nodded.

"Did you identify yourself as a police officer, Frederickson?"

"No. I'm not a police officer."

"Then he's a contact-one of your own."

"Yes."

"Give me a name. Who is it?"

"I'm not going to give you any names, Lieutenant. If you want a personal contact at the phone company, get your own."

"I don't need a personal contact there, Frederickson!"

"Take it easy, Lieutenant," I said quietly. The man was working himself up into a real snit. I'd known that McCloskey had resented Garth for years, blamed him for his own poor career performance; but until that moment I had not realized how threatened McCloskey was by Garth-and, perhaps, by me. It could make Lieutenant Malachy McCloskey a potentially very troubling nettle in our sides.

McCloskey ignored me, and kept shouting at my brother. "I'm a Goddamn cop, Frederickson, and I have a legal right to request privileged information from the phone company! You don't; not anymore. Giving out that kind of information to unauthorized civilians can constitute an illegal act."

"For Christ's sake, McCloskey," Garth said with disgust. "I could have told you the call was from my mother. Don't you understand that it's not important? If you'll stop acting like a horse's ass, Mongo and I will tell you what is important."

Garth's manners might leave something to be desired, but I found his description of McCloskey right on the mark. I was getting impatient. The afternoon was rushing on, and we had to go home to change clothes before going on to our next stop. I glanced at my watch-which turned out to be a mistake.

"You two guys really think you're something!" McCloskey shouted. All activity in the other room had stopped, and everyone was staring at us. "The famous Fredericksons! I'm sick of hearing the other cops talk about the two of you all the time, and I'm sick of reading stories about you in the newspapers! I'm here to tell you that I don't believe half of the shit they print about you. Dr. Robert Frederickson and ex-Police Lieutenant Garth Frederickson may be fucking famous, but what you are not is fucking police officers. I am in charge of this case. This is a police matter, and I will not tolerate any more interference from you two-not now, and not in the future. I don't care how many powerful friends you have in Washington. Now, do I make myself clear?!"

Reading us the riot act seemed to mean that he wasn't going to hassle us any more about disturbing the scene of an investigation-which he would have had every right to do. That was good.

I glanced at Garth and was alarmed to see that he was leaning against the mantel in almost exactly the same pose he had assumed while I'd questioned Craig Valley. He seemed very relaxed, almost bored, as he stared out the window behind the desk. In my brother, such exaggerated calmness was a warning sign. That was bad.

"You've certainly made yourself clear, Lieutenant," I said brightly. "We were way out of line. My brother has already apologized for the two of us; I apologize again."

McCloskey grunted. "What the hell did you say you were looking for?"

"Dirt," I replied even more brightly.

Lieutenant Malachy McCloskey studied me, a thoroughly puzzled expression on his face. "What?"

"We're looking for the dump site of a load of one hundred tons of dirt, Lieutenant," I replied. Now that I seemed to have his undivided attention, I let my smile fade. "Valley knew where the dirt had been dumped, and that's what Garth and I were questioning him about when he killed himself."

"You're telling me that a man killed himself rather than tell you where to find a load of dirt?"

"Yes, Lieutenant."

McCloskey glanced at Garth, but my brother continued to stare casually out the window; when the policeman looked back at me, he seemed even more puzzled. I couldn't blame him.

"Why would he do that, Frederickson?"

"I don't know, but I have a strong feeling that the police should take steps to find out. Garth and I really don't care. It isn't the dirt itself that interests us, and Valley knew that."

"Just what does interest you?"

"Why don't you sit down, Lieutenant, and I'll tell you all about it."

He did, and I did.

Credit Detective Lieutenant Malachy McCloskey: the gray-haired, scar-faced man might be decidedly sour, insecure, resentful, and even downright bone-headed, but his heart was still alive and in the right place. When I had finished explaining what we were up to and why we were in such a hurry, how Craig Valley had almost certainly been connected to the sample of Amazon rain forest soil found in a letter sent to Santa Claus by a sexually abused child, the man's craggy, pitted face was ashen, his black eyes misty with tears. He had children of his own-seven of them, as well as two grandchildren who were probably around the same age as Vicky Brown.

"Jesus Christ," McCloskey said in a husky voice. "Forget what I said before, about you two messing up the scene and all that; if I'd been in your place, and it had taken the cops forty minutes to get here, I'd probably have torn the whole house apart."

"There's nothing here," I said. "We went through all the paper we could find, but if he wanted to keep the dirt-or anything else-a secret, I doubt he'd have written anything down. Besides, he was just an errand boy."

McCloskey shook his head angrily. "That fucking Kenecky …"

Garth turned to us, shrugged. "What difference does it make whether it's Kenecky or somebody else raping the girl? Whoever it is should have his prick stretched and permanently stapled to his asshole."

"I think it does make a difference," I said, glancing back and forth between Garth and McCloskey, who still looked haunted. "If Kenecky's the abuser, it could mean that Valley's religious and racial nuttiness were more than curious personal traits he shared only with the good reverend; the apocalyptic theology and neo-Nazi shticks could be common threads in the whole operation Kenecky and Valley were a part of. For all we know, Henry Blaisdel himself could be a religious fruitcake, and these biospheres he wants to build could have, at least in his mind, religious overtones. If Kenecky is our man, it means for sure that the powers that be are willing to harbor a fugitive-and those powers are probably scuzzball neo-Nazis with a religious bent, which makes them dangerous. Now maybe we can get the F.B.I, involved. At the very least, Lieutenant, the NYPD might now be persuaded to put a little more than just their good wishes into this case."

McCloskey's black eyes, dry now and once more glinting with more than a hint of paranoia, darted over my face. "Is that supposed to be some kind of criticism, Frederickson?"

"It is not, Lieutenant; the police have been more than helpful-without them, the dirt we found wouldn't have told us anything, and that's the only clue we had to begin with. But now there's more than just a letter to Santa Claus from a sexually abused child; there's a corpse, and a possible tie-in to a federal fugitive. It should warrant a case file."

"I'll talk about it to my superiors, Frederickson," McCloskey said. Suddenly he seemed nervous.

"Are you going to talk to the people at Nuvironment?" I asked.

"About what?"

"About the dirt; we find the dirt and we find the girl. All Garth and I care about is determining the whereabouts of Vicky Brown and notifying the proper authorities if it turns out that she's being sexually abused-which she is."

"You expect me to walk into the offices of one of Henry Blaisdel's corporations and accuse the people there of complicity in the sexual abuse of a child?"

Garth grunted loudly, pushed off the marble mantelpiece, and walked to the opposite end of the room, where he leaned against the archway leading into the outer vestibule. McCloskey's bright eyes, once more hostile and resentful-and, perhaps, slightly fearful-followed him.