Cody McFadyen - The Face of Death

Everyone is here in the outer office again, facing me. No one looks as fresh as they did yesterday. Not even Callie. She's immaculate, as always, but her eyes are red-rimmed with exhaustion. Assistant Director Jones comes through the door, his own cup of coffee in his hands. He doesn't apologize for holding us up, and none of us expect him to. He's the boss. Being late is his prerogative.

"Go ahead," he says.

"Right," I say. "Let's start with you, Alan."

I knew that Alan had come back over late last night to dig through the Langstroms' lives.

"First things first, Grandpa Langstrom. Well, he was Linda's father, so he was actually Grandpa Walker. Tobias Walker."

"Hold it," AD Jones says, putting down his cup of coffee. "Did you really just say Tobias Walker?"

"Yes, sir."

"Holy shit."

Everyone turns to look at him. His face is grim.

"I gave you that list this morning, Agent Thorne. The police and agents who were assigned to the trafficking task force. Take a look."

Callie scans the page in front of her. Stops.

"Tobias Walker was on the LAPD side of the task force."

The sensation I feel running through me is overwhelming. Unreality mixed with electric excitement.

"Another name you'll recognize," she says. "Dave Nicholson."

"Nicholson?" AD Jones asks, frowning. "LAPD, big guy. Good cop. What about him?"

I give him the abridged version of yesterday's events. His shock is acute.

"Suicide?! And his daughter was taken hostage?" He goes to grab his coffee, thinks better of it, runs a hand through his hair. I can't tell if he's dismayed or enraged. Probably both.

An idea is coming toward me, running to me, big enough to blacken my mental horizon. A rising sun of realization.

"What if . . . ?"

Everyone looks at me, questioning. Everyone, I notice, but James. He's staring off, transfixed.

Seeing the same thing?

Maybe. Probably.

"Just listen," I say. I can hear the excitement in my own voice. "We have a task force that failed, probably due to internal corruption. We have a motive of revenge. We have some key messages. The one to Cathy Jones, along with her gold shield: Symbols are only symbols. The one to Nicholson: It's the man behind the symbol, not the symbol, that's im- portant . Combine that with what we know--what does it tell us?"

None of them are fast enough for James. He's there, he's caught up with me. Boats and water, rivers and rain.

"He's referencing the corruption. Just because someone wears a badge, it doesn't mean they're not a bad guy. Symbols are just symbols."

Understanding lights up Alan's eyes. "Right, right. We missed the boat. Revenge was the motive. But it wasn't the traffickers he wanted to punish the most. That's why Vargas got off easy. He wanted the task-force members. Whoever it was that sold out that safe house and those kids."

Silence. Everyone taking this in, everyone nodding at different times. The ring of truth.

"Sir," I ask AD Jones, "what do you remember about Tobias Walker?"

The Assistant Director rubs his face. "Rumors, that's what I remember. He was even more of a dinosaur than Haliburton. Nasty guy. Racist. Carried a blackjack, that kind of thing. Really liked his phone books and rubber hoses. He was the one they looked at the hardest after the attack on the safe house."

"Why?"

"He'd been investigated for suspected graft three times prior by LAPD Internal Affairs. Beat it every time, but the rumors persisted, including a rumor that he was in the pockets of organized crime. Nothing anyone could ever prove. He died of lung cancer in 1983."

"Obviously, our perp is convinced that they were more than just rumors," James notes.

"Who else?" I say. "What happened to Haliburton, sir?"

The Assistant Director's face goes ashen. "In the past, I would have said he killed himself and his wife, but under the circumstances . . ."

"Do you know the details?"

"It happened in 1998. He'd been retired for quite a while. He was in his late sixties, kept himself busy doing whatever it is you do when you're retired. Probably continued dabbling with his poetry."

"Poetry?" I interrupt.

"It was the thing that made Haliburton human. His contradiction. He was a very conservative guy. Fire-and-brimstone churchgoer, didn't trust anyone with hair past their ears, bought all his suits at Sears. That kind of thing. He was harsh and he was judgmental. Never cracked a joke. But he wrote poetry. And he didn't mind sharing it. Some of it was pretty good."

I tell him about The Stranger's tale of an amateur poet and his wife.

"Oh man," he says, shaking his head in disbelief. "This just keeps getting better and better. Haliburton shot his wife and then shot himself. At least that's what we always thought."

"What about a 'student of philosophy'? Is there anyone on either of the task forces that might fit that description?"

"It doesn't ring any bells."

"Any other untimely deaths?"

"There were three of us here. Haliburton, myself, and Jacob Stern. Stern retired to Israel in . . . sometime in the late eighties. He was another old-timer. I never heard anything about him after that. The LAPD had Walker, Nicholson, and a guy from Vice by the name of Roberto Gonzalez. We know about Walker and Nicholson--but I don't have any information on Gonzalez. He was a young cop, bilingual. From what I remember, he was decent enough."

"We're going to have to follow up on him and Stern," I say.

"The big question now," Alan observes, "is the same question as before, but we've just narrowed the playing field: Who is The Stranger, and why does he have such a hard-on for the task-force members?"

"I have another," Callie says. She glances at AD Jones. "No offense, sir, but why did you get to live?"

"I think the fact that you're an Assistant Director is the answer,"

James says. "I don't know that it made him cross you off his list, but it might make him save you for last. Killing an AD--that would draw a lot of attention. He might not be ready for that much scrutiny."

"Comforting," AD Jones replies.

"Back to Alan's question," I say. "Logic dictates he'd be a child who was victimized by the trafficking ring. He can't be a relative."

"Why?" Alan asks, and then answers his own question. "Because of the scarring on the feet."

"Correct."

I consider this. "Callie, did you find anything going through the Langstrom house that might be helpful?"

"I spent a very long day and night there with Gene. We found lots of dust, but nothing forensically probative. The antidepressants Linda Langstrom had weren't prescribed by the family physician, but by a physician located on the other side of town."

"She went out of her way to hide them," I note.

"Yes. But she never took any of them."

I frown. "Does that mean anything to anyone?"

No one replies.

"James? News about the boy's computer?"

"No."

I think, trying to come up with some magic. Nothing.

"Our most potent avenue of inquiry, then, is the trust." I relate my conversation with Ellen. "We need that subpoena. Today."

"Cathy Jones can do that for you," AD Jones says. "She should be able to testify that the Langstroms were probably murdered by a third party. That's a priority." He tosses his cup in the trash can and heads toward the door. "Keep me apprised." He stops, looks back. "Oh and, Smoky? Catch this guy, will you? I prefer to stay breathing."

"You heard the man," I say. "Callie and Alan, that goes to you guys. James, I want you to find out what, if anything, has happened to the two other names on that list. Stern and Gonzalez."

Everyone gets into motion, hunters with the scent.

48

"ROBERTO GONZALEZ WAS MURDERED IN HIS HOME IN 1997,"James intones. "He was tortured, castrated, and his genitals were placed in his mouth."