John Locke: Lethal People

CHAPTER 1

Iawoke in mid-scream, jerked upright, and jumped off my cot like I’d been set on fire. My brain cells sputtered, overloaded by panic and crippling pain. I staggered three steps and crashed into the bars of my cell. I grabbed them and held on for dear life. It took a minute, but I finally remembered how I’d spent the previous night cozying up to the death ray.

My cell phone rang. I ignored it, made my way to the toilet, and puked up everything inside me, including, possibly, my spleen. The ringing stopped long before I felt like checking the caller ID. Nine people in the world had my number, and this wasn’t one of them. Whoever it was, whatever they wanted, could wait.

From my prison cell in Bedford, Virginia, getting to work was as easy as stepping into the elevator and pressing a button. I did so, and moments later, the row of nozzles in my office steam shower were blasting me full force. After several minutes of that, I knew my body wasn’t going to rejuvenate on its own, so I stepped out and shook a dozen Advil into my hand.

I looked in the mirror. Usually when I felt this bad I required stitches, and lots of them. I leaned my elbows on the sink counter and lowered my head to my forearms.

The ADS weapon was all I’d hoped for and more. I knew in the weeks to come I’d master the damn thing, but for the time being, it was kicking the crap out of me. I wondered if the suits at Homeland would be happy or miserable to learn I had survived the first session.

When the room finally stopped spinning, I swallowed the Advil. Then I shaved, put some clothes on, and buzzed Lou Kelly.

“You got anything on Ken Chapman yet?” I asked.

There was a short pause. Then Lou said, “Got a whole lot of something. You want it now?”

I sighed. “Yeah, bring it,” I said.

I propped my office door open so Lou could enter without having to be buzzed in. Then I dragged myself to the kitchen and tossed a few ice cubes and some water into a blender. I threw in a packet of protein powder and a handful of chocolate-covered almonds, turned the dial to the highest setting, and pressed the start button. By the time Lou arrived, I was pouring the viscous goop into a tall plastic cup.

Lou had a thick manila folder in his hand.

“Local weather for a hundred,” he said. He placed the folder on the counter in front of me.

“What are my choices?”

“Thunderstorm, ice storm, cloudy, or sunny,” Lou Kelly said.

My office apartment was above ground, but windows could get you killed, so I didn’t have any. My office walls were two feet thick and completely soundproof, so I couldn’t automatically rule out a thunderstorm. But it was early February, and I’d been outside yesterday. I drank some of my protein shake. Yesterday had been clear and sunny.

“I’ll take cloudy,” I said.

Lou frowned. “Why do I even bother?” He fished two fifties from his pocket and placed them beside the folder.

“Nothing worse than a degenerate gambler,” I said.

Lou pointed at the folder. “You might want to reserve judgment on that,” he said. He reached down and tapped the folder twice with his index finger for emphasis.

Lou Kelly was my lieutenant, my ultimate go-to guy. We’d been together fifteen years, including our stint in Europe with the CIA. I took another swallow of my protein shake and stared at the manila folder.

“Give me the gist,” I said.

“Your daughter was right not to trust this guy,” Lou said.

I nodded. I’d known the minute I answered the phone last week that something was wrong. Kimberly, generally a good judge of character, particularly when it came to her mother’s boyfriends, had felt the need to tell me about a curious incident. Kimberly had said, “Tonight Ken broke a glass in his hand. One minute he’s holding a drink, the next minute his hand’s full of blood!” She went on to explain that her mom (my ex-wife, Janet) had made a snide remark that should have elicited a withering response from her new fiancé. Instead, Chapman put his hands behind his back, stared off into space, and said nothing. When Janet whirled out of the room in anger, Chapman squeezed the glass so hard that it shattered in his hands. Kimberly had been in the loft watching the scene unfold. “There’s something wrong with this guy, Dad. He’s too …” she searched for a word. “I don’t know. Passive-aggressive? Bipolar? Something’s not right.”

I agreed and told her I’d look into it.

“Don’t tell Mom I said anything, okay?” Kimberly had said.

In front of me, Lou Kelly cleared his throat. “You okay?”

I clapped my hands together. “Wonderful!” I said. “Let’s hear what you’ve got.”

Lou studied me a moment. Then he said, “Ken and Kathleen Chapman have been divorced for two years. Ken is forty-two, lives in Charleston, West Virginia. Kathleen is thirty-six, lives in North Bergen, works in Manhattan.”

I waved my hand in the general direction of his chatter. “The gist,” I reminded him.

Lou Kelly frowned. “The gist is our boy Chapman has serious anger issues.”

“How serious?”

“He was an accomplished wife-beater.”

“Was?” I said.

“There is evidence to suggest he’s reformed.”

“What type of evidence?” I asked. “Empirical or pharmacological?”

Lou looked at me for what seemed a very long time. “How long you been holding those words in your head, hoping to use them?”

I grinned and said, “A generous vocabulary is a sure sign of intellectual superiority.”

“Must be a lot of room in your head now that you’ve let them out,” he deadpanned.

“Let’s continue,” I said. “I’ve got a headache.”

“And why wouldn’t you?” he said. Then he added, “According to the letter his shrink presented to the court, Chapman appears to have overcome his aggression.”

“A chemical imbalance,” I suggested.

“Words to that effect,” Lou said.

I gave Lou his money back and spent a couple minutes flipping through the police photos and domestic violence reports. The pictures of Kathleen Chapman would be considered obscenely brutal by any standard, but violence was my constant companion and I’d seen much worse. Still, I was surprised to find myself growing strangely sympathetic to her injuries. I kept going back to two of the photos. I seemed to be developing a connection to the poor creature who years ago had found the courage to stare blankly into a police camera lens.

“What do you say to a woman with two black eyes?” I said.

Lou shrugged. “I don’t know. What do you say to a woman with two black eyes?”

“Nothing,” I said. “You already told her twice.”

Lou nodded. He and I often used dark humor to detach ourselves from the brutality of our profession. “Looks like he told her a hundred,” he said.

I removed the two photos from the folder and traced Kathleen’s face with my index finger. And then it hit me. I handed the pictures to Lou. “Have our geeks remove the bruises on these and run an age progression to see what she looks like today.”

He eyed me suspiciously but said nothing.

“Then compare her to this lady.” I opened my cell phone and clicked through the photos until I found the one I wanted. I handed Lou my phone. “What do you think?” I said.

He held my cell phone in his right hand and the photos of the younger Kathleen in his left. His eyes went back and forth from the phone to the photos. Then he said, “They could be twins.”

“I agree,” I said. I took the phone back and started entering some commands on the keys.

“So who is she?” he asked. “The one in the picture you’re e-mailing me.”