The Last Precinct - Cornwell Patricia (читаем книги онлайн TXT) 📗

"When you go back there with Vander," I say to Marino, "maybe you ought to check out the other rooms, see if another one has eyebolts in the ceiling."

"Will do. Got to go back there anyway." He glances at his watch.

"Today?" Jay asks him.

"Yup."

"You got any reason to think Mitch was drugged like the first guy?" Pruett asks me.

"I didn't find any needle marks," I reply. "But we'll see what comes up on his tox results."

"Jesus," Mclntyre mutters.

"And both of them wet their pants?" Stanfield says. "Doesn't that happen when people die? They lose control of their bladders and wet their pants? Just a natural thing, in other words?"

"I can't say losing urine is rare. But the first man, Matos, took his clothes off. He was nude. It appears he wet his pants and then disrobed."

"So that was before he got burned," Stanfield says.

"I would assume so. He wasn't burned through his clothing," I reply. "It's very possible both victims lost control of their bladders due to fear, panic. You get scared badly enough, you wet your pants."

"Jesus," Mclntyre mutters again.

"And you see some asshole screwing eyebolts in the ceiling and plugging in a heat gun, that's enough to scare the piss right out of you," Marino abundantly illustrates. "You know damn well what's about to happen to you."

"Jesus!" Mclntyre blurts out. "What the fuck is this about?" Her eyes blaze.

Silence.

"Why the fuck would someone do something like that to Mitch? And it's not like he wasn't careful, not like he would just get in someone's car or even get close to some stranger trying to stop him on the road."

Stanfield says, "Makes me think of Vietnam, the way they did things to prisoners of war, tortured them to make them talk."

Making someone talk can certainly be one reason for torture, I respond to what Stanfield has just said. "But it's also a power rush. Some people are into torture because they get off on it."

"You think that's the case here?" Pruett says to me.

"I have no way of knowing." Then I ask Mclntyre, "I noticed a fishing pole when I was coming up the walk."

Her reaction is a flicker of confusion. Then she realizes what I am talking about. "Oh, right. Mitch likes to fish."

"Around here?"

"A creek over near College Landing Park."

I look at Marino. That particular creek is at the edge of the wooded camping area at The Fort James Motel.

"Mitch ever mention to you the motel over there by that creek?" Marino asks her.

"I just know he liked to fish over there."

"He know the lady who runs the joint? Bev Kiffin? And her

husband? Maybe you both know him since he works for Overland?" Marino says to Mclntyre.

"Well, I do know that Mitch used to talk to her boys. She has two young boys and sometimes they'd be out there fishing when Mitch was. He said he felt for them because their dad was never around. But I don't know anybody named Kiffin at the trucking company, and I do their books."

"Can you check that out?" Jay says.

"Maybe his last name's different from hers."

"Yeah."

She nods.

"You remember the last time Mitch went fishing out there?" Marino asks her.

"Right before all the snow," she replies. "It was pretty nice weather up until then."

"I noticed some change, a couple beer bottles and some cigars on the landing," I say. "Right by the fishing pole."

"You sure he hasn't been fishing out there since it snowed?" Marino picks up my thought.

The expression in her eyes makes it evident that she isn't sure. I wonder just how much she really knows about her undercover boyfriend.

"Any illegal shit going on at the motel that you and Mitch are aware of?" Marino asks her.

Mclntyre starts shaking her head. "He never mentioned anything about that. Nothing like that. His only connection to the place was fishing and being nice to the two boys, on occasion, if he saw them."

"Just if they happened up when he was fishing?" Marino keeps pushing. "Any reason to think Mitch might have ever wandered over to the house to say hi to them?"

She hesitates.

"Mitch a generous guy?"

"Oh yes," she says. "Very much so. He might have wandered over. I don't know. He really likes kids. Liked them." She tears up again and at the same time simmers.

"How did he identify himself to people around here? He say he was a truck driver? What did he say about you? You supposed to be a career woman? Now, you two weren't really boyfriend and girlfriend. That was just part of the front, right?" Marino is on to something. He is leaning forward, his arms braced on his knees, staring intensely at Jilison Mcln-tyre. When he gets like this, he fires questions so rapidly, people often don't have time to answer. Then they get confused and say something they regret. She does that this very moment.

"Hey, I'm not a fucking suspect," she snaps at him. "And our relationship, I don't know what you're getting at. It was professional. But you can't help being close to someone when you live in the same damn townhouse and act like you're involved, make people think you are."

"But you weren't involved," Marino says. "Or at least he wasn't with you. You guys were doing a job, right? Meaning, if he wanted to pay attention to a lonely woman with two nice little boys, he could do that." Marino leans back in his chair. The room is so silent, it seems to hum. "Problem is, Mitch shouldn't have done that. Dangerous, fucking stupid in light of his situation. He one of those types who had a hard time keeping his pants on?"

She doesn't answer him. Tears jump out.

"You know what, folks?" Marino scans the room. "It just might be that Mitch got tangled up in something that doesn't have a damn thing to do with your undercover operation here. Wrong place, wrong time. Caught something he sure as hell wasn't fishing for."

"You got any idea where Mitch was at three o'clock Wednesday afternoon, when Matos checked into the motel and the fire started?" Stanfield is putting the pieces together. "Was he here or out somewhere?"

"No, he wasn't here," she barely says, wiping her eyes with a tissue. "Gone. I don't know where."

Marino blows out in disgust. He doesn't need to say it. Undercover partners are supposed to keep track of each other, and if Agent Mclntyre didn't always know where Special Agent Barbosa was, then he was up to something that maybe wasn't germane to their investigation.

"I know you don't even want to think it, Jilison," Marino goes on in a milder tone, "but Mitch was tortured and murdered, okay? I mean, the guy was fucking scared to death.

Literally. Whatever someone was doing to him, it was so awful, he had a fucking heart attack. He wet his fucking pants. He was taken somewhere and strung up, gagged and then has a weirdo key put in his pocket, planted, what for? Why? He into anything we ought to know about, Jilison? He fishing for more than bass out there in that creek by the campground?"

Tears are rolling down Mclntryre's face. She wipes them away roughly with the tissue and sniffles loudly. "He liked drinking and women," she barely says. "Okay?"

"He ever go out at night, barhopping and that sort of thing?" Pruett asks her.

She nods. "It was part of his cover. You saw…" Her eyes jump to me. "You saw him. His dyed hair, the earring, all the rest. Mitch played the role of a sort of, well, wild party guy and he did like the women. He never pretended to be, uh, faithful to me, to his so-called girlfriend. It was part of his cover. But it was also him. Yeah. I worried about it, okay? But that was Mitch. He was a good agent. I don't think he did anything dishonest, if that's what you're asking. But he didn't tell me everything, either. If he got onto something going on at the campground, for example, he might have started poking around. He might have."