Douglas read his lieutenant’s mind and nodded. Somebody took the time to get her well. That was a starting place.
‘I’d appreciate it if you could send me anything that might be useful. It’ll work both ways,’ Ryan assured him.
‘Some guy went way out of his way to murder them. We don’t see many like this. I don’t like it very much.’ the detective added. It was a puerile conclusion, but Ryan fully understood. How else did you say it, after all?
It was called a safe house, and it was indeed safe. Located on a hundred rolling acres in the Virginia hills, there was on the estate a stately house and a twelve-stall stable half-occupied with hunter-jumpers. The title for the house showed a name, but that person owned another place nearby and leased this one to the Central Intelligence Agency – actually to a shadow corporation that existed only as a piece of paper and a post-office box – because he’d served his time in OSS, and besides, the money was right. Nothing unusual from the outside, but a more careful inspection might show that the doors and doorframes were steel, the windows unusually thick and strong, and sealed. It was as secure from outside assault and from an internal attempt at escape as a maximum-security prison, just a lot more pleasant to behold.
Grishanov found clothing to wear, and shaving things that worked but with which he couldn’t harm himself. The bathroom mirror was steel, and the cup in the holder was paper. The couple that managed the house spoke passable Russian and were just as pleasant as they could be, already briefed on the nature of their new guest – they were more accustomed to defectors, though all their visitors were ‘protected’ by a team of four security guards inside who came when they had ‘company,’ and two more who lived full-time in the caretaker’s house close to the stables.
Not unusually, their guest was out of synch with local time, and his disorientation and unease made him talkative. They were surprised and their orders were to limit their conversations to the mundane. The lady of the house fixed breakfast, always the best meal for the jet-lagged, while her husband launched a discussion of Pushkin, delighted to find that, like many Russians, Grishanov was a serious devotee of poetry. The security guard leaned against the doorframe, just to keep an eye on things.
‘The things I have to do, Sandy -‘
‘John, I understand,’ she told him quietly. Both were surprised at how strong her voice was, how determined. ‘I didn’t before, but I do now.’
‘When I was over there’ – was it only three days before? -‘I thought about you. I need to thank you,’ he told her.
‘What for?’
Kelly looked down at the kitchen table. ‘Hard to explain. It’s scary, the things I do. It helps when you have somebody to think about. Excuse me – I don’t mean -‘ Kelly stopped. He did, actually, mean that. The mind wanders when alone, and his had wandered.
Sandy took his hand and smiled in a gentle way. ‘I used to be afraid of you.’
‘Why?’ he asked with considerable surprise.
‘Because of the things you do.’
‘I’d never hurt you,’ he said without looking up, yet more miserable now that she had felt the need to fear him.
‘I know that now.’
Despite her words, Kelly felt a need to explain himself. He wanted her to understand, not realizing that she already did. How to do it? Yes, he killed people, but only for a reason. How had he come to be what he was? Training was part of it, the rigorous months spent at Coronado, the time and effort spent to inculcate automatic responses, more deadly still, to learn patience. Along with that had somehow come a new way of seeing things – and then, actually seeing them and seeing the reasons why killing sometimes had to be. Along with the reasons had come a code, a modification, really, of what he’d learned from his father. His actions had to have a purpose, usually assigned by others, but his mind was agile enough to make its own decisions, to fit his code into a different context, to apply it with care – but to apply it. A product of many things, he sometimes surprised himself with what he was. Someone had to try, and he most often was best suited to –
‘You love too much, John,’ she said. ‘You’re like me.’
Those words brought his head up.
‘We lose patients on my floor, we lose them all the time – and I hate it! I hate being there when life goes away. I hate watching the family cry and knowing that we couldn’t stop it from happening. We all do our best. Professor Rosen is a wonderful surgeon, but we don’t always win, and I hate it when we lose. And with Doris – we won that one, John, and somebody took her away anyway. And that wasn’t disease or some damned auto accident. Somebody meant to do it. She was one of mine, and somebody killed her and her father. So I do understand, okay? I really do.’
Jesus, she really does … better than me.
‘Everybody connected with Pam and Doris, you’re all in danger now.’
Sandy nodded. ‘You’re probably right. She told us things about Henry. I know what kind of person he is. I’ll tell you everything she told us.’
‘You do understand what I’m going to do with that information?’
‘Yes, John, I do. Please be careful.’ She paused and told him why he had to be. ‘I want you back.’
CHAPTER 32
Home is the Prey
The one bit of usable information to come out of Pittsburgh was a name. Sandy. Sandy had driven Doris Brown back home to her father. Just one word, not even a proper name, but cases routinely broke on less than that. It was like pulling on a string. Sometimes all you got was a broken piece of thread, sometimes you got something that just didn’t stop until everything unraveled into a tangled mess in your hands. Somebody named Sandy, a female voice, young. She’d hung up before saying anything, though it hardly seemed likely that she’d had anything at all to do with the murders. One might return to the scene of the crime – it really did happen – but not via telephone.
How did it fit in? Ryan leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling while his trained mind examined everything he knew.
The most likely supposition was that Doris Brown, deceased, had been directly connected with the same criminal enterprise that had killed Pamela Madden and Helen Waters, and that had also included as active members Richard Farmer and William Grayson. John Terrence Kelly, former UDT sailor, and perhaps a former Navy SEAL, had somehow happened upon and rescued Pamela Madden. He’d called Frank Allen about it several weeks later, telling him not very much. Something had gone badly wrong – short version, he’d been an ass – and Pamela Madden had died as a result. The photos of the body were something Ryan would never fully put from his mind. Kelly had been badly shot. A former commando whose girlfriend had been brutally murdered, Ryan reminded himself. Five pushers eliminated as though James Bond had appeared on the streets of Baltimore. One extraneous killing in which the murderer had intervened in a street robbery for reasons unknown. Richard Farmer – ‘Rick’? – eliminated with a knife, the second possible show of rage (and the first one didn’t count, Ryan reminded himself). William Grayson, probably kidnapped and killed. Doris Brown, probably rescued at the same time, cleaned up over a period of weeks and returned to her home. That meant some sort of medical care, didn’t it? Probably. Maybe, he corrected himself. The Invisible Man … could he have done that himself? Doris was the girl who’d brushed out Pamela Madden’s hair. There was a connection.
Back up.
??ll? had rescued the Madden girl, but he’d had help getting her straightened out. Professor Sam Rosen and his wife, another physician. So Kelly finds Doris Brown – whom would he take her to? That was a starting place! Ryan lifted his phone.
‘Hello.’
‘Doc, it’s Lieutenant Ryan.’
‘I didn’t know I gave you my direct line,’ Farber said. ‘What’s up?’
‘Do you know Sam Rosen?’
‘Professor Rosen? Sure. He runs a department, hell of a good cutter, world-class. I don’t see him very often, but if you ever need a head worked on, he’s the man.’
‘And his wife?’ Ryan could hear the man sucking on his pipe.
‘I know her quite well. Sarah. She’s a pharmacologist, research fellow across the street, also works with our drug-abuse unit. I help out with that group, too, and we -‘
‘Thank you.’ Ryan cut him off. ‘One more name. Sandy.’