Gideon's Corpse

19

Simon Blaine lived in a large house about half a mile from the plaza, along the Old Santa Fe Trail. With the car gone with Fordyce to Albuquerque, Gideon walked from the plaza to the house. The weather was glorious, a warm, high-altitude summer’s day, not too hot, the sky a royal blue, just a few thunderheads forming over the distant Sandia Mountains. He wondered if Blaine would still be around. The damn town was now half empty.

Eight days to N-Day. The clock was ticking. Still, he was glad to be in Santa Fe instead of New York, which was a total mess. Most of the Financial District, Wall Street, the World Trade Center site, and the area of Midtown around the Empire State Building had been abandoned—followed inevitably by looting, fires, and National Guard deployments. In the past day a political furor had erupted, with hysterical political attacks on the president. Certain divisive media figures and radio personalities had leapt into the fray, exploiting the situation to their own gain, whipping up public sentiment. America was not handling the crisis well at all.

He shook off these thoughts as he arrived at Blaine’s address. The house was hidden behind an eight-foot adobe wall that ran alongside the road. The only things visible beyond the wall were the tops of aspen trees growing in profusion, rustling in a steady wind. The gate itself was solid wrought iron and weathered barnwood, and Gideon was unable to find even a crack to peer through. He eyed the intercom set into the adobe next to the gate, pressed the buzzer, and waited.

Nothing.

He pressed again. Nobody home? Only one way to tell.

He strolled along the wall until he came to the corner of the property. He was used to scaling walls and had little trouble leaping up, grasping the top, and pulling himself over the rough adobe. In a moment he had dropped down the other side, landing in a grove of aspen trees hidden from the house. Nearby, an artificial waterfall splashed over a pile of stones into a small pond. Beyond it, across a billiard-green lawn, lay a low, sprawling adobe house with many portals and verandas and at least a dozen chimneys.

Through the windows he saw a figure moving. Someone was home. He was irritated that they hadn’t responded to his ring. Fingering the ID he’d finally been issued—and which, it had seemed, Fordyce gave him with a certain reluctance—he followed the wall back to the gate, pressed the button to open it, so it would appear he’d entered this way. As it swung open, he walked out into the driveway and strode up to the front door of the house. He rang the bell.

A long wait. He rang again and—finally—heard hollow footsteps in the entrance hall. The door swung open to reveal a skinny young woman in her mid-twenties, with a long swaying cascade of hair, wearing jeans, a tight white shirt, cowboy boots, and a fierce scowl. She had that quite unusual combination of dark brown eyes and golden hair.

“Who the hell are you?” she asked, hands on her hips, tossing her hair out of her face, “and how’d you get in?”

Gideon had already been considering what the best approach might be, and her defiant demeanor settled the question. With an easy smile, he reached with insolent slowness into his pocket, brought out the ID, and did a Fordyce, extending his hand deep into her personal space. “Gideon Crew, FBI liaison.”

“Get that thing out of my face.”

Continuing to smile, Gideon said, “You probably should take a look at it. Last chance you’ll get.”

With a cold, answering smile, she reached out but, instead of taking the ID, swatted his hand out of her face.

For a moment, Gideon stood surprised. Her face was defiant, her eyes flashing, the pulse of her heart in her slender neck—this was a tiger. As he pulled out his cell phone, he felt almost sorry about having to do this to such a woman. He dialed the police and spoke to a dispatcher he and Fordyce had previously chatted up—or rather “liaised with,” to use Fordyce’s jargon. “This is Gideon Crew. I need backup at Nine Ninety Old Santa Fe Trail. I’m on scene, and I’ve been assaulted by a resident on the premises.”

“I didn’t assault you, jerkoff!”

What a mouth. “Your action, knocking my hand away, meets the definition of assault.” He gave the woman a grin. “The shit just hit the fan. And I don’t even know your name yet.”

She glared back with her fierce brown eyes and—after a long staredown—finally wavered, her face loosening. She wasn’t so tough after all. “You’re really FBI?” Her glance raked his clothes—black jeans, lavender shirt, Keds. “You sure as hell don’t look it.”

“FBI liaison. Investigating the terrorist incident in New York. I’m here on a friendly little call to ask Mr. Simon Blaine some questions.”

“He’s not here.”

“Then I’ll wait.”

Gideon could hear faint sirens. Damn, the police were quick around here. He saw her eyes dart toward the sound.

“You should’ve called,” she said. “You had no right to trespass!”

“My right to enter the premises extends to the door. You’ve got about five seconds to decide whether you want to escalate this into something really ugly or cooperate one hundred percent. Like I said, this was a friendly visit and it doesn’t have to turn into a felony charge.”

“A felony charge?” The sirens got louder as the cars approached the gate. He could tell from the frightened look that she was crumbling fast. “All right. All right, I’ll cooperate. But this is blackmail, pure and simple. I won’t forget it.”

The first squad car came through the open gate, followed by others. Gideon met the lead car in front of the house. He showed ID, leaned in. “Officers? Everything’s under control—total cooperation now from the occupants of the house. Your quick response did the trick. Thank you so much.”

The police were reluctant to leave—they were excited to be involved, even peripherally, in the investigation, and it wasn’t often that they were called to a famous writer’s house—but Gideon coolly persuaded them that it was a misunderstanding. After the cops left, he turned and smiled at the woman, gestured toward the door. “Shall we?”

She stepped into the house, then turned. “This is a no-shoe house. Take ’em off.”

Gideon pulled off the Keds. Quite pointedly she, herself, did not remove her cowboy boots, on which Gideon could spy what looked like dried horseshit. She walked across the entrance hall’s Persian rug into the living room. It was a spectacular space, with white leather sofas, a vast fireplace, and what Gideon recognized as prehistoric Mimbres pots in various display cases.

She sat down, still saying nothing.

Gideon took out a notebook and settled into a chair opposite her. He couldn’t help but notice how pretty she was—downright beautiful, in fact. He was starting to feel bad about bullying her. Nevertheless, he tried to maintain a stern, unforgiving demeanor. “Your name, please?”

“Alida Blaine.” She answered in a flat monotone. “Should I be calling the family lawyer?”

“You promised to cooperate,” he said sternly. There was a long silence and then he softened. “Look, Alida, I just want to ask some simple questions.”

She smirked. “Are Keds the new FBI uniform?”

“It’s a temporary assignment.”

“Temporary? So what do you do normally? Play in a rock band?”

Maybe Fordyce had been right about his dress. “I’m a physicist.”

Her eyebrows shot up. Gideon didn’t like how she kept turning the conversation on him as a subject, and he quickly followed with a question. “Can you tell me what your relationship is to Simon Blaine?”

“Daughter.”

“Age?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“Where’s your father now?”

“At the movie set.”

“Movie set?”

“They’re making a film of one of his books, shooting it at the Circle Y Movie Ranch south of town.”

“When will he be home?”

She looked at her watch. “Any time now. So what’s this about?”

Gideon made an effort to relax, smile. Guilt was starting to creep over him. He just wasn’t cut out to be a cop. “We’re trying to find out more about Reed Chalker, the man involved in the terrorist plot.”

“Oh, so that’s it. Wow. But what in the world does that have to do with us?” He sensed her anger starting to morph into curiosity. She crossed her arms, slid open a drawer in a side table, removed a pack of cigarettes. She lit one, exhaled.

Gideon thought of bumming, decided that would not be a cool move. She really was beautiful, and he was having trouble maintaining the cool demeanor. He forced himself back to the business at hand. “We think your father knew Reed Chalker.”

“I doubt it. I keep my father’s schedule. I’d never heard that man’s name until I read it in the newspaper.”

“Chalker had a complete collection of your father’s books. All signed.”

“So?”

“It was the way they were signed. To Reed, with affectionate regards. Simon. The wording suggested they might know each other.”

At this, Alida leaned back and laughed harshly, exhaling smoke. “Oh man, are you guys barking up the wrong tree! He signs all his books like that. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands.”

“With his first name?”

“It saves time. It’s also why he only uses the first names of the people he’s signing for. When you’ve got five hundred people in line, each with several books in hand, you can’t be signing your full name. This guy Chalker, he worked up at Los Alamos, right? That’s what the papers are saying.”

“That’s right.”

“So it wouldn’t have been a big deal for him to get to my father’s signings.”

Gideon felt a creeping sense of failure. Fordyce had been right: this was a dead end, and he was making a royal fool of himself.

“Do you have evidence of that?” he asked as gamely as he could.

“Go ask down at the bookstore. He does a local signing there every year, they’ll confirm it. He signs all his books Simon or Simon B. and writes either With Affection or Warmest Regards. To every Tom, Dick, and Harry in line. It has nothing to do with friendship.”

“I see.”

“Is this the kind of half-assed investigation you people are running?” she said, all hostility gone now, leaving amusement and scorn in their place. “And you’re up against terrorists with a nuke? That scares the shit out of me.”

“We have to follow up every lead,” said Gideon. He took out Chalker’s picture. “If you could just look at this and see if you recognize it?”

She looked at it, squinted, then looked more closely. Her whole face changed. “What do you know. I do recognize him. He used to come to all my father’s book signings in town. Kind of a groupie, buttonholed him, tried to engage him in conversation with a hundred people in line behind him. My father humored him because that’s his job, really, and he would never be rude to a reader.” She handed the picture back. “But I can tell you my father was not this man’s friend.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me about him?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“What did they talk about?”

“I really don’t recall. Probably the usual stuff. Why don’t you ask my father?”

As if on cue, the door slammed and a man walked into the room. For a famous author, Simon Blaine was disarmingly small, with a head of white curls and a smiling, pixie-like face, as smooth and unlined as a boy’s, with a button nose, ruddy cheeks, and friendly, dancing eyes. A large smile broke out when he saw his daughter. He went over, gave her a hug as she rose—she was several inches taller than him—and then turned to Gideon as he rose in turn, extending his hand. “Simon Blaine,” he said, as if Gideon wouldn’t know who he was. He wore an ill-fitting suit a size too large for his slender frame, and it flapped as he shook Gideon’s hand with enthusiasm. “Who is your new friend, MD?” His voice, incongruously, was deep and compelling—although it held traces of a Liverpudlian accent, making the man sound ever so faintly like a baritone Ringo Starr.

“I’m Gideon Crew.” He glanced from father to daughter and back again. “MD? She’s a doctor?”

“No, no, that’s my nickname for her. Miracle Daughter.” And Blaine looked at Alida with evident affection.

“Crew’s not a friend of mine,” said Alida hastily, stubbing out the cigarette. “He’s an investigator for the FBI. Looking into the nuclear terrorist business in New York.”

Blaine’s eyes widened in surprise. They were a deep hazel-brown, flecked with bits of gold: a most unusual color. “Well, well, now. How interesting!” He took Gideon’s ID, examined it, returned it. “How can I be of help?”

“I have a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. Please, sit down.”

They all sat down. Alida spoke first. “Daddy, the nuclear terrorist who died in New York, Reed Chalker, collected your books. He came to all your book signings. You remember him?” She shook another cigarette out of the pack, tapped it on the table, lit up.

Blaine frowned. “Can’t say I do.”

Gideon handed him the picture and Blaine examined it. He looked almost like a leprechaun, his lower lip protruding in concentration, his white curls sticking out in tufts from either side of his head.

“You remember, he was the guy who used to bring a whole bagful of books, came to every signing, always at the front of the line.”

The lower lip suddenly retracted and the bushy eyebrows went up. “Yes, yes, I do! Good Lord, that was Reed Chalker, the terrorist from Los Alamos?” He handed the photo back. “To think he was a reader of mine!” He did not seem displeased.

“What did you talk about with Chalker?” Gideon asked.

“It’s hard to say. I do a book signing every year at Collected Works in Santa Fe, and we often get four, five hundred people. They go by in a sort of blur, really. Mostly they talk about how much they love the books, who their favorite characters are—and sometimes they want me to read a manuscript or they ask questions about how to break into writing.”

“And they often talk about what a shame it was that Daddy didn’t win that Nobel,” said Alida forcefully. “Which I happen to agree with.”

“Oh, bosh,” said Blaine, making a dismissive gesture. “National Book Award, Man Booker—I’ve gotten more awards than I deserve.”

“Did he ever ask you to read anything of his? He was an aspiring writer.”

“I’ve got a question for you,” said Alida, staring at Gideon. “You’re a physicist working for the FBI?”

“Yes, but that’s irrelevant—”

“Do you also work at Los Alamos?”

Gideon was floored at her insight. Not that it mattered; it was no secret. “One of the reasons I was asked to join the investigation,” he said in measured tones, “is that I worked in the same department with him at Los Alamos.”

“I knew it.” She sat back, crossing her arms and smiling triumphantly.

Gideon turned back to Blaine, once again trying to get the conversation off himself. “Do you recall if he ever showed you anything he’d written?”

Blaine thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No, he didn’t. And anyway, I have a firm policy against reading other people’s work. Really, all I remember of him is an eager, fawning sort of young man. But I haven’t seen him in some time. I don’t believe he came to any of my recent signings—did he, MD?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Did he ever mention his conversion to Islam?” Gideon asked.

Blaine looked surprised. “Never. And I would have remembered something like that. No, he must have talked about the usual things. The only thing I really remember about him was that he was persistent and, as I recall, he always held up the line.”

“Daddy is too kind,” Alida said. “He’ll let people talk to him for hours.” With the arrival of her father, her foul mood seemed to have melted away.

Blaine laughed. “That’s why I bring Alida. She’s the heavy, she keeps the line moving, she gets the spellings of everyone’s names for me. I spell as badly as Shakespeare. Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

“Did you ever see Chalker outside a signing?”

“Never. And he’s certainly not the kind of person I’d have to the house.” Gideon felt a strong wave of British snobbery wash over him with this last statement, revealing still another side to Mr. Simon Blaine. And yet he couldn’t blame the man for the sentiment—he himself had assiduously avoided having Chalker to his apartment. He was one of those clinging people you didn’t want to let into your life.

“He never talked about writing with you? I understand he might have been writing a memoir. If we could get our hands on that, it would be important for the investigation.”

“A memoir?” Blaine asked, surprised. “How do you know?”

“He attended a writers’ workshop in Santa Cruz called Writing Your Life.”

“Writing Your Life,” repeated Blaine, shaking his head. “No, he never mentioned any memoir.”

Gideon sat back, wondering what else to ask. He could think of nothing. He took out his cards, gave one to Blaine and then, after a faint hesitation, another to Alida. “If you think of anything else, please give me a call. My partner Special Agent Fordyce and I will be flying to Santa Cruz the day after tomorrow, but you can always reach me on my cell.”

Blaine took the card and slipped it into his shirt pocket without glancing at it. “I’ll see you out.”

At the door, Gideon thought of one final question. “What was it about your books that Chalker liked so much? Any particular characters, perhaps, or plots?”

Blaine screwed up his face. “I wish I could remember… Except that, it seems to me, he once said he thought the most vivid character I’d ever created was that of the abbot in Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog. Which puzzled me, because I consider the abbot to be the most evil character I’ve ever created.” He paused. “Maybe to a man like that, the two were synonymous.”