In Plain Sight

6 The Client

“It’s a disease of some kind,” Iggy said once Alex and Lieutenant Callahan caught up with him. “It looks like smallpox but it’s not. Some of these people look sicker than the others — they have more spots and they’re larger, but I can’t tell you why.”

“What can you tell us?” Callahan said. “At this point I’d take anything.”

“It’s not magical,” Alex said. “And it’s not a poison. I checked the soup, the bread, and the water in all the pitchers.”

“How is that possible?” Callahan said. “That means these people all came here, contracted some disease no one’s ever heard of, and died in a matter of hours?”

Iggy nodded gravely.

“It’s time we brought in some professionals,” he said to Callahan. “Call over to the University, and wake up whoever you have to. Find out who is running their viral pathology program and get them over here as soon as possible.”

“Viral—?” Callahan started, then stopped. “What’s that now?”

“It’s the study of diseases. Now hurry.”

Iggy watched Callahan turn and head off toward a telephone, then turned to Alex.

“Anything else?”

“Father Harry must have realized what was happening.” Alex held up the key. “He locked everyone in here, then slid the key under the door.”

“He probably stopped whatever this is from killing a lot more people,” Iggy said. “I wish I had more data. Who was the first person to be sick? How long did it take for symptoms to show?”

“It took less than an hour for symptoms,” Alex said. “Sister Gwen said she didn’t wake up till two in the morning because no one rang the bells for the service. The bell rope is in the choir loft, and you can only get there from a stair behind the kitchen. That means the door was locked before nine o’clock.”

Iggy began stroking his mustache, something he did when thinking.

“We’ve got to find out how this plague came to be here,” he said. “Is there anyone new to the mission?”

Alex shook his head. “Father Harry said that the Brothers and Sisters were new, except Sister Gwen. But it looked like they’d been here a while at least.”

“What about the vagrants?”

“No way to tell,” Alex said. “Most are probably regulars but there’s bound to be a few new faces.”

Alex swept his gaze over the hall. Nothing about the staff stood out and the patrons were all the same with their shabby clothes, unkempt appearance, and worn out shoes.

All except one.

“Hey,” Alex said, pointing at a man under a blanket. He had been laid on an out-of-the-way table toward the rear of the hall. When whoever covered him pulled the blanket over his head, they exposed his shoes. His shiny, new-heeled shoes.

“Those aren’t the shoes of a vagrant,” Iggy said, seeing what Alex meant immediately. Alex nodded.

“That’s a man who doesn’t belong.”

When they reached the table, Iggy pulled the blanket off without hesitation or ceremony. The man beneath it was in his thirties with slicked back hair, a pencil mustache, and a Roman nose. He was dressed in a pair of well-made trousers with a white button-up shirt sans necktie, and his collar was undone.

“Maybe he has an identity card,” Alex said, checking the man’s pockets. He found them all empty. “No smokes, no coins, no keys,” he reported.

“I’m more interested in his condition,” Iggy said. “These boils on his skin are bigger than anyone else’s, and there are more of them. I think this man was the first person to be sick. He certainly has the worst case.”

“So who is he and what was he doing here?” Alex asked.

Iggy shrugged, his hand wandering to his mustache again.

“What does the body tell us?”

Alex felt like he was back in detective school again with professor Bell giving lessons. He ran a practiced eye over the corpse, noting every detail and trying to fit them together into a picture.

“He’s well-to-do,” Alex began. “His clothes are well made, tailored.”

“So he’s wealthy?” Iggy prodded.

“No. He’s got money, but he’s not rich. His shoes have been resoled at least twice and those are new heels.”

“Maybe he’s thrifty.”

Again Alex shook his head. “Wing tips are all the rage with the upper crust these days,” he said. “If he traveled in moneyed circles, he’d have a pair.”

“What else?”

Alex picked up the man’s arm, bending it at the elbow.

“Look at his hands.” He indicated a row of calluses along the pads where the fingers joined the hand. “Whatever he does for a living is hard on his hands. I’d say he’s some kind of skilled tradesman, a sculptor, or maybe a carpenter.”

“Not enough cuts on his hands for a carpenter,” Iggy said. “When you work with wood you get splinters. I think you’re right about him being well off, though. Whatever he does — did — it provided him a good living.”

“That means he doesn’t live around here,” Alex said. “So what was he doing here?”

“Maybe we’re assuming something we shouldn’t,” Iggy said. “Maybe he’s not out of place here. Father Harry got donations from many sources; maybe he’s a patron.”

“In which case Sister Gwen might know him.” Alex turned but stopped. Sister Gwen had seen far more than a saintly old woman should. How could he, in good conscience, subject her to more of this nightmare?

“I’ll make sure all the brothers and sisters are covered,” Iggy said, reading Alex’s hesitation. “As long as they’re not visible, she should be strong enough.”

“She’s strong,” Alex said. “I’ve never met anyone with more grit. It just isn’t fair to make her relive what happened when she opened those locked doors.”

“She wants to know what happened here as badly as we do,” Iggy said, and put his hand on Alex’s shoulder. He wasn’t wrong, but that didn’t make Alex like it any better. He started off toward the kitchen and Iggy left to cover as many bodies as he could.

Five minutes later, Alex led Sister Gwen through the Great Hall’s open doors and across the stone floor to the table in the back. Her steps were steady and purposeful, but she clung to Alex’s arm like she was walking the edge of a cliff with certain death awaiting a misstep.

“I know him,” she said after she’d stared at his face for a few moments. “He’d come in here every Sunday for Mass.”

“Do you know his name?” Alex prompted.

“Charles Beaumont,” Sister Gwen said. “I remember him because he used to ask Father Clementine to bless him every week.”

“How did Mr. Beaumont know the Father?” Iggy asked. Sister Gwen sighed and shook her head.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you know anything else about him?” Alex asked.

The old nun hesitated as sadness washed across her features. “I probably shouldn’t say.” She looked up at Alex and her dark eyes bored into him like they had done so many times in his youth.

“It’s all right,” he said. “We just want to get to the truth. For Father Harry and for you.”

She nodded and patted Alex on the cheek with her worn, gnarled hand.

“The Father once told me that Mr. Beaumont was a thief,” she said.

Alex hadn’t been expecting that. He looked to Callahan, who had just returned, and the big Lieutenant leaned over the dead man.

“Nobody I know,” he said. “I’ll have the local boys take a look.”

“Thank you, Sister Gwen,” Alex said, taking her hands in his. He had a momentary flash of all the times she had held his hands and comforted him as a boy. Now it was his turn.

The policewoman led Sister Gwen back out of the Great Hall and a fresh wave of anger washed over Alex as he saw how stooped and tired she looked.

“What now?” he asked, turning back to the body of Charles Beaumont.

“Here,” Iggy said, pressing two dollars into his hand.

“What’s this for?”

“Cab,” Iggy said. “Go home. Get some sleep.”

Alex opened his mouth to protest, but Iggy cut him off. “You’ve done all you can here. I still have to draw blood samples from half a dozen more victims and I need to brief the University people when they get here, otherwise I’d be going with you.”

“There must be something else we can try.”

“Like what?” Iggy said. “You’ve been over the whole room with your lantern, twice. You’ve interviewed the only witness, and now we know the name and possible occupation of the only person in the room who looks like he doesn’t belong. And he looks like the first one infected. At least here.”

“But—”

“Until something else comes up, we’re stuck. Now, you have a business to run, and Leslie will expect you in the office tomorrow bright and early. Go home.”

Alex knew he was right, but his mind railed against it anyway. He was a detective, damn it, there ought to be something he could do.

But there wasn’t.

“All right,” he said, tucking the bills in his pocket. “But if something comes up, you call me.”

“Of course, old boy,” Iggy said, then pushed Alex toward the door.

As he passed the sheet-draped body of Father Harry, Alex stopped. Iggy had rolled him on his back and composed his hands on his chest before covering him. Reverently, Alex knelt down and pulled the sheet back from the old man’s face. It looked exactly as it had the previous afternoon except for a few angry-looking boils. He looked like he was just asleep, calm and peaceful.

But he wasn’t.

Alex had faced death before, but never like this. Father Harry hadn’t died in his sleep or from some horrible accident. Someone had done this to him. This was murder.

“I’m sorry, Father,” Alex said, his voice horse and raw. “I should have stayed. I should have been here. Maybe I could have stopped this.”

He looked down into the serene face but received no answer.

Alex had been angry before in his life, but what he felt in that moment was a white-hot boiling mass that seemed to crawl out of his chest and down his arms to his fists. Blood oozed form where his nails dug into the heels of his hands.

“I know you wouldn’t approve,” he whispered. “But I’m going to find whoever did this. And I’m going to make sure they die slowly.”

The look on the old man’s face didn’t change, it couldn’t change, but Alex fancied that he saw a bit of disappointment in it now.

The anger that threatened to spontaneously combust inside his ribcage vanished and an unbearable weariness pressed down on Alex.

“Goodbye, Harrison,” he said, calling the Father by his proper name for the first and last time. “If I make it to heaven, I’ll see you there.”

Alex replaced the sheet over Father Harry’s face and then strode out into the rain.

The cab ride home seemed to take a long time. Alex kept reviewing what he’d seen and done at the mission over and over in his mind. Iggy had been right: they’d covered everything they could. The next step would be to figure out where Beaumont lived, what he did for a living — assuming he wasn’t a professional thief — and most importantly, where he came from before arriving at the mission.

Try as he might, Alex’s exhausted brain simply couldn’t figure any way to do that. A man dressed like Beaumont wouldn’t be living anywhere near the mission, so where would the police start a canvass? They could have men out for months and not find anything.

He balled up his fists until his knuckles were white, but it didn’t help. The only thing left to do was sleep on it and hope his reenergized brain would have better ideas in the morning.

By the time Alex had showered and dressed the following morning, it was pushing noon. He didn’t think he would sleep at all when he got home in the wee small hours, but exhaustion and a few shots of Scotch had worked wonders. His stomach growled as he rode the crawler downtown to his office, but if he stopped for a bite anywhere, it would be lunchtime before he got to work. Leslie was going to have his hide as it was, and she was not a woman to keep waiting any longer than he already had.

When he finally did arrive, he found his secretary sitting behind her desk, buffing her nails with an air of calm detachment. Yelling was to be expected, but when Leslie went quiet, things were really bad.

“Morning,” Alex said as if his arrival a mere twenty minutes before noon were completely ordinary.

“And where have you been?”

The tone in her voice could have kept his icebox cold for a month. He was about to answer, but she nodded toward his office.

“You’ve got a client waiting,” she said. “Been here over an hour, insisted she’d wait.”

“She?” Alex’s face brightened but Leslie fixed him with a deadly stare.

“All I can say is you’re damn lucky she didn’t leave after twenty minutes. I already lost another client who called in and wanted you to find their missing car. While I waited for you, the police managed to find it.”

“Sorry, doll,” Alex said. “It was a rough one last night.”

Leslie looked like she wanted to make a rude comment, no doubt about his bringing a tramp home and neglecting his business, and by extension, her. Something in his eyes stopped her, and her expression softened.

“We need this one,” she said, the fire gone out of her voice. “I don’t care if she wants you to follow her cheating husband or find her lost dog, don’t blow it.”

“I’m all over it, sweetheart,” he said. Alex gave her a mock salute and turned to his office.

“You’d better be,” Leslie muttered.

Alex resolved to take her somewhere for lunch as a peace offering, assuming he wasn’t out looking for a dog.

Beyond the door sat a young woman in a bright blue sundress. She had curly black hair that fell just past her shoulders and large blue eyes that seemed to match her dress. She was pretty with a delicate nose, pink cheeks, and lips that looked like they wanted to pout without actually doing the deed. She had on simple black flats, a wide black belt that circled her narrow waist, and she sat up straight in her chair with her legs demurely crossed.

“Excuse me,” Alex said, pulling the door shut behind him. “I was up late working with the police last night. I only just got in.”

“Are you Mr. Lockerby?” she asked. Her voice had a slight, lilting drawl in it. Not enough for her to be from the deep South, but maybe Virginia or Maryland.

“I am,” Alex said, offering her his hand. If she felt awkward about shaking hands, she didn’t show it. “I hope you haven’t been waiting too long.”

“No,” she said, and Alex knew it for the polite lie that it was. “It doesn’t matter, Mr. Lockerby—”

“Call me Alex, Miss…?”

“Rockwell, Evelyn Rockwell.”

Alex seated himself behind his desk and pulled a notepad and pen from a drawer. “Go on, Miss Rockwell.”

“Evelyn, and I’m in desperate need of your help, Alex,” she said. “You see, my brother is missing and I need you to find him. His name is Thomas Rockwell.”

As she spoke, Alex made notes about her manner and her voice. She was clearly distraught, but there was something she didn’t want to say. He wrote hiding something with a question mark after it.

“Thomas disappeared yesterday,” Evelyn went on. “We were supposed to have dinner, but he never came. I just know something bad has happened.” She was trembling now.

“Have you been to the police?” Alex asked, pulling a pair of tumblers and a bottle of bourbon out of his bottom desk drawer. He poured two fingers in one glass and passed it to Evelyn. She accepted the glass and took a sip before shaking her head.

“I had to come to you, only you.”

“Why only me? There are some very good policemen in this town.”

“None of them are runewrights.”

“Why do you need a runewright?”

“Thomas was a runewright,’ Evelyn explained. “He’s been researching something for weeks now.”

“A new rune?”

She shook her head.

“I don’t know. But he’d been withdrawn and moody. I could barely get him to talk to me. Then he called me two days ago. He was happy and excited, like he used to be.”

“That’s when you agreed to meet for dinner?” Alex asked.

“Yes, and then he didn’t come. I waited and waited, and finally I went to his apartment, but he wasn’t there either.”

“Is there somewhere he would go? A friend maybe?”

Evelyn shook her head. Tears were standing out in her eyes now and Alex offered her his handkerchief.

“When I went to his apartment, it was all torn up. Like there had been a fight. I’m so terribly worried, Mr. Lockerby.”

“Alex,” he corrected. “This rune he was working on, do you know what it is?”

“No.”

“Does anyone else know about it?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “All I know is that my brother is missing. Will you find him for me, Alex? Please?”

“Do you have the key to his apartment?” Alex asked.

She reached into her purse and pulled out a small brass key on a ring.

“I charge twenty-five dollars a day, plus expenses,” Alex said, accepting the key. “I have a very good finding rune but I’ll need to go to his apartment to cast it. I charge ten dollars for the rune.”

She reached into her purse again and pulled out several folded bills, peeling one away from the others. “Will one hundred dollars be enough of a retainer?”

“That will be fine.” Alex tried not to accept the bill too hastily. “I have a lunch appointment, but as soon as I’m done, I’ll go over to your brother’s apartment and cast the rune. Is there a phone number where I can reach you?”

She took his pencil and wrote out a phone number and an address in the north side mid-ring.

Alex stood and showed Evelyn out.

“She didn’t look happy,” Leslie said once they heard the elevator door in the hall close.

“Her brother is missing,” Alex said, holding up the c-note. Leslie snatched it and held it up to the light, looking for print errors.

“It’s genuine,” she said.

“I told her I’d get on it right after lunch,” he told her. Leslie fixed a level gaze on him. He shrugged. “I figured I owed you.”

Her smile lit up the room and she picked up her handbag.

“None of your crummy dog-wagons,” she said, putting on her jacket. “I pick the place.”

“Deal.”