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  Bryce seemed to sense his animosity. He grinned at Lawrence. “Give it all time, Phil. Time is a wonderful solvent for many nasty stains we encounter.”

  On that note, Commander Bryce abruptly turned and disappeared, leaving Lawrence alone with his office and his own counsel. He turned to the PC behind his desk and called up a bulletin board he liked to play around with; he found it helped him to unwind. Maybe he'd go searching for some familiar log-ins and friends on the Internet. Friends and acquaintances on the Internet seemed controllable, predictable even. These people in the real world, especially those he was supposed to supervise, caused him so much dull pain, he could easily lose control and use his gun on them, or on himself, he thought now.

  In the stairwell now where Lucas had taken Meredyth, the two waited for a passing pair of blue-uniformed cops before they spoke.

  “Precisely what kind of a problem do you have, Lucas? This is great, what Bryce has done. He's giving us a chance to prove what we know.”

  He didn't readily answer, beginning to pace instead.

  “Spit it out, Stonecoat.”

  He told her of how he'd gone to Mootry's mansion home, and how he'd finagled his way into the crime scene. “Damn! Then it was you! When? How?” She was full of questions.

  He gave her the details, including his theory about the cutter being clever in knowing precisely where to cut. “No, the autopsy reports were sealed to protect the integrity of the evidence collection process and to help the detectives.

  How could you know that?”

  “The lack of blood evidence.”

  “I see you've gotten down to it, and here I thought you weren't interested. Silly me.”

  “I just went to get the feel of the place.”

  “So, whataya think?”

  “What do you mean, what do I think? He was murdered, and not in a kind way.”

  “Yeah, everybody knows that, Ace Ventura, but you must've come away with more than that.”

  “Well, I did... and that's my problem.”

  “What do I need here, pliers? What're you talking about, Lucas?”

  He told her how he had lain in Charles Mootry's bed, over the very spot where the arrow had gone through the man's heart. “I wanted to become him for that moment,” he explained. He told her how he'd wandered the house and noticed a pair of errant coasters and the two goblets he'd discovered in the dishwasher.

  “Wait a minute... are you saying that you took them?”

  “They're at Renquist as we speak.”

  “The labs?”

  “And I need these forms filled out and initialed and stamped by the captain over at the Twenty-second Precinct to get the results and the goblets back.”

  “Damn, I knew you were a little loco, Lucas, but this...”

  He gave her a self-deprecating little shrug, like a boy, she thought. Then he asked, “What can I say? More to the point, what can I do?”

  “I've got a secretary who can help us.”

  “A secretary? How's she going to help?”

  “You wait and see how he's going to help.”

  She guided him to her office two flights up where they found her secretary on the computer. The young man turned and beamed at Dr. Sanger and smiled at Lucas, extending a hand. He was clean-cut and clear-eyed behind a pair of fashionable half-tinted glasses.

  “Officer Lucas Stonecoat, this is Randy Oglesby, the best man I ever saw with a computer. If he can't fix your little problem, Lucas, no one can.”

  “Maybe, but what I'm asking could get you both into deep... trouble. Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

  'Tell Randy your problem, and we'll take it from there. Meantime, I've got to grab a few items from my office in preparation for our trip.”

  “Trip?” asked Randy. “What trip. Doctor?”

  She explained they must be in Oregon this afternoon. “There's been another crossbow killing, Randy.”

  “Jesus God, another one? That's so... so weird, so out there, you know?”

  “Yeah, we know what's out there, don't we, Lucas?”

  “I wish we knew a little more about what's out there, exactly what we're looking for,” he replied, but she rushed off, only half listening to his complaint. Lucas then turned to the eager young male secretary and explained to Randy about the Twenty-second Precinct voucher forms, finishing with, “I'm sure you can't do a thing about it, so thanks anyway...”

  “You mean even if you could overlook the dangers of hacking into the Twenty-second's accounts receivable's routing problem, could I put aside my petty morality and conscience? Is that all?”

  “Something like that.” Lucas instantly liked the kid with the lopsided grin.

  “Hacking. I live for it, officer, so I'll see what I can do.”

  “In that case, I'll need one more favor.”

  He nodded, his red hair bouncing. “If I can, sure.”

  Lucas asked him if he'd act as a courier when the results were in, fetching them from Renquist Labs and keeping the results in a safe place until his return.

  “Anything else?” the kid half joked.

  “As a matter of fact, yes.”

  “You don't ask much.” Again it was in a kidding tone.

  “You may have to use an alias to get the results. They may ask you to sign, also.”

  “What's my name?”

  “Pardee, Detective Jim Pardee. And if that's a problem for whatever reason, use Detective Fred Amelford.”

  The kid smiled up from his computer, even his eyeglasses alight with the possibilities of intrigue. “I've always wanted to be a detective.”

  “It's not a game. This is very serious. If you're caught—”

  “I say I was working under Dr. Sanger's orders,” he finished as she emerged.

  Stonecoat laughed. “You're a fast learner.”

  'That's what I noticed about Randy the moment I hired him,” Meredyth added. “Just what've you two cooked up? No, don't tell me. I really don't think I want to know.”

  “I'll fill you in on the ride over to your place and on the plane,” Lucas suggested, and they were off, leaving Randy Oglesby to stare after the couple. He wondered what Stonecoat expected to lift from the goblets he'd mentioned.

  “This guy's got balls,” Randy told his computer as the screen flashed before him with the information needed to forward a voucher to Renquist from the Twenty-second Precinct. “Piece of cake. Give me something challenging, people!” he said to himself, recalling his darkest secret, something he'd never told anyone, not even his parents. When he was still just a kid in high school, he had hacked his way into HBO, and it was he who was responsible for the 1986 interference with the HBO signal. He had sent his own signal over nationwide television at HBO's expense, and it had read: I'll never pay for free airwaves. After that, he had avoided electronic capture by downloading everything, completely gutting his system, and starting all over again. He had simply pulled the plug on any possible investigation that could lead back to his PC in Steubenville, California, where he had grown up.

  Randy had very much liked the mission Dr. Sanger had last put him on: sending out a request on the law enforcement Internet regarding any and all unsolved murders in which crossbow-styled weapons or arrows were used. The notion had tickled him at first, and then it revived some old memories of a game of cat and mouse played out on the video screen between the forces of good and evil, but the forces had become blurred with a madman named Helsinger and his henchmen each in turn taking on the name and the ritualistic quest of their leader to seek out and destroy evil. But it was evil as defined by the original game-player, Helsinger 1, who could be anybody who initiated the game. It was a lot like Dungeons and Dragons, but all mixed up with Ravenloft and vampires and vampire-stalkers, as well. It got a lot of play back then, Helsinger's Pit as it was called, because eventually the evil one's hacked-up parts were returned to the so-called pit from which they had emerged—Satan's underworld.

  Randy had quit playing t
he game years before, having become bored with it, having graduated to more sophisticated software. Still, he thought it odd how so often life imitated art, for then only comic characters were firing harmless arrows from crossbows at imaginary, albeit human, targets, but here and now, some damned fool was out there in real time and in real space butchering men like Judge Charles Mootry, and now some guy in Oregon, in the same or similar fashion as in the game he'd nearly forgotten.

  He was reminded of the song lyrics, “It's a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack...”

  He wondered when, if ever, Dr. Sanger was going to share what they had learned on the Internet regarding bow-and-arrow deaths across the nation and throughout the world. They were more common than first thought might allow. Most were hunting accidents, granted, and some were spear gun accidents between diving buddies, but others had gone down as outright murders, most remaining unsolved, and some were as far away as Spain and Great Britain and Prague, while others were closer to home: Washington State, L.A., Nebraska, Oklahoma, Miami, Chicago.

  Dr. Sanger hadn't told Randy what she'd done with the list, but from what he'd gathered, he knew she hadn't initially shared it with Captain Phillip Lawrence, that she more likely took it over his head, possibly to Commander Andrew Bryce. Then all of a sudden everything was popping and stripping. She was now headed for Oregon, where the latest crossbow killing had taken place.

  Fascinating stuff, and he was proud to've played his small role. Dr. Sanger had also confided somewhat about Lucas Stonecoat and how hard she had worked to get the former detective, now in the Cold Room, to work alongside her on uncovering the truth out there. Maybe by Randy's helping Stonecoat with his problem, the favor would bounce back someday. He sent the electronic impulses that would fax Renquist all they needed from the Twenty-second Precinct to arrange billing for the work on the goblets.

  SIXTEEN

  764LTl:C42119Category42 ---Topic 419LOG . . . Message 438 ….. Thurs, July 28, 1996 . ….1:10:01

  Questor 1 ….. Helsinger's Pit ……

  Q1: There is a threat-A new enemy has risen and has flown from the Star Kingdom,

  49th Realm. These are two enforcer demons, male and female.They must be stopped. They go now to where you last traveled. Take all necessary precautions and take as much help as you require-All details await your departure. Reply this board 0700-Good luck. Questor 1.

  END TRANSHISSION, Category 42 Topic 49LOG …1:13:0b

  Category 42….. Topic 49LOG... Message 439 . Thurs-July 28,1996…….. 1:51:02

  Questor 2... from the Pit . . .

  Q2: Understood. Will take all necessary precautions and resources. Will follow instructions to letter.

  END TRANSMISSION, Category 42, Topic 49LOG .. . 1:52:00

  Category 42 ….. Topic 49LOG ….Message 440.…. . .Thurs. July 28-, 1996... 2:05

  Questor 3…

  Q3: Agreed. WILL locate alien beings in North Star quadrant. Will dissuade all misguided creatures there.

  END TRANSMISSION Category 42 Topic 49LOG... 2:06:01

  Lucas and Meredyth had first gone to her apartment, where she quickly stuffed a flexible bag with whatever she felt essential for an overnight stay—which apparently meant quite a lot, Lucas thought when he looked at the time. Still, he knew that their trip could last through an extra day. While he waited for her to pack, Lucas looked about her neatly arranged, beautifully decorated apartment, feeling the lightness of it, the soft hues—her corner of paradise, it would appear. She was well dug in here, had put a small fortune into the upscale apartment. The place appeared all her.

  “Make yourself at home,” she called out from the bedroom, where she'd disappeared moments before. 'There's some soft drinks in the fridge and some leftovers if you're hungry.”

  He was more interested in snooping.

  He looked at her paintings, the soft blues of mountains seemingly her favorite view. Some of the soft hues matched her intelligent blue eyes. He picked over a handful of photos she had displayed over a mantel, one of an older couple, their arms about one another—no doubt Meredyth's parents. They looked, from their clothing and the trappings around them, well-off indeed, their station somewhere south of filthy rich, but quite comfortable. They appeared to be rather bookish types, he likely a college dean and she likely a banker, if she worked at all. The father looked like a stern and intelligent man, possibly a scientist, possibly into psychiatry like his daughter, Lucas guessed from the disheveled way he wore his expensive. Ivy League clothes; perhaps he taught psychiatry at one of the local colleges and had invested well. Her mother looked the picture of comfort and caring, and had a dimpled face like Meredyth's own.

  Another picture showed a youngster in the couple's arms, but here the parents were decidedly younger, straighter, and the child was a little girl dressed in her best—Meredyth as a child. A third photo was of a handsome, square-jawed, dark-haired man, perhaps Meredyth's current age or a bit older. He was no doubt her current boyfriend. The name Conrad was scrawled carelessly across the picture with the words Love and Devotion.

  Lucas went to the large balcony windows which looked out over greater Houston, and he stared long at the clean, straight, even geometry of the skyline where Houston's greatest pinnacles stood like lances pointed to the sun. It must be a magnificent view at night, he thought. It was a terrific, first-class, lush, and expensive apartment.

  As she packed, Meredyth called out again from the other room. “So, you went to see the judge's digs?”

  “I did.”

  “You might've had the decency to ask me along.”

  “Getting myself past the guards was hard enough. How would I have explained you?”

  “You seem quite clever enough to explain away most anything. I heard about your little incident at that gas station the other day.”

  “I did what I had to do,” he called back, walking toward her bedroom now and standing in the doorway.

  She was leaning in over her suitcase, packing a final cache of underwear. She looked up at him but resumed packing as she spoke. “So, are you going to tell me what you found at the judge's place or not? And what gives with those goblets you took?”

  “I'll tell you what I think if you'll tell me how they ID'ed the victim in Oregon, since they had no hands for prints, no head for teeth or features.”

  “Birthmark, lower back, right-hand side, a little cherry the family knew about. Besides, everyone in Rogue River was expecting him. Had a picket line waiting. Word had gotten out.”

  “Word had gotten out about what?”

  “He was planning to merge with a company called ASCAN.”

  “And the judge, Mootry, how was he ID'ed? Aside from the fact the carcass was found in his bed, I mean...”Photographs, scars from the war. He was in Korea. Verified by a family member.”

  “Whoa, I thought he had no family.”

  “No one close, but a cousin twice removed or something flew in from Chicago, I think it was. You know his estate had a lock on it until he could be identified, so all of his charitable donations were cut off immediately, and his will was frozen.”

  “Hmm, so all of a sudden this unknown relative shows up, ID's the body, and all the funds are liquid again?”

  “He left a fortune to charitable organizations. Every-body's happy.” She zipped and snapped the suitcase closed. “Ready.”

  Let me take that for you.”

  “How about you? You can't have enough in that little bag you brought from the precinct house to carry you all the way through tomorrow.”

  “I'm fine. We'd best not waste more time.”

  She nodded. “If you're sure. The plane's not leaving without us.”

  He carried the bag to the door, saying, “Let's be on our way.”

  Downstairs they packed her car and headed for Houston Intercontinental Airport. Traffic was hellacious even at mid-morning when most people in downtown Houston were behind a desk somewhere. Lucas wondered where all these people were going, and if t
hey wanted to get there any more than he wanted to get to this small town in Oregon.

  Meredyth's police dispatch radio crackled to life. Captain Lawrence was calling her. She lifted the receiver and said, “Dr. Sanger, here, Captain.”

  “Is he with you?”

  “Stonecoat? Right beside me. We're on our way to the airport.”

  “I want to talk to Stonecoat, now!”

  Lucas frowned, raised his shoulders in a clownish shrug, and took the receiver. “Yes, sir, Captain Lawrence?”

  “Stonecoat, I just got a very disturbing call from a Detective Amelford over at the Twenty-second Precinct.”

  Oh, hell, Lucas thought. They've already learned about my impersonating Pardee at the lab. Still, Lucas bluffed. “Sir, I'm sorry, but I truly have never heard of anyone by the name of... Detective Abelford, sir?”

  “The hell you haven't, and it's Amelford. You know perfectly well he's lead investigator on the Mootry case. You learned as much from Dr. Sanger. What pisses me off, Stonecoat, is that you had the unmitigated gall to cross a yellow line, walk all over a crime scene, and God knows what you disturbed out at Mootry's, and to knock a man unconscious on your way out! I don't know why Commander Bryce chose to overlook your transgressions, Stonecoat, but believe me, I am not looking the other way on—”

  “Sir, I swear to you, I don't know what you're talking about.”

  “As Bryce said, the intruder's description matches you absolutely to a T, Stonecoat, and now—”

  “I'll be happy to stand a lineup, sir, when I get back.”

  “If it comes to that, yes, you damned well will, and you'd better have a damned surefire alibi!”

  “I do, sir... I do...”

  “And?”

  “I was with Dr. Sanger all last evening, sir... ahh, going over the case.”

  He saw Meredyth visibly stiffen at the suggestion they'd spent the entire night together. She punched him.