Blood and Bone Page 3

  “I’m aware that he was very briefly in custody and that he’s in the system, but if there’s nothing to match his records to . . .”

  Madison sat back in her chair. They had flown to Seattle to see her face when they told her Salvo was dead. A year and a half ago she had pointed without hesitation at Salvo’s photograph in a heap of other mug shots on the table.

  “What exactly did you hope I could tell you? Cameron could be in Antarctica for all I know,” she said.

  Parker pursed his lips and cocked his head to one side. He was debating with himself. Finally, he shook his head. “I’m going to level with you, Detective.” He leaned forward again. “I don’t trust you. You saved the life of a serial killer. That’s what he is—however you want to spin that is up to you. I suspect he’s been calling you and keeping you updated on his progress. That he got right on the phone with you and said, ‘Hey, hon, I’ve just cut Salvo’s throat.’ And I think his lawyer could be in it just as deep as you are.”

  “Are you insane?”

  “You’re the one who went out to dinner with them after the kid’s funeral.”

  Anger was batting at her chest. He was provoking her. Guzman sat serenely with his legs crossed. That’s what they had planned for her from the start. Her partner, Brown, came to her then, his words a simple comfort and a straightforward instruction. Don’t let them yank your chain.

  “It wasn’t a date, Agent Parker. It was the memorial service for a boy who had been murdered twenty-five years ago. We arrested his killer and I went to the funeral as a representative of the Seattle Police Department. And, for the record, Nathan Quinn is not Cameron’s lawyer anymore. He’s Senior Counsel to the US Attorney for the Western District of Washington.” Her voice was clear, her temper in check. “You couldn’t find Salvo in time and you’re just pissed off Cameron got to him first. It’s regrettable, but there you have it. You want me to help you catch him? Give me something to work with. If you had anything worth my time you’d be knocking on his door with a warrant instead of talking to me on my day off. J.J.—”

  “It’s A.J.,” he said.

  “Whatever. If you have any issues about my conduct with John Cameron or Nathan Quinn, feel free to call the Office of Professional Accountability—actually, since you’re here, you can just take the elevator, go talk to them now.” Madison gazed from one to the other. “Are we done here? Yes? Good.” She stood up.

  It was chilly as hell outside the precinct as Madison strode away, shaking off the men with their sharp suits and cheap words. Salvo’s suit had been just as sharp—and look where it had gotten him.

  Alice Madison had been on a collision course with John Cameron from the first time their paths had crossed two years ago; she knew all too well that he had never been indicted for any of those nine deaths, and in her bones she was convinced that one day she would be the one who would hunt him down. Those LA agents could not possibly fathom how much that simple notion, that belief, had cost her.

  After the meeting and before meeting Aaron, Madison took a walk along Waterfront Park to clear her mind of the haunted names and memories from eighteen months ago. She needed them to settle back into their designated drawer, and until then she would be in no mood for company. The sky was low and heavy with rain and the clouds were blowing in from the sea in streaks of bluish gray like an old bruise.

  Chapter 4

  Aaron met her for a late lunch at the Steelhead Diner in Pike Place Market. It was full of tourists, but Madison didn’t care: everything was a distraction and she badly wanted to be distracted. Aaron had not asked her about the meeting and they were chattering about other things—normal things, things that could be talked about while surrounded by strangers and eating margarita chicken sandwiches with a glass of Pinot gris.

  They spoke of Aaron’s children: a girl and a boy, eight and six, whom Madison hadn’t met yet but probably would at Christmas. She was looking forward to it and was anxious about it in equal measure. She had seen pictures of them; they looked like miniature Aarons—same blue eyes, same easy smile.

  Afterward they went to the Seattle Art Museum to see a Peruvian art exhibit, which was even more crowded than the diner.

  Later, at home, as they lay naked in each other’s arms Aaron said softly, “What happened at the meeting? Bad news?”

  Madison pulled back—her head on the pillow next to his, side by side, facing each other. She didn’t know how much she should tell him. She didn’t know how other cops brought some things home and left others in their patrol cars.

  “Yes and no. Someone I met once—a bad guy—was found murdered in LA, in all probability killed by someone whose life I saved, months ago. This man might have been involved in the deaths of other men too. I don’t know for sure. It’s complicated.” Her voice was quiet; the rain fell in sheets against the windows.

  Aaron was processing her words. It was entirely outside the range of his life experience.

  “Is he . . . ?” he ventured. “Would he come after you?”

  “No, he has no reason to.” She stroked his hair. “I’m just a bit player in the story, but the LA agents wanted to tell me what had happened.”

  He nodded and laid his hand against her cheek. “You know, when we met for lunch, you didn’t seem worried,” he said, “but you seemed sad, so sad. Like when I first met you that summer at Rachel’s.”

  Madison didn’t know what to say; something welled up inside her, but she shook it off. “I’m not sad,” she said finally.

  “Good,” Aaron whispered and held her close.

  His skin was warm and his hands smelled of rosemary.

  “I’m not sad,” she repeated.

  The light of a late spring day patterned the wooden floor of the empty restaurant on Alki Beach and seagulls called to each other as they glided above the waves. Donny O’Keefe, the chef, came back from the kitchen with drinks and coffee. “Since we don’t know when you gentlemen will be in the same neighborhood again, we should have our game now and let it see us through the long night.”

  The memorial service for David Quinn had brought an end to a nightmare that had lasted twenty-five years and touched everybody who was present—one way or the other.

  “I’m going to do some traveling,” John Cameron explained to Alice Madison.

  “Business or pleasure?” she said.

  “Bit of both.”

  Late thirties, dark and dark. Madison was used to Cameron’s presence like you are used to walking by the edge of a cliff: never too close because you shouldn’t forget that the ground could betray you anytime.

  Nathan Quinn had studied his oldest friend, and his black eyes came to rest on Madison. It was the end of something, they all knew it. Madison’s path had crossed theirs six months earlier and this was the day their lives would return to normal.

  O’Keefe had already prepared the table and brought out the deck of cards: poker.

  “I don’t play,” Madison said.

  “You might not, but you sure can,” Cameron said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Does it matter?”

  A silver dollar appeared between the chef’s quick fingers. “Heads, you play. Tails, you don’t.”

  “Stay and play, Detective,” Nathan Quinn said. “Just this once.”

  By the time they were done with the game the first hint of dawn was lining the sky.

  Madison woke up with a start just after 4:00 a.m. Maybe she had had a nightmare, or was roused by a tree branch brushing against the window—she couldn’t tell, she couldn’t remember any dreams except for a sense of being wrapped in deep unnatural silence, as heavy as a shroud.

  Madison slid her feet out from under the comforter and into her bunny slippers—a present from Rachel three Christmases ago—and reached for her terrycloth robe. Aaron slept soundly as she gently pulled the bedroom door shut behind her and padded to the kitchen.

  She poured herself a glass of cold milk and curled up on the sofa in the living r
oom.

  Salvo’s murder was bad news, terrible news. Cameron’s involvement with the cartel wasn’t something she had dwelled on in the last eighteen months. Nevertheless, it had been there—like a storm over the hill that at some point is going to hit, whether you’re ready or not. Alice Madison knew that John Cameron was a killer when she saved his life, and even in that instant of fear, rage, and sheer adrenaline she had been perfectly aware that he would kill again, because that’s who he was.

  Madison’s religious beliefs had been shaped by a vaguely Episcopalian background and years on the streets as a police officer; it meant that she wasn’t too sure or concerned about the details of heaven and hell, but she definitely believed in karma. And if John Cameron would ever be judged by an authority higher than the laws of the United States, those five lives he had taken since she had saved his might very well carry a small clause that read: “See Alice Madison.” She hadn’t pulled the trigger or held the knife to their throats yet the murdered men were connected to her through Cameron, because if he had died at the hands of Roberto Salvo they would all still be alive, doing whatever it was that they did with their days. Did they have families? Madison stopped the tornado of thoughts. All of the people Cameron was alleged to have killed had been “in the business,” just as he was: they had known the risks and had all been armed.

  Madison stretched out on the sofa and pulled over her the blanket that had been folded on the armrest. How many lives would it take for her to be clean of those five deaths? And how many more would there be?

  Agents Parker and Guzman had missed one crucial point: although Nathan Quinn was no longer Cameron’s lawyer, and despite working within the parameters of the law, he was just as dangerous and ruthless as his former client. Criminal defense lawyers across the state had worn black the day Quinn had joined the office of the US Attorney. If Parker and Guzman wanted Cameron so badly that they were ready to jangle empty threats in order to unnerve her, they might try to go after Quinn too. It would be a mistake, probably the last they’d ever make on the force.

  Most of the room was in shadow and some of those shadows seemed to quiver with the wind outside. Madison, wrapped in the blanket, gave herself a couple of minutes before getting up and going back to bed. Her eyes closed and she fell instantly asleep.

  Sunday dawned with Madison cringing at the thought of Stacey’s bachelorette spa day. In the end, Madison learned that she didn’t like spas very much. It seemed a waste of time to just lie there while a masseuse worked on her stiff shoulders and someone else tidied up her nails—short with clear varnish. However, it seemed a social enterprise that the other women—all meeting for the first time—enjoyed and were thrilled by as they chitchatted and dissected the forthcoming wedding.

  They were impressed that Madison had been invited to the bachelor party, and she realized then that she was the only cop at the spa day aside from the bride-to-be; Stacey took her aside for some shop talk while the others went into the hot tub.

  Madison was relieved when the coordinated pampering was over. She drove home with the windows rolled down and the Soul Rebels Brass Band blasting “Sweet Dreams Are Made of This.” She didn’t think once about Agents Parker and Guzman.

  By the time she arrived home Aaron had returned to the house he owned in Kirkland, forty minutes away across Lake Washington, and Madison changed into her sweats and went running for an hour around the neighborhood. She was used to the weight of her off-duty piece on her right ankle and felt unbalanced without it. Aaron, she had noted, looked away when she undressed and took off her weapons—as if it were a strangely intimate gesture he preferred not to be a part of.

  Chapter 5

  The landing gear of the small charter plane hit the concrete runway, and the Lear taxied slowly toward the two-room bungalow that passed for an airport. The short runway was surrounded by mountains that were surrounded by more mountains until the land dropped off into the sea and the next solid ground was Greenland.

  A man stepped out of the Lear holding a backpack and headed straight for the beat-up SUV that was waiting near the weathered building. It was cold—the kind of cold that took your breath away and didn’t give it back—but it didn’t bother him.

  The driver of the SUV had not left the car to greet him because social niceties take a beating in subzero temperatures, but when the traveler yanked the door open and climbed into the car he pushed a thermos of coffee into his gloved hand.

  “Welcome. Here you go.”

  “Thanks, man. I sure need it.”

  “Ready to go?” the driver asked, ramming the clutch into gear.

  “You bet.”

  The SUV left the airport by the only road available—a single track that led toward the only town for hundreds of miles. The sky was pure blue, untouched by big-city pollution, and the midmorning light was so dazzling that each pine needle in the woods around them seemed to be standing out to be counted. The tops of the mountains were already white with snow; it showed in long stretches of the road too. Soon more would come and stay until spring, making flying into that region—and even driving on that road—a challenge.

  The traveler drank the coffee and watched the landscape.

  “Pretty country, huh?” the driver said.

  “Sure is,” he replied.

  “Where were you flying in from today?”

  “A place not as pretty as this, I’ll tell you that much. You were born and raised here?”

  “I’m from Quebec. Came here with my wife about ten years ago.”

  The traveler nodded and looked interested as the driver recounted in detail the last ten years of the life in the small town. In truth, the traveler saw only the road and thought only of the job that he had to do; the talk was camouflage, no different from contact lenses that changed the color of someone’s eyes or a prosthesis that altered the line of a jaw. It was just another layer. He nodded, listened, and asked more questions.

  After twenty-five minutes they pulled into the front yard of a one-story cabin on the outskirts of town.

  “Some things still have to be done in person, right?” the driver said.

  “Yes,” the traveler replied.

  “Well, I’ll wait here.”

  “Sure?” The traveler did not want the man to come inside, but it would have been strange if he hadn’t asked. If the man had said yes he would have found a way to conduct his business in private.

  “Go ahead, you’re not going to be more than a few minutes, are you?”

  “I don’t think so, no.”

  “Okay, then.”

  The traveler walked up to the front door and knocked. He was expected, and a woman let him in. She was in her sixties with a long braid of gray hair resting on her left shoulder.

  “He’s in here,” she said, eyeing him with open distrust.

  John Cameron pulled down the hood of his parka and took his gloves off. “Thank you,” he said.

  She led him to the main room of the cabin. The place had been made comfortable without much money or design; it had been shaped by the life of the couple who lived there, and that was enough to give it warmth.

  The man sat in an upholstered armchair and got up when Cameron came in. He was a little older than the woman, and his hair and beard were completely white. His pale blue eyes met John Cameron’s amber with resignation.

  “I still don’t know how you found me,” he said.

  “Does it matter?”

  There was no need for introductions: the visitor’s name didn’t matter, only the fact that he was there. A deep scar ran from a corner of the man’s mouth to his ear and Cameron knew that he had not offered to shake hands because his right hand had been amputated below the wrist. It had happened in another place, on the other side of the country, and he had moved as far away from there as possible.

  The man looked at Cameron and saw in him the very thing that he had fled; he had begged his wife not to be in the house when his visitor arrived, but she had refused to leave.
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  John Cameron unshouldered the backpack and took from it a large padded envelope. In the middle of the room there was a dining table, the wood polished and honey-gold. From the envelope he took out fifty photographs and lined them up on the surface: black-and-white, color, Polaroids, new and old. Each picture was a close-up of a different man, as clear as a mug shot.

  The old man looked at John Cameron. He didn’t want him in this room and he didn’t want him in his life—this new life he had fought for in the middle of nowhere—and the sooner he would leave the better. He approached the table cautiously as if the pictures were omens of an ill future instead of shapes from his past. When he was close enough he ran his eyes over the faces of those strangers, all of them unknown to him. Except for one. He spotted him quickly and his watery eyes blinked once, twice. Then he lifted his left hand and pointed at that picture.

  John Cameron gathered all the photographs and returned them to the bag. In seconds he was out of the house and back in the SUV driving toward the airport. On the honey-gold wood he had left a black plastic zippered bag; inside it there were rolls of bills, neatly stacked and tied.

  “All done?” the driver asked Cameron.

  “All done,” he replied.

  The Lear took off and John Cameron looked out the window; for miles there would be nothing but sky above and woods below. He adjusted the snub-nosed revolver in his ankle holster and stretched his legs.

  In the cabin the old man closed the door of the bedroom and sat down on the bed; he needed a few minutes by himself. He had not been this afraid for a very long time, not since the injuries to his body were new and he hadn’t thought he would live. He’d rather the man had never found him, never showed up in his home, and all the money they had was what was in their checking account. He knew killers—he had spent a large chunk of his life in their proximity—and the man who had just left his house was one of them.

  On Monday morning, Madison woke up alone in her bed and listened to the trees and the shrubs shift in the wind and rub against the house. She ambled into the kitchen and leaned against the table as her Italian stove-top coffee percolator worked its magic, then took a cup by the French doors. It was too early for daylight; what glimmer there was looked like mist but was in fact a veil of rain shimmering between her and Vashon Island.