Dead Sleep. Greg Iles
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Lenz wasn’t kidding before. They do need me. They cooked all this up long before I got here.
“How would you feel about that?” asks the psychiatrist. “Posing as a special agent at suspect interviews? Casually walking into a room while Daniel and I observe suspects?”
“She’d kill to do it,” says Baxter. “I know that much about her.”
Lenz fires a harsh look at him. “Ms. Glass?”
“I’ll do it.”
“What did I tell you?” says Baxter.
“On one condition,” I add.
“Shit,” mutters Baxter. “Here it comes.”
“What condition?” asks Lenz.
“I’m in the loop from now till the day you get the guy. I want access to everything.”
Baxter rolls his eyes. “What do you mean by ‘everything’?”
“I want to know everything you know. You have my word that I won’t reveal anything you tell me. But I can’t be excluded like last year. That almost killed me.”
I expect Baxter to argue, but he just looks at the table and says, “Done. Where’s your film?”
“I dropped it in a mailbox at JFK.”
“A U.S. Postal Service box?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember which one?”
“It was near the American Airlines gates. It’s addressed to my house in San Francisco. I’ll give you the address. I bought the stamps and envelope near a newsstand. It was close to the mailbox as well.”
“We’ll get it. We can develop it at the lab right here.”
“I figured you guys had mastered mail theft.”
Baxter stifles an obscene reply and takes out a cell phone.
“One other thing,” I add. “I shot three photos of Sleeping Woman Number Twenty before I escaped the building. It was in bad light, but I bracketed the exposures. I think they’ll come out.”
With a look of grudging admiration, Baxter dials a number and tells someone to find out who the postmaster general is and get him out of bed. When he hangs up, I say, “I want digital copies of those pictures e-mailed to the New Orleans field office and a set printed for me. I’ll pick them up in the morning.”
“You’re going to New Orleans?” asks Lenz.
“That’s right.”
“It’s too late to get a flight tonight.”
“Then I expect you guys to get me a plane. I only came here at your request. I need to tell my sister’s husband what’s happened, and I want to tell him face-to-face. My mother, too. Before they hear about it some other way.”
“They won’t hear anything,” says Baxter.
“Why not?”
“What’s happened, really? You upset a few art lovers in Hong Kong. Nothing that would hit the papers.”
“What about the fire in New York? Your dead agent?”
“Wingate was reputed to have mob ties. FBI surveillance would be expected. One reporter has already speculated that Wingate torched the place for the insurance and killed himself in the process.”
“Are you saying you intend to keep this investigation secret?”
“As far as possible.”
“But you must be trying to gather all the paintings, right? For forensic analysis? Won’t that get out?”
“Maybe yes, maybe no. Look, Arthur is going to New Orleans in the morning, to speak to some art dealers there. Why don’t you fly down with him then?”
“I’d be happy to fly down tonight,” Lenz says, “if Ms. Glass feels such urgency. Can the plane be made ready?”
Baxter considers this. “I suppose. But Ms. Glass, please urge your brother-in-law to be discreet. And as for telling your mother … perhaps you should wait a bit on that.”
“Why?”
“We’ve had some contact with her in the past year. She’s not in the best shape.”
“She never was.”
“She’s drinking heavily. I don’t think we could rely upon her discretion.”
“It’s her daughter, Mr. Baxter. She deserves to know what’s going on.”
“But what do you really have to tell her? Nothing encouraging. Don’t you think it might be better to wait?”
“I’ll make that decision.”
“Fine,” he says wearily. “But your mother and brother-in-law are the limit of the circle. I know you worked for the Times-Picayune in New Orleans years ago. I’m sure you have friends down there. If you’re going to be effective in our investigation, no one can know you’re in town. No drinks with old friends, no human interest story about the Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer back on her old beat. We’ll be glad to put you up in a hotel.”
“I’ll probably stay with my brother-in-law. I haven’t seen my sister’s kids in a long time.”
“All right. But you agree about the isolation? Until we have suspects and you’ve confronted them, you talk to nobody who knows you, and you stay out of sight.”
“Agreed. But I want a full update on the plane. That’s our deal, right?”
Baxter sighs and looks at Lenz as if the psychiatrist has named his own poison. “Arthur can handle that.”
Dr. Lenz stands and rubs his hands together, and I notice again how tall he is. “Why don’t we get some coffee and doughnuts?” he says. “There’s no in-flight service.”
“Just a minute, Arthur,” Baxter says. He looks at me, his eyes glacier cold. “Ms. Glass, I want you to listen to me. Nothing about this case fits known parameters. Our New Orleans UNSUB is not some low-self-image maintenance man with a gimp leg and a collection of mutilated Barbie dolls. We’re dealing with at least one highly organized personality. A man who has kidnapped and probably killed twelve women without a trace. You may be on his radar. We don’t know. We do know you’re about to enter his territory. Be very careful, Ms. Glass. Don’t let your mind wander for a moment. Or you could join your sister a lot sooner than God ever intended.”
Despite the melodramatic tone, Baxter’s warning gives me pause. This man does not speak lightly of danger. “Do you think I need protection?”
“I’m inclined to say yes. I’ll make a final decision on that before you land in New Orleans. Just remember: secrecy is the best protection.”
“I hear you.”
He stands and gives me a curt nod. “I appreciate your willingness to help us.”
“You knew I would. It’s personal for me.”
Baxter reaches into the NOKIDS file and tosses out a photo of a brown-haired man in his late twenties, an All-American boy smiling like it’s his first job interview. Special Agent Fred Coates, no doubt. It’s hard to picture him with his throat cut, spitting blood into a cell phone.
“It’s personal for us too,” says Baxter.
He speaks softly, but behind his eyes burns a volcanic fury. Daniel Baxter has tracked and caged some of the deadliest monsters of our time. Until tonight, the one that took my sister was merely one among others still at large. But now Special Agent Fred Coates lies on a cold morgue slab somewhere. FBI blood has been spilled. And the situation has most definitely