Beau and Nick were only a block north of where Byron Deitz and Zachary Dak were concluding their discussions. Nick was still brooding on Bock.
“You get a look at that guy at the table by the railing? All in black?”
Beau stopped to think.
“I saw him,” he said. “He drove up in that lime green shit-box Camry. Why?”
“I know the guy. His name is Tony Bock. He’s the guy in the Dellums custody case. Kate handed him his ass on Friday afternoon.”
“Weird-looking guy.”
“Yeah. Did you see what he had shoved down the crack of his ass? He had one of those collapsible steel batons. What do they call them? An ASP? Must have been damn uncomfortable.”
Beau nodded. “Or maybe he had his dick on backwards.”
“Yeah,” said Nick, pulling out his cell phone. “Happens to me all the time.”
Nick’s cell phone rang as soon as he turned it on. He got into the car on the passenger side—a couple of Advils had eased the pain in Beau’s butt cheek enough for him to drive.
Nick hit ANSWER.
“Lacy?”
“Nick, I’ve been trying to reach you.”
Her voice was tight and urgent, but not the tone she had when she was calling with a problem.
“I can see that. Four times in the last hour. Is everything okay?”
“Yes. No. Well, maybe.”
“That pretty much covers the ground.”
“Nick, Rainey Teague woke up.”
The words ran around in his skull like those tigers chasing the black kid in that book nobody was allowed to read anymore. For some crazy reason he remembered it from his childhood. Little Black Sambo. His mother had waved it around as an example of what she called endemic racism. On some level Nick knew he was thinking of that stupid book right now because what Lacy had just said completely rocked his world.
“How awake?” he asked when he could speak.
“They’re saying he’s responsive. He’s talking. He’s been immobile for a year, so he can’t sit up or control very much. But he’s definitely not in a coma or a caledonia or whatever it was.”
Nick turned to Beau.
“Lady Grace, Beau. Right now.”
“What’s up?”
Nick told him.
Beau took it in, made a U-turn to a chorus of outraged honks, accelerated into the street with the siren on. Cars on both sides swerved to the curb to give them room. Nick, busy getting the story from Lacy, only half registered Byron Deitz in his big fat yellow Hummer driving slowly north, staring at them as they flew south down Long Reach Boulevard.
Lacy had gotten to the part about Lemon seeing a man in the elevator.
“What does he mean? Like, a ghost?”
“No,” said Lacy, who wasn’t sure what the hell Lemon had been trying to say. “Just a guy with a really wicked vibe. Lemon said he sort of radiated crazy. Crazy and spooky. I don’t know. Whoever he was, he scared the hell out of Lemon, which is pretty hard to do.”
“He get a description?”
“Yeah. He’ll tell you when you get there. He’s in the lobby, waiting for you.”
“You got his cell?”
Lacy gave it to him.
“What was Lemon doing there in the first place?”
“After he talked to you, he wanted to go see the kid. He says he went to smoke the room.”
“What? You mean like that bug-killing stuff?”
“No, you mutt. It’s a tribal thing he does. All the Indians have it. He takes some sweetgrass and burns it in a bowl and calls the kid’s name.”
“Looks like this other guy had a better method for calling the kid. What’s this name Rainey was saying again?”
“He was asking for somebody named Abel Teague.”
“Abel Teague? You sure?”
“Yeah. He was also talking about a woman named Glynis Roo … something. Glynis Ruelle. I don’t know what this all means,” said Lacy, “but you better go find out.”
“I will,” said Nick. “Thanks, Lacy.”
“Keep me in the loop, will you?”
“When I know, you’ll know. Bye.”
He switched off, hit AUTO-DIAL. The phone rang six times, and then went to voice mail.
“Kate, when you get this, call me on my cell. You sitting down? Great news. Rainey Teague just woke up. Yes. Woke up. He’s responsive, whatever that means, but he’s got a ways to go to be all right. Still great news. Anyway, I wanted you to be the first to know. Love you, babe. Call me.”
“Not home?” asked Beau.
“Probably out in the yard,” said Nick, hitting a speed-dial number. Tig Sutter answered on the second ring.
“Nick—you heard?”
“I heard. We’re on our way to Lady Grace now. Do we still have the jurisdiction here?”
“Oh yeah. Case is still open. I’ve already called the doctors down there. They’re saying the kid’s not coherent, but he’s definitely conscious. They’re going to do a bunch of tests on him, but I told them to keep him alert until you got there.”
“Incredible, Tig,” said Nick, his heart lightening in a way it hadn’t ever since the case kicked off. “You know I’ve never even talked to the kid?”
“Yeah, well, remember, he doesn’t know his parents are dead. That’s going to be a tricky call.”
“He’s not going to hear it from me. Not today, anyway—”
“Yeah. I can’t reach Kate. She’s his legal guardian. She ought to be there, see to what he needs, sign whatever has to be signed.”
“Nick, this is going to sound crazy, but the docs are saying the kid calmed down when he heard Lemon Featherlight’s voice. If Kate’s not available, maybe you could go in that direction?”
“We should think about that, Tig. Guy’s a CI, a drug dealer—”
“Lemon connected with the kid last year. Even Tony Branko at Vice thought Lemon’s heart was in the right place. I think it’s worth a shot.”
Nick thought it over.
“Okay. I’ll give him a try. Did you hear from the lab yet?”
“You mean that goddam cat? What’d you do to her, anyway? Yaztremski says the thing’s crazy.”
“He get anything off her coat?”
“Not much, so far. Blood, and it was definitely human, but it had broken down a lot. Yaz thinks it might have come from a body been dead quite a while. Not the same blood type as either Delia Cotton or Gray Haggard. We’ve got a forensic team going over the house now—”
“Yeah? How they liking the house?”
“What? Liking the house? Like how?”
“They talk to the Armed Response guy? Dale Jonquil? He said he saw some weird shit in the mirrors there. So did Mavis Crossfire.”
So did I.
Skulls.
Coffins.
Slaves.
“CSI didn’t say anything useful, Nick, but those people never say anything useful. You follow that thing down at Saint Innocent?”
“From a distance. I hear Mavis did good.”
“Yeah. I talked to her a few minutes ago. They’re going to give her a commendation. Giving Coker one too, for spotting that stovepipe round. Saved that man’s life, between the two of them. They’ve got Dennison in Psychiatric for now, but all in all, he may not even do much time.”
“You getting anywhere with the snitch?”
“I asked Byron Deitz to put one of his IT guys on it, but so far no word back. I’m hoping, though. Deitz says the guy’s the best there is.”
“I saw Deitz a minute ago, going northbound on Long Reach in that gigantic Hummer. He was gunning me like he wanted to talk, but I had the lights on. He and Phil Holliman still stomping all over Boonie’s investigation?”
“I told him to jerk Holliman’s chain. He said he would. You wanted to know about that metal shit you found in the dining room at Temple Hill?”
“I thought it was shrapnel. Was it?”
“First take from Metallurgy was that it was shell fragments from … get this … a German .88.”
“How’d they figure that?”
“One of the guys at Metallurgy is a fragments freak. Has cans and boxes full of various bits of shell casings, debris from car bombs, whatever—he’s compiling a sort of reference library about it. He takes one look at the bits, scrapes some shavings, puts them under a scope, looks up and says German .88. Here’s the thing. Haggard was at Omaha, and he got a chest full of shrapnel when he got to the top of the cliffs. From a German .88, according to the After-Action Reports.”
Nick thought about that. “Okay, well, if that shrapnel came out of Haggard’s chest, I’d say we’ve gone from a disappearance to a homicide.”
“That’s what I think too. We’re declaring Temple Hill a crime scene. And we’ve got everybody we can spare out looking for any sign of either of them. Are you going to go back to Delia’s house after you see Rainey?”
I’d rather stick hot needles in my eyes.
“I don’t think so. We’d just get in the way. But keep me in the mix, will you?”
“I will. I talked to Mavis, a while ago. She called in to ask exactly the same thing you asked. ‘How did Nick like the house?’ What the hell went on up there, anyway?”
Nick was quiet for a moment, watching Lady Grace fill up the windscreen. He realized, abruptly, that he had not heard back from Kate, and for some reason that bothered him more than it should have.
“I don’t know, Tig. Beau and I saw some crazy stuff, hard to explain. Got to run, Tig. We’re at Lady Grace.”
“Okay. Check back.”
“I will.”
Beau pulled the cruiser to a stop at the main entrance to Lady Grace. Lemon Featherlight was waiting outside, under the arch, smoking a cigarette and watching them, looking jumpy and spooked. He came up to the passenger window as they cracked their doors.
“Nick, they won’t let me back in to see Rainey! Talk to them. I really think I can help.”
“So do I,” said Nick. “Let’s go.”