John Locke - Lethal People

The grid diffuses the light into a greenish glow that slightly distorts the image of the man on the floor in the center of the prison cell … as he struggles, once again, to his feet.

CHAPTER 1

I awoke in mid-scream, jerked upright, and jumped off my cot like I’d been set on fire. My brain cells sputtered, overloaded by panic and crippling pain. I staggered three steps and crashed into the bars of my cell. I grabbed them and held on for dear life. It took a minute, but I finally remembered how I’d spent the previous night cozying up to the death ray.

My cell phone rang. I ignored it, made my way to the toilet, and puked up everything inside me, including, possibly, my spleen. The ringing stopped long before I felt like checking the caller ID. Nine people in the world had my number, and this wasn’t one of them. Whoever it was, whatever they wanted, could wait.

From my prison cell in Bedford, Virginia, getting to work was as easy as stepping into the elevator and pressing a button. I did so, and moments later, the row of nozzles in my office steam shower were blasting me full force. After several minutes of that, I knew my body wasn’t going to rejuvenate on its own, so I stepped out and shook a dozen Advil into my hand.

I looked in the mirror. Usually when I felt this bad I required stitches, and lots of them. I leaned my elbows on the sink counter and lowered my head to my forearms.

The ADS weapon was all I’d hoped for and more. I knew in the weeks to come I’d master the damn thing, but for the time being, it was kicking the crap out of me. I wondered if the suits at Homeland would be happy or miserable to learn I had survived the first session.

When the room finally stopped spinning, I swallowed the Advil. Then I shaved, put some clothes on, and buzzed Lou Kelly.

“You got anything on Ken Chapman yet?” I asked.

There was a short pause. Then Lou said, “Got a whole lot of something. You want it now?”

I sighed. “Yeah, bring it,” I said.

I propped my office door open so Lou could enter without having to be buzzed in. Then I dragged myself to the kitchen and tossed a few ice cubes and some water into a blender. I threw in a packet of protein powder and a handful of chocolate-covered almonds, turned the dial to the highest setting, and pressed the start button. By the time Lou arrived, I was pouring the viscous goop into a tall plastic cup.

Lou had a thick manila folder in his hand.

“Local weather for a hundred,” he said. He placed the folder on the counter in front of me.

“What are my choices?”

“Thunderstorm, ice storm, cloudy, or sunny,” Lou Kelly said.

My office apartment was above ground, but windows could get you killed, so I didn’t have any. My office walls were two feet thick and completely soundproof, so I couldn’t automatically rule out a thunderstorm. But it was early February, and I’d been outside yesterday. I drank some of my protein shake. Yesterday had been clear and sunny.

“I’ll take cloudy,” I said.

Lou frowned. “Why do I even bother?” He fished two fifties from his pocket and placed them beside the folder.

“Nothing worse than a degenerate gambler,” I said.

Lou pointed at the folder. “You might want to reserve judgment on that,” he said. He reached down and tapped the folder twice with his index finger for emphasis.

Lou Kelly was my lieutenant, my ultimate go-to guy. We’d been together fifteen years, including our stint in Europe with the CIA. I took another swallow of my protein shake and stared at the manila folder.

“Give me the gist,” I said.

“Your daughter was right not to trust this guy,” Lou said.

I nodded. I’d known the minute I answered the phone last week that something was wrong. Kimberly, generally a good judge of character, particularly when it came to her mother’s boyfriends, had felt the need to tell me about a curious incident. Kimberly had said, “Tonight Ken broke a glass in his hand. One minute he’s holding a drink, the next minute his hand’s full of blood!” She went on to explain that her mom (my ex-wife, Janet) had made a snide remark that should have elicited a withering response from her new fiancé. Instead, Chapman put his hands behind his back, stared off into space, and said nothing. When Janet whirled out of the room in anger, Chapman squeezed the glass so hard that it shattered in his hands. Kimberly had been in the loft watching the scene unfold. “There’s something wrong with this guy, Dad. He’s too …” she searched for a word. “I don’t know. Passive-aggressive? Bipolar? Something’s not right.”

I agreed and told her I’d look into it.

“Don’t tell Mom I said anything, okay?” Kimberly had said.

In front of me, Lou Kelly cleared his throat. “You okay?”

I clapped my hands together. “Wonderful!” I said. “Let’s hear what you’ve got.”

Lou studied me a moment. Then he said, “Ken and Kathleen Chapman have been divorced for two years. Ken is forty-two, lives in Charleston, West Virginia. Kathleen is thirty-six, lives in North Bergen, works in Manhattan.”

I waved my hand in the general direction of his chatter. “The gist,” I reminded him.

Lou Kelly frowned. “The gist is our boy Chapman has serious anger issues.”

“How serious?”

“He was an accomplished wife-beater.”

“Was?” I said.

“There is evidence to suggest he’s reformed.”

“What type of evidence?” I asked. “Empirical or pharmacological?”

Lou looked at me for what seemed a very long time. “How long you been holding those words in your head, hoping to use them?”

I grinned and said, “A generous vocabulary is a sure sign of intellectual superiority.”

“Must be a lot of room in your head now that you’ve let them out,” he deadpanned.

“Let’s continue,” I said. “I’ve got a headache.”

“And why wouldn’t you?” he said. Then he added, “According to the letter his shrink presented to the court, Chapman appears to have overcome his aggression.”

“A chemical imbalance,” I suggested.

“Words to that effect,” Lou said.

I gave Lou his money back and spent a couple minutes flipping through the police photos and domestic violence reports. The pictures of Kathleen Chapman would be considered obscenely brutal by any standard, but violence was my constant companion and I’d seen much worse. Still, I was surprised to find myself growing strangely sympathetic to her injuries. I kept going back to two of the photos. I seemed to be developing a connection to the poor creature who years ago had found the courage to stare blankly into a police camera lens.

“What do you say to a woman with two black eyes?” I said.

Lou shrugged. “I don’t know. What do you say to a woman with two black eyes?”

“Nothing,” I said. “You already told her twice.”

Lou nodded. He and I often used dark humor to detach ourselves from the brutality of our profession. “Looks like he told her a hundred,” he said.

I removed the two photos from the folder and traced Kathleen’s face with my index finger. And then it hit me. I handed the pictures to Lou. “Have our geeks remove the bruises on these and run an age progression to see what she looks like today.”

He eyed me suspiciously but said nothing.

“Then compare her to this lady.” I opened my cell phone and clicked through the photos until I found the one I wanted. I handed Lou my phone. “What do you think?” I said.

He held my cell phone in his right hand and the photos of the younger Kathleen in his left. His eyes went back and forth from the phone to the photos. Then he said, “They could be twins.”

“I agree,” I said. I took the phone back and started entering some commands on the keys.

“So who is she?” he asked. “The one in the picture you’re e-mailing me.”

I shrugged. “Just someone I know. A friend.”

“The geeks might question this project,” he said.

“Just tell them we’re trying to fi t a specific girl into a terror cell.”

He studied the photos of Kathleen some more. “A body double?”

“Right,” I said. “And, Lou?”

He looked up. “Yeah?”

“Tell the geeks I need it yesterday!”

He sighed. “What else is new?”

Lou turned to leave.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “What if Kathleen was not Ken Chapman’s first victim?”

“You think he slept around during his marriage?”

“Maybe. Or maybe he dated someone after his divorce, before he met Janet. Can you find out for me?”

“I’m on it,” Lou said.

When he left, I turned my attention back to the files. As I read the details in the police reports, the same thought kept running through my head: If I do nothing, a couple of years from now this could be Janet, or even Kimberly.

I could not believe Janet was planning to marry this bozo.

I remembered something Kimberly said a month ago when she told me about her mom’s engagement. She said she didn’t believe her mom was in love with Chapman.

“Why would she marry a guy she doesn’t love?” I’d asked.

“I think Mom would rather be unhappy than lonely.”

CHAPTER 2

The state capitol building in Charleston, West Virginia, is composed of buff Indiana limestone. Its dome rises 293 feet high and is gilded in 23.5-karat gold leaf. I was standing directly below it, in the capitol rotunda, staring at the statue of Senator Robert C. Byrd when I heard her high heels clopping across the marble floor.

Alison David.

“Call me Ally,” she said, extending her hand.

I shook her hand and introduced myself.

“So,” she said, “what do you think of our capitol building?”

Ally David had on a navy jacket with three-quarter sleeves and a matching pencil skirt. Her satin tank top featured a scoop neckline that offered the promise of superb cleavage. It took some effort not to drool while admiring the way she put her clothes together.

“Impressive,” I said. “But I’m confused about the statue.”

“How so?”

“Well, I know you can’t toss a cat in West Virginia without hitting a building that has his name on it,” I said. “But I thought you had to be dead at least fifty years before you got a statue.”

She smiled and gave me a wink. “We West Virginians have a pact with Senator Byrd. He sends us the pork, and we let him name the pigs.”

Alison David was the type of career woman who, without saying or doing anything out of the ordinary, gave the impression she was a creature of heightened sexuality. I wondered if this was a natural phenomenon or something she had purposely cultivated.

“Is it just me,” I said, “or does it appear your illustrious senator’s hand is pointing directly at my pocket?”

She forced a half smile, but I could tell I was losing her. Small talk isn’t my strong suit. “So,” I said, “where are you taking us for lunch?”

“Someplace close,” she said.

I waited for her to elaborate, but she chose not to. Unable to think of anything witty to say, I settled for, “Sounds perfect,” which caused her to arch an eyebrow and give me a strange look.

We walked a block together and entered Gyoza, a small Japanese restaurant that proved trendier than its anonymous exterior might suggest. Inside, tasteful Japanese prints hung on bright red walls. The lighting was muted but was bright enough to read the menus. In the center of the restaurant, a bronze-laminate sushi bar separated the sushi chefs from the diners, and glass-fronted coolers atop the bar displayed tidy arrangements of colorful seafood. There were a couple of empty two-top tables with white linen tablecloths. Ally picked one, and we sat down.

“Gyoza?” I said.

Ally lowered her eyes and smiled at me, and the way she did it made me wonder if gyoza meant something dirty.

“Gyoza,” she said, “is a popular dumpling in Japanese cuisine. It’s finger food, like pot stickers, but with different fillings. Most people order meat or seafood, but I like the vegetarian.”

A waitress appeared, and Ally did in fact order the vegetarian gyoza. I asked if the spider roll was authentic.

Our waitress looked confused and said, “This one very hot. Very, very hot! Yes, is spider roll."

“Spider,” I said.

“Yes, yes,” she said. “Spider. Is very hot.”

I feigned shock. “Do you mean to tell me there’s an actual spider inside?”

Ally David’s eyes skirted the room. She gave the waitress a tight smile, and the two of them exchanged a female look, as if my comment confirmed some sort of conclusion they’d already drawn about me. Ally said, “Perhaps I should translate.”

“Please do,” I said.

“The spider roll is composed of tempura soft-shell crab,” she said.

“Composed,” I said.

“That’s right.”

I may have detected a hint of annoyance in her voice.

Ally wasn’t finished with me. “Spider is the name of the roll,” she said, “and nothing more.” Then, as if she couldn’t stop herself, she added, “Why would you even think such a thing?”

I shrugged. “Eel is eel, right? And tuna is tuna, yes?”

Ally David looked at her watch. “I don’t mean to be brusque, but I’ve got a one o’clock and it’s already twelve fifteen. You wanted to talk to me about Ken Chapman?” she said.

“I did.”

I was not insensitive to the fact that our waitress continued to wait patiently for my order. “I’ll have …” I briefly looked through the menu again.

“Anytime today would be nice,” Ally said.

“I think I’ll try … the spider roll,” I said.

“For the love of God,” Ally said.

“Very, very hot,” our waitress warned. “Not recommend,” she said.

“But it’s on the menu,” I said. “So people must order it.”

“Yes, yes,” she said. She pointed to a large man sitting alone at the sushi bar. “He already order. I bring to him very soon.”

I smiled. “Then I’m sure it will be fine,” I said.

She nodded and sprinted away to place the order.

“Are you always this …”Ally searched for a word, gave up, and tried again. “Could you possibly be this obtuse?”

I shrugged and looked at her but she lowered her eyes and pretended to be intrigued by the place setting. I spoke to fill the silence. “Did you and Chapman date before his divorce became final?”

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “No. Ken was legally separated when we met.”

There were delicate white china cups in front of us, and black lacquer soup bowls. I picked up my cup and tilted it so I could see if it said “Made in China” on the bottom. It didn’t.

“How long did you guys date?” I asked.

Ally looked up from the place setting to stare at me. “Can you tell me again what my dating Ken has to do with national security?”

“Like I said on the phone, we’re just building a profile,” I said. “Mr. Chapman is currently engaged to a woman whose former husband was a CIA operative.”