I waited till they were past the curtain. “What if I told you I got another note?” Vic took a sip of her coffee and snorted.
They stopped without turning, stood there for a moment, and then Gowder looked back at Vic, to Katz, and then to me. “Bullshit.”
“Vic?”
She took her time taking another sip. “Off the bridge at the crime scene.” She pulled the envelope from her pocket and held it up between her index and middle fingers.
I went ahead with putting on my shirt. “I also know where the next one is.”
Katz took the envelope, opened it, and read the card. “I don’t suppose it occurred to you two to have this dusted?”
“Were there any fingerprints on the other one? Any DNA sample from the envelope?” He didn’t answer, and I had mine.
Katz passed the note to Gowder and looked up at me. “Where?”
Vic climbed off her chair and stretched. “Does this mean the partnership’s back on?” She stepped over and helped me from the gurney. “So, did my little brother start his crush before or after your daughter was in a coma?”
Bodine Street was in an industrial complex five blocks north of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. I mentioned to Vic that it was convenient, since she was the only one in the car speaking to me. John Meifert, White Eyes’s parole officer, was going to meet us there, which was good, because without the tan sedan parked at the corner we might’ve never found the place.
He was heavyset with sandy hair and was waiting for us on the sidewalk. He made for the door next to a truck dock. I looked around, but I didn’t see anything that would have led me to believe the address was a residence. Meifert shrugged and pushed open a steel door that had a wire-mesh grate over the glass. There was an unused, beat-up counter in an entryway with a scratched Plexiglas divider that led to a freight elevator. We all stepped over the opening between the floors, and Meifert clanged the heavy metal sliding gate that closed from the top and bottom, dropped another safety grating from above, and hit the button to his left.
The whine of the counterweight system and the condition of the cables inspired little confidence, but the battered elevator rose to the sixth, where Meifert aligned the black spraypainted arrows on the gate with the ones on the adjacent bricks. He lifted the safety gate, and we walked out into a large, industrial loft that was surrounded by eighteen-foot glass-paned walls. The floors were hardwood, and there was nothing in the 5,000 square feet except a painted teepee. It was in the center of the space, and its sixteen hand-peeled poles extended upward and into a ventilation cupola.
Everyone, including Meifert, looked surprised. “I take it this is new?”
Nobody said anything but turned and walked toward the structure that would have looked much more at home…well, back home. I watched as Gowder unsnapped the holster where his. 40 Glock rested.
It was a family-sized teepee with rows of ledger paintings traversing the heavy canvas. It sat there, a domestic island at the center of industrial isolation. As we got closer, I could see that the stake loops were tied off to Velcro straps that had been attached to the wooden floor and that there were buffalo rugs and blankets spilling from the opening even though the flap was secured and tied shut. There was a totem with a mule-deer skull that was painted and wrapped in trade cloth and beads in the Crow style. There were feathers and a fringe of leather draped from the upright pole, which stood in a slot that had been cut in the floor. The place was clean, the floors swept, and the hundreds of windowpanes had been washed and reflected the structure in the middle of the room.
Gowder was in the lead and turned to look back, the empty eye sockets of the antlered skull looking at me over his shoulder. He pointed at the head. “What in the hell is this?”
“A teepee marker.” They all looked at me blankly. “It’s kind of a combination welcome sign and mailbox.”
Everyone else stopped, but I continued to the right, reading the story of the drawings that circled the teepee. The centerline had caught my attention. There were horses with men on them, shooting at each other, not something totally unique to the form, but the details were different than those I was used to seeing. The men on horseback were not red but were white and black. They were not shooting arrows or Sharps but were firing modern weapons; one even wore a 76ers jersey. The uniforms of the white riders and their hats indicated that they were policeman, and the large man falling comically from the back of a horse wore a star on his chest. The centerline had not been finished.
There was a set of paints on the floor, a Dixie cup full of thinner, and a couple of brushes, one of which had paint on it. I stooped and touched the brush, and the bright red pigment was still wet. I looked around and spotted an open window hinged at the top at the back of the loft. “Is that a fire escape?” They all looked at me as I held up a fingertip daubed red. “He was just here.”
Gowder was the first to move, quietly slipping the Glock from his holster and heading for the fire escape while gesturing for Katz to take the stairwell. Asa’s sidearm appeared in his hand, and they fanned out. Meifert turned and looked at me. “I don’t carry.”
I caught Vic’s attention as she came around the other side and tossed her the. 45 from my pancake holster; I wished I were feeling better. I watched as she took the route I would have, the one toward the fire escape. She looked odd with my large-frame Colt in her small hands, but she held it with a confidence born of five years’ street duty, all in these very streets.
I watched them, sighed, and continued with my bruised ribs and aluminum-shrouded finger around the teepee. There were more ledger drawings on the backside-one with a man in a suit and tie pushing a red-haired woman from a cliff and then another of the same man falling from what looked like a burial platform: the Devon Conliffe story.
Vic returned with Gowder from the fire escape. He looked at the paints on the floor, kneeled, and tested the brush. Evidently, he didn’t trust my analysis. “Careful, or you’ll get it on your suit.”
He nodded and wiped his fingers on a stained towel that lay on the floor. “Nothing on the roof.”
I looked back at Meifert. “If you don’t mind my asking, how does a guy like William White Eyes have a place like this?”
“His uncle owned the building and left it to him in a trust.”
I straightened up and breathed for a minute. “I take it William comes from money?”
“Quite a bit, actually. The kid had it all, address in Gladwyne, Ivy League advanced degree in chemistry, even a shot at the Olympics in dressage.”
Interesting. I turned back to the front and looked at the closed flap. “I assume we are ignoring the fact that we might need a warrant.”
Meifert cocked his head. “It’s a tent.”
We stared at each other for a second, then I glanced over at Vic, tugged at the strips of canvas, and watched as the flaps opened. I looked into the relative darkness of the teepee. “I don’t suppose anyone has a flashlight?” They all shook their heads, so I kneeled for a better view. The top flaps were closed, so only a little light made it to the floor. There was stuff in there and the only way I was going to find out what it was was to go in, so I did, warrant be damned.
I was able to keep the finger guard from bumping into anything as I slid into the teepee with my legs trailing behind me. It had occurred to me that William White Eyes might be inside, but I couldn’t hear any breathing and made the assumption I was alone.
All I could see were the folds of more buffalo skins and a few Navajo blankets piled in one corner. There was nothing more in there; evidently, William White Eyes was living somewhere else. This place must be a work in progress or just for show, at least for now. I sat there in the muffled silence; I could barely hear the conversation among the three policemen outside. It felt like home, and I closed my eyes for just a moment to block out the talk, the traffic from the streets below, and the thunder of jets overhead.