His laugh almost deafened my ear. “Hah. Pretty good, huh? I told you he was twitchy. He kept all the files-there weren’t that many, anyhow. See, he went with the firm that bought most of the bits and pieces of Articu-Tech after they folded. I don’t know if that meant they also bought the liability if something went wrong with an implant, but I figured this guy was the type to think that way, just to be on the safe side. I mean, we’re talking major compulsive here, right? I gave him the number and he pulled the file, like he had it right under his hand. Must be weird being married to a mind like that, huh?”
“He didn’t say where in Chicago, or who, did he?”
“Oh, no-I could’ve told you that. They didn’t give a damn about that part of it. The records only reflected what was interesting to them-the design evolution, the alloy mixes used, stuff like that. They didn’t track who bought ’em. I asked who the sales rep was, just for laughs-I mean, you never know, right? But he drew a blank. Chicago’s the best I can tell you, and all three of ’em sold, so it shouldn’t be too hard to locate who put the one in your skeleton. Hey, tell me something. What did your guy die of?”
It was obviously payoff time, which he had richly deserved. It made me sad not only to disappoint him but to mislead him, as well. “Can’t say. We think he died of a heart attack, hunting in the woods. We just have to get an ID on him. Pretty routine, I’m afraid. By the way, do you have an approximate date when the implants were delivered to the Chicago area?”
“Yeah, early ’69.”
“Would that mean that the knee was put in around the same time? Or can things like that sit on the shelf for a long time?”
“Beats me. You may have to go to Chicago to find that out.”
15
I found Tony Brandt where his secretary said he would be, sitting alone on the glassed-in second-floor balcony of the Common Ground Restaurant, overlooking Elliot Street. It was just after 4:30 in the afternoon, and the place was officially closed, except for the odd tea drinker who could serve himself from a side counter lined with a wide variety of leaf-filled jars. The Common Ground was a perfectly preserved throwback to the 1960s, serving a full line of Indian-influenced vegetarian meals sporting strange names and sometimes stranger appearances. It was an unusual place for a cop-which partially explained Brandt’s presence. He was rarely one to do the expected.
He was sitting at a small corner table, where he could watch the street below, holding a mug in both hands, just below his chin, so he could fully catch the aroma. “Hi, Joe,” he said without surprise.
I pulled out the chair opposite him and sat down. “Hi, yourself. What’re you drinking?”
He glanced down at the mug. “Don’t know. The label was too long to read; tastes good, though. How was Burlington?”
“I think it’s given me the only strong lead we’ve got.”
“Will it give us last night’s shooter?”
“Maybe, in a roundabout way.”
“How roundabout?” His eyes were still on the street, which I could see reflected in his rimless glasses.
“Chicago in the late sixties.”
He looked at me and smiled thinly. “Time travel? They’ll love the voucher on that one.”
He finally put the cup down and sat back in his chair, his arms crossed. “All right, give me the guided tour.”
“Fred Coyner’s wife died in 1970, after her cancer wiped out the family finances.”
Brandt nodded, having read the updated reports.
“But right after her death, Coyner settled all his debts, from what we can tell, just about the time Abraham Fuller set up camp in his back forty. Considering the amount of money we found at Fuller’s, it seems likely he paid off Coyner to hide him. I think that’s what Fuller meant when he accused Coyner of a ‘breach of faith’ for calling the ambulance.”
“All right.”
“There are more people involved in this than just Fuller, as our little encounter with the machine gunner made clear…”
Brandt shook his head. “Hold it; couldn’t that have been Coyner? Didn’t you think he’d taken the chart?”
“Yes, yes, but bear with me, okay? There are a lot of coincidences involving 1969 that go well beyond Coyner. Coyner, after all, we can account for up to 1970. The money in Fuller’s possession, thanks to the bank bands, can be dated back to ’69, and so can the artificial knee. Hillstrom and her anthropologist pal swear the guy wearing it died within a few months of the operation. Also, the ammunition used in the ambush last night was made in 1967, and while Hillstrom can’t swear that Fuller’s original wound is older than five years, she did say that, based on her experience, she’d guess it was much older. Long story short, an amazing amount of shit was hitting the fan back then, and I don’t think Fred Coyner played a bigger role than landlord in any of it.”
Brandt merely shrugged.
I leaned forward. “All right. Why would Coyner steal the chart? It’s not his-the birth date is all wrong-and the astrologer I consulted pegged the chart owner as a neurotic loner, and maybe a homosexual male. Coyner was married for decades and almost flipped out when his wife died. If the chart was Fuller’s, which does sound more likely, it still makes no sense, ’cause he’s already dead and there’d be no point stealing it, unless, of course, it either meant a great deal to somebody-like a grieving lover, maybe-or it implicated someone.
“In any case, all three of those possibilities point to a missing person-the same person Fuller left a message for when he circled the title of The Scarlet Letter with blood from his fingertip.”
“All right,” Brandt conceded, “maybe there is a missing player; why Chicago?”
“I just came from the office. So far there’s been no feedback on the bank notes, or on Fuller’s face and prints, or on any unsolved twenty-year-old shootings. Nor have we found any medical facility or doctor who admits treating a wound like Fuller’s back then. On the prints, we haven’t heard from the FBI officially yet, but I called a contact there, and he told me to forget it. And the Secret Service came up blank on the money-as far as they’re concerned, it’s clean.
“Now, Richard Schimke-he’s the money expert I talked to at the bank-says those hundred-dollar bills came from the West and the Midwest, not from around here, and we confirmed that with the Secret Service. Finally, I traced that skeleton’s metal knee to a company called Articu-Tech, which sold three like it in the Chicago area in 1969. It seems reasonable to me that at least some of the answers to this case are out there. It was pretty obvious that whoever took those shots at us last night wanted to destroy the skeleton; I think it’s because he was afraid the knee would point us to Chicago. If nothing else, I ought to be able to come up with an I.D. for the guy in the grave.”
Brandt thought all that over for a few moments, gently sliding his cup back and forth on the table before him. “What about the search for the shooter?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. Kunkle’s the best on that kind of digging, and he warned us to expect little or less. He says there aren’t even ripples out on the street-his contacts are as curious as we are about it.”
Brandt made a face, rose to his feet, and began heading for the door. “Okay, you got it-one trip to Chicago. I’ll give you a week to match that kneecap to a name.”
Gail rested against the headboard of my bed, sitting cross-legged on both pillows, watching me as I packed. “Chicago. I’ve always wanted to go there. It’s supposed to be wonderful.”
“I doubt I’ll get to enjoy the highlights. With my luck, I’ll be stuck pawing through hospital medical records.”
“I wish we could go together.” Her voice was soft and wistful.
I paused to squeeze her foot. “I’ll keep my eye peeled for hot spots. If it looks like a fun town, maybe we could go there on vacation sometime.”
She smiled doubtfully and changed the subject, knowing from experience it never led anywhere. A small-town boy with a penchant for confusing work with pleasure, I didn’t yearn for time off, nor did I feel comfortable far from home. It was a provincialism she often worked to erode, although not this time. “What ever happened with Billie? You never told me.”