Broken English

CHAPTER 2: THURSDAY

9:02 AM, Monterey

         Kitfox sat at the small desk in his room at the Holiday Inn. He had a view of Monterey's old residential district and an overgrown cemetery that reminded him of the Spanish moss around New Orleans or Charleston, but he wasn't interested in the view. Spread out before him were the sparse case notes he had brought from San Francisco, and he was using the information he had gathered yesterday, attempting to piece together a comprehensive chronology, when the phone rang.
         "Good morning, Leon Kitfox speaking."
         "Leon, Harvey here," his boss greeted him. "How is it going?"
         "Pretty well in general. I'm just trying to put all the facts I have together."
         "Well, Leon, that's what I'm calling about. See, it's nine o'clock, and we were just wondering why you aren't back yet."
         "We, sir?"
         "Mr. Kreiger and myself. See, all you had to do was check on one simple fact. You've been down there a whole day already, and we were rather surprised when you weren't at your desk bright and early this morning."
         "And you think I'm taking a vacation at the taxpayers' expense."
         "Now, Leon, I didn't say that."
         "You might as well have. Is that what this is, a speed contest? I can clear us right now if we're in a race with somebody."
         "Calm down, Leon. Are we clear or not?"
         "No," he lied. "It looks like we will be, but there are a few more things to check."
         "All right. Why are you sitting around the hotel, then?"
         "I'm assembling a chronology so that I'll know what needs checking. Look, boss, if we're out of the Justice Department and have been transferred to the Federal Bureau of Lip Service or something. just tell me now, and I'll be back in an hour."
         "Are you going to lecture me about justice, Leon?"
         "I only meant—"
         "Answer the question."
         "No, sir, I'm not."
         "That's good, because then I would have to ask you where the justice was for that woman in Sausalito last spring. You know, the one who got killed while you were down in the sewer playing Beauty and the Beast."
         "I remember." He did indeed remember. The girl's throat had been slashed so deeply she had almost been decapitated. It was a raw nerve for him. He expected it always would be.
         "I'm glad you do," Dixon said. "A lot of people here remember it, too. Look, I'm trying to help you. You're a good agent, except you watch too much science fiction. Take this case for example. You've got a woman down there who stabbed a guy to death. That's not in question. Your mission is to find out whether she killed a second guy, but no, you've met her, you like her, and right now as we speak, you're trying to pull some scenario out of your ass in which the Martians beamed down from the mother ship, cut this guy up like stew meat, and handed her the knife, aren't you?"
         "No, of course not."
         "Aren't you?"
         Silence.
         "Look, Leon, you keep messing around with this, and you're going to get your ass in a sling that I can't get you out of. Now, find the page and get on it. It's, did she do Reno, yes or no? That's all that's necessary. Got it?"
         "Got it."
         "Good. Now, just find out what her alibi is and try to break it. Once you do or you don't, get back up here. This desk of yours can't hold too much more."
         "Oh, thanks, boss."
         "Don't thank me, you're the one that's off screwing around. Just get on it."
         "Yes, sir. I'll call as soon as I have something. Goodbye."
         He hung up the phone without really knowing why he hadn't told his boss about Susan Darnall's work schedule on that fateful Sunday.

10:02 AM, Monterey

         To say that Zamora found Kitfox to be an unusual study for an FBI agent would be the height of understatement. Not that she'd worked with that many, but those she had were always so stuffed-shirt, just-the-facts that she somehow felt that she was a suspect. Kitfox not only didn't think she was a suspect, he didn't seem to think her suspect was a suspect.
         She pulled her unmarked car into the brownstone parking structure between Del Monte and Franklin and parked on the first level.
         "This is where Durant parked every day," she said as they got out. "He would have walked down from the bank, two blocks up Alvarado."
         "Any possibility Darnall was following?" Kitfox asked as he walked beside her.
         "No, we're pretty sure she was lying in wait," Zamora said as they approached the south elevator.
         "Making it capital murder."
         "Well, that means she would have had to research the man, his habits, his car, where he parked it, even known he was going to put in three hours overtime on the night of the murder."
         "Maybe that explains the clothes," Kitfox said as she pushed the button for level three. "Maybe she expected him much earlier, and she wound up waiting in here for three hours."
         "That's possible, though not likely. I'll show you why when we get up there. In any case, it doesn't change anything. Whether she had to wait up here or not, the important circumstances remain in play."
         "I suppose."
         The elevator stopped and the door opened on the third level. This was a very different scene. While there were still plenty of cars up here, it wasn't the packed and bustling scene of level one. Most cars had empty spaces on both sides and there was no one in view anywhere.
         "Most of the locals who work downtown park up here," she told him. "Level one and, during the season, level two, are full of tourists and the people who prey on them. Up here, your car is less likely to be bashed or broken into. You can see how it is now, and this is late morning. Imagine what it's like when everyone has gone home."
         "Yes, I see." He followed her toward the south face as she continued her narrative.
         "One of the first things we did was go door to door among the businesses asking everyone we could find who parks up here whether they saw anything unusual on the night of the murder. After they said no, we asked specifically about any suspicious persons lurking around with no apparent reason to be here."
         "And nobody remembered Darnall?"
         "No. I have to believe that if she'd been up here for three hours, somebody would have seen her."
         They arrived at a parking space against the south face, empty, and Zamora pointed out a large brown stain straddling the line between it and the next one, which was occupied by a red Nissan.
         "This is where he was stabbed multiple times by his assailant. Now, if you look around, you'll see there are no nearby hiding places."
         "There could have been a large vehicle parked nearby."
         "Not according to the report. The patrolmen were up here within minutes."
         "A lot can happen in minutes."
         "We checked the records. Nothing left during those minutes. Anyway, despite that, we're pretty sure she ambushed him."
         "How do you know that?"
         "All but one of the stab wounds were in the front, administered as he laid on his back already dying, but one was in the back. Punctured his right kidney and damaged his small intestine. That had to be incredibly painful. Most people wouldn't remain conscious. Darnall is right-handed, and that's consistent with her coming up behind him and delivering the blow that laid him out."
         "So, if she got over here quickly and silently enough to strike him during the short time he was opening his door, that implies some sort of martial arts practice, be it the military, judo or karate, something like that."
         "It seems to."
         "And does she have any?"
         "None that we can locate."
         "And there's where your scenario breaks down."
         "No, she did it, there's just some other explanation. She may have studied dance or gymnastics when she was younger. Those people can be pretty light-footed. What we have to do now is crack through this amnesia, which I'm still not convinced is genuine, by the way."
         "Has she had an evaluation?"
         "No. Her lawyer is asking for a court order first."
         "That's good. You violate her due process and she'll walk no matter what. But let's say she committed one of the bloodiest crimes in local history. If she's really the devoted pacifist she says she is, the realization of what she's done could have set up some kind of block to reality."
         "Really, Doctor?"
         "Hey, come on!"
         "No, you come on. If she's really the devoted pacifist she says she is, then she didn't dress for a fight, select a weapon, and lie in wait so she could butcher one of the community's most respected businessmen. You'll need another theory, Doc. Seen enough?"
         "Yeah."
         "Let's get out of here, then."
         "Oh, did Darnall drive here?"
         "No, she walked. She lives on Anthony, by the park. It's only five blocks. Her husband and son didn't even know she'd left. Come on, I'll be late for court. Lunch is on me."

12:58 PM, Monterey

         A casual tourist in slacks and a polo shirt, Kitfox strolled through the capacious aquarium. Zamora would be tied up in court all afternoon, he was a paying guest, and no one would be the wiser as he conducted his research.
         The grandeur of the place was staggering, and he had no difficulty entering his role as a fascinated tourist. He had stood spellbound before the gently waving fronds of the Kelp Forest for twenty minutes watching a thousand fish ply their trade among the big brown leaves as the crabs and lobsters foraged below. Now, he was staring through the world's largest window into the murky depths of the Outer Bay exhibit, wondering how on earth they had gotten predators and prey to coexist like this. That was a trick that law enforcement could profit by learning.
         Watching the big seven-gill shark cruise past the glass one last time, Kitfox made the almost unconscious adjustment to work mode, and began to tackle the task at hand. Strolling left to a corridor decorated with breathtaking open ocean photography, he headed back toward the Flippers, Flukes, and Fun area, his ears assailed by the rising sounds of excited children as he approached.
         Turning left from the hall, he saw that all the children were in a room beyond, doing he cared not to see what. To his left was a snack window manned by an acne-plagued surfer type, and it was to this window he went.
         "May I help you, sir?" the kid said before he even reached the window. Fresh young go-getter; that would soon be beaten out of him.
         "Fritos and a Pepsi," Kitfox said, opening his wallet. "Is Susan working today?"
         "Little blonde Susan?"
         "No. Thirty-something, dark hair."
         "Oh, Mrs. Darnall. Are you a friend of hers?"
         "I wouldn't call it that. I come down once in a while to get away from it all, and we've talked a few times. She seems nice. I thought I might talk to her again."
         "Dude, we all thought she was nice. You haven't heard, I guess?"
         "Heard what?"
         The kid leaned forward and looked outside before continuing.
         "She killed a bank executive the other day. Cut him to ribbons with a butcher knife."
         "No!"
         Kitfox was properly shocked.
         "Yeah, dude! The cops found her right after she did it. The news said she had his blood all over her."
         "But she was so pleasant."
         "Yeah, she was. Everybody here liked her, that's for sure. Just goes to show you, I guess."
         "What's that?"
         "Everybody's got, like, negative vibes, man, and if you don't have an outlet for them, they're coming out anyway."
         "You could be right."
         "I know I'm right, man. Just look at Susan."
         "I guess so. What's your outlet?"
         "Surf, dude. Nothin' else compares to it."
         "That's good, kid," the FBI agent said, thinking of all the kids this boy's age who had made one wrong turn somewhere and were doing time or pushing up grass. "Stick with it."
         He paid for his snacks and stepped away.
         "Nice talking to you, man," the kid said. "Have a great day."
         A nice person, Kitfox thought as he stepped around the corner and dropped the junk food into a waste can. Of course, so was Darnall.
         He made his way down to the main floor, careful not to look too purposeful, and feigning interest in the family of gray whales hanging from the high ceiling, walked back to the Portola Cafe, really a cafeteria-style snack bar with some of the most outrageous prices north of Sea World. This time he ordered a hot dog and a milk, and as he fished out the seven dollars, he asked his innocuous question.
         "Is Susan working today?"
         "Susan?" the middle-aged volunteer behind the counter repeated. "Susan Blakely or Susan Darnall?"
         "I don't know her last name. Dark hair, thirtyish."
         "Are you a friend of hers?"
         Good, lady. Don't talk to strangers.
         "No. We've just met here a couple of times when I've visited. I just thought I'd say hi if she was here."
         "Oh, I see. Well, she isn't here today."
         "That's too bad. Do you know when she'll be working again?"
         "Not anytime soon, I'm afraid."
         "Oh? Is she all right?"
         "Hardly. She's been arrested for murder. It's the biggest story from here to Seattle."
         "My God, I hadn't heard! She seemed so nice."
         "Yes, they all do, don't they?"
         "Come again?"
         "Well, you see it all the time, don't you? When somebody goes off and murders their whole family, it's never some drugged-out gang kid, is it? It's always some decorated Eagle Scout or an honor student or something. All the school shootings you hear about, it's never anyone you'd suspect, is it?"
         "I never thought of that. So, you must have seen it coming, then?"
         "Well, not specifically." She set his hot dog on a paper plate atop the glass food case and put the cardboard milk carton beside it. "She had trouble at home, though. The sweet ones always do."
         "That's a shame," Kitfox said, trying hard not to sound interested. "What was she, being abused or something?"
         "No, at least not so it showed, but she never talked much about her home life. I don't think it offered her much, if you get my drift."
         "No, I'm afraid I don't."
         "Well, when you're just nice all the time and there's nothing stimulating going on there... Well, it had to be tough on her husband. Tough on her, for that matter."
         "You knew the family, then?"
         "Oh, no. He brought the kid in a couple of times to pick her up. You can just tell, you know? You'd have to see him to understand."
         "Good afternoon, Sharon," came a familiar voice from just behind him. "I see you've met FBI Agent Kitfox."
         The woman's jaw dropped, and Kitfox turned to see Donna Maple standing behind him looking none too happy.
         "Agent Kitfox is investigating Susan's involvement in our local murder. But of course, he told you all that."
         "N-no, ma'am," the woman stammered.
         "I see. Are you going to eat that, or was it merely purchased as a blind?"
         "At these prices, I have to eat it."
         "Bring it with you, then," Maple said, and walked to a corner table. They sat down together, and as he reached for the mustard bottle, Maple continued.
         "Agent Kitfox, I appreciate that you are trying to help Susan, or at least, I did. Perhaps you lied to me as well."
         "No, ma'am."
         "Well, be that as it may, if you wish to come here as a paying guest and enjoy our exhibits, we will be pleased to welcome you as such. If, however, you are working on your case, I will let you in for free and ask you to keep your credentials in plain sight at all times, do I make myself clear?"
         "Crystal clear, madam."
         "Good." Maple rose to go. "And, Mr. Kitfox, take anything that woman may have told you with a large grain of salt. She's the biggest gossip since Judas."

1:24 PM, Monterey

         She was long and lean, auburn hair pulled back into a short ponytail that lay in a well-behaved apostrophe between her shoulders as her fifteen-speed bicycle made a graceful, sweeping turn into the garage below the Monterey Marriott. Her name was Kathy Benson, and she was the social coordinator for the hotel and conference center. This was one of those titles that meant she did everything but wash dishes, but the outgoing twenty-five-year-old loved it.
         From the heady responsibility of coordinating the facilities and activities of one of the Pacific Rim's most prestigious hostelries to the simple pleasure of working the lobby and mixing with the guests, Kathy was in her element. She had started working part-time in reception four years ago and had long since ceased to visualize any other career. Today was her first day back from vacation, and she was fresh, new, and ready to launch herself into her routine.
         "Kathy, hi!"
         The voice belonged to a black-haired woman who opened a side door as Kathy carried her bike up the service stairwell toward the rear. "I didn't know you were back."
         "Hi, Carmen!" The best friends exchanged an air kiss toward each other. "This is my first day back. I've been trapped in my office all morning."
         "First day back? This is Thursday." Carmen Medina joined Kathy for the two additional flights to the staff offices.
         "Always travel mid-week," Kathy advised her. "That way you miss the weekend rush."
         "So, how was Cabo?"
         "Oh, it was heaven! I would have stayed an extra week if we didn't have this conference coming up."
         "A bunch of stodgy old bankers and whatnot? We could have handled it, really." Medina held the door as Benson wrestled her bike through it.
         "Have you forgotten all I've taught you? We don't make those judgments. If it's important enough for them to come here, it's important enough for our best attention."
         "I was just kidding, but really, we could have done it."
         "I know." They reached her office, and she leaned her bike against the wall and tossed her purple helmet toward the closet. "I'd been gone long enough. Cabo was nice, but why do I need to stay there when the world comes to me?"
         "I need to rent some of that attitude."
         Benson took a hairbrush from her desk drawer, a neat, cream-colored hotel uniform from the closet, a rather small purse from her chair, and headed across the hall to the ladies' room.
         "What did you do there?"
         Benson stepped into a stall and began to change from her spandex bike suit to her tasteful hotel clothes.
         "I swam, I read, I walked on the beach in the moonlight... I guess you could sum it all up by saying I rested."
         "And...?"
         "And what?"
         "And, you know!"
         "No, I don't." Benson stepped out of the stall dressed now in her pants-suit, looking disheveled, and going to the big mirror in the entry to apply the final polish.
         "You know, what about, did you meet any guys?"
         "A few."
         "Aaaand?"
         "And what, did I sleep with them?"
         "Yeeeees!"
         "Nooooo. Honestly, Carmen, I didn't go down there to get laid. I can do that at home."
         "Yeah, if you like same-o, same-o. I hear Cabo's just full of Latin lovers."
         Benson studied her friend's face in the mirror. She was what people called a voluptuous beauty, a full-blooded Portuguesa, a little heavy to Benson's way of thinking, which was to say that she was round in all the right places, and her olive-skinned face was dominated by full, pouty lips. It was a look that made guys fall down and try to keep breathing, and that quest for the Cosmic Orgasm she was on certainly didn't detract from the look. She shook her head at her friend's brazen talk.
         "It isn't restful to me to spend my time wondering what my sex partner was doing to who an hour before I met him." She began to reapply her eyeliner. "Then there's the little thing about how my fiancé would take it if he found out. Not a pretty picture. It was just pure relaxation, from being waited on like a princess to catching up with my reading, to doing what I wanted when I wanted. They even had nature sounds in the headboard. The last thing I needed was some grunting gigolo screwing that up."
         The two friends shared a laugh at the imagery.
         "Well, you make it sound too good for us working girls. I'll have to save up and get down there."
         "I'll hook you up with my travel agent. You'd be amazed how affordable it is."
         "I'll look into it. I'd better get back to work, though. It wouldn't do for Her Highness to come in here and find me socializing with the social director."
         "Okay," Benson said around a lip-liner brush. "I'll see you later on, then."

2:19 PM, San Francisco

         "Harvey, come in, sit down," Kreiger greeted him.
         Harvey Dixon entered his boss's office for maybe the thousandth time since he had become the Assistant Special Agent in Charge. This time, instead of being seated behind his desk, SAC Kreiger, head of the San Francisco field office, was seated at the long conference table with two other people, a man and a woman. He took a chair across from them, sizing them up as he did so. The woman looked like a liberated feminist from the mid-seventies, a miniature man in a tailored business suit. The man, thin and sallow faced, had the pinched look of a bean counter.
         "Harvey, you know Dr. Fields."
         "Yes." Dixon nodded toward the woman, Dr. Jacqueline Fields. Dr. Fields was a psychologist with the Office of Professional Responsibility, the dreaded OPR, a branch which investigated allegations of misconduct by field agents. It operated out of Washington, directly responsible to the Deputy Director, but for the past four months this shrink had been attached to the local office, and no one could find out why.
         "And this is Oscar Stevenson of the Inspection Division. I've asked him to sit in on this meeting for evaluation purposes, and also on the chance that he may have something to contribute."
         "How do you do?" The inspector rose to a crouch and offered a cold-fish handshake.
         "Pleased to meet you."
         "All right," Kreiger began, "to get right to it, the subject of this meeting is the performance of Special Agent Leon Kitfox, currently on a routine assignment in Monterey. As you all know, Agent Kitfox was sent to Monterey yesterday on a simple jurisdiction determination concerning a suspect the local police have in custody. We anticipated a few hours at most to make a few inquiries and report back. It is now coming up on two days, and Agent Kitfox has offered no finding on his assignment, other than to say the suspect, who was apprehended covered in the victim's blood with the murder weapon in her hand, doesn't fit the profile, and he's still investigating."
         "Is that unusual?" the bean counter asked. "I mean, you want a fair and complete assessment, don't you?"
         "Special Agent Kitfox has a predisposition toward fantastic scenarios," Dr. Fields responded.
         "Now, hold on, Doctor," Dixon said. "That's a pretty serious accusation to level against a field operative."
         "It is nonetheless true," she said, making a show of flipping pages in a folder before her. "According to his own reports, last year he was sent to Sausalito in response to a request for Bureau assistance with a serial rapist. While he diverted local law enforcement resources into a fruitless search for some imaginary denizens of the storm drainage system, another woman was raped, and this time killed in the attack."
         "I say!" Stevenson exclaimed.
         "And if you spent as much time looking for facts as you do looking for faults," Dixon told her, "You'd also be noting that he was following a perfectly legitimate evidence trail at the time."
         "A trail that was planted by the perpetrator to mislead his pursuers."
         "How nice it would be if we could all spot false leads without the benefit of hindsight."
         "Use of the deductive process is supposed to eliminate the pursuit of false leads."
         "Bull shit!" Dixon said, making it two distinct words. "Have you ever been out in the field, Doctor, with nothing to go on but a cigarette butt and three pubic hairs while victim after victim piles up around you?"
         "That's beside the point."
         "That is the point! It's pretty God damned disingenuous—"
         "Harvey," Kreiger warned.
         "Pretty disingenuous for you to send him out on an assignment, then sit around here second-guessing him while he's trying to work. If you don't trust him to work in the field, then fire him, or put him on admin duties, but as long as he's a field agent, he deserves better than this."
         "Harvey, you're overreacting," Kreiger said.
         "I have to agree," said Fields.
         "I guess you'll be making a file on me next," Dixon said.
         "I'm afraid I have to side with the A-sack on this one," said Stevenson. "This smacks of politicking over any sort of operational effectiveness."
         "With all due respect, Inspector, who asked you?"
         "You did, Mr. Kreiger. It would have been child's play to hold this meeting while I was otherwise occupied, but instead you made a point of inviting me to it. I can only take that to mean that you expect an evaluation. Your assistant is absolutely right. If this agent is incompetent, then gather your evidence and charge him before the OPR. Otherwise, if you choose to send him to the field, he deserves your full support. I'm afraid this incident will command a prominent place in my final report.
         "Now look," Kreiger said in an entirely different tone, "we have these little discussions all the time. It's like playing devil's advocate. It's how we keep involved with our field operations. There's no need to put a negative spin on it."
         "I don't have to," the bean counter said, getting up and closing his notebook. "This is the most appalling back room maneuvering I've witnessed in my four years with the Inspection Division. If you've no further need of me, I'm going outside to get some air."
         "I'll join you," Dixon said, getting up without asking for permission.
         "All right," Kreiger said, "we'll continue Kitfox in place for now, but I'm warning you, there'd better not be any little green men from Uranus in his report."
         Dixon left without answering, and joined the inspector in the hall.
         "I'd like to thank you for taking my side in there," he said, thinking that allies could be found in the strangest places.
         "No thanks are necessary, A-sack. Right is right. I may have frightened your boss off with my little speech, but that shrink is a different matter. She seems to have her sights set on your agent for some reason of her own, and he may be in more trouble than anyone knows right now. You'd do well to keep an eye on her, Dixon. Well, I have to get back. Watch your six!"