was going on, but, as with everything else, he saw no advantage in letting the rest of the world in on it.
He took a quick look around the neighborhood before inserting the claw end of the Halligan bar into the frame of the gate and in a quick, smooth pull, popped it open. He didn’t bother using the tool on the front door. After testing the knob, he swung his hip into it, snapping it open. Kate followed him back to the bedroom where Bertok had died the day before. He pulled up the window sash and yanked on the bars again, watching the points where the metal ends were anchored into the outside wall. Stepping to the right side, he inspected the casing that trimmed the inside of the window. “Did you bring any evidence gloves?”
“Very subtle, Vail. Give me the keys, and I’ll get the evidence kit.”
When she came back in, she set the case down and opened it. She handed him a pair of gloves. “You do remember that this place has been processed?”
“Only in the places that fit the story.”
“Story? That’s what happened.”
“Take a magician—are his illusions the truth or are they fiction? What you believe you see is fiction. Only when you know how the trick is done does it become truth.”
As much as Kate had come to expect miracles from Vail, this seemed too far-fetched even for him. “This was all some kind of trick?”
“Let’s start with the way we traced Bertok to this place. Anything bother you about that?”
“What do you mean? I thought it was a nice investigative string that led us to him.”
“That’s just it, a nice string. I’ve never seen one fall into place so neatly. The call to Bertok’s apartment leads to the Laundromat, then to the motel and the DMV and finally here. All in less than two hours. And of the more than eight thousand hours in a year, all three of us show up here at the same moment. It was almost like one of those training exercises that Quantico dreams up for new agents out at the combat village.”
Kate considered Vail’s refusal to accept the obvious. She wondered if it was a discipline, or a reaction to a demanding father whom he had once referred to as the sire of his “world-class scorn.” Either way, the result was Vail’s ability to find his way through a maze that everyone else failed to realize existed. And while it was an extraordinary thing to witness, Kate wondered if it wasn’t a coping mechanism. “I see your point about it all falling into place nicely, but doesn’t that occasionally happen? Ballistics has confirmed that Stanley Bertok shot at you, barricaded himself, and then committed suicide with his issued handgun, which was also used in four murders.”
“It wasn’t Bertok,” Vail said without the least bit of uncertainty.
“What?” Kate said, her volume unintentionally incredulous. “I’m pretty sure the guy in the morgue is Bertok.”
“It is, but that’s not who shot at me and is probably not who committed the murders.”
“Based on what?”
Vail ignored the question. “Don’t you think it was very convenient that he came into the Laundromat just after the woman we talked to arrived, almost like he was waiting for a witness. He made sure she noticed him with all that hassle about the hundred-dollar bill. And the bill happens to be one of the punctured ones from the drop, so there’s no doubt about its origin. But he’s all covered up to the extent that she can’t identify Bertok’s photo. Then he conveniently pulls across the street to the motel in plain sight of her.”
“But he had the identical clothing on when SWAT broke in here and found him.”
“Did you take a look at the body?”
“Not really. I mean I saw it, but I haven’t been around enough of that sort of thing to know what to look for.”
“First of all, he didn’t have cigarettes on his breath. I checked the evidence sheets last night. He didn’t have any cigarettes or a lighter on his person. Remember his apartment, what a heavy smoker he was?”
“Maybe he quit.”
“Maybe, but it would have been a pretty stressful time to start worrying about lung cancer. But more definitively, the blood coming from his temple had completely dried and crystallized.”
“Meaning?”
“It takes a while for that to happen. Longer than the time between the shot and SWAT breaking in.”
“Are you saying he was already dead?”
“Yes.”
“Then who shot at you?”
“Whoever was at the