Dead Man s Hand Page 0,50

at the detective. "You don't like me or what I do, and I couldn't care less. I do what I have to."

"Ambushing innocent-"

"I can't point my finger at people and make them go away," Brennan said in the same hard voice. "And no one I killed was innocent. Maybe not everyone deserved to die for what they'd done, but they were playing the game, consciously and willingly. I'm not to blame if they were too stupid to realize the consequences of their involvement."

"Game?" Ackroyd asked. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Brennan gestured angrily. "I'm not going to justify myself to you. I'll just say this. It is"-he stopped, looked at Jennifer and corrected himself-"was me against the Shadow Fists. One man against hundreds. I did what I had to do. I don't regret any of it. Nor have I forgotten any of it."

"What you had to-"

"That's that," Brennan said flatly. "We have more important things to discuss. We don't have to be friends. We don't have to like each other. We don't have to work together. But we should talk."

Ackroyd nodded, but gestured stubbornly with his bound hands. "I'm not saying anything tied up like this."

"All right." Brennan drew a knife from his ankle sheath and slashed Ackroyd's bonds. The two men stared at each other for a long moment as Ackroyd rubbed his wrists angrily and then tenderly felt his nose.

"My name," Brennan prompted.

Ackroyd shrugged. "All right. Sascha gave it to me. He said he'd plucked it from Chrysalis's mind. Said you were probably involved in the murder, though I figure he was lying. Something had him really scared. Why all this mystery about your real identity, anyway? Other than the fact that you're wanted for multiple homicides, of course."

Brennan looked at him coolly. "I'm in the country illegally. Maybe I'll explain it someday when we have a couple of spare hours. Only Wraith"-he nodded at Jennifer-"and my enemy knew my name. Apparently also Chrysalis."

"You're wanted by the feds?"

"I deserted from the army. It's complicated and it doesn't have anything to do with Chrysalis's death. If she's really dead," Brennan said significantly.

"If?" Ackroyd said. "What do you mean `if? I found her body."

"Are you sure?"

"Sure? She was not merely dead, she was most sincerely dead."

Brennan sighed, rubbed his face tiredly. "I don't know ....." he said softly.

"Look, are you crazier than I think, or what? I saw her-"

"And I heard her voice. Yesterday."

"What?" Ackroyd asked quietly.

"And I heard her voice today," Jennifer added. Brennan looked at him closely. "What is it?"

"I heard it, too," Ackroyd admitted quietly. Then he looked at Brennan and shook his head. "But it couldn't have been her voice. Christ, I was just at the funeral parlor where she was lying in her coffin."

"You're certain, one hundred percent certain, that it was Chrysalis in the coffin?"

"Do you know anyone else with invisible skin?" Ackroyd said. "It was her body I found. Besides, the wiseguy who called me had to be an imposter. She didn't know the, uh, real story of the relationship between me and Chrysalis and she was telling me all kinds of screwy stuff. Claimed you'd been captured by eskimos."

Brennan sighed and shook his head. "Well, she was right about that." He held up his hand, forestalling any more questions on Ackroyd's part. "All right. So you're convinced she's dead. Do you have any suspects, any idea at all who killed her?"

Ackroyd looked at him for a long moment before he spoke. "Suspects I got." He fished a sheet of paper out of the inside breast pocket of his battered jacket and handed it to Brennan. It was soggy and had the same horrible smell that Ackroyd had. It was a list of names, most of them crossed off. "These are your candidates?" Brennan asked as Jennifer peered at the list over his shoulder.

Ackroyd nodded. "Those that are left. I crossed the others off because of my years of experience as a trained investigator and my keen insights into the human psyche."

"Hmmm," Brennan said. "Well, you can also cross off Bludgeon. I beat the hell out of him this morning in a place called Squisher's Basement."

"You?"

"Don't look so surprised," Brennan said with something of a smile. "Actually, something's wrong with him. He's obviously sick. He claimed that he killed Chrysalis, but he didn't know enough details to make his claim convincing. It was all just a pathetic attempt to rebuild his reputation."

"Okay." Ackroyd produced a pen and struck a line through Bludgeon's