Devoted(95)
“Who the hell is Nathan Palmer?”
“He killed a couple of people yesterday afternoon. His real name seems to be Lee Shacket.”
Ludlow was for a moment speechless. Lee Shacket? The CEO of Refine? Because he only knew what the media was reporting about events in Springville, he said, “But Shacket is dead. Everyone’s dead there.”
“Everyone’s dead where?” Verbotski asked.
Ludlow bit his lip and finally said, “Shacket knew Megan Bookman a long time ago. Why the hell would he go after her now?”
“Why do crazy guys go after women all the time?” Verbotski said. “That’s a rhetorical question.”
“Who’re the two people Shacket killed?”
“Four. There’ve been two more since he went after the lady and failed to get her.”
After Verbotski listed the killings and gave what details he knew, Ludlow could not suppress his astonishment. “He beheaded a guy? He bit people? He ate people?”
“Parts of people, not whole people,” Verbotski clarified. “He’s some kind of freak. You knew this freak?”
Ignoring the question, Ludlow said, “And he’s still there in Pinehaven?”
“They don’t know. He stole a pickup. He’s on the run. It’s a ’48 Ford pickup, custom hot rod. So it should be easy to spot.”
“Holy shit, this must be big news. I never listen to the news, I’m done with news. But this must be wall-to-wall on cable.”
“Not yet. The sheriff hasn’t released a statement.”
“Hasn’t released a statement about four murders and the suspect on the loose? That’s insane. The first murders were yesterday when—afternoon?”
“Yeah. But it looks like, last night, jurisdiction on those was transferred to the attorney general in Sacramento.”
Ludlow rose from the sofa. “To Tio Barbizon?”
“Yeah, I think that’s the name.”
Shacket was supposed to be dead in Springville. He wasn’t. Tio Barbizon had taken jurisdiction in the first two murders—and had not yet conducted a press briefing or issued any statement. Tio was in Dorian Purcell’s pocket and always had been.
Ludlow stood in silence with the phone pressed to his ear so long that Verbotski at last said, “You still there?”
“Yeah.”
“We can’t move on the lady with all those deputies there.”
“Stay put. She’s still on the agenda. I’ve got to make another call. Then I’ll be back to you.”
Ludlow pressed End.
He picked up another disposable phone from the coffee table. This one had been purchased solely to report to Dorian Purcell on the situation with the murder-for-hire operation called Tragedy. Taped to the unit was the number of yet another disposable that was in Dorian’s possession. When the Tragedy website and the breach of security related to it were erased, along with everyone involved, Ludlow and Purcell would destroy these two burner phones.
Considering the ever-escalating criminal activity in this country, Haskell Ludlow congratulated himself on having long ago invested significant capital in the disposable-phone business.
He keyed in Dorian’s number.
103
Parable headquarters in Sunnyvale, California, included an eight-thousand-square-foot apartment in which Dorian Purcell could be in the heart of corporate affairs when a new acquisition was pending or when a new product launch was being fine-tuned, or when any politician on the make insisted on a secure face-to-face sit-down with Dorian himself to work out the terms under which the public servant would sell out his office and constituents. On this Thursday in September, Dorian was not residing in this apartment.
Slightly farther up the coast, in Palo Alto, Dorian owned a twelve-thousand-square-foot estate on a two-acre parcel with a view of San Francisco Bay. He lived in this resplendent house with his fiancée, Paloma Pascal, who was highly educated and charming and stunningly beautiful, who could move with confidence and grace in the most rarefied social circles, who made a positive and lasting impression on everyone, and who would remain his fiancée as long as she never insisted on getting married. Dorian was not at the moment in this residence.
In a stately building atop Nob Hill, in the heart of San Francisco, Dorian owned a fourteen-thousand-square-foot, two-floor apartment with spectacular views of the city, from some of its most glorious and iconic architecture to its homeless encampments and feces-strewn sidewalks. He lived in this exquisitely appointed penthouse with Saffron “Sunny” Ketterling, twenty-three, who was even more stunningly beautiful than Paloma Pascal. Sunny was also remarkably lithe and supple, because she had been a devoted gymnast since the age of six. Currently, at 11:40 a.m., Sunny was sleeping. She and Dorian had gone to bed at 1:15 a.m., but they hadn’t settled down to sleep until six o’clock, when there had been no further positions to explore.
Dorian had awakened at ten thirty, after little more than four hours of sleep. Since late childhood, when he had fully understood death, he had not slept more than five hours a night and had been driven to embrace excess as a rebuke to the Grim Reaper. Now Dorian was in his study on the lower of the two floors of the apartment, at an immense stainless-steel and blue-quartzite desk, having breakfast that had been served by the butler, Franz. He was also consuming the first 40 of the 124 vitamin-mineral supplements that he downed every day, and composing the eulogy that he would give at the memorial service for the employees of Refine who perished in the tragic fire at the Springville, Utah, facility.