18
“Explain this to me again,” I asked Tony.
“My pleasure.” His nose was pressed against the glass of the vacuum chamber as he repeated the entire exegesis. “We put the floor mat in there with a milligram of gold in the heating element, then sealed it. The pumps suck out the air and create a vacuum. The gold boils, almost into a steam. A thin invisible layer coats the plastic. The gold will sink into the oil from the print, leaving only the ridges uncoated. Then we do it again, this time with zinc in the heating element. The zinc vaporizes, then recondenses only on metal-in other words, the gold from the previous treatment. And the result?” He directed our attention to his nearby computer monitor. “A great big beautiful high-contrast reverse-image print.”
“Nice little gizmo you’ve got here,” I murmured softly.
“Glad you think so, Susan,” he replied. “Because vacuum metal deposition costs a fortune, what with the gold and all. I’m telling Granger you authorized it.”
I hunched over his shoulder, peering at his computer screen, but no matter how much I squinted, no matter which way I turned my head, no matter how long I let my eyes go fuzzy, I couldn’t make out the print. “The lines all look the same to me,” I said, admitting defeat.
“Don’t sweat it,” he replied. “Psychos all look the same to me.”
What we were looking at was a computer enlargement of the print he had found on the floor mat in the car from which Fara Spencer was taken. It wasn’t all there-a chunk from the upper left never came clear-but Tony assured me that was enough to make a match. And this time it was a forefinger, not a palm print. I was trying not to get my hopes up, but we were all hoping this would allow us to identify the killer. With Patrick’s assistance, he’d already fed the print to FINDER, the FBI’s automatic fingerprint reader and processor. If this print or anything like it had been recorded by any computerized law enforcement agency in this country or several foreign nations, they could give us the identification we so desperately needed.
“We’ve got mail,” Tony said, pointing at his screen. “Three partial matches.”
I watched as three more prints appeared on the screen in a vertical column opposite the original. Tony scrutinized each whorl and swirl.
“Well?”
“Give me a minute.”
I saw that each of the match prints had a name beneath it with a hyperlink to a full FBI bio. If we could get a name, maybe even an address, this killer could be behind bars by midnight.
“No,” Tony said, after dragging the suspense out for what I thought was an ungodly length of time. “None of these work.”
“What do you mean?”
“They aren’t him. There are similarities, sure. Enough to pass the computer software match threshold. But they aren’t the same.”
“You’re sure?”
He was still staring at the screen. “Much as I wish I weren’t. Besides, none of these guys comes close to matching your description. This one’s a woman. The next is a guy in his seventies.”
“But we were sure that print came from the man who abducted Fara Spencer.”
He pushed back away from the computer, rubbing his eyes. “So now we know that our guy has never been arrested. Never run for political office. Never taken the bar exam. He’s managed to get through life without being fingerprinted. He’s never done anything like this before.” He slid out of his chair and switched the power off his monitor. “Or if he has, he’s never been caught.”
He ambled up the sidewalk outside Central Division headquarters trying to concoct a suitable conversation starter. As it happened, the young man sitting on the front steps eliminated the need.
“Are you a grown-up person?”
“Ye-es…”
“You must be kind of a short person. Are you kind of a short person?”
“I am as God made me.”
“I’m six foot one. Do you know how tall the Sears Tower is?”
He tugged at his collar. All his initial impressions were correct. There was something strange and more than a little disconcerting about this man’s demeanor. The way he struck up a conversation, albeit a nonsensical one, with a total stranger on a Vegas street. His voice was simple, almost childlike. And yet he was an adult, somewhere in his mid-twenties by appearances.
“No, I’m afraid I don’t.”
“It’s one thousand four hundred fifty-four feet tall. One hundred and three floors. It used to be the tallest building in the world. Not anymore.”
“Fascinating.”
“Do you know how tall the Empire State Building is?”
“Not exactly.”
“It’s one thousand four hundred fifty-three feet. One foot shorter than the Sears Tower. One hundred and two floors. Have you ever talked to a midget?”
He stiffened. “I’m not sure what-”
“I saw a midget once and I talked to her. I got in trouble for talking to her but I don’t know why because I didn’t do anything to hurt her.”
There was something wrong with this man, a discernible… vacancy. He didn’t lack intelligence or language. His syntax was skewed, but there was a distinct legerity to his responses. At the same time, there was a profound oddness about him: the way he held his head when he talked, the curious inflection, the unvaryingly excessive volume.
“I’m Darcy O’Bannon the second. My dad named me for my uncle, he’s dead. My uncle, not my dad.”
“Please to meet you, Darcy.” He extended his hand, but Darcy did not take it. Instead he stared at it, as if hesitant to make contact. “My name is Ethan.”
“Are you a jockey?”
“Uh… no…”
“Because I read that jockeys have to be short and they like jockeys to be short so you should be a jockey.”
“No, I’m… I’m an accountant.”
“How tall do you have to be to be an accountant?”
“I’m not aware of a height requirement.”
“I think I’d like to be a jockey. I rode a horse once and I liked that. It went really fast and I like to go really fast. Do you think I could be a jockey?”
“Uh… probably not, given your height. But I’m no expert.”
“Willie Shoemaker won eight thousand eight hundred thirty-three races, did you know that? He was four foot eleven. But he got rich. I think my dad would like me better if I were rich.”
“Darcy… I’m looking for Lieutenant Pulaski. Do you know where she might be?”
Darcy cocked his head to one side. “Do you know Susan?”
“I’ve had the pleasure of meeting her, yes.”
“You’re not going to take her away from me, are you?”
“I’m… not sure what you mean.”
“Whenever I really like someone somebody else takes them away or tells me I can’t play with them anymore. I’ll be sad if Susan goes away. I like her a lot. Do you think she’s pretty?”
“Most striking.”
“I think so, too. But she’s not the prettiest woman ever. Some people say Cleopatra was the prettiest woman ever but did you know archeologists dug up a coin with her face on it and she wasn’t pretty atall?”
“I didn’t know that.” He suppressed a smile. And he had worried that this harmless meshuggener might be a threat, a rival, that he might come between himself and Susan. Obviously, that was not going to happen. What was she doing with this boy? Was he some sort of charity work, a Good Samaritan exercise? Was this Susan’s plan for worming her way back onto the force? Earning Chief O’Bannon’s favor by babysitting his brain-addled son?
“Do you know what the tallest building in the world is?”
“Uh… the Sears Tower?”
“Wrong!” He made a honking noise and pointed. “Faked you out. It used to be the Sears Tower, but now it’s the Petronas Tower in Malaysia. It’s one hundred and ten stories tall. That would be two hundred and sixty-four of me stacked on top of each other.”
“Imagine.”
“Would you like to see the Sears Tower and the Empire State Building stacked on top of the Petronas Tower? I would. Do you know how many stories that would be?”
“Rather a lot.”
“One hundred and two plus one hundred and three plus one hundred and ten. Know what that is?”
“Sorry, I’ve never been good with numbers.”
Darcy’s head tilted. “But I thought you said you were an accountant.”
“I… I rely heavily on my calculator.”
“Accountants are good adders. I read that in a book. My dad took me to an accountant once and he could add five-digit numbers in his head. So can I but he was the only other person I ever saw who could. Why can’t you add three-digit numbers?”
“Well… of course… I wasn’t really listening.”
“Are short accountants not as good at adding as tall ones?”
He stepped onto the sidewalk. “I really must be going.”
“Goodbye,” Darcy said. “You might think about seeing if you could become a jockey. ’Cause I’m not sure how good you’re going to be as an accountant.”
He hurried back to his car, wrapping his jacket tightly around himself. That had been an unforgivably stupid mistake. He’d relaxed his guard, thinking this mental deficient could pose no danger to him, and as a result, he’d made a foolish error. If the boy were not so pitifully without guile, he would’ve become suspicious, perhaps conveyed his suspicions to Susan. And that could be disastrous.
At least he’d ascertained that there was no romantic affiliation between the two. Now that he knew he had a clear field, he would contact Susan again. Soon.
What bothered him was his inability to read the young man. The connections this Darcy’s brain made were unpredictable. Illogical. There was no way of anticipating him.
If it became necessary, the young man would have to be removed. For Susan’s sake. And his own. And that of the world to come.
By the end of the day, several more FBI agents had made the scene. In addition to our rent-a-behaviorist, we now had agents from CIU-the Critical Incident Unit. From the shadowed basement of the J. Edgar Hoover Building to the sunny Vegas strip. We also had some liaisons with VICAP-the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program-some of them pretty famous, names I recognized from the Law Enforcement Bulletin. They were cataloging and analyzing data, comparing these crimes with others the feds had encountered. Patrick had them all gathered in a back room and was bringing them up to date on the case.
I saw a thick stack of paper on the corner of my desk-summary reports on all the confessions that had arrived in the last few days. We’d been getting them since murder number one, but they were skyrocketing now that a TV celeb was involved. If I worked this job till doomsday, I would never understand what it was about high-profile media cases that made perfectly harmless people crawl down to the station to give false confessions. Unless they were obviously bogus, they had to be checked out, at least a little, which diverted our already strained time and manpower.
I scooped up a stapled document that someone had dropped on my chair. Looked like the Feebs had been busy.
SECONDARY VICTIMOLOGY REPORT, BSS04-67
SUBJECT: EDGAR
I had to grin a little. I knew the feds always gave their serial killers a pet name. So this one was Edgar. Cute. I scanned the report.
VICT1-Helen Collier, Clark County Police Dept, homicide
WF, DOB 1-9-87, DOD 10-4-04
DEATH: Asphyxiation
WEAPON: Coffin
POD: Transylvania Hotel ballroom
BODY FOUND: Transylvania Hotel
No witnesses. Forced entry. No trace evidence attributable to assailant.
VICT2-Annabel Spencer, Clark County Police Dept, homicide
WF, DOB 8-15-86, DOD 10-8-04
DEATH: Exsanguination
WEAPON: Dental tools
POD: Unknown
BODY FOUND: McCarran Airport, retired aircraft field
No witnesses. No forced entry necessary. Only trace evidence attributable to assailant is a tire track and a partial palm print.
VICT3-Lenore Johnson, Clark County Police Dept, homicide
WF, DOB 7-13-85, DOD 10-13-04
DEATH: Decapitation
WEAPON: Axe
POD: Unknown
BODY FOUND: Neon sign graveyard
No witnesses. No forced entry. No evidence attributable to assailant.
VICT4-Harvey Bradford
WM, DOB: 01-04-60 DOD: 10-17-04
DEATH: Massive bodily trauma
WEAPON: Automobile
POD: Hotel parking lot
BODY FOUND: Hotel parking lot
Security guard at Transylvania Hotel. Killed by impact of his own car. Died instantly.
VICT5-Fara Spencer
WF, DOB: 10-16-61 DOA: 10-17-04
STATUS: Unknown
Mother of Vict2. Abducted after car incident with Vict4. No witnesses. Unidentified partial forefinger print possibly attributable to assailant.
Pretty damn thin, when you got right down to it. I thumbed through the additional material attached to the cover report. Not much there. Was it any wonder we hadn’t caught this clown yet? About the only thing this report didn’t cover was the phone call I’d gotten from Edgar-great, now they had me calling him that-and his present. And I received a detailed analysis on those barely an hour later.
“The lab found nothing useful on the box, the wrapper, or the teeth,” Tony Crenshaw explained. “Neither did Latent Prints.”
“Voiceprints?”
“Nothing. We have a pattern now we can compare against any future communications. But even maximum volume magnification failed to turn up any useful background noises. There were few clues in his language other than the obvious one-neon. No distinctive patterns. Southern accent, to be sure, but the experts think he was affecting that.”
“Because he wants to be like Poe. But he isn’t really from Virginia.”
“That’s our guess. Other than that, no real clues. He chose his words carefully. Probably rehearsed what he was going to say before he called.”
That would be consistent with the organized sociopath I had in my head. “I’d like a copy of the tape of the phone call.”
“Sure.” Tony seemed hesitant. “You know he was trying to rattle your cage, right? Talking about your bad habits and all. Doesn’t mean he knows anything. It was an easy shot. Everyone has some secret. He wants to scare you. Chase you off the case.”
Did he? Maybe. But to me, it seemed more like he was trying to impress me. To win me over.
“But you’re not going to let him get to you, right?”
My eyes lifted. “What’s this? A trace of concern? For moi?”
His eyes darted to the carpet. “Granger doesn’t speak for the whole department, Susan. You still have friends around here. Lots of them.”
Well, that was cheering. “Thanks, Tony. I appreciate it.”
“All the guys loved David. You know that. And we think what happened… wasn’t right. The way you were treated.”
“Tony, I really don’t care to-”
“Just wanted you to know.” He gave me a mock salute. “Back to the trenches.”
I thrust my nose into my paperwork, trying not to be resentful. Of course, that was what it would be about. David, not me. Everyone had loved David. Everyone.
I’d loved David, too, damn it. But that wouldn’t bring him back.
I was on the phone with my lawyer, which is about as unpleasant as life gets.
“If the judge isn’t going to decide anything, why do I have to be there? I’m in the middle of a major investigation.”
“Do you want custody of Rachel or not?”
“That’s why I got this job! On your advice.”
“Then you must be there. Dressed conservatively. Sparing makeup. You need to sit next to me and be untempermental, cool, and well mannered.”
“In other words, exactly not like myself.”
“Whatever.”
“I can’t believe this judge is so shallow he’s going to make a decision based upon whether I wear red.”
“He might not do it consciously. But judges are influenced by their subconscious impressions, just like everyone else in the world. The most important part is that you remain calm. NDHS will try to convince the judge that you’re unreliable. You have to show him that you can be restrained and responsible, fit to raise your niece. You have to tell him you’ve sworn off booze and you’re working to stay clean.”
I felt an itching in my chest that wouldn’t go away. “I can do that.”
“Good. See you there.”
Damn everything. As if I didn’t already have enough on my plate. Now I was going to have to deal with the American legal system. The tenth circle of hell.
“Eureka!”
I glanced up. Darcy was standing at the edge of my desk, grinning like a sheepdog.
“Eureka!” he repeated.
“Okay, I’ll bite. What are you talking about?”
“Eureka means ‘I found it.’ Did you know that historians say that’s what Archimedes said when he discovered about the displacement of liquid? He jumped out of the bathtub yelling, ‘Eureka! Eureka!’ ” Darcy giggled. “He was strange.”
“Thanks for the ancient Greek perspective, Darce. Why are you telling me this?”
“It’s the name of a thing by Edgar Allan Poe.”
“What? I read his complete works-”
Darcy corrected me as gently as possible. “I think maybe you read his Complete Stories and Poems. That’s what everyone reads. No one reads Eureka. Even my dad doesn’t have a copy.”
“Then how do you know-”
“I ran that code message that the bad man left with the teeth through the Internet.” I swore silently. I should have thought of that myself. “Even Dad says I’m good with computers. Do you Google? I love to Google. You never know what you’ll get. This one time-”
I cut in. “So what is it?”
“Poe called it a prose-poem.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Darcy’s face reddened. “I don’t know. It’s like about stars and stuff.”
“Stars?”
“Science. Where the stars come from. Planets. Heaven.”
I was thoroughly confused, and Darcy wasn’t making it any better. “Can you get me a copy?”
“I could not find the whole thing on the Internet, only some parts. Then I went to the library, but they don’t have it.”
“Keep trying. And Darce-I owe you a custard.”
“When do you think that will be? Sooner than a blue moon, I hope, because a blue moon-”
“I remember. We’ll do it, Darcy, promise. But first I think I need to read that book.”
He left, and a few minutes later my phone rang, as it always seems to do at the most annoying and least convenient times. “Yeah?”
“You look lovely in a black turtleneck. You should wear that more often.”
Him.
I stood up, waved at the boys on the lower floor. I pointed to the receiver, trying to get the message across. Men can be so slow-witted. Eventually enough ribs were jabbed and the tracing began.
“Uh, sorry. I was… distracted.”
He laughed. “Have they instigated the trace now? Can we talk?”
I tried to concentrate. I had to learn as much as possible. And I had to keep him talking. “I don’t suppose you plan to stay on long enough for us to trace the call, so why bother?”
“Oh, you never know, dear. I might give you a sporting chance.”
Damn straight of you. “Look, I don’t know what to call you.”
“The FBI agents call me Edgar, don’t they?”
And how the hell did he know that? “Is that okay?”
“It’s as good a name as any.”
“Is that who you are?”
Another pause. “I’m an acolyte. Not a prophet.”
Oooo-kayyy. “Can you explain to me what that means?”
“I’d like to. Because you don’t have to remain behind, mired in this miserable life you’ve made for yourself. I can help you. I have only your best interests at heart.”
I knew my goal-not only to keep him talking, but to keep him off whatever prepared script he had in his head. The more he extemporized, the more likely he was to tell us something useful. “Have you hurt Fara Spencer?”
“I’m afraid I can’t answer that question.”
I tried something else. “I got your note. Tracked down the quote, too.”
“Did you really?”
“Yeah. Eureka, right? I’m trying to find a copy.”
“Don’t bother, dear. I’ve brought you one.”
At that point, I looked up and saw three Feebs standing in front of me, waving their arms. Meddlers. Couldn’t they see I was trying to focus?
I covered the talk end of the receiver and mouthed: “What?”
One of them held up a note he’d scribbled furiously on a legal pad. WE’VE TRACED THE CALL.
Why the hell tell me? Just go already.
Then came the follow-up message. HE’S IN YOUR APARTMENT.
I felt my heart stop. I uncovered the receiver, breathless. “Edgar?”
The line was dead.
Of course, he was long gone by the time the police arrived. True to form, he had gotten in and out without leaving a trace of himself behind. All he’d left was a paperback Dover Press edition of Eureka: A Prose-Poem by Edgar Allan Poe, which the techs were treating to a microscopic scrutiny. I knew they wouldn’t find anything-nothing useful, anyway. Although he’d left no evidence, we could tell where he had been. Footprints in the carpet. My underwear drawer left open. An indentation on my bedspread.
None of my neighbors had seen him. One reported spotting a nondescript meter reader, so we were guessing Edgar had used that disguise. But he’d only seen the man from a distance, so he had no useful information.
“I don’t get it,” Patrick said. “He’s been so careful before. So calculated. Why would he come here? Why take the risk?”
I thought about that. In the early days, all his actions had seemed well planned. Careful. But he was becoming increasingly impulsive, or at least more varied in his approaches. Acting on emotion. Kidnapping Fara Spencer, essentially for spite, even though she didn’t fit his profile. And now this. How could burglarizing my apartment fit into his fabulous master plan?
Of course, there had been other cases of serial killers who became involved, even obsessed, with one or more of the officers trying to catch them. But just as there was something very different about this killer, there was something unusual about the attention he was paying to me. Like I’d told Tony before, I didn’t get the sense that he was perpetuating a cat-and-mouse game for his own amusement. It was more like he was trying to… win me over. Seduce me. Even this in-your-face power play had an element of seduction about it. I have only your best interests at heart.
“You’re getting round-the-clock security,” Patrick said. “Don’t bother arguing. Should’ve done it after those damn teeth arrived with your name on the package.”
“Does this mean you think-”
“You already know what I think. He’ll only be content with presents and phone messages for so long. He’s working up his nerve. Till he comes after you.”
He could almost pity her as she lay on the table, her eyes closed. If only he could forget all that she had said and done. Forgive. But he could not. That power was no longer his.
At last she awoke, blinking, a dumbfounded expression creasing her brow.
“Am I dead?”
“Of course,” he said, leaning into her face. “Welcome to Hell.”
She gasped. “You.”
“Did you enjoy your nap, Dr. Spencer?”
“But I-I thought-”
“I know. You thought you were dead.”
“I remember the wall. And…” Her words came slowly, as she retrieved them through a dense fog. “It was hard to breathe. And then-hard to think.” Lines formed around her eyes. “Then I don’t remember anything.”
“You passed out,” he explained. “All but asphyxiated. Yes, you were a goner, as the moderns say.” He opened his black bag and began laying out the instruments. “But I rescued you. Am I your hero?”
She tried to struggle but soon realized it was useless. She had regained control of her body, but she was firmly affixed to the table. “Why?”
“What fun would it be simply to kill you? A mere two hours of torment. When you deserve ever so much more.” He held the instruments up before her face. They glistened in the light from a large overhead lamp. “Do you recognize these?”
She squinted. “Are those-surgical instruments?”
“Indeed. Have you ever seen a straight razor?” he asked, swishing a scalpel in the air. “One sometimes reads about them in books-an orangutan did great damage with one in ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue.’ ”
“What-what are you going to do with that?”
“Don’t you know? You’re the doctor.” He smiled. “Ah, but you’re one of those odd television doctors who aren’t actually doctors.”
“I want to know what you’re planning to do!”
“Apologies in advance. I don’t have a hospital gown for you.”
She craned her neck, realizing for the first time that she was naked. “Why have you taken my clothes?”
“Standard pre-op procedure,” he replied.
She closed her eyes tightly. She was trembling, but despite her fear, she kept her voice remarkably strong. “Is this another pathetic attempt to scare me?”
“Alas, no. I have to move on to other responsibilities. This time you’re going to die.”
“Of course you have to say that. To terrorize me.”
“Believe whatever makes you happy, Doctor.”
“Listen to me-you’re a sick man. Ill. You’re-”
He pressed the razor against her throat. “Stop it!”
She quieted. But her eyes continued to peer at him, refusing to look away.
“I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of open heart surgery, as I’m sure was that orangutan,” he said jauntily.
“Please don’t do this.”
“I must admit I have butterflies in my tummy. I’ve done a lot of reading on the subject, mind you. But this is my first attempt.”
“Please.”
“Tell me if I have this correct, Doctor. Are you knowledgeable about cardiopulmonary bypass? Percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty? Can you say that three times fast?”
The doctor did not respond.
“I gather the typical heart operation begins with the all-important opening of the chest to expose the heart. Is that right?”
“God, no. Please.”
“And the most common way to do that is to slice down the middle of the chest, dividing the breastbone. Am I going to need a bigger knife?”
“I’m begging you.”
“Then I expose the heart by dividing the protective covering-the pericardium.” He clapped his hands together. “This is going to be delightful.”
“At least put me out. Show me that mercy. I know you have the drugs for it.”
“Ah, but that would spoil the fun. Tell me, Doctor-do you use a pump oxygenator? I’m fascinated by those little machines.”
“This is wrong. You’re not thinking rationally or you wouldn’t want to do this.”
“I’m not sure where to make the first incision. My books don’t show. Do I go through the rib cage? I think I’ll try. I’ll start here. Then here.” He stair-stepped the scalpel down her rib cage, stopping to press in at the valley between each rib. “Then here, then here, then here. And when we’re done, your lungs will be thoroughly punctured. Will your heart stop? Because I know it’s important that the heart stop before we take it out.”
“Take it out?”
“Come now, Doctor-you didn’t think I’d go to all this trouble and not come away with a souvenir, did you?”
“Please listen to me. You need help.”
“Don’t presume to psychoanalyze me. You’re the one on the couch.”
“I’m not qualified to psychoanalyze you, and I don’t really believe in all that bullshit anyway. But you should see a professional.”
“Doctors. Always making referrals.”
“I can’t believe anyone wants to live as you do. I know you must be tormented. Do you have hallucinations? Do you hear voices?”
“I’ve had about enough of-”
“We can block out those voices. We can suppress the irresistible impulses. We can help you.” She strained against her bonds. “I will personally ensure that the finest doctors are-”
“Stop it!”
He poured a drink down her throat and then, when the convulsions ceased, he raised the blade of the scalpel and thrust it downward, cutting between her top and second ribs. A terrible hissing sound followed as air escaped from her lungs. Blood rushed up her throat and out her mouth.
“Where is that heart? Where is it?”
The razor plunged again, this time between the second rib and the third.
Her body rocked. Gases seeped out of the gaping wounds. Despite the restraints, she jerked and spasmed as if she were in seizure. Blood gushed from the openings in her chest, her mouth, even her ears.
“Where is it?” he cried. “Where is it?” He stuck the blade into her body again and again, until blood streamed from more than a dozen places. “ ‘Dissemble no more!’ ” He slashed wildly with the knife, cutting her arms, her legs, her torso, slicing open her chest, drenching himself, staining everything in sight. “ ‘I admit the deed! It is the beating of the hideous heart!’ “