Текст книги "Badlands"

Автор книги: Richard Montanari

Соавторы: Richard Montanari
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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

SEVENTY-FOUR

1:40 AM

TANGRAM PUZZLES WERE five triangles, one square, and one parallelogram. According to the book, these pieces could be arranged into a virtually endless number of shapes. If the Collector was making a tangram puzzle out of the rooftops of North Philadelphia, which problem was he using?

All four of the crime scenes were corner buildings—essentially triangles. A parallelogram could be seen as a diamond. If their theory was correct, it would leave one more triangle, one square, and one diamond. If they could piece together the first four crimes scenes in some sort of a coherent order, based on their geographic location and relevance to each other—in an order that corresponded to a particular tan-gram problem—they might be able to predict the location of the next three. It was a huge long shot—but at the moment it was all they had.

Byrne raised Josh Bontrager and Dre Curtis on the radio. They needed more eyes on this.

BYRNE STARED AT THE SCREEN, at the map, his eyes roaming the shapes of the buildings, their relationships to one another. He closed his eyes for a moment, recalling the puzzle pieces in Laura Somerville’s apartment, the feel of the ivory.

Moments later, Bontrager and Dre Curtis pulled up, exited their car.

“What’s up?” Bontrager asked.

Byrne gave them a quick rundown. Bontrager reacted with a young man’s enthusiasm for the theory. Curtis, although accepting, was more skeptical.

“Let’s hear some ideas,” Byrne said. “Some words or concepts that might apply. Something that might relate to the puzzle he’s making.”

“He’s a magician,” Bontrager said. “An illusionist, a conjuror, a trickster.”

Jessica reached into the back of the car. She retrieved the three books by David Sinclair that Byrne had purchased from Chester County Books. She opened the book of tangram and began to run through the index. There were no problems that related to magicians.

“Cape, wizard, wand, top hat,” Curtis said. “Cards, coins, silks.”

Jessica flipped pages of the index, shook her head. “Nothing even close.”

“How about a castle?” Bontrager asked. “Isn’t there a Magic Castle somewhere?”

“Here’s a castle,” Jessica said. She found the page in short order, flipped the book open. The tangram problem, in silhouette, looked to be a tall pagoda, with a tiered tower and multiple eaves. If the first four crime scenes represented the bottom of the problem, it could not be this diagram. There had to be at least two triangles at the top.

“What about the illusions themselves?” Curtis asked. “The Sword Box, the Garden of Flowers, the Water Tank?”

Jessica scanned the index again. “Nothing like that.”

Byrne thought for a moment, poring over the map. “Let’s work backwards. Let’s start with the shapes themselves, see if they match a pattern.”

Jessica tore the center section from the book, handed each of the other detectives ten or so pages of problems. They gathered around the map they had received from Hell Rohmer, eyes searching, matching shapes. Every so often, each of the detectives glanced at their watches. Time was passing.

BYRNE STEPPED AWAY from the car. Rain fell again. The other detectives grabbed everything from the car, crossed the street, and entered an all but empty twenty-four-hour diner called Pearl’s. They set up on the counter in front of an apprehensive fry cook.

Soon after, Byrne walked in. He finger-walked his notebook, finding David Sinclair’s cell phone number, and punched it in. Sinclair answered. Identifying himself, Byrne apologized for the late hour. Sinclair said it was fine, he was awake.

“Where are you?” Byrne asked.

“I’m in Atlanta. I have a book signing tomorrow.”

“Do you have e-mail access right now?”

“I do. I’m in my hotel room. They have high-speed access here. Why, do you want to—”

“What’s your e-mail address?”

David Sinclair gave it to him.

“Can you hang on one minute?” Byrne asked.

“Sure.”

Byrne raised Hell Rohmer on the handset. He gave him David Sinclair’s e-mail address. “Can you make a composite of the four buildings, and outline them in some way?”

“I’ll drag it into PhotoShop and put a red line around the edges. Will that work?”

“That’ll work,” Byrne said. “Can you save it as a file and e-mail it to this guy?”

Byrne gave him the address.

“I’m on it,” Hell said. “Shouldn’t take more than two minutes.”

Back on his cell, Byrne told David Sinclair to expect the file.

“If you don’t get the file in five minutes, I’d like you to call me back at this number,” Byrne said. “I’ll also give you a second number if, for some reason, you don’t reach me.” Byrne gave the man his and Jessica’s cell numbers.

“Got them. One question.”

“Go.”

“This is about the breaking news story out of Philly, isn’t it? It’s on CNN.”

There was no point in dancing around it. They needed this man’s help. “Yes.”

Sinclair was silent for a few moments. Byrne heard him draw a deep breath, release it. “Okay,” he said. “One more question.”

“I’m listening.”

“What exactly am I looking for?”

“A developing pattern,” Byrne said. “A problem. A tangram problem.” “Okay. Let me look at it. I’ll get back to you.”

Byrne clicked off. He turned his attention to the man behind the counter. “You have today’s paper?” he asked the wide-eyed fry cook.

No response. The man was all but catatonic.

“The paper. Today’s Inquirer?”

The man slowly shook his head. Byrne looked to the back of the diner. There was only one customer. He was reading the Daily News. Byrne stormed to the rear, grabbed it out of the man’s hands.

“Hey!” the man said. “I was reading that.”

Byrne dropped a five on the table. If everyone got out of this alive he would consider it a bargain. He handed each of the detectives a pair of sheets and a pair of shapes to create. He kept one. In a few moments they had all seven shapes.

Josh Bontrager’s cell phone rang. He stepped outside.

Byrne put the pieces on the floor. Five triangles, one square, one diamond. Jessica put the torn pages from the tangram book along the length of the counter.

Page after page of tangram problems, all categorized by country of origin and puzzle designer. There were jewelry, vessels, tools, animals, musical instruments, buildings. One page was devoted to plants. Another to mountains.

“The first four crime scenes were here.” Byrne pushed the newspaper triangles together in the relative placement to each other. All put together, the overall shape looked like a capsized boat. Or a mountain range. He moved two shapes up, two down. Now it resembled a clock or bell tower.

Bontrager stepped back inside. “I just talked to Lieutenant Hurley. He heard back from the FBI.”

“What do we have?” Byrne asked.

“They said they’re closing in on a location for the GothOde server. It looks like it’s not in Romania after all. It’s in New York.”

“When do they think they might have it?”

“They said sometime in the next two hours or so.”

Byrne looked at his partner, then at his watch, then at his cell phone.

They had less than twenty minutes.

SEVENTY-FIVE

1:50 AM

LILLY WAS IN a long, dark shaft. It was big enough for her to crawl through, but not by much. The walls were made of wood. It was not a heat duct of any sort.

Lilly was not particularly claustrophobic, but the combination of utter darkness and the thick, hot air of the passageway made her feel entombed. She did not know how far she had gone, nor did she see any end. More than once she thought it would be best to go back to the room and take her chances there, but the passageway was not large enough for her to turn around. She’d have to back up all the way. In the end, the decision was a no-brainer.

She continued forward, stopping every so often, listening. Music came from somewhere. Classical music. She heard no voices. She had no sense of time.

After what felt like minutes of edging through the passage she came to a sharp right turn, and felt a breeze. Thin light spilled down from above. Lilly looked up and saw an even narrower passage, too small to pass through. It led to an iron grate. She tried to reach it but it was just beyond her fingertips.

And that was when she heard the crying.

The grate appeared to be a floor register. The crying seemed to be coming from that room. Lilly banged on the wall of the shaft, listened. Nothing. She banged harder, and the crying stopped.

There was someone in there.

“Hello?” Lilly whispered.

Silence. Then the rustling of material, the padding of footsteps.

“Hello?” Lilly repeated, this time louder.

Suddenly, the register went dark. Lilly looked up. She came face-to-face with a girl.

“Oh my God,” the girl said. “Oh my God!”

“Not so loud,” Lilly said.

The girl calmed herself. Her crying faded to the occasional sob. “My name is Claire. Who are you?”

“I’m Lilly. Are you hurt?”

The girl didn’t answer right away. Lilly supposed “hurt” was a relative thing. If this girl had been kidnapped, like Lilly had been, it was bad enough.

“I’m…I’m okay,” Claire said. “Can you get me out of here?”

The girl looked about sixteen or seventeen. She had long strawberry-blond hair, fine features. Her eyes were puffed and red. “Have you searched the room?” Lilly asked. “Have you looked for a key?”

“I tried, but all the drawers are glued shut.”

Tell me about it, Lilly thought. She glanced ahead. The endless, ink-black shaft glared back. She looked at Claire. “Do you have any idea where we are?”

“No,” Claire said. She started sobbing again. “I just met this guy in the park. He told me there was a campsite nearby. I walked with him through the woods, and the next thing I knew I was in bed. In this room.”

My God, Lilly thought. How many girls were here? “Look,” she whispered. “I’m going to get us out of here.”

“How?”

Lilly had no frigging idea. Not at the moment. “I’ll try to find a way.”

“I’m scared. He came in before. I pretended I was still knocked out. He left a dress in the room.”

“What kind of dress?”

Claire hesitated. Her tears returned in full. “It looks like a wedding dress. An old wedding dress.”

Jesus, Lilly thought. What the hell is that about? “Okay. Hold tight.”

“You’re not leaving me, are you?”

“I’ll be back,” Lilly said.

“Don’t go!”

“I have to. I’ll be back. Don’t make any noise.”

Lilly hesitated for a few moments, not really wanting to leave, then continued forward. If her bearings were right, she was heading toward the back of the house. She hadn’t sensed an incline or a decline, so she was probably still on the second floor. The sound of the classical music had faded to silence, and all Lilly could hear now was the scrape of her knees along the floor of the shaft, and the sound of her own breathing. The air was getting hotter.

She took a break, the sweat pouring off her. She lifted her T-shirt, wiped her face. After a full minute, she started moving again. Before she got ten feet she sensed another opening above her. It wasn’t anything dramatic, just a change in the atmosphere. She ran her hand along the ceiling of the shaft, and felt—

A ladder?

Lilly slowly stood up. Her knees popped, and in the confines of the space, the sound was like gunfire. She reached out. It was a ladder. There were only five or six rungs. Above them, something solid. She gently pushed on it. It lifted an inch. She eased it all the way open, took a deep breath, then climbed the ladder. The rush of fresh air was dizzying. She lifted herself out of the hole, into another nearly pitch-black space. She had no idea how large a room it was. The air was cool and damp, and there was a sour smell of licorice and body odor. It took some time to allow her eyes to adjust to the scant light. She made out a few shadows—an armoire, perhaps; a cheval mirror.

Suddenly, there was a sound behind her. Heavy footsteps on a bare floor. Each step was punctuated with something that sounded like the screech of a wheel that needed oil.

Clump, squeak, clump, squeak.

Lilly couldn’t see a thing. The sounds drew closer.

Clump, squeak, clump, squeak.

Someone was walking across the dark room.

Lilly felt her way, crawling through the blackness. She came across something that might have been a bed, or a large sofa. She crawled beneath it, and held her breath.

Clump, squeak.

SEVENTY-SIX

1:52 AM

JESSICA STOOD ON the sidewalk in front of the diner. The rain had backed off, but the sidewalk steamed. Watching a pair of sector cars troll up the street, she wished she could be in one of them, just a rookie again. There would be none of the weight, none of the responsibility. She glanced at her watch. They would never make it. She had never felt this angry or frustrated in her life.

Byrne banged on the window, beckoning her inside. Jessica nearly jumped. She stepped inside the restaurant.

All seven pieces of the puzzle were close to each other on the floor. Next to them was the SEPTA map. Byrne tapped a location on the map. “Here’s where we are in relation to the first four crime scenes.” He pointed to the triangle on the lower left. “Slide it up, Josh.”

Bontrager slid the triangle northeast.

“A lot of these problems combine two of the triangles to make a square, right?” Byrne asked.

“Right,” Jessica said.

“So, let’s assume for a second he is saving the real square for last.” North Philly had a lot of squares—Norris, Fotterall, Fairhill. The city at large had dozens. “If it’s a triangle, and it fits here, it can only be two places.” Byrne knelt down, picked up the map, circled two corner buildings with a felt tip pen. “These are the only two corner triangular buildings in this whole area. What do you think?”

Jessica looked at the shapes as they related to the whole. It was a possibility. “I agree, if his next move is another triangle it would have to be one of these two.”

Byrne shot to his feet. “Let’s move.”

The eight detectives spilt into two groups of four. Seconds later, they sped off into the rain.

THIS AREA OF JEFFERSON was blighted and bleak. There were only a few lights on in the scattered freestanding blocks of row houses. Gentrification came slowly to this part of the city, if at all. The block was dotted with boarded up structures, separated by weed-blotted lots, abandoned cars.

At just after 2 AM, two teams pulled up to the address. Byrne checked the street number, then checked it again.

It was a vacant lot. The overhead map showed a building, but there was no telling how old the photograph was. This had been a corner building, almost a perfect triangle. They hurried out of their vehicles, scanned the block, the nearby buildings, the empty parcel. And saw it. There, against a low stone wall, at the back of the lot, amid the debris and wild flowers sat a Chinese red lacquer box, decorated with gold dragons.

Josh Bontrager hit the ground at a run. He bolted across the lot, opened the box.

Byrne glanced at his watch. It was 2:02.

Bontrager turned back, and the look on his face told them everything they needed to know. They were too late.

The next piece of the tangram had been placed.

SEVENTY-SEVEN

2:13 AM

LILLY CRINGED IN the darkness. The footsteps had drawn to within ten feet or so, and then stopped. She had no idea how much time had passed. Ten minutes, maybe more. She had held her breath as long as she could.

Where had he gone? Had he left this room? Was he in the room with Claire? Had Lilly abandoned the girl and now something bad was happening to her? Unable to wait any longer, Lilly slowly crept out from beneath the bed, got to her feet. She did not know what she was walking into, but could not stay where she had been, just waiting for her terrible fate.

She felt like a blind person. She took a few small steps, feeling the air in front of her. She reached something that felt like a mirror—smooth, cool to the touch.

And that’s when the overhead lights came on.

Lilly looked up. She was in an enormous room. The high ceiling was gilded, coffered, but covered in cobwebs. Overhead was a huge bronze chandelier missing half its bulbs.

“Odette.”

Lilly spun around. An old man stood behind her. An ancient man, next to a portable oxygen unit. His skin was gray, stretched over a skeletal skull. He wore an old silken bathrobe, crusted with food, stained with urine.

In the faint light, Lilly saw the deep red welt around his neck.

She fainted.

SEVENTY-EIGHT

2:20 AM

FIVE DETECTIVES STOOD on the corner, blank-faced. The sixth detective, Kevin Byrne, paced like a wild animal. There was no consoling him. EMS had arrived at the scene, as had an investigator from the medical examiner’s office. The girl was pronounced dead at 2:18. There had been no air in the red lacquer trunk. She had most likely suffocated.

They had just over ninety minutes to find the next girl.

Jessica took the laptop out and clicked on the killer’s GothOde web page. There were still only four performance videos on the page. The fifth video, the one with the killer in front of City Hall, had been deleted.

“Anything?” Byrne asked.

“Nothing yet.”

“We have to think like he does,” Bontrager said. “We have to get inside his head. There’s one diamond, and one square left.”

“I’m open to suggestions here,” Byrne said.

The homicide division was an investigative unit that ran on interviews, forensic data, time inside an interrogation room. Everything was quantifiable, except the whims of a madman.

Jessica refreshed the page, over and over again. Finally, there was change.

“There’s another one,” she said.

Everyone crowded around the laptop.

THE GIRL IN THE SUB TRUNK

The video opened with the same curtains as the first four videos.

This time, center stage, was the Chinese red lacquer box covered with gold dragons. The box was on a pedestal. After a few moments the killer stepped into frame. He wore the same cutaway tuxedo, the same goatee, the same monocle. He stood no closer to the camera.

“Behold the Sub Trunk,” he said. He gestured offstage. Moments later a teenage Asian-American girl stepped onto the stage, and then on top of the box. She reached down, picked up a large hoop of silken fabric. She looked terribly frightened. Her hands were shaking. “And behold the lovely Odette,” the man said.

The killer walked offstage. The girl lifted the fabric to just beneath her chin. From off camera a shout could be heard.

“One, two, three!”

On three the girl lifted the hoop over her head, then immediately dropped it. It was now the killer standing on the trunk.

Fade to black.

There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the girl in the video was the girl they had just found in the box.

Byrne raised Hell Rohmer on radio. “You watching this?” he asked.

“I’m watching it.”

“I want hard copies of that girl’s face in every sector car in East Division as fast as possible.”

“You got it.”

Byrne’s phone rang. He belted his handset, answered. It was David Sinclair.

“I’m going to put you on speaker,” Byrne said. He put the cell phone on the hood of the car.

“I got your e-mail,” Sinclair said. “I think I know what’s going on here.”

“What is it?”

“This is a pretty famous tangram. The puzzle is in the shape of a bird. A problem invented by Sang-hsia-k’o.”

Byrne told Sinclair of the most recent crime scene. He left out the gruesome details.

“Was this anywhere near the other buildings?”

“Yes,” Byrne said. “Another corner building.”

“Is it northwest of the Shiloh Street address?”

“It is.”

“East of Fifth?”

“Just.”

“So that makes five triangles.”

“Yes.”

“And this was the largest so far, so I’m thinking it is the central part of the problem.”

Suddenly, the night fell quiet. For a few electrifying moments there was no music, no traffic, no barking dogs, just the sound of a distant barge on the river, just the buzz of the streetlamps overhead. Byrne looked at Jessica. Their eyes met in wordless understanding, and they knew.

They were on the phone with the killer.

The man who called himself David Sinclair was Mr. Ludo.

Jessica walked quickly away, out of earshot. She opened her cell phone, dialed the communications unit. They would begin to triangulate this call.

The killer spoke first.

“In the world of magic, do you know what a flash is, Detective Byrne?”

Byrne remained silent. He let the man continue.

“A flash is where the audience has seen something it was not supposed to see. I know that I just flashed. You did not give me the address of the latest crime scene, so I could not have known it was the largest. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about just so you can buy some time to trace this call. If you do, I will kill the next girl now, while you’re listening.”

“Okay.” Byrne thought of the man sitting across from him at the Magnolia Grill in Chester County. His anger built. He fought it. “What do you want?”

There was no hesitation. “What does any puzzle master want? To be solved. But only by the best and the brightest. Are you the best and brightest?”

Byrne had to keep the man talking. “Hardly. I’m just another flatfoot.”

“I doubt that. A flatfoot wound not have seen the Jeremiah Crosley clue and followed it to the Girl Without a Middle.”

Thunder rumbled above. A second later, Byrne heard the thunder on the cell phone. The killer was not in Atlanta. The killer was in North Philadelphia.

“Did you see the clock tower?”

“I did,” Byrne said. “Nice trick.”

The man drew a short breath. There was a nerve here somewhere. Byrne had found it. The first crack.

“Trick?”

“Yeah,” Byrne said. “Like that stuff we used to see on the commercials during those late night horror movies. Remember those? The deck of cards that turn into all aces. The multiplying little foam bunnies. ‘Tricks anyone can do,’ the guy said. ‘Magic is easy, once you know the secret.’ I bought that cheap plastic wand that turns into a flower. It fell apart.”

There was a long moment of hesitation. Good and bad. Good because Byrne was getting to the man. Bad because he was unpredictable. And he held all the cards.

“And this is what you think I’ve done? A trick?”

Byrne glanced at Jessica. She twirled a finger in the air. Keep him talking.

“Pretty much.”

“And yet you are there, and I am here. Between us, pretty maids all in a row.”

“You have us there,” Byrne said. “No argument.”

“The question is, can you solve the puzzle in time, Detective? Can you save the last two maidens?”

The man’s composure was back.

“Why don’t you just tell me where they are, and you and I can meet somewhere, work this out?” Byrne asked.

“What, and give up show business?”

Byrne heard a loud hiss, a crackle in the connection. The storm was moving in.

Jessica took out her pad, wrote on it, dropped it on the car.

It’s a land line. We have him.

“By the way. You said the puzzle was a bird. What sort of bird?” Byrne asked.

“The sort that can fly away,” the killer said. “Can you hang on for a second? I have to produce a flower.”

The man laughed, and the line went dead.