by Blake Banner
I pointed at it. “Two gets you twenty that’s the murder weapon and…” I narrowed my eyes and stared at the ground about two yards behind Hank. “I am figuring, Detective Marco, that if you look just about there—” I pointed. “—you are going to find traces of red wax.”
He stared at me like I was crazy but went over, hunkered down, and looked anyway. He squinted, then pulled out his penknife and scraped at the floor. “Well, I’ll be damned… How did you know that?”
“Believe it or not, Detective, this was a Satanic ritual killing.”
He made a “really?” face, and I heard Charles snort. I pointed at the bike. “North…”
Dehan took out her phone. I frowned. She had an app that was a compass. I sighed. She said, “Exactly north.”
“Thank you. Earth, gold, wealth. You have the bike, the greatest symbol of wealth to a Hell’s Angel, and you have a small pile of dirt.” I pointed behind me. “West, water, emotion, the unconscious. The color green.” I pointed at the bottle. “The weapon through which the killer’s rage was expressed.” I pointed across at the open door. “East, air, communication, the sword athame.” I pointed at where the candle would have stood. “South, fire, red.”
I stepped over by the door. “So, having knocked him down from the west, using water in a green bottle, I come over here and I take the dagger athame, and I use it to communicate my message by stabbing it into his back. Notice that the blade does not go, as you would expect, between the ribs, but it points north-south. Now…” I stood and took a few steps back. “Charles, in order to fall in that position, how would he have had to be standing? But let me ask you this, before you answer—to have his arms splayed like that, how much force would the blow have had to carry?”
He stood. He was nodding. “It’s a very good point, John. A powerful rifle might do it. Or a Smith & Wesson magnum. And he would have had to be standing in a very bizarre position, with his legs splayed.”
Dehan was looking from Charles to me. “You’re saying he was positioned after he was killed.”
I nodded. “Yeah. What shape is he in?”
She stared at him. “A five-pointed star. A pentagram.”
“Zak had several around his club.”
Marco sighed loudly. “Is this your investigation, Stone?”
“I think so. I’ll get my commander to call your precinct. I don’t mind who has it, as long as you’re willing to share your information. This man is probably dead because I questioned him about a cold case.”
He was shaking his head. “I’ll talk to the chief. You want it, you’re welcome to it.” He stepped away, dialing his precinct.
Charles was stripping off his gloves and closing his black bag. “You done with the body?”
“Yeah. You’ll let me know if anything unexpected shows up?”
He saluted and left, and the guys brought in the gurney to take Hank away. Dehan watched them wheel him out and asked me, “Why do you know that?”
I stared at her a long time, like I was wondering whether to tell her something or not. Finally, I sighed and said, “There is an ancient mystery. It dates back to the fifteenth century, 1455, in Germany. Though it is said that the mystery is rooted in much older traditions that go back to ancient Japan and Korea…” I paused. She was watching me, waiting. I said, “Books. It’s called books.”
“Jerk. Why would you read a book on ritual magic? Athame, the north, gold, earth…”
I shrugged. “You start reading Freud, that leads you to Jung, next thing you know you’re reading Kabbala. One thing leads to another.”
The CSI team were bagging the bottle and the sand and dusting the bike for prints when Marco came back.
“We’re happy to let you have it, Stone. My chief will call your chief, and we’ll send over all the stuff. Take it easy.”
I gave him a thumbs-up and he left. The CSI guys finally packed up and left too, and Dehan and I were left alone. I stood staring at the space where Hank had lain, trying to visualize what had happened.
Dehan spoke suddenly. “He must have brought the candle, the bottle, and the sand with him. He would have stepped in here…” She stood in the doorway, with the rain spattering behind her, looking in. “What did Hank say? How did he receive him?”
“He was scared.”
“Because he pulled out his phone and started to call you, walking away, toward the bike. That means one thing. He recognized his killer as somebody dangerous, that you needed to know about.”
“That’s good.”
“So is the killer alone? If it’s two or three Angels, good luck finding anyone who noticed some bikers at a bike garage on a rainy day. “
“Either way, he didn’t run and it doesn’t look like he put up a fight.”
“So he was scared enough to call you, but not panicking or fighting for his life. For some reason he walks over there, toward the Harley.” She paused. “Now that’s important.”
“Why?”
“Because the Harley is the right color for the north. I can’t imagine that the killer brought a 1200 CC with him just to place it in the north end of the garage when he killed him. So we have to believe that the positioning of the bike was fortuitous. Which suggests a degree of opportunism. The killing pentacle was constructed around existing elements. The door for the air, the bike for the north.”
I sighed and rubbed my face. A cold breeze crept in through the door and wheedled its way into my ankles.
“Ritual and note suggest a serial killer. But we are both thinking Zak—it all points to Zak, which would make it a motive killing, a punishment execution. And, also, as Fenninger said, Zak does not fit our profile.”
We were silent a moment, and then she went on like I hadn’t said anything.
“Hank moves toward the Harley, dialing your cell. As he does so, Zak, or whoever, moves across, taking out the bottle to place himself in the west, and smashes him in the back of the neck. Probably intending to stun him and not kill him. He, or they, then set him out in a pentagram, place the sand and the candle, move over to the east, and stab him with the knife, through the note. A note for you, to tell you you are cold, on the wrong track.”
“It’s rash,” I said. “The door is wide open, and somebody could have turned up at any moment. It shows huge arrogance and recklessness. Also, as you say, he didn’t know if Hank was dead. If he had been alive, the note would have been saturated and barely legible. It was not planned or carefully thought out.”
“We are almost certainly looking at Zak for this.”
We stared at each other for a long moment. Finally, I asked her, “Are we just reading a degree of planning and care into the placing of the arms, when really it was just a reckless act that paid off?” I shrugged at my own question and went and stood next to her, staring out at the concrete parking lot awash with water, covered in a mist of spray an inch deep. “He’s killed Lynda in some half-assed ritual in the woods in Connecticut. He buries her, but in his crazed mind he has some sick joke going on, about how Hank must be”—I spread my hands and looked at her—“missing the arms of his lover…”
“Jesus…”
“So he brings him the arms of his lover. But by the time he gets here he is tired, hungover, whatever, and suddenly the idea of walking in on Hank and handing him Lynda’s arms doesn’t seem such a great idea. So he does the next best thing. He picks the lock on his lockup—or so he thinks—and leaves the arms there for him to find.”
“It’s persuasive, Stone. But, he rolls open the steel blind and sees boxes, not bikes.”
“It’s dark, he’s tired, stoned. He just wants to sleep. He dumps them and goes.”
A squad car arrived from the 43rd to seal up the premises, and we climbed in the Jag and headed off slowly into the deluge. After a while, Dehan did a funny kind of one-shouldered shrug and said, “I could buy that.”
I didn’t say anything. I was trying to imagine Zak in plastic boot covers writing out, “Well, it took you long enough
…”
It wasn’t easy.
We stopped at an English pub on Coney Island Avenue. Everything was dark mahogany and brass, and they had an open fire burning. We took a small, round table by the window and sat in the silver light of the afternoon clouds. Dehan looked tired. I realized that I felt tired. I hadn’t slept much in the last couple of days.
“I told Zak I was looking for Hank,” I said suddenly. “I liked Hank. He was making a real effort to be a better person. That’s something a lot of good people never do.”
She studied my face for a moment. “You’re not responsible, Stone. You did what you had to do, the best you could.”
“I know.”
She smiled. “You’re always telling me to think like a crook. With Zak you need to think like a psychopath, or a sociopath. He didn’t care whether Hank had shopped him or not. He might have. That was enough.”
“Yup. I should have seen that.”
She pulled a face. “And what? Would you have done any different? Hank took his chances. He rode with the Devil, and he got burned.”
We chinked glasses.
“We haven’t got enough to pull him in. We have to wait for forensics. In the meantime, we need to find out more about Pete, and especially Dave.”
She nodded. “You don’t think the arms are Lynda’s, do you?”
“I can’t make up my mind. It makes sense that they are. It makes sense that Zak killed her, and it makes sense that he planted the arms there as some kind of sick joke. But I can’t shake the feeling that there is somebody else, totally different, standing in the shadows watching.”
She chuckled. “Somebody who would write—” She put on a prissy voice and waggled her head and her bum. “Well, it took you long enough!”
I laughed. “You read my mind. It just doesn’t sound like Zak.”
I had ordered two burgers, and the waitress brought them over. We ate hungrily and in silence. After a while, she said, “You want me to take Peter?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I want to have a good look at Dave.”
ELEVEN
I called GCS, Dave’s company, and asked to be put through to the MD. The girl on reception said she’d put me through to Mr. Fischer, the owner and managing director. He agreed to see me that afternoon.
The Global Computer Shipping Company was somewhat smaller than its name suggested, and was located on the top floor of a brown, two-story building on East Tremont Avenue, about ten minutes’ walk from the lockup. I climbed a narrow staircase, carpeted in the same brown as the walls, and stepped into a large, brown reception area. The receptionist looked at me sadly as I approached her desk and asked me, “Mister, is it ever going to stop raining?”
I smiled cheerfully and said, “Yup, the day I get a Facebook account.”
“Please get a Facebook account…”
“Never!”
She wheezed like I was the funniest man in the world and asked me, “You the cop?” She picked up the internal phone and pressed a button. “Mr. Fischer, Detective Stone is here to see you… Okay…” She pointed at a door and said, “Right through there.”
I knocked and went in. It was a large room paneled in wood, with large windows overlooking a wet street where everybody seemed to be leaning forward under umbrellas. Fischer stood to greet me. He was in his early sixties with tightly curled gray hair and a pencil moustache of the sort that was fashionable back in the ’50s. He was slim and his clothes were on the flash side of elegant. He shook my hand and gestured me to a chair.
“Detective Stone,” he said as he sat. “How can we help you?”
“I was hoping you could give me some information on one of your employees?”
His eyebrows shot up. “Really? Which one? Is he in trouble?”
I held his eye a moment and asked him, “Do you not employ women?”
He smiled, sighed, and sat back. “We have a small staff, Detective, and I know them all very well. I am afraid there is only one of them who is likely to attract the attention of the police. It’s David, isn’t it?”
“David Hansen.”
He nodded. “He is my nephew. This company exists for him and because of him.”
I frowned. “How’s that?”
“His father, my sister’s husband, died when David was a very small boy, barely two years old. I created this company as a way to provide for them. What do you want to know about him? Is it the pornography again?”
I shook my head. “Not exactly.” I hadn’t expected this, and I wasn’t sure how best to proceed. He must have seen the uncertainty on my face, because he said, “It’s all right, Detective. We are a very religious family, and my first loyalty is to God. If he has done wrong, I will not shield him.”
I hesitated. “I believe he goes away occasionally, to information technology conferences…”
“Yes. As I told you”—he gestured with both hands at the office around him—“this company was created for him, and by him. We realized at an early age that David was…” He thought carefully about the word. “Special. He was diagnosed with moderate to severe dyspraxia, dyslexia, and mild autism. He has a very high IQ, bordering on genius, but he can come across as, well, frankly, dumb. Stupid. As you can imagine, all of these things make it very difficult for him to relate to people, and he suffered a great deal at school. He got very poor grades and did not go to university. University would have destroyed him.”
I figured he would eventually get around to answering my question. In the meantime, I was interested in what he was telling me. He thought for a moment, like he was imagining his nephew being destroyed at university, then went on.
“His great passion, from a very early age, was computers. I guess they provided him with a world where he felt safe, and he could communicate with people in a way where he did not feel threatened. So I paid for him to have private tuition, and eventually he went to a technical college and became qualified as, I don’t know what. I, personally, know nothing about computers. This is why I say that he created this company as much as I did.” He laughed like he’d made a joke and continued. “He passed all his exams with flying colors, and when I saw how good he was, and how dedicated, I started GCS. I started him at the bottom, and he is working his way up.
“Now, twice a year, as regular as clockwork, he attends these conferences where they exhibit the latest technology, give talks, discuss the latest research…” He made a “and so on” gesture with his hand. “And very properly, David attends these conferences.”
“Where are these conferences held? Is it always the same place, or does the venue change?”
He was shaking his head before I had finished. Outside there was a roll of thunder, and a sudden squall of rain on the window made him glance outside.
“San Diego in the summer. It’s always the third weekend in July, Thursday to Sunday. And the first weekend in December in Los Angeles.”
“So on December 5, 2005, he had just come back from Los Angeles.”
He looked surprised. “I have no idea. That was twelve years ago. But if it was a Monday, then yes. As far as I am aware, he has never missed one yet.” He smiled. “He is also somewhat OCD.”
“How does he travel? Does he go by plane?”
“By train or car. He doesn’t like to fly.” He frowned suddenly. “Forgive me, Detective, but these are rather peculiar questions. Do you mind telling me what this is about?”
I felt suddenly weary and gazed out at the interminable gray rain and drizzle. I asked myself the same question. What was it all about? I sighed and said, “I wish I knew, Mr. Fischer.” Then, “We’re looking into the background and movements of a number of people who have a connection to the lockups at the back of Revere Avenue.”
“The lockups… Why on Earth…?”
“My next question may seem a little odd, Mr. Fischer.”
“They all seem a little odd, to be frank, Detective.”
“Would you say that David has a good relationship with his mother?”
“I’m not implying anything. I am asking you. I am trying to eliminate David from a list of possible suspects.”
“Suspects in what? Why won’t you tell me?”
“Twelve years ago, a woman’s arms were found in one of the units in that alley. The case went cold, and now we are reviewing it. David is one of a number of people we are looking into.”
His face, which had flushed red, now turned ashen. “I remember that case. You can’t possibly think David… He wasn’t even here…”
“We are looking into the possibility that the murder was committed somewhere else.”
He stood and walked to the window. “My God… David…”
I gave him a moment, then said, “He is just one of a number of people we are—” I hesitated. “—trying to eliminate from our inquiry.”
He turned and stared at me. “Yes… yes, of course. Eliminate from… As I said, he was not a happy child.” He returned to his chair and sat carefully, as though sitting quickly might somehow have made David guilty of murder. “His mother was—is—naturally, protective. Perhaps a little too much so, but there is nothing…” He glanced at me. “Nothing untoward or unhealthy in their relationship.” I went to speak, but he rushed on. “I can vouch for the fact that he was never in any way abused as a child. In any way at all!”
I nodded. For some reason, I had suddenly had enough of Fischer and his weird family. I went to stand and said, “Can you tell me the name of these conferences that David goes to? Or the venue?”
He shook his head. “I would have to ask him.”
“Your accounts department must have records…”
He shook his head. “No, he pays for them himself. You want me to ask him now?”
“No. It’s okay. Probably best if you don’t mention my visit. In all probability, he will be eliminated anyway.”
