7 Die For Me

by Karen Rose

  “We have to believe he had a reason,” Vito said. “He’s planned this down to the nth degree. I don’t think he’d just skip two graves for kicks, but we need to get all the bodies out of there before we start formulating any theories.”

  Liz gestured to her office door. “Keep me apprised. I’ll get to work on freeing up another team to work any leads you come up with. Needless to say, the mayor is chomping at the bit. Don’t make me look stupid, guys.”

  Vito took the map. “I’ll make you a copy. Try to keep the mayor from going to the press too soon, okay?”

  “For now we’ve been lucky,” Liz said. “The reporters haven’t found out about our secret garden, but it’s just a matter of time. Too many bodies showing up to the morgue and too many CSU techs coming in for overtime. One of the reporters is bound to grab the scent. Just stick with ‘no comment’ and leave the rest to me.”

  Vito’s laugh was grim. “That’s one order we’ll be glad to follow.”

  Monday, January 15, 8:15 A.M.

  The Albright Museum was housed in what had once been a chocolate factory. It had been a definite consideration as Sophie had considered Ted the Third’s job offer six months before. It was fate, she’d thought. The museum boasted one of the greatest private collections of medieval European artifacts in North America and it was in a chocolate factory. How could she possibly go wrong accepting?

  That had become one of the questions for the ages, she thought darkly as she let herself in the museum’s front door. Like the secret of life or how many licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop. The world would never know.

  Because she had, of course, gone wrong. Accepting Ted the Third’s job offer had been one of the stupidest things she’d ever done in her life. And I’ve done some really stupid things, she thought, even more darkly. Vito Ciccotelli’s handsome face popped into her mind and she shoved it away. At least she’d found out his cheating ways before she’d done something really stupid, like sleep with him.

  “Hello?” she called.

  “In the office.” Ted’s wife, Darla, sat behind the big cluttered desk, a pencil stuck in her graying hair. Darla managed the books, which meant the most important function of the museum—her paycheck—was in capable hands. “How was your weekend, dear?”

  Sophie shook her head. “You really don’t want to know.”

  Darla glanced up, her eyes concerned. “Did your grandmother take a turn?”

  It was one of the reasons that Sophie liked Darla. She was a nice person who really cared. And she seemed fairly normal, which made her the odd Albright. With the exception of Darla, Ted’s family was . . . just plain off.

  There was Ted himself with his bizarro-world approach to running a history museum and his son, who Sophie always thought of as Theo Four. Theo was nineteen, a sulky, angry boy who played hooky more than he showed up. That wouldn’t have been such an issue, but Theo’s new job was to run the Knight tour and when he played hooky, the responsibility fell to Sophie who was the only other one big enough to fit the suit. Darla was barely five-two and the Albrights’ daughter, Patty Ann, even smaller.

  Patty emerged from the ladies’ room, wearing a very conservative blue suit, and Sophie narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Patty Ann looks nice today. How come?”

  Darla smiled without looking up. “I’m just glad it’s not Wednesday.”

  Wednesday was Patty Ann’s goth day. Any other day you never knew how she’d show up for work. A struggling actress, Patty Ann hadn’t yet found her persona, so she imitated everyone else’s. Usually not well.

  Sophie questioned the wisdom of assigning her to the reception desk and wondered how many visitors took one look at Patty Ann and went on to the Franklin Institute or some other real museum, especially on Wednesdays. But Sophie kept her mouth shut because as much as she hated doing the tours, she hated the thought of cheerily greeting visitors even more. I miss my pile of rocks.

  Darla looked up, reluctantly. “Theo’s got a cold.”

  Sophie rolled her eyes. “And we have a knight tour scheduled. That’s just great. Dammit, Darla . . . I’m sorry. I really wanted to do some real work today.”

  Darla looked distressed. “The tours will bring in a lot of money, Sophie.”

  “I know.” And she wondered if she was whoring herself for that money, participating in an enterprise that cheapened history. But as long as Anna was alive, she needed the money. Sophie hoped she needed the money for a long time. “So what time am I on?”

  “The knight tour is at twelve-thirty, Viking at three.”

  Oh joy, oh rapture. “I’ll be there with bells on.”

  Monday, January 15, 8:45 A.M.

  “You got lucky, boys,” Katherine said as she pulled the Knight’s body from cold storage. “This guy has a tattoo. May make identifying him a little easier.” She pulled the sheet away, revealing the man’s shoulder. “Can you guess what it is?”

  Vito crouched down and stared at the tattoo through narrowed eyes. “It’s a man.”

  “Not just any man. If you look at him as closely as you watched Sophie yesterday, you’ll figure it out.”

  Vito’s cheeks heated. He hadn’t realized his scrutiny of Sophie Johannsen had been so obvious. Feeling squirmy, he turned back to the victim’s shoulder, but not before he caught Nick’s look of amusement. It wouldn’t have been so bad had Sophie not turned him down cold. It still stung. “It’s a yellow man,” Vito said flatly.

  Nick looked over Vito’s shoulder. “It’s Oscar. You know, the movie award statue.”

  Vito squinted. “Not a particularly good rendition, but it could be.” Straightening, he looked at Nick. “Maybe our Knight’s an actor?”

  Nick shrugged. “It’s a place to start. It’ll narrow down the missing persons reports.”

  Vito took his notebook from his pocket. “Cause of death was the hole in his gut?”

  “That seems likely. I’ll start the autopsies today. So far I’ve only done external exams on the three victims from yesterday.” She looked back at the Knight and sighed. “But this one suffered, I can tell that right now.”

  “Being disemboweled has got to hurt a little,” Nick said sarcastically.

  “I can only hope he was dead at least for part of it, but I don’t think he was. I’m fairly certain he was alive when every major bone in his body was dislocated.”

  Vito and Nick flinched. “My God,” Vito murmured. “How would . . .? He’s a big guy.”

  “Six feet three, two hundred twenty-five,” Katherine confirmed. “And he fought hard. There are deep abrasions on his wrists and ankles where he was tied with rope. And yeah, I sent a sample of the rope fiber to the lab, but that’s a long shot, kids. Other than the dislocations and an empty abdominal cavity, he appears to have been in good shape.” She held up a hand. “And yes, I’ve already started a urine tox. I can’t see how he could have been overpowered without being drugged. I don’t see any head trauma.”

  Nick blew out a breath. “Anything on the woman?”

  “Official cause of death is a broken neck.” She pulled out another drawer, their female victim, the sheet forming a tent over her folded hands.

  “You need to see her back.” Katherine lifted the sheet and carefully pushed the woman’s hip so that the back of her thigh was visible. “A pattern of contusions, regularly spaced and very deep.” She looked up, her face grim. “I’m thinking nails.”

  Vito’s eyes were already beginning to water. Blinking, he focused on the pattern on the woman’s skin. Each hole was round and small. “Is it only on her legs?”

  “No.” Katherine slid the drawer back into the wall. “It’s deepest on the backs of her thighs, but the same pattern is visible on her back, calves and the backs of her arms. From the depth of the thigh punctures, I’d say she was sitting up, all of her body weight driving her down onto the nails.”

  Nick’s expression became strangely strained. “A chair of nails?”

  “Or something like th
at. Her gluteus was severely burned. No skin remains.” Katherine cocked her jaw, anger in her eyes. “And she was alive the whole time.”

  Vito’s stomach churned as the extent of this killer’s cruelty became clearer. “We’re dealing with a creative sadist here. I mean, how the hell would anybody even conceive of a chair of nails?”

  Nick sat down at Katherine’s computer. “Come here, Chick. Look at this.”

  Vito frowned at the screen. It was the chair he’d envisioned, covered in spikes. Restraints were attached to the chair’s arms and front legs. “What the hell is that?”

  “I couldn’t sleep last night—kept thinking about the way he’d posed their hands. So I got up and Googled medieval effigies. Sophie was right, by the way. The poses of our victims are exactly like the tomb effigies I found online.”

  Vito didn’t want to think about Sophie right now. He’d done enough of that during the night while he tossed and turned. “That’s nice,” he scowled, focusing on the screen. “But what about the chair? Please don’t tell me this is available on eBay.”

  Nick looked back at the screen, troubled. “It might be. But this site belongs to a museum in Europe that specializes in medieval torture.”

  “A torture museum?” It was real, then. That chair existed in a museum. One also existed right here in Philly. “I can’t begin to imagine how she suffered. How both of them suffered. And we haven’t even started on the others.” He pressed his fingers into the back of his skull, a headache forming there. “How did you find this site?”

  “I thought about what Sophie said about disembowelment being used as torture during medieval times. I Googled ‘medieval torture’ and this is one of the top results. This chair has over thirteen hundred spikes.”

  “That would induce the pattern of injury on the victim,” Katherine agreed tightly.

  Vito ran a hand through his hair. “So we have poses like statues on medieval crypts, a chair of spikes, a disembowelment and, what, a stretching on a . . . rack? This is not normal, people.”

  “A killer with a theme,” Nick mused. “Except for the body that’s on its way in. It didn’t appear to have anything funky like this.”

  Katherine stepped back from the computer. “I thought I’d seen everything on this job, but I keep being proved wrong.” She squared her shoulders. “I do have two other things so far.” She handed Vito a glass jar containing small white crumbs. “I scraped it from the wire on the male victim’s hands. I found what looks like the same substance on the female victim’s wires.”

  Vito held it up to the light, then passed the jar to Nick. “Best guess?”

  Katherine frowned. “I sent a sample to the lab, but it looks like something in the silicone family. I’ll let you know when I get the results.”

  “What’s the second thing you have for us?” Nick asked.

  “All three of these victims were washed thoroughly. Blood should have been caked all over the three of them, but there was none. That tells me that originally the two posed victims had a lot more of whatever’s in that jar all over them.”

  “We’ll try Missing Persons to match the Knight’s tat,” Vito said. “Thanks, Katherine.”

  “Then let’s call Sophie,” Nick said when they were out in the hall. “I want to follow up on those torture devices. If that’s what he used, he had to get them somewhere and maybe she can give us an idea of where to start looking. We should have gotten her number from Katherine.”

  It was a good idea, Vito had to admit. She’d been right about the posed hands. She obviously knew her stuff. And it might give him a chance to find out what he’d done to earn that flash of fury he’d seen in her eyes just before she’d ridden away. More than that, he just wanted to see her again. “She works at the Albright Museum. We can go when we’re done at Missing Persons.”

  Dutton, Georgia, Monday, January 15, 10:10 A.M.

  “Thanks for coming down,” Daniel said. “Especially on your day off.”

  Luke’s eyes were glued to Daniel’s father’s computer screen. “Anything for a pal.”

  “And the fact that there’s a lake down the road with prize bass didn’t hurt,” Daniel said dryly and Luke just grinned. “Did you find anything?”

  Luke shrugged. “Depends. Before mid-November, there are no e-mails.”

  “What do mean, none? You mean they never existed or they were erased?”

  “Erased. Now, since November we’ve got e-mails. Acknowledgments for electronic bill pays, mostly. Aside from the usual spam, most of your dad’s legit e-mails have been replies to a guy named Carl Sargent.”

  “Sargent runs the union at the paper mill that employs half the town. Dad met with him before he went away. Yesterday I found out Dad was going to run for Congress.”

  Luke read the remaining e-mails. “Sargent keeps asking your father to make his candidacy public, and your father keeps putting him off. This one says he’s tied up. This one says he’ll schedule a press conference when he finishes some urgent business.”

  “With my mother,” Daniel murmured. “She has cancer.”

  Luke winced. “I’m sorry to hear that, Daniel.”

  Once again he was gripped by the need to see her just once more. “Thanks. Do you see any kind of itinerary? Anything that would give me an idea of where they might be?”

  “No.” Luke tapped at the keyboard and brought up the online banking screen. “When you find your father, tell him not to save his passwords in a Word file on his hard drive. It’s like leaving your front door key on a silver platter for the thieves.”

  “Like I could tell him anything,” Daniel muttered. Luke’s mouth quirked in sympathy.

  “My old man’s the same. Doesn’t look like your dad made any major cash withdrawals, not in the last ninety days. That’s all the records they keep online.”

  “What I don’t understand is why he’s doing his e-mail and banking remotely. If he has access to a computer wherever he is, why not just do it from there?”

  “Maybe he wanted to access documents on his hard drive from the road.” Luke continued to tap keys. “That’s interesting.”

  “What?”

  “His Internet history’s been wiped.”

  “Completely wiped?”

  “No. But it’s pretty sophisticated.” He typed for another minute. “This is a surprisingly good wipe. Most computer techs wouldn’t know how to get past this.” He looked up, his eyes serious. “Danny, somebody’s been in your dad’s system.”

  A new wave of uneasiness rippled through him. “Maybe, maybe not. My dad’s a computer person from way back. He was also super-paranoid about security. I can see him being worried about leaving a trail.”

  Luke frowned. “If he was so concerned with security, he wouldn’t have left his passwords on his hard drive. Besides, I thought your dad was a judge.”

  “He was. Electronics is his hobby—ham radios, remote-controlled rockets, but especially computers. He’d take them apart, build his own upgrades. If anyone would know how to keep his system clean, it would be my father.”

  Luke turned back to the screen. “Funny how some things get passed on and others don’t. You don’t have a computer bone in your body.”

  “No, I don’t,” Daniel murmured. All that expertise had been diverted to another branch of the family tree. But it was unpleasant to remember, so he briskly closed the door on that dark corner of his memory. “So can you get through the wipe?”

  Luke looked offended. “Of course. This is interesting. With all those travel brochures, I expected a few travel websites, but there’s nothing like that in his cache.”

  “What sites did he go to?”

  “The weather forecast for Philadelphia two weeks before Thanksgiving. And . . . a search for oncologists in the Philadelphia area. Was Philly one of the brochures?”

  Daniel leaned in for a closer look at the screen. “No, it wasn’t.”

  “Well, that’s where I’d start if I were you. Looks like they wanted to be
prepared in case your mother needed a doctor.” He bent his mouth in sympathy. “I’ve got a meeting with a lake and a bass. You want to come?”

  “No, but thanks. I think I’m going to look around here a little more. Check out this Philly angle. Thanks for your help, Luke.”

  “Any time. Good luck, buddy.”

  Philadelphia, Monday, January 15, 10:15 A.M.

  “Oh dear God.” Marilyn Keyes lowered herself to the edge of a faded paisley sofa, every ounce of color drained from her face. “Oh, Warren.” Pressing one arm to her stomach, she raised a shaking hand to her mouth and rocked herself.

  “Then this is your son, ma’am?” Vito asked gently. They’d gotten a hit from the Missing Persons file right away. Their knight was Warren Keyes, age twenty-one. He’d been reported missing by his parents and his fiancée, Sherry, eight days before.

  “Yes.” She nodded, her breath shallow. “That’s Warren. That’s my son.”

  Nick sat next to her. “Is there someone we can call for you, Mrs. Keyes?”

  “My husband.” She pressed her fingertips to her temple. “There’s a book . . . in my purse.” She pointed to the dining room table and Nick went to make the call.

  Vito took Nick’s place on the sofa. “Mrs. Keyes, I’m so sorry, but we need to ask you some questions. Do you need a glass of water or something?”

  She drew a deep breath. “No. But thank you. Before you ask, Warren has had a drug problem in the past. But he’d been clean and sober for almost two years.”

  Vito pulled his notebook from his pocket. It wasn’t the question he’d planned to ask, but he’d learned long ago when to go with the flow. “What kind of drugs, Mrs. Keyes?”

  “Cocaine and alcohol mostly. He . . . fell in with some bad kids in high school. Started using. But he got clean and since he met Sherry, he’s changed.”

  “Mrs. Keyes, what did Warren do for a living?”

  “He’s an actor.” She swallowed. “Was an actor.”