7 Die For Me

by Karen Rose

  Once again he was treated to a moment of silence. “So what did his son do?”

  Daniel closed his eyes. “I don’t know. The only things I know is that one of them did an Internet search for Philadelphia oncologists and that the last person to actually talk to them was Grandma. I’m here looking for them, and I’m prepared to go to every hotel in this city, but it would help to know what number they called Grandma from.”

  “Why don’t you ask someone from GBI to run it for you?” she asked.

  Daniel hesitated. “I’d rather not. My boss wanted me to initiate a missing-person case. I told him I would when I had evidence that this was more than a simple vacation.”

  “Your boss is right,” she said coldly. “You should do this by the book.”

  “I will, once I’m convinced they are missing, and not on vacation. So can you run Grandma’s LUDs?”

  “I’ll do my best. Don’t call me again. I’ll call you if and when I find something.”

  Daniel winced when the phone clicked in his ear. It had actually gone far better than he’d anticipated.

  Tuesday, January 16, 1:15 A.M.

  The occupants of the second row were completely personal. The old man and his wife were already buried there. Soon the empty plots would hold the old man’s spawn. How fitting that the family would spend eternity together . . . in my graveyard. His mouth curved. How fitting that the only one buried in the family plot behind the little Baptist church in Dutton, Georgia . . . is me.

  He hadn’t asked for the confrontation now. Artie and his wife had brought it to him, right to his doorstep. He’d always planned to wage this war, but after he’d made his mark. After his goals were met. When he had true success to shove down the old man’s throat. When he could say, You said I’d never be anything. You were wrong.

  It was too late for that. He’d never be able to say, “You were wrong.” Artie started it, but now that he was engaged in battle, he’d finish it, once and for all. The old man had paid dearly for his crimes. His offspring would soon follow.

  Artie’s daughter would play the final major role in his game—she would become the Queen, the only character standing between the Inquisitor and the throne. She would be, of course, destroyed. Painfully.

  Artie’s son would play a mere peasant poaching the king’s land. A minor role in the game. He stood abruptly. But his death will close a significant chapter in my life. He crossed the floor of his studio with a purposeful stride, no longer tired. Opening a cabinet, he carefully drew out the tool that would deliver his vengeance. He’d saved it for years, just waiting for this time. Setting it on his desk, he pried open the jagged steel jaws and set the trap. Hands steady, he lowered a pencil between the jaws and tapped the release. The jaws snapped shut and the shattered pencil flew from his hand.

  He gave a hard nod of approval. Artie’s son would know pain—intense, excruciating, unimaginable pain. Artie’s son would scream for help, for release, and finally for death. But no one would hear him. No one would save him. I killed them all.

  Tuesday, January 16, 6:00 A.M.

  Vito stumbled into the kitchen, lured by the smells of coffee and sizzling bacon. Then smiled at the sight of his sister Tess sitting at the kitchen table, feeding baby Gus in his high chair. Or trying to.

  Gus pushed his bowl of oatmeal away. “Want cake,” Gus said, very distinctly.

  “Don’t we all?” Tess asked the baby wryly. “But we don’t always get what we want, and I know your mama does not give you cake for breakfast.”

  Gus tilted his head, measuring her slyly. “Tino cake.”

  Vito’s lips twitched. Cake had been Tino’s answer to every child-care calamity since the boys had arrived. “I guess we’re busted.”

  She wheeled around, eyes wide. But the startled look quickly gave way to her gorgeous smile as she quickly crossed the small kitchen into his open arms. “Vito.”

  “Hey, kid.” Something was wrong. Her smile had been genuine, but her body was tense as she hugged him. “What’s wrong? Is it Molly?”

  “No, she’s better this morning. You worry too much, Vito. Sit. I’ll get your plate.”

  Still wary, he sat. “I found the snack you left in the fridge last night. Thanks.”

  She threw a look over her shoulder as she heaped eggs and bacon on his plate. “That was an entire ravioli, not a snack. But you’re welcome.” She put the plate on the table before him and took the other chair. “What time did you get home last night?”

  “Almost one.” On the way home he’d stopped at the bar where Warren Keyes had waited tables. Interviews with Warren’s boss and coworkers had turned up nothing new. No one had noticed anything or anyone out of the ordinary. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “You didn’t. The boys wore me out last night.” She tickled Gus’s feet through his socks. “This one moves fast on these chubby little legs and you’ve got too many things lying around that he can break. Once I got Gus and the others asleep, I crashed.”

  Vito frowned. “Dante was awake when I got home, crying out on the back porch.”

  Tess’s eyes widened. “The back porch? It’s freezing cold out there.”

  Vito’s back porch was enclosed with glass, but it wasn’t heated and it had been freezing cold. “I know. He was wrapped up in his sleeping bag, but still. I was scared shitless when I came in and saw he wasn’t asleep on the living room floor. I think I scared him shitless when I found him out there. He said he just wanted to be alone.”

  “He was upset about Molly,” Tess said. “That’s understandable.”

  Vito had his doubts, but hadn’t pressed the boy. “Maybe. I made him come back in, but keep an eye on him.” He regarded Tess over his cup. “So what’s wrong?”

  Her chuckle was wry. “You’re nosy, you know that?”

  Sophie came to mind and he felt a sharp stab in his heart. “So I’ve been told.”

  Tess lifted her brows. “I’ll tell if you tell.”

  “I should know better than to probe a shrink. Okay, but you first.”

  She shrugged. “Being around the kids is hard. Aidan and I have been trying to . . .” She looked down. “Both of us are one of five kids, and we can’t even have one.”

  “Maybe you just need to give it some time.”

  She looked up and his heart wanted to break at the sadness in her eyes. “It’s been eighteen months. We’re starting to talk doctors and treatment and adoption.”

  He reached over and squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry, kid.”

  Her lips curved, still sadly. “Me, too. So now it’s your turn. What’s her name?”

  He huffed a laugh. “Sophie. And she’s very pretty, very smart and I like her, but she doesn’t want to like me. She pretty much asked me to leave her alone and I will.”

  “Advisable from the standpoint of not becoming a stalker, but utterly uncharacteristic for you. I don’t think I’ve ever known you to not pursue a female that caught your eye.”

  That had been true until Andrea. She’d said no at first, but he’d been infatuated. He’d pursued and she’d eventually changed her mind. It ended up being the worst thing that could have happened to either of them. “Maybe I’ve just grown up.”

  “Uh-huh.” She nodded, clearly unconvinced. “Right.”

  He stood up. “Well, right or wrong I have to get out of here. I have to stop at the bakery and the morgue before work.”

  Tess made a face. “Bakery and morgue are two words that should not be used together, Vito. Will you be home for dinner?”

  “I don’t know.” He dropped a kiss on her forehead. “I’ll call you either way.”

  “I’ve got to get the boys off to school.” She looked around the kitchen. “Then I think Gus and I will go shopping for curtains. Your windows look sad.”

  It was Tess that looked sad, but there wasn’t anything Vito could do to fix it any more than he could fix the look of sadness he’d seen on Sophie’s face the night before.

  Tuesday, J
anuary 16, 8:01 A.M.

  “Mmmm.” Jen McFain sank her teeth into a sugary cruller. “Have one.” She pushed the box toward Beverly Jenkins, one of the detectives Liz had assigned to Vito’s case.

  Beverly cast a baleful eye at the box. “How do you stay so skinny, McFain?”

  “Metabolism.” Jen grinned. “But if it’s any consolation, my mom says my metabolism will come to a screeching halt when I’m forty and every bite I take will land on my ass.”

  Beverly’s lips twitched. “Then there is a God.”

  Liz came in with Katherine and Tim Riker, Beverly’s partner. “Where are we, Vito?” Liz asked when they’d taken their seats and passed the donut box down the table.

  “Liz gave you most of the details yesterday,” Vito said to Riker and Jenkins. “We have one firm ID yesterday and two more tentative IDs last night,” Vito said. He walked to the whiteboard where he’d recreated Katherine’s sketch of the four by four matrix. In each rectangle he’d written in a short description of each victim and their cause and approximate time of death.

  “We’ve ID’d Warren Keyes, and our tentative IDs are on these females.” He pointed to plots three-two and one-one. “The one with the folded hands could be Brittany Bellamy.” He taped her picture on the side of the board. “Brittany was a model. Her picture and a list of her clients is in the packet of info I made for each of you. We don’t know where she lives. Her name isn’t in our missing persons files or in the DMV files. She might not be local.”

  “What about the other female?” Liz asked.

  “Her name is Claire Reynolds,” Katherine said. “She’s got a metal plate in her head and she’s an amputee, right leg, above the knee. I came in at six and contacted the manufacturer of the metal plate. They were able to match the serial number on the plate to Claire Reynolds. The plate was put into Claire’s head after a car accident. Claire was living in Georgia at the time and the surgery was done in Atlanta. I assume her leg was damaged in the same accident. I’ll know when I get her medical history.”

  Vito took up the tale. “Claire moved to Philly about four years ago. Her last known employment was with one of the branches of the library. Her parents reported her missing about fourteen months ago. Their description matches the body we found.”

  “And the timing is consistent with the level of decomposition,” Katherine added. “I haven’t started her autopsy yet, but I did x-ray her while I was waiting for the guy to check his records for her name. Her neck was broken. No other obvious injuries.”

  Vito taped her picture to the whiteboard next to the rectangle marking her grave. “I got this photo from the DMV records. Her parents need to be notified.”

  Beverly was taking notes. “We can take that. We’ll also see if we can get a hair sample or anything we can use for a positive DNA ID.”

  “You found the woman with the folded hands in the same modeling site that Warren Keyes used,” Tim said. “Was Claire a model too, and is there any possibility we could find any of these others there?”

  “I didn’t check to see if Claire was a model. She doesn’t really have the look, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t. It’s worth a check.”

  “I doubt the three elderly people were models,” Liz said. “It’s more likely you’ll find the three younger men there, the head-wound, gunshot, and shrapnel vics.”

  Vito frowned. “Tino said there wasn’t enough of the other young men left for a sketch, and the forensic anthropologist is at a conference until next week.”

  Beverly lifted her brows. “Tino?”

  “My brother, aka free consultant sketch artist. He did this sketch of the girl with the folded hands. We used it to locate Brittany Bellamy on the modeling site.” Vito pulled Tino’s sketch from his folder and slid it to the middle of the table. “He thinks he can do sketches of the older couple, but none of the others.”

  “He’s good,” Tim said, comparing the sketch to Brittany’s picture. “But if he can’t get us sketches, we can try to match their physical characteristics to missing persons.”

  “It’s worth a try,” Vito agreed. “But first we need to confirm our victim really is Brittany Bellamy. After you notify Claire Reynolds’s parents, can you two also call Brittany’s clients and see if you can track down an address?”

  Jen raised a brow. “And you’ll be doing . . .?”

  “I’ll be tracking down the equipment he used on the most recent torture-murders. I want to establish a money trail. Sophie Johannsen gave me a list of people who either sell reproductions or may know of the sale of authentic artifacts. I’m looking for a chair, a rack, a sword, and mail.” He looked at Katherine. “Nick thinks the circular bruises you saw were from chain mail.”

  “He could be right. Someone would have had to hit him with a lot of force to cause that kind of bruising,” she said thoughtfully. “Like maybe with a hammer.”

  “But that doesn’t explain the other injuries,” Liz said. She pulled the photos of victim three-one closer. “Whatever hit his head and arm was heavy and sharp. Jagged, even.”

  “The blow to his head came from a horizontal angle,” Katherine added. “It was enough to rip the top of his head off. The blow to his arm was delivered vertically.”

  “Warren had held a sword at some point,” Jen suggested. “Maybe he used that.”

  Katherine shook her head. “We’re looking for something blunt, but also sharp.”

  “And medieval.” Jen grimaced. “What about that spiked ball on a chain? If it got whipped around hard enough, it could deliver a blow with that kind of force.”

  “A flail,” Tim said and winced. “God.”

  “I’ll add a flail to my list,” Vito said. “Okay. We know Warren got a hit on his résumé the day before he disappeared. The modeling site allows prospective employers to contact the models via e-mail. We don’t know who e-mailed him because they sent a virus to wipe his hard drive.”

  “Maybe we can get something from Brittany’s computer,” Liz said. “Get it to IT for testing. Also get into her account and see if she got any hits in the last month.”

  Beverly nodded. “Will do. You know, Vito, there’s one thing that bothers me.”

  “Only one?” Vito asked and she shot him a dry smile.

  “The fingertips on the old man. Your report says you think it was the only crime of real passion out of all of these, and that makes sense. But why take his fingertips? Seems like the killer must have known the man could be identified by his prints, but it would have been a threat only if the body were found. He obviously didn’t think any of his other victims would be found. He made no effort to disguise any of them.”

  “It was part of the assault,” Katherine said. “The fingerpads were cut off while the old man was still alive. Whoever this guy is, the killer really hated him.”

  “Let’s let Tino sketch their faces,” Vito suggested, “then we’ll see if anything pops. What about the old lady buried in the first row?”

  “Haven’t even peeked at her yet. I’ll do the autopsy today.” Katherine looked at Jen. “Did you get anything on the bullet I took from one-three?”

  “Yes. The bullet’s from a German Luger,” Jen said with a satisfied nod. “The ballistics guy thinks it’s vintage 1940s. He’s going to do some checking today.”

  Liz shrugged. “It’s a common enough gun, even the vintage ones. It most likely won’t be traceable.”

  But Tim was nodding. “Yeah, but it’s significant considering he’s buried next to a guy with shrapnel in his gut. It’s going to be interesting to get a read on the grenade that was used on him. And if the gun is vintage, it’s just more data to show that this guy goes for authenticity wherever possible.” Tim looked over at Vito. “You got two historical themes going on, both warfare related.”

  “You’re right. We just need to figure out why. Jen, what do we know about the field?”

  “Nothing yet. We start sifting dirt today. I sent samples of the fill dirt from each grave along with a sample
of the dirt from the field off to the lab. They should have an analysis in a few days. We can at least see if the fill dirt came from the field.”

  “I’d like to know why that field,” Liz mused. “What led him to that field?”

  “Good point.” Vito jotted it down. “We’ll check out Har-lan P. Winchester’s aunt. She’s deceased, but she owned the land when the first grave was dug. What else?”

  “I’m expecting a lab report on the silicon lubricant this afternoon,” Katherine said.

  “Good.” Vito rose. “We’re done for now. We all have our list of to-do items. Let’s meet back here to debrief at five o’clock. Stay in touch and stay safe.”

  Chapter Ten

  Tuesday, January 16, 8:35 A.M.

  Patty Ann wasn’t at the front desk when Sophie let herself into the museum. Theo Four was, and Sophie was glad to see him. “You’re back. Now you can wear the armor.”

  He shook his head. “Not today. I won’t be here for the first tour.”

  “Theo. You have to stay. That knight tour is a pain.”

  “For which my father pays you well,” Theo said stonily.

  Sophie wanted to hit him, but Theo was a very large young man, built like a rock. “I got news for you, kid. Your dad pays—” She broke it off. Her meager salary wasn’t an appropriate topic to share with the owner’s son. She turned, headed for her office.

  “Sophie, you have a package.” Theo gestured to a small box on the desk.

  Annoyed with herself for getting angry at the boy, Sophie grabbed the small box from the desk and took it into her office, shutting her door behind her. With short rips she tore the paper from the box and flipped off the lid.

  Then dropped the box, muffling her scream with her hand.

  A dead mouse rolled out of the box. Its head didn’t follow. At the bottom of the box was the mousetrap that had been the mouse’s execution device.

  Breathing hard, she sank blindly into her chair, her hand still clamped hard over her mouth. Bile rose and she choked it back. She knew exactly who had sent the mouse and why, because she’d received a similar one ten years before.