Acquired Motives (Dr. Sylvia Strange Book 2)

by Sarah Lovett

  He continued a few more feet to the bedroom at the end of the hall. The room was a mess, bed unmade, clothes strewn everywhere.

  Erin grabbed him by the arm and pulled him from the doorway. She slammed the door and stood in front of it. "Do you think I've got another lover hidden away?"

  "That's not my business anymore."

  She set her hands on her hips. "I don't fall in love easily, Matt."

  He shook his head impatiently. "I don't want to play games with you. Did you set me up?"

  Suddenly she understood what he was asking. Her expression softened. She said, "Something went wrong with the Manny Dunn stakeout."

  Matt was standing in the center of the hallway, feet planted. "Erin, I need to know who your snitch is." In the silence that followed his words, Matt heard the low hum of the swamp cooler.

  Erin made up her mind. "Kiki Moore, at the Cock 'n' Bull."

  Matt didn't hide his surprise. Kiki. The bartender he'd questioned last week about Anthony Randall's kidnapping and murder. The bartender who lived in Pojoaque. Just thirty minutes ago, Jackie Madden had mentioned that Kevin might be involved with a woman in Pojoaque.

  Matt nodded brusquely to Erin and turned to leave. But she stopped him. She said, "That's it? You're just going to walk out?"

  He glanced at his watch: ten-forty. "I'm going to the Cock 'n' Bull."

  "You think I lied to you?"

  "I don't know." For the first time since Matt had arrived at the house, he really looked at Erin. Her light brown hair was pulled back from her face and fastened with a turquoise clip. Her skin was still pale, but she had brushed a light coating of blush on her cheeks. Her lips were tinted with lipstick. She smelled of honeysuckle. Her Levi's looked freshly washed, and her cotton shirt had been pressed. He thought then how little he knew her, even though they'd been lovers.

  She read his mind. She said, "It's impossible for you to trust me, isn't it?"

  He didn't answer. And her voice was so soft, he barely heard her speak again. She said, "You're wrong about this."

  Suddenly he doubted himself. Why did he have to blame Erin? Maybe Kevin Chase had set them all up. Or maybe the snitch was bad.

  Matt felt something slipping away. But he couldn't quite let go of his anger—or his blame.

  Erin walked past him into the foyer and held open the front door. As he stepped out, she was silent.

  Sunlight hit him square in the eye; for a moment he was blinded. He heard Erin's voice clearly. "Please don't come back again."

  And with that, she closed the door gently.

  SYLVIA WALKED THROUGH her office door at a few minutes before eleven, and she knew instantly that she'd made a mistake. She should have driven straight from the monastery to her home.

  Marjorie was frantically waving her bangled arm in the air. The receptionist had the phone handset pressed to her ear—she clamped one palm over the mouthpiece and whispered, "I think it's one of your clients, but I didn't get his name. He sounds bad. Line one."

  Inside her office, she picked up the phone. "This is Sylvia Strange."

  "Dr. Strange, I'm really sorry. . . ."

  "Who is this?" Before she finished speaking she was at the door, signaling Marjorie to join her in the office. Then she moved back to her desk, found pencil and pad, and sank down into the chair.

  He said, "I took some pills."

  "What kind of pills?" Sylvia tried to keep her voice slow and steady while she scribbled words on the notepad. Marjorie stared down at the message: "Call Matt, tell him I've got Dupont White on the phone!"

  "Are you there, Doctor? You care about me, don't you? You're still the Killers' Doctor. . . ."

  Sylvia said, "I'm here." She watched Marjorie dart from the room. "How many pills did you take?"

  "You know who this is, don't you?"

  "Dupont."

  "Call me Killer." His voice died to a whisper. "I don't think we'll have to go through this again, Dr. Strange."

  "Where are you?" She didn't know what Dupont was up to, but she was damn sure he hadn't overdosed on pills.

  He said, "Cerrillos. . . motel. . . the bird."

  Sylvia tried to remember the names of the motels on Cerrillos Road. She grabbed the phone book from under her desk and flipped to motels. "Are you at the Thunderbird?"

  "No. . ."

  Marjorie was back, waving the handset, motioning a thumbs-up. Sylvia nodded to the receptionist and spoke into her own phone. "The Roadrunner?"

  "The Roadrunner. . ." Killer was fading out.

  "What's your room number?"

  "Seven."

  Outside Sylvia's office, Marjorie was whispering the information to Matt at D.P.S.

  Sylvia said, "I'll be there. I'm going to send a paramedic team—"

  Click. Killer was gone.

  MATT'S CAPRICE AND a state police unit were parked a hundred yards south of the Roadrunner Motel on Cerrillos Road. Sylvia saw the two empty vehicles, cut across traffic, and guided the Volvo into the adjacent used-car lot. She slammed the door and strode toward the motel. She wasn't sure what to expect—a SWAT team, another murdered sex offender, a police barricade—but no one stopped her progress.

  She slowed only when she rounded the side of the motel and saw an emergency medical transport vehicle in the middle of the lot. An E.M.T. walked out of Number 7. He was a young man, early twenties, and he wore the uniform of emergency response team personnel.

  The E.M.T. shook his head when he saw her. "No one there."

  Sylvia brushed past the man and entered Room 7. She almost bumped into Matt.

  He said, "The door was open when we got here. We've checked the other rooms, but they're empty. No suicides."

  Sylvia tried to center herself. She was still pumped up on crisis adrenaline, she was angry, and she was sick of Dupont's mind games.

  The E.M.T. poked his head in the doorway. "You want us to hang around?"

  Sylvia stared blankly at the man. Matt said, "Give us another minute."

  The man shrugged and left the room. Through dirty windows Sylvia could see a dry, weed-ridden field, and a for-sale sign: 36 ACRES ZONED INDUSTRIAL/PARK AND PARK REALTY—WE BUILD YOUR DREAMS.

  The Roadrunner had the dubious distinction of being the last motel over the age of thirty still standing on the south end of Cerrillos Road. It was shaped in a horseshoe and the undeveloped acreage butted up against the motel's southern edge. Beyond the field someone had tried to start a used-car lot, and wreckers still dotted the landscape. She could see her own Volvo; it fit right in with the other wrecks.

  Although her view to the north was obscured by the motel's office, Sylvia knew that Sue-Ann's Curls and Cuts, Andy's Suds, and a shoe repair shop occupied a dejected-looking strip mall.

  Through the open door Sylvia saw the E.M.T. lighting up a cigarette. Behind him Criminal Agent Terry Osuna strode across the lot from the office.

  She stopped in the doorway and greeted Sylvia with a nod. The bulge under her thin jacket was a Colt .45. She said, "No one in the office, Matthew. Sign says they're out to lunch."

  Matt said, "I bet they're always out to lunch. This place is a shit hole."

  Sylvia turned her attention from Matt and Terry Osuna and surveyed the room. It was small and dingy: one room and bath. The stench of cigarette smoke lingered in the air. A varnished desk rested against the wall below the window. A Bible had been left on the desk. Pushed into one corner, a white-painted dresser stood like a fat man. A television was perched on the dresser. The bathroom and closet were situated off the adjacent wall.

  On the other side of the room a sagging double bed had been made up; the green, fringed coverlet was smooth. Framed above the headboard: a faded print of an exotic saguaro cactus and a roadrunner. The artist had rendered dark mountains in the picture's background; Sylvia guessed they were the Superstitions outside Tucson. There was a small table and lamp on one side of the bed, a chair on the other. Two rag rugs covered much of the painted flooring.

 
She walked to the bathroom and stood in the doorway. The small porcelain sink was stained; water beaded and dripped, beaded and dripped in the mineralized aureole.

  The shower curtain was drawn, and Sylvia experienced the abrupt, panicky thought that someone was hidden behind the curtain, in the stall.

  She grasped a corner of the plastic curtain and tugged it open. The stall was empty.

  The medicine cabinet contained only a glass tumbler, a pocket packet of aspirin, and a tube of acne lotion. The toilet had a permanent westerly list.

  Sylvia stumbled out of the bathroom, suddenly anxious to get away from this dreary, anonymous catchall for those who were about to reach bottom after a long skid.

  The E.M.T. now stood behind Terry Osuna. He said, "We're gonna take off unless you want to try something else?"

  "No, I think you might as well split." Criminal Agent Osuna's voice faded as she stepped outside with the E.M.T. Matt followed them.

  Without moving, he and Terry Osuna watched the orange-and-white emergency medical vehicle pull slowly out of view. Above the motel roof, black thunderheads had elbowed out the sun. A jagged silver flash of lightning cut across the clouds; distant thunder sounded seconds later. Drought and heat made lightning a very dangerous threat to forested land. As the rumble died away, Matt felt a sense of excitement and foreboding.

  Sylvia could feel it: I'm in the right room.

  And she was here at Dupont's invitation.

  No monsters waiting to jump out at me.

  But she would bet the acne medicine belonged to Kevin Chase.

  Sylvia glanced outside—past Terry Osuna and Matt—just as lightning bolted across the sky. Her mind was racing. Why had Dupont gone through such an elaborate scenario to lure her to this motel? He didn't want to kill her—he'd already had the chance. If the room was a life-size puzzle created by Dupont White, every detail was critical.

  Her gaze flew around the room and came to rest on the Bible. The book was unusually large. She walked to the table and saw that it wasn't a Bible at all. She opened the black cover, stared down at the first page of a scrapbook, and she saw newspaper clippings, yellowed and brittle with age.

  A scrapbook of Dupont White's career as a vigilante killer. The headlines caught her eye: BURNED BODY DISCOVERED; SEX OFFENDER MURDERED; JOHN DOE SMOLDERS; PAROLED PEDOPHILE ASSAULTED BY MASKED VIGILANTES.

  Sylvia used her fingernail to flip the pages. There were more clippings—these on the murders of Anthony Randall and Jesse Montoya.

  The display on the last six pages in the book cut through Sylvia's defenses. They were a series of glossy color photographs. The first two pages held pictures of a boy. He was naked, posed ritualistically. His image had been caught on film with obsessive precision: hands by his sides; front view, side view, back view, side view.

  Someone had written on the bottom of the photographs with tiny, up-and-down script, neat as typed letters: D.W. SIX YEARS OLD.

  The next four pages held pictures of a young, fair-haired girl. In one series she was posed like the boy; naked with her hands by her side. The printing on the photos read: J.G. FIVE YEARS OLD.

  The next series showed the girl with her arms raised overhead. J.G. SEVEN YEARS OLD.

  In the last series, the girl was blindfolded and bound with tape and cord. The binding was obsessively neat, symmetrical, excessive. J.G. TEN YEARS OLD.

  Sylvia recognized the compulsion reflected in the images; these photographs had been taken by a hardcore pedophile. Sylvia knew the boy was Dupont White. And J.G. must be Dupont's missing cousin.

  She was startled when someone touched her arm; Matt stood next to her, staring grimly down at the photographs.

  SYLVIA LEFT MATT inside the room and stepped out into the parking lot. She thought she felt a mistlike drop of rain strike her cheek. The wind had come up with the thunderstorm; the trees whipped their branches. She started the walk back to her Volvo. Matt and Terry Osuna would wait at the Roadrunner for the crime techs to arrive.

  She turned the corner and moved quickly along Cerrillos Road. Someone honked a horn, and she glanced up. Traffic on the roadway was heavy, moving sluggishly.

  Sylvia sidestepped a plastic bag driven across asphalt by wind. She reached her Volvo and opened the door. That was when she recognized the other car.

  It was thirty feet away, parked next to a deserted trailer, in the used-car lot It looked like the same car that Kevin Chase had used to block the road to the monastery. And someone was inside. A man. She could see his head and shoulders.

  She felt fear climb her back.

  Was Kevin inside the car? Or was it Dupont?

  Sylvia started to run toward the road, but she stopped abruptly. Walk. Go get Matt.

  But she didn't move. She kept her eyes on the car, on the man—she could feel his eyes on her.

  She hardly glanced at the faces of drivers as they rolled down Cerrillos Road at fifteen miles per hour. She began to move slowly toward the parked car. Twenty feet, fifteen, eight feet. The man inside never moved a muscle.

  She could see him clearly now; she leaned toward a side window.

  She stared down into Dupont White's eyes. He stared back without blinking.

  His face was smeared with paint. He was smiling. He was dead.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE OFFICE OF the Medical Investigator was located on the north campus of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Matt parked the Caprice in front of the three-story concrete building in a space reserved for visitors. Sylvia was out of the car before he set the emergency brake. As he followed her across the artificially lit parking lot, he surveyed their surroundings. Albuquerque's skyline had a grayish glow. Even at eight-thirty P.M., the air was warm and sluggish.

  But the heat didn't dampen the sense of relief Matt felt: Dupont White was dead; his body had been transported to Albuquerque four hours earlier. That left one more person to deal with—Kevin Chase. Matt was amazed that Kevin had managed to take out a seasoned killer like White. Chase had more balls than anyone figured. Still, we'll get the little shit soon.

  In the campus lot, the only sign of life was a student walking a tiny dog on a long leash. The animal skittered from shrub to hydrant to bike rack; at each pee stop it raised its rear leg in military salute.

  Sylvia pushed open glass doors and then faltered slightly. This was her first visit to the O.M.I. and she didn't know which direction to take.

  Matt led the way through the lobby and down a short hall to a series of offices on the ground floor. He held open double doors marked staff, and she entered.

  The room was large and cold, and even the powerful ventilation system couldn't erase the smell of chemicals and decay. Sylvia sidestepped a man-size floor scale designed for weighing corpses as they were transported on gurneys.

  She and Matt continued past a massive refrigerator system that held the most recent arrivals. A young man in a white lab coat opened the thick refrigerator door; Sylvia inhaled Freon and glimpsed a leg and a tagged toe.

  They entered the main autopsy area. Incongruously, it resembled an industrial kitchen. A shiny autoclave and gleaming counters lined one wall. The sinks were large as bathtubs. Three stainless-steel autopsy tables were positioned in the center of the room. There was a body on one of the tables. Sylvia didn't look closely at the corpse; she felt as if she were violating the privacy of the dead.

  Matt spoke briefly to an assistant pathologist and learned that Dupont White's body had been moved to a separate and adjoining chamber where O.M.I. staff processed floaters and stinkers—bodies that were badly decayed or otherwise damaged.

  The glass-fronted chamber was empty of living occupants. An overhead duct monopolized the air space, the floor was covered with rubber matting, and the work area was designed for maximum drainage.

  Sylvia gazed through the glass window at the darkened remains of Killer. Even in death, his painted features were those of the man she had viewed on videotape: high forehead, powerful Roman no
se, wide, cruel mouth. His stringy brown hair was shoulder length. His skin had a yellowish blue cast, and it was covered with dark body hair. His muscles had been well developed, his physique forceful. But dwarfed by the long metal table, Dupont's body wasn't as large as she had expected. He was a far cry from the arrogant, godlike persona he had projected on tape.

  The man had been a sadist. If anyone fired a mercy shot into Anthony Randall, it wasn't Dupont White.

  Sylvia caught a glimpse of her face reflected in the glass. Her eyes were cold with fury. Her mouth had curled derisively. She was startled by her own image and the intensity of her expression, one of loathing for a man who had used revenge as justification for torture and murder.

  The sound of running water brought her out of her thoughts. Directly behind her, she heard the clink of surgical tools and the low hum of a saw. She didn't turn around until she heard Matt's voice.

  He was talking with Lee Begay, the chief medical investigator, a compact woman with strong hands and beetling brows that hovered over vigilant eyes. Although the M.I. had known Matt for more than a decade—and considered him a friend—at the moment she did not look pleased to see him. Her naturally placid features were pinched, and she kept her voice low, but her energy was tangible.

  "There will not be a postmortem."

  Matt shook his head in disbelief. "Why not?"

  Lee Begay said, "At least there won't be a P.M. in my office. Federal agents are on their way."

  Sylvia stepped away from the observation window. "The F.B.I, is taking possession of Dupont White's body?"

  Lee Begay nodded crisply. "Right."

  Matt absorbed this information, and Sylvia could see subtle changes register on his face. He took Lee's arm gently and guided her toward the window and the view of Dupont White. "Talk to me, Lee."

  She squinted up at Matt. "You know it's too early to tell you much. We've only had him a few hours." She paused, then said, "It is your guy. I like you, Matthew, so we hauled ass and managed to get a fingerprint match from A.F.I.S. I know you realize we did the impossible."