The Soul Catcher

by Alex Kava

  CHAPTER 77

  Tully had a bad feeling about this whole mess. Yes, they had caught a rapist, but had they caught a murderer? The kid, Brandon—the tough guy, the asshole who beat up and raped young girls—broke down into a sniveling crybaby when they arrested him for the murders of Ginny Brier and Maria Leonetti. But now, as he and several agents followed Stephen Caldwell into the hotel where Everett was supposedly staying, now Tully wasn’t too sure anymore.

  The desk clerk had given them a card key. No questions were asked when the badges came out. Caldwell claimed he didn’t know why Everett hadn’t shown up at the park. There was something in the polite black man’s manner that told Tully he was lying through his teeth. It didn’t help matters that Caldwell himself seemed in a rush to get somewhere when they finally found him outside the pavilion, gathering certain members together. No, Tully had a feeling this Caldwell, this stool-pigeon asshole, had his own agenda. Now he wondered if they were wasting time. If that was also Caldwell’s agenda. Was the hotel a distraction? Was Everett on his way to some airfield?

  The elevator opened at the fifteenth floor and Caldwell hesitated. Agents Rizzo and Markham gave him a shove, not even bothering to wait for Tully’s instructions. They were pissed, too. None of them had to say a word to one another to know something was not quite right.

  Caldwell hesitated again at the hotel room door, and Tully noticed the man’s hand tremble as he missed the slot for the card key twice. Finally the door unlocked.

  Rizzo and Markham had their weapons drawn but at their sides. Tully gave Caldwell another shove for the man to go in ahead of them. He could see the perspiration glistening on his forehead, but Caldwell opened the door and entered.

  Caldwell came to an abrupt halt, and Tully could see he was just as surprised as the rest of them. In the center of the room, Reverend Everett sat in a chair, his wrists handcuffed, his mouth taped shut and his dead eyes staring directly at them. Tully didn’t need a medical examiner for this one. He recognized the pinkish tint to the skin and would need only one guess. Cause of death would be cyanide poisoning.

  CHAPTER 78

  “Just let her go,” Maggie said, not flinching, keeping the gun pointed directly at Garrison’s head.

  “You have the fucking book, don’t you?” His eyes held hers while his hand tightened the noose around the old woman’s neck. Maggie heard her sputter, and out of the corner of her eye she could see her bent and misshapen fingers clawing at the clothesline, clawing at her own neck.

  “Yes, I have it.” She wouldn’t move, even to give him the book. “Let her go and I’ll give it to you.”

  “Oh, right!” He laughed, but it was a nervous, angry laugh. “I let her go, you give me the book and we both just go our separate ways. What do you think! I’m some fucking idiot?”

  “Of course not.” A few more minutes and none of it would matter. The old woman was gasping, her fingers making a pathetic attempt. Maggie knew she could take him but it would need to be a head shot and there could be no missing. But then they’d never have all the answers.

  “It makes sense now,” she told him instead, hoping to distract him. “Everett’s your father. That’s why you wanted to destroy him.”

  “Not my father. Just a sperm donor,” he said. Suddenly he yanked the woman up in front of him, as if only now realizing he needed a shield and taking away Maggie’s clean head shot. “I can’t do anything about biology, but I could make sure that fucker paid for what he did to my mother.”

  “And all those women,” Maggie said calmly. “Why did they have to pay? Why did they have to die?”

  “Oh, that.” He laughed again and got a better twist on the clothesline. “It was a study, an experiment…an assignment. You might say for the greater good.”

  “Like father, like son?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Everett stole lost souls. You wanted to capture them, too. Only on film.”

  “We are nothing alike,” he insisted, a rash of red spreading across his face and betraying his calm. She had struck a nerve.

  “You’re more alike than you want to believe.” Maggie watched closely as he listened, his fingers forgetting as he did so. “Even your DNA was close enough to throw us off. We thought Everett killed those girls.”

  He smiled, pleased by this. “I really did have everyone fooled, didn’t I?”

  “Yes,” Maggie said, playing along. “You certainly did.”

  “And I have photos of his unfortunate demise. Just got back from Cleveland with the exclusive.” He waved a free hand at the duffel bag on the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room.

  He pulled the old woman with him, getting close to the bag. She was breathing more steadily now. Garrison seemed unaware of the loosened noose as he tried to find his precious film. “Haven’t decided yet who I’ll give the exclusive to. Looks like it might be a bigger story than I thought. Especially now. Now that you’re here. Now that you’ve changed everything.”

  He didn’t seem angry about this. No, he seemed resigned. Perhaps he was just as happy to be caught, so that he could finally share all his illicit photos, all those horrible images, and get the credit, receive the fame—no matter what the cost—just to stroke his overactive ego. It wasn’t that unusual. Maggie had known of other serial killers who purposely got caught, just to show off their handiwork, just to make sure they didn’t go unrecognized.

  She found herself releasing the tension in her arm. She kept the gun pointed at him, but her trigger finger relaxed. Garrison’s mind was preoccupied, his only concern on the film, on his fame.

  “Three fucking rolls in living color,” he said, reaching into the duffel bag as if to show her, dragging the old woman with him.

  She expected to see black film canisters. The pistol was in his hand and he fired before she could duck. It ripped through her shoulder, knocking her into the wall. She tried to regain her balance. Instead, she felt her body sliding down the wall. She couldn’t move her arm. Tried to raise her gun. The arm and the gun wouldn’t move.

  Garrison was pleased.

  “Yes, looks like I’ll be very famous, indeed,” he said, smiling. Then he shoved the woman aside and at the same time raised the gun.

  “No!” Maggie screamed at him.

  In one smooth, easy movement he shot the old woman. Her small body slammed against the wall with a sickening snap of bones and flesh as her body crumpled into a heap.

  Maggie tried to raise her own gun again. Damn it! She couldn’t feel her fingers. She couldn’t even feel the gun. It was still gripped in her hand, but she couldn’t feel it, couldn’t move it. The bullet had paralyzed her arm from shoulder to fingers.

  He came at her, his gun aimed at her chest. She needed to lift the goddamn gun. She needed to point, to squeeze, but her arm wasn’t obeying. Just as she reached for her weapon with her left hand, Garrison was there, standing above her. His black boot kicked at her useless fingers, knocking the gun out and sending it skidding across the floor.

  There was a stinging pain in the side of her neck, but still no feeling in her right arm. She could feel blood trickling down her sleeve and could see several spots on the floor. She still couldn’t move the goddamn hand.

  “Where’s the book?” he said, standing over her. Then he saw it in her jacket pocket and pointed at it.

  “You’ll need to get it yourself,” she told him. “I honestly can’t move.” She would make him get it. She still had one good hand. She could grab him, grab the gun.

  But he didn’t make a move toward her. In fact, he no longer seemed to care about the precious book. He glanced back at the old woman, then looked around his apartment as if assessing the damage, as if trying to decide what his next move should be.

  “You keep it,” he said, to Maggie’s surprise, and he went back to the kitchen counter, rummaging through his duffel bag. “Just remember it goes with the photos,” he told her as he took out several black caniste
rs and set them on the counter. “This can’t be anything less than a front-page exclusive—above the fold, continued inside.”

  Then he started bringing out the rest, and Maggie’s stomach took a plunge. Out came the handcuffs, duct tape, more clothesline, a camera and another collapsible tripod. She tried her feet. What the hell was he doing? She steadied herself and eased herself up, using the wall as an anchor and her good arm to balance her. Garrison swung back around, gun pointed and ready, stopping her in half-stance.

  “It’s best you stay right where you are,” he said, grabbing the handcuffs. “Back down.” He pointed to the floor, and moved in front of her, waiting as she eased her body down the wall.

  He snapped the handcuffs on, pinching the wrist of her already wounded hand. And still she could not feel it. He shoved her shoulders against the wall, as if straightening her posture, carefully posing her with restrained hands in her lap. It was all a part of the staged look. He was preparing her for her own death photo.

  He took the extra length of clothesline and bound her feet, pulling her legs out in front of her, safely away from her hands. Then he dropped three of the film canisters into her jacket pocket, so that now she had the film in one pocket and the book, his mother’s journal, in the other.

  “They’ll be sending backup here any minute, Garrison,” she told him, trying desperately to remember if she had told anyone about stopping at his apartment. But she hadn’t. Not even Gwen. The old woman was the only one who knew.

  “Why would you need backup?” He wasn’t even concerned, almost humored by the idea. “You said yourself, everyone is convinced that Everett is the murderer. He and his accomplice Brandon. Poor boy. His Achilles’ heel is that he doesn’t know how to fuck a woman.”

  Garrison was back at the counter. He spoke with no sense of panic, no sense of urgency. Instead, he put the gun down and began assembling the tripod with careful, deliberate movements. “This isn’t exactly what I had in mind,” he said almost absently as if talking to himself now. “But what better way to go out than with one last hurrah.”

  She needed to do something. He was setting the tripod up five feet directly in front of her, just as he had done with each of his victims.

  “Yes, you really did have us all fooled,” she told him, hoping to get the attention of his overworked ego while she scanned the surroundings. Her gun lay against the opposite wall, about ten feet away. Too far away. With her hands in front—well, one good hand—she could grab something, anything and use it as a weapon. Her eyes searched. A lamp to her left. In the messy pile of clothing, a belt with a buckle. On the coffee table, some kind of African pottery.

  Garrison snapped a new roll of film into the camera. Not much time. Damn it! She needed to concentrate. Needed to think. Needed to ignore the throbbing in her shoulder and the blood that continued to trickle down her sleeve. The camera was loaded. He began attaching it to the tripod and then unwinding some sort of cable, plugging one end in to the camera. A trip-cable, a release cable—that’s what it was—so he could snap the picture from several feet away. He didn’t need to be behind the camera, he didn’t need to even touch the camera. He could be strangling her into unconsciousness while he shot the picture.

  She shifted her back closer to the wall. How long would it take to bend her knees? To shove against the wall and get to her feet? Even with them tied together, she could do it. But how long would it take?

  He was checking the camera’s sight, tilting the tripod’s platform to adjust the camera’s angle. Maggie tried to ignore his preparations, his ritual, trying not to be alarmed by his calculating calm, by his steady and intent hands. Instead, her mind raced. Her eyes darted. Her damn arm throbbed and so did her heart, filling her ears with the constant thump, threatening to dismantle her thought process.

  “I’ll go down in history for sure,” Garrison mumbled, adjusting shutter speed, assessing, then twisting the camera’s lens. Focusing, making another change. Readjusting the aperture. Checking again, preparing.

  Maggie edged her knees up toward her chest, quietly, slowly. Garrison was too involved to notice, at times his back to her, blocking her view of the camera. He seemed lost in his process. He was quickly becoming the invisible cameraman.

  “No one has attempted this. A self-portrait along with a fleeting soul caught on film…all in the timing.” His voice continued, his words becoming a sort of mantra of encouragement to himself. “And the angle,” he said. “It’s definitely the timing and the angle. Oh, yes, I’ll be famous. That’s for sure. Beyond my wildest dreams. Beyond my mother’s dreams.” He was caught up in the process, forgetting his victim, or rather reducing her to just another subject, waiting—hopelessly waiting to become a part of his bizarre process.

  But Maggie wasn’t waiting. She scooted her feet up, straining to be quiet, straining to pull them up as close as possible. Just a little more. Close enough. Yes, she could reach the clothesline. But not the knot. She shifted her weight and a pain shot through her arm, stopping her, almost bringing her to tears. Damn it!

  She checked on Garrison. He was unwinding the cable, untangling it as he marched back to the counter. Jesus! He was almost ready. She tried for the knot again, her fingers reaching, her wrists scraping against the metal of the handcuffs. If she could get her feet free she might have some defense when he came at her, ready to strangle her. With the pain throbbing in her arm, she knew consciousness would be difficult to hang on to. She couldn’t let him get that far. She couldn’t let the clothesline even get around her neck, or else—or else she would be gone.

  He stood at the counter, the air bulb of the release cable in one hand. Maggie watched him pick up the gun in his other hand. Her entire body froze. He wasn’t going to use the clothesline. Was he actually considering the gun, instead?

  He turned to face her. Her knees stayed at her chest. Her fingers stopped at the knot. It didn’t matter that he noticed. It was too late. He was ready. And suddenly the rest of her body had become as paralyzed as her right arm. Even her mind came screeching to a halt.

  Without a word he walked toward her, carefully dragging the cable. He stood directly in front of her, hovering over her, less than a foot away. He looked back at the camera, checking the angle. He readjusted the cable in his hand, positioning between his thumb and index finger the small plastic bulb—the gizmo that with one quick squeeze would click the photo.

  He was ready.

  “Just remember,” he told her without taking his sight off the camera lens, “front-page exclusive.”

  Before she could move, before she could react, Garrison lifted the gun barrel to his right temple. Both hands squeezed, trigger and air bulb in morbid unison. Maggie closed her eyes to the spray of blood and brain matter hitting her in the face, splatting against the wall. The sound of the camera’s shutter got lost in the explosion of the gun. The smell of discharge filled the air.

  When she opened her eyes, it was just in time to see Garrison’s body thump to the floor in front of her. His eyes remained open. But they were already empty. Ben Garrison’s own soul, Maggie decided, had left long before this, long before his death.

  EPILOGUE

  MONDAY

  December 2

  Washington, D.C.

  Maggie waited outside the police chief’s conference room. She leaned her head against the wall. Her neck still ached, even more than the shoulder she had in a sling. Tully sat quietly next to her, staring at the door as though willing it to open, ignoring the newspaper he had spread out on his lap. The front-page headline of the Washington Times spoke of yet another new and improved piece of airport security equipment. Somewhere below the fold was a sidebar story about a photojournalist’s suicide.

  Tully caught her glancing at the newspaper. “Cleveland Plain Dealer kept Everett’s suicide below the fold, too,” he said, as if reading his partner’s mind. “Probably would have made top headlines if there had been photos to go along with the stories.”

  “Yes.�
� Maggie nodded. “Too bad there were no available photos.”

  He gave her one of his looks, the raised brow and the unconvincing frown. “But there were photos.”

  “Unfortunately, they’re considered evidence. We certainly can’t release photos that are considered evidence, right? Aren’t you always trying to get me to play by the rules?”

  At this, he smiled. “So this evidence is being stored in a proper place?”

  She simply nodded again, sitting back and adjusting her sling. It was her own personal attempt at justice—that Ben Garrison’s horrifying images would not win him the notoriety he so longed for. A notoriety that he had become so obsessed with that he had even been willing to include himself as one of those horrifying images.

  “Have you heard from Emma?” Maggie asked, a transparent attempt at getting Tully to put an end to the subject of evidence, of photos and film canisters that remained safely stashed in her file cabinet back at her Quantico office.

  “She’s staying an extra week with her mom,” he answered, folding the newspaper and willingly abandoning the subject along with the newspaper next to a pile of outdated Newsweeks on the table beside him. “She invited Alice to stay with them. She wanted to invite Justin Pratt, too.”

  “Really? What did Caroline have to say about that?”

  “I don’t think Caroline would have cared. The house is huge, but I said no boys allowed.” He smiled as if he was glad he had some say. “Didn’t really matter, though. As soon as Justin heard about Eric, he wanted to be in Boston.”

  “So there are actually some happy endings to this, after all?”