The Pawn

by Steven James

  And that did it. “Except the truth,” I shot back. “That’s what really matters in the end—more than what you believe, more than what benefits you. That’s the problem with Pascal’s Wager, Reverend. It’s based on payoffs, either now or in eternity, not on what’s true. According to Pascal, if God exists and you believe, you get to go to heaven. And if you believe but he doesn’t exist, at least you get to live with peace and hope in this life. Right?”

  He nodded.

  “But Reverend,” I said, “if God doesn’t exist, you shouldn’t believe that he does, even if it leads you to a happier life—because you’d be believing a lie. Living a lie. I don’t want my life based on a lie, even if it’s a comforting one. I’d rather bet on the truth.”

  Richman opened his mouth to say something and then stopped. He looked from me to Benjamin and then back to me. He had no response. Nothing. It was the first time since I’d met him that he was speechless.

  And that’s when Benjamin smiled and gently patted my shoulder. “You are a man of great faith, Dr. Bowers.”

  His words floored me. “What?”

  “Faith in what’s good—faith in the truth. A lot of people don’t even have that these days. I admire you.” And with that, he left the room.

  Somehow he’d dismantled everything I’d just said, every argument I’d just used by agreeing with me. “Thank you,” I mumbled.

  Richman patted my shoulder too. “He’s right,” he said. “And you’ve given me something to think about. Thanks.”

  Then he left too and I sat next to Christie and wept.

  26

  The Illusionist slid the keyboard back and pulled out his leather-bound journal.

  Enough of the cyberspace imbeciles.

  Time to record his impressions of last night while the images were still fresh in his mind. Jolene. Soft, timid, frightened Jolene.

  Time to relive the long, delicious night.

  His words flowed smoothly, quick and nimble beneath his fingers. It was as if his mind itself were on fire, leaving a trail of cursive thought smoke across the page. Bringing back every emotion, every sensation from the night before. Oh, how he enjoyed this part of the process, this reliving of the night on the page.

  And yet . . .

  As he thought back over their night together, as enjoyable as it had been, he had to admit that it was somewhat disappointing too. Just like always. She’d been the most exciting one so far. Oh yes, that much was true. But in the end it was just like the others. After it was all done, when the final throes were over, the feelings of disappointment returned.

  His fantasies about inducing death were always more thrilling than the actual deaths themselves.

  Reality just didn’t measure up.

  But next time, it would. That’s what he told himself. That’s what kept him going, the hope—and really, it was a hope—that he would finally find what he was looking for next time.

  This time.

  With Alice.

  Tonight.

  It took the Illusionist nearly an hour to record his thoughts about his night with Jolene. He even included some drawings. Crude, yes. But quite memorable and remarkably accurate in their depictions of human anatomy.

  Then he carefully picked up the two weighty duffel bags, walked outside, and lowered them into the back of his van. Even though it was a weekend, he had to go to work today. Not the kind of work he enjoyed most, but the kind everyone needs to do. The bill-paying work.

  But before heading out to make a buck, he had a couple of important deliveries to make.

  As I took my exit off the highway, I thought of Tessa again. On a typical Saturday morning she wouldn’t be rolling out of bed for another three or four hours. But if I was going to be spending the morning poking around crime scenes out of cell phone range up in the mountains, I needed to call and tell her about the flight before I left.

  But Ralph’s phone was dead.

  Well, I’d call from the federal building then.

  I was sure she wasn’t happy about having to go to that hotel last night. She hated being told what to do. Probably even convinced Mom and Dad to get her a separate room. Well, at least she didn’t know you sent a patrol car. That would have pushed her over the edge. I could only imagine how she’d react when she found out she would be leaving for North Carolina before lunchtime.

  After swinging through Mountain Java Roasters and downing a cup of delicately balanced Tizapa from El Salvador, I parked my rental car in the lot beside the federal building.

  I sat there steeling myself for a few minutes before heading inside. Here goes nothing. Tracking down a serial killer—that I could handle. Waking up a teenager before 6:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning, now that was something scary.

  I pushed open the bulletproof glass doors, stepped into the lobby, and handed my ID to the bald guard sitting next to the metal detector. He yawned at me as if it were a greeting and glanced at my card.

  The whole case was spinning through my mind. I had more questions than answers.

  I set my gun on the conveyer belt.

  Mostly I thought of Jolene. I knew the state patrol and the Charlotte police were doing everything they could to locate her. Still, I wished I could find her, help her, save her, make it so that none of this had ever happened. And then take her back to her parents or her boyfriend or whoever and laugh with them as I told them it was just a big misunderstanding, that she’d just gone over to spend the night at a friend’s house. See? Everything was fine.

  But that was a dream, not a reality. Was she even still alive? . . . What was she going through? . . . Where might her abductor have taken her?

  I know it’s always best to avoid thinking those kinds of thoughts. Better to keep your distance. But sometimes you can’t help but think them. Maybe that’s what keeps you human.

  And what about this Illusionist character? What kind of game was he playing? Could he really be someone from my past?

  I could think of only one guy I’d put away who was smart enough to pull off something this elaborate, but he was on death row in Illinois. Or at least I thought he was: Richard Basque, the man who slaughtered, disemboweled, and then ate the intestines of sixteen women in the farmlands of rural Illinois and Wisconsin back in the nineties. I was the one who’d put him away, early in my career, when I was a detective in Milwaukee. Come to think of it, that was the case where I first met up with Ralph, who was one of the three agents assigned to help us with the case.

  Richard Basque. I might want to check on that.

  The security guard watched blearily as my gun passed under the X-ray machine, then he handed me my ID and waved me through.

  The building was still draped in early morning silence. I headed down the hallway to the conference room, opened the door, and noticed Brent Tucker already stationed behind his desk. Hmm. He’s getting an early start. He was on the phone and signaled to me with a finger that he would be with me in a minute.

  I made the call to my parents and found out they had indeed gotten two rooms. Thankfully I didn’t have to wake Tessa—she was in the other room. I offered to pay for both rooms, and of course they declined. But my parents did agree to stay at a safe house for a few days. Yes, they’d make sure Tessa was at the airport on time. Yes, they would take care of everything. Yes, yes, don’t worry.

  After I hung up and was grabbing my computer, Brent called to me. “Hey, Pat.”

  “Morning,” I said. “How was the big date last night?”

  “Fantastic.” He gazed at me. “You look tired.”

  I decided not to tell him about the Illusionist’s phone call or the car following me or the strange meeting with the governor. Plenty of time for that later. Right now I needed to get to Mindy’s crime scene. “It was quite a night.” I yawned. “You heard about the girl in Charlotte?”

  “Yeah, from Ralph. Any news?”

  “No. Looks like the same guy, though. He shot someone last night too.”

  “Ralph told me. H
ow is he?”

  “Looks like he’ll be all right. Eventually.” I slipped my computer into its carrying case, then gestured to the empty coffee cup on Tucker’s desk. “You must be one of those morning people I hear about.”

  “I had something I wanted to check on.” He pulled up a chair beside him. “Here, sit down; I want to show you something.”

  “I don’t have much time. I’m heading back to Mindy’s crime scene.”

  “I’ll be quick.” Tucker had set up a chessboard on his desk. The playing pieces were positioned as if someone had stopped suddenly in the middle of a game. “After your briefing yesterday I got to thinking about the significance of the body dump locations.”

  “And?”

  “Well, latitude and longitude are represented by a set of numbers and degrees such as . . .” He glanced at his notepad and read off the numbers, “35°35'42.65'N, 82°33'25.96'W—where we are right now.”

  I was anxious to get moving. “Go on.”

  “Well, when chess pieces are moved across the board, chess players represent the placement of their pieces with a series of numbers or letters that record their position. I was thinking—”

  “He’s showing us the board!” I interrupted.

  Tucker nodded. “Right! There are several different chess notation systems out there. I’m trying to see if any of them can be broken down into numeric representations that might correspond to the latitude and longitude of the dump sites.”

  I was impressed. “This is good work. Let me know if you find anything. I think you might be on to something.” I pushed my chair back to stand up and bumped the desk in the process. One of the black bishops fell to its side. I reached over and set it upright on the board.

  Tucker watched me. “Now you’ll need to take that piece.”

  “What?”

  “If we were playing chess,” he said matter-of-factly. “If you touch the piece of your opponent you have to take it on your next turn.”

  I’d taken two steps when I froze in midstride. If you touch the piece of your opponent . . . I spun around. “What did you just say?”

  He stared at me blankly. “In tournament play. If you touch your opponent’s piece you have to take it on your next move or you forfeit the game.”

  I smacked my palm down on the desk, upsetting all the pieces on the board, scattering them across the desk. “That’s it, Tucker! He’s touching our pieces and then taking them on the next turn. That’s what he did with the contact lenses. He reached across the board, touched her, and then took her. Don’t you see?” I stared at the pictures of the victims on the wall. “Reinita wasn’t engaged, was she?”

  Tucker flipped through some papers on his desk. He looked shocked. “How did you know? That’s in today’s briefing. Margaret hasn’t even signed off on it yet.”

  “No, Reinita wasn’t engaged,” I mumbled, “but Mindy was.”

  “Mindy?” He started flipping through another folder.

  I picked up a pawn and set it upright on the board again, a lone chess piece on the square battlefield. “He touched our piece, Tucker. And then on his next turn, he took her.” I snatched up the pawn, held it up to the light.

  Tucker let out a long, slow breath. “How long has he been doing it?”

  “That’s what we need to find out.”

  27

  I was torn.

  On the one hand I wanted to get to the crime scene, but on the other hand I didn’t really want to go anywhere. If we were right about the Illusionist, we might have found the big break we were hoping for.

  Tucker started pulling out the reports from each of the crime scenes. “Yes. Mindy is engaged to a guy from her hometown—Kevin Young!”

  “So,” I said, “the killer stole the engagement ring from Mindy and placed it on Reinita’s finger. Then he stole Jolene’s contacts and put them in Mindy’s eyes.”

  “Whew. This guy is good. He’s threading everything together for us.”

  “Yeah. Touching the player he’s going to take next. We need to go over everything from the beginning, all the physical evidence. I want to know how long this has been going on.”

  “Gotcha.”

  My mind was spinning, flying over all the facts I’d read so far about the cases, wondering what other clues the Illusionist might have left for us. Does the order matter? What’s the significance of an engagement ring or contact lenses? What else has he left?

  But as excited as I was, I also knew there were good people here who could analyze the forensic evidence better than I could. Besides, I had a lot to do today. I needed to get going.

  Just then, Sheriff Wallace walked into the room. “Whatcha’ll up to?” His mouth was half full of a sausage biscuit; in his hand he held an overstuffed bag from Hardees. Somehow, even though it wasn’t even eight o’clock yet, he was already sweating. Damp, yellowish stains emanated from the armpits of his once-white shirt.

  “Sheriff Wallace,” I said, “I need some of your men to pull all the physical evidence from the previous cases.”

  “Huh? Why?”

  “Focus on anything found on or near the bodies. Anything at all—rings, glasses, jewelry, brands of lipstick, clothes. Tucker can explain everything. We’re looking for links. Tucker, you on this?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Sheriff Wallace pulled a cinnamon roll out of the bag and popped it in his mouth. He looked lost.

  “He’s reaching across the board,” I explained, “and he’s touching our pieces, then taking them on his next turn.” I realized I wasn’t making any sense, not to someone who hadn’t heard what we were talking about.

  Just then his phone rang. He answered it, looked a little confused, and passed it to me. “It’s for you.”

  “Yeah?” I said into the phone as Tucker started bringing him up to speed, trying to summarize our theory in as few words as possible. “Bowers here.”

  “It’s Lien-hua. I’ve been trying to find you. I tried your phone, then Ralph’s phone—”

  “Long story.”

  “I thought you were heading to the dump sites.”

  “I am. I’m on my way.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “The federal building. I was just leaving.” I grabbed my computer and whispered for Tucker to call me if they came up with anything else. I headed for the door. “Where are you?” I asked her.

  “On the steps outside waiting for you.”

  “What? I thought you were in Charlotte.”

  “Ralph sent me back early this morning. He tried telling you, but I guess your cell phone died.”

  “Actually, it was his. Never mind.”

  She yawned across the phone. “I feel like I’ve been up forever.”

  “I’m glad I took the chopper last night. When’ll Ralph be down?”

  “This afternoon after he’s done interviewing the security guard. He thought it might be helpful if I joined you since I’ve been to each of the crime scenes so far and . . .”—she paused for a moment—“I’m the one who’s been working on the offender’s profile.”

  Don’t say anything stupid, Pat. Don’t be an idiot. “Yeah. Good. The profile. I love profiles.”

  “You’re a terrible liar.”

  “I’ll try to remember that.”

  I stepped outside and closed up my phone. Wait, not mine. Dante Wallace’s. Oh well, I could give it back to him later. Nearby, Lien-hua was slipping her phone into her jeans pocket. She had on hiking boots and wore a blue North Face fleece pullover and matching windbreaker to fend off the crisp morning air. With the mountains rising behind her, she looked like she belonged on the cover of an outdoor magazine.

  I’d subscribe.

  “He’s touching our pieces,” I said, unlocking the car.

  “What?”

  “Climb in. I’ll explain on the way.”

  28

  Aaron Jeffrey Kincaid finished reading through Governor Taylor’s confidential travel itinerary for the week, and then began perusing
the guest list for the upcoming Cable News Forum luncheon. It had cost him nearly $80,000 to obtain this information from a woman named Anita Banner, but it had been worth every penny. And when he found out that she would be there too, he was even more pleased. It would eliminate the need of taking care of her in some slightly less subtle way.

  He looked through the glass at Rebekah and Caleb.

  The effects of the bacterium were beginning to show. Sweating, nausea, sharp mood swings. The rash would start soon, then bleeding from the intestines, the eyes, and then finally, pulmonary failure. It would not be a gentle death.

  He glanced down at his hands and noticed that his shirtsleeve had pulled back, revealing the scar on the inside of his left wrist. He stopped and stared at it, gently rubbing his finger across the discolored skin.

  The mark of true love.

  Even after all this time, the scar was still visible, a reddish gash just over two inches long. The cut had been deeper than he’d originally thought, and without stitches it hadn’t healed evenly. Over the years it had even broken open a few times. And sometimes, on days like these, it still seemed to bother him. Still seemed to itch.

  Maybe it itched because he was thinking about love once again. Maybe that was it. Or because he was thinking about Monday morning and how destiny would finally play out and about his family and about the babies and about the pawns he’d had Theodore leave beside the bodies of the young women and about how it would feel to watch the newscasts in the days following the luncheon as the disease trickled, traveled, spread family to family, husband to wife, lover to lover, friend to friend. One kiss, one sneeze, one handshake at a time. Around the world, evening the scales.

  The Cable News Forum guest list read like a Who’s Who of the world’s media leaders and also included speeches by senators, congressmen, and dignitaries about First Amendment issues, the upcoming presidential election, FCC guidelines, and a number of other mediarelated issues. But really, Kincaid wasn’t interested in all that. He was most interested in the attendees: Juan Carlos Mendez, president of the Pacific Media Group; Roberta Stratham, CEO of Satellite Broadcast News, along with all the nation’s premier cable news correspondents and newscasters. And, of course, Governor Sebastian Taylor.