Strip search sp-2

by William Bernhardt

  "'Bout that guy you've been lookin' for."

  A beat. "All right. Follow me."

  And he did. As he followed downstairs into the acrylic walled chambers below, he marveled at how truly easy it could be to penetrate the inner chambers of the Las Vegas Central Downtown Police Department.

  "Can't you make that thing work any faster?" I didn't mean to shout. I would never dream of shouting. But I couldn't help myself. I knew this was the day. The magical mystical prime number day. It was barely an hour till midnight. Any delay would mean we were too late. "It can't have taken the killer this long."

  "I think that maybe the killer had an algorithm or program set up to crunch these numbers," Darcy said, never once removing his eyes from the screen. "I have to make one up."

  "Then do it already."

  He stopped, turned. "I was doing it. Was I doing something wrong?"

  "No! Just-don't stop! For God's sake-" I wrapped my arms around him, but at the same time, pushed him gently back toward the computer. "Do you realize how important this is? You're the one who told me the killer would strike again today."

  "Yes."

  "And the only chance we have of stopping him is to find the name of the next victim."

  "That is what I am trying to do."

  "But you're not-" I pressed my hand against my forehead, pushing long strands of black hair out of my face. I knew I wasn't helping. Every moment I spoke I distracted Darcy from what he needed to be doing. But I couldn't help myself. Because I knew one detail Darcy didn't. I wasn't simply sure the killer would strike today. I knew he'd promised to hurt someone close to one of us.

  I had called the Johnsons, strongly suggested that they get Rachel somewhere safe, someplace no one could get to her, no matter how smart they were. Thank God they listened. I told Granger he should do the same and pass the message on to his detectives. At the same time, I knew it was all probably futile. This creep wouldn't have given us that information if he thought there was any way we could stop him from doing whatever it was he planned to do.

  I'd gotten us back to my computer terminal as quickly as possible and re-entered the DHS database. This was playing a hunch in the extreme, but I felt certain the DHS records were the connection.

  Unless I was wrong. Unless the killer really was Granger's pathetic anti-porn crusader. In which case, the next victim was dead.

  "Maybe this is not the answer to the puzzle," Darcy said, frowning, obviously frustrated.

  "It has to be," I insisted. "The man is a signature killer. We just have to uncover the signature. He's not going to change, any more than most people can change the way they sign their names. His signature gives him a feeling of power. He may be a loser in real life, but controlling others allows him to feel better about himself."

  "The computer is being very slow. Do you like it when the computer is slow? I get tired of looking at that silly hourglass."

  "Tell me you've got something, Darcy," I muttered under my breath. "Come on. Tell me you've got something."

  "I have got something."

  "No, I mean-" I blinked, then crouched over his shoulder. "Really?"

  "Yup. See the names the computer is spitting out? It is making a list. The same list it made for our killer."

  "But how could you do it so quickly?"

  "I added a few parameters, like I limited the search to people who live inside the city, since all the victims did. And I screened out all the complaining parties. These are just people who had complaints made against them."

  I squeezed him tightly. "You are so damn…smart!"

  "Is that a good thing?"

  "Of course it is."

  "'Cause sometimes, my dad says, 'Don't be smart with me, young man,' and I think, what's wrong with being smart? Why is that a bad-"

  "Darcy, pay attention to the computer!" I physically adjusted his head to face the screen.

  "See!" he cried enthusiastically. "There's the first name. Amir. That is why he was the first victim. It is all in the numbers."

  I watched as the computer added names to the list with what seemed painfully slow speed. "Danielle Dunn. Dane Spencer. Joshua Brazee. My God, Darcy, you cracked the code!" The computer was still thinking. I could barely breathe, waiting. It was the next name, I told myself. All we had to do was wait for the next name. And then we'd know.

  What must've been seconds seemed an eternity. I could hardly stand it. Come on! I wanted to shout at the damned thing. Give me what I want. Give me what I And then it did.

  "Oh, my God." My hands clutched at the base of my throat. "Oh, no. God, no."

  "I do not know that person," Darcy said. I do not think-" A picture appeared on the screen with a concise bio. "Oh! I do know that person! I do know that person! I just did not know her name. But now I do!" He turned to me. "She is your friend! Do you know where she is?"

  "I sure as hell do," I said, already racing away from the desk. How could I not know where she was? She told me. She said she'd be there till I showed up.

  Amelia was waiting for me. But the killer was waiting for her.

  31

  "Please don't hurt me!" Amelia screamed, struggling against the handcuffs. "Please! I don't know anything!"

  "You're not here 'cause of what you know," Tucker said, calmly heating the branding iron with an acetylene torch, part of the lab's standard equipment. "You're here 'cause of what you did."

  "Do you mean what I did for the investigation? Because if so, you've got the wrong girl." Veins throbbed on the sides of Amelia's smooth forehead. Sweat dripped from her as if she had been out in the rain. She watched as he heated the iron, knowing all too well what he planned to do with it. "I don't know anything. I've been no use to them at all. Useless."

  Tucker held the iron up to the light to see if it was hot enough. It was. "You sold your own child."

  "What?" She stopped, stunned. It took a moment to catch her breath. "You're-wrong. I-"

  "You traded your own flesh and blood for bucks."

  "You don't know anything about it. I-I was just a child myself. I didn't know what else to do."

  "God gives us brains so that we can know the right thing to do."

  "Does God know what you're doing?"

  Tucker froze. Even when he resumed movement again, he was slower. Some of the certainty had drained from his eyes. "Course. That's the whole point. To make God…understand."

  "Then why can't you understand what I did? Why can't you at least try?"

  "I didn't choose you. The numbers did. You're Tiferet, a part of the sacred Sefirot, a part of the holy body."

  "I'm not! My name is Ameila! I'm a scientist! I don't even believe in-" She stopped herself.

  Tucker came closer, holding the iron aloft with its red hot T, moving all too certainly toward her. "You will."

  "Goddamn it, why can't I get the door open?" I pounded on the entrance to the basement crime lab, but it wouldn't give. It was locked and dead-bolted, and I didn't have the key. I threw all my weight against it, but it wouldn't budge.

  "Is anyone down there?" I screamed. There was no answer, and I knew why. Everyone but Amelia was on duty or at the goddamn crime scene, that was why. Had he planned this? Don't be stupid, I told myself. He couldn't know that sleazy manager would hide the crime. He couldn't know Amelia would be the first to return. He probably had some alternate plan if he needed to get rid of everyone. This was just dumb luck. Blind dead dumb bad luck. That could cost Amelia everything.

  I called her on my cell phone, but she didn't answer. I screamed again, and this time I thought I heard something in response. I pressed my ear against the door.

  That wasn't a response. It was more screaming. Painful screaming.

  Amelia. I was certain of it.

  I threw myself against the door, crying out her name. Nothing happened.

  "I do not think you are going to get through the door that way," Darcy said. "Not unless you have superpowers. Do you have superpowers?"

  Yeah, actuall
y, but none that would get me through that damn steel-reinforced door. I rubbed my sore shoulder and said: "Give me a boost, Darce."

  "Huh?"

  I pointed upward. There was a small window, probably designed to let in a little light. Definitely not designed for human beings to crawl through.

  "I do not think that you will fit. And the glass-"

  "I'm going to try!" I shouted.

  Without another word, Darcy got down on his hands and knees. I had thought he might lock his hands and let me step into them, but whatever. He got me head-level with the window. I didn't have a proper tool and I wasn't going to waste time searching for one. I balled up my fist and busted out the window. Hurt like hell; my hand came back bleeding, but I ignored the pain. I put both hands through the opening, knocked away the remaining glass, and tried to haul my carcass through. Cut myself but good in the process, but I ignored that, too.

  It might be the first and last time, but I thanked God I was a long, skinny flat-chested thing. Thanked God I've been so tranquilized by anxiety medication I've forgotten to eat most meals for the past two weeks. Thanked God my senses were so dulled I didn't notice the shards of glass cutting into me as I slithered through that window.

  Even after I'd pulled myself through, I was still about ten feet off the ground-headfirst. Tough. No time for delay.

  I let myself drop. Somehow, my usual catlike reflexes failed me. I hit the floor-the very hard tile floor-landing on my right shoulder.

  I clambered to my feet, pulled out my gun, and tried to figure out which way to go first. The CSI lab space was enormous, almost half a block, all of it underground. I listened-and heard nothing. That could be good, I tried to tell myself. Or very, very bad.

  In each past instance, I reminded myself, the killer had attacked his victims at their place of work. I knew where Amelia's work space was, so I made a beeline for it. I shot down the iron staircase, taking steps two at a time, landing at the bottom with a thud. So much for any chance of surprising him, which was probably shot the instant I broke the window. I had to get to Amelia in time. I had to.

  I raced to her desk, then slowed. No one was sitting in her chair. The computer was on, but no one was working with it. I saw a sterling silver tray with all her instruments laid out: the calipers, the scalpel, the tuning scissors, which to me looked all the world like a big fancy pair of garden shears. I saw no people. But the chair was swiveling, ever so slightly. Someone had been there recently.

  Behind the desk, I spotted something on the floor. White, or mostly so. I took a step closer.

  He must've climbed up on one of the other desks, because when he came down on me, he came from above and he came down hard. I fell forward. My chin hit the desk and you can imagine what that did to my state of mind. My gun skittered across the floor.

  I turned around just in time to take one in the stomach. Never in my life have I been hurt like that. I felt as if his fist had gone all the way through me, had rent me into pieces.

  And then I saw his face. We were right when we called him a homunculus. There was something inhuman about his strength, his determination. His expression never wavered, never showed the slightest trace of weakness. Brute force radiated through his enormous biceps, his frame, his legs. He was a small, but compact powerhouse. I knew I couldn't beat him. The best I could be was his punching bag. Till he decided to kill me.

  He lifted me up into the air as if I were a rag doll, held me aloft, then flung me across the lab into a wall. I fell down onto the floor, helpless. He'd knocked all the breath out of me. I wondered if I'd cracked a rib; I knew my wrist was sprained. There was no way I could stop this inhuman killing machine.

  Upstairs I heard a pounding on the door. Help had arrived. But they couldn't get to me. Even if Darcy showed them the broken window, there was no chance they could get to me in time.

  My head was swimming, I forced myself to my feet and tried to hobble away from him. He tackled me, knocking me against Amelia's tray table, the tools raining down around me, clattering to the floor. I tried to swing the chair at him, but I was so weak it didn't even count as an annoyance. He pushed it away, growling, as if angered that I had attempted to defend myself. I grabbed a pencil off her desk. I had read somewhere that you could kill someone with a pencil. If you knew how. Which I didn't. I pointed it toward him, but he snatched it away from me and snapped it between two fingers. Then he grabbed me by the collar and lifted me into the air, straight up into the air. And smiled at me.

  I squirmed, trying to escape, but he had me totally under his control. He threw me again. It seemed as if I flew ten feet, like people do in the movies. In real life, no one is that strong, right? Except him. He was.

  He kicked me in the stomach, then bashed me against the nearest wall. I hurt in every place that it was possible to hurt, and worse, I was ashamed. I had come to help my friend. I hadn't helped her at all. And now he would kill me. I'd seen his face, full and clear. He had no choice.

  I tried to stand, but he hammered a fist into my jaw. This time I was certain I would lose it; consciousness was fading fast. Somehow I managed to crawl back toward Amelia's desk. I had to know if she was still alive. At least, if I had to die, please don't let it be in vain. Let me accomplish something before he destroys me.

  He grabbed my feet and swung me around again. I smashed into Amelia's desk. Lightbulbs flashed before my eyes, a sure sign that I would not be awake for long. I was covered with blood, bleeding from so many different places I couldn't count them all. I reached out with my bloody hands, trying to find some purchase, anything…

  I found Amelia's scissors. The big gardening shears.

  He came at me again, reached for me with his left hand, but this time, just before he got me, I twisted around, pulled the scissors open, clamped them down on his fingers, and snapped them shut.

  He cried out in pain, pulling his hand close to him, minus the two fingers I had just amputated. Blood spewed from the stumps. He was hurt, but I didn't fool myself into believing he was out of commission. At best, this was a temporary setback, an opportunity. I didn't let it go to waste. I crawled forward, glass crunching under my hands, lunged toward him, and plunged the scissors into his gut.

  He screamed, howled like a wounded animal, which I suppose is more or less what he was. I pushed hard, jabbing the scissors farther into him, blood spurting everywhere, making sure he wouldn't be able to pull them out.

  I rolled backward, crawling on hands and knees. I knew I didn't have long, and I wasn't going to waste it by trying anything as stupid as standing up. I crawled like a baby back to Amelia's desk, back to the blotch of white I'd first seen behind the desk.

  It was still there, on the floor, motionless. The white was her lab coat, of course. It was splayed open but still on her, even the parts that were no longer white because they were soaked with blood. I winced when I saw the T branded on her chest. But that wasn't the worst of it. Not by a long shot.

  A huge cavity had been carved open in her chest.

  He hadn't been content with a limb this time. Not an arm or a leg. Not even her face. He had ripped out her heart.

  "Inspite of the gloomy dogmas of priests and superstition, the study of numbers is the true theology." -THOMAS PAINE

  32

  July 28

  Given what i'd seen, given what I'd let happen, I think I could be forgiven for wallowing in a multicolored array of multipurpose pills. None of it really worked, certainly not fast enough. At the least, I thought I might get a little sleep out of it. Even after they finally released me from the hospital, battered and bruised and stitched in about a dozen places, I needed sleep, especially after hours and hours of interrogation and questioning and all the blank stares that implied the same message, over and over again: How could you let this happen? To a fellow cop? To your friend? How could you let it happen?

  When I was finally able to return to my apartment, I crawled into bed in my clothes, pulled a pillow between my legs, and curled
up like an embryo, wanting to cry, not able to cry. I needed to talk to someone. I needed to know that someone was there.

  I reached past the alarm clock and grabbed the four-leaf clover charm. I squeezed it tight in my fist.

  Nothing happened. I tried again, this time clenching my eyes shut as well.

  Still nothing happened.

  David? David?

  It wasn't working. I closed my eyes but all I saw was a fog. Maybe he was out there somewhere-his smell, his taste, his strength-but I couldn't get to it. A hazy wall separated us.

  A hazy, drug-induced wall.

  Would I have done better if I hadn't been doped to the gills? Or worse? Would the pain I'd have felt slowed me down? Or would my brain, my empathic skills have been able to figure it all out sooner?

  I didn't know and I didn't care. Right now, all I wanted was my David. And I couldn't get to him.

  I threw the damn charm down and squeezed the pillow all the tighter, trying to make the world go away, David and Amelia and everyone else. Trying to make the pain disappear.

  It didn't.

  The report waiting for me on my desk when I returned to work told me everything I wanted to know-or more accurately, everything I didn't want but needed to know. Amelia had an unwanted baby when she was seventeen. She was poor, jobless. Didn't know what to do. But she was determined not to let it ruin her life. She ended up putting herself in the hands of one of those adoption brokers, who managed to sell the infant girl to a respectable childless family for enough money that Amelia could go to college and start a new life. She thought she did the right thing-but the acquiring parents turned out to be alcoholics. The mother was giving the daughter a bath while intoxicated and ended up drowning her. No one-at least no one sane-blamed Amelia, not even the DHS, but there was a record in the DHS database. And that was what killed her.

  My God, poor Amelia. As well as I thought I knew her-I didn't know her at all. She had a secret she never told me, probably never told anyone. Not that I blamed her.

  Now she was gone. I missed her. Not even thinking about my personal guilt, how badly I had failed her-I missed her. Seemed all my friends, everyone I cared for most in this world, evaporated like the morning mist.