Peller didn’t know what to say, but Montufar took the man’s hand. “Thank you for all your help,” she said sincerely. “Without you, it might have been worse.”
He looked in her eyes for a moment, as a wise father might. “And without you, as well. Thank you, Sergeant.” Then he returned to his office, calm as a cloud, and Peller wondered what he had seen in her.
Peller felt strangely detached, as if he had been dropped onto a movie set long after filming had ended. The crime scene unit buzzed about meaninglessly. A few feet away, Montufar and Dumas stood quietly speaking to one another.
One of the EMTs came up to him. “He wants to talk to you. Better hurry, though. I don’t think he’s going to last.”
It was a strange request. Peller followed the woman to the ambulance.
His adversary lay on the gurney inside, pale as the sheet that covered him. IV and oxygen lines, along with other medical devices that Peller couldn’t have named, crowded the space. He was careful not to bump anything. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted Leo to live and face justice or simply die and rid the world of himself.
Freiberg was barely conscious, but he smiled weakly when he saw Peller’s face leaning over him. “Good job,” he said.
“Is this what you wanted?” Peller asked, unable to keep condemnation from his voice.
Freiberg shook his head once. It seemed all he could manage. “Soldiers don’t want to die.” After drawing a labored breath, he added, “But they know they might.”
“Why did they deserve what you did to them? Patterson, Carrington, Lorna Bigelow? The Mason family, for God’s sake? Why?”
“Collateral damage.” His voice came so weak it almost sounded like he was falling asleep. “Part of the pattern. Ask the math guy.”
Peller suddenly remembered the call from Kaneko’s wife. Tom had gone missing after presumably talking to Freiberg. “Where is he?”
Freiberg’s mouth moved, but no sound came out.
“Damn it, where is he?” Peller demanded, fighting the urge to grab Freiberg and shake him. The paramedic looked at him sharply.
“Safe,” Freiberg said. Almost inaudibly, he repeated it: “Safe.”
He said nothing more.
∑
When Montufar went to tell Peller that Dumas had put out an alert on Tom Kaneko, she found him leaning against the side of the ambulance, staring at nothing. Not looking at him, she went to his side and leaned against the vehicle herself, watching the traffic on U.S. Route One, wondering what, if anything, he was seeing out there. Some minutes passed before Peller spoke.
“He’s dead.”
She nodded.
“We may never really know why he did it.”
“Does it matter?”
Peller turned a puzzled look on her. “That’s an odd question coming from you.”
Montufar shrugged. “Our work is done. The shrinks can take it from here.”
His eyes moving back to the traffic, Peller exhaled heavily. “There are a million more like him out there, Corina. A million. Gacy, Bundy, Dahmer, Leo. Kill one and another one rises to take his place. How many of them will end up on our turf?”
“God only knows,” Montufar said. “Maybe there are too many shrinks in the world. Maybe what it needs is more shamans.”
∑
A gibbous moon had risen over the forest, providing just enough light for Kaneko to guess the distance to the edge of the trees. His whole body hurt and his vision was less than clear, but if he focused his mind he found it possible to estimate, from the motion of the moon and stars, that he had been working his way towards the road for nearly an hour and a half. It wouldn’t be much longer, maybe another ten minutes of tortured rolling through the deadfall.
Somewhere nearby, a dog began to bark. It sounded close, perhaps from the road. Still gagged, he couldn’t call out for help, but the sound spurred him on, and he struggled forward painfully, making another ten feet before stopping to gasp for air.
The dog continued to bark in a hysterical, high-pitched yap, as though it sensed the immediate end of the world. Now Kaneko thought he saw a light playing around the edge of the trees, and heard a woman’s voice. He peered into the growing darkness. Yes, it was definitely a light, and its source was a human figure holding the leash of a tiny dog.
He forced himself to roll over a couple more times, making as much noise as possible.
The light found him, flashed by, then returned quickly to linger on his face. “Are you okay?” the woman asked tentatively. The light traced the form of his body, then returned to his face. “What happened to you?”
He squinted into the glare. The light moved out of his eyes, and once his pupils had adjusted again to the dark he saw a silver-haired woman gaping at him in horror while her white Chihuahua strained at the leash.
“You’re tied up! Oh, Butterscotch, be still.” The woman looked around in dismay, then tied the leash to a nearby branch. The dog continued to yap as its owner knelt by Kaneko’s side. Are you okay?” the woman repeated.
Ignoring the gag, Kaneko tried to speak. All that came out was an otherworldly groaning.
Her fingers began working the knots. “Never mind; stupid question.” The gag came off, and she started on the ropes. “Wait. Are you that missing professor? My husband heard about you on his scanner.” Kaneko’s hands came free. “He’s a retired cop and likes to follow what’s going on. Drives me crazy. Now he’ll never get rid of it.” The last rope fell away and she pulled out a cell phone. “The stupid thing’s actually been useful,” she said as she dialed.
∑
As the crime scene activity was wrapping up, Eric Dumas, surrendering to impulse, found Corina Montufar and drew her aside. “Hey, Corina. Want to go out to dinner with me?”
She started to say no, she had other things to do—she needed to visit her brother at the hospital, there was a load of laundry to go into the wash—but unexpectedly found herself saying, “Sure. Where would you like to go?”
“How about that Chinese place?”
She laughed for the first time that day. “Only you would think to go there.”
“They make a mean General Tso’s chicken. What do you say—ten minutes?”
“Give me fifteen.”
While they were eating, Peller called to tell them that Professor Kaneko had been found by a woman walking her dog. Leo’s last victim would live to tell the tale.
After the bill had been paid and Montufar was ready to beg off and head for the hospital, Dumas insisted on tagging along to meet her brother and wish him a speedy recovery. Eduardo was pleased to meet him—more than that, really; Montufar could have sworn that her brother was actually enthusiastic. But as she listened to the two of them speaking, she suddenly noticed that Dumas’ laugh reminded her of Eduardo’s—like a warm spring breeze that chases away the last lingering frost.
When she arrived home, she washed her clothes and threw them into the dryer, took a shower, and put on her oldest, warmest nightgown. She stood before the dresser for a long time, gazing at a framed picture of her family that she kept there. It was an old picture, showing her parents and much younger versions of Eduardo, herself, and Ella.
Then she opened a drawer she seldom used, and drew out her rosary.
∑
The following afternoon, Peller went to the hospital to visit Kaneko. The professor’s room overflowed with flowers: a large basket holding a brilliant mixture of roses, daisies, and forget-me-nots carried a card signed by Corina Montufar on behalf of the entire detective team; the mathematics department at Johns Hopkins had sent a smiley-face mug with a “Get Well Soon” balloon peeking over the top of yellow and white flowers; a smaller, simpler vase from the Holiday Inn staff carried a tasteful arrangement of lavender blooms. Peller instantly thought of a Purple Heart. Well, Kaneko deserved one, anyway.
The mathematician looked like a hospital patient: gowned and attached to an IV, his broken jaw wired, the wounds sustained while rolling out of the woods bandaged. Sarah sat beside him, knitting busily with a circular needle and a skein of blue yarn. She smiled when she saw Peller. “Hello, Detective Peller,” she said. “Thank you for coming.”
“Well,” he said, feeling the thanks was completely unnecessary, “without your husband’s help, we’d still be chasing a maniac.”
She smiled again, and scooted her chair back so that Peller could talk with his unofficial assistant. Then she started in again on her project.
Kaneko opened his eyes. “You look ready to solve another case,” Peller quipped. “Interested?”
Kaneko smiled. “I make a poor policeman.”
“Well. You shouldn’t have gone in without backup. But you did solve the case before we did.”
“You were close behind. Thank goodness.”
“Yes, but we owe you a debt of thanks.”
Kaneko slowly closed his eyes and opened them again, as if his eyelids were performing the bow that the rest of him could not. After a moment, he said, “You look like you could use some time in the hospital, too.”
With a smile, Peller said, “Probably, but I can’t afford it. And anyway, as soon as the paperwork is done, I’m taking a vacation. I need to visit my son’s family in Denver. It’s been too long.”
The mathematician smiled.
A knock at the door interrupted them. A nurse who to Peller’s eye seemed young enough to still be a candy-striper entered, pushing a cart. “Hello, Professor. It’s that time again,” she said to Kaneko. “How are you feeling?”
He made a noncommittal sound.
The nurse fastened a blood pressure cuff around Kaneko’s arm and ran a thermometer over his forehead. “You can have more pain medication at three o’clock,” she said. “Ninety-eight point six. Looks good to me.” She noted down the figures, then turned to Peller. “This guy is something else, you know that?”
Peller nodded. “Oh, yes. I certainly do,” he said, meaning every word.
“Without him the police would still be chasing that lunatic.” She shuddered. “He knew he could get killed, but took him on anyway. He’s a good old-fashioned hero. We could use more like him.” She straightened the covers around her patient. “Can you reach your call button? Okay. Just let me know if you need anything.” She breezed back out the door.
There were a few moments of silence after she departed. Then Peller said, “I do have one question, though. How in the name of heaven did you get out of the woods tied up like that? I mean, I know you rolled the whole way. One of the doctors here told me in excruciating detail what that did to your body.” He winced at the thought. “But how could you actually do it? Most men, I imagine, would have given up almost at the outset.”
Kaneko smiled carefully, as though gently probing the limits of his wounded face. “The mind,” he said, “is stronger than the body. Every mathematician knows that.”
Peller laughed.
And then he didn’t.
Because, after all, it was the truth.
Q.E.D.
About the Author
Dale E. Lehman is a veteran software developer, amateur astronomer, and bonsai artist in training. He and his wife Kathleen have five children, five grandchildren, and a couple of feisty cats. You can follow him at https://www.DaleELehman.com and find many of his short stories and nonfiction articles at https://www.medium.com/@lehket.
True Death
Howard County Mystery #2
The run cut into the base of the mountain, twisting and turning with the land, bubbling past old farms, past pine and spruce and deciduous trees waking from winter slumber, gurgling beneath small bridges on gravel roads, down past a mansion built by some retired executive looking to get away from it all, down through the gap between the mountain and its neighbor, down to join with the river just south of Centerville. A paved road kept the water company, winding through the mountains alongside it. Where the run entered the gap, splashing over a series of rock steps, an unpaved track slipped southward into the trees, climbed the slope, and ended at a small, run-down shack.
On the porch, a man in a scarred old bentwood rocker creaked back and forth, back and forth, his blue eyes directed at the treetops yet not focused on them. Few ever saw those eyes, but those who did frequently remarked how old they seemed compared to the body that hosted them. Vietnam veterans said he must have seen serious action in Afghanistan or Iraq; his eyes were that kind. Others speculated he had lost a wife or a child, or both. Not that anyone knew. He rarely came to Centerville, and then only to buy food. He arrived like a shadow, conducted his business, spoke to no one, and left like a faint breeze falling still. Whatever tragedy had befallen him, it seemed to have drained most of the life from him.
Had he talked to anyone, had anyone uttered such speculation, he would have shaken his head. He was, in fact, already dead.
Ice On The Bay
Howard County Mystery #3
“I’m freezing, Harold.”
His attention on the old house before them, Harold didn’t answer his wife’s complaint. Pale golden light leaked through gaps in the blinds covering the first-floor windows while the second floor slumbered in darkness. Built sixty or seventy years past, the house was a home no more, but a veterinary clinic. A brilliant white floodlight splashed across the front of the pale blue structure. Harold’s eyes didn’t register the color in the glare; he only knew it because he’d been here two days earlier, casing the place in daylight.
“Harold!” She whispered it fiercely and tugged on his sleeve.
He absently wrapped his arm around her shoulders, but his attention remained fixed on the house. Situated in an otherwise deserted block on a sparsely-populated road, it hid among the winter-bare trees, a loner or an outcast. A perfect target. Better still, the security light’s glare washed out the burglars’ white coats, white hoods, and white pants as cleanly as the house. They might have been one with the walls. At least, that’s what they’d been told. Harold felt terribly exposed here and stole a glance back at the road. Not that passersby were likely at this hour anyway. Even so, he planned to enter through a back window, where the trees would swallow any sounds they made.
He started forward, arm still around her, but she didn’t move. “What?” he asked sharply.
“Lights are on inside.”
“Just security lights.”
She leaned into him and shook her head. Her hair, long and thick, lightly stroked his arm.
“You backing out on me, Hannah?” Harold felt her tension in her touch. He knew her that well. After all, they’d been together for six years, ever since Howard Community College, where he had been a pitcher on the school’s baseball team and she an aspiring actress in the theater program. A mutual friend had introduced them, and Harold had fallen hard. Hannah’s radiant smile, golden hair, and shapely body instantly attracted, and the eagerness with which she attached herself to a star athlete amply fed his ego. Hannah’s prettiness and Harold’s rugged good looks, together with the uncanny alliteration of their names, seemed to cast a spell about them that other students were loath to attempt to penetrate, preferring instead to regard them with a respect bordering on awe. Yet they’d ended up neither on the stage nor on the diamond, but here in the chill night.
Hannah shook her head a bit too emphatically. “Of course not.” A good actress, she faked determination well. But she couldn’t fool him. She wanted out of this, out of the cold, out of the danger, out of the whole business. Only loyalty kept her here. He admired her for that. Little had gone right for him since college. Hannah alone had stuck by him. Why? He’d never fathomed that mystery. Oh, he knew that once she had needed his protection, but those days were long gone, and here she was, still with him, defying the urge to run, standing firm
by his side when she could have been sleeping warm and secure in a better man’s bed.
“Come on.” He tugged at her, and this time she moved.
“At least it’ll be warm in there,” she muttered.
They crept through the darkness along the left side of the house and came to the rear. A waning moon illuminated the landscape, its light dimmed now and again as ragged patches of cloud raced by. The date was December twenty-fourth, Christmas Eve; the time two-twenty in the morning; the temperature forty-one degrees with a stiff breeze that chilled them all the more. Somewhere inside the house lay their objective: a supply of morphine and ketamine, cash literally in liquid form.
They paused to check the four darkened windows that flanked the back door, two on each side. Here, too, a security light pretended to deter thieves while contrarily revealing to them every detail of their intended target. The light from within, washed out by the exterior glare, shone faint but steady.
Hannah took two pairs of latex gloves from her pocket and handed one pair to Harold. They pulled them on, careful not to rip them, then Harold eased up the short flight of wooden steps leading to the door, his footfalls quieter than a rabbit’s. He gently rotated the knob. Of course it was locked, but it never hurt to check. No sense smashing things if the owner had invited them in. Leaning to the left, he felt around the nearest window, examined it in detail, and gingerly tried to push up the lower sash. Again, no luck. Again, none expected.
Hannah tiptoed up the steps while he worked and stood close behind him. “Hammer,” she whispered, pulling the tool from her coat pocket and handing it to him like a nurse handing a scalpel to a surgeon.
He took the hammer and with a swift stroke smashed the pane, then cleaned the jagged shards from the sash with the head. Falling splinters chattered as they struck the floor inside. Once satisfied the opening was clean, he helped Hannah through the window. She moved so quietly she might have vanished, but in his mind Harold could see her go to the door, disarm the alarm with the code they had been given, and unlock the deadbolt. The door whispered open.
The Fibonacci Murders Page 19
