“In so doing become a perfect criminal himself?” Sunday asked. “Yes. I wrote that. I believe that it logically follows, Doctor. Don’t you?”
CHAPTER 4
Sunday did not get to his apartment in Washington’s Kalorama neighborhood until almost five. There had been a few books to autograph after his lecture, followed by an unavoidable lunch with Dr. Wolk, who drank too much and often reduced philosophical arguments into object lessons worthy of Dear Abby.
To make matters worse, Dr. Wolk had pressed Sunday repeatedly about the sort of research or writing he was doing while on sabbatical. Sunday finally told the chairman of Georgetown’s philosophy department the unvarnished but completely vague truth: “I’m conducting an experiment that tests the dimensions of an existential world and the role of human nature in that world.”
Dr. Wolk had seemed genuinely intrigued, wanted more, but Sunday had gently and firmly refused, telling his colleague he’d be able to read all about it someday when his research was complete. In fact, he’d promised, Wolk would get the first read.
Hearing zydeco music inside the apartment now and smelling garlic frying somewhere, Sunday used his key to open the door and entered a room with white walls, a white ceiling, and a pale-gray rug. Several pieces of chrome-and-black-leather furniture faced a flat-screen television tuned to a music channel; that was the source of the zydeco.
A woman was in the room, dancing to the music. Her back was to him as her hips swayed and shimmied. Her riot of dirty-blond hair was tied up on her head. She was barefoot, wore loose, flowing olive-green pants and a tight-fitting white tank top that showed off the damp skin and muscles of her shoulders as she reached high overhead, revealing the colorful tattoo of the lounging panther that covered most of her left arm.
Sunday smiled and shut the door loudly. The woman stopped dancing and looked over her shoulder at him with those clover-green eyes. She grinned, clapped, and turned. She ran to him, kissed him hungrily on the mouth, and said in that light Cajun accent, “Thought you’d never get here, Marcus.”
“Couldn’t be helped,” Sunday said. “Had to keep up appearances.”
She jumped up into his arms, locked her powerful thighs around his waist, and kissed him again. “But I had something to show you, sugar.”
“Been reading Fifty Shades of Grey again, Acadia?” he asked, amused, as he stared into her impossible irises.
“Better,” Acadia said, unlocked her legs, and slid from his arms. “Follow me, sugar?”
The writer trailed her down the hall, watching her rear sway, imagining some carnal delight. But instead of heading to the master bedroom, she turned right into a room they’d been using for storage.
Four seventy-two-inch flat-screens had been affixed to the far wall, creating one floor-to-ceiling screen that was interrupted only by an Xbox 360 Kinect device aiming outward. The screens glowed dull blue.
A scruffy young guy in a denim jacket sat with his back to them, facing the screens, wearing Bose noise-canceling headphones that were blaring hard rock. A helmet of some sort lay on the table. Beside the table were a server about the size of a large suitcase and an Xbox 360. Cables linked it all to several laptops.
“Ta-da,” Acadia said. “What do you think?”
Furious, Sunday grabbed her by her panther tattoo and dragged her back into the hallway and into a bedroom. He whispered fiercely, “I didn’t okay this, and who is that guy?”
Furious right back at him, Acadia hissed, “Preston Elliot. Computer genius. You want state-of-the-art understanding, you need state-of-the-art minds and equipment. You said so yourself!”
Before Sunday could reply, she softened, said, “Besides, sugar, Preston picked up most of it at Costco. No-questions-asked return policy on all electronics.”
Sunday stayed skeptical. “What about him? What’s his fee?”
Her nostrils flared and she looked at him like he was meat. “The eager young man expects two hours of ultra-kinky sex with me. He’ll use a condom. Isn’t that what you said you needed right about now?”
Sunday cocked his head, appraising her anew. “Really? I didn’t notice, is he—?”
“Approximately your height and weight, yes.”
Intrigued now, the writer saw all the possibilities. “That means?”
“Don’t you think?” Acadia asked. Her breathing was slow. “It has been a while since we indulged, sugar.”
Sunday looked into her dark eyes and felt a thrill of primal anticipation ripple through him. “When?” he asked.
She shrugged. “All he has to do now is debug the software. Says he’ll be finished tomorrow around this time.”
“Who knows he’s here?”
“No one,” she replied. “Part of the deal. A secret.”
“Think he’ll keep it?”
“What do you think?” she asked, pressing against him a moment and igniting crazy desire in him. Sunday looked into Acadia’s green eyes and saw himself at eighteen, feeling that predatory rush for the first time as he carried a shovel and slipped up behind a figure crossing a dark yard. For a second it was all so real he swore he heard pigs squealing.
“Well, sugar?” Acadia whispered.
“I’ll leave,” he said, feeling that thrill all over again. “It’s better if he doesn’t see me tonight.”
She put on a saucy look, pressed against him again, and whispered in his ear, “Acadia Le Duc is limitless. No restrictions. None. You believe that, don’t you, sugar?”
“Oh, I do, baby,” Sunday said, almost breathless. “It’s one of the reasons I’m totally addicted to you.”
CHAPTER 5
Much later that same day, Kevin Olmstead, a soft-featured man in his late twenties, spotted the neon sign of the Superior Spa, a massage parlor on Connecticut Avenue reputed to offer “happy endings.”
Happy endings, Olmstead thought, running his fingers delicately over his smooth skin. Despite all the craziness in his head, he still knew the enduring value of a happy ending. He had enough money in his pocket, didn’t he? He seemed to remember withdrawing cash from an ATM sometime that day.
Was that real? Do I still have the money?
Olmstead stopped, blinking, trying to get his thoughts on track again, a common problem recently. Then he dug in the right front pocket of his jeans, pulled out a wad of cash. He smiled again. He wasn’t losing the old noodle when it came to sex or money.
Excited now, he hurried toward the massage parlor.
A man in a business suit, no tie, darted out the front door, looked furtively at Olmstead, and then scurried past him. Something about the man’s demeanor activated searing memories of another massage parlor and another night.
Olmstead remembered most vividly the smell of citrus cleaner. And he vaguely recalled five bodies: three women in bathrobes, a Cuban in a striped bowling shirt and porkpie hat, and a white guy in a cheap business suit, no tie, all shot at close range, all bleeding from head wounds.
Pain ripped through Olmstead’s own skull, almost buckling him on the sidewalk. Was that real? Had that happened? Were there five people dead in a massage parlor in … where? Florida?
Or was that all a hallucination? Some blip in his meds?
Olmstead’s mind surfed to another memory: a hand putting a Glock 21 pistol into a backpack. Was it the backpack on his shoulder? Was that his hand?
He looked at his hands and was surprised to see that he wore flesh-colored latex gloves. He was about to check the backpack when the front door of the Superior Spa opened.
A young Asian woman looked out at him, smiled luridly in red hot pants, stiletto heels, and a T-shirt that said goddess spelled out in glitter.
“It okay,” she said in halting English. “We no bite. You want come inside?”
Happy endings, Olmstead thought, and went toward her feeling an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the invitation.
Everything about the Superior Spa was a marvel to Olmstead, even the thumping rap music. But what entrance
d him most was the smell of citrus disinfectant. As one might with a freshly baked pie, he sniffed long and deep, flashing on the image of those corpses in Florida. Were they real? Was this?
He looked at the little thing in the red hot pants, said, “Any other girls working tonight?”
She pouted, poked him in the ribs. “What, you no like for me?”
“Oh, I like you fine, Little Thing. Just looking at options.”
A big, hard-looking man in a black T-shirt came out from behind the maroon curtain. A second Asian woman followed him. Scrawnier than Little Thing, she gazed at Olmstead with pink, watery, vacant eyes.
“See anything you like, bro?” the big guy asked.
“I like them both,” Olmstead said.
“You think this is Bangkok or something? Make a choice.”
“Cost?”
“Shower, soapy table, massage, seventy-five to me,” the bouncer replied. “Anything extra, you talk to the girl. Anything extra, you pay the girl.”
Olmstead nodded, pointed at Little Thing, who looked overjoyed.
The bouncer said, “Seventy-five and you gotta check your pack, bro.”
Olmstead went soft-lidded, nodded. “Lemme get my wallet.”
He swung the pack off his shoulder, set it on one of the plastic chairs, and unstrapped the top flap. He drew back the toggle that held shut the main compartment and tugged the pouch open. There was his wallet deep inside. And a beautiful Glock 21.
Was that a suppressor on the barrel? Was the weapon real? Was any of this?
Olmstead sure hoped so as he drew out the pistol. When it came to happy endings, a wet dream was rarely as satisfying as the real thing.
CHAPTER 6
Just after eight that night, I was getting ready to pack it in, head home, have a beer, see my wife and kids, and watch the last half of the game. So was John Sampson. It had been a long, grinding day for both of us and we’d made little progress on the cases we were working. We both groaned when Captain Quintus appeared, blocking the doorway.
“Another one?” I said.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Sampson said.
“Not in the least,” Quintus replied grimly. “We’ve got at least three dead at a massage parlor over on Connecticut. Patrolmen on the scene said it’s a bloodbath just based on what they’ve seen in the front room. They’re waiting for you and Sampson to go through the rest of the place. Forensics is swamped, backed up. They’ll be there as soon as they can.”
I sighed, tossed the Kimmel file on my desk, and grabbed my blue Homicide Windbreaker. Sampson grabbed his own Windbreaker and drove us in an unmarked sedan over to Connecticut Avenue just south of Dupont Circle. Metro patrol officers had already set up a generous perimeter around the massage parlor. The first television news camera crews were arriving. We hustled behind the yellow tape before they could spot us.
Officer K. D. Carney, a young patrolman and the initial responder, filled us in. At 7:55 p.m. dispatch took a 911 report from an anonymous male caller who said someone had “gone psycho inside the Superior Spa on Connecticut Ave.”
“I was on my way home from work, and close by, so I was first on the scene,” said Carney, a baby-faced guy with no eyebrows or lashes and no hair on his face or forearms. I pegged him as a sufferer from alopecia areata, a disorder that causes a total loss of body hair.
“Contamination?” I asked.
“None from me, sir,” the young officer replied. “Took one look, saw three deceased, backed out, sealed the place. Front and back. There’s an alley exit.”
“Let’s button up that alley, too, for the time being,” I said.
“You want me to search it?”
“Wait for the crime scene unit.”
You could tell Carney was disappointed in the way only someone who desperately wanted to be a detective could be disappointed. But that was the way it had to be. The fewer people with access to the crime scene, the better.
“You know the history of this place, right?” Carney said as Sampson and I donned blue surgical booties and latex gloves.
“Remind us,” Sampson said.
“Used to be called the Cherry Blossom Spa,” Carney said. “It was shut down for involvement in sexual slavery a few years back.”
I remembered now. I’d heard about it when I was still out working at Quantico for the FBI. The girls were underage, lured by the promise of easy entry into the United States, and enslaved here by Asian crime syndicates.
“How in God’s name did this place ever reopen?” I asked.
Carney shrugged. “New ownership, I’d guess.”
“Thanks, Officer,” I said, heading toward the massage parlor. “Good work.”
I opened the door, and we took three steps into a scene straight out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
The place reeked of some kind of citrus-based cleanser, and stereo speakers hummed with feedback. Sprawled in every ounce of her blood, an Asian female in red hot pants, heels, and a white T-shirt lay on the floor. One round had hit her through the neck, taking out the carotid.
A second victim, also an Asian female, dressed in a threadbare robe, lay on her side next to a maroon curtain. She was curled almost into a fetal position, but her shoulders were twisted slightly toward the ceiling. Her right eye was open and her fingers splayed. Blood stained her face and matted her hair, draining from what used to be the socket of her left eye.
The third victim, the massage parlor’s night manager, was sprawled against a blood-spattered wall behind the counter. There was a look of surprise on his face and a bullet hole dead center in his forehead.
I counted four 9mm shells around the bodies. It appeared that the killer had sprayed disinfectant all over the room. Streams of it stained the bodies, the furniture, and the floor. There was an empty five-gallon container of Citrus II Hospital Germicidal Deodorizing Cleanser concentrate by the manager’s corpse. We discovered a second empty container of it beyond the maroon curtain in the L-shaped hallway, as depressing a place as I’ve ever been, with exposed stud walls and grimy, unpainted plasterboard.
In the back room on the right, we found the fourth victim.
I am a big man, and Sampson stands six foot five, but the bruiser facedown on the mattress was physically in a whole other league. I judged him to be six foot eight and close to three hundred pounds, most of it muscle. He had longish brown hair that hung over his face, which was matted in blood.
I took several pictures with my phone, squatted down, and with my gloved fingers pushed back the hair to get a better look at the wound. When I did, the big man’s face was revealed and I stopped short.
“Sonofabitch,” said Sampson, who was standing behind me. “Is that—?”
“Pete Francones,” I said, nodding in disbelief. “The Mad Man himself.”
CHAPTER 7
Pete “Mad Man” Francones had anchored the Washington Redskins defensive unit for fourteen years. A defensive end with outstanding speed and quickness, Francones wreaked havoc in the NFL, earning a reputation as a tireless worker and an insanely passionate player on game day.
His histrionics on the sideline during big games in college had earned him the nickname, and he’d parlayed the whole Mad Man thing into a fortune in commercial endorsements. It didn’t hurt that Francones was good-looking, smart, well-spoken, and irreverent, traits that had earned him a coveted spot commentating on Monday Night Football just the season before.
And now Francones was the fourth victim in a killing spree in one of the sleaziest places in DC? This guy?
“Didn’t he date, like, Miss Universe or something?” Sampson asked, sounding baffled as well.
“Runner-up. Miss Venezuela.”
“So why would he be in this hellhole?”
I could think of several reasons, but I got his point. Francones was the kind of guy who did not have to pay for sex. If you believed the gossip, he’d had women throwing themselves at him for—
Something puzzled me. “Where’s t
he hooker he was with?”
We looked under the bed. We even lifted Francones’s body to see if she’d been pinned beneath him. But she hadn’t.
“Suppressor,” Sampson said, breaking me out of my thoughts.
“Again?” I said.
“Killer must have used a suppressor on the gun. Or Francones would have heard the shots and been up and facing the door.”
I saw what he was saying, replied, “So the three in the outer room die first. Then the killer comes down the hall, finds victim number four, shoots to incapacitate, and then to kill.”
“Sounds professional.”
I nodded, studying the Mad Man’s wounds again, thinking trajectories. “He’s kneeling when he takes the first shot, and then falls forward. So again, where’s the hooker?”
“And what’s with the cleanser?”
“Maybe the killer doesn’t like the smell of death?”
“Or maybe the killer gets off on the citrus smell.”
“Definitely not a robbery,” Sampson said, gesturing toward the Breitling watch on Francones’s wrist.
I picked up the Hall of Famer’s pants, rifled the pockets, and came up with a gold money clip holding a thousand dollars in fifties, and then something I didn’t expect to find. The vial held at least three grams of white powder but was capable of holding twice that. I tasted it. My tongue and lips numbed at the bitter taste of high-grade cocaine.
Showing the vial to Sampson, I said, “I don’t remember anything to do with the Mad Man and drugs.”
“Maybe he wasn’t all naturally amped up and crazy.”
We bagged the cocaine as evidence.
“You seeing a phone?” Sampson asked.
“No,” I said. “And no car keys, either. And no third woman.”
We went through the rest of the Superior Spa. The manager’s office had been lightly tossed. Oddly, however, the unlocked strongbox was untouched and contained nearly four thousand dollars. Untouched as well were a wallet with six hundred dollars and IDs that pegged the manager as twenty-nine-year-old Donald Blunt of College Park, a grad student at the University of Maryland. The only thing we could determine as missing was the hard drive that recorded the feed from the lobby security cameras.
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