High Concept

by Whitley Gray

  Oh, fuck. Not another valentine killer. Suddenly he was too tired, too fatigued to stay on his feet and discuss this. He shuffled to a chair and sank down, leaning his elbows on his knees and cradling the phone in one hand and his forehead in the other. “Sir—”

  “I know you see the connection here, Littman. Darling has agreed to see you, and only you. If he’s shepherding a fledgling killer, we need to know.”

  The inevitability of the situation weighed like an anvil on Zach’s chest. Glad Sands couldn’t see him, Zach lifted a shaking hand and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger and murmured, “It won’t help, Warren. It’s a game to him.”

  “I’m not unaware of your history.” The Sandman’s tone had softened. “But you’re part of my unit, and it’s part of your job. You knew when you took the position this sort of thing could crop up. I’m counting on you, Zach.”

  “This is an exceptional situation. More than just an interview.” It’s a fucking nightmare.

  “I’m aware.” Sands had reverted to all business. “The interview is tomorrow. Report to me after you’ve seen him.” He hung up.

  Zach let the phone drop to the table. If Omaha caught their killer in short order, Zach had a chance of avoiding the interview. Omaha would have their killer, Sands would have his results, and Zach would escape seeing Xav-D. He honestly didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to see the psychopath in person.

  Last time, despite the warning bells clanging in his brain, he’d agreed to do the interview with Xavier Darling, fascinated with the unique signature, the convoluted reasoning. Xav possessed a fearsome intelligence and a twisted need to live out a gruesome fantasy, without social mores to keep it in check.

  God, the thought of being anywhere close to that inhuman monster… After all, he’d barely survived last time. Eighteen months might as well be yesterday. Still too vivid, the interview that had changed his life. The prosecution had scoffed at the public defender’s assertion of Darling’s insanity and hired Zach to evaluate the suspect; he shivered as images crowded his head.

  * * * *

  The chamber of horrors had consisted of a gray concrete room, furnished with a table and chairs bolted to the floor, and a door with a tiny window. The wall opposite the door also had a tiny window, permitting a paradoxical ray of sunshine into the space.

  A private room for a confidential medical assessment.

  Zach carried his notepad and pen into the room, wrinkling his nose at the smell of bleach and burned coffee permeating the air. They’d confiscated his belt and tie, but not his loafers. And with his shirt stuck to his back with nervous perspiration, he didn’t miss his confiscated coat.

  Down the hall, the jingle of chains built from a low chime to a cacophony. A guard entered the room, followed by the prisoner and his entourage.

  The warden had forwarded physical statistics, but the numbers did nothing to prepare Zach. In orange-and-black-striped prison scrubs, Xavier Darling stood a hulking six feet five inches, an ebony tower gleaming with sweat. Biceps the size of Zach’s thigh gave testament to hours spent in the prison weight room. Most of the guy’s three hundred pounds had to be muscle—a modern-day Paul Henry. With his shaved bullet-shaped skull, a sense of evil surrounded Darling. He licked his lips as his gaze traveled over Zach in a palpable assessment. Fuck. Zach was tall but slender—no physical match for a muscle head like Xavier Darling.

  “Mr. Darling, I’m Dr. Littman.” Zach started to extend his hand and recalled the guard’s warning: don’t touch the prisoner.

  “Xav-D.” The mellifluous tone reached the dungeon of the pitch scale.

  A spider of anxiety scuttled up Zach’s spine. “Xav-D?”

  “’S my street name.” Thick lips spread to exhibit teeth filed to points like a serrated knife. The left upper incisor had a gold heart inset into it. The dentition of a shark.

  Well, Zach couldn’t call him that. They weren’t buddies. While one guard stood by with a Taser, the other two settled Xav-D into the chair and shackled him to the steel rings embedded in the floor and the slats of the chair. The guards stepped away, and all three checked their keys, Tasers, and cuffs.

  Great. An instrument count. Did Darling pickpocket?

  The largest officer hitched his thumbs in his belt and eyed Zach. “You know what to do when you’re done?”

  “Push the buzzer by the door.”

  “That’s right. We’ll remove the prisoner.”

  “Okay.” At least he sounded confident. Zach sank into the facing chair.

  The inmate rested his hands on the table and laced them together like an ominous bootlace. “Now what can I do for you, Doctor Littman?”

  After an hour of probing questions and evasive answers, Zach rang for the guard. They took a bathroom break, and the corrections officers supplied Zach and the prisoner with plastic bottles of ice-cold water. Clouds muted the sunlight, darkening the room.

  Zach started on the tough questions. “Mr. Darling, what was the reasoning behind killing the five women?”

  “Xav-D. Call me dat.” Hostility ruined Darling’s enunciation.

  “Sorry, I can’t do that.”

  Xavier’s brows dived down, and the accompanying smile chilled Zach to the marrow. He shifted sideways on his chair, putting a few inches of distance between them.

  “I killed ’em ’cause I wanted their souls. I watched they eyes while I squeezed they necks and sucked they life out through they eyes.” Xavier’s own eyes had darkened to pits black as death. The white of corneas and teeth stood out in shocking contrast.

  A fist of fear punched Zach’s stomach. The attorney had prepared him for these bizarre answers; words were nothing compared to the visual. Zach forced his features into a mask of calm and held the prisoner’s gaze. “And the hearts in the refrigerator?”

  Slapping his enormous hands on the tabletop, Xavier tilted forward. “They gave me they hearts.”

  A rivulet of sweat ran down Zach’s spine. “Gave them?”

  “They tol’ me they love me. Gave me they hearts.”

  This was consistent with what the surviving victim had said. After three days of imprisonment, rape, and torture, saying “my heart belongs to you” would have seemed a small price for relief from the nightmare. The survivor had refused to say it and escaped as Xavier went to the kitchen for a knife.

  “There were three hearts in the refrigerator. What happened to the others?”

  “Battered and deep-fried.” Xav-D smacked his lips.

  Jesus Christ. To buy time, Zach unscrewed the cap from his water bottle and took a couple of gulps. The next part was the competence clincher. “Then what?”

  Planting his fists on the table, Xavier got to his feet in a half crouch, restrained by the shackles. His great height allowed him to stretch across the table. The threat of violence rode on the stink of his sweat. Zach scrambled to his feet.

  “And I ate they love.” The psychopath snatched the notepad, bit out a chunk with his predatory mouth, and flung the paper across the room. “Never had me a man’s heart.”

  In horrified fascination, Zach stared as Xavier lowered his hands and yanked his arms up. One of the steel rings pulled out of the floor.

  Holy shit. This wasn’t happening. No human could do that. The metallic taste of fear filled his mouth. Zach backed toward the door, feeling for the call button.

  Jerking against the restraints, the maniac broke the waist shackle. “Gonna fuck you, then kill you.”

  Zach jammed his fingers on the call button. Where the hell were the guards? He pounded on the door with his fist and shot a glance over his shoulder. Darling had made it around the table, only one shackle inset into the floor holding him. The brute couldn’t be more than five feet away, and his hands stretched toward Zach.

  This time, Zach kicked the door and screamed. “He’s loose! Help me! For fuck’s sake, help!”

  Hot fingers closed on his neck.

  Five days later, he’d awakened in the hos
pital.

  * * * *

  In the DPD conference room, Zach shuddered. A horror show. He’d sworn he would never go back, never see the man for any reason. The aftermath had strengthened his resolve. Zach forced his mind to the here and now. A nice safe conference room, but he needed some air. No matter what Sands said, this wasn’t just another part of the job. As he rose, the door swung open.

  Beck poked his head in. “All clear?”

  “As clear as it’s going to get.” Zach took a deep breath and let it out.

  Beck eased inside the room, closed the door, and asked, “What’s up?”

  “My boss issued a formal invitation to interview Xavier Darling for a case I’d worked in Omaha.”

  “Sorry.” Beck grimaced and reached toward Zach, seemed to realize they had no expectation of privacy here, and pulled back with a sigh. “Whole thing sucks.”

  “Not your fault.” Zach shoved down the black dread inside. Beck didn’t need to see the raw underbelly of Zach’s emotions about Xav-D. “Can we get out of here and track down this Tibby Wright?”

  “Let’s go.”

  * * * *

  Thanks to inmate education, Wright had landed a job at an auto repair shop about a mile from the precinct. Per the proprietor of the transition house, the ex-con walked to work. Beck tried to be optimistic about their chances of getting something useful.

  The garage owner showed Beck and Zach into his tiny office to wait while he located the mechanic. Oxidation fogged the front window, and three metal chairs shared space with a desk. Above the desk, a wall clock advertising a brand of tires hummed in its cracked yellow frame, cord trailing down below the back of the desk. A dilapidated popcorn machine slouched in the corner, unnatural goldenrod-hued kernels shriveled inside. The place smelled of artificial butter, old rubber, and motor oil.

  Wright came in, accompanied by cool air and the whir of an air gun in the garage. The man reminded Beck of a human heron, knobby joints connected with long sticklike bones, bulging eyes, and a prominent nose crooked from being broken a time or three. Sparse hair stuck up in a dirt-colored disarray.

  Zach stood; Beck did likewise and said, “I’m Detective Stryker, and this is Special Agent Dr. Littman. Have a seat.”

  Wright didn’t shake hands; instead, he wiped his palms on a red grease rag. “Hands’re dirty. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Have a seat.” Beck flashed back to the scene at Olivetti’s house, of the businessman tied up, a similar rag stuffed in his mouth. But Wright had been incarcerated at the time.

  The ex-con’s gaze flitted around the room, as if he expected to be arrested at any moment. Wright folded into a chair like a measuring stick. “What’s this about?”

  Beck waited until Wright settled. “We have a few questions about your former cell mate.”

  “Ferris?” Wright twisted the rag, chapped knuckles blanching under the pressure.

  “That’s the one.”

  “Ain’t seen him since I got out.”

  “Talked to him?”

  “No.” Wright’s stony gaze gave away nothing.

  Zach glanced over, and Beck gave him a brief nod.

  Propping his forearms on his thighs, Zach folded his hands. “When you were cell mates with Ferris, what did he talk about?” he asked, voice soft, coaxing.

  Wright leaned forward. “Nothin’ special. Dinner. Work.”

  “Friends?”

  “Naw. Ferris dint have no friends.”

  “Were you his friend?”

  Wright pressed his lips together. “S’pose so.”

  “And you got along okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who didn’t he get along with?”

  Wright’s gaze slid to the left. “Dint see nothin’, and he dint talk about no one.” The rag resembled a filthy red rope in his hands.

  Interesting response. What had he seen? Beck kept his gaze on the man’s hands. Christ, they conveyed more than words.

  “You seem like the kind of guy Ferris’d talk to, Tibby, about the guy bothering him.” Zach tilted his head, and Wright mimicked his action.

  Wright’s hands stilled, and he leaned in. “Clive,” he muttered. “Clive Peck.”

  Beck had to admire Zach’s fishing skills. Clive Peck—couldn’t be many men with that name.

  “Clive.” Zach nodded, as if he knew the inmate. “What about Clive?”

  Beck counted the seconds on the ancient wall clock, waiting for Wright to fill the silence.

  “Ferris worked with him, afore Clive got sick. They dint get along.”

  “Did Ferris know Clive from the outside?” Zach asked.

  “Naw. Laundry detail.”

  Beck took a breath and jumped in. “Did Ferris talk about anyone else?”

  “Naw.” Wright’s posture stiffened, and he perched on the edge of the chair as his fingers worried the rag. “Told you, don’t know nothin’.” He clamped his jaw shut.

  The clock ground its way through another minute, and an air wrench puh-fitzed in the background. Eyebrow raised, Zach met Beck’s gaze; Beck stood and said, “Okay. Thanks, Mr. Wright.”

  Nodding, Wright opened the door, backed out of the room, and closed the door.

  “So Clive,” Beck said. “An accomplice?”

  “We’ll know soon enough.”

  * * * *

  In Beck’s opinion, Weaver’s foster care records were no more organized than if they’d been scattered on the floor and stuffed back in the file instead of laid out on the conference room table. Getting subpoenas signed for the dead suspect’s juvenile and foster care records hadn’t been a problem. Now he realized why the judge had smirked as he handed back the documents. This was worse than desk duty doing computer searches. Corralling another sheaf of papers about Weaver’s storied youth, Beck muttered, “Profiling for fun and profit. Hell.”

  Zach jotted a note on a pad of paper next to him and grinned. “Not as glamorous as on TV, huh?”

  “You got the organized stuff.” Beck nodded at the unsealed juvenile files as Zach flipped a page. “At least cops are methodical record keepers.”

  “Want to trade?”

  “No, no. I can handle it.”

  “I’ve got a handful of kids Weaver encountered at the detention center. Shouldn’t take long to run them down.” Zach leaned back in the chair and took a sip of coffee. “What’ve you got so far?”

  “Nineteen foster homes in sixteen years, and part of that time he was in juvie. Looks like he spent about two years total in detention, so that’d make it nineteen places in the fourteen years he wasn’t in juvie.” Beck shook his head. No wonder the kid had been so screwed up.

  “What was his longest placement?” Zach laced his hands behind his head and gazed at the ceiling.

  “Let me see which of these nineteen stacks of paper is the longest placement.” Beck grabbed the sheaf about Weaver’s first foster home and waved it in front of Zach. “Feel free to pitch in.”

  Zach took the papers and looked through them. “A two-year-old wouldn’t be likely to make alliances.”

  Beck got a twinge in his shoulder and gritted his teeth. Time for ibuprofen. “All right, Dr. Littman, at what age might that happen?”

  “Starting in grade school—around age five or six, some basic friendships. Since foster kids tend to have more trouble making those attachments, the longest placement is the most likely.” Zach set the sheaf on the table.

  “Give me a minute.” Beck squinted at the yellow sticky notes he’d stuck to each pile of foster placement papers, and at the pink ones in between each stack marking when Weaver had been elsewhere, either with his birth mother, in the hospital, or doing a stint in juvie. God. Eight different homes between ages two and seven. “His birth mother had him back for a year when he was four.”

  Zach shook his head. “No siblings, mother deceased. That won’t be it.”

  “Other than that, it’s placement number nine, between ages six and seven. Nine months. Then he went i
nto the hospital for an unspecified medical reason for a couple of months, and they didn’t send him back to the same place.”

  Zach nodded. “One of the problems with an overworked foster care system. That’s a little on the young side. What’s the next longest?”

  “Eight months at age ten. Then he went for the first stint in juvie.”

  “Might be there. Got the other kids in the home at the same time?”

  “Yep.” Beck lifted the stack and paged through. “Foster parents had no children. Another boy, age two, there for two months, and a girl, age ten. Candy Jenkins. She was there before and after Weaver.” Beck paused. “Weaver went to juvie for assault—he defended her in a fight. He must’ve cared about her.”

  “Now there’s someone we need to interview.” Zach grinned. “Maybe she stayed in the area.”

  “We can give it a shot. Let’s check the database.” Beck stood and led the way out of the conference room to his desk in the bull pen. As Zach pulled the side chair around next to him, Beck woke the computer and entered a search for Candy Jenkins. A few seconds later, he grinned. “Jackpot. She’s local. Let’s go.”

  * * * *

  All the houses were post-World War II boxes: small houses on concrete slab foundations. Zach had grown up in a similar neighborhood, playing outside, scuffing through the leaves, making armies of stick men.

  A less-than-knee-high shaggy dog trotted past, pausing to bark at them. Somewhere in the area an unseen canine gave an answering yelp. Seeming satisfied that he’d alerted the neighborhood, Shaggy continued on his way.

  Twenty-six Field Drive had nothing to distinguish itself other than a chain-link fence that had seen better days. The gate hung from one hinge. The yard had more dirt than grass, and toys were scattered in the dust: a tricycle missing one back wheel and a partially deflated football that looked like a giant brown banana, measuring cups that had outlived their usefulness in the kitchen and lay next to aluminum pie plates full of mud decorated with twigs and fallen leaves.

  No sign of a dog in the yard.

  Zach dragged the gate open, and they strode up the cracked sidewalk. A faded piece of paper was taped over the doorbell.

  Beck squinted at the note. “‘Don’t ring, you’ll wake the baby.’ It doesn’t say anything about knocking.”