by Meg Gardiner
Guthrie was silent. She squeezed the phone.
“It’s about Good Friday. The poem’s talking about tomorrow.”
23
The war room hummed with anxious energy, like a poorly grounded electrical cable. The team gathered in front of the wall of photos. Guthrie strode in, eyes darting.
“Where are we?”
Shanklin rocked up and down on her toes, arms crossed. “Nobody’s found the location of the ‘dripping blood’ graffiti. Photo’s been on the news. But the zoom on the camera is so tight. There’s traffic noise, but we haven’t been able to isolate any background sounds.” Her red lips tightened. “We’ve received a dozen crank calls. Six morons spray-painted ‘dripping blood’ on their own property and called the media. The usual.”
Guthrie ran his palm across his face. His five-o’clock shadow made him look like a wiry Nixon impersonator. “It’s like sifting information fired from a confetti cannon.”
“I half expect my mother to call in a tip, and she has Alzheimer’s,” Shanklin said. “She can’t remember eating lunch, but sees the Prophet on the news and starts reciting details from the early cases.”
Caitlin felt a small pang. Martinez gave Shanklin a consoling look. Shanklin shrugged.
Caitlin leaned against a wall, shoulders tight. For the Prophet murders, no multiagency task force had ever been assembled. That’s why the files were scattered. Now, with the Ackerman crime scenes spread between Alameda and San Joaquin counties, the pattern was repeating.
But nobody wanted to hear that from the rookie. She kept her mouth shut.
Guthrie turned to her. “The survivor. The message she says the killer wrote on her arms.”
Caitlin tacked up the T. S. Eliot poem. “This is the first explicit link between the Prophet’s original murders and his return. This binds the old and new cases together.”
“But what does it mean?” Martinez said.
“I think he’s revived a plan that was interrupted or abandoned twenty years ago. He wants us to know that he’s back on track and proceeding with something big.” She paused. “Kelly—the survivor—is an emotional grenade. I gave her the number for Victim Witness Assistance, but could we have someone call her?”
Guthrie said, “We?”
She heard the rebuke. “Me. Of course. I’ll ask. Sergeant.”
Shanklin said, “The last time. When the Prophet accelerated his cycle, he sent a cryptic message your father deciphered. ‘Mercury rises with the sun,’ that mumbo jumbo.”
Caitlin didn’t respond to mumbo jumbo. Shanklin scowled. Maybe her sensible shoes were pinching. Or the bondage paddle she had jammed up her ass.
“Now he’s posted a message about Good Friday—supposedly,” Shanklin said.
Guthrie said, “Let’s take it as read that the message is about Good Friday.”
Shanklin raised her hands, placatingly. “I’m just playing devil’s advocate.”
The hell she was. She was challenging Caitlin, and they all knew it.
“What if the poem is a con?” Shanklin said.
Heat rose in Caitlin’s neck. “It’s not a con.”
“We have only Kelly Smolenski’s word that the killer wrote this message on her arms. No physical evidence, no photos, just the word of a biker’s old lady drinking in a bar. This reporter, Fletcher—he could have set it up with her. He could have paid her to act like a poor little emotional grenade and convince you a message was written on her skin.”
Now Guthrie scowled.
“Fletcher’s supposedly had this secret message under wraps for the last twenty years. Why didn’t he print it at the time, when it would have been a sensational scoop?”
Caitlin parsed her answer. “Kelly didn’t know why. I’d guess it’s because he interviewed a minor, on school property, without permission and without her parents present—and without corroboration. And when Fletcher’s editors found out, they killed the story.”
Guthrie stroked his chin.
Caitlin said, “But I’m going to find out.”
Shanklin looked at her. “Did the Prophet ever kill someone on Good Friday?”
“No. But the message was never distributed. And his would-be victim escaped. Maybe that ruined his plan,” she said.
“Maybe.” Shanklin gestured at the poem. “And maybe there’s no connection to his earlier cases. I mean, the ‘Mercury rising’ message was about a planet with astrological meaning. This one’s supposedly about a religious holiday. What’s the link?” She shook her head. “The message he sent to KDPX News talked about a young cop stumbling into a pit. Maybe he’s trying to shove you off the cliff. Maybe the message is meant to make you crazy.”
At the word crazy, the room seemed to flash with liquid light. Caitlin gave Shanklin a flat stare. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
Martinez, standing in front of the wall with his feet planted wide, spoke pensively. “Both messages talk about celestial events.”
Shanklin said, “Astrology and the Crucifixion are nowhere close to the same thing.”
Martinez turned. “Not celestial in the sense of heaven. Celestial in the sense of astronomy.”
“Don’t go hippie-dippy on me, Martinez.”
“Easter is tied to the start of spring. Holy Week—Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday—goes back to the Last Supper, which was a Passover Seder. Right? Which is why those two holidays almost always align. You know how Easter is not celebrated on a particular date?”
Guthrie nodded. Shanklin still looked skeptical. The light in the room wavered and flared in Caitlin’s vision. Make you crazy. Their voices seemed to come from underwater.
Get it together.
She forced herself to concentrate. The light settled. Their voices swam closer.
She said, “The date of Easter changes from year to year.”
“That’s because Easter is based around the rising of the full moon after the start of spring,” Martinez said. “Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after—”
“The vernal equinox,” Caitlin said.
Martinez nodded.
Shanklin said, “I’m impressed.”
“Altar boy. Plus twelve years of Jesuit education,” Martinez said. “Both the ‘Mercury rising’ message and the Good Friday message refer to astronomical events.”
Shanklin said nothing for a minute. “Say it’s legit. What does it matter?”
Lieutenant Kogara strode in. “It means we add patrols. It means the first item at roll call for every shift at every station is to be alert to signs of any activity that might relate to the Prophet.”
The team all turned to acknowledge the commander. Kogara looked intense but unruffled. His white dress shirt could have been ironed in the last five minutes. Possibly while he was wearing it. He nodded at the board.
“What do we have on the evidence from that burned-out car at Silver Creek Park?”
Caitlin opened a report. “The phone in the car belonged to the victim, Stuart Ackerman. Arson confirms that it triggered the incendiary device. The phone itself was toast. We accessed his cloud data but found nothing connected to the crime scene or the case.”
Kogara walked along the wall of photos. When he came to the shot of Stuart Ackerman, with information below it, he stopped and tapped a list of points.
Zodiac Match. Starshine69. Wild Sagittarius.
“The astrological angle. How important is it?” he said.
Caitlin said, “It’s too obvious to ignore. But it doesn’t completely fit with the literary tone of the Prophet’s most recent message, or the religious overtones of the new ones.”
Kogara looked at her, seemingly surprised that she had offered analysis. She went quiet.
Martinez said, “Maybe we’re making him out to be a genius when he’s not. He’s just random. Like mu
sic videos.” He shrugged. “Right? You watch, and think, Why am I not getting this? But it’s because they don’t make sense. There’s no meaning. The images are random, meant for shock and sensation.”
Shanklin said, “Wow. When did you become a cultural critic?”
Guthrie said, “I get Martinez’s point. The forums, the obsessives, may be overthinking this. We shouldn’t fall into the same trap.”
Caitlin thought: The Prophet is a genius. Because he’s managed to stay ten steps ahead of law enforcement for twenty-five years.
Kogara said, “Keep at it. We’re increasing patrols tomorrow.”
He glanced at Guthrie and then at Caitlin. He was increasing patrols on the strength of their belief that Good Friday was a threat. She kept her expression flat and her hands clasped behind her back. Where he couldn’t see her nails digging into her skin.
“I’m going to issue a public safety bulletin telling people to be alert and aware of anything out of the ordinary tomorrow,” he said. “Okay, people. Keep it up. We’re counting on you.”
He strode away. The detectives gathered their notes.
As Shanklin walked past, Caitlin said, “Kelly Smolenski’s the real deal. She’s telling the truth.”
Shanklin’s glance was cutting. “You’d better hope so. We’d all better.”
24
Ana Maria Garcia walked from the Berkeley BART station to Coffee, Tea & Tarot, her disquiet building with every step. Evening traffic was desultory, the sidewalks empty. The brick-fronted shop was dark.
Though her back ached from standing all day at work at the thrift shop, she huffed and sped up. The blinds were down. The sign on the door read, CLOSED.
Okay, she thought; not to worry. The windows weren’t broken, and when she cupped her hands and put her face to the glass, things inside looked orderly.
Except she couldn’t get hold of her friends. Neither J. T. Wilcox nor Gaia Hill was answering the phone or responding to texts. A fluttering bird began beating its wings in her chest.
She knocked. “Hello? Gaia? J.T.?”
She heard footsteps coming around the side of the building. She hustled toward the sound. “J.T.?”
A man turned the corner. She put a hand on her chest and said, “Oh.”
He was lanky and skittish. The look in his eyes took her aback, so intense.
“Are they home?” she said.
“No.” He looked over his shoulder. “Back door’s locked. Lights off.”
“You went in?”
“I don’t have a key. If they’re upstairs, they’re not answering the bell.”
J.T. and Gaia lived in an apartment above the café. Ana Maria frowned and put a hand on the young man’s arm. “Daniel, I don’t want to alarm you, but . . . I’m worried.”
Daniel Wilcox looked at her from under his heavy fall of black hair. His frayed jeans sagged on his hips. The horned-devil tattoo on his neck and his skull-and-crossbones ear studs gave him a dark mien, from a distance. Up close, with dismay filling his eyes, Daniel looked like the little boy Ana Maria had known since he was four years old. She knew that his death-metal heart was twisted in knots. His mother was nowhere to be found.
He walked to the café door and tried to see in past the glare of the evening sun. “No broken glass, no signs of robbery. I mean, look—everything seems okay inside,” he said. “Except they never opened up, apparently. And . . .” He hesitated. “Aunt Ana, the chairs.”
She peered past the glare. “What?”
“Half of them are upended on the tables. But half are down. Mom and Gaia were here this morning. Had to be.”
She tried to calm the frantic beating in her chest, the sparrow trying to crash through her ribs. Her friends were easygoing but diligent. They wouldn’t simply shutter their business and take off with no notice. Certainly wouldn’t go dark when friends and J.T.’s boy were becoming increasingly concerned about them.
Daniel bent over his phone, sent yet another text to his mom, and checked the café’s social media.
“The Coffee, Tea and Tarot Facebook page has no posts by Mom or Gaia today. Just messages from disappointed customers asking why the place is closed,” he said.
Ana Maria was looking at the counter inside the café. A pink box of croissants sat beside the cash register. And the lights on the coffeepots were on.
A young woman came along the sidewalk, pushing a stroller. Ana Maria said, “Excuse me. Have you seen the women who run this coffeehouse?”
The woman barely slowed. “Sorry.” She shook her head and continued down the street.
“Come on,” Ana Maria said to Daniel.
They found an open store three doors down, a clothing boutique about to shut for the day.
“Excuse me. Do you know the women who run Coffee, Tea and Tarot?” she said.
The woman behind the counter nodded.
“Have you seen them today?”
“No. They never opened. Had to go to Star-yucks for my fix.”
“Have you seen anything unusual?”
“Like what?”
Daniel said, “Strange people in the neighborhood. Anything.”
She shook her head. “Sorry. Something wrong?”
They left, Ana Maria’s anxieties spinning faster and faster. Daniel’s mouth had tightened to a white line.
He said, “Let’s check the alley.”
Behind the row of stores a broken beer bottle glinted on the concrete next to a Dumpster. The parking space beside the back entrance to the café, where Gaia usually squeezed her Jeep, was empty. Daniel turned in a full circle, eyeing the ground, the windows, the rooftops.
Ana Maria walked toward the brick wall that abutted the parking space. On the brickwork, about three feet off the ground, fresh white paint had been applied in a strip with a roller.
“What’s this?” she said.
“Looks like they painted over some graffiti.” Daniel approached, crouched, and lightly touched his fingers to the wall. “It’s still tacky.”
Ana Maria stepped back. Trying to get a big picture. She saw the tire tracks on the ground. Maybe eighteen inches long. Somebody had driven over a splotch of the wet white paint on the ground, smearing it into a tread pattern.
Daniel’s face, beneath his heavy bangs, was white. “Somebody was here today. They did this. Today.”
They looked at each other in the glare of the setting sun.
Ana Maria said, “Daniel, we need to call the police.”
25
Through the smoked-glass windows of the Briarwood Sheriff’s Station, the western sun shone dull red as Caitlin turned to the task she’d been putting off. She picked up the phone and called the East Bay Herald.
“Bart Fletcher, please,” she said.
She leaned on her elbows and closed her eyes as the switchboard transferred the call. Fletcher’s extension rang. It went to voice mail. A part of her was relieved.
“Mr. Fletcher, it’s Detective Hendrix.” She asked him to return her call, even if it was after hours. She said, “Thanks,” and hung up, proud that she hadn’t mentioned how much she wanted to boot him in the balls.
Maturity. Also—the ball booting would be battery. She headed for the car, waving good night to Paige at the front desk.
Her phone chimed. She looked, but it wasn’t a call from Bart Fletcher. It was a public alert about the Prophet.
The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office has issued a threat advisory urging citizens to be alert to possible activity by the suspect known as the Prophet.
She stopped. Wow. Kogara had done it.
Based on credible evidence, the sheriff’s office asks citizens to . . .
The alert system posted threat advisories at least twice a week. Caitlin monitored it but wondered how many citizens paid attention beyond news that I-880 was shut d
own or a riot had broken out at a Cal football game, instigated by the Stanford marching band.
Out of an abundance of caution, we ask . . .
But this would jab folks like a poke from a cattle prod. Watch out. Freak out. Stay locked and loaded. Remember: If you see something, say something.
Halfway across the parking lot, her phone chimed again. But it still wasn’t from Bart Fletcher. She checked the screen and slowed. A text from her father.
We okay?
It looked innocuous, and poignant. Almost thirsting for connection. He knew he’d screwed up.
He probably wanted something. Wanted to keep abreast of things. Well, she didn’t have to give him that, did she?
She thought: jerk. That’s what I’m being.
Of course Mack wanted connection. Of course he wanted to know what was going on. He also wanted things to be okay with her. And that was a step in the right direction. That was the promised land in her book. She replied to his message.
It’s good.
It was a lie, but if she kept it up, maybe she could turn it true.
* * *
Half an hour later she pulled up in front of Sean’s house in a crowded Berkeley neighborhood. She glimpsed the bay, gold and whitecapped. The sun was sinking into the Pacific beyond the Marin Headlands and Mount Tamalpais.
The house was a Victorian the size of some pool cabanas in rich neighborhoods. Sean’s pickup filled the driveway. He commuted half the time to the ATF’s San Francisco Field Division office but didn’t want to leave the East Bay. The reason was visible in the crew cab of the truck: Sadie’s booster car seat.
The radio news came on as she parked. “The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office has issued a threat advisory asking citizens to be alert to the possibility that the Prophet may intend to strike again. They . . .”
She turned off the engine and the radio hushed. She got out. The whole street was silent. Usually kids would be out, shooting hoops and riding bikes. It was empty.
