by Meg Gardiner
Kogara said, “And Detective Saunders?”
“Pure murder, committed by a fleeing UNSUB.”
His eyes were hard and worldly-wise. “What about the new murders?”
“Every one of them.” She paused. “His messages confirm it.”
She tapped a photo from the cornfield. “Another scene from the Sixth Circle. Fallen angels bar the gate to lower hell. The Furies shriek and flay their breasts with their nails. Then the Messenger tears through them all. The note says, ‘Angels fall, the messenger descends, your insolence is harrowed, defiance ends. You wail in fury, but the Equinox delivers pain.’”
Guthrie said, “Fallen angels—a young wife fooling around?”
“Possibly. With a man who had an angel tattoo.”
Kogara’s expression hardened. “He stayed on the Sixth Circle?”
“Yes. In the book, the scene marks a shift—the journey into the deepest parts of hell.”
His expression remained hard.
She moved on to Stuart Ackerman. “The Seventh Circle punishes violence. The night he died, Ackerman went to the park expecting bare-knuckle sex.”
Guthrie said, “What about Ackerman’s car—the dead crows with dolls’ heads?”
“Harpies,” Caitlin said. “Monsters with the body of a bird and the face of a woman. They infest the Wood of the Suicides, tearing souls to shreds.”
Martinez said, “Frickin’ Catholicism. That’s the head game that scared me into daily mass.”
Shanklin folded her arms. “The dolls’ heads were mostly baby dolls. Sounds like anger toward all women, starting in the cradle.”
Caitlin looked at her. “Absolutely.”
She turned back to the crime scene photos. “The Eighth Circle punishes fraud. Sorcerers, astrologers, and false prophets have their heads twisted backward, so that they can never see what’s coming. His note read, ‘Fortune-tellers, but they couldn’t foresee this. Eventually they paid for their fraud.’”
She paused. “The Inferno is about ironic punishment—poetic justice. And that’s what the Prophet thinks he’s delivering.”
Kogara sauntered toward the wall. “What about Bart Fletcher? Those . . . tentacles.”
“Thieves are thrown in a viper pit. They stole in life, so their identities are stolen in hell. Snake attacks transform them into horrifying, mutant reptiles.” Her own skin threatened to start crawling again. “I don’t know what the Prophet thinks Bart Fletcher stole. Yet.”
Kogara now looked convinced. “This has been a long time coming. The question is, how do we use this information to identify the Prophet?”
Guthrie said, “We’re going to look for suspects with any interest in Dante. People who have these books on their shelves.”
Caitlin said, “He’s getting bolder. Broadcasting his message.”
Kogara turned to her. “I want a written report on my desk by the end of the day. Detailing every murder. Explaining how each killing matches the book. Analyzing where he’s been and where he’s going next. What else he might try.”
Caitlin swallowed. “Yes, Lieutenant.”
“We need to try to get ahead of him.”
40
Night had fallen, clear and endless, when Caitlin walked through the door of the San Francisco watering hole. She was keyed up like a wind chime in a gale.
She’d stopped by the boardinghouse first. When the landlady said, “He’s down the road,” Caitlin said, “What’s the name of the bar?”
But the landlady shook her head. “Coffee place. Strange Brew. Has a computer.”
Strange Brew also had a shabby charm. But tonight it was almost empty. The barista glanced up from beneath his man bun with faux languor. She saw the way he sized her up—as someone he didn’t need to handle with the baseball bat he kept beneath the counter.
“Large Americano,” she said.
Mack sat in the back, at a terminal against the brick wall. She walked toward him.
Her report to Lieutenant Kogara was half written. She hoped this field trip would let her fill in some blanks.
And she needed to deliver her father the news.
She took Mack in. He leaned forward, close to the screen. He probably needed reading glasses but didn’t have them. He filled out the Pendleton work shirt but looked bent. His hair was so white. She remembered when he’d host barbecues, the house and backyard filled with friends, laughter, music, the smell of burgers on the grill. Mack gregarious, drawing people to him, reaching out, welcoming.
Not this: alone. Always, now. Dealing with people seemed almost physically painful for him.
When she sat down beside him, Mack didn’t even react. She leaned forward until she was directly in his gaze. His guard went straight up. Then he saw it was her. The guard remained up.
On the screen was FindtheProphet.com. He was surfing the forums.
“Log out,” she said.
He considered it, and typed. The screen reverted to the coffeehouse’s home page.
She leaned toward him, elbows on her knees. “I know what he’s doing.”
He didn’t move or change expression. He looked like a dog ready to bite, or bolt.
“What I’m about to tell you stays between us.” She looked pointedly at the computer. “Not a word, to anyone.”
He still didn’t move. “Understood.”
“He’s depicting the Nine Circles of Hell in Dante’s Inferno.”
She told him. He listened, face dark, almost motionless, for several minutes. When she finally stopped to catch her breath, he began to nod. Softly. And to rock. He closed his eyes.
“He’s not psychotic. Not even close,” he said.
“No.”
“All the crime scenes?” He looked at her.
She nodded.
“Giselle Fraser?”
“It’s one of the first scenes in the Inferno. Right after the gate where ‘All hope abandon, ye who enter here’ is carved.”
She explained the canto in detail. He let out the slowest breath. She couldn’t tell how he was processing it.
“Wavering. Staying neutral. That sent these people to hell?” he said.
“It’s medieval, Dad. Literally.”
He nodded. “Known associates of the victim. There’s a list in the files.”
“You think he knew Giselle Fraser?”
“If there was any victim he knew, or had contact with, it was early on. Maybe she wouldn’t go out with him, or couldn’t decide whether he was ‘just a friend.’”
Caitlin nodded.
“The Kims,” he said.
“Cerberus,” she explained. “The three-headed dog.”
He rubbed his fingers across his forehead. “Lisa Chu.”
“The Fifth Circle. Styx. It’s a swamp. That’s why Lisa was drowned in a water-treatment pond.”
He gave her a look when she said Lisa. She knew why: It meant she’d started thinking of the victims as people she knew, people close enough to call by their first names. That could be a boon to an investigator. It could also be psychologically dangerous.
“I met the woman who escaped from him that day,” she said.
“Kelly Smolenski.”
She nodded. “Kelly told me what the Prophet said when he attacked her in her family’s garage.”
“‘Sullen bitch.’”
She explained. He leaned back in his chair. “That poor child.”
A heavy sense of grief pressed on her, killing the energy she’d come in with. Mack’s gaze had retreated inward.
The barista called to her. “Here you go.”
She brought back the coffee. “Are you surprised? Does this make sense to you, help any pieces fall into place?”
Her excitement was returning, but fear underlay it. Mack was calmly intense, but that could
be a precursor to any kind of outburst.
His voice was low. “Tim and Tammy Moulitsas.”
Caitlin drank the coffee, orienting herself. If he wanted to talk about the newlyweds, that would lead down a dark road. One he’d never spoken about with her. With anyone, maybe. She wondered if they should move to a different table, away from a computer he could easily smash.
He said, “Please.”
She put down her cup. “Yeah.”
His eyes were dark. They were so deep set, she thought, deeper than she’d realized. He looked like someone who was being slowly ablated by a blowtorch, all the excess blown away, leaving a heated, hurting core.
He said, “They were bludgeoned unconscious in their home, trussed with duct tape, and taken to the cemetery. He dragged them into the mausoleum and then . . . the gasoline. I could never understand that. The horror it inflicted on them. They may have been unconscious when he threw the match. We’ll never know. If Tim and Tammy felt that pain . . .” He swiped a palm across his face. “They were both twenty-four. Kids. Seeing that . . .”
“The Sixth Circle is a vast graveyard of red-hot tombs. Dante thought heretics denied the immortality of the soul, so their punishment was to spend eternity in a grave, burning from God’s wrath.”
Mack closed his eyes. “Tim and Tammy were not religious. If we’d—”
She set her hand on his. “You’d what, protect every atheist in California? You couldn’t have known his victimology ahead of time. He chose them because he’s a murderer.” She held on. “The urge to kill is what drives him in the end.”
He looked at her. “And a fantasy that can never be perfected.”
“So he’ll keep trying.”
He nodded. His hand trembled beneath hers. He leaned back, maybe planning to stand, but she stopped him.
“Dad.”
“Whatever you’re going to ask, I don’t like that tone. But it’s not like I’m going to stop you.”
“That day, at the cemetery, after you and Saunders got there . . .”
He pulled back. She held on.
She lowered her voice to a murmur. “Please. You’re the only living person who’s seen the Prophet without a mask. Please.”
He looked at her without blinking, for what seemed an endless time. Then he said, “It was blind luck Saunders and I got to the cemetery so fast. We were two blocks away when the call came in. Pulled up and saw the truck.”
“Parked outside the mausoleum?”
“Camper. Stolen. He used it to transport Tim and Tammy to the cemetery.”
She nodded, encouraging him to continue.
“He’d backed it up to the mausoleum. From our angle we couldn’t see past the mausoleum door, and he wasn’t behaving in an overtly suspicious manner. We didn’t know . . .”
He looked away. He tried to speak, but no words came.
She spoke as gently as she could. “Did he stay to watch?”
Mack nodded. “He wanted to enjoy his work.” He blew out a breath and scratched at his arms. “He watched for at least five seconds after we floored it toward him. Just stood there. He was so consumed with it, he didn’t see our car coming. He . . . he was entranced.”
He shook himself. “Then he fled. Jumped in the camper. But he’d hot-wired it. When he tried to leave, it died. He couldn’t restart it. So he had to run.”
He paused and gathered himself. Seemed to pull back from the edge. “Today, it’s much harder to hot-wire a vehicle. New electronics mean you can’t rip out the wiring and just spark the ignition. May mean he drives his own vehicle now.”
“Right.”
“Huge cemetery. He took off over a hill through the graves. Only way to go after him was on foot.”
“I know.”
Mack stopped, seeming lost in memory. Caitlin leaned toward him.
“What did he look like?”
“We were two hundred yards away when we spotted him. Dark sweatshirt, navy blue or black. Jeans. Sneakers. The soles of his shoes as he ran—they were white. He was lanky. Caucasian. Brown hair, well groomed. And he could motor.”
“How did he move?”
Mack’s gaze lengthened. “Like a scalded cat. Like he was scared shitless to be confronted with capture. He was young, and he moved easily, but he was pumping his arms wildly . . .” He swallowed. “He knew he’d made a mistake. And he made another one. He didn’t know alternate exits from the cemetery. That’s why he went over the hill—he didn’t know it led straight to the freeway.”
“But he didn’t stop.”
“Hell, no. He . . .” Mack looked at her. “That’s when he looked over his shoulder. When he saw the freeway dead ahead, he looked back. And saw us coming.”
“You saw his face?”
“It was as lean as the rest of him. All I saw from a hundred yards away was eyes and a wide-open mouth. Then he turned and leaped the fence. And I mean leaped. He was strong.”
She leaned closer, and pressed. “When you got across the freeway, after you got sideswiped . . .”
“Did Saunders say anything? That’s what you want to know, right? Because he saw the Prophet up close and lived long enough for me to get to him.”
“Did he?”
Mack shook his head. “Two shots penetrated his lung. Sucking chest wound. He couldn’t talk. He was . . .” He closed his eyes. “He was close to death. Seconds away. He didn’t say anything. He mouthed . . .”
She leaned forward.
“He mouthed his wife’s name. Bella. Clear as day. I . . .”
Mack stood and shoved the chair back. It toppled. The clatter startled the barista. Mack backed away, hands raised, and headed for the restroom.
“Dad . . .”
He shook his head and slammed the men’s room door behind him.
The barista gave Caitlin the side-eye. She said, “It’s okay,” and picked up the chair.
She sat back down to wait, and turned from the man’s stare.
Always the stares. Growing up, she had hated the pity, the furtive glances, the nods . . . Yes, that’s her, the poor girl . . . the smiles, the shunning, the refusal of some people to talk about it, shutting down like a falling guillotine if she mentioned her dad’s name. She felt like she’d been branded, that an aura glowed around her, alerting people that she was a pariah. She especially hated the ones who said that her dad needed to repent or he’d go to hell. She knew now: Suicide was her dad’s dream of escaping from hell.
The men’s room door opened. Mack returned and sat down heavily. He’d splashed water on his face. It beaded on his forehead in the amber light.
Caitlin opened her mouth, but he held up a hand.
“There was blood on the floor of the warehouse. Drops trailing away. It belonged to Saunders,” he said. “The Prophet first shot him from at least ten feet away. But the fatal shots were fired from less than a yard.” He looked at her. “Do you understand? The Prophet ambushed him, hit him with a two-by-four, and got Saunders’s gun. He backed out of reach and shot him, and when Saunders was down and dying, he approached close enough to touch him. There were swipe marks on Saunders’s shirt. The Prophet got the man’s blood on his hands and wiped it off as Ellis lay there choking and gasping. He got enough blood on him that it dripped after he fired the final shots and fled. That’s what I know.”
Caitlin’s throat was dry. This wasn’t in any file that she had read.
Mack said, “Even though he had Ellis down, he moved in close to finish the job. He wanted the personal touch. He savored it. He reveled in it.” His eyes were hot.
“And then he ran away. He ran, Dad.”
Mack nodded tightly.
She felt another touch of something just out of reach. “Why did he run? You were closing on him? Is that it?”
“Maybe.”
“But he’d am
bushed one cop. He could have . . .” Her voice gave out.
“He could have ambushed me too. He had a handgun at that point. But he didn’t. He fled.” The heat in his eyes seemed to be spreading to her. “You think I haven’t wondered why? Think I don’t ask myself that, every goddamned night?”
“What’s your answer?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Think back. Picture yourself there.”
“I am.”
“Really, really put yourself in the moment. What did the warehouse smell like? Where was the light coming from? What sounds did you hear?”
“Caitlin.”
“Dad, you saw him. Let go and go back. Please. It has to be there. Think.”
“Caitlin, stop.”
She turned her palms up in supplication, leaning far over the table. “You may not know what you know. But it’s there.”
He grabbed her hands. “Caitlin. I didn’t see him. Not well enough.”
She felt like a flywheel, racing at ten thousand rpm. She wanted to press him. But she understood, and it fell through her hard. He couldn’t give her more. Not on this.
She slowly brought herself back down, fighting frustration. Mack let go of her hands.
“Except I think Saunders tried to stop him, even though he was dying. Even though he ended up getting shot from close range. He was a stand-up guy,” Mack said.
The look in her father’s eyes, the way his shoulders bent, nearly broke Caitlin right then. She set a hand on his, gently this time.
“I’m glad to know it,” she said.
Mack pressed his lips tight together. She stood up.
“Let me drive you home,” she said.
The barista was wiping the counters, preparing to close. Caitlin said, “We can wait and walk with you to your car.”
He shook his head. “I’m staying here tonight, sofa bed upstairs. But thanks. I’ll bolt the door behind you.”
When they got outside, the street was empty. A heavy quiet suffused the city. Mack shoved his hands into the pockets of his jean jacket as they walked to her SUV.
“Your mom texted me,” he said. “She’s worried.”
“Everybody’s worried. I’m working on it.”
