I nodded. “But you don’t think I’m guilty of them.”
“It’s up to you to convince me of that. Tell me, you got an interest in black magic, that kind of stuff?”
I raised my shoulders. “Interest, no. Involvement, yes. In the past I was chased by a pair of killers who played around with satanic names and imagery.”
“The White Devil and the Soul Collector. I read about them. Seems you’re pretty good at looking after yourself.”
“I took precautions,” I said, and then told him something about the training I’d undergone with Dave. Then I got on to the camp and my escape from it.
When I’d finished, Simmons glanced at Joe and shook his head. “Is this guy for real?”
Joe and I laughed, then saw the serious look on his face.
“It ever occur to you that the Soul Collector could be behind these murders, Matt?” Simmons asked. “I mean, she’s bound to have your fingerprints, isn’t she?”
“Yup,” I said. “But if she is, I’ve no idea how to nail her, especially off my home ground.”
“She couldn’t have got herself involved with this Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant, could she?” Joe asked.
I didn’t mention that they were at the camp—I didn’t know him well enough to spill my guts completely. “Sara’s capable of anything,” I said. “But we’d be better off tracking the Antichurch itself.”
The detective shook his head. “The FBI has got their Hate Crimes people involved.”
“Any reason why you can’t run a check, as well?” I asked.
“Apart from the fact that I’m off the case?” Simmons shrugged. “I guess I can do that.”
I nodded. I liked the man, but he wasn’t exactly buzzing with solutions to my problems. Karen was as lost as ever, while I was still suspect number one.
“Yeah,” Simmons said, “I can check the Antichurch out, at least here in D.C., but that won’t keep you out of jail down the line, my friend. And I’ve got other cases now.”
“What about the latest victim?” Joe asked. “Any ID yet?”
The detective shook his head. “Not that I’ve heard of. The Feds won’t be telling me anything, though.”
“But he is another occult killing,” I said.
“You tell me, Matt,” Simmons said. “Personally, I’m not convinced. Could be a copycat.”
“Oh, great,” Joe said, with a groan. “Now we’ve got two crazies terrorizing the capital of the world?”
The detective caught my eye. “So, what are you going to do?”
I smiled. “You sure you want to know?”
“Probably not.” He looked at Joe. “I’m trusting you to keep me informed.”
Joe nodded. “Anything helpful you want to drop our way?”
Clem Simmons checked the area. There was no one near us. He slid his hand inside his coat and handed a brown envelope to Joe. “I must be out of my mind,” he said morosely. “You didn’t get these from me. The press doesn’t know about them. Every victim’s body except the last had a drawing pinned to it. See if you can figure out what these mean before the assholes in the Bureau do. And make sure you tell me first.” He walked away at surprising speed for such a bulky man.
Joe and I looked at the photocopies. The names of the relevant victim had been printed on each sheet, along with an arrow pointing upward. I examined the different arrays of geometric shapes, but couldn’t make a meaningful pattern out of them.
“Doesn’t look particularly occult to me,” Joe said.
“No,” I agreed. “Then again, the Antichurch of Lucifer Lunatic notwithstanding, we don’t think the murders really have too much to do with the black arts, do we?”
He shook his head. “In which case, what is this shit?”
“Joseph, I don’t have the faintest idea.”
We split up before we reached the paved road.
Clem Simmons was looking out of the office window. He didn’t register the walls of the neighboring buildings or the pale blue autumn sky above. Instead, he was watching himself as he would soon be—a man in late middle age without a job or, most likely, a pension. Although he’d considered what to do carefully before the meet, after the event his thought processes seemed pathetically flawed. He’d been sure that slipping information to Joe Greenbaum would be an agreeable way of sticking it to the Feds, and perhaps garner some new insight. He had contacts that Clem could only dream about. But the reporter had blind-sided him with Matt Wells. And, even more surprisingly, Clem had been convinced by the Englishman’s crazy story.
He shook his head. Ever since the cancer had taken Nina, he’d been struggling. Until the occult killings, he hadn’t really cared whether he and Vers caught murderers. The only thing he’d wanted was to get back to the house he and his wife had shared for twenty-four years, to take in her scent before it finally faded from her clothes. But these cases were different. He had a burning need to find the killer, no matter the cost. Perhaps it was because a voodoo believer had been murdered, but he thought it was more than that. If he could crack this case, if he could solve it before the Feds, he could retire happy. And now it was more likely he’d be sent packing without a penny to his name.
Gerard Pinker came up. “Where the hell have you been?” he demanded. “I got so bored waiting I went down to the coffee shop to check out the girls in uniform.”
Clem Simmons handed him a sheaf of pages, each one in a transparent cover.
“What’s this?”
“New information, a letter addressed to me by the guy in the Anacostia River.”
“What?”
“Keep your voice down. We’re off the case, remember?”
“Wait a minute.” Pinker looked at his partner apprehensively. “You mean, you haven’t shown this to Chief Owen?”
“Nope. He’d have to pass it to the Feds.”
“What are we going to do with it?”
“Follow it up, of course. You’d better read it first.”
Gerard Pinker went through the text, taking in the photocopied photographs that had been attached. When he’d finished, he dragged his chair over and slumped into it. “Christmas has come early for us this year.”
Clem Simmons finished writing. “Could be… Okay, here are the main points as I see them. The first photo confirms this is the dead man, right?”
Pinker nodded. “Hold up. Where did the letter come from?”
“The owner of the Travel Happy Motel brought it in. The maid found it on the bed this morning. The envelope was marked ‘Urgent.’”
“He must have seen you on the TV.”
“Yeah, that press conference after Monsieur Hexie was found.” Simmons looked back at his notes. “So, the floater is Richard Bonhoff, a forty-three-year-old farmer from Iowa. He came to D.C. a week ago to find Gwen and Randy, his twenty-one-year-old twin children.”
Pinker sat up straight. “Who won a competition in the Star Reporter last December that brought them here, and they were looked after by our friend Gordy Lister. No wonder that fucker looked shifty yesterday.”
“According to the dead man, Lister tried to scare him off with a couple of heavies and Bonhoff, ex-marine that he was, dealt with them as only marines can. Then Lister took him to see his kids. They’ve apparently become junkies. When he went back to find them later, there was no one around.”
Pinker stared at his partner. “What do you reckon? Gordy Lister’s into dope? Or maybe he’s running some kind of white slave ring.”
“You reckon Lister’s up to that, Vers?”
“Hell, yeah. That little prick would sell his mother if the price was right.”
Simmons nodded. “Yeah, he probably would. But I think there’s more to it than Gordy running a solo scam. I think there might be something in what Bonhoff says about Woodbridge Holdings being involved.”
“Could be. They own the Star Reporter, so they aren’t exactly scoring high in the ethical business chart. What else are they into?”
“I’m ab
out to start working on that.”
Pinker stood up. “So what do we do? Haul in Lister?”
“We could do.” Simmons smiled wickedly.
“Oh-oh,” his partner said, suddenly the apprehensive one for a change. “What have you got in mind, Clem?”
The big man stood up and moved close to Pinker. “Well, I was just thinking, we’re off the case anyway, so why don’t we keep this unofficial.”
“This being?”
“We tail Gordy Lister.”
The small man raised an eyebrow. “You forgetting what happened to this Bonhoff guy when he did that?”
“Um, we’re cops, remember?” Clem Simmons took the pages back from Pinker. “By the way, there’s something else I’ve got to tell you.”
His partner’s face went white as his partner described his meeting with Joe Greenbaum and Matt Wells. And Clem thought Pinker’s eyes bulged like an impaled octopus’s when he heard that the official prime suspect had been handed copies of the killer’s diagrams.
Joe had made a prepaid Internet reservation for me in a cheap hotel on the other side of the Potomac. We reckoned that would keep me away from prying eyes, not that I was planning on doing anything except sleeping there. Joe also gave me five hundred dollars. I used a couple of hundred to buy some jeans, shirts and a thick jacket. No doubt the New York State police would have circulated a description detailing the clothes that Mary Upson had given me.
I took a shower and changed into my new outfit. The hotel was near the Rosslyn Metro station, within walking distance of Georgetown. I was about to set off when I felt a sudden pulse of pain in my head and staggered to the bed. Images flashed before me in rapid succession—a wire between the camp and the pine trees; a flat machine covered in wires and flashing lights lowering over me like the lid of a coffin; an explosion of sound from the line of soldiers with rifles to their shoulders…
I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the visions. I was sweating heavily and my hands shook. Then everything went blank and I felt the rough bedcover against my cheek. I gradually got my breathing under control and opened my eyes. The roar of the traffic on the freeways filled my ears and I sat up. What was going on? I had thought that as time passed the effect of whatever was done to me would wear off. My memory was getting better, even though there were still plenty of gaps. But I wasn’t free of the place—there were still invisible chains tying me to it. That machine, its lights and the hum of sophisticated electronics, the things I’d been forced to see and hear—I couldn’t recall them in detail, but I felt their weight. It was like a worm with sharp teeth wriggled in my brain, endowed with the power to extinguish my thoughts and personality at any time. I was going to have to be very careful when it came to making important decisions.
I stuck one of the Glocks out of sight under my belt, leaving the other one in the wardrobe safe. Worried about my erratic memory, I wrote the code on my forearm. In my pocket, I had a piece of paper with the address of the house in Georgetown that Gavin Burdett stayed in when he was in D.C. Although I’d remembered it once, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do so again.
It was a clear autumn day, the colors of the trees in the distance and the gray-blue water beneath the sky making the place feel more like a sparsely populated rural town than a great city. As I crossed the bridge, I looked at the gray walls and slate roofs of the university. When I’d attended the crime-writing conference in D.C., a seriously dull criminologist had given a lecture there. The only laugh was provided by a local detective who said that criminology was as much use in law enforcement as a liquorice night stick. I wondered if Clem Simmons knew him. What were his motives in sharing information with Joe and me? He must have been desperate to solve the cases he’d been taken off—or maybe he just hated the FBI. The latter wasn’t exactly my favorite organization right now, either.
The diagrams—if that was what they were—flashed into my mind. I’d left the hard copies I’d made in the safe. There was something about them, something hovering on the margins of my consciousness. They had some esoteric meaning, even though they remained nothing more than collections of squares and rectangles. Random was the one thing they weren’t—I was sure of that. But their significance continued to elude me. Could there be something mathematical about them, a code in the lengths and angles?
The bridge crossed a busy freeway and led down to M Street. The address I wanted was a few streets to the north. I found it easily—a well-maintained row house with a heavy black door and solid-looking windows. Even under cover of darkness, it would be hard to break in unnoticed. On the other hand, standing on the street for any length of time would attract attention, too. I was going to have to come up with a plan pretty soon—and I wasn’t even sure that Gavin Burdett was on this side of the Atlantic. I walked back to Wisconsin Avenue, then went down to M Street and found a cell-phone shop. With a prepaid phone I went back outside and called Joe.
“Yeah, it’s me,” I said. “Any news?”
“Not much. I’m still looking at that Antichurch, but no hot leads yet. Oh, and the FBI’s violent-crimes unit’s giving a press conference about the murders at three o’clock. I’ll be there. What about you?”
“I’ve located the house. No sign of G.B. I’m going to check the back.”
“All right, man. Make sure your phone’s on vibrate.”
I heard a guffaw as I ended the call.
Walking farther down the street, I found a hardware store. I bought a collection of basic tools and a plastic safety helmet, so now I looked reasonably official. I headed back to the house, this time turning onto the street behind. I had counted my steps so that I ended up behind the right place. There was a large tree between two houses, its leaves an iridescent blend of red, yellow and green. More to the point, there was a narrow driveway leading inward. I walked confidently down it.
There were a couple of garages on the right and a high stone wall blocking my way ahead. I looked around. There were trees behind me, so I was pretty well obscured from the houses I’d passed. I considered the situation. If I was challenged, I would say I was a contractor. If the worse came to the worst, I had the Glock. I was thinking about Karen. Even if Burdett wasn’t staying in the house, I might find evidence tying him or the owners to her—even to her disappearance, if I was really lucky. Maybe she was even in there. I had to go for it, but first I would check the front again. It would be dumb to break in from the back and find someone had recently arrived.
I retraced my steps. About fifty yards before I got to the house, a black limousine swept past me and stopped outside it. I slowed down and started rummaging in my toolbox. I looked up when I heard a door slam. A figure in a dark blue coat had got out of the car and was walking to the front door. When he got there, he looked round and nodded to the waiting chauffeur before going inside.
I recognized him immediately. It was Gavin Burdett.
Thirty-Three
Peter Sebastian glared at his subordinate. “When does the Marine Corps think its database will be operative again?” he demanded.
Special Agent Maltravers tried to smooth talk him. “It shouldn’t be long. Not more than another two hours.”
The blond man looked at his watch. “But that takes us to after three o’clock. What am I supposed to announce to the gathered press? That the victim was in the marines, but we don’t know who he is?”
“You could always put the blame on the marines.”
Sebastian looked at her unbelievingly. “Are you out of your mind, Dana? You don’t fuck with the Marine Corps.”
“Or alternatively, you could say that we’re informing next of kin.”
The anger faded from his features. “That’s more like it. What else have we got?”
The young woman looked at her notes. “Not a great deal. No witnesses to the body being dumped in the river, no reports of anyone being beaten. Then again, the scene’s location is hardly the safest in D.C.”
“Nor are the residents likely to talk to
us. Are we getting full cooperation from the MPDC since we took the occult cases from them?”
Dana Maltravers shrugged. “I guess. The dispatch commander gave us access to all reported incidents. Nothing’s squared with our man.”
“No missing-persons reports that match?” Sebastian asked hopefully.
Maltravers shook her head. “I’m having them all checked.”
“Shit. I’m walking into a bullring with no pants on.”
His subordinate swallowed a smile. “Sir,” she said tentatively, “are you quite sure that the man in the river is connected with the occult killings?”
Peter Sebastian looked at her thoughtfully. “Any particular reason why I shouldn’t be?”
“Well, for a start, there was no diagram.”
“Go on.”
“I’m concerned by the lack of a specific locus. The other three victims were all killed in places where they worked.”
“If you count Loki’s van as a workplace.”
“I think we can. The point is, the killer went to great trouble to study his victims and identify a time of attack. The guy in the water looks more like a straightforward homicide. Maybe he was just caught up in a gang scrap.”
Sebastian’s eyes moved off her. “Maybe… But the quickest way I could get control of the cases was by including the latest one in the series. The press doesn’t know about the diagrams, anyway.”
“You’re going to maintain that policy?”
“I think so.” He looked at the file in front of him. “What are the document-analysis people saying?”
“Still nothing. They’re inclined to think that the killer’s playing what they call ‘diversionary games.’”
“They’re just hedging their bets. Hate Crimes?”
“Still waiting.”
Sebastian’s eyes opened wide. “What? I sent the assholes a formal request.” He grabbed his phone. “Christ, if you want anything done around here, you have to do it yourself.”
Dana Maltravers backed out of her boss’s office. When he was in that kind of mood, he was impossible to handle.
Maps of Hell Page 23
