Dying Games (Jefferson Tayte Genealogical Mystery Book 6)

by Steve Robinson

He was thinking about Jean again as he poured the hot liquid into an oversize cup, which seemed to fit his large hand perfectly. Because he’d had a fitful night, he’d called her around three in the morning, DC time, hoping to catch her before she got caught up in her day. It had been just after eight in the UK, and Jean had been getting herself ready for another day of Scottish royal history.

  ‘You’ll never guess who’s in town,’ he’d said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You remember that slippery Frenchman, Michel Levant?’

  ‘Are you kidding? I still think he was behind my son’s kidnapping. He’s in Washington?’

  ‘Yes, he is. He’s running a series of lectures about genealogical DNA over at the National Archives Museum.’

  ‘It’s a small world.’

  ‘Yeah, in this case a little too small for comfort. I hope I don’t bump into him anytime soon. Anyway, how’s your seminar going?’

  ‘Oh, you know. The usual exciting stuff. Yesterday we discussed Kenneth MacAlpin, “King of the Picts”, who reigned during the mid-ninth century. He was the son of—’

  ‘Okay, I give in,’ Tayte said jokingly. ‘No more, please.’

  ‘I’ve bored you already? That was too easy.’

  ‘It must be the late hour. I hope Scotland’s not too cold for you.’

  ‘It’s chilly, but I don’t mind. It’s wet, too. I don’t think it’s stopped raining since I got here.’

  ‘That’s too bad. I don’t suppose you get much time for sightseeing though.’

  ‘No, not much, but I was hoping to do some before I head back to London at the end of the week. I’m really going to miss you.’

  ‘You mean you don’t miss me now?’

  ‘You know what I mean. I’ll miss you all the more when I’m back in my flat and you’re not there.’

  ‘I was just teasing,’ Tayte said. ‘I miss you, too. Maybe when I get back we should start planning our wedding. We could set a date if you like.’

  ‘I’d like that very much. How about sometime in the spring?’

  ‘Sure. I don’t really mind when, although being away from you like this has made me realise just how much I love you.’ He paused, laughing. ‘I’ll marry you as soon as I get back. How about that? We could take off somewhere and come back as man and wife.’

  Jean laughed then. ‘JT, are you turning into a romantic?’

  ‘It doesn’t come easy, but I’m trying.’

  ‘It’s a lovely idea, but I know for a fact that my mum would never talk to me again if we did that.’

  ‘Okay. So we’ll get married where and when it suits your mom.’

  ‘Stop being facetious.’

  ‘I’m serious. I wouldn’t want to come between a mother and her daughter. You can decide the date and venue between you. Just make it soon.’

  ‘Perfect.’

  Yes, you are, Tayte thought, and once the call ended he’d drifted off to sleep with a smile on his face and a warm feeling inside him.

  Now, as he drained back the last of his coffee and headed for the shower, he hoped all the more that this killer the press had dubbed the Genie would soon be brought to justice. He wished he would hurry up and call so he could get to work on trying to identify the next victim and the location of the next potential crime scene before he had the chance to kill again.

  Tayte was just buttoning up his shirt when the front-door buzzer sounded. He went to it, looked through the fish-eye peephole and saw the distorted faces of Reese and Mavro.

  ‘Come in,’ he said, opening the door. He immediately noticed the weighty folder Reese was carrying as he entered behind Mavro.

  ‘How was your first night?’ Reese asked him.

  ‘I’ve had better,’ Tayte said. ‘Then again, I’ve had worse.’

  Reese gave a small laugh. ‘I expect you’ll soon settle in. Did you manage to find everything okay?’ he added as they went into the living room.

  ‘I’m getting there. I managed to make a pot of coffee. It’s still hot if you’d like some.’

  ‘Thanks. Black, one sugar.’

  Tayte nodded. ‘Frankie?’

  ‘Sounds good to me. No sugar, though.’

  ‘Yeah, I remember.’

  ‘It’s good to see you two are getting to know one another,’ Reese said as he and Mavro sat down.

  Tayte was only gone a few minutes. When he returned with the coffee, he sat on the armchair opposite Reese, who already had his folder open on the low table between them.

  ‘As I suspected,’ Reese said, ‘last night’s roadblocks yielded nothing. The Genie no doubt had his route worked out well ahead of time, and he was gone long before the MPD were able to set things up. You might be interested to know that we managed to trace the origin of last night’s call.’

  ‘You did?’ Tayte said with enthusiasm.

  ‘Don’t get your hopes up,’ Reese said. ‘It was made from Samuel Shaw’s own cell phone.’

  ‘He used the victim’s phone?’ Tayte hadn’t thought of that, but it made obvious sense to him now. ‘Why did he bother to withhold the number?’

  ‘Most likely just to screw with us. He would have known we’d try to find out where the call came from. Why make it easy for us when he can tie up our resources? We’re unable to locate the phone. He probably destroyed it soon after making the call, or threw it in the river. I somehow doubt we’re going to find him through a phone trace, but as a matter of procedure, I’ve gone ahead and had the phone company put a tap on your cell phone.’

  ‘You have?’

  ‘I trust you have no objection? DC law requires one party to be aware that calls are being recorded. Under the circumstances, I—’

  ‘No,’ Tayte cut in. ‘I have no objection at all.’

  ‘Good, and who knows? Maybe we’ll get lucky.’

  Reese put his coffee down and opened his folder. ‘Right now, I’m more interested in your list.’

  ‘About that,’ Tayte said before Reese had a chance to continue. ‘There’s someone else I’d like to add to it.’

  ‘That might not be necessary. I think we may already know who the Genie is.’

  ‘You do?’

  Reese nodded. He reached into his folder. ‘It’s not yet confirmed, but one man on your list just became our prime suspect.’

  He pulled out a report and held it up for Tayte to see. Along with the words, which were too far away for Tayte to clearly make out, was a head-and-shoulders portrait of a bald man with a dark goatee. Judging from the size of the trapezius muscles to either side of his neck, Tayte thought the man had to be huge, which was in keeping with the profile the FBI had put together for the person they were hunting. It was all well and good, but Tayte wasn’t ready to move on without mentioning his concerns about Michel Levant, so he put aside his curiosity about this new suspect for now.

  ‘Before you go on, do you think it’s possible that the Genie could have an accomplice?’

  The notion seemed to surprise Reese. ‘Anything’s possible, but I think it’s unlikely in this case. Almost every serial-killer duo ever caught were partners, heterosexual, gay or lesbian, and in most cases their crimes were sexually driven—typically the abduction, rape, and murder of young people. Our prime suspect is way outside the typical duo profile.’

  ‘But it’s not impossible that the Genie could be working with someone else?’

  ‘No,’ Reese conceded. ‘But only one duo comes to mind outside of the parameters I just mentioned. They were two male friends, dubbed the Speed Freak Killers because of their methamphetamine abuse. Who’s on your mind?’

  ‘He’s a Frenchman called Michel Levant. I’m sure he was involved in a series of murders in England a little over a year ago.’

  ‘Was anything proven?’

  ‘No, but he seems the type who doesn’t like to get his own hands dirty, and I don’t like that he just happens to be in DC right now.’

  Reese took out a pen and wrote Levant’s name down. ‘I’ll have him chec
ked out.’

  ‘He’s also a genealogist,’ Tayte added. ‘Does your prime suspect have any genealogical expertise? Whoever’s doing this knows his stuff, or he knows someone who does.’

  ‘Not as far as I know, but he’s had twenty years to learn. His name’s Adam Westlake—Adam Peyton Westlake III, to be precise. He was released from prison three months ago.’

  ‘Westlake?’

  Tayte recalled the assignment well enough. He hadn’t long turned professional when their paths had crossed. During the course of his research into his client’s ancestry, he’d unwittingly uncovered a trail of political corruption that ran all the way back to the forefather who had settled the Westlake family in America—Peyton Westlake, after whom the town of Peyton, Maryland, was named. Tayte hadn’t followed up on what had become of Adam Westlake and his family after their corruption had been exposed. He did know that Adam Westlake had tried to kill someone, and had come close to succeeding, in his attempt to keep his family secrets safe.

  ‘You’re saying Adam Westlake served a twenty-year sentence for what he did, because of my assignment at the time?’

  ‘That’s right. He has enough reason to want payback, but there’s more to it. His father committed suicide soon after the trial. His young wife divorced him when his sentence began, and his mother died while he was in prison. She slowly killed herself through drinking and drugs, squandering what remained of the family’s wealth after the courts had finished with them. There’s no other name on your list that comes close to how much Adam Westlake must blame you and hate you for what he must surely believe you were ultimately responsible for. And get this—he violated the conditions of his parole a month ago when he failed to report to his parole officer. That was just days before Kelly Uttridge was reported missing. He’s no longer at the halfway house that was set up for him. No one knows where he is.’

  Tayte swallowed the lump that had risen in his throat at hearing what Reese had just told him. To think that such a man was on the loose and unaccounted for made his mouth all the more dry. He took a big gulp of coffee to quench it, glad that he was there at the safe house and not his apartment, where Adam Westlake could come for him whenever he became bored with the sick, vengeful game he was playing. Adam Westlake was a smart and highly educated man as Tayte recalled. His wealthy family had seen to it that he received a first-class education. He had been primed for a political career, just like his father before him, and when Tayte had shown the world that the family had earned, and continued to earn, its wealth and position in the community, not through hard work, but through just about every illegal and immoral activity they could make money at, he’d brought their entire dynasty tumbling down around them.

  Yes, Westlake was an intelligent man, but a genealogist? As Reese had pointed out, Westlake had had plenty of time to learn the tools of the trade, but he doubted he would have been able to obtain sufficient material whilst in prison, and he certainly would not have been able to practise any of the theory in order to build the required experience. Tayte started to think that he’d been here before, and his mind was once again taken back to London a year previously, when he’d told the detective in charge of the murders then that he believed there had to be a genealogical mastermind behind the killings. More and more he believed the same was true now, but how could he prove it? It was certainly possible that Westlake, if he was the Genie, had had the time to learn all he needed to know from Tayte’s assignment files after he’d broken into his apartment.

  Tayte sat back with a sigh. ‘So what do I do now?’

  ‘You sit tight,’ Reese said. ‘Wait for the Genie to contact you. When he does, call me. And I don’t want to scare you, but keep in mind that because this is about you and your work, you’re probably the only person qualified to solve the clues he’s setting for us in time. That means you’re in the best position to lead us to him, and he knows it. I don’t believe he wants to be caught. Remember that. He’s probably getting a kick out of letting us believe we have a chance, but as far as he’s concerned, we don’t. If the odds start to shift in our favour, who knows what he’ll do?’

  Tayte had a pretty good idea, and he didn’t like it at all. If it came down to it, he thought the Genie would most likely decide to stop the only man capable of stopping him. It sent an uncomfortable shiver running down his spine.

  It was almost ten o’clock, and it was raining heavily as Adam Westlake climbed the steps to the front door of the townhouse he’d been watching in Washington’s Downtown neighbourhood. He thought the rain was good. It was a quiet time of day, midweek, when most people were already at work, but the rain helped to keep the streets even quieter; the few people he’d seen as he’d headed towards the property were all hiding beneath their umbrellas, paying him no attention. The man Westlake was going to see wasn’t at work yet. He worked shifts, and today his shift began at midday, which gave Westlake two hours to go in and set things up. When he reached the door, he took another casual look around, and then knocked.

  The door was opened a few seconds later by a small, dark-haired boy who looked no more than five years old. He was barely tall enough to reach the catch. He stared up at Westlake with his mouth agape, and Westlake could tell that his eyes were transfixed by the scar across his left eyebrow. The staring was nothing new to him. He smiled down at the boy, trying not to scare him. Not yet.

  ‘Is Daddy home?’ Westlake asked him, knowing full well that he was.

  Another voice answered from further along the hallway. It was the boy’s mother. ‘Who is it, sweetie?’

  She was at the door in seconds, still buttoning her blouse as though she was getting ready to go out, which was too bad.

  She looked up at Westlake as he stood on the porch, dripping wet from the rain. ‘Can I help you?’

  Westlake continued to smile. ‘Yes, you can,’ he said, and then with sudden force he reached out and put a hand around the woman’s neck. At the same time, he grabbed the boy and stepped inside, clapping his other hand around the boy’s mouth to stifle his cry as he kicked the door shut behind him. ‘Make a sound and I’ll snap your neck,’ he added to the woman. He could see the fear in her eyes; fear for herself and for her boy. He liked that.

  Fear breeds obedience.

  Westlake forced them both back along the hallway, heading towards the first door he could see, which was on his right. As he reached it, he paused, hearing the woman’s husband call out to her from the room beyond.

  ‘Honey, don’t slam the door like that. Who was it?’

  As the man came through into the hallway, Westlake saw the fear in his eyes, too, but this time he could see that his fear was about to make him do something stupid. He let go of the woman and her child, and without a moment’s hesitation he hit the man hard in the face, knocking him to the ground before he could say or do a thing.

  ‘You broke my nose!’ the man wailed, his hands clutching his face as blood began to drip on to his shirt.

  ‘No talking,’ Westlake said, ‘or I promise this will get worse for you and your family. I don’t want to hurt you. You’re not why I’m here.’

  ‘Why are you here?’

  Westlake leaned down and hit the man again. ‘I said no talking. Now get up! Do exactly as you’re told and you’ll all live through this.’

  The boy began to cry.

  Westlake turned to his mother. ‘That goes for the boy, too. Shut him up, or I will. Is this the living room?’ Westlake added, indicating the room her husband had just appeared from.

  The woman nodded, holding her son close to muffle his crying.

  ‘Get in there! All of you!’

  Westlake followed after them, and once they were in the brightly furnished room, he took a roll of duct tape out from his coat pocket and tossed it to the woman. ‘Hands and ankles. The boy, too. Use your teeth if you can’t tear it. Where are your cell phones?’

  ‘My pocket,’ the man said.

  ‘Mine’s on the coffee table there,’ the w
oman added.

  Westlake took them both and proceeded to smash them beneath the heel of his boot. He knew he couldn’t use these phones to call Jefferson Tayte with the next clue, or he would risk the FBI tracing it back to the home he’d just invaded. It didn’t matter. He had plenty of other phones he could use. He continued to watch the woman bind her husband with the duct tape. Once she’d finished, she turned to her boy.

  ‘We’re going to play a little game, sweetie,’ she said softly, her voice trembling. ‘Everything’s okay.’

  Once she’d finished, Westlake snatched the tape from her and bound her hands and ankles. Then he sat them all down on the couch and tore off a strip of tape for each of their mouths so they couldn’t call out. He used the rest of the tape to bind everyone together, like flies in a spider’s web, so no one could get up again or go far if they did. Then he calmly sat down opposite them and lit a cigarette. ‘You don’t mind if I smoke, do you?’ he said mockingly. He inhaled deeply and sat back. ‘That’s better. Now I just need to borrow your home for a short while.’

  At the safe house, Tayte was in the temporary filing room the FBI had set up for him, in what he imagined was ordinarily an extra bedroom. It was a quarter past five in the afternoon, and he’d been in there most of the day, going through his old files in part to reacquaint himself with some of his previous assignments in case anything proved useful later on, but mostly to relieve his boredom. With so many files, he knew the odds of reading anything valuable to the case were slim. He’d been drawn to them initially by the need to find out which of his former clients Samuel Shaw, the Genie’s latest victim at Chain Bridge, had been related to, and it pained him to think that his innocent research during that assignment had now led to this man’s murder, bringing the total number of deaths he felt responsible for to six.

  After that he’d wanted to look up the assignment that had led to the incarceration of Adam Westlake, the FBI’s prime suspect in the case. It had involved his discovery of a land rights battle, and he’d helped to set things right for his client after the corrupt and formerly powerful Westlake family had effectively stolen that land from his client’s ancestors, and many other Maryland families besides. If Reese was right about Westlake, from those ashes a monster had now risen.