Ten Plagues

by Mary Nealy

  “Is she a friend?” Keren laid her hand on Paul’s shoulder.

  Paul shrugged. He rested his elbow on the open window and ran his hand over his face. “Kind of. I tried to be a friend. She had … has … mental problems, and she solves them by guzzling a bottle or two of mouthwash every day.”

  “Mouthwash? She drinks Listerine?”

  “Not Listerine. It costs too much. She buys generic. You can get a two-quart bottle for a dollar. It’s about 75 percent alcohol. They all drink that or plain-label cough syrup. Some even drink rubbing alcohol. It’ll all give you a buzz. They buy it at a discount store a couple of blocks over. I asked the store manager to quit stocking it, but he refused. He said they’d just walk until they found it. And I know he’s right.”

  “So Wilma is really one of the hard-core homeless,” Keren said thoughtfully. “Not the type he’s been going after at all.”

  “Do you think we could get some tracking devices and put them on some of the homeless people without their knowledge?” His knee started bouncing up and down. Keren could see his patience running out. “We could see if Caldwell grabs them and get to them before he hurts them.”

  “We’re going to get him, Paul. We won’t have to track anyone.”

  Paul grabbed for the door handle.

  Keren clutched his collar.

  Higgins pulled up beside them and rolled down his driver’s-side window. “I’ve got cars in place on all four sides of the building. We’ll secure the exits, double-check the basement for one of his bombs, then go in.”

  A radio crackled in Higgins’s car. He lifted the handset and talked quietly; then he hung it up and said, “SWAT’s here. We’ve got to wait for the all clear before we can go in.”

  A parade of black-clothed, heavily-armed SWAT team members stormed the building.

  Keren thought she’d explode from the maddening wait. Finally Higgins got the go-ahead.

  Higgins talked rapidly on his radio. “SWAT reported that the basement was clear of explosives. Let’s go.” Higgins reached the door, swung it open, and went in ahead of a dozen other men. Paul and Keren were left for last.

  “I should have asked Higgins for a gun,” Paul said through his clenched teeth.

  “Get a grip.” Keren didn’t like bringing up the rear either. But this was Higgins’s show. “He’d never give you one. And you don’t need it.”

  “He might have.” Paul glanced at Keren. His eyes were as cold as his voice. “I can be pretty persuasive.”

  They ran quickly and quietly up the five flights of stairs. The whole building was a slum. More apartments empty than lived in. Graffiti on the walls, broken light fixtures, and shattered glass littering the hallways. They got to Caldwell’s floor and it was no better, except the doors were all hung and closed.

  Higgins went up to the first one and tried it. He whispered, “Locked.”

  He turned to the dozen men who had accompanied him. “I want every door kicked open at the same time. Don’t go charging in without backup.”

  “Ready?” There were five doors on both sides of the hallway. Two men stood at each door. Keren and Paul stood back, out of the way, near the door Higgins had chosen.

  “Go!” Higgins’s voice exploded. Ten doors crashed open.

  “FBI,” Higgins shouted. The same shout echoed down the hall. Higgins disappeared. Keren and Paul went in right behind him.

  “This is it,” Paul said to Keren. “We’ve got him.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  They missed him.

  Every room was wide open. There was no place to hide. There was no killer.

  “He was here,” Higgins raged. He touched a coffee cup sitting on a counter. “It’s still warm. He can’t have been gone long.” He called into the hall, “Fan out. We’ve got the exits blocked. Check every apartment in this building.”

  But Paul knew it was a waste of time. They all did. One clue said it all. A wooden sign, set neatly beside a shiny new telephone, that said, WELCOME, REVEREND.

  “The hand of the Lord will bring a terrible plague on your livestock. “

  EXODUS 9:3

  Pravus was wise to the ways of police. They were right this minute kicking down the doors of that old building.

  For one long beautiful moment, he imagined them finding his people. He imagined the awe. He’d done them a great honor to let them be the first to see his work. Would they be wise enough to cherish what he’d given them? Would they finally set his people free?

  With a smile, he acknowledged that they probably would not.

  He was as far above them as Michelangelo was from kindergarten finger painting. He hated to give up the little paradise he’d created, but it didn’t matter. He had a spare paradise.

  Looking backward was a waste. He looked forward. He’d already done such powerful work here that what was left behind easily faded. But then he’d always had the skill of separating himself from little hurts.

  When his father would enforce Francis’s studies with his hard hands, the poor little boy had needed escape and Pravus had taken him away, far away. Then the two of them would watch that pathetic Francis take the punishment while they’d sit back and laugh at the boy’s fears and tears and his father’s futile lessons.

  As if Father’s blundering training could make Pravus’s genius better. It was already so staggering, it was nearly painful.

  The beast offered to come inside him and protect him. Francis had jumped at the chance, thrilled with the offer of power.

  And the two of them had set out to watch Francis, and laugh, and create.

  The day had come finally when they’d tired of Father’s cruelty and put an end to it. And Pravus had finally known freedom. And the next person to harm him had earned wrath that couldn’t be satisfied through art. She had sneered at his work.

  Oh she’d used polite words, but she’d been too blind to accept the blessing he tried to bestow upon her. And then the reverend had brought the law down on Pravus. The reverend had sealed his own fate.

  From that moment, Pravus had plotted revenge. Pravus visited a plague on the reverend and anyone who got in his way. The whole city would suffer, too.

  He turned back to Wilma … unworthy of his gift, but good enough because it hurt the reverend. Good enough.

  The police were too stupid to find him. Simple call forwarding led them to his other building to discover the gifts he’d left. Television stations would send camera crews. Art galleries would take notice, and the power of the plagues would only enhance the stunning gift.

  Pravus laughed to think the real shame was that the police would use force and ruin the only working doors in that tenement.

  He went back to making Wilma into a creation of beauty.

  Pestis ex bestia.

  The plague of beasts.

  This one he really liked.

  “I thought I’d seen the worst that men could do on this job. But this tops it all.” Keren checked every room. He had covered the walls with paintings, carvings. Ten rooms, ten themes, ten plagues.

  The room Higgins hit first was Francis’s tribute to the plague of blood. Red. Everywhere. The walls painted red, the paintings on the walls brutal works in red and black, the photos of Juanita enlarged to the size of posters. PESTIS EX SANGUIS was carved over the door, right into the woodwork.

  Three other rooms were the same, except for the theme. All of them were decorated. And the ones where Caldwell had already carried out his plague included pictures of his victims and the plague Caldwell had visited on her. In the last room were posters of Wilma wearing her white dress.

  Keren walked up to the huge picture. “How’d he make the picture so big? Where did he buy the equipment?”

  “We found a room where Caldwell must have slept. He had his own photo enlargement equipment.” Higgins’s cell phone rang and he checked the number and turned his back to talk.

  “Nothing painted on Wilma’s dress is even identifiable. He’s getting so sloppy.” Keren le
aned close. “You can tell from the lines on this one that his hands are shaking. I can’t believe he can walk around in the open and not be noticed.” Keren looked at Paul. “He probably isn’t. We probably couldn’t pick him up at the mission anymore. I doubt he’s even coming in.”

  “I can’t tell.” Paul studied the crime scene with cynical eyes, assessing, searching for clues. “So many of the people are gone, it doesn’t shorten our list much.”

  They all went in the room that was a tribute to the plague of beasts. Keren said, “There’s no sign that Wilma’s ever been in here.”

  “He’s taken less time with each room,” Higgins observed. “The setup, the larger paintings, were obviously done before he took the first vic, before he started to deteriorate. The things he added after each kidnapping get progressively sloppier.” Higgins pointed at the pictures showing awful bleeding cuts on Wilma’s arms. “The display of photos is rushed. Each gown shows he’s getting more and more out of control.”

  Paul stared at the oversized pictures of Wilma. From where Keren stood, she couldn’t tell whether he was the cop or the pastor. He seemed to be frozen somewhere in the middle. Finally, he visibly relaxed and Keren knew, for the moment, he was letting the cop take charge.

  “This is the latest vic.” Paul pointed at the walls.

  “You know her?” Higgins asked.

  “First one I’ve been able to ID since LaToya,” Paul said. “I wonder if Caldwell is back to his original plan of taking women I know, or was Wilma just handy? Get forensics in here. The DNA won’t really help catch him, since we already know who we’re hunting for, but when we get our hands on him, there will be plenty in these rooms that’ll help put him away.”

  Paul and Keren finally had a chance to brief Higgins and Dyson fully on Wilma.

  “She doesn’t fit at all.” Dyson almost foamed at the mouth, he was so furious. “Elderly, alcoholic, lives on the streets.”

  “Fredericks and Hardcastle didn’t fit either.”

  Dyson spun around, his fists clenched, and glared at Paul. “Don’t you think I know that?” He stormed off.

  Paul could hear him ranting for long minutes after the man left the apartment. Dyson acted like Paul and Keren had deliberately set out to thwart him.

  Higgins said, “We’ll keep our focus on tracking Caldwell. I don’t care if he’s living in a bunker under a nondescript building, I’ll find him. You two go check the rest of the laboratory supply stores. He still needs a shipment of locusts. And it’s a cinch he won’t have them shipped here now.”

  When they came out of the tenement house, they ran into reporters.

  They fought their way through the crowd and got onto the street, only to have cars staked out to follow them.

  “They know my car,” Keren said quietly, her voice carrying below the racket of shouted questions. “Do you have one?”

  “Nope. Let me drive yours again.” He held out his hand for the keys. “I’d forgotten how much I like it.”

  “Do you have a license?” They got through the throng of reporters and set a fast pace toward Keren’s car.

  Paul shrugged. “I don’t think it’s lapsed.”

  Keren gave him a long look. “But do you have it with you?”

  “I’ve got forty-eight hours to produce it if I get ticketed for driving without it. You know that.” Paul held out his hand again.

  “But driving without it is still illegal, Pastor P. A couple of days ago you were hassling me for speeding.”

  “What’s your point?” Paul wiggled his fingers impatiently.

  Keren glared at him, but she could see inaction right now would drive him right to the limit of his self-control. She handed him the keys.

  The reporters gave chase, and a little parade formed in the passenger’s side mirror. “Head for the expressway so you’ve got room to maneuver.”

  “Way ahead of you.” Paul gave her a No-backseat-driving look.

  “How do you survive without a car?”

  Paul pulled onto the expressway and moved across three lanes of traffic to the fast lane. “I take the El. A car is an albatross around my neck in this city.” He swerved in front of a car in the slower lane then cut sharply onto an off-ramp and left the few remaining reporters in the dust. He turned around and backtracked, changing directions until he was sure he’d shaken any tail.

  “They’re going to make it hard to do our job.” Keren glanced at her watch. “I had hopes of getting to all these places today, but we won’t make it now.”

  They went to the first address on the list.

  An hour later, as they left the second supply store, Keren said, “I can’t believe how many people wanted this strange combination of bugs. What are the chances that a dozen companies in Chicago were in desperate need of gnats, flies, and frogs all at the same time?” She stared at her notes, but they stayed the same.

  Paul had taken his own notes but didn’t check them because he was driving again, trying to get to the next place before it locked down for the night. “But these orders were all for other things, too. And there is no order for locusts. And what about the beasts? What in the world will he do for that?”

  “I can’t stand to think of it.”

  “And boils, and good grief, hail. How’s he going to produce a plague of hail?”

  “He’s an artist,” Keren said dryly. “I’m sure he’s very creative.”

  “He may have ordered other things to throw us off.” Paul tapped the steering wheel as if he were listening to music. “We may have to track down every name we’ve been given, but a lot of these orders add up to serious money. And most of these ordered test tubes and microscope slides and a variety of chemical solutions worth thousands of dollars.”

  He veered across two lanes of traffic and swerved onto a side street. He wasn’t dodging reporters now, so he was just driving like a lunatic for the fun of it. Keren vowed to take her keys back as soon as he stopped.

  “The orders are mostly connected to schools or medical labs.” Paul took a corner so fast the tires whined. “We won’t track down any of these large purchases unless we have to. Let’s hope we find an order that matches what we need.”

  “What do we stake out for beasts? Is it possible he’ll go back to the park? Or back to someone’s apartment that he wants to torment?” Keren grabbed the armrest on the door beside her to keep from tipping over toward Paul. “We found LaToya because we anticipated his hunt for frogs.”

  “We found LaToya because we got lucky.” Paul straightened the car out and floored it. “Caldwell brought his own frogs, and we just happened to be close at hand.”

  “We found LaToya,” Keren said, “because God wanted her found.”

  Paul glanced sharply at her and seemed to lose his focus on their conversation for a minute. He looked back at the street and tightened his hands on the steering wheel and slowed down a bit.

  “So beasts, does that mean sheep, cattle?” Keren didn’t know whether to pursue the conversation about God or not. They were almost to their destination.

  “In the Bible it says plague of beasts or livestock or animals, depending on which version you read.” Paul seemed to shift mental gears as he spoke of the Bible. Keren hoped it lasted. “If Caldwell wanted to be true to the meaning of the Bible, he’d go to the nearest cattle ranch or stockyards and leave Wilma there.”

  Keren’s stomach twisted to think of what might be coming. “But he wants to stay close to the mission. That’s been the only thing he hasn’t deviated from. Even my apartment isn’t that far.”

  “So where do you find animals?” Paul pulled up to the lab supply store.

  “There is a petting zoo at that same park. But he hasn’t been back there since LaToya.” Keren was relieved to have arrived alive.

  “We can stake it out.”

  They got out and got to the front door just as it was closing for the day. Keren used her badge and Paul let them assume he had one, too. He did a lot of bullying to get the man
ager to stay around and let them check the recent orders. Keren called the last lab supply store, but there was no answer. “We’ll have to try that one tomorrow.”

  They left the building. Paul went to the driver’s side as if it were his right. “Let’s track down the name of the guy who runs that last store and get him to let us in.”

  “It’s too late, Paul. We took forever in that last place, and I thought the manager was going to wring our necks. It’s almost sundown. We’re going to have to wait until tomorrow.”

  Keren would have wrestled him for the keys but decided he needed to bolster his spirits, so she let him drive like a lunatic for a while longer. He seemed to enjoy that. “We’re closing in on him. We’ll find him through the place we check tomorrow, or we’ll find him in the lists we already have.”

  “Maybe, unless he went out of town for this stuff.” Paul’s foot tapped, and he stared unseeing into the lowering sun but he remained in the parking space.

  “Let’s go see how LaToya’s doing.” Keren waited.

  Finally Paul started the car. “If there was any change I’d have heard,” he said, as if going to see her was unnecessary. With a shrug of his shoulders he added, “We might as well go there and sleep on the couches. We’re both as good as homeless.”

  As he drove, Keren wondered if she shouldn’t give him a pep talk about not being such a cynical jerk. She remembered very vividly now why she’d been left with such a bad impression of Detective Paul Morris.

  They drove through a fast-food joint and ate in the car on the way to the hospital. Paul wondered if he could call this a date. He nearly smiled at the thought.

  Since Keren paid for both of them … since Paul had no money … it was a real modern kind of date.

  The cop was in full control of him after the day he’d spent, and he decided he liked it, at least for now. He even toyed with the idea of giving the press a few words next time they rushed him. He could work it to raise money for the mission. They might be able to help with the search for Caldwell. He hesitated when he remembered how casually he was dressed. He needed to get a haircut. Maybe buy a suit.