The Rook pbf-2

by Steven James

  “The Hyatt by the airport,” Riker said. “But I need a little time.

  Let’s make it 3:45. I should be able to be there by then.”

  “Oh, and bring me some more of that soap stuff for my tattoo.”

  “I’ll bring you a whole bottle.”

  “OK, I’ll see you there.”

  “I’m looking forward to it, Raven.”

  “Me too.” She cradled the phone in her hand for a long, sweet moment before finally snapping it shut and turning the ringer off. “Thank you, dear,” said the second-grade-teacher-woman as she lowered herself into her chair.

  “You’re welcome.” Tessa reached down for her satchel and discreetly slid her cell phone into the woman’s purse. Just in case Patrick decided to monitor her again.

  Then Tessa picked up her satchel and headed back through security to the curbside pickup area for hotel shuttles.

  74

  Ever since leaving the meeting with Margaret nearly half an hour ago, I’d been sitting in a secluded, vacant cubicle watching women die.

  I’d requested copies of the seven DVDs, and, using one of the police station’s computers, I accessed my laptop. Then I uploaded the videos of the women into CIFER and used it to play them simultaneously on the screen, just as I’d done with the trolley depot videos the day before.

  Any one of these videos might give Lien-hua some tangible evidence to use in the interrogation, so I forced myself to watch even though it was gut-wrenching and deeply troubling.

  The shortest of the death videos was about three minutes in length, the longest was over an hour, so I knew I wouldn’t have time to watch all of them through to the end, but by playing the videos at twice their normal speed, I could look for similarities in how they were filmed, in the camera angles, in the responses of the women.

  I found that all of the women were dressed in the same style dress.

  All were chained to the bottom of the tank, although the chains appeared shorter than the one used on Cassandra. All were barefoot. All were terrified. Lewis didn’t move the cameras around the warehouse, but preferred filming from the same location. Some of the videos had been edited in numerous places, just like Cassandra’s, and some included fast-forward footage to get to the final ghastly conclusion, but what struck me the most was the resiliency of the women. All of them stood with their bodies turned sideways to the camera, in the direction of the warehouse doors, facing freedom.

  Always looking toward freedom. And of course at the end of each of these videos, the women all died.

  The whole time I watched, I was wrestling with a deep swirl of anger and frustration with Margaret, with Tessa, with myself. After all, no matter what anybody is doing, there’s always a lot going on beneath the surface of our lives. Maybe it’s better that we can’t shut off our feelings and our dreams and our regrets in one area of life when we’re trying to concentrate in another, but it would certainly make life easier if we could.

  Finally, with only fifteen minutes left before the interrogation, I realized I was overlooking the obvious: the tank hadn’t been constructed just for Cassandra but had been used in at least seven murders. That meant it’d been there since November. So whoever owned that warehouse would be a good person to talk to.

  I pulled up an Internet browser and began going through plat books and city registries.

  But as time ticked away, I ran into yet another series of dead ends.

  The property was owned by Richardson and Kirk, Inc., a company based in Austin, Texas.

  Which was a subsidiary of Briesen Industries, located in Detroit, Michigan.

  Which was owned by a multinational manufacturing conglomer-ate based in Germany.

  Which didn’t seem to help us one bit.

  At least I did find out that Richardson and Kirk Inc. bought the warehouse on November 2-seven months after the arsons started, and nine days before the first woman disappeared.

  At last, with only five minutes left until the interrogation, I was gathering up my notes when I heard Ralph’s heavy footsteps pounding down the hall. His form shadowed the doorway. “Margaret found something on our guy,” he said. “Looks huge.

  C’mon.”

  We found Lien-hua, Margaret, and Lieutenant Graysmith all gathered in the lieutenant’s office, and Margaret got right to it. “I don’t want to hold up the interrogation, but we have some new information that I believe will be helpful.”

  We waited. She looked us each in the eye, savoring the power her long pause had over the conversation. “I followed up on Agent Jiang’s suggestion about a possible connection between our suspect and the witness protection program. No connection-I wasn’t surprised. However, I did have the cybercrime division do an Internet facial search using Mr. Neville’s mug shots from last night, and fifteen minutes ago we found out his name is not Neville Lewis.

  His real name is Creighton Melice-history of battery, assault with a deadly weapon.”

  She slid a file folder to Lien-hua, who started paging through it.

  Margaret continued, “After posting bail in November for a second-degree murder charge in DC, he failed to show up for trial, and the only eyewitness was later found dead in the backseat of a car, tied up, gagged, and strangled. The ME concluded she’d been tortured prior to her death. No suspects.”

  I noticed Lien-hua place her digital audio recorder on the table and press “record.”

  “Our man, Creighton Melice, has a condition,” Margaret said.

  “That will be important to monitor throughout the interrogation.”

  “What condition is that?” Lieutenant Graysmith asked.

  “He doesn’t feel pain.”

  Ralph leaned forward. “What?

  “Is that even possible?” asked Graysmith.

  She pointed to the folder. “It’s extremely rare, but yes. It’s possible. He has congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis, or CIPA. The sensory neurons that register pain never developed. It’s so rare there’ve only been ninety-eight cases ever diagnosed in the United States. Creighton Melice is number fifty-four. Apparently, it’s almost unheard of for someone with CIPA to survive until adulthood. And the ones who do rarely make it unscathed-bone fractures, burns, infections that all go untreated.”

  She consulted her notes again. “Last year a teething baby in South Dakota chewed off two fingers before her mother noticed.

  Three years ago, an eight-year-old boy in Pakistan tried washing his face with boiling water. Recently, a thirteen-month-old boy from Scotland broke his ankle and ran around the emergency room with his foot flopping sideways on the floor, giggling, as he was waiting to be seen by a doctor-”

  “OK, that’s enough,” Graysmith said. “We get the picture.”

  I was amazed that Margaret and her team had been able to pull up all of this information on Melice and his condition in less than twenty minutes.

  She went on, “No one really understands what causes it, but the gene responsible for it has been identified as…” She looked down one more time. “TrkA1. Apparently mutations of that gene block the growth of certain nerve endings.”

  “Can he feel anything at all?” Graysmith asked. “Or was he born with only four senses?”

  Margaret flipped to the third page of her notes. “It seems people with CIPA can feel different textures and pressure on their skin, but that’s all. And they show no change in blood pressure, heart rate, or respiration when exposed to painful stimuli. They can undergo surgery, including amputations, without anesthetic.”

  “Congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis,” I mumbled.

  “It’s congenital, so people are born with it, and it would tend to run in certain families.”

  “And anhidrosis means you can’t sweat,” Lien-hua added. “So, the condition must disable the body’s ability to feel temperature.” “That is correct, Agent Jiang,” said Margaret. It looked like it pained her to say it, to actually affirm Lien-hua. “People with CIPA don’t feel either hot o
r cold stimuli. So, not that you would do this anyway…” She paused… paused… paused… finally concluded, “But it would do no good to threaten Mr. Melice during your interrogation. The man you’re about to interview has never felt pain in his entire life.”

  “Only caused it,” Ralph muttered.

  “And that means he didn’t feel anything when Lien-hua kicked him,” I said. As I was considering what, if any, significance that might have, the door opened, and Dunn leaned into the room.

  “He’s ready.”

  Lien-hua grabbed her notepad and her digital voice recorder.

  “So am I.”

  75

  I thought that before Lien-hua went into the interrogation, she should know I’d found the device. I didn’t know if the topic would come up, but I wanted her to be armed with as much information as possible. So, as Lien-hua and I followed Detective Dunn to the interrogation room, I slowed my pace a little until I was sure he couldn’t hear me, and then, in a whisper, told her about the device.

  “I don’t know what it does, but it’s in a safe place,” I said. “Still in the evidence room. We can take care of it later. I just wanted you to know.”

  “Good. Thanks.”

  As we stepped onto the elevator, Dunn said, “I got the room all set for you. We’ll interrogate him in room 411.”

  “Actually, no. We won’t interrogate him,” Lien-hua said. “I will.”

  “I’ll just sit in the back and observe-”

  “I go in alone,” Lien-hua said.

  Dunn folded his thick, snake-like arms across his chest. “The deal was, I get to observe.”

  “You can do that from behind the two-way mirror. I’m going in alone.”

  “Last night you attacked the man,” said Dunn.

  “If you’re concerned for his safety, I can assure you he’ll be in fine shape when you send him to the prisoners who, how did you put it, ‘are always thrilled to have new mates to play with.’”

  The elevator door opened; she took a step forward. Dunn refused to move aside. I was ready to take action, but Lien-hua stared him down. “Perhaps you misunderstand, Detective. I’m not asking for your permission. I’m asking for your cooperation. If I have it, you can stay and watch. If I don’t, I’ll contact Lieutenant Graysmith and have you transferred from this case. Which will it be?”

  He ground his teeth for a moment and then finally relented. “All right. Fine. But I don’t care if you’re an FBI agent or the freakin’ president of the United States, if things go south, I’m coming in there.”

  He pounded off to the observation room, and I stayed with Lien-hua for a moment. I wanted to go into the room with her, to stand by her side, to protect her. Maybe I’m old-fashioned that way, but I wanted to slay a dragon for her, even though I knew she could slay dragons as well as anyone. “Are you sure you don’t want anyone in there with you?”

  “I’m all right.” A flat fury had taken over her voice. I knew it wasn’t directed at me.

  “Is it because of the seven women?”

  Lien-hua has a slim, captivating face, but now the muscles in her jaw constricted, bringing an intensity to her that I’d never seen before. “He filmed their deaths.”

  “I know.”

  “Posted them online.”

  “That’s why-”

  “I’ll be fine. Really.”

  “I just wanted-”

  “Enough, Patrick!” She stepped back, her slender arms taut.

  “Enough. Please. Sometimes you don’t know when to stop. You push things too far. It builds walls, OK? Don’t do it. Not with me.

  I’ll be all right. Now please, excuse me.” Before I could respond she brushed past me, leaving me reeling in the swirl of her words.

  I had a sense that I should apologize, but I wasn’t sure I’d done anything wrong. In the span of just a few short hours, I’d managed to make both Tessa and Lien-hua, the two women who matter the most to me, angrily turn their backs on me and walk away.

  At last, when I realized I wasn’t going to apologize or even go after her, I headed off to join Detective Dunn in the observation room down the hall.

  Tessa didn’t have a compact so she was using the curved reflection of a lamp in the lobby of the Hyatt to touch up her eye shadow.

  Riker would be arriving in just a couple minutes, and she wanted to make sure she looked all righ-

  “Hey.” Riker stepped into view, startling her. He must have come in one of the side doors rather than the revolving door at the main entrance to the hotel.

  She noticed he was wearing jeans and a cotton, button-down untucked shirt. She brushed at a strand of hair that had fallen in front of her eye and put her makeup away. “Hey.”

  He smirked and held out a full bottle of antibacterial soap as she stood up. “Will this do ya?”

  “I sure hope so.” She accepted it, stuffed it into her satchel. It barely fit.

  He watched her and grinned playfully. “So, is the raven ready to fly away?”

  “That would be a yes.”

  They walked together toward the door. “My bike’s out back.

  No valet parking for motorcycles.”

  A cycle. How cool was that. “What kind do you have?”

  “Honda… Not quite a Harley, but they ride forever.” He opened the door for her. “So, you gotta tell me. That poem by Poe, is that why they call you Raven?”

  A white fire fueled by regret and anger and a strange kind of homesickness flared up inside her. “It used to be sort of a nickname.” “Your friends at college give it to you?”

  Now a blush whispered across her face. So he really did believe she was over eighteen. He thought she was in college! “Naw. Someone I used to trust.”

  He led her to his bike. “Ouch. Had to be a guy. Typical for those losers over at SDSU. That where he went?”

  “I go to school in Denver.” It was true, it just wasn’t the whole truth. “I’m just visiting San Diego.”

  “That’s cool.” Riker stowed Tessa’s satchel, then climbed onto his bike, and she slid on behind him. “So,” he said. “You ready to ride?”

  “I’m ready to ride.” Tessa wrapped her arms tightly around his waist, he fired up the bike, and they peeled away from the curb.

  76

  Over the years Lien-hua had seen some terrible, unthinkable things.

  And she’d always kept her cool, kept her wits about her. But today she wasn’t sure she’d be able to.

  Ever since hearing about the DVDs, she’d been thinking about the accident no one in her family ever spoke of.

  Bruised innocence.

  Stay focused, Lien-hua. Don’t get distracted.

  The arrangement would never be the same again.

  She paused, leaned against the wall just around the corner from the interrogation room, and tried to pull herself together.

  Why couldn’t Pat just stop trying to protect her?

  OK. Fine. It was flattering, but it was starting to tip her perspective, cloud her objectivity. She needed to focus and not let her feelings for him distract her.

  I don’t need protecting. I can do this on my own.

  She took a moment to slide Pat out of her mind and order her thoughts, then walked around the corner and motioned to the two officers stationed outside the interrogation room.

  They unlocked the door, and she stepped inside.

  I threw open the door to the observation room.

  Maybe I was angry at Lien-hua, maybe at Tessa, maybe at myself. I couldn’t tell. I just knew I never should have let myself have feelings for Lien-hua. That was the problem. It made it harder to be objective. Harder to step back and see things clearly.

  Detective Dunn was already seated at the table, facing the two-way mirror, musing over a pile of notes and file folders. I wasn’t in any mood to talk to him, so instead, I stared at Creighton Melice through the glass. Lien-hua had just entered the room, and Melice was eyeing her coolly. His obsidian eyes tracking her every step. I could
see him, but he couldn’t see me.

  Everyone knows the bit with the two-way mirrors-that the big mirror on the wall is really a window for law enforcement personnel, but still, it’s surprisingly effective for getting suspects to talk.

  People tend to forget that others are watching them when they’re busy watching themselves.

  Melice was seated, his ankles shackled together, his wrists cuffed and attached to the table by a short chain.

  A collection of maps with crime scene photos hung on the wall to Lien-hua’s left. She took a chair from the corner of the room and dragged it to the table so that she could sit facing Melice.

  Detective Dunn stood abruptly, walked to the two-way mirror.

  “I need to tell you I’m not comfortable with this.”

  “Agent Jiang can take care of herself.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “Oh.” I walked to him. Leaned my arm against the glass. “What exactly do you mean?”

  He glared at me. “She’s a woman.”

  Oh, man. He was pushing things too far. Way too far. “Yes, she is, Detective. And you better be careful what your next few words are. That’s a friendly warning because I’m a nice guy, but I do have my limits. Now, please. Go on.”

  He gestured toward the interrogation room. “This guy, Melice, he manipulates women. Seduces them, tortures them, kills them.

  He’ll feel more powerful, more in control, with her in there. I don’t want him toying with her.”

  “You don’t know Agent Jiang.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “I don’t. And that’s what I’m worried about.”

  Lien-hua took her seat on the other side of the glass, pulled out her notepad, and started the interrogation.

  77

  Black holes.

  That’s what Lien-hua thought of as she looked across the table and into the dark pools of Creighton Melice’s eyes. She searched them for a clue to his feelings, his state of mind, but they remained emotionless and blank. As she looked him over, she noticed that he had a gauze bandage wrapped around his left hand. Possibly he’d been injured the night before in his fight with Ralph. The doctor who examined his ribs earlier in the day must have treated his hand.