The Dead Room

by Robert Ellis

  Teddy tightened his robe. Grabbing the IV rack, he rolled it through the doorway into the hall. The cop looked up from his magazine.

  “We’ll be down there,” Teddy said, pointing toward the intensive care unit.

  The cop seemed annoyed, but nodded. Then Teddy led Nash down the hall.

  “I’ve already checked,” Nash said. “She’s still in critical condition, but expected to pull through. Packing her in ice was the deciding factor. According to the doctor, you saved Rosemary’s life.”

  Teddy spotted the exit and pushed the door open. Cold air swept past them as they stepped outside. There was an ashtray on the landing. Teddy pushed the IV rack over, reached into his pocket for the pack of cigarettes the ambulance driver had given him, and lit up.

  “What did the doctor say about me?”

  Nash grinned at the sight of him smoking with an IV in his arm. “Your situation’s hopeless,” he said.

  They traded warm smiles. Nash bummed one from the pack. As Teddy held the flame to the end of the cigarette, he gazed at the man’s eyes. They looked so gentle, even sad.

  “Westbrook’s called three times from Washington,” Nash said. “It sounds like they’re gonna make you an offer.”

  Teddy drew on the cigarette. He didn’t have any interest in working for the FBI.

  “What about the skin?” he said.

  They were sixteen floors up. Nash turned to the view of the city and leaned against the rail.

  “They found a collection of tattoos in his freezer. They were wrapped in plastic and packed in Tupperware.”

  “Any idea how many other victims there might be?”

  Nash shook his head slowly. “Not yet,” he whispered.

  Teddy looked down at the sidewalk. A woman was getting into a car with a man dressed like Santa Claus. They were giggling and kissing each other, in the peace of their own world and headed home.

  “When do you think Andrews knew it was Trisco?” Teddy said after a moment.

  Nash shrugged. “My guess is that the day you found Valerie Kram in the river will be the day prosecutors use as their starting point. She was a student at the College of Art. Knowing what Andrews knew about Trisco should’ve triggered something in his head.”

  “How could he expect to get away with it?”

  “You tell me,” Nash said.

  Teddy had been wrestling with the question since he opened the door and saw the district attorney standing over Trisco with the gun. After killing Trisco, Andrews would’ve had to murder Rosemary and dump her corpse in order to keep his mistake a secret. He obviously didn’t know that the remaining bodies were hidden in the lake, and if they were ever found, that they would point back to Trisco in a heartbeat.

  “His world was unraveling,” Teddy said. “He was desperate. He wasn’t thinking clearly. What’s ahead will be a circus.”

  “I expect so,” Nash said. “A district attorney charged with the murder of a serial killer. I’m not sure that’s ever happened before. But I guess in this world there’s a first time for everything.”

  A moment passed with Teddy thinking about his role in the trial as the prosecutor’s chief witness.

  “Did you talk to Powell?” Nash asked.

  Teddy nodded.

  “When will Holmes be released?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon,” Teddy said. “I’m driving him home.”

  Nash turned back to the view. Then he flicked his cigarette over the rail, watching it land on the sidewalk sixteen floors below.

  SEVENTY-ONE

  Teddy spotted the news vans as he turned onto Lakeview Road. He’d borrowed an old Ford wagon from his mother’s friend, Quint Adler. In spite of his wealth, Quint drove old cars. This was something Teddy had always liked about the man, perhaps because it reminded him of his father. Quint didn’t feel the need to wear who he was on his sleeve. In fact, both men pretty much hid their identities from the world.

  He found a place to park, but kept the engine running as he listened to an update on KYW news radio. The shock waves from what the Daily News and Inquirer tagged as the E.T. Killings this morning were eating through the city, blistering people’s nerves and torturing their faith. A photograph of the skin painting appeared in both papers beside head shots of Holmes and Trisco, and another of the district attorney as Vega read him his rights. On the other side of the page was a picture of Teddy and Nash, walking out of the house with Rosemary Gibb on the gurney. A graphic was included, detailing the contributions Andrews had taken from the Trisco family.

  The two reporters interviewed on the radio said they smelled blood in the water and worked through the night. What Teddy and Jill had found on the Internet had only been the beginning. Apparently, more than fifty percent of the contributions made to the district attorney’s campaign were from employees at the Trisco’s various corporations. Several people came forward, confirming what everyone guessed. They’d been forced to write checks to Andrews and were later reimbursed by the corporation in the form of a matching bonus. Details would be published in tomorrow’s papers. Eddie, Jr. and his stone-faced wife didn’t have time to mourn the death of their infamous son. They were in a legal jam of their own now. Together with Andrews, they’d become the world’s next three lepers in a city that didn’t really want any.

  Teddy switched off the radio, reaching across with his right hand to open the driver’s-side door. As he moved, a stabbing pain bit into his shoulder, then relaxed its jaws. He got out of the car, lit a cigarette like a real user, and started for the press line. The two cops working behind the crime scene tape saw him approach and helped him through. Reporters were shouting questions, photographers snapping up pictures and asking him to smile.

  He started down the drive, not sure how to handle the press. They needed the story, and he had one to tell. He just wanted a little time to sort things through. Trisco was dead, and Andrews locked up. In spite of this, it didn’t feel like it was over. They were still mopping things up. Each new discovery left a bad taste in his mouth, opening memories of his childhood like clams thrown down on a hot grill.

  He saw Powell in the distance, standing on the boat launch with a group of men. One of the beneficiaries of last night had been Powell’s immediate resurrection in the district attorney’s office. She was clearly in charge. As Teddy passed the house, he spotted three vans from the medical examiner’s office backed up to the barn like dump trucks waiting for their payload from hell. Crime scene techs were walking in and out of the house and barn. A photographer with spiked hair was getting shots of the brake fluid in the snow, while two techs waited off to the side with their evidence kits ready to go.

  He turned back to the lake, following the crime scene tape to the bottom of the hill. The ice had been cut away from the shoreline with chainsaws, and divers were braving the frigid water in their wet suits. The operation was a joint effort between city, local, and state police departments. Teddy looked about for Vega and Ellwood but didn’t see them. Of the men standing with Powell, Teddy only recognized two. They’d met the other night in Nash’s office. Both men worked out of the FBI’s field office in the city. The investigation was running down a single track now.

  The agents nodded. The others gazed at him with a certain reach in their eyes. Everyone knew who he was.

  Powell turned and gave him a look. She was bundled up in that ski parka, wearing jeans and a pair of leather boots. He knew she’d missed another night’s sleep. Still, her blue-gray eyes were bright and steady and he noticed the hint of a sleepy smile buried in her will. Powell looked good—anytime, anywhere, no matter what.

  “They let you out,” she said.

  Teddy nodded. “I don’t see Vega or Ellwood.”

  “Our warrants came through. Vega’s over at Andrews’s house. We’ve got another team going through the Trisco’s estate in Radnor. Ellwood’s in the water with the camera. He dives.”

  Teddy followed her eyes to a small TV lying in the snow. He hadn’t noticed it b
ecause the monitor was wrapped in a blue canvas tote case with a hood shading the screen from the stark, winter sun. The monitor was attached to a video recorder. A yellow cable ran from the back of the recorder into the water.

  He knelt down with Powell and the others, gazing at what looked like a blank screen. His first thought was that he wished it had just been a bad dream. But as he glanced at the lake, he saw the indentation in the ice where his car broke through. His pulse quickened some and he turned back to the monitor sensing movement on the screen. Ellwood panned the camera through the murky water and the houses at the bottom began to take on definition. When the faces appeared in the windows, the models Trisco had used for his painting, the camera shook and Teddy noticed that no one on the dock was talking anymore. Other divers swam in and out of the shot, waving the fish away from the nets as they cut the corpses loose and began towing them back to shore. But the bodies weren’t just in the windows. Several women had been strapped down to chairs. Others were in the kitchens tied down to stoves, or laying out in the bathtub. Trisco had done more than merely dump his victims here. He’d populated the underwater setting, positioning the corpses as if they were dolls. Teddy imagined Trisco visiting his playground, swimming through the rooms as often as he could.

  “How many are there?” Teddy said to Powell.

  “Twenty-three,” she said with a look. “So far.”

  Teddy did the math. Darlene Lewis had been the twelfth murder, Harris Carmichael, number thirteen. The previous eleven murders could be isolated from the list of missing persons because they shared a similar appearance. Trisco had chosen them as models because they looked like variations of his mother. But Eddie was also collecting tattoos and harvesting skin for his painting. Physical appearance wouldn’t have been a consideration with the second group. No trend would have been detected. Trisco could have hung out at any tattoo parlor, strip club, or in Darlene Lewis’s case, found her with a computer on the Web.

  “Most tattoo artists keep records of their work,” Powell said. “Once we’ve had another look at missing persons, I think we’ll have a better idea of who they are. Maybe even a list of names.”

  “What about Valerie Kram?” he said. “Why do you think he dumped her in the river instead of here?”

  “We’re working on a time line,” she said. “The lake would freeze before the river. She hadn’t been in the water very long. Either he had a problem with ice, or he just got lazy and didn’t want to drive this far.”

  Teddy turned back to the monitor and saw a diver swim into the shot and wave Ellwood forward. The nets vanished and his car appeared in the middle of what used to be a street. Teddy grimaced as he stared at the screen. The Corolla was lying upside down beside a streetlight and stop sign. The trunk was open. Pointing at the tires, the diver grabbed a hose and waved Ellwood closer. Then he made a slicing gesture as if he held a knife in his hand. It was the brake line. Someone had slashed it with a knife.

  Teddy had seen enough and stood up. Powell followed him off the boat launch into the yard, her eyes on him.

  “Vega called an hour ago,” she said in a voice that wouldn’t carry. “He’s found something at Andrews’s place.”

  “The shot glass?”

  She shook her head. “Papers. Records of payments in a notebook.”

  “To who?”

  “Michael Jackson,” she said. “The payments weren’t big, but they go way back and it adds up.”

  Teddy took it in without saying anything. He was still thinking about Valerie Kram’s body in the river at the boathouse. The woman who called him and led him there. Dawn Bingle.

  “Jackson’s not the only name on the list,” Powell said. “There’s another.”

  It hung there. Dark and heavy like the sight of his car turned over on the lake bottom.

  “Is it a woman?”

  Powell nodded.

  “Would I know her?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “But my guess is that Nash would. She works in the lab. She’s a forensic scientist. Her name’s Vera Handover.”

  Something about the glint in Powell’s eyes told him all he needed to know. The five cases Nash had been working on when they first met. Each one of them was a death penalty case in which the district attorney may have gotten it wrong. He remembered Nash telling him about the lack of evidence. In some cases, it had been mishandled. In others, the evidence was lost or destroyed.

  “Do you think she’s the one who called me?” Teddy asked.

  “She’s already in custody. You’ll have to come in and listen to her voice.”

  Teddy glanced at the lake and saw Ellwood emerge from the water with his camera. His dark cheeks had a blue tint to them. In spite of the cold, he looked all wound up from what he’d just seen. Teddy turned back to Powell.

  “You realize what’s happening,” he said. “Andrews is gonna take the heat for everything Trisco did.”

  Powell nodded. “I’d say he’s gonna need a good attorney.”

  Teddy gave her a look and realized she wasn’t really thinking about Andrews’s attorney. Something in her face had changed. The warmth was gone, and Teddy figured that she had the brass ring on her mind. The needle. After she got through with Andrews, he probably wouldn’t need a lawyer anymore.

  SEVENTY-TWO

  The steel door clanged shut behind them, and Oscar Holmes, formerly known as the Veggie Butcher, trudged into the prison lobby wearing his own clothes and clutching his sketches, along with several magazines and a stack of mail, close to his chest. His dead eyes flirted with the walls, then zeroed in on the entrance and parking lot outside. His ruined face remained blank, his emotions still in a trancelike sleep. What he’d seen and chosen to forget remained out of reach.

  Teddy pushed the door open and they stepped outside. The sun had vanished. Oceans of dark gray clouds were tumbling in from the southwest. As he watched Holmes lumber across the parking lot in silence, he knew Nash had been right. Oscar Holmes wasn’t ready for the world just yet.

  Teddy pointed to the Ford wagon and they climbed in. Holmes’s oversize figure dwarfed the car and the man slid the seat back without a word. Pulling out of the lot, Teddy noticed Holmes staring at the press lined up behind the guard shack outside the gate. Holmes didn’t even blink as the strobe lights started flashing. Instead, he turned in the seat, keeping an eye on them and watching the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility fade into the background.

  Teddy made a left onto the entrance ramp and brought the car up to speed as he eased into heavy traffic on I-95. He wouldn’t be driving Holmes to his apartment. Arrangements had been made with his neighbor, the young mother who lived across the hall and had stood by Holmes with her daughter from the beginning. They would be spending the holidays at her parent’s home in Cape May at the shore. In a week or so, with a little luck, the press might take a step back and give Holmes the breathing room he needed.

  At least it sounded good on paper....

  Teddy glanced over at the man, still holding his possessions tight to his chest with his large hands. Tears were streaming down the man’s cheeks as he stared out the windshield.

  “I don’t want to see my sister,” he whispered. “Don’t want to see Barnett either.”

  “You don’t have to, Holmes. You can do anything you want. You’re free.”

  “But they’ve been calling.”

  Holmes wiped his cheeks and turned away. Teddy followed his gaze to Holms burg Prison in the distance. Black smoke could be seen rising from one of the chimneys. Unwilling to face his own demons, Teddy tightened his grip on the wheel and looked away.

  “And then there’s this,” Holmes said.

  Teddy felt an envelope drop onto his lap but didn’t pick it up. Exiting off the interstate, he wound through a construction zone until he reached Third Street, and found a place to park beneath the Ben Franklin Bridge. Holmes’s neighbor hadn’t arrived yet. He left the motor running, easing the heat back as he opened the envelope a
nd withdrew the letter. Noting yesterday’s date at the top, he started reading. It was a business offer, and a large sum of money was on the table. Someone wanted to open a chain of restaurants in the city using Holmes’s nickname as the Veggie Butcher. When Teddy glanced over at Holmes, the man actually smiled at the irony.

  “I’m gonna need someone to oversee my affairs,” Holmes said.

  “I’ll do whatever you want.”

  Holmes glanced at the business offer. “I don’t want to do that.”

  Teddy nodded, slipping the letter into his jacket pocket and reaching into the backseat for a paper bag. He handed it to Holmes, who seemed surprised. After a moment, Holmes lowered his sketches and magazines and dug into the package. Teddy had stopped by an art supply house on his way to the prison and bought a variety of paints and brushes. Holmes stared at the gift and appeared overwhelmed.

  “Darlene Lewis modeled for you, didn’t she?” Teddy said.

  Holmes remained quiet, flicking his thumb over a brush.

  “I saw your paintings,” Teddy said. “The x-rays. You knew about the tattoos. Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I used to take my time sorting the mail and peeking in the front window. Darlene thought I was looking at her, and sometimes I was. Who wouldn’t? Most of the time I was just looking at what they had hanging on the walls.”

  “But she modeled for you, right?”

  “No,” he said slowly. “She didn’t believe I painted. She teased me about it and called me a fool.”

  “Then how did you know about the tattoos?”

  “On the computer. She told me where the pictures were.”

  “Why did you end up painting over them?” Teddy asked.

  “They didn’t come out right. They looked so sad.”

  Holmes turned away, his eyes lighting up as he noticed a metallic-blue Honda Civic pulling up to a parking meter across the street. Teddy recognized the young girl in the backseat as Holmes’s neighbor and looked at the woman behind the wheel. The gray sky was reflecting off the glass and blocking most of his view, but he caught the blond hair, her high cheek bones, a hint of blue in her eyes lost in the clouds. She looked young, gentle, somehow familiar. After a moment, it dawned on Teddy that she had modeled for Holmes as well. The first two paintings Andrews had shown him at the art museum had been her. Only now, all the melancholy was gone.