Die for Me

by Karen Rose

  Sophie unzipped her coat and turned on the lights. “Darla, Detective Ciccotelli. Vito, Darla Albright, Ted’s wife. Please tell Darla that I am not in trouble with the law.”

  Vito shook hands with Darla. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Albright.” He dipped his head a little lower. “Sophie’s not in any trouble. She just is trouble.”

  Darla chuckled. “Don’t I know it. Sophie, why are people driving you around?”

  “Car trouble,” Sophie said, and Darla looked as unconvinced as Ted had.

  “Uh-huh. It was nice to meet you, Detective. Sophie, you got a package. It was sitting out front when I came in.” She pointed to the counter, then returned to her office.

  Sophie looked at the small brown box, then at Vito. “I’ve had one good and one bad package this week. Should I take the box or see what’s behind curtain number two?”

  “I’ll open it,” Vito said, pulling on a pair of thin gloves. He opened the card and blinked. “This is either spy code or Russian.”

  Sophie smiled as she read the note. “It’s Cyrillic. This is from Yuri Petrovich. ‘For your exhibit.’ Open it, please.” Vito did and Sophie gasped in shocked delight. “Vito.”

  “It’s a doll,” he said.

  “It’s a matryoshka. A nested doll.”

  “Is it valuable?”

  “Monetarily, no.” She lifted the first layer and found another note which made her throat close. “Sentimentally, it’s priceless. This belonged to his mother. It’s one of the few things he brought with him from Georgia. He wants to loan it to me for my Cold War exhibit. He was here yesterday, thanking me. I never dreamed he’d give me this.”

  “Why was he thanking you?”

  “I sent him a bottle of very good vodka through Barbara at the library. It was sitting on Gran’s bar, never been opened. I thought he’d appreciate it more than she could.”

  “You’ve obviously made an impression on him, Sophie Alexandrovna,” Vito teased, then kissed her gently. “You made an impression on me, too.”

  She smiled as she put the doll back in the box. “You want a tour?”

  “Don’t have time. But,” he sobered, “I want you to show me where you saw Simon.”

  Sophie led him to the wall with photos of Ted the First’s expeditions. “He was here.”

  Vito nodded. “And he said exactly what?”

  She told him. Then shook her head, staring at the place Simon had stood.

  “What?” he asked. “Did you remember something else?”

  “Yes, but not about Simon.”

  “Then what, Sophie?” he asked softly. “Talk to me.”

  “There’s a story about Annie Oakley, the sharpshooter. She was doing exhibitions for the crowned heads of Europe. One day Annie chose a volunteer from the audience and clipped the ash right off the end of the cigar he held between his teeth. Turned out it was the man who later became Kaiser Wilhelm. That part’s fact. The story goes on to say that Annie wished she’d missed, that she might have averted World War I.”

  “It wouldn’t have,” Vito said. “One man didn’t start that war.”

  “No, that’s true. But I think I understand a little about how Annie must have felt. When I saw Simon, I’d just finished the Viking tour,” she said softly. “I had a battle-ax on my shoulder and when he looked at me, I actually tightened my grip on the handle. He creeped me out. I controlled myself of course. Now, I wish I hadn’t.”

  Vito gripped her shoulders and turned her to him. “Sophie, he’s killed so many. You couldn’t have stopped that. And I wouldn’t want you to live with the image of your ax in his head. Let us catch him. Then you can stare at him through prison bars, okay?”

  “Okay,” she murmured, but thought the image of the head of her ax in the head of the man who’d killed so many was a damn appealing one.

  Friday, January 19, 8:00

  A.M.

  Vito tossed the box of doughnuts on the table. “I hope you’re satisfied.”

  Jen peered inside the box. “These aren’t from the bakery in your neighborhood.”

  Vito narrowed his eyes at her. “Don’t make me hurt you, Jen.”

  She grinned at him. “I never thought you’d actually bring more doughnuts. I was just being a squeaky wheel.”

  “And speaking of squeaky wheels,” Nick said, dropping into one of the chairs, “the boys in electronics think that one sound on the tape-the one that sounds like a spooky, echo-y squeaky wheel? They think it’s a pulley in an elevator shaft.”

  “So we’re looking for a building that might be a church that might have an elevator.” Jen took out a frosted doughnut. “That could actually narrow it down a little bit.”

  The rest of the team filed in and took their places around the table, Liz, Nick, and Jen on one side, Katherine and Thomas Scarborough on the other. Vito walked to the whiteboard and wrote “Zachary Webber” in the third square on the first row before taking his seat at the head of the table. “That leaves two victims we need to identify.”

  “Not bad, Vito,” Liz said. “I never thought you’d have identified seven of the nine in less than a week. Since you’ve got nearly all the victims ID’d, I reassigned Bev and Tim. I had other caseloads building.”

  “They were a big help,” Nick said. “And we will miss them,” he added mournfully, then perked up. “But since they’re not here, it’s more doughnuts for us.”

  “A man after my own heart.” Jen grinned. Licking her fingers, she slid a sheet of paper toward Vito. “According to the geologists at the USDA, those are the areas in a one-hundred-mile radius where the soil we found in the graves commonly occurs.”

  Vito shook his head at the map. “This doesn’t help. This is hundreds of acres.”

  “Thousands,” Jen said. “Sorry, Vito, it’s the best we can get at this point.”

  “What about the silicone lubricant?” Vito asked, and Jen shrugged.

  “I sent copies of the formula to every mom-’n’-pop shop in the back of that magazine you got from Dr. Pfeiffer. I haven’t heard back from any of them yet. I’ll follow up today.”

  “Katherine?”

  “I sent a request to the Dutton ME for the death certificate on Simon Vartanian. And I’ve started the procedure for exhumation of whoever’s buried in Simon’s tomb.”

  “When will they start digging?” Liz asked.

  “Hopefully sometime this afternoon. Agent Vartanian smoothed the way with a few phone calls last night after they left.”

  Vito looked around the table. “Daniel and Susannah Vartanian. Opinions?”

  “They were genuinely shocked to learn that Simon was still alive,” Thomas said. “But it was curious that they didn’t ask questions about how we’d found their parents.”

  “Maybe they thought we wouldn’t tell them,” Jen said.

  Nick shook his head. “I would have asked. Especially with the news coverage we’ve gotten on this case. It’s no secret that we found a shitload of bodies up there. Even covering the area with a tarp, we’ve had flyovers and aerial shots on the news and Daniel has been in Philly for a few days now. If it’d been me, I would’ve wanted to know if my folks were part of that big graveyard. But the Vartanians didn’t even ask.”

  “I might have asked,” Jen said. “Then again, maybe I wouldn’t want to know.”

  One corner of Liz’s mouth lifted. “We did get some good news. Greg Sanders’s ex-girlfriend showed up last night for his memorial service. She’d been hiding from his creditors. All that damage to her apartment was done by people to whom Greg owed a lot of gambling debts. Mr. Sanders said he’d pay his son’s debts to keep Jill safe.”

  “Cleaning up after Greg even after death,” Vito murmured. “I wonder how much Simon’s father was cleaning up after him versus covering his own ass. What else?”

  “Analysis on the Claire Reynolds letters,” Jen said. “The handwriting expert I talked to said he was ‘reasonably sure’ the same person had signed both letters.”

 
“Oh,” Vito remembered. “We got handwriting samples from oRo-Van Zandt’s and his secretary’s. You can get the expert to compare them to the signatures, too.”

  “Will do. Now, regarding that letter requesting Claire’s records, from a Dr. Gaspar in Texas? There is no such person. The address itself was a veterinarian.”

  Liz tilted her head, puzzled. “Did they receive Claire’s records?”

  “Don’t know, I’ll call today. The lab ran a check on the ink. Same ink on both letters. Of course it’s the same ink that you’d find on a million other pieces of paper across the city, but it is the same brand name, same printer model. It’s something.”

  “Prints?” Vito asked.

  Jen scoffed. “On the resignation letter? Tons. You’ll probably never sort them out. But on the doctor’s letter, only a few sets. Who would have touched it?”

  “Pfeiffer and his receptionist. We’ll get them printed and eliminate their prints.”

  “I’ll run them through as soon as they come in,” Jen said.

  “Did you get Sophie to look at that brand on the Sanders kid’s face?” Nick asked.

  Vito frowned. He’d dropped that ball. “No, things got too crazy that night with her hearing the tape. I’ll ask her today.”

  “Did you run a check on that student who asked her about branding?” Nick asked.

  “What student?” Liz wanted to know.

  Vito’s frowned deepened. “No. With all the oRo commotion yesterday, I didn’t. Sophie said one of her students mentioned branding a few days ago, but she also said he was a paraplegic in a wheelchair.”

  “Give me the guy’s info,” Liz said. “I’ll run a check. You track down Simon.”

  “Thanks, Liz.” Vito focused on organizing his thoughts. “The only people who we know have actually seen Simon other than his victims are oRo employees, specifically Derek Harrington and Jager Van Zandt, and they’re both gone.”

  “And Dr. Pfeiffer,” Katherine said. “If Claire crossed Simon’s path through the orthopedist, then Pfeiffer’s seen him, too.”

  Vito’s smile was sharp. “You’re right. We’ll need a court order for Simon’s medical records. Names we should request? I doubt he signed in as Simon Vartanian.”

  “Frasier Lewis,” Nick counted on his fingers. “Bosch, Munch.”

  “Warhol, Goya, Gacy…” Jen shrugged. “All the paintings the Vartanians said Simon had on his walls and under his bed as a kid.”

  Nick was writing the names down on his notepad. “We also need to find that second blackmailer. If she was involved with Claire, she might know if Claire knew where Simon lived. Maybe Claire followed him home from the doctor’s office one day.”

  “So we look for that newspaper photo,” Vito said.

  There was a knock on the door and Brent Yelton stuck his head in. “Can I come in?”

  Vito waved him in. “Please. What do you have?”

  Brent sat down and set his laptop on the table. “I’ve gone through Kay Crawford’s computer with a fine-tooth comb. She’s the model that Simon didn’t get his hands on. I found the virus he’d planted. It’s what I thought-a time-delayed Trojan that’s activated by an e-mail reply. The drive I was using when I replied to her original e-mail from ‘Bosch’ was wiped this morning, so it’s about a day delay.”

  “Any response to our acceptance of his job offer?” Liz asked.

  “Nope. Nor has there been any activity on her résumé on UCanModels’ site. He seems to have lost interest in her, which is good for her and bad for us.”

  “She’s alive,” Vito said. “That’s more than we can say for the others.”

  “Speaking of the others,” Brent said, “I have something to show you. I got a call from the computer forensics guy that works with those two NYPD detectives.”

  “Carlos and Charles,” Nick said.

  “Carlos and Charles?” Liz laughed. “That’s almost as good as-”

  “Yeah, yeah, Nick and Chick.” Vito rolled his eyes. “We thought of that already. So what did the computer guy tell you?”

  “Not what he told me as much as what he gave me.” Brent turned his laptop around so Vito and the others could see. “Cut scenes they found on CDs in Van Zandt’s desk.”

  Horrified, they watched. “It’s Brittany Bellamy,” Vito murmured as the girl in the scene was dragged to an inquisitional chair. They watched in silence, listened to the girl’s screams until Brent reached forward to cut it off. “It gets a lot worse,” he said, his jaw tight. “Warren Keyes is on the second CD, getting stretched on a rack and then…”

  “Disemboweled,” Katherine said grimly.

  Brent swallowed. “Yes. Bill Melville is on the third CD, but his isn’t a cut scene. It’s game play. The player is the inquisitor and fights Bill, who’s a knight. The action is incredible. The game physics are some of the best I’ve ever seen.”

  “Would the guy who did the game physics,” Vito said, “the one Van Zandt lured away from another company-would he have worked with Simon to produce this?”

  “Not necessarily. The beauty of a game engine is that it’s like this repository of movement. Running, jumping, jabbing-it’s all programmed in, like a framework. The artist decides the character’s attributes, height, weight, and the game engine takes all the movements in its brain and creates the action figure that moves the right way. A light person moves spryly, while a heavier person clomps. The artist will then create a face in another program and import it to the action figure’s form. It’s like building a moving person from the skeleton out. Once the game physics guy designed the engine Simon could have worked independently, especially with his knowledge of computers.”

  “That’s amazing,” Jen murmured, then blinked, embarrassed. “Sorry. I get sidetracked by the techie stuff. So is Bill killed with a flail?”

  “Yes and… yes. In the main version he’s hit and buckles at his knees. Boring. But if you use this…” Brent held up a sheet of paper. It was a copy of a smaller sheet with numbers written on it. “It unlocks an Easter egg. A ‘gift’ from the programmer to the gamer. This Easter egg shows Bill Melville getting the top of his head knocked off.”

  “Just like he was really killed,” Katherine murmured.

  “Let me see that paper,” Nick said and frowned down at it. “This wasn’t written by Van Zandt. If you compare it to the note he left us, the writing is different.” He looked over at Vito. “We could be looking at a genuine copy of a Simon Vartanian original.”

  Vito chuckled. “Jen, have your handwriting guy compare that writing to the signature on the letter, too. It’s numbers versus letters, but maybe he can match something. Good job, Brent. What else?”

  “The church. You know how Simon mentioned a church on the tape? Well, after the fight scene where Bill Melville dies, it goes to a cut scene. You go into a crypt and see two tomb effigies. Woman’s hands folded in prayer, the man holding a sword.”

  “Warren and Brittany,” Vito said. “What then?”

  “Well, you’re in a crypt, which is attached to a church. And from the church you descend to the dungeon.”

  Vito sat up. “You mean he shows the church?”

  Brent winced. “Yes, but no. The church itself is a model of a French abbey, a famous one. Simon doesn’t create, but he does one hell of a copy job.”

  “So is he killing in a church, or were his references on the tape just symbolic?” Vito asked. “Thomas?”

  “I’m betting they’re symbolic,” Thomas said. “Most churches around here wouldn’t have the look he wanted anyway, he’s so stuck on authenticity. And anything that big is going to be in a neighborhood or close to people. People would hear, and he said ‘no one can hear you.’ But, on the off chance I’m wrong, we could check churches that are built in areas on Jen’s USDA soil map.”

  “Okay.” Vito considered. “We have our next steps. Exhume whoever’s buried in Simon’s tomb, just to be sure it’s not him. Get Simon’s records from Dr. Pfeiffer. Find that second
blackmailer. Check out Sophie’s student and the churches on Jen’s map. And find Van Zandt. He was on the turnpike in Pennsylvania yesterday, and according to Charles and Carlos, he hasn’t come back to his place in Manhattan yet. They put an APB on him, including all the airports, in case he tries to skip the country.” Vito looked around the table. “Anything else?”

  “Just that Kay Crawford sends her thanks,” Brent said. “She doesn’t know much about the investigation, but she knows enough to understand she barely escaped from something very bad. She wanted me to tell you all thank you.”

  “And did she thank you?” Liz asked him, mild amusement in her eyes.

  Brent tried to bite back his smile but wasn’t successful. “Not yet. She asked me to dinner and I told her I’d go when this was all over. Hey,” he protested when Nick snickered, “how else would a guy like me get to go out with a hot six-foot-tall blonde?”

  Vito’s smile disappeared. “What?”

  Brent looked around. Everyone was frowning. “She’s a tall blonde. What did I say?”

  “Do you have a picture of her?” Nick asked.

  “Just the one on the UCanModel site.” Brent pulled it up and Vito’s heart stopped.

  “Oh my God,” he whispered.

  “What?” Brent demanded.

  Nick’s face was grim. “She looks like Sophie Johannsen.”

  Jen looked ill. “Now we know why Simon’s lost interest in this model.”

  “Because he’s picked Sophie instead.” Katherine’s voice trembled. “Vito.”

  “I know.” Vito swallowed back his fear. “Liz, we-”

  “I’ll send a uniform to the museum,” Liz said. “Sophie will have 24/7 protection until we have Simon in custody. He won’t touch her, Vito.”

  Shakily, Vito nodded. “Thanks. Let’s go. Stay safe. And let’s find him. Please.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Friday, January 19, 9:30

  A.M.

  Sophie.”

  Sophie looked up from her computer to find an irate Ted the Third standing in her office doorway. “Ted.”