by Alex P. Berg
“That’s crazy,” said Steele.
“Is it?” I said. “Sketch me a more plausible scenario.”
Shay stammered. “I…I don’t know. I can’t think of one right now. But your theory doesn’t hold water, either. If Frank Gregg is behind this, why would he wait until now to kill these people? His novel is due out to the public in a few days. Surely he got the manuscript back ages ago.”
“Maybe he just now found out who was behind the theft,” I suggested. “Or maybe he waited to kill the thieves for dramatic effect, like in the book. Maybe this goes deeper than we think.”
I stared at the ground and scratched my chin. I probably would’ve worn my jaw to a nub if Rodgers and Quinto hadn’t chosen that moment to pop back in and report to us.
“Whoa, what’s wrong with you two?” said Rodgers as he entered the study. “You look like someone just killed your dog, Daggers.”
“Close enough,” I said. “But there’s no time to explain. What did you guys find out?”
“Well, all the neighbors tell pretty much the same story,” said Quinto. “Our newest victim is Cynthia Gladwell. Just like the other two stiffs, she was a loner. Kept to herself. No one seems to know what she did for a living, but apparently she worked from home. She was around a lot. And we asked about the cloaked mystery man. No one recalls seeing him enter the building, and no one recalls seeing him leave, either. So that’s a dead end.”
“Yeah,” said Steele. “We saw the busted windows and figured it would be.”
“The one thing you’ll find really interesting, though,” said Rodgers, “is that as much time as she spent at her apartment, people do remember her going out in the evenings every now and then. And it wasn’t random nights. It was very regular.”
I perked up. “Like, every two weeks on the dot sort of regular?”
Rodgers nodded. I gave Shay a knowing, raised eyebrow.
“What?” she said. “That doesn’t prove anything. All it proves is Cynthia’s involved with Terrence and Octavio, which is pretty obvious given the circumstances of her death.”
“Look, I wish I wasn’t right about this,” I said, “but sometimes in this business, you just know. And this is one of those times. Come on. We’ll flag down some beat cops to mop this mess up. We need to get moving.”
“Where to?” asked Quinto.
“Chapman Books. We need an address for Frank Gregg.”
30
It wasn’t far from Cynthia’s apartment to the Chapman Books headquarters, but we took rickshaws regardless. The case’s gears had started to lock into place, and it felt as if one good nudge would send the whole mechanism whirring into action. I didn’t want to wait any longer than necessary to initiate that nudge.
With that said, however, there were still some loose parts rattling around the crime scenes that could gum up the machinery. If Frank Gregg was involved in the murders, then why all the bizarre eccentricities regarding the way in which the victims had been murdered? Frosty daggers? Naked bodies? Smashed apartments? Why? And how? I didn’t know Mr. Gregg personally, but from reading his books, I had a fair idea of who he was—a successful, middle-aged man of no particular skill other than his talent for plot development and storytelling. How could someone like that pull off such a string of murders?
I didn’t speak to Shay during the rickshaw ride, but not because I was lost in thought. The fact that the creator of my most beloved work of fiction—a series of novels that had changed my life, nurtured a sense of justice in me, and helped push me along the career path I now held—could possibly be a murderer was shocking to me, and I didn’t shock easily. The green tint to my skin faded ages ago after arresting multiple corrupt politicians and cops in the line of duty.
But Frank Gregg? It’d be a bitter pill to swallow to have to arrest that man, and also a striking bit of situational irony if I, his biggest fan, should end up doing so.
Since I didn’t speak, I spent my time reading. Something about Rex Winters in Double Blind Danger gnawed at me, as if the novel had a greater significance in the murders than even I realized. There were the obvious connections between the written word and real life, the stuff I’d told Steele about in the morning before we’d responded to the latest murder, but it was the still hidden elements of the plot that drew my attention. A grand conspiracy was unfolding, and although Rex understood some of what was transpiring, he didn’t understand why people were being murdered in the fashion they were. Just like me. So I read, to see if the book held clues to the greater mystery of the real life slayings.
I could feel the heat of the book’s big reveal warming my face as the rickshaws pulled up in front of the gothic-styled Chapman Books building. I was close, but I’d have to finish the read on the trip to Gregg’s place.
I barged into the office lobby, my detective compatriots hot on my heels. The same overly made-up secretary we’d met the previous day sat behind the greeting desk, inspecting her fingernails. Her eyes widened as I approached. Apparently I hadn’t made a positive first impression.
I made my purpose immediately evident. With an elevated sonic fury, I demanded to see someone in charge. I asked questions—lots of questions—and I punctuated each one with a weighty slap of the desk. I let my anxiety and frustration pour out through my arm and into my not-unsubstantial fist.
I think I scared the poor secretary. She ran off up the stairs, squeaking incoherently and on the verge of tears.
“That was a little excessive, don’t you think?” said Steele.
I ignored her, instead focusing my attentions on the cardboard cutout of Rex Winters that graced the lobby, a sexy piece of arm candy stuck to him like a fine, young lamprey. The smile that graced his face, the smile that had once lent him an air of elegance and style, now felt smug and self-satisfied. His fedora, tilted at a rakish angle, made him seem like a dastardly jackass instead of a model gumshoe.
I frowned. My rapidly changing perceptions of Frank Gregg were coloring my mental picture of his greatest creation.
How could you do this to me, Rex? You should’ve seen it. You should’ve known. You could’ve stopped him, but you didn’t. You let him get away with murder. Why, Rex?
I reined my psyche back in. I knew a fictional character couldn’t prevent a string of real-life murders. But in a way, if Frank Gregg had been more connected to his own protagonist, put a little more faith and belief in his own characters, perhaps he could’ve been dissuaded from his ultimate path.
The secretary returned, and she’d brought reinforcements: Shannon from HR, a woman in a tan skirt suit, and two uniformed gentlemen who I assumed were security due to their posture, attire, and the little badges upon their chests that read ‘Security.’
The skirt suit-clad woman spoke first. “You’re Detective Daggers, I presume?”
“That’s right,” I said.
“Good,” she said. “I’m Felicia Marsh, vice president of operations. Is there something we can help you with?”
I almost purred. Felicia was such a sexy name. Unfortunately, in this instance it was attached to an utterly unremarkable woman in her middle years. She looked at me in a superficially polite way—a way that said she really thought I inhabited the same rung of the evolutionary ladder as dung beetles and naked mole rats. Apparently, she was still a decade or two shy of being affected by my cougar-attracting pheromones.
“Frank Gregg,” I said. “I need his address, and I know you have it.”
“And why do you need it?” asked Felicia.
“He’s a suspect in a murder investigation,” I said.
Shannon whispered something into the vice president’s ear. She cocked an eyebrow at me. “You mean the investigation into the murder of our janitor, Octavio?”
“Among others, yes,” I said.
“Look, Detective,” Felicia said, “I’m not up to speed on your investigative procedures and methods, but if I may ask—what in the world makes you think award-winning and best-selling author Frank Gregg
murdered our janitor?”
“This is an active investigation, Ms. Marsh, so I’m not at liberty to say,” I responded. “But suffice it to say there’s incriminating evidence that links him to the murders. Now, an address please. If you don’t help me now, I’ll come back later today with a warrant. And I assure you, I’ll make myself an even larger pain in the ass then than I am now.”
“He’s often full of crap,” said Steele, “but he’s telling the truth about that, ma’am. I’d help now if I were you.”
The VP nodded to Shannon, who set off up the stairs as fast as her loafers could carry her.
We all stood in awkward silence, eyeing each other with varying levels of dislike and mistrust.
Shay took it upon herself to break the layer of frost that had started to cover us all. “Ms. Marsh, did you by any chance experience any irregularities with the publication of the latest Rex Winters novel?”
Felicia blinked. “Irregularities? Like what?”
“Anything related to the manuscript obtained from Frank Gregg,” said Steele. “Was it late? Unpolished? Did Mr. Gregg ever share any concerns about it in correspondence?”
“What?” The vice president squished her eyebrows together. “No. Nothing like that. The manuscript was delivered on time and in excellent shape—which is a nice change of pace from how things used to be. There was a time when getting anything out of Frank was like pulling teeth, but he’s been great for a few novels now. Very professional.”
Shay hummed, and I felt the weight of her eyeballs on me.
Shannon came back, a slip of paper in hand. She gave it to me. I gave the publishing team a nod, a perfunctory thanks, and a good view of my backside as I showed myself the door.
31
The bumps of the rickshaw made reading difficult, but I glued my eyes to the page and persevered. The big reveal was nigh. I could feel it. And I needed to understand it before I confronted Frank Gregg with our own evidence.
Rex Winters struggled against the bonds that held him, his arms stretched behind the splintered wooden chair, his wrists tied tightly in a knot even a seasoned sailor would’ve had difficulty replicating. A drop of sweat trickled down his brow and onto the corner of his lips. It tasted of salt and little else. How long had it been since he’d had a drink? How long had he been in the cellar, for that matter? It felt like only a few hours, but he didn’t know how long he’d laid unconscious after the cultists had captured him.
A door squeaked, and Rex lifted his head. In the room’s wan light, he barely noticed a dark shadow enter the cellar across from him. Rex struggled harder, but the bonds didn’t budge. A wave of panic hit him like a slap to the face. Was this it? His final hour?
The shadow stepped forward, and Rex focused his eyes on the figure.
“Mayor Goldberg?” he said.
“Hello, Rex,” said the mayor. A grin spread slowly across his face—a grin that was equal parts victorious and malicious.
Rex’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not the mayor. I knew him. He was a good man. A man who wouldn’t send brain-washed fundamentalists to terrorize innocents and murder the city’s defenders of justice in the dark of night. And he certainly wouldn’t imprison me in this dark, dank cesspit without reason or quarter. Besides, the mayor’s dead. I saw him wash up against the lee of my boat, his body bloated and pale.”
“Now, now, Winters,” said the mayor. “That’s no way to speak to your old pal.”
The grin spread even wider, and the dim light glinted off teeth that seemed a touch too sharp at the tips.
“You monster,” said Rex. “What did you do with him? Who are you? What are you?”
The mayor waggled a finger. “Ahh, Rex, that’s what I like about you. Most people would be pleading for their lives, begging for mercy in a situation like this. But not you. You’re committed to justice, to knowledge, and to truth, all the way to the bitter end. It’s foolish, but it’s commendable. My colleagues told me I should kill you and be done with it, but I felt you deserved a little more. You deserve the truth before you die. Maybe I’m a bit of a fool myself, but it’s not as if showing you the other side of the coin now will help you escape its inevitable flip.”
The mayor leaned in close, to the point where Rex could feel his hot breath on his cheeks, and reached up a hand. Rex flinched as the fingers approached his throat, but instead of grabbing him, the mayor turned the hand upon himself. He dug it into the skin at his throat, separating the flesh from the muscle in a horrifying yet bloodless affair. He pulled and stretched the skin like taffy, pulling it up past his chin, over his nose, and off the top of his skull with a gruesome yank. Rex wanted to look away, yet he forced his eyes on the macabre scene—and what he saw shocked him to his core.
Beneath the mayor’s skin, there wasn’t flesh or blood or bone, but rather a gray, formless mass that undulated and shifted.
Rex gasped. “Skinwalkers!”
A small oval-shaped opening materialized in the gray mass, roughly in the spot Mayor Goldberg’s mouth would’ve been had the mask still been in place.
“Oh, please,” the sound undulated. “That’s such a coarse term. We prefer to refer to ourselves as doppelgangers.”
I looked up from my book. “Doppelgangers! That’s it!”
Shay looked at me from the seat at my side. “What?”
“Remember how I was telling you that in the most recent Rex Winters book there’s a secret society that’s killing off important political figures around the city? But the people being killed were still showing up afterwards? And the murders were strangely reminiscent of the ones we’ve been finding?”
“I have some vague recollection of that,” said Steele. “I think I tried to block it out. What about it?”
“Well, that’s how the secret society was performing the murders and getting away with it. That’s why the murders were being perpetrated in the way they were. Because of doppelgangers! Skinwalkers were taking the victims’ skin and using it to imitate the living.”
Shay raised one of her eyebrows as high as it would go. “And…?”
“And?” I said, incredulous. “This could be the piece we’ve been missing, the clue we need to crack this thing wide open. We’ve been wondering why the murders were committed in the fashion they were. Maybe it’s because of doppelgangers.”
“Daggers…” said Steele.
“Maybe the victims were skinwalkers. Maybe that’s why they were struck with icy daggers. Maybe the reduced temperature solidifies their corporeal self into a form that can be killed. And maybe that’s why they’ve all been struck in the same spot—the heart. Not that a skinwalker has a heart, but maybe it’s significant.”
“Daggers…”
“Or, perhaps the killer is a doppelganger,” I said. “Maybe the temperature of the dagger is important in the transformation process. Perhaps the body needs to be cooled before the skin can be stolen. Not that the skin of any of our victims was missing, but perhaps the doppelganger only needs to interface with the victim before taking on their identity. If so, this could have serious implications. Frank Gregg could be out there right now, dressed up as Terry, or Creepy, or—”
“Daggers!”
Shay placed her hands over mine and pushed on them gently, forcing closed the book I still clutched between my fingers.
It was a simple gesture, one born of concern. It probably meant nothing. We’d touched hands before, after all, during a handshake or while helping one another off the ground. But this felt like something more. Her flesh was warm and soft, her touch gentle, and her hands lingered a moment longer than they should’ve. Her eyes met mine, those deep pools of azure that were fierce, enthralling, and doe-like all at the same time.
“Daggers,” she said again, more softly this time. “I think it’s time to put the book away for a while.”
I felt the well of emotions within me start to bubble again. It was becoming harder and harder to push it back down—and not because my emotions burned so strongl
y, but because my push was so feeble.
That’s when I realized it. I was changing. My desire to suppress the feelings that churned within me was fading. My emotional wall, so solid for so many years, was crumbling—and all it took was the simple touch of a delicate hand.
I sighed and tried to focus. “I know. I’m getting too invested in the book. I can see that. I should probably step away from it for a bit and focus on our case.”
Shay smiled. “Well, yes, there’s that. But we’re also here.”
She was right. The rickshaw had stopped in front of a large, gated estate in the supremely expensive, ultra fancy-pants Brentford neighborhood. Quinto and Rodgers were already dismounting behind us.
“You think you can keep it together while we interview Gregg?” asked Shay.
“Of course I can,” I said. “All that stuff about doppelgangers is already a distant memory. I’ve pushed it from my mind. I’m very talented at forgetting things, you know.”
“Oh, I know,” said Shay. “Your selective memory is impeccable.”
It was true, though. I’d banished Rex Winters and his doppelgangers from my mind, but in their place, I hadn’t filled it with thoughts of Frank Gregg and our current case. Rather, I couldn’t stop thinking about Shay’s soft, tender hands.
32
I told everyone to follow my lead as I pounded on the looming, hand-carved oaken doors that fronted Gregg’s place. Not that I really needed to make that assertion. Rodgers and Quinto had let me lead the way on this one—it was Shay and I’s case after all, and they weren’t as familiar with it as we were—and Steele didn’t want to step on my toes in regards to Gregg. I think she understood how much the Rex Winters series meant to me, even if she did give me guff about it.
