STIRRED
Page 5
“Thanks, Duff. I owe you one.”
I hung up, then started up Firefox and logged onto the NCIC. The National Crime Information Center was a database maintained by the Feds. Since jurisdictions were local, a cop in Milwaukee had no way of knowing that the killer he was after had the same MO as one in Boston. But if both precincts filled out NCIC reports and uploaded them to the server, then bad guys who crossed state lines could have their movements tracked.
With Duffy sitting under my desk, drooling on my bare feet, I accessed the NCIC data on Andrew Z. Thomas.
While it printed, I refreshed myself on Luther Kite. As I remembered, there was nothing solid. His sister was abducted at a young age and never found. His parents had been killed several years ago. According to NCIC, he was wanted for questioning or warrants in connection with the following:
November 7, 1996 shooting at Ricki’s Bar in Scottsbluff, Nebraska
October 27, 2003 murder of Worthington Family in Davidson, NC
October 27, 2003 abduction of Beth Lancing in Davidson, NC
October 28, 2003 murder of Daniel Ortega in Wal-Mart, Rocky Mount, NC
October 28, 2003 murder of Karen Prescott on Bodie Island, NC
Undated murders connected to numerous bodies uncovered in the basement of the Kite residence on Ocracoke Island on November 14, 2003
November 11, 2003 or thereabouts murder of Sgt. Barry Mullins and Max King
November 11, 2003 murder of Beth Lancing and Charlie and Margaret Tatum
November 12, 2003 Kinnakeet Ferry Massacre
Plus the arrest warrant for the murder of August 10, 2010, with which I was intimately familiar.
Thomas’s data was even slimmer.
October 30, 1996 murder of Jeanette Thomas, his mother
Disappearance of Walter Lancing in early November, 1996
Heart Surgeon Murders, including boxes left at Ellipse in Washington, DC, and the bodies unearthed on Thomas’s lakefront property on Lake Norman, NC, including schoolteacher Rita Jones
November 7, 1996 shooting at Ricki’s Bar in Scottsbluff, Nebraska
November 12, 2003 Kinnakeet Ferry Massacre
Disappearance of Davidson Police Department Homicide Detective Violet King
Duffy the dog fell asleep on my feet, snoring like a chainsaw. I chewed my lower lip, mulling over the data. The connection between the two was the Ricki’s Bar shooting and the Kinnakeet Massacre. I was about to Google them both when I realized that someone, or many someones, might have already done the work for me.
I surfed over to Wikipedia and looked up Thomas, and as expected, user-aggregated content gave me more information than I could have found on my own in an hour of surfing.
Settling back in my chair, I began to read, learning more than I ever wanted to about the world’s most mysterious mystery writer.
March 31, 12:15 P.M.
“I’ll drive,” Rob Siders said as they walked down the sidewalk away from Lewisohn Hall, toward a white Mercedes van with tinted windows, parked on the curb. “Any favorite spots?”
“There’s a great sushi place a couple miles up on State Street. Why don’t you follow me up there? That’d probably make more sense.”
“No, I’m staying down at the Blackstone. I’ve got to come back down this way anyhow.”
Siders disappeared around the front of the van, but Marquette hesitated for a moment on the sidewalk adjacent to the curb. It was stupid and irrational—he knew this—but there was still this voice in the back of his head asking why an editor from Ancient Publishing was driving around in what he and his wife had always laughingly referred to as “a serial killer ride.” A stark white cargo van, nondescript, and possibly filled with horrors.
Of course, that wasn’t the case, but still, some small part of him felt unnerved at the prospect of getting in.
The driver’s-side door slammed.
The engine roared to life.
Hell with it. Life is about taking chances.
He reached for the front passenger door, tugged it open.
As he climbed up into the seat, a strange smell wafted out of the back of the van—something astringent like Windex or ammonia.
“Buckle up for safety,” Siders said, glancing over at him and smiling.
Marquette pulled the harness across his chest and clicked in the buckle.
Siders shifted into drive, eased out into the street.
Marquette stared through the deeply tinted glass, watching as they passed groups of students lounging in Grant Park.
A typical spring day—wet and chilly. It was the first of April, the grass and the trees just beginning to pop with pale baby greens and yellows. He’d always loved this time of year.
Classes winding down.
The blessed summer just within reach.
“How long has Ancient Publishing been in business?” he asked.
“About two years. Mind if I borrow your cell phone?”
Little weird, but whatever. “Um, sure.”
Marquette dug his HTC Thunderbolt out of his pocket, handed it over.
“Thinking about getting one?” he asked.
“No, I don’t like the Droid operating system. More of an iPhone guy myself.”
Siders’s window hummed down halfway, Marquette watching in astonishment as he tossed the phone outside and then held the button to scroll the window back up into the door.
“Why the hell did you do that?” Marquette said.
Siders’s black eyes remained hidden behind a pair of shades.
He stared straight ahead through the glass and drove on without speaking.
“Stop the car. I want out.”
Marquette reached down to unbuckle his seatbelt and found no button. Just a smooth, square face of metal, inset with what appeared to be a hole for a small-gauge Allen wrench. And the belt remained tight when he tugged on it, no play at all.
He glanced at the door—no handle, no mechanism for lowering the window.
The blast of fear hit him like a freight train.
He turned and looked at Siders.
“What do you want with me?”
“Let’s just say, I love your name.”
The man shot him a quick, smirking glance, and Marquette noticed for the first time the black curtain that separated the two front seats from the rear of the van.
“Curious to know what’s back there?” Siders asked. “Go ahead. Have a look.”
Marquette swept the curtain back as Siders flicked a button in the ceiling.
A dome light illuminated the back of the van under a hard, clinical glare.
Dark windows.
No carpeting.
The ceiling and the sidewalls had been reinforced with black soundproofing foam.
In the center of the white metal floor, he spotted a drain capped with a large, rubber plug.
Along the driver’s-side wall, a tool cabinet had been bolted into the floor, holding shelves of surgical tools—forceps, saws, scalpels, steel retractors, clamps.
He looked back at Siders.
“You’re him, aren’t you? The man who hung that woman off the railroad bridge.”
Siders smiled. “You saw that, huh?”
“That was you?”
“That was all me.”
Marquette squirmed in his seat, attempting to slide out of the lap belt.
“Don’t do that,” Siders warned.
Marquette cocked his left arm back and punched the passenger’s-side window, crying out as his hand bounced off, leaving a blood smear across the glass.
Siders began to laugh.
Through the fear, Marquette managed to blurt, “I can take you to an ATM right now.”
“Yeah? What’s your daily limit?”
“Two thousand. And I won’t tell a soul, I swear to God.”
Marquette knew his knuckles were broken, but he scarcely felt the pain. The overriding sensation was a tightness like a dumbbell sitting on his sternum, turning each breath into a q
uick, shallow gasp that was making him dizzier and more lightheaded by the moment.
“I have a family. A wife…” Tears beginning to sheet over his eyes. “A daughter.”
“Good for you. Will they miss you?”
“Very much.”
Siders gave him a sideways glance. “It’s a good thing to be missed, don’t you think?”
“Please.”
“Don’t you beg me. That’s the only warning you’ll get. And don’t try to hit me.” Siders showed him the pistol in his left hand.
Marquette looked out his window, saw that they were heading south on Lakeshore Drive. A few strands of sunlight had finally broken through the cloud deck, slanting down into the surface of the lake. Subjected to the onslaught of the sun, it didn’t even resemble water. More like a field of shimmering jewels.
They skirted Solider Field.
Traffic was light.
Marquette considered his life. He had family, friends. His feelings for them were pure, but nothing extraordinary. Nothing about his life was extraordinary. He’d spent endless hours at a liberal arts college, teaching uncaring teenagers who needed the credit to graduate, and in his spare time he’d studied the writings of people who had died hundreds of years ago.
Still, it was his life. Marquette had lived it as best as he could. Made some mistakes, had a few regrets, but there were still things he wanted to do. Stand in a castle in Scotland. Swim with dolphins. And though it was cliché, he’d always planned to get around to skydiving someday.
But now, all he wanted was to see his family. One last time.
“Can I call my wife?” His lower lip quivered, the tears starting to come. “Tell her goodbye?”
“No.”
Siders parked near Adler Planetarium and killed the engine. The sun coming through the windshield made it tough to see anything.
“There is some good news here,” Siders said.
“What?”
“All those scary-looking tools you saw back there? That’s postmortem entertainment.”
“What are you talking about?” He was having a hard time following, his thoughts coming at him in fractured streams of fear and sorrow and regret.
“You’re getting off easy is what I’m saying. See this?” Siders held up a cheap-looking paperback book with a garish cover. The title was The Killer and His Weapon. “The girl on the bridge? She became intimately familiar with another book by the same author. Ever read him?”
Marquette squinted at the writer’s name. “Andrew Z. Thomas? No, no I haven’t.”
Siders smiled. “Trust me. This one will really get under your skin. Look here.”
Marquette looked at the man’s other hand, saw he was holding a syringe.
“What’s that?”
“One hundred milliequivalents of potassium chloride. It’s the final stage of state-sponsored lethal injections.”
Marquette looked at the needle. At the clear liquid in the cylindrical tube.
“What does it do?” he asked.
“Stops your heart.”
“How long does it…” He couldn’t get the words out.
“To die? Between two and ten minutes.”
“Does it hurt?”
“I’m not going to lie to you. Having your heart stop hurts. But not nearly as much as what’s behind the black curtain.”
This conversation had gone from surreal to positively insane. “Will…will I be conscious after my heart stops?”
“I don’t know, brother. That’s part of the mystery of what lies beyond, that you’re on the verge of knowing. It’s kind of exciting, actually.”
Marquette looked out over the harbor, the skyline standing indistinct in the haze.
“I’m not ready,” he said.
His heart beating so fast.
“No one’s ever ready,” the man said. “I could’ve done this anywhere, you know. Figured you loved this city. That you’d want to go sitting back, staring at the skyline across the water.”
“I haven’t talked to my daughter in two years. A stupid fight.”
“Most fights are.”
“Do you…have family?”
“Not for a long, long time.”
“I need to apologize to her.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
Marquette turned away from the window.
“I’ll let you call her.”
“You’re serious?”
The man pulled an iPhone out of an inner pocket in his jacket, glanced at it. “Sure, we’ve still got a little time. And a friend of mine once told me that murder shouldn’t be without its little courtesies. What’s her number?”
“Oh, thank you. Thank you.” He had to think for a moment, years since he’d dialed it.
As the man punched it in, he prayed for the first time in ages.
Prayed her number hadn’t changed. Prayed she’d answer.
The man held up the iPhone screen, her number displayed.
“You understand what the purpose of this call is not, correct?”
“Yes.”
“If you try to save yourself, give away our location, anything like that…”
“I understand. Completely.”
The man pressed the green call button and handed him the phone.
“One minute.”
It rang.
Twice.
Three times.
On the fourth, he heard his daughter’s voice, and he had to fight with every atom of his being not to break down.
“Hello?”
“Carly?”
“Dad?”
“Baby.”
Figured she could hear the tears in his voice, but he didn’t care.
“Why are you calling? Is Mom okay?”
“She’s fine.” He turned away from the man who was going to murder him and leaned into the tinted glass. “I’m sorry, Carly. For everything. You are my—”
“Dad, I’m kind of in the middle of something…could I give you a call back in—”
“Listen to me. Please. I was wrong, Carly. So wrong.”
“Have you been drinking?”
“No. No. Carly, you are my princess. You always have been, and I love you beyond words. Do you hear me?”
On the other end of the line…silence.
“Carly?”
“I hear you. Dad, is everything okay?”
“Yes. I just…” He shut his eyes, tears streaming down his face. “I need you to know how I feel about you. How I’ve always felt. Those summers up in Wisconsin with you and your mother on Lake Rooney…best times of my life. I would give all the treasure in the world to go back there for a single day. I’m so proud of you, Carly.”
Now, he could hear her crying.
“Ten seconds,” the man said.
“I have to go now, sweetheart.”
“I want to see you, Dad. I’ll be in Chicago week after next.”
“I’d like that very much. I’m sorry, Carly. I’m so sorry.”
“Dad, are you sure everything’s—”
He felt the phone get snatched away from his ear.
Marquette wiped his eyes, stared for a moment across the harbor.
When he looked back at the man, he said, “I should’ve done that a long time ago.”
“But you did it. There were people in my life, now long since gone, that I can never have a conversation like that with. Count yourself lucky.”
But Marquette didn’t feel lucky. He felt devastated.
“It’s time, Reggie. Roll up the sleeve of your left arm.”
Marquette’s fingers trembled so badly that he fumbled with the button on his cuff for thirty seconds before he got it undone.
“Are you strictly a scholar or is there some real belief behind your work?” the man asked as Marquette slowly rolled up the sleeve of the cream button-down shirt his wife had given him the Christmas before last.