Spider's Web

by Mike Omer

  There were hours where he simply clicked link after link, scanning their posts and their friends’ posts, switching between the four victims constantly. When pizza or coffee came his way, he ate and drank, the taste a faraway thing.

  Then, when he was just about nodding off in front of the screen, his concentration fading away, something snagged his mind. He was looking at Kendele Byers’s Twitter account, examining the handles she followed. There was one named @AtticusHof. He frowned, and then recalled that a week before he’d been calling all the people in Kendele’s contact list on her phone, trying to fish for any clue. She had an Atticus there as well.

  He opened the list of all the calls he’d made. There—Atticus Hoffman. Mitchell remembered him. He was an agent who represented models. He had said Kendele asked him to represent her, and he refused.

  Mitchell reached for Tamay’s phone, which lay on his desk. He opened her contact list and scrolled until he found it. Huffman Modeling. She’d misspelled the agency name. He compared the number to the one he’d called the week before, just to be sure. They matched.

  “Jacob,” he said aloud. “I think I found a suspect.”

  He glanced at the time, exhausted. It was half past midnight.

  Chapter Twelve

  When Atticus Hoffman woke up in the morning, he wished for death.

  This was not something new. He wished for death quite a lot. He wished for death after eating too much, he wished for death when he had a cold, he wished for death when there was a traffic jam. But lately his death wishes were becoming somewhat more sincere.

  This was mostly Dana Hoffman’s fault. She was his wife—or, to be a bit more precise, his fifth wife. Soon to be his fifth ex-wife. She was the reason he was waking up on the floor of his office, in clothes he’d worn the night before, with the acute taste of vomit in his mouth and one of the worst hangovers in his entire life.

  Dana had kicked him out of their apartment two days ago, after she’d found out he was fucking Maribelle. He suspected the real cause for her anger was not that he was fucking someone else, but that he was fucking someone younger. She’d chased him out with a broom and a bread knife, swinging them both like a deranged gladiator. He hadn’t even had time to pack any clothes. When he could finally return home, his clothes would probably be cut to ribbons. It wouldn’t be the first time, either; his second wife, Jessica, had done that when they broke up. And Ingrid, his third wife, had once burned all of his underwear.

  Well, that would teach him not to marry the models he represented. Of course, he hadn’t learned the previous four times, so there was no real reason to assume that this time the lesson would stick.

  He shakily got up and opened his desk drawer. There was an emergency whiskey bottle, just for occasions like this one.

  Ah, it was empty. Worst morning ever. He went back to wishing he was dead.

  Someone was thumping on the door—though, frankly, it felt as if they were thumping on Atticus’s skull. He did the only thing he could think of: he curled into a fetal position and waited for it to stop.

  It didn’t stop. There was yelling as well: “Open up! Police!”

  Had Dana sent them? Had she told them about the cocaine stash he had in his office? Ha! The joke was on her; he’d snorted the entire thing the day before. He stumbled over to the door and flung it open.

  Gah! Bright light! Atticus felt like Gollum as he stumbled back, yelping, the sunlight searing his eyes. It burns! It burnnnnnns! Two men entered the office and closed the door behind them, and the room sank into its previous darkness. Atticus breathed in relief.

  “Whatchuwant?” he asked, trying to focus. These weren’t regular policemen. They wore tasteless cheap suits. One of them, a bald guy with cold blue eyes, flipped open a badge.

  “MY NAME IS DETECTIVE COOPER. THIS IS MY PARTNER, DETECTIVE LONNIE. ARE YOU ATTICUS HOFFMAN?” he said, each syllable squashing Atticus’s brain.

  “Yes,” Atticus whimpered. “Yes. Please, stop shouting.” He opened the drawer in the desk again. Ah, sweet painkillers. Perhaps he should just take two dozen, end this terrible day?

  He took two, swallowing them without water.

  “Mr. Hoffman,” Detective Cooper said, clearly trying to talk a bit more softly. “We’re here to ask you a few questions.”

  “Okay.”

  “Your wife said you would probably be here.”

  “Okay.”

  “She asked us to shoot you if you don’t cooperate.”

  “Okay.”

  “She asked us to shoot you if you do cooperate, as well.”

  “Yeah, that sounds like her,”Atticus said, closing his eyes.

  “Mr. Hoffman, did you represent Tamay Mosely?”

  Atticus frowned, trying to think. “Hang on,” he muttered. He turned on his computer, the glare from the screen driving virtual nails into his eyes. Oh, the suffering. “How do you spell that?” he asked.

  “T… A… M… A… Y…” the younger detective, Lonnie, said. He was beautiful, Atticus realized. He wondered if the detective would be interested in some modeling gigs.

  He typed in Tamay’s name, and her picture appeared. “She came here a few months ago, and I said I’d keep my eyes open,” Atticus said, reading his notes. They said Quite fuckable. Would not open her legs. Suggested nude modeling and she refused. “But I never found a job for her.”

  “How about Kendele Byers?” Cooper asked. “Did you represent her?”

  “She’s the one who died, right? You people asked me about her already,” Atticus said, typing in her name. Kendele’s picture showed up. The notes said Not pretty enough. Suggested nude modeling and she refused. “I couldn’t find anything for her. She wasn’t a good match for modeling.”

  “Why not?” Lonnie asked.

  Atticus shrugged. Because she was too ugly, he wanted to say. “Not everyone fits the profile we’re looking for.”

  “Mr. Hoffman, where were you last night?”

  Atticus cleared his throat. “Here.”

  “By yourself?” Lonnie asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “All night?” The detective pressed.

  “Yeah.”

  “What were you doing?” Lonnie asked.

  Drinking and crying. “Working,” he said. “I had a lot of work.”

  “Mr. Hoffman, Tamay Mosely was hit by a car last night.”

  “That’s terrible,” Atticus said, trying to manufacture the horror he assumed he was expected to feel. “So… uh… young.” He thought for a moment. “And innocent,” he added brightly.

  “Innocent of what?” Cooper asked.

  How the hell was he supposed to know? It was just something you said about people. “Oh, you know. Just generally innocent.”

  “A lot of women you’ve represented have died lately,” Cooper said.

  “I didn’t represent the first one.” Atticus said, starting to feel defensive.

  “She was in your database.”

  “That’s right. I’m the only modeling agent in town. If any girl in Glenmore Park wants to model, she ends up here.”

  “Do you by any chance represent a woman named Aliza Kennedy?”

  Atticus checked. “Nope.”

  “How about Isabella Garcia?”

  “Hang on… No. Who are they?”

  “Some women from Boston.”

  “Then why would I represent them? There are perfectly good modeling agencies in Boston, Detective.”

  “Does anyone else have access to your lists?”

  “My secretary.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “No.”

  “Did you give your lists to anyone?”

  “Absolutely not. If I did, I’d be out of a job. Knowledge is money.”

  “Could your secretary have given them to anyone?”

  “If she had, she’d find herself sleeping with the fishes,” Atticus said. Both detectives stared. “That was a joke,” he explained. “I didn’t really mean it. I would
have fired her. I don’t… I don’t kill secretaries. Or anyone else, for that matter.”

  In retrospect, maybe that hadn’t been a very good joke to tell detectives who were investigating the death of some model wannabes. But the hangover was taking its toll, and Atticus was feeling quite impatient.

  “Mr. Hoffman, would you mind accompanying us to the police station, to answer a few more questions?” Cooper asked.

  “Well,” Atticus said. “That depends.”

  “Depends on what?”

  “Are you arresting me?” he looked at both detectives, trying to gauge their reaction. The Cooper guy, he was cool. No expression whatsoever. His eyes, Atticus thought, were as cold as a supermodel’s cunt. But Detective Lonnie’s face changed, just a bit, and Atticus knew all they had were theories and veiled threats.

  That was fine. He had fled just two days before from a crazy woman with a broom and a knife. He could handle two detectives.

  “No, Mr. Hoffman,” Cooper said. “We just want to ask a few questions.”

  “Well, if you’re not arresting me, you’re free to ask your questions… but do it here, please. And maybe we can wait until my attorney gets here.”

  Detective Cooper sighed heavily.

  That’s right, asshole, Atticus is no pushover.

  “Very well, Mr. Hoffman,” Cooper said. “We just need to have a look through your things.”

  “What?”

  With a short, dismissive flick of his wrist, Cooper tossed a paper on the table. “A search warrant,” he said.

  “What are you looking for?” Atticus asked, picking up the warrant.

  “Some disposable phones,” Cooper said. “Some strands of hair. A wig. Those kinds of things.”

  “I’m calling my lawyer,” Atticus said angrily, reaching for the phone.

  “Please do, Mr. Hoffman. But while we’re waiting, our men will begin executing the warrant,” Cooper said. Detective Lonnie walked to the door and opened it; to Atticus’s horror, four policemen came inside, and began to methodically empty and upturn everything in his office.

  Life, Atticus thought as Lonnie started messing with his computer, was just a big pile of stinking crap.

  He wished he was dead.

  When they got back from Hoffman’s office, Jacob and Mitchell walked straight to Captain Bailey’s office. They hadn’t found anything at Hoffman’s, except for the list of the clients he represented. Mitchell had copied that, along with all the clients’ details. Hannah and Bernard were at Atticus’s house, performing a similar search, but Mitchell had a feeling they wouldn’t find anything either. The killer was incredibly careful, leaving no trace behind. If Atticus was indeed the killer, he wouldn’t have anything incriminating simply lying around.

  Mitchell knocked on the door and opened it without waiting for a response. He was instantly sorry. Both the mayor and the chief of police were inside the office, and they were talking animatedly to Captain Bailey, who sat behind his incredibly cluttered table, looking exhausted.

  “Sorry,” Mitchell quickly said. “We’ll come back.”

  “No, no,” Captain Bailey said, his eyes lighting up. “Come in, Detectives. We could use your input in this discussion.”

  Mitchell was no expert politician, but he knew how to translate the last sentence. What the captain had just said was essentially, Please back me up in whatever I say, and nod when I talk.

  “Mr. Mayor,” Jacob said, nodding at the man. “Chief.” He entered the room in an easy manner and grabbed the only other empty chair. Mitchell was left standing, feeling acutely out of place.

  “Okay,” Jacob said. “What are we talking about?”

  “A press conference,” Captain Bailey said.

  “Ah.”

  “The chief has just informed me that this case has reached the governor’s ears,” Fred Bailey said. “Apparently, our esteemed mayor convinced the governor that the Glenmore Park PD should remain in charge of the investigation.”

  “Really?” Jacob asked, raising an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t the Staties want to take charge?”

  “They might,” the mayor said, his voice firm. “But I can be persuasive. The governor instructed the state police to give us their full cooperation. The chief assured me that Glenmore Park PD is completely capable of handling this case.”

  “I’m sure she did,” Jacob said calmly.

  The chief would love for this case to stay in her department’s hands, Mitchell knew. Assuming they could catch the killer.

  “Anyway, we were discussing—”

  The door banged open again, and a young woman in a gray suit walked into the office. She looked around, and said to Jacob, “You took my chair.”

  “I’m very sorry, Miss,” Jacob said, remaining seated. “Uh… And you are?”

  “Zoe Bentley,” she said. “I’m the forensic psychologist.”

  “Zoe will be working with us on this case,” Captain Bailey said. “She was sent by the FBI. Mitchell, can you get two more chairs, please?”

  Mitchell walked back to the squad room and grabbed two chairs; he rolled them into the captain’s office and sat on one of them. Zoe sat on the other. Mitchell found himself staring at her. She couldn’t have been more than thirty. Her nose was a bit crooked, like an eagle’s beak, but somehow it actually made her face strangely alluring. Her hair was cut at about shoulder-length, in a careless manner, and he could almost imagine her cutting it herself in front of a mirror.

  She had a peculiar expression on her face, as if she truly was an eagle, examining its surroundings alertly, looking for prey. When she looked at him, he almost flinched. He felt as if she could see everything going on inside him. His thoughts, his feelings—hell, even his spleen.

  “Zoe, can you please update Detectives Cooper and Lonnie about your thoughts regarding the killer?” Captain Bailey said.

  She nodded curtly. “Yes. I went over the case files yesterday. There are some clear traits which you’ve probably noticed. The traceless crime scenes, the planning, the ritual of sending the message of the murder weapon—they all indicate high obsessiveness.”

  “Isn’t that typical with serial killers?” Jacob asked.

  “Not necessarily,” she said. “The murder victims are all beautiful young women, and I suspect he enjoys his control over them.”

  “In what way?” Jacob asked.

  “He probably enjoys that he manages to kill his victims despite the fact that they supposedly know how they are about to die half an hour before it actually happens. That’s what the messages are about.”

  “But they don’t actually know it,” Mitchell said. “He masks the messages. They mostly look like someone who sent a message to the wrong number by mistake.”

  “Yes.” She nodded in agreement. “But the victims have the information in their hands. He likes the superiority of the situation. In his eyes, the victims have all the relevant information, and still they walk right into their death.” She cleared her throat and seemed to think for a moment. “I’m worried about the decreased time elapsed between the murders. He seems to be accelerating. Also, he might subconsciously want to be found. He didn’t bother hiding the car used to kill Tamay Mosely. He didn’t really hide the gun he used to kill Aliza Kennedy.”

  “The knife used to kill Isabella was never found,” Mitchell said. “And Kendele’s body was well-hidden, and was found by accident.”

  “It wasn’t really well-hidden,” she answered, quirking her mouth in irritation. “It was buried in a very shallow grave. Again, subconsciously, he might have done that to be caught.”

  She spoke in a tone that people typically used to explain how a toaster works. There was no hesitancy there, no doubt. She was so incredibly sure of herself, and Mitchell found that this grated on him a bit. Criminals were not predictable; serial killers were even less so. That was what made them so damned hard to catch.

  “We need to assess if we’re really dealing with a psychopath,” she said.

  “I’d
say that much was a given,” Mitchell said.

  “It’s very likely. Stalking, the search for control, a low sense of empathy, an issue with women. These are all indicators of psychopathy. If so, he would likely have a history of violence. We would be looking for someone with antisocial tendencies in his everyday life. However, he can clearly plan quite carefully, which indicates high intelligence. It’s possible that he manages to function in society quite successfully just by mimicking the behavior of others.”

  The mayor cleared his throat. “We want to have a press conference,” he said. “We were discussing when and how it should be done.”

  Mitchell glanced at Captain Bailey, who was regarding the mayor and the chief with distaste. Clearly, the captain was not part of the “we” who wanted the press conference.

  “Why a press conference?” Jacob asked. “The killer doesn’t know yet that we’ve connected the dots. We should wait a few more days, try to gather as much information as we possibly can.”

  “People should be alert,” the chief said. “And if the killer sends a woman a text message, we want her to call the police.”

  It was a good point. If alerting the public would save lives, it was best to do it as soon as possible.

  “He isn’t going to strike tomorrow,” Captain Bailey said. “We have a few days. A press conference will make him more careful, push him to hide his tracks better.”

  “As far as I can see, he’s left no tracks,” the mayor said. “I don’t want another citizen to get hurt.”

  “A press conference might make him strike sooner,” Zoe said. “This is a man who likes control. He’d want to show everyone that he’s the one who calls the shots, not the police.”

  “That might make him careless,” Mitchell pointed out. “Perhaps he’ll make a mistake.”

  He could feel the temperature in the room dropping. The captain and Jacob both looked at him angrily. He had broken ranks, betrayed his allies.

  “That’s a good point,” the mayor said warmly. “We’ll break the news to the public this afternoon.”