Play dead jbakb-4

by Richard Montanari

  Park returned to the GothOde page, clicked the link. A small window opened. It was a still photograph of a room with rotting plaster and broken shelves. In the middle of the room, amid the debris, was what looked a like a large package, wrapped in thin green paper. Out of the top came a variety of fresh-cut flowers.

  Through the window beyond the box was visible a vacant lot, partially covered in snow. At the other side of the lot was a mural covering a whole wall, an elaborate rendering that included a man blowing a ribbon of smoke over a city skyline.

  "This is Philly," Jessica said. "I know that mural. I know where this is."

  They all knew where it was. It was across from a corner building near Fifth and Cambria.

  Jessica ran out of the room.

  By the time the other detectives got to the parking lot she was gone.

  Jessica paced in front of the address. The front door was padlocked. Across the street was the mural in the still photograph.

  Byrne, Josh Bontrager, and Dre Curtis approached.

  "Take the door down," Jessica said.

  "Jess," Byrne said. "We should wait. We could-"

  "Take it… the fuck… down!"

  Bontrager looked to Byrne for direction. Byrne nodded. Bontrager went into the trunk of his departmental sedan, came out with an iron pry bar. He handed it to Byrne.

  Byrne took the door off the hinges with the massive lever. Josh Bontrager and Dre Curtis hauled it out of the way. Jessica and Byrne, weapons drawn, entered the space. The area they had seen in the photograph was now piled with more trash. But the view out the barred window was the same.

  Jessica holstered her weapon and stormed across the room. She began pulling trash off the huge pile of debris in the center.

  "Jess," Byrne said.

  She didn't hear him. If she did, she did not acknowledge him. Soon she uncovered the thing she sought, the thing she knew would still be there, the thing that had been placed in this precise spot, waiting for them.

  "It's a crime scene, Jess," Byrne said. "You have to stop."

  She turned to look at him. Her eyes stood with tears. Byrne had never seen her like this.

  "I can't."

  Moments later she had all the trash thrown aside. In front of her lay a body wrapped in green paper, the same kind of green paper used by florists.

  The Garden of Flowers.

  The dead girl was his bouquet.

  Jessica tore open the paper. The scent of dried flora and putrefying flesh was overwhelming. Even in this decayed state it was obvious that the girl's neck had been broken. For a moment, Jessica did not move.

  Then she fell to her knees.

  SIXTY-TWO

  They stood in the punishing heat. Around them buzzed yet another CSU team. Around them stretched another circle of yellow tape.

  "This isn't going to stop until he's done all seven," Jessica said. "There are three more girls out there who are going to die."

  Byrne had no response. Nothing he could say.

  "The Seven Wonders. What the fuck is this all about, Kevin? What's next?"

  "Tony's on it now," Byrne said. "If the answer is out there he'll find it. You know that."

  Until now, all four of these girls had lived in two dimensions. Photographs on paper, a graphic file on a computer screen, myriad details on a police activity log or an FBI sheet. But now they had seen them alive. All four girls had been breathing on those videos. Elise Beausoleil, Caitlin O'Riordan, Monica Renzi, Katja Dovic. All four of them had entered that chamber of horrors and never left. And if that was not enough, this madman had to apply a special brand of indignity by putting them on display, for the whole city to see.

  Jessica had never wanted someone dead so badly in her life. And, God forgive her, she wanted to be the one who pulled the switch.

  "Jessica?"

  She turned. It was JoAnn Johnson, commander of the Auto Squad. The Auto Squad had citywide jurisdiction to locate vehicle chop shops, investigate car-theft rings, and coordinate investigations with the insurance industry. Jessica had worked in the unit, now a part of Major Crimes, for almost three years.

  "Hey, JoAnn." Jessica wiped her eyes. She could just imagine what she looked like. A crazed raccoon, maybe. JoAnn didn't react in the least.

  "Got a minute?"

  Jessica and JoAnn stepped away. JoAnn handed her the preliminary report on the Acura.

  They had towed the car to the police garage at McAllister and Whitaker, just a few blocks from the Twenty-Fourth District station. The order was to hold for prints and processing, so it was held inside. They had identified the owner.

  Jessica stepped back to where Byrne stood, report in hand. "We have a hit on the car's VIN," she said.

  The VIN, or vehicle identification number, was the seventeen- character number used to uniquely identify American vehicles, post- 1980.

  "What do we have?" Byrne asked.

  Jessica looked at the ground, the buildings, the sky. Everywhere but at her partner.

  "What is it, Jess?"

  Jessica finally looked him in the eye. She didn't want to, but she had no choice.

  "The car belonged to Eve Galvez."

  SIXTY-THREE

  They referred to it as the wire. It was flexible, malleable, need not run in a straight line. In fact, it most often did not. It could snake beneath things, coil itself around other things, bury itself beneath a wide variety of surfaces. It was not tangible, but it was felt.

  For all the homicides that had ever been committed, from the moment Cain raised his hand to Abel, there had been a wire. A time, a place, a weapon, a motive, a killer. It wasn't always obvious-indeed, all too often it was never discovered-but it was always there.

  As detectives Jessica Balzano and Kevin Byrne stood in the duty room of the homicide unit, the wire revealed itself. Jessica held one end. She spoke first.

  She spoke of her meeting with Jimmy Valentine. She spoke of her growing obsession with Eve Galvez. Not just Eve's case, but the woman herself. She spoke of visiting Enrique Galvez, and her admittedly insane visit to the Badlands the night before. She spoke of Eve's diary, and her own tears.

  Byrne listened. He did not judge her. He held the other end of the wire.

  "Did you read all the files?" he asked.

  "No."

  "Do you have the flash drive with you?"

  "Yes."

  Moments later Jessica had the drive hooked up to a laptop. She navigated to the folder containing the scanned files. "How many of these have you read?" "Less than half," Jessica said. "I couldn't take much more." "These are all her files?" "Yes." "Open the last two." Jessica clicked on the next to last file.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  JUNE 30, 2008

  They call him Mr. Ludo, though no one can describe him. I've been a detective for years. How is this possible? Is he a ghost? A shadow?

  No. Everyone can be found. Every secret can be discovered. Think of the word "discover." It means to take off the cover. To reveal.

  One girl said she knew a girl who had been to Mr. Ludo's house once and escaped. Someone named Cassandra.

  I am going to meet Cassandra tomorrow.

  The picture is on my wall. She was just another statistic, another cold body, another victim. Killadelphia some call it. I don't believe it. This is my city. This was someone's daughter. She was an innocent.

  Perhaps it is because she was from a small town. Perhaps it is because she wears a lilac backpack. My favorite color.

  She was just a child. Like me. She was me.

  Caitlin O'Riordan.

  I cannot let this rest.

  I will not let this rest.

  SIXTY-FIVE

  Even before they opened the last file, they knew what it was going to be. The file contained the scanned copies of the three missing interviews from the O'Riordan case binder. Eve Galvez had taken Freddy Roarke's notes from the binder, scanned them, kept the file on her flash drive, along with the rest of her life.

  "The case Jimm
y Valentine was talking about," Jessica said. "The case he told me Eve was obsessed with. It was the Caitlin O'Riordan case. Eve stole the notes out of the binder. She was investigating it on her own. She was tracking him. He got to her first."

  Byrne turned twice, fists raised, looking for something to slam, something to break.

  "Eve was a runaway," Jessica said. "She'd lived the life. I guess she saw Caitlin's murder as one too many. She went deep-end on it."

  They'd both seen it before. A detective who had taken a case too personally. They'd both been there themselves.

  They read the missing interviews. Starlight, Govinda, and Daria. All three kids said they had met a man. A man who had tried to bring them back to his house. A man who identified himself by a strange name.

  Mr. Ludo.

  Byrne told his story, his end of the wire. When he was done, he left the room.

  Minutes later he was back upstairs with the strongbox he had taken from Laura Somerville's apartment. In the other hand he had a cordless drill, courtesy of one of the crew working on the renovation on the first floor. In moments he had the box open.

  Inside was a sheaf of papers. Postcards, ticket stubs in at least ten languages, going back fifty years. And photographs.

  They were photographs of a magician on a stage. The man looked like the man in the videos, but thinner, taller. Many of the photographs were yellowed with age. Byrne flipped one over. In a woman's handwriting it read Vienna, 1959. Another photo, this of the man with three large linking steel rings. Detroit, 1961.

  In each photo a beautiful young woman stood next to the man.

  "Behold the lovely Odette," the man on the video had said.

  The photographs in the strongbox made it clear. Odette was his stage assistant.

  Odette was Laura Somerville.

  SIXTY-SIX

  Swann drove to center city. He would not deny that Lilly had stirred him in a way that he had not felt in a long time. He'd had his share of lovers in his time, but they had never been to Faerwood, they had never glimpsed his soul.

  He did not think of Lilly as a potential paramour. Not really. She was Odette. She was his assistant and confederate. One could not go through life without confederates.

  He had been terribly afraid he would never see her again. But he knew that the night children were creatures of habit. He knew there were only so many places where she could blend in, even in a city as large as Philadelphia.

  When she told him her story, and he offered to help her, he knew that she would be his. When he saw her standing on the corner of Eighth and Walnut, he knew it was destiny.

  And now that she was in his car, he began to relax. She would be his finale after all. As they got onto the boulevard, Swann took out his cell phone, hit a speed-dial button, put it to his ear. Earlier he had put the phone on silent, in case he got a call at such a crucial moment as this. He could not have his phone ringing while he was supposed to be talking on it. He reached forward, turned down the music. "Hello, my darling," he said to silence. "Yes… yes. No, I have not forgotten. I will be home in just a few minutes." Swann turned and looked at the girl, rolled his eyes. She smiled.

  "The reason I'm calling is to tell you we have a guest. Yes. A young lady named Lilly." He laughed. "I know. The very same name. Yes, she has a bit of a problem, and I told her we would be most willing to help her solve it."

  He covered the mouthpiece.

  "My wife loves intrigue."

  Lilly smiled.

  Swann clicked off.

  When they turned onto Tenth Street he reached into his coat pocket, and palmed the glass ampoule.

  It would not be long now.

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  At 11:45 PM, the team started assembling in the duty room. In addition to the homicide detectives, a call had gone out to off-duty members of the Five Squad. They also had a call in to a man named Arthur Lake, president of the Philadelphia chapter of the International Brotherhood of Magicians.

  Tony Park had been working the computer for more than four hours.

  "Detectives."

  Jessica and Byrne crossed the room.

  "What's up, Tony?"

  "There's a new video on his GothOde page."

  "Have you run it?"

  "I have not. I was waiting for you."

  They gathered around a computer terminal. Tony Park clicked on the last image. The screen changed to an individual page.

  "This last one was uploaded twenty minutes ago," Park said. "It already has two hundred viewings. This guy has a following."

  "Play it."

  Park turned up the volume, clicked on the video. It was the same man in the other videos, dressed in an identical manner. But this time he was standing on a dark street. Behind him was City Hall.

  "Life is a puzzle, n'est-ce pas?" he began, speaking directly to the camera. "If you are watching this, then you know the game is on.

  "You have seen the first four illusions. There are three to go. Seven Wonders in all."

  On the video, there was a special effect. Three smaller screens appeared below him. On the smaller screens were three teenage girls. All sat in darkened rooms.

  "One illusion at 2:00 AM. One illusion at 4:00 AM. And the grand finale at 6:00 AM. This is going to be spectacular. It will light up the night." The man leaned forward slightly. "Can you solve the puzzle in time? Can you find the maidens? Are you good enough?"

  One by one the small screens went black.

  "Here is a clue," the man said. "He flies between Begichev and Geltser."

  The man then turned and pointed toward City Hall.

  "Watch the clock. The dance begins at midnight."

  He waved a hand, and disappeared. The video ended.

  "What does he mean, watch the clock?" Jessica asked. BYRNE SLAMMED on the brakes as he pulled the car over into the center of the intersection of North Broad and Arch streets, about a block away from city hall. It was approximately the same vantage point as the killer in the last video.

  He and Jessica got out of the car. The flashing dashboard light strobed across the tall buildings. There was nothing out of the ordinary about the clock tower at City Hall. Not at first.

  Then it happened.

  At the stroke of midnight the huge clock face turned bloodred.

  "Oh my God," Jessica said.

  The sky over Philadelphia flashed with lightning. Detective Kevin Byrne looked at his partner, at his watch.

  It was just after midnight. If this monster was telling the truth- and there was absolutely no reason to doubt him-they had less than two hours to save the first girl.

  III

  Dieath Clock

  In the cool of the night time The clocks pick off the points…

  CARL SANDBURG, Interior

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  12:26 AM

  Twenty-two detectives from the Philadelphia Police Department's homicide unit met in the briefing room on the first floor of the Roundhouse. They ranged in age from thirty-one to sixty-three, in experience from just a few months in the unit to more than thirty years. Eight of these detectives had been on duty for more than fourteen hours-including Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano. Six had been called from home. The other ten were already on last-out, but were no longer working cases or leads. Half of this raucous group had to be called in from the street.

  For these twenty-two men and women there was only one case at the moment.

  An unidentified man with four confirmed kills was threatening the lives of three other people; three females who investigators believed to be under the age of eighteen.

  They did not yet have ID on any of the potential victims.

  The whiteboard was divided into seven columns. From left to right: Elise Beausoleil. The Garden of Flowers. Monica Renzi. The Girl Without a Middle. Caitlin O'Riordan. The Drowning Girl. Katja Dovic. The Girl in the Sword Box.

  The next three columns were blank.

  At 12:35 AM Captain Lee Chapman walked into the briefing room. A ma
n stood next to him.

  "This is Mr. Arthur Lake," Chapman said. "He is the president of the Philadelphia chapter of the International Brotherhood of Magicians. He has graciously agreed to help us."

  In his early sixties, Arthur Lake was well-dressed in a tan cotton blazer, dark chocolate slacks, polished loafers. His hair was a little long, a pewter gray. In addition to his duties at the IBM, he was an investment counselor at Wachovia.

  After the introductions were made, Byrne asked, "Have you seen the videos?"

  "I have," Lake said. "I found them most disturbing."

  He would get no argument from anyone in the room.

  "I'll be happy to answer any and all questions you may have," Lake added. "But I need to say something first."

  "By all means, sir."

  Lake took a moment. "My hope is that this… these events do not reflect on my profession, my community, or any of the people within it."

  Byrne knew where the man was going. He understood. "I can assure you: no one in this room thinks that. No one in the department thinks that."

  Lake nodded. He seemed a little more at ease. For the moment.

  "What can you tell us about what you've seen on these videos?" Byrne asked.

  "Two things, really," Lake said. "One I think will help at this moment, the other I'm afraid will not."

  "Good news first."

  "Well, first off, I recognize all four illusions, of course. There's nothing really different or exotic going on here. Blackstone's Garden of Flowers, Houdini's Water Torture Cell, or a variation on it, the Sword Box, the Girl Without a Middle. They've been known by different names, have had many variations over the years, but the effects are very similar. They are performed all over the world. From small cabarets and clubs to the biggest venues in Las Vegas."