Play dead jbakb-4

by Richard Montanari

  "Do you recognize any of the devices?" Byrne asked. "What I mean by that is, do you know any of them by manufacturer?"

  "I'd have to see the videos a few more times to tell you that. Bear in mind, almost all of the larger stage illusions are manufactured by rather small specialty companies. As you might imagine, there is not a lot of call for them, so they are not mass produced. When you get into smaller devices-devices used for coin, card, and silk magic, the staples of close-up-the demand grows. Stage magic devices are quite often extremely sophisticated, manufactured to highly detailed blueprints and exacting specifications. They are made in relatively small wood and machine shops all over the world."

  "Do any of these smaller manufacturers come to mind?" Byrne asked.

  Lake rattled off four or five names. Tony Park and Hell Rohmer immediately began Internet searches.

  "And the bad news?" Byrne asked.

  "The bad news is that I cannot identify the illusionist. At least not yet."

  "What do you mean?"

  "The world of magic is a vast but tightly knit network, Detective. In a short amount of time I can be in touch with magicians all over the world. There are hundreds of archivists in this network. If this person is or was a performer, someone will know him. In fact, there is a man here in Philadelphia who has one of the largest archives of Philadelphia magic history in the world."

  "Is there a magician working today that has all of these illusions in one act?"

  Lake thought for a few moments. "No one comes to mind. Most of the well-known acts today are either full scale Vegas or television acts- David Blaine, Criss Angel, Lance Burton. On the stage, high-tech is the order of the day."

  "What about the term 'The Seven Wonders?' " Byrne asked. "Have you heard of this?"

  "The Seven Wonders does ring a bell, but I can't place it. If it was an act, it was a small one."

  "So, after seeing these four illusions, are you saying that there is no way you can predict what might be next? What the next three might be?"

  "I'm afraid not. I can make a list of other well-known illusions, but it would be many more than three. It would be in the dozens. Probably more."

  Byrne nodded. "One more thing. He said 'Here's a clue. He flies between Begichev and Geltser.' Do these names mean anything to anyone?"

  Everyone shook their heads, including Arthur Lake.

  "Any idea how to spell those names?" Tony Park asked.

  "No," Byrne said.

  Park began to key in possibilities on the computer.

  "Let me make a few calls, send a few e-mails," Lake said. "I'll get you some answers. Is there somewhere I can do that?"

  "Absolutely," Byrne said. "But are you sure you'll be able to make contact at this hour?"

  Arthur Lake smiled. "Magicians tend to be creatures of the night."

  Byrne nodded, glanced at Hell Rohmer, who shot to his feet.

  "Right this way, sir."

  While Hell Rohmer led Lake to an office, Ike Buchanan stepped forward.

  Wiry and thin, gray-haired, he was now a thirty-five year veteran. He'd been wounded in the late seventies, a working-class kid who had clawed his way up to a command. He had more than once gone to bat for Jessica. She was both happy and saddened that Sgt. Dwight Buchanan was going to retire in less than a month. He could have coasted to the end, but here he was in the midst of battle, as always. He held in his hands an evidence bag. Inside was Monica Renzi's necklace. Jessica wondered if this was Ike Buchanan's Cheerio.

  He stood in front a large blowup map of North Philadelphia, specifically the area known as the Badlands.

  "I want ten detective teams on the street," Buchanan said. He pinned ten pushpins on the map. "The first five teams will be deployed at the four corners of the Badlands-North Broad and Spring Garden, North Broad and Erie, Erie and Front Street, Front Street and Spring Garden, along with a team near Norris Square. The other five teams will ring the center.

  "If this is going down in East Division, I want gold badges at the scene in ninety seconds or less. Sector cars from the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth will be patrolling and monitoring J-Band. Detective Park and Sergeant Rohmer will work the computers. Any request for information should go directly to them. AV Unit will have eyes glued to the cams."

  Buchanan scanned the sea of anxious faces, looking for questions, comments. None came.

  "It looks like there are three girls in jeopardy out there," he said. "They are our responsibility now. Find them. Find this man. Shut him down."

  SIXTY-NINE

  12:46 AM

  The sounds came to her in waves. At first she thought it was Rip. When her dog had been a puppy he got out of his small plaid bed every morning at dawn, parked himself at the foot of her bed, tail in motion, thumping the side of the box spring. If that didn't wake her, he jumped onto her bed and positioned himself, paws out front, right by her ear. He wouldn't bark, wouldn't growl, wouldn't whine, but the sound of his breathing-not to mention the aroma of puppy breath- would eventually wake her up.

  Lilly realized it wasn't Rip. She wasn't home.

  She was in Hell.

  The last thing she remembered was getting in the man's car. He called his wife. Then there was a strong chemical smell, and everything went black. Had they been in an accident? She did a quick inventory of arms and limbs. She wasn't hurt.

  Opening her eyes, the first thing she saw was a bronze chandelier hanging from some sort of plaster medallion on the ceiling. She was in a bed, covered with a white down comforter. The room was dim and hot. It felt like night. She threw off the covers, tried to sit up. Her head felt ready to fall off. She lay back down, and it all came back to her. He had drugged her somehow. She had trusted him, and he had drugged her. She felt the nausea rise in her throat, but battled it back.

  She looked around the room, gauging distances, heights. The two windows were both covered in dark green drapes. There were also two doors. One had locks. The other must be a closet. There was a dresser with a mirror, two nightstands, one lamp. A big painting on the wall. That was it.

  She was about to try sitting up once again when she heard quick- moving footsteps outside the door. She pulled the comforter up to her neck, half-closed her eyes.

  Keys turned in the locks. Moments later, he entered the room, turned on a lamp. It cast the room in a warm ginger glow. Lilly did not stir. She wanted him to think she was still out of it.

  When his back was to her, she risked opening her eyes. She watched him fuss and straighten things-the vase on the dresser, the hem of the down comforter, the pleats of the drapes. He adjusted the painting for what seemed like the dozenth time. She wanted to jump from the bed, claw his fucking eyes out, but she was far too weak to try anything at the moment. She needed a clear head. She needed to think straight. She might only get one shot.

  She kept her breathing slow and steady, her eyes almost completely shut. He stood at the foot of the bed for the longest time, just watching her. It was so quiet she could hear her heartbeat in the down pillow.

  After a few minutes, he checked his appearance in the mirror, opened the door, stepped through, and closed it. Lilly heard a key turn in a lock, then a second key. Footsteps padding down the hall.

  Then, silence.

  SEVENTY

  12:59 AM

  People lined the streets of North Philly. Rain was intermittent, mosquitoes swarmed in dense clouds, music played on car stereos, blunts were cupped and hidden. Those gathered on Broad Street, some with binoculars in hand, would every so often point at the bright red clock face on the City Hall tower. What next, Philly?

  The story had been splashed across all the local television stations, starting with a break-in during the late-night talk shows. Two stations had set up three cameras each, with a live feed to their websites. Every so often there would be a cutaway shot to the red clock on the tower at City Hall. It was like a demented version of New Year's Eve with Dick Clark.

  Jessica was always amazed at how fast th
e media got the down and dirty on things. She wondered how glib and hip these reporters and announcers would be if it were their daughters out there in the hands of a vicious psychopath, just how willing they would be then to play their stupid and dangerous ratings games.

  They drove north on Fifth Street, past Callowhill and Spring Garden, past Fairmount, Poplar, and Girard. Jessica scanned the corners, the faces, the hands.

  Was he among them? Was their killer standing on a street corner, blending into the urban canvas, awaiting the precise moment for his next play? Had he already made his play, and was simply planning his reveal? And if this was the case, how was he going to let them know?

  A representative of the mayor's office, along with the police commissioner, the chief inspector of the homicide unit, and the district attorney herself had met in an emergency session at the Roundhouse, discussing, first and foremost, the advisability of shutting down power to the clock. A technician was standing by at City Hall, waiting for word.

  Until the girls were found, the consensus was to leave the clock alone. If this madman was in North Philadelphia, and he could see the tower, there was no telling what horrors might be triggered if his plan went awry.

  However, there had yet to be any indication that he wanted anything-other than an audience. There had been no demands for ransom, no demands for acquiescence of any kind. Until there was, or until he was identified, there could be no avenue of negotiation.

  This was certainly not about money. It was about a compulsive murderer plying his terrible craft.

  Security at City Hall had been tripled. SWAT had been deployed, the bomb unit was standing by. K-9 officers and their dogs were in the process of walking every square inch of the building. It was a large task. There were more than 700 rooms at City Hall. Traffic was rerouted on both Broad and Market streets. A police helicopter, one of three headquartered at Northeast Philadelphia Airport, was being prepped, manned, and scrambled.

  Initial reports stated that it appeared the intruder had gained access to the clock tower by picking a lock on the access door on the forty-fourth floor. His method of deploying the red face on the clock was a series of red acetate panels connected to a small electric motor, triggered by a wireless transmitter. There was no telling how long the mechanism had been in place, although a longtime City Hall employee-a woman named Antoinette Ruolo-had phoned the police when she saw the news story break, offering a description of a man she said might have stayed behind on one of her tours the previous Friday afternoon. Police artists were in the process of putting together a composite based on her description.

  There was still no word from the FBI's Computer Crimes Task Force.

  They continued North on Fifth Street until they reached Cumberland, where they pulled over. Whereas all of the patrol cars in the PPD were equipped with laptop computers, the detective cars were not. Before leaving the Roundhouse, Jessica ran down to the AV Unit and grabbed their highest-tech laptop. As they began their search of North Philadelphia, she fired up the computer, opening all the programs she thought they might need to use, then minimized them. Thankfully, the battery was fully charged.

  Getting online was another story. Philadelphia did not yet have citywide wi-fi, but there were hotspots all over town.

  Jessica and Byrne got out of the car. Byrne took off his tie and jacket, rolled up his sleeves. Jessica doffed her blazer. A few calls went out over police radio. One was a domestic disturbance in Juniata. Another a possible carjacking on Third. Crime goes on.

  "This is maddening," Jessica said. "This is absolutely fucking maddening."

  Inside the car, Byrne dug around in the backseat, emerging with a large SEPTA map of Philadelphia. He spread it across the hood of the vehicle.

  "Okay. Caitlin O'Riordan was here." He circled the area on North Eighth Street where Caitlin's body had been found. "Monica Renzi." He circled Shiloh Street. "Katja Dovic." Ninth Street. "Elise Beausoleil." Cambria. "What's the relationship between these scenes? Not the killings. But the crime scenes."

  Jessica had been staring at these map locations for days. Nothing clicked. "We need to see this from above," she said.

  "Can we get a wi-fi signal here?"

  Jessica took the laptop out of the car, opened it, launched a web browser. She clicked on a bookmark. It was slow, but it came in. "Yeah," she said. "We're hot."

  Byrne got on the phone to Hell Rohmer. "Can you send us a graphic of the overhead map of North Philly?" "All of North Philly?"

  "No," Byrne said. "Just isolate the areas where the victims were found. I want a good look at all the buildings together." "You got it. Two minutes."

  Byrne clicked off. They watched the streets. They scanned the channels. They paced. They waited.

  SEVENTY-ONE

  1:11 AM

  Swann knew Lilly had been awake. Healways knew. It was a game he had often played himself as a child. His father would have his small conclaves at Faerwood, finding himself in need of a foil or an object of ridicule at two and three and four in the morning. Swann had even studied techniques-mostly of Eastern origin-to slow down one's breath and pulse to further the outward appearance of sleep, coma, or even death.

  He fingered the goatee into place, held it, the smell of the spirit gum drawing him back to his childhood. He recalled a small club near Boston, 1978. The dressing room chair had tape on one leg. There were crumpled McDonald's bags in the corner. His father played to an audience of ten people.

  Swann tied his tie, put on an older raincoat. After all, he could not be glimpsed in North Philadelphia looking like the master of ceremonies at a bizarre gathering of aging conjurers.

  He flipped off the makeup mirror lights. The lights slowly died, as did the memories.

  The van sat waiting for him in the garage. In the back was Patricia Sato, his lovely Odette. She was the girl in the Sub Trunk. He had built it to exacting specs. There was no air inside.

  Moments later, observing all traffic laws, Joseph Swann-also known as the Collector-drove to the Badlands.

  SEVENTY-TWO

  1:19 AM

  They received the file via e-mail. Jessica opened the graphic program on the laptop. Moments later the screen showed a section of North Philadelphia. It was an aerial photograph of a zone that included all the crime scenes.

  What tied these four buildings together? What had made their killer choose these locations?

  They were all abandoned properties. Two numbered streets; two named streets. Earlier, Tony Park had run the street addresses. He had tried a hundred permutations. Nothing had leapt out.

  They looked at the front elevation of the crime scenes. All four were three stories tall; three were brick, one wood. One, the Eighth Street address-where Caitlin O'Riordan had been found-had a corrugated metal roll door. All had boarded up windows on the first floors, all were covered in graffiti. Different graffiti. Three had rusted air conditioners lag-bolted next to the front windows.

  "Ninth Street and Cambria have panel doors," Jessica said. Byrne circled the doors on the digital photographs of the buildings. Two buildings had steps, three had awnings. He circled these, too. Element by architectural element they compared the buildings. None of the structures were exactly alike, none were completely different. Different colors, different materials, different locations, different elevations.

  Jessica looked at the support pole in front of the door on Eighth Street. A support pole. She looked at the other buildings. All three had at one time had support columns in front of the entrance, but now only had sagging, slanted rooms above the entry. It hit her. "Kevin, they're all corner buildings."

  Byrne put four photographs on the hood of the car in front of the laptop. Each crime scene was at least part of a corner building in a block of four or more structures. He compared the photographs to the overhead shot on the LCD screen.

  Pure geometry.

  "Four triangles," Byrne said. "Four buildings that appear to be triangles from above."

  "It's the city,"
Jessica said.

  "It's the city," Byrne echoed. "He's making a tangram puzzle out of the city of Philadelphia."

  SEVENTY-THREE

  1:25 AM

  Lilly had heard the vehicle pull away from the house, but she dared not move. She counted off three minutes. When she heard nothing else she slipped out of bed. Her shoes were neatly arranged at the footboard. She put them on.

  Her legs were a little wobbly, but she soon recovered her balance. She moved to the window, gently pushing aside the velvet curtain. Beyond the iron bars she saw streetlights through the trees, but little else. She wondered what time it was. Outside was pitch-black. It could be 10:00 PM or 4:00 AM. It suddenly occurred to her that, for her whole life, she had always known where she was and what time it was. Not knowing these two simple things was as unsettling as any of part of this predicament.

  Lilly turned, got a better look at the room. It was small, but nicely decorated. Everything looked like an antique. There were two drawers in the nightstand nearest to her. She pulled on the handle of the top drawer, but the drawer didn't move. Must be stuck, she thought. She pulled again, a little harder. Nothing. She tried the drawer below, with the same result. She walked around the bed to the other nightstand. The drawers were all nailed or glued shut. She gently shook the table, but she heard nothing inside.

  It was as if she were in a zoo, or a museum replica of a bedroom. Everything was fake. Nothing was real, nothing worked. Fear wormed its way up from her stomach. Taking a few deep breaths, she tried to calm herself, then stepped up to the door and pounded on it with the heel of her hand. She put her ear to the surface.

  Silence.

  She looked at the bed. It was a single with a polished brass headboard. She lifted the down comforter and sheets. The frame was metal. If she could get the frame apart somehow, she could break the windows and start screaming. She didn't think she was close enough to another house to be heard, but you never knew. Besides, if she could get off one of the slats, she could use it as a weapon. She got down on her knees, felt beneath the bed. It all seemed to be welded together into one solid piece.