Play dead jbakb-4

by Richard Montanari

  She felt like a blind person. She took a few small steps, feeling the air in front of her. She reached something that felt like a mirror- smooth, cool to the touch.

  And that's when the overhead lights came on.

  Lilly looked up. She was in an enormous room. The high ceiling was gilded, coffered, but covered in cobwebs. Overhead was a huge bronze chandelier missing half its bulbs.

  "Odette."

  Lilly spun around. An old man stood behind her. An ancient man, next to a portable oxygen unit. His skin was gray, stretched over a skeletal skull. He wore an old silken bathrobe, crusted with food, stained with urine.

  In the faint light, Lilly saw the deep red welt around his neck.

  She fainted.

  SEVENTY-EIGHT

  2:20 AM

  Five Detectivesstood on the corner, blank-faced. The sixth detective, Kevin Byrne, paced like a wild animal. There was no consoling him. EMS had arrived at the scene, as had an investigator from the medical examiner's office. The girl was pronounced dead at 2:18. There had been no air in the red lacquer trunk. She had most likely suffocated.

  They had just over ninety minutes to find the next girl.

  Jessica took the laptop out and clicked on the killer's GothOde web page. There were still only four performance videos on the page. The fifth video, the one with the killer in front of City Hall, had been deleted.

  "Anything?" Byrne asked.

  "Nothing yet."

  "We have to think like he does," Bontrager said. "We have to get inside his head. There's one diamond, and one square left."

  "I'm open to suggestions here," Byrne said.

  The homicide division was an investigative unit that ran on interviews, forensic data, time inside an interrogation room. Everything was quantifiable, except the whims of a madman.

  Jessica refreshed the page, over and over again. Finally, there was change.

  "There's another one," she said.

  Everyone crowded around the laptop.

  THE GIRL IN THE SUB TRUNK

  The video opened with the same curtains as the first four videos.

  This time, center stage, was the Chinese red lacquer box covered with gold dragons. The box was on a pedestal. After a few moments the killer stepped into frame. He wore the same cutaway tuxedo, the same goatee, the same monocle. He stood no closer to the camera.

  "Behold the Sub Trunk," he said. He gestured offstage. Moments later a teenage Asian-American girl stepped onto the stage, and then on top of the box. She reached down, picked up a large hoop of silken fabric. She looked terribly frightened. Her hands were shaking. "And behold the lovely Odette," the man said.

  The killer walked offstage. The girl lifted the fabric to just beneath her chin. From off camera a shout could be heard.

  "One, two, three!"

  On three the girl lifted the hoop over her head, then immediately dropped it. It was now the killer standing on the trunk.

  Fade to black.

  There was no doubt in anyone's mind that the girl in the video was the girl they had just found in the box.

  Byrne raised Hell Rohmer on radio. "You watching this?" he asked.

  "I'm watching it."

  "I want hard copies of that girl's face in every sector car in East Division as fast as possible."

  "Yougotit."

  Byrne's phone rang. He belted his handset, answered. It was David Sinclair.

  "I'm going to put you on speaker," Byrne said. He put the cell phone on the hood of the car.

  "I got your e-mail," Sinclair said. "I think I know what's going on here."

  "What is it?"

  "This is a pretty famous tangram. The puzzle is in the shape of a bird. A problem invented by Sang-hsia-k'o."

  Byrne told Sinclair of the most recent crime scene. He left out the gruesome details.

  "Was this anywhere near the other buildings?"

  "Yes," Byrne said. "Another corner building."

  "Is it northwest of the Shiloh Street address?"

  "It is."

  "East of Fifth?"

  "Just."

  "So that makes five triangles."

  "Yes."

  "And this was the largest so far, so I'm thinking it is the central part of the problem."

  Suddenly, the night fell quiet. For a few electrifying moments there was no music, no traffic, no barking dogs, just the sound of a distant barge on the river, just the buzz of the streetlamps overhead. Byrne looked at Jessica. Their eyes met in wordless understanding, and they knew.

  They were on the phone with the killer.

  The man who called himself David Sinclair was Mr. Ludo.

  Jessica walked quickly away, out of earshot. She opened her cell phone, dialed the communications unit. They would begin to triangulate this call.

  The killer spoke first.

  "In the world of magic, do you know what a flash is, Detective Byrne?"

  Byrne remained silent. He let the man continue.

  "A flash is where the audience has seen something it was not supposed to see. I know that I just flashed. You did not give me the address of the latest crime scene, so I could not have known it was the largest. Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about just so you can buy some time to trace this call. If you do, I will kill the next girl now, while you're listening."

  "Okay." Byrne thought of the man sitting across from him at the Magnolia Grill in Chester County. His anger built. He fought it. "What do you want?"

  There was no hesitation. "What does any puzzle master want? To be solved. But only by the best and the brightest. Are you the best and brightest?"

  Byrne had to keep the man talking. "Hardly. I'm just another flat- foot."

  "I doubt that. A flatfoot wound not have seen the Jeremiah Crosley clue and followed it to the Girl Without a Middle."

  Thunder rumbled above. A second later, Byrne heard the thunder on the cell phone. The killer was not in Atlanta. The killer was in North Philadelphia.

  "Did you see the clock tower?"

  "I did," Byrne said. "Nice trick."

  The man drew a short breath. There was a nerve here somewhere. Byrne had found it. The first crack.

  "Trick?"

  "Yeah," Byrne said. "Like that stuff we used to see on the commercials during those late night horror movies. Remember those? The deck of cards that turn into all aces. The multiplying little foam bunnies. 'Tricks anyone can do,' the guy said. 'Magic is easy, once you know the secret.' I bought that cheap plastic wand that turns into a flower. It fell apart."

  There was a long moment of hesitation. Good and bad. Good because Byrne was getting to the man. Bad because he was unpredictable. And he held all the cards.

  "And this is what you think I've done? A trick?"

  Byrne glanced at Jessica. She twirled a finger in the air. Keep him talking.

  "Pretty much."

  "And yet you are there, and I am here. Between us, pretty maids all in a row."

  "You have us there," Byrne said. "No argument."

  "The question is, can you solve the puzzle in time, Detective? Can you save the last two maidens?"

  The man's composure was back.

  "Why don't you just tell me where they are, and you and I can meet somewhere, work this out?" Byrne asked.

  "What, and give up show business?"

  Byrne heard a loud hiss, a crackle in the connection. The storm was moving in. Jessica took out her pad, wrote on it, dropped it on the car. It's a land line. We have him.

  "By the way. You said the puzzle was a bird. What sort of bird?" Byrne asked.

  "The sort that can fly away," the killer said. "Can you hang on for a second? I have to produce a flower."

  The man laughed, and the line went dead.

  SEVENTY-NINE

  2:38 AM

  The address was a small, run-down florist on Frankford. A half dozen sector cars arrived at the same time. Four departmental cars, eight detectives, Jessica and Byrne among them. In less than a minute they flank
ed the stand-alone building. It was dark inside. When Jessica and Byrne went around back, they saw the back door wide open. With plenty of probable cause to enter, they did.

  Soon the small building was clear. No one was inside. The team stood down.

  In a small back room, which doubled as an office and a prep area, was a huge oak desk and an old style desk phone. The receiver was off the hook, lying on its side. Next to the phone, a flower. A white lily.

  The owner of the shop, a man named Ernest Haas, looked like he was going to vibrate to death. Despite the number of ADT stickers on doors and windows-stickers he readily admitted he had color-copied and put on the windows, hoping they looked authentic enough to fool burglars-he had no security system, no cameras. They had rousted him and his wife in their small apartment over the shop. Ernest and Ruth Ann Haas had no idea what was going on just below them.

  The killer had simply picked the lock on the back door and used the phone. There were myriad prints on the receiver and glass doors that led to the cooler containing the lilies. They had been dusted and rushed back to the crime lab.

  Before leaving the Jefferson Street scene Byrne had contacted the communications unit. The phone number "David Sinclair" had given him was a disposable cell phone. Untraceable. Byrne had also given Tony Park the information on Sinclair's publisher. Park was tracking it down now.

  Jessica and Byrne stood on the corner of Frankford and Lehigh. Byrne's cell rang. It was Hell Rohmer.

  "I've been monitoring the GothOde page. There have been another four hundred viewings of the last video. This thing has gone viral. There've also been a few comments, mostly nutcases. What's new, eh? I'm not sure this one guy who posted is any different, but he responded to the 'here's a clue' line." "What was it?"

  "The commenter on the page wrote 'Begichev and Geltser? Swan Lake? This guy rox!' It was signed phillybadbwoi. I looked it up. He was right. Begichev and Geltser collaborated with Tchaikovsky on Swan Lake. And the lead part in the ballet?" "What about it?" Byrne asked. "Her name is Odette."

  At 2:50,Ike Buchanan's car drove up in front of the florist shop. Arthur Lake stepped out. He had a handful of e-mail printouts.

  "I've contacted a number of my colleagues," Lake said. "The man in the video is known by reputation to some of my contemporaries here in Philadelphia. I've only been in the city about five years. I'm afraid I'd never heard of him."

  "What did you learn?"

  "Well, for one, as I suspected, this is someone mimicking the look and style of another man who performed in the fifties and sixties. That magician himself would be much, much older now."

  "Do you know his name?"

  "Not his real name. I have a call in to a man who might know. Onstage he went by the Great Cygne."

  The man pronounced the word seen-yeh.

  "And this older magician was from Philly?" Byrne asked.

  "I believe so, although I could not find any specific information on that."

  Lake handed Byrne a faded color image of a tall, slender man in a cutaway tuxedo. "This is the only photo I could find. It was downloaded from a German website."

  Byrne reached into the car. He took out a pair of photos he found in Laura Somerville's strongbox and compared them to the downloaded photograph. They were identical.

  "Rumor was that the Great Cygne was a little unstable," Lake said. "And that he was pretty much shunned by the community at large."

  "Why is that?"

  "Years ago he invented an illusion called 'The Singing Boy' and sold it to a number of top magicians-claiming exclusivity to each of them-for a great deal of money. When word got out, he was persona non grata in magic circles. No one really saw him after that, I gather."

  "The Great Cygne. Can you spell that for me?" Byrne asked.

  The man did. It hit Byrne like a sledgehammer.

  "If I'm not mistaken," Lake continued, "in French, the word cygne means-"

  "Swan," Byrne said.

  Swan Lake. The puzzle is in the shape of a bird.

  "He's building a swan."

  EIGHTY

  2:55 AM

  Lilly sat in a chair in the candlelit room. The old man stroked her hair, his fingers ice cold. A few moments earlier she had heard something loud-it might have been a slamming door or a backfire- but she dared not ask about it.

  She had never been more frightened in her life.

  When she looked up at the old man, he was staring at her.

  "Who are you?" she asked.

  The man looked at her as if she were crazy. He put his shoulders back, lifted his chin. "I am the Great Cygne."

  "You called me a name before. What was it?"

  "Odette, of course."

  "And what is this place?"

  Another incredulous look. "This is Faerwood."

  "Do you live here?"

  The old man got a faraway look. For a moment it appeared as if he might be falling asleep. Then he told Lilly an incredible story.

  He told her that his real name was Karl Swann, and that he was once a world-renowned magician, student of the masters, mentor to the greats. He told her that many years ago he'd had a mishap during one of his stage illusions, and accidentally hanged himself. He told her that his son, Joseph, had kept him in this room for more than twenty years, but now he was much better, and was ready to perform all over the world again. He told her that this night would be the Great Cygne's greatest triumph, something called the Fire Grotto.

  Lilly tried to digest it all. Twenty years. She looked around. The room was crowded with steamer trunks, wooden crates, broken furniture. At one end was an enormous hospital bed with filthy sheets. On the dressers were stacks of food-littered trays. Everywhere were tattered silks, bent linking rings, rusted cups, torn playing cards. The walls were covered with old posters and yellowed news clippings.

  "Do you remember the time we played Tulsa?" he asked. "Do you remember Harwelden?"

  Lilly shook her head. The man faded in and out. Coherent one moment, gone the next. Earlier she had wandered over to the door, and covertly tried the knob behind her back. It was locked.

  "Do you remember Blackstone?" he asked.

  Lilly looked at the wall. On it was a framed poster of a man, in caricature, with two small devils at his feet, and another on his shoulder. The name BLACKSTONE was emblazoned across the bottom. There was a smaller legend there, too. Lilly quoted it aloud.

  "Blackstone?" she asked. "The greatest necromantic extravaganza on earth?"

  The man seemed to come alive. Color rose in his cheeks.

  "Yes!" he said. "The greatest magician the world has ever known." The old man struggled to his feet. "It is time to prepare for the stage." He held out his fragile hand. Lilly took it, helping him up.

  "What's the Fire Grotto?" Lilly asked.

  He assessed her with his milky eyes. "I'll show you."

  He crossed the room to a small table, pulled out the drawer, slid it back in. Next to the table a wall panel slid up, revealing a number of wooden file cabinets. There had to be twenty in all.

  The old man contemplated the labels for a while, then opened a drawer. He rifled the contents. He soon found an envelope full of photos.

  "Here you are at the fair in Baton Rouge," he said.

  He showed her an old photograph, a picture of a young woman in a scarlet gown standing next to a box with seven swords sticking out of it. A man in a cape and top hat stood to her right. The man was clearly Karl Swann. A fair-haired young boy stood off to the side. He looked to be about five years old. Lilly recognized his eyes. It was her captor's eyes.

  The old man produced a second photograph. "This is Faerwood on the day we moved in. It was earlier this year. Isn't it magnificent?"

  Karl Swann proffered a picture of himself and his young son. In the photograph the old man looked young and strong. His son looked sullen.

  Earlier this year, Lilly thought. He is gone. She turned the photograph to the candlelight, looked at it carefully. It took her breath a
way. It wasn't the expressions of the man and boy, or the way they seemed to be standing in two different worlds, it was the house itself. The tower, the huge porch, the four chimneys rising into the sky like tortured, barren trees.

  Lilly had lived with this image, frozen in her mind, for months.

  It's him, she thought. My God, it's him. His name is Joseph Swann. She had told him everything, and he had kidnapped her and brought her here.

  Lilly steadied herself by putting a hand on the table. She felt nauseated.

  "Behold the Garden of Flowers."

  Lilly looked at the old man. He was still busy with the file cabinet. He hadn't said a word. The sound had come from behind her. Lilly spun around. The television was now on. On the screen she saw seven rectangles. Six different video feeds playing. In the upper left was something called the Garden of Flowers. Next to it was an illusion called the Girl Without a Middle. When Lilly looked at the third video her heart nearly stopped. She knew the girl in the large water tank. She felt lightheaded again. When she looked back at the screen the last video was playing. There was a girl in a bridal gown being led to a big box. The girl in the video was Claire.

  Joseph Swann was a murderer. He was dressing up like his father, and killing girls in a chamber of horrors.

  There was one video left on the screen. It was black. For now. Lilly knew exactly who it was for.

  Karl Swann rummaged through another drawer. He extracted a folder. Inside the folder were pages and pages of drawings and brittle diagrams, scribbled blueprints. He extracted a single page.

  "This," he said, "is the Fire Grotto."

  The drawing was of a large box, a cage made of steel and smoked glass. As Lilly ran her eyes over the drawing, she catalogued every corner, every hinge, every latch. "How does it work?" she asked.

  Five minutes later, when the old man finished telling her how the illusion worked, and of its spectacular, fiery flourish, Lilly knew all she needed to know about the Fire Grotto. She also knew what was going to happen. Joseph Swann aimed to put her in the box, and set it afire. There was no doubt in her mind.