Blood Moon

by Alexandra Sokoloff

  Roarke looked back toward the door of the laundry room. He was having an uneasy feeling that had nothing to do with the adrenaline crash or the thought of what the SAC would have to say.

  “All right, what?” Epps said. “What are you thinking?”

  Roarke spoke reluctantly. “Santos left a stash of porn when he lit out. Not kids. Adult women. Bondage.” In his mind he kept going back to the plain fact that men are excruciatingly specific about their particular sexual fantasies.

  Epps knew it, thought on it. “Doesn’t fit. But it could be a blind. Covering his tracks in case the P.O. does a drop-in.”

  Roarke found himself shaking his head. “The guy sounds too disordered to pull that kind of planning off. In fact, I’m wondering if someone that disordered could have enough control to kill the Leland father like that. So pro that a professional law enforcement team wouldn’t have seen it as a suicide.”

  “The timing fits,” Epps said. “He could have blown town right after his last check-in and done the Lelands. Two weeks until he shows up as officially missing.”

  “The timing fits,” Roarke said, and didn’t like the feeling in his gut. “I hope we’re on to him, but…” he trailed off. “Damn it. I don’t like it.”

  Epps frowned. “Well, DAPO’s on that case. Leaves us free to…” He left the sentence hanging.

  Free to what was the question. Pursue Cara? Let her pursue me?

  “I don’t know,” Roarke said. He pulled himself together. “I appreciate you being on board with it, though.”

  “I wouldn’t say ‘on board,’” Epps said stiffly. “But…” He stopped, stared out into the darkening sky. “If there’s any chance you’re right… we can’t let it go.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The drive back was nightmarish. Thick fog had rolled in from the ocean, waves of it, and the traffic up the 101 had slowed to a crawl.

  “Thanksgiving,” Epps muttered, and Roarke looked at him, startled again at the mention of the holiday.

  “Damn,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Epps said.

  Offices would be closed all over for the next two days. It would slow down any information they were after, when they had no time to lose. On the other hand, he would be on his own, without Reynolds looking over his shoulder… or suspending him outright.

  Back at the office, Roarke left Epps to check back in with Singh while he took the bags of Santos’ belongings to the lab for Lam and Stotlemyre, who providentially were still in.

  “This is a favor,” he told them, and explained he needed them to comb through for hair and other DNA evidence that might be matched to the Leland murders and the Reaper scenes. “It’s asking a lot…”

  Lam and Stotlemyre exchanged a glance. “Since you mention it…” Lam started.

  “Look, we know Reynolds shut the Reno inquiry down…” Stotlemyre continued.

  “But you know how he is.” Lam rolled his eyes toward Stotlemyre. “Once he gets the bit between his teeth.”

  “So we’ve been doing a little work on this, and we think you should see this.”

  Lam grabbed for a file. “It’s all about the voids.”

  Roarke knew he meant the empty places in spilled or spattered blood that indicated that an object or a person had caught the projected blood rather than the surrounding area.

  Lam put down a series of photos, which coldly captured the father slumped in his office chair in a pool of his own blood. “You can see in theses photos: these curtain-like patterns of blood on the wall from the arterial spray, caused by the last contractions of the father’s heart.”

  Roarke face tensed as he looked at the images. It was always unnerving to see how much blood geysered from the human body when a major artery was cut. The sight also made him wonder again how much Cara’s predilection for cutting throats came from experiencing this very crime herself, from seeing her sister murdered in front of her, from feeling the knife in her own throat, all those many years ago.

  He had to force himself to focus back on the present.

  “But here’s the thing that contradicts the other visual evidence. You see this void here in the projected blood?” Stotlemyre was pointing to a close-up, indicating a blank space at the edge of the spray. “It’s subtle, the guy was actually quite careful under the circumstances, but if Leland were sitting here…” The tech took a chair and placed it in front of a lab table, sat down in it. “When you calculate the angle of the spray, it’s hard to explain the void in the spatter.”

  Lam stepped up behind the chair. “Unless someone was standing behind him,” he finished.

  Roarke felt his heart constrict. Behind him Epps said softly, “Someone else killed them.” Roarke turned to see the agent standing in the doorway. He hadn’t even heard him come in.

  Roarke looked back to the techs. “How sure are you about this?”

  The techs exchanged a glance, then Lam spoke for both of them. “Not sure enough. It would help a lot to get confirmation about the blood on the father. We sent the mixed blood samples to Quantico to rush the DNA – did that before Reynolds lowered the boom. But we’re confident about the void.”

  Stotlemyre nodded agreement.

  Roarke took the elevator back down a floor and went straight in to see Singh. Her face was lit by by the desk lamp in her cubicle, her raven hair shimmering around her shoulders. Working late, even on a holiday eve. It occurred to him, not for the first time, that unmarried agents were an anomaly in the Bureau, but he led a team of entirely single people. He supposed that had something to do with him.

  She looked up as he stepped forward. “Chief.”

  “Any more Reaper potentials on that list of yours?” he asked.

  Singh looked surprised, and then thoughtful. “Santos is not the one, then?”

  Roarke looked toward the row of windows behind her, the thick view of fog and muted city lights. “I don’t know. And I don’t want to focus on him exclusively until we know more. We don’t have much time. We can’t afford a wild goose chase.”

  Singh reached for her desk organizer and withdrew a purple file. From her first day on the job she had ignored the standard-issue manila folders and brought her own rainbow of colors into the office, an intricate coded system intelligible only to her.

  “In California this year there were 127,314 adult men released from prison to parole.”

  Roarke was familiar with the stats, but even so, the number seemed out of some dystopian fantasy. He thought of the dank, sour halls of the halfway house. Thousands of those all over the state, not to mention the country. They were looking for a needle in a haystack. He felt a prickle of dread, but forced himself back to what Singh was saying.

  “I’ve screened all inmates arrested and released within our parameters and winnowed it by the other profile characteristics.”

  Roarke felt himself tensing as he waited for the number…

  “I’m afraid there are five hundred and fourteen men on that list.”

  Worse even than he had imagined.

  “Fortunately there are not so many who have spent an entire twenty-five years in prison. I’ve been checking up on them all afternoon and eliminated some by checking with P.O.s and halfway houses, checking curfews and check-ins to establish unofficial alibis. It’s past close of business, and there is the holiday tomorrow, but I will leave messages for all contacts before I leave tonight, and I will check in regularly for responses.”

  “Brilliant, Singh. Thank you.” She looked down modestly, then looked up, and her eyes were troubled. “I have read the profile that you and Agent Snyder have come up with. It seems to me that such a delusion would manifest in demonstrably odd behavior. Someone will have noticed him. We will find him.”

  There was a sudden intensity in her voice that made him pay attention. “Whenever possible I will talk to these parole officers in person. Such evil cannot walk about unnoticed. There will be a sense, I think, of something beyond the norm. I am sure of it — that if one
asks the right questions, the sense of the madness will have left an impression.”

  She was looking at him expectantly, waiting for some kind of answer, and he met her eyes. “I have to think you’re right.” And then he added, “And Singh…”

  She frowned at his tone.

  “We proceed quietly.”

  “Of course,” she said serenely.

  “Have a good…” he didn’t know if Singh even celebrated Thanksgiving, or whom she might celebrate with. “Holiday,” he ended.

  “And you as well,” she told him. And then as he headed for the door, she spoke behind him. “Chief…”

  He turned back to look at her.

  “By profile, Santos is still by far the most likely of any of the men on the list.”

  He stood still in the doorway, and nodded. But it doesn’t feel right, he thought bleakly. I’m not feeling it at all.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  The ocean of fog was even thicker as Epps drove out of the underground parking, the lights atop skyscrapers hovering like UFOs in the mist.

  Epps stared into the fog as he drove. The shadows of cars emerged and disappeared on the street before them. “We need proof. So far this is nothing but a suspicion. It may be a suspicion we all have, but we need something real, damn it.”

  Roarke didn’t have to say anything. There was nothing to do but agree.

  Instead of turning on Market toward Noe Valley, Epps made a right turn onto Seventh. Roarke looked at him.

  “We’re checking in with Mills,” Epps told him. He added ironically, “Need to account for what we did today on our own case.”

  Roarke was silent, chagrined.

  The homicide division was housed in the Hall of Justice, more popularly known as The Hall, or The Hall of Whispers, in reference to San Francisco’s paranoia-inducing city politics. It was a massive granite structure on Bryant Street, just a mile from the Federal Building, connected via underground and above-ground passageways to the County Jail, a modernistic curve of metal and glass with an inexplicable mechanistic sculpture on the lawn outside.

  Across the street was a row of bail bonds offices, with a couple of cafés and a bar interspersed. Epps parked at the end of the row of police vehicles packed two deep at the curb, and the agents walked up a wide set of steps past a motley assortment of loitering characters: cops, criminals, some even scruffier defense attorneys.

  The lobby was salmon pink marble, lit by three huge and vaguely ominous Art Deco globes, and still bustling on the holiday eve.

  “Crime never sleeps,” Epps said under his breath as the agents bypassed the line at the security gates by showing their credentials to a guard at a podium.

  Upstairs in the detectives’ bullpen, the agents walked through the usual chaos of desks and detectives and ringing phones. Mills sat behind a desk as frightfully sloppy as the man himself. He looked up and cowered in mock terror as the agents approached.

  “Oh Lordy, the Apocalypse is surely here. An Assistant Special Agent in Charge and company in my lowly office.”

  Roarke rolled his eyes and took a seat. Epps leaned against a cubicle wall as he spoke. “We’re following up on Jade. Rachel Elliott said she ID’d her for you. Any luck finding her?”

  Mills waggled his hand in a “so-so” gesture. “Good news is we pulled a usable print off the lipstick case. Bad news is she’s not in the system. She’s got no record. Nothing with that name, anyhoo. She was a new fish, no one had caught her yet.”

  Roarke heard Rachel’s voice: There’s something different about her.

  The detective continued. “I’ve got word out to Oakland and Richmond Vice and the Alameda trafficking unit. You boys know how this works. If some other slime got hold of her, chances are she’s already been shipped out to Vegas or San Diego. Portland, maybe.”

  The cities were part of the West Coast prostitution track. The pimps moved the girls regularly to keep them from making friends and allies, and to keep the johns supplied with fresh meat.

  “Because God forbid anyone should have to fuck the same fifteen-year old twice in a week,” Epps said, and Roarke could hear the anger taut in his voice.

  Mills nodded assent. “But I got Elliott to draw the kid’s tats for me and I’m getting the sketch out to the parlors. She spent one hell of a long time with some artist. If I can find the guy or gal, they might know where she’s keeping herself.”

  Roarke and Epps looked at each other. It was a good plan.

  “Any other witnesses?” Epps asked.

  Mills snorted. “Who were conscious in that place, at that time? Good luck with that.”

  “Any other pimps turn up dead?” Roarke queried. He’d meant only as a morbid joke, but then the reality of it hit him. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t considered it before.

  Mills looked at him with a sudden sharp interest. “You think they will?”

  “Could be,” Roarke said, his mouth dry.

  Mills scratched his chin. “M’I supposed to worry about this?”

  Roarke didn’t answer. Epps looked as though he had a lot to say, but remained silent. Mills looked from one agent to the other. “Alrighty, let me rephrase. No actual humans are in danger?”

  Roarke let himself say what he thought. “Not so far.” Epps shifted on his feet, angrily or unhappily, Roarke couldn’t tell. Mills scrubbed a hand over his shiny head.

  “Well, hell, I’ll keep an eye peeled, but I’m not about to go out and warn the fuckers. Fuck ’em. Happy Thanksgiving.”

  The agents stood silently in the metallically gleaming elevator as they rode down to street level. Suddenly Roarke spoke. “Rachel Elliott asked me if Jade is in danger from Cara.”

  Epps looked at him sharply.

  “What do you think?” Roarke asked, and braced himself for the response.

  Epps shook his head. “Man. Doesn’t fit, but… there’s always a first time. It never crossed my mind.”

  “Mine either,” Roarke admitted, and felt relief.

  Epps stood still as the elevator door opened. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  Full dark as Epps dropped Roarke off at his place. Upstairs, Roarke turned the key and opened the door into his flat. As he closed the door behind him in the hall and stepped into the open frame of the living room, he looked automatically toward his two arched front bay windows with their view of the city, hazy pinpricks of light in the fog.

  He stood for a moment, taking it in.

  Then he shrugged out of his suit coat and stripped off his shoulder holster and service weapon, to set them on the end table. His service belt was light, and he stepped to the hall closet and found another set of cuffs to replace the ones he’d put on Santos that afternoon.

  He took a second to turn up the thermostat, then walked through the living room into the in-name-only dining room and tossed his briefcase on the table. Then he upended it, spilling out the files: the Reaper, the Lelands, Santos, Cara… and stood looking down on them.

  He flipped open the file they’d gotten from the P.O. on Santos and spread the contents out: photos, arrest record. He walked around the table, staring down at the paperwork.

  His gut feeling was that Santos was a dead end.

  And we can’t waste time on this.

  The next thought was dangerous.

  There’s a shortcut to all of it.

  He was absolutely sure that Cara could take one look at a photo of Santos and tell him yes or no.

  He turned toward the front windows. He knew Jones – or a backup agent - was out there watching the flat, and he felt a sudden surge of anger about it, like a teenager sentenced to detention. And the thought wouldn’t go away:

  Cara would know. If this guy is the Reaper, she’ll know.

  He stood for a long while. But long before he moved to do it, he knew what he was going to do.

  He picked up Santos’ file from the table, turned on his heel and crossed to the wall to kill the lights in the living room, then headed toward the b
edroom, where he flicked the lights on and dimmed them. He stepped to the windows and stood for a moment looking out in mock contemplation, before he reached up and drew the drapes. But not quite all the way. Instead he left the panels just very slightly parted, enough to give anyone watching from outside a glimpse of movement, but nothing in the least substantial.

  He turned on the T.V. to create the impression of motion, the illusion of himself hunkered down for the night, as clearly evidenced by the flickering light of the screen that would be visible through the crack in the curtains.

  He stripped off his clothes and changed into dark track pants, a dark sweatshirt and dark windbreaker. Standing in the doorway of his closet, he glanced at his bullet-resistant vest, hanging on its hook just inside the door. But it wouldn’t cover his throat, which was the only thing he really had to worry about, so he left it.

  Besides, he didn’t think that Cara would come after him. He never had thought it.

  There remained only his weapon.

  He walked out into the front hall and looked at the equipment on the end table. He pulled out the drawer of the table and removed a conceal-carry belt designed for running, a Thunderwear holster that strapped around his hips and had pockets for his Glock, cuffs, I.D., extra mags — and a lock-picking set. He holstered the weapon and strapped the belt around his waist.

  Then, sending a silent apology toward Jones, he left through the front door and headed out down the back stairs.

  The back stairwell of his building opened into a small enclosed courtyard shared with the building behind. The night was cold, but the misty air on his face felt calming. He moved quietly out into the courtyard, through drifting fog.

  There was a tree with a few stunted apples, a grill, some mismatched tables and chairs, a plot with someone’s attempt at an urban garden, a door to a laundry room. Behind a tall gate was the trash cubicle of the building behind. At the back of the cubicle another gate opened to an alley for trash pickup. Roarke stepped through the first gate, past the trash bins, and tried the inner back door. Locked, of course.