Tom Reed Thriller Series

by Rick Mofina

  Reed fell into a deep sleep.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The routine morning shriek of her boiling kettle summoned Belinda Holcomb to her kitchen.

  Wrapped in a pink terry-cloth robe, her hair pulled back and held up with a scissor clamp, she padded barefoot and sleepy-eyed from her bedroom.

  “Coming,” she said to no one.

  It was Saturday. She took her time making her tea this morning, then stepped outside to her apartment’s balcony, enjoying her 25th-floor view of downtown Toronto from the west end near High Park.

  The morning was clear as she looked at the CN Tower, which spiked a quarter mile into the sky dominating the city’s skyscrapers. Sipping her tea, she picked out the big ones including Commerce Court West where she worked.

  Five days a week she rose to begin the daily ritual of fretting over what to wear, of rushing to suit up for the charge to the subway to commence jostling for a seat on the train where people hid behind newspapers, books, or icy masks of indifference. Sometimes she grew weary knowing her tomorrows would be no different from her yesterdays. When she first arrived in the city this never concerned her. She had preferred being on her own after being jilted by the only man she had ever loved. But as one year followed the next, she had begun to desire male company. So several months ago, she had set out to change the direction of her life.

  Today would be her first test.

  Her first date in four years.

  It was a blind date. Sort of. His name was Mark. She was meeting him later this morning for coffee. Can I do this? She peered into her empty teacup, then gazed at the vast green expanse that was High Park. It was set for 11 A.M. at a café on Bloor, a short walk from her building. You could always cancel? No, that would be wrong. Maybe he’s canceled?

  She went inside and sat at her computer, logging on to the chat site where she met Mark, entering her username, citygirl89, and checking her Internet e-mail. Nothing new from him. Likely on his way.

  They’d become on-line friends several months ago. Mark was her favorite. She felt comfortable with him, as if she’d known him all of her life. Like a smitten teen rereading old love letters, she reviewed bits of their earlier exchanges.

  What is the number-one quality you seek in a man? he had asked her.

  A pure soul.

  From that point on, they had just seemed to hit it off, especially when they discussed honesty, loyalty, and forgiveness.

  I am convinced we share something extraordinary.

  BLUSH. Me too.

  My real name is Mark.

  Hi, Mark, I’m Belinda.

  Belinda, would you like to meet?

  Yes, I think I would.

  So it went, up until a few days ago.

  Belinda, looked at her clock. Goodness. Almost time for the date. Before logging off she went to her last message to him. Feeling somewhat sensitive about ensuring against any misunderstandings before they met, she had written a couple of notes to him the other night. Where was that one passage, oh yes here…

  Hey Mark, I’m glad you like my romantic bit about love’s fires allowing me to forgive a man ANYTHING! But we have to be serious. Douse the candles and turn up the lights. I mean there are things that some men do that are beyond forgiveness, believe me I know about that! (Smile).

  No response.

  Belinda logged off, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, and decided to run some errands to keep her mind off the big moment.

  Pushing her shopping cart at her local supermarket, she thought it odd that Mark did not respond to her last note. He had always responded quickly.

  He had told her he lived in Cleveland, was in software sales, traveled constantly, and lived on his computer. Except when airlines barred him from going on-line, he was always on-line, he told her. Strange he had not answered her last dispatch. She shrugged it off. On the way home she felt inspired to pick up a bottle of wine.

  She unpacked her groceries, piled the newspapers on her coffee table in her usual pattern. She loved reading them on the weekend. Today, it looked like nothing but baseball on the front pages from the night game at the Dome.

  In the shower, she went over what she would wear. Casual tan slacks and a mauve top that looked good on her, complimenting her figure. Some makeup, not too much. Some Chanel, not too much. Tiny pearl studs, a fine-chain necklace. It was time. She grabbed her purse.

  The cafe was a twenty-minute walk, on Bloor’s north side facing High Park.

  Belinda walked with a slight limp, the result of a genetic birth disorder. She hated using orthopedic footwear in the summer, often eschewing it for a bout of tolerable discomfort in her back because she really loved walking. She had told Mark about her minor affliction. He was so understanding. Wait until you hear what happened to me.

  Belinda did not regard herself as homely, but knew she was closer to plain than pretty. Walking in her subtly labored manner to the cafe, she was relieved that she and Mark had exchanged pictures. She carried his in her bag. Like her, he was thirty-three, he said. She thought him attractive. Nice smile, chiseled chin. A professional-looking photo done for his corporate newsletter, he said.

  They had agreed to meet from 11 A.M. to noon. To make it easy for him to find her, Belinda said she would be reading a paperback copy of Great Expectations. Arriving at 11:06, she inventoried the cafe and the tables under the umbrellas of the terrace, while gripping the book in her hand. She saw a mixture of families, students, downtown professionals, amid the chink of cutlery, and conversations. There was no one resembling Mark. The hostess led Belinda to a table for two on the terrace facing the park and Bloor Street traffic.

  This was daring.

  Belinda was by and large an insecure woman who was raised on a farm south of Winnipeg at the Minnesota border. She was happy to follow the example of her mother’s life, to marry a farmer and have kids. Remmy had been her high school sweetheart. They had gotten engaged and dated for years. She had worked at the local bank, he had worked his dad’s farm. She had saved herself for him as they saved to get married. Three months before their wedding, she found Remmy having sex with an older married woman from Minneapolis on the bed of his pickup outside a summer fair dance. The violation had destroyed her and virtually all she had believed in.

  Several months later, at Belinda’s insistence, the bank manager lined her up with a job in Toronto. From her window on the bus out of town, Belinda had seen Remmy’s truck pass, then drop back. Eventually it vanished, like her old life.

  Belinda had successfully disappeared in the city, working downtown as assistant to the assistant head of office supplies for a large accounting firm. At home, she devoted herself to her puzzles, painting ceramic pots, making stainless ornaments, reading, and watching old movies. Some time ago, Belinda bought a personal computer and went on-line at home, visiting chat rooms, meeting people, never really taking it too seriously; although she believed it was helping her feel less lonely. Then she had met Mark on-line.

  We share something extraordinary.

  So here I am. Belinda looked at her watch. She felt safe with the privacy and anonymity of meeting people on-line; still she was anxious. This was her first face-to-face and she had taken all the precautions. She never revealed personal information. Agreed to meet in a very public place for a very short time in the morning. A blind date. Actually, after Remmy, this was her only date.

  What was that? Something across the street. The glint of binoculars? Belinda looked deep into the darkened forest of the park. It was like something had been aimed at her for a second. That’s silly. She shrugged. It’s a big busy park. A lot of birdwatchers went there. She looked again and saw nothing.

  By 12:15, still no sign of Mark. Her waiter was beginning to wonder if Belinda was getting hungry. She shook her head, paid for her drinks, and left.

  She went to High Park, struggling with the fact that she had been stood up. He likely walked by, checked me out, thought “too ugly” and kept going.

  Belinda
found comfort in the park, in the cool shade of giant maple and oak forests sheltering the trails meandering along its hills and valleys and gardens. You can handle this. It was just a lark. She made her way along her favorite pathways. The park had been a sprawling country farm until the late 1800s when the architect who owned it arranged to give it to Toronto. One of his wishes was that he and his wife be buried there. How romantic. Belinda studied the swans at Grenadier Pond. True love.

  Mark, you are such a jerk. Belinda blinked quickly, sitting on a bench, staring at her empty hands. Men are all jerks. She stood to leave, turning quickly, locking eyes with a strange man alone on a bench some distance from her. He turned away but Belinda sensed she was being stared at. She surveyed her area. A young couple, pushing their baby in a stroller while another child toddled alongside, a man in dark glasses with a palm-sized video camera was recording the swans gliding on the water, a teenaged boy and girl were sitting on the grass giggling and cooing. Must be my imagination.

  Belinda limped home to her apartment.

  Ascending the elevator, she felt the pang of hunger and remembered she had a fresh container of ice cream in her freezer. Butterscotch. She changed into her jeans and a T-shirt, seized the ice cream, and headed for her balcony. This takes care of lunch. She savored spoon after healing spoon while trying hard not to think about what had just happened to her. Where was he? What had happened? Did he have any idea how hard this could be? How he had hurt her? Jerk. She checked to see if there were any e-mails from him.

  Nothing.

  Swoosh. Thump.

  Belinda held her breath. What was that? The bedroom. Her bedroom. She waited. Sounded like something fell. Okay. Investigate. The bedroom door was open. She took stock of the room. Pictures on the walls. Bed made. Nothing amiss. She had just been in here a short while ago changing. The closet? She looked at her large sliding door. Something fall inside the closet? The clothes she had just hung up? Belinda placed her hand on the closet’s handle, then slid it, triggering something, tall, tumbling at her, “Oh, darn!” Blurring, magazines falling on her head, shoulders, face, from a high shelf. “Ouch!” How the heck did that happen?

  She began collecting them. Must’ve toppled them after changing. Belinda sighed, shaking her head. What a day. She decided while restacking them that she would call her mother back home. Why wait till Sunday night for the usual update? Afterward, maybe she would go out to an early movie. She recalled seeing a notice for a classic that was playing at the old theatre a few blocks west off Bloor.

  Her mother’s phone rang and rang. Belinda guessed that her mother had gone into town for Saturday shopping. The machine clicked on.

  “Hi, Mom. It’s me. Thought I’d try you early today. I’ll call tomorrow. I love you.”

  The movie was Romeo and Juliet, she remembered, turning to the newspapers to check the listing for the time. She reached for the first paper and froze.

  Now that’s strange.

  The Star was on top of the Sun. This is not how she left them. Was it? Belinda was puzzled. Was it? Oh come on now, this is just plain silly. Just forget it and check the movie time. She did.

  There was a 5:45 early showing, which was perfect. No crowds, fewer couples. It gave her time to do some cleaning, a load of laundry, get on with her weekend routine.

  In the laundry room she inhaled the fragrance of fabric softener and detergent, listening to the machines hum, like an ancient choir, trying hard not to feel humiliated, used, struggling not to draw parallels with what Remmy did so many years ago.

  When it was time to go, Belinda put on a sweater set. She walked to the theatre, minding her limp, intending to take a taxi home. Another date with myself. She bought her ticket, popcorn, a drink. It was a small theater. She scanned it. As far as she could see, she practically had the place to herself.

  She found a seat to the right, close to the wall.

  It was the 1968 Franco Zeffirelli classic, made when the lead actors were teens. Belinda adored this version. It was poetry. Its moving score plucked at her heartstrings until she began to weep. As the tears flowed, Belinda knew her sorrow was not for the story but for herself. She had come to sit alone in the dark to mourn her loneliness.

  Belinda did not feel his eyes upon her.

  She never knew her call to her mother would be her last words to her.

  She never knew her final conscious image was that of Juliet taking her life with Romeo’s dagger.

  For the screen light bathing Belinda’s tearstained face illuminated Eugene Vryke’s net of scars as he waited behind her, a snake coiled to strike.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  What the hell is wrong with me?

  Sitting at a red traffic light, Sydowski tossed his cell phone onto his empty passenger seat after another futile attempt to reach Louise.

  Why had he taken out the case -- more precisely, his war with Wyatt -- on her? She was only trying to help him help Reggie. The beep of a horn behind Sydowski told him the light had turned green. He gritted his teeth, dropped his foot on the gas, popping a Tums. Had he pushed away something good in his life?

  What have I done?

  Disgusted with himself, he shook his head at the gorgeous day, the hazy water of the bay, as he headed into the shipyards at Hunter’s Point, where the SFPD had relocated and expanded its crime lab.

  The lead lab technician on Iris Wood’s case had alerted Sydowski less than an hour ago. “Walt, you’d better come over as soon as you can.”

  Inside, Sydowski found him with Turgeon at a vending machine.

  “Hello, Walter,” the tech said.

  “Got some good news, Horace?”

  “I think you’ll like what we’ve learned.” A can of chilled tomato juice clanked to the serving door.” The tech grabbed it. “Let’s go.”

  Horace Meeker was a fifty-two-year old father of six children with eight grandchildren. He was a deacon at his church in San Mateo. He was about five feet nine inches tall, overweight, with thick, unruly silver hair atop the largest human head Sydowski had ever seen. His prescription lenses could pass for the bottoms of shot glasses. His white coat was open, flapping as they walked, while his sneakers squeaked on the floor. Horace had served in executive positions of national criminalists associations, for next to his family and church, his expertise and passion was analyzing trace samples of paint, glass, hair, and fibers. He was good at it.

  The smell of his work area was evocative of a high school chemistry department. The large corkboard above his desk held honors, certificates, the ASCLD seal, snapshots of mostly large-headed children of various ages, and a poster with two words: THINK SMALL

  The world Horace worked in was microscopic, ruled by his scanning electron microscope-energy-dispersion X-ray analyzer, which could find traces of critical evidence that were virtually invisible. He led Walt and Linda to his computer with its oversized monitor and began presenting his case, as if he were preparing for court.

  Firing up and adjusting his machines, then opening his tomato juice, Horace said, “Make yourselves comfortable.” The detectives rolled up swivel chairs next to him.

  “It was a brilliant catch you made at Stern Grove, Walt,” Horace said.

  “The line on the road felt slightly tacky, to me.”

  “The morning before the victim’s car was stopped, the city had just completed applying fresh road-marking paint. White. It worked beautifully, attracting dust and residue for us to get latents. Crime Scene located several clean, hard footwear impressions, photographed, then collected them with a lift kit. We also used an electrostatic lifter. Here’s what we got.”

  Horace displayed a clear, large picture of the sole of a shoe, athletic-type footwear, showing its distinctive pattern and worn areas.”

  Sydowski nodded. “That’s good, Horace. Very good. I was counting on something coming up where he stopped her. But Crime Scene said there was nothing inside the shop. He wore gloves, shoe covers. He was clean, careful.”

  “That�
�s true. They went over everything and the impressions they found were consistent with someone using covers. This guy is very good, Walt.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  “But thanks to your catch on the Grove, we got a break.”

  “A break?”

  “Crime Scene went back on everything, I mean everything. The flooring, tile, and carpet throughout the shop. And we got real lucky. We got a few partial shoe impressions that match our Stern Grove impression.”

  “Jeez, Horace. How?”

  “My guess is that when he was in the shop, he was struggling at a critical moment with the victim. Maybe he lost his balance, tripped? His foot likely brushed against the other, or his ankle, tugging the shoe cover down, exposing him, allowing his shoe to make contact on the ledge of the step up to the display. He appears to have wiped the area but missed this one. Look.”

  Sydowski inched his concentration closer to Horace’s monitor and the image of a partial shoe impression from the heel halfway to the toe.

  “It’s is the only hard surface impression we got from inside the Forever & Ever wedding dress store. Watch.”

  Horace split his computer screen, juxtaposing the shoe impression from the road and the partial shoe impression from the shop, lining up their direction and scale for easy comparison. “I think a court would see we’re talking about the same shoe here.”

  Turgeon took notes while Sydowski nodded slowly. “This is good, Horace,” he said. “It gives us a start.”

  “I said we were lucky. There’s more.” Horace swallowed some tomato juice, then told them how, near the ledge, Crime Scene found one partial imprint of the suspect’s shoe on the carpet.

  “It was deep. I figure he was carrying her part of the way, the extra weight driving his exposed shoe into the carpet. After fiber analysis. I found in the carpet impression flecks of the same white road-marking paint -- chlorinated, rubber based, containing reflective glass beads -- as was used by the city at the scene. Same composition. Same lot. Same pigment, further evidence that the shoe that was at the stop scene was also at the murder scene.”