by Steven James
She began to circle the table. “That one’s about a man named Gabriotto who dies of what Boccaccio calls a ‘pus-filled abscess’ bursting near his heart. But remember, this was in the 1300s, so I’m guessing maybe a heart attack; it’s hard to know what Boccaccio might have been referring to.”
“A heart attack?” I shook my head. “Not good.”
“Why’s that?” she asked.
“Given the number of heart attack victims in the Denver metro-plex, it’ll be almost impossible to track. It’s too vague.”
I thought for a moment. “This killer, he’s into spectacle, right? What did you say, Jake?—that he’s a storyteller, that he wants an audience?”
He nodded.
“Then he’d do something more dramatic than just let a man die of a heart attack. Cheyenne, is there anything else in the story he might use? Anything more unusual? More shocking?”
She’d stopped walking and now I noticed her face turning pale. “Before the man dies, he has a dream that a black greyhound attacks him and eats out his heart while it’s still beating in his chest.”
40
A chill.
All three of us were quiet.
For a moment we let the impact of her words settle in, and finally, I asked Cheyenne, “What about the man’s lover?”
She consulted her notes. “She survives. After laying his body on a silk sheet covered with rose petals, she joins a convent. So, I’m not sure that helps us as much. The greyhound connection, though, I think that’s solid.”
I nodded. “So do I. Before we go any further, we need to get some officers on this—greyhound owners, vets, kennels, tracks. Let’s see if anyone’s missing a dog, or if there have been any recent dog attacks. If we’re right, John is going to commit this crime today . . .” Then I paused. I didn’t want to add the next four words, but I felt like I needed to. “Maybe he already has.”
“All right,” Cheyenne said. “I’ll talk with Kurt and Captain Terrell.” She headed for the door.
I offered to join her, but she called over her shoulder, “I’ll be right back. Give me five minutes.”
After Cheyenne left the room, Jake headed for the snack machines at the end of the hall. I took a moment to jot down the names of the victims and the story details from the crimes we knew about so far, then I tugged out my phone, checked my voicemails, found none, but then remembered I’d promised to call Calvin today.
I tried his number.
No answer. I left a message for him to return my call.
The facts of the case kept tumbling through my mind: the dismemberments, the poisonings, the beheadings, the progression of stories one through five, the pot of basil. The timing and progression—
I still hadn’t spoken with Tessa since she’d left with Dora. I speed-dialed her.
“Yeah?” she said.
“It’s me. How are—”
“So, was it in there?”
“What do you mean?”
“The pot. Was it in the pot?”
“You said you didn’t want me to tell you.”
“I know, but I’m just wondering, like, was it or—wait. Don’t tell me, OK?”
“OK,” I said.
“But it was there, though, right? The head?”
“We’re not talking about that.”
“Yeah, no, I know. But—”
“Tessa, enough. Is Dora still there?”
“We’re reading through my mom’s shoe box stuff. It’s pretty cool.” A pause, and then, “It’d be better if I had the diary.”
“We’ll discuss that later. How long is Dora staying?”
“She’s gotta leave in an hour or so, but I think we’re gonna hang out later tonight, I guess. Grab supper. See a movie, something like that.”
“Well, if I don’t see you this afternoon, have fun. And I want you back by midnight.”
Another pause. “Yeah.”
“OK, talk to you soon.”
“So are you gonna give me the diary?”
“Not if you keep asking me about it.”
“That’s not even fair. How am I supposed to make my case if I can’t ever talk about it?”
“Good-bye, Raven.”
Silence.
“I said, ‘good-bye,’” I repeated.
No answer. I waited, and finally I realized she’d hung up.
Great.
I was pocketing my cell when Kurt appeared at the door.
41
His face was drawn tight and traced with a weary sadness. “You OK?” I asked.
He nodded and told me that he was fine, and that he had officers following up on all the leads, but I could tell there was something else weighing on his mind.
“It’s not just the case, is it?” I said.
After an awkward pause he said, “It’s Cheryl . . . but it’s gonna work out. Things are just, you know, a little tense right now.”
Watching his marriage disintegrate had been one of the most painful things for me over the last five months. “Maybe you should take a little time off, work things through,” I said.
He shook off the suggestion. “It’ll be all right.”
“If there’s anything I can do—” But then Cheyenne and Jake stepped into the room, and I thought it best not to elaborate any further.
“Thanks,” Kurt said. “I appreciate it.”
As everyone took their seats, I said, “Before we go on, let’s take a minute to look at what we have so far. Summarize the progression of the crimes.”
I borrowed Jake’s computer, which was still hooked up to the wall monitor, and typed,
Victims:
Monday—Heather Fain and Chris Arlington (found on Thursday)
Tuesday—Unknown. A priest? Still alive?
Wednesday—Tatum Maroukas and Ahmed Mohammed Shokr
Thursday—Sebastian Taylor and Brigitte Marcello Friday— Kelsey Nash (survived) and Travis Nash Saturday—?
We all stared at the list.
“It’s a little overwhelming when you lay it all out like that,” Cheyenne said, mirroring my thoughts.
No one said anything, and I sensed a focused urgency descend on the room.
After taking a few minutes to review the means of death outlined in each of Boccaccio’s stories so far, our eyes fell on Kurt. “Well,” he said, “let me give you the nutshell version: in story seven, two lovers die from rubbing poison—from poisonous toads—against their gums, and in the eighth story two ex-lovers die of grief. The man dies when he realizes the woman he loves is happily married to someone else; the woman, when she attends his funeral.”
He added a few more details but kept his synopsis brief.
Then it was my turn.
“The ninth tale reminded me of a gothic horror story.” I decided to just be blunt. “When Sir Guillaume de Roussillon’s wife sleeps with another man, he kills him, cuts out the man’s heart, and then gives it to the cook to prepare for dinner.”
“Please tell me they don’t actually eat it,” Cheyenne said softly.
I pulled out the copy of The Decameron I’d gotten from the library. “It might be best if I just read this section of the story.”
The lady, who was nowise squeamish, tasted thereof and finding it good, ate it all; which when the knight saw, he said to her, “Wife, how deem you of this dish?”
“In good sooth, my lord,” answered she, “it liketh me, exceedingly.”
Whereupon, “So God be mine aid,” quoth Roussillon; “I do indeed believe it you, nor do I marvel if that please you, dead, which, alive, pleased you more than aught else.”
A deep silence.
“I’m not surprised this pleases you dead,” Jake said, “which pleased you more than anything else, alive. That’s cold. That’s just brutal. How does the story end?”
“The woman kills herself by jumping out a window.”
“Love and tears,” Jake mumbled. “Fits to a tee.”
“What are you thinking?” Kurt asked.
“It’s
John’s obsession,” Jake said, extemporaneously profiling the killer. “All of these stories are about the tragic consequences of love; all cruel, fatal tales of love and loss. That’s what the phrase refers to: must needs we tell of others’ tears? Through his crimes, John is reenacting the lovers’ tears.”
No one said anything. Whether it was true or not, it made sense.
Kurt looked at me. “What about the last story?”
“This might be the only one that’s not filled with tears,” I said. “In fact, when I was reading it, I was thinking that Boccaccio might have added it just to lighten the mood and maybe transition into the next day’s tales. In any case, no one dies in the last story; however, a man is drugged and sealed in a large crate.”
“Buried alive?” Cheyenne asked.
“No, but the way it’s written, you start to think that’s what will happen. But in the end, there’s no tragedy.”
“Just lessons,” Jake mused. “About love and death.”
“That’s right.” As I agreed with him, I wondered whether our killer would be content with that ending. I doubted it. “This gives us plenty of specifics to move on,” I said. “The greyhounds, the poisonous toads, the priest.”
Things were popping.
So many crimes. So many puzzle pieces.
“Kurt,” I said, “let’s get a warrant to look over the library’s records and see who’s been checking out Boccaccio’s books. Also, let’s identify which colleges offer courses on Boccaccio or this Decameron book. Start with DU and CU, and move out from there. Our guy might have studied all this on his own, but we can at least compare class rosters with the suspect list.”
“We’ll go countrywide if we need to,” he said.
“And we still need to find out who owns the mine where we found Heather’s body. It might give us a lead to finding John.”
“Jameson’s on it,” he said with a head shake. “But there are hundreds of abandoned mines up there, and most of Clear Creek County’s records still aren’t computerized. It’s a mess. He’s up in Idaho Springs now, going through the county’s plat books one at a time.”
We were quiet.
“Jameson knows what he’s doing,” he added. “If there’s anything there, he’ll find it.”
Jake rapped the table decisively with his knuckle and stood. “I’ll work on the UNSUB’s psychological profile.”
Cheyenne rose also. “All the stories so far have to do with married couples or love affairs, and the victims have all been couples. Here’s what I’m thinking: our guy is choosing the victims somehow, but there’s no obvious connection between each of the different couples, right?”
“Not that we know of so far,” I said.
“And Jake, what did you say? Fatal tales of love and loss?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, who deals the most with a couple’s love and loss? Knows about their loneliness, their grief, their love interests and affairs?”
“Yes, good,” I said. “A therapist. Or a marriage counselor.”
“Exactly,” she said. “A counselor’s client list would be confidential; in some cases even family members and spouses wouldn’t know the person was seeing him, and it would make it very difficult for us to link the victims.”
It seemed like a good angle to me. “Check it out. It might be too obvious of a connection for this guy, but maybe he’s not as smart as I think he is.” I gathered my things.
“What about you?” Jake asked.
“The geoprofile.” I headed for the hallway. “I’m going to figure out where John lives.”
22 minutes later
4:41 p.m.
Giovanni stared at the dark, tinted windows of Thomas Bennett’s gray ’09 Infiniti FX50 parked on the second level of the 18th Street parking garage. Because of the tinting, he couldn’t see into the car’s interior—either the front or the backseats.
Perfect.
This way he wouldn’t have to wait underneath the vehicle, he could wait inside it.
Even with the Infiniti’s advanced security system, it took Giovanni less than thirty seconds to pick the lock.
And less than three minutes to disable the vehicle’s GPS tracking and satellite mapping capabilities.
He situated himself in the backseat, closed the door, and then took a moment to tilt the rearview mirror so that he’d be able to see Bennett’s face when he climbed into the car.
He laid the two needles he would be using on the seat beside him.
It was a short walk from the Wells Fargo building where Thomas Bennett worked to the parking garage, so Giovanni didn’t think he would have to wait long at all for Mr. Bennett to arrive.
42
4:46 p.m.
I was sitting at my desk in my office on the eighteenth floor of the Byron G. Rogers Federal Building, working on the geoprofile.
And getting more and more frustrated.
Kurt’s team had done a good job of compiling victimology in-formation: the victims’ street addresses, places of employment and recreation, as well as known abduction sites, and the location where each of the bodies had been found. They’d also analyzed credit card usage and, based on the frequency of the victims’ purchases, identified the locations of the gas stations, grocery stores, night clubs, and pharmacies the people preferred to patronize.
Still, the first time I ran the data through my FALCON, the Federal Aerospace Locator and Covert Operation Network, the results were inconclusive. As advanced as FALCON’s algorithms and geospatial mapping programs were, I was only able to narrow down the hot zone to about 22 percent of Denver County. Not exactly pinpoint accuracy.
I was evaluating the possible ways that Denver’s array of one-way roads might be skewing the killer’s perception of the distances between the crime sites when my cell rang. I glanced at the caller ID as I answered.
Assistant Director Margaret Wellington.
Great.
I picked up.
“Margaret, I don’t have a lot of time right now—”
“It’s a sign of respect to address someone by her title.”
My fingers tightened around the phone. “I’m a little busy right now, Assistant Executive Director Margaret Wellington.” I could picture her sitting behind her desk at FBI headquarters: power suit, thin lips, piercing eyes, mousy hair.
“I’m expecting a full report summarizing yesterday’s shooting at the courthouse to be on my desk by eight o’clock Monday morning.”
“That seems reasonable. Now—”
“I’ll also be ordering a full investigation of the incident.”
A waste of time. The Chicago Police Department already had statements from dozens of eyewitnesses. The only investigation that needed to be done was on how Sikora, or his accomplice, had managed to load the gun before it was delivered to the courtroom.
“Thanks for letting me know.”
“Has Jake arrived yet?” she asked curtly.
“Jake arrived this morning.” How to put this. “And he’s already been an invaluable asset to the investigation.” I realized that the words valuable and invaluable are synonyms, just like flammable and inflammable, but it felt better to describe Jake’s contributions as invaluable.
She paused, no doubt trying to read any subtext of my words.
“Do not patronize me, Dr. Bowers. I can make your life miserable.”
Who am I to argue with that?
“Margaret, I have to go.”
“I’m looking forward to you teaching at the Academy this summer.” Derision underscored each of her words. “Just think, we’ll be able to see each other every day for three months.”
“I can hardly imagine what that’ll be like.”
Before she could reply I ended the call and put Margaret and her infatuation with paperwork out of my mind.
I decided to switch strategies on the geoprofile. Maybe if I couldn’t find John’s home base, I could at least narrow down the routes he took to locate and then transport
his victims.
To do that, I reorganized the data and began to study the most likely locations where the victims’ travel patterns might have intersected with the killer’s.
And the minutes ticked by.
Thomas Bennett stepped out of the elevator, and Giovanni lowered himself into the thick shadows of the Infiniti’s backseat to make certain he wouldn’t be seen.
He pulled on his ski mask, unfolded the straight razor, and heard the car beep as Bennett remotely unlocked the doors.
The man climbed into the driver’s seat.
Closed the door.
Slowly, Giovanni sat up and stared at Thomas’s face in the rearview mirror. He was a narrow-jawed man with nervous eyes, and he was so busy fumbling with his keys that he still hadn’t noticed that there was a person watching him in the mirror. Giovanni waited. He wanted Thomas to see that he was not alone in the car.
Finally, as Thomas slid the key into the ignition, his eyes instinctively found the rearview mirror. “What the—”
But before he could finish his sentence, Giovanni had already reached around the headrest and pressed the straight razor’s blade against the front of Bennett’s neck. “Hello, Thomas.”
The man’s lips began to quiver. “Who—”
“This blade really is sharp, so I’m going to have to ask you to sit still and not fidget. If you move too much, it’ll get messy. Trust me. If you understand, nod slowly.”
Giovanni eased the blade slightly away from Thomas’s neck while the man nodded stiffly.
“All right. I’m going to give you a little something to help you relax.”
His eyes were large with fear. “You can have my wallet, I—”
“I’m not interested in your money.” Giovanni held the razor blade firmly against Bennett’s neck again to encourage him to remain stationary. “Now, please, just sit still for a moment.”
Then, watching him carefully in the mirror and holding the blade steady, Giovanni picked up the first needle with his free hand, placed its tip against the left side of Thomas Bennett’s neck—
“No,” Bennett begged. “Please.”
“Shh.”
Depressed the plunger.
And a few seconds later, after Thomas was unconscious, Giovanni climbed out, shifted him to the backseat, and unbuttoned the man’s shirt to reveal his chest.