Blood On The Sun

by Stuart Melvin Kaminsky

  "You'll keep watching?" asked Mac.

  "Would even if you didn't ask," she said.

  "Thank you," he said, carefully putting the picture of the vase back in the envelope and getting up.

  Outside Mac opened his notebook, found the number he needed and punched it in and waited.

  Maybelle Rose said, "Yes?"

  Mac described the vase in the photo he held up in front of him.

  "One black little flower right near the top?"

  "Yes," said Mac.

  "That was Becky's. Mr. Vorhees gave it to her after a business trip to Tokyo last year."

  "Where was it kept in the house?" he asked.

  "Becky's bedroom on the dresser," said Maybelle. "You find Jacob?"

  "Not yet," said Mac, but he thought it would be soon.

  "I pray he's alive," said Maybelle.

  Mac thought the boy was alive. He was close to knowing it with some certainty, but he needed the help of a friend.

  * * *

  Professor of botany Leo Dobrint looked up at Aiden and said, "Do you mind sitting down?"

  They were in Dobrint's small laboratory/office at Columbia University. The room was hot and had a bitter, acidic smell. Given a choice between that smell and the blood and body odors of some of the dead she routinely encountered, a decision would be hard.

  Dobrint, in his sixties, thin, wearing jeans and a heavy wool shirt in apparent defiance of the weather, was sitting in front of a microscope looking at what Aiden had brought him. Dobrint's hair was salt-and-pepper, mostly salt, and he could definitely have used a haircut.

  He was also definitely irritable. She sat in the chair he pointed to a few feet away and went back to the microscope.

  After five minutes or so of adjusting, mumbling to himself, he looked up at her and said, "That is the smallest specimen I've ever been asked or chosen to look at."

  Aiden waited.

  "Yes," he said. "It's bloodwood. It's been treated and preserved. It comes, most likely, from a piece of furniture or from a bloodwood floor."

  "Could you match it to a specific piece of furniture?" Aiden asked.

  "Bloodwood is bloodwood," he said with slight irritation.

  "If you had the piece of furniture," she said, "could you match it to this specimen?"

  "Like a jigsaw puzzle," he said. "Highly unlikely. It's too small."

  "Unlikely but not impossible," said Aiden.

  "That's right," he said.

  "Are you willing to give it a try?" she asked.

  "I'm very- " he began, but Aiden interrupted.

  "Two men were shot and crucified in the last three days. If you can match these pieces…"

  "I can try," he said with a sigh.

  "You'll be paid as an expert consultant."

  "Of course," he said. "My fee will depend on how long it takes and how much trouble I run into."

  "Bill us," she said flatly.

  * * *

  Danny wanted to stay away from the lab but he kept getting ideas, "what if?" ideas. There was a twelve-year-old boy missing. His family had been murdered. An image of the slaughter scene flashed in his mind. He willed it to go away. Mercifully, it did.

  "You all right?" Chad Willingham asked, turning from the pile of clothes spread out on the table in front of him.

  He had run the boy's clothing that had been found in the woods through more tests. They had just come out of the gas chromatograph.

  "Fine," said Danny.

  "Suit yourself," said the lab tech in the white coat. "I believe in minding my own business." He paused and added, "And everyone else's."

  "Lights," he said, putting on a pair of wraparound amber plastic glasses. He handed another pair to Danny.

  Danny moved to the wall and turned off the lights. Chad moved back to the table with Danny behind him and switched on a ceiling-mounted red light.

  "I've come to two conclusions," said Chad seriously. "And I'm about to make a third."

  "What are they?" asked Danny.

  Chad grinned and carefully moved around the clothing, examining the items, smelling them. At one point he put a finger in his mouth to moisten it, touched the pullover shirt and the underwear and smelled his finger.

  "Three conclusions," Danny reminded him.

  "Yes," said Chad, raising his eyebrows and continuing a careful examination of the underwear, T-shirt, jeans, socks and shoes.

  "First," said Chad. "The Who were definitely the best. Beatles, Grateful Dead, Stones, great, but The Who, immortal. I have an uncle who almost went deaf at one of their concerts."

  "Second conclusion?" asked Danny, trying not to show signs of impatience.

  "You've got a tremor in your right hand," Chad said, leaning over the spread-out clothing. "Come take a look."

  Danny moved to the table.

  "What was I…," said Chad. "Tremor."

  "You noticed," said Danny with a touch of irritation.

  "Cop's syndrome number four," said Chad.

  "It has a name and number?" said Danny.

  "I gave it one," said Chad. "Job stress. I've noticed it more lately, started with 9/11. It goes away or it doesn't. You see Sheila Hellyer?"

  "I saw her," Danny said. "What did you want me to look at here?"

  Danny was standing at Chad's side in front of the table.

  "Pants, underwear, socks, shirt," Chad said, pointing at each item. "Latent signs of grass, insect fecal matter, dirt, residue from a joint smoked at least four or five days before you found the evidence. But that's not what's interesting."

  He pointed to the shirt on the table and said, "What do you see?"

  "Bloodstains," said Danny.

  "Anything else?"

  "No," said Danny.

  "You got it," said Chad. "I owe you a Thai dinner when I get my next upgrade. Make it the one after that. These clothes only show signs of dirt where they were dropped."

  "So?" asked Danny, wanting to take off the glasses, get out of the room.

  "So," said Chad. "There should have been something, not much, but something- dirt, leaves, grass, weeds- on the clothes other than where they lay on the ground."

  "I still don't- " Danny began.

  "The shirt shows traces from those woods on the front," said Chad. "The pants show traces only on the back. The underwear shows traces only on the front, and the shoes are the oddest of all. One has scene traces on the bottom. The other shoe shows it on the side."

  Danny cursed himself silently and went to the computer, where he pulled up photos of where they had found Jacob Vorhees' bicycle and clothing. He should have thought of this before.

  "What?" asked Chad over his shoulder.

  Danny went slowly through all twenty-three photographs and then sat back. If Kyle Shelton had undressed the boy or forced him to take his clothes off, why were they all over the scene?

  "They were thrown around to make it look random," said Danny. "Maybe Jacob Vorhees was never in the woods."

  "Way I see it too," said Chad, "but wait, there's more. You know what that is?"

  Chad was pointing at a small, black-plastic-covered box at the edge of the table.

  "STU-100, scent transfer unit," said Danny.

  "Right, almost forgot," said Chad, hitting his forehead with an open palm. "You're a crime scene investigator."

  Inside the portable forensic vacuum was a slot for five-by-nine-inch sterile gauze pads. The airflow system provided a safe method for collecting human scents from small objects, clothing, bodies, windowsills. Human scent particles, gaseous or airborne, could be moved to the pad using the vacuum in much the same way as smell. Breathing creates a vacuum that draws odors into nasal passages, where the smell kicks in.

  "Human scent," said Chad, "has historically been defined as a biological component of decomposing dead skin cells, the skin raft theory."

  "I know," said Danny with exaggerated patience.

  "Current research suggests human body odor is much more complex," said Chad. "Like
Latin."

  "Latin?"

  "Well, it was complex for me," said Chad.

  "The STU," Danny reminded him.

  "Right," said Chad. "Scents collected from expended cartridge casings in drive-by shooting cases have been used to track down the shooter. Collected the scent of Jacob Vorhees from the shoes and the scent of Kyle Shelton from the samples of his clothing you brought from his apartment. No trace of the boy's scent on the clothes. But," said Chad, holding up a finger, "they had been touched. The only human scent on the shorts, shirt and jeans was Kyle Shelton's."

  "Shelton wore the boy's clothes?" asked Danny.

  "How could he…," Chad began. "You're kidding me."

  "I'm kidding you," said Danny. "Shelton handled the boy's clothes."

  "A conundrum that echoes through the history of life's vagaries," said Chad.

  Danny nodded. Chad wanted to say more but saw that he did not have an attentive audience.

  "I'll run your samples through the gas chromatograph," said Chad.

  Danny nodded and headed for the door as Chad said, "You like Barenaked Ladies?"

  "Who doesn't?" said Danny.

  "Sexist," said Chad.

  "I'll live with it," said Danny.

  Chad noticed that Danny's hand was no longer trembling. Danny wouldn't notice for another ten minutes, after he had called Mac to tell him about the clean clothes and the scent of Shelton but not the boy on them.

  "Fits," said Mac.

  Danny wasn't sure how, not until Mac explained.

  * * *

  Stella entered her apartment. It was still relatively early in the day, but she knew she needed at least a few hours' sleep. It wasn't just her allergies. She had been working long days and knew that if she got too tired she might well miss something. It had happened to her before. Mac had on more than one occasion ordered her to get some rest. She had learned less from her trust in his judgment than from her experience when she didn't get at least a minimum of sleep.

  She kicked off her shoes and left them by the door. Her plan was to drink some bottled water, eat a banana yogurt and a slice of toast, and get out of her clothes.

  She hadn't finished locking her door when she sensed that something was different. It wasn't ESP. Stella knew that even a minimal human or animal scent would be registered by the brain. So too with the flow of air if furniture had been moved. Or a slight move of an object- furniture, a vase of flowers, one of the paintings on her walls. She considered taking her gun out of her holster. What was the line from that old Night Stalker episode? "If you don't look up, maybe it's not there." Stella turned into the room and looked up.

  The list of people who might be seeking revenge for having been caught by her over the years was long. Then again, it could be a burglar or even the building superintendent, who had been told not to enter her apartment without her permission.

  Her paintings, paintings she loved and had picked up over the years in Europe, seemed to be in place. They were not without value, but they probably were not worth more than a few thousand each. She had never had them appraised. They were not an investment.

  She moved cautiously to her kitchen, everything in place, cabinet doors closed. Nothing in the refrigerator- not that there was much there- seemed to have been touched. The clothes in her bedroom closet and her drawers did not seem to have been moved and her bed was well and tightly made as she had learned to do in the orphanage. Then she moved to the bathroom. She thought there was a trace of a scuff mark on the tile floor but she couldn't be sure. She got her kit and carefully took a sample of the material from the scuff mark.

  Paranoia, she decided when she was sure she was the only one in the apartment. I'm tired, paranoid and allergic to much that exists in the world. She sneezed and moved to the medicine cabinet in the small bathroom. She definitely needed some antihistamine. Stella opened the cabinet door, saw what she was looking for and reached for the bottle.

  * * *

  Flack stood in front of the counter of the electronics store and listened patiently to the man who was speaking with a heavy Indian accent. The man was short, dark, thick head of hair, bad skin and about forty. He was also perspiring. His name was Al Chandrasekhar.

  "I'm a second cousin of the famous physicist," Chandrasekhar said proudly.

  Flack nodded.

  The small shop was crowded with glassed-in cell phones, walkie-talkies, tiny radios, tape recorders that could fit in a side pocket or purse, electronic toys, compact computers and printers, cameras and clocks. There were two potential customers at the rear of the shop, a boy and girl in their twenties, casually dressed.

  Flack counted five video cameras around the shop. None were hidden. Chandrasekhar wanted potential thieves to know they were being watched.

  "You have some information about who killed those two men?" asked Flack.

  "I'm sorry I called 911," the man said. "I know it wasn't an emergency, or perhaps it was. It is really for you to decide."

  Flack waited.

  "I have two video cameras mounted outside my store," the man said, looking toward the open front door through which warm air flowed, was spun by two ceiling fans, and was replaced by another stealthy wave of heat. "One is mounted so that it picks up the front of that store where the Jewish Jesus man was murdered."

  "Let's take a look," said Flack.

  Chandrasekhar reached under the counter and pulled out a videotape. He put the tape in a compact player on a shelf behind the counter. He pressed a button and the image appeared.

  "You see there?" the man said with excitement, pointing to a figure on the screen.

  It was Stella and Flack. They came out of the storefront talking, heading up the street to their left. Flack could see steam rising from the sidewalk. The crowd was gone. When the body went, so did the gathering.

  "Now," said Chandrasekhar, "there."

  He pointed to someone who came out of a doorway, turned to his left and walked slowly about thirty yards behind Flack and Stella.

  "Here," said Chandrasekhar. "You turn your head and the man pauses to look in a store window. In that store is sold Jewish books. I'm saying to myself, this man does not look Jewish. This man is following you."

  For an instant, as he paused by the bookstore window, the man looked back, facing the camera. From the poor quality of the tape, Flack wasn't sure how much they would be able to blow up the image, but there were two things Flack could make out. The first was that the man had salt-and-pepper gray hair. The second was that a baseball cap was protruding from the man's left rear pocket. It wouldn't be hard to confirm that this was the same man who had appeared in the crowd at both murder sites.

  But, thought Flack, why is he following us?

  "That's almost an hour after the murder," said Flack, concentrating again on the tape, which showed the date and time in the lower left-hand corner.

  "Killer returns to scene," said Chandrasekhar with a slow nod of his head meant to show wisdom.

  "Let's go back on the tape," said Flack.

  The two customers in the back were heading toward the front door. They glanced at Flack. He knew they had pegged him as a cop, which was fine with him.

  The man behind the counter rewound and Flack watched at fast speed. People passed on the street and entered and left the storefront synagogue. Everyone who entered and left was a member of the congregation. No one entered or left from the moment the congregants went off for lunch and meditation till they returned an hour later.

  No surprise there. Stella had agreed that the killer came through the back door. Something tugged at Flack's memory.

  "Go back to the time just before they went to lunch," he said.

  "Roger that," said the man, hitting the rewind button.

  Flack watched people move slowly down the street in both directions. Then he saw the image that had tugged his memory. From the angle of the camera, Flack could only see the back of the big man carrying a briefcase, but what he saw was familiar. The man didn't
stop at the synagogue but walked on and entered a doorway at his right.

  "What's in that shop?" asked Flack, pointing to the image.

  Chandrasekhar took a pair of rimless glasses from a case in his pocket and looked at the frozen image on the screen.

  "The newspaper and sundries shop of Mr. Pyon," he said. "He's from Korea. Don't know him well."

  "Does he have video cameras?" asked Flack.

  "It would be unwise not to," said the man knowingly.

  "Can I take the tape?" Flack asked.

  Chandrasekhar removed the tape from the machine and handed it to Flack, who pocketed it and headed for the door.

  8

  THE PHONE RANG.

  Stella, who had fallen asleep in her living room while looking up at her paintings, answered, "Detective Bonasera."

  "George Harbaugh, FBI," the man said. "Just got your crime scene photographs and preliminary report on the death of the two Jewish men. Good work."

  "Thanks," said Stella, trying to wake up.

  "I think you may be looking for a serial killer we've been after for three years," Harbaugh said. "I've been authorized to give you a copy of our report. Our profilers think he's going to kill again soon."

  Harbaugh was bypassing the chain of command by going to Stella. This was not the first time it had happened.

  She said, "Give me a little time and I'll meet you at- "

  "I'd prefer to keep the FBI out of this for now," Harbaugh said. "I can be at your apartment later tonight."

  She did not ask him how he knew where she lived. An FBI agent would have no trouble finding her.

  "I hand you the report and you can ask some questions," he said. "No guarantee I'll answer them."

  "You drink tea?" she asked.

  "Hate the stuff," he said.

  "Coffee?"

  "Coke, if you've got it," he said.

  "Fine," she said.

  He hung up. So did Stella. She got up and moved toward the bedroom, phone in hand. She had a lot to do in the next hour.

  * * *

  In the darkness, Jacob Vorhees uncrossed his aching legs and looked at the green glow of the battery-operated clock on the floor in front of him. He had a pillow and two blankets, one to lie on and one to cover himself with. In addition to the clock, there was a small blue-and-white plastic box inside of which were an ice pack, eight peanut-butter-and-black-currant-jelly sandwiches and ten plastic twelve-ounce bottles of Coke. There was also a white plastic bucket which, in an emergency, he could use as a toilet. A nearly full roll of toilet paper sat next to it. Finally, there was his MP3 player, which he listened to for long, blackened hours.