by Harker Moore
“Hi,” she said, joining the group of two boys and three girls who had already reached the sidewalk.
They greeted her, smiles all around. One of the girls, a fat brunet in jeans, handed her a plastic bracelet, glitter hearts and stars in candy colors.
“You guys know where we’re going?” she said.
“You come by yourself?” a Latino boy asked. His face showed concern.
“I’m meeting up with friends.”
“You done that.” He put an arm around her shoulder as they walked. He was nearly as tall as she was. “Carlos.” He pointed to his chest.
“Solange.”
“Cool name,” said the girl with brown braided hair, half-dancing down the pavement in front of them. “We think we know where we’re going.” She smiled, looking back.
They found the warehouse twenty minutes later. Which wasn’t too bad. Heidi and Paula were waiting out front for her, which seemed like a miracle now. She said good-bye to Carlos and the others, promising to look for them inside.
“I can’t believe your dad bought it?” Paula’s greeting.
“I know it’s your weekend, Daddy, but I really don’t feel good.” Solange croaked the words she had used on the phone, hand clutching at her fake sore throat. She broke up laughing.
“Won’t he check on you?”
“Nah.” Solange shrugged. “I didn’t make out like I was dying or anything.”
“But he knows your mother’s not home.”
“No he doesn’t. She didn’t want him to find out about her little three-day with Chuck. The divorce isn’t final yet.”
“So what if your mom checks?” Heidi said.
“Trust me, she won’t.” Solange looked bored. “So what’s your alibi?”
“The usual,” Heidi answered. “Our parents think we’re spending the night at each other’s houses. The trick is to call and check in with them. It’s called a preemptive strike.”
Solange gave an appreciative eye roll. Then, “God, this is cool.”
“Yeah.” Paula dragged the word. She dug into the pocket of her sweater, pulled something out. “E,” she said, unrolling a tissue to display three small round pills.
Heidi reached out and took one.
“Well?” Paula was looking at her. “You said last time you wished we had some.”
She had said that, hadn’t she? She watched Paula reach with her free hand and pop a pill into her mouth. There was one left in the tissue.
Solange picked it up. What was she afraid of anyway? Everybody did it. They said it enhanced the experience.
She swallowed the pill down, her moment of fear evaporating as she smiled at both her friends. It felt so good to be here. With Heidi and Paula. With all the kids who were streaming in from every direction now. She laughed out loud. It was going to be one slammin’ party.
In the cold black mirror of the bedroom window, Willie’s reading lamp shone in perfect double, a phantom moon that hovered over the city. She glanced at the clock. Nearly midnight, and Michael was still in his workroom, drafting a blueprint for the model he was planning to build, a replica of the cathedral at Rouen.
She wished that he would stop and come to bed. It had been a long full week of writing and seeing patients. And now with this new serial investigation, things could only get more complicated. She needed this weekend to catch up on her sleep, and she wanted to get started. But whenever Michael decided to come to bed, she knew, he was going to wake her.
Sex with Michael was always intense, but the last couple days he’d seemed driven, as if he had something to prove. And she’d woken this morning in the early darkness to find him sitting up in bed, smoking the cigarettes he’d sworn he’d given up again. He’d been to see his boys this week, and it was an easy guess that something that Margot had done or said was still eating at him. She wished he would talk to her about his ex-wife. She was reasonably certain she could remain objective, but Michael was never going to start that conversation. And she knew she couldn’t.
She had been working on her book for hours. She shut the laptop down and, placing it on the bedside table, reached to switch off the lamp. The window went blank, the mirror glossiness flicking away to the dullness of reflected neon. The building, old stone, was thick as a fortress, and the city below seemed soundless, though the energy, which never ceased, was still something she could feel.
“You asleep?” Michael stood in the doorway, his body looming in the glow from the night-light in the hall.
“I just turned off the lamp.” She sat up again. “I’ve been editing my first chapter.”
“Let me read it.” He started across the room.
“Not a chance.” She placed a protective hand over the laptop. “I know what you think about my crackpot theories.”
He sat on the bed. “I don’t think your theories are crackpot.”
“Liar.” She switched on the light. He was smiling, his eyes that startling Welsh blue in the tanned Mediterranean face.
“We don’t have to agree on everything.” He kissed her.
“No, we don’t. But you’re still not reading the book till it’s finished.”
She watched him undress, tossing his clothes on the chair. She switched off the lamp again as he got into bed.
“Willie.” His mood had changed. “You don’t regret this, do you?”
“No.” She turned toward him, but his eyes were lost in the dimness. “Do you regret asking me?”
“Hell, no.” The words were a clear declaration, as was the way he reached for her, pulling her gown over her head as he slipped her beneath him. “This is good, Willie,” he said.
The familiar thrill rippled through her, and the darkness came, that heaviness before the weightless oblivion that swept out everything. This is good, Willie. And at least for the moment, she did not believe it was only the sex that he meant.
The beat was superior, better than the clubs. Left-brain acknowledged that. There was a rawness in the setting that fed the trance. But coming here might have been a mistake.
He stayed for the sound. A Right-brain carelessness that was justified by the music’s effect. A crash mix of techno and gabber. A bloodsucking oscillator having its way with his brain. He stayed for it. Tall. Dark-haired. Pale skin stretched over tight muscle. Machine goddess in backpack emerging from the blue of the chill-out room, strains of ambient clinging to the body like gauze. He watched from the shadows as she drifted past, stopping at the edge of the crowd.
“Lost somebody?” He was at her side.
A hesitant smile as she turned. The teeth white and perfect. She held up a hand with a strobing plastic ring. “My friend Heidi’s idea,” she said. “We’re supposed to be able to find each other with these.” She looked back toward the masses dancing in the reflection of the psychedelia projecting onto the walls, writhing in the confusion of glowsticks and glancing lasers.
“Good luck,” he said.
“You a DJ or something?” She’d turned back with full attention, or however much she could muster with whatever illegal substance clouding her brain.
“Record producer,” he lied. “We think it’s time a major label got around to capturing this.” She nodded, very serious, as if he’d said something profound.
He kept talking, some gibberish about artists and distribution. The word exchange unimportant. He blocked the sounds from her mouth, concentrating instead on the complex play of muscles that formed each new expression with the working precision of gears.
She shrugged off the backpack and produced a plastic bottle filled with juice. She uncapped it and took a swig. The action, raw and real, drew him back to the here. He could read her discomfort in not offering some to him.
“Hold this a minute,” she said, as if ceding him this level of trust was adequate substitute for rejecting his saliva.
“Sure,” he said, as she gave her attention to rearranging the pack on her back. It was almost too easy to slip the roofie into her drink.
&nbs
p; CHAPTER
6
Early Monday. Sakura was back at his desk. He had forced himself to stay away for the weekend, checking in by phone only briefly, letting his mind rest, convincing himself he would return with fresh perspective. He had concentrated on his wife, on a pleasant two days of reestablishing routine. But it was a weekend of bad weather and false peace.
He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, moving to that dark space inside himself he called killer mind: I am the center of the universe. My needs are superior to the needs of all others. Others do not exist as humans, only as objects. Objects for my pleasure. To move about as I please. To use in service to my fantasy. My fantasy, the only true reality. . . . And I am unafraid.
He opened his eyes. Traveling inside a serial killer’s mind was another way to understand the man who delivered death like a feature film. But the trip was not without risk. Touching evil left its mark.
He looked down to see the two pictures Dr. Bailey had culled from the group of seven photographs. One brunet. One blonde. Both young and pretty with innocent eyes full of expectation. Unknowing of the thing that would crawl from the bowels of a sewer to trap their last breaths against the membrane of a plastic bag.
Friends and relatives of the other two victims, Grady and Siebrig, were still being interviewed. Precinct officers were continuing to canvass the area where Siebrig had been found, focusing on the personnel of the restaurant whose Dumpster the killer had used to dispose of the body. Since Grady had turned up at the recycling center, it was infeasible to pinpoint where her body had been picked up. But he had sanitation backtracking possible routes. Another detail had been sent back to the landfill in Pennsylvania to expand search zones. So far everything had added up to “no result.”
Talbot was reviewing databases as far back as three years in an attempt to locate men with a history of sexual assault coupled with the use of Rohypnol. There were some prospects, but the best of the usual suspects had been incarcerated during the six-month period when the four murders had taken place.
He picked up the receiver on the first ring.
“It’s Bones, Lieutenant Sakura.”
He smiled, correcting his presumption that the use of the nickname was the exclusive province of first-year forensic students. “Have something for me, Doctor?”
“Thirty-two teeth present one hundred and sixty surfaces. Five surfaces on each tooth. Not to mention specific morphologic patterns. There are more than two point five billion possibilities in charting the human mouth. The bottom line, Lieutenant, is that no two mouths are the same, which makes teeth as good as fingerprints.”
Bailey was famous for delivering this introductory lecture as his way of initiating the untrained to specific odontological results.
“And what did you find on these one hundred and sixty surfaces, Doctor?”
“These two ladies had good oral hygiene. Made regular trips to the dentist.”
He waited; the real news was coming.
“And routine X rays were taken, and the dentists kept excellent records.”
Sakura glanced down at the photos. The brunet was showing off even white teeth. He had to assume that the blonde had the same behind her closed-mouth smile.
“I should have mentioned when you were here that several teeth from one of the victims had come loose from their sockets. That’s common when decomposed or skeletal remains are discovered. Linsky retrieved the missing teeth, and since the loss was not due to trauma imposed by the killer, I glued them back into the open alveoli.”
He knew that the moment had arrived.
“Well, Lieutenant Sakura, there’s no mistake.” An indrawn breath. “I correctly matched those photographs to the two skulls. The dental identifications confirm it.”
It had stormed again over the weekend, bringing in another layer of early October chill. The sky late morning had a stage-set sun. All light and no warmth, like a false note of cheeriness.
The Brooklyn Heights neighborhood was a stage set in itself, with a perfect row of nineteenth-century brownstones. The Phelps address was second from the corner, a three-story Italianate with balconies and curved iron balustrades. Darius pulled up to the curb in the narrow tree-lined street, and threw the identification plate onto the dashboard.
“Let’s get it done,” he spoke across the seat to Adelia Johnson.
They got out and walked to the covered porch. Johnson pressed the bell.
“You’re on time,” the man greeted them as he opened the door, acknowledging Johnson’s badge. “I’m Arthur Phelps.” He stepped aside for them to enter. “My wife, Tai Lin.” He indicated the woman on the sofa.
Mrs. Phelps appeared too young to have had a college-aged daughter, but the dark almond eyes were lifeless, giving her the appearance of a discarded china doll. Her husband’s animal energy was a contrast. He was above average height, and had an athletic club fitness that showed in his tailored suit. A commodities broker, he was dressed for work, having made the point when he agreed to talk to them at his home that he would need to get to his office as early as was possible. “You have some news?” he asked.
He had not offered them a seat. Nor did he sit himself. Mrs. Phelps remained silent, but the listless eyes had lifted to watch them.
“I’m sorry,” Johnson spoke, “but your daughter’s dental records do match one of the bodies that was found at the landfill last week.”
“Do match . . .” Arthur Phelps repeated her words. He sounded as if he were assuring himself he had got it right on a stock quote, but his eyes had filled with tears.
Mrs. Phelps had not visibly reacted, was still staring at them. A sound, an animal-like whimper, seemed to issue from her pores. Certainly her mouth remained fixed, as arms locked across her stomach, her torso sank forward till her head nearly touched her knees.
Arthur Phelps had seemed to be paralyzed. Now he moved, going to the sofa, sitting beside her, his arm protectively at her back. The whimper became a keening and died. Tai Lin Phelps sat up. It was startling a moment later when her lips moved.
“The television says he’s getting them at dance clubs.” Her eyes were dry. Her voice, calm and flat, was entirely American.
“We believe that’s true, Mrs. Phelps.” It was Johnson who answered. “We understand that’s where Ana was last seen.”
“In June,” the woman said. “She was home from college. She said I should go with her to the club, that people would think I was her sister.” The memory brought the rictus of a smile.
“But you didn’t go,” Darius said.
The woman shook her head. “Ana was only teasing. She was going to meet her friends.”
“May I see her room?”
It was Mr. Phelps who led him up the stairs and left him alone, retreating to the living room, where Johnson would be going over the reports from the time of the girl’s disappearance, fishing for what might be new information. He had seen the man’s grief. More than his wife, Arthur Phelps had held on to hope. Darius wondered if he’d still go in to work today.
He stood in the middle of the bedroom and glanced around. More like a child’s room than a woman’s, it held all the sadness of a shrine. Four-poster canopied bed. Stuffed animals on shelves.
There were framed photographs on the bedside table. Ana with friends, probably some of the girls who would have to be reinterviewed now. A portrait of Ana, her graduation picture from high school. He picked it up. He could trace every feature in the faces of her parents. Her father’s mouth. Her mother’s eyes and coloring. But not small like the mother. Tall and model-thin. The way that he liked them, this killer. Trolling the club scene. A happy hunting ground for him. Dark. Crowded. Packed with girls like Ana Phelps who were oblivious to the danger.
There was an image taped to the wall. He walked over to see it better. It appeared to have been printed from the computer over which it hung. Electronic icon sprung from the god on the desk. The background was New Age psychedelic, a fractal stew of purple and pink,
black lines converging like magnetic tracings. Down the sides, orange-yellow letters spelled out CYBER TRIBE, the words flanking the floating newsprint image of a large infant’s head. Wearing earphones. Wise beyond his months. Expression serious. Almost grave. Below in lower-case letters, black and small with no intervening punctuation: peace love unity respect.
“She didn’t take drugs.”
The voice surprised him. Mrs. Phelps had come into the room.
“It’s not what they said in the papers,” she insisted. “It’s not the drugs. Ana went for the music. To dance.” Tai Lin Phelps was animated now, not the doll on the sofa. Something after all still lived in the eyes. And the sight of it was worse.
“There were no recreational drugs found in your daughter’s system,” he said to her.
She seemed pleased at the affirmation. “Ana loved to go to the clubs”—she was looking at the picture on the wall—“wherever the music was. That night, when she said I should go with her, she wanted me to feel it.”
She had turned to him as she spoke, but her glance was far away. He waited.
“The Vibe,” she spoke to his silent question. “Ana said it was impossible to describe, but spiritual . . . everyone connected, like a family. She said that it made her feel comfortable. And safe.” The eyes no longer looked through him. “What kind of human being feeds on a child’s desire for that?”
“Not human.” One cold comfort he could give.
“Stop him.” She’d named the other.
The afternoon park was glorious. Hanae could feel light from every direction playing on her face, as if the sun, already past its zenith, had exploded to coat the sky. A wind blew from the lake with a bite to make her glad she had worn her favorite red coat. The chill was welcome. She liked the cold. Today was a good day to mark her return. Her first time here in nearly a year. Taiko’s harness jingled as they made their way along the path near Cherry Hill. A couple passed by, trying to decide where they should go for lunch. Two small children went by in a rush, their mother behind them, scolding them not to run.