GHOST_4_Kindle_V2

by Wayne Thomas Batson

  * * * * * * * * * * * *

  Rez looked down at the name on her phone display. “Dr. August Garrett Malcolm.” It didn’t strike her as the name of a killer. Few names did until after the killer was caught. And then, the name would be seared into the national consciousness forever as obviously wicked.

  Rez strode purposefully into Panama City Beach Hospital Center, stopped at the desk, and learned from the receptionist that Dr. Malcolm’s office wasn’t in the hospital’s central structure. There was an outpatient wing, she’d said, and Dr. Malcolm’s unplanned pregnancy clinic was the octagonal facility at the end of the wing.

  The outpatient wing stretched out like a true wing from the hospital proper. It was a long, slightly kinked hallway with offices, clinics, and waiting rooms opening up on either side for more than a hundred yards. The hall bustled with hospital personnel: orderlies sliding past with carts layered with gowns, towels, and thin blankets; nurses guiding unsteady patients from one room to another; and, of course, a plethora of doctors skittering from chart-to-chart.

  Rez found that the hall grew more desolate as she approached the unplanned pregnancy clinic. No one in sight for thirty feet. Just two flat gray doors at the very end. Just as Rez came to the doors, there was a muted buzz. The doors swung open. Rez stepped back as two figures emerged. There was a young woman, maybe seventeen, Rez thought. She had brown hair cut in a pixie-like bob. She might have been very cute, but her skin was so pale, her dark brown eyes so huge and haunted that she seemed almost ghostly. Her eyes, staring straight ahead without the slightest movement, really unnerved Rez. That and the way she kept rubbing her elbow and upper arm as if fighting off a determined chill.

  Rez looked to the other figure. A startling contrast. This was a woman who meant business. She was older, likely the mother, but her skin showed fewer wrinkles than was natural. Her hair was perfectly styled half-updo, lush black streaked through with gray. Her makeup was heavy and bold. No, fierce was a better word. Blood-red lips, heavy black eyeliner, bruised blue eye shadow. Her eyes were dark like her daughter’s, also staring straight ahead but simmering with indignant anger.

  “That’s far enough,” the severe woman said.

  “But I’m tired,” the teenager replied. “Tired and hurt.”

  “You brought this on yourself.”

  “I know.”

  “So walk.”

  Rez watched in disbelief as the young woman stood from the wheel chair. She wobbled a few paces, stumbled, caught herself, and kept going. The woman in the business suit eyed her watch. “We’re going to have to pick up the pace.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  Rez watched them drift slowly up the hallway: the daughter draped only in a thin robe; the mother an expensive burgundy business suit and heels. Something congealed in Rez’s stomach. It was far too easy for an investigator’s mind to conjure story lines for this forlorn pair. Rez blinked. Someone had said something.

  “Can I help you?” came a voice from inside the office doors.

  Rez turned to find an African-American woman seated behind a very modern acrylic desk. She was a thickset woman, but not fat. She wore an expression that might have revealed boredom or exhaustion or detachment…or a little of all three. “Can I help you?” she asked again.

  Rez stepped forward and said, “Yes, sorry. A little lost in thought.” She flipped open her badge and ID. “Special Agent Rezvani. I made an appointment to meet with Doctor Malcolm.”

  “Got it right here,” the woman at the desk said. She pressed a button on her keyboard and spoke into a headset mic, “Dr. Malcolm, the FBI woman is here to see you. Should I send her back?” She nodded a few times, apparently attending to the speaker’s questions. “Tight as a drum. You know Clarence. He does a good job. Uh, huh, clear ’til three. Okay…right.” Her eyes refocused on Rez. “You can go on back.” She pointed. “Third conference room on the right.”

  Wondering about the receptionist’s cryptic conversation, Rez followed her directions. She was counting doors on the right when she noticed a steel gray door on the left. She only noticed it because of the bright orange biohazard sticker on the wall next to the door handle. There was a small, vertical rectangle window just above the lock mechanism. Rez glanced inside…and then, wished she hadn’t. The room was dark but illuminated by several eerie green digital numbers that appeared on displays in the two visible corners. And in that green light, Rez could see a row of thick metallic canisters, each one emblazoned with its own biohazard warning.

  Rez shuddered involuntarily and turned away from the room. She’d never considered herself Pro Life. No, not even in the same zip code. But, while she emphatically supported a woman’s right to choose, she’d never been altogether comfortable with the abortion practice.

  She came to the third conference room, turned the corner, and found a very stern-looking man in a bleached-white doctor’s coat. With the blockish shape of his head, protruding brow, and sallow complexion, he reminded Rez of Herman Munster…well, minus Herman’s perpetual grin.

  “Doctor Malcolm?” she asked.

  He nodded and motioned for Rez to join him at the table. “Yes, yes, Agent,” he said, every word clipped as if he was in a hurry, “what’s this about anyway? If it’s the constant death threats from those right wing fanatics, I’ve already given a statement.”

  “Not about that,” Rez said as she took a seat. “But since you mentioned it, are you still getting threats?”

  “All the time,” he said, entwining his long, knobby fingers. “I don’t take them seriously, of course, but some of my personnel do.”

  “How many threats in the last year?”

  He paused. His eyes flitted under heavy hooded lids. “Three, I believe,” he said at last. “But listen, if this isn’t about the threats, why are you here? I run a very busy practice.”

  “There doesn’t seem to be too much traffic in here today,” Rez said flatly.

  The corner of Dr. Malcolm’s mouth twitched. “That…is because I cleared my schedule for you, Agent. Well, except for one procedure, but that was rather an emergency.”

  Rez blinked, thinking of the staring young woman in the hall and her austere mother. “Thank you for making time for me, Dr. Malcolm,” Rez said. “The reason for my visit is that it seems you’re a member of a rather exclusive club.”

  “Which one?” he asked without the faintest hint of a boast. “Garnier’s Marina and Yacht? Bayshore Links? El Castador Cigar Lounge?”

  “None of those,” Rez said, removing a glossy photo from her briefcase. She slid the picture across the table. “It’s a knife club. Do you recognize the blade in this photograph?”

  Dr. Malcolm flinched at the shoulder ever so slightly, but Rez had caught it. He went on to study the photograph for a ten count. His hooded, deep-set eyes came up, and he said, “Before I answer your question, I’d like to know: am I a suspect in a crime?”

  “No,” Rez said. She waited, watched the good doctor relax a little and then said, “You’re more of a person of interest.”

  He stiffened again and let the photo fall back to the tabletop. “I don’t like semantics,” he said. “And I don’t like surprises. Suppose we do this another day, a day when I have my lawyer with me?”

  Rez balled her hand into a fist beneath the table. “We could do it that way, Dr. Malcolm,” she said. “But I’d hoped to save you the trouble.”

  “What trouble?”

  “The trouble of a much higher profile questioning,” she replied. “You answer my questions here and now, and I don’t think of you as an evasive person of interest. I don’t have to come back wearing my bulky navy blue jacket with the giant yellow FBI letters and take you out of here in cuffs. But if you’d rather answer the questions in an FBI holding tank…with your lawyer present…that’s fine. We can do it that way.”

  Dr. Malcolm’s lips went very thin. “What do you want to know about the scalpel?”

  “First,” Rez said, careful to hide the
smugness she was feeling, “do you know what the knife is used for?”

  “Was used for,” he corrected her. “It was used for abortions more than a hundred years ago.”

  “Where did you get the blade?” she asked, unfolding a sheet of printer paper. “There aren’t many of them still in existence.”

  “Look, Agent,” he said. “I’m guessing you know exactly where I got the instrument. I suspect it’s written on the paper in your hand.”

  “Humor me.”

  “I bought the blade directly from the original manufacturer, Eugene Lacy Company out of London. It came from their private collection, and I paid close to forty grand for it. That would have been…” He leaned back in his chair, “…about 1996, I think. I was at a convention.”

  “1997,” Rez corrected.

  “Whatever,” Dr. Malcolm replied curtly. “Now, Agent, why don’t you ask me something not printed on your sheet.”

  Rez placed the paper face-down on the table, tilted her head slightly, and raised on eyebrow. If this doctor thought his god-complex was going to intimidate her, he was far dumber than he looked. “Doctor Malcolm,” she said, lowering her voice and sharpening the syllables with her best Miranda Rights pronunciation, “the blade, often called Cain’s Dagger, has been used in an ongoing series of serial murders. Young women are getting their throats cut with the blade.”

  “M-my blade?” he asked. Rez watched the color of his face change from ashen gray to pallid white.

  “Or one just like it,” Rez said. “So the question I’m wondering about is why do you own such a blade? Why go to all the trouble—why pay so much for it? What is a blade like this to you?”

  Whatever discomfort Dr. Malcolm had felt disappeared. He seemed to regain his stern man-of-medicine arrogance. “Agent, I purchased the blade because I collect antique surgical implements. Some people collect teapots or spoons. I collect blades, especially blades related to my line of work. I take great pride in what I do. Women in all kinds of trouble come to me. They are burdened and face uncertain futures. I help them find freedom again.”

  “Just the same, Dr. Malcolm,” she said, “I wonder if you know where your blade is right now?”

  “Of course I do,” he replied. “It’s in a display case overlooking the pool table in my basement.”

  “You won’t mind if I send some technicians around to have a look? Run a few tests?”

  “They may test away,” he replied. “But they had better not damage the blade. As you know, Agent, the Cain’s Dagger did not come cheaply.”

  “You can afford it, right?” Rez asked, edging her voice menacingly. “You did say business is booming, didn’t you?”

  Dr. Malcolm folded his hands and grinned for the first time. Huh, Rez thought, he really does look like Herman Munster.

  “I don’t know what you think of me or what I do,” he said. “But I’m not your bad guy. I’ve made a career out of helping women…not hurting them.”

  Rez thought again of the pale young woman in the hall and thought, Yeah, you’re a real humanitarian.

  Chapter 30

  “I believe you missed your calling,” Jack said, extending the cold fingers of Pamela’s already stiffening hand.

  “How do you mean?” Dr. Gary asked. He stepped carefully over Pamela’s outstretched left leg, stooped down, and bent her right knee so that her foot would disappear into the ground cover ivy.

  Jack tilted his head. “You could have been an artist,” he said. “Just look at the way you’ve positioned her here. Except for the wound, Pamela could be a renaissance maiden in one of Botticelli’s masterpieces.”

  “Surgeons are artists,” Dr. Gary replied. “But I thank you nonetheless.” He stepped back to admire his work. A red light from the security panel they’d disabled cast a ruddy glow onto Pamela’s pale body. And just at that moment a monarch butterfly, one of hundreds flying free within the Butterfly Refuge in Navarre, Florida, landed on a knuckle of Pamela’s left hand. “Now,” he said, “that is art.”

  * * * * * * * * * * * *

  Treading unsteadily toward the Butterfly Refuge, I couldn’t help looking over my shoulder. I could still feel the muscle memory echo of the crawling, itching sensation that inundated that alley. It couldn’t have been coincidence that the shadow-shrouded dark figure appeared outside the Conservatory just after I arrived. It was one piece of evidence I couldn’t ignore, and all the more reason to look over my shoulder.

  Nothing there so far. Just a palm festooned neighborhood full of darkened ranchers and the odd colonial. I sighed. Good.

  If I somehow managed to complete this mission, I’d have to contact Anthriel and ask him about what I’d seen. It couldn’t be what I’d first thought of. Couldn’t be.

  The Butterfly Refuge sat adjacent to an L-shaped strip mall. Most of the mall’s store spaces were empty, ready for lease, and the only thing open this late at night was the 7-Eleven at the top of the L. Feeling the strain from all of the night’s traveling but still amped up on fear-induced adrenaline, I stalked closer to the Refuge.

  The gravity of my mission poured back over me like a lead shower. I had to push past the freak encounter and get to the business at hand. From the outside, the Butterfly Refuge seemed, at once, more professional and less kid-friendly. It looked like it had once been a large family home but had been retrofit with the broad windows and sculpted plaster of a business suite. They’d built a bank of flower gardens outside, creating a meandering path to the front door. In the dark, if felt like wandering through a South American jungle. Small plaques displaying standout examples of the order Lepidoptera jutted up from the soil in each of the flower gardens.

  I noticed two things at that moment: the shoosh of the Gulf of Mexico and an inconsistent trail of dark splotches on the walk. I thought about the Gulf being near as I knelt. I put my fingertips to the dark spot, and they came back up wet with crimson.

  I had the Edge in hand and slithered out of the flower gardens and up to the entrance. It was too dark to see inside through the little panel windows. I tried the door and found it still locked. But the blood was fresh, and I was out of patience.

  I flicked on the Edge and jammed it into the locking mechanism. There was a muted crackling and a fount of white sparks. What was left of the lock didn’t do its job. I raced into the Refuge and nearly lost my feet, sliding in blood on tile. I regained my footing on the corner of an observation center. Then, I stood very still…listening. Some part of me registered that the temperature inside was much colder than the Pensacola night outside. But I was too tuned to a strange sound. I’d hoped for shouting or footsteps or even a gunshot, but instead, there was only a peculiar, thin clicking sound.

  Whatever it was, it was all around me…faint but persistent. I crept forward warily, eyes adjusting to the darkness as I went. A fair number of sleeping computers offered a little digital twilight, luminous green or slowly pulsing white. Security consoles on half a dozen support beams cast a more prominent ruddy light to the mix. Something flittered by my face. I ducked.

  And then, I wanted to hit myself with a hammer. Butterflies, duh. The light clicking sound. The Refuge was home to several thousand insects, most flittering around inside glass or clear plastic enclosures.

  I continued forward until I heard a faint trickle of water. It sounded like the quiet melody of a tiny brook. As I moved forward, the Butterfly Refuge became much more of the naturalist’s museum. The interior had been painstakingly crafted to look like a wooded glade. The support pillars had been encased in realistic-looking tree trunks, complete with a variety of boughs and foliage. The tile floor gave way to cobblestones and ground cover ivy. I saw a little waterfall.

  And then I saw the body.

  I was too late again. The rage boiled up, and I tasted something bitter in the back of my mouth. The victim was young, maybe early twenties like the others. In the reddish light, I couldn’t be certain, but her hair looked like a dark auburn. She was long and lithe, her limbs su
pple with young feminine muscle. And, of course, she was very pale. All the victims had been. Not surprising if they’d spent their childhood locked away from the sun and from prying eyes.

  Unlike Erica Graziano’s cause of death, the killing stroke here was obvious: a cut throat. There were no lower body wounds visible. And unlike Erica, this victim hadn’t been left in the fetal position. The killers seemingly had taken time to arrange this young woman in a strangely artistic pose.

  She was nude, reclined as a woman might lie by a pool: one arm raised, canted by her head, the fingers extended in a carefree gesture; she had one knee slightly bent, the other leg extended gracefully; her head was tilted back, resting on piles of thin stones; and her lush hair had been fanned out behind her as if gently moved by a cool breeze. But then, there was the ghastly wound: as with Erica’s, this cut was far deeper than necessary to sever the artery; clumped with dark, half-clotted, bloody gobbets; and gaping to the point of revealing bone.

  I shivered…half from the cold and the grim discovery. A buzz on my thigh startled me, and I heard music. Before Liesl could utter a fifth syllable of song, I snatched up the phone.

  “It’s about time!” I growled into the phone. “I’ve called you forty times!”

  “So, so sorry,” Agent Rezvani said. “I’ve been busy following up leads on the knife. Your Doc Shepherd came through. Only six known Cain’s Daggers still around, but so far…no guarantee any of them was the murder weapon. I met—”

  “Rez,” I said. “There’s another body.”

  The line went silent for a few ticks then, “What?”