Final Sins

by Michael Prescott

  The doctor nodded and sat beside her. “I’m very sorry. We did everything possible for your husband, but his injuries were too severe. We weren’t able to save him.”

  She spent a long moment processing these words. “He’s gone?” she said finally.

  “Yes.”

  “All right.” There was nothing else to say.

  She sat very still. She had expected this outcome. She was too much of a realist to hope for anything different. Even so, it was hard to take in. Hard to make it real.

  “I’m very sorry,” the doctor repeated.

  “So am I.”

  “Would you like to spend some time with him?”

  With his body. That was what he meant. She almost asked what was the point. That thing in there ... it wasn’t Vic anymore. Only a pile of flesh and bone. No mind, no spirit. If there was a spirit.

  Still, she heard herself say, “Yes, please.”

  He led her out of the waiting room and down an antiseptic hallway. In a room near the OR, Wyatt lay on a table with a sheet draped neatly over his midsection—a clean sheet, clean like the surgeon’s scrubs. No blood here, no pain and disfigurement and death, everything clean and sanitary.

  She stared at him. It seemed impossible that he wasn’t simply asleep. At any second he could open his eyes. In a movie he wouldn’t have died without regaining consciousness. He would have come to, at least long enough for some last words, a tender good-bye.

  What was the last thing she’d said to him, before the gunshot? She couldn’t remember.

  The doctor pulled up a chair on casters and let her sit down. She held Vic’s hand. It was cool, too cool. No warmth in it.

  “I’ll leave you alone,” the doctor said. She heard the squeaking of his rubber soles on the tiled floor as he left the room.

  She wondered what she ought to do. Speak to Vic? She didn’t think she could. But she found herself speaking anyway, in a low monotone.

  “Usually I don’t have any trouble talking to you. Maybe that’s the problem. I talked too much, didn’t do enough listening. Didn’t take you seriously when you told me what you wanted. Always figured it wasn’t what I wanted, so you couldn’t really want it, either. Which was stupid. And selfish. And just ... just a waste. That’s really what it comes down to, a waste. There’s so much more we could have done, if I’d been there for you, the way you always were there for me. It’s like I thought ... I always thought there would be more time. And I don’t know why I believed that. It’s not like either of us had a job that was exactly risk-free. It’s not like we could count on always being around. But that’s just the thing—I did count on it. I did think you would always be around. I thought I could always come by your place and knock on your door, and you’d be there. Even after Brody—after he was dead—that’s where I went. And now I’ve got no place to go. And the thing that really pisses me off is, you saved me. You died for me. And you did it even though you knew about Brody. Which is just too goddamned noble. Nobody should be that noble. I wouldn’t be. I never did anything for you. I just used you and led you on and slept with Brody behind your back. But I loved you. Believe it or not, I loved you. And I don’t think I ever said it. I don’t think you knew. I don’t think you’ll ever know.”

  She didn’t say anything more. She just sat there, holding his hand. From time to time she felt the doctor’s gaze as he looked in on her.

  And it occurred to her that in the doctor’s eyes she was finally what Vic had always wanted her to be—his wife.

  45

  It didn’t take Michaelson long to obtain a telephonic warrant to inspect Faust’s premises. The document was in the hands of the backup agents who arrived from the field office. Eight of them, four of whom Tess recognized from the gas station. They drove up to an improvised staging ground near Griffith Park, where Michaelson briefed them on the details.

  Tess was a little surprised that the AD was going to lead the arrest team. But on second thought, it was entirely in character for him. If the raid went badly, he would be blamed whether or not he was there. If it went well, his presence on the scene would earn him extra credit from the higher-ups.

  “How soon do we move?” one of the agents asked as Michaelson wrapped the briefing.

  “As soon as the LAPD gets here,” he said. “I’ve brought them in on this. No sense starting a turf war.”

  He was handling things differently from Hauser, and Tess was glad about that.

  Two LAPD black-and-whites pulled up a few minutes later, along with an unmarked car driven by a detective. The cops received an abridged version of Michaelson’s overview. The detective looked dubious. “You’re saying our guys missed an entire room? I don’t buy it.”

  Michaelson was smart enough not to argue. He said only, “We’ll find out one way or the other before long.”

  The three police cars and four Bureau sedans formed a convoy to Faust’s home. Michaelson and Tess, in the lead, were first to arrive at the estate’s gated entrance. Michaelson buzzed the intercom. After a short wait, he buzzed again.

  “Give him time,” Tess said. “It’s three in the morning.”

  “The bastard can catch up on his sleep in jail.” Michaelson was antsy, drumming the wheel, tapping his foot. He had a lot riding on this.

  He was about to buzz again when a female voice spoke through the intercom. “Who is it?”

  “We’re from the FBI,” Michaelson said. “We have a search warrant. Let us in.”

  “You ... you want to search the house?”

  “That’s correct. Open up, please,”

  There was a pause, and Tess wondered if the woman might refuse them access. Then the gate swung wide, and Michaelson motored through, followed by the rest of the vehicles. The fleet of cars pulled to a stop along the wide, curving driveway.

  A willowy young woman in a nightgown was standing at the open door of the house by the time the small army of cops and feds reached the front steps.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  Michaelson ignored the question. “Is Mr. Faust at home?”

  “I thought he was. I mean, we were in bed. Asleep. Then I heard the intercom buzz—it woke me up—and Peter wasn’t there.”

  “What is your name, ma’am?”

  “Elise Vangarten. I’m a fashion model.” This item of information was offered gratuitously.

  “May we come in?”

  “I guess so. I mean, I have to let you in if you have a warrant, don’t I?”

  “I’m afraid you do.”

  She stepped aside, and her visitors began filing in. Tess looked around tensely, nervous at being inside Faust’s home, occupying his space, breathing his air.

  “At least you’re polite,” Elise was saying. “When the police came by last time, they weren’t polite at all.”

  Tess looked at her. She was astonished that the girl had known Faust that long. “During the Roberta Kessler investigation?”

  “I don’t remember the girl’s name. Peter had nothing to do with it, anyway. And he hasn’t done anything wrong this time, either.”

  Tess fixed her with a stare. “You do realize your boyfriend is a convicted murderer?”

  “That was years ago. People change.”

  “Not always.”

  Michaelson dispatched agents to check the garage and see if Faust’s BMW was missing. “So you didn’t hear Faust leave the residence?” he asked.

  “I told you, I was asleep. Sound asleep. It’s been kind of a rough day.” Tell me about it, Tess thought. “Why are you here again, anyway? You didn’t find anything last time.”

  “There’s been a new development,” Michaelson said.

  “Miss Vangarten,” Tess asked, “do you know anything about a hidden room in this house?”

  She watched Elise’s reaction carefully. The girl’s bewilderment seemed genuine. “Hidden room? What are you talking about?”

  “We have reason to believe Mr. Faust has concealed a room. It shows up in the blu
eprints. You’re telling us you don’t know anything about it?”

  “That’s crazy. Has everybody in the world gone insane?”

  The agents returned with word that Faust’s BMW and a red Infiniti coupe were both parked in the garage.

  “The Infiniti is my car,” Elise said.

  Michaelson asked her if she or Faust had any other vehicles on the property. She said no.

  “Then he must be around somewhere,” Tess said, feeling still more uneasy.

  “Maybe in that room,” one of the cops suggested. “Holed up inside.”

  “We’ll exercise all due caution when entering,” Michaelson said.

  “What room?” Elise was becoming hysterical. “You people aren’t making any sense!”

  Michaelson stationed an agent named Hanson in the front yard, then led the rest of the team into the rear of the house. They moved warily, alert for an ambush. Tess hadn’t drawn her gun, but she kept her hand in the reinforced side pocket of her coat, where the SIG Sauer rested.

  In the back hallway she saw the same scene she’d frozen on her computer screen—the door to the utility room, the wall of bookshelves.

  “Along that wall,” Michaelson said, “approximately six feet from the utility closet.”

  “There’s nothing there,” Elise protested. “Can’t you see? It’s just a bunch of old books nobody reads.”

  “Miss Vangarten,” Tess said, “maybe it would be best if you waited in the front room.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” She thrust her fists on her hips and tried to look fierce. “Peter will be furious when he learns about this. It’s an invasion of privacy. It’s a violation of his rights!”

  Tess was quite sure the girl wasn’t faking it. Few models were that good at acting.

  “Found something.” This was one of the agents exploring the wall behind the bookshelves. He had removed handfuls of volumes from a shoulder-level shelf. “There’s a seam in the paneling.” His hand ran lower, behind other books. “Metal. A hinge.”

  Two other agents grabbed the shelves and pulled on them. Slowly a section of the wall and shelving rotated outward, revealing an older wall and a rather ordinary door.

  Tess glanced at Elise. The girl had gone pale—well, paler than before.

  Oh, my God, she mouthed, the words inaudible.

  An agent carefully tested the doorknob. “Locked.”

  One of his associates produced a set of lockpicks and got to work.

  “Kent and Garcia, you’re first through the door,” Michaelson said.

  They nodded, weapons drawn.

  It took less than a minute for the lock to be defeated. “Got it,” the agent said, holding the doorknob so the latch would not automatically reengage.

  Kent and Garcia flanked the door. Tess moved Elise back, out of the line of fire.

  If Faust was in there, and if he was armed, things might get nasty.

  The agents did a silent count, then flung open the door and charged in, sweeping the room.

  “Clear!”

  Michaelson and the others started to approach. Elise broke free of Tess and pushed past them onto the threshold, and then she was screaming.

  “Oh, God, Peter, oh, God!”

  Tess pulled her away. The girl collapsed on the floor, still screaming. One of the uniformed cops knelt by her. Tess turned and looked into the room.

  She saw what had made Elise scream. In an open cabinet, row upon row of jars, each holding a human hand marked with the wolfsangel.

  Across the room, the only other item of furniture. A mattress and headboard, and chained to the headboard—a girl. Naked, gagged, a leather strap twisted around her neck.

  But alive.

  She was kicking at the mattress, struggling against the manacles, her eyes wild.

  Garcia fumbled with the gag, trying to remove it, while Kent applied a handcuff key to her shackles.

  Then she was free. Instantly she clambered off the mattress, and her hands were tugging at the strap, working at the knot until it unraveled, then tearing the strap loose and casting it into a far corner, as if it were a snake that had nearly bitten her. That done, she crouched down, hugging herself and shivering, her teeth actually clacking as if with cold.

  “We need a blanket,” someone yelled. “She may be going into shock.”

  Tess thought the girl might be less panicky in the presence of a woman. She approached her. “It’s all right now, Jennifer. It’s all right.”

  She was sure the girl was Jennifer Gaitlin, though she was scrawnier than her photo, and her hair was an unwashed, matted pile.

  The girl responded to her name. She looked up.

  “Gonna kill me.” Her voice was a raw croak. “Said ... couldn’t wait any longer.”

  “It’s all right,” Tess said again.

  “He left me. Left me for a long time. With that ... that thing ’round my neck ...” Her fingers crawled over the purplish blotches bruising her throat, and Tess saw the seared insignia on the back of her left hand. “But he came back. Couldn’t wait any longer, he said.” She stared into space. “Had on pajamas ... but he couldn’t sleep ...” She blinked rapidly. “Is it night? Is it the middle of the night?”

  “Yes, it is.” Tess patted Jennifer’s shoulder, but the girl jerked away. Someone arrived with a blanket and draped it over her.

  “Where is he now?” Michaelson asked, his voice surprisingly gentle. “Jennifer, where did he go?”

  “Don’t know. Buzzing noise. Over there.”

  Tess saw a speaker in the wall, like an intercom panel, but without a transmitter button. Faust had rigged up a system so he could know when he had company.

  “That was when we arrived,” Michaelson said. “He must have known something was up if he had company at three a.m.” He looked at the others. “It’s obvious he’s running. Check with Hanson out front, make sure he’s okay.”

  One of the agents left to comply.

  Tess met Jennifer’s gaze. “What did he do when he heard the buzzer?”

  “Opened the door. Listened. Voices. I couldn’t hear much. But I knew ... I knew there was someone else ...”

  “Someone else in the house?” Tess prompted.

  “In the world. Someone else in the world ... Tried to make noise so they could hear, but ...” Her hands dropped in a gesture of defeat.

  “And then he left?”

  “First he went to the cabinet. Took something.” A strong shudder racked her body. “Knife.”

  “A knife. But no gun? Did you see a gun?”

  “Nuh-uh.” She was watching the memory with horrified eyes. “Thought he was gonna cut me. Finish things. But it was like ... like he forgot about me. He left and closed the door. He’ll come back, though.”

  “No,” Tess soothed.

  The agent who’d checked with Hanson reported that everything was quiet in the front yard. “I told him to keep an eye on the gate. With the high perimeter fence around this complex, the gate is Faust’s only way out.”

  “Then he’s somewhere in the house or on the grounds,” Michaelson said. “We need to pair up, fan out, conduct a search.”

  “We can use a K-Nine unit,” a patrolman suggested, meaning a trained search dog. Tess wondered if he was just looking for a pretext not to search for Faust on his own.

  “We may have to,” Michaelson said. “But first we check the area ourselves. We do it now, before he finds an exit.” He glanced at Jennifer, then at Garcia. “Have we called an RA?”

  Garcia nodded. “They’re on their way.”

  “We’ll search the house and grounds. Not you, Tess. I want you back at the field office, coordinating activities from there.”

  She wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. She drew Michaelson aside. “Coordinating activities? This isn’t even my turf.”

  “You’ll have the authority you need to get the job done.”

  “Wouldn’t it make more sense—”

  “It will make sense to do what I say. I�
��m running this show.”

  She thought about arguing her case, then realized it was pointless. She knew his real intentions. Michaelson wanted her off the scene and out of the way, safely hidden in the field office, so that when Faust was caught and the media showed up, she wouldn’t be around to capture the limelight. Really, she couldn’t blame him. Her previous exploits in L.A. had made her a magnet for the local TV news cameras. The last thing the Nose wanted was someone stealing his glory.

  “All right,” she said. “But I need a vehicle.”

  Michaelson handed her a set of car keys. “Take mine.”

  Tess was about to leave when Garcia stopped her. “Let me radio Hanson and tell him you’re coming out. We don’t want to take him by surprise.”

  It was a good idea. With Faust on the loose, everybody was jumpy. Tess wasn’t too keen on being taken out by friendly fire.

  She waited until Garcia had given Hanson a heads-up. As she was leaving the rear hallway, she saw Elise staring at her with red-rimmed eyes.

  “Don’t let them hurt Peter,” Elise said. “Okay?”

  Tess stiffened. “You saw what he did to that girl.”

  “Yes ... I saw ...”

  “And you still care what happens to him?”

  “He’s not a bad person.”

  Tess resisted the urge to grab her by her thin shoulders and shake her. “How can you say that? How can you possibly say it?”

  “He has a problem, that’s all. He just needs somebody who ... who understands him. He needs help.”

  “Miss Vangarten, with all due respect, you’re the one who needs help.”

  Tess walked away, not looking back. She didn’t want to hate Elise, but somehow she couldn’t help it.

  As she descended the front steps, she saw the distant figure of Agent Hanson, a shadow among the eucalyptus trees edging the far end of the driveway. She waved to him, and he lifted an arm in reply.

  Michaelson’s sedan was first in the line of cars. She unlocked the door on the driver’s side, still thinking of Elise and of women like her, women who wrote love letters to serial killers in prison, women who stayed married to men who beat them, women who offered themselves up as objects of abuse, even as objects of sacrifice. They all said the same thing—that they could change the guy, fix him, reform him by bestowing the loving kindness he needed. Some kind of rescue fantasy mixed up with a masochistic fascination with the dark side of human nature. They liked the bad boys, the villains. They all wanted to play Little Red Riding Hood to some brooding Big Bad Wolf.