She fished a yellow square out of her pocket and tipped the note toward the light cast by the streetlamp. “The doc said Chaz doesn’t live on the boulevard. He’s on one of the streets running behind it.”
Garcia reached under his seat and pulled out the Hudson’s Street Atlas, flipped until he got to the neighborhood, and handed it to her. “We should have called for backup.”
“We’ll call when we get there,” she said as she studied the map. After taking so many wrong turns in this case, she wanted to make sure Charles was indeed holding Regina Ordstruman at his home and not at another location. It’d be an embarrassment to the bureau and a humiliation to Garcia in particular if an army descended on an empty house.
“You know where we’re going?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She closed the book and dropped it on the seat between them.
“Okay.” He reached past his coat and blazer, took out his Glock, and slipped it into his trench pocket.
She popped open the passenger door and reached inside her jacket pocket to touch her gun. “I’m ready.”
As they stepped out of the car, Bernadette felt the nighttime scenery rock and tilt. She could have been standing on the deck of a boat. Waiting for the sensation to pass, she kept her hand on the open door of the Pontiac.
As he shut the driver’s door, Garcia looked at her. “Are you okay?”
“Something’s going on with this guy, and it’s happening to me, too.” She steadied herself and closed the passenger door.
Garcia came around to her side of the Grand Am with his cell in his hand. “I’m going to—”
“Don’t call anyone yet.”
“Are you going to be any good to me?”
“I’m fine.”
“Your session with the scarf was hours ago,” said Garcia, dropping his phone back in his pocket. “Why are you still picking up vibes from this asshole?”
“I have no idea.” A gust of wind sent leaves tumbling down the sidewalk. Shivering, she snapped her jacket closed up to her throat and pulled her gloves tighter over her fingers. She swore her tolerance for the cold had diminished since her tumble into the river.
“How far?” asked Garcia as they crossed the quiet street.
“A couple of blocks,” she said.
“Same drill as with the VonHader boys,” said Garcia as they went down the sidewalk. “We’ll scope it out before we make any big moves. If he’s not home…”
“Then he’s got her somewhere else.”
“You’re sure he’s got someone?”
She hated hearing that doubt in his voice. No wonder he’d given up so readily on calling for backup. “If you don’t believe my sight, believe the prof. Wakefielder’s got a student missing.”
After less than a block of walking, her chills turned into a hot sweat. She unsnapped her jean jacket and let the wind buffet her body. As the cold seeped through her shirt and hardened her nipples, another sensation invaded her body: lust. It had to be him again. She’d never had such an enduring and intense link to a killer. With previous murderers, she’d shared feelings so briefly. Why Charles was different dumbfounded her. Getting rid of him and his sick psyche was going to be a tremendous relief.
Reaching the corner, she scrutinized the street sign to make sure they were headed in the right direction. “One more block,” she said, and they kept going.
After a few minutes of silence, Garcia blurted: “Your work on this case—”
She cut him off with a wave of her hand. “Don’t go there, Tony. I know I screwed this up from the get-go.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The prof did it. Matt did it. No, wait, Luke did it. Maybe they all three did it. Shit. It’s none of them. The fucking butler did it.”
“You nailed it in the end,” he said. “The brothers are at the cop shop.”
“Yes, but not for the dead girls. Plus the VonHaders’ attorney will get them home in time for their morning Wheaties.”
“But we’re on our way to bagging the worst bad guy. It’s all good.”
“That’s why you keep asking if I’m sure he’s got another victim with him.”
“I believe you.”
He sounded unconvinced, but she let it go.
Every other home they passed had decorations in the yard or on the porch. Plastic tombstones. Rubber skeletons. Witches on broomsticks. Carved pumpkins. Bales of hay. Dried cornstalks propped against fences and dried ears of corn tacked to front doors. “When’s Halloween?” she asked.
“I don’t know; it’s coming up.”
“We don’t have a life, do we?” They hung a right, both of them walking briskly while eyeing the houses around them and the collection of cars parked on the street. No one was out and about.
Charles’s place was the last house on a dead-end street. The VonHaders told them that he had inherited some money from an aunt and had used it to buy and refurbish the place. Unfortunately, they’d never been inside and couldn’t give the agents a layout of the interior.
Standing at the top of a steeply graded lot, it was perched like a castle. In the valley on one side of Charles’s place was a boarded-up house. In the dip on the other side was a patch of hardwoods and evergreens, a natural barrier that made up the dead end.
A sedan was parked on the street in front of Charles’s house, and Bernadette figured it was his. It was an old gold Lincoln Town Car without a spot of rust on it, probably another inheritance from the aunt. She went over to the windows facing the sidewalk, pulled out a small flashlight, and looked inside. Immaculate. She punched off the light and dropped it back in her pocket.
They climbed the long steps leading up to his doorstep but stopped and crouched down before they reached the top. His home was one of the largest in the neighborhood, with an open porch stretched across the front. It was a two-story structure with a tower in front that could contain a third-floor room.
“A Victorian,” she whispered. “Queen Anne style.”
“Listen to the architecture expert.”
“The windows in front are black,” she observed.
“Let’s go in around back, through the woods,” Garcia said. “If we stay low, we should be good.”
They took the steps down and darted into the woods, going from tree to tree until they could see Charles’s backyard. A wooden privacy fence boxed it in, but there was a gate facing the woods. Planted on one side of the gate was a lamppost; Bernadette didn’t like how bright it was. An alley ran behind the fence, and beyond that were the garages of the neighbors. Some of them had floodlights mounted over their doors. It looked like Charles didn’t have a garage.
The pair hiked up the hill leading to the backyard and went to the gate. It was unlocked, and they slipped inside. A screened porch ran across the back, and a bright floodlight was mounted over the porch door. As the pair walked deeper into the yard, she could see that a small square and a large rectangle on the second story were lit.
“He’s home,” she whispered, pointing up.
Garcia nodded. They spotted a garden shed planted in a far corner of the yard and squatted down next to it. “Now what?” he whispered.
“Stay here,” she whispered.
Before he could argue, she ran for the back of the house. She hadn’t picked a lock in some time and hoped she could instead get inside the easy way. She spotted a doormat in front of the porch’s bottom step and lifted it up. Nothing underneath. She retrieved a rock sitting to the right of the steps and checked the bottom but didn’t find what she was looking for. The stone next to it was a dud, too, but the third rock she tried was the charm. She pried off a trap door in the fake rock and probed the compartment with her finger. “Good deal,” she muttered, fishing out a key.
The screen door was locked, but it took only a few jiggles of the handle to unlock it. Holding tight to the door so the wind wouldn’t slap it open, she went through and closed it behind her. She ran her eyes around the long, narrow space. Wicker chairs,
couches, and coffee tables were neatly grouped, as if awaiting a party. Dried floral arrangements and candles topped each of the tables. Hanging from the ceiling, swaying slightly in the wind, was a chandelier containing tapered candles. Oriental area rugs covered the floor. The creep’s porch was furnished more stylishly than her condo.
Bernadette went up to one of the windows and pressed her face against the glass. The curtains on the other side blocked her view. Taking a deep breath, she stepped up to the door and inserted the key in the lock. She could feel the deadbolt turn. She put her hand on the knob and pushed the heavy wooden door open. A narrow band of white—the floodlight—followed her inside. She heard a creak behind her and turned to see Garcia stepping inside, carefully closing the porch door behind him.
They moved directly into the kitchen, a renovated galley. A butcher-block table was in the middle of the space, and modern glass-front cabinetry and steel appliances lined the walls. Heavy footsteps overhead made her freeze. She thought she heard music as well.
She closed the door behind her and turned the deadbolt; she didn’t want to make it easy for him to flee. Garcia watched her hands but said nothing.
Moving carefully across the wooden floor, they headed for the door at the far end of the kitchen, with Garcia taking point. The kitchen’s old-fashioned swinging doors opened into the formal dining area, a space with a long table surrounded by antique chairs. Then came a front room. Looking to the right through the parlor, they could make out the spindled railing of stairs leading up to the second floor. A bookcase was built into one side. The lace-covered windows at the front of the house had a dull glow from the streetlamps outside.
As they drew closer to the stairs, they could see a light at the top. Flattening themselves against the bookcase, they listened. Someone was singing, but she couldn’t understand the words. It was an opera. She heard another voice; Charles was singing along.
Garcia slid closer to the foot of the stairs. They heard a thump at their feet and started. Garcia had knocked a fat book off the shelf. Reaching into their pockets, they pulled out their guns and waited for their quarry to come down the stairs, but he continued with his singing.
Garcia moved to the foot of the stairs, crouched down, and aimed up. She did the same. There was a landing, after which the steps took a sharp turn and continued their ascent. It was the vision from her session with the scarf. They were in the right place. Had they come soon enough to save Regina Ordstruman, or was she already dead?
Taking out her flashlight, Bernadette ran the beam around the floor near the front door. Dark splatters dulled the shiny wood, but there were no big puddles. If he’d stabbed her to death, he’d done it elsewhere. Garcia came up next to her, stared at the blood, and reached into his pocket. Bernadette put her hand up. She didn’t want him calling yet; she wanted to find the girl first. With a hard-set mouth, he pulled his hand out of his pocket. She clicked off the light, and they went for the stairs.
She put one foot on the middle of the first step and winced at the creak. She took the second step by setting her foot on the left side of the stair. Silence. Garcia followed behind her, both of them hugging the left.
Squatting behind the potted palm, they looked up from the landing. Through an open doorway, light and music spilled into the hallway. He’d stopped singing. Had he heard them taking the stairs? There was a pause in the music. Perhaps he was switching CDs. She prayed for new tunes that would get him singing again.
Her prayer was answered. Miraculously, she even recognized what he was playing. It was the music from The Phantom of the Opera. He was singing along again and not doing a half-bad job.
Holding their weapons in both hands, they finished their trek up the stairs. They made a squeaky beeline for the hallway table. Squatting next to it, they heard a toilet flush and water running. He was in the master bathroom, a logical venue for his operatic performance. While Charles launched into “The Music of the Night,” she thought about their next move. They needed information from him, but not at the expense of the girl’s life.
The hallway in front of her started to blur and spin. The dizziness was back, and more intense than before. If she folded, she’d give them away before they found the girl. Reaching up, she clutched the edge of the hallway table for support.
“Shit!” he yelled from inside the bathroom. “Fucking razor.”
Feeling something sting her cheek, she stifled a yelp. Something wet dripped onto her gloved fist. Behind her, Garcia lightly touched her arm. She turned her head and saw his eyes widen with shock. Using her teeth, she pulled off her right glove. Reaching up, she gingerly touched her cheek and examined her fingers. Blood. He’d cut himself—and she was bleeding. Their connection was growing closer by the minute, and she had to sever it soon before she lost herself in him.
Chapter 40
THUMPING OUT OF THE BATHROOM, ARAIGNEE WAS DRINKING straight whiskey—she could smell it out in the hallway—and it made her nauseous. She hoped her tolerance for the stuff was the same, glass for glass, as his. How could she use her gun when she was plastered? Garcia would have to do all the shooting.
Inside the bedroom, they could hear dresser drawers being opened and slammed shut at a ferocious pace. Garcia touched her arm, and she looked at him hunkered next to her in the hallway. They were both thinking the same thing: Chaz was getting ready to take a trip.
Suddenly something shattered in the bedroom.
“Shit!”
He’d dropped his bottle or glass. Hopefully, that would end his binge for the night.
“Fuck!”
A sharp sensation stabbed her right hand, and she inhaled sharply. She switched the gun to her left hand. Lifting her right palm, she was horrified to see deep cuts across her index and middle fingers. He’d sliced himself on the broken glass. While she wiped her bleeding fingers on the leg of her jeans, she sensed Garcia tense next to her. He knew what was going on, and it was scaring the crap out of him. She wondered if the same question came to his mind as to hers: If they shot Charles Araignee, would she be hit as well?
The music stopped. The next sounds made them stand straight, ready to charge the room. It was a moan, followed by Charles’s response.
“Shut up, bitch.”
Gritting her teeth through the pain, Bernadette pulled her leather glove back on over the injury. She turned her head and nodded to Garcia.
Suddenly their prey bounded out of the suite. They watched his back as he went down the steps barefoot, dressed in plaid pajama bottoms and a torn T-shirt. He held on to the banister with his left hand and carried the broken glass in his right. The hand with the tumbler was bandaged.
“I’ve got the girl,” Garcia growled, and bolted into the bedroom.
Moving to the top of the stairs, Bernadette looked down and saw Chaz next to the bookcase, bending over something. He’d discovered the book Garcia had knocked off the shelf. She took a step back from the railing and held her breath, wondering if the fallen volume would set off an alarm in his head. After a minute of quiet, she peeked over the railing again and saw he was gone. A faint light was coming from the kitchen.
Her weapon pointed, she glided down the stairs, cut through the front room, and went into the dining room. Sidling up to the kitchen door, she saw light spilling out from the bottom of the door. On the other side, she heard cupboards being opened and closed. If he was hunting for whiskey, she prayed he’d find none. She was starting to snap out of the daze, helped in part by the sobering pain radiating from her fingers.
She heard silverware rattling. What was he looking for? Before he sliced himself again or unearthed another bottle of booze, Bernadette decided to make her move. Crouching down, she pushed the swinging door open an inch. At the far end of the kitchen, with his back to her, he was fiddling with something on the counter. She couldn’t see what it was; a bread machine blocked her view of his hands. She closed the door and stood up. With her gun in both hands, she raised her arms out in front of her. She k
icked the door open and went through. “Don’t move, Charles!”
He spun around with a revolver in his hand.
Keeping her gun trained on him, she shouted, “Drop it!”
He took a step backward.
The look on his face told her Charles was panicked, and his anxiety was becoming her own. “Drop the gun!”
“All right!” He lowered the revolver.
“Drop it now!”
“If you kill me, you’ll never know about them.”
“The six girls in the river? The two in the tub? The one upstairs.”
His eyes bugged out. “How?”
“I should give you a bullet for each of them. Nine bullets.”
He swallowed hard. “There’re more. Kill me, and you’ll never know who they are.”
Was he lying? Bernadette tried to get a read of his emotions, and all she felt was anger. She had no idea if it was his fury or her own. It didn’t matter. Her violent urges and sexual overdrive had been from him. The cuts on the face and fingers, the drunkenness, and now the anxiety—all had been unwanted gifts from Charles Araignee. She wanted to free herself of him and his emotions. Without saying another word, she took aim from across the room and pulled the trigger. The window behind him shattered.
“Crazy bitch!” Covering his head with his arms, he ducked behind the far end of the counter. He popped back up with the gun in his hands.
She crouched behind the butcher-block table. “Don’t do it!”
“Go to hell!” Two shots rang out, both slamming into the glass-front cupboards lining the walls behind her. Glass and wood and bits of china rained down like hail. He lowered his arm, spun around, and ran to the door. Pulled frantically on the knob and worked the deadbolt.
Even as she took aim at his back, she struggled to negotiate with herself. Lower the gun. This isn’t right. You can’t shoot a guy in the back. You could be nailing yourself in the back. An instant before firing, she raised her arms and aimed for the wall over the doorframe. Wood and plaster exploded, showering him with dust and splinters.
Blind Rage Page 28