“Maybe he wants us to find the body. Maybe he wants us to catch him.”
“Yeah, and maybe he’s got Angelina Jolie in there and she’s giving him head as we speak.”
Lumley’s jaw dropped. “Where did that come from?” she said.
“A personal fantasy of mine,” he said. “Trust me, there’s no way on earth that Slater wants us to catch him.” He took another bite of his Whopper.
“So does he think we won’t crack the code in the book?”
“Maybe there is no code,” said Mitchell through a mouthful of burger. “All you have is a load of meaningless numbers. Maybe that’s all they are. Meaningless.”
Lumley shook her head. “There are too many numbers in his book. They’re unnecessary.”
“Maybe he’s just messing with your head.”
Lumley frowned. “You think?”
“That’s how he gets his kicks. He likes playing games. I wouldn’t put it past him just throwing in numbers so that you’d jump to exactly the conclusion that you have jumped to. So no, I don’t actually think he’s in there getting head from Angelina Jolie but I sure as hell do think he’s in there with a shit-eating grin on his face.”
“But you think he did it?”
“Of course he did it.” He slurped his Coke again and smacked his lips. “But if we just sit here and wait for him to lead us to the body, we’ll be waiting until hell freezes over. If we’re going to put him behind bars, we’re going to have to do it the old-fashioned way.”
“Beat a confession out of him with phone directories?”
Mitchell chuckled. “I wasn’t thinking of going back that far,” he said. He put the Coke into the cup-holder and pulled out his cell phone. “Did you see that?” he asked, nodding at the yacht.
“See what?”
“Slater on the deck. Just then. He was holding a gun.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Ed?”
“A gun. An automatic, I think it was.” He started tapping out a number on his cell phone with his thumb. “The captain’s got a couple of tame judges who’ll be more than happy to issue a search warrant, especially as we saw the gun.”
Lumley grinned. “Oh, that gun? The big one? Damn right I saw it.” She took another bite of her burger as Mitchell continued to tap out the number.
CHAPTER 35
Slater was standing on the pier next to his yacht, bookended by two large uniformed cops. He was wearing a long black coat over his black jeans and had his RayBans pushed up on top of his head. “Look at him, like butter wouldn’t melt in his backside,” said Lumley. She was standing with Mitchell at the entrance to the marina.
“He doesn’t look worried,” said Mitchell. The two uniforms took Slater to a cruiser and put him in the back. They hadn’t handcuffed him yet because he hadn’t been arrested.
“He’s a psychopath,” said Lumley. “They’re expert at hiding their feelings.”
“Either that or there’s nothing on the boat.”
“Oh ye of little faith,” said Lumley. She punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s see how they’re getting on.”
They walked along the pier and boarded the yacht at the rear. There were two CSU technicians in the main cabin and a third was in the sleeping cabin at the front of the boat.
“How’s it going?” Lumley asked the technician closest to the hatch. She was a red-head with high cheekbones and a sprinkling of freckles across her nose. Like the rest of the technicians she was wearing a white paper suit and had blue paper covers over her shoes. She had just finished spraying luminol over the floor and was sitting back on her heels to see if there was any reaction.
“Nothing,” said the technician. “I’ve done the shower and the galley and there’s no blood anywhere.” She nodded at the technician in the forward cabin. “We’re checking the sheets for whatever, but again there’s no blood. We did find blonde hairs in a hairbrush in the head so we’ll run them against hairs from the girl’s apartment. And there are lots of fingerprints.”
The technician pointed at a large textbook on the desk next to a laptop. “You might want to look at the book,” she said. “And that roll thing. That’s very interesting. It’s a chef’s knife set. Professional, too. Japanese. Those blades will cut right through bone.” The technician grinned mischievously. “And you might want to look at the notepad, too.”
Lumley picked up the notepad and grimaced when she saw the caricature that Slater had drawn. He’d sketched her and Mitchell as Keystone cops, waving truncheons as they chased after Slater on his motorcycle. She showed it to Mitchell and he shook his head. “We need the knives checked for blood,” he told the technician.
“We’ll do that at the lab,” said the technician. “But I have to tell you they look like they’ve been thoroughly cleaned and there’s a strong smell of bleach on them.” She headed into the sleeping area to talk to the other technician.
Mitchell picked up the book. Gray’s Dissection Guide For Human Anatomy. “Now why would a writer need that?” he said.
“He’ll say it’s for research,” said Lumley, tossing the notepad onto the desk.
“It’s a guide to dismembering a body,” said Mitchell. “That and the knives does it for me.”
“But it won’t do it for a judge, or a jury,” said Lumley. She switched on the laptop.
“I hate to be the stickler for the rules but the warrant doesn’t cover his computer,” said Mitchell. “We’re looking for the gun we saw and at a stretch that can be used to cover the knives, but the laptop is out of reach.”
Lumley grinned and took out a small black thumbdrive from her pocket. “I don’t want the laptop,” she said. “I just want a look-see at his work in progress, see how much further he’s got.”
“Naughty girl,” said Mitchell, standing so that his body was between her and the technicians.
“By hook or by crook, we’re going to get this bastard,” said Lumley. She plugged the thumbdrive into the laptop’s USB slot, found the work in progress file and copied it. It took her less than a minute, then she pocketed the thumbdrive and switched off the laptop.
They went up the stairs to the deck. Slater was looking at them from the back of the cruiser. He blew Lumley a kiss.
Mitchell scowled. “He knows there’s nothing here to hurt him,” he said. “The boat’s clean. He isn’t going to confess. There’s no body. We’re screwed, no matter which way you look at it.”
“Not if we find the body,” said Lumley. “I need to solve the clues in the book.”
“We’re not sure there are clues to be solved.”
“There are, Ed. I’m sure of it. Slater wants to prove that he’s smarter than us. He wants to shove his intelligence in our faces, rub our noses in it.” She forced a smile. “Come on, let’s go. I want to go through the latest version of his book. And this time I’m going to get an expert to help me.”
“An expert?”
“A mathematician, someone who’s good with numbers. If the clues are in that book, I need someone who can point me in the right direction,” she said.
CHAPTER 36
Lumley didn’t know any mathematicians. In fact she didn’t know anyone, family or friends, who could even balance their own checkbook. But she did know how to use Google and within minutes at her computer she had the email addresses of half a dozen mathematicians who worked in New York City. She sent the same short email to all six and by the end of her shift she had received replies from four. All were intrigued and the following day she visited them one by one and left them thumbdrives containing Slater’s book.
All were male, all were in their thirties and all had facial hair, though one of them was bald and another had hair that had receded halfway across his scalp. All four wore glasses and all seemed to have trouble looking her in the eyes. Three were Doctors and the fourth was a consultant whose clients included the IRS, the ATF and the FBI. His name was Alex Brennan and he seemed the most normal of the four. He wore a d
ark grey suit and a tie and there was a photograph of a chubby blonde woman and three equally chubby children on his desk. His office was several floors below the FBI’s field office in Federal Plaza and on the wall behind him were framed commendations and plaques from police forces around the country. He had polished his horn-rimmed spectacles as he listened to Lumley and had nodded enthusiastically while looking out of the window. When she gave him the thumbdrive she’d noticed that his nails were bitten to the quick.
It was Brennan who got back to her first, just twenty-four hours later, to announce that he’d cracked the code. Cracked it and come up with three locations already. All of them in New York.
CHAPTER 37
Mitchell and Lumley picked up Slater at eight o’clock in the morning, handcuffed him and drove him to the police station. They didn’t say anything to him and he didn’t attempt to initiate a conversation. They took him straight to an interview room where Lumley took off the cuffs and told him to sit down. “Why so serious, Detective Lumley?” asked Slater.
“It’s over, Slater,” she said, sitting down opposite him. “Your sick, evil little game has come to an end. And now it’s time for you to pay the piper.”
Mitchell sat down next to her.
Slater took out his cigarettes. “Can I smoke?”
“It’s a public building, of course you can’t fucking smoke,” said Lumley.
“It relaxes me. Nicotine is my drug of choice and smoking apart it’s not illegal. Depriving me of my nicotine is against my human rights, surely.”
“It’s against the law,” said Lumley.
Slater put the cigarettes away and folded his arms. “So what is this, Good Cop and Stupid Cop?” he said. “It’s not a combination I’ve come across before. Does it usually work for you?”
“Did you kill Jenny Cameron?” asked Mitchell.
“Is that what passes for interrogation in New York City?” said Slater. “How do you think I’m going to answer a question like that?” He held out his hands. “You got me, Detective Mitchell. I confess. Lock me up and throw away the key, why don’t you?”
Mitchell pointed a finger at Slater. “You’ve got a very funny mouth, Slater,” he growled.
“Yeah, but you can’t charge me with that, can you.” He looked at his watch. “And if I’m not charged then I can go whenever I want to. So are we done? Or do you have some more insightful questions to get me quivering in my boots?”
“Do you know where Jenny Cameron is?” asked Lumley.
“Why would I? I’m not her father.”
“But you are her lover, right?” said Mitchell.
“See, now you’re getting your tenses all mixed up,” said Slater. “If she’s dead then I can’t be her lover in the present tense. You are saying she’s dead, right?”
“You don’t seem surprised,” said Mitchell. “Or sorry.”
“Because I’m confused,” said Slater. “And the reason I’m confused is because your line of questioning is so random.”
“How do you explain her disappearance?”
Slater shrugged. “She wasn’t doing well on the course. Maybe she realized that she wasn’t cut out to be a writer and went home.”
“We checked with her parents,” said Lumley. “She hasn’t gone home. They haven’t heard from her in two weeks.”
“Her fingerprints were on the boat,” said Mitchell. “And we found hairs on a brush with her DNA. Perfect match to the DNA in the blood we found in her bathroom. And we found epithelials on your sheets.”
Slater frowned. “Epithelials? You mean skin cells?”
“Jenny Cameron’s skin. She was in your bed.”
“So?”
“You were lovers?”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“What would you say?” asked Mitchell.
“Friends.”
“Friends with benefits?” said Lumley.
“Just friends,” said Slater.
“You never had sex with her?” asked Mitchell.
“She came on the boat. She felt a bit queasy. She lay down for a bit. She left. There was no sex involved. I took her sailing. We had some wine. We watched the sun go down. Yada yada yada.”
“Yada, yada, yada?”
“Yeah. It means nothing happened.”
The two detectives looked at Slater for several seconds without saying anything.
“The silent treatment?” said Slater. “That’s not going to work either.”
“You ever hear about a book called Masquerade?” asked Lumley.
Slater shrugged. “It doesn’t ring a bell.”
“You sure about that?”
“What is it? A thriller?”
“No. Definitely not a thriller.”
“There was a movie called Masquerade, right? With Rob Lowe?”
“This was a book. By an English guy, Kit Williams. It was a sort of fairy story, but there were clues in it that would lead the reader to find some hidden treasure.”
“You’ve lost me, Detective. Sorry.” Slater sat back in his chair and folded his arms.
“The book was based around a series of fifteen paintings. In the paintings were clues that pointed to the location of a golden hare. Hare as in a rabbit.”
“I’m still not following you,” said Slater.
“It was published in 1979. Huge fanfare, I’m told. People all over the world bought the book and started looking for the treasure. The golden hare was worth tens of thousands of dollars and treasure hunters started digging holes all over the place.”
“Sounds like a good way of boosting sales, what do you think, Mr Slater?” asked Mitchell.
Slater shrugged but didn’t say anything.
“So you never heard of this book?” asked Lumley.
“Like I said, it doesn’t ring a bell,” said Slater.
“Because it got me thinking, about your book. The Bestseller. There are lots of numbers in it.”
“There’s some.”
“No, there’s a lot. Phone numbers, apartment numbers, zip codes, car registration numbers. More than you’d normally find in a novel.”
“I’m not sure that’s true.”
Lumley nodded. “Oh, it’s true. Lots of numbers. And that got me thinking. Maybe the numbers are there for a reason.”
Slater’s jaw tensed and his eyes hardened. His right hand clenched into a tight fist.
“You see, we were going about it the wrong way. We were looking for clues in the story. I mean, you talk about choosing the victim and how you were going to kill her and dispose of the body. But the clues aren’t in the words, are they? They’re in the numbers.”
Slater said nothing.
“And you’re a sailor. Sailing is all about navigation. GPS coordinates. Latitude and longitude. It’s all in the numbers isn’t it? Crack the code and we’ll find the body. Or the bits of it. Am I right?”
“Do you think I’m crazy, Detective Lumley? Do you think I’d cut up a body and bury the parts in some sort of crazy treasure hunt? Why would I do that?”
“The clue’s in the title. The Bestseller. You want to be famous. And I think you’ve realized that your writing isn’t good enough to get you noticed. You need a gimmick. A USP. A unique selling point.”
“And you think a book that says that I’m going to kill a girl and then highlight where the body’s buried is a good way to get onto the bestseller list?”
“Don’t you?”
“I think it’s a surefire way of ending up in jail. Or the electric chair. You’ve got the death penalty in New York, haven’t you?”
“It’s been declared unconstitutional,” said Mitchell “But you never know.”
“Death penalty or not, I’d be pretty stupid to tell everyone in advance what I was doing, wouldn’t I?”
“You don’t see it that way, though, do you?” said Lumley.
“What do you mean?”
“You think you’re smarter than the rest of us. It’s clear from the way you talk, your body
language, everything you do, that you regard us all as intellectually inferior. Am I right?”
Slater sighed. “I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of agreeing or disagreeing,” he said.
“You know what I think, Slater? I think you’re a sociopath. I think you’ve decided that you want to be a famous writer and that you’ll do whatever it takes to achieve that objective. But you’re right, I don’t think you’re stupid enough to tell people where you buried the body parts. You weren’t planning to tell anyone, were you? It was going to be your secret.”
Mitchell nodded slowly. “Serial killers take trophies, you know that? They keep a little something so that they can relive the experience. A piece of jewelry, bit of clothing, a photograph maybe. But you, I think you found some other way of getting off on the murder. You left clues in the book, clues that only you would ever know about. And reading that book and knowing that the clues are there is what will get you hard.”
Slater swallowed nervously and looked at the two detectives in turn. Then he slowly smiled. “Nice try,” he said. “But if that was true then you’d have the body parts and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“And you never read that book? Masquerade?”
Slater shook his head.
“That’s real strange,” said Mitchell. “Because your father had the film rights at one stage.”
“Is that right?”
“Apparently so. He was working on a script, based on the book and the search for the hare. You’d be just a kid at the time but he’d have had a copy, for sure.”
“My father didn’t usually talk about his work with me.”
“That doesn’t sound right,” said Mitchell. “Kids always want to know about their father’s work.”
“Yeah? Was your father a cop, Sergeant Mitchell? Did you learn interrogation techniques at his knee?”
Mitchell glared at Slater but before he could reply, Lumley began to speak. “We’re giving you the opportunity of putting an end to this,” she said. “Let Jenny’s parents have her body so that they can give her a proper burial. And we can get you the treatment you need.”
The Bestseller Page 15