Dying Games (Jefferson Tayte Genealogical Mystery Book 6)

by Steve Robinson

  Other books in this series

  In the Blood

  To the Grave

  The Last Queen of England

  The Lost Empress

  Kindred

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 by Steve Robinson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477848265

  ISBN-10: 1477848266

  Cover design by @blacksheep-uk.com

  For my wife, Karen

  Contents

  Prologue

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  PART TWO

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Prologue

  When the woman awoke, she was instantly aware of two things. The first was that she felt cold, the kind of cold you feel deep inside your bones. It made her teeth chatter uncontrollably, and she wanted it to stop. She had to be quiet, or the man would find her.

  The second thing she felt was fear.

  She couldn’t recall why she felt so afraid, but she instinctively knew she was. She was terrified. It was dark, absolutely dark. She was sitting in a crouched position with her knees pulled up close to her chest, hands by her feet. She tried to move, her cold limbs stiff and aching, but there wasn’t enough room. Wherever she was, she thought she must have gone there to hide. Yes, that was it. She was hiding from the man, and she must have been there for some time to feel as cold as she did.

  But where had she hidden, and why was she wearing only one shoe?

  She tried to think. She wished she could remember. Her hands wandered up from her numb feet, and she began to run them over the smooth walls around her, which were so close she couldn’t even straighten her arms. She imagined she must be in a box of some kind, and the idea caused her to catch her breath as claustrophobia gripped her. She wanted to smash her way out of there. She wanted to scream, but she knew that would be bad.

  An image flashed through her mind, and it startled her. It was the man. He was angry, and she was running from him, trying to find somewhere to hide. She supposed he was the reason she was hiding in the box now, but was she hiding? She shook her head as the answer came to her. In her mind she could see her other shoe. It was on the floor at the back of the garage at her home. She was lying on her back a few feet away from it, reaching out for the hammer she’d seen just moments before the man caught up with her. She was kicking out at him as he pulled her back, away from the hammer. Her shoe had come off in the struggle. She had not found a place to hide. She had not managed to escape.

  So why was she crouched inside a box?

  A fearful shiver ran through her as she realised the man must have put her there. At last she screamed.

  ‘John!’

  Her husband had not been home when the man came to the door, but then she thought the man must have known that. She began to cry as she thumped on the walls, which resounded with a low, hollow note. Wherever the man had put her, she was starkly aware that it was with no good intent. She had to get out. She pushed at the wall in front of her and felt her spine brace against the wall at her back. A moment later she thought she heard a crack. Then she heard another sound and froze. Somewhere beyond her confinement, a door had clicked open. She heard echoing footsteps, becoming louder. Her breath quickened.

  It was the man.

  Silent again in the darkness, she listened until the footsteps fell silent with her. Then she heard the man sigh, and her eyes were suddenly blinded by light. She blinked and tried to focus. A small square, no bigger than a matchbook, had opened in the wall to her right. Light was cast into the box, and she saw her surroundings for the first time. There were pictures on the walls—miniature pictures. She could see a bookcase and several fireplaces. There were tiny portraits of indistinguishable people, and above her she saw the interior of an apex roof with a tiny chandelier hanging down. She touched it in disbelief. She was inside a doll’s house, with all the floors removed to accommodate her.

  The light at the small window the man had opened was suddenly interrupted, and she turned towards it. What she saw startled her. It was an eye—his eye—as grey as steel and easily recognisable by the scar that cut a deep line across his left eyebrow, cleaving it in two. The woman caught her breath again, still uncertain of the man’s intentions, fearing she would soon find out.

  The eye blinked as the man focused on her.

  ‘I wanted to be sure you were awake,’ he said, showing no emotion, no nervousness or excitement in light of what he had done, or was about to do. ‘The others were awake when it happened. You can be sure of that.’

  The others? What others?

  ‘When what happened?’ she asked, but the man gave no answer.

  The eye at the tiny window withdrew, and the interior of the doll’s house became bright again. A moment later, she caught the distinctive chemical smell of gasoline. She heard it splashing on to the roof above her. She saw it dripping in through the window.

  ‘What do you want?’ the woman asked, panic in her voice. ‘Why are you doing this?’

  The only sound she heard in reply was the unmistakable striking of a match. It scratched and fizzed, and then the man’s eye returned to the tiny window.

  ‘Jefferson Tayte knows why,’ he said as he offered up the flame.

  Then he dropped the match inside.

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Ten days later.

  Sitting in the back of the car that had just picked him up from Dulles International Airport, courtesy of the federal government, Jefferson Tayte felt a sense of satisfaction to be home in Washington, DC—although the seriousness of the situation that had called him back meant the feeling didn’t last.

  Twenty-four hours ago he’d been in London with his fiancée, Professor Jean Summer, enjoying their last evening to
gether before she had to set off to Scotland for a seminar on the early years of the Scottish monarchy. Now he was keeping company with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He didn’t yet know exactly why, and the lack of information was beginning to frustrate the hell out of him. All he knew was that someone was dead, and the reason had something to do with him. That had been more than enough to get him on the plane, but so far, he wasn’t entirely sure whether he was there to help out, or because he was a suspect.

  The seat next to the driver was vacant. Sitting beside Tayte, on the other side of Tayte’s briefcase and suit carrier, was the man who had personally greeted him off the plane, Special Agent in Charge Jordan Reese—the man tasked with leading the investigation. He was a big man, like Tayte, but lean and muscular. He was African American with close-cut hair and a shadow of a beard, whose dark-grey three-piece suit put Tayte’s perennially creased tan-coloured two-piece to shame.

  ‘Thank you for your patience, Mr Tayte,’ Reese said, straightening his tie, which was ink blue like his shirt. ‘I’m sorry I’ve not been more forthcoming with information just yet, but I’d like to show you what we’re up against before we get down to the details.’

  They were two miles north of the Capitol, driving alongside McMillan Park, which had been fenced off and closed to the public on all but a few special occasions since World War Two. It was almost dusk. Through the fading October light, beyond the barbed-wire fence, Tayte could see the concrete silos of the former sand-filtration site upon which the twenty-five-acre parkland had been created. It was adjacent to the McMillan Reservoir, the vast catacombs beneath it now dormant and abandoned. He imagined it was the perfect place to stage a murder, and if the FBI was involved, it had to be more complicated than a straightforward homicide.

  The car pulled up by a black mesh gate, which was promptly opened by a man wearing the familiar dark-blue uniform of the DC Metropolitan Police Department. Just inside the gate were two MPD cruisers, and the lack of any flashing lights on the vehicles told Tayte that the situation was thankfully now under control.

  ‘Is this where the man was murdered?’ Tayte asked, still taking the area in as they drove towards the first of the silos. ‘Is this the scene of the crime?’

  Reese nodded. ‘Two men were murdered here in the early hours. They were twins.’

  ‘A double homicide,’ Tayte said under his breath.

  Reese gave a sour laugh. ‘It’s a whole lot more than that.’

  When the car stopped, they were outside one of the silos, which, like all the others they had passed, was partially covered with ivy. The driver remained in the car as Reese got out.

  ‘Please follow me, Mr Tayte,’ he said as he went.

  Leaving his briefcase on the seat, Tayte followed Reese to a tall archway opposite the silo. It had a heavy grey wooden door that was open and hanging aslant from a single rusty hinge. The entrance was guarded by another officer of the MPD. Reese flashed his badge and they passed through on to a wide concrete slope that took them underground into the catacombs where the sand-filtration process once took place, settling and purifying most of the city’s drinking water. Beneath his loafers, Tayte could feel the compacted sand, still there after all these years, and the air smelled of damp concrete. The immediate area was dimly lit, but further in, Tayte could see where they were heading by the lights that had been set up around the scene of the crime.

  ‘Are the bodies still here?’ Tayte asked, a little apprehensively, meaning to prepare himself for the shock if they were. He was surprised at first that his voice carried no echo whatsoever in such a hollow space, but he quickly realised it was because of the many pillars and the curvature of the cell-like ceiling sections they supported just a few feet above him.

  ‘No, we’re about done here,’ Reese said. ‘I thought it might be useful for you to see how the victims died before the apparatus the killer used gets taken away for further examination.’

  Tayte could see the apparatus Reese was referring to. It was a clear tank of about four feet square by six feet high, which appeared to have been constructed from heavy-duty Perspex panels, strengthened at each corner and along the sides by a steel framework. There was a water hose attached to the left side of the tank, which had a lid that was raised open about two feet. As Tayte approached, he noticed that the ground was wet, and he imagined the tank had been filled with water, which would have been drained by the police after the bodies were discovered. Inside the tank was another thick layer of Perspex, to which a chair was bolted. It had leather straps at the ankles and wrists, and another larger strap across the middle. There was an identical chair just outside the tank, only this chair had no straps, and it wasn’t bolted down.

  ‘See the box on the side of the tank there,’ Reese said, pointing. ‘It houses a sprung hinge, and there’s a winding mechanism to release the catch and crank the lid open. Once closed, it can’t be opened from the inside.’

  ‘What happened here?’ Tayte asked, scrunching his brow as he tried to imagine.

  ‘Both brothers drowned,’ Reese said. ‘When their bodies were discovered, one was gagged and strapped to the chair. The other was floating loose, suspended in the water. Their killer tapped into an old water supply to fill the tank.’

  Reese picked up the chair in front of the tank and shook it. ‘Our best theory is that one brother woke up sitting in this chair. It has a pressure pad, set to trigger the flow of water when he gets up off the chair. As he does so, he hears the water and turns to see his brother in the tank, struggling to free himself as the water begins to rise. He quickly weighs his options. He pulls at the hose, thinking to stop the flow of water, but it’s secured too well and he can’t stop it. He thinks to go for something sharp to cut the hose with, maybe to get help while he’s at it, but at the rate the water’s rising, he knows that will take too long. If he leaves, his brother will drown. He sees the straps that are binding his brother to the chair and thinks he can stand on his own chair to help get himself up into the tank. Then all he has to do is undo the straps and they can both climb out. Only that’s exactly what the killer expects him to do. He wants him to jump in and try to save his brother.’

  ‘And lose his own life in the process,’ Tayte said, almost to himself, knowing he would probably have done the same thing.

  Reese nodded. ‘There’s another sensor inside the tank. When the brother on the outside got into the tank to effect his rescue, that sensor triggered the lid to snap shut, sealing the twins inside. The tank filled and they both drowned.’

  Tayte felt a shudder run through him as he imagined the fate of the two victims. The whole setup was horrific. ‘Seems a convoluted way to kill people,’ he said as he studied the apparatus again. He frowned. ‘How did the killer get all this gear down here?’

  ‘That’s an excellent question, Mr Tayte. Our killer has clearly been planning this for some time. He probably brought it all in here piece by piece, hiding it away until he needed it. He must have assembled it in situ. There’s no way he could have gotten that tank down here in one piece.’

  ‘What about security? Are there any cameras?’

  ‘Not down here. He gained entry through the wire fence, where it’s become overgrown with ivy. If he fixed the mesh back temporarily each time he left, the breach could have gone unnoticed for some time. He probably chose this particular filtration unit out of the twenty that are here because of its location, knowing he wouldn’t be seen.’

  Another question popped into Tayte’s head. ‘Why here?’ he asked. ‘I know it’s a quiet location—someplace he could go about his business undetected once he was set up, but there must be a hundred more suitable places in DC with easier access for all this equipment. A disused warehouse, for instance.’

  Reese turned away from the tank. ‘That’s where I’m hoping you can help us, Mr Tayte.’ He began walking back towards the exit. ‘Let’s get out of here. There’s something else I need to show you.’

  Tayte followed, glad to
get out into the fresh air again. As they climbed back into the car, he asked, ‘Are you going to tell me what all this has to do with me?’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ Reese said, ‘but you’re not going to like it.’

  Reese worked out of the FBI field office in DC, located on 601 4th Street Northwest. He took Tayte to a small, sparsely decorated room inside the building, where a woman sat waiting for them with an attaché case on her lap. She set the case on the floor and stood up as they entered.

  Reese acknowledged her with a nod. ‘This is Ms Mavro, one of our analysts,’ he said to Tayte, and Tayte offered her a smile.

  ‘Jefferson Tayte,’ he said, almost dropping his suit carrier as he awkwardly switched hands with his briefcase, wondering whether or not a formal handshake was in order.

  He still hadn’t quite decided when Reese said, ‘Mavro has read your file. She knows who you are.’

  ‘Of course,’ Tayte said.

  He didn’t like to think that the government had a file on him, but he supposed that was the case to some extent for most of the people living in DC. He couldn’t help but wonder what was in it. Nothing very exciting, that was for sure.

  Reese took off his jacket and hung it over the back of his chair. Tayte watched him take out a long silver cigar case from inside his jacket and place it on the desk in front of him. He did so with great care, as if it were something precious to him. Tayte looked on with fascination as Reese meticulously lined up the engraved silver tube with the edge of the desk until the two were perfectly parallel.

  ‘Mavro here is one of our finest intelligence analysts,’ Reese added, seemingly oblivious to the attention his little ritual with the cigar case had drawn.

  ‘I bet you say that about all the analysts you draft in from HQ,’ Mavro said, playing the compliment down.

  ‘Well, maybe I do,’ Reese said with a half-smile. To Tayte he added, ‘Anyway, Ms Mavro is going to be working closely with you until we crack this.’

  Tayte took Ms Mavro in more fully once they had all sat down. She appeared to be in her early thirties and wasn’t very tall, only about five four, and quite stocky with it. She was big boned, he thought, much as he was. She had short dark hair that had a slight curl to it, which was almost black like his. It was clipped back off her brow to one side, framing a round face that had a smooth and pale complexion, probably on account of her being cooped up in an office most of the time, crunching numbers. She was dressed in black trousers and a white short-sleeved shirt. He liked her dress sense. Nice and simple.