Die for Me

by Karen Rose

  Vito crouched down and stared at the tattoo through narrowed eyes. “It’s a man.”

  “Not just any man. If you look at him as closely as you watched Sophie yesterday, you’ll figure it out.”

  Vito’s cheeks heated. He hadn’t realized his scrutiny of Sophie Johannsen had been so obvious. Feeling squirmy, he turned back to the victim’s shoulder, but not before he caught Nick’s look of amusement. It wouldn’t have been so bad had Sophie not turned him down cold. It still stung. “It’s a yellow man,” Vito said flatly.

  Nick looked over Vito’s shoulder. “It’s Oscar. You know, the movie award statue.”

  Vito squinted. “Not a particularly good rendition, but it could be.” Straightening, he looked at Nick. “Maybe our Knight’s an actor?”

  Nick shrugged. “It’s a place to start. It’ll narrow down the missing persons reports.”

  Vito took his notebook from his pocket. “Cause of death was the hole in his gut?”

  “That seems likely. I’ll start the autopsies today. So far I’ve only done external exams on the three victims from yesterday.” She looked back at the Knight and sighed. “But this one suffered, I can tell that right now.”

  “Being disemboweled has got to hurt a little,” Nick said sarcastically.

  “I can only hope he was dead at least for part of it, but I don’t think he was. I’m fairly certain he was alive when every major bone in his body was dislocated.”

  Vito and Nick flinched. “My God,” Vito murmured. “How would…? He’s a big guy.”

  “Six feet three, two hundred twenty-five,” Katherine confirmed. “And he fought hard. There are deep abrasions on his wrists and ankles where he was tied with rope. And yeah, I sent a sample of the rope fiber to the lab, but that’s a long shot, kids. Other than the dislocations and an empty abdominal cavity, he appears to have been in good shape.” She held up a hand. “And yes, I’ve already started a urine tox. I can’t see how he could have been overpowered without being drugged. I don’t see any head trauma.”

  Nick blew out a breath. “Anything on the woman?”

  “Official cause of death is a broken neck.” She pulled out another drawer, their female victim, the sheet forming a tent over her folded hands.

  “You need to see her back.” Katherine lifted the sheet and carefully pushed the woman’s hip so that the back of her thigh was visible. “A pattern of contusions, regularly spaced and very deep.” She looked up, her face grim. “I’m thinking nails.”

  Vito’s eyes were already beginning to water. Blinking, he focused on the pattern on the woman’s skin. Each hole was round and small. “Is it only on her legs?”

  “No.” Katherine slid the drawer back into the wall. “It’s deepest on the backs of her thighs, but the same pattern is visible on her back, calves and the backs of her arms. From the depth of the thigh punctures, I’d say she was sitting up, all of her body weight driving her down onto the nails.”

  Nick’s expression became strangely strained. “A chair of nails?”

  “Or something like that. Her gluteus was severely burned. No skin remains.” Katherine cocked her jaw, anger in her eyes. “And she was alive the whole time.”

  Vito’s stomach churned as the extent of this killer’s cruelty became clearer. “We’re dealing with a creative sadist here. I mean, how the hell would anybody even conceive of a chair of nails?”

  Nick sat down at Katherine’s computer. “Come here, Chick. Look at this.”

  Vito frowned at the screen. It was the chair he’d envisioned, covered in spikes. Restraints were attached to the chair’s arms and front legs. “What the hell is that?”

  “I couldn’t sleep last night-kept thinking about the way he’d posed their hands. So I got up and Googled medieval effigies. Sophie was right, by the way. The poses of our victims are exactly like the tomb effigies I found online.”

  Vito didn’t want to think about Sophie right now. He’d done enough of that during the night while he tossed and turned. “That’s nice,” he scowled, focusing on the screen. “But what about the chair? Please don’t tell me this is available on eBay.”

  Nick looked back at the screen, troubled. “It might be. But this site belongs to a museum in Europe that specializes in medieval torture.”

  “A torture museum?” It was real, then. That chair existed in a museum. One also existed right here in Philly. “I can’t begin to imagine how she suffered. How both of them suffered. And we haven’t even started on the others.” He pressed his fingers into the back of his skull, a headache forming there. “How did you find this site?”

  “I thought about what Sophie said about disembowelment being used as torture during medieval times. I Googled ‘medieval torture’ and this is one of the top results. This chair has over thirteen hundred spikes.”

  “That would induce the pattern of injury on the victim,” Katherine agreed tightly.

  Vito ran a hand through his hair. “So we have poses like statues on medieval crypts, a chair of spikes, a disembowelment and, what, a stretching on a… rack? This is not normal, people.”

  “A killer with a theme,” Nick mused. “Except for the body that’s on its way in. It didn’t appear to have anything funky like this.”

  Katherine stepped back from the computer. “I thought I’d seen everything on this job, but I keep being proved wrong.” She squared her shoulders. “I do have two other things so far.” She handed Vito a glass jar containing small white crumbs. “I scraped it from the wire on the male victim’s hands. I found what looks like the same substance on the female victim’s wires.”

  Vito held it up to the light, then passed the jar to Nick. “Best guess?”

  Katherine frowned. “I sent a sample to the lab, but it looks like something in the silicone family. I’ll let you know when I get the results.”

  “What’s the second thing you have for us?” Nick asked.

  “All three of these victims were washed thoroughly. Blood should have been caked all over the three of them, but there was none. That tells me that originally the two posed victims had a lot more of whatever’s in that jar all over them.”

  “We’ll try Missing Persons to match the Knight’s tat,” Vito said. “Thanks, Katherine.”

  “Then let’s call Sophie,” Nick said when they were out in the hall. “I want to follow up on those torture devices. If that’s what he used, he had to get them somewhere and maybe she can give us an idea of where to start looking. We should have gotten her number from Katherine.”

  It was a good idea, Vito had to admit. She’d been right about the posed hands. She obviously knew her stuff. And it might give him a chance to find out what he’d done to earn that flash of fury he’d seen in her eyes just before she’d ridden away. More than that, he just wanted to see her again. “She works at the Albright Museum. We can go when we’re done at Missing Persons.”

  Dutton, Georgia, Monday, January 15, 10:10

  A.M.

  “Thanks for coming down,” Daniel said. “Especially on your day off.”

  Luke’s eyes were glued to Daniel’s father’s computer screen. “Anything for a pal.”

  “And the fact that there’s a lake down the road with prize bass didn’t hurt,” Daniel said dryly and Luke just grinned. “Did you find anything?”

  Luke shrugged. “Depends. Before mid-November, there are no e-mails.”

  “What do mean, none? You mean they never existed or they were erased?”

  “Erased. Now, since November we’ve got e-mails. Acknowledgments for electronic bill pays, mostly. Aside from the usual spam, most of your dad’s legit e-mails have been replies to a guy named Carl Sargent.”

  “Sargent runs the union at the paper mill that employs half the town. Dad met with him before he went away. Yesterday I found out Dad was going to run for Congress.”

  Luke read the remaining e-mails. “Sargent keeps asking your father to make his candidacy public, and your father keeps putting him off. This one says he
’s tied up. This one says he’ll schedule a press conference when he finishes some urgent business.”

  “With my mother,” Daniel murmured. “She has cancer.”

  Luke winced. “I’m sorry to hear that, Daniel.”

  Once again he was gripped by the need to see her just once more. “Thanks. Do you see any kind of itinerary? Anything that would give me an idea of where they might be?”

  “No.” Luke tapped at the keyboard and brought up the online banking screen. “When you find your father, tell him not to save his passwords in a Word file on his hard drive. It’s like leaving your front door key on a silver platter for the thieves.”

  “Like I could tell him anything,” Daniel muttered. Luke’s mouth quirked in sympathy.

  “My old man’s the same. Doesn’t look like your dad made any major cash withdrawals, not in the last ninety days. That’s all the records they keep online.”

  “What I don’t understand is why he’s doing his e-mail and banking remotely. If he has access to a computer wherever he is, why not just do it from there?”

  “Maybe he wanted to access documents on his hard drive from the road.” Luke continued to tap keys. “That’s interesting.”

  “What?”

  “His Internet history’s been wiped.”

  “Completely wiped?”

  “No. But it’s pretty sophisticated.” He typed for another minute. “This is a surprisingly good wipe. Most computer techs wouldn’t know how to get past this.” He looked up, his eyes serious. “Danny, somebody’s been in your dad’s system.”

  A new wave of uneasiness rippled through him. “Maybe, maybe not. My dad’s a computer person from way back. He was also super-paranoid about security. I can see him being worried about leaving a trail.”

  Luke frowned. “If he was so concerned with security, he wouldn’t have left his passwords on his hard drive. Besides, I thought your dad was a judge.”

  “He was. Electronics is his hobby-ham radios, remote-controlled rockets, but especially computers. He’d take them apart, build his own upgrades. If anyone would know how to keep his system clean, it would be my father.”

  Luke turned back to the screen. “Funny how some things get passed on and others don’t. You don’t have a computer bone in your body.”

  “No, I don’t,” Daniel murmured. All that expertise had been diverted to another branch of the family tree. But it was unpleasant to remember, so he briskly closed the door on that dark corner of his memory. “So can you get through the wipe?”

  Luke looked offended. “Of course. This is interesting. With all those travel brochures, I expected a few travel websites, but there’s nothing like that in his cache.”

  “What sites did he go to?”

  “The weather forecast for Philadelphia two weeks before Thanksgiving. And… a search for oncologists in the Philadelphia area. Was Philly one of the brochures?”

  Daniel leaned in for a closer look at the screen. “No, it wasn’t.”

  “Well, that’s where I’d start if I were you. Looks like they wanted to be prepared in case your mother needed a doctor.” He bent his mouth in sympathy. “I’ve got a meeting with a lake and a bass. You want to come?”

  “No, but thanks. I think I’m going to look around here a little more. Check out this Philly angle. Thanks for your help, Luke.”

  “Any time. Good luck, buddy.”

  Philadelphia, Monday, January 15, 10:15

  A.M.

  “Oh dear God.” Marilyn Keyes lowered herself to the edge of a faded paisley sofa, every ounce of color drained from her face. “Oh, Warren.” Pressing one arm to her stomach, she raised a shaking hand to her mouth and rocked herself.

  “Then this is your son, ma’am?” Vito asked gently. They’d gotten a hit from the Missing Persons file right away. Their knight was Warren Keyes, age twenty-one. He’d been reported missing by his parents and his fiancée, Sherry, eight days before.

  “Yes.” She nodded, her breath shallow. “That’s Warren. That’s my son.”

  Nick sat next to her. “Is there someone we can call for you, Mrs. Keyes?”

  “My husband.” She pressed her fingertips to her temple. “There’s a book… in my purse.” She pointed to the dining room table and Nick went to make the call.

  Vito took Nick’s place on the sofa. “Mrs. Keyes, I’m so sorry, but we need to ask you some questions. Do you need a glass of water or something?”

  She drew a deep breath. “No. But thank you. Before you ask, Warren has had a drug problem in the past. But he’d been clean and sober for almost two years.”

  Vito pulled his notebook from his pocket. It wasn’t the question he’d planned to ask, but he’d learned long ago when to go with the flow. “What kind of drugs, Mrs. Keyes?”

  “Cocaine and alcohol mostly. He… fell in with some bad kids in high school. Started using. But he got clean and since he met Sherry, he’s changed.”

  “Mrs. Keyes, what did Warren do for a living?”

  “He’s an actor.” She swallowed. “Was an actor.”

  “A lot of actors have second jobs. Did Warren?”

  “He waited tables at a bar in Center City. Sometimes he modeled. I can get you his portfolio, if that would help.”

  “It might.” He gently caught her arm when she started to rise. “I have a few more questions. Where did Warren live?”

  “Here. He and Sherry…” Vito sat quietly as she dropped her face into her hands and wept. “Who would do this?” she demanded brokenly, her words muffled by her hands. “Who would kill my son?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out, ma’am,” Vito said, still gently. Nick came in from the kitchen, a box of tissues in one hand, a framed photo in the other.

  “Mr. Keyes is on his way,” he murmured.

  Vito pressed a tissue in the woman’s hand. “Mrs. Keyes? He and Sherry what?”

  She wiped her eyes. “They were saving up to get married. She’s a nice girl.”

  “Did you get the idea that Warren was worried or afraid of anyone?” Nick asked.

  “He was worried about money. He hadn’t had any acting jobs in a long time.” Her lips bent into a painful smile. “His agent told him if he moved to New York, he could find lots of work, but Sherry’s family is here. She wouldn’t leave and he wouldn’t leave her.”

  Nick turned the photo so that it faced Mrs. Keyes. “This is Warren with Sherry?”

  New tears flooded her eyes. “Yes,” she whispered. “At their engagement party.”

  Vito put his notebook back in his pocket. “We need to go through his room,” Vito said. “And we’ll bring in a fingerprinting unit.”

  She nodded dully. “Of course. Anything you need to do.”

  He stood, aware that he had no words that would bring her comfort. Before Andrea, he’d have asked if she was all right. But this grieving mother was not all right. She was in pain and would be for some time. When he got to the end of the hall, he looked back. Bowed forward, she clutched the photo of her son to her breast, rocking as she wept.

  “Chick,” Nick said softly. “Come on.”

  Vito exhaled. “I know.” He opened the door to Warren’s room. “Let’s get to work.”

  They began going through Warren’s things. “Sports equipment,” Nick said from the closet. “Hockey, baseball.” There was a clunk of metal. “Lifted some serious weights.”

  Vito found Warren’s portfolio. “Handsome guy.” He flipped through the pages of photographs and magazine clippings. “Looks like he mostly did magazine ads. I’ve seen this one. It’s for a local gym. Keyes was a big, strong guy. I can’t imagine he would have been easily overpowered.”

  “Chick, look.” Nick had powered up Warren’s computer. “Come and look at this.”

  Vito stood behind him, staring at the blank screen. “What? I don’t see anything.”

  “That’s the point. There’s nothing here. When I open his ‘My Documents,’ nothing. Nothing in his e-mail. Nothing i
n the recycle bin.” Nick looked up over his shoulder, his brows lifted. “This computer has been wiped clean.”

  Monday, January 15, 12:25

  P.M.

  “You sure Sophie works here?” Nick asked, frowning. He stood next to the front desk of the museum, looking around impatiently. “I don’t think anybody works here.”

  Vito nodded, his attention on the photographs of the museum’s founder on the wall of the lobby. “Yes, she works here. Her bike was parked at the end of the parking lot.”

  “That was Sophie’s?”

  Vito was a little annoyed at the sudden interest on Nick’s face. “Yeah. So?”

  “Just that it’s just a nice bike, Chick.” Nick’s lips twitched. “Easy, boy.”

  Vito rolled his eyes, but the ringing of his cell saved him from having to reply.

  Nick sobered. “Is that Sherry?” They’d been unsuccessful in contacting Warren Keyes’s fiancée after leaving his parents’ apartment. She wasn’t at her own apartment nor was she due to show up at the factory where she worked until seven.

  Vito checked the caller ID and his pulse kicked up a notch. “No, it’s my dad.” He flipped open his phone, praying for good news. “Dad. How’s Molly?”

  “Stable. She’s got some strength back in her legs and her tremors are less frequent. The doctor’s trying to figure out what triggered this attack.”

  Vito frowned. “I thought he said she had a mini-stroke.”

  “He’s changed his mind. They found high levels of mercury in her system.”

  “Mercury?” Vito was sure he’d heard wrong. “How did she get exposed to mercury?”

  “They don’t know. They’re thinking she was exposed to something in the house.”

  His heart skipped a beat. “What about the kids?”

  “They didn’t have any symptoms. But he wanted them all to come in for testing, so your mother and Tino brought them in. They were pretty scared, especially Pierce.”

  Vito’s heart squeezed. “Poor little guy. How long before we know if they’re okay?”

  “By tomorrow morning. But the doctor doesn’t want any of the boys to go home until they know for sure where Molly got exposed. Dino wanted me to ask you if-”