The White Iris

by Susanne Matthews

  Tom laughed. “I heard Hamilton bought his seat at the table with campaign contributions. If we’d benched Rob, Faye would’ve been a goner, and as far as Jacob goes, he’s probably richer than L.D. Hell, bet his credit rating’s higher than our government’s. Knowing about Lilith is strange, though, since she kept herself out of the limelight.”

  “I know, but he knew about her undercover job and the fact that something had gone wrong. That’s a sealed file. The son of a bitch even knew about Julie and me. I answered some questions, but not all of them, since a few made me uncomfortable. I actually lied a couple of times. If he ever figures that out, I’ll be fired and probably charged with treason for deceiving the president, but I went with my gut. He asked about the bodies, women, children, and the other prisoners. Can you believe it? He suggested we should just turn them all over to the Prophet—he referred to them as criminals.”

  “What an ass. Sure, a nine-month-old baby and his mother are criminals. Do you think the president would support that?”

  “No, and he admitted as much.”

  “What else did he want?”

  “A full briefing on the Prophet. I didn’t pull any punches in my opinion of the man.”

  “Complimentary, were you?”

  “Hardly. At one point, I’m pretty sure I struck a nerve.”

  “How so?”

  “Hamilton got angry and rubbed his neck as if he had a headache. Calmed down almost immediately. I told him about the oleander poisonings and the missing body. He seemed surprised we’d discovered anything about Becca. When he wanted details, I mentioned Thaddeus’s service record, nothing about Jacob identifying her. In fact, I was careful not to mention Jacob’s personal connection to the case. I’m positive I didn’t mention the gravemarkers only had first names on them, but he knew that. I’d sure like to know who does his legwork. I’d hire him, too.”

  “It’s hard to find good help these days,” Tom said, “but you’re stuck with us. If L.D. thought Rob had a conflict, he’d go ballistic over Jacob’s involvement.”

  “Like I said, I don’t like the guy. I can’t explain it, but I got the impression he was toying with me. I did ask him about that cancer center in Reno and the adoption records. He promised to have his lawyers look into it. Oh, and I met his son. Tony’s not going into White Iris Petroleum the way I’d have assumed the heir would. He’s going to become some hotshot lawyer. The guy must look like his mother because he sure as hell doesn’t resemble L.D.”

  “Sounds like you wasted six or seven hours.”

  “Yup. Something interesting did happen, though. I saw a picture of Iris Hamilton. She looks so familiar. Dark hair and unbelievably gorgeous blue-green eyes. I swear I’ve seen her before, but that’s unlikely since she’s been dead for over thirty years. She’s the reason the White Iris Foundation does cancer research.”

  He stopped talking. Julie had been pretty enthusiastic when she’d mentioned working for the foundation, and Dalton Rush in particular. He should have looked up the guy instead of getting lost in cytokine storms.

  “Anything else I should know?”

  “Susan Davis called in. She and Micah found that horse and they’re following a lead back to the animal’s original owners, the people who suggested the New Horizon semen collectors in the first place. The owner is definitely not involved with the cult. I gather Micah almost had a heart attack when three girls showed up wearing skimpy tops and Daisy Dukes.”

  Tom burst out laughing. “I don’t think it was his heart acting up.”

  “Probably not,” he said. “Have you ever heard of Sunnybrook Farms? The name sounds familiar.”

  “Don’t think so. What do they bake?”

  “You and your stomach,” he said, shaking his head. “Not pastry. It’s a horse ranch in Utah.”

  When Lilith had joined the task force, he’d described the team as a family, and that was what they were. They joked and teased one another, but any one of them would take a bullet for the other. When this case was over, he’d miss them. It was something else he hated about this job, making friends and leaving them behind. After a while, a man needed to settle down. At the rate he was going, he’d end up a lonely old man with no one to keep him company. Hell, the job didn’t even let him have a dog.

  At least Julie has her cats.

  The light turned red and Tom stopped. He looked over at him, his brow furrowed and his lips pursed. “That state sure comes up an awful lot, doesn’t it?”

  “It does. I asked Julie about the oleander poisoning, too. Since it didn’t grow on the compound twenty years ago and it does now, the Prophet might be stockpiling it for something.”

  Tom whistled, and drove through the intersection, focused on the road once more. “What did she say?”

  “Basically, any poison can be weaponized. She’s going to look into it further for me, but I don’t think he’ll poison anyone, or if he does, it’ll be to complicate matters and confuse us, like he’s done so many times before. Julie suggested he could be using oleander poisoning to keep people in line—he can’t kill them all off if they disobey; sooner or later he’d run out of followers. She figures he gives them enough to make them sick, and when they repent, he eases off and they get better. Another Prophet miracle. I’m convinced she and Jacob are right. The Great Burning will be a virus, but she says it doesn’t even have to be a new one, just one we aren’t ready for. I was reading the stuff she sent me last night on the original H1N1 outbreak. I had no idea how dangerous the flu could be.”

  Trevor turned and looked out the window. How many people had died since this case started? That number would pale into insignificance if the Prophet succeeded in unleashing his secret weapon. There might be thousands, maybe millions, dead before the virus would run its course. He was relying on Julie to find a cure when they didn’t even know what the disease was. He’d dedicated his life to saving others, but right now, unless a miracle happened, he might not be able to save anyone.

  The heavy police presence at the warehouse had attracted quite the crowd despite the early hour. Declan Horvath, the newest member of the taskforce, came over to the car.

  “Morning. Hell of a wake-up call. What do you want me to do first?” he asked.

  “Not the way I wanted to start the day, that’s for damn sure,” Trevor answered. “Photograph the curious. See if any of them match the pictures of the gawkers we had at the sorority house. Then go inside. I know the forensic team will take pictures of everything, but I want our own.”

  “Will do,” Declan said. “I’ll talk to a few and see if I can figure out when they got here and why they’re here in the first place. This place isn’t on the beaten path.”

  “Good idea.”

  Leading the way, Trevor crossed the street. Two ambulances and the coroner’s van were parked up close to the building—never a good sign. His stomach burned, despite the muffin he’d added to soak up the coffee, but it was more than that. His heart ached. There’d never been a case like this, one that stymied him over and over again. He felt like a failure, unable to stop what was happening, unable to save anyone. If it weren’t for the threat to Julie, he’d consider resigning and turning the case over to someone else—but that would be running away again. Hadn’t he stopped doing that?

  “Declan’s a good fit,” Tom said, grounding him once more. “He’s sharp and eager. I remember those days.”

  Trevor nodded. “I worked with his dad when I started with the agency. You’d have liked him. He didn’t trust Pierce, either. Declan’s reliable. He enjoys the forensic analysis part, and in this case, that could be crucial. Where’s our other guy?”

  “Ruis is in El Paso. His father had a stroke. He left yesterday afternoon. With everything you told me, I forgot all about it. Sorry, boss.”

  “That means it’s just the three of us today. Lilith, Jacob, Rob, Davis, and Micah should all be back tomorrow, but I’m sure Rob and Jacob will be looking at modified assignment. I may have to ask McNamara t
o give me some help, especially if this virus lead pans out.”

  Flashing his ID, Trevor stopped to speak to the officer posted on the door. “Where are they?”

  “Up the stairs to your left. Lieutenant McNamara is waiting for you. The coroner arrived about twenty minutes ago.”

  “Thanks.”

  Trevor took the steps two at a time with Tom in his wake, panting heavily. The man wasn’t as young as he acted. Hopefully, Tom’s decision to delay his retirement until the case was solved wouldn’t get him killed. He’d have to ask Julie what could be done to protect his team. How many flu shots could you get in a year? There had to be vaccines somewhere against most of the known viruses.

  Turning the corner, he entered a large storage area that had been converted into a dormitory. One section had been transformed into a kitchenette, another into a den of sorts with a flat-screen television—pretty modern for anyone from New Horizon. Something didn’t add up. The television, computer on the desk near it, and everything else in the place looked brand new, as if someone had recently set up shop. On the far wall were four beds; all of them looked slept in, and in front of them, three bodies.

  Somebody got away. The killer?

  “What do we know?” he asked Amos, standing over one of the bodies.

  “Not much. No wallets. It’s as if these guys have been erased. They don’t have any faces. I won’t even be able to use dental records to identify them. They were shot in the back of the head with a large-caliber gun, maybe a Desert Eagle .50 caliber, up close and personal. I can’t be sure since there’s no brass. It looks like they just knelt down and took it. Your message is over there.” He pointed to the wall. “Spray-paint this time.”

  The message chilled him, making him shiver the way he had when he wandered aimlessly on the range that day twenty years ago. The threat was personal—too personal.

  Agent Clark,

  Insults? That’s beneath you. The Creator can’t and won’t stand for incompetence. These men failed and paid the price. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. You have one month to return my children to me. Keep the rest. The only other one I want is the jezebel, Mariah. Flowers are fragile. Consider the iris and the rose.

  H.

  “There’s something else you have to see,” McNamara said, more upset than he’d been seconds ago. “They just found her. We were focused on this room…”

  “Found who?”

  “Police Commissioner O’Connor’s niece.”

  “Son of a bitch! Where?”

  The commissioner’s niece. Just what I need. He’s going to want my head and McNamara’s, too.

  “Her father worked nights,” McNamara continued. “I was talking to him not two hours ago. Damn it! He told me he’d dropped her at the library on his way to the precinct. He’s just finishing his shift. He doesn’t even know she’s missing, let alone dead.”

  “How did you find her?’

  “I didn’t. The forensic techs break down the whole scene into sectors to make sure nothing gets missed. Maguire”—he pointed to the young man standing next to him—“found the backpack and the clothes on the other side of the partition next to the freezer.”

  The chest freezer lid was propped open. Inside, a young teenaged girl looked as if she were asleep. There was frost in her dark hair and on her lashes as well as on her naked shoulders and hip. She lay curled up in the fetal position, her hand cushioning her head. Her face, unnaturally pale, was in repose, and there was no sign that she’d tried to escape her tomb.

  “She’s just a child,” Trevor whispered. When he caught the Prophet, and by God he would, they’d better not leave him alone in the room with the bastard. He’d tear him limb from limb. What kind of monster waged war against innocent women and children?

  “Just turned fifteen last week,” McNamara said. “My daughter’s the same age.”

  “Let me have a look,” Amos said, elbowing him out of the way.

  What the hell was going on here and how did any of this go with the note? Three men calmly kneeled down and allowed themselves to be executed by a fourth, and a girl willingly climbed into a freezer to die?

  “Shit,” Tom said, coming to stand beside him. “Jesus, Amos, can I cover her? I know her and her father.”

  “Go ahead,” Amos said and moved aside to allow Tom to drape his trench coat over the girl. “I’ll have them take the whole thing down to the morgue.”

  With the coat covering her nudity, the teen looked like an angel, and while she wasn’t pink, she reminded Trevor of the Harvester’s first four victims. Her light brown hair curled around her head. He’d imagined the children he and Julie might’ve had would have hair like that. Tears filled his eyes and he blinked them away. “What’s her name?” he asked, unable to keep the huskiness out of his voice.

  “Iris O’Connor,” McNamara said.

  Flowers are fragile. Consider the iris and the rose. Iris was dead, frozen in the bloom of youth. Lilith’s Rose was the same age. Trevor clenched his fists to keep his hands from trembling.

  “It looks like she undressed, folded her clothes, showered, and then willingly climbed into the freezer and went to sleep. Everything’s here. Her ID, thirty bucks and change, and a cell phone,” McNamara said. “It makes no sense.”

  “But it does, Lieutenant. I don’t think I’ll find any defensive wounds,” Amos said, “but I may find an injection site. I hate to say it, but I’ll bet he’s fallen back on what he knows works. I’m sure I’ll find scopolamine in her system as well as theirs.”

  “What’s that on her face?” Tom asked, leaning in to stare at the pale cheek. “It looks like pepper.”

  Amos reached down, picked some up with the tip of his glove, and scrutinized it closely. He frowned.

  “I won’t know until I get it under a microscope, but I think it’s a gnat. I’ll have her sprayed with insecticide. Some gnats go dormant in the cold. Not sure yet whether she died from an overdose, anoxia, or hypothermia, but chances are those little guys are only asleep.”

  “Then she’s the victim of the third plague. It was gnats,” Trevor said. He turned to McNamara. “Your men need to check all the houses thoroughly. I can’t believe he’d only kill one.”

  “You only need one if it’s the right one,” Amos said sadly.

  Trevor nodded. “You’ll do a rape kit, too?”

  “I will, but I pray to God she was spared that.”

  “Will you be able to ID them?” Trevor indicated the men in the other area.

  “I’ll do fingerprints and DNA and see if anything’s on record. One of them is older. The others are similar in age to those we found in Vermont. What’s going on here, Trevor? From that note, I’d say he had his own men executed.”

  “Like Nathan, who screwed up and killed Lucy Green,” Tom said. “Are we going backward here?”

  Shaking his head, defeat loud in his voice, Trevor turned to McNamara.

  “Do you want me to let her family know?”

  “No, I’ll do it,” McNamara answered. “I know Iris’s father. This is going to rip him apart. Better he hears about it from a friend. As soon as we get anything on the others, I’ll let you know. You realize the commissioner will be out for our blood on this. His niece. It’s personal.”

  “To me, they all are,” Trevor said. “Tom, make sure Declan gets pictures of that note and then let’s get the hell out of here. I need to talk to Jacob.”

  Half an hour later, Trevor sat alone in his office, staring at the picture of Julie he’d used to replace his screen-saver. Right now, looking at her was the only thing that kept him from tossing in the towel and quitting. He might want to give up, tired of body after body weighing him down, but he had to stop the Prophet—not for himself, but for her and for the millions of other innocent men, women, and children in this country.

  But maybe quitting was exactly what he should do since it didn’t appear he was getting anywhere with this case.

  After finding a charger in Tom’s desk, he plu
gged in his cell phone. He reached for the cup of coffee he’d collected in the break room, grateful for the single-brew coffee machine Jacob had bought them. It made far better coffee than the tar they used to brew. He read over the notes he’d made at the crime scene. Seven men had vanished. It was little comfort to know six of them had probably jumped the fences and made their way down the block from the houses—they’d found footprints, but the warehouse’s back entrance was being watched, too. There was no fence to climb, no alleyway to slip through. How the hell had Iris gotten into the warehouse, and how had the killer gotten out again?

  His desk phone rang.

  “Clark.”

  “It’s me.” He recognized McNamara’s voice. “We found the way in and out.”

  “Where?”

  “The roof. They went in and out through the skylight in an office on the third floor and walked along the roofs and down the block. The executioner didn’t lock it behind him. The techs are dusting for prints. If the girl was drugged, she’d have followed his orders, right?”

  “Yup. The nice thing about scopolamine is that the victim looks and acts normal, obeying every suggestion and remembering nothing—not that remembering would’ve been an issue here. How’d her dad take the news?”

  “Badly. He lost his wife to cancer a couple of years ago. The mayor and the commissioner want a news briefing at eleven. Can you handle it? I need to get a couple of hours of sleep. I worked another case last night, too.”

  “Related?”

  “Don’t think so, although I did see Iris’s dad there. Mugging downtown. A female tourist had her head cracked open with a pipe. We’re waiting on fingerprints to ID her. Another less-than-stellar bit of advertising for the city.”