by Roy Johansen
The camera turned toward the stairs leading up, then to those leading down.
They watched as the camera slowly traveled downward, catching the institutional green walls and cracked stairwell lighting fixture. It moved to the landing and began the turn.
The picture jerked violently and went black.
“Hey, I didn't know we'd gone to casual Fridays.” Howe grinned at Joe as he sat down behind his desk in the squad room.
Joe was wearing a white terry-cloth robe over his shirt, tie, and slacks.”You're the first person here who has said anything to me about this,”Joe said.”I was beginning to wonder about you homicide guys.”
“Aaah, they probably thought you were going undercover at a bathhouse. So what's with the robe?”
“I picked it up from housekeeping before I left Monica Gaines's hotel. It's standard issue for all of the guests. Monica was wearing one just like it when she ignited.”
“Okay And exactly how does that require you to prance around the squad room wearing it?”
“I'm trying to get an idea where a trigger mechanism may have been placed. And I really don't think I was prancing.”
“Sashaying?”
“Strolling.” Joe flipped up the back of the robe. “The thing is, any kind of trigger mechanism would have to completely destroy itself. There was no trace of it at the scene, and the guys down in the lab said it wasn't on what was left of the robe.”
Howe considered this.”And we know that no one could have removed it from the scene since there was a security camera trained there.”
“Right.” His cell phone rang, and he answered it. “Joe Bailey.”
“Daddy?” It was Nikki. Her voice quavered.”Daddy, can you come home?”
Joe yanked off the robe, keeping the phone pressed against his ear.”Honey, what's wrong?”
“Mommy was here again today.”
Less than twenty minutes after Nikki's call, Joe and Howe rushed down the third-floor hallway of Joe's apartment building. Sam was waiting outside the door.
“Where is she?”Joe asked.
Sam gestured inside the apartment.”In there. She's pretty shaken up. This must be someone's idea of a sick joke. I took her out for a frozen yogurt, and when we came back, this is what we found.” Sam opened the door wide for Joe and Howe to enter.
Joe stepped inside and froze. “Jesus,” he whispered.
Howe couldn't see it. “What's wrong?”
“The furniture. It's been moved.”
“So?”
Joe glanced around. The couch was now turned away from the television, facing one of the large windows. The coffee table was now on the other side of the large room, in the middle of three chairs. Even the window blinds were set differently, pulled three quarters of the way up.
He turned back to Howe. “This was exactly how my wife left things when she died.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah. Nikki thought she heard Angela talking to her last night. I thought she'd dreamed it.”
Howe shook his head.”This is no dream, Bailey.”
Nikki appeared from her bedroom. Her face was tensed.”Mommy did it, didn't she?”
Joe rushed across the room and kneeled beside her. “No, honey. Someone's playing a trick. A mean trick.”
“She didtalkto me last night. She knew you didn't believe it. Maybe this was her way of letting you know it was real.”
Howe strode to the telephone. “I'm calling for a forensics team.”
Sam glanced around the room. “It was the screwiest thing. We couldn't have been gone fifteen minutes. I locked the place up tight, but when we came back, it was like this.”
Joe looked toward the kitchen. The spice jars were now arranged in a pyramid, just the way Angela used to stack them. They would fall whenever Joe slammed the front door too hard.
Nikki pointed to the dinette table. “Look.”
Joe leaned over to see that a word had been scratched into the table's glass surface: RAKKAN. It was carved deep, leaving glass splinters scattered across the tablet op.
Sam studied it. “Rakkan? What the hell does that mean?”
Joe pulled Sam and Nikki back. “I don't know, but we shouldn't tamper with it. The evidence team will want a crack at this.” He turned toward Nikki. “Your room?”
She took his hand and led him back to her bedroom. The bed was now pushed against the far wall, opposite where it had been only that morning but precisely where Angela had placed it the day they'd moved out the crib and bought Nikki her first real bed. Nikki had decided to move it the year before to keep the early-morning sun from shining on her face.
Nikki pointed to a watercolor print that she'd painted with her mother. “She moved our rainbow too. I had it on the other wall so that I could see it from my bed.”
“I'm afraid it wasn't her that did this, honey.”
“How do you know?”
She was no longer frightened, he realized. There was something else there.
Hope.
For years he'd refused to believe that Angela's soul could be alive anywhere but in the memories of those who loved her. Nikki was always the believer, the one who insisted that they'd all be together again one day.
He'd seen too many people who felt the same way, who allowed themselves to be duped and conned by the bottom feeders who were all too willing to exploit the survivors'wishful thinking. Only in the past few months had he allowed himself the possibility, however small, that there might be an afterlife.
But it would take more than a few displaced pieces of furniture to convince him.
He gently raised her chin. “Think about it, sweetheart. What's more likely? That a ghost did all this, or that a real live person walked in here and just rearranged things?”
She frowned.”Why would anyone do that?”
“I don't know, honey.”
Howe hung up the phone. “A fingerprint kit is on the way. How many people do you know who are familiar with the way this apartment used to look?”
“Not many,”Joe said.”Sam, for one.”
Sam crossed his arms.”Don't look at me. I'd like to strangle the diseased bastard who did this. I've heard of some sick jokes in my time, but this one's really up there.”
Joe shrugged. “A few friends, but no one who'd do anything like this.” He glanced at the drink coasters, now neatly placed on the coffee table's four corners. “There are too many little details. I can't imagine how anyone could remember some of these things.”
“Photographs?” Howe asked.
“I thought of that. Dad's always been the big photographer in the family, but most of our holidays and special occasions were at his place.”
Sam took Nikki's hand. “Come on, sweetheart. You're staying with me tonight. Your father is going to be busy.”
“Daddy?” she asked.
“You'd better go with him, honey.”
“But I don't wantto go.”
“We have work to do here. I'll come get you as soon as we're finished, okay?”
She didn't speak for a moment.”What if she comes back and I'm not here?”
He felt as if the wind had been kicked out of him. Shit. Who could be so goddamned cruel? He caressed her cheek.”I'llbe here, okay?”
She nodded, but he could see that the hope was still alive in her eyes.
Damn. If he did his job right, he was going to disappoint the hell out of the one person he loved most in the world.
Haddenfield walked into the stakeout room, his sweat-soaked hair falling onto his forehead. “I looked all over the place. The stairwell is empty, and there's no sign of Gary or the other man.” Haddenfield glanced at Donna and Paul.”I guess you guys haven't heard anything.”
“No.” Panic laced Donna's voice.”Shouldn't we call the police?”
Paul checked his watch. “It's been almost forty-seven minutes. Even if his camera malfunctioned, he should be back by now.”
Haddenfield looked away. He'd been trying to c
all Dylan ever since he left, but there was no answer on his cell phone. Christ, how could this have happened? “Let's not get upset,” he said to himself as much as to his team members. “He may still be following this guy. He may have accidentally pulled off his camera badge, or there could have been some massive electrical interference in the area. There are all kinds of equipment in the hospital that could be blocking our reception.” He moved to the console. “Let's see the videotape again.”
Paul scanned the tape back and found the spot where Gary's transmission had abruptly broken off. He replayed the action in slow motion.
They watched as the camera moved deliberately down the dim stairwell, panning and tilting in every direction. It stopped on the landing, swung slowly to the right, then suddenly jerked up toward the ceiling. Static filled the screen.
“I don't like it,” Donna said. “We need to call the cops.”
Haddenfield shook his head. “We're not bringing the police into this. We can take care of this ourselves.”
“Like Gary took care of himself TPaul said.
Haddenfield thought for a moment.”We all need to get out there. I'll work the hospital. Donna, you take the four blocks north. Paul, you take the four blocks south. Each of you do long sweeps that extend to four blocks to the east and west.” He picked up cell phones and handed them to Donna and Paul. “Whatever you do, don't call anyone but me.”
The two forensics experts did their usual efficient work, finishing Joe and Nikki's apartment in a little over an hour. Joe looked at the collection of prints that Sergeant Cindy Potthast had neatly arranged on strips of cellophone in her scuffed black case. “Any prints you can use?”Joe asked.
Potthast nodded. “A few. Can I grab a quick set from you? I can eliminate some of these immediately if we know they're yours.”
“Sure.” Joe rolled each of his fingers across Pot-thast's ink pad and laid his prints onto a white card. Potthast's partner, Todd Evans, gave him a wet tissue to wipe his ink-stained fingers.
Howe stood on the other side of the room, chuckling at a collection of old photographs from Joe's performing days.”Hey, Bailey. Was it absolutely necessary that you wear that tiny Speedo before being chained and thrown into the Chattahoochee River?”
“My manager thought it would give my act some sex appeal. Unfortunately, it was February and the water was freezing. I'm sure I gave every guy there a massive superiority complex.”
Evans disappeared into Nikki's room and re-emerged with a drinking glass. “We'll take your daughter's prints from this,” he said. “We'll run the prints we lifted through the FBI database. Depending how backed up they are, we may have results as early as tonight.”
Joe took another glance around the apartment.”As much attention as they paid to detail, I'm sure they wore gloves.”
Potthast shrugged. “You never know. We're dealing with a nut here, aren't we?”
After Howe and the forensics specialists left, Joe called Sam. Nikki was asleep. Better to let her stay that way, he decided. He'd swing by Sam's the next morning with a fresh change of clothes, then take her to school.
Alone for the first time since Nikki's anxious call, he glanced around the apartment. He hadn't realized that the place had changed so much since Angela's death. It had happened so gradually—a piece of fur-niture here, a picture frame there. He went through, room by room, rearranging the furnishings and erasing all evidence of their visitor. Whoever the hell it was.
He hadn't noticed it before, but a copy of The Bell Jarwas open on an end table, pages down. Angela had begun reading it but could never bring herself to finish. Too depressing for her at the moment, she'd say. She'd pick it up later. It stayed there, in that very spot, for the last years of her life. Angela herself had finally placed the book back on the shelf before leaving for her final trip to the hospital.
He closed the book and put it on the shelf.
He put the apartment back in shape in less than twenty minutes, then climbed into bed, turned out the light, and stared at the ceiling.
He couldn't blame Nikki for believing. The desire was so damned strong.
What would he say to Angela if she could really come back? Where would he begin?
“Joe…”
He sat up. It was a whisper from the other side of the room.
“Hello, old friend….”
His breath left him. The voice was thin and slightly ethereal, but there was no mistaking it.
Angela.
Hello, old friend. Their standard greeting, whether they'd been apart for a few hours or a few days.
“Joe…”
He switched on the lamp. He was alone in the room. There was no closet, no place for anyone to hide.
“Hello, old friend….”
It was coming from across the room. At the window, maybe?
Joe leapt from the bed and yanked the cord for the window blinds. The window was closed.
“Be careful, Joe….”
Now it was coming from the other side of the room. Another window. Joe jerked open the blinds.
Nothing. Another closed window.
He backed away toward the center of the room.
Stay cool. Don't let emotions get in the way.
“I love you, Joe….”
Now it seemed to be in the corner, almost floating in space, coming from …nowhere.
Jesus.
It sounded so much like her.
He stood perfectly still, waiting to hear that voice again. The voice he'd missed so much.
But that was all. The voice stopped.
He was shaking. His mouth was dry.
Fight it. Keep your grip.
Joe flew into the living room, grabbed his spirit kit, and raced back into his bedroom. Only then did he realize that he had tears in his eyes.
He threw open the kit and picked up a Mc-Naughton sonar pulse reader that he'd liberated from the bomb squad scrap heap. It was constructed to detect areas of mass behind walls, ceilings, and floorboards, but Joe had recently added an army surplus metal detector component that could scan for nine distinct alloys. A “magnetic” setting was particularly useful for finding hidden speakers.
He extended the telescoping sensor and swept it over his walls, ceilings, and windows. No magnetic readings. If there were speakers, it was possible that they were shielded. But where could they possibly be? The room lamp had been on, yet he hadn't seen anything that could have generated the sounds.
He pulled a multiband radio scanner from the kit and powered it up. He plugged in a pair of headphones and listened. Just the usual police frequencies, cordless telephone calls, and what sounded like a baby monitor. The scanner had come in handy a few months earlier, when he'd used it to discover that a faith healer was secretly receiving radioed information about audience members from his team of researchers and professional eavesdroppers.
The scanner was nowhere as useful tonight, however. He pulled off the headphones and left the power on in case he heard the voice again. If it was somehow being transmitted via radio waves, the device could lock in on the frequency within a few seconds.
No use trying to go back to sleep, he thought. At least not for a while. He strode into the other room and stared at the letters scratched onto his tabletop.
RAKKAN.
What did that mean? If it was meant to be another Angela-ism, the reference completely escaped him. It had to be something else.
He walked into Nikki's room and fired up her computer, which was newer and faster than his four-year-old laptop. He eased down onto her small wicker desk chair and entered “Rakkan” into an Internet search engine. Within seconds, a list of results filled the screen. He clicked on the first link, which took him to anAsian folklore website.
He read two paragraphs, then suddenly leaned closer to the screen. “Holy shit,” he whispered.
Joe stood up in the police headquarters confer-I ence room and once again faced the Spotlight Killings task force. He'd phoned Henderson minutes after
his discovery on the website, and she immediately called the seven A.M. meeting.
Carla yawned. “You'll have to be mighty entertaining to keep me awake, Joe. I wasn't ready for this.”
Henderson shot Carla a cold glance. “We'll talk later about why it took a bunco squad cop to figure out what you're about to hear. Bailey?”
Joe nodded. “Actually, I'm sure that you all would have discovered this in the next day or so. As you may know, someone entered my apartment yesterday and disturbed some of the furnishings. There was a word scratched into my dining table.”
“Rakkan,” Howe said.
“Right. Well, I looked it up, and it's a somewhat obscure name from Asian mythology.” Joe picked up a stack of stapled photocopies and gave them to Howeto pass around. “Rakkan was a spirit who roamed the countryside in search of a worthy man.”
“Worthy of what?” Carla asked.
“Worthy of the life that the spirit has been denied. Rakkan was once a panther on earth, but as a spirit he moves from village to village, searching for this truly worthy person. When the people he meets don't measure up, he kills them.”
Howe grimaced.”Nice guy.”
“In the story as printed in the photocopy you have, the number of victims in the various towns range between two and eight. With each confrontation, Rakkan takes on a different form. He becomes a beggar, a prostitute, an animal, and even a tree. Each time, he ends up killing the people he meets.”
Carla thumbed through the pages. “You're saying the Spotlight Killings follow this pattern?”
“Yes. In the last place he visits, a town that was once his home, he seeks out the best and most prominent citizens. They still don't measure up, and he kills them. He's angry this time, and he taunts them before they die, inviting them to their doom.”
“The voices,” Carla said.
“Exactly. And look at the different ways they die. When he assumes the form of a cloud over the village, he kills one with lightning.”
“Just like Derek Hall was electrocuted,” Henderson said.
“And when Rakkan takes the form of a horse, he drags his victim for an entire day and night.”
“LikeThomas Coyle being dragged behind his car,” Carla said.