Spider jk-1

by Michael Morley

  Not many people would have been able to even think about eating when faced with what was on Howie's desk, but the FBI man had seen much worse and eaten much more. The pictures had been sent in by the cops over in Georgetown and downloaded and printed up by Admin. The glossies were good CSU shots, cold and brutal in their framing but hugely informative. Wide angles set the scene, first from out on the streets that surrounded the cemetery. Then there were 'aerials', high views, presumably from the nearby church, that showed the layout of the graves. Gradually the shots got closer to the desecration. They were framed wide-angle, then medium close-up, big close-up and finally damned near microscopic.

  Howie's chubby fingers struggled to pick up the stray salmon. Finally, he caught it and then accidentally wiped the grease residue on a mid-shot of Sarah Elizabeth Kearney's decapitated corpse. Poor kid, thought Howie, dabbing away the grease, just twenty-two when she was butchered. If she'd lived, she would have been forty-two today, probably with a daughter of her own and maybe even grandkids. What kind of sick fuck would rob someone of their future like that? And more to the point, what even sicker fuck would dig her up two decades later and pull the skull off her skeletonized corpse? Howie shook his head in disbelief. To the best of his knowledge, twenty-first-century grave-robbing was damned unusual stuff. On the rare occasions that it happened, the perp was usually some whacked-out druggie, maybe a weird devil worshipper or, every now and then, an extremely disturbed husband who simply couldn't accept that his wife was gone for ever. Local cops always tried to hush up these kinds of cases and the newspapers usually played ball on the latter.

  But there would be no chance of keeping this one quiet. No siree, the press wires were already buzzing like a queen bee at mating time. Seemed a Georgetown hack had got lucky with some photographs of his own. The little weasel had no doubt got a tip-off from the cops or ambulance crews, or maybe had even been listening in to the 911 comm's traffic. Anyway, he'd netted himself an exclusive and the pictures were now J-pegging their way across the news world and banking him some big bucks.

  Howie looked at one of the hack's shots, forwarded to him by Billy Blaine, a tame NYC journo who ran a press agency and often traded favours with the feds. The shot was certainly a good one. Howie wiped his fingers again and held up the print that had been faxed through to his office. Even though it was a telephoto 'snatch', it was rock steady, with no blur or shake. Nodoubtthe guy had used one of those new fangled stabilizers that cost more than most people's cameras. Howie was always teasing the CSU boys that hacks took better pictures and this was no exception. It had been shot low-angle between the headstones, so you could just see flashes of out-of-focus graves and a glint of sunshine from behind the photographer, but no sign of the cops and crime-scene tape that must have been making the shot incredibly difficult if not damn near impossible. Despite all the problems, everything that mattered was razor sharp, perfectly exposed and absolutely in focus. Smack, bang, centre of the frame was Sarah Kearney's headless skeleton, grotesquely propped against her headstone.

  Howie shook his big head again. The picture had a truly shocking power. He held it out at arm's length, not because he had vision problems, but so he could imagine he was actually at the crime scene and had stepped back for a more considered look. Shit, thought Howie, if Steven Spielberg ever made horror movies then this was the kind of shot he'd take. It was out on its own, a real spine-tingler and too gruesome for the TV news channels. The Internet had no such scruples though; it was already top of the virals and had beaten the download record set after Saddam's hanging.

  Howie took a hit of the Americano and turned his mind to Jack King. It had been nearly two months since they'd spoken, and even then it had only been small talk. Howie had been deliberately careful to avoid anything that might have scratched at old sores. 'How you doin'? How're Nancy and little Zack? Did you read about the Yankees star that got busted in Queens?' Guy stuff that kept their cop bonds and personal friendship alive. They'd been through hell together and Howie wasn't going to let the mere matter of a continent and six hours' time difference stand between him and his ex-boss. But now he was going to have to call Jack and tell him about the wacko shit going on at Kearney's grave. He needed to warn him that any minute all the stuff about him and his breakdown was likely to be back in the press again. Hell and damnation. Would this case never go away?

  Howie Baumguard looked at the photographs again and knew what Jack would say. He knew it, just as sure as he knew that one day his stick-insect wife would leave him for a younger, fitter, more-at-home guy. No doubt about it, this was the work of one particular man, the work of BRK, the killer that he, Jack and all the rest of FBI's finest had never managed to catch.

  14

  Montepulciano, Tuscany Ispettore Orsetta Portinari parked her car and, despite heels slightly too high and far too fashionable for most female detectives, walked elegantly up the steep cobbles and slabs of the Corso, the historic main street of Montepulciano.

  Orsetta's friend Louisa had promised coffee, pictures of her sister's new baby and eighteen months' worth of unheard gossip. It seemed a good way to pass the time until the damned ex-FBI guy returned from wherever he was and called her. Madonna porca! His wife had been trouble; no wonder the man was spending time away from her. She must be hell to live with. Orsetta bought flowers and Tuscan cherries from a market stall and was within a hundred metres of her friend's home when her phone rang.

  'Pronto,' she said, catching it just before the message system kicked in.

  'Inspector Portinari?'

  'S?.'

  'This is Jack King. My wife says you called to see me.'

  She stepped out of the sun into a shaded doorway. 'Aah, Signore King, grazie. Thank you for calling me. My boss, Massimo Albonetti, he is in Belgium at the moment, at a Europol meeting, and he sent me to see you -'

  'Massimo?' interrupted Jack, sounding surprised. What does that old goat want?'

  'Scusi?'

  Jack laughed. 'Apologies. Mass and I go back some. We spent a lot of time at the Academy, back when you guys were first interested in VI CAP – the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. You work for him?'

  'si,' confirmed Orsetta, instantly picturing her six-teen-hours-a-day workaholic boss calling her into his dark office, rubbing his chubby bald head, chainsmoking and handing out files without even looking up. 'Yes, I work very hard for him.'

  Jack imagined that was true. Massimo was a bulldog of a man. He was physically and mentally muscular, and when he got his teeth into something he didn't let go, even if he exhausted his teams in the process. 'Are you in CID, CSU, profiling or what?'

  Orsetta looked down at her new shoes, dusty from the walk and in need of a loving shine. 'I work in a special department attached to our national Violent Crime Analysis Unit. Briefly, we are called behavioral analysts, but yes, I am what you call a psychological profiler.'

  Jack understood. Police forces relabelled departments to suit the whim of whatever particular politician was pulling the purse strings at the time. 'I've heard worse names,' he said. 'But, Detective, as I'm sure you know, I'm not here on holiday. I've retired now, I help my wife – who, by the way, you seem to have upset – run a hotel out here. I'm no longer in the Job, so why the call?'

  Orsetta mentally cursed the wife again. 'Massimo, I mean Direttore Albonetti, he said forget about that. Said you would never retire.'

  Jack laughed again. 'He said that?'

  'Well no, what he actually said was: "Jack King is no more retired than I am. Jack King cannot even spell the word retire."'

  Jack fell silent. Massimo was right. He might no longer be putting in a twelve-hour day in New York or spending the night looking at crime-scene reports, but his brain was still clocking-on and doing the shifts. 'What does he want?'

  A moped carrying two teenagers throttled its way uphill and drowned out the conversation. 'Scusi?' shouted Orsetta, covering one ear.

  'Massimo, what does he want?'

&
nbsp; 'I have a file here,' explained Orsetta, shouting above the scooter. 'A murder of a young woman that he thinks you can help us with. Are you back at your hotel, Mr King? I can drive over and show you.'

  Jack looked at his watch. It was five p.m. and he still had to get across Florence to catch the train back to Siena. 'No, I'm not. I won't be back in San Quirico until very late tonight. I'm in Florence, so I'm still a few hours away from you.'

  Orsetta was keen not to let him slip through her fingers. 'Mr King, the case we want you to look at, it is west of Florence, not too far. If you stay there, I can come and meet you. Please book into a hotel for the night, my office will be happy to pay any costs you incur.'

  Jack paused and wondered how he could break the news to Nancy. She would go ape. He decided to do it anyway. The prospect of being involved in an active criminal case was simply too hard to resist.

  'Okay,' he said. 'You've got twenty-four hours of my time. I'll call you when I've booked in somewhere.'

  Orsetta punched the air. 'Grazie,' she said.

  As Jack said goodbye, she clicked the phone off and gave one rueful glance towards the house of the friend whom she hadn't seen for eighteen months, and now probably wouldn't see again for another year and a half. Still, Orsetta had got her man. As she walked carefully back down Montepulciano's steep and winding road, she spotted an old woman asleep on a hard-backed chair by an open front door, a red shawl around her neck. Orsetta gently placed the flowers and cherries at her feet and walked away. As she did so, she wondered whether Jack King looked anything near as sexy as he sounded.

  15

  Sofitel Hotel, Florence, Tuscany Jack always got Nancy three specific things on anniversaries – something to wear, something to eat and something to read. The three choices were designed to play on her senses of sight, touch and taste, and Jack liked to think he had the imagination to make some pretty interesting purchases. Something to wear was once a pink winter anorak, not too romantic until she put her hand in the pocket and discovered the plane tickets to Sweden and the booking at the Ice Palace where they were to spend the following week. This year Something to wear was red and lacy and he hoped it would awaken the magic of years gone by. Something to eat had traditionally been a visit to a new restaurant, except for the year when the local amateur players were putting on Romeo and Juliet. A flash of his gold shield in the right places had enabled him to hire the set for the afternoon, ship in violinists and pizza and have the two leading cast members perform extracts between the courses. True, it had been more comic than romantic, but it still rated as memorable. This year, well, he was leaving the food side up to Paolo, who had promised to do something gastronomically pornographic with white truffles and Italian brandy. Something to read had always been the easiest. Sometimes it had been a book that summed up their relationship. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus had started the trend and occasionally Nancy had been cheeky enough to put in her own specific orders, asking for works by foreign poets with names he'd never heard of, like Szymborska and Saint-John Perse. This year, Jack had just hurriedly completed his trinity of gifts and was heading into the Sofitel on Via de Cerratani with an English translation of Dante's Divine Comedy. He hadn't really looked inside, but knew Dante was Tuscan and a medieval poet, so he reckoned his lucky find was relevant enough to prove popular.

  The Sofitel was located inside a converted seventeenth-century palace and, most importantly, close to the railway station from where Jack hoped to catch an early-morning train back to his wife. There was a chance that she would have calmed down by then.

  He fought his way through a swarm of German tourists who were buzzing phrases of mangled Italian at the front-desk staff. Finally he managed to secure a second-floor room looking out towards Piazza del Duomo. Best of all though, it had the kind of deepfreeze air-conditioning that he was used to back home. He clicked the fan on high and raided the mini-bar to make Bloody Marys. The session with the shrink had unsettled him. It had not been the gibberish he had anticipated; it had made sense.

  Fenella was right. He was frightened. He was anxious, and he had to do something about it.

  And even though he'd promised himself he would go back and see the sessions out, right now he was going to banish all those awful home truths with a good dose of trusty Russian vodka.

  The first drink didn't touch the sides.

  He ran his finger along the inside of the glass and licked tomato juice off it. Minutes later he took the second to the bed, where he flopped down, kicked off his shoes and called Portinari to find out where she was and decide whether to hold off eating or not. Her phone tripped to a recorded message in Italian which he guessed meant he should leave his name and number. After sinking the second vodka and tomato juice he flicked on CNN and decided to kill time by checking out Nancy's new book. It contained both the original Italian, on the left side of the page, and a translation on the right. He ploughed past the blurb on Dante, stuff describing him as the founder of the Italian language for the common people, a brief story about his exile from a house not far from Jack's hotel, and some remarks about the two writers who'd carried out the translation. Eventually he got to the first Canto and read it out loud in an atrocious Italian accent: 'Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita, mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, che la diritta via era smarrita.' Jack couldn't understand a word of it, but that didn't stop him enjoying every syllable as the melody of the words swirled as richly around his mouth as a fine Italian brandy. He glanced over to the translation and found it had a personal resonance: 'Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost.' Right now, he sure felt that way. He wondered just how his life in the FBI's elite psychological profiling unit had so quickly changed into a life in Italy helping run a small hotel. Was he here by choice, or because he had been unable to face up to the darkness that had overwhelmed him back in the US?

  Another drink chased off his melancholia and the alcohol and the warmth of the room soon lured him into an unplanned doze. He dreamt something nice for once. He was somewhere with Nancy, far off on an undulating Tuscan hillside, the sun shining as brightly as it always did. Zack was running in front of them with a birthday balloon tied to his wrist. As Jack's eyes fixed on the balloon it exploded, with a bang so loud it made his blood race. He sat upright in bed and realized the noise was someone knocking on his door. He checked his watch and saw he'd been asleep for nearly three hours. 'Just a minute. Hang on!' he shouted, rubbing his eyes and giving himself a once-over in a wardrobe mirror, as he walked to the door. Instinctively, he slid back the spy hole cover and checked out the caller. Through his squinted view, he guessed someone from the front desk had a message for him. 'Signore King?' asked a dark-haired girl as he opened up. Sure enough, she was carrying an official-looking document case.

  'Hi there,' he said sleepily, patting his pocket. 'Hold on one minute, I'll get a pen.' He left her hanging, the spring-loaded door virtually banging shut in her face, while he searched for a pen and a few loose euros for a tip.

  'Sorry,' said Jack, opening up again, the coins clinking in his palm.

  The girl seemed bewildered. He took a closer look at her. She reminded him of an Italian Keira Knight-ley, only larger and with maybe a little more muscle than the featherweight film star. 'You have something for me?' he said, nodding towards the case. 'Do I need to sign first?'

  'Signore, I don't want you to sign anything,' she announced, holding out her hand. 'I am Detective Inspector Portinari.'

  'Shit! I'm so sorry,' said Jack, deftly pocketing the euros he had been about to tip her and shaking her outstretched hand. 'Please come in. It's been a long day and I'd almost given up on you coming tonight.'

  He held the door this time. As she squeezed past him, she decided that his looks did indeed match up to the strong voice she'd heard on the phone. He was certainly much taller and broader than she'd imagined.

  'I'm sorry I'm so late,' she said. 'Italian tr
affic is always bad, and then I had some trouble booking in downstairs.'

  'Too many guests and not enough staff,' said Jack. 'You want a drink?'

  'Is that cold?' she asked, pointing towards an unopened bottle of Orvieto that Jack had taken out of the mini-bar in order to reach the vodka.

  'Sort of.' Jack checked the temperature of the bottle. 'You want to risk it?'

  'Yes, please,' she answered, settling into a chair beside the bed and weighing up the room.

  He uncorked the wine and poured two glasses.

  'Salute,' she said, clinking her glass against his.

  'Salute,' replied Jack, thinking how different Italian policewomen looked in comparison to some of the gun-slinging, 200-pound dames he'd worked with back in the States.

  As Orsetta sipped her drink she looked across the top of the glass at the man she'd heard and read so much about. In profiling circles Jack King's published theories, lectures and criminal case studies were as legendary as his burnout. His specialism had been serial sexual offences and she'd read that during his career he'd been directly involved in the investigation and conviction of fifteen serial rapists and five serial child molesters. His hit rate on serial murder cases was even more impressive: twenty-nine successful clear-ups out of thirty cases that he'd worked. Only one had defeated him, and it was in connection with that single case that she now sat opposite him.

  'We have a murder,' she began, gently placing the wine glass down on a nearby coffee table stacked with magazines about Florence, 'which has some disturbing similarities to the Black River case.'

  Nothing registered on Jack's face but he felt his heart jump. He swirled the wine in his glass and asked, 'How similar?'