His lips parted as he stared wordlessly at the television screen. No. No!
“The experts tell me it’s even likely that… that…” She turned away, wiping her eyes. “That he probably… did things to Annabel and the others… after they were gone. That he would seek sexual gratification from the dead.”
He stumbled backward, knocking over the chair. Calumny!
“We are dealing with the worst scum who ever walked the face of the earth. A human worm. So I won’t bother appealing to his better nature. But I will say this to all the other people out there, the good people, the ones who want to catch this man as badly as I do. He has struck three times. Common sense tells me someone must know something. Someone must work with him. Someone must live next door to him. Someone must’ve sold him a cup of coffee. Someone must’ve seen or heard something that made them suspicious.”
She leaned into the camera. “Please come forward. Call me at the command center I’ve set up at Las Vegas’s Transylvania Hotel. I will personally reward anyone who brings us useful information with a no-questions-asked award of a hundred thousand dollars. All you have to do is call.”
“Talk about putting your money where your mouth is.” The host gazed at her with adulatory eyes. “But Dr. Spencer, shouldn’t any potential witnesses call the police?”
She drew in her breath. “Of course, I can’t suggest that any informant should not contact the police. All I can ask is that you call me, too. Give me a fighting chance to find this monster.”
“Given that kind of incentive, Doctor, I think anyone out there with information will be calling you first.”
“That filthy murderer had better hope they don’t.” Her eyes lowered, then darkened. “Because if I get to you first, mister, it won’t be so I can read you your rights.”
He clutched the remote, punching the power button, then flinging it at the set.
He was breathing rapidly, perspiring. His entire body was shaking.
She was coming after him. That woman was coming after him. That damnable whited sepulcher-pretending to be so noble, when in fact she was as base and vile as the serpent. Destroying his reputation, tainting his good work with her relentless animadversions.
She was threatening him, threatening him with her money and her detectives and her sick sick words. She had called him a sexual deviant. A torturer of young women. She had sat there in front of thousands of people, perhaps millions, and told them he was a demented necrophiliac!
And she had sent them hunting for him, enticing them with her petty little cumshaw.
He paced around the living room, trying to calm himself, to get a grip on his thoughts. This could not be permitted. He was working at a sacred cause. He sought the truth and the light, the Golden Age. And he wasn’t just doing it for himself; he was doing it for all of them. Even Annabel. Even that hideous woman, so determined to repugn him at every step!
He had tried to maintain some degree of gentility throughout this process, but if more direct means were required, then he had no choice but to provide them. Even if it wasn’t in the plan, even if she could never be an offering. She must be stopped. And so she would be. And so would be all those who stood against him at the dawn of the Golden Age.
16
“Her name was Lenore Johnson,” Granger said, not bothering with any niceties such as “Good morning” or “Hello” or even “How’s tricks?”
“Lenore? The lost love in ‘The Raven’ is named Lenore.”
“Must be a different chick,” Granger brilliantly opined. “This one worked at an S &M club a few blocks off U.S. 69.”
I stared at the photo he slid onto my desk. It was her, all right. I’d recognize that head anywhere. “Lenore Johnson, huh? Not very Asian-sounding.”
“Mixed-race. The Asian is all on her mother’s side.”
“Positive ID not twelve hours after we found the decapitated body. Nice work. How’d you manage it?”
“That’s why-”
“-they call you detectives. Right, I remember. Know what, Granger? You’re full of it.”
“Least I still have a job.”
Why, why, why? Why did he have to be such an asshole? “It wasn’t my fault O’Bannon yanked my badge. He was being pressured-”
“Don’t make excuses. By all rights, you should be out on your-”
“Can’t you see that I’m trying!” I screamed at him, so loud that I attracted attention all across the office. “Can’t you see I’m trying to do better? I need this job!” My eyes began to water up. I hate that. It’s so… girlish. I felt humiliated. “Why do you have to hate me so much?”
“You know the answer to that question,” Granger said quietly.
“Do you think you’re the only one who loved him?” I cried. “You goddamn, self-righteous-”
“Hey, whoa, qué pasa, man?” It was Patrick, riding in on his white horse. “What’s going down? Big case discussion?”
I threw myself into my not very comfortable desk chair and wiped the water from my face. “Granger was telling me about his big breakthrough in the case. He’s identified the last victim.”
“That’s his big breakthrough?” Patrick turned toward Granger. “I thought one of your detectives recognized her from the head shot. If you’ll pardon the expression.”
I raised an eyebrow.
Granger stammered. “W-Well… we were assisted by a certain degree of facial recognition pattern in-”
I gave him a look that would turn flesh to stone. “You mean your great moment of deduction came because one of your detectives is into S &M?”
He cleared his throat. “It’s important that detectives stay hip to the mean streets of the city. You never know when-”
“Oh, give me a break.” I did my best imitation of his whiny voice. “ ‘That’s why they call us detectives.’ Jesus. More like ‘That’s why they call us porn addicts.’ ”
“Hey,” Granger said, “I didn’t see you finding the corpse. Figuring out what that ‘neon’ reference meant.”
Patrick spoke again. “Didn’t O’Bannon tell me that the owner of that sign graveyard found the corpse? And called you.”
I couldn’t believe it. “And this was how you obtained your other big insight?” I stood up and did my best impression of a macho stud walk-even groped myself. “We be studs. We be detectives.”
“You’re disgusting,” Granger said, walking away.
“Sticks and stones,” I muttered, watching with pleasure as he departed. Probably stupid to piss him off so badly. But if he’d had the clout to get me fired, it would’ve happened a long time ago.
Darcy made his way up the stairs. I grabbed his hand. His face lit up like a lightbulb. “Darcy, guess what the third victim’s name is.”
He thought for, like, a nanosecond. “Lenore.”
“What? Someone already told you.”
“I do not think anyone told me. I just got off the bus. But I thought that maybe all of the girl’s names were from Poe poems. And Lenore is the most popular-”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I do not think you asked me.”
“You don’t have to be asked, Darcy. If you know something, you should just… volunteer it.”
“My dad does not like it when I do that. He says I tell people a lot of boring things they don’t want to hear, and sometimes I say things that get me into trouble because I don’t understand. He says I should be quiet unless-”
“Listen to me, Darcy. New rules. If you know something-anything-you tell me. Immediately.”
Patrick stepped in. “So the victims’ names are all found in these poems?”
“Right. I was suspicious when we had an Annabel-’Annabel Lee’ is one of Poe’s most famous verses. But having a Lenore clinches it. That’s the name of the girl in ‘The Raven,’ and he used the name in other poems as well. Always to represent some lost love. Actually, all of these names represent some unrequited or lost love.” I tossed Darcy my library copy of Po
e: His Life and Legacy by Jeffrey Meyers. “Would you mind reading this tonight?”
“Okay,” he said with alacrity. “Why?”
“Because you’ll remember it.”
A line crossed Patrick’s forehead. “You really think this biographical material will be important?”
“It may be critical,” I answered. “It may hold the key to the whole puzzle. Even that last message.”
“So in your view, our killer thinks he’s Poe?”
I squirmed. “I don’t know that he literally thinks he’s Poe. It’s more that… that… he takes inspiration from him, his work. Not just when he’s selecting his murder methods, but-everything.”
“Edgar Allan Poe is his role model?”
“Kind of, yeah. Which explains a lot. According to this book, the public image of Poe as this ghoulish creepazoid is inaccurate. His work was creepy, but he wasn’t.” Except when he was on a drinking binge, of course. “He thought of himself as a proper southern gentleman. He was offended by vulgarity, impropriety.”
“And what does that tell us about the killer?”
“Well, for starters, it might explain why he removed the painted nails. Piercings.”
Patrick nodded slowly. “Shaved Helen’s hair.”
“Because it was dyed an unnatural color.”
“This is beginning to make sense. I mean, a twisted, narcissistic, antisocial, delusional kind of sense.” He thought for another moment. “But if the women in these poems represented some sort of Poe ideal-”
“They all died,” I said, thinking off the top of my head. “That’s the key. Helen was a woman he admired when he was an adolescent. Annabel Lee and Lenore were versions of his wife, Virginia, who died of tuberculosis.”
Darcy spoke. “ ‘And so, all the night-tide, I lay down by the side / Of my darling-my darling-my life and my bride…’ ”
“Exactly. Annabel Lee, Lenore, and a dozen other characters in Poe’s poems and stories. They’re all his dead wife.”
“But,” Patrick said, “what’s the point of it all?”
“I don’t know. But that quote-the last one. I think that’s the key. We have to figure out what it is. What it means.”
“And,” Patrick added, “we need to make a list of all the female names used by Poe in his stories and poems.”
“It’s going to be a long list,” I said, “but I agree. It might be useful. Maybe we can put out some kind of warning. Darcy, are you up for it?”
“Did you know that Poe wrote fifty-three poems and seventy-three short stories?”
“No, but you do, which is why you’re the best man for this job.”
“So the guy has been choosing women with these Poe names,” Patrick said, his mind still racing. “But why so young? Are they easier to control? Is the killer a repressed pedophile?”
I shook my head. “Don’t you know?”
“What?”
Even when the agent was a decent guy, knowing something the FBI didn’t was not an altogether unpleasant sensation. “That bride of Poe’s? Virginia Clemm? He married her when she was thirteen.”
Overnight, the Van Helsing Ballroom had been converted into the nerve center for Dr. Fara Spencer’s Wanted Dead or Alive operation. The room was a beehive of noise and activity, a bombinating assault on the senses. And yet, he observed, it was not chaotic. There was an almost serene order as all concerned careered from one area to the next going about their designated tasks. A dozen operatives milled through the room in straight ties, white shirts, and rolled sleeves, some of them private detectives, some retired police officers, some specialists hired to lend expertise or to screen potential informants. Security officers were posted on all doors. Interviews were conducted in private alcoves. Two rows of phone banks, with over two dozen phones, filled the length of the ballroom, and they were constantly ringing, ringing, ringing… to the tintinnabulation that so musically wells, / From the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells-
He soaked up the view, smiling. The hive was running smoothly. But where was the queen bee?
Dr. Spencer did not so much walk as march into the ballroom, two men on either side of her, several behind, all talking constantly. At least one of the hangers-on was a reporter; he was not sure about the others. He knew she had a fleet of so-called behavioral experts advising her on the case, suggesting potential avenues to explore. Earlier, while posted at the front door, he had managed to overhear most of an absurd exchange between the queen and two of her minions.
“Fundamentally,” a pedant in horn-rimmed glasses had explained, “serial killers can be divided into two categories. Social and nonsocial. Organized and disorganized.”
He had to bite his lip. Even given the vagaries of modern psychiatry, it was absurd. The whole world divided into four lame labels. And these people called themselves experts.
“So which is this pervert?” Spencer had asked.
“Keep in mind that we’re working with precious little information,” the partner said, an obese man in an unseemly green tie. He was making excuses for himself in advance, as they always did. “But all indications are that he is very organized. Three crimes so far-that we know of-and he still hasn’t left behind any determinative trace evidence.”
“And we can safely assume that he has some social skills,” Horn-rims intoned. “Since he appears to have been able to capture his victims without the use of force. So far as we know.”
“All right,” Spencer said, holding up her hands. “So he’s an organized social. What does this get us?”
Despite his profound dislike of this contemptible woman, she did have a knack for cutting through the balderdash.
“Well,” Horn-rims said, “once we’ve made our diagnosis, we can get a fix on who the killer is.”
“I don’t care who he is,” Spencer shot back. “I don’t want to know his inner child. I just want the bastard to fry.”
“Right, right. So we must create a profile-”
“Forgive me for saying so, but this is starting to sound like the same bullshit I got from the police department’s so-called expert. I’m not laying out all this money to get more of the same.”
“Of course not. I’m probably not explaining myself clearly.” He licked his lips and tried again. “Once we know who the killer is-what kind of person he is-we can begin to anticipate his moves. Perhaps even trace him to his lair.”
His lair. He stifled his laughter. It was like something out of a comic book.
“Now we’re talking.” Spencer’s interest level markedly increased. “So how do we do that?”
“Well, Doctor, one salient fact we have observed is that all the victims have been women.”
Bravo, Auguste Dupin. How much was she paying these fools?
“According to the group consensus, our killer is driven by a psychosexual hatred of all women.”
Still pretending not to listen, he stifled a yawn. Wrong.
“He is physically unattractive, or at the least not handsome. Because he is unable to attract women, he came to hate them.”
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Every bit of it.
The partner cut in. “Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he focuses the sublimated anger he bore toward his mother figure on randomly chosen women.”
Randomly chosen? Now that was truly offensive.
“This speculation is all well and good, I suppose,” Spencer said, “but where does it get me? How do I catch him?”
“By keeping a close watch on all the places it would be easiest for an organized social to find women alone,” the partner answered. “The streets, obviously, especially downtown. Strip clubs, casinos. We’ve prepared a list.”
Spencer took the proffered paper. “I don’t see this hotel listed.”
Horn-rims nodded. “Our feeling is that he’s unlikely to strike at a place already associated with him. Plus, since organized socials tend to follow the media coverage of their crimes obsessively, he must be aware that you’ve set up shop here. He
won’t come anywhere near this hotel.”
It was all he could do to keep from laughing.
Until the woman stood beside him.
“So… your name is Ernie?” Spencer said, reading his badge.
He stiffened. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Keeping an eye on things?”
He was on loan-lease from the hotel to Dr. Spencer and was currently assigned to watch one of the side doors. “Doing my best. Lot going on here.”
“Yes, there is. Try not to be distracted by it all.” She leaned in closer. “I’m probably safe here, but, still my experts say there is… some reason to believe the killer might lash out against me.”
“Surely not, ma’am.”
“I know, it seems incredible. But I’m being extra careful, just in case. There’s more than one way to skin a rabbit.”
She was so close to him. Mere inches away. In his coat pocket, he had a hypodermic, loaded and ready. In the wink of an eye he could have it in her throat.
But then there would be the difficult matter of her escorts, getting her to his truck on the other side of the casino, removing her from a ballroom teeming with people…
“I’ll make sure nothing happens here, ma’am.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
“And if I may say so…” His southern accent came trippingly off his tongue. “Speaking on behalf of all the security officers here at the Transylvania, we very much appreciate and admire what you’re doing. We’re behind you one hundred and ten percent.”
Her eyes went slightly out of focus, glistening. “Thank you, Ernie. That… that means a great deal to me. I hope we can talk again sometime.”
“I feel certain we will, ma’am,” he said, smiling sweetly.
“Seriously, Darcy, I think it would be better if you stayed in the car.”
“But I do not want to stay in the car. I cannot help you if I stay in the car.”
“You can. I’ll tell you all about it.”
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