by Unknown
She wanted to call Thompson and ask about the handwriting expert, and the names from the college professor’s class. You’re off the case, she reminded herself.
Relieved that the only pressure on the case came from herself, Avery hopped in her car. The astrology book was on the seat next to her.
Take everyone’s advice, she thought. Relax. What makes you happy?
Instantly, she thought of a beach.
OK, then, she realized. Beach day it is.
A slow drive west took her to the M Street Beach. Avery parked the car on the boulevard and crossed the street. She found a shady spot beneath a tree. Her back to the bark, Avery settled in and opened her astrology tome.
The history of astrology began slowly, but Avery took her time. She started at page one and was determined to skim through the entire text, no matter how long it took. A large section of the first chapter was on the tides, and how the moon and other planets directly affected the tides. She glanced up at the ocean and watched the water roll onto the beach. That’s why both bodies were near the water, she thought.
At about a quarter of the way through, Avery once again came to the section on happenings for the current year. She scrolled down the listings she had already read and flipped the page. A heading in bold stood out: Grand Mutable Cross. The section began: The New Moon on June fourth activates the grand mutable cross, a powerful alignment of four planets that creates a time of tremendous change and transformation.
Holy shit, Avery realized.
Grand mutable cross. I saw that in the index last night. June 4th. That’s today.
A deeper reading revealed the planets involved: Venus will be in Gemini, Saturn in Sagittarius, Neptune in Pisces, and Jupiter in Virgo.
Gemini, she thought. Virgo.
Words and phrases stuck out: The energy of the cross peaks at the new moon, a time to destroy the old and bring in the new, the truth will be discovered.
A picture accompanied the text. The grand mutable cross was represented within a circular chart. The chart was drawn like a clock, with all of the planets and their respective signs around it. The “cross” itself was actually a square of planets. Inside the square, a cross had been drawn to indicate the name’s origin, but each planet was actually on a corner of the square. If it had been an actual clock, the corners would have been on the numbers nine, twelve, three and six. The six and three positions held the signs Gemini and Virgo.
Avery took her phone out and mapped where the two bodies were found.
The first body had been on a yacht in the East Boston Marina. The second body was discovered in the water by Lederman Park. She took a snapshot of the image. She created a line between the two areas, and then dragged the line down to create a perfect square with ninety-degree angles. Both bottom corners were on land. No, she thought. The killer would want the bodies on the ocean, near the tides. She went back to her original line and pulled it upward into a perfect square. When the square had ninety-degree angles, every corner was by the sea. The top two points—representing Pisces and Sagittarius—were on the coast of Charlestown and in Chelsea, which was just outside of Boston.
The phone rested in Avery’s lap.
This is crazy, she thought. Grand mutable cross? That would mean there are two more bodies.
Charlestown was in A15 territory.
Just call them, she thought. See what comes up.
Chelsea was just outside of Boston proper.
Chelsea police wouldn’t contact us if they found a body. Maybe they found a body and thought it was an isolated incident.
The most direct route to police data from A15 was through Captain O’Malley. He’d be able to call the captain over at another division and gain any information on current homicides. Oh well, she realized. Can’t call O’Malley.
She picked up her things and headed to the car.
The drive north on Highway 93 was quiet and solemn.
Avery kept looking to the sky, and at the empty passenger seat beside her that held the astrology book. The looming realization of a possible connection—her first in a long time—juxtaposed with the loneliness of her life. You can’t go on like this forever, she thought. You need a real life. Drinks out with the A1 squad returned to her. It had been a good night, and she yearned for more just like that in the future.
First things first, she thought.
Chelsea was located near the Chelsea River, north of Eagle Hill, Boston. Avery took the Chelsea Street Bridge over the water and hung a left. Tanker crates and giant parking lots marked the coastline. On her phone, the exact coordinates to a possible Sagittarius kill led her to a wide area of waterfront property. She had no real expectation of what to find. The mutable grand cross idea was far-fetched, even for her, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was exactly what the killer was up to.
Cot’s Landing was a grassy, garden area complete with a children’s playground, basketball courts, and a walkway to the river.
It was crawling with Chelsea police. Numerous media outlets and reporters were being corralled away to allow an ambulance to leave.
Her heart fell. Could she be right?
“Get out of this area!” a cop yelled.
“Away from the drive. Away from the drive.”
“The party’s over!”
Avery parked and headed out.
Most of the reporters were too busy arguing with police to notice Avery. She put her black shades on and kept her head low. A quick push through a throng of people and she flashed her badge and continued on.
“Hey, that’s Avery Black,” she heard.
“Detective Black!?” a reporter called.
Cops turned to watch her pass. Some tried to place her face, or they gave her a hard stare as if they wondered why she’d been able to gain access.
“Yo, Black?” someone called. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you a Boston cop?”
Avery approached the man.
“What happened here?” she asked.
“Crazy shit,” he answered. “Woman was found dead, buried up to her waist in rocks and holding a bow and arrow. Can you believe that?”
Up to her waist. Bow and arrow.
The symbol for Sagittarius was a half man, half horse holding a bow and arrow.
“Do you know who she is?”
“No ID yet. She’s young, maybe in her early twenties.”
“Any leads?”
“Not a thing. We think the guy who did it took out all the cameras in the area. Can’t figure out how. Same thing with the body. All there is are rocks and pebbles down there. Must have taken him hours to plant the body. No one saw a thing.”
“Can I see it?”
“It’s already out,” he said and pointed to the ambulance. “We’ve been here all morning. Evidence is gone too, but you can head down to the water if you want.”
A pathway led to a short metal banister by the river.
Avery leaned over.
Small rocks had been collected and piled near the wall as a barrier to high tides. Larger stones could be seen further out and within the water itself. A large hole in the smaller rocks was still visible from where the body had been pulled.
A worker on the rocks shouted to his partner.
“Should we close it up now?”
“Yeah, we’re done here. Make it look like new.”
They began to fill in the hole.
“You need something?” an officer asked.
Time had stopped for Avery. She was in her own head, in her own world, a world she solely occupied. There was sky and water and nothing else, only her and the killer. The first letter now made perfect sense. How can you break the cycle? He was trying to break the cycle of his own life. The first body is set. More will come. More, Avery thought. More implies more than one. He needs four. He’s already got three.
He’s making a real-life Grand Mutable Cross.
A second realization was obvious. That guy that tried to gun me down wasn’t the killer. He
can’t be. The killer was working last night.
Avery checked her watch.
Three o’clock.
“Excuse me?” the officer asked again. “Can I help you?”
“Are you one of the detectives on this case?” Avery said.
“Yeah. Dave Brown. Who are you?”
“Avery Black. Homicide. A1 Division.”
His eyes widened and a smile pulled on his lips.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “Sure. I thought you looked familiar. What are you doing here?”
“Your murder matches the MO of a killer we’ve been tracking. Contact my Homicide Supervisor over at the A1, Dylan Connelly. He has information to share.”
She walked off.
“Hey!” he called. “Where are you going?”
She didn’t look back when she answered.
“To catch that son of a bitch.”
CHAPTER FORTY THREE
O’Malley was prickly on the other end of the phone.
“What do you want?” he said.
“You’ve got the wrong guy in lockup,” Avery replied, excited and pumped full of adrenaline. “He’s probably some goon sent by Desoto.”
“You told me that yesterday.”
“There’s another body,” she added. “Up in Chelsea on the other side of the river. It was placed there last night. I’m here now. A woman was buried up to her waist. She had a bow and arrow in her hands. She matches our killer’s MO. Sagittarius. The third sign. I figured it out.”
“What did you figure out?”
“He’s trying to create a Grand Mutable Cross, it’s a rare astrological event. Four planets form a perfect square. It’s supposed to usher in a new age of transformation.”
“Grand mutable what?”
“Two of the women he killed formed half of the square. Venemeer had a shadow. She was made to look like a Gemini sign. The other one held wheat in her hand. That’s a Virgo symbol. The woman here in Chelsea was made to look like a half-woman Sagittarius. She even had a bow and arrow.”
“Did you see the psychologist like I told you to?”
“Listen to me!” she yelled. “He’s got one more to go. One more kill will complete the square. Tonight is the new moon. He’ll need a Pisces.”
“Square? I thought you said it was a cross.”
“Dammit!” Avery cried. “This is real! I want backup and a team to survey the area. I know where he’s going to be next.”
“You got some balls on you, Black. I’ll give you that. I tell you to stay off the case, you work even harder. What the hell am I supposed to do with someone like you?”
“Give me a team.”
“Even if you’re right,” he said, “can you prove it?”
“Another woman is dead!” she yelled. “Isn’t that proof enough? You want to know how I found her? I just followed the corners of a square. Every kill is at a perfect ninety-degree angle from the others, and they’re made to look like astrological signs.”
O’Malley’s voice went low.
“Jesus,” he whispered.
“You don’t believe me?” she said. “You want more proof? OK. At least tell me what came back from the college lists. Did we get a match?”
“You’ll have to talk to your new partner—Thompson.”
“Thompson doesn’t give a shit about this case!”
O’Malley lost it.
“Thompson’s been working his ass off for you! Do you know that? You’re not the only cop that works and you’re not the only cop that cares. Do you know how many cases I have to oversee right now? I’ve got three dead housewives on Haynes, a gang war about to break out on the Southside, drug cartels, pimps, and an illegal casino racket downtown. The only case where we have an actual suspect in custody is yours, and you want to ignore that completely?”
His voice turned to a cold whisper.
“The mayor thinks you did a great job. He thinks this case is solved and he’s telling everyone it’s all because of you. What am I supposed to do?”
“Tell him we got the wrong guy. Tell him we’ll get it right this time.”
“You really want this?” he said. “Give me something solid—something real, Avery. I don’t want to just hear about dead bodies that crop up at ninety-degree angles and that one had a bow and arrow. I need a connection, a solid connection that proves you’re right. You get me that and you get your team.”
He hung up.
“Shit!” Avery yelled and slammed down the phone.
Thompson was her next call.
“What do you want?” he said, just as annoyed as O’Malley.
“Where are you?”
“I’m sitting at my desk going over the college lists like you asked me too.”
Avery was genuinely surprised.
“Really?”
“Yeah, really. What do you think?”
“I thought you didn’t believe me.”
“I don’t believe you,” he snapped back. “You’re probably the most stubborn, pigheaded cop on the force. You get leads and throw them away and find more leads and throw them away. You’ve got piles of work on your desk and you’re just begging for more. It’s fucking crazy. You know that, right? But you’re also a freak of nature,” he mumbled. “You see things, things I don’t see. I’m trying to see them, too.”
“What did you find?”
“Nothing,” he said. “There have to be a thousand names here, and not one of them matches either one of the bookstore lists.”
“What did the handwriting specialist say?”
“He’s not here yet. Got called on a more urgent case.”
“What could be more important than this?”
“You obviously haven’t read the papers today. People think this case is solved. The headline is Astrology Killer in Custody. Be honest: Are you sure this isn’t our guy? He wrote the letter. He tried to kill you.”
“It can’t be him,” Avery said. “Another body turned up last night.”
“What do you mean?”
“In Chelsea. A woman, placed by water like all the rest. Made to look like the sign of Sagittarius with a bow and arrow in her hand. The other two represent Virgo and Gemini. He’s creating a square of bodies, each one at ninety-degree angles to the other. He’s got three already. He needs one more. Tonight is the night.”
“How do you know that?”
“It’s a new moon. It’s the height of this thing he’s trying to create. The only thing I can’t figure out is how he’s doing it. How did he get into a college dorm? How did he plant these bodies without detection?”
“Maybe he’s some kind of soldier,” Thompson said. “Special ops, shit like that. If he’s meticulous, why leave a footprint at the first scene? Why let those BU girls see his face?”
“He’s toying with us,” Avery said. “But I know his next move. I know exactly where he’s going to be. Are you with me on this?”
Thompson hesitated.
“What did O’Malley say?”
“He said I could have a team if I found proof. I know where he’s going to be next. Isn’t that proof enough? He won’t give the OK, but this is solid, Thompson. I’m telling you. We’ve got him. All we have to do is show up.”
“Just the two of us?”
“No,” she said. “We’ll need at least two more people, and a boat. It’s a large area to cover. You think we can get a boat?”
“Yeah,” he said, “I can get a boat. You sure about this?”
Avery stared out of her open car window. The pieces were falling into place, every one of them, and only thing missing was the killer.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
CHAPTER FORTY FOUR
Avery met everyone at a small, posh bar on Medford Street, just south of the Mystic River. The place was dark and busy with a young, hip crowd. She sat at a table with Thompson on her left, the small but fired-up Finley on her right, and a very somber Ramirez directly ahead. All of them wore layman’s cloth
ing and seemed out of place in the happening joint.
“Thanks for coming,” Avery said to Ramirez.
“How could I say no?” He shrugged. “They stuck me with this asshole,” and he pointed a thumb over at Finley.
“Aw, come on,” Finley complained. “You blew it with Black. They gave you someone even better. You should be ecstatic to have me on your side.”
Avery stared at Ramirez.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “For everything. Truly.”
“It’s fine,” he mumbled. “It’s OK. Let’s just get this over with.”
Avery could tell that he wasn’t fine. Sleeplessness was in his eyes, and the sharp edges of his suits and personality were dull.
He’s hurting, she said. I really hurt him.
“Is this a lover’s quarrel or a stakeout?” Finley complained.
“It’s a stakeout,” Avery said, and she eyed each of them in kind. “Here’s what I know. Our guy is trying to create something called a Grand Mutable Cross, which is an astrology event where four planets form a perfect square. A third body was found over in Chelsea. The location of that body, along with the professor and Venemeer, form three corners of the square. The last corner is going to be somewhere around Ryan’s Playground, right beside the Alford Street Bridge. Tonight is a new moon, which is supposed to be the most powerful moment of this planetary alignment, so that’s where he’ll be.”
“We’re not going to try and stop him from killing another woman?” Ramirez asked.
“How?” Avery said. “We don’t know anything about him. This guy has been one step ahead of us the entire time. Our only chance is to try and catch him in the act.”
“Stakeout.” Finley clapped with an eager smile on his face.
“This is no joke!” Thompson yelled.
“He’s right,” Avery said. “This guy is no joke. It’s reasonable to assume he knew the first two victims, but his name doesn’t match up anywhere. That means he has multiple aliases. He’s also smart enough to elude cameras—and crazy enough to enter a packed university and try and abduct my daughter in front of hundreds of people. My guess is, he’s some type of military man. Maybe a special agent or a Navy Seal. A person who can blend into environment. That means he deserves your respect, Finley.”