by Hopkin, Ben
Opening her mouth to speak to Darc, Mala’s eyes caught on something in the corner of the room by Bill’s bed. Crime scene photos. Of the current case. Victims with the Babylonian numerals carved into their foreheads. How had he gotten those?
Next to each photo were what looked like scriptural references. Proverbs 6:16, Proverbs 6:17, others from Ezekiel and Habakkuk and Isaiah. For every picture, at least one quotation.
And then Mala saw something that made her blood run chill. Her own face. Tucked away in the darkest corner of the room, there was Mala herself, from every imaginable angle. Surveillance photos. Of her.
Darc moved up next to her, a stack of what looked like receipts in his gloved fingers. He gazed at the photos, then mutely held out the receipts to Mala.
They were from the Home Depot. Building materials, bathroom sink and counter, drywall, wood, paint, hardwood flooring… all paid in cash. And another receipt for the rental of the space where Mala had been held.
“What is the possibility that Bill is not the killer?” Mala asked, her voice trembling.
But Darc just stood there, saying nothing. He never refused to discuss the probabilities of a case. It must be bad.
And, thinking about it, things could not be much worse. If there were any one individual who understood the most about the case, outside of Mala and the two detectives, it was Bill. He knew their methods, their plans of attack, the ins and outs of this case. No wonder they hadn’t been able to keep ahead of him.
He had been there, misdirecting them from the first.
Mala felt her blood turn from ice to boiling lava in the space of ten seconds. Trey had liked Bill, had treated him as a friend and colleague. Trey had trusted that man.
It was now up to Mala and Darc to make sure Bill paid for that violation.
But looking back at the photos, so many with her own countenance staring back at her, Mala felt a different kind of violation. This man had seen her vulnerable. He had taken pictures of her without her consent. Had observed her in moments when she thought herself alone.
How in the world could she ever tip those scales back in her favor?
CHAPTER 23
Popeye was complaining again. He did it all the time, so it wasn’t that big of a deal, but right now he was complaining about being in the car. He wanted to go home.
But Janey loved it in the car. She loved listening to the sound the car made when it was going. It hummed to her, almost like it was singing her a song. She loved how the backseat curved in just the right way to fit her. It was like being cuddled.
It even smelled good. Like Mala, but with another smell like cotton candy. There was another thing she loved about being in the car. She loved how it made the sounds from outside all muffled. Even Mala’s voice from the front seat was softer, fuzzier.
She was saying something about how sorry she was to drag Janey all over the city. And Popeye was saying, See, I told you so. If he didn’t stop with the sass, she’d put him in the washing machine, and then he would see. Mean old bear.
But Janey was happy. So happy. She was with Mala. She got to see Darc and Trey. And she got to sleep in the car. It was like a vacation, but more exciting. Except for that one time that Mommy and Daddy took her to Disneyland. That had been the most exciting.
But now Trey was gone. It was like when Mala was gone. Janey was scared for him, but she knew Darc and Mala would make it okay. Even that weird lawyer guy would probably help them. Janey hoped they wouldn’t go get hot chocolate again, though.
Popeye said a bad word. Butthead. He was so bad sometimes. Janey pushed him to the other side of the seat and tried to go back to sleep, but then got lonely and pulled him over to cuddle with her again. He kept squirming, making it so Janey couldn’t get comfy. She prodded and poked him to try to get him to stop, but he wouldn’t.
Silly bear.
So she sat awake and watched in the mirror. Mala was worried. When she was worried she got this little line in her forehead in between her eyebrows.
Janey stretched and reached into her bag. It was a nice bag that Mala had made for her. It had her name, Janey, in glitter on the front, and she used it to take snacks with her for when they went out. It also had some games and paper and crayons and markers.
She had meant to grab a juice box. Apple was her favorite, but sometimes Popeye made her drink orange juice. She liked orange juice, but it wasn’t her favorite. Popeye said it was like drinking sunshine. Janey thought he was goofy.
But when she reached in to grab out the juice box, she grabbed paper and crayons, instead. Sometimes when she drew pictures it made people happy. Darc had always been happy when she’d drawn pictures for him. He’d look at her and do that not-smile thing that made her heart warm in her chest.
Of course there were the other pictures that people didn’t like at all. Like the kids in the hospital screaming and running around. And the people at the home. They hadn’t liked her pictures much.
But Mala would. Janey was sure of it.
So she started drawing. Sometimes when she would draw, things would come together in her brain and make other things go into the picture.
It was that way this time. There were things in there about Mala and Darc. There were things in there about Trey. There were things in there about someone else. Someone scary that made Janey hold Popeye closer until he started complaining again.
She poked him in the ribs and told him to hush now.
It was a good picture. Mala would love it. And she would show it to Darc.
And then Trey would come back again.
* * *
The blending of the glowing lines and the gray mist was… troubling… to Darc. These were realms that should stay forever separate, and yet he was deliberately removing the barriers between them. What was even more troubling was that it appeared to be working.
What had always felt to Darc like an innate antipathy between the cool logic of the gleaming informational pathways and the grey mists was turning out to be largely a false construct, something he had established himself. The implications were disturbing.
So much time spent separating the clean lines of logic from the messiness of emotional attachment, all for naught. The austerity of not allowing human interactions to be more than another set of data in his calculations, all a part of his autism, not some superiority than put him above his fellow man.
Darc knew he was autistic. He had known it from a very early age. His parents had thought they were keeping the information from him. “Not labeling him” was the language they used. But he had known.
And he had taken solace in it. The play in which his classmates would engage had held no interest for him. The crisp parameters of math and science had held his attention where the endless prattle of his peers did nothing but confuse him.
The discovery of his prodigious talents solidified his thinking. He was different. Held apart. Special.
But this holding himself away had distanced him from the very things that would now allow him to solve this case. Mala was correct in her assessment. The glistening threads confirmed it. Blue for certainty. Trey had been kidnapped for his unique abilities in all of the areas that Darc had eschewed.
Maddening.
The pattern, however, was so similar to what Darc knew. Applying the weavings of logic to the bleak moonscape of emotion was all but identical to his normal process.
Or it was when it wasn’t excruciatingly painful.
That was the word for it. Painful. Every time Darc sought to bring together the informational world with the realm of inner life, a sharp ache would develop in his chest, just beneath his sternum. A band would expand from there, tightening around his entire torso, making him feel that it was impossible to breathe.
The physical reaction seemed to have no basis in any disorder than Darc could ascertain. The idea that it might be psychosomatic was rational, yet felt like a small death.
The death of a purely rational existence.
Mala wa
s seated across the desk from Darc, staring at a piece of paper. Her face seemed… softer. This was more gray territory, but Darc did not retreat from it as he was wont to do. The expression was somehow comforting to him.
The paper was resting on top of a laptop that Mala had managed to requisition from one of the officers here working late. She folded it up and placed the page in her purse, glancing up at Darc with a smile. The smile affected Darc in a similar way to the softness he had seen earlier. It was troubling and confusing and reassuring all at once.
Uniformed cops had been stationed at Bill’s apartment complex, waiting for the P.I. to return, and a B.O.L.O had been sent out for the squat man’s vehicle. There was little they could do on that front but await information from the officers.
In the meantime, Mala and Darc were sorting through pictures of all of the evidence recovered from Bill Harris’s apartment. The cases were sprawling, but already they had found some links to the other murders.
He was the one who had alerted Trey to the second murder. Bill had also known about the third. There was the connection to the Special Forces with the knife left behind at the fourth. It was still within the realm of what could be considered coincidence, but it was too much to ignore.
And with the surveillance photos of Mala, the circumstantial evidence now added to the pain in Darc’s chest. It was an intense mixture of the building up of logical chains that surrounded Bill Harris with ties of gleaming light, as well as the uncomfortable gray pressure of the threat to Mala. Darc did not know how to handle these intense emotions, and the pressure was mounting on a minute-by-minute basis.
A symbol intruded, one of the new hybrid creations that were a result of the blending of emotion and information. The symbol spoke of the anxiety that Mala was more than likely experiencing. This was an unusual experience for Darc. One for which he felt quite unprepared.
He opened his mouth to ask her… something. What should he ask her? Mala spotted the aborted motion and turned her attention to him.
“Yes, Darc? Were you going to say something?”
The phone rang.
Officer Daniels’s voice rang through the receiver. “We’ve got him! We found Bill Harris and we’re bringing him in.”
This was more familiar territory. Interrogation. Far more straightforward than emotional inquiry. Far less uncomfortable than imagining the fears of another.
And yet, as he turned away from Mala to question Daniels further about the arrest, Darc could not help but feel disappointed that his conversation with her had never begun.
* * *
Mala stared across the table at Bill Harris, the man who had been Trey’s friend and who was now more than likely his captor. The man who had killed and killed and killed again with a viciousness and precision that belied his rough-and-tumble exterior.
But what was most disturbing was that Mala’s mind kept going back to the surveillance photos he had taken. With so much on the line, it was Mala’s personal sense of violation that was winning out here.
She’d managed to make it into the room okay. Even sitting down and peering at his face had been doable. But the thought of questioning this man, interrogating him about Trey and the other killings… all while having visions of her own face seen through a telephoto lens? Maddening.
There was a scent of disinfectant that merged with a sour scent that seemed to be coming from Bill. There were beads of sweat that had formed on his forehead, and he was licking his lips, which appeared chapped.
“Guys, I’m not sure what’s going on. Why am I here? In an interrogation room?” Bill blurted. “No one will tell me anything.”
His questions surprised Mala. He seemed nervous, true, but Bill wasn’t acting the way she had expected. Defiance, sure. Arrogance? Possibly. But this? This didn’t make any sense. At all.
Darc continued to stare at the private investigator. This was one of the places where Mala could see that his lack of empathy was a benefit. Where another detective might get uncomfortable with the silence, Darc seemed to use it, waiting until his subject cracked under the pressure. Mala wasn’t even sure that he was doing it on purpose, his demeanor told so little. It was the kind of look that could have wilted lettuce, and Mala was confident it would take its toll on Bill.
And it didn’t take long.
“Come on, Darc! You know me!” Bill sputtered.
“No. I do not. We are acquainted with one another, nothing more. Trey knows you.”
Bill looked around as if to spot the other detective. “Yeah, he does. Where is he? Whatever it is that you think is going on, Trey can clear it up.”
“Trey has been taken by the killer,” Darc intoned.
It took several seconds for that comment to sink its way into Bill’s brain. When the information registered, the reaction was immediate. Bill’s eyes goggled, and he jumped to his feet.
“Well, then. What the hell are we doing here?”
“Bill,” Mala stepped in, pushing the images of her own visage back into the recesses of her mind. “We’re here because there are some unusual coincidences that we need to talk to you about.”
“Coincidences?” he responded, his face slack as he sat back down.
“You have more than once arrived at the crime scenes before anyone else,” Darc took over.
“Well, yeah. Of course.” Bill wiped at the sweat on his face, managing only to smear it around. “I was the one who told you about two of them. Well, one, I guess. I found out about the other at the same time.”
“You were also in the Special Forces,” Darc continued.
“Wha…?” The look of confusion on Bill’s face intensified, then cleared up. “Oh, the knife? That was stolen from the guy it belonged to.”
“So you said,” interjected Mala. “But you were the only one that verified that information. And the blade could’ve been yours. As ex-Special Forces, you certainly would know where to get one.”
“Yeah, but—”
Darc placed the receipts for the warehouse rental, as well as all of the Home Depot purchases, directly in front of Bill. The private investigator peered at them, looked back up at Mala and Darc, then looked down to the receipts again.
“What’re these?”
“You’re going to claim you don’t know?” Mala demanded. “They were found when we searched your place.” There was something off here. Either Bill was much more of an actor than Mala would have given him credit for, or he was repressing memories of his own actions.
“When you…? You searched…?” Bill pulled in a deep breath and let it out bit by bit. “Okay. Okay. I have no idea what those receipts were doing there. I’ve never seen them before in my life.”
“Those receipts tie you to a crime scene at which Dr. Charan was held. The materials purchased at the Home Depot and elsewhere were used to recreate her apartment.” Darc’s tone never varied, but there was something in the way he delivered that sentence that made Mala glance over at the bald detective.
Bill threw up his hands. “Why would I do that? Huh? What possible reason could I have for kidnapping the doctor here?”
“That is a valid question, Mr. Harris,” Mala stated, keeping her aversion in check. She grabbed the surveillance photos of herself and placed them one by one in front of the sweating investigator. His face blanched. It was the first evidence of guilt that Mala had seen from him. This he remembered doing.
“I…” Bill looked up, his eyes slipping away from Mala’s face. “I…” He cleared his throat. “I think that you need to charge me for something or it’s time for me to leave. And go get a lawyer.”
Now this was looking much more like what Mala had anticipated. The problem was, Bill was the answer to where Trey might be. Letting him go was not an option.
Which is why Darc’s response shocked her.
“You may go now.”
Okay, Mala had not seen that coming.
“Um, Darc,” Mala murmured to the tall detective. “Don’t we want to hold him for
more questioning or something?”
“We cannot,” Darc responded in his full voice. He seemed indifferent to the fact that Bill could hear him. “There is not enough evidence to charge him, and holding him for questioning with a lawyer present is an ineffective use of time.” He turned to Bill. “Did you not hear me? I said that you may go now.”
Bill shook his head and began to walk out of the interrogation room. Before he got to the door, he turned back to face Mala and Darc.
“I get that this stuff doesn’t look good.” He indicated all the evidence strewn across the table. “But you need to know that I had nothing to do with it.”
The sad part of it was that if Mala hadn’t seen all the facts for herself, she probably would’ve believed him. Some profiler she was turning out to be.
* * *
So it turned out that having your hands and feet chained to the four corners of a bed was not so comfortable. There would have been times in Trey’s life when he would have killed for some enforced R&R. Okay, killed was maybe a poor choice of words in this particular moment, but the sentiment was the same.
His kidnapper kept late hours, at least according to the clock radio that sat atop the nightstand next to Trey. Whatever the guy did for his day job, it was more than a nine-to-five gig. So, either he was someone that worked a bunch of double shifts, or it was a salaried job that required extra hours on a regular basis.
That was great, but it didn’t really help much. To occupy his time and keep his mind off of his nose that kept deciding it needed to be itched, Trey was trying to figure out who his captor was. And this particular angle felt like a dead end. Too many options. Doctor, lawyer, accountant… How many professions demanded too much of their employees? Even law enforcement should be on the list with that line of reasoning.
Trey rattled the chains for the five-hundredth time. The sound fell flat in the soundproofed room. He’d tried screaming the first few hours he’d been captured, but it just made his kidnapper laugh. And if his captor was laughing, Trey had to think he was barking up the wrong tree.
If he had even one hand free, he might be able to find something nearby that he could use to pick the locks. Hell, if he could find a knife he might even cut off his own hand, like that one guy up in the mountains. Trey thought about taking a knife and shoving it into his own flesh.