The Collector

by Cameron

  She frowned. “What makes you say that?”

  “You said you were next, but didn’t ask for protection,” he said, stating the obvious.

  “Maybe I believe in myself enough to know I can help you more than you can help me.”

  Again he nodded, as if he thought the same. “How does that work exactly? You helping us?” Because so far, she’d given them only puzzles.

  She looked away. He almost missed it, that wistful expression. At that moment, she reminded him of Ricky, that last time he’d seen his brother. Back then, Seven had still believed it was all some horrible mistake, Scott’s murder.

  “He has a low energy,” she said in a soft, sure voice. “It’s been that way since he was young. There have been mood swings. He hears voices in his head. He could be abusing drugs—alcohol, most likely. He’ll show impulsive behavior and have memory problems. Poor concentration. He might suffer from anxiety or a physical problem with no obvious cause. There’s something wrong with his eyes. That’s why he takes them like trophies from his victims. People think the eyes are the windows to the soul, but he sees a life source. And he wants more.”

  Seven waited, giving her a minute. “Wow,” he said. “I don’t remember there being any mention in the papers about the condition of Mimi Tran’s eyes.”

  He’d meant it as an accusation. Once again Gia Moon had pinned herself to the crime, showing special knowledge. To him, it was evidence of guilt.

  But she didn’t take it as a threat. Instead, her own eyes grew unfocused. Her breathing grew shallow.

  If this was an act, it was a good one.

  “He took Mimi Tran’s eyes,” she said in a raw whisper. “And it’s not the first time. He gets supreme pleasure from inflicting pain, even if it’s his own. There are other trophies. A collection. Like a feather dipped in his victim’s blood. He used it to paint something. He commits the most unspeakable crimes with a cool head. And the voices in his head—they tell him he’s better than the rest of us. They tell him he’s God.”

  Seven could see that it took her a few seconds to focus back on the present, as if she was coming out of some sort of trance. Suddenly, she looked embarrassed.

  “I thought you said you painted for a living,” he said.

  She held up her hand, showing again the red paint under her nails. “An artist through and through.”

  “Well, that was a pretty impressive profile of a serial killer. For an artist, I mean.”

  She took a deep breath. “Dark spirits are a specialty of mine.”

  “You want to elaborate on that?”

  “Depossession.”

  He frowned. “Are we talking exorcism?”

  “Despite the fact that Western medicine dismisses possession as a cause of personal distress, many cultures insist that it is a reality. A spirit or entity attaches itself to a human host.” And when he looked skeptical, she added, “There are cases where an individual doesn’t fit any category of mental illness.”

  “So you call it spirit possession?”

  He knew the minute he said the words he’d made a mistake. He could see her shut down, a wall rising between them. But he couldn’t stop himself. He’d been thinking about Ricky, how it would be grand to just say some evil spirit got ahold of him.

  “Hey, I get it,” he said, trying to recoup. “No one believes you. So let’s just get beyond the obvious and assume I don’t. But I want to understand. Okay?”

  She met his gaze. “What I do is dangerous work. I don’t like to advertise. But you might as well know that I do seem to draw these sorts of spirits. I am a painter. But the things I paint…it’s not always a pretty picture.”

  He remembered the crime scene he’d walked into at the Tran house. If she’d seen anything like that, he couldn’t imagine living in her head.

  “You said he’s playing a game. Any idea what the rules are?”

  She thought about it. “Don’t get caught.”

  Seven gave her a disappointed look. “Is that all I get?”

  “Revenge,” she said.

  “Right.” Again, she was speaking in generalities, the kind of thing anybody could come up with.

  She gave a tired sigh and pushed the coffee away. “Sorry to disappoint you,” she said. “I don’t know how to turn it on or shut if off.”

  “It’s all right,” he said. “I was pushing. Now how about you? Do you think you might need protection?”

  “No.”

  “Wow. That was kind of fast. So fast that a guy might think you hadn’t really put enough thought into your answer.”

  She held up her chin, looking like a woman who hadn’t asked for help in a very long while. “I don’t need help. Not yet.”

  She said it with such authority. For a fraction of a second, Seven wondered if she could actually be the real deal….

  “So how does this gift of yours work?”

  “I can’t help you with your brother,” she said.

  She delivered the words like a shot from across the table. He had to catch his breath because the salvo was so completely out of context from their conversation.

  And yet, that’s exactly who he’d been thinking about. His brother. Seven had still been mulling over the possibility that Ricky could be one of these possessed people. What if rather than slamming him into jail, they could just sic a priest on him and shove out the evil? It made a tidy little explanation for what had happened…how one day, his brother had been this totally normal guy, and the next, he’d killed a man.

  She sighed. “Sorry.”

  “You do a lot of apologizing.”

  “Not normally, no.”

  “Look, I can imagine what a giant pain all this is. Always having to explain yourself. But I was wondering about…your methods. Let’s say I came to you as a client. I had some…depossession work to do. How do we start?”

  “Depossession usually involves a spirit that fails to move on. I have guides. They help me talk to the spirits. I try to convince them it’s time to leave.”

  “Spirit guides?”

  She smiled. “I know how this must sound to you, Detective.”

  “Call me Seven, please. And actually, I get it. I mean, I watched The Sixth Sense. You see dead people.”

  But the joke fell flat. Sitting across the bistro table, she looked exactly like a woman who wanted to grab her car keys and that ridiculous mailbag she called a purse and just take off.

  “Hey. I’m here, aren’t I?” he asked softly.

  “Yes.” She sat back. She placed her hands flat on the table. “Yes, you are.”

  “I may not believe, but I want to understand. Especially if it takes some whack job off the streets. You get me?”

  In response, she closed her eyes. She took a deep breath, keeping her hands spread out on the table. He’d taken a yoga class once with Erika. The way she was breathing, it’s what they called a cleansing breath.

  “The killer,” she said, “he comes to me in dreams because it’s a fluid state. Easy for spirits to cross over. As I told you, I tend to attract the darker spirits. An inherited trait, I’m afraid. From my mother’s side. So far, it’s been very juvenile, this spirit. As if maybe that of a child. Or childhood memories, I’m not sure which.”

  “No kid had anything to do with what I saw at the murder scene.”

  She opened her eyes. “The demon is different from the possessed. I have no idea how old the possessed person could be. I don’t even know if it’s a man or a woman.”

  Seven gave her another smile. He couldn’t help it. The whole conversation was so out there. “It must be hell on sleep.”

  “You have no idea.”

  There were indeed dark circles under her eyes. He held back the urge to reach out and brush his thumb there. Instead, he held on to his coffee cup, the desire to touch her so strong it actually made him jumpy.

  “You should talk to him,” she said. “It might help.”

  She was talking about Ricky again. Reminding him of all thos
e sleepless nights he’d spent worrying about his family.

  Now he knew what Erika had felt when Gia had told her that stuff about Alfonso. It wasn’t a good feeling, the idea that someone could open your mind up like a can and peer inside.

  He shook his head. “That’s some gift you have.” He watched her carefully. “Is that how you figured out Mimi Tran’s security code? You read her mind? Or did you see that in a dream?”

  “What?”

  “The security code to the victim’s house. You know it.”

  She gave him a puzzled look. “I most certainly do not. What gave you that idea?”

  “During the first interview. You stood to act out the victim opening the door. She disabled her security system, punching in the code. Your hand, it was at the exact level of the actual keypad. The numbers you punched in—you know the code.”

  She still looked mystified. “Maybe my body knows the code.”

  “Your body knows the code?”

  “It’s like automatic writing,” she said, trying to figure out what had happened, for all intents and purposes acting like someone who had no memory of the event. “It’s a common form of automatism, muscular movement attributed to supernatural guidance.” Suddenly, she glanced up, those blue eyes meeting his. “Do I need an attorney?”

  The two of them sat staring across the tiny table, the silence absolute.

  He answered by echoing back her own words. “Not yet.”

  She picked up the mailbag and started fishing through it coming up with her wallet. “I’d better go,” she said.

  He told her, “It’s on me.” And when she looked like she might argue the point, he added, “Hey, we’re full service at Westminster Homicide.”

  He said it with a smile, trying to get back a lighter mood. But she wasn’t buying it.

  She stood up, watching him, and the look she gave him…it was almost as if the air were crackling around them with that static charge. Slowly, as if trying not to spook him, she reached out and touched his hand.

  It was only the slightest touch—her fingertips brushing over his knuckles—but suddenly, he felt on fire.

  An image flashed inside his head, he and Gia, naked in bed together, their arms and legs wrapped around each other so that he couldn’t tell where one started and the other ended.

  He pulled his hand away, shocked. He could feel himself trying to catch his breath, almost as if those passionate kisses had been real. He looked up to find her staring at him.

  She said, “I have to go.”

  She turned and jogged into the parking lot. He could still feel his heart hammering in his chest.

  He noticed she drove a hybrid. A Prius.

  In his jacket pocket, his cell phone chirped to life. Taking a few breaths, he glanced at the display and saw that it was Erika calling.

  “What’s up?” he said into the phone, thankful that his voice sounded normal as he watched Gia drive off.

  “No kidding,” he said, hearing the news.

  The archaeology professor, Murphy—he’d shown up at the precinct. And he’d brought the troops.

  23

  Seven walked into the Crimes Against Persons unit to discover it had been turned into a laboratory. The sight of microscopes, laptops, scales and calipers warred with the utilitarian office furniture where Professor Murphy and his minions had set up to examine the bead. Looking around, Seven hoped the professor hadn’t brought along anything radioactive.

  The troops turned out to be five grad students, one with a digital camera preparing to catalog the moment, until Seven shut down the impromptu documentary. The precinct had its own video equipment, thank you very much.

  Murphy was at the center of the controlled chaos, practically rubbing his hands together in anticipation of “authenticating” the bead…while Erika made sure to dot her i’s and cross her t’s on the chain of custody. Seven felt a tad de trop in the hustle and flow. But given his discussion with Gia earlier, he was incredibly curious as to what the hell the professor might find.

  At least Murphy was entertaining. A man used to the lecture podium, he hadn’t stopped talking since Seven stepped into the room. The topic of the moment: the theft of a couple hundred artifacts from the Corinth Archaeological Museum.

  “It was only a matter of time, really. With no more ancient treasuries to loot and a high demand on the black market, the thieves naturally turned to the museum collections themselves. There were 285 artifacts stolen in all, by a gang of Greek nationals, as it turned out. Several found their way to Christie’s and were sold at auction. One of the pieces, a vase, was published in a catalog for sale. An Oxford professor recognized the piece and told the seller it had been stolen. Of course, the man immediately contacted the FBI.”

  The professor hovered over his microscope, talking as he peered through the binocular lenses. He kept referring back to the laptop, tapping in notes with two fingers, like Morse code.

  “The FBI recovered most of the artifacts sealed in plastic boxes inside fish crates in a Miami storage facility. Can you imagine? Fish crates!”

  “No kidding,” Seven said, seeing a reaction was expected. At the same time he wondered what the hell any of this had to do with the damn bead.

  “Except for just a few pieces,” Murphy continued, “every one of the stolen artifacts was returned to the Greek government with the cooperation of the FBI.”

  “And the artifacts that were never recovered?” Erika asked, catching on to where the professor was headed.

  “Estelle Fegaris believed that the very people who had those missing pieces also maintained possession of the Eye.” The professor turned to Seven. “Have you ever been to Delphi, Detective?”

  European vacations being such a big part of a homicide detective’s lifestyle? “Can’t say I’ve had that pleasure.”

  “It’s considered the navel of the earth. Zeus let loose two eagles and they met at Delphi. One of the eagles dropped a stone from its beak and it made a hole in the ground. The umphalos—the navel of the earth. There’s a stone still there to commemorate the spot. Tourists like to take their photographs showing their belly button in front of the stone.”

  Seven watched as Murphy removed the bead from the microscope and grabbed a tiny vial. He let fall a droplet of whatever was in the vial, then quickly returned the bead to the microscope.

  “About the Eye?” Seven prompted.

  “It’s a colorful explanation for a location documented to have volcanic activity,” Murphy continued, ignoring Seven’s attempt to keep the conversation focused on the evidence. Apparently, a lecture on the classics was part and parcel of any relevant information the professor was giving up.

  “Delphi, the home of the oracle, held the Panhellenic games every four years, called the Pythian games, their importance second only to the Olympic games in ancient Greece. It’s also on the slopes of Mount Parnassus, rumored to represent Mount Olympus itself, the throne of the gods. It’s truly an amazing place. The soil is purple from the bauxite mined there. The blue Ionian Sea meets what is called the green sea of Itea—a grove of five million olive trees.”

  Standing next to Seven, Erika gave the supervising tech a nervous glance that seemed to say, What the hell is he doing to our evidence?

  “Mythology tells us that Zeus commanded Apollo to leave his sister and mother on the sacred island of Delos. So Apollo turned himself into a dolphin and traveled to Delphi. He fought the Python, Gaia’s sacred creature, and killed it to claim Delphi for his oracle.”

  Murphy moved back to the laptop. Even from where he stood, Seven could see graphs light up the screen. He couldn’t make heads or tails of it, of course, but he knew it would mean something to their own techs…which he figured was the point of putting up with the professor. Murphy was the expert here, helping to authenticate the damn evidence.

  “In the ruins, you can still see where Apollo’s priestess,” he said, not missing a beat as he typed, “the Pythia, would crawl through a tunnel into t
he sanctuary of Apollo, chewing the leaves from the sacred laurel tree. Deep inside, in a place where only she was allowed entry, there bubbled up from the earth a poisonous spring. There she’d sit and chew her leaves. Many believe that the ethylene gas vapors combined with the juices from the laurel leaves to put the Pythia into a state of ecstasy, a trance, from which she would interpret the future. Estelle Fegaris postulated something different.”

  “The necklace?” Seven prompted.

  “According to Fegaris, the Eye acted like a lens, magnifying the psychic powers of its wearer, a theory considered by many to be wildly out of touch with the evidence in the field. Fegaris needed to produce the necklace as proof.”

  “Is there a picture of this thing on some piece of papyrus somewhere?” Seven asked, thinking of Gia’s sketch.

  The professor shook his head. “That would be too easy. Only Fegaris claimed to know the necklace’s appearance and origin, and she wasn’t sharing. It was one of the many mysteries surrounding the Eye.”

  “So how do we know she didn’t make the whole thing up?” Seven asked.

  “We don’t,” Murphy said, suddenly stepping away from the stone. “But given her reputation, there were those of us who chose to believe in the Eye’s existence.”

  The professor stood there, staring at the bead. He glanced back at the computer screen, a strange expression on his face.

  “What is it, Professor?” Erika asked. “What did you find?”

  “Dating ancient glass can be a tricky business.” His expression now changed to one of reverence as he approached the tiny sample. “Frankly, the dating of an isolated piece like this is a near impossible task, particularly with no existing comparanda.”

  “Meaning?” Seven said, getting a bad feeling.

  “I can’t authenticate the artifact. Not here,” he said, still focused on the bead. “It requires the kind of chemical and physical examination that can only be done in a major laboratory—if it can be done at all. Perhaps the University of Pennsylvania. Or the University of Washington.” His expression visibly brightened, as if he’d just come up with a wonderful idea. “In fact, I have a colleague I could call there. I would be happy to accompany the piece myself.”