Tom Reed Thriller Series

by Rick Mofina

  “I did more work on the auto carpet fibers, using energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence.”

  “Right, XRF.”

  “Also did some optical microscopy and polymer characterization, so I could check elements on individual carpet fibers, you know, like material used in production or added in post-production, treatments, and cleaners.”

  Turgeon pulled out her notebook. “Like shampoo.”

  “Correct. Like the shampoo used by United Coast to clean its rentals at San Francisco International.” Horace, was studying his pages of notes. “I checked with United Coast’s drums. Called the supplier. UC uses an industrial brand that contains a slightly higher than average level of two-butoxyethanol. According to the NIOSH reviews, two-butoxyethanol is a type of glycol ether, a quick-drying colorless liquid used in organic solvents, for things like household and industrial cleaning solutions.”

  “Like a stain remover, stain protector?”

  “Sort of. Anyway, it’s a safe bet our fiber comes from a United Coast rental.”

  “How safe?” Sydowski said. “How do we know the cleaner is not domestic and could have been used to clean any car anywhere?”

  Horace removed his big glasses from his big head and rubbed his tired eyes before replacing the glasses.

  “Walt, you must have lucky stars, because it turns out that United Coast, being a new car rental agency, is field-testing a brand-new auto carpet shampoo.”

  “That so?”

  “And they started two weeks ago in one location in the entire U.S. Their outlet at San Francisco International.”

  Turgeon flipped the pages of her notes. “That’s twenty-one names. You brought it down to twenty-one names.”

  “Horace.” The gold crown in Sydowski’s grin glinted. “That’s terrific.”

  “It started with you, Walt.”

  “How?”

  “You noticed the road paint was new. Everyone missed it. That’s old-fashioned detective work.” Horace looked at Turgeon. “Don’t ever let this guy fool you. He knows what he’s doing.”

  “Some days maybe.” Turgeon smiled.

  Later that day, Sydowski and Turgeon talked with United Coast’s director of security, who arranged to provide them all documentation on each of the twenty-one men who fit the criteria.

  Marshaling the actual Taurus and Sable units the men had rented was going to take time. Most were in use, or had been returned to other United outlets.

  “Locate them wherever they are and pull them out of circulation for us, please,” Sydowski said.

  Investigators knew any crime scene evidence or trace in the car would be contaminated. Sydowski told United’s executive office that it was imperative the company get every suspect car back to San Francisco as soon as possible and that it was “critical they not be cleaned in any way.”

  The bonus was that United Coast had a state-of-the-art photo security system. Before departing its lot, a customer had to stop at a barricade, turn his or her face left to a stationary eye-level security camera that required them to hold up the rental agreement. A photograph was snapped, along with the time, date, and vehicle information. Then the barricade was raised.

  By that evening, Sydowski and Turgeon had posted twenty-one photographs from United Coast on a large wheeled chalkboard in the homicide detail. Under each photograph they had posted the rental agreement, the copy of each man’s driver’s license, and other details as their records checks found them.

  Energized by their break in the case, Sydowski and Turgeon ordered a pizza to the Hall. They were alone, saying little, staring at the board. Sydowski eventually withdrew into his thoughts. He walked to a window, standing there for several moments before returning.

  “I think we’ve gone as far as we can go on our own. I think now it’s time Linda,” he said, studying the eyes on the board staring at him. “Time to submit it all to VICAP, with details of these men as potential suspects.”

  “Hallelujah.”

  Turgeon alerted the FBI VICAP coordinator at the San Francisco field office on Golden Gate. Sydowski got a VICAP form and began answering its questions on details about the victim, the crime, the killer, pulling every applicable factor from Iris Wood’s case, including his hold-back, BWI, the shoe, everything. Looking at the faces on the board somehow made it all the more real, convincing Sydowski this guy was unstoppable.

  Within 24 hours, the Iris Wood case would be entered into the VICAP database maintained by the FBI in Quantico, Virginia. A VICAP coordinator for the West Region would immediately begin comparing their file against all other entries, keying on specific data in the crime that might reveal a signature, or pattern similar to other murders, which could point to a single suspect.

  It was nearly 2 A.M. when they finished.

  Turgeon had put her head down on her desk. She was asleep. Sydowski stood to stretch his stiffened muscles. He studied the board, feeling the righteousness of his duty rising as he bored into each pair of eyes.

  You reached out of nowhere and took her. I will reach into nothing and find you. You’re here. I know you’re here. I can feel you. I can smell you. We’re coming for you.

  One by one, Sydowski stared at the men on the board. One by one, they stared back, including the scarred face of Harlan Wells.

  The alias used by Eugene Vryke.

  FIFTY-THREE

  Wyatt’s PC in his apartment was a powerful customized top-of-the-line unit. He fired it up.

  If he was going into unauthorized battle, he would keep it outside the SFPD. His police laptop sat idle on his kitchen table. Safe.

  As his computer trilled and beeped to life, Wyatt pulled a cold beer from his refrigerator, took a long drink, put his feet up on his desk, leaned back in his swivel chair. He opened the padded envelope from Gricks and slid out the contents: four CDs marked A to D in felt pen, six floppies, marked 1 to 6, and the thick little booklet. He began reading. Gricks explained that he was going to guide Wyatt by a pre-recorded instructional CD. The booklet advised Wyatt to listen carefully and pay attention to details. He was to start by inserting CD A.

  “All right.” Wyatt slid the CD into his computer. David Bowie’s “Modern Love” flowed through Wyatt’s sound system; then Gricks appeared on Wyatt’s screen, staring into the camera above his own monitor. Hippie hair and beard nodding; he hummed with the lyrics as he worked on his keyboard.

  You know, Gricks, it’s a thin line between genius and insanity. Wyatt swallowed some beer. The song ended.

  “Hello, Wyatt,” Gricks continued working. “Better record the date and time. Everything is programmed from your system’s clock to self-encrypt, then self-delete five days from now. Call it my insurance.”

  Wyatt noted the time.

  “Now enter the names of any four of the seven dwarfs.”

  What?

  “You’ve got two minutes, or it shuts down.”

  Wyatt typed Sleepy, Grumpy, Doc, and Dopey.

  “Good. Remember them in sequence. Because that instruction will never be repeated. It’s your password, should this hypothetical exercise go astray. You’ll recall our discussion on classic Italian literature, the works of Dante? I’ve modified some of the classic Italian theories we discussed to give you some twenty different strategies to find your target. Do not make any attempt to employ these strategies from the damaged system or anything linked to the owner’s on-line voyages. Understand?”

  Wyatt sipped some beer. Right.

  “Outside of this ‘exercise,’ should you come across anything from your target’s internal arsenal, anything, consider it gold and immediately go to Disk five.”

  Got it. Disk five. Wyatt made a note.

  “Ben,” Gricks steepled his fingers. “I’m trying to get you inside undetected. By stealth. So you can grab him, if he’s the one. He will beat most of the strategies. He is beyond a run-of-the-mill Web-page defacer, or virus weaver. He functions at a dangerously elevated level. It’s crucial you follow my instructions to the lett
er. Let’s get started.”

  Wyatt set out on one of the most complex and challenging probes he had ever experienced. He was shut down at every turn. At one stage he almost cracked his keyboard in frustration. By 2:15 A.M., he could not go on any longer. Six hours had passed. An avalanche of fatigue and futility rolled over him. After a quick hot shower, he fell into bed, feeling utterly defeated. He had tried nine of the twenty strategies Gricks had set up. All in vain.

  He lay there depleted, feeling dejection coiling around him, crushing him with doubts about his abilities, himself, resurrecting the ghosts of Reggie Pope, the kid. Then he saw Olivia smiling upon him. Her lovely eyes and face watching over him from the small portrait on his nightstand. The work of a street artist on the Wharf. It warmed him and he fell asleep.

  Wyatt’s phone rang at 6:55 A.M. It was Sydowski.

  “Get your sorry ass to the Hall for an eight o’clock case-status meeting.”

  “All right.”

  The fourth-floor meeting room was filled with nearly three dozen detectives, including more brass than previous status meetings. A lot of new faces. Late arrivals were forced to stand.

  “We’re going to keep this as brief as possible.” Lieutenant Gonzales took a hit of coffee from his mug. “We got a break. We’re going to tune the investigation accordingly, turn up the heat. I’m putting most of my team on this and we’re drawing more bodies from General Works.”

  “Can you say what the lead is?” somebody asked.

  “We’ll tell you what you need to know,” Sydowski said, rolling out the chalkboard displaying the suspects’ faces. Chairs squeaked in anticipation.

  “Inspector Sydowski will update you quickly.”

  “We now have a primary suspect pool of twenty-one men and we’re going to distribute files to each team of detectives. You know the drill. Get your subject’s time line around the murder, their whereabouts, then work on the résumé.” Sydowski plopped down a stack of files on the suspects. “We’re going to be marshaling our first batch of rental cars from United Coast’s airport outlet. The company is volunteering the cars but they need to be coordinated and taken on a flatbed to Hunter’s Point. We’ve been talking with the FBI and police in other jurisdictions, Las Vegas, Phoenix, New York, Cincinnati, Miami, for starters. We’ve had some discussion with those jurisdictions. Nothing concrete has popped. No links. Yet.”

  “Think you got serial, a traveler?” Somebody at the table said.

  “That’s my belief.”

  “What’s your link, Walt? We understand he left a clean scene.”

  “Don’t have it quite nailed yet, but we have some strong indicators. The case was just submitted to VICAP.”

  “What about her computer, Inspector?”

  “We’ve had some glitches on that aspect of the investigation.” Wyatt’s head snapped up from his notepad. “The FBI will take custody of her system. Special Agents, Cherry Daniel, who flew up from San Diego, and Barry Hiltzer from Computer Intrusion in Hayward will assume control. Cherry?”

  “We’re taking her computer down to the CART lab in San Diego today,” Cherry Daniel said. “We’ll examine it there and do some analysis on all communication she sent or received through it. And we’ll consult with NIPC at our headquarters in Washington.”

  “Excuse me,” Wyatt said, “there’s something you should know.”

  Ignoring him, Sydowski gave the FBI agents a warm, appreciative nod, telegraphing confidence. “That’s it for now,” he said. “We’re fine, Inspector Wyatt.”

  The meeting began breaking up.

  Gonzales called out: “Those teams assigned suspect files meet me in the homicide detail.”

  “Sounds like you got a strong break, Walt.”

  “Everybody’s been working hard.”

  Files were collected, bodies began to shuffle out.

  Wyatt sat there, dumbfounded, exhausted, staring at his empty notebook. Sydowski worked through the crowd, leaned down to Wyatt’s ear, barely containing his scorn. “You go see Leo for your new assignment supercop, all right?”

  The homicide receptionist called out to Sydowski. “Walter, thought I’d catch you before you head out.” She dropped her voice but Wyatt heard. “Nella from personnel called. Here’s Reggie’s address in the Tenderloin.”

  Reggie in the hospital bed, his contempt for Wyatt echoing. You stay the hell away from me.

  Wyatt remained there for a long time, swallowing the humiliation. It was premeditated. Sydowski wanted him there so he could stick it to him in front of the largest group possible. Everyone, here’s the fuck-up that got my old pal shot and this is what I’m going to do with him. Forget the truth. Wyatt shook his head. How much more of this could he stand?

  It was a bitter walk to see Gonzales.

  “Ben, we need you to join our guys at United Coast at the airport,” he said, “to help supervise the transportation of the cars from the outlet to the SFPD for forensic examination.” Gonzales was almost sympathetic. “Then I need you back here, helping out with phone work.”

  At United Coast, a couple of uniforms in a radio car exchanged jokes and sports wisdom while Wyatt studied his clipboard and kept to himself. Ford and Mercury engines growled as United Coast’s crew inched the cars on a flatbed.

  “So what’s up, man?” Wyatt asked.

  A United staff member with a tag over his heart that said DEWITT answered him. “Every one of these cars had to be rented by a customer who flew in from Baltimore.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Yeah, man. And we’re roundin’ up more.” Dewitt was signing a sheet for Wyatt when three cars were loaded onto the flatbed. “I saw the paperwork in the office. Heard my supervisor talking to some attorney.”

  “How’s that again?”

  “The SFPD asked for all our Tauruses and Sables rented by dudes who flew in from BWI. So what’s up with that, man?”

  Baltimore.

  Baltimore Washington International served the Fort Meade area. Several military installations were located there, including NSA, where Gricks said secret research was done on INFERNO.

  “Good question,” Wyatt said.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  Tears of blood under Mary’s eyes.

  Then Carla Purcell’s profile, as she is being carried to the Pieta.

  Then her corpse posed atop the dead Christ, on Mary’s lap in the Las Vegas Church.

  Reed bit his thumb, studying the images.

  Was this for real? Had Carla Purcell’s killer recorded her murder? Could he be staring at actual pictures of it?

  Reed set his magnifying glass down on his desk, rubbing his whiskers, his weary eyes. He had been up much of the night, researching his break in the story. He went on-line, scouring Nevada news databases in case he missed anything. He searched the Pieta in case it was linked in other homicides. He was thinking of calling Darlene Purcell in Las Vegas when he heard Ann start the shower.

  Reed had returned home late from the paper last night to find Ann asleep. She was upset with him for abandoning her at the banquet. He couldn’t blame her. He had put her through so much. But last night had been critical. His instincts had paid off. He stared at the pictures. It was monumental. Ann had to understand. “Look at this stuff.”

  Somehow through skill, luck, a glitch, or a combination, Sebastian Tan had taken the scrap of data from Carla Purcell’s sinister e-mail and traced it to the source, penetrated its system, enabling these images to slip out before the counterstrike took effect.

  It had to be linked to Iris Wood. And how many others? The hypertext on the images was long, broken-off filled with alien symbols. He needed to know more before he could break the story and he had to be careful.

  Zach had been up, coughing in his bathroom. Reed had hurried to him.

  “I’m all right, Dad.” Zach had splashed water on his pallid face. “Really.” He had blinked a smile at Reed. “I maybe got sick a little bit on my bed.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”
Reed tousled Zach’s hair. “You go have some juice or something before school.”

  Zach’s bed had been fine. Reed had looked at the model battle ships, the movie posters and comic books in his son’s room. He’s growing up too fast. Reed had been about to leave when he heard it. Scratching. Above Zach’s bed. It had stopped. Reed had looked around, grabbed a bat and tapped the ceiling, then heard the scraping of tiny claws. Mice?

  “What are you doing?” Ann had stood in the doorway for a moment, then walked off.

  “Ann.” He had stopped her in the hallway. “You have every right to be angry.”

  “Tom, you’re becoming obsessed with this story.”

  “You have to understand why.”

  “Tom, I can’t understand what on earth would make you do what you did last night. You could’ve made a call. You could’ve waited a few hours. What was so important? Tell me.”

  “I’ll show you. In the study.”

  They closed the study door. Reed had explained his trip to Las Vegas, the information about Carla Purcell in the files her mother gave him. He had passed the critical e-mail printout to Ann, explaining how he had rushed from the banquet to the paper to get Tan to trace it. He told her what had happened next, then placed the images in her hand.

  Ann had looked at them. “They’re real?”

  “Her mother told me Carla’s body was posed on the statue in the church. I visited the church, saw the statue. Tan used her e-mail, the strange one seeking forgiveness for past sins.” Reed had tapped the pictures. “This is what he got. Ann, this is the church, the statue. That is Carla Purcell.”

  Ann’s hand had covered her mouth. She had begun shaking her head and turning the pictures over.

  “Give them to Sydowski.”

  “What? No. I’m building a story.”

  “Give them to Sydowski, Tom, and back off.”

  “Ann, I’ve been suffering Brader and doing my best work here.”

  “Tom, you’re consumed by it. Did you forget everything we all went through the last time you got too close to something like this?”