Tusk was right: The recording was rough. There was a long section of dead air, with some low rumble in the background. Voices were talking far away from the microphone. Then, suddenly, a voice sang one long, pure note.
Melanie matched it.
“What is that?” Luce asked her.
“Concert pitch, Mami.” She rolled her eyes. “A over middle C.”
Voices joined, one by one, each on a different note until it became one massive chord. It sounded like a church organ. Melanie laughed in delight. “It’s them! Can you hear them? That’s Tusk on the low note and Matt’s way way up there—”
“You can tell that it’s them?” Luce asked.
“Duh.” The notes began to move around as if they were pulling on each other. Melanie said, “That’s ‘Home’! Listen!”
Luce had heard the song, but she couldn’t pull out the melody from this wall of harmony. And then Melanie began to sing:
“There’s a place for us floating on the sea,
Where the wind is sweet and we are free. . . .”
It was undeniably the WyldBoyZ song. “Okay, how about this one?” Luce asked, and clicked on track 2.
“Easy, that’s ‘One of a Kind,’” Melanie said. “Hear it?” She sang:
“I used to be just a boy in a band,
Knew I’d been dealt a losing hand,
No chance to win, and what do I get,
One last card and one last bet.”
Luce knew the chorus and joined in:
“Then you walked in,
You walked in and you were . . .
One of a kiiiiind. . . .”
They played every track on the copied CD. Melanie could identify them all. Luce preferred these a capella, wordless versions of the songs to the ones on the WyldBoyZ albums, but it might have been because she loved to hear Melanie singing along. Where had this talent come from? Not from Luce, and certainly not from her father. It was a genetic mystery.
“This is so weird,” Melanie said. “That woman—the one who sang the first note, who keeps singing a lot of the melody—did they add her to the band?” This was clearly sacrilege.
“No, mija,” Luce said. “I think it’s the other way around. She was there first.”
Melanie didn’t understand, and then Luce said, “I think that’s Sofia.”
Melanie’s squeal could have come straight from Matt the bat. “I knew it!” she said. “I knew she was real.”
Melanie asked her to replay the wordless version of “Deep Down,” the one about Sofia, but the television caught Luce’s eye. She reached to turn up the volume and Melanie said, “It’s Bobby O!”
The news anchor was talking over footage of Bobby walking out of the municipal building. Luce turned up the volume. The cat man stopped at the front steps and waved to the cameras. “I’m free!” he shouted. “I’m free, everybody!”
Then they cut to tape of Captain DeAndrea’s press conference, which had happened hours ago. The captain described how LVMPD was working the case but did not yet have a named suspect. Reporters asked if they could describe the suspect, and the captain nodded to Detective Banks, who swallowed hard and stepped up to the microphone. “All we can say for the moment is this,” Banks said—and here he looked directly at the KTNV Action News camera. “We think it was a rabid fan.”
Luce shouted, “God damn it, Banks!”
“Mami!” Melanie said. “Language.”
* * *
Luce decided to do the rest of the work in bed and let Melanie climb in with her. The girl fell asleep against her, pinning Luce’s left arm and turning the skin there into a sweaty patch. It was uncomfortable and made it awkward to work the laptop, but Luce wasn’t about to move her. How many more years of cuddling would she get from the girl?
There were more than a hundred image files on the disc, all with autogenerated file names like scn-05058002.tif. She’d already clicked through them, looking for photos, and was a bit disappointed that the images were all photocopies of documents: handwritten memos and typed scientific reports she couldn’t make heads or tails out of, with titles like “Anomalous Transcription Factors in Key Melanocytic Genes.” Most of the reports were dated in the 1970s and ’80s, but a few went back to the ’50s. Sometime near midnight she opened one with the title “Subject Index.” The first two paragraphs were instructions for updating this form, but then there was this:
SUBJECT 1. DOB (EST): 1837. CUSTODY: JUNE 5, 1953. MASTER FILE: M01-001-1.
Luce read the line again. “What the fuck?” Date of birth 1837? There was nothing else about Subject 1. But the list continued:
SUBJECT 2. DOB: MAY 2, 1955. FEMALE. TERMINATED: MAY 15, 1955. URSINE FEATURES. MASTER FILE: M02-278.
SUBJECT 3. DOB: APRIL 17, 1956. MALE. TERMINATED: DECEMBER 21, 1962. BOVINE FEATURES. MASTER FILE: M03-344.
SUBJECT 4. DOB: MARCH 25, 1957. FEMALE. TERMINATED: APRIL 17, 1957. CANINE FEATURES. MASTER FILE: M04-381.
SUBJECT 5. DOB: FEBRUARY 11, 1958. FEMALE. TERMINATED: MARCH 11, 1958. XENARTHRAN FEATURES. MASTER FILE: M05-388.
SUBJECT 6. DOB: NOVEMBER 14, 1958. UNDIFFERENTIATED. TERMINATED: NOVEMBER 14, 1958. MASTER FILE: M05-388.
It went on and on, a new birth every seven or eight months. Every female was terminated within weeks of being born. Every male was killed before the age of thirteen. The “undifferentiated” were terminated immediately.
Only at the end of the file did she finally find a child who was still alive:
SUBJECT 27: DOB: JULY 28, 1977. MALE. ELEPHANTIDAEN FEATURES. MASTER FILE M27-923 (ONGOING).
SUBJECT 28: DOB: JULY 7, 1978. MALE. CHIROPTERAN FEATURES. MASTER FILE M28-1001 (ONGOING).
SUBJECT 29: DOB: MARCH 25, 1979. UNDIFFERENTIATED. TERMINATED: MARCH 25, 1979. MASTER FILE M29-1011.
SUBJECT 30: DOB: FEBRUARY 13, 1980. FEMALE. TERMINATED: MARCH 17, 1980. FELINE FEATURES. MASTER FILE M30-1020.
SUBJECT 31: DOB: DECEMBER 23, 1980. MALE. PRIMATE FEATURES. MASTER FILE: M31-1032 (ONGOING).
SUBJECT 32: DOB: DECEMBER 12, 1981. MALE. PHOLIDOTAN FEATURES. SEE FILE M32-1078 (ONGOING).
SUBJECT 33: DOB: JUNE 2, 1983. MALE. FELINE FEATURES. SEE FILE M34-1111 (ONGOING).
Her cell phone went off, vibrating the bedside table. Luce came back to herself, realized her eyes were swimming with tears. She picked up the phone. It was Banks. She could barely speak.
“Oh, Delgado, did I wake you up? Sorry to call after midnight, but you said you wanted to know.”
“I’m up.” She cleared her throat. “What is it?”
“A bunch of things. First, the blood on the costume and claws matches Dr. M’s blood type. We’ll be able to do a DNA match soon, but it looks good. Plus, the pharmaceutical screens came back. They found quite a few illicit substances in Dr. M’s bloodstream, but there was a lot of something called Anectine—which is, um, let me read it: succinylcholine chloride. It’s a serious muscle relaxant—so serious it can give you a heart attack.”
“Is it a party drug?”
“Strictly medical. But it comes as a white powder. So guess what that plate in Dr. M’s bedroom tested positive for?”
“Right. That makes sense.” Luce heard a noise outside—it sounded like a car door closing. She eased away from Melanie until the girl’s head dropped onto the pillow. The girl barely stirred.
“You okay?” Banks asked. “You sound a little . . . I don’t know.”
“I found the second murder,” Luce said. “And the next one, and another dozen.”
“What? Where?”
Luce went to the window and looked through the blinds. She had a view to the street but didn’t see anything.
“I’ll explain later,” Luce said. “Listen, the feds are taking over in the morning. The band’s leaving at nine. Meet me at the hotel at, say, seven.”
“Are we, uh, arresting someone?”
“Oh yeah.”
* * *
Detective Mickey Banks, God bless him, was waiting for her with coffee. “Y
ou look like you could use it,” he said.
“I stayed up late, and woke up early. Couldn’t sleep.” She thought she was tired yesterday, but now her body felt like it had been lightly pummeled by preteen boxers. “Ready?”
“It would really help if you told me who we were arresting.”
“I haven’t decided yet.” She felt terrible lying to him. But she needed to get through this part of the performance. He needed to stay in the dark, at least until he’d finished talking to the feds. Banks had a long, fruitful career ahead of him, and she didn’t want to derail it.
They walked into the lobby. They’d just reached the rotunda of elevators when Rudolfo ran up to them. His cologne caught up a second later. “Detective Delgado! Detective Banks! Such a morning. The other officers are already upstairs. If there’s anything I can do, please let me—”
“Other officers?” Luce said.
He blinked. “Two men in suits. They weren’t happy when I told them about the checkouts, but they insisted on going up anyway.”
“Slow down,” Banks said. “Who checked out?”
The elevator door opened. Inside were the FWS agents, Hammergarten and Wilhelm. One of them pointed at Luce. “You! What the fuck did you do?” Both the men were furious—cheeriness gone, pure aggro now.
Banks, bless him, tried to step in front of Luce, but the agent—Hammergarten?—shoved him out of the way.
Luce looked up at him. “You’d better back the fuck up, Agent.”
Hammergarten’s neck bulged above his white collar in a festive shade of red. “That fucking trick with the photograph. You recognized him. You tipped him off.”
“As I tried to say,” Rudolfo put in. “The band checked out of their rooms last night, all of them, except for Mrs. Bendix.”
“Those animals are government property,” Agent Wilhelm said.
“If you let them escape,” Hammergarten spat into Luce’s face, “we will bury you.”
“Should’ve listened,” Luce said. A loud click. Hammergarten looked down and found that his wrist had been handcuffed to his belt.
“What the fuck? How did you—?” He yanked on the cuffs, and she pushed him away from her.
“I didn’t ‘tip them off,’” she said. “I came here to arrest one of them for murder.”
“Ooh! Which one?” Rudolfo asked.
“She won’t say,” Banks said.
“Good luck finding them,” Luce said. She strode away from them, toward the front door. Banks hurried to catch up.
“I’ll call the airport,” Banks said. “We can stop them.”
“They were going on a private jet,” Luce said. “If they went to the airport last night, they’re long gone.”
“Then I’ll call the local cops. They were flying to Orlando? Maybe it hasn’t landed yet. I can get someone to—”
“They weren’t going to Orlando,” Luce said. “They never were. They had somewhere else in mind—somewhere pretty far away.”
“Yeah? Where’s that?”
* * *
Six hours earlier, Luce had heard a second car door slam. She opened the drawer of the bedside table and took her Glock 22 from the holster. Thumb checked the safety.
Easy does it, she told herself. Think calming thoughts.
She walked to the front of the house. Looked through the peephole. An elephant man was walking up the front door. Behind him were more shapes, each one distinct.
Luce opened the door—not all the way. She kept the gun out of sight.
Tusk stopped. Lifted a big hand. He wore a green tailored jacket, a green vest, and a red bow tie. “Hello, Detective.” Kat stepped up beside him. Behind them were Matt, Devin, Bobby, and tiny Tim.
“Detective Delgado!” Bobby said. “They let me out!”
“I see that,” Luce said.
“We apologize for intruding at this late hour,” Tusk said. “We’d hoped to talk to you in the morning, but Bobby’s release, and the arrival of certain parties at the hotel, made us reevaluate the departure time, and so we thought we’d stop by on our way out of town.”
“And how the fuck did you know where I lived?” Luce asked.
Matt ruffled his poncho. “I am . . . Batman.”
“I know why you’re here,” Luce said. “It’s not going to happen.”
They wanted the laptop. The whole murder had been about the contents on its hard drive.
“We just want to talk,” Kat said.
“With peace in our hearts,” Devin said.
“And answer any of your questions,” Tusk added.
Luce did have a lot of questions. She let them see the gun but kept it at her side. “My daughter’s in the other room.”
“We promise to be quiet,” Tusk said.
The room filled with WyldBoyZ. Tusk eased himself onto the couch, taking up most of it, and Tim climbed up beside him. Devin had paused to look at a show poster, showing a teenage Luce and her father, in matching tuxes. Bobby gawked at the sword cabinet.
Kat took one of the remaining chairs. Dr. M’s laptop sat atop the Trunk of Mystery!, within her reach. Luce picked up the laptop, opened the trunk, and put it inside.
Kat raised an eyebrow, and an entire row of tattoos shifted with it.
“Where do you want to start?” Tusk asked.
“Do the reveal!” Matt said. “That’s the best part. I was so afraid we were going to miss it.”
“You want me to explain?” Luce said.
“We guessed that you’ve figured everything out,” Tusk said. “Are we wrong?”
“I actually have two explanations.” Luce took the seat closest to the hallway to the bedrooms. “I have a simple solution, monsieur, and a complicated one.”
Matt laughed, as she knew he would. “Classic,” he said.
“Why don’t you start with the simple one,” Kat said.
“It’s not me, is it?” Bobby asked.
“It’s not you,” Luce said. “If there’s anyone who’s innocent, it’s you.”
“Oh good!” He dropped to the floor beside Kat’s chair. Kat put her hand on his head and scritched. “I want to hear this.”
“Let’s call the simple solution the Rabid Fan theory,” Luce said. “A young and attractive sociopath, furious with Dr. M, came to the party last night with a plan for murdering him.”
“How do you know they were young and attractive?” Devin asked.
“I’ll get to it. They’re most probably a fan of yours, and not a—what did you call them, Kat? A backstreet bitch. No, it’s more likely they’re a true zoomando, maybe even an LTZ.”
“You’ve certainly picked up on the fucking lingo,” Kat said.
“Word got out that the band was breaking up,” Luce continued. “So this young, mentally unstable fan, totally dedicated to the WyldBoyZ, decides Dr. M is to blame.”
“The Yoko,” Devin intoned.
“Oh no,” Matt added.
“Why do you think it might be a Long Term Zoomando?” Tusk asked. “It could be anybody who loved us.”
“Because they had to know a lot of inside information to pull off this murder,” Luce said. “They had to know about the party, and they had to know they could pass muster with Shweta and Gordon. Most important, they had to know that Dr. M regularly took young fans to bed.”
“To be fair,” Devin said, “that’s a pretty good guess with any music producer.”
“Sure. But the plan doesn’t work if they can’t flirt with the doctor and get into that bedroom, on that night, guaranteed.”
“Ooh, which is why they’d have to be young and attractive,” Devin said.
“And a sociopath,” Tusk said, “because they didn’t just kill Dr. M, they tore him apart.”
“And how do you know the condition of the body?” Luce asked.
“Mrs. M told Devin about it. But why are you so sure it was premeditated? It could be an impulsive act.”
“Not a chance,” Luce said. “Those claws were custom-built for murder
—definitely not decorative.”
“And not on-brand, chipmunk-wise,” Matt said.
“That costume was store-bought, and disposable. That threw me off for a bit—why handcraft the claws but not make a custom suit? Then I met your fan club president. Any well-made costume would be as recognizable as a signature, at least to other fans. So, the killer had to keep the costume hidden until they needed it. Maybe they kept it in a bag, or hid it in Dr. M’s bedroom at the start of the party. Then, after the murder, they went downstairs, dumped the costume, and walked out—without their face being seen.”
“Never to be found?” Tusk asked.
“Between the names you gave us, and Shweta and Gordon’s list, we were able to identify most of the guests. It’s just a matter of policework to track down each person and confirm where they were between three and five AM. From there we’ll just start eliminating suspects.”
“Wow!” Bobby said. “That’s so cool. I was pretty sure it wasn’t me? But it’s good to hear.”
Luce said, “Bobby, you showed up in the doctor’s suite after the killer left, and then immediately snorted up a lot of medical-grade muscle relaxant. You were out cold.”
“It wasn’t cocaine?”
“Sorry, no. Somehow, Dr. M’s dealer slipped him a drug called Anectine. It’s also a white powder.”
“That’s weird,” Bobby said.
“In the simple solution, the Rabid Fan theory, the alternate drug’s just a red herring,” Luce said. “It has nothing to do with the murder.”
“In the simple solution,” Tusk said.
“So,” Kat said. “Maybe we should hear the complicated one?”
“You want me to do this in front of Bobby?” Luce asked.
“Why can’t you do it in front of me?”
“He should hear it,” Tim said. “He’s not a child anymore.” It was the first time the pangolin had spoken since he’d entered the room. “Tell it, Detective.”
The Album of Dr. Moreau Page 11