Red Death

by Alan Jacobson

“No gunshots.”

  “What?”

  “Guessing you haven’t found him yet.”

  “No,” Vail said, crouching down and looking underneath a line of clothing racks. “But I did find out he’s got an interesting background.”

  “Oh—hey. Getting a call from security. Hang on.”

  Vail pushed a stack of sweaters aside and climbed atop a table. She scanned the floor into the distance, looking for Meece. No luck.

  Russell clicked back. “Got him. CCTV camera picked him up grabbing a child and running.”

  That doesn’t make any sense.

  “You sure? Are they sure?”

  “Why?”

  “That’s not his MO. It’s not consistent with his victimology. It—nothing adds up. Unless he did it to negotiate his way out.”

  “All I can tell you is what security told me.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Last seen on the third floor, headed east.”

  “East?” Vail jumped down off the table. “Seriously—you want me to consult a compass? Can you be a little more specific?”

  “Hang on. I’ll check with security.”

  Vail headed for the store exit while waiting to hear back, hoping she was moving in the correct direction.

  “Forget that,” Russell said in her ear. “He’s back on the second floor, ran into a restroom opposite the Microsoft Store.”

  “Heading there now. Status on SWAT?”

  “Seven minutes out.”

  “Ten-four.” She hung up and tried pulling up a map of the mall on her phone, then realized it would be quicker if she asked for directions.

  Good thing I’m not a guy.

  She jogged along the tile, maneuvering around slower-moving people. After passing Banana Republic and Disney Store, she came upon a man at a smartphone repair kiosk. “Hey,” Vail said, a bit out of breath. “Which way to the Microsoft Store?”

  He must have noticed her chest heaving, trying to suck oxygen. “Why? There some kind of blowout Xbox sale?”

  “What? Oh. You’re joking.” She pulled the badge off her belt and shoved it in his face. “Not so funny now, is it? Where’s the goddam store?”

  He took a step back from her and silently jerked a thumb over his left shoulder.

  Vail ran past him and pulled to a stop at a four-way intersection in front of Gucci and Prada. Escalators to her right and left.

  “Microsoft?” she asked a well-dressed man coming out of Cartier.

  “Um, back behind me. On the left.”

  She yelled thanks as she jogged on. And sure enough, just past the Omega watch store was Microsoft and its bright, ten-foot-high glass windows.

  Whaddya know, the guy was right. Big Xbox sale. I should tell Jonathan.

  “Karen!”

  Russell was coming off the escalator a bit farther down, near Macy’s.

  They huddled about fifty yards away in front of LeSportsac. “Last seen going into the bathroom with the boy.”

  “How old?”

  They started walking to the entrance to the bathroom, passing Mahaloha Burger and Ike’s Sandwiches.

  “Five or six.”

  “Alone?”

  “Just Meece,” Russell said. “He had decent control of the kid.”

  “Kid know him? Or just scared shitless?”

  “No idea. I’m getting all this secondhand. Didn’t stop to ask questions.”

  Vail shook her head. “What the hell’s up with this guy?”

  “Aren’t you supposed to know?”

  “I’m a behavioral analyst, not a voyeur.”

  “Right,” Russell said as they neared the restrooms, where a guard was watching the entrance.

  “Did you go in?” Vail asked the man.

  “I was told to wait outside, report in if I saw the dude. Detain anyone coming out and prevent anyone from going in.”

  “So no one came out.”

  “Correct,” he said. “But I only got here a minute before you.”

  “What do you think?” Russell asked. “Wait for SWAT?”

  Vail moved closer to the men’s room and listened. Did not hear anything unusual. She rejoined Russell. “Pretty sure he’s not armed. But a knife? Who knows.”

  “So we just wait for SWAT?”

  “Hell no. There’s a kid in there. We go in. You take the door in case he gets by me. I’ll—”

  His phone rang. “Russell.” He listened a few seconds, then said, “Got it,” and shoved the handset in his back pocket. “Someone called. Kid’s in a stall.”

  They inched closer, pistols in hand, listening as they approached. Vail entered first, followed by Russell—though that’s as far as he went, keeping with their plan to safeguard the exit.

  She inched through the bright, modern bathroom, past the urinals and up to the stalls. The place looked, and sounded, empty. She knelt to take a ground level perspective. No legs visible.

  Vail stepped back a few feet and steadied her pistol in front of her, then kicked in the first door. It shot open and bounced against the right wall. No one inside.

  She shimmied right and did the same—and got the same result. As she began to doubt the veracity of the phoned-in tip, the last stall yielded fruit: crudely restrained with a torn-up men’s dress shirt, was the boy. The remainder of the cloth not used as restraints was stuffed in his mouth.

  “I’m Karen.” She holstered her Glock. “Adam,” she called toward the entrance. “I’ve got him.”

  Russell appeared in the doorway and watched Vail’s back—in case Meece was still there somewhere—while Vail worked to untie the knots.

  “It’s okay now,” she said. “You’re safe. We’re the police.”

  The boy was wild-eyed and did not speak, even though Vail had removed the saliva-soaked wad.

  “See if you can get one of his parents down here.”

  Russell pulled out his phone as he walked away.

  Vail coaxed him off the toilet lid and led him to the exit. A few moments later, mother and child were reunited, the boy remaining subdued even as he threw his arms around her neck and held on tight.

  “A diversion,” Vail said.

  “To escape?”

  “Yep. Have security check their video footage of the past ten minutes. All exit cameras.”

  “You realize how long that’ll take? This place is huge, with, like, five department store anchors. Gotta be dozens of cameras.”

  “Then they’d better get started.”

  53

  It did not take as long as they had feared. With the development of video analytics, facial recognition and AI—artificial intelligence—algorithms, they were able to zero in on specific exits that had captured images of individuals matching Scott Meece’s photo and physical description.

  As Vail and Russell were making their way to the security office, they were notified that SWAT had arrived and was deploying, along with HPD’s Specialized Canine Unit.

  Vail pushed through the door into an operations center as impressive as any she had seen in malls and business parks.

  “Here’s what we grabbed,” the geeky guard said, working a mouse and keyboard. “This guy, right here. Wearing the baseball cap.” He grabbed a pen and pointed at the screen closest to his left hand.

  Vail leaned in close and studied the image. “Can you get me a better view? The hat’s casting a shadow over his face.”

  “Nah, the sun’s hitting the cam at a bad angle, so that’s about as good as I can do for you. I brightened it up as much as I can. More than that, it’ll just be pixel noise and resolution artifacts.”

  “I absolutely hate pixel noise,” Vail said.

  He turned to her, his expression indicating that he was unsure whether or not Vail actually knew what that was—or if she was mock
ing him.

  “What do you think?” Russell asked. “Is it him?”

  Vail blew air out her tight lips. “Yes. I think so. Besides, we’ve got no other leads. Let’s pursue this unless something better sends us in a different direction.”

  “Keep going through the tape,” Russell said to the tech. “Manually if you have to. If Scott Meece is still somewhere on the premises, call Chief Ferraro. He’s onsite assisting the SWAT lieutenant in deploying his team.” Russell jotted down Ferraro’s mobile number and handed it to the man.

  Vail was staring at another monitor, a loop playing of the guy resembling Meece as he exited the building and entered the garage.

  They walked out and headed briskly through the mall.

  “Still think it might be him?”

  “Pretty sure. Resolution isn’t great. And that pixel noise kept throwing me off.”

  “You have no idea what that is, do you?”

  “Not a clue.”

  Russell shook his head.

  “Sometimes it isn’t about technology,” Vail said. “It can be a crutch. We’re still cops and we need to use our intuitive methods to find the asshole.”

  “Intuitive methods,” Russell repeated. “Okay, I’ll bite. Which specific methods are you intuiting right now?”

  “The guy’s body language kept speaking to me.”

  “His body language was talking to you. You trying to be funny?”

  “No. When he walked out, he tried to hide his face from the camera.”

  “Well that definitely makes him guilty of something.”

  “Maybe I’m reading into it,” Vail said, stopping in front of Victoria’s Secret. “Seeing what I want to see.”

  Russell looked up. “Hmm. Well right now I’m seeing what I want to see.”

  Vail glanced over at the object of his attention: a mannequin wearing a skimpy lace bra in front of larger than life photos of bikini-clad models. She brought her gaze back to Russell. “Focus, Adam.”

  “Right.” He turned to Vail. “We have to assume Meece got into a vehicle. Stole one or had one here.”

  “Or carjacked one.”

  “That would make it easier.” Russell pulled out his phone. “I’ll have HPD issue a BOLO. And make sure that any reports of carjacking get reported directly to us.”

  “Yeah, well …” Vail snorted. “Don’t hold your breath.”

  “Now now, Karen. Be positive. Aloha, right?”

  She frowned and thought about holding up one particular finger. “You know what you can do with your aloha?”

  54

  While Russell spoke with Ferraro about the BOLO, Vail noticed he had positioned himself so that he had a view of the Victoria’s Secret storefront.

  As he finished his call, Vail shook her head in disappointment. “You know those women aren’t real.”

  “What?”

  She gestured at the huge posters adorning the window. “Women just don’t look like that.”

  “If you say so.”

  “When you’re able to tear your eyes away from Victoria and her mistresses, we’ve got some important stuff to discuss.”

  Russell shifted his body and faced Vail. “Oh, right—you said Meece has an interesting background.”

  She briefed him on what she learned from Del Monaco.

  “This Del Monaco sounds like a good guy to have around.”

  “Not really. He’s a hack. But useful. Well, sometimes.”

  Russell chuckled. “God knows what you’ll say about me when you’re back in Virginia.”

  “I can tell you now, but you’re not gonna like it. Better that I email you once I get home.”

  “Can’t wait.” He shot another look at the Victoria’s Secret model, then pulled his gaze back to Vail. “As nice as the scenery is here, I really don’t wanna sit around waiting to get a hit on the BOLO. Any thoughts of where Meece is going?”

  Vail sat down on a bench and rubbed her temples. A moment later, she said, “What kind of military presence do you have on the island?”

  Russell laughed. “That a joke? There’s a ton of military here. What are you looking for?”

  “I don’t know, maybe some kind of … memorial.”

  “Why?”

  “Phillip. His older brother. Scott might not only feel the loss of Phillip but also severe guilt over his death. The military wasn’t his thing and his stepfather demeaned him and called him a coward. Maybe he thinks that if he’d served, Phillip would still be alive.”

  “That’s not rational.”

  “The human mind is not rational, Adam.”

  “True. Look at you.”

  “Hey.”

  “You dish it out, you better be able to take it.”

  “That another thing Lance Burden taught you?”

  “Nope. That I figured out on my own.” Russell sat down next to her. “Actually, yes. Can’t lie. Moral high ground, right? Turns out, his advice was pretty spot-on.”

  “I’m not that difficult to figure out.”

  “Right. But it’s Meece we’re trying to figure out. He has this guilt over his brother.”

  “I think so.” Vail nodded slowly. “And maybe he’s looking for some place where he can join Phillip.”

  “How so?”

  “People suffering from psychosis, especially depressive psychosis, are at much greater risk of suicide.”

  “So he’s going to kill himself on a military base? Or at a memorial?”

  “It’s possible. Suicide by cop. Or MP.” She dropped her hands and turned to him. “You got a better idea?”

  “I don’t.”

  “So … memorials.”

  He shrugged. “Ever hear of Pearl Harbor? In terms of memorials, they don’t get much bigger, more iconic, than that. At least in the United States.”

  She thought for a moment. “Too big. Can’t get close enough to anything for it to have meaning. Well, for the offender.”

  “You sure? Or you making all this up?”

  “Don’t be insulting.”

  “Sorry. Just frustrated.”

  A moment later, Vail said, “Sixty percent.”

  “What?”

  “You asked if I was making it all up. “I’m only fabricating sixty percent.”

  He leaned back and looked at her. “I don’t know what to do with you sometimes.”

  “See? Moral high ground isn’t always a good thing.” Her phone vibrated. A text from Carmine Russo:

  FBI played nice

  let us take the lead

  on our way over now

  Vail relayed Russo’s information.

  “Think Meece’s New York crib will help us?”

  “You want an answer from the sixty percent or the forty?” She got up and started walking in the direction—she thought—that led the way back toward their car. “What about a military cemetery? I assume you’ve got one of those here?”

  “Yeah. We’ve got one of those. Punchbowl national cemetery.”

  “Punchbowl? That a joke?”

  “Official name is National Cemetery of the Pacific. It’s located inside the Punchbowl volcanic crater, so people refer to it as Punchbowl.”

  Vail sighed, canted her head ceilingward.

  What’s the right call here?

  “How far is the Pearl Harbor memorial?”

  “About twenty-five minutes, unless there’s traffic.”

  “Is there usually traffic on the island?”

  Russell harrumphed. “It’s one of the most traffic-impacted cities in the country. This time of day, we’re looking at probably forty-five.”

  “What about the Punchbowl?”

  “Just Punchbowl. Not the Punchbowl.”

  “Whatever.”

  Russell shrugged. “Ten minute
s. Five if we drive my way.”

  Vail stood up. “Then that’s where we’re headed.” They started jogging back toward Russell’s car. “But I’ve had enough of driving your way. Better we get there alive.”

  55

  Carmine Russo and one of his first-year patrol officers, Jason Cobb, sat in their unmarked vehicle as Russo navigated toward the apartment owned by Scott Meece.

  “Whaddya think, boss?”

  “Don’t know. Skel’s got no priors. Kept his nose clean in New Yawk. Could be a case where you don’t crap in your diaper because you could be wearing it awhile.”

  “What?”

  Russo leaned closer. “He kills women here, could fuck everything up for him. Not worth it. Does his business elsewhere, far from here, doesn’t pollute the water where he lives. Safer.”

  Cobb harrumphed. “Makes sense.”

  Russo bobbed his head. “Yeah some of these bastards are too smart for my taste. But they’re not as smart as us, so it’s a matter of bringing our A game. Keeping our eyes open and doing our jobs like I taught yous.”

  “So how come, boss?”

  “How come what? You gotta finish your thoughts, Cobb.”

  Cobb looked away. “How come you brought me in on this?”

  “Did I make the wrong call?”

  “No,” Cobb said, almost too quickly. “I’m glad. I was, you know, just wondering. Lots of us deserved to go.”

  “I chose who I thought would be best for the task. We’re not playing around here, Cobb. This is real. A real call. A real killer who’s taken the lives of a dozen people. Maybe more.”

  “Jesus.” He licked his lips as Russo pulled up to the curb and killed his lights. “We’re a block away.”

  “Don’t want anyone to see an obvious unmarked cop car parking in front of the building?”

  Russo chuckled. “Definitely cleaner this way. Don’t need to take chances. We wanna look like we’re just a coupla guys out for a walk.”

  “At three in the morning?” Cobb shook his head. “Shoulda brought my dog.”

  “Probably be no one home,” Russo said, ignoring the comment. “Meece is on Oahu—and if he’s no longer there, he can’t be here yet. So he’s not going to be home. But we don’t know if he’s got any accomplices or if he lives with anyone else. According to my profiler friend, he appears to be workin’ alone. Not married. But is that a guarantee of anything?”