“I remember too, Mom.”
“Don’t try to catch the man who murdered Belinda. He’s too dangerous. He’s insane, he’ll kill you and I couldn’t bear that. He’s—”
The line went dead, then the familiar dial tone.
The phone rang again immediately. It was her father. “I’m sorry, Lacey. I was so agitated that I dropped the phone. Listen, I’m scared. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“I understand, but I must try to catch him. I must.”
She heard him sigh. “I know. Be careful.”
“I will.” She looked at the receiver a moment, then gently laid it back in its cradle. She looked at the lovely Bentrell paintings on the stretch of white wall. Landscapes—rolling hills, some grazing cows, a small boy with a bucket on either end of a pole, carried across his back and balanced over his shoulders. She slowly lowered her face into her hands and cried. She saw her father’s face from seven years ago, silent and still, no expression at all, just the silence of the grave, and he’d leaned down and whispered very softly in her ear, just after Belinda’s funeral, when she’d been so blank, so hollow, but not quite yet utterly terrified, “It’s over, thank the good Lord. You’ll survive, Lacey. She was only your half sister, try to remember that.”
And she’d just stared at him as if he were crazier than her mother. Only her half sister? That was supposed to mean something? It had only been three days later when the first nightmare had come in the deep of the night and her grief had become terror.
When the doorbell rang, she nearly shrieked, memories from the past overlaying the present. It was the doorbell, that was all, just the doorbell. Still, where was her gun? She looked frantically around the living room. There was her purse. She always carried her Lady Colt in her purse, in addition to the holster with her SIG.
She grabbed it, feeling its cold smoothness caress her hand like a lover even as the doorbell sounded again. She moved to stand beside the door.
“Sherlock? You there? Come on, I see the lights. Open the damned door!”
She nearly shuddered with relief as she shucked off the two chains, clicked back the dead bolt, and unlocked the door.
He was standing there in a short-sleeved shirt, jeans, and running shoes. A pale blue sweater was tied in a knot around his neck. She’d seen male models in magazines dressed like that—with the knotted sweater—and thought it looked ridiculous. It didn’t on him. He was frowning at her.
He stepped inside, still frowning. “That’s quite a display of gadgets you’ve got on that door. A strong guy, though, could just kick it in.”
She hadn’t thought of that. She lowered the gun to her side, still saying nothing. She would have to reinforce the door. No, she was being absurd.
He closed the door behind him. “I wanted to see if you were furnished yet,” he said, and walked into the living room. He looked around at the very expensive furnishings, then whistled. “The FBI must pay you too much. When did you get all this stuff, Sherlock?”
He was acting as though nothing was wrong. He was acting as though she was normal. She was normal. She gently laid her Lady Colt on the lamp table beside the sofa. “I’m not much of a shopper, and Sally Quinlan had to cancel out on me. I just called an interior designer in Georgetown and told him what I wanted and needed in place before my boss found out. He took care of it. Really fast.”
He turned slowly to look at her. “As I said, we must pay you too much.”
“No, I have a trust fund. Normally I don’t ever dip into it. I don’t need to, but I wanted this place furnished and I didn’t want to take the time to do the shopping myself. I knew you’d keep after me until I at least got a sofa.”
“The trust is from your grandmother, right? If I remember correctly, she died four years ago and left you a bundle.”
“Yes.” She wasn’t at all surprised. “Please tell me you have better things to do with your time than memorize my personal history.”
“Yeah, I’ll tell you about my better things if you tell me why you’ve been crying.”
Her hands went to her face. She’d forgotten. She stared at him, straight in the eye, and said, “I have an allergy.”
“Yeah, right. Just look at all the pollen floating around in the air in here. Come on, who upset you?”
“It’s nothing, sir, nothing at all. Now, would you like a cup of coffee? Some tea?”
“Tea would be great.”
“Equal in it?”
“Nah, only women use Equal. Make mine plain.”
“No chemicals for you?”
He just grinned at her as he followed her to the kitchen. A whole row of shiny new appliances, from a blender to a Cuis-inart, were lined up on the pale yellow tiles. “No,” he said, more to himself than to her, “not all of them are unused. I see you’ve pushed buttons on the microwave, but nothing else.”
“That’s right,” she said coolly, as she put the teapot spout beneath the water spigot. “However, I’ve always believed that woman can indeed live by microwave alone,” she added, trying to smile at him, which really wasn’t all that difficult. She turned on the electric burner. “As for the toaster, that needs bread and I haven’t bought any yet.”
She said over her shoulder as she set the kettle on the stove, “I’m not packed yet, sir, but I will be ready in time. I will meet you at the airport tomorrow morning.”
“I know,” he said, staring at the bread maker that looked like a lonely white block at the end of the counter. “You know how to use that thing?”
“No, but a recipe book came with it. The designer said that every modern kitchen needs one.”
“Why were you crying, Sherlock?”
She just shook her head, went to the cabinet, and got down two teacups and saucers.
“You got any cheap mugs? I don’t want to get my pinky fingers near those. They look like they cost more than I make in a week.”
“I guess they do. The guy went overboard on some of the things.”
“I thought women liked to pick out their own dishes.”
“Actually, I thought everyone did, guys included. But I just didn’t want to take the time. There’s too much happening that’s so much more important. I told you.”
“Come to think of it, I did pick out my own dishes. They’re microwavable.”
“So are mine. That was the only criterion on my list, that and not too much fancy stuff.”
“Why were you crying?”
“I would appreciate it if you would leave that alone, sir.”
“Call me Savich and I might.”
“All right, Savich. Old Sal calls you Dillon. I think I like that better.”
“What’s the guy’s name?”
“What guy?”
“The one who made you cry.”
She just shook her head at him. “Men. You think a woman’s world has to revolve around you. When I was young I used to watch the soaps occasionally. A woman couldn’t seem to exist by herself, make decisions for herself, simply enjoy being herself. Nope, she was always circling a man. I wonder if they’ve changed any.”
“I hadn’t thought of it quite like that before, but yeah, I guess that’s about right. What’s his name, Sherlock?”
“No man. How about I pour some milk in your tea? Is that manly?”
“Sometimes, but not in tea. Keep it straight.”
She wanted to smack him. But he’d made her smile, a good-sized smile. She walked to a pristine white wallboard and ostentatiously wrote Equal on it with a blue washable Magic Marker. “There. All done. You happy?”
“Happy enough. Thanks. You call Chico yet?”
“Things have been happening a bit fast. I haven’t had the time.”
“If you don’t, I’ll have to take you back to the gym and throw you around.”
“The first dozen or so falls weren’t that bad.”
“I went easy on you.”
“Ollie told me you nearly tromped him into the floor.”
&nb
sp; “At least Ollie’s a guy, so he didn’t whine.”
She just grinned at him. “This cup is too expensive to waste throwing at you.”
“Good. Do you have just plain old Lipton’s tea bags?”
“Yes.”
He watched her pour the hot water over the tea bags. “If it wasn’t a guy who made you cry, then what did?”
“I could throw a tea bag at you.”
“All right, I’ll back off, but I don’t like to see my agents upset—well, upset by something else other than me and my big mouth. Now, let’s talk about our game plan in Boston. That’s why I busted in on you this evening. There’s a lot we need to get settled before we descend on the Boston PD.”
“You’re really not going to fire me?”
“Not yet. I want to get everything out of you, then if I’m still pissed off that you lied to me, that’s when I’ll boot you out.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You got what you wanted. How sorry can you be?”
He was right about that. She was a hypocrite. She gave him a big smile. “I’m not sorry at all. I’m so relieved, so grateful, that I’ll let you say anything sexist you want, at least for tonight.”
“You won’t whine about getting up early tomorrow, will you? The flight’s at seven-thirty A.M.”
She groaned, then toasted him with her teacup. “Thank you, sir . . . Dillon. I won’t make you sorry.”
“Somehow I can’t imagine that you won’t.”
Savich left at ten o’clock, singing to himself as he left. It had to be a line from a country-and-western song, but of course she’d never heard it before. She grinned as she heard his deep voice drawl, “A good ole boy Redneck is what I aim to be, nothing more, nothing less will ever do for me. All rigged out in my boots and jeans, my belt buckle wide, my belly lean . . .”
She closed the door, refastened the chains and clicked the dead bolt into place. That was the third or fourth time she thought she’d heard him singing country-western words. Oddly, her classical leanings weren’t offended. What could be wrong with music that made you smile?
They hadn’t spoken much about the case after all. No, he’d just checked out her digs and told her she needed a CD player. It was clear what kind of music he preferred.
She packed methodically. She prayed he would help her find the man who had killed her sister.
12
SAVICH SAID to Lacey, “as I told you last night, Detective Budnack will be meeting us at the station. It’s District Six in South Boston. They found Hillary Ramsgate in an abandoned warehouse on Congress Street. Somebody called it in anonymously, either the killer or a homeless person, probably the latter. But they’ve got the guy’s voice on tape so when we catch him, we can make a comparison.
“He’ll have all the police reports, the autopsy, the results of any other forensic tests they’ve done as of today. I’d appreciate it if you’d go over all this stuff. You got all our things?”
“Yes,” she said, turning in her seat to face him fully. “Also, I doubt that Detective Budnack understood the game. He knew there was a game because of the note saying Hillary Ramsgate lost and had to pay the forfeit, but he didn’t understand what it meant.”
“No, but it’s his first hit with this guy. By the time we get there, he’ll have spoken to the police in San Francisco and probably read most of the reports. Tell me your take on his game, Sherlock. I’m sure you’ve got one.”
They accepted coffee from the flight attendant, then settled back. The coffee was dreadful, but it was at least hot. She looked hard at her coffee. A lock of hair had come loose from its clamp and hung down along the side of her face, curving along her jawline. He watched her jerk it behind her ear, never looking away from that coffee of hers. What was going on here?
She said finally, “I’ve pictured this in my mind over the years, refined it, changed it here and there, done many profiles on him, and now I think I’ve got it exactly the way he did it. He knocks the woman on the head and takes her to a deserted building, the bigger the building the better. In three instances, he used abandoned and condemned houses; in one, he used a house whose owners were out of town. He’s intimately familiar with the buildings and houses. He’s set up all his props and arranged the sets. He’s turned them into houses of horror, then, finally, into mazes.
“When the woman regains consciousness, she’s alone and unharmed. She isn’t in complete darkness, although it’s late night outside. There’s a faint light, just enough so she can see about a foot or two all around her. What she does first is call out. She’s afraid to have an answer and just as afraid when there’s dead silence. Then she’s hopeful that he’s left her there alone. She yells again.
“Then she gets herself together and tries to find a way out of the building. But there isn’t a way out. There are doors, but they’re bolted. She’s nearly hysterical now. She knows something is very wrong. Then she finds the string that was lying beside where she’d awakened.
“She doesn’t understand the string, but she picks it up and begins to follow it. It leads her through convoluted turns, over obstacles, into mirrors he’s set up to scare the hell out of her when she suddenly comes upon her own image. Then the string runs out. Right at the narrow entrance to this set he’s put into place.
“Then perhaps he laughs, calls out to her, tells her that she’s going to fail and when she fails, he’s going to have to punish her and she won’t like that. Yes, he will have to punish her because she will lose the game. But he doesn’t tell her why he’s doing it. Why should he? He’s enjoying her ignorance. Maybe he even calls out to her, taunts her, before she walks into the maze. That’s possible, too. The note thing. He only did that with the first woman he killed in San Francisco. It’s as though he’s identified what he’s done and the next time and the time after that, it isn’t necessary. Everyone will know who he is.”
He said slowly, “You are awfully certain of what he does, Sherlock.”
“I told you, I’ve thought and thought about it. The shrinks believe—as do the FBI Profilers—that he watches every move she makes, memorizes every expression on her face, possibly even films her. I’m not so sure about that.
“But I bet he even tells her she can win the game if she runs, if she manages to reach the center of the maze. She does run, hoping, praying that he isn’t lying, that she can save herself, and she runs right into this maze he’s built since there’s nowhere else for her to go. There are dead ends in the maze. Finally she finds her way to the center. She’s won. She’s breathing hard. She’s terrified, hopeful, both at the same time. She’s made it. She won’t be punished.
“He’s waiting for her there.” She had to stop trembling. She drew a deep breath, took another drink of her now-cold coffee, then said with a shrug, “This much was obvious when everything was reconstructed by experts after the fact.”
Savich said, “So then he stabs her in the chest and in the abdomen until she’s dead. Is everyone you know of certain he does this when she makes it to the center of the maze?”
“Yes. Instead of winning, she loses. He’s there, with a knife. He also cuts out her tongue. This fact never appeared in any publicized reports so that any confessions could be easily verified.”
“Why does he do that?”
She didn’t look at him. “Probably to shut her up forever. He killed only women. He hates them.”
“A game,” Savich said slowly, looking down at a ragged thumbnail. “A game that leads to certain death. I don’t understand why she loses if she manages to find the center of the maze. As you said, usually that means you’ve won. But not with this guy. You have any ideas about why he kills her when she makes it to the center of the maze?”
“Not a clue.”
But she did and he didn’t know how she did. “Do you remember the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur?”
“Yes,” she said. “I remember that at the center of the cave, Theseus came upon the Minotaur. But Theseus didn’t
lose. He killed the Minotaur.”
“And Ariadne led him out with a string.”
“You’re thinking that maybe he sees himself as Theseus and that the women are the Minotaur? I don’t know. It doesn’t make much sense to me.”
“But you know that it makes perfect sense to him. How much of a study did you do of the legend?”
“Not all that much really,” she said.
“Do it when we get home again.”
“But even if I happen to discover more parallels between what the killer does and the Theseus legend, it won’t tell us anything about the man’s identity, about how to find him. Do you know that he used the same abandoned building for two of his victims in San Francisco? It was down in the China Basin. The very same building! Then the police put a watch on it, but it was too late. He was surely laughing at them, at all of us, because we were helpless.”
“It surprises me that no one saw anything. There are usually lots of homeless around those abandoned buildings. And cops do patrol. To set up all the props, he would have had to carry stuff in and out of the buildings, yet no one appeared to see anything. He would have had to transport his props. A truck? He had to make them himself or buy them somewhere.”
“Yes, but only once. He took away most of his props after he killed each woman. He left just enough so the police would know what he’d done.”
“And still no one saw anything. That boggles the mind.”
“Evidently one old man saw him, because he was found strangled near one of the abandoned buildings. It was the same kind of string used to get to the center of the maze. He wanted the cops to know it had been him.”
“What did you mean that he was laughing at us?” She had been nineteen years old at the time her sister was murdered. How was she involved? He would find out later. She was just shaking her head at him as he said, very quietly, “You’re on a cycle too, Sherlock. A seven-year cycle. He’s done nothing for seven years, just gone about his business, probably stewing inside but not enough to make him snap. As for you, you’ve given the last seven years of your life to him.”
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