A Cruel Season for Dying (50 page)

The traffic, even for this time of evening, seemed abnormally heavy. Sakura drove tensely, his shoulders held flat against
the seat, accepting, as if it were penance, the unnatural cold that seeped from the black vinyl to penetrate his coat. With
the ice storm that was now predicted for the East Coast, he had left the conference early.

He peered through the wipers and the dirty fall of sleet beyond the windshield. He wanted to be home, was conscious of a need
to see his wife.

He found his cell phone and punched in the squad room number. It was Kelly who answered.

“You still there, Pat?”

“What else? … Where are you?”

“On my way home. Anything happening?”

The answer was a grunt. Then, “Your partner was here earlier.”

“Darius?”

“Yeah. And I don’t know, but I think he might have found something. He passed through the squad room without saying a word.
But … you know, he just had that look.”

“Okay, Pat. Thanks.”

He stared at the phone. It was possible Darius really had found something. He started to call but changed his mind. He should
be in the city in a couple of hours. Better to go straight to Michael’s apartment.

From inside the warmth of the Sakura apartment, Adrian watched slow cartwheels of snow descend, white pinwheels half suspended
against the softer layers of deepening night. Small drifts, like cake icing, had already accumulated on the ledge. He touched
the window-pane and felt the mounting cold. He exhaled, observing how his warm breath formed an exact circle on the glass.

He had heard surprise in her voice, mixed with—was it uneasiness?—when he’d announced himself. Had there still been a moment
when she might have refused him? But in the end she had let him come up. Come in with his Christmas gift in hand.

He turned from the window. He still wore his parka.

“It’s snowing again,” he said.

“Yes, I know.” She had come back into the room, carrying a small tray. Steam from a glazed pot of tea veiled her face like
mist around a pale moon.

“You’ve been out?”

“No, I listened to the weather report this evening. Please sit.” She had set down the tray.

“And how do you know I’m standing?”

“The level of your voice.” She sat on one of the low cushions.

He moved to sit across from her, watching as she began pouring tea into small porcelain cups. “Everything looks different
under snow,” he said. “As though the world’s hiding.”

“Truth to be revealed in spring,” she said.

He noticed that the center part in her hair made a fine white seam against the black. “I shouldn’t have kissed you,” he said.

She lifted her face. “It stands between us now.”

“I’m sorry, Hanae.” “It is no one’s fault.” She handed him tea.

He took the cup, wanting to say more, but gave her his present instead. “I hope you like it.”

She smiled, untying the bow, tearing away the paper. The tissue crinkling like thin ice as she dug deep into the box. “A hat,”
she said merrily, running her fingers around its wide brim.

“What color?” he asked.

She closed her eyes, her fingers resting lightly on the crown. “Blue.”

“How do you do that?”

She laughed.

“Try it on.”

She lifted the hat, anchored it on her head, and tugged a bit on the brim.

“Perfect. You look beautiful.”

She lowered her head, removing the hat. “Thank you,” she said.

“Is Jimmy happy about the baby?”

“Yes.” She was looking up again, her dark eyes finding his. “Jimmy is happy.”

He should have been pleased that she lied, but somehow he wasn’t.

“I must give you your Christmas gift,” she said, standing now.

With Taiko trailing, she walked to a small fir winking with white lights and dotted with red fans and paper birds. She held
up a brightly colored envelope.
“Washi,”
she said. “In ancient Japan seeds and condiments were treasured. They were concealed in paper folds and given to special
friends.” She extended her arm, offering him her gift.

“Thank you, Hanae,” he said, taking the envelope.

“Arigato gozaimasu.”
She made a small bow.

He turned now, back to the window, unzipping his parka at last. “It’s snowing harder.”

“Yes,” she said, her blind eyes following his. “It is making music in the air.”

For the third time Sakura knocked, though he no longer expected an answer. There was a stillness emanating from the closed
door that convinced him that Darius’s apartment was empty. He admitted to a certain fear. Michael was quite capable of playing
the lone wolf.

He stood where he was in the hallway and regulated the pattern of his breath. First calm, then thought. But quietness brought
the smell of incense. The scent from the crime scenes had lodged itself in his brain. Perhaps it would always be there. He
focused again, breathing slowly in and out, trying to convince himself that the unanswered knock did not mean trouble, conscious
suddenly that the odor of incense was real.

The adrenaline was instant. He groped above the door, but the key was not where Darius kept it. He unholstered his gun and
kicked. The door exploded into silence.

T
he windows of the hospital waiting room were black-mirrored glass. Outside the snow still fell. Jimmy couldn’t see it. The
windows kept everything inside.

He felt trapped in unreality, his thoughts a loop that endlessly replayed. Willie and Michael stalked and taken by the very
killer they’d been seeking. In the instant he’d exploded into Michael’s apartment, time had ceased, burning into his brain
a final sharp-edged image chiseled from the stuff of nightmares. Willie bound on the leather love seat, Michael laid out nude
on the sofa. And on the wall, the letters
S-A-M-Y-A-Z-A,
in dark ash.

Then the ambulance, its wail adding sound to the horror, its running lights flashing cellophane red in the barely born morning.
Michael taken out on a stretcher, lying in the well of the van, his face all but covered by a clear mask, his vitals closely
monitored by one of the paramedics. And Willie in the back, wrapped in blankets, her hand reaching out to clasp his before
the two white rectangles of doors closed.

And after, the CSU spilling out like small insects from a mound, crawling over Michael’s apartment, leaving behind trails
of fingerprint dust, the aftermath of explosions of light from cameras. He’d been pleased when Tannehill finally showed up.
Not so comfortable when the precinct officers arrived. But they had had to be called, with a caution that the situation had
to fly under the radar. Publicly, the attack could not be connected to the serial. The press had to be kept out.
The lack of a body would probably buy them some time. And then to Kelly, whom he’d left in charge as he’d taken off for the
hospital sometime after midnight, with an appeal to contain McCauley as long as possible.

Now in the hospital, sitting still, waiting for hours, the mental picture had slowly begun to fade, melting into softer contours,
colors bleeding into each other like a Monet painting. As he turned, watching Willie move toward him, a small specter in the
loose white folds of a hospital robe, the image seemed never to have existed at all.

“Jimmy …” She walked into his arms, hugged him.

“How do you feel?” he asked, looking down at her. She appeared tired, shadows half-mooned under her eyes.

“I’m fine.” She smiled.

“You don’t look so fine.”

“Thanks, Sakura, just what I needed—a critique on my looks.” She laughed. “They want to do a more detailed blood screen. See
exactly what it was the killer pumped into my veins.”

“Michael?”

“He’s conscious, but still pretty much out of it. I went into his room earlier for a moment, but I don’t think he was even
aware I was there. He was lucky, Jimmy. I don’t believe there’s any permanent damage, but they’ve still got him rigged up
to a heart monitor.”

“Feel like talking?”

“Sure.” Willie moved toward a line of plastic chairs. “It was all pretty bizarre.”

He pulled a chair close to hers.

“How did you know he planned to resuscitate Michael?”

“He talked about it all…. It seemed forever,” she said. “I just didn’t think he could pull it off. It’s a miracle he did.”

“Why didn’t he let Michael die like the others?”

“Michael was supposed to take his place.”

“Take his place? You mean
killing
people?”

She shook her head, curling up tighter inside the robe, pulling the cuffs over wrists already purpling. “In his mind he isn’t
killing anybody. He’s awakening fallen angels. It’s part of his fantasy. I didn’t get it all. Some of what he said was in
Hebrew, I think.”

“Killing is supposed to free the victims?”

She nodded. “But it’s a hell of a lot more complicated than that. That’s why he’s using the LSD.”

“What about the LSD?”

“I was pretty much right about what he’s doing with the drug. He’s attempting to simulate for his victims his own near-death
experience.”

“His own?”

“Yes. Apparently, he nearly died himself. I don’t know how or when, but that event could have been the trigger for all this.
Some overwhelmingly traumatic experience that sent him over the edge.”

He watched her pull on her hair, turning a strand of it round and round her finger. “Are you saying that a brush with death
turned this man into a serial killer?”

She shrugged. “Remember, in his reality he’s not killing them. What he wants is to force them to remember who they are before
they experience death. Force them to remember they were once angels, kicked out of Heaven because they wanted bodies. The
LSD is supposed to help them remember so they’ll be prepared before he gives them the injections of the potassium chloride
to stop their hearts.”

“Prepared to do what?”

“Resist reincarnation as humans. Go back to being angels. Wait around to take back Heaven.”

“Wait?”

“Behind some kind of barrier. He thinks if he can awaken enough fallen angels, they’ll be able to force their way through.”

“So, our killer thinks he’s a fallen angel too.”

“Yes.”

“What I still don’t understand is how he targeted Michael, or any of the victims for that matter.”

“He said something about being able to see lights around the fallen.”

“Lights?”

“Auras, he sees auras. And because Michael’s was somehow brighter, he was the one selected to take his place. The killer had
to bring him just close enough to death to remember who he was, but not let him die. With Michael, he had to alter the ritual.
And since
there wasn’t going to be a kill, you didn’t see any wings. Michael’s doses of potassium to induce heart failure had to be
well calculated. Everything was timing—the injection of the antidote to reverse the effects of the potassium, the mouth-to-mouth
resuscitation. As I said, the killer wanted Michael to take his place. Which may be his way of telling us he’s finished. Serials
do that.” She closed her eyes. “I told you it was complicated.”