Darkness of the Soul (18 page)

After hours of working at it, all Drakanis and Parker had been able to figure out was that their boy had been busy, assuming they could pin even half of this on him. It had been about the time they figured that out that Drakanis had decided it would be best if he took off for a bit, but Parker had kept drinking and kept going over it, almost obsessively, as if he could find the killer by sheer effort and will and cause him to strangle in the middle of whatever psycho dream he was currently having.

From the pictures and files strewn over the table, Parker had put together something resembling a time line of what he thought the killer had been working on for at least the last four years, any further back and things got hazy at best. Closed files, statutes of limitations, and general bad paperwork prevented him from going back much further than that. Parker wasn’t overly concerned; he was pretty sure that their man hadn’t been in town for much longer.

Dating back to 1995, there were seven deaths that had earned their way into the “maybe” pile: Rita Hagensclass, age thirty-four, art collector, found carved up in her bedroom, possible sexual assault, no DNA evidence available; Jonas Lankenkamp, sixty-two, private investigator, friend of Ms. Hagensclass, heart attack—nothing odd there, except for the doctor’s bill which proclaimed him to be in perfect health for his age—found in his office, phone in hand; and Tina and Harry Borim, eighteen and twenty, stroke and broken neck. Friends say the couple had just come home from a flea market, where they had bought some “ugly piece of shit” that they were just in love with. The item was not located on the scene. Then whoever it was had gone for the triple play. The Borims’ next-door neighbors, who had reported hearing a struggle and called the police leading to the discovery of the bodies—Jeff Myers, twenty-seven, and twins Rachel and Miguel Santos, twenty-three—were found two days later by Myers’ girlfriend, the Santoses
in
situ
coitus
. All three had heart failure on the death certificates.

On and on it went, and if they were right about their whole list, their boy had a kill count that’d make Dahmer proud; from Rita Hagensclass and the other six in ’94, he’d gone on to twelve in ’95, and Gina and Joey, plus seven more, in ’96. In ’97, he went dark; as far as Drakanis, Parker, or the folks down in records could tell, nothing fit the specs Parker had cooked up that year. Then he was back in style in ’98, cutting down twenty, evenly split between people with mysterious strokes or heart failure and people being found with all the blood in their bodies spread around the house instead. Ninety-nine looked like it had been another quiet year, with only three they could point at him—the old farts and the captain—but who knew? Christmas was still a couple of weeks away, and maybe the guy got happy around the holidays.

This
is
nuts,
you
know
that?
Fifty-one
people,
half
of
them
from
natural
causes,
and
you
want
to
say
it’s
all
part
of
one
guy’s
sick
little
games?
Parker nodded to himself as he rummaged in the case at his feet for a fresh beer. He swallowed half of it in a single go before answering himself out loud. “But I believe it.”

Hearing his voice like that, cracked and tired from a sleepless night, Parker discovered that there was something a hell of a lot more wrong with him than just grief for Morrigan; there was fear in that voice, the fear of a man who was beginning to think there were things out in the dark that nobody wanted to acknowledge, that nobody knew about… and those things were hostile to him.

His hand was shaking when he went to reach for the beer bottle again, and the sudden shrill tone of the telephone made him jump. The thing had been purchased specifically for its incredibly annoying trill, so it was able to wake him up when it rang in the middle of the night. He was not thankful for it this time though, as he had knocked the bottle over and spilled the contents over his time line. The beer cheerfully made glug-glugging noises as it ruined his work, undeterred by Parker’s frantic attempts to sop up the worst of it and get the bottle upright before the mess got too big. Through it all, the phone continued to ring, as if saying, “That’s all right; clean up your mess. I’m patient.”

Once he had the flood under some kind of control and the papers were drying out with layers of paper towels between them, Parker turned his attention to the phone again. It was still ringing, even though it had taken him a couple of minutes. He had no answering machine, and now was one of the times when he really wished he did. Then maybe he could just listen to some telemarketer explain to the gadget how there was a wonderful opportunity and operators were standing by, instead of feeling this dread crawling through the marrow in his bones and wondering if, when he picked up that phone, he was going to have himself a little heart attack or stroke.

For
fuck’s
sake,
just
pick
up
the
goddamn
phone.
It
isn’t
the
same
guy,
can’t be
the
same
guy,
because
that’s
your
goddamn
private
line
and
there
is
absolutely
no
way
he
could
have
gotten
that
phone
number.
So
answer
the
damned
phone.

Good advice, except for Morrigan. Except for Jonas Lankenkamp. Except for all the others, and except for the ice and glass spinning inside his bones. Still, he couldn’t just sit there and listen to it ring until he went crazy—and he was sure he’d go crazy a hell of a long time before it quit ringing, if they’d held on this long—so he yanked it off the cradle and barked his name into it, trying to inject it with all the confidence he didn’t have right then.

There was a long pause, long enough that Parker was sure whoever it was had either given up or been scared off by the false bravado in his tone, and then the killer spoke up. Parker didn’t have a fraction of a doubt about the caller’s identity; while the tone was pleasant, there was a sense of wrongness underneath, like rotten meat underneath a fine cut of venison.

“A trifle touchy are we, Detective Parker? Relax, please, I insist. I take it that the good captain failed to pass along… oh, yes. He had that unfortunate accident before I explained to him what he was supposed to tell you!” The voice was full of good cheer, but the mockery inherent in it was plain to Parker’s ear.

“I hope he at least managed to deliver my holiday greetings, however. I suspect he did not, and for that I apologize.”

Parker managed to find his voice, unglue his tongue from the roof of his mouth, and send a hard click down the line as he swallowed.

“What do you want, shithead?” His voice betrayed him. He was unable to continue projecting the bravery and sense of righteous justice he wanted to and passed all his terror down the line.

“Ah, welcome to the conversation, Detective Parker! Good to see that not all your spirit has gone the way of your beer.” A slow chuckle punctuated the statement; he sounded like a kindly uncle who had made a slightly off-color joke.

“Now, to answer your question, I’m afraid that I am going to have to plead the Fifth on that, but I will say that I am going to try to be your friend, Detective. Drop this matter. If Michael wishes to keep digging, that is fine and well, but you would do much better to find a slightly less personal case to deal with, at least until the holidays are up.”

The killer paused, and Parker was certain the bastard was wearing a smile the size of the San Andreas. Some of his usual temperament returned at that point, and if there had been some way to drive his fist through the phone line and tear the shit’s tongue out, he would have taken the opportunity. Before he could get through that thinking and operate his mouth though, the killer continued.

“I offer that advice in the spirit of friendship, Detective Parker. Stay out of the way. And, if you can, get Officer Woods out of it, too. He’s been such a bad boy, snooping where he isn’t wanted, and without even clearing it with the investigating detective! Or he’ll be sitting in the same earth as your beloved captain.”

“You hold on just a goddamn minute, motherfucker; you don’t go making threats to me or anybody else. We are going to find your ass, and then we are going to—”

The click had come by the time he’d gotten to the word
minute
. Parker slammed the phone into the cradle with a sound of disgust and then snatched it back up again, thanking Ma Bell for the wonderful contribution of the *69 function. He punched the keys, almost cracking the case of the phone with the force he was using and then pressed 1 when the operator informed him that he could be reconnected to his last call.

The voice who answered the phone sounded not at all like the one that had spoken to him moments ago. This one was sleepy and marked with a slight Southern drawl that projected an image in his mind of some overweight, bored teenager disrupted from his
Dukes
of
Hazzard
reruns.

“Motel 8, how kin I help ya?” The clerk sounded as if he would be most pleased if he could offer Parker no help at all, but Vincent was not in a mood to grant his desire at this fine hour of the morning.

“That depends on if you can give me a guest list and put whoever you’ve got in those rooms on lockdown. You want authorization, you sit tight for five minutes and the RPD is going to be giving you a call. That’s point one. Point two, you’re going to tell me your address, and that right quick.”

The clerk stammered some denial out, but Parker cut him off. “Right, I know, crank calls. All right, just give me the goddamn address and we’ll take care of this.”

Something in his voice must have convinced the desk clerk that he meant business, because this time, he spit out the address; he seemed ready to continue in his new helpful tone for quite some time, but Parker had no more patience for it. He slammed the cutoff and dialed 9-1-1.

As soon as someone answered, he cut her off before she even made it five words into her carefully scripted response card.

“That’s great, excellent, really. This is Detective Parker, RPD, I need you to send as many units as possible to the Motel 8 down on McKarran. It concerns the Boris/Deway case.”

Parker dropped the phone back onto the cradle without waiting for an answer and then yanked his coat off the back of his chair and bolted out the door. He found himself wishing that Drakanis had a cell phone but discarded the thought. Right now, collaring the guy so Drakanis
could
have his time with the one who’d mistaken Gina for a Thanksgiving turkey seemed a lot more important.

Action had always been Parker’s drug of choice. It was what made him get rolling into high gear and burned away any problem. Drunkenness, too much or too little sleep, depression, none of it mattered once he was moving. Even the fear that had curled around his heart when he’d spoken to the killer was evaporating under the high-intensity stimulant of actually doing something.

He was out the door so quickly that a vacuum was left in his wake, pulling the door shut and dragging the stack of drying photos and case documents to the floor in an untidy heap. Parker didn’t notice and wouldn’t have cared if he had.

He had a shithead to take care of.

Chapter
15
 

7:30 am, December 14, 1999

Two and a half hours in the rain with nothing to show for it except more mockery had soured Parker’s attitude. The officers who had chosen to stick it out once it had been made obvious that their boy was no longer there were likewise lacking in enthusiasm.

The initial response time had been excellent—Parker had been barging through the front door of the shitty little motel less than ten minutes after going out his own door, and it had only been three minutes more before three patrol cars had arrived—but it didn’t matter. Their man was gone already; the only people who hadn’t taken off yet were an elderly couple on a second honeymoon, on their way to Vegas to see the sights, and a seventeen-year-old kid who’d rented the room for a liaison with his girl. The call log was supposed to be coming back from the phone company, but Parker was pretty sure the old couple and the teenager hadn’t made any interesting phone calls. They may work in the movies, but voice modulators can’t really turn an old man with emphysema, someone’s Pall Mall–smoking grandmother, or a teenager who was still letting his voice crack into a Billy Dee impersonator with a faint accent and perfect enunciation. That left the clerk.

Personally, Parker wasn’t seeing a whole lot of hope in that direction either. Mr. Vance Horace from Carson City didn’t look much like the type to be cutting on people, given the look on his face when he’d popped one of his dozens of zits and saw the pus and blood coming out of it. The bored and sleepy way in which he’d answered the phone earlier, like he’d been distracted from his
Playboy
or something—and Parker had indeed noticed a couple of skin magazines under the desk when he’d come in—didn’t mesh very well either. He’d been more than willing to cooperate once badges had been flashed in his face, and right now, he was getting quite a bit of positive reinforcement from his manager, who’d arrived once she found out the police were sitting on her property.