Hush (36 page)

"We've been looking for someone who deals
with numbers, but what about music? Pythagoras was one of the first
to point out the close relationship between math and music." She
sensed that Max was listening, so she continued with her theory.
"He also believed in what he called the table of opposites. Light
and dark. Good and evil. He went so far as to say that math and
music have connections internally and externally, affecting the
currents of our souls and the structure of the universe. I think
it's significant that Ethan may have been picked up at a music
show. Is Ethan the type to just hop in the car with a
stranger?"

"No."

"So he had to use bait. What's bait for
Ethan?"

"Music."

Max was sounding better, stronger.

Ivy cut into the Area Five parking lot, and
Max jumped out and ran inside the building. He took the stairs up
two flights and down the hall where he burst into the task-force
room.

"Go through the reports again," he said,
gasping for breath.

Phones were ringing, but no one was
answering. Mouths hung open. All eyes were on Max.

"Run cross-references on our databases. Go
through the canvassing reports again, but look for a man who's
involved in the music field."

He turned to Ramirez. "Any matches yet?" he
asked, unable to keep the desperation from his voice. Records was
doing a nationwide search, trying to match the face to someone who
had a criminal record.

"No, nothing," Ramirez said. "But it can take
a long time. Days maybe."

"We don't have days," Max said. "He's got my
son.

"Okay," Ramirez said from his computer
terminal. "Got a couple of matches. One guy was a music major at
Chicago School of Music, but never graduated. "The other has been
in a band off and on. Both spent time in mental hospitals." He
pushed print, then handed the two addresses to Max.

The task-force room was chaos. Every phone
was ringing, most of the calls from people who'd seen the composite
in the paper.

In the last year Chicago had expanded its
SWAT team, hiring twenty additional officers, most of them
deputized so that they could follow a maneuver to the end. The
increased manpower and broader scope of skills gave them the
advantage of splitting up if necessary. Max put in a call to
Commander Richard Miller, ordering the deployment of two teams.
They would be in position in thirty minutes.

Max hung up, continuing to bark out orders.
He sent one pair of detectives to the Elgin Mental Hospital,
another to South Side Chicago Mental Hospital.

"Ramirez and I will take the address west of
Pulaski. Cartier—you take the Delaware Park address."

Ivy got to her feet, prepared to go. Max
stopped her. "Stay here and answer phones. And don't do anything
else. You've done enough already."

"What are you talking about?"

He grabbed her by the arm. "The dead-baby
letter set him off," he said harshly. "Now he's after everybody
involved in the case. He knows I'm in charge, so how can he hurt me
the most? By hurting my son."

Max was almost out the door when a breathless
Harold Doyle from Documents caught up with him. "I think we may
have a handwriting match from the Human Services office. He applied
for welfare back in '93. The name's Grant Ruby."

Max immediately recontacted the SWAT team
leader. "We've got a positive ID," he said. Using police code, he
instructed them to converge on the Delaware Park address. They
would station themselves three blocks away and wait for further
instructions. He radioed air patrol and ordered two units to
rendezvous at the target site.

Ivy sat down at the desk, the ringing phone
near her elbow going unanswered.

Grant Ruby.

He had a name. Finally, he had a name.

Grant Ruby.

Ethan was missing, kidnapped by the Madonna
Murderer, a murderer who now had a name.

Max hated her, but that wasn't important,
that didn't matter.

Ethan.

Had he taken Ethan because of the letter? Or
because of Max? Or was there more to it than that?

Think, think.

Max. He's heading for the killer's house
right now.

Ethan might already be dead.

And Max will find him there, his dead
son.

Oh, God.

Think, think.

Was there more? Something she was missing?
Something all of them were missing?

The target rendezvous was in a part of town
most officers had never seen, located at the end of a cul- de-sac
with a chain-link fence around a yard that was overgrown with
weeds. The one-story house was shoved under an interstate on-ramp,
all of the shades pulled down tight, hiding dark secrets.

Max and Ronny Ramirez got out of the unmarked
car and approached the house, the gate creaking as they passed
through. One block away the SWAT team waited for instructions. One
block in the other direction were four squad cars ready to cordon
off the area and follow the SWAT team in if necessary. A mile away,
police air-patrol helicopters hovered.

Max knocked on the door while Ramirez stayed
to one side, his magnum drawn and ready. When no one answered the
knock, the men picked their way around the house, but already Max's
heart was sinking at the air of abandonment.

The garage was empty.

There was a wide, dark stain across the floor
where it looked as if a body had been dragged, the trail stopping
abruptly near the garage door. Regina's blood? Or Ethan's?

"They're not here," Max said, straightening
from where he'd been examining the floor.

Max radioed the SWAT team commander, sending
one group away. The remaining team converged on the house, shields
in front of them, guns drawn. With one shot, they blasted through
the front door and hurried through the house, their boots echoing
on the floorboards. Within five minutes, they confirmed what Max
had feared: Nobody was there.

The smell in the house was so bad that some
of the men gagged, others held their hands over their noses and
mouths.

Death.

Max knew that smell.

He sent the SWAT team away. He sent the
choppers away, then radioed for the crime lab.

Ramirez and another police officer took the
basement, where the foul odor seemed to originate from.

The room was illuminated by a line of
fluorescent bulbs down the center of the ceiling. The cement floor
was shiny, almost black, as if it had been scrubbed again and
again. Along one wall was a desk and computer, the Microsoft logo
twirling and bouncing from one edge of the screen to the other. Not
far from the computer was a single bed, neatly made, one white
pillow fluffed and in place, waiting to welcome a weary head. Along
another wall, under the small basement window that had been covered
with cloudy plastic, were wooden shelves full of neatly labeled
canning jars. The glass jars had been lined up with precision, the
exact same distance between each jar, the exact same distance from
the shelf edge.

Ramirez trained his flashlight on the jars.
"Big fan of spaghetti," he commented, feeling the hairs on his arms
stand erect. All the jars were labeled "spaghetti sauce." He
shifted the light to train the floor where a small puddle had
formed near a gym-size locker.

"Think we found the source of the stink," he
said loudly, for the benefit of the officers waiting upstairs.
"We're gonna need a hacksaw."

The shudder of boots on the stairs announced
the arrival of an officer with the hacksaw. By the time the lock
was removed, a crowd of cops had gathered.

Ramirez opened the door. Out poured sawdust
and lime, along with a mutilated, rotting body with no head.

A call came in from Ramirez, letting the
remaining members of the task force who'd stayed behind know that
the shakedown had been unsuccessful. "But they found a decapitated
body," announced the female officer taking the call.

Ivy sat down heavily. "Ethan?" she asked, all
of her attention focused on the officer. Oh, God, oh, God. Not
Ethan.

The officer slowly hung up, and just as
slowly said, "They don't know yet."

"And the killer?"

"He wasn't there."

Ivy had to get away. She had to get some
air.

Moving in a haze, she left the room.

She ran up the stairs, bursting through the
heavy metal door into the blazing sunlight on the rooftop where she
and Max had gone the day she’d told him who she really was. Even
though the sun was boiling the tar under her feet, the heat of it
felt real, reminding her that she was alive.

While Ethan wasn't.

No! She couldn't accept that.

Oh, Max. Max. What was he doing now? Saying
now? Feeling now?

The Madonna Murderer, still out there. Still
out there.

Somewhere.

Where?

Where would he go?

Max sat on the front step of the porch of the
house that belonged to the Madonna Murderer. As soon as they said
they'd found a body, he suddenly couldn't breathe. His chest hurt
so much he'd wondered if he was having a heart attack, not really
caring, considering it in a purely detached way.

Snatches of conversation crept to him,
echoing hollowly in his mind like a dream. Somebody said the body
was leaking, and fluid was running all over the place.

And there was no head.

The body had no head.

Max let out a choked sob and covered his
face, praying it wasn't his son.

He should have gotten out years ago. This
day, this moment was the future he'd felt hanging over him for the
last ten years. This was the destiny he'd been moving toward.

Ivy pulled Max's car to a stop across from
the brick building, near the spot where Max had parked the day
they'd come there. Not even thinking about the meter this time, she
hurried across the street, dodging traffic.

She pushed the manager's button, but nobody
answered. She pressed her face close to the glass door and peered
inside. The office was dark. Saturday. It was Saturday. She began
jabbing buttons at random, begging someone to let her in.

The security door buzzed.

She jumped on it, yanking it open.

She walked past the elevator to take the
stairs to the second floor. The dimly lit hallway smelled like
incense and something else she couldn't place. She reached under
her jacket and unsnapped the leather holster, slipping the solid,
heavy revolver free.

When Max gave her the gun, she never thought
she would use it. She'd hoped that she wouldn't. Now she prayed she
would. Over the years, she'd imagined helping to catch the Madonna
Murderer, helping to bring him in, picking him out of a lineup,
identifying his voice. . . .

The woman who cried when Jinx killed a
rabbit, the woman who took in baby robins that had fallen from
their nests, now imagined the way it would feel to pull the
trigger, to put a bullet through the center of Grant Ruby's
forehead.

He had made her want to kill with ten times
the passion and hatred he felt toward his own victims. He had made
her want to kill with the fervor and single-minded intensity that
only a person steps away from madness could feel.

She moved silently down the empty hall until
she reached the door of her old apartment. 283.

Cool, detached, she raised her fist and
knocked.

He wouldn't stand out in a crowd. You
probably wouldn't even notice him unless you looked directly into
his black, hollow eyes.

"Say something," Ivy commanded with a two-arm
stance, never blinking, never taking her eyes from his. A snapshot
image flashed in her brain. He was the man from the hockey game,
the man who'd talked to Ethan and waved to Max.

He stepped back and she moved forward. The
door swung closed behind her. Inside the apartment, candles and
incense burned. Lots of candles, with flames that danced and bobbed
against red glass.

That smell. What was that horrible smell?

The hand with the gun began to tremble. Ivy
shifted her support arm, readjusted her stance. "Say something! Say
something, you son of a bitch! Say something so I know it's
you!"

He smiled a sweet, awful, empty smile that
implied everything was working out. Then he spoke one word:
"Claudia."

In her mind, Ivy tumbled backward, falling
into the deep, dark, stagnant pool that was her subconscious. In
there were all the things she'd never wanted to remember, all the
things she couldn't face. Memories of that night.

That smell. My God. What is that smell?

With the gun still aimed at his face, she
fumbled in her pocket for the mobile phone Max had insisted she
carry.

Max walked blindly toward the front door.

A hand reached out, stopping him.

Abraham. When had he gotten there?

Max pushed Abraham's hand aside. "I've got to
see the body. I've got to know if it's Ethan."

"It's in bad shape, Max. I'm not sure you'd
even be able to tell. Dr. Bernard's on her way here. She'll let you
know what she finds out."

"I'd know," Max said. "I'd know my own
son."

Abraham stared at him for a few moments,
compassion and pain in his eyes. "You stay here," he finally said.
"I'll look."

Abraham left Max waiting on the porch. As
soon as he opened the door, the stench hit him. He lifted his tie
to his nose and mouth, pressing tightly, willing himself not to gag
as he made his way downstairs.

The smell in the basement was so bad that the
officers had cleared out, waiting for the specialists to
arrive.

When the locker was opened, sawdust and lime
had spilled to the floor, the mutilated body following so that now
it lay on top, a congealed tangle of coagulated blood and rotting
tissue.

Jesus. Oh, Jesus. It can't be Ethan. Don't
let it be Ethan
, Abraham prayed as he approached. Standing
directly over the body, he bent closer, his gaze moving over
butchered limbs, picking out landmarks that proved the carcass was
human. Fat. A lot of fat, and Ethan was slim.