Kill Her Again (A Thriller) (29 page)

This was when the truth got bent a little. They had decided to blame The Ghost’s death on a squatter who had been hiding upstairs. The truth would only complicate matters and they’d be stuck here all night. Worthington said he didn’t know if the guy was performing a good deed or was simply a wacko, but he’d just killed a man and was behaving erratically, so . . .

“You shot him,” the detective said. “And it looks like you hit him.”

Worthington nodded. “I thought I had him cornered in there, but he got away.”

“So what did this guy look like?”

“About six-one, two hundred ten pounds, with short-cropped hair and a baseball cap. Red. It was pretty dark and I could be wrong, but I think he was a gypsy.”

“What makes you think that?”

“He fit the general type and had a tattoo of a wheel on the back of his neck. I’ve seen one similar on some of the Roma drifters I’ve busted.”

The detective shook his head in disgust. “Fuckin’ gypsies. We get a clan comes through every once in a while, but they usually get lost among all the other scammers and two-bit con artists in town. Looks like this one’s a hero, though.”

“Looks like.”

“But one thing I don’t understand,” the detective said, “is what you folks were doing here in the first place.”

Pope took his turn again. “Like I told you. This is my house.”

“Yeah, I get that, but it’s been closed up for quite a while. Neighbors say you haven’t been around in over a year. Why the sudden visit?”

Pope had an answer for that one, too. Not much of one, Anna thought, but it was all they could come up with.

“I’ve been consulting on a case for Agent McBride here. We came to get some papers I left behind.”

“This have anything to do with Troy?”

“Not at all,” Anna said. “This is actually the first I’m hearing about him.”

The detective nodded, then lowered his head for a moment as if weighing a decision. Then he said, “What I’m about to tell you can’t leave this car.”

They all looked at him, curious, and he shifted his gaze to Pope.

“Your friend Sharkey’s real name was Ed O’Donnell. He was on a deep-cover assignment involving possible departmental collusion with Troy.”

“Was?” Pope said.

“Sharkey’s dead. We found him in a Dumpster behind Leroy’s Bail Bonds downtown. His throat was slit.”

“Jesus,” Pope said, closing his eyes.

“We’ve got nothing that ties it directly to Troy, but we’re working on it. Only a few people in the department knew about him, and I’m one of them.” He looked at Pope. “And from what you’ve told me, it looks like you could wind up a star witness in all this.”

Pope opened his eyes now, and Anna could see that this proposition didn’t thrill him.

“As you might assume,” the detective went on, “this is still a highly sensitive case. So what I gotta know is if you’ve talked to anyone else about it.”

“Just the two uniforms,” Worthington said. “The first responders. But not in any detail.”

The detective nodded. “I’ll be talking to them shortly. But when we leave this car, I need the three of you to keep your mouths shut. Just until we can get this whole thing contained.” He looked at Worthington. “And I’d really like to get those two goons you’ve got locked up transferred out here. You think that can be arranged?”

“Consider it done,” Worthington said.

The detective turned to Anna. “Does the bureau have any interest in this?”

“Not as far as I’m concerned. I’ve got my own cases to worry about.”

“Then I guess all that’s left to talk about is protection.” He looked at Pope. “We need to get you someplace safe.”

“Forget it,” Pope said.

“This Ghost guy almost caps you and you don’t think you need a detail? From what I know about Troy, he’s not gonna give up easily.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“As long as there’s a gypsy around, right? Look, I don’t want to be an asshole about this, but it’s in my best interest to make sure you stay safe.”

“And it’s my right to refuse,” Pope said.

“I could take you in as a material witness.”

“Not if you want my cooperation.”

The detective studied him a moment, then shrugged. “Whatever you say. But if it were me, I’d be asking for my own goddamn private island.”

“We’ll keep him safe,” Worthington said. “You need anything else from us?”

“Not at the moment. But like I told you, keep your mouths shut. Until we can get this thing sorted out.”

He dug a business card out of his pocket and handed it to Pope. “For all our sakes, you be careful out there. You change your mind about that protection, just call the station and ask for Captain Brad Billingsly.”

3
7

“
A LITTLE HOUSE
keeping before we get started,” Jake said.

They were sitting in a corner booth at Crandal’s Coffee Shop, which was just far enough away from the glitz and glitter of the city to afford them a small amount of peace and quiet. The choice had been random, but it was roomy, well-lit, and air-conditioned, and the waitress brought them coffee without asking. Pope figured they all looked like they needed it.

It was a little past 10:00 p.m. They were exhausted by the events of the night, and Pope wasn’t sure how much longer he could last on just a couple hours’ sleep.

“I talked to Ronnie before all the excitement,” Jake said. “She told me Evan checked out fine and she was taking him to her mother’s house for the night. They’re both probably in bed by now.”

“Good,” McBride said.

“I also spoke to my forensics guy and he had some interesting things to say about our gypsy friend.”

“Oh? Like what?”

“He didn’t get much from the shoe you managed to grab. Says it looks handmade and fairly cheap. But it turns out the cigarette butts you spotted are a Slavonian brand.”

“Where the hell is Slavonia?” Pope asked.

“Eastern Croatia. It has a pretty good-sized gypsy population.”

“That would explain the accent,” McBride said.

“Yeah, but what defies explanation is how our guy got the cigarettes in the first place.”

“What do you mean?”

“The brand is defunct. The manufacturer went out of business over thirty-five years ago.”

“Must be a mistake,” Pope said.

Jake shook his head. “The name is printed on the paper. So either this guy’s got a helluva stockpile, or he’s smoking nonexistent cigarettes.”

Pope thought he’d heard and seen just about everything at this point, but this new wrinkle only managed to deepen the mystery.

“None of which tells us who we’re dealing with,” Jake continued, “but maybe this will.”

He took a sealed Baggie from his pocket and held it up. The gypsy’s stun gun was inside.

Pope shuddered at the sight of it and felt a phantom jolt of pain in his ribs. He could only imagine what McBride was feeling.

“Soon as we’re done here, I’m taking this baby back to the lab and putting a rush on it. If we don’t get a match on this son of a bitch’s fingerprints, I’ll turn in my badge.”

“With our luck he doesn’t
have
fingerprints,” Pope said.

It was a joke, but none of them laughed.

Pope shifted his attention to Susan’s notebook, which lay on the table in front of them.

“Now that we’ve got that out of the way, why don’t we get down to business? See what my darling little ex has to say about all of this.”

McBride nodded. “My thinking exactly.”

T
HEY FIRST LOOKED
at the newspaper clippings. There were at least a half dozen of them, starting with the Salcedo
Daily
’s account of Jillian Carpenter’s abduction and death.

The morning after the kidnapping, she had been found by a jogger in Foster Park, her half-naked body nearly buried by fallen leaves.

When the leaves were cleared away, it was discovered that the killer had used Jillian’s blood to draw something on the ground:

The symbol of a wheel.

The gypsy wheel.

Anna looked at the clipping. “It says here that Jillian’s left forefinger was severed and positioned inside the wheel to replace one of the missing spokes.”

Jake’s eyes widened. “That’s pretty fucked up. Why would he do that?”

“Because he’s fucked up,” Pope said. “Why does he kill little girls? Why does he smoke cigarettes that’re older than God?”

“Calm down, Cuz. It’s a legitimate question.”

“You’re right,” he said. “But I feel like I keep having to hammer this point home: There’s no rational explanation for half of this shit. And the sooner we all accept that, the better off we’ll—”

“Oh, my god, look at this.”

McBride had wisely been ignoring them and had moved on to another newspaper clipping. This one a stapled, two-page photocopy. She pulled the first page free and put it on the table in front of them.

It was a murky copy of an already murky tabloid photo. A teenage girl lying on a slab in the morgue, the victim of multiple stab wounds.

The headline screamed: WHEEL OF DEATH!

McBride read from the second page:

“ ‘Manhattan. Seventeen-year-old Mary Havershaw’s lifeless body was part of a macabre crime scene discovered by a janitor in the gymnasium of Columbia High School for Girls. The victim of multiple stab wounds, Havershaw was found lying next to a crudely drawn symbol of what sources describe as a chakra, or wheel, believed to be part of a satanic ritual. The symbol was drawn using Havershaw’s blood.

“ ‘Police have zeroed in on a group of young girls who have been known to dabble in the occult at Columbia, but no suspects have been named and no arrests made.

“ ‘Friends of the victim, however, point to another possibility, claiming that Havershaw had complained of being followed in the days before her death.

“ ‘ “She was really worried about this guy,” said one friend, who wishes to remain anonymous. “She said he never got close, but he kept showing up all over the place. Outside school, on the subway, at Coney Island. She tried talking to her parents about him, but they just thought she was being dramatic.”

“ ‘When asked if Havershaw had ever described this man, her friend said, “Not really. Just that he looked like some kind of circus freak.” ’ ”

McBride lowered the page and stared at them.

“What’s the date on that thing?” Jake asked.

“September third, 1971.”

“This guy’s defying all the stats. Most serial killers usually get their jollies, then retire after a while. What does this put him at? Forty-something years?”

“Maybe longer than that,” Pope said. His gaze was on another photocopy in the stack, its protruding corner showing a handwritten year in the margin:
1954
. He recognized Susan’s handwriting.

Reaching across the table, he pulled it free, and stared down at a two-paragraph article titled “Police Baffled by Bizarre Ritual Killing.”

“ ‘Dayton, Ohio,’ ” he read aloud. “ ‘Police continue to be baffled by the bizarre stabbing death of thirty-year-old housewife Anita Dallworthy, who was found on her living room floor in what officials have determined to be a ritual killing. Her assailant or assailants used Dallworthy’s blood to create a circular symbol on the carpet. Sources wouldn’t confirm, but it’s believed that one of the victim’s body parts was incorporated into the symbol’s design.

“ ‘Police are currently looking for what witnesses have described as a severely deformed man of possible foreign descent, who was seen lurking near the Dallworthy home just days before the incident. Their search, however, has so far proven fruitless.’ ”

Pope looked up at them. “It’s dated January fourteenth, 1954.”

“This is impossible. It can’t be the same guy.”

“Can’t it?” Anna said. “Take a look at these.”

She was holding a stack of photographs she’d taken from a small manila envelope clipped inside the notebook. As she laid them on the table, Pope immediately recognized them as crime scene photos—several shots of the victims in question.

Each one of them showed a savagely gutted victim lying next to a bloody gypsy wheel, a severed finger in place of one of the spokes. Pope was reminded of the photos of satanic ritual killings he’d once seen when he took a class in cultural anthropology.

They all studied the photographs silently; then Jake said, “How did Susan get hold of these?”

“I’m sure it took her years and a lot of determination,” McBride said. “She didn’t stop until she got what she wanted.”

Pope tapped one of the photos. “Take a look at the date on this one.”

It was a high-angle shot of a young woman lying in the middle of an alley, her intestines exposed by lateral slashes across her stomach, another bloody gypsy wheel beside her on the asphalt—complete with severed finger. The legend in the bottom corner was written in a foreign language. Russian, maybe. Pope couldn’t be sure.