Maps of Hell (22 page)

“Take my word for it, he’s a complete scumbag.”

I remember the time I tailed Gavin Burdett to the occult supplies store in the East End. I still haven’t told Karen about that, not least because I don’t know what to read into it. Burdett is the kind of highly focused investment pirate who doesn’t waste his time on anything that doesn’t make him money.

“In fact,” Karen continues, in an unusually forthcoming mood, “when he’s in Washington, which he is at least once a month to meet with the thieving money men over here, he stays at a private house in Georgetown, near the university.” She turns to me, an expression of disgust on her face. “Do you know what he does there?”

I’m tempted to reply that he summons up the devil, but hold myself back. “Do tell,” I say sweetly.

“He has whores sent round. According to the FBI, they all look underage…”

“Why haven’t they arrested him, then?”

She looks at me as if I’m an idiot. “Because he’ll get off in half an hour with the lawyers he can afford. Besides, his hide is mine.”

“You’ve been reading my Western phrase book again.” I can no longer resist the urge to needle her. “And just how are you going to get the Justice Department to sign off on that?”

“Simple,” she replies. “I’ll ask them for everything they have on Burdett, and at the same time insist I have a right to arrest a British citizen back home.”

“And you think they’ll buy that?”

Karen gives me her most seductive smile. “Undoubtedly,” she says, getting off the bed. “I’m going for a bath.”

“Mind you don’t drown under the weight of your own…the weight of my son,” I say. When she’s safely ensconced in two feet of warm water, I go over to the expansive dressing table. Typical Karen. Instead of facial unguents and hairstyling equipment, she’s laid out her case files under the mirror. I cast a practiced eye over them and find the one on Gavin Burdett. The thing is, I’m going to have plenty of free time when Karen’s at meetings. I’ve acquired a taste for tailing Gavin Burdett and it would be a challenge to do so in a foreign city. I find the relevant FBI report and note down the address of a house in Georgetown.

J
oe Greenbaum was sitting on a bench in Rock Creek Park in northwest D.C. I was watching from behind the tree line through a pair of his binoculars, the midmorning air still chilly enough to make my nose twitch. We were about a hundred yards from the nearest road but, given time, it wouldn’t have been hard for the cops to set up an ambush. So Joe had called Detective Simmons only half an hour ago and insisted on meeting immediately. He hadn’t mentioned me.

When a heavily built black man came into sight, I scanned the area behind him, and to his left and right. It was a weekday, so there weren’t many people in the vicinity. A female jogger passed Joe, but she was wearing skintight gear—no place to hide a weapon. Besides, she disappeared round the corner rapidly.

The cop approached Joe and, after shaking hands, sat next to him. I watched his face. It was rugged, with a slightly world-weary expression. He looked competent and, more to the point, reasonable. I gave them a few minutes, scanned the paths and woods one last time, and then broke cover. I had one of the Glocks and the combat knife under my belt in the small of my back. No doubt Detective Simmons was armed, too, but I wasn’t going to let myself be locked up again, no matter what happened.

I joined the track about twenty yards behind them and started walking. Joe didn’t turn round, and neither did Simmons, until I was almost on them.

“Jesus, Matt!” Joe said in surprise, as I sat down. I hadn’t told him how furtive I could be. He looked at the detective. “Like I say, just hear the man out.”

“Mr. Wells,” the detective said, leaning forward and extending a hand. “Welcome back to D.C. I’m Clem Simmons.”

I shook his great paw. He seemed friendly enough and not particularly interested in arresting me. “Call me Matt,” I said. “Clem.”

He smiled. “Okay, Matt. Joe here says you’ve got things to tell me. You’ve got to understand, I can’t offer you any kind of assurance that I won’t take you in.” Furrows appeared on his forehead. “But, as you know, I’m not investigating the killings anymore.”

I nodded. “But you don’t think I’m guilty of them.”

“It’s up to you to convince me of that. Tell me, you got an interest in black magic, that kind of stuff?”

I raised my shoulders. “Interest, no. Involvement, yes. In the past I was chased by a pair of killers who played around with satanic names and imagery.”

“The White Devil and the Soul Collector. I read about them. Seems you’re pretty good at looking after yourself.”

“I took precautions,” I said, and then told him something about the training I’d undergone with Dave. Then I got on to the camp and my escape from it.

When I’d finished, Simmons glanced at Joe and shook his head. “Is this guy for real?”

Joe and I laughed, then saw the serious look on his face.

“It ever occur to you that the Soul Collector could be behind these murders, Matt?” Simmons asked. “I mean, she’s bound to have your fingerprints, isn’t she?”

“Yup,” I said. “But if she is, I’ve no idea how to nail her, especially off my home ground.”

“She couldn’t have got herself involved with this Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant, could she?” Joe asked.

I didn’t mention that they were at the camp—I didn’t know him well enough to spill my guts completely. “Sara’s capable of anything,” I said. “But we’d be better off tracking the Antichurch itself.”

The detective shook his head. “The FBI has got their Hate Crimes people involved.”

“Any reason why you can’t run a check, as well?” I asked.

“Apart from the fact that I’m off the case?” Simmons shrugged. “I guess I can do that.”

I nodded. I liked the man, but he wasn’t exactly buzzing with solutions to my problems. Karen was as lost as ever, while I was still suspect number one.

“Yeah,” Simmons said, “I can check the Antichurch out, at least here in D.C., but that won’t keep you out of jail down the line, my friend. And I’ve got other cases now.”

“What about the latest victim?” Joe asked. “Any ID yet?”

The detective shook his head. “Not that I’ve heard of. The Feds won’t be telling me anything, though.”

“But he is another occult killing,” I said.

“You tell me, Matt,” Simmons said. “Personally, I’m not convinced. Could be a copycat.”

“Oh, great,” Joe said, with a groan. “Now we’ve got two crazies terrorizing the capital of the world?”

The detective caught my eye. “So, what are you going to do?”

I smiled. “You sure you want to know?”

“Probably not.” He looked at Joe. “I’m trusting you to keep me informed.”

Joe nodded. “Anything helpful you want to drop our way?”

Clem Simmons checked the area. There was no one near us. He slid his hand inside his coat and handed a brown envelope to Joe. “I must be out of my mind,” he said morosely. “You didn’t get these from me. The press doesn’t know about them. Every victim’s body except the last had a drawing pinned to it. See if you can figure out what these mean before the assholes in the Bureau do. And make sure you tell me first.” He walked away at surprising speed for such a bulky man.

Joe and I looked at the photocopies. The names of the relevant victim had been printed on each sheet, along with an arrow pointing upward. I examined the different arrays of geometric shapes, but couldn’t make a meaningful pattern out of them.

“Doesn’t look particularly occult to me,” Joe said.

“No,” I agreed. “Then again, the Antichurch of Lucifer Lunatic notwithstanding, we don’t think the murders really have too much to do with the black arts, do we?”

He shook his head. “In which case, what is this shit?”

“Joseph, I don’t have the faintest idea.”

We split up before we reached the paved road.

Clem Simmons was looking out of the office window. He didn’t register the walls of the neighboring buildings or the pale blue autumn sky above. Instead, he was watching himself as he would soon be—a man in late middle age without a job or, most likely, a pension. Although he’d considered what to do carefully before the meet, after the event his thought processes seemed pathetically flawed. He’d been sure that slipping information to Joe Greenbaum would be an agreeable way of sticking it to the Feds, and perhaps garner some new insight. He had contacts that Clem could only dream about. But the reporter had blind-sided him with Matt Wells. And, even more surprisingly, Clem had been convinced by the Englishman’s crazy story.

He shook his head. Ever since the cancer had taken Nina, he’d been struggling. Until the occult killings, he hadn’t really cared whether he and Vers caught murderers. The only thing he’d wanted was to get back to the house he and his wife had shared for twenty-four years, to take in her scent before it finally faded from her clothes. But these cases were different. He had a burning need to find the killer, no matter the cost. Perhaps it was because a voodoo believer had been murdered, but he thought it was more than that. If he could crack this case, if he could solve it before the Feds, he could retire happy. And now it was more likely he’d be sent packing without a penny to his name.

Gerard Pinker came up. “Where the hell have you been?” he demanded. “I got so bored waiting I went down to the coffee shop to check out the girls in uniform.”

Clem Simmons handed him a sheaf of pages, each one in a transparent cover.

“What’s this?”

“New information, a letter addressed to me by the guy in the Anacostia River.”

“What?”

“Keep your voice down. We’re off the case, remember?”

“Wait a minute.” Pinker looked at his partner apprehensively. “You mean, you haven’t shown this to Chief Owen?”

“Nope. He’d have to pass it to the Feds.”

“What are we going to do with it?”

“Follow it up, of course. You’d better read it first.”

Gerard Pinker went through the text, taking in the photocopied photographs that had been attached. When he’d finished, he dragged his chair over and slumped into it. “Christmas has come early for us this year.”

Clem Simmons finished writing. “Could be… Okay, here are the main points as I see them. The first photo confirms this is the dead man, right?”

Pinker nodded. “Hold up. Where did the letter come from?”

“The owner of the Travel Happy Motel brought it in. The maid found it on the bed this morning. The envelope was marked ‘Urgent.’”

“He must have seen you on the TV.”

“Yeah, that press conference after Monsieur Hexie was found.” Simmons looked back at his notes. “So, the floater is Richard Bonhoff, a forty-three-year-old farmer from Iowa. He came to D.C. a week ago to find Gwen and Randy, his twenty-one-year-old twin children.”

Pinker sat up straight. “Who won a competition in the
Star Reporter
last December that brought them here, and they were looked after by our friend Gordy Lister. No wonder that fucker looked shifty yesterday.”

“According to the dead man, Lister tried to scare him off with a couple of heavies and Bonhoff, ex-marine that he was, dealt with them as only marines can. Then Lister took him to see his kids. They’ve apparently become junkies. When he went back to find them later, there was no one around.”

Pinker stared at his partner. “What do you reckon? Gordy Lister’s into dope? Or maybe he’s running some kind of white slave ring.”

“You reckon Lister’s up to that, Vers?”

“Hell, yeah. That little prick would sell his mother if the price was right.”

Simmons nodded. “Yeah, he probably would. But I think there’s more to it than Gordy running a solo scam. I think there might be something in what Bonhoff says about Woodbridge Holdings being involved.”

“Could be. They own the
Star Reporter,
so they aren’t exactly scoring high in the ethical business chart. What else are they into?”

“I’m about to start working on that.”

Pinker stood up. “So what do we do? Haul in Lister?”

“We could do.” Simmons smiled wickedly.

“Oh-oh,” his partner said, suddenly the apprehensive one for a change. “What have you got in mind, Clem?”

The big man stood up and moved close to Pinker. “Well, I was just thinking, we’re off the case anyway, so why don’t we keep this unofficial.”

“
This
being?”

“We tail Gordy Lister.”

The small man raised an eyebrow. “You forgetting what happened to this Bonhoff guy when he did that?”

“Um, we’re cops, remember?” Clem Simmons took the pages back from Pinker. “By the way, there’s something else I’ve got to tell you.”

His partner’s face went white as his partner described his meeting with Joe Greenbaum and Matt Wells. And Clem thought Pinker’s eyes bulged like an impaled octopus’s when he heard that the official prime suspect had been handed copies of the killer’s diagrams.

Joe had made a prepaid Internet reservation for me in a cheap hotel on the other side of the Potomac. We reckoned that would keep me away from prying eyes, not that I was planning on doing anything except sleeping there. Joe also gave me five hundred dollars. I used a couple of hundred to buy some jeans, shirts and a thick jacket. No doubt the New York State police would have circulated a description detailing the clothes that Mary Upson had given me.

I took a shower and changed into my new outfit. The hotel was near the Rosslyn Metro station, within walking distance of Georgetown. I was about to set off when I felt a sudden pulse of pain in my head and staggered to the bed. Images flashed before me in rapid succession—a wire between the camp and the pine trees; a flat machine covered in wires and flashing lights lowering over me like the lid of a coffin; an explosion of sound from the line of soldiers with rifles to their shoulders…

I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the visions. I was sweating heavily and my hands shook. Then everything went blank and I felt the rough bedcover against my cheek. I gradually got my breathing under control and opened my eyes. The roar of the traffic on the freeways filled my ears and I sat up. What was going on? I had thought that as time passed the effect of whatever was done to me would wear off. My memory was getting better, even though there were still plenty of gaps. But I wasn’t free of the place—there were still invisible chains tying me to it. That machine, its lights and the hum of sophisticated electronics, the things I’d been forced to see and hear—I couldn’t recall them in detail, but I felt their weight. It was like a worm with sharp teeth wriggled in my brain, endowed with the power to extinguish my thoughts and personality at any time. I was going to have to be very careful when it came to making important decisions.

I stuck one of the Glocks out of sight under my belt, leaving the other one in the wardrobe safe. Worried about my erratic memory, I wrote the code on my forearm. In my pocket, I had a piece of paper with the address of the house in Georgetown that Gavin Burdett stayed in when he was in D.C. Although I’d remembered it once, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do so again.

It was a clear autumn day, the colors of the trees in the distance and the gray-blue water beneath the sky making the place feel more like a sparsely populated rural town than a great city. As I crossed the bridge, I looked at the gray walls and slate roofs of the university. When I’d attended the crime-writing conference in D.C., a seriously dull criminologist had given a lecture there. The only laugh was provided by a local detective who said that criminology was as much use in law enforcement as a liquorice night stick. I wondered if Clem Simmons knew him. What
were
his motives in sharing information with Joe and me? He must have been desperate to solve the cases he’d been taken off—or maybe he just hated the FBI. The latter wasn’t exactly my favorite organization right now, either.

The diagrams—if that was what they were—flashed into my mind. I’d left the hard copies I’d made in the safe. There was something about them, something hovering on the margins of my consciousness. They had some esoteric meaning, even though they remained nothing more than collections of squares and rectangles. Random was the one thing they weren’t—I was sure of that. But their significance continued to elude me. Could there be something mathematical about them, a code in the lengths and angles?