Once Shadows Fall (34 page)

T
he phone was ringing as Jack came through the door. He lifted the receiver and heard a man’s voice whisper, “Ah, Clever Jack. I’m so glad I caught you. Did you get my note?”

“No.”

“Check your e-mail. You might learn something.”

Jack went to his computer and opened his e-mail. There, at the top of his inbox, was another message from the deceased Betsy Ann Tinsley.

“Are you alone?”

“No. There are cops everywhere. I’m at the police station. Your call was forwarded.”

“I doubt that. I think you’re home. Click the link in the e-mail. It will start a live feed.”

“And?”

“I’ll do the commentary. There’s something I’d like you to see, a special presentation as it were.”

Jack didn’t reply.

“You’re a sick fuck, Cairo. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“How do you know this isn’t Mr. Curry?” Cairo said and laughed a little.

“It’s not,” Jack said. “You can stop whispering. You’re beginning to bore me. The game’s over.”

“Oh, not by a long shot,” Cairo said. “Congratulations on figuring it out. We knew you would, of course. Have you opened it yet?”

Jack clicked the link. After a short delay, a browser opened and a picture appeared on the screen of a table with four rings attached to it. A naked man was shackled to the rings, arms and legs spread wide into the shape of an X. He recognized Mathias Lemon from his file photo. Poor
schmuck. The camera was steady, mounted high. Shooting down from the front. On a tripod, Jack guessed.

There was no sound, but it was obvious Lemon was screaming. His head thrashed from side to side. His mouth was open. The tendons in his neck stood out like cords, knotting convulsively.

Alton Cairo said, “Tell me what you see.”

“Your partner, Mathias Lemon, Albert’s grandson.”

Cairo hesitated. “You surprise me, Jack. May I ask how you knew?”

“Tony Gillam followed him to the motel he was staying at, hoping to retrieve his wife. He was registered under his own name.”

Cairo looked at Mathias and shook his head. “Well, the choice in partners was somewhat limited.”

“You have a funny way of treating your partners, Doctor.”

“Soon to be our ex-partner, I’m afraid.”

“Who’s our?”

“I suspect you know the answer to that.”

“You and Pell make a great pair. Two raving lunatics.”

The camera continued to record as Cairo stepped into the frame. Jack watched as Cairo set the phone down. He glanced back at the lens and smiled. In his hand was a scalpel.

“Howard is no lunatic,” Cairo said over the speaker. “He’s a genius and far more insightful than you’ll ever be.”

“Bully for him.”

Cairo moved to Lemon’s side. His eyes were fixed on the knife. His head was turning violently from side to side. Jack could hear his screams in the background. Hysterical.

Cairo placed the tip of the scalpel about four inches below the man’s navel and cut upward. Lemon’s entire body jerked as a line of blood appeared. He continued to scream.

Cairo then switched to Lemon’s rib cage and cut horizontally. His actions were sure and precise as a surgeon. Pell had done a good job coaching him. Blood flowed from the incision. A second cut was made above the navel across Lemon’s stomach completing a large H shape on his torso.

“You’re still there,” Cairo said. “I can hear you breathing. Another panic attack on the way?”

Jack didn’t answer.

“Yes, we know all about them. And we know all about your daughter, too. Morgan, isn’t it?”

Jack said nothing.

“Come, come, Jack. I’ve given you what you need to solve the puzzle. Don’t tell me you’re squeamish. This is what you did to Howard. Does it bring back any memories? He thought you might like to see how it should have been done. In a little while we’ll see how Ms. Sturgis handles the procedure. Surely you’re not afraid to look.”

Cairo reached down and took both flaps of skin on Mathias Lemon’s stomach and pulled them back, exposing his intestines. All the while, he continued to scream and thrash his head from side to side.

Jack knew what was coming next.

Cairo’s hands lifted out the man’s intestines, then laid them on his chest. The camera picked up the horror on Lemon’s face as he looked down and saw what was being done to him.

“You remember this part, don’t you?”

Jack said nothing.

“You left Howard to die out there in the woods at the bottom of Cloudland Canyon.”

“You’re insane.”

“Am I?”

“Certifiable.”

“We’ll see. I have a much more interesting fate planned for you and Ms. Sturgis. Now please pay attention. Normally, after the organs are removed, we store them in Canopic jars along with items the deceased valued in life. Then everything is placed in this chest.”

Cairo bent lower and studied Lemon’s face for a moment, then said, “Still with us, Mathias? Well, it won’t be much longer.”

He patted Mathias’s hand and then inserted a cannula into the femoral artery of his inner thigh. Attached to the needle was a long tube. Blood began to flow down the tube into a pail under the table.

Cairo continued his narrative. “As you know, the records from the early Egyptian dynasties are very spotty. I’ve been studying them for years. It’s something of a passion with me. Unfortunately, they didn’t leave us a how-to manual on the mummification process. What we do know is sketchy and largely based on conjecture. Nevertheless, over time, I’ve made significant progress.

“Once the fluids are completely drained, I’ll attend to the heart, liver, brain, and such. Did you know they used to remove the brain through the nose using a hook? ’Fraid I haven’t mastered that part yet.”

“There’s a special place in hell for people like you,” Jack said.

Cairo ignored the comment and continued, “The really interesting part,” he said, “is the wrapping process. I don’t think Mathias Lemon
will mind if I begin.” He picked up a roll of linen, cut off several long strips, and started to individually wrap the fingers of Lemon’s hand.

Jack didn’t need to see anymore. Using mouse and the arrows at the bottom of the screen, he killed the feed. The last image he saw was Cairo’s smiling face. Behind him, Lemon had stopped moving.

“Still watching, Jack?”

“Fuck you.”

“Such talk from a professional man. Surely you can do better than that.”

“Count on it,” Jack said, and killed the video feed.

A
fter the call ended, Jack shut his computer, went into the kitchen, and splashed some cold water on his face. He’d seen worse. What he was feeling went far beyond anger or frustration. It was hate, pure and simple. He leaned down and rinsed the bile from his mouth with tap water.

Jack went into his bedroom and dressed in black jeans, black shirt, and solid leather shoes with rubber soles. A 9 mm HK and an illegal switchblade he’d owned for years made up the balance of his outfit. He said good-bye to Marta and went in search of the monster.

Whatever else Cairo might be, he was not stupid. The information he fed them about “Curry” having to make repairs to the house he inherited coupled with his gratuitous comments about the traffic on Ponce de Leon Avenue getting worse and worse and his reference to Beth still being alive was an invitation.

If I can’t come to you, come to me
.

When Jack borrowed the deputy’s computer, he’d accessed the Fulton County Clerk’s online records for properties sold in the Old Fourth Ward. He knew the streets. What he was searching for were any homes sold in the last year. He found what he was looking for in fewer than thirty minutes. A second search pulled up the newspaper article he found at the library. A copy of the article was lying on the seat next to him.

*

None of the locations Jack found online bore Cairo’s name. That would have been too obvious. Out of curiosity, he checked under Howard Pell’s name. Nothing there either. He finally found what he was looking for in an executor’s deed. Marshall Pell, as executor for the estate of Amanda Pell Pittman, deceased, had sold a home on Leland Avenue to a Three G Investment Group some ten months earlier. The time frame fit. Marshall was Howard Pell’s brother.

Jack had no idea who the Three G Investment Group was. Didn’t matter. The other pieces of property owned by the estate were sold the following month to different buyers. According to the deed descriptions, one was a lot with nothing on it. The other was a barber shop. He eliminated both as possibilities.

In the Old Fourth Ward, he found a business closed for the evening about two blocks from the Leland Avenue address. Jack parked his car and started back. An approach on foot was preferable to announcing his arrival in a vehicle.

The buildings he passed were uniformly stooped shouldered. Age and a declining economy had sapped the strength from the frames that held them up. There was no grass, no trees. Not even weeds bothered to push their way up through cracks in the asphalt.

Over time, the neighborhood had changed from middle-class white to poor minorities, eventually making a full circle back to families and young singles. Atlanta had simply grown away from it, pushing northeast and northwest along the I-75 and I-85 corridors.

Some attempts had been made to transform the area, all of which had fallen short. Inevitably, investors put their money into things that would have appealed to them had they lived there. The initial influx of trendy boutiques, lingerie, and novelty shops came and went. What remained were fading signs in damaged doorways. He spotted the house he was looking for on the next block.

His phone vibrated in his pocket. The caller ID said the call was restricted. He assumed it was Cairo again. Like a lot of psychotics, the man enjoyed the sound of his own voice. Pell had been the same way at the end.

“Did you enjoy the show?” Cairo asked.

“Not really.”

“Ah, well, I’m sorry. I do have a surprise for you. A farewell gift, as it were. I’m going to give you your own mummy. I suspect the beautiful Ms. Sturgis looks quite good in white.”

Jack didn’t reply.

He turned a corner and continued past a group of adolescent teens hanging around the entrance of a midrise building. Half of them were smoking. The girls wore ridiculously short skirts and too much makeup. The boys were trying to look hard. No one paid him any attention. He was used to it.

“Still there?” Cairo asked.

“Mm-hm.”

“Still think you can find me?”

“Without a doubt.”

“Where are you now?”

“Standing in front of your door.”

There was a momentary pause and then the curtain of a window on the second floor moved slightly. Jack smiled.

“You’re lying,” Cairo said.

“You never know.”

“Yes, I do. Just like I know you lied about Howard killing your partner. You shot her, Jack. You and no one else.”

Jack said nothing.

Concealed in the shadows of an alley, he studied the house. It was old, probably close to seventy-five years. Three stories high with a French-style Mansard roof. A small safety apron bounded by wrought iron grillwork about two feet in height ran around the roof’s perimeter. Next to the house was a clapboard building in pretty bad shape. It was one story higher than the home he was interested in—that at least was a break.

“Still with me, Jack?”

“Still here. So you and Howard are a team.”

“Indeed.”

Jack nodded. “Where in the world did you find Lemon’s grandson?”

“I didn’t. If you must know, he found me. Mathias was my patient. He came to me very concerned that some of his grandfather’s characteristics were beginning to emerge in him. Odd the way genetics works. I merely encouraged him to . . . ah, be himself.”

“You manipulated him.”

“We call it therapy, Jack. You should know that. Fortunately, the man served his purpose despite being something of a buffoon.”

“A buffoon you picked to set the charges in the tunnel and break into the dam’s computer system at Lake Lanier. Howard isn’t very tolerant of people who make mistakes.”

“Mathias was a tool. Some tools, as you know, work better than others.”

“You think Pell will accept that explanation?”

The last statement finally got a rise. “Howard and I are extremely close . . .”

Cairo finally realized he was talking too much and caught himself.

“Very good,” he said slowly. “You live up to your name, Clever Jack.”

“Why don’t we meet?” Jack said. “Then you can tell me all about how you’re going to break him out of Mayfield.”

“You’ll learn soon enough. Medical advances are happening all the time. I told that to Beth. Psychiatry is no different. Once Howard’s found to be sane, he’s a free man.”

“Interesting,” Jack said. “What about a trade? Myself for Beth Sturgis. You let her go, and I’ll deliver myself to you. No word to the cops. Pell’ll have his revenge. Everyone will be happy.”

A long time passed before Cairo responded. “You surprise me. I’ll call you back.”

*

Beth Sturgis was sick to her stomach. From the cell door she witnessed the horrific operation in disbelief and shock.

When it was over, Cairo turned to her and said, “As I said earlier, your savior is on the way to rescue you.”

Beth said nothing.

“He’s really not as smart as I gave him credit for. Either that or he completely failed to see my little joke.”

“Joke?”

“Cairo, mummy, hieroglyphics, get it?” He pointed to the form of a female wrapped in linen bandages resting in her sarcophagus. “The late Mrs. Gillam. Elegant, isn’t she?”

Beth shook her head.

“No? Oh, well. If you’ll excuse me, I have a few more things to attend to.”

He was at the top of the stairs when he heard the bottle break.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Beth called out, “but I don’t look good in white.”

The Soul Eater turned and ran down the steps to Beth’s cell. She was sitting on the bed smiling at him, her arms covered in blood.

“No, no, no, no,
no!
” Cairo yelled.

He began to fumble for the keys in his pocket as Beth’s head lolled to one side. A moment later she collapsed onto the bed.

Cairo threw the door open and raced into the room. The stupid woman was spoiling everything. A matched pair, that’s what Howard said. A matched set.

“Selfish, selfish, selfish,” he muttered reaching for her left hand and blinked. The wrist wasn’t cut, just smeared with blood. Confused, Cairo looked at her face. Beth’s eyes were open staring at him. He didn’t see the broken bottle neck coming until it was too late.

Beth’s free hand swung around in an arc slashing at his jugular vein. Blood exploded from the wound. Cairo lurched backward, his hand going to his neck in an attempt to stem the flow. Beth struck again, downward this time, jamming the glass shard into his thigh.

The Soul Eater let out a howl, staggering backward in disbelief and rage.

Avoiding his lunge, she ducked under his arm and made a dash for the steps.

*

Jack crossed to the building. It had been abandoned some time ago and now provided illegal shelter to several of the city’s homeless population. Three of them lay in sleeping bags on the floor beneath blankets and newspapers. Trash, bottles of wine, and malt liquor littered the lobby entrance. He carefully stepped over them and went up to the roof.

From the street he had estimated the gap between the house and building was no more than eight feet. It looked considerably wider now. A short distance away he could see a stream of headlights moving along Ponce de Leon Avenue. Farther to the south, the Bank of America Building with its erector-shaped top lit up the night.

Jack backed up a few steps to give himself a running start and leaped to the opposite roof. He landed harder than he thought and was carried forward by his own momentum. But for the decorative iron railing, he would have pitched over the edge. He shook his head and moved to the nearest dormer and pried the window open. Nobody locks windows four stories up. From the street, he thought the dormer might be part of an attic. He was wrong. It was a storage room. He withdrew the penlight from his sock, turned it on, and looked around. The room contained a variety of cardboard boxes stacked neatly along the sloping walls. A playpen, a bassinet, and various items of dated furniture were there. Dusty. Forgotten.

The only door opened onto an uncarpeted landing with a staircase. Jack used the sides of the steps to lessen the danger of creaks and silently descended to the next floor where he found three more rooms. They were filled with furniture and covered by drop cloths. The house smelled as if no one had opened a window for a long time. If Cairo held true to form, he and what was left of Mathias Lemon were somewhere in the basement. There was every chance Beth would be there, too.

Why hadn’t he called? What if she was dead? What would he do when he and Cairo came face to face? Let history repeat itself?

The heat began building in his chest, urging him to abandon stealth and charge headlong into the basement. That would be a mistake. His mind was his best weapon. Use it. Howard Pell and Cairo were still playing the game. Try as he might, it was nearly impossible to stay focused. If Beth was still alive, she needed him, particularly after seeing that
video. Spending the rest of his life without her was simply unacceptable. The urgency to do something continued to grow to the point where he wanted to scream. With an effort he didn’t believe himself capable, Jack regained control. His fingers closed around the handle of his gun.

You want me, Cairo? I’m coming
.

*

Beth slammed the door behind her to find she was on the first floor of a house. Directly ahead was a living room with heavy Spanish-style furniture dating from the 1940s and a large fireplace with ornate plaque above it. The Inquisition’s summer home. Classical music was coming from a pair of speakers against the wall. She didn’t need music; she needed a weapon.

What little light there was came through an opening in the drapes. She could hear Cairo on the steps. No time to search for a weapon. Get out. Call for backup.

The front door was at the far end of the hall. She was nearly to it when the basement door burst open. Alton Cairo stood there silhouetted, holding a bandage to the side of his neck. In his left hand was a scalpel.

Keeping her eyes on him, Beth backed slowly away, bumped into the wall, and reached for the light switch. If only she could find something to fight with. An involuntary gasp escaped her lips when a hand closed over hers.

“Not a good idea,” Jack said, coming down the last step. He was holding a gun and had it trained on Cairo.

“Jack! How—?”

Jack raised a finger and pointed upward. Suspended from the ceiling were a series of balloons with a thin wire running between them. She followed it to the light switch. The smell of gasoline was now apparent, filling her nostrils.

“Turn that on and the whole place’ll go up. The house is rigged to catch fire in case the police close in. Sorry it took me so long—you’re bleeding.”