Silent Scream (50 page)

“Kids. Mostly that Frenchie.
Albert
,” he sneered. “I guess they’re free to do what they want in their own place, but I should be free not to have to listen to
it.”

“So Eric and Albert were…” Olivia said and Early nodded sourly.

“Every night. All night. God.” He shuddered. “Made me wish I needed hearing aids.”

“You mentioned kids, more than one,” Noah said. “Who else?”

“Another boy and a girl.”

Olivia’s ears pricked. “You get any names?”

He frowned. “I don’t snoop.”

“But you’ve got good hearing,” Olivia responded cagily and he grinned.

“I do indeed. Mary and Joel. No last names, though. I think they were studying together. Always had their laptops. Sometimes
Joel brought big charts, rolled up.”

Of course you don’t snoop
, Olivia thought. “When did you last see Eric?”

“Yesterday, carrying a box. I didn’t see him after that. I had to go to the doctor.”

“When did you come back from the doctor?” Noah asked.

“I got back after two, and I haven’t seen them since. But something was going on over there. They were all arguing early Monday
morning. Woke me up.”

The hairs rose on the back of Olivia’s neck. “What time, sir?”

“About one, two. My eyes aren’t so good and I couldn’t see the clock. Sorry.”

“No, you’ve been very helpful,” Olivia said. “Will you be around later?”

He nodded. “They did something pretty bad, didn’t they? I mean, I recognize you now. You worked the case of all those murders
in that pit. You’re a homicide cop.”

“I am. Right now, we don’t know what they have or haven’t done. But thank you.” She waited until they were back in Noah’s
car to talk. “I think we can get a warrant now.”

“You call the ADA. I’m going to call the airports and make sure Eric doesn’t slip away. The Fischers said he had money. He
could be a flight risk.”

They each made their calls and Olivia was relaying all the details to ADA Brian Ramsey when Noah waved at her to wait.

“Tell him that Eric Marsh bought a ticket yesterday
morning—one way to Paris. It took off at five-thirty yesterday afternoon, but he never showed.”

“I heard,” Brian said. “I’ll have the warrant in thirty.”

Olivia hung up. “Let’s do a halftime check. We’ve got Joel who was at the fire. Lovers with Mary and friends with Eric, who
is lovers with Albert.”

“Maybe they all did it together. Didn’t Micki say there were at least three?”

“She did. But how do Joel and pals connect to Tomlinson and this Dorian Blunt?”

“And which of them did Austin Dent see shoot Weems and then get in a boat at the dock on Sunday night?”

“And how does Tomlinson’s wife factor in?” Olivia’s eyes narrowed. “Why lie to us?”

“And why the glass balls? Why only two? Why not leave one at last night’s fire?”

“Something tells me that once we find Eric, Mary, and Albert, we’ll get answers. Let’s get a key from the super and wait by
Eric’s door. I don’t want him slipping by us.”

Wednesday, September 22, 12:00 p.m.

Insisting he not drive, Glenn and his mother had met him at the firehouse. His mom had driven him back to the apartment, Glenn
following behind in David’s truck. His mother was making a pot of soup, which David knew would cure anything that ailed him.
It always had. Or maybe it was just having her fuss over him. Both worked.

Now he and Glenn sat in the Gorski sisters’ garden, David on the phone with Ethan while Glenn looked on, chomping at the bit.

“Well?” Glenn asked when David hung up the phone.

“That man is scarily efficient,” David said. “Ethan says the domain registration for Lincoln’s Web site was paid for by a
Mary Francesca O’Reilly, aged twenty-three.”

“Did Mr. Efficient get an address for Ms. O’Reilly?”

“PO box on the card, but her social security number brings up several addresses. Most recent is a dorm at the university.”

“Where that kid Joel Fischer went,” Glenn said thoughtfully.

“Where thousands of kids go. Doesn’t mean she knew Joel. Doesn’t mean she was at the fire. But it does mean she had some contact
with Lincoln Jefferson. She couldn’t just go in and pay his bill without his user name and password.”

“Unless she had somebody like Ethan helping her. Or she is somebody like Ethan.”

“Ethan’s a white hat,” David murmured, then smiled when Glenn laughed. “That’s what they call them. Guys who use their hacking
skills for good and not evil. I’m thinking Mary isn’t a white hat. Plus, she paid with her own credit card. How covert is
that?”

“You’re probably right. Still, I’m thinking your pretty detective needs to know this.”

“I’m thinking the same thing. She’s not gonna be happy about the way I found it.”

“After last night, do you think she’ll really care? After last night, do you?”

David thought about Jeff. About Kane. “No. And no. It could be that this Mary O’Reilly is just some Moss fan, like Lincoln.
Maybe she’s the one who helped Lincoln track me down yesterday and again I have to ask why?”

“More importantly, will she do it again? Better call your cop.”

David reached for his cell just as it rang, Ethan’s number on the caller ID.

“I checked out Truman Jefferson,” Ethan said. “Lincoln called him from his cell.”

“Lincoln’s older brother,” David said. “I found his name last night. What about him?”

“He’s a Realtor. It would have been nothing for him to look up your friend’s address.”

“So Truman helped him. Not Mary.”

“Truman is likely, Mary is unknown. The only other call Lincoln made was to a prepaid. The prepaids are traceable, but they
take more coordination to do so. I’d need a lot more time and contact with the holder of the phone. You need anything more?”

“This brother, Truman. Any idea on his stability?”

“You’re asking if he’s crazy? That I don’t know. Has he been in trouble? No. Hasn’t even had a parking ticket. Lincoln on
the other hand, had a long string of problems over the years. Mostly loitering, public disturbance, a couple shopliftings.
On paper, Truman seems like a regular guy.”

“Thanks, Ethan.” David hung up his own cell and from his pocket pulled the prepaid phone he’d purchased the night before.

“What are you doing now?”

“I’m setting up an appointment with Truman Jefferson and I don’t want him knowing it’s me. I want to meet him, be sure that
he’s not nuts and that he understands what would happen if he helped Lincoln again. And then I’m calling Olivia to give her
this info.”

Luckily Truman Jefferson had an afternoon free and,
laboring under the misconception that his name was David Smith and that he was looking for real estate, his secretary gave
him an appointment for one-thirty.

Olivia wasn’t so available. He got her voice mail and left a message. “It’s me. I need to talk to you about a woman named
Mary O’Reilly. Call me. It’s important.”

“Now what?” Glenn said.

“I’m going upstairs to have some of Ma’s soup before I meet Lincoln’s brother.”

Glenn followed him out of the garden. “Tripping over cats works up an appetite.”

“Smacking down smug old men works up a bigger one. You coming?”

Glenn’s smile was sweet. “Sure, I like your mom’s cooking.”

Wednesday, September 22, 12:00 p.m.

The super opened Eric Marsh’s door and he, Olivia, and Noah flinched in unison. The odor wasn’t unbearable yet, but it was
definitely getting there.

“Ah, damn,” the super muttered. “I hate it when this happens.”

Me too
, Olivia thought. Noah took her elbow surreptitiously and gave her a shove forward. It was what she needed to move. The body
was in the bedroom, lying on the bed, sprawled on his back, nude, an empty plastic baggie on the nightstand.

“That’s him,” the super said. “Eric Marsh. Never thought he’d go this way.”

“How did you think he’d go?” Noah asked, giving Olivia a chance to settle down.

“Always thought that friend of his would do him in. Guy was a thug.”

Olivia didn’t think anyone would describe Joel as a thug. “You mean Albert?”

The super nodded grimly, still staring at the body. “Yeah. Good old Al. Always thought his accent was a put-on, but it was
good enough to get the ladies to swoon.”

Noah’s brows lifted. “We thought Albert and Eric were a couple.”

“They were. But Albert has a key and when Eric was away… Albert was a man who saw opportunity knocking. Maybe Eric found out
Al was cheating on him.”

“Did he ever cheat with Mary?” Olivia asked and the super frowned.

“Don’t know that name. But if she was pretty and had money, I wouldn’t doubt it.”

“What does Albert look like?” Noah asked.

“Big guy. Hockey player at the university. Helluva checker, but no finesse with the stick.” He pointed to a photo in which
Eric stood arm in arm with a tall, dark, good-looking guy with very broad shoulders. “He looks exactly like that. That’s him.”

Perfect
, she thought with satisfaction. “Sir, we’re going to need to get the ME and crime lab up here. Can you wait for us outside?
And please, don’t talk to the press.”

“Nah. I got no patience for those people.” He backed away with a sigh. “At least the rent was paid for next month. It’ll take
that long to get rid of the smell.”

Noah walked him out while Olivia called for the ME and CSU. Then she crouched next to the bed and, on a hunch, shone her flashlight
on Eric’s pelvic region.

“Everything still there?” Noah asked dryly when he came back in.

She looked up. “Little knot of dried blood, right where Joel was injected.”

Noah’s brows went up in surprise. “Sonofabitch. Looking at the photo, Albert’s big enough to haul Joel around and put him
in the front seat of a car.”

“Ian said whoever hit Weems would have had to be at least six feet, based on the placement of the crack in Weems’s skull.
Albert is easily six feet.” Olivia looked around the room. “No sign of struggle.”

“You seem okay now,” Noah noted.

“Once I get past the body, I’m usually all right. Thanks for the nudge before.”

“Anytime. Abbott called when I was walking the super out. He talked to Kenny in the safe house. Said the boy remembers seeing
a police scanner in the shooter’s van.”

“He’s listening to us,” Olivia said.

“Yeah. Abbott wants to keep him in the dark on Austin’s whereabouts, so we have a special frequency for any mention of the
search. Also, somebody’s been burning paper in the fireplace. Looked like blueprints.”

“Getting rid of evidence. Even if we find Albert’s fingerprints in here, he can just say he lived here, so that’s no good.
We need a way to tie him to this.”

“Maybe he kept his kit. No sign of syringes or spoons anywhere.”

“And you have to heat the oxy to get it to dissolve in water so you can inject it,” Olivia said. “Whoever hit these guys with
a needle did it right.” She opened drawers, frowning. “No cell, no laptop.”

“None in the other room either. Next stop, the university’s registrar’s office. They’ll have Albert’s address. Can’t be too
many Alberts on the hockey team.”

“We still need to find Mary, though. Grumpy Early
next door said she and Joel came here together to study, with rolled-up paper—the blueprints. She’s in on this.”

“And,” Noah said, “if Albert’s killing off his cohorts, she could be next.”

“I’m thinking she can give us the connection to Tomlinson and Dorian Blunt. Those fires still make no sense unless the first
one was just a cover and they were planning something bigger all along.”

“Or like you and Dr. Donahue said yesterday—different agendas. Somebody left glass balls at the first two fires, but not the
third. An environmentalist agenda links fires one and two. But Tomlinson links fires two and three.”

Olivia bit at her lip. “Joel was dead before fire two. Micki said there were three people. Albert was there, because he’s
the only one tall enough to whack Weems in the head. Joel was there because we’ve got smoke in his lungs and glue in his shoes.”

Noah opened Eric’s closet. “Whoa, this kid spent some serious money on clothes.” He crouched down and a moment later stood,
a running shoe in his hand. “Glue. They must not have known they tracked through it, or they’d have gotten rid of the shoes,
too.”

“So Eric was also there. That’s three. Kenny said Austin saw a guy getting into a boat off the dock. That’s four. Was Albert
the guy at the dock? He shot Weems?”

And Kane
. A spurt of fury shot up inside her, but then Olivia frowned. Something wasn’t right, didn’t fit. “One set of glue tracks
at the fence where they got away, no glue on the dock side of the condo, so neither Eric nor Joel walked over there. Let’s
assume Joel wanted to change his mind and Albert whacked him, too. Could Eric have carried Joel away on his own, leaving none
of
Joel’s tracks behind while Albert ran around the building to escape off the dock, shooting Weems on the way?”

Noah studied Eric’s body. “He’s pretty skinny. He might have been able to haul Joel, especially if he was scared. But it makes
more sense that Albert carried him out, especially since he whacked him.”

“Mary wasn’t on the dock, because Austin saw a man. Maybe it was Albert on the dock and Mary helped Eric carry Joel away.”

“Maybe, maybe. Let’s find Albert and Mary and get something solid.”

Wednesday, September 22, 12:30 p.m.

Austin hung back in the shadows in the alley beside the library. From here he could see any car coming in from the street
and at his back was a chain-link fence, eight feet tall, so no one would sneak up from behind.

It was as safe as he was going to get under the circum-stances.

He held his breath, although his gut told him what was about to happen. The library was almost a mile from the school. For
Kenny to make it here by 12:30, he’d have to cut the last ten minutes of his third-period English class. And old lady McMann
did not give bathroom passes. Ever. Chances that Kenny was coming? Close to nil.

A white van pulled into the parking lot and a man got out and walked by Austin’s mom’s car. Frozen where he stood, Austin’s
eyes fixed on the face of the man who’d shot that guard, who’d set the fire that killed Tracey. When he moved, his jacket
shifted and Austin could see
the glint of metal. He had a gun. The gun he’d used on the guard.