Whisper in the Dark (A Thriller) (20 page)

“DickMan229. Three stars. What about it?”

“It’s obviously an online nickname. So I tried Googling the words Bunk Buddies and found a small social networking website.”

“A what?” Blackburn had spent probably an entire fifteen minutes of his life on the Internet. Had found the place too impersonal, completely devoid of conversational nuance. Make a simple sarcastic quip and it was likely to be interpreted as a declaration of war.

“It’s a virtual community,” De Mello said. “A kind of gathering place where people with common interests make online friends, like Facebook and MySpace. Only Bunk Buddies is regional and caters to the local underground gay crowd. People looking to hook up.”

Blackburn risked asking the obvious. “I take it Janovic was part of this thing?”

De Mello nodded, then hit a few computer keys and a web page blossomed on his screen, showing a photo of Carl Janovic in full drag, listed as Carly921. Except for the hint of a five o’clock shadow, he didn’t look half bad. If Blackburn were blind drunk and suicidal, he might mistake him for Carmody.

In a box next to the photograph was a list of Janovic’s likes and dislikes, favorite bands, movies, books. It was all pretty innocuous.

“So what’s this have to do with DickMan229?”

“Take a look.” De Mello scrolled down to a section of the page that read CARLY’S BUNKMATES, which featured several thumbnail photographs. Men in various degrees of undress. He highlighted one of them, a shirtless guy who looked to be in his late twenties. DickMan229.

“If you click here,” De Mello said, wielding the mouse, “you go straight to an instant messaging system—Pillow Chat. I hot-synced the Palm Pilot and downloaded this log to the computer.”

He clicked a tab, changing to another screen. A text log popped up, showing an exchange between Carly921 and DickMan229. Blackburn read it. Or at least tried to.

CARLY921: hey b hru

DICKMAN229: iash

CARLY921: u up for some i&i

DICKMAN229: waw

CARLY921: 2nite spst

DICKMAN229: btwbo

Blackburn scratched his head. “What the fuck is this? Morse code?”

De Mello grinned. “Close. It’s chat speak. They’re setting up a date.”

Blackburn was dumbfounded and didn’t bother to hide it.

“Let me translate,” De Mello said, then pointed to each entry as he spoke:

“Hey, babe. How are you?

“I am so horny.

“You up for some intercourse and inebriation?

“Where and when?

“Tonight. Same place, same time.

“Be there with bells on.”

Blackburn stared at the screen, suddenly regretting that the computer had ever been invented. Hell, that human beings had ever been invented.

“When did all this take place?”

“Three nights ago, around eleven P.M.”

“I assume you’ve already figured out who this DickMan character is?”

“That I have,” De Mello said. “And this is where it gets interesting.”

He hit another key and an arrest report came up on screen, showing a mug shot of the same shirtless guy.

“He’s a street hustler by the name of Todd Hastert. Popped a few times for soliciting and for crystal meth possession.”

“Another charmer,” Blackburn said.

“Thing is, up until about a year ago he was legit. Worked in the M.E.’s office as a morgue attendant. Got eighty-sixed when he failed a piss test.”

A small alarm went off in Blackburn’s head. Morgue attendants routinely prepped bodies for postmortem examination. Which meant Hastert might have been privy to all kinds of information, including autopsy reports. Only a handful of people at the time had known the secret details of the Van Gogh murders, and one of those people was the medical examiner. If you were looking for a leak, Todd Hastert might be a good place to start.

“Tell me you’ve got a line on this guy.”

De Mello reached over to the Palm Pilot in Blackburn’s hand and stabbed the name DickMan229 with his fingernail. An address came up on the small screen.

“Your wish is my command.”

36

C
ARMODY HAD QUESTIONED
three nurses, two orderlies, and one of the security guards, and none of them had even the remotest idea where Tolan might have gone.

They uniformly described the doctor as a good guy, a great boss, always accessible, always ready with a kind word. He overextended himself sometimes, sure, tended to wear himself out, but they’d never known him to suffer any significant lapses of judgment.

Until now, Carmody thought.

But if you’re going to suffer a lapse, you might as well do it on a grand scale. And Tolan had certainly managed that.

Why, she wondered, had he made up such an elaborate story?

He had to know he’d be caught.

Carmody had always thought of him as a direct, no-nonsense kind of guy. So why the hoax? Was Frank right? Was this simply Tolan’s roundabout way of unburdening himself of a year’s worth of guilt?

It was, after all, the anniversary of his wife’s murder. Had the significance of the day shaken something loose?

As she questioned the EDU staff, the defaced snapshots of Abby Tolan kept playing like a slide show in her mind. She wasn’t entirely convinced of Frank’s theory, but those photos had certainly lent credence to it.

The symbolism was clear.

A “good guy” doesn’t cut his wife’s eyeballs out.

So maybe Frank’s instincts were correct.

One thing Carmody had learned about Frank Blackburn, in the short time they were partnered up, was that despite his unrelenting, annoying demeanor, his instincts had always been pretty accurate. She had to give him that much.

She just wished that that was
all
she had given him.

There’s nothing worse, she thought, than knowing you’ve slept with a guy who annoys the crap out of you. A guy whose every political, social, and moral belief is the exact opposite of your own.

Carmody thought about that night a lot more than she should. The night of their big mistake.

They had gone to The Elbow Room for a celebratory drink after their success with the Sarah Murphy case—another scumbag rapist in the bucket and headed to trial—and they’d both been pretty giddy over their success.

Frank was dropping her off at her apartment when her own worthless instincts reared up. Made her lean across the seat and kiss him. It was a surprise to them both and she couldn’t to this day tell you why she’d done it. But she had. And it was a great kiss. Better than it should have been.

It wasn’t long before they were inside her apartment, inside her bedroom, throwing their clothes off, clinging to each other like two lonely, desperate strangers.

The funny thing was, neither of them was particularly lonely
or
desperate, but something about that night made it seem that way, and being naked with Frank was neither awkward nor embarrassing.

He laid her across her bed and peppered her with soft kisses, lingering in all the right places, using his tongue and his fingers so skillfully that he brought her close to the edge faster than any man she had ever been with.

She didn’t know what she had expected when she’d kissed him in the car, but it certainly wasn’t this. Nothing about his demeanor had ever hinted that he could be so attentive to a woman, so loving.

And when he entered her, slowly pushing himself inside, teasing her, making her wait for that first, exquisite thrust, she felt the rush coming on, stronger than ever before. As he finally pushed himself deep, moaning in her ear as if this was the most wonderful thing he had ever felt in his life, as if
she
were the most wonderful thing—

—she came.

And not for the last time that night.

Then, three hours before the sun rose the next day, Carmody had been lying next to him in her bed, listening to him breathe, wondering what the hell she had just done and how she was going to get out of it. Sleeping with your partner is never a good idea. Ever. Under any circumstances.

Carmody liked to think of herself as a reasonably intelligent woman, someone who weighed the pros and cons of every move she made before she actually made it. Yet that night, all reason had abandoned her and now she had to pay the consequences.

She’d had no desire to be in a relationship with Frank. And she knew that irrevocable damage had been done to the partnership. When Frank awoke, slipping back to his usual, sarcastic, annoyingly alpha male persona, she’d decided right then and there to put her papers in for a transfer to Homicide.

It was a move that had hurt him. She knew that. Had made him even more insufferably male, acting as if he couldn’t have cared less about the transfer, that he was, in fact, happy to get rid of her. But most men are so ridiculously easy to read. So obvious about their wants and desires and their fears, and she knew that Frank had been severely stung by her decision. And in those last couple weeks together, they became increasingly hostile to each other, a hostility that lingered to this day.

A hostility she often regretted, but couldn’t quite release.

Carmody approached the nurses’ station, hoping to page the head nurse, whom Frank had mentioned was Tolan’s girlfriend. She was halfway to the counter when her cell phone rang.

Pulling it out, she glanced at the screen, saw only the words INCOMING CALL.

Flicking it on, she said, “Sue Carmody.”

Silence on the line.

Well, not silence exactly. She could hear someone breathing.

“Hello?”

No response. Just the breathing.

She was about to say something, when the line clicked. Assuming it was a wrong number, she continued toward the nurses’ station, glancing past the EDU security cage toward the lobby doors.

Although the parking lot was some distance away, she could plainly see that there was a car parked in Dr. Tolan’s slot. It looked like his black Lexus.

And there was someone behind the wheel.

She turned then, heading toward the doors, when her phone rang again.

She immediately clicked it on. “Sue Carmody.”

Silence. More breathing.

She stared out at the Lexus.

“Dr. Tolan?”

No response.

Carmody moved through the security cage and out toward the lobby doors. “Dr. Tolan, is this you?”

Another moment of silence, then a choked voice said, “I killed my wife. I killed Abby. We fought that night and God have mercy on me, I killed her.”

Then the line clicked.

Carmody froze. Holy crap.

Looking toward the lot, she saw the Lexus starting to back out of the parking space.

Move, Sue,
move
. Don’t let him get away.

Slamming through the lobby doors, she tore down the walkway. The Lexus was pulling out now, rolling toward the exit.

Carmody tucked her cell phone into a pocket and sprinted to Frank’s sedan, which was parked in one of the slots reserved for police personnel. Unlocking it, she threw open the driver’s door and jumped behind the wheel.

The Lexus was already headed down the hill, disappearing from sight.

Jamming the key into the ignition, she started the car, gunned the engine, then rocketed out of the parking space, picking up speed as she pulled out of the lot onto Baycliff Drive, which wound down through the mountains toward the 101.

As she drove around the first curve, she saw the Lexus again, but it had turned off the main drag onto a narrow access road that disappeared behind an outcropping of rocks.

Where the hell was he going?

Spinning her wheel, she rolled after him, reaching for the radio mic as she drove, flicking the call button.

“Dispatch, this is unit two-nineteen, in pursuit of POI Michael Tolan, driving a black Lexus, headed east on an access road just off Baycliff Drive.”

She waited for a response and got none.

“Dispatch?”

Nothing. Glancing down at the radio, she realized it had been switched off.

Sonofabitch.

She flicked a knob, but nothing happened. The thing was dead.

Goddamn it, Frank.

He’d forgotten to test it before checking the car out of the police garage. Either that, or someone had tampered with it in the hospital lot.

Tolan?

The Lexus was disappearing around a curve, moving deeper into the mountains. Carmody drove past an unlocked security gate marked NO TRESSPASSING and realized that this was an access road that led to the old hospital.

Why was Tolan going there?

She picked up speed again, took the curve, and saw the Lexus up ahead. Digging out her cell phone, she was about to put it to her ear when she noticed the NO SERVICE icon flashing on her screen.

Shit.

The mountains must be blocking the signal.

Dropping the phone to the seat next to her, she thought about turning back, waiting until she could get some backup out here, but was afraid she might be wrong about where Tolan was headed. What if there was another road that took him down the hill and away from the old hospital? And without a radio there was no way to head him off.

Then again the man had just confessed to murdering his wife, and the last thing she should be doing was going after him alone. That was a Blackburn move, and she was no Frank Blackburn.

The Lexus disappeared around another curve.

Making her decision, Carmody punched the pedal and sped after it. As she rounded the curve, she saw it pull through another gate.

Up ahead, beyond a thick cluster of pepper trees, sat the dark monstrosity that had once been Baycliff Hospital. It was a massive old structure, half burned to the ground, but still imposing, its dark doorways and broken windows like malevolent eyes.

Carmody pulled to the side of the road and waited as the Lexus momentarily disappeared behind the cluster of trees. A moment later it was in view again, pulling to a stop in front of the building.

No one got out.

The driver just sat there.

I killed my wife. I killed Abby. God have mercy on me
.