Blown Away (10 page)

Tuesday, 5
A.M
.
Forty-nine hours till Emily's birthday

“Neither rain nor sleet nor gloom of night,” Branch cracked as Benedetti strode up to the library entrance.

“Har, har,” Benedetti said. “Sorry I couldn't back you up. I got two flat tires on the way over.”

“I don't see your car. Where'd you park?” Branch asked.

“Next block. Too many cop cars here, so I dumped it behind Anderson's Bookshop.” Benedetti stretched his arms over his head. “I changed the first tire quick enough. A mile later the second pops. Had to roust a deputy to bring me a third. Poor old Love Shack is showing her age.”

“Love Shack?” Emily asked.

“Pet name for my car. You'll know why when you meet her.”

“That thing's gonna kill you, man,” Branch said. “Time to junk it.”

Benedetti shook his head. “What self-respecting man dumps his sweetie because she's old and gray?” He looked at Emily. “So, you OK?”

“Yeah,” she said.

Branch rubbed his eyes. “Detective Thompson figures if she has to work in the middle of the night, everyone should.”

“Detective Thompson,” Benedetti mused. “Gee, Branch, it seems like only yesterday she was an officer. They grow up so darn fast….”

Emily smiled. “You know, Branch,” she said, struggling for the studied nonchalance of a homicide veteran, “if this guy keeps it up, he might very well start ticking me off.”

“Me, too,” Benedetti said. “Do we know the victim's name?”

Branch jerked his thumb at the library. “Arnold Harrison Soull. Double
l
. He lives in DeKalb.”

Where I finished college
, Emily realized.

“The local cops are checking him out.”

Benedetti scratched his chin. “DeKalb's a half hour away. Being dead and all, I wonder how he managed to get himself here?”

“First thing I'll ask Mr. Unsub,” Branch said dryly.

Emily told Benedetti what was in the victim's shin. The commander growled a dozen compound expletives. “Power-drill a guy just to plant a clue?” he asked. “That's cold. Was his wallet there?”

“Yes,” Emily said. “Everything intact, just like Lucy's homicide.”

“What's our game connection?” he said, pulling his notebook.

She explained the Boggle reference scrawled on the birthday card.

Benedetti stopped writing. “Your birthday? That's where all this is heading?”

“Yup,” Branch answered. “That card tells me the Unsub intends to play the final game on her fortieth birthday. The day after tomorrow.” He looked at Emily. “Please tell me you were born during Johnny Carson. We need every hour we can get.”

“No such luck,” Benedetti answered. “Emily greeted the world at 6:02
A.M
., according to her birth certificate. Giving us only forty-nine hours to run him to ground.” He shook his head. “There isn't a thing this creep doesn't know about her.”

Emily looked at him. “Actually, Commander, how'd
you
know?”

“Yeah, Marty,” Branch chimed in. “How'd
you
know?”

Benedetti flushed. “Couldn't sleep last night thinking about these game connections. So I swung by NPD and borrowed, uh, Emily's personnel file.” He looked everywhere but her face. “Figured I should familiarize myself with it. For the, uh, you know, case.”

“That's a good, uh, you know, idea,” Branch said. Emily said nothing, enjoying Marty's discomfort.

“Geez, you take a little initiative…” Benedetti mumbled, color deepening. Then, changing the subject, “How'd Soull get inside?”

“The Unsub cut a hole in a downstairs window. Wanna see?”

“Yeah. Show me the victim first, though.”

Emily tour-guided. When they reached Soull, Benedetti asked a dozen questions, paying particular attention to the silver dagger. He told Emily to describe exactly how Soull looked before paramedics arrived. He touched the dagger with a gloved finger as she talked, flicked the chain linking the handcuffs. He frowned, touched the dagger handle as though taking its pulse. He cleared his throat and said, “Show me where they entered.”

They passed Emily's bullet hole on the way. She didn't comment. Halfway down the stairs, they conferred with the weary CSIs tweezing the handrails for hair, clothing fibers, and other trace. A minute later they stared at the hole in the plate glass on the westernmost wall of the children's library. Emily looked around. The posters, pint-size reading chairs, and gaily painted decorations were cheerful yesterday but now served only to mock her.

“…Then he cut this hatch,” Branch was saying. “Threw Soull inside, then climbed in. Dragged the body upstairs and planted it in the chair.”

Benedetti nodded, the sharp breeze through the hole fluttering his hair like graying butterflies. “What's this, two feet across?” he asked.

“Twenty-six-point-four inches,” the CSI confirmed, not taking his eyes off the fingerprint dust he was brushing across the surface. “The part he cut out is on the table.”

Benedetti examined both without touching the sharp edges. “There's no blood puddle upstairs,” he said. “This isn't the place of execution. It's the display case.”

Branch nodded. “When he died, the coroner will tell us. As for where, who knows? Em, lay out our working theory of what happened.”

“The Unsub parks his vehicle,” she began, pointing to Jackson Avenue, which separated the Riverwalk from the library. “Walks up and shoots out those security lights.” She pointed to the roof overhang, made a finger gun. “Ploop-ploop-ploop, one shot for each light.”

“‘Ploop'?” Benedetti said.

“Silencer. It was the middle of the night, but nobody reported gunshots.”

Benedetti nodded, getting on his knees next to the CSI.

“He makes the hole with the glass cutter,” she continued. “Retrieves Soull from the vehicle, tosses him inside. Goes in himself, drags Soull upstairs by the ankles.”

“How do you know that?”

“I saw carpet fibers in Soull's hair gel.”

“Good catch,” Benedetti said.

“Thank you. Then the Unsub arranges my ‘present' and exits through the hole.”

The CSI frowned at his brush, headed upstairs to get more powder.

“We know some interesting things about this perp,” she continued.

Benedetti looked up.

“Don't say perp. Marty hates copspeak, says it's lazy language,” Branch explained. “Humor him. He had a tough morning changing flat tires and all.”

Emily crinkled her eyes. “The Unsub, then, is a meticulous researcher. This was the only possible place he could enter the building without setting off an alarm.”

Benedetti twisted his head through the hole, looked around. “No sensors on the windows,” he said. “Only on the doors. This spot is camouflaged by the retaining wall, shrubs, and roof overhang. And it's dark as a cave when the security lights aren't shining.”

Emily nodded. “Those lamps are small. Recessed into the concrete overhang. If he misses, the ricochet hits him or the alarmed door. He's a marksman, though—three shots, three lights.”

Benedetti stood and smacked powder off his knees. “What else?”

“Soull weighs at least two hundred pounds,” she said. “Heaving that much deadweight without touching the sharp edges of a narrow hole takes muscle. That's a good indication the Unsub is male—men have more upper-body strength then women. He's also got balls.”

“Yet another indication,” Branch said.

Emily smiled. “At the tavern, the Unsub had no problem talking a stranger into stripping in a public parking lot. That makes him gregarious and trustworthy.” She pointed at a foot-square sign over the checkout desk. “The library is videotaped after hours. Those warnings are posted throughout the building. He knew he was being watched and proceeded, anyway. Gives him a high tolerance for risk.”

“Or he's so whacked out, he don't give a shit,” Benedetti said.

“I was hoping to gloss over that one, Commander!” she said. “Anyway, once the lab analyzes the security tape—”

“He stole that,” Branch interrupted.

Why am I not surprised?
“That's everything this crime scene tells me,” she said, adjusting The Mule Train to ease its weight on her hips. “What am I missing?”

Benedetti held up his hand like he was swearing on a Bible. His latex fingers glittered in the CSI's floodlights. “Did that dagger look real to you?”

Emily shook her head. “Now that you mention it, the dagger did strike me as weird. Like it'd been painted or something.” She sucked in her breath. “That's what's on your gloves—paint. It came off when you touched the dagger.”

Benedetti brought them to her face. “Correct. Now tell me what color.”

“Silver,” she said.

“Darker.”

“Uh, pewter.”

“He painted the dagger pewter,” Branch agreed. “Why would he do that?”

“He wanted it to look fake even though it was real,” Benedetti said. “Like a toy. A prop.”

“A game piece!” Emily said. “There's two games represented here! Boggle and something else.” She ran through her collection, but nothing fit. Branch did likewise. They shook their heads.

“Mr. Soull, with a dagger, in the library,” Benedetti prompted. “Colonel Mustard, with a candlestick, in the conservatory—”

“Clue!” Branch and Emily said.

Benedetti raised a thumb. “Nixon was in office the last time I played a board game. So I found a Web site that describes the hundred most popular in excruciating detail. The main character in Clue is a murder victim named Mr. Boddy. Our murdered character is—”

“Mr. Soull,” Emily said. Boddy and Soull. I get it.”

“Double
d
, double
l
, to make sure we don't miss the point,” Branch mused. “Might also explain why Soull lived in DeKalb.”

“It's an unusual enough surname that nobody local had it,” Emily ventured. “The Unsub needed a ‘Soull' to make this game connection work, so he kidnapped the closest.”

“Phone, utility, and auto registrations will tell us,” Branch said, flipping open his notepad. “Any other connections to Clue?”

“Three,” Benedetti said, stifling a yawn. “Soull was killed with a rope-handled dagger. That's an official Clue murder weapon.”

Branch scribbled. “Next?”

“The handcuffs. They appear in the game when one player is ready to accuse another of being the murderer. Soull's wrists were shackled with pewter-colored handcuffs.” The commander held out the paint-splotched fingernail that had flicked the chains. “Same paint job.”

“That's two connections,” Branch said. “What's the last?”

“The hole in the shinbone.”

Emily recalled the cylindrical wound. Her stomach bubbled again. “I don't get it.”

“Remember the rooms in the Clue mansion?” Benedetti said. “Library, conservatory, study, kitchen, what have you? They're connected by secret passages.” He cleared his throat. “I believe the Unsub drilled a hole through Soull's shin to represent those passages.”

“Oh, man, that's a stretch,” Branch objected. “Maybe he just enjoys inflicting pain.”

“I don't think so, boss,” Emily said. “He's done nothing for laughs. At all three crime scenes, every single thing reinforces the game message he's sending.” She tapped her shin. “If he only wanted to inflict pain, he would have done it without filling a drill with Soull's DNA.”

Branch considered the analysis, landed an “atta boy” roundhouse on Benedetti's arm.

“I can't take the credit,” Benedetti said. “Games would never have occurred to me without Emily's saying so first. She's a natural at this business.” He flicked his handlebar mustache. “Fire her, fire her now before we're both out of a job.”

Emily basked in the praise, finally starting to feel like an equal partner. Then the good feeling vanished. “Gotta get some air,” she gasped, lunging for the fire door. Branch grabbed her wrist. “CSIs aren't finished,” he reminded her. She turned and sprinted for the stairs.

Thirty seconds later she was hyperventilating in the predawn chill. Her eyes locked on Chief Cross huddling with the SWAT team. “We'll never find this guy,” she whispered. “He's going to kill me!” She started rocking, raking her bottom lip with her teeth. Branch, who'd stepped off the curb to join Cross, shot Benedetti a warning look. Benedetti moved in front of her and said something she couldn't hear through the blood roar in her ears. She saw the Unsub's face and smashed her fist into it. The blow shook her from fingers to shoulder blade, and she dimly realized it wasn't the Unsub she'd just punched but Marty's breastbone. Heart pounding to pop her chest, she tried to smile, show she was all right. It felt weak, simpering. She gave up and concentrated on breathing. In. Out. Deep. Slow. The panic faded, her knees sagged, and she wiped her face with hands so shaky they felt like paint mixers.

“Who said women have less upper-body strength?” Benedetti grunted. “That hurt.”

“Marty,” Emily breathed, staring at the blood smearing his bulletproof vest. “God, I'm sorry.”

“It's OK.”

“I don't know what came over me,” she said. “I just lost it—”

“It's all right, Emily. Honest,” Benedetti said, gripping her shoulders. “This maniac's making you crazy, and you needed to let it out.” He rubbed his chest. “Trust me, you did.”

Emily emptied her lungs, dizzy. “That was…I don't know….”

“Don't worry about it,” Branch said. “We've all been there.” He looked at Benedetti. “So, can my detectives throw a punch or what?”

“Next time I'll take ‘or what,'” Benedetti said, cradling Emily's hand to examine her bloody knuckles. The touch filled her with warmth. She gently rubbed his thumb. He looked up and into her eyes, smiled softly, then let go.