Talk (27 page)

Here everything was pink, the walls, the tile, the rug, the fixtures.

There was a large basket of individually wrapped soaps and packets of bubble bath. Samples of expensive perfumes were carefully lined up.

There was a sterling-silver brush, comb and hand-mirror set carefully laid out on a pink hand towel. Over the sink, on a small shelf, was a shaving mug, straight razor, an oldfashioned bar of shaving soap and a huge bottle of witch hazel.

"Who do you know that uses witch hazel as aftershave?"

Agent Cole wondered.

"I think my grandfather did," Alexandra said.

The agent turned around.

"Really?"

"On the farm they used it for everything--cuts, burns, bites. My grandmother used to use it to wash her face. As an astringent."

Downstairs, Agent Kunsa had arrived from Niagara Falls and Will stood by as the FBI agent conferred with members of the local team. In the living room they were surrounded by petit-point pictures, a sofa and chairs with lace doilies carefully placed on them, against the wall an upright piano that was terribly out of tune, and several cabinets.

"He's been here recently," Hepplewhite said, coming in from the kitchen with Dirk.

"He's got milk and eggs and bread in the refrigerator."

Will was looking at the photograph of the young woman and two boys that was on top of the piano.

"They look normal enough."

"Considering they have no connection with Plattener whatsoever," Kunsa said, "there's no reason why they shouldn't."

Will turned around.

"The wife and kids don't exist," Kunsa said.

"We cracked his tax returns and he's been filing on behalf of a woman who died in Phoenix several years ago, a baby that died in Flagstaff and a child who was killed in Schenectady."

"You mean he" -Will began, horrified.

"No, they died of natural causes," Kunsa said.

"The woman had cancer, the baby had a tumor, the other child was hit by a car. But he used them because their ages were about right and he's been filing returns for them under their social security numbers--only he's been filing them as his wife and kids. As for these pictures, who knows who these people are? They don't even match the pictures from his apartment that Albany faxed to us."

"Look at this," Wendy said, straightening up from the crouch she had been in.

Kunsa moved over to the large wooden cabinet and squatted, looking inside. Abruptly he stood back up.

"This is our guy, all right."

Will went to look. Inside the cabinet there were four shelves with double rows of videotapes, each one carefully and neatly labeled with five entries.

"Jessica 10/ 14/97 Sarah Ferguson on Princess Diana" listed one, "Jessica 10/15/97 NFL Heroes,"

"Jessica 10/16/97 How to Buy a Home,"

"Jessica 10/17/97 Rev. Billy Graham,"

"Jessica 10/18/97 The Rolling Stones."

"There's more over here," a cop said, stooping to look in another cabinet.

"And in here," Detective Hepplewhite said after lifting the lid on an old mahogany phonograph cabinet.

"Norm?" Agent Cole called, coming down the stairs behind Alexandra.

"Central's just called. They've got Plattener's employment records."

"Agent Kunsa?" a female voice called from the kitchen doorway. It belonged to a uniformed policewoman.

"You better come downstairs."

Will's expression made her quickly add, "No, sir, it's nothing like that."

Kunsa led the way through the kitchen to the basement stairs. They went down the suspended flight of stairs one at a time, following the flashlight of the policewoman.

"The lights are out down here on purpose," she explained.

"The wiring's been ripped out."

It was a small basement and the policewoman walked them over to the dusty floor-to-ceiling shelves holding canned tomatoes and pickles and relish. Alexandra audibly gasped when the officer demonstrated how the whole wall swung out on well-oiled hinges, and then they were temporarily blinded by lights. Behind the wall was a very large second room.

"This room is hooked into the outside power line."

A police technician was packing several test tubes and vials in his bag while a police photographer snapped pictures. The room was carpeted and contained a large TV, VCR and La-Z-Boy chair, but it was the walls of the room that held their attention. They were covered with pictures of Jessica. There were magazine covers and pictures from newspapers, publicity handouts, fan-club pictures and what looked to be regular snapshots. An agent walked over and pulled down one of several huge volumes in a bookcase and brought it over to Agent Kunsa.

Inside was nothing but clippings about Jessica. Then he pulled open a drawer in the file cabinet in the corner, exposing file after file of tear sheets about Jessica.

"They start back when she was on-air in Tucson."

"Norm!" came from over Kunsa's walkie-talkie. He unhooked it from his belt and held it to his mouth.

"Yeah?"

"The garage," Dirk's voice said.

"You better get out here."

Kunsa took the stairs two at a time.

Jessica put the candle down on the floor and tossed a spoon against the handles of the double doors. There was a blue flash, sparks and a horrible searing sound that made her jump back.

Geez.

Now what? The handles of the doors were electrified. The question was, how did she short them out? Or had the spoons shorted them out?

She threw a fork at the door handles and missed. She threw another and she gave out a little yelp as the same blue light and sparks shot off again.

Think, Jessica, think. Okay, electricity could only maintain itself in a closed circuit. She had to break the circuit. Were the brass handles of the door touching? Yes. Okay, so they must be part of the circuit.

All she had to do was get one door open and the circuit would be broken.

She had on cross trainers. So she was grounded, right? She had on rubber gloves, very thin ones, but rubber all the same. So she was a circuit breaker herself, wasn't she?

Oh, hell, she wasn't about to experiment.

She ran back to the apartment and looked around. Her eyes traveled to the exercise room. The jump rope. Ah. She took it into the kitchen and cut the handles off and then ran back out into the hall. She carefully snaked the rope through one of the handles, took hold of the other end and transferred it to her other hand so she was holding both ends of the rope with it. Then she reached down to get the candle. After a deep breath, she gave the rope a big yank. The door opened, she slipped through and pulled the rope into the next room with her, jumping back to get out of the way as the door closed again.

Phew.

What the?

She held the candle high.

She was in some sort of large central foyer. There was furniture, covered in sheets, pushed back along one wall. Otherwise the space was empty and the wooden floorboards bare. Along the far wall, over the furniture, about five feet off the ground were huge recessed windows covered in red velvet drapes like the ones in her bedroom.

As she drew closer to the windows, her heart skipped because she knew what she was seeing was not her imagination. These windows were not blocked over. She could see a faint light coming in from the outside.

"Look at this," Dirk said, pointing to the clothing sitting in the middle of a crumpled blue tarp on the floor of the single-car garage.

"They were stuffed up in the rafters."

Kunsa and Hepplewhite squatted to look.

"The neighbors say he renovated the garage himself about a year ago, sir," a policeman said.

"They say he used a cement mixer by himself to pour the floor. We found it out back. It's manual."

Kunsa picked up a piece of the clothing. A red silk cocktail dress. He looked at the label. Size 6. "Not the mother's," he muttered, dropping it and picking up another piece of clothing. A shredded pair of black panty hose, petite. One pair of black panties. A bra (32-D). One black high heel, size 6.

"Norm." It was Agent Cole. Kunsa took one look at her expression, stood up and stepped away to hear what she had to say. Then Kunsa came back to the group.

"I want you to tear this place apart," he directed the cops. He pointed to Dirk.

"Stay. You know what we're looking for.

Alexandra, stay with him. You"-he pointed to Hepplewhite " --with me.

Rafferty, you,

too. " He hesitated and then pointed to Wendy.

"You, too. Come on."

Jessica found a library table beneath one of the sheets and dragged it under the first window. She climbed on top of it and, holding the candle in her left hand, reached up to yank on one drape with her right. Besides a billow of dust that fell in a cloud around her, she could see that the window had a wire-mesh door over it.

Damn.

She threw one of the spoons against the wire door, bracing herself for the spark, but it didn't come. She threw another one. No charge. She crawled up on the sill, scraping her knees over the ancient stucco paint in the process. She put the candle down, maneuvered the tips of her gloved fingers into the grille and pulled. The wire door rattled.

Behind it, the glass panes in the steel casement window were so hazed and dirty, Jessica could only see a glow of light from the outside.

She picked up the candle to take a closer look at the grille.

There was a little latch. She turned it and the wire door swung open.

There was a sound from the other end of the room and Jessica saw a lantern.

"Jessica!" Leopold cried.

She gripped the brass window handle and yanked up. Yanked again. It started to give and the window was opening, but Leopold had reached the table below and was trying to climb up. She struggled to open the window, but it was stuck-She felt his hand clamp onto her ankle.

"Jessica!" he gasped.

She kicked his hand off and shoved the window with her shoulder and it gave, and she was just about to jump-The night air hit, and faraway lights swung dizzily below her. Jessica screamed, grabbing the top of the steel window as her legs kicked at open air. She was at least four floors up; there was a blur of city lights in the distance and a wall of brownstone that sheered down next to her. The window hinges were holding, but the thin edge of the cold steel was cutting into her fingers.

She felt Leopold's hands grab her thigh and yank her toward the windowsill. She managed to swing a foot up onto the sill and Leopold took hold of it.

"Give me your hand," he commanded.

She had no choice and flung her right hand toward him, and he gripped it, and started pulling her in. A moment later she was sitting on the windowsill, her back against the frame, panting, Leopold still holding on to her. She closed her eyes against his shoulder, catching her breath.

When she opened her eyes, she saw the steak knife sitting on the sill by her foot. All she had to do was reach down and get it. This madman was not going to let her go; he had electrocuted her secretary and had nearly beaten Hurt Guy to death. The only way out of here would be to stab him and run. No, wounded, Leopold would be more dangerous. If she were to get out of this, she would have to cut his throat, stab him in the soft part of the neck.

"You could have died," Leopold was whimpering into her shoulder.

"You can't leave me."

Jessica reached forward with her right hand to get the knife.

"It's all right," she murmured.

"You saved me."

"You said you would be good," he cried.

"I got scared," she told him, changing her grip on the knife, holding the blade below her fist so she could just curl her arm around the back of his neck and, in a Frisbee-throwing motion, cut his throat.

"But I'll take care of you," he said.

"Aren't I taking care of you?"

"You wouldn't take me outside," Jessica said.

"I have to get some air or I'll go crazy."

Do it, Jessica commanded herself. The guy's a psycho. He watched you on TV with his mother for fourteen years and decided to lock you up in a castle.

"Love of my life," he said as he sobbed, holding her tighter.

"You can't leave me."

Do it.

Jessica sighed.

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, and the courage to change the things I can," she said aloud. Then she tossed the knife away; it hit the windowsill and clattered to the floor.

Leopold's head snapped up and he looked down and saw it lying on the floor next to his Coleman lantern. Then he looked back to her.

"I have to get out of here, Leopold," Jessica said, letting her head fall back against the window frame and starting to cry, "I can't stand being locked up."

"Oh, Jesus God Almighty," Kunsa said, reeling away from the plastic storage bin and dropping the top to it. Agent Cole quickly offered him a handkerchief doused with Noxema, which he quickly took to cover his nose and mouth. He pressed his forehead against the storage-room wall, trying not to gag.

"For God's sake, don't let Rafferty see."

Holding a red bandanna over her nose and mouth, Agent Cole looked over the shoulder of the police tech r nician who had kneeled next to the bin with a flashlight and probe.

"What do you think?"

"Six months," he said, gently probing the bin with a long rod.

"Eight months maybe. The coroner will know."

Agent Cole's eyes traveled back to the rear wall of the storage unit where there were seventeen other large plastic storage bins stacked neatly against the wall, looking obscenely festive in their electric blues and greens.

"The body was badly burnt," the technician observed.

"Could they be electrical burns?" Debbie asked.

"Jesus Christ," Kunsa said through his teeth, banging his forehead against the wall.

The technician looked up at Agent Cole.

"Electrical burns would be consistent." His eyes then moved past the agent to a figure standing behind her. Agent Cole turned.

Will Rafferty was standing there, tears silently streaming down his face as Wendy was trying to keep him back.